This is censorship of the worst kind. The TV companies have a government-enforced monopoly over the public airwaves, and are using it to suppress political speech.
I'm not really a developer, but as a reforming MS user, I think there'd be a lot of potential for teaching people the basics of how Linux differs from Windows and why it's different (and in most cases, better).
The junkie analogy is pretty accurate here: A lot of people who use Windows actually hate Microsoft as much as or more than most Linux geeks, and would like to quit if only they could. I suspect most/.ers fall into this catagory, given the (often justified) MS bashing on the site combined with the high percentage of people using IE.
Many Windows users also like the idea of open-source (free beer and free speech are both seen as good things...), even if they don't personally want to look at or edit source code.
Aren't they specifically excluded from tax, thanks to the "Internet Tax Freedom Act" or whatever? Most mail order purchases are also tax-free if the buyer and seller are in different states.
This is totally unfair, of course. (Whether you think sales tax or tax in general is good or bad doesn't matter: The point is that all purchases should be treated the same.) But then, so is much or the tax code.
This is one of the best comments I've ever read on/., but one small point: Even if humans were perfectly rational (which, as you point out, they're not), they wouldn't spend all day reading contracts before they entered into any kind of transaction. An individual's time is limited, and so unless a lot is at stake, the rational thing to do is not to read every single click-through license, but to rely on another agency --- like, say, the government.
A large corporation can afford to pore over contracts in detail, because the cost of hiring lawyers (or equivalent people who argue over contracts in the lawless libertarian world) is usually trivial compared to the amounts of money involved, but an individual person can't.
I really can't see a lot of authors supporting any kind of draconian restrictions on book sales (which isn't what the society of authors is doing: it's simply asking politely if Amazon will display used books less prominently, not threatenign legal action. People who write books also like to read them, and appreciate the chance to do so for free, or for less money than they would otherwise have to pay. Amazon is helping this.
However, people should be aware that the "used" sections of Amazon are just like ebay, in the sense that customers are buying from an unknown third party and so are at risk of fraud. Also, the default shipping option is "media mail", which takes up to 1 month within the 48 states and literally years internationally. For exploring books by unknown (to me) authors, I prefer real world used book stores: instant gratification, no risk and (especially once shipping is taken into account) usually a lot cheaper.
Simply making everything illegal doesn't give the police ultimate power, though I agree that it is worrying. Juries tend not to convict people for "crimes" that everyone commits, so the system would have to abandon the whole idea of due process.
This was actually considered by the UK government, because so many people have realized that juries won't send a person to jail for something like smoking cannabis. Thankfully, it was later dropped, but I'm sure it'll come back in some form.
There's a very obvious solution, and that's to enforce competition over the existing copper wires and TV cables, but not new infrastructure. The rationale is that these wires were built either by the government (most countries) or by a government-granted monopoly (the U.S.), not by a company in a competitive market.
This way, CLECs and DLECs can offer cheap DSL, but anyone (incumbent phone provider or not) can build their own fiber or wireless connection (subject to getting radio spectrum, permission to dig up the streets, etc.) and charge what they want for it.
Ah, but the record companies will know where you live. You'll have to tell them whenever you buy a CD. This way, they can be sure that they get accurate "opt-in" marketing information, instead of hundreds of people claiming to live in zipcode "12345."
And don't even think of copying to a less restrictive technology: Under the CBDTPA, use of such circumvention measures will mean that you spend ten years with your address as "federal penitentiary."
There's hardly any oil under the Gulf of Mexico. There used to be a lot of oil in the U.S., but we've used it all up. U.S. oil production peaked in the 1970s, and has been declining ever since. Most oil imports to the U.S. now come from South America, but the oil is running out there too, hence the American interest in the Middle East.
The largest remaining reserves are in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, with other significant fields in parts of the former Soviet Union (though its production too is declining --- it just started drilling later than the U.S. and had a larger land area). Canada has huge amounts of shale that contains oil, but no-one has yet figured out an efficient way to extract it.
This geology site has detailed information on oil reserves worldwide.
Criminals already use disposable phones, in the sense that they steal them from other people and then throw them away to avoid being traced. Not that I think the disposable phone is a particularly good idea, but it won't make "phone crime" any worse.
A patent is a temporary monopoly on a process granted in exhcange for a description of how it works. This means that software patents ought to include source code for whatever program is being patented, and pass into the public domain after 20 years (or however long the patent is valid).
What about personal firewalls?
on
Spy v. Spy
·
· Score: 2
Does anyone know how personal firewalls affect this spyware? Can they be set to prevent the spyware reporting back to Big Brother, or do the programs have some way of tunneling through them?
"Free as in speech" is actually more free, because it leads to being free as in beer: You can buy one copy, and then make a million copies for nothing.
They don't have to arrest hundreds of thousands of people (though I'm sure the prison industry, a major campaign contributor to both parties, will push for this). They can just introduce laws like the DMCA and the CBDTPA which make it more difficult for consumers to actually make copies, by restricting the manufacture of copying devices. We won't see widespread civil disobediance from the PC makers who the latter affects.
Technically-inclined people will still make copies, and many of us will get away (just like most drug users are not actually arrested), but the mere threat of imprisonment combined with the difficulty of copying will persuade many people to comply with whatever the MPAA demands.
CSS is involved more if someone is copying a VHS tape to DVD, because they at least need to encode the picture using CSS (a feature built in to DVD recorders). Copying a DVD to a DVD doesn't require any knowledge of CSS at all: Just make a perfect bit-by-bit digital copy. To the copier, it's irrelevant whether the DVD contains CSS-encoded video, software, or random junk data.
The latter case (DVD to DVD) is obviously a better deal for the buyer, though it won't necessarilly be the same as the official DVD. If it's made from a pre-release disk sent to insiders, it won't contain all those "extras" that go into DVDs, and could be an earlier cut of the movie than the one eventually used.
Re:this reminds me of a trick for telemarketers
on
He Writes Back
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You are hurting the annoying company, in the sense that for a while you take their minimum wage slaves away from harassing other innocent people. This means that either:
The company will have to hire more salesdroids, reducing its profit but providing a job for someone otherwise unemployable, or
The salesdroid is unable to call as many people during her shift, which reduces the companies sales but benefits all the people who would otherwise have been harassed.
There are more constructive ways to fight evil corporations, but if you have a vindictive personality (and most of us do) this can be satisfying.
Perhaps Slashdot should consider switching to IIS 5.0 or.NET server
If this bill is passed, it will have to: The use of any Free operating system (and thanks to Microsoft's DRM patent, perhaps even any non-Microsoft operating system) will become a felony, punishable by up to five years of fedrally-approved anal rape.
I once worked in a bar in Ohio, and we were ordered not to accept anything except an Ohio drivers' license as ID. I got round this by not asking for any ID at all. ("They looked over 40 to me.") Note to bar-tenders: Underage people are often very grateful, and show this in tips.
You do have to question the sanity of a government that tries to reduce drink driving by requiring that only drivers can buy alcohol.
All this is true, but the movement is actually very Free and democratic: Linus is only in charge because people want him as leader. Thanks to the GPL, you or I could take Linux, fork it and create our own rival open-source kernel. The only thing we couldn't do is call it "Linux".
Also, I'm not sure if the KDE and GNOME competition is always that good a thing. It may spur innovation, but it can also be confusing to outsiders.
It could make a huge difference to small Web sites that rely on referrals to defray bandwidth costs. Linking to relevant books on Amazon (or bn) can often make more than banner ads. If a significant proportion of users have Morpheus installed (not an unreasonable assumption), the other referring sites could go under.
I know I'll be checking that any referral programs my Web site participates in aren't on Morpheus's hitlist, and switching to a competitor if they are. I expect others to do the same, thus giving retailers like Amazon a real incentive to make sure that they don't pay anything out to Morpheus.
My guess is that the "poor sales" they referred to were actually poor sales of Windows (ie. only 99% of Dell PCs were shipping with Windows, as opposed to the 100% that is required in Gates's "competitive marketplace").
I wonder if Dell will have anything to say. The article just has comments from the states and Microsoft.
If they blocked my Internet access, I might have to get up and walk across the office to talk to my co-workers. Or go out to a bar for a long liquid lunch instead of reading/. Maybe even leave work on time and rediscover the joys of real life (or more realistically, TV). Might not be so bad.
Seriously, "lost productivity" isn't really an IT or technology issue. ("Let's get rid of the coffee machine and water cooler. Too many people standign around when they should be working!") But it should be pretty obvious to the dumbest PHB that unrestricted Web access makes people stay in the office longer --- and unlike foosball tables or a refrigerator full of beer, it doesn't cost much. Note that I'm only referring to WEB access here: Morpheus and Kazaa can bring a network to a halt, and I wish my company would do more to block spam. (I get far more at work than at home, thanks to our Webmasters sticking prominent "mailto" links on the company site.)
The RIAA and MPAA do not represent creators. The actual creators are usually paid only once, if at all, and (except for a few big name Hollywood stars) not even paid very much. Its the companies that continue to get paid for 70+ years.
Slashdot Mirror
This is censorship of the worst kind. The TV companies have a government-enforced monopoly over the public airwaves, and are using it to suppress political speech.
The junkie analogy is pretty accurate here: A lot of people who use Windows actually hate Microsoft as much as or more than most Linux geeks, and would like to quit if only they could. I suspect most /.ers fall into this catagory, given the (often justified) MS bashing on the site combined with the high percentage of people using IE.
Many Windows users also like the idea of open-source (free beer and free speech are both seen as good things...), even if they don't personally want to look at or edit source code.
This is totally unfair, of course. (Whether you think sales tax or tax in general is good or bad doesn't matter: The point is that all purchases should be treated the same.) But then, so is much or the tax code.
A large corporation can afford to pore over contracts in detail, because the cost of hiring lawyers (or equivalent people who argue over contracts in the lawless libertarian world) is usually trivial compared to the amounts of money involved, but an individual person can't.
However, people should be aware that the "used" sections of Amazon are just like ebay, in the sense that customers are buying from an unknown third party and so are at risk of fraud. Also, the default shipping option is "media mail", which takes up to 1 month within the 48 states and literally years internationally. For exploring books by unknown (to me) authors, I prefer real world used book stores: instant gratification, no risk and (especially once shipping is taken into account) usually a lot cheaper.
This was actually considered by the UK government, because so many people have realized that juries won't send a person to jail for something like smoking cannabis. Thankfully, it was later dropped, but I'm sure it'll come back in some form.
This way, CLECs and DLECs can offer cheap DSL, but anyone (incumbent phone provider or not) can build their own fiber or wireless connection (subject to getting radio spectrum, permission to dig up the streets, etc.) and charge what they want for it.
And don't even think of copying to a less restrictive technology: Under the CBDTPA, use of such circumvention measures will mean that you spend ten years with your address as "federal penitentiary."
The largest remaining reserves are in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, with other significant fields in parts of the former Soviet Union (though its production too is declining --- it just started drilling later than the U.S. and had a larger land area). Canada has huge amounts of shale that contains oil, but no-one has yet figured out an efficient way to extract it.
This geology site has detailed information on oil reserves worldwide.
Criminals already use disposable phones, in the sense that they steal them from other people and then throw them away to avoid being traced. Not that I think the disposable phone is a particularly good idea, but it won't make "phone crime" any worse.
A patent is a temporary monopoly on a process granted in exhcange for a description of how it works. This means that software patents ought to include source code for whatever program is being patented, and pass into the public domain after 20 years (or however long the patent is valid).
Does anyone know how personal firewalls affect this spyware? Can they be set to prevent the spyware reporting back to Big Brother, or do the programs have some way of tunneling through them?
"Free as in speech" is actually more free, because it leads to being free as in beer: You can buy one copy, and then make a million copies for nothing.
Technically-inclined people will still make copies, and many of us will get away (just like most drug users are not actually arrested), but the mere threat of imprisonment combined with the difficulty of copying will persuade many people to comply with whatever the MPAA demands.
The latter case (DVD to DVD) is obviously a better deal for the buyer, though it won't necessarilly be the same as the official DVD. If it's made from a pre-release disk sent to insiders, it won't contain all those "extras" that go into DVDs, and could be an earlier cut of the movie than the one eventually used.
There are more constructive ways to fight evil corporations, but if you have a vindictive personality (and most of us do) this can be satisfying.
If this bill is passed, it will have to: The use of any Free operating system (and thanks to Microsoft's DRM patent, perhaps even any non-Microsoft operating system) will become a felony, punishable by up to five years of fedrally-approved anal rape.
You do have to question the sanity of a government that tries to reduce drink driving by requiring that only drivers can buy alcohol.
Also, I'm not sure if the KDE and GNOME competition is always that good a thing. It may spur innovation, but it can also be confusing to outsiders.
I know I'll be checking that any referral programs my Web site participates in aren't on Morpheus's hitlist, and switching to a competitor if they are. I expect others to do the same, thus giving retailers like Amazon a real incentive to make sure that they don't pay anything out to Morpheus.
I wonder if Dell will have anything to say. The article just has comments from the states and Microsoft.
Seriously, "lost productivity" isn't really an IT or technology issue. ("Let's get rid of the coffee machine and water cooler. Too many people standign around when they should be working!") But it should be pretty obvious to the dumbest PHB that unrestricted Web access makes people stay in the office longer --- and unlike foosball tables or a refrigerator full of beer, it doesn't cost much. Note that I'm only referring to WEB access here: Morpheus and Kazaa can bring a network to a halt, and I wish my company would do more to block spam. (I get far more at work than at home, thanks to our Webmasters sticking prominent "mailto" links on the company site.)
The phrase is now "cyber-terrorist."
Retire being Senator code for go into a very lucrative 1-day-per-month "consulting" job with the copyright cartels that he pimps out his country to.
The RIAA and MPAA do not represent creators. The actual creators are usually paid only once, if at all, and (except for a few big name Hollywood stars) not even paid very much. Its the companies that continue to get paid for 70+ years.