> If you say that the use of a gun is the only form of force, then your display of inexperience can only be judged by your own words.
Did I say that a gun is the only form of force? No. Do you honestly think that I think that firearms are the only way of exerting force? Don't bother answering, I really don't care what you think and am done.
I'd suggest though being less quick to pronounce judgment... or are you the sort that if someone sounded cheap you'd call em a jew? If they sounded lazy you'd call them a Mexican? If they said something nice about the president you'd call them a neocon? If they were good at math and science you'd call them an Asian? If they expressed a like for fried chicken and orange drink you'd call em black? If they said something nice about Windows they'd be a cool-aid drinking Microsoft fanboy? The list goes on of such prejudices.
Again, I don't care what you say or think on this as I'm done.
One would certainly hope that the software wouldn't immediately panic if it couldn't call home and that there would either be a last update as they went out of business or a mode that could be activated through the auth server... kinda like what was intended when DIVX folded... of course we know how well that turned out.
You realize that the argument you are making is quite similar to the defense Paris Hilton used... that she didn't actually read the previous agreement where she was told she couldn't drive.
As any judge will tell you, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
If you are unwilling or unable to understand the details of a contract you've got two options... don't sign it and go without, or sign it and blindly hope that everything goes without a problem.
> Nope. They are required to use things I have a "right" to use. Driving is a right? I could have sworn it was a privilege, hence the need for a license, something that historically is known for being a means of giving permission.\
Again, you make the choice to exercise this privilege and by doing so you play by the rules... just as you play by the rules of paying the bill when you go out to eat at a restaurant. No one is forcing you to do either.
Even if such activities are 'rights'... rights do not stand alone, instead they go hand in hand with responsibility. You have the 'right' to have children while at the same time you have responsibilities towards them... even ones that are 'forced' on you if you will... by your voluntary action of procreation.
> You are forced to sign or experience excessive inconvenience or loss of freedom.
You are correct that that usually exists in the EULA and just gave me an idea...
Given the increasing commonness of online activation, I'm forced to wonder if we are one day going to see a time when retailers and software vendors work together so that if a customer returns opened software to the store, the retailer has the ability to cancel the associated CD key, rendering any current (assuming the software calls home from time to time) or future installs.
Sure it wouldn't be a perfect solution, it sure would be far better than what we've got today and while it wouldn't completely eliminate this as an avenue of piracy, the work to bypass it would be similar to that of simply downloading the same software from a warez site.
Bad news friend... all of these 'obligatory' contracts you speak of are actually voluntary. Your example is like saying "I hate being forced to pay $3.00 a gallon for gas to fuel up my car!" or "I hate being forced to pay $9.25 to see a first run movie"... at no point are you being forced to pay for gas as you are not forced to own a car nor see the movie. Sure, you may feel compelled to own a car but at no point are you absolutely required to own one, there are always alternatives. Hell, I live in a town of 6200 people in South Dakota and know a number of people who do not drive or even have licenses due to the costs involved in voluntarily having/doing either.
If you don't want to carry auto insurance don't, just remember that you may not be able to own a car as a result. Don't want to pay to use a park? So don't use it!
Last I checked a tax return isn't a contract... and I'm sorry that where you live is so draconian that it requires the filing of returns even when there is no income... but even that I doubt.
Even still, income or not, contract or not, paying taxes like that is part of the price you pay for being a resident or citizen of a given area. Don't like it? Last I checked you are free to move and even renounce your citizenship and move elsewhere to a place with a more favorable tax system.
So... after voluntarily buying the game the user is forced to agree to the EULA? Again, they made the choice to buy the software, almost certainly knowing that there would be an enclosed EULA and if they did not take the proper steps to know what they were getting themselves into ahead of time, it is their fault for not being informed consumers... you know, buyer beware.
Care to share which contracts you have been forced at gun point to sign? I've signed a few in my day and clicked I Agree to plenty of others... but never were firearms involved... in those cases I felt the contract's terms were 'unfair'... I simply refused to sign.
You may want to break out some old news papers and see what Clinton-42 was saying while in office... as well as persons on both sides of the isle (including HR Clinton) on the subject of Iraq and WMD's... you might be surprised to see for how long the neo-con plot has been afoot.
Just because the pre-war intelligence didn't match what was seen on the ground once we were there does not mean that the threat of WHD's was an invention of the Bush-43 administration.
Sure the 10th amendment seems pretty clear... there are many work arounds both legislative and judicial that have caused federal law to trump state and local.
Back when Napster was the horror of school network admins everywhere it was not uncommon to block the common Napster port. In response students would change the port to a more common one... such as say... 80 and be able to keep on downloading... that is until the admins spent a few more bucks or upgraded their existing equipment.
Classifying network traffic based only on the port went out the window well over 5 years ago when modern packet shapers came to the market which were able to analyze the very contents of packets and classify them based on the type of service they contained rather than the port they used.
Given that some in the congress were kept informed of the previous warrentless program, I would fully expect that that would be the case again, if for no other reason that the Senators would want some degree of oversight provided by themselves and behind closed doors.
Granted I have yet to read the bill to verify that this is the case, however I would bet good money that it is.
It is ethical to use what you have paid for and using more is possible due to low cost... or should I not buy a dozen eggs because they are so cheap and find a reasonable way to use them all rather than just buy six and be done with it?
If you limit yourself based on such trivialities you'll always live under a tree as there is always a risk associated with anything you do, let's not forget about the migratory animal patters that have been interrupted by your wood and stone house!
My electricity comes from a hydro-electric plant on the Missouri river and is some of the least expensive electricity in the country because amazingly it is quite plentiful here in South Dakota.
Cry about the environment all you want, please though be sure to do it when it is relevant... which means not in this case.
> Think about it this way though, if some part-time OSS developer can stumble on the same idea how non-obvious is it?
The timing of such things also comes into play at times.
While some patents may seem obvious in retrospect, many of the so hated software patents were come up with before it was so obvious and at the time was actually something novel... of course in the internet age the amount of time from novel to common place to old news is rather short.
It would be a different story if the patent holder and a part-time OSS developer 'stumbled' on the same idea at the same time.
You are correct for the most part however not everyone pays their electric bill directly.
For my apartment I pay a single amount for everything, the space, water, gas, electricity, sewer, trash, etc.
So when I am running 20,000 BTU's of cooling power between two separate AC's, 6 PC's on 24/7 (4 of which do Seti@home) and take 20 minute showers... I come out pretty good and considering the person who had the place before me didn't have their rent raised in the 10 years they were there.
Of course... all of this can change at any point as mine is a month to month lease, so should it change I might worry, but until then I'll just keep on chugging.
Interestingly enough the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) that.NET apps are compiled to before being JITed into machine code is actually built around a stack based system as well... No doubt porting the.NET Framework over to such a system would be quite easy... and give much in the way of performance boosts (especially on startup).
Of course... that would still depend on a version of Windows for it to run on.
Could be, of course when you condemn one person for their 'odd definition' you need to be pretty clear on what you believe the correct one to be and saying 'pretty much' and failing to do so is a big enough copout that it cannot be ignored.
> That's not freedom. Freedom says you can run your personal life pretty much > any way you want to and its nobody else's business.
So it's just freedom when people take up arms and start killing those they don't like? Or just kidnapping them? Or ramming airplanes into buildings? Or shooting school children in the back?
Your definition is close... only it misses the point about infringing on the freedom/liberty of others. Killing someone is not freedom, it directly deprives them of their freedom. Holding someone against their will is not exercising ones freedom, it is depriving them of their freedom.
> But breaking the law breaks the law - If you get convicted...
Key words... if you get convicted.
Clinton broke the law (perjury) but wasn't convicted.
Funny how things like that can happen eh?
Bush-43 on a perp walk is not going to happen given that the votes do not exist today to impeach him let alone convict him... heck, even if the Dems do do well in November the situation will largely remain the same.
Slashdot Mirror
> If you say that the use of a gun is the only form of force, then your display of inexperience can only be judged by your own words.
Did I say that a gun is the only form of force? No. Do you honestly think that I think that firearms are the only way of exerting force? Don't bother answering, I really don't care what you think and am done.
I'd suggest though being less quick to pronounce judgment... or are you the sort that if someone sounded cheap you'd call em a jew? If they sounded lazy you'd call them a Mexican? If they said something nice about the president you'd call them a neocon? If they were good at math and science you'd call them an Asian? If they expressed a like for fried chicken and orange drink you'd call em black? If they said something nice about Windows they'd be a cool-aid drinking Microsoft fanboy? The list goes on of such prejudices.
Again, I don't care what you say or think on this as I'm done.
One would certainly hope that the software wouldn't immediately panic if it couldn't call home and that there would either be a last update as they went out of business or a mode that could be activated through the auth server... kinda like what was intended when DIVX folded... of course we know how well that turned out.
You realize that the argument you are making is quite similar to the defense Paris Hilton used... that she didn't actually read the previous agreement where she was told she couldn't drive.
As any judge will tell you, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
If you are unwilling or unable to understand the details of a contract you've got two options... don't sign it and go without, or sign it and blindly hope that everything goes without a problem.
> Nope. They are required to use things I have a "right" to use.
Driving is a right? I could have sworn it was a privilege, hence the need for a license, something that historically is known for being a means of giving permission.\
Again, you make the choice to exercise this privilege and by doing so you play by the rules... just as you play by the rules of paying the bill when you go out to eat at a restaurant. No one is forcing you to do either.
Even if such activities are 'rights'... rights do not stand alone, instead they go hand in hand with responsibility. You have the 'right' to have children while at the same time you have responsibilities towards them... even ones that are 'forced' on you if you will... by your voluntary action of procreation.
> You are forced to sign or experience excessive inconvenience or loss of freedom.
Once again, freedoms are not free.
Like I said, ill-informed.
You are correct that that usually exists in the EULA and just gave me an idea...
Given the increasing commonness of online activation, I'm forced to wonder if we are one day going to see a time when retailers and software vendors work together so that if a customer returns opened software to the store, the retailer has the ability to cancel the associated CD key, rendering any current (assuming the software calls home from time to time) or future installs.
Sure it wouldn't be a perfect solution, it sure would be far better than what we've got today and while it wouldn't completely eliminate this as an avenue of piracy, the work to bypass it would be similar to that of simply downloading the same software from a warez site.
What a lovely ill-informed ad-hominem attack.
Bad news friend... all of these 'obligatory' contracts you speak of are actually voluntary. Your example is like saying "I hate being forced to pay $3.00 a gallon for gas to fuel up my car!" or "I hate being forced to pay $9.25 to see a first run movie"... at no point are you being forced to pay for gas as you are not forced to own a car nor see the movie.
Sure, you may feel compelled to own a car but at no point are you absolutely required to own one, there are always alternatives. Hell, I live in a town of 6200 people in South Dakota and know a number of people who do not drive or even have licenses due to the costs involved in voluntarily having/doing either.
If you don't want to carry auto insurance don't, just remember that you may not be able to own a car as a result. Don't want to pay to use a park? So don't use it!
Last I checked a tax return isn't a contract... and I'm sorry that where you live is so draconian that it requires the filing of returns even when there is no income... but even that I doubt.
Even still, income or not, contract or not, paying taxes like that is part of the price you pay for being a resident or citizen of a given area. Don't like it? Last I checked you are free to move and even renounce your citizenship and move elsewhere to a place with a more favorable tax system.
So... after voluntarily buying the game the user is forced to agree to the EULA? Again, they made the choice to buy the software, almost certainly knowing that there would be an enclosed EULA and if they did not take the proper steps to know what they were getting themselves into ahead of time, it is their fault for not being informed consumers... you know, buyer beware.
Forced to sign?
Care to share which contracts you have been forced at gun point to sign? I've signed a few in my day and clicked I Agree to plenty of others... but never were firearms involved... in those cases I felt the contract's terms were 'unfair'... I simply refused to sign.
God I love revisionist history.
You may want to break out some old news papers and see what Clinton-42 was saying while in office... as well as persons on both sides of the isle (including HR Clinton) on the subject of Iraq and WMD's... you might be surprised to see for how long the neo-con plot has been afoot.
Just because the pre-war intelligence didn't match what was seen on the ground once we were there does not mean that the threat of WHD's was an invention of the Bush-43 administration.
> The 10th Amendment says you're wrong.
And 231 years of US history says you are wrong.
Sure the 10th amendment seems pretty clear... there are many work arounds both legislative and judicial that have caused federal law to trump state and local.
Back when Napster was the horror of school network admins everywhere it was not uncommon to block the common Napster port. In response students would change the port to a more common one... such as say... 80 and be able to keep on downloading... that is until the admins spent a few more bucks or upgraded their existing equipment.
Classifying network traffic based only on the port went out the window well over 5 years ago when modern packet shapers came to the market which were able to analyze the very contents of packets and classify them based on the type of service they contained rather than the port they used.
Given that some in the congress were kept informed of the previous warrentless program, I would fully expect that that would be the case again, if for no other reason that the Senators would want some degree of oversight provided by themselves and behind closed doors.
Granted I have yet to read the bill to verify that this is the case, however I would bet good money that it is.
It is ethical to use what you have paid for and using more is possible due to low cost... or should I not buy a dozen eggs because they are so cheap and find a reasonable way to use them all rather than just buy six and be done with it?
If you limit yourself based on such trivialities you'll always live under a tree as there is always a risk associated with anything you do, let's not forget about the migratory animal patters that have been interrupted by your wood and stone house!
Sounds fair... lets see how you feel after I break into your computer and/or house and clean out your wallet, piggy bank and bank account.
To make everything kosher though... I'll be sure not to break anything or cause any other 'physical harm.'
My electricity comes from a hydro-electric plant on the Missouri river and is some of the least expensive electricity in the country because amazingly it is quite plentiful here in South Dakota.
Cry about the environment all you want, please though be sure to do it when it is relevant... which means not in this case.
> Think about it this way though, if some part-time OSS developer can stumble on the same idea how non-obvious is it?
The timing of such things also comes into play at times.
While some patents may seem obvious in retrospect, many of the so hated software patents were come up with before it was so obvious and at the time was actually something novel... of course in the internet age the amount of time from novel to common place to old news is rather short.
It would be a different story if the patent holder and a part-time OSS developer 'stumbled' on the same idea at the same time.
You are correct for the most part however not everyone pays their electric bill directly.
For my apartment I pay a single amount for everything, the space, water, gas, electricity, sewer, trash, etc.
So when I am running 20,000 BTU's of cooling power between two separate AC's, 6 PC's on 24/7 (4 of which do Seti@home) and take 20 minute showers... I come out pretty good and considering the person who had the place before me didn't have their rent raised in the 10 years they were there.
Of course... all of this can change at any point as mine is a month to month lease, so should it change I might worry, but until then I'll just keep on chugging.
Interestingly enough the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) that .NET apps are compiled to before being JITed into machine code is actually built around a stack based system as well... No doubt porting the .NET Framework over to such a system would be quite easy... and give much in the way of performance boosts (especially on startup).
Of course... that would still depend on a version of Windows for it to run on.
That may be true in general however Quatro cards have had DX support for many years.
I suddenly have the desire to see a 3dmark or Quake score for that rig... I imagine that it'd cause me to cry.
Could be, of course when you condemn one person for their 'odd definition' you need to be pretty clear on what you believe the correct one to be and saying 'pretty much' and failing to do so is a big enough copout that it cannot be ignored.
> That's not freedom. Freedom says you can run your personal life pretty much
> any way you want to and its nobody else's business.
So it's just freedom when people take up arms and start killing those they don't like? Or just kidnapping them? Or ramming airplanes into buildings? Or shooting school children in the back?
Your definition is close... only it misses the point about infringing on the freedom/liberty of others. Killing someone is not freedom, it directly deprives them of their freedom. Holding someone against their will is not exercising ones freedom, it is depriving them of their freedom.
> But breaking the law breaks the law - If you get convicted ...
Key words... if you get convicted.
Clinton broke the law (perjury) but wasn't convicted.
Funny how things like that can happen eh?
Bush-43 on a perp walk is not going to happen given that the votes do not exist today to impeach him let alone convict him... heck, even if the Dems do do well in November the situation will largely remain the same.
Sorry, but keep dreaming.