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User: Steve+B

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Comments · 2,301

  1. Re:the remedy is simple... on RIAA Continues Distributing Dud CDs to Satisfy Settlement · · Score: 1

    Either that, or note for the record that this shall be considered binding precedent for valuing the payments made to RIAA members when they win a lawsuit (i.e. if you get caught at illegal file-swapping, just FedEx them whatever crap happens to be at the back of your closet).

  2. Re:18 minutes? on SCO's claims Against Daimler-Chrysler Thrown Out · · Score: 4, Funny
    [18 minutes?] Why'd it take so long?

    The judge had to listen to the complete compendium of law and fact supporting SCO's claims, which was recorded in 1973 by Rose Mary Woods.

  3. Re:National security vs. P2P. on Using P2P To Make Gov't Documents Easy To Find · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Er, no, more in the sense of "as soon as some criminal finds it easier to commit armed robbery with a gun rather than a knife, people will use it as a pretext for more gun control".

    The basic issue is that laws directed at inanimate objects rather than at specific behavior are generally a bad idea.

  4. Re:Charging from USB 2.0 connection is big. on iPod Generation 4 Released · · Score: 1
    That will be a major boon to those in the PC arena who don't have firewire. It was the only reason I added a firewire card to my PC... just to charge my iPod.

    Huh? The Apple site lists "AC adapter" as one of the included accessories for each model.

  5. Re:Freedom of music and my responses to their lett on RIAA Sends Letter to Senate Supporting INDUCE Act · · Score: 1
    My industry can continue to sue users, many of them kids, to establish deterrence and educate the public. But the real villains are not the kids.

    I call b*llsh*t. Either the real villains are the kids -- the ones who chose to engage in each individual act of copyright infringement -- or there is no real villain at all.

    This reveals the true agenda behind this sort of legislation -- to create a mechanism for enforcing their will without having to take the PR backlash.

  6. Re:We've gone way beyond 'ridiculous' now. on DHS Says Cellular Outage Reporting is Terrorist Blueprint · · Score: 2, Funny
    Ok fuckstick... you change the subject and/or start calling the person names and placing personal attacks because you CAN'T argue against the facts... you dumbfuck... you commie pinko liberal asshole

    'Nuff said.

  7. Re:Wow on DHS Says Cellular Outage Reporting is Terrorist Blueprint · · Score: 1
    Imagine if they attacked during outages or could cause outages.

    They can cause outages. They know that they can cause outages, because they have already done it. All they have to do is what they intend to do anyway -- cause large-scale mayhem.

    Sheesh.

  8. Re:DVD had a lot of benefits over its predecessor on Gates Predicts DVD Obsolete In 10 Years · · Score: 1

    If you're talking about decompression artifacts, it sounds like a problem with your computer processing power or software (I assume you're playing DVDs via computer if the display is a 10-inch monitor) rather than a limitation of the display itself.

  9. Re:DVD had a lot of benefits over its predecessor on Gates Predicts DVD Obsolete In 10 Years · · Score: 3, Insightful
    DVD might not be good enough on a 100" hi-res digital screen either...

    Any display system for which DVD is not "good enough" (in terms of image/sound quality) isn't going to deliver much added value if it's just plunked into the corner of Joe Sixpack's living room. To get an experience that significantly improves upon existing high-end TV sets, you need a room specifically designed as a home theater. That sets a very high barrier to adoption.

  10. Re:I would guarantee it. on USA PATRIOT Act Survives Amendment Attempt · · Score: 1
    I have voted libertarian in the last 3 presidential elections, but Bush has convinced me that I have to vote against him.

    Er, what's the contradiction? Did Bush somehow fix the ballots so that he is also listed as the Libertarian candidate?

  11. Re:Arrrrghhhh!! on USA PATRIOT Act Survives Amendment Attempt · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The whole fucking point of this discussion is that some of us don't want lethal weaponry to be available.

    Yes, and while we're making a wish list, I don't want it to rain when I have things to do outside, I don't want the grass to keep growing after my lawn gets to its proper height, and I don't want the sun to be near the horizon in the direction I'm facing.

    I was talking about defending yourself with weapons that aren't designed to kill, or retreating.

    The bottom-line fact is that there just isn't any nonlethal weapon that can reliably stop a reasonably tough and determined attacker (especially when the person being attacked is small and/or weak).

    As for retreating, that's not a relevant consideration -- if we're talking about a situation where the use of lethal force is justified, we've already stipulated that retreat is not an option.

  12. Re:Arrrrghhhh!! on USA PATRIOT Act Survives Amendment Attempt · · Score: 1
    Tools with the sole purpose to kill.

    You say that as if it's a bad thing. In some situations, killing is perfectly moral and proper.

  13. Re:All because we are taught to trust the gov't on USA PATRIOT Act Survives Amendment Attempt · · Score: 1
    A hand full of people took over a few airliners and got away with it (at least their plans) because people are told the gov't will solve it. You mean to tell me a whole airliner full of people couldn't stop a couple of guys with razor-blades?

    Until 11 September 2001, the rational response of a passenger on a hijacked plane was to assume that the hijackers were a bunch of clowns who wanted a free ride to Cuba. Given that assumption, the sensible thing to do is sit tight and let the authorities deal with the situation after the plane lands.

    Once informed that this assumption was no longer valid, the passengers on United 93 adapted nicely to the new situation and prevented the hijackers from hitting their target (probably the Capitol or White House).

  14. Re:anti copyright rant on Besieged Movie Industry Suffers Record Takings · · Score: 1
    Don't throw the seminal argument away just because you take issue with their tactics.

    I'm not doing that -- they are. They're the ones who chose to use tactics that cause them to forfeit the natural sympathy they would otherwise get. (I know I'd be pretty annoyed if people bootlegged my friends' recordings without permission or compensation -- but my friends aren't the sort of people who corrupt the political process to get their way.)

  15. Re:anti copyright rant on Besieged Movie Industry Suffers Record Takings · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Would nagora write in the same manner if hundreds of thousands of people were stealing cars but the automobile industry was still doing record numbers

    If the automobile industry were buying laws against do-it-yourself maintenance, initiating scattershot car-theft charges without traditional due process of law, and otherwise behaving in **AA-like fashion, then, he probably would, and most certainly should.

  16. Re:Try a modified approach on Encrypted Volumes for Linux and Windows? · · Score: 1
    If you're concerned about someone editing one of the binaries, then you want the OS to be encrypted.

    No, you want it to be digitally signed, which is related in some ways but not the same thing.

  17. Re:Seen it, liked it, but # 3 doesn't look good th on Spider-Man 2 Reviewed [updated] · · Score: 1
    If it follows the usual pattern for superhero flicks, Spiderman 3 will have several villains and not just the 2nd Green Goblin.

    That's probably a bad idea -- it makes it harder to develop any of them beyond the cardboard-cutout level.

    Remember how many bad guys show up in Batman and Robin or Batman Forever?

    The prosecution rests.

  18. Re:An inside perspective. on 429,000 Do-Not-Call Complaints · · Score: 1
    Had they made a good faith effort to not call people who requested to not be called, these regulations would not have been necessary.

    *** DING DING DING ***
    No more calls; we have a winner!

    Where's a mod point when I need one?

  19. Re:What about our environment on Yet Another Degrading DVD · · Score: 1

    Hmmmm... I expect that some politician looking to burnish his "green" credentials will introduce a prohibitive tax rate on products specifically designed to degrade into trash that needs to be dumped somewhere.

  20. Re:Role of Government on No Federal Do-Not-Spam Registry For Now · · Score: 1
    You are prepared to argue that all commercial e-mail sent to you is fraud and theft?

    You need to work on your reading comprehension. I said that all spam is theft, and most of it is fraud. The former statement is true by definition; the latter has been abundantly confirmed by experience.

    Quite frankly, neither a do-not-call nor a do-not-e-mail list are the proper roles of government.

    The prohibition and punishment of trespass most certainly is a proper role of government.

    An argument can be made that the government is interfering with interstate commerce, prohibited by the Constitution.

    WTF? The Constitution quite plainly says that Congress does have the authority to regulate interstate commerce. While the definition of "interstate commerce" has been stretched absurdly in some areas of the law, the sending of spamvertisements from Joe Blow in Alabama to John Doe in New York is "interstate commerce" by any rational definition.

    The simple economic fact is that spam is a very cost-effective way to market and advertise your product or business. Make it less cost-effective and it will go away on it's own. How?

    The same way you make any other form of crime unprofitable -- make the punishment for getting caught multiplied by the probability of getting caught greater than the expected gain from committing it. Duh.

    There are other good technical solutions that have been tried, others that haven't, and still more that haven't been developed yet

    I repeat, the existence of locks and alarms is not an argument against having police and prisons. Both are part of an effective anti-crime strategy.

  21. Re:Role of Government on No Federal Do-Not-Spam Registry For Now · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The legitimate role of government is the suppression of theft, fraud, and assault.

    There is no contradiction whatsoever in opposing government interference with private property and free (as in speech) speech while supporting government crackdowns on spamming -- the former do not fall into any of the legitimate concerns of government; the latter alwasy fall into one (theft) and almost always into a second (fraud).

    It would be much more productive to work on real technical solutions to the problem of spam, rather than whining that the government should bail us out.

    There is no contradiction here, either. Yes, a prudent homeowner should install locks and other technological means to foil burglars. However, this is not a substitute for having police to arrest burglars or prisons to lock them up.

  22. Re:I guess I'm alone... on Russia, China World's Biggest Spammers · · Score: 1
    What about laws to stop real junk mail? You know, that stuff that fills your "real" mailbox? That's a far larger problem.

    No, it isn't.

    Paper mail advertisements do not, and will not in the future, threaten to make the postal system useless for personal communication. E-mail spam does threaten to destroy the usefulness of e-mail. The fundamental difference is that the former is a legitimate purchase of a service (the advertiser pays the postage) and the latter is a theft of service (the spammer uses trivial amounts of his own bandwidth to inject spam into the system, after which it is circulated using other people's resources).

    I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your comments reflect ignorance and failure to think through the issue, rather than being a spammer-apologist troll. (Because this exact argument is so often offered by known spammers and trolls, you will no doubt be accused of being one of them.)

  23. Re:What is the best way to stop this? on Russia, China World's Biggest Spammers · · Score: 1
    But when a billion-selling company pays its taxes, then you want to be very sure they're not legit before pulling the plug or slapping them with hefty fines.

    Clear Channel presumably pays its taxes, but just got slapped with a hefty fine for the "offense" of offending the Religious Reich element of the GOP. Politicians do respond to pressure, if it's kept up long enough.

  24. Re:Quite right too! on Microsoft's EU Appeal is Ready · · Score: 1
    Maybe, as they say, once their systems are openly documented they cannot simply be UN-documented if they are found to be innocent.

    Sure they can -- all they have to do is not document their future patches and upgrades, and existing documentation rapidly becomes worthless.

  25. Re:Someone... on Don't Smudge The Sensor When You Press 'Play' · · Score: 1

    These guys are pretty much sitting ducks for an ADA lawsuit if somebody can't play the music they bought and paid for after losing their hands....