End of a long day, tend to get long winded. Trying too hard to be complete the thought without leaving anything out.
Actually I agree with much of what you said, but I agree more with the parent post. I believe that people often forget that one of the main principles that this country is founded on is that the citizens are expected to follow just laws.
I do find it very odd that an earlier poster somehow felt that there is a parallel between dowloading copyrighted materials and marijuana laws. The copyright violation is clearly wrong (as is the unreasonably large amount the lawsuits are seeking in "damages") but there is clearly a question about the validity of the marijuana prohibition.
On rereading my post it seems that point became lost somewhere in the middle of the ramblings.
The Constitution outlines the form of government. It doesn't promise shit.
In that the Constitution is law determining the fundimental principles of government it does promise exactly what I claim. I use the word "promise" because, as you seem well aware, the government in the U.S. often fails to live up to that promise.
The Declaration of Independence posited that we can form and change governments as a group when (and only when) they are impeding our God-given (their words) rights
The Constitution, penned by the same man as the Declaration of independence, supercedes the Declaration, and was enacted into law but the Declaration was not.
to life, liberty and ability to own property (that's what 'pursuit of happiness' means and how the original draft read).
The reason Jefferson felt that the wording should be changed, against the wishes of John Adams, was that he believed (as I do) that the pursuit of property is insufficient to garauntee a happy and free life, but that the freedom to better oneself through other means must be garaunteed as well (although the pursuit of property is clearly a part of this. The first ten amendments were added to clarify what these garaunteed rights are intended to be included as a minimum.
One of the tenets of our form of government is that the majority will ALWAYS have its way.
If that were so, then why is it necessary to have the judiciary test laws passed by our legislators for adherence to the wording and spirit of the Constitution. The courts are charged with the responsibility to see that the rights of any individual are not impinged upon by the law, or by groups of individuals. If the majoriy votes to take away your house (or other property), tough, they have no right to do so. Democracy is not mob rule.
Now, I don't know where you learned so much about fucking government,
I payed intention in class, plus I have this odd habit of reading the writings of individuals such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and some much earlier stuff by some people who lived in a democracy around 2500 years ago.
but you should SUE the BALLS off of them,
Money, influence, etc. The current climate is not quite good for such pursuits. Besides, to "sue the balls off" someone/group stinks of pure mercanary greed. Perhaps it is better to vote, write, and pray. (plus cover your ass in the meantime.)
because they didn't do their job.
Don't act so damn surprised, the Greek Demacracy lasted only a few hundred years, the Roman Republic lasted only 250, it seems that we are right on schedule to have ours tested. Lets just hope that enough of us have been (and are) paying attention.
Hey people, get real here. If you can access the 911 system through Vonage's service, there has to be some tax applied to pay for it.
Of course it probably seem nice to have those who use POTS footing your bill. I bet that most of the posts criticizing this tax are from people who regularly complain that they are paying taxes that others don't have to.
Death and Taxes are the only certainties you'll ever know. Get used to it.
IMHO, having multiple implementations of the same functionality is a good thing.
Having two different code bases that solve the same problem or support the same protocols gives the opportunity to examine different approaches by developers and students, offers administrators the choice of using whichever better suits thier needs, and allows drop in replacements if one or the other is inherently flawed or later is changed in such a way that it no longer suits the needs of the administrator or user.
There's a lot of people who are under the impression thatany duplication of effort is either wasted or bad in some way, and in specific cases they may be right, but as a whole we are all better off if different projects (even the ones you don't like) spend time finding different answers to problems that have "already been solved". At least in Free Software, there's always more than one way to do it. I hope there always will be.
I'm willing to bet that he'd say that you are free to break laws as long as you are also willing to accept the risk of getting caught and being punished.
This is the primary basis of civil disobedience, which is a good way to get laws changed. As long as you are willing to back up these actions with directed protest about the law in both the form of written and vocal dissent and/or with discrediting viewpoints such as your own through valid argument.
We live in a Constitutional Democracy and the Constitution promises us that the majority cannot always have it's way, and sometimes the asshats who are arguing for a mass conformity in the name of "civilization" forget this and need to be reminded that if conformity is what they desire, then they can well pack up and move to one of the many other nations that do not have a Constitution that is intended to protect individuals and minorities from trom the asshat majority.
OTOH, it may be necessary for the people who, like myself, would like to see the laws governing the possesion ans consumption of marijuana for recreation to give up the weed for a while in order to get thier thoughts ordered enough to mount an effective campaign against the laws. I've seen too many "protests" that were little more than shouting fests that likely were more effective at alienating than educating the people that they need to convince.
To bring this back to topic, the currently vocal P2P community seems to be making similar mistakes, simply crying "unfair" while uploading other peoples copyrighted works without the artists permission.
The site Boycott RIAA is a sham, simply rallying people to protest against the music industry without leading people to any alternatives, such as the tens of thousands of legally distributable mp3 and (other format) files that artists unburdened by RIAA member contracts have made available, legal defense for uploaders such as attempting to bring the possible damages awarded into the realm of reason by logging the number of actual downloads from your P2P directory times the recognised market value of such a service ($.99 is what most industry services charge), or movements that wish to change copyright laws to reflect the original intent of copyright, which was to encourage works to be made by giving protection of reproduction and distribution rights for a limited time while garaunteeing that works would eventually enter the public domain so as to inspire derivative and related works (such as arrangements for different instrumentation and/or genres of music).
Much of the U.S. Constitution is derived from traditions of anti-establishment thought that centered on the ideas that dissent against authority and non-conformity was essential in a just society. The unjust society that the U.S. was rebeling against was deeply rooted in the ideas of Feudalism, which is inherently based on ownership and property rights.
The current state of intelectual property rights is very much beginning to resemble Feudalism. Artists are beholden to thier copyright holders to get permission to perform or record the very works they created, programmers are expected to assign copyright for any ides the think of to thier employer. Both recording artists and programmers are increasingly forbidden ownership of thier own work, whether that work was created "on the job" at thier employers expense, or on thier own time at thier own.
At least the software community has gotten more and more away from the tactics of "piracy" with the advent of Free Software as a valid competitor to propietary. When the music P2P comunnity follows suit and gets the idea of Free Music, the it'll be all over for the RIAA, for thier members, and (hopefully) for Clearchannel as well.
Prolonged inhalation of any smoke can cause lung cancer, emphysema, and other lung disease. This aspect of pot smoking really hasn't been studied enough to know to what extent, but it is safe to assume that inhaling smoke of any type is probably bad for you.
OTOH, quitting pot is easy. I can't say the same for the cigarettes though. Pot is not anywhere nearly as addicting as tobacco is.
Besides, with pot you can always eat some brownies if you're worried about your lungs. Eating a tobacco brownie is likely to make you throw up (which is a good thing as nicotine is well known as a deadly poison).
You do realize that most of the Balkans were nothing like the rest of Europe (they were struggling countries after the collapse of Communism).
The Balkans were struggling countries before the rise of Communism.
The perpetual problem that the Balkans face is the same as the one that allowed Bush to push our nation into war with very little evidence (and even that "evidence" was falsified).
Rampant nationalism can be counted on by the rich and the powerful to bring the masses in line whenever desired. Either fake an attack from a foriegn power or terrorist group, or help them to commit it by ignoring intelligence reports, and the population falls in line to support any tyrant, willingly gives up thier civil liberties (if they have them to begin with), accepts rediculous arguments in favor of the current administration, and begins to both believe every lie that the establishment media feeds them while at the same time blasting that same media as being "dangerously liberal".
The distinction is that the regulations that are proposed/created by the FCC are (in an ideal, civics class, by the book world) meant to be limited to enforcing the policy as was enacted into law by Congress. Perhaps my wording (terminology?) is not quite clear, but it seems that your Medicare analogy is apropriate.
The law handed down by Congress that created the FCC, and still governs it, states that no one media company will be allowed to monopolize a market, and the FCC regulations should be created in such a way as will ensure this. Some of our Senators clearly believed that the FCCs relaxation of thier regulations did not serve this very basic function of the agency.
The theory is that the FCC is not intended to implement political beliefs into law, but is empowered only to create and enforce regulations that will furthur thier mission as stated when the agency was created by an act of Congress. The FCC was intended to be an enforcing agency and not a creator of policy, so if Congress were to reject a relaxation of FCC media ownership regulations, it would not threaten the existance of the agency, but would strengthen thier focus on thier original mission.
Part of this mission has always been to ensure that no one political view will be able to dominate the media and that no one company will controll any media marketplace. Originally there were very strict regulations over how many radio stations and how many television broadcasters could be owned by a single company in a given market, and until the current proposed relaxation of these regulations no newspaper publishers were permitted to own any broadcasting company.
These regulations were concieved at a time that no one could predict the size and power that the current publishing and broadcast companies now enjoy, nor could anyone predict the large mergers between the manufacturing, telecomunications, and entertainment companies. Deregulation during the 1980's (under President Reagan) set the stge for the giant media conglomerates that we see today, and the proposed deregulation would allow outright monopolies over much of the United States media market.
A larger fear that many pro-regulatory politicos share is that the confusing web of media ownership has become so complex that there is little way to know who really owns what. The fact that there are persons (and thier immediate relations) on the boards of the largest media outlets that are also on the boards of some of the more powerful Bush administration connected government contractors, such as Haliburton and The Carlyle Group, then it is easy to understand why a majority of Senators found it necessary to act to curtail the current deregulation.
Hey, you can use nmap to make sure all your services have been patched (and you can see what unauthorized service that Bob in accounting out in Fresno is running on his desktop).
I realize that the "Powers that Be" (layoffs, etc) are making your job next to impossible, but it's tools like nmap (and other "hacker" tools) that take up the slack when the vendor fails to supply a reasonable toolkit.
If something like this can help you stay one step ahead of the script kiddies, you should be thankful for it.
Yep, *nix systems have exploits, and an hour or two turnaround between discovery and a fix. I'd like to see Microsoft match that.
"Linux has no exploits that need patching"
People who actually know Linux would never claim that there are no known exploits, just that the time-to-fix is much shorter and that applying these fixes to running systems is usually much easier (in most distributions) than in a Windows system (ie no reboot required, one location for all necessary fixes, better software package management, etc)
I use Linux and BSD at home, but manage Windows machines at work (I have no decision making power, I'm just a grunt) and I must say that Windows management is a royal pain in the ass. We've had no problems with the recent Windows viruses and worms, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time applying patches, rebooting machines, and checking that the new patches did not wipe out the old ones. I don't think that it is unreasonable for Microsoft's customers to demand better patch/upgrade management, a single location for updates to both applications, servers, and the OS, and a better method for confirming that the files included in a patch contain the all of the required fixes (for that file) even if they came from different departments at microsoft.
But if my own advice was not to follow your advice, would you advise me to follow it or not?
Nice, but if I were to advise you to follow your own advice of not following my advice to follow your own asdvice, the dilemma would be revisited on you, leaving me in the clear to follow my own advice but you bound by dual commitment to following and not following your own (and thus my) advice.
In other words, this particular challenge creates a dilemma for the challenger as long as the chalenged sticks to thier original statement, but the reverse is not true.
For a another interesting dilemma enter
dict -d web1319 dilemma
on the command line (assuming you have a dictionary client). It is similar in that the student binds himself but not the master, very much as you do here.
if a copy of a Notes app that used that particular technique way back when could be found, it'd be a different story.
That is exactly what he did:
After the hard part of putting together a Notes R3 computing environment that included MS-DOS 6.22, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and a circa-1993 copy of Excel 5.0 obtained from eBay, it only took Ozzie about 15 minutes to knock out a demo without any programming using the out-of-the-box UI of Notes and Excel.
and from Mr. Ozzie's article:
First, let me describe the environment that we recreated. Since the filing date on the patent is October 17, 1994, I sought to obtain software that was clearly shipping to end-users before that date. I set about to assemble the following software to assist in the demonstration: Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22, Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Microsoft Excel 5.0, and Lotus Notes 3.0. In my personal archives, I happened to be in possession of DOS, Windows, and a freshly shrink-wrapped copy of Notes. I selected Microsoft Excel 5 because information on the Web indicated that it shipped 12/14/93, and I easily obtained a shrink-wrapped copy via eBay in a matter of days.
I first used VMware Workstation 4 to create a virtual machine environment roughly comparable to that of the era. Then, I installed MS-DOS 6.22 within that virtual machine, as well as Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Finally, I installed Excel 5.0 and Notes 3.0. I chose WFW because I felt it to be very important to create a configuration that could be used as a "client/server" network environment between multiple virtual machines. As such, I installed both the Notes 3.0 client and server programs, and set about to creating the demonstration herein.
I strongly dislike software patents (I dislike patents, period), but that's no excuse to be sloppy in attacking one.
I too dislike sloppy refutation of unfair claims, although I don't believe in the "baby out w/bathwater" school of dealing with the current patent crisis (it is a crisis), and as long as I'm dealing in cliche's today, I also think that one should follow one's own advice.
Usually, only one of those is the case, as with metric vs. standard. It's a helluva lot of hassle to convert a lot of people to using metric when everything is done a different way.
Except for the fact that it is much easier to calculate in metric, and many Americans, such as myself, who deal with both sytems, depending on the subject at hand, find metric much easier than the Imperical system that we grew up using.
And, yes America is different for the sake of being different. It may be brutish and idiotic, but it also results in diversity
I fail to see how adopting the metric system would in any way threaten the diversity that we (at least the sane ones among us, perhaps not the majority) dearly love about our country.
I prefer slightly worse stuff to perfectly consistent stuff in many ways.
I agree, but often the American tendancy to be "different" not only results in "slightltly worse stuff" but it also results in such mind niumbing consistancy that we must seek products elsewhere for not only quality, but for something that is different, especially when the "stuff" is beer.
It forces constant change, fights off stagnation, etcetera.
Actually it was the growing dominance of foreign imports that caused the diversification of American beer market and allowed the "microbrews" to share a place on the shelf. The non-standardization of brewer products allowed the few large brewers who manufactured the most cheaply made product to dominate the beer distribution markets after prohibition until relatively recently, when foreign brewers became able to produce enough product for the American market (mostly due to the strength of the dollar in relation to thier own native currencies), in spite of some of the older breweries that had more diverse product lines (such as D.G. Yuengling, Stegmaier, and some of the other older breweries that pre-dated prohibition).
The problem with this particular document being a "pay to play" licensing scheme, is that it will likely be adopted into law in some way, either as a supplier specification or as a compliance requirement for marketing a product or service.
There are several jurisdictions in the United States where thier building codes are released in this way and are protected under copyright requiring a builder or homeowner to pay a large amount to have a copy of the current codes for reference and to pay an additional amount to include excerpts from the code in zoning and building permit applications. The fact that all persons (in that jurisdiction) are subject to compliance with these codes makes the licensing scheme an unfair limitation on builders giving an unfair advantage to larger construction companies and prevents homeowners being able to make even small improvements to thier properties if they are on a limited budget.
I have seen building projects where the cost of preparing the permits was extensively more than the cost of actual construction due to licensing costs for access to the building codes and the necessity of including exerpts from the building code in the application. The one that springs to mind is a $1,500.00 improvement to a fire escape (required by code) that cost in excess of $2,000.00 to prepare the permits. If there had been no licensing fee for code exerpts , and if a reference copy of the code had been possible to obtain for less than $750.00, it would have cost less than $500.00 to prepare the permit, as it would have been possible to prepare the application in house and would not have required a legal review of the application before submittal.
The only purpose that charging for the use of a specification serves is to limit the playing feild in the affected industry to a certain class of individuals who either already have money with which to pay, or have made commitments to persons who might or might not be knowlegable about the involved technology, but have the economic power and the desire to regulate that industry.
This kind of non-governmental regulation puts an artificial limitation on the mechanisms of capitolism and prevents the very kind of "free market" (that you seem to be arguing for) from developing and prevents participation from legitimate businesses and other projects that have the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities, but are lacking in support from the already established players in that market.
Does this refer to Naked Lunch by W.S. Burroughs? Because it sounds like it. ..damn, it sucked.
No, I think that dude was refering or the dude who wrote his books about twenty to thirty years before that big bad Bill dude, but then again I could have the wrong dude.
BTW, I agree that the book where the guy flashes back and forth between the US and Morocco while doing all that smack and bug spray while sometimes hangin' out with the "On the Road" dude and his bigamist buddy isn't all that, but it was much better than the movie that the other dude made from it.
The dude who wrote those books where he was going on and on about all the stuff he was thinking and doing and you couldn't figure out what was fact and what was fiction the grammar didn't work out anyway pretty damn boring book that was.
Boring, that's one of the best damn books I've ever read!
If you thought the grammar was difficult in that one, you should read that book by the same dude about all the details of every thought that passes through his dream and half of the words aren't real but make sense anyway but in several different ways at the same time.
The dude who was in that black&white film where the front of a house falls over, but he's standing where the window comes down and there's no glass in it.
Isn't he the dude that inspired the dude who writes directs and acts in his own movies which have the incredible fight scenes and he does all of these impossible stunts himself only they are not impossible because he actually does them.
An Internet trade group representing Verizon Communications and other companies wants its members' Internet services certified because they play a "unique and pivotal role as a conduit for deployment of antiterrorism technologies."
My bet is that the certification requirement for internet services amounts to "We spy on our users."
Disney also owns ABC and ESPN (plus probably some others I'm not aware of).
It's not just that the media will side with the record companies, but that the record companies and the media are, for the most part, one and the same.
Slashdot Mirror
End of a long day, tend to get long winded. Trying too hard to be complete the thought without leaving anything out.
Actually I agree with much of what you said, but I agree more with the parent post. I believe that people often forget that one of the main principles that this country is founded on is that the citizens are expected to follow just laws.
I do find it very odd that an earlier poster somehow felt that there is a parallel between dowloading copyrighted materials and marijuana laws. The copyright violation is clearly wrong (as is the unreasonably large amount the lawsuits are seeking in "damages") but there is clearly a question about the validity of the marijuana prohibition.
On rereading my post it seems that point became lost somewhere in the middle of the ramblings.
The Constitution outlines the form of government. It doesn't promise shit.
In that the Constitution is law determining the fundimental principles of government it does promise exactly what I claim. I use the word "promise" because, as you seem well aware, the government in the U.S. often fails to live up to that promise.
The Declaration of Independence posited that we can form and change governments as a group when (and only when) they are impeding our God-given (their words) rights
The Constitution, penned by the same man as the Declaration of independence, supercedes the Declaration, and was enacted into law but the Declaration was not.
to life, liberty and ability to own property (that's what 'pursuit of happiness' means and how the original draft read).
The reason Jefferson felt that the wording should be changed, against the wishes of John Adams, was that he believed (as I do) that the pursuit of property is insufficient to garauntee a happy and free life, but that the freedom to better oneself through other means must be garaunteed as well (although the pursuit of property is clearly a part of this. The first ten amendments were added to clarify what these garaunteed rights are intended to be included as a minimum.
One of the tenets of our form of government is that the majority will ALWAYS have its way.
If that were so, then why is it necessary to have the judiciary test laws passed by our legislators for adherence to the wording and spirit of the Constitution. The courts are charged with the responsibility to see that the rights of any individual are not impinged upon by the law, or by groups of individuals. If the majoriy votes to take away your house (or other property), tough, they have no right to do so. Democracy is not mob rule.
Now, I don't know where you learned so much about fucking government,
I payed intention in class, plus I have this odd habit of reading the writings of individuals such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and some much earlier stuff by some people who lived in a democracy around 2500 years ago.
but you should SUE the BALLS off of them,
Money, influence, etc. The current climate is not quite good for such pursuits. Besides, to "sue the balls off" someone/group stinks of pure mercanary greed. Perhaps it is better to vote, write, and pray. (plus cover your ass in the meantime.)
because they didn't do their job.
Don't act so damn surprised, the Greek Demacracy lasted only a few hundred years, the Roman Republic lasted only 250, it seems that we are right on schedule to have ours tested. Lets just hope that enough of us have been (and are) paying attention.
Hey people, get real here. If you can access the 911 system through Vonage's service, there has to be some tax applied to pay for it.
Of course it probably seem nice to have those who use POTS footing your bill. I bet that most of the posts criticizing this tax are from people who regularly complain that they are paying taxes that others don't have to.
Death and Taxes are the only certainties you'll ever know. Get used to it.
IMHO, having multiple implementations of the same functionality is a good thing.
Having two different code bases that solve the same problem or support the same protocols gives the opportunity to examine different approaches by developers and students, offers administrators the choice of using whichever better suits thier needs, and allows drop in replacements if one or the other is inherently flawed or later is changed in such a way that it no longer suits the needs of the administrator or user.
There's a lot of people who are under the impression thatany duplication of effort is either wasted or bad in some way, and in specific cases they may be right, but as a whole we are all better off if different projects (even the ones you don't like) spend time finding different answers to problems that have "already been solved". At least in Free Software, there's always more than one way to do it. I hope there always will be.
I'm willing to bet that he'd say that you are free to break laws as long as you are also willing to accept the risk of getting caught and being punished.
This is the primary basis of civil disobedience, which is a good way to get laws changed. As long as you are willing to back up these actions with directed protest about the law in both the form of written and vocal dissent and/or with discrediting viewpoints such as your own through valid argument.
We live in a Constitutional Democracy and the Constitution promises us that the majority cannot always have it's way, and sometimes the asshats who are arguing for a mass conformity in the name of "civilization" forget this and need to be reminded that if conformity is what they desire, then they can well pack up and move to one of the many other nations that do not have a Constitution that is intended to protect individuals and minorities from trom the asshat majority.
OTOH, it may be necessary for the people who, like myself, would like to see the laws governing the possesion ans consumption of marijuana for recreation to give up the weed for a while in order to get thier thoughts ordered enough to mount an effective campaign against the laws. I've seen too many "protests" that were little more than shouting fests that likely were more effective at alienating than educating the people that they need to convince.
To bring this back to topic, the currently vocal P2P community seems to be making similar mistakes, simply crying "unfair" while uploading other peoples copyrighted works without the artists permission.
The site Boycott RIAA is a sham, simply rallying people to protest against the music industry without leading people to any alternatives, such as the tens of thousands of legally distributable mp3 and (other format) files that artists unburdened by RIAA member contracts have made available, legal defense for uploaders such as attempting to bring the possible damages awarded into the realm of reason by logging the number of actual downloads from your P2P directory times the recognised market value of such a service ($.99 is what most industry services charge), or movements that wish to change copyright laws to reflect the original intent of copyright, which was to encourage works to be made by giving protection of reproduction and distribution rights for a limited time while garaunteeing that works would eventually enter the public domain so as to inspire derivative and related works (such as arrangements for different instrumentation and/or genres of music).
Much of the U.S. Constitution is derived from traditions of anti-establishment thought that centered on the ideas that dissent against authority and non-conformity was essential in a just society. The unjust society that the U.S. was rebeling against was deeply rooted in the ideas of Feudalism, which is inherently based on ownership and property rights.
The current state of intelectual property rights is very much beginning to resemble Feudalism. Artists are beholden to thier copyright holders to get permission to perform or record the very works they created, programmers are expected to assign copyright for any ides the think of to thier employer. Both recording artists and programmers are increasingly forbidden ownership of thier own work, whether that work was created "on the job" at thier employers expense, or on thier own time at thier own.
At least the software community has gotten more and more away from the tactics of "piracy" with the advent of Free Software as a valid competitor to propietary. When the music P2P comunnity follows suit and gets the idea of Free Music, the it'll be all over for the RIAA, for thier members, and (hopefully) for Clearchannel as well.
Caffeine.
And I'd be willing to bet that caffeine is more popular than pot.
I am pretty sure that it is more addicting though.
Prolonged inhalation of any smoke can cause lung cancer, emphysema, and other lung disease. This aspect of pot smoking really hasn't been studied enough to know to what extent, but it is safe to assume that inhaling smoke of any type is probably bad for you.
OTOH, quitting pot is easy. I can't say the same for the cigarettes though. Pot is not anywhere nearly as addicting as tobacco is.
Besides, with pot you can always eat some brownies if you're worried about your lungs. Eating a tobacco brownie is likely to make you throw up (which is a good thing as nicotine is well known as a deadly poison).
With web servers, people hit them becuase of their content, not because of what server they are running.
So in other words, if there weren't so many asshats running IIs, then Apache would be getting hit just as often. Hmmm.
It's not that Microsoft's web server isn't secure, it's just that so many asshats choose it to serve thier pages. Good argument.
I suggest all Windows users go to http://www.knoppix.net/ and burn the CD.
Best Debian Installdisk, ever.
You do realize that most of the Balkans were nothing like the rest of Europe (they were struggling countries after the collapse of Communism).
The Balkans were struggling countries before the rise of Communism.
The perpetual problem that the Balkans face is the same as the one that allowed Bush to push our nation into war with very little evidence (and even that "evidence" was falsified).
Rampant nationalism can be counted on by the rich and the powerful to bring the masses in line whenever desired. Either fake an attack from a foriegn power or terrorist group, or help them to commit it by ignoring intelligence reports, and the population falls in line to support any tyrant, willingly gives up thier civil liberties (if they have them to begin with), accepts rediculous arguments in favor of the current administration, and begins to both believe every lie that the establishment media feeds them while at the same time blasting that same media as being "dangerously liberal".
The distinction is that the regulations that are proposed/created by the FCC are (in an ideal, civics class, by the book world) meant to be limited to enforcing the policy as was enacted into law by Congress. Perhaps my wording (terminology?) is not quite clear, but it seems that your Medicare analogy is apropriate.
The law handed down by Congress that created the FCC, and still governs it, states that no one media company will be allowed to monopolize a market, and the FCC regulations should be created in such a way as will ensure this. Some of our Senators clearly believed that the FCCs relaxation of thier regulations did not serve this very basic function of the agency.
The theory is that the FCC is not intended to implement political beliefs into law, but is empowered only to create and enforce regulations that will furthur thier mission as stated when the agency was created by an act of Congress. The FCC was intended to be an enforcing agency and not a creator of policy, so if Congress were to reject a relaxation of FCC media ownership regulations, it would not threaten the existance of the agency, but would strengthen thier focus on thier original mission.
Part of this mission has always been to ensure that no one political view will be able to dominate the media and that no one company will controll any media marketplace. Originally there were very strict regulations over how many radio stations and how many television broadcasters could be owned by a single company in a given market, and until the current proposed relaxation of these regulations no newspaper publishers were permitted to own any broadcasting company.
These regulations were concieved at a time that no one could predict the size and power that the current publishing and broadcast companies now enjoy, nor could anyone predict the large mergers between the manufacturing, telecomunications, and entertainment companies. Deregulation during the 1980's (under President Reagan) set the stge for the giant media conglomerates that we see today, and the proposed deregulation would allow outright monopolies over much of the United States media market.
A larger fear that many pro-regulatory politicos share is that the confusing web of media ownership has become so complex that there is little way to know who really owns what. The fact that there are persons (and thier immediate relations) on the boards of the largest media outlets that are also on the boards of some of the more powerful Bush administration connected government contractors, such as Haliburton and The Carlyle Group, then it is easy to understand why a majority of Senators found it necessary to act to curtail the current deregulation.
Hey, you can use nmap to make sure all your services have been patched (and you can see what unauthorized service that Bob in accounting out in Fresno is running on his desktop).
I realize that the "Powers that Be" (layoffs, etc) are making your job next to impossible, but it's tools like nmap (and other "hacker" tools) that take up the slack when the vendor fails to supply a reasonable toolkit.
If something like this can help you stay one step ahead of the script kiddies, you should be thankful for it.
It appears that *nix systems now have an exploit
Yep, *nix systems have exploits, and an hour or two turnaround between discovery and a fix. I'd like to see Microsoft match that.
"Linux has no exploits that need patching"
People who actually know Linux would never claim that there are no known exploits, just that the time-to-fix is much shorter and that applying these fixes to running systems is usually much easier (in most distributions) than in a Windows system (ie no reboot required, one location for all necessary fixes, better software package management, etc)
I use Linux and BSD at home, but manage Windows machines at work (I have no decision making power, I'm just a grunt) and I must say that Windows management is a royal pain in the ass. We've had no problems with the recent Windows viruses and worms, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time applying patches, rebooting machines, and checking that the new patches did not wipe out the old ones. I don't think that it is unreasonable for Microsoft's customers to demand better patch/upgrade management, a single location for updates to both applications, servers, and the OS, and a better method for confirming that the files included in a patch contain the all of the required fixes (for that file) even if they came from different departments at microsoft.
Nice, but if I were to advise you to follow your own advice of not following my advice to follow your own asdvice, the dilemma would be revisited on you, leaving me in the clear to follow my own advice but you bound by dual commitment to following and not following your own (and thus my) advice.
In other words, this particular challenge creates a dilemma for the challenger as long as the chalenged sticks to thier original statement, but the reverse is not true.
For a another interesting dilemma enter on the command line (assuming you have a dictionary client). It is similar in that the student binds himself but not the master, very much as you do here.
That is exactly what he did:
and from Mr. Ozzie's article:
I strongly dislike software patents (I dislike patents, period), but that's no excuse to be sloppy in attacking one.
I too dislike sloppy refutation of unfair claims, although I don't believe in the "baby out w/bathwater" school of dealing with the current patent crisis (it is a crisis), and as long as I'm dealing in cliche's today, I also think that one should follow one's own advice.
If this were b3ta, Ray Ozzie and bro' jack would be getting plenty of "Woo! Yea!" right now.
A pantent such as this one could kill such a site (or at least make it seriously less fun)
Usually, only one of those is the case, as with metric vs. standard. It's a helluva lot of hassle to convert a lot of people to using metric when everything is done a different way.
Except for the fact that it is much easier to calculate in metric, and many Americans, such as myself, who deal with both sytems, depending on the subject at hand, find metric much easier than the Imperical system that we grew up using.
And, yes America is different for the sake of being different. It may be brutish and idiotic, but it also results in diversity
I fail to see how adopting the metric system would in any way threaten the diversity that we (at least the sane ones among us, perhaps not the majority) dearly love about our country.
I prefer slightly worse stuff to perfectly consistent stuff in many ways.
I agree, but often the American tendancy to be "different" not only results in "slightltly worse stuff" but it also results in such mind niumbing consistancy that we must seek products elsewhere for not only quality, but for something that is different, especially when the "stuff" is beer.
It forces constant change, fights off stagnation, etcetera.
Actually it was the growing dominance of foreign imports that caused the diversification of American beer market and allowed the "microbrews" to share a place on the shelf. The non-standardization of brewer products allowed the few large brewers who manufactured the most cheaply made product to dominate the beer distribution markets after prohibition until relatively recently, when foreign brewers became able to produce enough product for the American market (mostly due to the strength of the dollar in relation to thier own native currencies), in spite of some of the older breweries that had more diverse product lines (such as D.G. Yuengling, Stegmaier, and some of the other older breweries that pre-dated prohibition).
Pushing Palladium, perhaps?
The problem with this particular document being a "pay to play" licensing scheme, is that it will likely be adopted into law in some way, either as a supplier specification or as a compliance requirement for marketing a product or service.
There are several jurisdictions in the United States where thier building codes are released in this way and are protected under copyright requiring a builder or homeowner to pay a large amount to have a copy of the current codes for reference and to pay an additional amount to include excerpts from the code in zoning and building permit applications. The fact that all persons (in that jurisdiction) are subject to compliance with these codes makes the licensing scheme an unfair limitation on builders giving an unfair advantage to larger construction companies and prevents homeowners being able to make even small improvements to thier properties if they are on a limited budget.
I have seen building projects where the cost of preparing the permits was extensively more than the cost of actual construction due to licensing costs for access to the building codes and the necessity of including exerpts from the building code in the application. The one that springs to mind is a $1,500.00 improvement to a fire escape (required by code) that cost in excess of $2,000.00 to prepare the permits. If there had been no licensing fee for code exerpts , and if a reference copy of the code had been possible to obtain for less than $750.00, it would have cost less than $500.00 to prepare the permit, as it would have been possible to prepare the application in house and would not have required a legal review of the application before submittal.
The only purpose that charging for the use of a specification serves is to limit the playing feild in the affected industry to a certain class of individuals who either already have money with which to pay, or have made commitments to persons who might or might not be knowlegable about the involved technology, but have the economic power and the desire to regulate that industry.
This kind of non-governmental regulation puts an artificial limitation on the mechanisms of capitolism and prevents the very kind of "free market" (that you seem to be arguing for) from developing and prevents participation from legitimate businesses and other projects that have the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities, but are lacking in support from the already established players in that market.
Does this refer to Naked Lunch by W.S. Burroughs? Because it sounds like it. . .damn, it sucked.
No, I think that dude was refering or the dude who wrote his books about twenty to thirty years before that big bad Bill dude, but then again I could have the wrong dude.
BTW, I agree that the book where the guy flashes back and forth between the US and Morocco while doing all that smack and bug spray while sometimes hangin' out with the "On the Road" dude and his bigamist buddy isn't all that, but it was much better than the movie that the other dude made from it.
The dude who wrote those books where he was going on and on about all the stuff he was thinking and doing and you couldn't figure out what was fact and what was fiction the grammar didn't work out anyway pretty damn boring book that was.
Boring, that's one of the best damn books I've ever read!
If you thought the grammar was difficult in that one, you should read that book by the same dude about all the details of every thought that passes through his dream and half of the words aren't real but make sense anyway but in several different ways at the same time.
The dude who was in that black&white film where the front of a house falls over, but he's standing where the window comes down and there's no glass in it.
Isn't he the dude that inspired the dude who writes directs and acts in his own movies which have the incredible fight scenes and he does all of these impossible stunts himself only they are not impossible because he actually does them.
"We are at war against al Qaeda!" becomes "We are at war with Iraq!"
Except now we are at war with al Qaeda again, erm, I mean "We have always been at war with al Qaeda!"
It's nice to see a 1984 reference from a poster who actually read the damn book.
An Internet trade group representing Verizon Communications and other companies wants its members' Internet services certified because they play a "unique and pivotal role as a conduit for deployment of antiterrorism technologies."
My bet is that the certification requirement for internet services amounts to "We spy on our users."
Disney owns five record companies.
Disney also owns ABC and ESPN (plus probably some others I'm not aware of).
It's not just that the media will side with the record companies, but that the record companies and the media are, for the most part, one and the same.