I am sick and tired I am of the Libertarian bull**** that people like you spew. If you want to live in a cabin in the woods, hating the government, and erecting booby-traps, cameras, and fences to keep people out, go for it. But don't give the rest of us a bunch of crap because we don't want to spend our lives erecting barriers to the rest of the world.
Re a pool, there is something reasonable--you put up a stinkin fence with cameras. We have laws if they encrouch on your property, you get them for trespassing, disorderly conduct, etc.
Re the lawn mower, duh. Get a lock and key.
The question is not whether I can find some way to defend my property. The question is whether or not we make it illegal for people to use my property without my permission.
It's silly to expect when you hand out party invitations in a public manner (and yes, it's public--network traffic is considered public) that there won't be a party crasher.
You are simply wrong as you can see from that link. A mail server is private property.
Use SSL authentication. Procmail/filter out. Use several addresses. Block multiple connections. Yes, when you put up a mail server, it's going to get connected to. The internet is not yours. It's PUBLIC. You ACCEPTED that when you had the choice to or not. You further had the choice whether to authenticate or use VPN. Did you? No.
Quit trying to impress everyone with your knowledge about how to construct a mail server through which no one can send mail. I'm unimpressed. I've consulted with a company that sells an expensive spam blocking system and probably know more effectively blocking spam than you ever will.
A mail server that cannot be accessed by normal people who e-mail through mass-market ISPs is as good as worthless.
Yes, when you put up a mail server, it's going to get connected to. The internet is not yours. It's PUBLIC.
The Internet is public but my mail server is PRIVATE! The road leading to your house is public, but that doesn't mean that I have a right to drive a car off of that public road and onto your private property.
If it's truly for your friends and specific organizations, filter.
If I put up a web page that says "e-mail me with comments about this web page", I don't have a list of who is going to e-mail me, but I have specifically limited the invitation to those who want to comment on the web page.
As to my e-mail filtering, it's DAMNED good. For every spam that gets through, I probably block 50 or more.
But I realize that the average person does not run their own mail server, does not know how to run one, nor should they have to learn how. I also know that mail filtering that works for me would never work for a wide audience at an ISP (I block all of Brazil, for instance).
"Face it, by installing a telephone, you are consenting to receive obscene phone calls at 3:00AM."
Yep.
Nope. Obscene, harassing phone calls (unlike their e-mail equivalents), are illegal.
"Face it, by putting up a pool, you are consenting to let random strangers hop in and piss in it."
No. I don't really see the similarity at all actually.
Then let me spell it out in simpler terms:
My (hypothetical) pool is my private property. I pay for the equipment, the maintenance, and the recurring costs (chemicals, water, electricity, etc.) I have put it there for my use and the use of my invited guests.
My mail server is my private property. I pay for the equipment, the maintenance, and the recurring costs (bandwidth, electricity, etc.) I have put it there for my use and the use of my invited guests.
Storing your lawn mower outdoors is not the same as storing it in front of a sign which says "free lawn mower rental"
I have not put up a public announcement stating that anyone who wishes may:
a. Use my lawn mower for free. b. Jump in my pool. c. Send me advertisements via e-mail.
Therefore, I don't want to find random people using my lawn mower, swimming in my pool, or sending me random ads in my e-mail. Pretty simple to grasp, eh?
If you are going to argue that any e-mail server is a public facility, stop now. You are simply wrong and it has been proven over and over in court cases.
Face it, by putting up an email server, you are consenting to receive email.
That's like saying:
"Face it, by installing a telephone, you are consenting to receive obscene phone calls at 3:00AM."
"Face it, by putting up a pool, you are consenting to let random strangers hop in and piss in it."
"Face it, by storing your lawn mower outdoors, you are consenting to let your neighbors use it whenever they want to."
I put up a mail server so that I could invite specific people and organizations to communicate with me. I did not put it up so that I could receive random ads from every yahoo in a trailer park that wants to rope me into his Herbalife scam.
My server. My connection. My monthly bill. My decision.
If the courts had upheld the previous decision, every company in the world would be in a patent filing frenzy, trying to protect their existing patents by filing every possible variation that they could dream up. The decision was the right one and lead to fewer patents, not more.
If the German court system is going to hold an ISP liable for content posted by users, then multi-national ISPs should pull out of Germany. If they did that, then the German courts would have no jurisdiction and no ability to confiscate company assets should they claim jurisdiction. If enough high-tech businesses pull out of Germany that it affects their economy and citizens, then the German government will have to pass legislation granting the ISPs the same immunities that they enjoy here and elsewhere.
That's what movie reviews are: opinions. I think that's pretty obvious to everyone (else) on Slashdot.
It is my opinion that you suck.
I hope you don't take that personally. Because after all, it's just my opinion.
I don't take it personally. In fact, it made me giggle when I realized that someone who posts as an "Anonymous Coward" would think that their opinion mattered to anyone.
There may be a simpler explanation than cultural shifts laboriously hypothesized by Jon Katz:
Spiderman is a good movie. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones is not. Would Spiderman, had it been contemporaneous, have trounced the original Star Wars or The Empire strikes Back? I seriously doubt it.
Lucas had a simple good vs. evil story to tell in the original Star Wars. It did not require laborious scenes reminiscent of CSPAN in Space to explain. It was not about the special effects. They were there to serve the movie, not vice-versa as one might believe in the recent additions to the Star Wars saga.
Tastes have not changed radically. The quality of Star Wars movies has.
The budget surpluses from 1998-2001 weren't because of some sound fiscal policy suddenly enacted by President Clinton after 5 years in office, but rather were a natural result of the booming economy
Then let's give Clinton some credit for the booming economy. God knows that Reagan's name is trotted out every time someone points to economic good times under his Presidency. When an economy does well, especially based on stock market speculation and consumer confidence, the President is doing something right.
When that bubble burst, the result was a sharp decrease in Federal tax revenues.
And yet, even after the "bubble burst", Bush and his cronies were pushing for a huge tax cut that we, as a country, could not afford.
You'll notice that the third column on page 26 indicates a surplus by 2006 and a decreasing Federal deficit every year up until that point. Which indicates a recovery period from the current recession. ... A reason to believe that Bush's recent budget increases have not been too large to outgrow would be that there is a surplus predicted again for 2005.
Now we have wandered off from sound, researched, historical data to Bush's spin-meisters making up numbers to justify his massive tax cut. I have no faith, whatsoever, in self-serving predictions made by the Whitehouse.
It is also worth noting, that the current year's deficit can be considered responsible counter-cyclical fiscal policy. (Counter-cyclical refers to the business cycle, just to be clear on my intended meaning.) If the Federal Government leaves tax rates roughly the same, then it will receive increased tax revenues during booms and decreased tax revenues during busts. Both booms and busts are unavoidable parts of the business cycle.
And here's where I have a real problem with the Republican party. They took the boom times under Clinton (no assigning credit, just noting when they happened) and argued that the budget surplus was money that the government wrongfully took from the taxpayers. Bush said: "That surplus is not the government's money. That surplus is the people's money." This was how they justified their big tax cuts.
In the Republican party, surpluses are a reason to cut taxes. Recessions are reasons to cut taxes to "stimulate" the economy. Pretty soon they will be telling us that we should pay lower tax rates on days ending in "y". If, at the then-current tax rate, we had deficit spending in recessions and surpluses in boom times, then it would seem that the tax rate was just about right.
Democrats won't allow Bush to waste much money with their control of the House and Senate.
Unfortunately, Democrats currently control only the Senate, and that by the narrowest of margins.
You should also consider that the budget increases are not adjusted for inflation. This makes changes seem larger than they actually are.
That is a very good point and well worth considering. I'd be interested to see the budgetary numbers adjusted for inflation.
This has been an interesting and informative discussion. I thank you for your time and sharing your opinions and insights with me.
Thank you also for making this a thought-provoking and intelligent debate. I hope that this has done much to erase your belief that liberals typically resort to ad-hominem attacks rather than debating the points.
Here is a portion of the data, but basically it shows that there never was a "surplus" as the federal debt has been increasing ever year since 1957.
You mistake debt for deficit. They are not the same. You may find it embarassing to note that the link that you provided includes a table on page 22 that shows budget surpluses for the years 1998-2001.
While I would have preferred to see the surpluses used to reduce the debt, they were not.
But let's make this simpler. Suppose you are in debt for $10,000. You earn $100,000. Your living expenses are $70,000. You put $30,000 into savings, but do not pay off any of your debt. Your debt actually increases due to the accumulation of interest, bringing your total indebtedness to $11,500.
You would not be "in the red" and would, in fact, have a budgetary surplus, despite your debt increasing.
I've not attacked anyone's character, only learned from history.
When you make unsubstantiated claims that the "far left" is known for "ad hominem attacks", that is an ad-homimen attack in and of itself.
And there are Republicans who are pro-choice, but it does not mean that, broadly speaking, the Republican party does not take the opposite stance. True, but not particularly relevant.
Yes, it is relevent. It demonstrates that your finding two examples of Democrats who favor stronger copyright/copy-protection does not mean that you can characterize the whole party by their positions. I thought that was clear.
I never wrote or implied the majority of people in California were in the entertainment industry. I stated it "is the center of the US Entertainment Industry." No reference was made to the porportion of Californians that are involved in it.
You wrote:
The State of California has long been considered a Democratic Party stronghold, and is the center of the US Entertainment Industry. Check which party won it the last several presidential elections.
That implies that the U.S. Entertainment Industry made up a large enough percentage of the California voting public to decide the election.
All the references I've read about the size of government are about the amount of programs the government is involved in. That includes regulating various things and social programs like welfare, social security, medicaid, headstart, etc.
I like those programs, despite the fact that I pay for them rather than directly benefit from them. To me, that's part of living in a civilized society. We don't let the aged, infirm, or impoverished simply die. The government is the perfect organization to spearhead such efforts because people don't have to listen to a religious sermon prior to getting the assistance that they need.
Learn from Reagan's mistake: He cut programs like Headstart and others that provided much-needed training to inner-city youth. The result? Crime in the inner-city skyrocketed when those kids saw no future for themselves.
Bush is headed down the same path, increasing corporate welfare while cutting entitlement programs. He's already given huge checks to the airline industry. Wants to donate drilling rights to federal land so that the oil companies can sell off the oil at a profit. He's revived the absurd "Star Wars" missile "shield" program -- despite the fact that any thinking human being knows that it could never work.
I saw Al Gore give a speech saying he was for small government in the last election. He made it a point about how he was for small government.
But not by cutting off medical care for seniors and Social Security. Gore's interest is in making government more efficient. Maybe the will of the American people will prevail next election and Gore will get a chance to do just that.
Funny, as Congress only had a Republican majority for the first time in quite a long time in '94 (year?.
I suggest you look at this chart. You will note that the largest increase in the national debt occurred under the Reagan/Bush administrations and that Clinton was reducing it long before Gingrich (and his mistress) came into power.
The greatest growth in the national debt occurred under Reagan (Rep.) (23.6% per year) followed by Ford (Rep.) (14.1% per year) and Bush (Rep.) (13.5% per year). Due to the Republican deficit spending, almost 25% of your federal tax dollars are servicing that debt. And much of that interest is paid to foreign debt holders, taking the money out of the U.S. economy.
The surplus was projected, it didn't exist yet.
Untrue. We had not had deficit spending since 1997.
Rather than continue to rehash things that were already written by the press, I will provide you with this piece by Bill Press from CNN's web site:
Bill Press: War does not justify Bush budget
February 11, 2002 Posted: 9:37 AM EST (1437 GMT)
By Bill Press Tribune Media Services
WASHINGTON (Tribune Media Services) -- Be careful what you say about President Bush's 2003 budget. Its cover is a full-color representation of the American flag. The deliberate message is: You either support this budget or you're un-American.
That's just White House spin. Every president's budget is subject to criticism, and this one deserves its share. Shame on Bush for trying to use the flag and September 11 to justify more big government, a return to deficit spending, stealing from the Social Security surplus, permanent tax cuts for the rich and further fattening an already bloated Pentagon.
First, the raw numbers. President Bush is asking Congress for $2.1 trillion, a 9 percent increase in federal spending. He projects the government would run $106 billion in the red -- returning to deficit-spending for the first time since 1997. And he breaks a bipartisan pledge not to tap Social Security reserves for general spending. If President Clinton had proposed that budget, Republicans would denounce him as fiscally irresponsible.
There's something sinister here. Why is it that, out of office, Republicans preach smaller government, balanced budgets, no deficits and no stealing from Social Security -- and, once in office, they deliver just the opposite?
In fact, we've seen this Bush budget before. Only the dollars are different. Otherwise, it's a carbon copy of President Reagan's budget. He was the first to insist we could cut taxes, increase military spending and still have money left over. The result was economic disaster.
Under Reagan, annual deficits grew from $50 billion to $150 billion and the national debt soared from $900 billion to $2.9 trillion. Reaganomics produced 12 straight years of budget deficits that ended with Bill Clinton. Didn't we learn anything? Do we really want to go down that path again?
The biggest, and least defensible, part of the Bush budget is for military spending. He wants $396 billion for the Pentagon and the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons program. That is $45.5 billion above current levels, or an increase of 13 percent. It is also, reports the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information, a 15 percent increase over average spending during the Cold War, for a military that is one-third smaller than it was 10 years ago.
It would be one thing if that spending were tied to the war on terror. It's not. Most of the money goes to buy heavy new weapons systems -- ships, fighter planes, helicopters, armed vehicles -- that would have done nothing to prevent the terrorist attacks of September 11. How, for example, do the evil deeds of 19 guys with box cutters justify building three new fighter planes?
As Paul Krugman suggests in the New York Times, the motto of the Bush budget seems to be: "Leave no defense contractor behind."
Bush's military budget is all the more unacceptable because it does nothing to address the problem of waste in defense spending. According to a report issued last year by Business Executives for National Security, an astounding 70 percent of the defense budget is spent on overhead and infrastructure. Only 30 percent reaches our men and women in the field.
That inefficiency is even recognized in Bush's budget. Budget Director Mitch Daniels brags about the fact that this budget is the first one ever based on performance. In fact, it contains a chart ranking every federal agency on five different criteria, including financial management, human capital and competitive sourcing.
Agencies are awarded a green dot for good performance; a red dot for "serious flaws." The Pentagon gets five red dots, as bad as you can get -- but Bush still pours in another $45.5 billion. Go figure.
Even if you give Bush the benefit of the doubt, there's one other part of his budget that makes no sense. Let's admit, for the sake of argument, that the war on terror is so serious it merits more big spending, more big government, more big guns and more big deficits. Surely that means we should also take a second look at the tax cuts enacted last year, when it looked like surpluses would last forever.
Not according to George Bush. He not only refuses to delay his big tax cuts, he would make them permanent. Even in wartime, his rich friends come first.
In his budget, President Bush spends wildly but uses accounting tricks to mask how high the deficit really is. It could have been written by Enron.
Now I can just sit back and watch the "You are an idiot/moron/other witty insult" ad hominem attacks pour in that "open-minded" people on the far-left are known for.
I will note that you are the only one in this conversation who is making ad hominem attacks on other Slashdot readers and moderators. Rather ironic, isn't it? You've been listening to Rush Limbaugh too much. You need to listen to NPR and you will find that liberals don't normally resort to the name-calling, defamation, and slander that is all too prominent on conservative radio programs.
This concludes moderator-education, have a nice day.
I think that you are overly impressed with yourself while failing to give credit to those who might moderate you.
Hollings and Feinstein both of whom have been quoted here as being proponents of the DMCA and SSSCA/CBDTPA are liberal Democrats.
And there are Republicans who are pro-choice, but it does not mean that, broadly speaking, the Republican party does not take the opposite stance.
The State of California has long been considered a Democratic Party stronghold, and is the center of the US Entertainment Industry. Check which party won it the last several presidential elections.
I've spent a lot of time in California and, despite the view that you have apparently gotten from watching too much Access Hollywood, the majority of people in California are not in the entertainment industry.
The far-left usually seems quite eager to have the government regulate and control how things are done.
Both sides try to regulate and control how things are done. The difference is in who they are regulating and how:
Liberals tend to push for laws restricting corporate behavior. They recognize that without government intervention, corporations will tread on the rights of citizens, harm the environment, and do whatever else maximizes their profits. Examples of corporations that liberals might be tempted to rein in through legislation include Enron and the other energy industry giants that met in secret with Bush/Cheney and wrote the White House's energy policy.
Conservatives legislate morality, often trying to make religious beliefs the law of the land. They push for legislation making it illegal for gay couples to marry. They try to limit access to abortions. On local levels, they oppose sex education and teaching the scientific theory of evolution. They ban human cloning and limit stem cell research, despite the promise that such research holds for thousands of people, from Parkinson's patients to paralysis victims.
How increasing government regulation can be considerings "small government" or "shrinking government" I'd like to know.
The size of the government is based on the cost, not the number of regulations in place. Besides, smaller government is the battle cry of the Republicans, not of the Democrats. The big difference is that Democrats try to collect enough tax revenue to pay for the cost of running the government. Republicans, on the other hand, make massive tax cuts and then do deficit spending to make up the difference. As a result, in less than two years, George W. Bush has managed to wipe out the surplus that was built up under Clinton/Gore, plunging us back into deficit spending, and prolonging and deepening the recession. Like father, like son...
The cable companies are looking for ways to get rid of that 1% that use 30% of the bandwidth. What they all want is consumers who will sip from a firehose. Their ideal customer is someone who checks their e-mail a few times per week and maybe web surfs for an hour or two every few days. In other words, they want customers that have no real need for broadband.
I have gone to battle with my cable modem company over and over due to their ever more restricted AUP/TOS. When I signed on, they had no problem with, or prohibition against, me running servers for my own use.
Now they tell me that I must be running a business if I want to do anything other than web surf and use their unreliable mail server. They are trying to pressure me, and other Slashdot-profile users to go to their $250/month business service (price for the same 1.5mbps download pipe and a similar upload speed). Mind you, my usage is not excessive -- much less than the average p2p MP3/Porn/Warez trading kiddie. But I use somewhat more than average. One of their techs told me I was an "active user" but that there were users who moved orders of magnitude more data than I. And I complain loudly when they have their multi-hour (or even multi-day) outages. So they want me gone.
The best way to fight this is to complain to the local government that signs the contract that allows them to serve your area. If your cable modem provider promised you unlimited usage, then don't sit still when they tell you that you have to pay more than your neighbor because you download Linux ISOs every few months. It was their job to determine pricing and bandwidth allocation before offering the service.
The "greater good of society" is that which most benefits society as a whole. For instance, the right of free speech is one that contributes to the greater good of society. So are rights against unreasonable search and seizure, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. Limits on the powers of corporations are set for the greater good of society.
And how shall this "greater good" be enforced?
In the U.S., with The Bill of Rights, The Constitution, and legislation that protects and defines the rights of the citizens.
Sounds like communism to me.
If that's communism, then I guess I am a communist.
Groups that purport to be "market-oriented" are often just front organizations that push the agendas of large corporate "sponsors." They have no concern for individual rights or the greater good of society. Their sole interest is maximizing the profits of corporations. If that means taking away the basic rights that we have all come to value, so be it.
William F. Adkinson, Jr. is Senior Policy Counsel at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a group that describes itself as a market-oriented think tank that promotes innovative policy solutions for the digital age.
The key phrase is "market-oriented." They are a group sponsored by big business. Their sponsors include:
* AOL Time Warner * BMG * National Cable & Telecommunications Association * Sony Music Entertainment Inc. * Vivendi Universal
And the article was published in The American Spectator, a shamelessly right-wing rag that caters to the crowd that believes that helping big business get bigger is the most important contribution that legislation can make to our lives.
Of course Adkinson came out with a pro-copyright rebuttal. His article is as unbiased and trustworthy as one citing the health benefits of cigarette smoking sponsored by R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris.
I am of the opinion that his intent was to be humorous
Calling all Windows users "stupid" hardly seems to be what I would consider funny and I don't believe that it was intended to be humor. If it was humor, it was only so in the most crude and nasty senses of the word. Here is another gem from "scrod":
Isn't it child abuse to force a kid to browse the web on Windows machines?
The guy is a frequent poster on the Mac stories here and has a long history of unpleasant, mean-spirited postings.
and that your sense of humor needs a little overclocking.
Actually, I've gotten enough +5 funny moderations to know that my sense of humor is quite intact.
Because Mr. Zuccarini was using the name in "bad faith" and in violation of Federal law to tar-pit people's browsers once they entered the domain.
Please tell me you're not one of those people who believe that such domain names should automatically go to the owner of the trademark?
If the domain is being used in a legitimate manner, I do not believe that someone should be forced to give it up. For example, if someone is using www.firestone.com to provide information about volcanic rock, I do not think that it should automatically go to the tire company. If they are using it to tarpit someones browser with endless pop-up windows and capitalizing on the trademark's recognition, then I do believe that the trademark owner deserves to get the domain.
This reasoning was the basis of the ACPA (see link in earlier message) and I think that law is fair, reasonable, and in the interest of the common good.
Mind posting his phone #? I'm sure there are quite a few people here who would like to share some of their feelings with him.
If I had saved it, and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was still his, I would do so. It was available through domain registry lookups on some of his domains and you might still be able to find it, but please don't post it until you have verified that the number you found is his. I would not want to see some innocent bystander being called 24/7 by Slashdot readers.
Just because some people are not expert in the use of computers does not make them "stupid". Nor does the fact that they use the same OS (family) as the vast majority of computer users on the planet. What *is* stupid is judging a person's intelligence based solely on their computer expertise and OS choice. I have worked with absolutely brilliant people who just view the computer as a tool. They learn enough to make it work for them and concentrate their mental prowess on things that interest them more. You may well be more skilled in the use of computers than, say, Stephen Hawkings, but I assure you that you are not his intellectual better.
My solid belief in capitalist economic principles suggests to me that there must be some amount I could offer which would be more than he would expect to gain by keeping the domain to himself, and he would sell it to me.
Ah, the capitalist beauty of cyber-blackmail: buy the domain from me, or all of your customers will be bombarded with smut when they try to find you online. Maybe there is not "some amount [you] could offer Mr Zuccarini" given your financial situation and the income he derive from the domain.
Fortunately, we have wise people in the legislature that recognize that capitalist greed does not provide an answer to every problem. In this case, it is what caused the problem.
You people are fooling yourselves. You're just as anonymous as the next guy on this board. I mean, "fmaxwell", does that mean anything to me? No. I label you: Anonymous.
The fact that you do not know me personally does not mean that I am anonymous. Because I have a user ID, there is a history of my postings on Slashdot. If you want to refer to previous postings, you can do so by clicking on my user name. I have chosen an moniker that consists of my first initial and last name and people that I know personally recognize my postings based on that. There are people on Slashdot who like me and others who do not. To claim that everyone online is "anonymous" is to deny that the Internet is a community.
While I recognize that this is "offtopic", I still find it worth saying and it makes little difference to me whether I have 45 karma points or 50.
Well, I agree with him. And I've produced almost 1000/. postings, have quite some time on here, and was a software engineer before many current/. users were conceived.
Slashdot Mirror
I am sick and tired I am of the Libertarian bull**** that people like you spew. If you want to live in a cabin in the woods, hating the government, and erecting booby-traps, cameras, and fences to keep people out, go for it. But don't give the rest of us a bunch of crap because we don't want to spend our lives erecting barriers to the rest of the world.
Re a pool, there is something reasonable--you put up a stinkin fence with cameras. We have laws if they encrouch on your property, you get them for trespassing, disorderly conduct, etc.
Re the lawn mower, duh. Get a lock and key.
The question is not whether I can find some way to defend my property. The question is whether or not we make it illegal for people to use my property without my permission.
It's silly to expect when you hand out party invitations in a public manner (and yes, it's public--network traffic is considered public) that there won't be a party crasher.
You are simply wrong as you can see from that link. A mail server is private property.
Use SSL authentication. Procmail/filter out. Use several addresses. Block multiple connections. Yes, when you put up a mail server, it's going to get connected to. The internet is not yours. It's PUBLIC. You ACCEPTED that when you had the choice to or not. You further had the choice whether to authenticate or use VPN. Did you? No.
Quit trying to impress everyone with your knowledge about how to construct a mail server through which no one can send mail. I'm unimpressed. I've consulted with a company that sells an expensive spam blocking system and probably know more effectively blocking spam than you ever will.
A mail server that cannot be accessed by normal people who e-mail through mass-market ISPs is as good as worthless.
Yes, when you put up a mail server, it's going to get connected to. The internet is not yours. It's PUBLIC.
The Internet is public but my mail server is PRIVATE! The road leading to your house is public, but that doesn't mean that I have a right to drive a car off of that public road and onto your private property.
If it's truly for your friends and specific organizations, filter.
If I put up a web page that says "e-mail me with comments about this web page", I don't have a list of who is going to e-mail me, but I have specifically limited the invitation to those who want to comment on the web page.
As to my e-mail filtering, it's DAMNED good. For every spam that gets through, I probably block 50 or more.
But I realize that the average person does not run their own mail server, does not know how to run one, nor should they have to learn how. I also know that mail filtering that works for me would never work for a wide audience at an ISP (I block all of Brazil, for instance).
"Face it, by installing a telephone, you are consenting to receive obscene phone calls at 3:00AM."
Yep.
Nope. Obscene, harassing phone calls (unlike their e-mail equivalents), are illegal.
"Face it, by putting up a pool, you are consenting to let random strangers hop in and piss in it."
No. I don't really see the similarity at all actually.
Then let me spell it out in simpler terms:
My (hypothetical) pool is my private property. I pay for the equipment, the maintenance, and the recurring costs (chemicals, water, electricity, etc.) I have put it there for my use and the use of my invited guests.
My mail server is my private property. I pay for the equipment, the maintenance, and the recurring costs (bandwidth, electricity, etc.) I have put it there for my use and the use of my invited guests.
Storing your lawn mower outdoors is not the same as storing it in front of a sign which says "free lawn mower rental"
I have not put up a public announcement stating that anyone who wishes may:
a. Use my lawn mower for free.
b. Jump in my pool.
c. Send me advertisements via e-mail.
Therefore, I don't want to find random people using my lawn mower, swimming in my pool, or sending me random ads in my e-mail. Pretty simple to grasp, eh?
If you are going to argue that any e-mail server is a public facility, stop now. You are simply wrong and it has been proven over and over in court cases.
Face it, by putting up an email server, you are consenting to receive email.
That's like saying:
"Face it, by installing a telephone, you are consenting to receive obscene phone calls at 3:00AM."
"Face it, by putting up a pool, you are consenting to let random strangers hop in and piss in it."
"Face it, by storing your lawn mower outdoors, you are consenting to let your neighbors use it whenever they want to."
I put up a mail server so that I could invite specific people and organizations to communicate with me. I did not put it up so that I could receive random ads from every yahoo in a trailer park that wants to rope me into his Herbalife scam.
My server. My connection. My monthly bill. My decision.
If the courts had upheld the previous decision, every company in the world would be in a patent filing frenzy, trying to protect their existing patents by filing every possible variation that they could dream up. The decision was the right one and lead to fewer patents, not more.
The moral of this story is pretty simple:
If the German court system is going to hold an ISP liable for content posted by users, then multi-national ISPs should pull out of Germany. If they did that, then the German courts would have no jurisdiction and no ability to confiscate company assets should they claim jurisdiction. If enough high-tech businesses pull out of Germany that it affects their economy and citizens, then the German government will have to pass legislation granting the ISPs the same immunities that they enjoy here and elsewhere.
Opinion. That is what you are stating, not fact.
That's what movie reviews are: opinions. I think that's pretty obvious to everyone (else) on Slashdot.
It is my opinion that you suck.
I hope you don't take that personally. Because after all, it's just my opinion.
I don't take it personally. In fact, it made me giggle when I realized that someone who posts as an "Anonymous Coward" would think that their opinion mattered to anyone.
There may be a simpler explanation than cultural shifts laboriously hypothesized by Jon Katz:
Spiderman is a good movie. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones is not. Would Spiderman, had it been contemporaneous, have trounced the original Star Wars or The Empire strikes Back? I seriously doubt it.
Lucas had a simple good vs. evil story to tell in the original Star Wars. It did not require laborious scenes reminiscent of CSPAN in Space to explain. It was not about the special effects. They were there to serve the movie, not vice-versa as one might believe in the recent additions to the Star Wars saga.
Tastes have not changed radically. The quality of Star Wars movies has.
The budget surpluses from 1998-2001 weren't because of some sound fiscal policy suddenly enacted by President Clinton after 5 years in office, but rather were a natural result of the booming economy
Then let's give Clinton some credit for the booming economy. God knows that Reagan's name is trotted out every time someone points to economic good times under his Presidency. When an economy does well, especially based on stock market speculation and consumer confidence, the President is doing something right.
When that bubble burst, the result was a sharp decrease in Federal tax revenues.
And yet, even after the "bubble burst", Bush and his cronies were pushing for a huge tax cut that we, as a country, could not afford.
You'll notice that the third column on page 26 indicates a surplus by 2006 and a decreasing Federal deficit every year up until that point. Which indicates a recovery period from the current recession.
...
A reason to believe that Bush's recent budget increases have not been too large to outgrow would be that there is a surplus predicted again for 2005.
Now we have wandered off from sound, researched, historical data to Bush's spin-meisters making up numbers to justify his massive tax cut. I have no faith, whatsoever, in self-serving predictions made by the Whitehouse.
It is also worth noting, that the current year's deficit can be considered responsible counter-cyclical fiscal policy. (Counter-cyclical refers to the business cycle, just to be clear on my intended meaning.) If the Federal Government leaves tax rates roughly the same, then it will receive increased tax revenues during booms and decreased tax revenues during busts. Both booms and busts are unavoidable parts of the business cycle.
And here's where I have a real problem with the Republican party. They took the boom times under Clinton (no assigning credit, just noting when they happened) and argued that the budget surplus was money that the government wrongfully took from the taxpayers. Bush said: "That surplus is not the government's money. That surplus is the people's money." This was how they justified their big tax cuts.
In the Republican party, surpluses are a reason to cut taxes. Recessions are reasons to cut taxes to "stimulate" the economy. Pretty soon they will be telling us that we should pay lower tax rates on days ending in "y". If, at the then-current tax rate, we had deficit spending in recessions and surpluses in boom times, then it would seem that the tax rate was just about right.
Democrats won't allow Bush to waste much money with their control of the House and Senate.
Unfortunately, Democrats currently control only the Senate, and that by the narrowest of margins.
You should also consider that the budget increases are not adjusted for inflation. This makes changes seem larger than they actually are.
That is a very good point and well worth considering. I'd be interested to see the budgetary numbers adjusted for inflation.
This has been an interesting and informative discussion. I thank you for your time and sharing your opinions and insights with me.
Thank you also for making this a thought-provoking and intelligent debate. I hope that this has done much to erase your belief that liberals typically resort to ad-hominem attacks rather than debating the points.
Here is a portion of the data, but basically it shows that there never was a "surplus" as the federal debt has been increasing ever year since 1957.
You mistake debt for deficit. They are not the same. You may find it embarassing to note that the link that you provided includes a table on page 22 that shows budget surpluses for the years 1998-2001.
While I would have preferred to see the surpluses used to reduce the debt, they were not.
But let's make this simpler. Suppose you are in debt for $10,000. You earn $100,000. Your living expenses are $70,000. You put $30,000 into savings, but do not pay off any of your debt. Your debt actually increases due to the accumulation of interest, bringing your total indebtedness to $11,500.
You would not be "in the red" and would, in fact, have a budgetary surplus, despite your debt increasing.
I've not attacked anyone's character, only learned from history.
When you make unsubstantiated claims that the "far left" is known for "ad hominem attacks", that is an ad-homimen attack in and of itself.
And there are Republicans who are pro-choice, but it does not mean that, broadly speaking, the Republican party does not take the opposite stance.
True, but not particularly relevant.
Yes, it is relevent. It demonstrates that your finding two examples of Democrats who favor stronger copyright/copy-protection does not mean that you can characterize the whole party by their positions. I thought that was clear.
I never wrote or implied the majority of people in California were in the entertainment industry. I stated it "is the center of the US Entertainment Industry." No reference was made to the porportion of Californians that are involved in it.
You wrote:
The State of California has long been considered a Democratic Party stronghold, and is the center of the US Entertainment Industry. Check which party won it the last several presidential elections.
That implies that the U.S. Entertainment Industry made up a large enough percentage of the California voting public to decide the election.
All the references I've read about the size of government are about the amount of programs the government is involved in. That includes regulating various things and social programs like welfare, social security, medicaid, headstart, etc.
I like those programs, despite the fact that I pay for them rather than directly benefit from them. To me, that's part of living in a civilized society. We don't let the aged, infirm, or impoverished simply die. The government is the perfect organization to spearhead such efforts because people don't have to listen to a religious sermon prior to getting the assistance that they need.
Learn from Reagan's mistake: He cut programs like Headstart and others that provided much-needed training to inner-city youth. The result? Crime in the inner-city skyrocketed when those kids saw no future for themselves.
Bush is headed down the same path, increasing corporate welfare while cutting entitlement programs. He's already given huge checks to the airline industry. Wants to donate drilling rights to federal land so that the oil companies can sell off the oil at a profit. He's revived the absurd "Star Wars" missile "shield" program -- despite the fact that any thinking human being knows that it could never work.
I saw Al Gore give a speech saying he was for small government in the last election. He made it a point about how he was for small government.
But not by cutting off medical care for seniors and Social Security. Gore's interest is in making government more efficient. Maybe the will of the American people will prevail next election and Gore will get a chance to do just that.
Funny, as Congress only had a Republican majority for the first time in quite a long time in '94 (year?.
I suggest you look at this chart. You will note that the largest increase in the national debt occurred under the Reagan/Bush administrations and that Clinton was reducing it long before Gingrich (and his mistress) came into power.
The greatest growth in the national debt occurred under Reagan (Rep.) (23.6% per year) followed by Ford (Rep.) (14.1% per year) and Bush (Rep.) (13.5% per year). Due to the Republican deficit spending, almost 25% of your federal tax dollars are servicing that debt. And much of that interest is paid to foreign debt holders, taking the money out of the U.S. economy.
The surplus was projected, it didn't exist yet.
Untrue. We had not had deficit spending since 1997.
Rather than continue to rehash things that were already written by the press, I will provide you with this piece by Bill Press from CNN's web site:
Bill Press: War does not justify Bush budget
February 11, 2002 Posted: 9:37 AM EST (1437 GMT)
By Bill Press
Tribune Media Services
WASHINGTON (Tribune Media Services) -- Be careful what you say about President Bush's 2003 budget. Its cover is a full-color representation of the American flag. The deliberate message is: You either support this budget or you're un-American.
That's just White House spin. Every president's budget is subject to criticism, and this one deserves its share. Shame on Bush for trying to use the flag and September 11 to justify more big government, a return to deficit spending, stealing from the Social Security surplus, permanent tax cuts for the rich and further fattening an already bloated Pentagon.
First, the raw numbers. President Bush is asking Congress for $2.1 trillion, a 9 percent increase in federal spending. He projects the government would run $106 billion in the red -- returning to deficit-spending for the first time since 1997. And he breaks a bipartisan pledge not to tap Social Security reserves for general spending. If President Clinton had proposed that budget, Republicans would denounce him as fiscally irresponsible.
There's something sinister here. Why is it that, out of office, Republicans preach smaller government, balanced budgets, no deficits and no stealing from Social Security -- and, once in office, they deliver just the opposite?
In fact, we've seen this Bush budget before. Only the dollars are different. Otherwise, it's a carbon copy of President Reagan's budget. He was the first to insist we could cut taxes, increase military spending and still have money left over. The result was economic disaster.
Under Reagan, annual deficits grew from $50 billion to $150 billion and the national debt soared from $900 billion to $2.9 trillion. Reaganomics produced 12 straight years of budget deficits that ended with Bill Clinton. Didn't we learn anything? Do we really want to go down that path again?
The biggest, and least defensible, part of the Bush budget is for military spending. He wants $396 billion for the Pentagon and the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons program. That is $45.5 billion above current levels, or an increase of 13 percent. It is also, reports the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information, a 15 percent increase over average spending during the Cold War, for a military that is one-third smaller than it was 10 years ago.
It would be one thing if that spending were tied to the war on terror. It's not. Most of the money goes to buy heavy new weapons systems -- ships, fighter planes, helicopters, armed vehicles -- that would have done nothing to prevent the terrorist attacks of September 11. How, for example, do the evil deeds of 19 guys with box cutters justify building three new fighter planes?
As Paul Krugman suggests in the New York Times, the motto of the Bush budget seems to be: "Leave no defense contractor behind."
Bush's military budget is all the more unacceptable because it does nothing to address the problem of waste in defense spending. According to a report issued last year by Business Executives for National Security, an astounding 70 percent of the defense budget is spent on overhead and infrastructure. Only 30 percent reaches our men and women in the field.
That inefficiency is even recognized in Bush's budget. Budget Director Mitch Daniels brags about the fact that this budget is the first one ever based on performance. In fact, it contains a chart ranking every federal agency on five different criteria, including financial management, human capital and competitive sourcing.
Agencies are awarded a green dot for good performance; a red dot for "serious flaws." The Pentagon gets five red dots, as bad as you can get -- but Bush still pours in another $45.5 billion. Go figure.
Even if you give Bush the benefit of the doubt, there's one other part of his budget that makes no sense. Let's admit, for the sake of argument, that the war on terror is so serious it merits more big spending, more big government, more big guns and more big deficits. Surely that means we should also take a second look at the tax cuts enacted last year, when it looked like surpluses would last forever.
Not according to George Bush. He not only refuses to delay his big tax cuts, he would make them permanent. Even in wartime, his rich friends come first.
In his budget, President Bush spends wildly but uses accounting tricks to mask how high the deficit really is. It could have been written by Enron.
Now I can just sit back and watch the "You are an idiot/moron/other witty insult" ad hominem attacks pour in that "open-minded" people on the far-left are known for.
I will note that you are the only one in this conversation who is making ad hominem attacks on other Slashdot readers and moderators. Rather ironic, isn't it? You've been listening to Rush Limbaugh too much. You need to listen to NPR and you will find that liberals don't normally resort to the name-calling, defamation, and slander that is all too prominent on conservative radio programs.
This concludes moderator-education, have a nice day.
I think that you are overly impressed with yourself while failing to give credit to those who might moderate you.
Hollings and Feinstein both of whom have been quoted here as being proponents of the DMCA and SSSCA/CBDTPA are liberal Democrats.
And there are Republicans who are pro-choice, but it does not mean that, broadly speaking, the Republican party does not take the opposite stance.
The State of California has long been considered a Democratic Party stronghold, and is the center of the US Entertainment Industry. Check which party won it the last several presidential elections.
I've spent a lot of time in California and, despite the view that you have apparently gotten from watching too much Access Hollywood, the majority of people in California are not in the entertainment industry.
The far-left usually seems quite eager to have the government regulate and control how things are done.
Both sides try to regulate and control how things are done. The difference is in who they are regulating and how:
Liberals tend to push for laws restricting corporate behavior. They recognize that without government intervention, corporations will tread on the rights of citizens, harm the environment, and do whatever else maximizes their profits. Examples of corporations that liberals might be tempted to rein in through legislation include Enron and the other energy industry giants that met in secret with Bush/Cheney and wrote the White House's energy policy.
Conservatives legislate morality, often trying to make religious beliefs the law of the land. They push for legislation making it illegal for gay couples to marry. They try to limit access to abortions. On local levels, they oppose sex education and teaching the scientific theory of evolution. They ban human cloning and limit stem cell research, despite the promise that such research holds for thousands of people, from Parkinson's patients to paralysis victims.
How increasing government regulation can be considerings "small government" or "shrinking government" I'd like to know.
The size of the government is based on the cost, not the number of regulations in place. Besides, smaller government is the battle cry of the Republicans, not of the Democrats. The big difference is that Democrats try to collect enough tax revenue to pay for the cost of running the government. Republicans, on the other hand, make massive tax cuts and then do deficit spending to make up the difference. As a result, in less than two years, George W. Bush has managed to wipe out the surplus that was built up under Clinton/Gore, plunging us back into deficit spending, and prolonging and deepening the recession. Like father, like son...
The cable companies are looking for ways to get rid of that 1% that use 30% of the bandwidth. What they all want is consumers who will sip from a firehose. Their ideal customer is someone who checks their e-mail a few times per week and maybe web surfs for an hour or two every few days. In other words, they want customers that have no real need for broadband.
I have gone to battle with my cable modem company over and over due to their ever more restricted AUP/TOS. When I signed on, they had no problem with, or prohibition against, me running servers for my own use.
Now they tell me that I must be running a business if I want to do anything other than web surf and use their unreliable mail server. They are trying to pressure me, and other Slashdot-profile users to go to their $250/month business service (price for the same 1.5mbps download pipe and a similar upload speed). Mind you, my usage is not excessive -- much less than the average p2p MP3/Porn/Warez trading kiddie. But I use somewhat more than average. One of their techs told me I was an "active user" but that there were users who moved orders of magnitude more data than I. And I complain loudly when they have their multi-hour (or even multi-day) outages. So they want me gone.
The best way to fight this is to complain to the local government that signs the contract that allows them to serve your area. If your cable modem provider promised you unlimited usage, then don't sit still when they tell you that you have to pay more than your neighbor because you download Linux ISOs every few months. It was their job to determine pricing and bandwidth allocation before offering the service.
What is the "greater good of society" ???
The "greater good of society" is that which most benefits society as a whole. For instance, the right of free speech is one that contributes to the greater good of society. So are rights against unreasonable search and seizure, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. Limits on the powers of corporations are set for the greater good of society.
And how shall this "greater good" be enforced?
In the U.S., with The Bill of Rights, The Constitution, and legislation that protects and defines the rights of the citizens.
Sounds like communism to me.
If that's communism, then I guess I am a communist.
Groups that purport to be "market-oriented" are often just front organizations that push the agendas of large corporate "sponsors." They have no concern for individual rights or the greater good of society. Their sole interest is maximizing the profits of corporations. If that means taking away the basic rights that we have all come to value, so be it.
We are discussing humor on Slashdot, so what better metric to measure with than Slashdot moderations?
Have the person reading Slashdot to you click on my user ID if you want to know what I've written.
William F. Adkinson, Jr. is Senior Policy Counsel at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a group that describes itself as a market-oriented think tank that promotes innovative policy solutions for the digital age.
The key phrase is "market-oriented." They are a group sponsored by big business. Their sponsors include:
* AOL Time Warner
* BMG
* National Cable & Telecommunications Association
* Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
* Vivendi Universal
And the article was published in The American Spectator, a shamelessly right-wing rag that caters to the crowd that believes that helping big business get bigger is the most important contribution that legislation can make to our lives.
Of course Adkinson came out with a pro-copyright rebuttal. His article is as unbiased and trustworthy as one citing the health benefits of cigarette smoking sponsored by R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris.
I am of the opinion that his intent was to be humorous
Calling all Windows users "stupid" hardly seems to be what I would consider funny and I don't believe that it was intended to be humor. If it was humor, it was only so in the most crude and nasty senses of the word. Here is another gem from "scrod":
Isn't it child abuse to force a kid to browse the web on Windows machines?
The guy is a frequent poster on the Mac stories here and has a long history of unpleasant, mean-spirited postings.
and that your sense of humor needs a little overclocking.
Actually, I've gotten enough +5 funny moderations to know that my sense of humor is quite intact.
And what, exactly, is wrong with that?
Because Mr. Zuccarini was using the name in "bad faith" and in violation of Federal law to tar-pit people's browsers once they entered the domain.
Please tell me you're not one of those people who believe that such domain names should automatically go to the owner of the trademark?
If the domain is being used in a legitimate manner, I do not believe that someone should be forced to give it up. For example, if someone is using www.firestone.com to provide information about volcanic rock, I do not think that it should automatically go to the tire company. If they are using it to tarpit someones browser with endless pop-up windows and capitalizing on the trademark's recognition, then I do believe that the trademark owner deserves to get the domain.
This reasoning was the basis of the ACPA (see link in earlier message) and I think that law is fair, reasonable, and in the interest of the common good.
Mind posting his phone #? I'm sure there are quite a few people here who would like to share some of their feelings with him.
If I had saved it, and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was still his, I would do so. It was available through domain registry lookups on some of his domains and you might still be able to find it, but please don't post it until you have verified that the number you found is his. I would not want to see some innocent bystander being called 24/7 by Slashdot readers.
Haha. Stupid Windows users.
Just because some people are not expert in the use of computers does not make them "stupid". Nor does the fact that they use the same OS (family) as the vast majority of computer users on the planet. What *is* stupid is judging a person's intelligence based solely on their computer expertise and OS choice. I have worked with absolutely brilliant people who just view the computer as a tool. They learn enough to make it work for them and concentrate their mental prowess on things that interest them more. You may well be more skilled in the use of computers than, say, Stephen Hawkings, but I assure you that you are not his intellectual better.
Grow up.
My solid belief in capitalist economic principles suggests to me that there must be some amount I could offer which would be more than he would expect to gain by keeping the domain to himself, and he would sell it to me.
Ah, the capitalist beauty of cyber-blackmail: buy the domain from me, or all of your customers will be bombarded with smut when they try to find you online. Maybe there is not "some amount [you] could offer Mr Zuccarini" given your financial situation and the income he derive from the domain.
Fortunately, we have wise people in the legislature that recognize that capitalist greed does not provide an answer to every problem. In this case, it is what caused the problem.
You people are fooling yourselves. You're just as anonymous as the next guy on this board. I mean, "fmaxwell", does that mean anything to me? No. I label you: Anonymous.
The fact that you do not know me personally does not mean that I am anonymous. Because I have a user ID, there is a history of my postings on Slashdot. If you want to refer to previous postings, you can do so by clicking on my user name. I have chosen an moniker that consists of my first initial and last name and people that I know personally recognize my postings based on that. There are people on Slashdot who like me and others who do not. To claim that everyone online is "anonymous" is to deny that the Internet is a community.
While I recognize that this is "offtopic", I still find it worth saying and it makes little difference to me whether I have 45 karma points or 50.
And only a third as many comments posted.
Well, I agree with him. And I've produced almost 1000 /. postings, have quite some time on here, and was a software engineer before many current /. users were conceived.