The purpose is not to STOP the actions of anything that has occured in the past. As you have pointed out. It's already happened. The point is brought up as a reality check to see if something makes sense, a "thought experiment".
IF this WAS in place BEFORE September 11th WOULD this have in any way prevented what already had happened WITHOUT this, from happening?
If the proposed National ID card isn't supposed to make us safer from terrorist attacks, like what happened on September 11th, then why are we even discussing it? I guess you can just jot off a little note to Ellison and Ashcroft and tell them they need not bother. After all it can't possible STOP what has already happened, right?
but then again you probably already knew that.....
Um, If I am a terrorist who is going to DIE in the attempt of committing a terrorist act, just how is having a valid ID going to stop me?
Example: I've been living in this country for the last 5 years, I have a VALID passport, green card, "mythical national ID card". I have never been arrested. I haven't even gotten a parking ticket. I present it to the person at the airport. It's really me, so they let me on board. I hijack the plane and crash it into a very busy, very public monument.
So how did having yet ANOTHER form of ID stop me from hijacking the plane?
Answer: It didn't.
It's just another way to give the government more power over ordinary citizens without actually doing anything to address the problem that it was intended to solve.
The W3C must realize that ANY fee no, matter how reasonable they may seem, would have the effect of not allowing free and open source developers to participate.
I am sure that you are aware of the fact that the internet as we all know and love/hate it was developed by free and open source software.
Certain commercial developers, have been trying to convert the internet from, "...the greatest democratizing medium..." (ACLU vs. Reno) into yet another commercial morass where they can reap the maximum profit from the unsuspecting populous.
Given that, why would the W3C even concieve of a proposition that favors corporate purse strings over the greater good of the common man, and the internet itself?
We have seen governments try to regulate what we can say (CDA, CDA II, COPA), corporations what we can do (DMCA, SSSCA, DRM) and even ICANN with the warped sense of justice embodied in its UDRP. Does the common internet user now have to be leery of standards bodies like the W3C, which appears to favor corporate interests?
It saddens me to think that people place so little value on human life.
All human life if precious. It's a point I take as an absolute truth. What people choose to do with life, theirs and others, is cause for great concern. People often choose to throw away their lives, squander it. Unfortunately, more often they choose to take the lives of others.
The taking of ANY human life should be avoided whenever possible. War, abortion, "capital punishment" all involves killing. I would hope that people would remember that BEFORE they terminate another life.
There are times when it seem that the taking of another life is unavoidable. Self-defense being the primary one. If someone tried to end your life, or that of someone unable to help themselves, and there is NO OTHER WAY to save your or their life, then regrettably, you may have to take their life.
That said, I would urge people to be especially leery of the redefinition of life. I've read many people here state that "embryo" "human life". To them I would ask, just where do humans come from? People don't just magically emerge from the womb out of nothingness. At some point a fertilized egg becomes a human being. No one seems to argue that point. The argument seems to revolve around when. The safest most morally responsible position to take would be that a human is a human from conception. That would mean that we would have to reexamine many of the things we currently do. If we agreed that human life starts from conception then can we as civilized individuals accept the fact that it is ok to kill people, as long as someone else benefits from it?
Some one mentioned organ donation, I hope you realize that it is illegal to buy or sell organs in the US of A. Anyone know why? It is to keep a market from developing in human organs. If you could sell human organs, there would be an incentive for certain unscrupulous elements of society to murder their fellow man in order to sell off his organs. Sure, we could probably save more lives if hospitals, or other individuals could offer to pay for organs. The next of kin may be more inclined to donate a loved ones organs if they could get 10, 20, 100,000 USD for them. But we don't do it. Why? It's that slippery slope we don't want to be sliding down.
Would it be okay to kill a severely mentally retarded individual to harvest her organs to benefit others? Why not? How about a black man, a Jewish woman, the destitute? Through out history we have defined a class of people as being sub-human, or as the property of others. For a very long time women and children were considered the property of their father/husband to do with as he wished. This lead to children being "exposed" (left outside to die from exposure) and women being beaten and raped by their husbands. Society agreed that this was okay. The ruling German powers during World War II thought nothing of performing cruel (what today we would call inhumane) experiments on people of Jewish descent. To them Jews weren't human. Besides, it could provide untold benefits for humanity. So it's ok right? No?
In my opinion abortion is wrong. The fact that there are fertilized embryo's that are "discarded" as a consequence of invitrofertilisation is very troubling. The thought that untold people don't get a chance to live so that an otherwise infertile couple can procreate is disturbing enough. To think that people are looking to "harvest" embryos for research is chilling.
So, yes, I find embryonic stem cell research to be morally troubling. Treating people as walking spare parts is troubling. Thinking that more embryos will be created as raw material is troubling. It is a short distance from using "discarded - embryos" to creating them especially to research with. Perhaps even a shorter distance than using donated organs from the dead, to killing people for their organs. After all they both serve the function of "saving lives". Oh I forgot, I can say no to you killing me to get my organs, an embryo can't.
If you write me, you pay for the paper, the envelope the stamp. If you call me (barring 1-800 numbers and the silliness that are cell phones) you pay, "it's your dime/quarter/doller" If you fax me it's your cost to call, but it costs me to maintain a fax machine, fill it with paper and ink, etc. With email, you may or may not pay to get an account in order to send email, but I have to pay for the bandwidth you use, the disk space your email takes up, the time wasted to download it. If you want to pay everyone you send you "SPAM" out to, just like the postal service, then you should be able to send whatever junk you want. Just like in real life. Until then, SPAMmer's should STOP stealing my money.
To recap:
postal mail - sender pays, reciever wastes time throwing it out.
phone calls - sender pays, reciver wastes time hanging up.
faxes - sender pays for phone call, reciever pays for fax machine, paper, ink, electricity, time to through it away.
SPAM - sender pays minimum cost (if any), reciever pays for ISP, disk space, bandwidth, electricity, time to download, time to through away. Numerous third parties pay for bandwidth, disk space, servers, electricity, etc. etc. etc.
That's the differnence. "SPAM" faxing is already illegal, "SPAM" emailing should be as well.
Actually, When I last looked into Sat. tv I checked on the whole multiple LNB thing. I had 5 televisions in the house at the time. In any event I didn't want my house to look like I was trying to contact E.T. so I asked how I could get multiple tuners (one for each television).
Originally I was fed the same line about needing a LNB per tuner per television. Worked out to three dishes (2 with 2 LNB's and 1 with 1). Yea right.
Further digging revealed you can use a special splitter with 1 LNB. It was for the Dish Network cost $400 USD at the time (about 2 years ago) and fed 4 tuners off of 1 LNB. Which meant I could get by with 1 dish, 2 LNB's digital splitter and 5 tuners. Upfront cost, before subscription would have set me back about $1200 USD. I dislike the cable company (Adelphia) as much as the next guy, but unlimited televisions at about $35.00 USD a month and no hardware cost kept me with cable.
Perhaps when I'm down to 1 or 2 televisions I'll give Sat. another look.
Only meant for government use, actually only meant for the Social Security and IRS.
What happened? Every Tom, Dick, and Wal-Mart has it, requests it, and uses it to maintain large relatively secret databases (that may or may not be accurate)on you based on it.
Oh yea, they'll only use it to detect terrorists. What country are you living in? It certainly can't be the good ol US of A.
Actually, I believe that the large numbers of people in prison is a direct result of the "War on Drugs".
If you look into those statistics you've quoted, I'm sure you'll notice that the largest proportion of inmates is in prison for NON-violent crimes. Specifically drug related. The current insanity has lead to pot smokers getting minimum 20 year sentences while killing someone while you were drunk driving may get you probation.
Obviously people have forgotten the lessons learned under prohibition. You remember that one don't you? We made alcohol illegal, even passed a constitutional amendment. What happened? Grandmothers became criminals, prison populations went up, and we provided the funding for the Mafia. We had to pass another constitutional amendment to undo the one we passed to make alcohol legal again.
Parallels anyone? How about pot, cocaine, etc. being illegal. Otherwise law abiding citizens are now criminals, prison populations going up, and we are funding the "Triads", "Columbia drug cartels", "Yakuza", "Jamaican posies", maybe even the "Mafia"
Now that we are treating "intellectual property" as real property, (Hint: it isn't) reading, writing, copying, learning are now criminal activities. Even more otherwise law-abiding citizens will be criminals, prison populations will grow even faster, life will generally suck more.
Oh, and I don't think that the "weapons manufactureres"[sic] have too much control. I don't think they have anything to do with it. If you gave every man and woman in the country a gun, I don't think that the murder rate would go up any, who knows, it along with other crimes might even go down.
Murder, theft, rape, physical property destruction, etc. should be crimes. Prostitution, gambling, smoking (tobacco, pot, etc.), doing other drugs (alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy), "intellectual property" misuse (if that's possible) shouldn't be.
Back in high school (many, many, years ago) We spent several weeks going over the symbolism in "America Pie" (In U.S. History class). I have never heard that it was about a "plane crash". There is a plane crash somewhere near the end of the song (third verse maybe, dealing with Vietnam I think). It's a song chronicling the loss of American innocence starting with the assassination of Kennedy in the first verse.
Seeing the magnitude of the "loss of innocence" after the WTC tragedy, I would think this would be a very appropriate song.
*Sigh*
This ostrich attitude is what gets us into trouble. We need to face what happens, grieve, deal, go on.
While most of the world is busy killing each other over race, religion, etc. we haven't been. Why? Because unlike other countries, we have the right (in theory anyway) to TALK about things. You don't like Jews or Catholics, you can yell it to your hearts content. You think Blacks and Hispanics are "mud people", homosexuals are deranged child molesters, write pamphlets hold rallies. It's much better to talk bout these things, argue, try to convince each other than to kill each other over it.
That's where this new thin skin political correctness is back firing. It becomes "bad" and "wrong" to say certain things. People go to jail for things that they say. All that does is push the hate and misconceptions underground where they can't be challenged or recognized. Instead of knowing that Jane Doe hates group x, y and z, society acts all amazed when she goes on a killing spree. We get to hear the news stations report, "Gee no one ever though Jane had it in her", "We can't understand why Jane blew up that mosque."
Well, perhaps if it wasn't illegal for her to say "I think all Arabs are Muslims and all Muslims want to destroy America, therefore I must destroy every mosque around." People might have been able to talk to her and tried to explain that Muslims, like Christians and Jews are basically peace loving people.
If you kill, steal, maim, rape. Those are and should be crimes. If you say, "I think group X should die", "Group Y is defective.", "Group Z should be removed from this country." That should not be.
Criminalizing speech is wrong. Censorship, even well meaning (and I'm not sure how well meaning this is) self censorship is wrong. Someone, whom I can't recall at the moment once said (and I'm probably paraphrasing badly),
"The response to bad speech isn't censorship, but more speech"
It's self censorship as opposed to gov. censorship. THat the most dangerous kind.
If we want to avoid the problems of a single entity dictating what large numbers of people are exposed to we need to insure that there are many differnet voices on the airwaves. That was the point of the restrictions limiting the number of radio/television/newspapers a single company could control in a given market. Unfortunately, the powers that be changed all of that.
I get the feeling that large sums of money changed hands and once again we got what is better for large corporate interests, and worse for the common man.
Until we start voting large numbers of corporate whips OUT of government we can probably expect more of this....
You said:
"... how often does the actual heatsink fall off?"
Well, I opened up my box to install a new stick of RAM and behold, the heatsink of the TNT2 card I had installed a couple of months ago had simply dropped off. It was laying on the back of my sound card. My case is a tower, and the PCI cards rest horizontally. In the case of the vid card, the heatsink, if it was attached, actually hangs from the bottom of the card.
You said;
"The law exists to protect the citizens and since the police enforce the law, it's their job to protect the citizens as well."
Unfortunately, I vaguely remember a few court cases years back (New York, Connecticut maybe) where the police failed to "protect the citizens".
The judge ruled that the job of the police was to "keep the peace" and "enforce the law". That's it. If you being protected happen to align with that good for you, if not.... Let's just say I would invest in that gun and those martial arts classes.
Well,
If you want something that will penalize Microsoft, require a minimum of government oversight, and actually help the economy here's my suggestion:
Step 1.
Require Microsoft to publish the source code and API of all Microsoft products that Microsoft has a monopoly with. (DOS, Win1.x, Win2.x, Win3.x,... WinXP all flavors, All versions of Office, whatever else they have a monopoly in, Internet Explorer?) Have an independent third party confirm that it is accurate as of the date that it is released. Any third party knowledge that is part of the above products that Microsoft licensed is treated as though Microsoft owned all patents and copyrights to it.
Step 2.
Revoke ALL licenses, EULAs, copyrights, and patents that Microsoft holds and prohibit Microsoft from being granted any new patents or copyrights for X years (5, 10 ?).
Step 3.
Provide free support for all government (Federal and State) agencies, public libraries, and public educational institutes, for the same X years as in step 2.
Step 4.
Have Microsoft pay the full cost of prosecuting the case against Microsoft.
That's it.
Step 1 Opens up the playing field. Lets everyone see what's going on and either make their programs compatible, or sell a Win clone. Microsoft doesn't have to provide support unless you have purchased a product from them, except for the exceptions in step 3. Sure Microsoft will probably change the formats the very next day, so what. Everything that people have now, and have had in the past can be made compatible. Step 2 insures that Windows clones can exist, and that even if they do change things it's legal to reverse engineer the changes. Since they have spent so much time bulling people (audits, restrictive licensing, tying) remove their ability to sue, arrest, or otherwise bully OEM's and customers alike. Step 3 makes sure that they provide "community service" to repay "the people". Step 4 is their fine.
If Microsoft "truly" innovates then they should be able to survive. They still have their war chest, the source code for things like their games and Xbox (though they don't have any patent or copyright protection, so sinking Mono will be kind of tough), better keep those as trade secrets for now. Best of all we don't have to rely on the government policing Microsoft.
Microsoft gets to make restitution for it's crimes, remedies some of the damage it has done in the past, and is prevented from doing the same thing for X years.
I don't think it's going to happen, but I wouldn't mind being pleasantly surprised.
someone247356
(just my $0.02 Canadian, before taxes)
"My MP3 encoder is faster than any current Ogg encoder..."
What exactly has that to do with anything? You encode a piece no more than once. Isn't the fact that it's "free" and (to my humble ears at VBR 256) sounds better more important?
Now when the hardware players, sans Digital Rights Management, start hitting the market is when we'll really see things start to take off.
Change "source code" to "automobile" and maybe it will be a little clearer.
How many people out there own a car? How many of those that own a car have every repaired that car themselves? Rebuilt the engine? Reamed out the exhaust?, Added a lift kit? How about changed the oil or spark plugs? Adjusted the timing? I would be willing to wager it's about the same number of people who actually change/modify the source code of an "open source" program/os.
By your reasoning we should start sealing car hoods and "licensing" automobiles with restrictive EULA's that forbid reverse engineering, or modification. I mean what percentage of people actually change anything themselves? Of course that would mean that you would have to have all of your car service done at the manufacturer, or his authorized rep. (read dealer).
Just because most people won't/don't utilize a right doesn't mean we should get rid of it.
The problem is that not ALL "spanking" is abusive.
Children need discipline. I'm not talking about beating them to within an inch of their lives. They need structure. Since there has to be rules, there has to be a consequence for breaking the rules. Like it or not, corporal punishment is the only punishment available that the child doesn't have to agree to.
"Time-out" - child tells you to go fsk yourself.
"Grounding" - child tells you to go fsk yourself and then leaves anyway.
"Clean up/perform service of some kind" - child tells you to go fsk yourself and doesn't do it.
Etc. etc. - you get the picture.
Even if you never have to hit your child, the threat of corporal punishment must exist somewhere in the back of their mind.
"Time-out" or get hit and time-out
"Grounded" or get hit and be grounded
"Clean up/perform service" or get hit and still have to clean up/perform the service.
The only other option is to have kids doing whatever they want, committing various crimes, running rough shod over their parents. Meanwhile their parents are forced to take it out of fear of being turned in by their children for "abusing them".
If you aren't given the tools to discipline your children, they will grow up undisciplined.
Government should stay out of micromanaging the family. They have managed to mess up the rest of society, and their messing this up too.
IANAL but,
From the original complaint.
(http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA/20 01 0606_eff_complaint.html)
"The Declaratory Judgment Act was designed to relieve potential defendants from the Damoclean threat of impending litigation which a harassing adversary might brandish, while initiating suit at his leisure -- or never. The Act permits parties so situated to forestall the accrual of potential damages by suing for a declaratory judgment, once the adverse positions have crystallized and the conflict of interests is real and immediate.
Japan Gas Lighter Ass'n v. Ronson Corp., 57 F.Supp. 219, 237 (D.N.J. 1966). "
What the EFF is curently suing for is; (from the ammended complaint http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA/20010 626_amended_felten_complaint.html)
"Declaratory Relief (First Cause of Action)
A. A declaration that the individual Plaintiffs are not liable under the DMCA for (1)
submitting the SDMI Paper to IHW or the USENIX Security Symposium, or for
presenting or publishing the SDMI Paper at the USENIX Security Symposium or
elsewhere; (2) submitting the ICASSP Paper to the ICASSP conference and
presenting or publishing it in the ICASSP proceedings or elsewhere; and (3)
publishing or presentations based on Chapter 10 of Dr. Wu's dissertation in electronic
form or otherwise.
B. A declaration that Plaintiff USENIX is not civilly liable under the DMCA and is not
subject to criminal liability for publishing the SDMI Paper or presentations based
upon the paper at the USENIX Security Symposium, or elsewhere.
C. A declaration that the Plaintiffs are not liable under the DMCA for the presentation
or publication of any research resulting from, or related to, the SDMI Public
Challenge.
D. A declaration that the DMCA is not violated by the publication or presentation by
the Plaintiffs or others of future scientific and technical information (including computer
code) related to access and copy control measures and copyright management
information systems.
Declaratory Relief (Second Cause of Action)
E. A declaration that the application of the DMCA to the publication or presentation
of the SDMI Paper, the ICASSP Paper, Chapter 10 of Dr. Wu's dissertation and/or
any scientific, technical or academic research related to the SDMI Public Challenge
violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
F. A declaration that the DMCA is unconstitutional on its face because it violates the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
G. A declaration that the application of the DMCA to the publication or presentation
of scientific, academic or technical speech, including the publication of computer
programs, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Declaratory Relief (Third Cause of Action)
H. A declaration that the individual Plaintiffs did not and will not violate the
Click-Through Agreement by (1) submitting the SDMI Paper to IHW or the
USENIX Security Symposium, or for presenting or publishing the SDMI Paper at the
USENIX Security Symposium or elsewhere; and (2) submitting the ICASSP Paper
to the ICASSP conference and presenting or publishing it in the ICASSP proceedings
or elsewhere; and (3) by Dr. Wu writing, defending and publishing Chapter 10 of her
dissertation in electronic form or otherwise.
Declaratory Relief (Fourth Cause of Action)
I. A declaration that the DMCA is unconstitutional because it is not a valid exercise of
any of Congress' enumerated powers.
Injunctive Relief
J. A preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining the private Defendants, the Doe
Defendants and their respective agents, employees, attorneys, successors in office,
assistants and all persons acting in concert with them from initiating an action against
Actually, I believe that WPA is only applicable to retail packages of WinXP. Large enterprise customers would have a license (a "relationship" in MS speak) and their version wouldn't require WPA.
I think I read it as someone signs an X year contract and then they raise the rates. You know, buy this computer for only $699.00 * (* Buyer agrees to subscribe to XYZ Isp for 5 years at $21.95 per month). After you are locked into a multiyear contract, THEN they raise the rates.
Slashdot Mirror
Um.... I think YOU are missing the point here.
The purpose is not to STOP the actions of anything that has occured in the past. As you have pointed out. It's already happened. The point is brought up as a reality check to see if something makes sense, a "thought experiment".
IF this WAS in place BEFORE September 11th WOULD this have in any way prevented what already had happened WITHOUT this, from happening?
If the proposed National ID card isn't supposed to make us safer from terrorist attacks, like what happened on September 11th, then why are we even discussing it? I guess you can just jot off a little note to Ellison and Ashcroft and tell them they need not bother. After all it can't possible STOP what has already happened, right?
but then again you probably already knew that.....
Um, If I am a terrorist who is going to DIE in the attempt of committing a terrorist act, just how is having a valid ID going to stop me?
Example: I've been living in this country for the last 5 years, I have a VALID passport, green card, "mythical national ID card". I have never been arrested. I haven't even gotten a parking ticket. I present it to the person at the airport. It's really me, so they let me on board. I hijack the plane and crash it into a very busy, very public monument.
So how did having yet ANOTHER form of ID stop me from hijacking the plane?
Answer: It didn't.
It's just another way to give the government more power over ordinary citizens without actually doing anything to address the problem that it was intended to solve.
The W3C must realize that ANY fee no, matter how reasonable they may seem, would have the effect of not allowing free and open source developers to participate.
I am sure that you are aware of the fact that the internet as we all know and love/hate it was developed by free and open source software.
Certain commercial developers, have been trying to convert the internet from, "...the greatest democratizing medium..." (ACLU vs. Reno) into yet another commercial morass where they can reap the maximum profit from the unsuspecting populous.
Given that, why would the W3C even concieve of a proposition that favors corporate purse strings over the greater good of the common man, and the internet itself?
We have seen governments try to regulate what we can say (CDA, CDA II, COPA), corporations what we can do (DMCA, SSSCA, DRM) and even ICANN with the warped sense of justice embodied in its UDRP. Does the common internet user now have to be leery of standards bodies like the W3C, which appears to favor corporate interests?
*sigh*
It saddens me to think that people place so little value on human life.
All human life if precious. It's a point I take as an absolute truth. What people choose to do with life, theirs and others, is cause for great concern. People often choose to throw away their lives, squander it. Unfortunately, more often they choose to take the lives of others.
The taking of ANY human life should be avoided whenever possible. War, abortion, "capital punishment" all involves killing. I would hope that people would remember that BEFORE they terminate another life.
There are times when it seem that the taking of another life is unavoidable. Self-defense being the primary one. If someone tried to end your life, or that of someone unable to help themselves, and there is NO OTHER WAY to save your or their life, then regrettably, you may have to take their life.
That said, I would urge people to be especially leery of the redefinition of life. I've read many people here state that "embryo" "human life". To them I would ask, just where do humans come from? People don't just magically emerge from the womb out of nothingness. At some point a fertilized egg becomes a human being. No one seems to argue that point. The argument seems to revolve around when. The safest most morally responsible position to take would be that a human is a human from conception. That would mean that we would have to reexamine many of the things we currently do. If we agreed that human life starts from conception then can we as civilized individuals accept the fact that it is ok to kill people, as long as someone else benefits from it?
Some one mentioned organ donation, I hope you realize that it is illegal to buy or sell organs in the US of A. Anyone know why? It is to keep a market from developing in human organs. If you could sell human organs, there would be an incentive for certain unscrupulous elements of society to murder their fellow man in order to sell off his organs. Sure, we could probably save more lives if hospitals, or other individuals could offer to pay for organs. The next of kin may be more inclined to donate a loved ones organs if they could get 10, 20, 100,000 USD for them. But we don't do it. Why? It's that slippery slope we don't want to be sliding down.
Would it be okay to kill a severely mentally retarded individual to harvest her organs to benefit others? Why not? How about a black man, a Jewish woman, the destitute? Through out history we have defined a class of people as being sub-human, or as the property of others. For a very long time women and children were considered the property of their father/husband to do with as he wished. This lead to children being "exposed" (left outside to die from exposure) and women being beaten and raped by their husbands. Society agreed that this was okay. The ruling German powers during World War II thought nothing of performing cruel (what today we would call inhumane) experiments on people of Jewish descent. To them Jews weren't human. Besides, it could provide untold benefits for humanity. So it's ok right? No?
In my opinion abortion is wrong. The fact that there are fertilized embryo's that are "discarded" as a consequence of invitrofertilisation is very troubling. The thought that untold people don't get a chance to live so that an otherwise infertile couple can procreate is disturbing enough. To think that people are looking to "harvest" embryos for research is chilling.
So, yes, I find embryonic stem cell research to be morally troubling. Treating people as walking spare parts is troubling. Thinking that more embryos will be created as raw material is troubling. It is a short distance from using "discarded - embryos" to creating them especially to research with. Perhaps even a shorter distance than using donated organs from the dead, to killing people for their organs. After all they both serve the function of "saving lives". Oh I forgot, I can say no to you killing me to get my organs, an embryo can't.
Well, I think the point is one of cost.
If you write me, you pay for the paper, the envelope the stamp. If you call me (barring 1-800 numbers and the silliness that are cell phones) you pay, "it's your dime/quarter/doller" If you fax me it's your cost to call, but it costs me to maintain a fax machine, fill it with paper and ink, etc. With email, you may or may not pay to get an account in order to send email, but I have to pay for the bandwidth you use, the disk space your email takes up, the time wasted to download it. If you want to pay everyone you send you "SPAM" out to, just like the postal service, then you should be able to send whatever junk you want. Just like in real life. Until then, SPAMmer's should STOP stealing my money.
To recap:
postal mail - sender pays, reciever wastes time throwing it out.
phone calls - sender pays, reciver wastes time hanging up.
faxes - sender pays for phone call, reciever pays for fax machine, paper, ink, electricity, time to through it away.
SPAM - sender pays minimum cost (if any), reciever pays for ISP, disk space, bandwidth, electricity, time to download, time to through away. Numerous third parties pay for bandwidth, disk space, servers, electricity, etc. etc. etc.
That's the differnence. "SPAM" faxing is already illegal, "SPAM" emailing should be as well.
Actually, When I last looked into Sat. tv I checked on the whole multiple LNB thing. I had 5 televisions in the house at the time. In any event I didn't want my house to look like I was trying to contact E.T. so I asked how I could get multiple tuners (one for each television).
Originally I was fed the same line about needing a LNB per tuner per television. Worked out to three dishes (2 with 2 LNB's and 1 with 1). Yea right.
Further digging revealed you can use a special splitter with 1 LNB. It was for the Dish Network cost $400 USD at the time (about 2 years ago) and fed 4 tuners off of 1 LNB. Which meant I could get by with 1 dish, 2 LNB's digital splitter and 5 tuners. Upfront cost, before subscription would have set me back about $1200 USD. I dislike the cable company (Adelphia) as much as the next guy, but unlimited televisions at about $35.00 USD a month and no hardware cost kept me with cable.
Perhaps when I'm down to 1 or 2 televisions I'll give Sat. another look.
You mean like social security numbers?
Only meant for government use, actually only meant for the Social Security and IRS.
What happened? Every Tom, Dick, and Wal-Mart has it, requests it, and uses it to maintain large relatively secret databases (that may or may not be accurate)on you based on it.
Oh yea, they'll only use it to detect terrorists. What country are you living in? It certainly can't be the good ol US of A.
*sigh*
Why is it wrong for China to take over Tibet, or Taiwan, for Serbia to take over Kosovo, but it's ok for England to take over a part or Ireland?
Just a thought.
Actually, I believe that the large numbers of people in prison is a direct result of the "War on Drugs".
If you look into those statistics you've quoted, I'm sure you'll notice that the largest proportion of inmates is in prison for NON-violent crimes. Specifically drug related. The current insanity has lead to pot smokers getting minimum 20 year sentences while killing someone while you were drunk driving may get you probation.
Obviously people have forgotten the lessons learned under prohibition. You remember that one don't you? We made alcohol illegal, even passed a constitutional amendment. What happened? Grandmothers became criminals, prison populations went up, and we provided the funding for the Mafia. We had to pass another constitutional amendment to undo the one we passed to make alcohol legal again.
Parallels anyone? How about pot, cocaine, etc. being illegal. Otherwise law abiding citizens are now criminals, prison populations going up, and we are funding the "Triads", "Columbia drug cartels", "Yakuza", "Jamaican posies", maybe even the "Mafia"
Now that we are treating "intellectual property" as real property, (Hint: it isn't) reading, writing, copying, learning are now criminal activities. Even more otherwise law-abiding citizens will be criminals, prison populations will grow even faster, life will generally suck more.
Oh, and I don't think that the "weapons manufactureres"[sic] have too much control. I don't think they have anything to do with it. If you gave every man and woman in the country a gun, I don't think that the murder rate would go up any, who knows, it along with other crimes might even go down.
Murder, theft, rape, physical property destruction, etc. should be crimes. Prostitution, gambling, smoking (tobacco, pot, etc.), doing other drugs (alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy), "intellectual property" misuse (if that's possible) shouldn't be.
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Huh?
Back in high school (many, many, years ago) We spent several weeks going over the symbolism in "America Pie" (In U.S. History class). I have never heard that it was about a "plane crash". There is a plane crash somewhere near the end of the song (third verse maybe, dealing with Vietnam I think). It's a song chronicling the loss of American innocence starting with the assassination of Kennedy in the first verse.
Seeing the magnitude of the "loss of innocence" after the WTC tragedy, I would think this would be a very appropriate song.
*Sigh*
This ostrich attitude is what gets us into trouble. We need to face what happens, grieve, deal, go on.
While most of the world is busy killing each other over race, religion, etc. we haven't been. Why? Because unlike other countries, we have the right (in theory anyway) to TALK about things. You don't like Jews or Catholics, you can yell it to your hearts content. You think Blacks and Hispanics are "mud people", homosexuals are deranged child molesters, write pamphlets hold rallies. It's much better to talk bout these things, argue, try to convince each other than to kill each other over it.
That's where this new thin skin political correctness is back firing. It becomes "bad" and "wrong" to say certain things. People go to jail for things that they say. All that does is push the hate and misconceptions underground where they can't be challenged or recognized. Instead of knowing that Jane Doe hates group x, y and z, society acts all amazed when she goes on a killing spree. We get to hear the news stations report, "Gee no one ever though Jane had it in her", "We can't understand why Jane blew up that mosque."
Well, perhaps if it wasn't illegal for her to say "I think all Arabs are Muslims and all Muslims want to destroy America, therefore I must destroy every mosque around." People might have been able to talk to her and tried to explain that Muslims, like Christians and Jews are basically peace loving people.
If you kill, steal, maim, rape. Those are and should be crimes. If you say, "I think group X should die", "Group Y is defective.", "Group Z should be removed from this country." That should not be.
Criminalizing speech is wrong. Censorship, even well meaning (and I'm not sure how well meaning this is) self censorship is wrong. Someone, whom I can't recall at the moment once said (and I'm probably paraphrasing badly),
"The response to bad speech isn't censorship, but more speech"
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Actually it does.
It's self censorship as opposed to gov. censorship. THat the most dangerous kind.
If we want to avoid the problems of a single entity dictating what large numbers of people are exposed to we need to insure that there are many differnet voices on the airwaves. That was the point of the restrictions limiting the number of radio/television/newspapers a single company could control in a given market. Unfortunately, the powers that be changed all of that.
I get the feeling that large sums of money changed hands and once again we got what is better for large corporate interests, and worse for the common man.
Until we start voting large numbers of corporate whips OUT of government we can probably expect more of this....
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
You said:
"... how often does the actual heatsink fall off?"
Well, I opened up my box to install a new stick of RAM and behold, the heatsink of the TNT2 card I had installed a couple of months ago had simply dropped off. It was laying on the back of my sound card. My case is a tower, and the PCI cards rest horizontally. In the case of the vid card, the heatsink, if it was attached, actually hangs from the bottom of the card.
So, heatsinks do "just fall off"
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Actually I DON'T support capital punishment.
Do you?
If you do, do you support abortion?
How can anyone justify one without justifying the other?
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
You said;
"The law exists to protect the citizens and since the police enforce the law, it's their job to protect the citizens as well."
Unfortunately, I vaguely remember a few court cases years back (New York, Connecticut maybe) where the police failed to "protect the citizens".
The judge ruled that the job of the police was to "keep the peace" and "enforce the law". That's it. If you being protected happen to align with that good for you, if not.... Let's just say I would invest in that gun and those martial arts classes.
Well,
... WinXP all flavors, All versions of Office, whatever else they have a monopoly in, Internet Explorer?) Have an independent third party confirm that it is accurate as of the date that it is released. Any third party knowledge that is part of the above products that Microsoft licensed is treated as though Microsoft owned all patents and copyrights to it.
If you want something that will penalize Microsoft, require a minimum of government oversight, and actually help the economy here's my suggestion:
Step 1.
Require Microsoft to publish the source code and API of all Microsoft products that Microsoft has a monopoly with. (DOS, Win1.x, Win2.x, Win3.x,
Step 2.
Revoke ALL licenses, EULAs, copyrights, and patents that Microsoft holds and prohibit Microsoft from being granted any new patents or copyrights for X years (5, 10 ?).
Step 3.
Provide free support for all government (Federal and State) agencies, public libraries, and public educational institutes, for the same X years as in step 2.
Step 4.
Have Microsoft pay the full cost of prosecuting the case against Microsoft.
That's it.
Step 1 Opens up the playing field. Lets everyone see what's going on and either make their programs compatible, or sell a Win clone. Microsoft doesn't have to provide support unless you have purchased a product from them, except for the exceptions in step 3. Sure Microsoft will probably change the formats the very next day, so what. Everything that people have now, and have had in the past can be made compatible. Step 2 insures that Windows clones can exist, and that even if they do change things it's legal to reverse engineer the changes. Since they have spent so much time bulling people (audits, restrictive licensing, tying) remove their ability to sue, arrest, or otherwise bully OEM's and customers alike. Step 3 makes sure that they provide "community service" to repay "the people". Step 4 is their fine.
If Microsoft "truly" innovates then they should be able to survive. They still have their war chest, the source code for things like their games and Xbox (though they don't have any patent or copyright protection, so sinking Mono will be kind of tough), better keep those as trade secrets for now. Best of all we don't have to rely on the government policing Microsoft.
Microsoft gets to make restitution for it's crimes, remedies some of the damage it has done in the past, and is prevented from doing the same thing for X years.
I don't think it's going to happen, but I wouldn't mind being pleasantly surprised.
someone247356
(just my $0.02 Canadian, before taxes)
Ugggg.....
Repeat after me;
"DNS is NOT a keyword system. DNS is NOT a keyword system. DNS is NOT a keyword system."
Why do people keep insisting that it is, and then complain when it isn't?
I don't get it. I always seem to hear that,
"My MP3 encoder is faster than any current Ogg encoder..."
What exactly has that to do with anything? You encode a piece no more than once. Isn't the fact that it's "free" and (to my humble ears at VBR 256) sounds better more important?
Now when the hardware players, sans Digital Rights Management, start hitting the market is when we'll really see things start to take off.
Well, to add my little bit;
Change "source code" to "automobile" and maybe it will be a little clearer.
How many people out there own a car? How many of those that own a car have every repaired that car themselves? Rebuilt the engine? Reamed out the exhaust?, Added a lift kit? How about changed the oil or spark plugs? Adjusted the timing? I would be willing to wager it's about the same number of people who actually change/modify the source code of an "open source" program/os.
By your reasoning we should start sealing car hoods and "licensing" automobiles with restrictive EULA's that forbid reverse engineering, or modification. I mean what percentage of people actually change anything themselves? Of course that would mean that you would have to have all of your car service done at the manufacturer, or his authorized rep. (read dealer).
Just because most people won't/don't utilize a right doesn't mean we should get rid of it.
Um, I hate to be picking nits here, but how does;
"./configure --disable-double-buffer"
ENABLE double buffering??
The problem is that not ALL "spanking" is abusive.
Children need discipline. I'm not talking about beating them to within an inch of their lives. They need structure. Since there has to be rules, there has to be a consequence for breaking the rules. Like it or not, corporal punishment is the only punishment available that the child doesn't have to agree to.
"Time-out" - child tells you to go fsk yourself.
"Grounding" - child tells you to go fsk yourself and then leaves anyway.
"Clean up/perform service of some kind" - child tells you to go fsk yourself and doesn't do it.
Etc. etc. - you get the picture.
Even if you never have to hit your child, the threat of corporal punishment must exist somewhere in the back of their mind.
"Time-out" or get hit and time-out
"Grounded" or get hit and be grounded
"Clean up/perform service" or get hit and still have to clean up/perform the service.
The only other option is to have kids doing whatever they want, committing various crimes, running rough shod over their parents. Meanwhile their parents are forced to take it out of fear of being turned in by their children for "abusing them".
If you aren't given the tools to discipline your children, they will grow up undisciplined.
Government should stay out of micromanaging the family. They have managed to mess up the rest of society, and their messing this up too.
You said; " (i.e. ethnic races)"
Ugg....
Why do people always want to refer to caucasions vs negroid vs asiatic differences as "races"?
Wouldn't it be more apropo to consider us breeds? Like poodles vs terriers vs boxers etc.
You wrote; "And 355/113 is even easy to remember. One One Three over Three Five Five..."
Shouldn't you have said Three Five Five over One One Three??
IANAL but,0 01 0606_eff_complaint.html)
0 626_amended_felten_complaint.html)
From the original complaint.
(http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA/2
"The Declaratory Judgment Act was designed to relieve potential defendants from the Damoclean threat of impending litigation which a harassing adversary might brandish, while initiating suit at his leisure -- or never. The Act permits parties so situated to forestall the accrual of potential damages by suing for a declaratory judgment, once the adverse positions have crystallized and the conflict of interests is real and immediate.
Japan Gas Lighter Ass'n v. Ronson Corp., 57 F.Supp. 219, 237 (D.N.J. 1966). "
What the EFF is curently suing for is; (from the ammended complaint http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA/2001
"Declaratory Relief (First Cause of Action)
A. A declaration that the individual Plaintiffs are not liable under the DMCA for (1)
submitting the SDMI Paper to IHW or the USENIX Security Symposium, or for
presenting or publishing the SDMI Paper at the USENIX Security Symposium or
elsewhere; (2) submitting the ICASSP Paper to the ICASSP conference and
presenting or publishing it in the ICASSP proceedings or elsewhere; and (3)
publishing or presentations based on Chapter 10 of Dr. Wu's dissertation in electronic
form or otherwise.
B. A declaration that Plaintiff USENIX is not civilly liable under the DMCA and is not
subject to criminal liability for publishing the SDMI Paper or presentations based
upon the paper at the USENIX Security Symposium, or elsewhere.
C. A declaration that the Plaintiffs are not liable under the DMCA for the presentation
or publication of any research resulting from, or related to, the SDMI Public
Challenge.
D. A declaration that the DMCA is not violated by the publication or presentation by
the Plaintiffs or others of future scientific and technical information (including computer
code) related to access and copy control measures and copyright management
information systems.
Declaratory Relief (Second Cause of Action)
E. A declaration that the application of the DMCA to the publication or presentation
of the SDMI Paper, the ICASSP Paper, Chapter 10 of Dr. Wu's dissertation and/or
any scientific, technical or academic research related to the SDMI Public Challenge
violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
F. A declaration that the DMCA is unconstitutional on its face because it violates the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
G. A declaration that the application of the DMCA to the publication or presentation
of scientific, academic or technical speech, including the publication of computer
programs, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Declaratory Relief (Third Cause of Action)
H. A declaration that the individual Plaintiffs did not and will not violate the
Click-Through Agreement by (1) submitting the SDMI Paper to IHW or the
USENIX Security Symposium, or for presenting or publishing the SDMI Paper at the
USENIX Security Symposium or elsewhere; and (2) submitting the ICASSP Paper
to the ICASSP conference and presenting or publishing it in the ICASSP proceedings
or elsewhere; and (3) by Dr. Wu writing, defending and publishing Chapter 10 of her
dissertation in electronic form or otherwise.
Declaratory Relief (Fourth Cause of Action)
I. A declaration that the DMCA is unconstitutional because it is not a valid exercise of
any of Congress' enumerated powers.
Injunctive Relief
J. A preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining the private Defendants, the Doe
Defendants and their respective agents, employees, attorneys, successors in office,
assistants and all persons acting in concert with them from initiating an action against
Actually, I believe that WPA is only applicable to retail packages of WinXP. Large enterprise customers would have a license (a "relationship" in MS speak) and their version wouldn't require WPA.
I think I read it as someone signs an X year contract and then they raise the rates. You know, buy this computer for only $699.00 * (* Buyer agrees to subscribe to XYZ Isp for 5 years at $21.95 per month). After you are locked into a multiyear contract, THEN they raise the rates.
You can't exactly change Isp's.
At least that's how I read his statement.