The only people who would stop are the ones who do it purely for money, not the real artists.
Oh, very bright. "Real" artists don't try to make money off of their work; only evil, money-grubbing capitalists do that.
From myself and all the other filthy little money-making book writers out there, we'd like to thank you for advocating the complete destruction of our profession 'for the common good'. And in return, we'd like to do the same for whatever you choose as your profession, as soon as you move out of your mom's basement and get a real job.
Why the hell should uploading or downloading stuff that you don't own be legal?
Do try to remember that IP is artificial, not real, property. IP only has the rights that we, the people, feel like granting it, within the defining clause of the U.S. Constitution that deals with patents and copyrights.
If we decide that music can no longer be copyrighted, then that's the law - period. With one stroke of a pen IP can be unmade just as it was made. You can't do the same thing with real property.
While you're pondering this, try laying off the crack and pulling that RIAA cock out of your ass; you're embarrassing yourself with your lunatic ranting.
Does the average person equate criminal with lawbreaker? I would venture to say yes.
Well, I guess the average person is a bit smarter than you are, then. The average person would want to know what offense had been committed before labeling a person a criminal. For example, did he murder someone in a bar fight, or did he get a ticket for speeding?
But that's the average person, and the bell curve works both ways. You're a prime example of a point to the left of the peak of that curve.
monitary motivation is just one of the easier methods.
You mean the motivation to make enough money to pay the rent and bills, and put food on the table? In case you've forgotten, the lower class and poor of America constitute a higher percentage of the population than ever before in U.S. history, and the numbers continue to grow.
These people often work themselves into exhaustion just to get by. They *don't* have the energy at the end of the day (after their second job) to get into politics, or much of anything else for that matter, except for investing some small measure of the time that's left to them into interacting with their mates and children.
In case you can't tell, I'm tired of young, wet-behind-the-ears asswipes talking about the 'sheep', their stupidity, and their ignorant habits - all the while operating under the (false) assumption that they're intellectually superior to the 'proles'. Wake up and smell the coffee, little boys! You aren't any better than the 'sheep' you so obviously despise; if anything, your revolting egomania makes you their *inferior*.
Max
Re:Corps will continue to rule, people are sheep..
on
Amateur Revolution?
·
· Score: 1
Porn has a plot? The things I learn on the internet!
Max
Re:Corps will continue to rule, people are sheep..
on
Amateur Revolution?
·
· Score: 1
Saying the words "rap" or "hip-hop" in the same sentence as the words "genuine artist" is about as nonsensical as connecting the words "cold" and "hell".
I'd like to counter-point: I think it is totally acceptable to blame country music exclusively.
In that case rap and other forms of kiddie 'music' are certainly responsible for a higher homocide rates. Particularly when some little prick is blasting the ultra-mega-supercool speakers he just bought (either for his house or his car) and refuses to recognize the fact that his neighbors really don't want to listen to his noise collection along with him. And when you ask him - politely - to turn the noise down, he barely touches the volume knob and somehow thinks that's good enough to comply with your request. And whines like the little loser he is when you return to repeat the request.
Wash, rinse, repeat. Eventually go mad and blow the little bastard's brains out. Neighbors applaud wildly, law enforcement officials aren't so approving. Hey, you'd rather have gone for castration to prevent the little shit foisting his substandard progeny off on some witless girl, but the young'ns are just too bloody hard to catch and hold down....
It isn't about trying to spare us a moment of panic, it's about control. People in power remain in power by maintaining control over those under them, and this is much easier to do when you can choose what information to dispense to your sheep and what information to deny them.
Imagine two scenarios here, just for the fun of it (disclaimer: I do not believe there is any evidence whatsoever that aliens have, or are, visting this planet.)
- scenario A: The Roswell crash really was an alien spacecraft. Why hide it? Because if folks are presented with proof positive that there are, indeed, other forms of intelligent life in the universe, and that it's possible to travel between the stars, then they might start questioning the importance of certain issues here on Earth. They might even (gasp!) question the decisions of their own government, particularly in terms of spending and priorities (e.g., we know it's possible to travel to the stars, so why aren't we spending more money figuring out how to do it, and less on military adventures here on Earth?). It's much, much better if people are left with the impression that humans are the only intelligent life in the entire universe, and Earth is a one-of-a-kind planet. Focus their attention on Earth, and what we tell them is important on Earth; don't let them get distracted by thinking on subjects outside the box that we outline for them. They might become less manageable, and we can't have that!
- scenario B: a scientific team comes up with a viable way to alter the human genetic code to turn off the defect we call 'aging'. You think 'cool! I'll live forever!'; people in power go 'agh! disaster!'. Why? Because if immortality is shown to be achievable, then it'll be demanded as a natural right which the government MUST provide to every citizen. And following from that comes the realization that you no longer have to scramble every day of your short, miserable life working yourself to death to buy as many toys as you can before you drop dead. In fact, since barring accident or violence you have an effectively unlimited amount of time to earn whatever money you want, you might just come to the conclusion that working your ass off every day of the week is a waste; that perhaps frenetic consumerism isn't all that it's cracked up to be. You might even decide to only work 6 hours a day, and spend the rest of the time on hobbies - perhaps even take a serious look at political issues, and candidates, which you never had the time for before. You might come to the conclusion that spending on credit is a fool's game, when you can just save up your money for a year or two and be no worse off for waiting, to the great distress of banking institutions everywhere (you aren't aging, remember?). You might even wonder if having a multi-trillion dollar debt is a good thing, since it's quite conceivable that YOU will be around when it comes time to pay it off.
Now, what do you think would become of this new wonder-treatment? My guess is that the information would disappear into some dusty, heavily-secured archive, and that the members of the science team would be blackmailed into silence - or killed, if certain members didn't proof amenable to less extreme measures.
Restricting information is always about control. These two examples are extreme bits of fantasy (although effective immortality will certainly be discovered at some point, whether it's ten years from now or a hundred years from now), but you can see how the same ideas can apply to more mundane situations.
And let's also remember that government often fucks up, big-time. Hiding information is a good way to avoid embarrassment and possible prosecution for criminal behavior. In this case control is used to prevent outraged citizens from kicking the asses of certain current and former government goons.
They were already published in Science Magazine back in the '60's. The designs are fairly simple, it's the supporting industry that's difficult to produce.
No, you just have to be a normal (i.e., non-slashdot) user.
If your mail is important and you only have one copy of it, stored on a webmail service which provides no guarrantees (and none of them do) - and you can't even be bothered to save out a copy to your hard drive for the stuff you really don't want to lose - then yes, you're a complete knob. If something goes wrong or the company folds, you have absolutely no reason to bitch if you lose everything in your account.
Perhaps a Constitutional Amendment requiring Congress to read back all federal law in open session prior to convening for business?
Seriously, if there are so many federal laws in existence that they can't be read back in their entirety prior to a scheduled recess then there are too many laws and the federal government is appropriating power which rightfully belongs to the states, or the people. Our legislators seem to think that the number of laws enacted during their term in office is a direct measure of their manhood, a bizarre form of political 'penis enlargement'.
For once I'd like to see a Congress committed to *eliminating laws* rather than piling new ones atop the old. Not going to happen in my lifetime, though, at least not peacefully.
There's really nothing compelling on the radio any more.
Hey, as bad as radio is at least we don't have to listen to those shitty garage bands certain punk-ass pseudo-intellectual college kids go on and on about.
Oh, please. There are plenty of countries who are right now telling the U.S. to "fuck off" when it comes to various copyright or patent laws. India is a prime example of a nation that not only told Congress to go screw itself, but hasn't suffered in the slightest from doing so.
Many other countries have said "yeah, sure, whatever" then turned a blind eye to these 'illegal' activities. Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Maylasia, Brazil, Mexico - the list goes on and on.
The only people the U.S. is going to oppress with these laws are its own citizens. Yet another brilliant move geared towards stifling innovation and turning America into a second-rate shithole, courtesy of the fuckwits in the United States government.
Back in the '80's overpasses on I-5 in Oregon didn't have fences. Some murderous moron decided to go up onto an overpass and drop a large rock onto a car below, which - as you might imagine - killed the driver.
Apparently this sort of entertainment appealed to other bloodthirsty psychopaths, and what followed was a rash of rocks being dropped onto vehicles. Sometimes the nutjobs were caught, and sometimes they weren't. The state eventually put up fences on all of the overpasses to prevent people from wiling away the time by butchering their fellow citizens with chunks of granite.
At the time the citizens of Oregon recognized that this wasn't a coordinated effort of any kind, but the acts of seriously fucked-up individuals, all of whom deserved a bullet in the brain. Today our government would scream "terrorism!", demanding electrified fences, cameras, and gps-compliant vehicles with a built-in 911 feature to, uh, 'protect the citizens from those rock-dropping enemies of America'.
My guess is that people who use the laser-pointers on aircraft aren't part of some terrorist conspiracy, but are in fact nothing more than a minor variation of the rock-droppers. Psychopaths to be certain, but no different than any other murderous loon in serious need of a post-natal abortion.
The burden of proof is on you. It's up to you to provide evidence for a positive assertion; no one has to prove the absence of it, which is quite often logically impossible.
If you think you have 'proof' that religion will somehow come in handy after I die, then submit it to the world. You'll be the first person in human history to have accomplished this feat.
Religion is responsible for more charity and kindness than anything else in the world today.
Religion isn't responsible for anything. It's just the excuse that people use to justify their actions, both good and evil. They could just as easily pin it all on the Easter Bunny for all the sense that it makes.
If it weren't for religion, you'd have far more people starving and dying in the streets.
You don't have any evidence whatsoever that proves that people would contribute to charitable causes less if religion were taken out of the mix. Humans are quite capable of doing good deeds entirely on their own.
Not only is Melville an amazing pilot but he's willing to step right up and say "oops, my bad" without trying to foist the error onto someone or something else.
Really, this is the kind of guy that school children should be looking up to as an example of excellence in both professional and personal behavior.
And like the Columbia disaster it would make space-flight seem like a dangerous and costly endevour to the public.
No, it wouldn't. Rutan's brainchild isn't funded by a single dollar of government money. What the American taxpayer has to say about the matter is irrelevent.
Slashdot Mirror
The only people who would stop are the ones who do it purely for money, not the real artists.
Oh, very bright. "Real" artists don't try to make money off of their work; only evil, money-grubbing capitalists do that.
From myself and all the other filthy little money-making book writers out there, we'd like to thank you for advocating the complete destruction of our profession 'for the common good'. And in return, we'd like to do the same for whatever you choose as your profession, as soon as you move out of your mom's basement and get a real job.
Max
Why the hell should uploading or downloading stuff that you don't own be legal?
Do try to remember that IP is artificial, not real, property. IP only has the rights that we, the people, feel like granting it, within the defining clause of the U.S. Constitution that deals with patents and copyrights.
If we decide that music can no longer be copyrighted, then that's the law - period. With one stroke of a pen IP can be unmade just as it was made. You can't do the same thing with real property.
While you're pondering this, try laying off the crack and pulling that RIAA cock out of your ass; you're embarrassing yourself with your lunatic ranting.
Max
Does the average person equate criminal with lawbreaker? I would venture to say yes.
Well, I guess the average person is a bit smarter than you are, then. The average person would want to know what offense had been committed before labeling a person a criminal. For example, did he murder someone in a bar fight, or did he get a ticket for speeding?
But that's the average person, and the bell curve works both ways. You're a prime example of a point to the left of the peak of that curve.
Max
Professionals make a living off of their hobby. Amateurs don't.
An ancient example: what's the difference between a professional writer and an amateur writer? The professional gets paid.
Max
monitary motivation is just one of the easier methods.
You mean the motivation to make enough money to pay the rent and bills, and put food on the table? In case you've forgotten, the lower class and poor of America constitute a higher percentage of the population than ever before in U.S. history, and the numbers continue to grow.
These people often work themselves into exhaustion just to get by. They *don't* have the energy at the end of the day (after their second job) to get into politics, or much of anything else for that matter, except for investing some small measure of the time that's left to them into interacting with their mates and children.
In case you can't tell, I'm tired of young, wet-behind-the-ears asswipes talking about the 'sheep', their stupidity, and their ignorant habits - all the while operating under the (false) assumption that they're intellectually superior to the 'proles'. Wake up and smell the coffee, little boys! You aren't any better than the 'sheep' you so obviously despise; if anything, your revolting egomania makes you their *inferior*.
Max
Porn has a plot? The things I learn on the internet!
Max
Saying the words "rap" or "hip-hop" in the same sentence as the words "genuine artist" is about as nonsensical as connecting the words "cold" and "hell".
Max
I'd like to counter-point: I think it is totally acceptable to blame country music exclusively.
In that case rap and other forms of kiddie 'music' are certainly responsible for a higher homocide rates. Particularly when some little prick is blasting the ultra-mega-supercool speakers he just bought (either for his house or his car) and refuses to recognize the fact that his neighbors really don't want to listen to his noise collection along with him. And when you ask him - politely - to turn the noise down, he barely touches the volume knob and somehow thinks that's good enough to comply with your request. And whines like the little loser he is when you return to repeat the request.
Wash, rinse, repeat. Eventually go mad and blow the little bastard's brains out. Neighbors applaud wildly, law enforcement officials aren't so approving. Hey, you'd rather have gone for castration to prevent the little shit foisting his substandard progeny off on some witless girl, but the young'ns are just too bloody hard to catch and hold down....
Max
It isn't about trying to spare us a moment of panic, it's about control. People in power remain in power by maintaining control over those under them, and this is much easier to do when you can choose what information to dispense to your sheep and what information to deny them.
Imagine two scenarios here, just for the fun of it (disclaimer: I do not believe there is any evidence whatsoever that aliens have, or are, visting this planet.)
- scenario A: The Roswell crash really was an alien spacecraft. Why hide it? Because if folks are presented with proof positive that there are, indeed, other forms of intelligent life in the universe, and that it's possible to travel between the stars, then they might start questioning the importance of certain issues here on Earth. They might even (gasp!) question the decisions of their own government, particularly in terms of spending and priorities (e.g., we know it's possible to travel to the stars, so why aren't we spending more money figuring out how to do it, and less on military adventures here on Earth?). It's much, much better if people are left with the impression that humans are the only intelligent life in the entire universe, and Earth is a one-of-a-kind planet. Focus their attention on Earth, and what we tell them is important on Earth; don't let them get distracted by thinking on subjects outside the box that we outline for them. They might become less manageable, and we can't have that!
- scenario B: a scientific team comes up with a viable way to alter the human genetic code to turn off the defect we call 'aging'. You think 'cool! I'll live forever!'; people in power go 'agh! disaster!'. Why? Because if immortality is shown to be achievable, then it'll be demanded as a natural right which the government MUST provide to every citizen. And following from that comes the realization that you no longer have to scramble every day of your short, miserable life working yourself to death to buy as many toys as you can before you drop dead. In fact, since barring accident or violence you have an effectively unlimited amount of time to earn whatever money you want, you might just come to the conclusion that working your ass off every day of the week is a waste; that perhaps frenetic consumerism isn't all that it's cracked up to be. You might even decide to only work 6 hours a day, and spend the rest of the time on hobbies - perhaps even take a serious look at political issues, and candidates, which you never had the time for before. You might come to the conclusion that spending on credit is a fool's game, when you can just save up your money for a year or two and be no worse off for waiting, to the great distress of banking institutions everywhere (you aren't aging, remember?). You might even wonder if having a multi-trillion dollar debt is a good thing, since it's quite conceivable that YOU will be around when it comes time to pay it off.
Now, what do you think would become of this new wonder-treatment? My guess is that the information would disappear into some dusty, heavily-secured archive, and that the members of the science team would be blackmailed into silence - or killed, if certain members didn't proof amenable to less extreme measures.
Restricting information is always about control. These two examples are extreme bits of fantasy (although effective immortality will certainly be discovered at some point, whether it's ten years from now or a hundred years from now), but you can see how the same ideas can apply to more mundane situations.
And let's also remember that government often fucks up, big-time. Hiding information is a good way to avoid embarrassment and possible prosecution for criminal behavior. In this case control is used to prevent outraged citizens from kicking the asses of certain current and former government goons.
Max
They were already published in Science Magazine back in the '60's. The designs are fairly simple, it's the supporting industry that's difficult to produce.
Max
No, you just have to be a normal (i.e., non-slashdot) user.
If your mail is important and you only have one copy of it, stored on a webmail service which provides no guarrantees (and none of them do) - and you can't even be bothered to save out a copy to your hard drive for the stuff you really don't want to lose - then yes, you're a complete knob. If something goes wrong or the company folds, you have absolutely no reason to bitch if you lose everything in your account.
Max
Perhaps a Constitutional Amendment requiring Congress to read back all federal law in open session prior to convening for business?
Seriously, if there are so many federal laws in existence that they can't be read back in their entirety prior to a scheduled recess then there are too many laws and the federal government is appropriating power which rightfully belongs to the states, or the people. Our legislators seem to think that the number of laws enacted during their term in office is a direct measure of their manhood, a bizarre form of political 'penis enlargement'.
For once I'd like to see a Congress committed to *eliminating laws* rather than piling new ones atop the old. Not going to happen in my lifetime, though, at least not peacefully.
Max
Although not nearly so old as people posting criticism as anonymous cowards, because they don't even have the balls to use a bloody pseudonym!
Max
There's really nothing compelling on the radio any more.
Hey, as bad as radio is at least we don't have to listen to those shitty garage bands certain punk-ass pseudo-intellectual college kids go on and on about.
Max
Oh, please. There are plenty of countries who are right now telling the U.S. to "fuck off" when it comes to various copyright or patent laws. India is a prime example of a nation that not only told Congress to go screw itself, but hasn't suffered in the slightest from doing so.
Many other countries have said "yeah, sure, whatever" then turned a blind eye to these 'illegal' activities. Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Maylasia, Brazil, Mexico - the list goes on and on.
The only people the U.S. is going to oppress with these laws are its own citizens. Yet another brilliant move geared towards stifling innovation and turning America into a second-rate shithole, courtesy of the fuckwits in the United States government.
Max
The public speaks with dollars and if the craft is dangerous nobody is going to ride the thing.
Which undoubtedly explains the demise of extreme sports.
Max
Congress doesn't amount to shit outside of the U.S. File trading will still be alive and well, sans America.
Max
Back in the '80's overpasses on I-5 in Oregon didn't have fences. Some murderous moron decided to go up onto an overpass and drop a large rock onto a car below, which - as you might imagine - killed the driver.
Apparently this sort of entertainment appealed to other bloodthirsty psychopaths, and what followed was a rash of rocks being dropped onto vehicles. Sometimes the nutjobs were caught, and sometimes they weren't. The state eventually put up fences on all of the overpasses to prevent people from wiling away the time by butchering their fellow citizens with chunks of granite.
At the time the citizens of Oregon recognized that this wasn't a coordinated effort of any kind, but the acts of seriously fucked-up individuals, all of whom deserved a bullet in the brain. Today our government would scream "terrorism!", demanding electrified fences, cameras, and gps-compliant vehicles with a built-in 911 feature to, uh, 'protect the citizens from those rock-dropping enemies of America'.
My guess is that people who use the laser-pointers on aircraft aren't part of some terrorist conspiracy, but are in fact nothing more than a minor variation of the rock-droppers. Psychopaths to be certain, but no different than any other murderous loon in serious need of a post-natal abortion.
Max
Yeah they do, because they ultimate goal of the project is to convince the public to ride the thing.
They can choose to ride it or not ride it, but they don't get a say in anything else. It's not their money.
Max
If two competing theories can explain the same set of phenomena, then the simpler one wins.
Not so. The simpler explanation *which best fits the facts* wins. You left out the most crucial requirement of Occam's Razor.
Max
Proove it.
The burden of proof is on you. It's up to you to provide evidence for a positive assertion; no one has to prove the absence of it, which is quite often logically impossible.
If you think you have 'proof' that religion will somehow come in handy after I die, then submit it to the world. You'll be the first person in human history to have accomplished this feat.
Max
Religion is responsible for more charity and kindness than anything else in the world today.
Religion isn't responsible for anything. It's just the excuse that people use to justify their actions, both good and evil. They could just as easily pin it all on the Easter Bunny for all the sense that it makes.
If it weren't for religion, you'd have far more people starving and dying in the streets.
You don't have any evidence whatsoever that proves that people would contribute to charitable causes less if religion were taken out of the mix. Humans are quite capable of doing good deeds entirely on their own.
Max
Not only is Melville an amazing pilot but he's willing to step right up and say "oops, my bad" without trying to foist the error onto someone or something else.
Really, this is the kind of guy that school children should be looking up to as an example of excellence in both professional and personal behavior.
Max
And like the Columbia disaster it would make space-flight seem like a dangerous and costly endevour to the public.
No, it wouldn't. Rutan's brainchild isn't funded by a single dollar of government money. What the American taxpayer has to say about the matter is irrelevent.
Max
Ah, yes. The cry of the fanatic liberal: "anything funded by a rich person is evil, by definition!"
Grow up, kid.
Max