certainly an anti-spam bill would violate said rights
I suppose I could vaguely see where such an argument might be based, but I also have to say that someone's right to free speech doesn't mean that I'm obligated to listen. And in the case of spam, they're "talking" on my dime and on my time. So I say that an anti-spam bill is not in any way an infringement on anyone's free speech rights: commercial, unsolicited email with no previous agreement between myself and the company sending the email (not between me and some other company that the sender does business with!) should be banned.
My worst experience with spam was peripheral, but significant: my uncle opened his own business and began promoting it. One day he woke up and checked his email to find his new business address had over 1700 emails. After 2 hours of downloading, he called me up to help him find a program to let him root through emails by downloading headers, rather than the entire email.
Actually, the condition was just "don't use Microsoft products". Though a Linux man myself, I have to say that "Not MS" != "Linux". For all we know a switch would be to yet another proprietary platform.
Every ISP should base charges only on how much traffic you send.
I disagree. On my college campus, many of the guys using P2P software are leeches, and I see no reason why some deadbeat on a DSL or cable connection wouldn't do the same. Although I do think that using pricing as a means/incentive to keep people's boxen updated is really innovative...:-)
I would think that one of the best uses of a technology like this would be DVD movies with personalized commentaries.
Then people like me could host "Mystery Science Theater"-esque parties where we make fun of the movie. Loads of laughs, and the memories would last indefinitely!
That's fantastic...wait, wait, XMMS does that too, and can handle Winamp's (2.xx) skins. An emphasis on Winamp's superior playlist randomization, or its outstanding no-skip track switching, etc, would be more effective. As it stands, I have no reason to switch from an open source application built specifically for my operating system to a closed source port that's placed on the back burner while stability is sought out for a broken OS I don't use. I'd love for Winamp's porting efforts to come to fruition, though; Winamp is very much superior to XMMS.
There appears to be actual consumer-protective teeth in these bills which mirror the telephone 'do not call' lists.
As previously posted on Slashdot, would such a "Do not email" list prove effective? I remember reading an interview in Maximum PC with a "spam king", who blatantly stated that he refused to obey the laws of the states requiring "ADV" in the subject lines of spam emails. Why? Because he found that it thwarted him from getting spam through to people, since the emails were being blocked at the ISPs.
My point is that it may still be profitable to spammers to email those people on the DNE list anyway, if the percentage of recipients who take legal action is low enough.
"At this point, I think the technical approach has more promise than the legal one," said Sorkin.
Frankly, I disagree. An entirely technical approach may reduce the amount of spam individual users receive, but where will the filter be implemented? If at the ISP level, it may be badly implemented and cause false positives without the user's knowledge. If at the user level, the user would still have to download x number of messages and have the technical prowess to implement a filter themselves.
It states the approximate price of each ($16/CD, $60/movie). So I didn't quite follow your math. $2.67 isn't labeled at all, so I assume you were trying to state the price of each song? If so, I think the approximate price per song is more like $.80 per song. The article doesn't tell how many songs the APG estimates are on an average CD, so it would be rather difficult to approximate a markup based on individual songs. I'm used to paying ~ $16 per CD (if not more), so I would say the APG is charging market price.
My point was that if someone holds a peculiar belief that people named John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmitt don't deserve to live (and that's a _religious_ belief to them, not an opinion), and the law says that that person is not to go out and slaughter the JJJHS's in the world, is the government-sanctioned law infringing on the person's beliefs?
> you get that when you use extreme examples
Sure. The point was to come up with something outrageous so any questions that would arise from my statements would be rhetorical.
CAUTION: very off-topic. To clarify: God never once told anyone to rape anybody...as for pillaging, I seem to recall Him saying "Go kill everyone, but take nothing". The point was to punish the people for their sins.
> the others won't let them do it
Right. But if I understand all you people correctly, that would constitute a massive disregard for the psycho's 'rights' and 'freedom'. And that person running around claiming God told him to kill everyone is trampling on YOUR 'freedom'. So who's 'freedoms' are being more trampled on?
I'm noticing a disturbing assumption on many people's parts that any given person's private beliefs CAN be separated from their public beliefs. As a born-again Christian, I don't see how I can EVER separate my public life from my private life: my God desires/demands that my public life reflect my personal beliefs. I'm not going to run around killing people, but if I pray in a restaurant, who's business is it?
> To too many people, God is the only definition of morality, > which precludes any morality being "above God"
No, why is it that you need to be more moral than God? You seem to be having the same problem Adam and Eve had: to be like God (well...you're trying to be above Him, but close enough). You see, the God of the Bible by definition IS good; from Him eminates all morality. His 10 commandments seem pretty consistent with what I would assume you consider 'good': don't murder, don't adulterate, etc. Why would you need anything more moral than God? If there's something more moral than God, God can no longer be God.
As for having some form of morals higher than those that God has already set, who will they come from? If they come from a Christian, you get hacked off and whine about how your "rights" are infringed upon when he legalizes the Pledge of Allegiance in its current form. If it's some random whacko, I'll get hacked off and whine when he legalizes drunk driving. Are you going to sue me because you have some viewpoint about how many times I can use the word "the" in a sentence, that got violated somewhere in this epistle?
> no morality can stand in the way of the murder or genocide
That is a good point, however you're coming from the position that God is not inherently just. I can't really say much more about that, though; it's like trying to describe colors to a blind man.
> they [have] the impression "i am expected to be christian"
That's ludicrous. (1) Using your logic, why don't they come back confused as to whether they should be Jewish OR Christian? (2) I would personally love to see a kid come back with such an opinion, because I would assume that they would also get out of school thinking "Gee, it wouldn't be good to grow up into a 24-year-old Californian and help Al Queda attack the country, since I'm supposed to give my allegiance to the US".
> a signal the government should not be sending
Well heck, let's all just choose to do what we feel like. "The government set up laws telling me that I'll be punished for raping some guy's wife and murdering his daughter. I'm getting the sense that the government doesn't want me harming that guy's family, which is obviously some sort of attack on my freedom." NO! While I respect your viewpoint, I heartily disagree with your subjective logic.
I can't particularly speak knowledgably on the subject, as I am just now 18 years old, and have not served in our country's military. Rather, I speak from my personal beliefs ("oh no, he said 'beliefs'!)
> the fetish the US makes over its flag
I seems to me that it is not so much a fetish with our flag, but rather a way to instill something of value and familiarity in our people. When the WTC towers were destroyed, what popped out onto all of our cars' antennas? The American flag! Why? Because it is an easily recognizable symbol of a number of things: unity (we take care of our own and avenge those who died), strength (when everyone pulls out a flag it's like displaying gang colors [sorry to refer to us all as a 'gang']), and determination (we defeated the British when the need arose, and against all odds; we'll take you down too). The flag is not some sort of toy to have a fetish about: it's a rallying point that we can gather around.
Slashdot Mirror
My worst experience with spam was peripheral, but significant: my uncle opened his own business and began promoting it. One day he woke up and checked his email to find his new business address had over 1700 emails. After 2 hours of downloading, he called me up to help him find a program to let him root through emails by downloading headers, rather than the entire email.
Then people like me could host "Mystery Science Theater"-esque parties where we make fun of the movie. Loads of laughs, and the memories would last indefinitely!
My point is that it may still be profitable to spammers to email those people on the DNE list anyway, if the percentage of recipients who take legal action is low enough.
If only the editors of /. could emulate the properties of pi...you know, not repeating, and all that.
Oo, oo, they could just call it "Yet Another Browser"! Yeah, I don't think that's been taken yet.
>Certainly there's a significant markup here.
It states the approximate price of each ($16/CD, $60/movie). So I didn't quite follow your math. $2.67 isn't labeled at all, so I assume you were trying to state the price of each song? If so, I think the approximate price per song is more like $.80 per song. The article doesn't tell how many songs the APG estimates are on an average CD, so it would be rather difficult to approximate a markup based on individual songs. I'm used to paying ~ $16 per CD (if not more), so I would say the APG is charging market price.
But $60 for a movie! Egad!
...since the dawn of time (read: "when I began using it"), as well as auto-logging.
Remember, kids, calling uninformed dullards 'morons' might not make them receptive to your presentation.
My point was that if someone holds a peculiar belief that people named John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmitt don't deserve to live (and that's a _religious_ belief to them, not an opinion), and the law says that that person is not to go out and slaughter the JJJHS's in the world, is the government-sanctioned law infringing on the person's beliefs?
> you get that when you use extreme examples
Sure. The point was to come up with something outrageous so any questions that would arise from my statements would be rhetorical.
-- Truk
> instructed to rape and pillage whole cities
CAUTION: very off-topic. To clarify: God never once told anyone to rape anybody...as for pillaging, I seem to recall Him saying "Go kill everyone, but take nothing". The point was to punish the people for their sins.
> the others won't let them do it
Right. But if I understand all you people correctly, that would constitute a massive disregard for the psycho's 'rights' and 'freedom'. And that person running around claiming God told him to kill everyone is trampling on YOUR 'freedom'. So who's 'freedoms' are being more trampled on?
I'm noticing a disturbing assumption on many people's parts that any given person's private beliefs CAN be separated from their public beliefs. As a born-again Christian, I don't see how I can EVER separate my public life from my private life: my God desires/demands that my public life reflect my personal beliefs. I'm not going to run around killing people, but if I pray in a restaurant, who's business is it?
> To too many people, God is the only definition of morality,
> which precludes any morality being "above God"
No, why is it that you need to be more moral than God? You seem to be having the same problem Adam and Eve had: to be like God (well...you're trying to be above Him, but close enough). You see, the God of the Bible by definition IS good; from Him eminates all morality. His 10 commandments seem pretty consistent with what I would assume you consider 'good': don't murder, don't adulterate, etc. Why would you need anything more moral than God? If there's something more moral than God, God can no longer be God.
As for having some form of morals higher than those that God has already set, who will they come from? If they come from a Christian, you get hacked off and whine about how your "rights" are infringed upon when he legalizes the Pledge of Allegiance in its current form. If it's some random whacko, I'll get hacked off and whine when he legalizes drunk driving. Are you going to sue me because you have some viewpoint about how many times I can use the word "the" in a sentence, that got violated somewhere in this epistle?
> no morality can stand in the way of the murder or genocide
That is a good point, however you're coming from the position that God is not inherently just. I can't really say much more about that, though; it's like trying to describe colors to a blind man.
-- Truk
> they [have] the impression "i am expected to be christian"
That's ludicrous. (1) Using your logic, why don't they come back confused as to whether they should be Jewish OR Christian? (2) I would personally love to see a kid come back with such an opinion, because I would assume that they would also get out of school thinking "Gee, it wouldn't be good to grow up into a 24-year-old Californian and help Al Queda attack the country, since I'm supposed to give my allegiance to the US".
> a signal the government should not be sending
Well heck, let's all just choose to do what we feel like. "The government set up laws telling me that I'll be punished for raping some guy's wife and murdering his daughter. I'm getting the sense that the government doesn't want me harming that guy's family, which is obviously some sort of attack on my freedom." NO! While I respect your viewpoint, I heartily disagree with your subjective logic.
-- Truk
I can't particularly speak knowledgably on the subject, as I am just now 18 years old, and have not served in our country's military. Rather, I speak from my personal beliefs ("oh no, he said 'beliefs'!)
> the fetish the US makes over its flag
I seems to me that it is not so much a fetish with our flag, but rather a way to instill something of value and familiarity in our people. When the WTC towers were destroyed, what popped out onto all of our cars' antennas? The American flag! Why? Because it is an easily recognizable symbol of a number of things: unity (we take care of our own and avenge those who died), strength (when everyone pulls out a flag it's like displaying gang colors [sorry to refer to us all as a 'gang']), and determination (we defeated the British when the need arose, and against all odds; we'll take you down too). The flag is not some sort of toy to have a fetish about: it's a rallying point that we can gather around.
-- Truk