"Before I moved to WA, I lived in CA. It is the stated position of the CA attorney general's office that they support and prosecute all CA laws, even if a law is widely known to be unconstitutional and is expected to be overturned in court."
If a law is Unconstitutional, it is therefore ILLEGAL. The Constitution is the highest law in the USA, and no statutory law is allowed to contradict it. I'd think that people who enforce laws should be held liable for eforcing illegal law.
All members of the Armed Forces are held personally liable for the orders they accept and carry out. If a soldier carrys out an illegal order, they are as liable as the superior who gave them that order.
Why shouldn't that principle be applied to all other parts of government?
"Extort ridiculous licensing fees from people wanting to build DVD players "
Which brings me to another point.... With the MPAA controlling who can make PLAYERS for DVD's (IE, it requires a license) doesn't that make them a monopoly under the Sherman Anti-Trust act?
Does not the MPAA completely control the terms by which people can enter the PLAYER market?
I do not like large groups, cartels, orgs, etc, whether they be corporate, labor, or otherwise being allowed any exemption from the anti-trust laws.
"Man, sorry, but I'm afraid that, comprehensibility-wise (I just made up that word, I think), 5 lines of perl is just as bad as 10 pages of c to the general, non-coding public. If you don't code, you don't code, and you won't understand"
You miss my point. It doesn't MATTER if Joe 6-pack can understand it, what matters is that this code is about the length of a single PARAGRAPH on a piece of paper...
It will be harder to demonize. In fact, even the general public might understand the implication of the loss of freedom the DMCA entails if the law has to be so pro-coorporation to protect the MPAA from that little paragraph.
It might make people think about what other paragraph size thoughts and ideas (and code IS the expression of thoughts and ideas) might be illegal that weren't before because of that law.
"The point is that the DMCA is blatantly unconstitutional (as interpreted by the courts [so far]). But the courts unconstituional interpretation doesn't mean that we have to sit back and pretend the king has clothes"
Exactly right. So far DeCSS has been ruled illegal by one mis-informed, conflicted federal "judge" who made the most extreme POSSIBLE interpretation of the DMCA. I'm of course talking about the infamous Kaplan. Kaplan in so ruling ignored prior "fair use" case law, and even those provisions in the DMCA itself! In making linking to DeCSS sites illegal, he extended the law far beyond it's reach as it was written.
There really is no logical basis for Kaplan's decision, until you look at whom he used to work for in the past, in a firm that REPRESENTED one of the plantiffs...
I'm sure that if Kaplan got a case about THIS code in front of him he'd rule the same way. But turning DeCSS from hundreds of lines of incomprehensible gibberish into a mere SEVEN lines of compact code will make the DMCA a lot harder to stand up to public scrutiny.
This could turn the debate from "respectable Hollywood vs those EVIL hackers" into what it should have been to begin with:
IS it the role of the Federal government to use the force of law, and the might and guns of the government to protect industry against their own incompetent "copy protection" schemes?
"(a state judge) is seeking discovery of the identity of a Doe defendant who allegedly posted defamatory material about the judge"
It would be funny if his corrupted highness, MPAA Judge Kaplan were to try this over stuff I and other/.'ers have posted about him...
On second thought, he might be afraid to... Filing such a suit would give the defendant the power of discovery to PROVE all the links between him and the MPAA that made him unqualified to preside over the DeCSS case...
I don't think any society that has laws so complex and numerous that no single individual could possibly learn and understand them all, yet holds anyone accountable to the smallest one (ignorance is no defense) is not free.
We need fewer laws. There really aren't that many laws that are truly vital to maintaining peace and order. To have so many millions of laws, and yet still pass over 60,000 new ones a year is tyranny.
Everyone should be accountable to the law, but the law should not be so complex that ANY educated citizen can't understand them. Complex law does nothing but serve special interests.
Specifically:
1. Lawyers
2. Those rich enough to hire all the lawyers they need.
Complex law does nothing but perpetuate opression of the individual.
The Constitution, is an example of good law. It is VERY plain, and it amazingly compact.
" Then, once they're busted a few good times, and hopefully had the pants sued off of them and some bad media exposure, see what happens."
I think it will only take one or two "busts" by these goons before the public demands that they be stopped.
Politicos like to bend over backwards for corpers because they get their pockets lined. But they can only do so as long as it's politically expedient IE: the public doesn't know, or else, doesn't care. Any public negative reaction will result in pressure on said politicos.
Besides, even if there is no stop to this from the politicos, I think the courts WILL stop them. I don't see how what they are doing is anything but terrorism, extortion, racketeering, blackmail, breaking and entering, etc...
"Evidence" they collect would be totally inadmissable because it was illegally obtained. Courts disdain such evidence when police collect it, I'm certain that they will take an even dimmer view of such evidence collected by a private company.
In fact, presenting such evidence in a court would be the DUMBEST thing this guy could do, he'd be in effect, incriminating himself.
Which is why this whole thing is nothing BUT terrorism. It's meant to frighten.
If I were the target of this terrorist extortionist scumbag, my reaction would be to get a lawyer to send him papers...
In the USA, there are some (horrid) exceptions to the laws that allow police to break laws in seting up stings, etc to catch criminals. However, I'm not aware of any such allowances for private citizens to do this.
There is (legally) no way to get a warrant, or conduct a search without probable cause. Police can search without a warrant (legally, theoretically, though this is being abused lately) only when they are WITNESSING a crime, and have probable cause.
I don't think a private citizen can in any manner get a search warrant.
What this guy is doing is extortion, plain and simple. He's violating more and more serious laws than are the people he is pursuing.
And, any corporation that buys this guys service, or co-operates in any way (including the corp that owns his "service") is comitting multiple felonies.
What will come of it? Will our government have the will to stop corporations from doing this? We shall see.
"The body of work out there under the GPL is quite humongous and therefore I cannot believe that a court would just throw away the GPL"
Good points all, but keep this in mind:
1. The legal system has nothing to do with justice. Justice is only an intended side effect.
2. "Judge" Kaplan... All the logic, law and reason in the WORLD will not convince a biased, conflicted, paid for judge to do the right thing. ANY lowly Federal district judge can make a horrible ruling that will damage the FSF movement for months to years before it's resolved, IF it's resolved. I'm sure M$ is looking for their Kaplan right now.
OK, open source is OK, when it is licensed under licenses like the BSD license where we can steal the code, "embrace and extend" it, and make it proprietary.
But that GNU license is UNFAIR COMPETITION... We can't make a MS Linux without having to reveal our source.. Sniff-Sniff. Why, that's UNAMERICAN to deny Corporate Rights...
Don't you all think that is pretty much what they are saying? That they hate the GPL because it prevents them from taking code and making it proprietary?
Also, I think it is obvious that MS is going to next try to challenge the legality of the GPL. M$ is trying to spin the GPL as evil, anti-American, etc to lawmakers and government types...
Has anyone noticed that the experiment with dolls and children this girl performed was VERY close to the one done in front of the Supreme Court when Thurgood Marhsall argued for striking down Jim Crowe? (Brown vs Board of Education)?
And the results were much the same in 1955 as they were in 2001... This so shocked the court that it provided them a inarguable reason to strike down those horrid, Unconstitutional laws.
What was it about what this girl did was racist? Was it racist because she was white? Is anything said about race by whites that doesn't parrot the philandering "Reverend" Jackson racist?
I don't think so.
This is an example of WHY the race problem will not be solved so long as the dialogue is controlled by the Jesse Jacksons and the guilty white liberal plantation owners.
One point of my original post is this: The 1st Amendment is an almost absolute right to say ANYTHING without political (government) reprisal. This school is a public school. Public school=GOVERNMENT. By what authority does a GOVERNMENT institution have to override the 1st Amendment?
The very fact that certain agendas are "protected" by using PC to censor the opposition, doesn't that more or less prove that the Emperor Has No Clothes?
Think about it: If an opinion can't stand an open debate, doesn't that prove it's falsehood?
Those who advocate shutting people up with censorship, and stifling learning with political correctness are only hurting their own cause. It makes their cause ILLEGITIMATE in the minds of those who DO think for themselves.
" Officially, the school district condemns censorship. As the district decrees, students' constitutional freedoms include the right to free expression and free inquiry."
IN other words, the school district only suppors students constitutional freedoms when they conform to the political agenda of the administrators.
Which defies the purpose of the 1st Amendment. Thhe whole purpose of the 1st Amendment is to protect UNPOPULAR speech. Popular speech (ie that which doesn't offend the establishment powers) never did need protection. Why, even in China, your freedom to loudly praise Mao is unquestioned.
The 1st Amendment exists to protect the rights of those with unpopular beliefs and opinions to express them without POLITICAL (ie governmental) reprisals. Since this is a GOVERNMENT school, that this student is REQUIRED to attend by law, the administration is clearly as bound as the city/county/state government to subordinate itself to the Constitution.
Ever wonder why schools fail to produce educated people these days?
This is an example of why. This girl did a completely rational, logical project, certainly more interesting and MEANINGFUL than the usual HS science fair project. But, because the subject failed the test of "political correctness", this young woman now has to be victimized by "the system".
To put it more clearly, calling PC "politically correct" is itself being politically correct. The proper and honest term is POLITICAL CENSORSHIP.
The very existance of political censorship in academia stifles free speech, free thought, creativity, etc. IN other words, it stifles the WHOLE PROCESS by which we think and discover new things!!!
Unless eradicated, PC will bring down our ability to compete in the world of ideas. It can stop progress, halt technological advancement, etc.
Think about the problem of race relations... And it IS a problem. How are we going to ever discover a solution, unless we honestly and scientifically research the PROBLEM?
The PC movement doesn't want this problem delt with in an open and honest (and effective) manner because the required solution just MAY be found to be different than what the mostly leftist-socialist agenda that PC serves!
Thank GOD I went to high school in the 1980's, when the whole idea of "PC" was just a mild joke instead of a dangerous, paralyzing, runious destructive force that is melting the minds of our next generation of thinkers.
"What bloody use the NRA nutters think their guns would be against tanks and fighter-bombers is beyond me"
Good point. However, I must point out that if there was ever a serious revolt against the increaingly Imperial Government, for violating the Constitution (such as outlawing free speech), it's highly unlikely that enough of the US military would obey orders to fire on civillians to be able to act as a cohesive unit. A lot of those tanks and planes would fight on the side of the rebels.
You have to know the difference between police and the military. The police are trained to, and in everyday life, attack and kill US civillians.
The military, on the other hand, are SWORN to uphold the Constitution, and to obey lawful orders. Any soldier, from the lowest private to the highest General are held accountable for obeying LAWFUL orders It is their responsibility to know what is lawful and what is not. Being ordered to attack civillians who are in the process of throwing out government officials who have used their office to supress the Constitution would be unlawful. Doubtless many would obey, but enough would refuse to obey to make using the military useless.
Rifles and pistols are perfectly adequate against "SWAT" team government police stormtroopers. Compared to real soldiers, even the elite police officers are stumbling buffons, as they are only taught how to fight when outgunning and outnumbering the enemy 100-1.
This is one reason why the pro-government types are always against private ownership of weapons. Because with a disarmed population, the government can rule by decree without any fear of reprisal. This is what is happening Down Under... They gave up their guns, and now the government is taking away their other liberties.
Just as all government power ultimately flows from a gun (violate any regulation, no matter how slight, and eventually government agents with guns will come to get you), the only threat to keep the government honest flows from a gun.
Given a choice between lesser performing RAMBUS memory and open standard, less expensive DDR-SDRAM, what memory do you think those companies will choose in the future?
Even Intel has dumped RAMBUS for the future. RAMBUS read the handwriting on the wall over a year ago when Tom's Hardware and other sites discovered that common PC-133 SDRAM outperformed (then)7-8 times more expensive RDRAM. And DDR is faster than PC-133. At that point, RAMBUS started suing everybody...
I think that these memos clearly show that RAMBUS all along intended to violate the legal agreements they had with the JEDEC members. And that they deliberately used JEDEC to get patents, and also to get their patented IP into the SDRAM standard...
Now all it will take is an honest court and judge to hear this case. Which seems to be hard to get these days...
However, time and money is against RAMBUS. RAMBUS is now left completely without friends in an industry that wants to see them gone. Micron, et all have time and revenue on their side... Even Intel is no longet their friend. Intel is speeding up the release of their own DDR chipset for the P4. RAMBUS memory has already failed in the marketplace, and royalties on that is about the only income RAMBUS has to feed their legal machine.
So, one way or another, I think that this is the beginning of the endgame for RAMBUS. They are not developing any new technology (that we know of) to counter DDR. They put all their eggs in the basket of dubious IP and lawyers.
And it will be good for the whole tech industry for RAMBUS to fall in a spectacular and final fashion. The RAMBUS business model (dishonestly patent shady IP then sue everyone) needs to be demonstrated to be a failure.
According to this article at The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/16933.htm l
Windows XP will itself destroy protected audio and video files that do not "authenticate" with the sound and/or video cards.
Take Allchin's statement, alter it to this:
"I'm a Corporatist, I believe in the Corporate Way,'' he said. 'I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
Without Free and Open Source Software, there is no counter to the power of the corporations to control the computer the way they now control TV, radio (about to get even tighter in the digital age), newspapers, etc.
Microsoft's attitudes and despotism in forcing `Doze users to accept that level of unrestricted third control over their own property, will only serve to further our cause.
I never did upgrade to 2000, though I do have a dual boot Red Hat/Doze ME machine for gaming. I certainly will never allow Windows XP (XP which seems to stand for "corporate control eXPeriment") anywhere near any of my machines, especially now that I have broadband.
Why does all this surprise anyone? The avarage college campus of 2001 is probably the LEAST free place to be in the USA.
With PC "speech codes" to some wacko colleges even outlawing ALL male pronouns, things have gotten very stupid.
Professors who dare teach Western literature and history have had their courses cut out or else controlled... Feminist professors get to exclude men from here classes and NOT end up getting fired (what would happen in reverse?).
Should anyone be surprised, that in this atmosphere of TOTAL lack of free speech, or free thought, or ANY freedom to challenge the "truths" of the establishment (left wing) that personal privace is any concern?
In all honesty, these days, if you are going to be anything but a teacher, doctor, or lawyer, avoid college like the plague. Lack of a college degree really won't hinder you at all if you have IT skills and experience. Saving yourself 4 years of falling behind in the job market, and a LOT of money will put you ahead.
If I were a consipracy theroist, I'd almost say that the horrid US educational system, from K-college serves the establishment ruling class (government) by producing ignorant mis-informed robots who do what they are told and don't question authority... Though we haven't QUITE declined to the point where this is reality yet, we are headed there.
I've had similar expereinces. My last was with a USR 56K modem, when not only was I rejected for the rebate, AND the free upgrade to V.90...
Ever since then I ignore rebates. I can't stand it when stores put the rebate IN the price of stuff, such as Best Buy, which listed a 19" monitor at a great price... But read the fine print, it's after REBATE.
Look at the actual sale price you are going to be charged AT the register. Buy the best item at the best price. If you end up getting a rebate, great, but don't count on it.
Companies offer rebates because they expect most people won't fill them out and send them in.. They probably now reject all forms because most of them won't bother to complain...
At this point, I view rebates as a scam. If you want to impress me, take the amount OFF the price!
And DARE has been proven time and again to be a totally worthless program. But because the police receive funding for it, no one will DARE say anything about it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Before I moved to WA, I lived in CA. It is the stated position of the CA attorney general's office that they support and prosecute all CA laws, even if a law is widely known to be unconstitutional and is expected to be overturned in court."
If a law is Unconstitutional, it is therefore ILLEGAL. The Constitution is the highest law in the USA, and no statutory law is allowed to contradict it. I'd think that people who enforce laws should be held liable for eforcing illegal law.
All members of the Armed Forces are held personally liable for the orders they accept and carry out. If a soldier carrys out an illegal order, they are as liable as the superior who gave them that order.
Why shouldn't that principle be applied to all other parts of government?
"Extort ridiculous licensing fees from people wanting to build DVD players "
Which brings me to another point.... With the MPAA controlling who can make PLAYERS for DVD's (IE, it requires a license) doesn't that make them a monopoly under the Sherman Anti-Trust act?
Does not the MPAA completely control the terms by which people can enter the PLAYER market?
I do not like large groups, cartels, orgs, etc, whether they be corporate, labor, or otherwise being allowed any exemption from the anti-trust laws.
"Man, sorry, but I'm afraid that, comprehensibility-wise (I just made up that word, I think), 5 lines of perl is just as bad as 10 pages of c to the general, non-coding public. If you don't code, you don't code, and you won't understand"
You miss my point. It doesn't MATTER if Joe 6-pack can understand it, what matters is that this code is about the length of a single PARAGRAPH on a piece of paper...
It will be harder to demonize. In fact, even the general public might understand the implication of the loss of freedom the DMCA entails if the law has to be so pro-coorporation to protect the MPAA from that little paragraph.
It might make people think about what other paragraph size thoughts and ideas (and code IS the expression of thoughts and ideas) might be illegal that weren't before because of that law.
"The point is that the DMCA is blatantly unconstitutional (as interpreted by the courts [so far]). But the courts unconstituional interpretation doesn't mean that we have to sit back and pretend the king has clothes"
Exactly right. So far DeCSS has been ruled illegal by one mis-informed, conflicted federal "judge" who made the most extreme POSSIBLE interpretation of the DMCA. I'm of course talking about the infamous Kaplan. Kaplan in so ruling ignored prior "fair use" case law, and even those provisions in the DMCA itself! In making linking to DeCSS sites illegal, he extended the law far beyond it's reach as it was written.
There really is no logical basis for Kaplan's decision, until you look at whom he used to work for in the past, in a firm that REPRESENTED one of the plantiffs...
I'm sure that if Kaplan got a case about THIS code in front of him he'd rule the same way. But turning DeCSS from hundreds of lines of incomprehensible gibberish into a mere SEVEN lines of compact code will make the DMCA a lot harder to stand up to public scrutiny.
This could turn the debate from "respectable Hollywood vs those EVIL hackers" into what it should have been to begin with:
IS it the role of the Federal government to use the force of law, and the might and guns of the government to protect industry against their own incompetent "copy protection" schemes?
"(a state judge) is seeking discovery of the identity of a Doe defendant who allegedly posted defamatory material about the judge"
/.'ers have posted about him...
It would be funny if his corrupted highness, MPAA Judge Kaplan were to try this over stuff I and other
On second thought, he might be afraid to... Filing such a suit would give the defendant the power of discovery to PROVE all the links between him and the MPAA that made him unqualified to preside over the DeCSS case...
Name all your files SCREW-THE-RIAA-DMCA-SUCKS-Enter Sandman.mp3
That way they have to specify anti-RIAA names.
I don't think any society that has laws so complex and numerous that no single individual could possibly learn and understand them all, yet holds anyone accountable to the smallest one (ignorance is no defense) is not free.
We need fewer laws. There really aren't that many laws that are truly vital to maintaining peace and order. To have so many millions of laws, and yet still pass over 60,000 new ones a year is tyranny.
Everyone should be accountable to the law, but the law should not be so complex that ANY educated citizen can't understand them. Complex law does nothing but serve special interests.
Specifically:
1. Lawyers
2. Those rich enough to hire all the lawyers they need.
Complex law does nothing but perpetuate opression of the individual.
The Constitution, is an example of good law. It is VERY plain, and it amazingly compact.
" Then, once they're busted a few good times, and hopefully had the pants sued off of them and some bad media exposure, see what happens."
I think it will only take one or two "busts" by these goons before the public demands that they be stopped.
Politicos like to bend over backwards for corpers because they get their pockets lined. But they can only do so as long as it's politically expedient IE: the public doesn't know, or else, doesn't care. Any public negative reaction will result in pressure on said politicos.
Besides, even if there is no stop to this from the politicos, I think the courts WILL stop them. I don't see how what they are doing is anything but terrorism, extortion, racketeering, blackmail, breaking and entering, etc...
"Evidence" they collect would be totally inadmissable because it was illegally obtained. Courts disdain such evidence when police collect it, I'm certain that they will take an even dimmer view of such evidence collected by a private company.
In fact, presenting such evidence in a court would be the DUMBEST thing this guy could do, he'd be in effect, incriminating himself.
Which is why this whole thing is nothing BUT terrorism. It's meant to frighten.
If I were the target of this terrorist extortionist scumbag, my reaction would be to get a lawyer to send him papers...
In the USA, there are some (horrid) exceptions to the laws that allow police to break laws in seting up stings, etc to catch criminals. However, I'm not aware of any such allowances for private citizens to do this.
There is (legally) no way to get a warrant, or conduct a search without probable cause. Police can search without a warrant (legally, theoretically, though this is being abused lately) only when they are WITNESSING a crime, and have probable cause.
I don't think a private citizen can in any manner get a search warrant.
What this guy is doing is extortion, plain and simple. He's violating more and more serious laws than are the people he is pursuing.
And, any corporation that buys this guys service, or co-operates in any way (including the corp that owns his "service") is comitting multiple felonies.
What will come of it? Will our government have the will to stop corporations from doing this? We shall see.
"The body of work out there under the GPL is quite humongous and therefore I cannot believe that a court would just throw away the GPL"
Good points all, but keep this in mind:
1. The legal system has nothing to do with justice. Justice is only an intended side effect.
2. "Judge" Kaplan... All the logic, law and reason in the WORLD will not convince a biased, conflicted, paid for judge to do the right thing. ANY lowly Federal district judge can make a horrible ruling that will damage the FSF movement for months to years before it's resolved, IF it's resolved. I'm sure M$ is looking for their Kaplan right now.
Here's what they are REALLY saying now:
OK, open source is OK, when it is licensed under licenses like the BSD license where we can steal the code, "embrace and extend" it, and make it proprietary.
But that GNU license is UNFAIR COMPETITION... We can't make a MS Linux without having to reveal our source.. Sniff-Sniff. Why, that's UNAMERICAN to deny Corporate Rights...
Don't you all think that is pretty much what they are saying? That they hate the GPL because it prevents them from taking code and making it proprietary?
Also, I think it is obvious that MS is going to next try to challenge the legality of the GPL. M$ is trying to spin the GPL as evil, anti-American, etc to lawmakers and government types...
How do we counter this?
Has anyone noticed that the experiment with dolls and children this girl performed was VERY close to the one done in front of the Supreme Court when Thurgood Marhsall argued for striking down Jim Crowe? (Brown vs Board of Education)?
And the results were much the same in 1955 as they were in 2001... This so shocked the court that it provided them a inarguable reason to strike down those horrid, Unconstitutional laws.
I'm referring to the AP article...
_ st udy/print.html
Unless you think the AP had all their socialists replaced with nazi's overnight?
http://www.salon.com/mwt/wire/2001/02/20/racism
The AP article more or less patterns the story.
Don't you think it's a little extreme to paint an 8 year old girl as a member of the KKK?
Did you read the article?
What was it about what this girl did was racist? Was it racist because she was white? Is anything said about race by whites that doesn't parrot the philandering "Reverend" Jackson racist?
I don't think so.
This is an example of WHY the race problem will not be solved so long as the dialogue is controlled by the Jesse Jacksons and the guilty white liberal plantation owners.
One point of my original post is this: The 1st Amendment is an almost absolute right to say ANYTHING without political (government) reprisal. This school is a public school. Public school=GOVERNMENT. By what authority does a GOVERNMENT institution have to override the 1st Amendment?
VERY commendable post.
I'd only add this point:
The very fact that certain agendas are "protected" by using PC to censor the opposition, doesn't that more or less prove that the Emperor Has No Clothes?
Think about it: If an opinion can't stand an open debate, doesn't that prove it's falsehood?
Those who advocate shutting people up with censorship, and stifling learning with political correctness are only hurting their own cause. It makes their cause ILLEGITIMATE in the minds of those who DO think for themselves.
" Officially, the school district condemns censorship. As the district decrees, students' constitutional freedoms include the right to free expression and free inquiry."
IN other words, the school district only suppors students constitutional freedoms when they conform to the political agenda of the administrators.
Which defies the purpose of the 1st Amendment. Thhe whole purpose of the 1st Amendment is to protect UNPOPULAR speech. Popular speech (ie that which doesn't offend the establishment powers) never did need protection. Why, even in China, your freedom to loudly praise Mao is unquestioned.
The 1st Amendment exists to protect the rights of those with unpopular beliefs and opinions to express them without POLITICAL (ie governmental) reprisals. Since this is a GOVERNMENT school, that this student is REQUIRED to attend by law, the administration is clearly as bound as the city/county/state government to subordinate itself to the Constitution.
Ever wonder why schools fail to produce educated people these days? This is an example of why. This girl did a completely rational, logical project, certainly more interesting and MEANINGFUL than the usual HS science fair project. But, because the subject failed the test of "political correctness", this young woman now has to be victimized by "the system". To put it more clearly, calling PC "politically correct" is itself being politically correct. The proper and honest term is POLITICAL CENSORSHIP. The very existance of political censorship in academia stifles free speech, free thought, creativity, etc. IN other words, it stifles the WHOLE PROCESS by which we think and discover new things!!! Unless eradicated, PC will bring down our ability to compete in the world of ideas. It can stop progress, halt technological advancement, etc. Think about the problem of race relations... And it IS a problem. How are we going to ever discover a solution, unless we honestly and scientifically research the PROBLEM? The PC movement doesn't want this problem delt with in an open and honest (and effective) manner because the required solution just MAY be found to be different than what the mostly leftist-socialist agenda that PC serves! Thank GOD I went to high school in the 1980's, when the whole idea of "PC" was just a mild joke instead of a dangerous, paralyzing, runious destructive force that is melting the minds of our next generation of thinkers.
"What bloody use the NRA nutters think their guns would be against tanks and fighter-bombers is beyond me"
Good point. However, I must point out that if there was ever a serious revolt against the increaingly Imperial Government, for violating the Constitution (such as outlawing free speech), it's highly unlikely that enough of the US military would obey orders to fire on civillians to be able to act as a cohesive unit. A lot of those tanks and planes would fight on the side of the rebels.
You have to know the difference between police and the military. The police are trained to, and in everyday life, attack and kill US civillians.
The military, on the other hand, are SWORN to uphold the Constitution, and to obey lawful orders. Any soldier, from the lowest private to the highest General are held accountable for obeying LAWFUL orders It is their responsibility to know what is lawful and what is not. Being ordered to attack civillians who are in the process of throwing out government officials who have used their office to supress the Constitution would be unlawful. Doubtless many would obey, but enough would refuse to obey to make using the military useless.
Rifles and pistols are perfectly adequate against "SWAT" team government police stormtroopers. Compared to real soldiers, even the elite police officers are stumbling buffons, as they are only taught how to fight when outgunning and outnumbering the enemy 100-1.
This is one reason why the pro-government types are always against private ownership of weapons. Because with a disarmed population, the government can rule by decree without any fear of reprisal. This is what is happening Down Under... They gave up their guns, and now the government is taking away their other liberties.
Just as all government power ultimately flows from a gun (violate any regulation, no matter how slight, and eventually government agents with guns will come to get you), the only threat to keep the government honest flows from a gun.
Given a choice between lesser performing RAMBUS memory and open standard, less expensive DDR-SDRAM, what memory do you think those companies will choose in the future?
Even Intel has dumped RAMBUS for the future. RAMBUS read the handwriting on the wall over a year ago when Tom's Hardware and other sites discovered that common PC-133 SDRAM outperformed (then)7-8 times more expensive RDRAM. And DDR is faster than PC-133. At that point, RAMBUS started suing everybody...
In that case, IMO, if/when RAMBUS loses, the other members of JEDEC should sue RAMBUS's principals.
These memos seem to provide evidence RAMBUS execs were deliberately promoting fraud..
I think that these memos clearly show that RAMBUS all along intended to violate the legal agreements they had with the JEDEC members. And that they deliberately used JEDEC to get patents, and also to get their patented IP into the SDRAM standard...
Now all it will take is an honest court and judge to hear this case. Which seems to be hard to get these days...
However, time and money is against RAMBUS. RAMBUS is now left completely without friends in an industry that wants to see them gone. Micron, et all have time and revenue on their side... Even Intel is no longet their friend. Intel is speeding up the release of their own DDR chipset for the P4. RAMBUS memory has already failed in the marketplace, and royalties on that is about the only income RAMBUS has to feed their legal machine.
So, one way or another, I think that this is the beginning of the endgame for RAMBUS. They are not developing any new technology (that we know of) to counter DDR. They put all their eggs in the basket of dubious IP and lawyers.
And it will be good for the whole tech industry for RAMBUS to fall in a spectacular and final fashion. The RAMBUS business model (dishonestly patent shady IP then sue everyone) needs to be demonstrated to be a failure.
According to this article at The Register:m l
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/16933.ht
Windows XP will itself destroy protected audio and video files that do not "authenticate" with the sound and/or video cards.
Take Allchin's statement, alter it to this:
"I'm a Corporatist, I believe in the Corporate Way,'' he said. 'I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
Without Free and Open Source Software, there is no counter to the power of the corporations to control the computer the way they now control TV, radio (about to get even tighter in the digital age), newspapers, etc.
Microsoft's attitudes and despotism in forcing `Doze users to accept that level of unrestricted third control over their own property, will only serve to further our cause.
I never did upgrade to 2000, though I do have a dual boot Red Hat/Doze ME machine for gaming. I certainly will never allow Windows XP (XP which seems to stand for "corporate control eXPeriment") anywhere near any of my machines, especially now that I have broadband.
Why does all this surprise anyone? The avarage college campus of 2001 is probably the LEAST free place to be in the USA.
With PC "speech codes" to some wacko colleges even outlawing ALL male pronouns, things have gotten very stupid.
Professors who dare teach Western literature and history have had their courses cut out or else controlled... Feminist professors get to exclude men from here classes and NOT end up getting fired (what would happen in reverse?).
Should anyone be surprised, that in this atmosphere of TOTAL lack of free speech, or free thought, or ANY freedom to challenge the "truths" of the establishment (left wing) that personal privace is any concern?
In all honesty, these days, if you are going to be anything but a teacher, doctor, or lawyer, avoid college like the plague. Lack of a college degree really won't hinder you at all if you have IT skills and experience. Saving yourself 4 years of falling behind in the job market, and a LOT of money will put you ahead.
If I were a consipracy theroist, I'd almost say that the horrid US educational system, from K-college serves the establishment ruling class (government) by producing ignorant mis-informed robots who do what they are told and don't question authority... Though we haven't QUITE declined to the point where this is reality yet, we are headed there.
I've had similar expereinces. My last was with a USR 56K modem, when not only was I rejected for the rebate, AND the free upgrade to V.90...
Ever since then I ignore rebates. I can't stand it when stores put the rebate IN the price of stuff, such as Best Buy, which listed a 19" monitor at a great price... But read the fine print, it's after REBATE.
Look at the actual sale price you are going to be charged AT the register. Buy the best item at the best price. If you end up getting a rebate, great, but don't count on it.
Companies offer rebates because they expect most people won't fill them out and send them in.. They probably now reject all forms because most of them won't bother to complain...
At this point, I view rebates as a scam. If you want to impress me, take the amount OFF the price!
And DARE has been proven time and again to be a totally worthless program. But because the police receive funding for it, no one will DARE say anything about it.