Ask yourself this: would you care at all if some other schmuck in Florida was walking down the street, somebody thought that he was their long-lost ex-husband who had been negelcting the children, and reported them to the police, only to find out it was mistaken identity? Of course not.
I'll admit I would care less about that, but that is not what really concerns me. What concernes me is this:
Suppose there is a criminal who resembles me in basic appearance, buld, facial characteristics etc. (be honest, how many times have you mistaken at total stranger for someone you know) and I go off to the mall/movies/park/office and the software pegs me as the bad guy, and I get swarmed by police officers. But wait here comes the best part, four days later on my way to dinner downtown it happens again.
Now pretend it was you. is the computer controlled survailance future leading us towards utopia? Or towards the Orwellian future you would rather choose to ignore. "The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance" --Thomas Jefferson "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
The plundering of our rights and freedoms are never made in massive steps, but in small nudges (i.e. more restricted copyright laws lead to the DMCA) No one was told that "Communism/Lenninism/Socialism" was only a sugar-coated prelude to the murder and fear of Stalinism. And anyone who doesn't think that we in the US, or any other democratic/republican/parlimentary statis is immune to this, then they have fogotten the first thing taught to them in history class: "Thos who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it"
If the OSS community could do something like this it might boost their image, but I'm afraid it might only go to promote the connection of OS with black hats/Piracy/virii etc.
From a practical viewpoint anti-code red will be treated like DeCss, not in itself evil, but it could be used for evil (DMCA aside, which declares it completely evil (I love the government)). A "virus" is a "virus" to most people, and you can bet dolars to doughnuts (KrispyKreme of course) that no news agency will be quick to use the term "anti-virus" or "vaccine"
And on another level, it might be a nice object lesson for the people running MS servers that it might be time to try to maybe tighten up some of the massive security holes in their networks. I dunno, stuff like Code Red and SirCam (Someone sent circam to my CsMajors mailing list at school) only go to prove that most people do not devote most of their mental cycles to what they are doing while at the computer
In the context of a debate about coming under international juristriction, such US-centric moans are absurd, just as the UK-centric ones about the EU are absurd.
How else are we suppossed to moan about it? The fact still remains that it is entirely possible for US citizens to be held to the libel laws of the UK.
Personally I don't think this is Xenophobia (fear of things foriegn). and if it is, it is probably fully justified apprehension. Enacting sweeping changes to the legal code of any country will invariably have unforseen consequenses. Not to mention the general confusion caused when people's normal routine is disrupted. (US auto standards applied to European cars, British libel laws applied to US tabloids, etc.) The full implications of the Hague Convention cannot be entirely predicted. The wording is somewhat general, and it is entirely possibly some sort of nightmare cenario might arise (and maybe not). However, it is fitting and proper to be apprehensive of opening up the US to foriegn judgements as well as opening up the world to US judges.
Aside from this being a monumental paradigm shift, it is also a massive assault on national soveriegnty. Nations no longer have control of their legal systems, Uniform International Law is hammered out by some consortium of lawmakers who essentially answer to no one (similar to the EU leadership). Historically that much power has lead to nothing but trouble.
Does this mean that US law is perfect? No. Is there any reason to believe any treaty can create a perfect legal system? No. Could it be made berrer (on a global scale)? yes. Should there be some sort of international law standard? Probably. Is the Hague Convention the way to do it? Definately not.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling I know I shouldn't eat thee
I told you that OSS and service driven computer companies could and would make it. well here'steh proof, you see that? $600,000 of profit! Ha! and all you nonbelievers wer trying to tell me for the last (5?) years that it wouldn't work, well HA!!
Now they just have to make back all the money they lost up to this point.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling I know I shouldn't eat thee
What the BSD licence does in essence is say that the time and effort that has invested into a piece of software can be had for free by any commercial company for their own competitive advantage.
If I owned a software company, and wanted to write and sell a and there happened to be a BSD version of something similar in existence somewhere, guess what? All I have to do is build on top of the pre-build and (sometimes) documented source, and then sell it off as my own proprietary software.
Now I don't know about you, but It would really piss me off if someone is making bank because of something I did for free. I'm not saying that the BSD licence always opens things up for this kind of abuse, but the opportunity is there, and there are plenty of corporations which are run by truly spineless individuals who wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of a free code bank. Who wan't to pay people X to write code from scratch when you can rip off someone else's code for free?
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling I know I shouldn't eat thee
For the unenlightend, "dragging along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag and my tenor saxophone and my twelve-pound bowling ball and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel"
is a line from Weird Al Yankovic's 12 minute epic, "Albequerque".
Other amusing lines: "My mother stared at me as a cow stares at an oncoming train." "Whe said to me, "hey, you have weasels on your face." "Hey! You ca't have that, that snorkel's been just like a snorkel to me."
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling I know I shouldn't eat thee
That plane was one of the greatest engineering feats of the cold war. IIRC that plane was first designed/developed in the early 70's, and was designed almost completely on a drafting table. Pencils and rulers, and a whole lot of ingenuity. I saw a special on the SR-71 a while back, apparently there is still no known matererial that could be used for sealed fuel tanks, and I think the expanding plates are a darn near brilliant sork around.
kudos to everyone at the SkunkWorks for a brilliant piece of aviation engineering.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling I know I shouldn't eat thee
Since when do pr0n sites want to limit access to their material?? Sure they have warnings, but what high school boy thinks twice about verifying that he is over 18 and in a place where it is legal to..... and womeone is going to manage to enforce a voluntary header included on web pages to warn of explicit content? I wouldn't give these guys the benefit of the doubt. And if it is a protected speech issue, just have someone on hand who can override the block system when it makes a mistake
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
Yes, that is definately the best way to handle it, but guess what, a massive percentage of the population ships their children off to daycare/school etc. so they don't interfere with their careers/egos and expect the government or hired help to keep them out of trouble. And even parents that make an effort would rather not have to fight their own library to keep their kids away from this filth. "does my kid really enjoy researching his history presentation, or is he just staring at porn?"
Maybe there could be some sort of controlled access system put in place to let the horny old guys get their fix while keeping younger kids away from it. They do it at the gas station, the porn and cigarettes are behind the counter, and wrapped in plastic, if you want to look, you gotta be old enough and pay up. It's as simple as that. Don't run around spouting all this 1st amendment tripe, it's just common sense and social order.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
Yes too many things in this country are taken away "because of the Children" (add Rush Limbaugh emphasis). Guns are taken away because ignorant people leave guns lying around and their curious kids pick them up and shoot each other with them.
Now who is at fault? The parents for leaving their gun lying around the house. Now what if it was your friends gun, or the schools gun, or the governments gun? (just follow me on this...)
I would say that it is reasonable to assume that when I drop my son off at school that the Police man patroling the halls is not going to leave his gun loaded in the caffeteria. And similarly, when I drop my son off at the library to research __________ I don't expect a high speed sleaze portal to be lying around. The solution is not to ban porn access outright, but to only allow access to those who want it and can leagally access it.
And as far as the other 50% goes, I hope you really were drunk, otherwise you need some counseling
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
Furthermore, opponents say, a government-imposed mandate is a poor substitute for parental supervision, private use of filters and public education efforts.
And this comes from some of the same people that sue parents for spanking their children of "indoctinating" them with their "religion".
Such reasoning has never stopped the promotion of such ludicrous things as sexual harasment laws and the like. Back in the day, you got mad and cussed someone out, or maybe even hit them, you sobered up, appologized and all was well. Nowadays you get handcuffed and spend a night in jail, and forget about trying to appologize, that's an admission of guilt, and will only get you a bigger fine.
If you ask me the whole system is MESSED UP.
God bless America (unless that offends you)
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
Consequences:
No electricity
No manufacturing
No refridgeration
Very Little transportation
Lots and lots of Chaos
Rebuilding computer technology is pretty close to the bottom of the list of what we need to do after such a catastrophie. These are the real questions:
1. What would we drink??
Water towers are filled by electrid pumps, electricity fails, no water, no water = no life (given enough time). So everyone either pumps water from their own wells, or drinks the river/lake water (yum!). and even if you pumped a community well somewhere, there is no good means of distribution for it. results include, swift spread of disease(indoor plumbing becomes worthless rather quickly) dehydration, death, and riots (water wars).
2.What do we eat??
I heard that there is enough food on grocery store shelves to last about a week without restocking. But most of it will spoil without refridgeration, and the source of nearly all food is very distant from most population centers. And without functional long haul transportation (all you got is low tech motorcycles, lawnmowers, etc) you will have food riots within days.
2. How do we keep warm??
if this happened during the winter, The pressure in natural gas pipes would drop quickly, (if people's furnaces still worked) and the supply of available firewood would fastly deplete in highly populated areas. OBTW, how many appartment building have fireplaces? And if there was firewood available it would have to be towed in behind old farm tractors, or carried by hand, a solution not nearly fast enough to keep up with demand. Result: profiteering, and riots.
Granted this situation only plays out well in the US but most of europe, and basically any large industrialized population center would experience the same thing. The US survives because of the efficiency of it's infrastructure, and dies without it.
The first thing that people would do is drag out any functional transportation equipment, old school busses, tractors, cars bikes etc. and work to rebuild some semplance of distribution for food, water, wood etc. Then get the water/sewer system working. IF we can focus on the development of new computers anytime in the first 5-10 years, I would be very surprised.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
Okay, it seems someone needs a healthy dose of reality.
People don't like paying for things.... PERIOD!!! People used napster because the could get music for free. None of them ever complained about not having a convenient voluntary pay mechanism to reward their favorite artists for their hard work. If they did go and get the CD it was with much complaining because they couldn't get the songs they wanted from napster.
I would accept your appeal to history, but in order for such a model to work, the music has to have more than temporary value. Case and point: Who still cherishes their Vanilla Ice albums?? Exactly, it wasn't good music, it was just hype. People paid for the hype, not the lasting value of the music. And besides, how much of that money actually supports the artists, and how much lined the pockets of record company execs??
Now if they made music like they used to this wouldn't be much of a problem. And if musicians were more than pre-packaged music industry money machines, we might be compelled to voluntary give money to them.
However, one case where this may work is independent bands where their fans have a strong interest in seeing them make more music and succeed. But 95%+ of the music out there won't sell with such a model.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
It's the posession of weed that is illegal. I can run around high as a kite, and as long as I don't do anything illegal I can't be arrested for being high. But if you come to school high enough for people to notice (depends on the school) get into trouble for it. The school isn't going to press for prosectution, they will just deal with the problem. And I would bet most people would not have a problem with that.
The weed smoking may have been off of school grounds and off school time but they don't care, it impacts what is going on at school, and that's why they are disciplined. It's required in order to retain an ordered environment.
When you make fun of an assistant principal, sure your parent's tax dollars pay him, but you DON'T have to be there (transfer to another school / go to private school / drop out [if you're old enough]) and if you want to do something that will (in all likelyhood) temporarily disrupt your educational experience, well....
Yes that should be principal not principle, forgot to proofread
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
I don't think 10,000 would be enough though for that kind of shit.
???????
Yes the boy has freedom of speech, but the laws of cause and effect are in no sense suspended when someone wants to exercise their free speech. If I exercized my free speech late at night in a residential neighborhood I would fully expect the cops to come arrest me. If I put up a website threatening bodily harm to prominent figures (rock stars, celebrities, et al) I would expect someone to come to my door and ask me come questions.
But if I'm a college student I build a slanderous website that disturbs school activities and degrades the authority structure there I should expect to be awarded $10,000 thanks to the ACLU.
Does anyone else have the slightest problem with this??
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Why is it that 4/5ths of everyone here is thinking like a herd of knee-jerk buzzword fanatics? You see "1st Amendment" "webpage" "free speech" "student suspended for expressing opinions" etc. and he's the instant Martyr Du Jour.
Take a minute to project this same situation into a different setting: You make a website portaying your boss involved in various acts of vulgarity, and then you go and tell everyone in the office about it (don't even pretend this kid didn't tell everyone at school) and if(when) they figure out it's you there will be hell to pay.
High school is just like every other voluntary institution, if you don't want to be there, leave. And if you want to stay, don't piss people off and break the rules. When did people forget that actions have consequences? If I go and make lewd comments about some guys girlfriend and get pounded for it, I don't sue the guy for attacking my freedom of speech. Why is high school this magical place where you can say/do anything you wan't and shouldn't have to suffer the consequences
And speaking of doing things on your own time, what if I'm a high school kid smoking weed accross the street from my school after school is out, I'm off school property, and I'm not on school time, but I'll bet I would get in trouble for it. Why is anything I do on the web magically protected??
The point is: be careful what court cases you applaud. Personally the ACLU scares the S*** out of me, and when we are applauding the ACLU for robbing a school district of $62,000 to defend a kid's right to post slander and libel on the internet, I start really getting scared
P.S. Substitute the word "Principle" in the article with "Female classmate" and tell me who's side you are on.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
"You are imperiling the future of music production. This is a felony in the U.S. Why not use a legitimate site and support the music you love so much. Thanks for listening. Here's the rest of the track. Have a nice day."
That is just too funny. I think the guy has lost his marbles. If I think about it I'm probably against music copyright infringement, but this is just too much, "Imperiling the future of music production"?!?!? come on. Now I can understand piracy threatening specialty audio software, but the recording industry? oh please.
And by the way, who let the recording industry become a 40 billion dollar industry?? That's really the root of the problem. $16-18 for 10 tracks of music?? sold to you on media that costs The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Everyone can argue technical advantages/disadvantages all we want, and wax poetic about our favorite old books, and the wonderful smell of paper, but the deeper issue has not been addressed.
As we have seen recently in the battle over Napster, DeCSS, etc. the real issue is not content display or transportation but content control, specifically copy protection and licencing. Sure these new e-books can display any information you want, and switch between different books instantly, but what good is that if you don't have control over the content in the book? Unlsee something changes drastically, these books are going to come out with a proprietary interface that guarantees that only approved content from approved providers can be uploaded. And that's not the worst part. they would most likely be pay-per-use items that would only be displayable for a fixed amount of time, unless you wanted to buy a permanent licence which would cost x20, x50,x100 of the temporary licence. I'm in full support of new technology, expecially something that's easier to read than my monitor, but I'm very wary of anything that can put a cap on what I can read and how often I can read it.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
"I can't wait until I can carry around my whole library in my pocket, transmit a book to a friend, and say 'Hey, I think you will enjoy this.'"
Only if you can pay the $10,000 annual licencing licencing fee for that library.
And forget about transmitting anything. No way the publisher's would allow that.
E-paper could be the biggest cash cow the publishing industry has ever seen. They can charge licensing fees for bits that they didn't write that are stored and read of devices thay they do not sell or support.
E-paper could be a wonderful thing, but not if it's controlled by the wrong people.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Well Apple is at it again, but this time not over their 'apple' logo but over the "look and feel" of their desktop interface. Does this sound asanine to anyone else out there?
So how exactly does one determine when someone has violated this patent for their look and feel? And how can it be patent infringement to use the custom setting of Software you already have? What about Prior art? If they are patenting "look and feel" it better not be a "look and feel" that (concievably) thousands of people have already made. And isn't another stipulation for patents that the "innovation" be non obvious? if it's something asthetic, it should be obvious to many artists, graphics designers etc.
It's a huge load of BS,
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Slashdot Mirror
3. Police put guy's picture in a magazine
The demo picture was given to magazines as a demo screen for their face recognition software.
Are you going to try and tell us that the same thing would not have happened if the software had pegged him as the deadbeat dad?
Plus, it keeps out "the voices" and the alien Carnivore anal probe mind control rays.
would't it also protect you from being monitored by Major League Baseball?
"Focus-in, need my focus-in"
Ask yourself this: would you care at all if some other schmuck in Florida was walking down the street, somebody thought that he was their long-lost ex-husband who had been negelcting the children, and reported them to the police, only to find out it was mistaken identity? Of course not.
I'll admit I would care less about that, but that is not what really concerns me. What concernes me is this:
Suppose there is a criminal who resembles me in basic appearance, buld, facial characteristics etc. (be honest, how many times have you mistaken at total stranger for someone you know) and I go off to the mall/movies/park/office and the software pegs me as the bad guy, and I get swarmed by police officers. But wait here comes the best part, four days later on my way to dinner downtown it happens again.
Now pretend it was you. is the computer controlled survailance future leading us towards utopia? Or towards the Orwellian future you would rather choose to ignore.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance" --Thomas Jefferson
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
The plundering of our rights and freedoms are never made in massive steps, but in small nudges (i.e. more restricted copyright laws lead to the DMCA) No one was told that "Communism/Lenninism/Socialism" was only a sugar-coated prelude to the murder and fear of Stalinism. And anyone who doesn't think that we in the US, or any other democratic/republican/parlimentary statis is immune to this, then they have fogotten the first thing taught to them in history class: "Thos who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it"
If the OSS community could do something like this it might boost their image, but I'm afraid it might only go to promote the connection of OS with black hats/Piracy/virii etc.
From a practical viewpoint anti-code red will be treated like DeCss, not in itself evil, but it could be used for evil (DMCA aside, which declares it completely evil (I love the government)). A "virus" is a "virus" to most people, and you can bet dolars to doughnuts (KrispyKreme of course) that no news agency will be quick to use the term "anti-virus" or "vaccine"
And on another level, it might be a nice object lesson for the people running MS servers that it might be time to try to maybe tighten up some of the massive security holes in their networks. I dunno, stuff like Code Red and SirCam (Someone sent circam to my CsMajors mailing list at school) only go to prove that most people do not devote most of their mental cycles to what they are doing while at the computer
In the context of a debate about coming under international juristriction, such US-centric moans are absurd, just as the UK-centric ones about the EU are absurd.
How else are we suppossed to moan about it? The fact still remains that it is entirely possible for US citizens to be held to the libel laws of the UK.
Personally I don't think this is Xenophobia (fear of things foriegn). and if it is, it is probably fully justified apprehension. Enacting sweeping changes to the legal code of any country will invariably have unforseen consequenses. Not to mention the general confusion caused when people's normal routine is disrupted. (US auto standards applied to European cars, British libel laws applied to US tabloids, etc.) The full implications of the Hague Convention cannot be entirely predicted. The wording is somewhat general, and it is entirely possibly some sort of nightmare cenario might arise (and maybe not). However, it is fitting and proper to be apprehensive of opening up the US to foriegn judgements as well as opening up the world to US judges.
Aside from this being a monumental paradigm shift, it is also a massive assault on national soveriegnty. Nations no longer have control of their legal systems, Uniform International Law is hammered out by some consortium of lawmakers who essentially answer to no one (similar to the EU leadership). Historically that much power has lead to nothing but trouble.
Does this mean that US law is perfect? No. Is there any reason to believe any treaty can create a perfect legal system? No. Could it be made berrer (on a global scale)? yes. Should there be some sort of international law standard? Probably. Is the Hague Convention the way to do it? Definately not.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
I told you that OSS and service driven computer companies could and would make it. well here'steh proof, you see that? $600,000 of profit! Ha! and all you nonbelievers wer trying to tell me for the last (5?) years that it wouldn't work, well HA!!
Now they just have to make back all the money they lost up to this point.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
What the BSD licence does in essence is say that the time and effort that has invested into a piece of software can be had for free by any commercial company for their own competitive advantage.
If I owned a software company, and wanted to write and sell a and there happened to be a BSD version of something similar in existence somewhere, guess what? All I have to do is build on top of the pre-build and (sometimes) documented source, and then sell it off as my own proprietary software.
Now I don't know about you, but It would really piss me off if someone is making bank because of something I did for free. I'm not saying that the BSD licence always opens things up for this kind of abuse, but the opportunity is there, and there are plenty of corporations which are run by truly spineless individuals who wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of a free code bank. Who wan't to pay people X to write code from scratch when you can rip off someone else's code for free?
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
For the unenlightend,
"dragging along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag and my tenor saxophone and my twelve-pound bowling ball and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel"
is a line from Weird Al Yankovic's 12 minute epic, "Albequerque".
Other amusing lines:
"My mother stared at me as a cow stares at an oncoming train."
"Whe said to me, "hey, you have weasels on your face."
"Hey! You ca't have that, that snorkel's been just like a snorkel to me."
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
That plane was one of the greatest engineering feats of the cold war. IIRC that plane was first designed/developed in the early 70's, and was designed almost completely on a drafting table. Pencils and rulers, and a whole lot of ingenuity. I saw a special on the SR-71 a while back, apparently there is still no known matererial that could be used for sealed fuel tanks, and I think the expanding plates are a darn near brilliant sork around.
kudos to everyone at the SkunkWorks for a brilliant piece of aviation engineering.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
Since when do pr0n sites want to limit access to their material?? Sure they have warnings, but what high school boy thinks twice about verifying that he is over 18 and in a place where it is legal to ..... and womeone is going to manage to enforce a voluntary header included on web pages to warn of explicit content? I wouldn't give these guys the benefit of the doubt. And if it is a protected speech issue, just have someone on hand who can override the block system when it makes a mistake
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
Yes, that is definately the best way to handle it, but guess what, a massive percentage of the population ships their children off to daycare/school etc. so they don't interfere with their careers/egos and expect the government or hired help to keep them out of trouble. And even parents that make an effort would rather not have to fight their own library to keep their kids away from this filth. "does my kid really enjoy researching his history presentation, or is he just staring at porn?"
Maybe there could be some sort of controlled access system put in place to let the horny old guys get their fix while keeping younger kids away from it. They do it at the gas station, the porn and cigarettes are behind the counter, and wrapped in plastic, if you want to look, you gotta be old enough and pay up. It's as simple as that. Don't run around spouting all this 1st amendment tripe, it's just common sense and social order.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
Yes too many things in this country are taken away "because of the Children " (add Rush Limbaugh emphasis). Guns are taken away because ignorant people leave guns lying around and their curious kids pick them up and shoot each other with them.
Now who is at fault? The parents for leaving their gun lying around the house. Now what if it was your friends gun, or the schools gun, or the governments gun? (just follow me on this...)
I would say that it is reasonable to assume that when I drop my son off at school that the Police man patroling the halls is not going to leave his gun loaded in the caffeteria. And similarly, when I drop my son off at the library to research __________ I don't expect a high speed sleaze portal to be lying around. The solution is not to ban porn access outright, but to only allow access to those who want it and can leagally access it.
And as far as the other 50% goes, I hope you really were drunk, otherwise you need some counseling
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
Furthermore, opponents say, a government-imposed mandate is a poor substitute for parental supervision, private use of filters and public education efforts.
And this comes from some of the same people that sue parents for spanking their children of "indoctinating" them with their "religion".
Such reasoning has never stopped the promotion of such ludicrous things as sexual harasment laws and the like. Back in the day, you got mad and cussed someone out, or maybe even hit them, you sobered up, appologized and all was well. Nowadays you get handcuffed and spend a night in jail, and forget about trying to appologize, that's an admission of guilt, and will only get you a bigger fine.
If you ask me the whole system is MESSED UP.
God bless America (unless that offends you)
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
OK, fry all computer components, gotcha.
Consequences:
No electricity
No manufacturing
No refridgeration
Very Little transportation
Lots and lots of Chaos
Rebuilding computer technology is pretty close to the bottom of the list of what we need to do after such a catastrophie. These are the real questions:
1. What would we drink??
Water towers are filled by electrid pumps, electricity fails, no water, no water = no life (given enough time). So everyone either pumps water from their own wells, or drinks the river/lake water (yum!). and even if you pumped a community well somewhere, there is no good means of distribution for it. results include, swift spread of disease(indoor plumbing becomes worthless rather quickly) dehydration, death, and riots (water wars).
2.What do we eat??
I heard that there is enough food on grocery store shelves to last about a week without restocking. But most of it will spoil without refridgeration, and the source of nearly all food is very distant from most population centers. And without functional long haul transportation (all you got is low tech motorcycles, lawnmowers, etc) you will have food riots within days.
2. How do we keep warm??
if this happened during the winter, The pressure in natural gas pipes would drop quickly, (if people's furnaces still worked) and the supply of available firewood would fastly deplete in highly populated areas. OBTW, how many appartment building have fireplaces? And if there was firewood available it would have to be towed in behind old farm tractors, or carried by hand, a solution not nearly fast enough to keep up with demand. Result: profiteering, and riots.
Granted this situation only plays out well in the US but most of europe, and basically any large industrialized population center would experience the same thing. The US survives because of the efficiency of it's infrastructure, and dies without it.
The first thing that people would do is drag out any functional transportation equipment, old school busses, tractors, cars bikes etc. and work to rebuild some semplance of distribution for food, water, wood etc. Then get the water/sewer system working. IF we can focus on the development of new computers anytime in the first 5-10 years, I would be very surprised.
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
Does this thing look like the core from the ship in Event Horizon to anyone else??
Homer, that's not God, it's just a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling
I know I shouldn't eat thee
Okay, it seems someone needs a healthy dose of reality.
People don't like paying for things.... PERIOD!!! People used napster because the could get music for free. None of them ever complained about not having a convenient voluntary pay mechanism to reward their favorite artists for their hard work. If they did go and get the CD it was with much complaining because they couldn't get the songs they wanted from napster.
I would accept your appeal to history, but in order for such a model to work, the music has to have more than temporary value. Case and point: Who still cherishes their Vanilla Ice albums?? Exactly, it wasn't good music, it was just hype. People paid for the hype, not the lasting value of the music. And besides, how much of that money actually supports the artists, and how much lined the pockets of record company execs??
Now if they made music like they used to this wouldn't be much of a problem. And if musicians were more than pre-packaged music industry money machines, we might be compelled to voluntary give money to them.
However, one case where this may work is independent bands where their fans have a strong interest in seeing them make more music and succeed. But 95%+ of the music out there won't sell with such a model.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
It's the posession of weed that is illegal. I can run around high as a kite, and as long as I don't do anything illegal I can't be arrested for being high. But if you come to school high enough for people to notice (depends on the school) get into trouble for it. The school isn't going to press for prosectution, they will just deal with the problem. And I would bet most people would not have a problem with that.
The weed smoking may have been off of school grounds and off school time but they don't care, it impacts what is going on at school, and that's why they are disciplined. It's required in order to retain an ordered environment.
When you make fun of an assistant principal, sure your parent's tax dollars pay him, but you DON'T have to be there (transfer to another school / go to private school / drop out [if you're old enough]) and if you want to do something that will (in all likelyhood) temporarily disrupt your educational experience, well....
Yes that should be principal not principle, forgot to proofread
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
I don't think 10,000 would be enough though for that kind of shit.
???????
Yes the boy has freedom of speech, but the laws of cause and effect are in no sense suspended when someone wants to exercise their free speech. If I exercized my free speech late at night in a residential neighborhood I would fully expect the cops to come arrest me. If I put up a website threatening bodily harm to prominent figures (rock stars, celebrities, et al) I would expect someone to come to my door and ask me come questions.
But if I'm a college student I build a slanderous website that disturbs school activities and degrades the authority structure there I should expect to be awarded $10,000 thanks to the ACLU.
Does anyone else have the slightest problem with this??
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Why is it that 4/5ths of everyone here is thinking like a herd of knee-jerk buzzword fanatics? You see "1st Amendment" "webpage" "free speech" "student suspended for expressing opinions" etc. and he's the instant Martyr Du Jour.
Take a minute to project this same situation into a different setting: You make a website portaying your boss involved in various acts of vulgarity, and then you go and tell everyone in the office about it (don't even pretend this kid didn't tell everyone at school) and if(when) they figure out it's you there will be hell to pay.
High school is just like every other voluntary institution, if you don't want to be there, leave. And if you want to stay, don't piss people off and break the rules. When did people forget that actions have consequences? If I go and make lewd comments about some guys girlfriend and get pounded for it, I don't sue the guy for attacking my freedom of speech. Why is high school this magical place where you can say/do anything you wan't and shouldn't have to suffer the consequences
And speaking of doing things on your own time, what if I'm a high school kid smoking weed accross the street from my school after school is out, I'm off school property, and I'm not on school time, but I'll bet I would get in trouble for it. Why is anything I do on the web magically protected??
The point is: be careful what court cases you applaud. Personally the ACLU scares the S*** out of me, and when we are applauding the ACLU for robbing a school district of $62,000 to defend a kid's right to post slander and libel on the internet, I start really getting scared
P.S. Substitute the word "Principle" in the article with "Female classmate" and tell me who's side you are on.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
putting up fake songs on Napster that say:
"You are imperiling the future of music production. This is a felony in the U.S. Why not use a legitimate site and support the music you love so much. Thanks for listening. Here's the rest of the track. Have a nice day."
That is just too funny. I think the guy has lost his marbles. If I think about it I'm probably against music copyright infringement, but this is just too much, "Imperiling the future of music production"?!?!? come on. Now I can understand piracy threatening specialty audio software, but the recording industry? oh please.
And by the way, who let the recording industry become a 40 billion dollar industry?? That's really the root of the problem. $16-18 for 10 tracks of music?? sold to you on media that costs
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Everyone can argue technical advantages/disadvantages all we want, and wax poetic about our favorite old books, and the wonderful smell of paper, but the deeper issue has not been addressed.
As we have seen recently in the battle over Napster, DeCSS, etc. the real issue is not content display or transportation but content control, specifically copy protection and licencing. Sure these new e-books can display any information you want, and switch between different books instantly, but what good is that if you don't have control over the content in the book? Unlsee something changes drastically, these books are going to come out with a proprietary interface that guarantees that only approved content from approved providers can be uploaded. And that's not the worst part. they would most likely be pay-per-use items that would only be displayable for a fixed amount of time, unless you wanted to buy a permanent licence which would cost x20, x50,x100 of the temporary licence. I'm in full support of new technology, expecially something that's easier to read than my monitor, but I'm very wary of anything that can put a cap on what I can read and how often I can read it.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
"I can't wait until I can carry around my whole library in my pocket, transmit a book to a friend, and say 'Hey, I think you will enjoy this.'"
Only if you can pay the $10,000 annual licencing licencing fee for that library.
And forget about transmitting anything. No way the publisher's would allow that.
E-paper could be the biggest cash cow the publishing industry has ever seen. They can charge licensing fees for bits that they didn't write that are stored and read of devices thay they do not sell or support.
E-paper could be a wonderful thing, but not if it's controlled by the wrong people.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Well Apple is at it again, but this time not over their 'apple' logo but over the "look and feel" of their desktop interface. Does this sound asanine to anyone else out there?
So how exactly does one determine when someone has violated this patent for their look and feel? And how can it be patent infringement to use the custom setting of Software you already have? What about Prior art? If they are patenting "look and feel" it better not be a "look and feel" that (concievably) thousands of people have already made. And isn't another stipulation for patents that the "innovation" be non obvious? if it's something asthetic, it should be obvious to many artists, graphics designers etc.
It's a huge load of BS,
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
So what does a 30MB penguin look like when it's "shoehorned" into 8MB?? I can just imagine the logo for that.
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Will they have the French Shef from the Muppets do a cameo appearance??
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random