That many people are now robbed of their right to free speech may utlimately cause a renaissance for free speech. I've heard stories from Russia, how during the Breshjnev period, there were lots of underground theater groups. Profound books were written, criticizing the regime. Protest singers were among the most popular artists. There was this guy singing about the wolfs, running through the woods with the wolfs biting at his heels. The song was really about the regime.
Because of the censorship, they had to hide their messages, using creative images and fables. The people knew instinctively that these messages were important and they craved them.
Then Glasnost came about, and eventually the Iron Carpet came down. Suddenly the people were free. Starved of free speech, there was a short flurry of popular political activity, with large political meetings, marches and what not.
Then things settled down, and one day they woke up. All this new stuff they had been denied all these years was now available. What a disappointment it must have been to them to discover that although the political messages in the western press might be of a different color, most of the stuff was ads, tabloid reporting on celebrities, porn, worthless fiction, stupid game shows, and soap operas. We fought all these years to hear the message from the other side, and all they have to tell us is "Drink Coca Cola?"
If I was Russion, I'd drown myself in vodka, too.
And what has this to do with the DMCA? Just the fact that it will force U.S citizens to be vigilant (break the DMCA laws) in order to have their free speech. By being in opposition to the ruling regime (the megacorps), U.S citizens can enjoy the excitement of getting their free speech, in spite of the regime. Now it's worth something. Hard to come by free speech is valuable. Gratis free speech is worthless.
FSF and Gnus has for a couple of decades hade to explain that thay are talking about free, as in free as the bird, as opposed to free as in beer.
Then GNU/Linux came about, and millions learned about the free (as in beer) opereting system that was competing with Microsoft.
We should drop the F word, and call it Freedom Software. It may not sound as pure and snappy as free software, but it'll save us from having to explain this everytime somebody from the outside runs into Free Software. Freedom is a word that is harder to confuse with gratis.
And the worst part is that nobody else seems to CARE!
What did you expect? We're living in a democracy. It doesn't mean things will be OK, or even acceptable. It means that the country is (ideally) ruled by the majority of the people.
So what we get is the dictatorship of the majority. Most people are stupid, so they deserve stupid laws. They even deserve a stupid president. Just too bad nobody recognizes the joke is on them.
I certainly hope there is otherwise
we have some pretty biased scientists running around out there.
It is not about bias. Scientists follow whichever route seems productive. Most scientists do not live under the misconception that the Bible is a text book in science, so they turn to more likely sources for their research. If the scientific society was biased, the creationists would have been burnt on the stake or put in jail for peddling crackpot science. Something that would have been a nice poetic justice, after the hundreds of years the church did the same with people doing real science
Just because there are some crackpot scientists out there doesn't mean we have a duty to believe them, or even listen to what they have to say.
Let them go to church with their faith, belief, and mysticism, and leave science to the real scientists.
"our software is better" and end up with "er, I mean our admins are better"
And what is the controversy here? In the open source software world, the software and the admins and the developers are one and the same. The basic fact is that the users have a vested interest in the software. A Linux user is not a passive consumer. When something is broken, the users will look around patches and bug reports.
They might even debug the problem, fix it, and submit their own bug fix. Or if they're good at that particular application, they might write their own version and release it to the community.
If something breaks in MicroSoftie land, the user or admin is pretty much screwed, and even if they were qualified to troubleshoot the bug, their only meaningful course of action, is to kick their machine, and send some prayers or curses to Redmond, and wait for a fix, that hopefully does not break everything else. The average MS user knows about mouse, excel , and Solitaire, maybe even nethood, shared drives and printers - after friggin 10 years of using the crap.
A Linux user might know how to set up a pop or imap server, can tell you what an MX record is, knows how to fix routing problems, and how to compile a kernel. Most of that stuff should be possible to pick up in a couple of years. It's not because Linux user's are complete geeks, but because they are allowed to have a look under the hood, and can learn it inside out instead of outside in.
You're righ. As long as there is a will, there'll be ways to do things. The only reason buildings, trains, bridges, planes, water supplies, sewers, are not blowing up, being poisoned, or clogged up right and left, is that there aren't a lot of terrorists out there putting up the effort.
It's not because law enforcement and secret services have everything under control.
With WiFi, anyone who wants anonymous networking can park their car outside any apartment building, or a corporate office, hook up, and off they go.
For grins, I bet they could eventually do it outside Verizon, AT&T, Qwest, or any other telecom megacorps. As WiFi becomes more popular for home networking, there'll be an unlimited supply of unprotected nodes.
And as code red has shown, the average windows drones, or even companies like MS, are not capable of securing their computers. Having the same population securing their WiFi stations is probably an excercise in futility.
They could have saved some money, by just calling Larry "more toys than thou" Ellison directly.
Or, to speak their language:
on
Eliza for Spam
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Thank you for your interesting product offer.
I would like to order one copy of your interesting home business opportunity package, 3 tubes of thigh cream, your revolutionary mass-mailing program, my preapproved credit card, and credit repair package. And if there are any left, given that the offer was a last chance offer, 4 of your revolutionary wireless web cameras.
Attached is my credit card information. Click to open. ccinfo.doc
Funny maybe (if intentional). Insightful no. Allthough, the author makes accidentally an unintended interesting point.
How about
without making IP itself illegal.
The notion of making intellectual property illegal is admirable. We have slogans such as knowledge is power, information wants to be free. Making intellectual property illegal, would be interesting. It means it would be a crime to hide information from the public domain. This causes new dilemmas, especially with regards to privacy. We would need legislation to decide which information is private, and which information is of interest to the public.
Did you know for example, that Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speach is copyrighted?
Your luminary commentary shines brighter than the brightest sattellite orbiting this harmless marble. Not bad for a seasoned, but talentless troll. But let us take a few seconds to dissect and refute your statements anyways, in case there are any knobs out there believing any of your dribbling drivel.
Spy satellites are known as such simply because NOBODY ELSE KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE
As a master of knowing how the world works, did it ever occur to you that the purpose of a spy sattellite is to SPY on something? The only reason one would need to keep them secret, was if they were so few that they could only cover a small fraction of the territory.
Next, in your two next paragraphs, you do another trolling trick, which can be easily found in the trolling faq at geekizoid. Spying, and assasination necessary, and would have prevented WWII. Risk of World War high, therefore spying necessary, case in point assasination that triggered WWI. Classic trolling technique. Extra point given for contradicting statements.
To end it, throw in a few insults, and challenge to flame.
Nice trolling attempt, but not complete. You missed a few things that would have given you a bonus points. You should have started with "I did not read the article, but...". You also failed to challenge the moderators. Somehow, you also failed to make any challenge against the Linux crowd.
I'll rate your troll a C-. Now go to geekizoid, and study more, you obviously have much to learn.
From Eric Raymond's
jargon file:
!X id1
id1: Friar Tuck... I am under attack! Pray save me!
id1: Off (aborted)
id2: Fear not, friend Robin! I shall rout the Sheriff of Nottingham's men!
id1: Thank you, my good fellow!
When I called Burt back, however, there was some bad news. Livermore's head Fire Safety expert didn't want us burning the cube outdoors: he wanted
us to burn it in their "burn cell," a brick-and-steel box that had been built specifically for burning materials that might be hazardous. The burn cell was
equipped with a sophisticated ventilation system for filtering the smoke and removing any toxins. The burn cell also had fire safety equipment around the
facility in case the fire got out of hand.
Livermore needed the names, social security numbers, and addresses of everybody who would be inolved with the project.
An all these years my mother used to take unfocused pictures of us kids using one of those compact cameras with "126" film cartridges, and disposable magnesium flash cubes. The guy should've said he was going to ignite a bunch of flash cubes, and save himself some hassle.
Re:Microsoft should be sued
on
Code Red III
·
· Score: 2
The average Joe Schmoe is not living in a trailer park. There are tons of middle managers, and others making a decent amount, who would think nothing of paying $100's extra for software, for the same reason that they'd get a Lexus or Mercedes. Of course they need Win2k.
Re:Microsoft should be sued
on
Code Red III
·
· Score: 2
Printing it in a license does not excempt them from state and federal laws, not to speak about other countries.
If reckless conduc atnd damages are proved, the little print in the license is not worth piffle.
Re:Microsoft should be sued
on
Code Red III
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Because we're not talking about admins, but gullible users. When I did a quick toor to the hacked sites in my apache log, most of the sites were Joe Schmoe's cable modem surfmachines with nothing on. Their only crime was to purchase the damned software. Nobody ever told them that the software is considered harmful, and needs constant babysitting. Sounds like a good enough reason for a class action law suite to me.
That's right. The RBOCS seems to be the only companies lft who can still set whatever price they like on their product, and still keep their customers. I don't know about you, but close to $30 for dial tone per month, just to have your dial tone is extortion. The Bells still have huge margins, which is proof that competition is non-existing.
As bandwidth gets cheaper at an impressive rate, I can garantee, that the RBOC DSL provider will keep raising prices for residential DSL access by $10 a year at least.
Agreed. Mod down grand parent, and mod up parent, if you're gonna mod at all.
Re:Yet another uninformative top-level post.
on
Rhythms Flatlines
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Yes, and from now on people, please refer to "Intel, a microprocessor maunfacturer"; "Microsoft a software procucts company"; and
"Cisco, a data networking concern"
Not enough buzzwords, you're missing important parts such as "largest", "leading". Here's how they descrieb themselves a tthe end of press releases:
"Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. "
"Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing.
The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device."
"Cisco Systems, Inc. is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet"
But it seems, the smaller the company is, more verbiage is needed. For example Ariba:
"Ariba, Inc. is the leading business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce solutions provider. Ariba's open, end-to-end, interoperable
software solutions and hosted Web-based commerce services enable efficient online trade, integration and collaboration
between B2B marketplaces, buyers, suppliers and commerce service providers. The global reach and best-of-breed functionality of Ariba B2B eCommerce
solutions create Internet-driven economies of scale and process efficiencies for leading companies around the world. "
Slashdot Mirror
Because of the censorship, they had to hide their messages, using creative images and fables. The people knew instinctively that these messages were important and they craved them.
Then Glasnost came about, and eventually the Iron Carpet came down. Suddenly the people were free. Starved of free speech, there was a short flurry of popular political activity, with large political meetings, marches and what not.
Then things settled down, and one day they woke up. All this new stuff they had been denied all these years was now available. What a disappointment it must have been to them to discover that although the political messages in the western press might be of a different color, most of the stuff was ads, tabloid reporting on celebrities, porn, worthless fiction, stupid game shows, and soap operas. We fought all these years to hear the message from the other side, and all they have to tell us is "Drink Coca Cola?"
If I was Russion, I'd drown myself in vodka, too.
And what has this to do with the DMCA? Just the fact that it will force U.S citizens to be vigilant (break the DMCA laws) in order to have their free speech. By being in opposition to the ruling regime (the megacorps), U.S citizens can enjoy the excitement of getting their free speech, in spite of the regime. Now it's worth something. Hard to come by free speech is valuable. Gratis free speech is worthless.
Beware of the man that calls another a zealot.
Then GNU/Linux came about, and millions learned about the free (as in beer) opereting system that was competing with Microsoft.
We should drop the F word, and call it Freedom Software. It may not sound as pure and snappy as free software, but it'll save us from having to explain this everytime somebody from the outside runs into Free Software. Freedom is a word that is harder to confuse with gratis.
But consider what'd happen if any of these issues had come up in a popular vote?
If you let the people have a say, you would end up with free ice cream, maybe free beer, and no free speach.
What did you expect? We're living in a democracy. It doesn't mean things will be OK, or even acceptable. It means that the country is (ideally) ruled by the majority of the people.
So what we get is the dictatorship of the majority. Most people are stupid, so they deserve stupid laws. They even deserve a stupid president. Just too bad nobody recognizes the joke is on them.
You can knock out the walls off the empty cubicles next to you, even install your own bowling lane.
It is not about bias. Scientists follow whichever route seems productive. Most scientists do not live under the misconception that the Bible is a text book in science, so they turn to more likely sources for their research. If the scientific society was biased, the creationists would have been burnt on the stake or put in jail for peddling crackpot science. Something that would have been a nice poetic justice, after the hundreds of years the church did the same with people doing real science
Just because there are some crackpot scientists out there doesn't mean we have a duty to believe them, or even listen to what they have to say. Let them go to church with their faith, belief, and mysticism, and leave science to the real scientists.
And what is the controversy here? In the open source software world, the software and the admins and the developers are one and the same. The basic fact is that the users have a vested interest in the software. A Linux user is not a passive consumer. When something is broken, the users will look around patches and bug reports. They might even debug the problem, fix it, and submit their own bug fix. Or if they're good at that particular application, they might write their own version and release it to the community.
If something breaks in MicroSoftie land, the user or admin is pretty much screwed, and even if they were qualified to troubleshoot the bug, their only meaningful course of action, is to kick their machine, and send some prayers or curses to Redmond, and wait for a fix, that hopefully does not break everything else. The average MS user knows about mouse, excel , and Solitaire, maybe even nethood, shared drives and printers - after friggin 10 years of using the crap.
A Linux user might know how to set up a pop or imap server, can tell you what an MX record is, knows how to fix routing problems, and how to compile a kernel. Most of that stuff should be possible to pick up in a couple of years. It's not because Linux user's are complete geeks, but because they are allowed to have a look under the hood, and can learn it inside out instead of outside in.
With WiFi, anyone who wants anonymous networking can park their car outside any apartment building, or a corporate office, hook up, and off they go. For grins, I bet they could eventually do it outside Verizon, AT&T, Qwest, or any other telecom megacorps. As WiFi becomes more popular for home networking, there'll be an unlimited supply of unprotected nodes.
And as code red has shown, the average windows drones, or even companies like MS, are not capable of securing their computers. Having the same population securing their WiFi stations is probably an excercise in futility.
Wrong. The moral is: don't assume.
They could have saved some money, by just calling Larry "more toys than thou" Ellison directly.
I would like to order one copy of your interesting home business opportunity package, 3 tubes of thigh cream, your revolutionary mass-mailing program, my preapproved credit card, and credit repair package. And if there are any left, given that the offer was a last chance offer, 4 of your revolutionary wireless web cameras.
Attached is my credit card information. Click to open. ccinfo.doc
How about
without making IP itself illegal.
The notion of making intellectual property illegal is admirable. We have slogans such as knowledge is power, information wants to be free. Making intellectual property illegal, would be interesting. It means it would be a crime to hide information from the public domain. This causes new dilemmas, especially with regards to privacy. We would need legislation to decide which information is private, and which information is of interest to the public.
Did you know for example, that Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speach is copyrighted?
Spy satellites are known as such simply because NOBODY ELSE KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE
As a master of knowing how the world works, did it ever occur to you that the purpose of a spy sattellite is to SPY on something? The only reason one would need to keep them secret, was if they were so few that they could only cover a small fraction of the territory.
Next, in your two next paragraphs, you do another trolling trick, which can be easily found in the trolling faq at geekizoid. Spying, and assasination necessary, and would have prevented WWII. Risk of World War high, therefore spying necessary, case in point assasination that triggered WWI. Classic trolling technique. Extra point given for contradicting statements.
To end it, throw in a few insults, and challenge to flame.
Nice trolling attempt, but not complete. You missed a few things that would have given you a bonus points. You should have started with "I did not read the article, but ...". You also failed to challenge the moderators. Somehow, you also failed to make any challenge against the Linux crowd.
I'll rate your troll a C-. Now go to geekizoid, and study more, you obviously have much to learn.
a beowolf cluster of those...
From Eric Raymond's jargon file: !X id1
id1: Friar Tuck... I am under attack! Pray save me!
id1: Off (aborted)
id2: Fear not, friend Robin! I shall rout the Sheriff of Nottingham's men!
id1: Thank you, my good fellow!
seconded.
Livermore needed the names, social security numbers, and addresses of everybody who would be inolved with the project.
An all these years my mother used to take unfocused pictures of us kids using one of those compact cameras with "126" film cartridges, and disposable magnesium flash cubes. The guy should've said he was going to ignite a bunch of flash cubes, and save himself some hassle.
The average Joe Schmoe is not living in a trailer park. There are tons of middle managers, and others making a decent amount, who would think nothing of paying $100's extra for software, for the same reason that they'd get a Lexus or Mercedes. Of course they need Win2k.
If reckless conduc atnd damages are proved, the little print in the license is not worth piffle.
Because we're not talking about admins, but gullible users. When I did a quick toor to the hacked sites in my apache log, most of the sites were Joe Schmoe's cable modem surfmachines with nothing on. Their only crime was to purchase the damned software. Nobody ever told them that the software is considered harmful, and needs constant babysitting. Sounds like a good enough reason for a class action law suite to me.
As bandwidth gets cheaper at an impressive rate, I can garantee, that the RBOC DSL provider will keep raising prices for residential DSL access by $10 a year at least.
Agreed. Mod down grand parent, and mod up parent, if you're gonna mod at all.
Not enough buzzwords, you're missing important parts such as "largest", "leading". Here's how they descrieb themselves a tthe end of press releases:
"Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. "
"Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device."
"Cisco Systems, Inc. is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet"
But it seems, the smaller the company is, more verbiage is needed. For example Ariba:
"Ariba, Inc. is the leading business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce solutions provider. Ariba's open, end-to-end, interoperable software solutions and hosted Web-based commerce services enable efficient online trade, integration and collaboration between B2B marketplaces, buyers, suppliers and commerce service providers. The global reach and best-of-breed functionality of Ariba B2B eCommerce solutions create Internet-driven economies of scale and process efficiencies for leading companies around the world. "