Yeah, RMS makes some broad statements that aren't all that great, and yes, it is a statement that has been said many times, but the issue itself is still solid in my opinion.
If we ignore RMS and just focus on the idea of civil liberties being trashed by the uneducated masses and the representatives they elect, then I think the idea becomes clear. There is big business, government, and military contracts behind face recognition and other forms of what we may term "draconian" new security measures. That means that unless the educated minority acts soon (and maybe even that won't help), then we are going to see big business and contractors treading on our civil liberties through the puppet government under the guise of protecting civil liberties and democracy. I mean, democracy, as it is theorized to be during election times and times of civil distress, is dead. However, if we want to hang on to whatever shread of freedom we have and not fall into a complete military state over this incident, then the cool-headed, educated members of society need to prevail. If we don't want our society to fall into the hands of military contractors and government greed, then we have to stay together. RMS may not make the clearest of points, but if we demonize him, then we only weaken our own struggle to maintain freedom.
I am a worse person for having looked at that prolly....and an even worse person for laughing....but I mean, you gotta move on somehow right? This was a terrible act, but its good to see that there are some of the "sick twisted" people who can do something other than go charging down the throats of Afghanistan before any info is known.
I think this is the definition of a dog and pony show, on both sides! One side fudges numbers so that they can get justification to spend billions of dollars (and make billions of dollars if you are the contractor), and the other side fudges their info to get justification to keep themselves in the anti-missile defense business. Its dog and pony at its finest.
Here's the big question: Why do we need this? If terrorists can nuke us with missiles now, why don't they? If China and North Korea can hit us with missiles now, why don't they? My answer for this, they can't and won't. Its not like terrorists are gonna get any crazier in the coming years. They either can't nuke us, or won't. Hell, look at it from Osama's position, he can bomb us all to hell, and what do we do? Nothing. If he wheeled a nuke into New York? We'd have justification to walk through Afghanistan and level the whole place until we got him. Look at it from the perspective of the rest of the world. America is the only country crazy enough to ever use nuclear weapons on anyone, can we blame them for being upset that we want to make this "perfect missile shield"? MAD is more useful in protecting the rest of the world from us! Especially when we've got someone in teh White House who is amused by flashing lights, let alone a briefcase that has big flashing lights and buttons. Hell, I wouldn't trust Dubya with the remote control to my TV, let alone control of our country's nuclear weapons.
Yeah, there are alternatives to using Microsoft in public schools, but try convincing school boards and technologically illiterate teachers of that. These are politicians and teachers, the majority of whom (in my own experience) buy into the idea, that Microsoft presents, that Open Source software is written by evil hackers bent on undermining the software industry, and who put evil virii into their so called "open source" software. Therefore, I think that when faced with the alternative of either using this "evil open source" or copying Microsoft software (which most people think is fine), they will go with the Microsoft software. Further, if the BSA and Microsoft continues to donate money to school districts, of course the school district is gonna take the donation. Which means more hopeless dependance on MS. NOTE: I had this discussion with my HS Government Teacher Senior Year, right after Bill Gates donated a huge amount of money to some poor group of people, he told me that I was jaded to think that Bill Gates was merely trying to gain public respect and had alterior motives, he said that it was a great humanitarian act. Ya right....now you see what we're working with in High Schools.
Furthermore, there is the user friendliness of the systems. Teachers demand immediate access to certain documents and such. As soon as you tell them that they can't use their familiar Office Suite, they will be reluctant to work with anything else. Its the short attention span idea, if its not there when I want it to be, and in some familiar format, I'm not going to look for it. The first time they got a message attached in some unreadable format, it would be bye bye open source, hello pirating Microsoft software again.
While I don't necessarily agree with taking one copy of Office and installing it on 2000 machines in the district, I find more fault in donating just enough money to school districts to get them using your system, then telling them that they have to upgrade every so often *cough*.NET *cough*, and that if they copy even one software package, then the Microsoft Nazis will be coming and breaking down doors to punish them. Hell yeah I'd like to see open source in schools, but will it happen at this point in time, probably not.
I find this to be a bit disturbing, seeing as how any object (asteroid/comet/etc) that would potentially hit Earth probably wouldn't come flying out of an uninhabited spot in space. They would probably come from one of these "crowded" areas in space where it could be swayed into a new orbit. It would seem to me that if the amount of astronomers searching the skies was so low, then it would make more sense to focus more effort on so-called "crowded areas".
Vader = Red (Evil)
Luke = Green (Fertility of mind)
Obi-Wan = Blue (Purity/the light side)
What the hell does Bruce Willis' yellow and green mean? How about purple, was SLJ's character royalty? In order to have meaning, you have to have meaning, not some random colors you decided to have everyone wear in every scene.
When I see this I'm either gonna agree with the lovers totally about it, or just chalk it up to another failed attempt by pop culture to try and have some measure of deep philosophic thought.
Now Fight Club on the other hand was a beautiful bit of pop-psychology mixed with cinematography to create mythology and philosophy.
And that measn 8 more months of people talking about that damn little kid again. Oh well, I really miss news broadcasts where they only talk abotu one topic, and bulletin boards with one topic....oh wait, no I don't....Indecision 2000 indeed.
Beautifully said.....I also found it amusing that he wasn't a candidate, he was, "The Nader Factor" and "That Nader Business", yeah welcome to the land of the free, where your vote really does matter....unless its for Nader, Hagelin, or any other independant (save Buchanon in Dade County, those mattered)
"No disrespect to the people of Oregon and Wisconsin, but you have become irrelevant" -- Tim Russert NBC News, live coverage yeah, their votes matter too right? oh wait we're in America
....states that the winner of California, and generally the popular vote should (and generally does) win the election. Unless of course you've got about 2000 or so seniors down in PullYourWhitePantsUpHigh, Florida that can't read their ballots. And oh yeah, don't forget about the Nader Factor, the Elian Factor, the Senility Factor, and any other countless factors that go into "predicting" a winner when there is only 25% voter turnout anyway.
If this election doesn't prove the need for some form of reform (such as getting rid of the damn electoral college and doing it by the popular vote) I don't know what does.
There isn't any room in the middle, Gore and Bush are straddling the middle ground closer than a redneck and his sheep on prom night.
ok, that was bad, i know....
....he is pro-life. Now since when has abortion been an issue that is vital to the interests of the world at large? I don't know, but this is what many people have told me about why they are voting for Gore. Now, call me old-fashioned, but shouldn't people vote because they think someone's platform is open-minded and progressive, instead of picking out a few stupid valence issues and voting on those. Oh wait, that's right, we're in American Democracy, we only vote on appearance and stupid issues....sorry.
.....a tons of overweight, simple-minded Wal-Mart shoppers buying Mandrake? I mean, I'm sure that AOHell has great Linux support (yes that was sarcasm), but still, the possibilities are endless. Personally, I don't think Wal-Mart should sell software, let alone OS' (save Windows Me of course, it should ONLY be sold at Wal-Mart)
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Yeah, RMS makes some broad statements that aren't all that great, and yes, it is a statement that has been said many times, but the issue itself is still solid in my opinion.
If we ignore RMS and just focus on the idea of civil liberties being trashed by the uneducated masses and the representatives they elect, then I think the idea becomes clear. There is big business, government, and military contracts behind face recognition and other forms of what we may term "draconian" new security measures. That means that unless the educated minority acts soon (and maybe even that won't help), then we are going to see big business and contractors treading on our civil liberties through the puppet government under the guise of protecting civil liberties and democracy. I mean, democracy, as it is theorized to be during election times and times of civil distress, is dead. However, if we want to hang on to whatever shread of freedom we have and not fall into a complete military state over this incident, then the cool-headed, educated members of society need to prevail. If we don't want our society to fall into the hands of military contractors and government greed, then we have to stay together. RMS may not make the clearest of points, but if we demonize him, then we only weaken our own struggle to maintain freedom.
I am a worse person for having looked at that prolly....and an even worse person for laughing....but I mean, you gotta move on somehow right? This was a terrible act, but its good to see that there are some of the "sick twisted" people who can do something other than go charging down the throats of Afghanistan before any info is known.
I think this is the definition of a dog and pony show, on both sides! One side fudges numbers so that they can get justification to spend billions of dollars (and make billions of dollars if you are the contractor), and the other side fudges their info to get justification to keep themselves in the anti-missile defense business. Its dog and pony at its finest.
Here's the big question: Why do we need this? If terrorists can nuke us with missiles now, why don't they? If China and North Korea can hit us with missiles now, why don't they? My answer for this, they can't and won't. Its not like terrorists are gonna get any crazier in the coming years. They either can't nuke us, or won't. Hell, look at it from Osama's position, he can bomb us all to hell, and what do we do? Nothing. If he wheeled a nuke into New York? We'd have justification to walk through Afghanistan and level the whole place until we got him. Look at it from the perspective of the rest of the world. America is the only country crazy enough to ever use nuclear weapons on anyone, can we blame them for being upset that we want to make this "perfect missile shield"? MAD is more useful in protecting the rest of the world from us! Especially when we've got someone in teh White House who is amused by flashing lights, let alone a briefcase that has big flashing lights and buttons. Hell, I wouldn't trust Dubya with the remote control to my TV, let alone control of our country's nuclear weapons.
Yeah, there are alternatives to using Microsoft in public schools, but try convincing school boards and technologically illiterate teachers of that. These are politicians and teachers, the majority of whom (in my own experience) buy into the idea, that Microsoft presents, that Open Source software is written by evil hackers bent on undermining the software industry, and who put evil virii into their so called "open source" software. Therefore, I think that when faced with the alternative of either using this "evil open source" or copying Microsoft software (which most people think is fine), they will go with the Microsoft software. Further, if the BSA and Microsoft continues to donate money to school districts, of course the school district is gonna take the donation. Which means more hopeless dependance on MS. NOTE: I had this discussion with my HS Government Teacher Senior Year, right after Bill Gates donated a huge amount of money to some poor group of people, he told me that I was jaded to think that Bill Gates was merely trying to gain public respect and had alterior motives, he said that it was a great humanitarian act. Ya right....now you see what we're working with in High Schools.
.NET *cough*, and that if they copy even one software package, then the Microsoft Nazis will be coming and breaking down doors to punish them. Hell yeah I'd like to see open source in schools, but will it happen at this point in time, probably not.
Furthermore, there is the user friendliness of the systems. Teachers demand immediate access to certain documents and such. As soon as you tell them that they can't use their familiar Office Suite, they will be reluctant to work with anything else. Its the short attention span idea, if its not there when I want it to be, and in some familiar format, I'm not going to look for it. The first time they got a message attached in some unreadable format, it would be bye bye open source, hello pirating Microsoft software again.
While I don't necessarily agree with taking one copy of Office and installing it on 2000 machines in the district, I find more fault in donating just enough money to school districts to get them using your system, then telling them that they have to upgrade every so often *cough*
Vader = Red (Evil)
Luke = Green (Fertility of mind)
Obi-Wan = Blue (Purity/the light side)
What the hell does Bruce Willis' yellow and green mean? How about purple, was SLJ's character royalty? In order to have meaning, you have to have meaning, not some random colors you decided to have everyone wear in every scene.
When I see this I'm either gonna agree with the lovers totally about it, or just chalk it up to another failed attempt by pop culture to try and have some measure of deep philosophic thought. Now Fight Club on the other hand was a beautiful bit of pop-psychology mixed with cinematography to create mythology and philosophy.
And that measn 8 more months of people talking about that damn little kid again. Oh well, I really miss news broadcasts where they only talk abotu one topic, and bulletin boards with one topic....oh wait, no I don't....Indecision 2000 indeed.
Beautifully said.....I also found it amusing that he wasn't a candidate, he was, "The Nader Factor" and "That Nader Business", yeah welcome to the land of the free, where your vote really does matter....unless its for Nader, Hagelin, or any other independant (save Buchanon in Dade County, those mattered) "No disrespect to the people of Oregon and Wisconsin, but you have become irrelevant" -- Tim Russert NBC News, live coverage yeah, their votes matter too right? oh wait we're in America
....states that the winner of California, and generally the popular vote should (and generally does) win the election. Unless of course you've got about 2000 or so seniors down in PullYourWhitePantsUpHigh, Florida that can't read their ballots. And oh yeah, don't forget about the Nader Factor, the Elian Factor, the Senility Factor, and any other countless factors that go into "predicting" a winner when there is only 25% voter turnout anyway. If this election doesn't prove the need for some form of reform (such as getting rid of the damn electoral college and doing it by the popular vote) I don't know what does.
There isn't any room in the middle, Gore and Bush are straddling the middle ground closer than a redneck and his sheep on prom night. ok, that was bad, i know....
....he is pro-life. Now since when has abortion been an issue that is vital to the interests of the world at large? I don't know, but this is what many people have told me about why they are voting for Gore. Now, call me old-fashioned, but shouldn't people vote because they think someone's platform is open-minded and progressive, instead of picking out a few stupid valence issues and voting on those. Oh wait, that's right, we're in American Democracy, we only vote on appearance and stupid issues....sorry.
.....a tons of overweight, simple-minded Wal-Mart shoppers buying Mandrake? I mean, I'm sure that AOHell has great Linux support (yes that was sarcasm), but still, the possibilities are endless. Personally, I don't think Wal-Mart should sell software, let alone OS' (save Windows Me of course, it should ONLY be sold at Wal-Mart)