Basically the biggest thing Linux has to get over here is the RTFM attitude that's displayed on/. all the time
Spoken like someone who doesn't bother to RTFM. Hey bud, Windows and OS X are for people *just like you*. Linux isn't for everyone, you know.
Linux zealots need to get some social skills.
That observation applies to zealots of all kinds, regardless of what they're jizzing in their shorts about. Zealots, by definition, are a bunch of fucking assholes. Linux zealots are no different from MS zealots, or OS X zealots, or religious zealots - except, perhaps, by degree.
You'll never make friends or convince someone to switch to your software by dismissing their concerns or calling them stupid
Why on this green Earth should I give a shit? I mean, really; do you think I hang out on Linux help forums to make friends? Jesus H., that would be pretty fucking pathetic, don't you think?
And as for Slashdot, most of us here seem to be more interesting in making enemies, not friends. Just take a look at my freak show to see how well I've mastered that maneuver.
If I wanted to make friends, I'd probably choose some venue in that place called "real life". Preferably one stocked with hot Asian chicks, not fat near-sighted smelly geeks.
you have to take a time and effort hit - you have to learn a new way of working
That happens every time you get a new version of Windows. MS does that deliberately in an attempt to force folks to migrate to the new software. Either way you'll have to relearn how to do things (especially with MS's penchant for dicking around with the interface on their apps).
The best time to switch to Linux is when you're thinking about switching from your current version of Windows anyway.
This last week I did a massive hardware upgrade of two of my home machines, which required a from-scratch reinstall of Windows and Suse. I lost count of how many times I had to reboot with Windows - not just from the endless security updates and upgrades from Microsoft, but because I had to download the latest drivers for most of my equipment, install them, and *they* wanted to reboot as well.
Hours upon hours of acquiring drivers off the internet, downloading them, installing them, rebooting the goddamned machine, and tweaking the fuckers according to various FAQs. Oh joy.
Suse Linux, on the other hand, need ONE reboot - and that's after downloading some 150 patches (automagically), not to mention installing all of my favorite software. Funny, I ended up picking up ONE driver from the manufacturer for each machine, both of which were for the video cards. Not that the cards didn't work without the drivers (they did just fine), but simply because it was recommended in case the driver that came with Suse ran into problems.
I haven't even gotten around to installing my various pieces of Windows software yet. I decided to defer *that* nightmare for another day (or two, or three, since my Linux is up and running and already has all of my apps installed).
Why do I even have a Windows partition? For a) games, and b) Photoshop. And if the games came with a non-WINE linux install I'd toss Windows altogether and put behind me the driver hunt-install-endless reboot nightmare forever.
Anyone who says that Windows is easier to install than a modern version of Linux is a jackass.
He leaked to the goddam newspaper. That's exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to do.
No, that's the opposite of what you're *legally required* to do. What you're supposed to do (assuming you have any conscience whatsoever) and what the law says you should do are becoming increasingly different things.
Send it anoymously to the cops, and if that doesn't work, *then* go to the papers. At least that way you can say you *tried* to do the right thing first.
While working for a certain government agency lo these many years ago, I uncovered some rather interesting patterns in a series of construction contracts pointing to obviously fraudulent behavior. Essentially Contracts A and B would regularly underbid on projects, thus securing the contract; after they had the contract they'd tack in a variety of fees and surcharges that put the total cost of the contract so far over all competing bids it boggled the mind. Some of these contracts were up to *ten times* the actual bid, upon completion.
The fact that the CEOs of Companies A and B regularly golfed and socialized with the heads of the departments who issued the bids and made final approvals, and that the people in charge of reviewing the contracts managed to outwardly (and incongruously) live far beyond their means made the whole thing even more suspicious.
Being the good little citizen I was at the time, I gathered an enormous amount of evidence clearly outlining the patterns in question and brought them to the attention of the investigative branch that should've found them of interest. They listened carefully to everything I had to say, going over every detail quite carefully, and took the documents for a full review. They agreed that I seemed to have uncovered something suspicious and "would look into it".
The next Monday I found that despite perfect past reviews of my work I was going to be terminated for "gross incompetence". How, exactly, I'd been incompetent was never revealed, only that I was, and that the sooner I was fired the better. Not a great believer in coincidence I went to the appropriate labor authorities about the matter, only to learn that they had absolutely no interest in the matter and refused to investigate, much less defend me against the charges. Unofficially I was told that I had "poked my nose into places it didn't belong", and now I was going to suffer the consequences.
At that point I brought in lawyers and threatened to expose the whole sorry rotten scam. Essentially a cease-fire was eventually worked out, but only if I agreed not to investigate the contract matter any further, although the wording wasn't nearly so direct. I was so tired of the crap at that point that I agreed; a mistake, it turns out, because from that point on every review of my work was terrible, I was repeatedly reprimanded for things I did not do, etc. Work became a living hell and the very authorities which were supposed to protect me instead either absented themselves or joined in on the action.
I quit less than a year later; only, it turns out, I was black-listed, and rather thoroughly. I had to move, change my name, and remove that place of work from my resume in order to escape that little black cloud.
Real fun and games. At least it taught me to never, ever work for government again.
What those bastards didn't know is that I kept copies of *every single record*, which I hid. Paranoid, I know, but a previous whistle-blower somehow managed to get killed by unidentified (and never caught) home intruders right after she threatened to go to the press, so a little tin-foil-hat action seemed to be justified. I took them all to a reporter I know at the biggest newspaper in the area.
Happy ending? Nope; he later informed me his editors had shut down the story, told him to forget about it, and destroyed everything I had given him. It turns out that the guy who owned the newspaper ran in the same circles as the folks in construction who were bilking the government out of enormous sums of money, and he personally gave the order. I also got the impression (from my reporter friend) that if I made a fuss we'd both get visits from some unsavory sorts in the middle of the night. That was the only I time ever saw him nervous.
Nothing more I could do at that point. My documentation pointed
The problem here is that the law is skewed *against* people trying to do the right thing. If anything, it should be against the law *not* to blow the whistle; to me, the act of deciding not to report a crime is tacit complicity in the crime itself.
But then in this country the police themselves are apparently under no obligation to enforce the law or even respond to imminent threats, so holding the average citizen to a higher standard is more than a bit hypocritical.
That's just doctors. 95% of 'em will get pissed off if you so much as open your mouth to ask "why?", much less if you do something like express a capacity for independent thought and reason. Like politicians or the RIAA, they expect you to do whatever the fuck they tell you to do and to praise them after for their enormous wisdom, no matter how things turn out. Defying a doctor is on par with telling the pope to go fuck himself.
Microsoft's console has gained an incredible amount of mindshare.
By selling their consoles at half the price of production. We'll see how much of that "mindshare" they keep once shareholders demand that the console price accurately reflect real-world production prices.
Statisticians also will tell you that you can measure the skew
And they'd be lying. In order to measure the skew you have to compare againt a non-skewed sample and correct accordingly. But in the Nielsens you can't do that unless you chart the viewing habits of people who...refuse to allow their viewing habits to be charted.
The Nielsens have never been about good statistics.
Not when the sample is self-selected, as is the case in the Nielsens. That *always* skews the data, as you would know if you actually had some experience working with statistics.
Does anyone out there ever consider that there might be people in government that might actually be trying to protect us?
No, not really. Having worked for government I'd say I have a better chance of winning the lottery than for your (rhetorical) question to ever be answered in the affirmative.
Ben Franklin's quote about protection and liberty is absolutist, and he himself, by being involved in a government which provided protection at the cost of liberty proved that, so please don't raise that old quote as a response
If by "absolutist" you mean "perfectly correct" then I guess so. But I gather that for some strange reason you actually think that you're the intellectual equal of ol' Ben, something I find about as likely as the idea of the NSA spying on me 'for my own good'.
Has anyone considered that liberty can never be absolute in a world of real human beings
Geez, I don't remember anyone talking about 'absolute liberty'. That little strawman you made up all on your own. What I do remember is our Founding Fathers drawing a line in the sand for government and saying "thou shalt not cross - EVER!"
Too fucking bad the whole experiment didn't work out.
Yes, the measures might be abused
No, they *will* be abused. That's a given. The solution is to make government as weak as possible while still having enough power to do the job it's tasked to do. That way WHEN someone abuses power, they'll never have enough to do more than local harm, and certainly not enough to cover up the abuse or to flaunt it (aka Bush and spying) without fear of retaliation.
For a representative government to be truly representative, you need your Congresscritters to constantly fear what will be done to them should they ever cross the people they represent. Not only that, but regular and firm reminders that they are not leaders, but SERVANTS. They are in Congress for one and only one purpose: to do our bidding, within the constraints of the Constitution. They have no other value in office.
If it were not for some perhaps over-zealous protections enacted by civil libertarian fundamentalists, the World Trade Center towers might still be standing.
What a crock of shit. Yep, let's blame the destruction of the Twin Towers on people who actually *champion liberty* instead of, well, *the criminal fucks who crashed the planes into them*. Your inability to exercise even the basics of logic would astound me if I weren't a Slashdot semi-regular.
Look, if you're so fucking convinced that fascism is such a dandy thing there are countries *all over the world* that would fit the bill perfectly. You'd be much, much happier living in one of them. I'd be happier if you were living in one of them, too.
Under some of those proposed bills, simply asking somone a question 1000 times in a row would be considered torture. Under some of those proposed bills, simply deneying somone sleep would be considered torture. Under some of those propsed bills, simply waking someone in the middle of the night would be considered torture.
Under the Constitution we call these things "cruel and unusual punishment", and guess what? You don't get to do them - EVER. No one, not even "I'm-the-Second-Coming-of-King-George" Bush, gets to piss on the Constitution of these United States.
NO ONE. And a president who thinks otherwise is guilty of treason.
It's "lose", not "loose". You don't confuse "nose" and "noose", do you? Those two words have about as much in common as "lose" and "loose" do.
Here's how you remember the difference: "lose" is what you did with your car keys when you can't find them; "loose" is what your momma was, and why you're here today.
If you're in it for money, you're in it for the wrong reasons.
That's a ridiculous notion. A good many writers - most, in my anecdotal experience - wouldn't be writing at all if they couldn't make a decent living off of it. They don't care to starve in some Bohemian tragicomedic-style just to prove how "artistic" they are to some self-involved college shits who don't have the first fucking clue about real life.
Money IS the motivator. Without money they'd be doing something else, like...selling real estate. So they could, y'know, perhaps eat, and feed their kids, and stuff. It's only when writing becomes sufficiently profitable to be worth the effort that most writers will decide to toss alternative career choices and go for the gold.
All the other reasons in the world mean jack if pursuing a career in writing (or art, or music, or whatever) means that you're like to end up living on the street. Or even not making a decent wage, where the alternatives practically guarantee that sort of wage.
You think otherwise, talk to some REAL writers. The people who actually make a living off it and don't have to support themselves with some other form of work. They're some of the most practical people you'll ever meet, and for good reason.
indicate a far earlier divergence, than the fossilic evidence does.
What evidence? It's been known for quite some time that proto-mammals dominated the Triassic and were the largest creatures on Earth at the time. Rapid, catastrophic climate change (think "the worst possible greenhouse effect you can imagine") killed all the big proto-mammals, leaving only the much smaller ones to carry on. After the world began to recover and become more temperate dinosaurs took center stage, primarily due to their method of locomotion (superior to that of the surviving mammals).
Once the dinosaurs were wiped out, those little mammals went on to get big again and replaced the dinosaurs.
Mammals and mammal-like creatures have been around for hundreds of millions of years. The only 'surprise' here is that at least one mammal was somewhat larger during the era of the dinosaurs than we previously imagined they'd be. Only this isn't much of a revelation, since similar discoveries of the same sort have been made over the last several years.
The only reason copyright has survived up to this point is because it's so damn easy to get away with violating it
I doubt this very much. The fact is that up until recently the vast majority of folks willingly complied with copyright laws, probably because they thought they were a pretty fair deal. In return for exclusive rights for a limited time, people who'd otherwise be working 9-5 jobs could instead make a living producing music, tv, movies, or books. They didn't avoid breaking the law because it was particular difficult or out of fear of punishment, but because the law provided more in the way of benefits than in drawbacks - as most sane laws are meant to do.
But the situation with copyright laws (and patent laws, with the USPTO so very much out of control) is no longer sane, rational, or reasonable. Combine this with just how frustrated Joe Consumer is over just how often he gets shafted by media brokers and folks who would comply with the laws find themselves no longer willing to abide by those they consider unreasonable.
This doesn't mean that Joe gives a good goddamn about the laws themselves. What the fuck does he care if the copyright scheme is 14+14 or life+70? It's not as if Joe is going to throw a fit over the fact that he can't legally pitch a screen in his front yard and play old black-and-white Mickey Mouse cartoons. No, what Joe cares about is things like this:
- back when I was growing up, there were 52 minutes of show and 8 minutes of commercials per hour, and even then we bitched about it. Now there are 40 minutes of show and 20 minutes of commercials. People who thought 8 minutes of commercials per hour was too much are certainly going to be more than a bit displeased that for every 2 minutes of show there's now 1 minute of commercials to wade through. It's no fucking wonder Joe uses his VCR to record shows just to skip over the commercials, or bitTorrents the show because he can (blessedly) watch without commercials altogether. Bittorrent is what cable promised us suckers in the early days, then immediately turned around and gave us the shaft on as soon as it became profitable.
- Just how many times has Joe been lured into buying a CD for $16-20 only to find that the only songs worth listening to on the thing (usually one or two) are the ones that've been playing repeatedly on the radio? Joe doesn't like getting screwed, and that's how most people feel when they find out that the "great" CD being advertised by Song A and Song B is so much horseshit, apart from Song A and Song B. And since Joe isn't some unemployed college kid he can't afford to sit around for hours in some music store doing nothing but 'test-driving' CDs; he's got a job, a wife, kids, a life. So Joe isn't at all bothered by the idea of getting onto a p2p network, downloading an album, and listening to it while he's doing the dishes, or being his boss's bitch at home, or whatever else needs doing. If Joe likes the album enough he may decide to buy it; or he may decide that he's "owed" for all the stinkers he's been suckered into purchasing over the years, at what are surely inflated prices. You might argue with Joe's reasoning on the matter, but you sure as shit can't argue with Joe's frustration, or his try-before-you-buy logic, or perhaps his desire to dish out some payback.
Even better for Joe, the whole ease of the online thing allows him to try out all sorts of music he'd otherwise never listen to. And the very popularity of iTunes proves that people are more than willing to pay for something they could easily get for free *if they think the price and terms are fair*. It's no more difficult to get a song via p2p than it is from Apple's store, yet notice - a billion downloads and going strong. These people CHOOSE to pay, because despite an easily-obtained free alternative, they think the trade is a good one. They pay the price they want to pay, and the people making the music get to continue making that music without having to wait tables or find a rich patro
Try to remember that this nonsense is coming from the great state of Utah, one of the most backwards and repressed places in the entire First World. What exactly did you expect from a political entity which, Constitution be damned, is essentially controlled by the Mormon church?
At which point they are in violation of the Berne convention and about a dozen other IP treaties they've signed off on.
No, they wouldn't. The Berne Convention doesn't apply to organizations involved in criminal activities which refuse to comply with local laws. If MS doesn't abide by the EU strictures the EU is well within its international rights to declare MS such an entity and seize the source for distribution.
This ruling would have no effect on any corporation other than MS (except, perhaps, as a warning). The EU would make it perfectly clear that MS is being charged with criminal acts and punished accordingly.
Although it's absolutely ridiculous for anyone to think that MS would be destroyed if it could no longer sell its products in Europe, or that Bill Gates would ever see a day in jail. Europe doesn't have the might to enforce its rulings one foot outside of its collective borders, which still leaves 95% of the rest of the world firmly in Microsofts grasp. And the U.S. government would NEVER turn Billy-boy over to the EU for prosecution.
I think there is a reson to believe that more guns are used in robberies, murders and other unlawful cases compared to the gun usage for self-defense and shooting practice.
And you'd be very, very wrong. Depending on the measures you use for self-defense, guns are used between 750,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the U.S. to discourage criminals from, well, committing crimes. In less than 1/10 of 1% of those cases is the gun actually discharged (and usually as a warning that the holder of the gun is quite serious that he or she will use it).
Guns are used far more often for target practice and hunting than to commit murder. Despite wild-eyed claims to the contrary you are, for example, far more likely to die from septicemia or pneumonitis than you are to get shot. In fact, your stairs, ladder, and pool are much more likely to kill you than anyone armed with a gun. If you think otherwise, you can look up, amongst a host of other materials, the National Vital Statistics Report online.
Artists (real artists) make art for art, not for money.
Bullshit. Artists produce art for many reasons, usually with this appended clause: "...and also to make money so myself and my family can eat."
And boy, here's another wake-up call: you don't get to decide for the rest of us what constitutes art or an artist. You're just another Joe on the street, and your opinion on the matter isn't any more important than anyone else's.
I for one would think it WONDERFUL if Hollywood and RIAA went out of business
So do I, but not for the same reasons. The middle-man distributor is a dead business model, propped up by bad law. But this has *nothing* to do with copyrights.
The non-commercial stuff makes for more challenging culture - and also more interesting culture.
That's nothing more than your opinion, and like assholes, everyone has one. So you like the idea - so what? Unless someone elected you to godhood while I wasn't paying attention, you don't get to decide what others want, or what they can see or hear or read.
There is nothing that indicates to me that "society will be a significantly worse off without the mainstream canned commercial entertainment"
It will be because the vast majority of folks LIKE the stuff that's currently playing on the radio, TV and in the theaters - and now they won't be able to get that stuff. If you think the public is going to allow you to dictate your terms to them without putting up a fight you're in for a rude awakening.
Having you in charge would be worse than the current RIAA/MPAA goons. They at least try to provide (some of the time) the stuff that people want. You, it seems, would only provide the stuff that YOU personally approve of.
Or maybe they'll dry up. Who knows, but more importantly, who cares?
From what I can see, most of the people who create it and most of the people who consume it. You'll notice that the number of people crying out about the unfairness of the system is tiny, and usually limited to geek-sets and college kids who want what they want for free, and use whatever straws they can grasp at to justify their acts of copyright infringement.
The question you posed contains a huge "if", and as such it only pertains to a fantasy world where everyone stops making music, movies, and other works that people enjoy.
Wrong-o. It talks about the world that existed prior to the idea of limited copyrights, wherein books, musics and plays were still produced - but at a tiny fraction of the rate they're produced at today. Copyright was invented to encourage *anyone who wanted to give it a shot* to produce these works in order to allow people who otherwise wouldn't have the time or incentive to try their hand at it.
And guess what? It worked. Take the "live performance" and "rich patron" out of the equation and the amount of content producers exploded. By any previous standard you want to compare it to, we're obscenely wealthy in this regard - and we have access to books, music, and movies we'd otherwise *never* have seen, because the writers, musicians, and crews who make this content would otherwise be working a real job, to make real money, to put real food on the table.
Your world of the past sucked big green donkey dicks. No matter how obnoxious the RIAA/MPAA get, this world - the one we have now - is vastly better than what has gone before. And everyone but a tiny subset of whiners is agreed upon this.
But once he has agreed to do it, the fruits of his labor are free for all of humanity to use
Go ahead and try to convince people that your opinion is the one that should be used to shape law. America's a republic, after all. But until you manage this feat (and I sure as shit think you'll never, ever accomplish this task) your opinion remains just that - opinion, and nothing more. Which means at the moment the "fruits of his labor" belong to no one but him and those he chooses to license it to.
Slashdot Mirror
Basically the biggest thing Linux has to get over here is the RTFM attitude that's displayed on /. all the time
Spoken like someone who doesn't bother to RTFM. Hey bud, Windows and OS X are for people *just like you*. Linux isn't for everyone, you know.
Linux zealots need to get some social skills.
That observation applies to zealots of all kinds, regardless of what they're jizzing in their shorts about. Zealots, by definition, are a bunch of fucking assholes. Linux zealots are no different from MS zealots, or OS X zealots, or religious zealots - except, perhaps, by degree.
You'll never make friends or convince someone to switch to your software by dismissing their concerns or calling them stupid
Why on this green Earth should I give a shit? I mean, really; do you think I hang out on Linux help forums to make friends? Jesus H., that would be pretty fucking pathetic, don't you think?
And as for Slashdot, most of us here seem to be more interesting in making enemies, not friends. Just take a look at my freak show to see how well I've mastered that maneuver.
If I wanted to make friends, I'd probably choose some venue in that place called "real life". Preferably one stocked with hot Asian chicks, not fat near-sighted smelly geeks.
Max
you have to take a time and effort hit - you have to learn a new way of working
That happens every time you get a new version of Windows. MS does that deliberately in an attempt to force folks to migrate to the new software. Either way you'll have to relearn how to do things (especially with MS's penchant for dicking around with the interface on their apps).
The best time to switch to Linux is when you're thinking about switching from your current version of Windows anyway.
Max
Riiight.
This last week I did a massive hardware upgrade of two of my home machines, which required a from-scratch reinstall of Windows and Suse. I lost count of how many times I had to reboot with Windows - not just from the endless security updates and upgrades from Microsoft, but because I had to download the latest drivers for most of my equipment, install them, and *they* wanted to reboot as well.
Hours upon hours of acquiring drivers off the internet, downloading them, installing them, rebooting the goddamned machine, and tweaking the fuckers according to various FAQs. Oh joy.
Suse Linux, on the other hand, need ONE reboot - and that's after downloading some 150 patches (automagically), not to mention installing all of my favorite software. Funny, I ended up picking up ONE driver from the manufacturer for each machine, both of which were for the video cards. Not that the cards didn't work without the drivers (they did just fine), but simply because it was recommended in case the driver that came with Suse ran into problems.
I haven't even gotten around to installing my various pieces of Windows software yet. I decided to defer *that* nightmare for another day (or two, or three, since my Linux is up and running and already has all of my apps installed).
Why do I even have a Windows partition? For a) games, and b) Photoshop. And if the games came with a non-WINE linux install I'd toss Windows altogether and put behind me the driver hunt-install-endless reboot nightmare forever.
Anyone who says that Windows is easier to install than a modern version of Linux is a jackass.
Max
He leaked to the goddam newspaper. That's exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to do.
No, that's the opposite of what you're *legally required* to do. What you're supposed to do (assuming you have any conscience whatsoever) and what the law says you should do are becoming increasingly different things.
Max
Send it anoymously to the cops, and if that doesn't work, *then* go to the papers. At least that way you can say you *tried* to do the right thing first.
While working for a certain government agency lo these many years ago, I uncovered some rather interesting patterns in a series of construction contracts pointing to obviously fraudulent behavior. Essentially Contracts A and B would regularly underbid on projects, thus securing the contract; after they had the contract they'd tack in a variety of fees and surcharges that put the total cost of the contract so far over all competing bids it boggled the mind. Some of these contracts were up to *ten times* the actual bid, upon completion.
The fact that the CEOs of Companies A and B regularly golfed and socialized with the heads of the departments who issued the bids and made final approvals, and that the people in charge of reviewing the contracts managed to outwardly (and incongruously) live far beyond their means made the whole thing even more suspicious.
Being the good little citizen I was at the time, I gathered an enormous amount of evidence clearly outlining the patterns in question and brought them to the attention of the investigative branch that should've found them of interest. They listened carefully to everything I had to say, going over every detail quite carefully, and took the documents for a full review. They agreed that I seemed to have uncovered something suspicious and "would look into it".
The next Monday I found that despite perfect past reviews of my work I was going to be terminated for "gross incompetence". How, exactly, I'd been incompetent was never revealed, only that I was, and that the sooner I was fired the better. Not a great believer in coincidence I went to the appropriate labor authorities about the matter, only to learn that they had absolutely no interest in the matter and refused to investigate, much less defend me against the charges. Unofficially I was told that I had "poked my nose into places it didn't belong", and now I was going to suffer the consequences.
At that point I brought in lawyers and threatened to expose the whole sorry rotten scam. Essentially a cease-fire was eventually worked out, but only if I agreed not to investigate the contract matter any further, although the wording wasn't nearly so direct. I was so tired of the crap at that point that I agreed; a mistake, it turns out, because from that point on every review of my work was terrible, I was repeatedly reprimanded for things I did not do, etc. Work became a living hell and the very authorities which were supposed to protect me instead either absented themselves or joined in on the action.
I quit less than a year later; only, it turns out, I was black-listed, and rather thoroughly. I had to move, change my name, and remove that place of work from my resume in order to escape that little black cloud.
Real fun and games. At least it taught me to never, ever work for government again.
What those bastards didn't know is that I kept copies of *every single record*, which I hid. Paranoid, I know, but a previous whistle-blower somehow managed to get killed by unidentified (and never caught) home intruders right after she threatened to go to the press, so a little tin-foil-hat action seemed to be justified. I took them all to a reporter I know at the biggest newspaper in the area.
Happy ending? Nope; he later informed me his editors had shut down the story, told him to forget about it, and destroyed everything I had given him. It turns out that the guy who owned the newspaper ran in the same circles as the folks in construction who were bilking the government out of enormous sums of money, and he personally gave the order. I also got the impression (from my reporter friend) that if I made a fuss we'd both get visits from some unsavory sorts in the middle of the night. That was the only I time ever saw him nervous.
Nothing more I could do at that point. My documentation pointed
The problem here is that the law is skewed *against* people trying to do the right thing. If anything, it should be against the law *not* to blow the whistle; to me, the act of deciding not to report a crime is tacit complicity in the crime itself.
But then in this country the police themselves are apparently under no obligation to enforce the law or even respond to imminent threats, so holding the average citizen to a higher standard is more than a bit hypocritical.
Max
That really torqued off the doctors
That's just doctors. 95% of 'em will get pissed off if you so much as open your mouth to ask "why?", much less if you do something like express a capacity for independent thought and reason. Like politicians or the RIAA, they expect you to do whatever the fuck they tell you to do and to praise them after for their enormous wisdom, no matter how things turn out. Defying a doctor is on par with telling the pope to go fuck himself.
Good thing I'm an atheist.
Max
The U.S. does both and has the largest blood supply in the world - larger than all of Europe combined. Your point again?
Max
Microsoft's console has gained an incredible amount of mindshare.
By selling their consoles at half the price of production. We'll see how much of that "mindshare" they keep once shareholders demand that the console price accurately reflect real-world production prices.
Max
Statisticians also will tell you that you can measure the skew
And they'd be lying. In order to measure the skew you have to compare againt a non-skewed sample and correct accordingly. But in the Nielsens you can't do that unless you chart the viewing habits of people who...refuse to allow their viewing habits to be charted.
The Nielsens have never been about good statistics.
Max
Not when the sample is self-selected, as is the case in the Nielsens. That *always* skews the data, as you would know if you actually had some experience working with statistics.
Max
Does anyone out there ever consider that there might be people in government that might actually be trying to protect us?
No, not really. Having worked for government I'd say I have a better chance of winning the lottery than for your (rhetorical) question to ever be answered in the affirmative.
Ben Franklin's quote about protection and liberty is absolutist, and he himself, by being involved in a government which provided protection at the cost of liberty proved that, so please don't raise that old quote as a response
If by "absolutist" you mean "perfectly correct" then I guess so. But I gather that for some strange reason you actually think that you're the intellectual equal of ol' Ben, something I find about as likely as the idea of the NSA spying on me 'for my own good'.
Has anyone considered that liberty can never be absolute in a world of real human beings
Geez, I don't remember anyone talking about 'absolute liberty'. That little strawman you made up all on your own. What I do remember is our Founding Fathers drawing a line in the sand for government and saying "thou shalt not cross - EVER!"
Too fucking bad the whole experiment didn't work out.
Yes, the measures might be abused
No, they *will* be abused. That's a given. The solution is to make government as weak as possible while still having enough power to do the job it's tasked to do. That way WHEN someone abuses power, they'll never have enough to do more than local harm, and certainly not enough to cover up the abuse or to flaunt it (aka Bush and spying) without fear of retaliation.
For a representative government to be truly representative, you need your Congresscritters to constantly fear what will be done to them should they ever cross the people they represent. Not only that, but regular and firm reminders that they are not leaders, but SERVANTS. They are in Congress for one and only one purpose: to do our bidding, within the constraints of the Constitution. They have no other value in office.
If it were not for some perhaps over-zealous protections enacted by civil libertarian fundamentalists, the World Trade Center towers might still be standing.
What a crock of shit. Yep, let's blame the destruction of the Twin Towers on people who actually *champion liberty* instead of, well, *the criminal fucks who crashed the planes into them*. Your inability to exercise even the basics of logic would astound me if I weren't a Slashdot semi-regular.
Look, if you're so fucking convinced that fascism is such a dandy thing there are countries *all over the world* that would fit the bill perfectly. You'd be much, much happier living in one of them. I'd be happier if you were living in one of them, too.
Max
yet any time they do anything even remotely in line with those accusations
You mean like engaging in free speech and expressing an opinion that poor wittle Georgie doesn't like? Yep, that's surely an act of terrorism.
Or soon will be.
Max
Under some of those proposed bills, simply asking somone a question 1000 times in a row would be considered torture. Under some of those proposed bills, simply deneying somone sleep would be considered torture. Under some of those propsed bills, simply waking someone in the middle of the night would be considered torture.
Under the Constitution we call these things "cruel and unusual punishment", and guess what? You don't get to do them - EVER. No one, not even "I'm-the-Second-Coming-of-King-George" Bush, gets to piss on the Constitution of these United States.
NO ONE. And a president who thinks otherwise is guilty of treason.
Max
"Capitalist democracy", as you put it, is no more prone to corruption than anything else.
Max
It's "lose", not "loose". You don't confuse "nose" and "noose", do you? Those two words have about as much in common as "lose" and "loose" do.
Here's how you remember the difference: "lose" is what you did with your car keys when you can't find them; "loose" is what your momma was, and why you're here today.
Max
If you're in it for money, you're in it for the wrong reasons.
That's a ridiculous notion. A good many writers - most, in my anecdotal experience - wouldn't be writing at all if they couldn't make a decent living off of it. They don't care to starve in some Bohemian tragicomedic-style just to prove how "artistic" they are to some self-involved college shits who don't have the first fucking clue about real life.
Money IS the motivator. Without money they'd be doing something else, like...selling real estate. So they could, y'know, perhaps eat, and feed their kids, and stuff. It's only when writing becomes sufficiently profitable to be worth the effort that most writers will decide to toss alternative career choices and go for the gold.
All the other reasons in the world mean jack if pursuing a career in writing (or art, or music, or whatever) means that you're like to end up living on the street. Or even not making a decent wage, where the alternatives practically guarantee that sort of wage.
You think otherwise, talk to some REAL writers. The people who actually make a living off it and don't have to support themselves with some other form of work. They're some of the most practical people you'll ever meet, and for good reason.
Max
indicate a far earlier divergence, than the fossilic evidence does.
What evidence? It's been known for quite some time that proto-mammals dominated the Triassic and were the largest creatures on Earth at the time. Rapid, catastrophic climate change (think "the worst possible greenhouse effect you can imagine") killed all the big proto-mammals, leaving only the much smaller ones to carry on. After the world began to recover and become more temperate dinosaurs took center stage, primarily due to their method of locomotion (superior to that of the surviving mammals).
Once the dinosaurs were wiped out, those little mammals went on to get big again and replaced the dinosaurs.
Mammals and mammal-like creatures have been around for hundreds of millions of years. The only 'surprise' here is that at least one mammal was somewhat larger during the era of the dinosaurs than we previously imagined they'd be. Only this isn't much of a revelation, since similar discoveries of the same sort have been made over the last several years.
Max
The only reason copyright has survived up to this point is because it's so damn easy to get away with violating it
I doubt this very much. The fact is that up until recently the vast majority of folks willingly complied with copyright laws, probably because they thought they were a pretty fair deal. In return for exclusive rights for a limited time, people who'd otherwise be working 9-5 jobs could instead make a living producing music, tv, movies, or books. They didn't avoid breaking the law because it was particular difficult or out of fear of punishment, but because the law provided more in the way of benefits than in drawbacks - as most sane laws are meant to do.
But the situation with copyright laws (and patent laws, with the USPTO so very much out of control) is no longer sane, rational, or reasonable. Combine this with just how frustrated Joe Consumer is over just how often he gets shafted by media brokers and folks who would comply with the laws find themselves no longer willing to abide by those they consider unreasonable.
This doesn't mean that Joe gives a good goddamn about the laws themselves. What the fuck does he care if the copyright scheme is 14+14 or life+70? It's not as if Joe is going to throw a fit over the fact that he can't legally pitch a screen in his front yard and play old black-and-white Mickey Mouse cartoons. No, what Joe cares about is things like this:
- back when I was growing up, there were 52 minutes of show and 8 minutes of commercials per hour, and even then we bitched about it. Now there are 40 minutes of show and 20 minutes of commercials. People who thought 8 minutes of commercials per hour was too much are certainly going to be more than a bit displeased that for every 2 minutes of show there's now 1 minute of commercials to wade through. It's no fucking wonder Joe uses his VCR to record shows just to skip over the commercials, or bitTorrents the show because he can (blessedly) watch without commercials altogether. Bittorrent is what cable promised us suckers in the early days, then immediately turned around and gave us the shaft on as soon as it became profitable.
- Just how many times has Joe been lured into buying a CD for $16-20 only to find that the only songs worth listening to on the thing (usually one or two) are the ones that've been playing repeatedly on the radio? Joe doesn't like getting screwed, and that's how most people feel when they find out that the "great" CD being advertised by Song A and Song B is so much horseshit, apart from Song A and Song B. And since Joe isn't some unemployed college kid he can't afford to sit around for hours in some music store doing nothing but 'test-driving' CDs; he's got a job, a wife, kids, a life. So Joe isn't at all bothered by the idea of getting onto a p2p network, downloading an album, and listening to it while he's doing the dishes, or being his boss's bitch at home, or whatever else needs doing. If Joe likes the album enough he may decide to buy it; or he may decide that he's "owed" for all the stinkers he's been suckered into purchasing over the years, at what are surely inflated prices. You might argue with Joe's reasoning on the matter, but you sure as shit can't argue with Joe's frustration, or his try-before-you-buy logic, or perhaps his desire to dish out some payback.
Even better for Joe, the whole ease of the online thing allows him to try out all sorts of music he'd otherwise never listen to. And the very popularity of iTunes proves that people are more than willing to pay for something they could easily get for free *if they think the price and terms are fair*. It's no more difficult to get a song via p2p than it is from Apple's store, yet notice - a billion downloads and going strong. These people CHOOSE to pay, because despite an easily-obtained free alternative, they think the trade is a good one. They pay the price they want to pay, and the people making the music get to continue making that music without having to wait tables or find a rich patro
Try to remember that this nonsense is coming from the great state of Utah, one of the most backwards and repressed places in the entire First World. What exactly did you expect from a political entity which, Constitution be damned, is essentially controlled by the Mormon church?
Max
At which point they are in violation of the Berne convention and about a dozen other IP treaties they've signed off on.
No, they wouldn't. The Berne Convention doesn't apply to organizations involved in criminal activities which refuse to comply with local laws. If MS doesn't abide by the EU strictures the EU is well within its international rights to declare MS such an entity and seize the source for distribution.
This ruling would have no effect on any corporation other than MS (except, perhaps, as a warning). The EU would make it perfectly clear that MS is being charged with criminal acts and punished accordingly.
Although it's absolutely ridiculous for anyone to think that MS would be destroyed if it could no longer sell its products in Europe, or that Bill Gates would ever see a day in jail. Europe doesn't have the might to enforce its rulings one foot outside of its collective borders, which still leaves 95% of the rest of the world firmly in Microsofts grasp. And the U.S. government would NEVER turn Billy-boy over to the EU for prosecution.
Max
I think there is a reson to believe that more guns are used in robberies, murders and other unlawful cases compared to the gun usage for self-defense and shooting practice.
And you'd be very, very wrong. Depending on the measures you use for self-defense, guns are used between 750,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the U.S. to discourage criminals from, well, committing crimes. In less than 1/10 of 1% of those cases is the gun actually discharged (and usually as a warning that the holder of the gun is quite serious that he or she will use it).
Guns are used far more often for target practice and hunting than to commit murder. Despite wild-eyed claims to the contrary you are, for example, far more likely to die from septicemia or pneumonitis than you are to get shot. In fact, your stairs, ladder, and pool are much more likely to kill you than anyone armed with a gun. If you think otherwise, you can look up, amongst a host of other materials, the National Vital Statistics Report online.
Max
Artists (real artists) make art for art, not for money.
Bullshit. Artists produce art for many reasons, usually with this appended clause: "...and also to make money so myself and my family can eat."
And boy, here's another wake-up call: you don't get to decide for the rest of us what constitutes art or an artist. You're just another Joe on the street, and your opinion on the matter isn't any more important than anyone else's.
Max
I for one would think it WONDERFUL if Hollywood and RIAA went out of business
So do I, but not for the same reasons. The middle-man distributor is a dead business model, propped up by bad law. But this has *nothing* to do with copyrights.
The non-commercial stuff makes for more challenging culture - and also more interesting culture.
That's nothing more than your opinion, and like assholes, everyone has one. So you like the idea - so what? Unless someone elected you to godhood while I wasn't paying attention, you don't get to decide what others want, or what they can see or hear or read.
There is nothing that indicates to me that "society will be a significantly worse off without the mainstream canned commercial entertainment"
It will be because the vast majority of folks LIKE the stuff that's currently playing on the radio, TV and in the theaters - and now they won't be able to get that stuff. If you think the public is going to allow you to dictate your terms to them without putting up a fight you're in for a rude awakening.
Having you in charge would be worse than the current RIAA/MPAA goons. They at least try to provide (some of the time) the stuff that people want. You, it seems, would only provide the stuff that YOU personally approve of.
Max
Or maybe they'll dry up. Who knows, but more importantly, who cares?
From what I can see, most of the people who create it and most of the people who consume it. You'll notice that the number of people crying out about the unfairness of the system is tiny, and usually limited to geek-sets and college kids who want what they want for free, and use whatever straws they can grasp at to justify their acts of copyright infringement.
The question you posed contains a huge "if", and as such it only pertains to a fantasy world where everyone stops making music, movies, and other works that people enjoy.
Wrong-o. It talks about the world that existed prior to the idea of limited copyrights, wherein books, musics and plays were still produced - but at a tiny fraction of the rate they're produced at today. Copyright was invented to encourage *anyone who wanted to give it a shot* to produce these works in order to allow people who otherwise wouldn't have the time or incentive to try their hand at it.
And guess what? It worked. Take the "live performance" and "rich patron" out of the equation and the amount of content producers exploded. By any previous standard you want to compare it to, we're obscenely wealthy in this regard - and we have access to books, music, and movies we'd otherwise *never* have seen, because the writers, musicians, and crews who make this content would otherwise be working a real job, to make real money, to put real food on the table.
Your world of the past sucked big green donkey dicks. No matter how obnoxious the RIAA/MPAA get, this world - the one we have now - is vastly better than what has gone before. And everyone but a tiny subset of whiners is agreed upon this.
But once he has agreed to do it, the fruits of his labor are free for all of humanity to use
Go ahead and try to convince people that your opinion is the one that should be used to shape law. America's a republic, after all. But until you manage this feat (and I sure as shit think you'll never, ever accomplish this task) your opinion remains just that - opinion, and nothing more. Which means at the moment the "fruits of his labor" belong to no one but him and those he chooses to license it to.
Max