I wholeheartedly agree with you. Of course Koresh was a freak and a criminal, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. My point was simply that all of his illegal automatic weapons (and he had a lot!) did little to help defend him and his followers against the government. The original point is still that people with guns are no match for people with tanks/helicopters/etc., so the gun lobby's argument about an armed populace keeping the government in check are patently ludicrous.
Big Differences between 1776 and 1999...
on
Why Kids Kill
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· Score: 1
Posted by Nick Carraway:
You're correct, most of our fighting men wouldn't take too kindly to attacking their home towns. However, what if they were being told that their home towns were full of subsersive terrorists who hated America? This happens in other countries around the world, and I sincerely hope that it would never happen here. My point was simply that you can't do battle with the government with a rifle or a handgun. Just ask the Branch Davidians for their opinion on the matter -- Whoops, I forgot, they're all dead. The anti-gun-control camp likes to preach that we need guns to protect us from the government, and that's just so much hokum.
Oh, BTW -- thanks for the note; I've changed the wording to be 'software for which the source is freely available and modifiable.' I hope that addresses the issue..
I think Grand Theft Auto and Carmageddon are really fun games, not because they're gory, but because they were well put together and innovative. This kind of blows her whole argument up in smoke right there.
Video Cds own: Heres a good list of stuff I've archived (1) Lock Stock and Two smoking Barrels (2) Orgazmo (3) True Crimes (4) Sneakers (DISC 1 BAD) (5) Cruel Intentions (6) Life Is beautiful (7) Waking Ned Devine (8) The Mod Squad (9) Ever After (10) 12 Monkeys (11) Return To Paradise (12) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (13) Basict Instinct (14) The Curropter (15) Pi (16) Hackers (17) Simple Plan (18) Blade (bad?) (19) The Truman Show (20) The Faculty (21) Saving Private Ryan (22) Jackie Cahn movie unknown (23) Rush hour (24) 6 Days 7 nights (25) Antz (26) Good Will Hunting (27) ThunderBolt (28) I still know what you did last summer (29) Avengers (30) Enemy Of the State (31) Akira (32) 8mm (33) American history X (34) Armaggedon (35) The Big Lebowski (36) Chasing Amy (37) Goonies (38) Kiss the girls (39) Hurly Burly (40) Patch Adams (41) Payback (42) Prince of Egypt (43) Ronin (44) Replacement Killers (45) Seven (46) Something about mary (47) Slums of Beverly hills (48) Thin Red Line (3) (49) Top Gun (50) Varsity Blues (51) Waterboy (52) Wrongfully accused ..... The list goes on even more. Why pay to watch this shit? -- Download my friends. Download.
That camcorder business is not new. I remember back in 1989 or 1990 going to a comic book convention and purchasing a Chinese bootleg of the yet-to-be-released in the US sequel to Highlander ("The Quickening"). And in addition to being one of the worst movies I've ever seen , the quality of the recording was horrible. You could see people's heads pop up as they got up to use the john and people walking up and down the isles. Hilarious.
The new thing is taking such a recording and making a VCD - basically a highly compressed MPEG version of the camcorder footage burned onto CD. ISO's (disk images) of these are traffic'd on "warez sites" pretty frequently. If you have a T1 at your disposal and time to down 650+ MB's, you can get the latest releases - Office Space, The Matrix etc. Word has it that some of these movie pirates have access to the projector via movie theater employees and can sometimes jack right into the projector for a direct dub to VHS.
The new thing is taking such a recording and making a VCD - basically a highly compressed MPEG version of the movie. These are traffic'd on "warez sites" pretty frequently. If you have a T1 at your disposal and time to down 650+ MB's, you can get the latest releases - Office Space, The Matrix etc.
I'm an avid user of these movies. There are several types of VCDS (video cds) that get released:
Camcorder: Usually very low quality Telecine: Professional camera in booth, usually offers much higher audio quality as it has seperate audio source. Video quality a little higher than cam, but often also slanted. Workprint: A unfinished version of the full movie, usually high quality in both video and audio but you may be missing soundtrack of special effects. Screener: Usually a direct rip from tape, high quality in both audio and video. DVD Rip: Very high quality rip, but not much different from a screener in my opinion.
Recent releases include: 04091999 - La Vita é bella (Life is Beautiful) - Screener 04111999 - Analyze This - Telesync 04191999 - 10 Things I Hate About You - Telesync 04201999 - Velvet Goldmine - Screener 04201999 - A Walk On The Moon - Screener 04211999 - She's All That - Screener 04211999 - Edtv - Telesync 04221999 - Forces Of Nature - Telesync 04221999 - Election - Workprint
Some more famous than others, but you get the idea. At 1.1 GB a piece (~), you need some space to hold them though. This concept of "anyone can make one" is BS. You need real time MPEG hardware, fairly decent hard drive speed and capacity, and the know-how. The Broadway Pro is the card of choice, as is the snazzi or dazzle - but the high quality only comes from the Broadyway or similarly high end cards. CNN always likes to exaggerate things.
I was looking for the Y2k guide for dogs/cats really. This one says "if your owner goes in a mad panic, just sit back and laff!" evidently the media has hyped up another hairbrained idea that you have to complete this list of over 500 items! yeah i have 200 bibles that should last me 6 months right? heh... I also made sure to pack enough condoms for 20 years too -- oops they expire in a year or two. give me a break...
I'm just about to put together a new computer. I've been considering which sound card to buy and I'm still somewhat clueless. I hear of problems with the Soundblaster PCI64 and PCI128, as well as the Live! Should I just stick with the old proved SB16?
Which sound card offers the best 'Linux value'? In other words, which modern sound cards are fully supported in Linux?
> It looks like the authors don't know the > meaning of "free software" as it has been > used by the GNU project for more than a decade.
It looks like the FSF thinks everyone uses their terminology. Bzzzzzt. Of the millions of people relatively new to the 'Net and its culture (through the emergence of the Web and ISPs), I suspect that many think "free software" means "something I can download off the 'Net without having to pay." Which includes things like binary-only games, lobotomised demo packages of tools, and Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Ask the being-in-the-thoroughfare, "Is Internet Explorer free software?" If you think the answer will universally be 'no,' I think you're mistaken. And no, you can't prime it with definitions.:-)
> The "free software" part of the name of the Free > Software Foundation is about freedom and source > code, not "free beer". The survey authors are > actually talking about "freeware" here, not > "free software".
The survey authors are talking about exactly what they say they are: software for which the source code is freely available. Notwithstanding what various groups may think, there is no lock on these terms, no one 'correct' definition -- regardless of the degree of militancy any particular group may have concerning their particular interpretation. Each of the terms means different things to different sets of people, so we were careful to define our usage explicitly, using a non-overloaded and uncontroversial term, to avoid confusion.
> Please -- if you are making a survey in support > of "open source" software, make sure you > understand the terminology. Not understanding > the terminology is often an indication that one > does not understand the relevant concepts.
It's not a matter of not understanding the concepts or the terminology. It's a matter of recognising that the terminology is multi-valued and describes different concepts to different people. Please re-read the free-source definition page on the site, after putting yourself into the shoes of (say) a hardcore Microsoft developer, or script-kiddie, or suit, or anyone who has not lived and breathed the FSF for years.
The OSI tweaked us when we naïvely used "open source" in the survey, because they claim they own the definition. So we changed the offending text, and now someone is tweaking us because we didn't use their preferred phrase. {Sigh} Please, can we just deal with the thing itself ("software for which the source is freely available") without arguing over what to call it?
1. Every company's marketing division flunked college. Or at least it seems like it to me.
2. The time-and-again popular misconception that Americans won't buy anything that doesn't reflect the media and the stereotypical image. Some foreign companies are guilty of this; I remember reading a chain of messages about releasing Sakura Taisen in the States where Sega was afraid that Americans "wouldn't get" the deep Japanese culture of the game; ignoring the fact that most people will seek it out exactly for that. And then of course, there's the silent minority who dislike those kinds of games and will froth at the mouth if they are ever released commercially. Heck, how do you explain all those WWF games that keep coming out for the PSX?
3. The "Stallone theory": if it worked once, do it over and over again. That's why we had the flood of lame, bloody FPSs when the PSX originally came out, because someone wanted the next Doom or Quake. Never mind that playing computer style FPSs on a console is usually an exercise in torture..with Goldeneye being an odd exception(and only in multiplayer).
4. See number 1. Sega had a nice console with the Saturn and totally canned it by not releasing the horde of software kept in Japan, as well as refusing to make a domestic version of the RAM cart. Let's hope they learned something with the DreamCast..
Bear in mind that Intel's integer core is more primative than either AMD or Cyrix's current design. That means that for the vast majority of non-3D/CAD software you'll see a marked improvement over a PII 300 when you use even Cyrix's relatively weak MII chip (whatever P rating actually runs at a 300MHz clock speed).
I sat through an Intel marketing presentation back when I worked retail, and was told flat out that floating point power was more important for word processing, and that every processor that runs at a given clock speed generates the same heat, because it's the little clock crystal that generates all the heat (not the resistance as electricity flows through the chip).
Just goes to show you can't trust marketing to give you straight facts.
Big Differences between 1776 and 1999...
on
Why Kids Kill
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· Score: 1
Posted by Nick Carraway:
Remember that the revolutionary Americans had the Atlantic Ocean to separate them from the English, and that the English army was equipped with similar (although somewhat superior) weaponry than the Americans. Both sides were fighting with black powder rifles, fixed bayonets, and slow-firing, hard-to-maneuver cannon. High explosives and repeating arms had not yet been invented. How effective do you think an army of goofy militia types would be against a single Apache helicopter? How about against a squadron of high-flying, carpet-bombing B-52s?
>>Why, if I remember correctly, back in the ole days, wasn't it illegal for anyone not of noble birth (ie. a peasant, not knighted) to carry a sword or wear armor, or even own a horse?
Before the threat of the Normans existed they weren't even allowed to own bows.
"Say there peasant man. For what needeth thou that long bow? Dost thee intend to hunt the king's deer? Off with his head!"
>>Anyway, a sensible gun control law to my mind might be to allow weapon ownership, concealment, and the like, but to force registeration of all weapons in the same way we force registeration of all cars and drivers.
This is the most reasonable Canadian idea I've seen all day. However I must add a wrinkle. Instead of registering the gun, register the person. For example, in the US you have the right to own a firearm UNLESS you've committed some type of crime that prohibits you from doing so.
If we keep a list of all the people who can't own guns (probably about 2 million people in the US) and whenever someone wants to buy a gun, check to see if they're on the list. If they're not prohibited, they get the gun.
Gun registration is merely a tool for future confiscation. The Nazis did it in europe, they did it in New York, and they'll do it where ever we let them.
>>I don't think anything used in this spree was illegal in Canada and not in the USA. (I.E. Everthing was illegal.) Assuming the handgun was a 9mm as reported and not fully automatic, even it would have been legal in Canada after about two weeks of paper work. However it would have been illegal for anyone under eighteen to possess it and doublely illegal to take it onto school property.
Thank you for reminding me. In the US, it's not legal in most circumstances for a person under 21 to own a handgun. I'd estimate that of the 170+ million legal gun owners in the US that less than 500 fall into the catagory of being able to posess a handgun while under 21. I am the only person whom I know who wasn't a cop who fell into that position.
We NEED TO BAN PLUMBING AND BARBECUE SUPPLIES. More injuries in this case were caused by pipe bombs.
>>The biggest reason for this tragedy are the gun laws. Guns need more restrictions, no one should be allowed to own a hand gun. Hand guns serve no other purpose then to kill people. Rifles and shotguns on the other hand are used for hunting. You never see something like this happen in Canada or the UK, where they actually have some descent gun laws.
>>King George has been dead a long, long, long time, dude. Americans no longer have British soldiers knocking on their doors.
No, instead of Red Coats, it's blue helmets that we must be worried about.
>>The first 10 amendments were named 'The Bill of Rights' out of literary flamboyance on the part of Thomas Jefferson, not out of some perceived ethical universality. In truth they're simply the first 10 (of dozens to follow) amendments.
Either you misunderstand the men and the times of which you speak or you lie. The bill of rights was the putting to paper the inalienable rights that were mentioned in the declaration of independance.
>>Counterquery: Why are there no weekly massacres in my home where there have never been any firearms?
Countercounterquery: Why are there no weekly massacres in my home where there are guns?
>>King George has been dead a long, long, long time, dude. Americans no longer have British soldiers knocking on their doors.
No, instead of Red Coats, it's blue helmets that we must be worried about.
>>The first 10 amendments were named 'The Bill of Rights' out of literary flamboyance on the part of Thomas Jefferson, not out of some perceived ethical universality. In truth they're simply the first 10 (of dozens to follow) amendments.
Either you misunderstand the men and the times of which you speak or you lie. The bill of rights was the putting to paper the inalienable rights that were mentioned in the declaration of independance.
>>Counterquery: Why are there no weekly massacres in my home where there have never been any firearms?
Countercounterquery: Why are there no weekly massacres in my home where there are guns.
>> How come the armed guard in Colorado didn't stop the killings...Stating that guns prevent crime really misunderstands the nature of most gun deaths, dramitic example like this aside.
He didn't stop it because he wasn't a good enough shot.
Guns DO prevent crime. Gary Kleck's research has shown that Americans thwart 2.5 million crimes with guns each year.
>>To continue that logic to today we should all own anti-tank weapons and SAMs, simply put there is no way for a civilian to be even near on par with a government troop in the era of modern warfare, how effective have the armed militia groups been when they get in to conflicts with the government, regardless of your opinion of them, I can't think of a single government agent being killed...
Then you are woefully underinformed in this area. In Waco Texas 4 government agents were killed by the Branch Davidians. On Ruby Ridge in Idaho, Kevin Harris killed agent William Degan with one shot. Even if he'd been wearing a kevlar vest, he still would have died.
He was shot with a 30-06 rifle from a few dozen yards away.
>> I know of few that are arguing that the right to bear arms should be repealed....I know many who think that it should be more regulated. It is currently easier to get a gun than it is a drivers license....gee, that makes sense.
When the US constitution is amended to include a right to "keep and drive cars" then maybe it should be eaier to get a driver's license. Gun ownership is a RIGHT, don't you get it? It's not a privelege that exists at the whim of our politicians. Constitutional, nay basic human rights can not be denied just because a majority of you choose that they be.
If the CDA had not been struck down, how many of us would have taken part in the effort to work around it? How many of us would have written better scripts for our web pages to serve files which are kept on servers in Europe?
Laws are written for peaceable people. Those who are determined to hurt others will do so. Over in the UK I remember a stabbing incident which actually made some people take part in a knife turn in event.
In 1979 my father was murdered by a criminal with a gun. What was the solution? Ban Guns? Ban Bars?(because outside of a bar is where this happened) Ban Divorce?(because my parents were separated and the guy was dating my mother) No. They put the SOB in jail. Why is it now that when a bunch of rich white people face what my family faced do we have calls for sweeping new limits on our freedom?
What about the poor bastards using WebTV. Does the WebTV browser support javascript fully enough to be vulnerable to this? And if so, can they disable javascript in their WebTV units?
Local Perspective -- And why call them kids?
on
Why Kids Kill
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· Score: 1
Posted by mudmonkey:
I own a house just a few minutes from Columbine high school, I play golf and shop right by there so this has affected me (all of us here) quite differently than the other incidents around the country. It is quite a surrealistic site to see almost 3 million people go about their day in a numbed daze (on April 21). When you see it on TV, you know it is real, you know there are victims, but, it is on TV, it is sterile (much like you were discussing with the electronic weapons we watch in Yugoslavia). When it is a couple of miles away, all of a sudden, you feel the focus of the television turned upon you. It is eery.
Back to your point regarding demonification of the suspect's interests. On local television here, they quickly went into researching what they had posted to the Internet and came up with a paragraph from Eric which basically said he wanted everyone dead. It was disturbing in light of what had happened, but, nothing that an immature, upset person wouldn't spout out of anger. The television commentary was basically, "posting that to the Internet is legal!?! How can that be!?!" They then went into great discourse about how he had books about Doom. They were unaware that it was a computer game and wondered how someone could write and publish a book about Doom.
We see this in every event, we look for a cause, we blame the topic with most interest or emotion, and then we shift our focus. Oklahoma City: I recall the "anti-terrorist" laws that were passed which allowed agencies previously disallowed to operate in the US (namely the CIA) access to American soil. Why? In the name of protection they said. I fear we may start seeing CDA III directed toward anything deemed terrorist in nature.
Lastly, why do we call these suspects kids? I realize they really are kids, I think of 18 year olds as kids; however, when we stop and think about it, they were 18. These are the same kids we may send into Yugoslavia and ask to perform the same function (throwing bombs and shooting). They are 18 year old kids in school, but 18 year old men on a battlefield.
Oh, and about the IBMers who work on free source? They generally don't wear suits, and they're not the ones for whom this information was originally being collected.
I work in the same complex as a lot of the Apache guys and one thing that needs to be made clear. The IBM of today is not the IBM of ten years ago. It is very uncommon to see people here in suits. Even the management folks several levels above me are rarely seen with ties. Down at my level, and one or two levels of management up, it's pure casual clothing.
I personally wear denim bib overalls to IBM from time to time. T-shirts are the rule. I am not even involved in the Apache group though we do share some bundling in common.
Slashdot Mirror
Posted by Nick Carraway:
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Of course Koresh was a freak and a criminal, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. My point was simply that all of his illegal automatic weapons (and he had a lot!) did little to help defend him and his followers against the government. The original point is still that people with guns are no match for people with tanks/helicopters/etc., so the gun lobby's argument about an armed populace keeping the government in check are patently ludicrous.
Posted by Nick Carraway:
You're correct, most of our fighting men wouldn't take too kindly to attacking their home towns. However, what if they were being told that their home towns were full of subsersive terrorists who hated America? This happens in other countries around the world, and I sincerely hope that it would never happen here. My point was simply that you can't do battle with the government with a rifle or a handgun. Just ask the Branch Davidians for their opinion on the matter -- Whoops, I forgot, they're all dead. The anti-gun-control camp likes to preach that we need guns to protect us from the government, and that's just so much hokum.
Posted by eafarris:
hmmm... i wonder how much cash Microsoft's Own Bill Gates has stashed away just for this moment, even if it is a rumor.
Oh, BTW -- thanks for the note; I've changed the wording to be 'software for which the source is freely available and modifiable.' I hope that addresses the issue..
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
(Re comments by sterwill ):
Well, I'm sorry you interpreted things that way, because that's not how they were intended. Your first interpretation was what was meant.
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
Posted by OGL:
I think Grand Theft Auto and Carmageddon are really fun games, not because they're gory, but because they were well put together and innovative. This kind of blows her whole argument up in smoke right there.
-W.W.
Posted by infect:
Video Cds own:
Heres a good list of stuff I've archived
(1) Lock Stock and Two smoking Barrels
(2) Orgazmo
(3) True Crimes
(4) Sneakers (DISC 1 BAD)
(5) Cruel Intentions
(6) Life Is beautiful
(7) Waking Ned Devine
(8) The Mod Squad
(9) Ever After
(10) 12 Monkeys
(11) Return To Paradise
(12) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
(13) Basict Instinct
(14) The Curropter
(15) Pi
(16) Hackers
(17) Simple Plan
(18) Blade (bad?)
(19) The Truman Show
(20) The Faculty
(21) Saving Private Ryan
(22) Jackie Cahn movie unknown
(23) Rush hour
(24) 6 Days 7 nights
(25) Antz
(26) Good Will Hunting
(27) ThunderBolt
(28) I still know what you did last summer
(29) Avengers
(30) Enemy Of the State
(31) Akira
(32) 8mm
(33) American history X
(34) Armaggedon
(35) The Big Lebowski
(36) Chasing Amy
(37) Goonies
(38) Kiss the girls
(39) Hurly Burly
(40) Patch Adams
(41) Payback
(42) Prince of Egypt
(43) Ronin
(44) Replacement Killers
(45) Seven
(46) Something about mary
(47) Slums of Beverly hills
(48) Thin Red Line (3)
(49) Top Gun
(50) Varsity Blues
(51) Waterboy
(52) Wrongfully accused
.....
The list goes on even more. Why pay to watch this shit? -- Download my friends. Download.
#vcd2k will live forever!
Posted by craig55:
That camcorder business is not new. I remember back in 1989 or 1990 going to a comic book convention and purchasing a Chinese bootleg of the yet-to-be-released in the US sequel to Highlander ("The Quickening"). And in addition to being one of the worst movies I've ever seen , the quality of the recording was horrible. You could see people's heads pop up as they got up to use the john and people walking up and down the isles. Hilarious.
The new thing is taking such a recording and making a VCD - basically a highly compressed MPEG version of the camcorder footage burned onto CD. ISO's (disk images) of these are traffic'd on "warez sites" pretty frequently. If you have a T1 at your disposal and time to down 650+ MB's, you can get the latest releases - Office Space, The Matrix etc. Word has it that some of these movie pirates have access to the projector via movie theater employees and can sometimes jack right into the projector for a direct dub to VHS.
The new thing is taking such a recording and making a VCD - basically a highly compressed MPEG version of the movie. These are traffic'd on "warez sites" pretty frequently. If you have a T1 at your disposal and time to down 650+ MB's, you can get the latest releases - Office Space, The Matrix etc.
Posted by infect:
I'm an avid user of these movies.
There are several types of VCDS (video cds) that get released:
Camcorder: Usually very low quality
Telecine: Professional camera in booth, usually offers much higher audio quality as it has seperate audio source. Video quality a little higher than cam, but often also slanted.
Workprint: A unfinished version of the full movie, usually high quality in both video and audio but you may be missing soundtrack of special effects.
Screener: Usually a direct rip from tape, high quality in both audio and video.
DVD Rip: Very high quality rip, but not much different from a screener in my opinion.
Recent releases include:
04091999 - La Vita é bella (Life is Beautiful) - Screener
04111999 - Analyze This - Telesync
04191999 - 10 Things I Hate About You - Telesync
04201999 - Velvet Goldmine - Screener
04201999 - A Walk On The Moon - Screener
04211999 - She's All That - Screener
04211999 - Edtv - Telesync
04221999 - Forces Of Nature - Telesync
04221999 - Election - Workprint
Some more famous than others, but you get the idea. At 1.1 GB a piece (~), you need some space to hold them though. This concept of "anyone can make one" is BS. You need real time MPEG hardware, fairly decent hard drive speed and capacity, and the know-how. The Broadway Pro is the card of choice, as is the snazzi or dazzle - but the high quality only comes from the Broadyway or similarly high end cards. CNN always likes to exaggerate things.
Posted by pennacook:
I was looking for the Y2k guide for dogs/cats really. This one says "if your owner goes in a mad panic, just sit back and laff!"
evidently the media has hyped up another hairbrained idea that you have to complete this list of over 500 items! yeah i have 200 bibles that should last me 6 months right? heh... I also made sure to pack enough condoms for 20 years too -- oops they expire in a year or two. give me a break...
Posted by Vympe:
Hi all,
I'm just about to put together a new computer. I've been considering which sound card to buy and I'm still somewhat clueless. I hear of problems with the Soundblaster PCI64 and PCI128, as well as the Live! Should I just stick with the old proved SB16?
Which sound card offers the best 'Linux value'? In other words, which modern sound cards are fully supported in Linux?
Thanks for the help!
> It looks like the authors don't know the
> meaning of "free software" as it has been
> used by the GNU project for more than a decade.
It looks like the FSF thinks everyone uses their terminology. Bzzzzzt. Of the millions of people relatively new to the 'Net and its culture (through the emergence of the Web and ISPs), I suspect that many think "free software" means "something I can download off the 'Net without having to pay." Which includes things like binary-only games, lobotomised demo packages of tools, and Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Ask the being-in-the-thoroughfare, "Is Internet Explorer free software?" If you think the answer will universally be 'no,' I think you're mistaken. And no, you can't prime it with definitions. :-)
> The "free software" part of the name of the Free> Software Foundation is about freedom and source
> code, not "free beer". The survey authors are
> actually talking about "freeware" here, not
> "free software".
The survey authors are talking about exactly what they say they are: software for which the source code is freely available. Notwithstanding what various groups may think, there is no lock on these terms, no one 'correct' definition -- regardless of the degree of militancy any particular group may have concerning their particular interpretation. Each of the terms means different things to different sets of people, so we were careful to define our usage explicitly, using a non-overloaded and uncontroversial term, to avoid confusion.
> Please -- if you are making a survey in support> of "open source" software, make sure you
> understand the terminology. Not understanding
> the terminology is often an indication that one
> does not understand the relevant concepts.
It's not a matter of not understanding the concepts or the terminology. It's a matter of recognising that the terminology is multi-valued and describes different concepts to different people. Please re-read the free-source definition page on the site, after putting yourself into the shoes of (say) a hardcore Microsoft developer, or script-kiddie, or suit, or anyone who has not lived and breathed the FSF for years.
The OSI tweaked us when we naïvely used "open source" in the survey, because they claim they own the definition. So we changed the offending text, and now someone is tweaking us because we didn't use their preferred phrase. {Sigh} Please, can we just deal with the thing itself ("software for which the source is freely available") without arguing over what to call it?
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
Posted by Scott Francis[Mechaman]:
1. Every company's marketing division flunked college. Or at least it seems like it to me.
2. The time-and-again popular misconception that Americans won't buy anything that doesn't reflect the media and the stereotypical image. Some foreign companies are guilty of this; I remember reading a chain of messages about releasing Sakura Taisen in the States where Sega was afraid that Americans "wouldn't get" the deep Japanese culture of the game; ignoring the fact that most people will seek it out exactly for that. And then of course, there's the silent minority who dislike those kinds of games and will froth at the mouth if they are ever released commercially.
Heck, how do you explain all those WWF games that keep coming out for the PSX?
3. The "Stallone theory": if it worked once, do it over and over again. That's why we had the flood of lame, bloody FPSs when the PSX originally came out, because someone wanted the next Doom or Quake. Never mind that playing computer style FPSs on a console is usually an exercise in torture..with Goldeneye being an odd exception(and only in multiplayer).
4. See number 1. Sega had a nice console with the Saturn and totally canned it by not releasing the horde of software kept in Japan, as well as refusing to make a domestic version of the RAM cart. Let's hope they learned something with the DreamCast..
Posted by The Masked Miscreant >:):
Bear in mind that Intel's integer core is more primative than either AMD or Cyrix's current design. That means that for the vast majority of non-3D/CAD software you'll see a marked improvement over a PII 300 when you use even Cyrix's relatively weak MII chip (whatever P rating actually runs at a 300MHz clock speed).
I sat through an Intel marketing presentation back when I worked retail, and was told flat out that floating point power was more important for word processing, and that every processor that runs at a given clock speed generates the same heat, because it's the little clock crystal that generates all the heat (not the resistance as electricity flows through the chip).
Just goes to show you can't trust marketing to give you straight facts.
Posted by Nick Carraway:
Remember that the revolutionary Americans had the Atlantic Ocean to separate them from the English, and that the English army was equipped with similar (although somewhat superior) weaponry than the Americans. Both sides were fighting with black powder rifles, fixed bayonets, and slow-firing, hard-to-maneuver cannon. High explosives and repeating arms had not yet been invented. How effective do you think an army of goofy militia types would be against a single Apache helicopter? How about against a squadron of high-flying, carpet-bombing B-52s?
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>Why, if I remember correctly, back in the ole days, wasn't it illegal for anyone not of noble birth (ie. a peasant, not knighted) to carry a sword or wear armor, or even own a horse?
Before the threat of the Normans existed they weren't even allowed to own bows.
"Say there peasant man. For what needeth thou that long bow? Dost thee intend to hunt the king's deer? Off with his head!"
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>Anyway, a sensible gun control law to my mind might be to allow weapon ownership, concealment, and the like, but to force registeration of all weapons in the same way we force registeration of all cars and drivers.
This is the most reasonable Canadian idea I've seen all day. However I must add a wrinkle. Instead of registering the gun, register the person. For example, in the US you have the right to own a firearm UNLESS you've committed some type of crime that prohibits you from doing so.
If we keep a list of all the people who can't own guns (probably about 2 million people in the US) and whenever someone wants to buy a gun, check to see if they're on the list. If they're not prohibited, they get the gun.
Gun registration is merely a tool for future confiscation. The Nazis did it in europe, they did it in New York, and they'll do it where ever we let them.
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>I don't think anything used in this spree was illegal in Canada and not in the USA. (I.E. Everthing was illegal.) Assuming the handgun was a 9mm as reported and not fully automatic, even it would have been legal in Canada after about two weeks of paper work. However it would have been illegal for anyone under eighteen to possess it and doublely illegal to take it onto school property.
Thank you for reminding me. In the US, it's not legal in most circumstances for a person under 21 to own a handgun. I'd estimate that of the 170+ million legal gun owners in the US that less than 500 fall into the catagory of being able to posess a handgun while under 21. I am the only person whom I know who wasn't a cop who fell into that position.
We NEED TO BAN PLUMBING AND BARBECUE SUPPLIES. More injuries in this case were caused by pipe bombs.
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>The biggest reason for this tragedy are the gun laws. Guns need more restrictions, no one should be allowed to own a hand gun. Hand guns serve no other purpose then to kill people. Rifles and shotguns on the other hand are used for hunting. You never see something like this happen in Canada or the UK, where they actually have some descent gun laws.
Dunblane Scotland, dickhead.
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>King George has been dead a long, long, long time, dude. Americans no longer have British soldiers knocking on their doors.
No, instead of Red Coats, it's blue helmets that we must be worried about.
>>The first 10 amendments were named 'The Bill of Rights' out of literary flamboyance on the part of Thomas Jefferson, not out of some perceived ethical universality. In truth they're simply the first 10 (of dozens to follow) amendments.
Either you misunderstand the men and the times of which you speak or you lie. The bill of rights was the putting to paper the inalienable rights that were mentioned in the declaration of independance.
>>Counterquery: Why are there no weekly massacres in my home where there have never been any firearms?
Countercounterquery: Why are there no weekly massacres in my home where there are guns?
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>King George has been dead a long, long, long time, dude. Americans no longer have British soldiers knocking on their doors.
No, instead of Red Coats, it's blue helmets that we must be worried about.
>>The first 10 amendments were named 'The Bill of Rights' out of literary flamboyance on the part of Thomas Jefferson, not out of some perceived ethical universality. In truth they're simply the first 10 (of dozens to follow) amendments.
Either you misunderstand the men and the times of which you speak or you lie. The bill of rights was the putting to paper the inalienable rights that were mentioned in the declaration of independance.
>>Counterquery: Why are there no weekly massacres in my home where there have never been any firearms?
Countercounterquery: Why are there no weekly massacres in my home where there are guns.
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>> How come the armed guard in Colorado didn't stop the killings...Stating that guns prevent crime really misunderstands the nature of most gun deaths, dramitic example like this aside.
He didn't stop it because he wasn't a good enough shot.
Guns DO prevent crime. Gary Kleck's research has shown that Americans thwart 2.5 million crimes with guns each year.
>>To continue that logic to today we should all own anti-tank weapons and SAMs, simply put there is no way for a civilian to be even near on par with a government troop in the era of modern warfare, how effective have the armed militia groups been when they get in to conflicts with the government, regardless of your opinion of them, I can't think of a single government agent being killed...
Then you are woefully underinformed in this area. In Waco Texas 4 government agents were killed by the Branch Davidians. On Ruby Ridge in Idaho, Kevin Harris killed agent William Degan with one shot. Even if he'd been wearing a kevlar vest, he still would have died.
He was shot with a 30-06 rifle from a few dozen yards away.
>> I know of few that are arguing that the right to bear arms should be repealed....I know many who think that it should be more regulated. It is currently easier to get a gun than it is a drivers license....gee, that makes sense.
When the US constitution is amended to include a right to "keep and drive cars" then maybe it should be eaier to get a driver's license. Gun ownership is a RIGHT, don't you get it? It's not a privelege that exists at the whim of our politicians. Constitutional, nay basic human rights can not be denied just because a majority of you choose that they be.
If the CDA had not been struck down, how many of us would have taken part in the effort to work around it? How many of us would have written better scripts for our web pages to serve files which are kept on servers in Europe?
Laws are written for peaceable people. Those who are determined to hurt others will do so. Over in the UK I remember a stabbing incident which actually made some people take part in a knife turn in event.
In 1979 my father was murdered by a criminal with a gun. What was the solution? Ban Guns? Ban Bars?(because outside of a bar is where this happened) Ban Divorce?(because my parents were separated and the guy was dating my mother) No. They put the SOB in jail. Why is it now that when a bunch of rich white people face what my family faced do we have calls for sweeping new limits on our freedom?
LK
Posted by Condescending Unix User:
What about the poor bastards using WebTV. Does the WebTV browser support javascript fully enough to be vulnerable to this? And if so, can they disable javascript in their WebTV units?
Posted by mudmonkey:
I own a house just a few minutes from Columbine high school, I play golf
and shop right by there so this has affected me (all of us here) quite
differently than the other incidents around the country. It is quite a
surrealistic site to see almost 3 million people go about their day in a
numbed daze (on April 21). When you see it on TV, you know it is real, you
know there are victims, but, it is on TV, it is sterile (much like you were
discussing with the electronic weapons we watch in Yugoslavia). When it is
a couple of miles away, all of a sudden, you feel the focus of the
television turned upon you. It is eery.
Back to your point regarding demonification of the suspect's interests. On
local television here, they quickly went into researching what they had
posted to the Internet and came up with a paragraph from Eric which
basically said he wanted everyone dead. It was disturbing in light of
what had happened, but, nothing that an immature, upset person wouldn't
spout out of anger. The television commentary was basically, "posting that
to the Internet is legal!?! How can that be!?!" They then went into great
discourse about how he had books about Doom. They were unaware that it was
a computer game and wondered how someone could write and publish a book
about Doom.
We see this in every event, we look for a cause, we blame the topic with
most interest or emotion, and then we shift our focus. Oklahoma City: I
recall the "anti-terrorist" laws that were passed which allowed agencies
previously disallowed to operate in the US (namely the CIA) access to
American soil. Why? In the name of protection they said. I fear we may
start seeing CDA III directed toward anything deemed terrorist in nature.
Lastly, why do we call these suspects kids? I realize they really are
kids, I think of 18 year olds as kids; however, when we stop and think
about it, they were 18. These are the same kids we may send into
Yugoslavia and ask to perform the same function (throwing bombs and
shooting). They are 18 year old kids in school, but 18 year old men on a
battlefield.
--Brian
Posted by The ULTIMATE Crippler:
Oh, and about the IBMers who work on free source? They generally don't wear suits, and they're not the ones for whom this information was originally being collected.
I work in the same complex as a lot of the Apache guys and one thing that needs to be made clear. The IBM of today is not the IBM of ten years ago. It is very uncommon to see people here in suits. Even the management folks several levels above me are rarely seen with ties. Down at my level, and one or two levels of management up, it's pure casual clothing.
I personally wear denim bib overalls to IBM from time to time. T-shirts are the rule. I am not even involved in the Apache group though we do share some bundling in common.