I forgot to head "...while blasting Motorhead, and not just the poser anthem Ace of Spades either, but like deep album cuts, B-sides, and Motorhead-like songs Lemmy wrote at the tail-end of his time with Hawkwind."
Thought that might be relevant. I want to be clear here.
I think your problem is you don't do enough coding in seedy desert motels doing lines off of methamphetamine-crazed prostitutes, with a tubfull of radiator moonshine, a closet of AR-15 knockoffs and the latest high capacity polymer-grip Europistols, balancing towers of ice buckets full of jacketed hollowpoints.
You probably sit in some comfortable chair in an air conditioned office somewhere going, "oh, oh, globals, oh no, don't hack me, please!"
Some of us are too busy balancing our RAD needs while fighting off bikini-clad ninja chicks with harpoons and barbed-wire dildoes to be concerned to get our panties in a bunch over globals.
I'm not sure if this is specifically what you're referencing, but in case it is, I agree that it was a questionable decision to previously leave it on by default. However, it has changed (if this is what you mean):
Perhaps the most controversial change in PHP is when the default value for the PHP directive register_globals went from ON to OFF in PHP 4.2.0. Reliance on this directive was quite common and many people didn't even know it existed and assumed it's just how PHP works. This page will explain how one can write insecure code with this directive but keep in mind that the directive itself isn't insecure but rather it's the misuse of it.
When on, register_globals will inject your scripts with all sorts of variables, like request variables from HTML forms. This coupled with the fact that PHP doesn't require variable initialization means writing insecure code is that much easier. It was a difficult decision, but the PHP community decided to disable this directive by default. When on, people use variables yet really don't know for sure where they come from and can only assume. Internal variables that are defined in the script itself get mixed up with request data sent by users and disabling register_globals changes this"
That's just the web page misreporting seeders. I found your post amusing so I tried downloading something that had N/A for seeders (like everything else), and there were 3.
I agree with the sentiment though that it is time, now, for creative commons-licensed music to be *the thing*. In case anyone else isn't aware of it:
I probably have opinions on all of this MPAA business, except I can't think of any MPAA release presently in print that I would *want* to download. Movies are dirt cheap; I can't be bothered to tie up bandwidth like that.
On a practical level, and I'm not advocating this - why not just join NetFlix, pay the fee, and safely rip movies of your preferred quality, dozens per month? It's still what they call theft or copyright infringement or stealing, or whatever the hell you want to call it, but it's easy, quick, and a lot safer than dealing with p2p issues. It blows my mind that people actually spend the time to download crap like, I don't know, one of the Matrix films, when they can probably find it online for ten lousy dollars somewhere.
As for seeing films before they're released, I literally cannot think of a time in my entire life this has been important enough to me to tie up bandwidth for that purpose. Seriously, and I've ranted about this before, that people would even take minimal risk to pir8 some Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer shit...I'm surprised fans of movies like that have the IQ to even get their computer booted.
The bit that everyone is missing here is that people have MANY OTHER OPTIONS. Most MPAA and RIAA releases are crap. Sure there are isolated exceptions, but I have to wonder how much great music people have missed because they took so much time locating and downloading the commercial shit these organizations tell you to like, that you could have spent trying out NEW or UNSIGNED bands not yet on the MPAA's or RIAA's radar. From hip hop to sugary pop to bluegrass to death metal, there's free music of all kinds out there now that people could be listening to instead.
The best way to avoid being sued is to stop sucking at the record and movie industries' teats - because while it is true that a lot of "free music" sucks, is this not equally or more true of corporate rock or pop?
(1) Stop buying crappy, manufactured, paint-by-numbers, overproduced pablum out of aesthetic principle. Stop spending money on these miserable industries. As for "classic" rock or "classic" records, do you REALLY FUCKING NEED TO HEAR HEY JUDE AGAIN? HAVE WE NOT ALL HAD JUST ABOUT EFUCKINGNOUGH OF STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN? THINK ABOUT IT.
(2) Locate alternative sources for music that are aware that we live in the 21st century and that restricting content is a lost cause, however anyone feels about it from a profit perspective. Support them in whatever way you can. The age of the rock star must be brought to a forceful close, along with the distribution, marketing, and bureaucratic leeches who make money off of art but contribute nothing of worth in an age when artists can cheaply and effectively distribute music on their own terms, cheaply.
(3) Expand your damn horizons.
If you're pissed, the best thing you can do - the best thing anyone can do - is stop sharing your tired, worn-out, middling RIAA and MPAA crap, and share only the stuff you love that is free and where artists need the exposure the most. From my perspective, this stuff just cruds up my search results when I'm looking for something original or different.
Deny these companies their revenue stream by refusing to purchase their goods, or by being lawsuit bait by illegally sharing them. Watch the industry collapse and toast marshmallows over the flames. Yeah, I know, this kind of boycott has been called for a million times on Slashdot alone. But the consequences to these companies over the long term can simply be a side effect; the main reason to boycott
This really isn't fair. I hear what you're saying - I've never owned a Mac, and I've played with them in computer stores, and that's about the extent of it.
But for Mac users, it seems to be more about using a computer with an actual design philosophy - a computer that actually tries to be something, to have its own identity. Like VW Bugs or whatever. Yeah, sure, there are Apple people all over the internet who never shut up about them but the same is true of pretty much every OS user...and least of all from Windows users who tend to be unenthusiastic. They may not hate Windows but I have to laugh every time someone accuses someone else of being a "Windows fanboy." They may exist but as a percentage of the user population, they're insignificant.
Windows is dry, has no personality, and tries to be everything to everyone; jack of all trades, master of none. Windows succeeds because of momentum, sure, but it succeeds even more because the rest of us support the people who don't know any better and wind up with Windows computers in front of them. If we all - Mac, Linux users, even disgruntled but knowledgeable Windows users, agreed to stop helping out horribly stuck Windows people for one year, I wonder how things would change.
The value of Apples to Apple "fanboys" is that they connect with the philosophy behind their design. Just like every car isn't meant for every driver, this is especially true of Macs. The chances of me being a regular Mac user are next to zero but IRL, the most interesting, creative, dynamic, passionate people I have met, have been, disproportionately, Mac users - and just now I'm thinking of old coworkers of mine in Canada, who were not by any stretch of the imagination ignorant (they wrote Windows tech support docs!). I cannot ignore this. I also cannot even consider Apple's place in things without recounting the Apple II series of computers, arguably the most important home computers ever produced. I cannot discount the NUMBER OF HOT CHICKS I have seen in cafes using Macs. (And I say this matters, because it if is so god damned important that computer illiterate seniors be able to use an operating system, which seems to be the standard of measure of an OS's "readiness," then, dammit, the hot chick factor damn well matters too.) - (by which I mean neither should but still)
I really don't understand the hostility toward Mac users some people have. When Mac users start tooting about their systems, at very worst it's insufferably...cute - at *worst*. They love their computers. They don't just live with them or use them mindlessly because it's what they've been given. They love them. I can see why someone who likes the power and access to the actual kernel source code wouldn't dig on them, but I can certainly allow for the fact that we're not all *like that.*
And as a Linux user, I'm down with that. The real problem is OS monoculture, and Mac users and their evangelism are an ally in that fight - to show people that there are alternatives. Every Mac convert is *probably* one less potential zombie in a botnet. Different strokes...
I continue to be puzzled at people who have issues with Macs or Mac users. Yeah, I don't think the platform is as free and open as it could or should be. I've read about sporadic hardware problems, and frankly I think Steve Jobs is a complete asshole (I am, like most hobbyists, a Woz groupie, however). I understand the excesses of the lifestyle branding Apple has engaged in. But I don't think that's nearly as influential in the lives of Mac die-hards as the commercials would have us believe. Most Mac users I know have used Macs for years and years, sometimes going all the way back to Apple IIes. They're tools they've carried through their lives, the way some of us carry Leatherman supertools around - school papers, resumes, job letters, love letters, visual and audio artwork, manifestoes, and so on.
I'm just perplexed how such a small minority could be irritating or offensive or whatever it is you're suggesting in your above post.
Our real enemy is obvious: People who mistitle every humorous mp3 as being by WEIRD AL YANKOVIC. Those fucking people need wedgies. Can we not all agree on this?
No one will care! People will continue to go to movies! They'll blog angrily about it one day and go see some crappy Michael Bay film the next! If a consumer could save a thousand lives by driving an extra mile to buy their soap, they wouldn't! Inconvenience is SLAVERY!
Express your outrage over moral transgressions by writing about it on the internet with lots of exclamation points!
(I share your disgust, Newer Guy, I'm not picking on you.)
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is important that you do it...compulsively." - A sign I propose the US government puts up at all terminals with incoming international flights.
No, see, thats a predictable and tired response. The kind of music I'm talking about is popular for the same reason shows like American Idol are popular, crappy food is popular, and certain politicians are popular. It's got nothing to do with obscurity. It has to do with the slavish worship of mediocrity.
Sorry, I know you really badly want to shove me in the box of someone who listens to music that no one likes, but that's not it, at all. It has nothing to do with me being cool, either, but it's funny how that's the only thing you and the other dork before you could pull out my post.
It has to do with popular music being crappy because so much of the public is told what they like, and believe it.
Hah. As if downloading a bunch of shit from Pirate Bay makes it somehow culturally significant. Thousands of crappy McDonalds burgers are sold every day, but that doesn't make it *cuisine*.
Yeah well, every third person I meet claims that they're a "musician." So some slackers might have to get actual jobs and actually work for a living. I do not care. I look forward to the day Avril Lavigne takes my order for a cheeseburger. Musicians and artists tend to have an extremely high self-opinion in terms of what they think they contribute to "culture." John Coltrane contributed to culture. The world would not be significantly different, however, if the last ten years in top 40 music had never happened.
Where's the rock style life for the people who build bridges and clean up bathrooms? Where's the rock star life for teachers who contribute something directly measurable to our civilization? Where's the free booze and blowjobs for activists, community organizers, and people manning the soup kitchens tonight?
And for that matter, where's the rock star life for the countless musicians in less lucrative genres like jazz or folk music? Some of the most mindblowing music I've ever heard was hardcore jazz played furiously with wild abandon on snowy nights in hole-in-the-wall bars in towns and cities you haven't heard of by amateurs who had no chance in hell of ever making a living at it even in an ideal intellectual property/copyright environment.
What this all may portend is the end of the corporate-generated rock star and frankly, I couldn't welcome it more.
I have no solution to the problem of stolen demos and studio tapes; that's just wrong. But if that problem can somehow be addressed - possibly by home studios - artists should record albums and then set a bounty and collect money for it online, bypassing record labels completely. When the predetermined threshold is reached, the album gets released on the internet, with the expectation that from then on it becomes a promotional tool for the next album or tour, because there is simply no way you can stop music piracy. The question of "what to do about piracy" is moot. You set a bounty - say, a million dollars. When enough contributions come in to total a million dollars, the album is published on the web, free for anyone to download. In theory, all of the money would go to the artists, minus IT/financial fees.
This plan is interesting to me because what it means is, Bob Dylan fans (for example) pay money to the bounty fund for Bob's next album. When that album is released, it is then, for all practical purposes, free. This allows fans and advocates to contribute money to what they like, and it acts as a sort of gift to the rest of the world to spread the music they like. Beyond this, the suits are cut out of the equation, as they should be, because with the internet, all of the supposed value they add (promotion and distribution) has diminished significantly. If music were free, it would be promoted by blogs and file sharing services.
But then music would have to rely on its own merit, rather than street teams and tastemakers telling the dumbest of us what we like.
By setting a bounty, we ensure the artist gets paid. 50 years from now, there is no question whether a music file being passed around on the internet from today was "stolen." Its very existence would indicate that a bounty was met.
For visual entertainment that is not exhibited in theaters (which is an experience that piracy cannot easily duplicate), a similar model could be used.
I'm sure this scheme has problems but the old way of doing things, where you go to the store and you buy something but don't own it - itself a weird concept, really - is simply irrelevant now. The question is not what to do about piracy; the question is how to incorporate the reality of the free flow of data in a global, electronically connected world, with the need to make a living.
The old saw about how the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it applies and can be extended here:
The internet interprets copyrights and patents as damage, and routes around it.
The world has changed. Whether this ticks people off or not is increasingly irrelevant, and no - I don't have to be a professional musician myself to make this statement. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
I agree. My personal favorite game of all time was Ultima IV - it was, in fact, so good that when I was done with it I lost interest in videogames almost altogether. Didn't buy any more consoles, anyway.
But when I think "video game" I think Pac Man, the same way I think "Coca Cola" when I think soda pop. You could put up a good argument for Space Invaders too.
I've never even heard of a lot of the games people mention but I just have little interest in a game that can't be played as a lark for 15 minutes and then dropped. My loss, really, since I did love Ultima IV.
If you can somehow figure out a way to harness the crazed, compulsive, drooling consumerist energy expended standing in line for iPhones and new gaming consoles to change the world, we could probably have the solar system colonized within 5 years.
I watched a few days ago as people waited in line for iPhones in Manhattan. As they left the store, they'd hoist their iPhones aloft and crowds would cheer and flashbulbs went off. These little lines not only make much bigger news than any of the hundreds of political protests going on, but people seem somehow more deeply fulfilled. There's no sense of futility here - probably, those standing in line, will get their gadget fix by the end of the day.
By contrast, political activism - whether it involves protest or running for office or harassing your local congressman - just doesn't have the same payoff. Also, people tend to be dressed appropriately for the uh, commodity acquiring experience. I didn't see any dreadlocked white guys with funny hats walking around on stilts in line for the iPhone. Also no one did "die-ins" for the iPhone. Those tend to be downers. Not like iPhones, which make everyone go "SQUEEEEEE!" in delight. Plus die-ins are ridiculous and silly. They cannot compete with the dignity of standing in line for hours for cool shit.
I think the exasperation people feel with the United States is that they - foreigners all - don't understand what's really important -- which is waiting in lines at movie premieres and re-releases of movies with lotsa 'splosions, and the aforementioned electronic widgets. The day when abject human rights, civil liberties, and judicial system abuses can compete (PR-wise) with the iPhone or a new Star Wars movie debut is the day the world will change. I, for one, hope this kind of hippie shit never happens because I am a real goddam American and he who dies with the most fucking toys wins. Fuck you; I saw it on a t-shirt and it's true.
Sure, my cousin Marty lived in a double-wide until the day he died, but what they don't tell you is that it was stuffed with nearly $30,000.00 full of game consoles, DVDs, music players, and kitchen gadgets. He was the envy of the goddamn trailer park. I mean, it's no wonder the French hated him so fucking much. In France, they don't have access to even a fraction of the Ronco kitchen devices we have here. Better bread, sure, but fuck bread when you can get Tostinos pizza rolls cheap. Am I rite? Tostinos pizza roll bags with AMERICAN FLAGS on them. Red, white, and blue, baby - not the fag colors you see on, say, French flags. Toast em up all nice and crispy in the Ronco pizza roll oven. Watch a little O'Reilly. Kick back a few brews. Read some Fark.
Lotsa these emo nerds say, if we as a culture put 10% of the time into productive civic activity that we spend acquiring shit, we could change the tide of human history. But that would leave us with a lot less blinkenlights around our apartments, and fuck *that* man. It's in the goddamn Bill of Rights - For the purpose of well-amused population, the right to acquire plastic shit shall not be infringed.
Besides, like most people, I don't have the time to change the world. I got a job to go to, helping to produce shit, to earn a paycheck - a paycheck I'll use to acquire shit produced by other companies. The remaining balance will go into my 401K which will, through the stocks that comprise it, go toward producing more shit. Whatever you do, do *not* fuck with my investments, you goddam hippies. I am a model fucking American and you'd do best to see what a dude with a pair lives like. I don't sit around whining all day like I'm somehow magically entitled to shit like habeus corpus or "accountable government" (LOL!) I get out there and work. Shareholder, Employee, Taxpayer, I FUCKING REPRESENT. Sure sometimes people lie. And sometimes people get killed or tortured, but that's what happens when you're at war. We need cheap petroleum, because you need petroleum to make plastic. And I have a
I don't use mass transit *because there is no mass transit* where I live, nor was there anywhere I ever lived with two exceptions - in one case I just walked around town (New Brunswick, New Jersey) because I was in college, and two, I lived off of Ina Road in Tucson, Arizona, but in that case, I could also walk to most things I needed.
The problem is the USA, with a few exceptions, is just not set up for efficient transportation. Suburbs and exurbs are a major part of the problem and as others have pointed out, so is the unwillingness to mix residential and commercial areas. I always liked being able to walk to a corner store or bar, but apparently, overall, people want to live isolated from the businesses they work and shop in. I've lived in those isolated suburbs most of my life, and I see very little positive about them. Some day, I'd like to live in a place where I can walk or hop onto a subway to go where I need to go. People are terrified about planning their towns in any meaningful way - it's too bad, because while the market has certainly met demand, it has given people what is not, perhaps, always good for them. Plus, structures are fairly permanent. You can't really undo bad planning easily (though it can be done). In the few places I've lived that were "walkable," the only disadvantage was a little more noise. Other than that, it was all plusses - you can, for example, create more parks which tend me more satisfying than residential lawns.
Probably things will just get worse and worse until the market drives the way towns and cities are built. It's too bad - a little planning for growth could solve a lot of problems. Also, I'd like to see towns get serious about walking and biking paths across cities. In a perfect scenario, I should be able to walk or bike across the city I live in without ever having to wait to cross a street or interact with cars. Ideally bus, tram, or train stops would be near these paths. Adding a little walking to anyone's schedule couldn't hurt. I admire the subterranean passageways I saw in Montreal and Winnipeg, where you can cross really busy downtown streets by simply walking underground (where there are restaurants and stores and so on). These kinds of things could be employed for bikers and walkers in cities, and possibly create new places for businesses.
Sane work hours would also help, because maybe it would take the edge off of public transit commutes. And as someone who has telecommuted for 8 years now, I have to say, this is a concept that needs major, broad expansion. While not everyone can work from home, a lot of people certainly can, even if it's just part of the time. It requires a psychological adjustment and a new way of looking at work, but it is certainly doable. The information age was supposed to make this possible - and it is - the time to look closer at this is now. I'm in favor of any kind of tax breaks for companies that expand telecommuting programs.
For workers, it will require some changes, but hardly anything insurmountable. If companies can get beyond their initial fear of telecommuting and workers who claim they can't discipline themselves can learn to (and they can), everyone stands to save a lot of money, cut down on a lot of pollution, and provide some relief to the ridiculous gridlock on the roads.
Now as for vehicles and SUVs everyone complains about - I drive a nearly decade-old Ford F-150 pickup truck. I drive this truck because I wanted a truck with good ground clearance and a large bed because I like to take it into the desert on rough roads, and then sleep in the back. I don't care at all about raw hauling capacity, acceleration, or herculean torque. I think there are a lot of assumptions made about what drivers want and I'm not sure that the vehicles acceptable to us are always a good fit.
I would love to see a very fuel efficient, even hybrid vehicle with high ground clearance, good suspension, and a full sized bed. I would sacrifice engine power for the purpose of fuel efficie
This reminded me of a teacher I had in high school was was, more than most, buddy-buddy with students. He was the basketball coach and coaching basketball was clearly his greater love, rather than teaching. In the beginning of each class, one of two things would happen which would waste well over 9 out of 10 classes in terms of getting anything done -
#1, someone would bring up basketball, which often led to a period-long argument about it. Pressing this guy's buttons was easy when it came to sports, and people would do it.
#2, I would engage him in an infuriating political argument because for some reason this guy, jock to the core, had strong political principals (he was a liberal - at the time, I was not. This was in the late 80s.) Often we'd go back and forth for 40 minutes.
Eventually he would have to give a test and he would spend the night before the test reading the questions from the test and covering everything on it bullet-point by bullet-point, which made studying...a breeze. (This was a social studies class)
Anyway, during one of these period-long digressions from the curriculum, someone brought up Welcome Back, Kotter. For those who haven't seen this show, it was a 70s TV show about a teacher in Brooklyn who went back to teach at the same school he, himself, was a student at. His students would regularly visit him at his apartment. Someone asked this teacher (a well-liked guy, even by me) how he would react if students or his basketball team dropped by or otherwise encountered him outside of school.
He said that he'd close the door in the face of anyone who dared try to find him at home. I don't think anyone was offended. I cannot understand how or why a teacher would have any interest whatsoever in encountering students outside of the classroom, especially socially.
This is long. You may want to skip it. It's kind of a rant.
I honestly have to assume that at least some people who are afraid of guns and gun owners watch a hell of a lot of television. It's also fairly interesting the amount of stereotyping which goes on unchallenged about gun owners and their motivations. In many cases the people who routinely stereotype gun owners are the same ones who get bent out of shape when they, themselves, are stereotyped in some way.
My gun has killed a few hundred soda cans.
That's it.
All of the time and energy that could be spent actually trying to do something to address the completely fucked way this culture has come to regard and often glorify violence is spent in this bizarrely misguided struggle to take guns away from the people least likely to abuse them, and then money and time spent fighting these same efforts - money that could be used for gun safety education or some other effort to address the disturbing turn this country has taken in the past few years. I *am* afraid. I am afraid of the complete lack of ethics or sense of citizenship - by which I mean membership in and ownership of a society - that people seem to feel. I watch people litter and tag their own communities, pissing in the proverbial same river they drink from. It makes no sense to me. I certainly do not think that violence *isn't* a problem or that violence is over-hyped. There's a problem in the US, and it needs addressing - we have become an ugly, decadent culture, somehow...
But the guns follow; they certainly do not lead. If that was the case, we would have had the problems we have now a hundred years ago.
But the tone of this debate isn't helping. I admit that I contribute to it because I get wound up, insulted, and feel threatened sometimes by things I hear others advocate which would directly impact me, personally.
Most disturbing is the sanctimonious "I am so incredibly enlightened" attitude that some people who have an agenda against gun owners seem to have. In particular, this is vexing coming from the Left, who will (rightly) point to the abuses of this administration and its taste for police-state style surveillance measures against its own citizens, the illegal detention of people they refuse to charge with a crime, phony wars fought under completely false pretexts, and so on. And yet they will, in the end, suggest to you that they are entirely comfortable with this government having a completely monopoly on guns. In the end, even the loudest critics of government, would not want to be far from the safety of its embrace. Which is revolting to me, personally, but there it is.
There are people who, even after all of the incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, and crass cruelty of this administration, still trust them more than they do their neighbors. It really bothered me to watch the gun confiscation that went on in New Orleans, even when something that everyone said was impossible happened - and civilization broke down completely. There were few police around at all, but there were enough, apparently, to take guns from homeowners and residents, leaving them at the mercy of looters and criminals. This scenario was, until Katrina, a supposedly paranoid hypothetical that people claimed time and time again would not - and could not - happen in modern America. And yet, it did, and the police did the absolute worst thing they could (The NRA actually sued over this, and won).
If you ask me who we should really be afraid of, it's not peaceable gun owners. It's people who are paranoid and afraid of the freedoms of others. It's not just the serious, organized, politically active gun control advocates either - it's the people who think all homosexuals are potential pedophiles, or people who want to control what you can read or watch or listen to. It's the person in the room who wants all conversations sanitized because someone *might* be offended by something being discussed. Its the busybodies who report their neighbors to H
I've worked for women supervisors for 8 years now, and I've never had any problems. The most petty, hormonal thing to happen to me at work was from a dude, the first guy I worked for when I came on board.
I think a lot of guys who complain about working for women have some personal issues they need to sort out. I'm sure there are bad female bosses, but I've done alright now, 3 for 3.
Seconded. I can keep my (Gentoo) working OS austere and conservative with what I install on it. Meanwhile, I have Ubuntu running in QEMU, which I treat like a dirty slut, installing anything I want promiscuously onto it, if I want to experiment with different WMs or dodgy software (Side unrelated note: Was pretty impressed by Ubuntu, having only installed it for the first time recently - I see why all the hype; it was the simplest install I've ever seen for a Linux distro, coupled with all the goodness of Synaptic and apt-get that I'm used to from Debian - bravo). Likewise I have Windows XP running in QEMU that I can use if I need to open a Windows document or want to use Windows software. I have no need for a dedicated Windows machine or even a dual boot scenario, so QEMU plugs this gap wonderfully.
I'm old enough still that I'm not used to getting such a cool thing for free. And the work of volunteers like Bellard and Xhaard are deeply appreciated.
I've donated to the Quanta+ project in the past, too. I've never been so ruggedly productive with a single piece of software which I use for editing code and HTML.
Really there are a lot of projects worth throwing some bucks toward. Given how free-as-in-beer the free software world is, it's really worth it to save up a little and throw toward your favorite projects. I seem to remember from some time back that OpenSSH was having financial issues, and if you want to talk about a foundational application that absolutely must be supported, it's that.
Though it's been awhile since I used Windows, I can think of two superb pieces of freeware worth a donation - Irfanview, which I still use at work, and which is probably the best image viewer (for my purposes) that I've found for Windows - light, fast, yet fairly powerful. And then there is the superb Xnews, which I used right up until I stopped using Windows altogether.
Other than as an enthusiastic user, I have no personal connection to any of these projects. But I think that to the extent that it is possible, it is definitely worth financially supporting these efforts as much as possible. Think about these people, especially, after tax time when the rebates come back, if you're fortunate enough to get one.
Free software *shouldn't* work according to everything people have tried to tell me about the world. Sometimes the universe talks back; grease the wheels of human virtue when you can. A couple less pizzas a year, is all it takes:)
Yeah, actually I just tried Ubuntu out for the first time about 3 hours ago. To install Java, I went to the Synaptic Package Manager, clicked Search, typed in "Java" and then selected j2re1.4-mozilla-plugin, then clicked "Apply" and it installed.
Procedure was the same for Flash.
Total for both took about 60 seconds, and didn't require any command line stuff at all.
Actually, I was impressed with Ubuntu. I am a Gentoo user, but really I've never seen any OS install easier than Ubuntu (on my desktop, in QEMU, anyway) - sound, networking, no problem.
The install process was lightning fast, and synaptic is a great tool for people new to Linux (or even not new to Linux).
Same goes for the original recordings of some classic albums. I don't want the greatest hits copyrighted from 2006, I want to buy a brand new CD with the same record that I grew up with. Take THAT Corey Hart, you stupid Canadian money grubber. You had what, two records? And one of them was a hit? I want to buy your "First Offense" CD, not the Corey Hart greatest hits. It's absurd that you've even got a greatest hits anyway, when "First Offense" had all of hits anyway.
Thanks. This bit just sent me into a jimson weed-like hell trip. At present I am drowning in the semen of an Enochian fire demon who is grunting Anne Murray's "Shadows in the Moonight" at me backward while roasting me over an open flame fueled by the manure of two thousand backbenchers in Satan's all-goat parliament.
When I come to, I am going to hunt you down, and I am going to go to work on you with a crucifix made of papal bones and a water tower full of holy water. Consider yourself marked, Legion - I will drive you out of our dear friend, Profane MuthaFucka - a prince...nay, a SAINT. I will cure him of this terrible affliction. The power of Christ compels you. And yeah, fuck you, I'm bringing Max Von Sydow with me. With the old Ming the Merciless getup too. And ninjas. I am not fucking around.
Original Corey Hart releases are not available because all responsible for his career have been hunted down and "staked" to the earth in graveyards under full moons; it is precisely this kind of decency and sensibility that we Americans look for in our Canadian friends to the North; unlike us they contain and *deal* with their evil. For the most part. I can see you've evaded them.
We must fight for the souls of all mankind. And as soon as I get out of this fiery demon-seed apocalypse (and recover from the week or so of temporary blindness which typically results), and following the aforementioned exorcism, I'm going after what is left of Loverboy. Even in my significantly reduced state, I should prevail.
There's a big fuckin' difference between the chair warmers who work administrative jobs (like grossly overpaid principals) and teachers who actually go in to educate children. This wouldn't have been okay if it was a teacher who did this either, but it ticks me off twice as much that it was a principal.
This woman is a bully and an authoritarian. It would have been different if they held the kid, took a few hours to investigate, and admitted their mistake publicly - these things happen, especially in the irrationally paranoid environment we live in. I'm sure the mistake would have been understandable had this been dealt with rationally, and an honest apology was issued.
Instead, they jailed the kid - who is, incidentally, an honors student who had never even had detention before, without even investigating the situation.
The little kangaroo-court-style comment by the principal suggests to me that she is yet another little authoritarian with her dumb little fiefdom, and I openly hope she suffers, personally. I hope she is sued personally somehow (whether this is possible I do not know), and the kid gets his college education paid for.
Your point has some merit though - I never got in trouble with teachers. I never had detention. In my entire academic life, the only discipline I had to suffer was a one-time suspension for one day for defending myself against someone who physically attacked me. Yes, it sticks in my craw to this day - not because of the incident itself, but because it makes me think about what the real victims of injustice go through around the world to this day, and yes, this includes the as yet uncharged prisoners denied due process in Guantanamo Bay. Even as a "good kid" who never got into trouble, I was always wary of school administrators, who never seemed to do much but gladhand parents and shuffle paper around in offices while our educational system sunk lower and lower into the toilet.
If there is one class of people who I'd like to see purged from this society, it is authoritarians like this principal. Based on her comment alone, there's no doubt she's cut from the same cloth as the statist junta presently in charge of the United States government. Only chance has relegated her into the relatively impotent position of being a school principal.
This could happen to you, or your kid. We'll see how flippant and sarcastic you are then. It's always a bunch of people whining until it affects you personally, but hey, that's the American way. That attitude has served the agendas of our reprehensible authority figures magnificently.
Just don't forget that they're doing it *in your name*.
Slashdot Mirror
I forgot to head "...while blasting Motorhead, and not just the poser anthem Ace of Spades either, but like deep album cuts, B-sides, and Motorhead-like songs Lemmy wrote at the tail-end of his time with Hawkwind."
Thought that might be relevant. I want to be clear here.
I think your problem is you don't do enough coding in seedy desert motels doing lines off of methamphetamine-crazed prostitutes, with a tubfull of radiator moonshine, a closet of AR-15 knockoffs and the latest high capacity polymer-grip Europistols, balancing towers of ice buckets full of jacketed hollowpoints.
You probably sit in some comfortable chair in an air conditioned office somewhere going, "oh, oh, globals, oh no, don't hack me, please!"
Some of us are too busy balancing our RAD needs while fighting off bikini-clad ninja chicks with harpoons and barbed-wire dildoes to be concerned to get our panties in a bunch over globals.
Please, you're standing on my dick.
I'm not sure if this is specifically what you're referencing, but in case it is, I agree that it was a questionable decision to previously leave it on by default. However, it has changed (if this is what you mean):
http://us2.php.net/register_globals
"Chapter 29. Using Register Globals
Perhaps the most controversial change in PHP is when the default value for the PHP directive register_globals went from ON to OFF in PHP 4.2.0. Reliance on this directive was quite common and many people didn't even know it existed and assumed it's just how PHP works. This page will explain how one can write insecure code with this directive but keep in mind that the directive itself isn't insecure but rather it's the misuse of it.
When on, register_globals will inject your scripts with all sorts of variables, like request variables from HTML forms. This coupled with the fact that PHP doesn't require variable initialization means writing insecure code is that much easier. It was a difficult decision, but the PHP community decided to disable this directive by default. When on, people use variables yet really don't know for sure where they come from and can only assume. Internal variables that are defined in the script itself get mixed up with request data sent by users and disabling register_globals changes this"
Oh and before someone else mentions it - unsignedbandwb.com isn't, as far as I know, Creative Commons, but it is free. By what license I do not know.
That's just the web page misreporting seeders. I found your post amusing so I tried downloading something that had N/A for seeders (like everything else), and there were 3.
I agree with the sentiment though that it is time, now, for creative commons-licensed music to be *the thing*. In case anyone else isn't aware of it:
http://www.unsignedbandweb.com/
is worth a look.
I probably have opinions on all of this MPAA business, except I can't think of any MPAA release presently in print that I would *want* to download. Movies are dirt cheap; I can't be bothered to tie up bandwidth like that.
On a practical level, and I'm not advocating this - why not just join NetFlix, pay the fee, and safely rip movies of your preferred quality, dozens per month? It's still what they call theft or copyright infringement or stealing, or whatever the hell you want to call it, but it's easy, quick, and a lot safer than dealing with p2p issues. It blows my mind that people actually spend the time to download crap like, I don't know, one of the Matrix films, when they can probably find it online for ten lousy dollars somewhere.
As for seeing films before they're released, I literally cannot think of a time in my entire life this has been important enough to me to tie up bandwidth for that purpose. Seriously, and I've ranted about this before, that people would even take minimal risk to pir8 some Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer shit...I'm surprised fans of movies like that have the IQ to even get their computer booted.
The bit that everyone is missing here is that people have MANY OTHER OPTIONS. Most MPAA and RIAA releases are crap. Sure there are isolated exceptions, but I have to wonder how much great music people have missed because they took so much time locating and downloading the commercial shit these organizations tell you to like, that you could have spent trying out NEW or UNSIGNED bands not yet on the MPAA's or RIAA's radar. From hip hop to sugary pop to bluegrass to death metal, there's free music of all kinds out there now that people could be listening to instead.
The best way to avoid being sued is to stop sucking at the record and movie industries' teats - because while it is true that a lot of "free music" sucks, is this not equally or more true of corporate rock or pop?
(1) Stop buying crappy, manufactured, paint-by-numbers, overproduced pablum out of aesthetic principle. Stop spending money on these miserable industries. As for "classic" rock or "classic" records, do you REALLY FUCKING NEED TO HEAR HEY JUDE AGAIN? HAVE WE NOT ALL HAD JUST ABOUT EFUCKINGNOUGH OF STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN? THINK ABOUT IT.
(2) Locate alternative sources for music that are aware that we live in the 21st century and that restricting content is a lost cause, however anyone feels about it from a profit perspective. Support them in whatever way you can. The age of the rock star must be brought to a forceful close, along with the distribution, marketing, and bureaucratic leeches who make money off of art but contribute nothing of worth in an age when artists can cheaply and effectively distribute music on their own terms, cheaply.
(3) Expand your damn horizons.
If you're pissed, the best thing you can do - the best thing anyone can do - is stop sharing your tired, worn-out, middling RIAA and MPAA crap, and share only the stuff you love that is free and where artists need the exposure the most. From my perspective, this stuff just cruds up my search results when I'm looking for something original or different.
Deny these companies their revenue stream by refusing to purchase their goods, or by being lawsuit bait by illegally sharing them. Watch the industry collapse and toast marshmallows over the flames. Yeah, I know, this kind of boycott has been called for a million times on Slashdot alone. But the consequences to these companies over the long term can simply be a side effect; the main reason to boycott
This really isn't fair. I hear what you're saying - I've never owned a Mac, and I've played with them in computer stores, and that's about the extent of it.
But for Mac users, it seems to be more about using a computer with an actual design philosophy - a computer that actually tries to be something, to have its own identity. Like VW Bugs or whatever. Yeah, sure, there are Apple people all over the internet who never shut up about them but the same is true of pretty much every OS user...and least of all from Windows users who tend to be unenthusiastic. They may not hate Windows but I have to laugh every time someone accuses someone else of being a "Windows fanboy." They may exist but as a percentage of the user population, they're insignificant.
Windows is dry, has no personality, and tries to be everything to everyone; jack of all trades, master of none. Windows succeeds because of momentum, sure, but it succeeds even more because the rest of us support the people who don't know any better and wind up with Windows computers in front of them. If we all - Mac, Linux users, even disgruntled but knowledgeable Windows users, agreed to stop helping out horribly stuck Windows people for one year, I wonder how things would change.
The value of Apples to Apple "fanboys" is that they connect with the philosophy behind their design. Just like every car isn't meant for every driver, this is especially true of Macs. The chances of me being a regular Mac user are next to zero but IRL, the most interesting, creative, dynamic, passionate people I have met, have been, disproportionately, Mac users - and just now I'm thinking of old coworkers of mine in Canada, who were not by any stretch of the imagination ignorant (they wrote Windows tech support docs!). I cannot ignore this. I also cannot even consider Apple's place in things without recounting the Apple II series of computers, arguably the most important home computers ever produced. I cannot discount the NUMBER OF HOT CHICKS I have seen in cafes using Macs. (And I say this matters, because it if is so god damned important that computer illiterate seniors be able to use an operating system, which seems to be the standard of measure of an OS's "readiness," then, dammit, the hot chick factor damn well matters too.) - (by which I mean neither should but still)
I really don't understand the hostility toward Mac users some people have. When Mac users start tooting about their systems, at very worst it's insufferably...cute - at *worst*. They love their computers. They don't just live with them or use them mindlessly because it's what they've been given. They love them. I can see why someone who likes the power and access to the actual kernel source code wouldn't dig on them, but I can certainly allow for the fact that we're not all *like that.*
And as a Linux user, I'm down with that. The real problem is OS monoculture, and Mac users and their evangelism are an ally in that fight - to show people that there are alternatives. Every Mac convert is *probably* one less potential zombie in a botnet. Different strokes...
I continue to be puzzled at people who have issues with Macs or Mac users. Yeah, I don't think the platform is as free and open as it could or should be. I've read about sporadic hardware problems, and frankly I think Steve Jobs is a complete asshole (I am, like most hobbyists, a Woz groupie, however). I understand the excesses of the lifestyle branding Apple has engaged in. But I don't think that's nearly as influential in the lives of Mac die-hards as the commercials would have us believe. Most Mac users I know have used Macs for years and years, sometimes going all the way back to Apple IIes. They're tools they've carried through their lives, the way some of us carry Leatherman supertools around - school papers, resumes, job letters, love letters, visual and audio artwork, manifestoes, and so on.
I'm just perplexed how such a small minority could be irritating or offensive or whatever it is you're suggesting in your above post.
Our real enemy is obvious: People who mistitle every humorous mp3 as being by WEIRD AL YANKOVIC. Those fucking people need wedgies. Can we not all agree on this?
This directive would probably not affect or be applicable to someone who would pay money to see a Michael Bay film.
No one will care! People will continue to go to movies! They'll blog angrily about it one day and go see some crappy Michael Bay film the next! If a consumer could save a thousand lives by driving an extra mile to buy their soap, they wouldn't! Inconvenience is SLAVERY!
Consume consume consume gobble gobble gobble buy buy buy consume consume consume charge charge charge!
Express your outrage over moral transgressions by writing about it on the internet with lots of exclamation points!
(I share your disgust, Newer Guy, I'm not picking on you.)
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is important that you do it...compulsively." - A sign I propose the US government puts up at all terminals with incoming international flights.
You're posting anonymously on a Slashdot article about Linux Users Groups.
You're not fooling anyone, you weeny nerd pir8.
No, see, thats a predictable and tired response. The kind of music I'm talking about is popular for the same reason shows like American Idol are popular, crappy food is popular, and certain politicians are popular. It's got nothing to do with obscurity. It has to do with the slavish worship of mediocrity.
Sorry, I know you really badly want to shove me in the box of someone who listens to music that no one likes, but that's not it, at all. It has nothing to do with me being cool, either, but it's funny how that's the only thing you and the other dork before you could pull out my post.
It has to do with popular music being crappy because so much of the public is told what they like, and believe it.
Thanks for playing.
Hah. As if downloading a bunch of shit from Pirate Bay makes it somehow culturally significant. Thousands of crappy McDonalds burgers are sold every day, but that doesn't make it *cuisine*.
Yeah well, every third person I meet claims that they're a "musician." So some slackers might have to get actual jobs and actually work for a living. I do not care. I look forward to the day Avril Lavigne takes my order for a cheeseburger. Musicians and artists tend to have an extremely high self-opinion in terms of what they think they contribute to "culture." John Coltrane contributed to culture. The world would not be significantly different, however, if the last ten years in top 40 music had never happened.
Where's the rock style life for the people who build bridges and clean up bathrooms? Where's the rock star life for teachers who contribute something directly measurable to our civilization? Where's the free booze and blowjobs for activists, community organizers, and people manning the soup kitchens tonight?
And for that matter, where's the rock star life for the countless musicians in less lucrative genres like jazz or folk music? Some of the most mindblowing music I've ever heard was hardcore jazz played furiously with wild abandon on snowy nights in hole-in-the-wall bars in towns and cities you haven't heard of by amateurs who had no chance in hell of ever making a living at it even in an ideal intellectual property/copyright environment.
What this all may portend is the end of the corporate-generated rock star and frankly, I couldn't welcome it more.
I have no solution to the problem of stolen demos and studio tapes; that's just wrong. But if that problem can somehow be addressed - possibly by home studios - artists should record albums and then set a bounty and collect money for it online, bypassing record labels completely. When the predetermined threshold is reached, the album gets released on the internet, with the expectation that from then on it becomes a promotional tool for the next album or tour, because there is simply no way you can stop music piracy. The question of "what to do about piracy" is moot. You set a bounty - say, a million dollars. When enough contributions come in to total a million dollars, the album is published on the web, free for anyone to download. In theory, all of the money would go to the artists, minus IT/financial fees.
This plan is interesting to me because what it means is, Bob Dylan fans (for example) pay money to the bounty fund for Bob's next album. When that album is released, it is then, for all practical purposes, free. This allows fans and advocates to contribute money to what they like, and it acts as a sort of gift to the rest of the world to spread the music they like. Beyond this, the suits are cut out of the equation, as they should be, because with the internet, all of the supposed value they add (promotion and distribution) has diminished significantly. If music were free, it would be promoted by blogs and file sharing services.
But then music would have to rely on its own merit, rather than street teams and tastemakers telling the dumbest of us what we like.
By setting a bounty, we ensure the artist gets paid. 50 years from now, there is no question whether a music file being passed around on the internet from today was "stolen." Its very existence would indicate that a bounty was met.
For visual entertainment that is not exhibited in theaters (which is an experience that piracy cannot easily duplicate), a similar model could be used.
I'm sure this scheme has problems but the old way of doing things, where you go to the store and you buy something but don't own it - itself a weird concept, really - is simply irrelevant now. The question is not what to do about piracy; the question is how to incorporate the reality of the free flow of data in a global, electronically connected world, with the need to make a living.
The old saw about how the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it applies and can be extended here:
The internet interprets copyrights and patents as damage, and routes around it.
The world has changed. Whether this ticks people off or not is increasingly irrelevant, and no - I don't have to be a professional musician myself to make this statement. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Yeah I read that same t-shirt.
I'll take you seriously when you can spell Iraqis.
I agree. My personal favorite game of all time was Ultima IV - it was, in fact, so good that when I was done with it I lost interest in videogames almost altogether. Didn't buy any more consoles, anyway.
But when I think "video game" I think Pac Man, the same way I think "Coca Cola" when I think soda pop. You could put up a good argument for Space Invaders too.
I've never even heard of a lot of the games people mention but I just have little interest in a game that can't be played as a lark for 15 minutes and then dropped. My loss, really, since I did love Ultima IV.
If you can somehow figure out a way to harness the crazed, compulsive, drooling consumerist energy expended standing in line for iPhones and new gaming consoles to change the world, we could probably have the solar system colonized within 5 years.
I watched a few days ago as people waited in line for iPhones in Manhattan. As they left the store, they'd hoist their iPhones aloft and crowds would cheer and flashbulbs went off. These little lines not only make much bigger news than any of the hundreds of political protests going on, but people seem somehow more deeply fulfilled. There's no sense of futility here - probably, those standing in line, will get their gadget fix by the end of the day.
By contrast, political activism - whether it involves protest or running for office or harassing your local congressman - just doesn't have the same payoff. Also, people tend to be dressed appropriately for the uh, commodity acquiring experience. I didn't see any dreadlocked white guys with funny hats walking around on stilts in line for the iPhone. Also no one did "die-ins" for the iPhone. Those tend to be downers. Not like iPhones, which make everyone go "SQUEEEEEE!" in delight. Plus die-ins are ridiculous and silly. They cannot compete with the dignity of standing in line for hours for cool shit.
I think the exasperation people feel with the United States is that they - foreigners all - don't understand what's really important -- which is waiting in lines at movie premieres and re-releases of movies with lotsa 'splosions, and the aforementioned electronic widgets. The day when abject human rights, civil liberties, and judicial system abuses can compete (PR-wise) with the iPhone or a new Star Wars movie debut is the day the world will change. I, for one, hope this kind of hippie shit never happens because I am a real goddam American and he who dies with the most fucking toys wins. Fuck you; I saw it on a t-shirt and it's true.
Sure, my cousin Marty lived in a double-wide until the day he died, but what they don't tell you is that it was stuffed with nearly $30,000.00 full of game consoles, DVDs, music players, and kitchen gadgets. He was the envy of the goddamn trailer park. I mean, it's no wonder the French hated him so fucking much. In France, they don't have access to even a fraction of the Ronco kitchen devices we have here. Better bread, sure, but fuck bread when you can get Tostinos pizza rolls cheap. Am I rite? Tostinos pizza roll bags with AMERICAN FLAGS on them. Red, white, and blue, baby - not the fag colors you see on, say, French flags. Toast em up all nice and crispy in the Ronco pizza roll oven. Watch a little O'Reilly. Kick back a few brews. Read some Fark.
Lotsa these emo nerds say, if we as a culture put 10% of the time into productive civic activity that we spend acquiring shit, we could change the tide of human history. But that would leave us with a lot less blinkenlights around our apartments, and fuck *that* man. It's in the goddamn Bill of Rights - For the purpose of well-amused population, the right to acquire plastic shit shall not be infringed.
Besides, like most people, I don't have the time to change the world. I got a job to go to, helping to produce shit, to earn a paycheck - a paycheck I'll use to acquire shit produced by other companies. The remaining balance will go into my 401K which will, through the stocks that comprise it, go toward producing more shit. Whatever you do, do *not* fuck with my investments, you goddam hippies. I am a model fucking American and you'd do best to see what a dude with a pair lives like. I don't sit around whining all day like I'm somehow magically entitled to shit like habeus corpus or "accountable government" (LOL!) I get out there and work. Shareholder, Employee, Taxpayer, I FUCKING REPRESENT. Sure sometimes people lie. And sometimes people get killed or tortured, but that's what happens when you're at war. We need cheap petroleum, because you need petroleum to make plastic. And I have a
I don't use mass transit *because there is no mass transit* where I live, nor was there anywhere I ever lived with two exceptions - in one case I just walked around town (New Brunswick, New Jersey) because I was in college, and two, I lived off of Ina Road in Tucson, Arizona, but in that case, I could also walk to most things I needed.
The problem is the USA, with a few exceptions, is just not set up for efficient transportation. Suburbs and exurbs are a major part of the problem and as others have pointed out, so is the unwillingness to mix residential and commercial areas. I always liked being able to walk to a corner store or bar, but apparently, overall, people want to live isolated from the businesses they work and shop in. I've lived in those isolated suburbs most of my life, and I see very little positive about them. Some day, I'd like to live in a place where I can walk or hop onto a subway to go where I need to go. People are terrified about planning their towns in any meaningful way - it's too bad, because while the market has certainly met demand, it has given people what is not, perhaps, always good for them. Plus, structures are fairly permanent. You can't really undo bad planning easily (though it can be done). In the few places I've lived that were "walkable," the only disadvantage was a little more noise. Other than that, it was all plusses - you can, for example, create more parks which tend me more satisfying than residential lawns.
Probably things will just get worse and worse until the market drives the way towns and cities are built. It's too bad - a little planning for growth could solve a lot of problems. Also, I'd like to see towns get serious about walking and biking paths across cities. In a perfect scenario, I should be able to walk or bike across the city I live in without ever having to wait to cross a street or interact with cars. Ideally bus, tram, or train stops would be near these paths. Adding a little walking to anyone's schedule couldn't hurt. I admire the subterranean passageways I saw in Montreal and Winnipeg, where you can cross really busy downtown streets by simply walking underground (where there are restaurants and stores and so on). These kinds of things could be employed for bikers and walkers in cities, and possibly create new places for businesses.
Sane work hours would also help, because maybe it would take the edge off of public transit commutes. And as someone who has telecommuted for 8 years now, I have to say, this is a concept that needs major, broad expansion. While not everyone can work from home, a lot of people certainly can, even if it's just part of the time. It requires a psychological adjustment and a new way of looking at work, but it is certainly doable. The information age was supposed to make this possible - and it is - the time to look closer at this is now. I'm in favor of any kind of tax breaks for companies that expand telecommuting programs.
For workers, it will require some changes, but hardly anything insurmountable. If companies can get beyond their initial fear of telecommuting and workers who claim they can't discipline themselves can learn to (and they can), everyone stands to save a lot of money, cut down on a lot of pollution, and provide some relief to the ridiculous gridlock on the roads.
Now as for vehicles and SUVs everyone complains about - I drive a nearly decade-old Ford F-150 pickup truck. I drive this truck because I wanted a truck with good ground clearance and a large bed because I like to take it into the desert on rough roads, and then sleep in the back. I don't care at all about raw hauling capacity, acceleration, or herculean torque. I think there are a lot of assumptions made about what drivers want and I'm not sure that the vehicles acceptable to us are always a good fit.
I would love to see a very fuel efficient, even hybrid vehicle with high ground clearance, good suspension, and a full sized bed. I would sacrifice engine power for the purpose of fuel efficie
This reminded me of a teacher I had in high school was was, more than most, buddy-buddy with students. He was the basketball coach and coaching basketball was clearly his greater love, rather than teaching. In the beginning of each class, one of two things would happen which would waste well over 9 out of 10 classes in terms of getting anything done -
#1, someone would bring up basketball, which often led to a period-long argument about it. Pressing this guy's buttons was easy when it came to sports, and people would do it.
#2, I would engage him in an infuriating political argument because for some reason this guy, jock to the core, had strong political principals (he was a liberal - at the time, I was not. This was in the late 80s.) Often we'd go back and forth for 40 minutes.
Eventually he would have to give a test and he would spend the night before the test reading the questions from the test and covering everything on it bullet-point by bullet-point, which made studying...a breeze. (This was a social studies class)
Anyway, during one of these period-long digressions from the curriculum, someone brought up Welcome Back, Kotter. For those who haven't seen this show, it was a 70s TV show about a teacher in Brooklyn who went back to teach at the same school he, himself, was a student at. His students would regularly visit him at his apartment. Someone asked this teacher (a well-liked guy, even by me) how he would react if students or his basketball team dropped by or otherwise encountered him outside of school.
He said that he'd close the door in the face of anyone who dared try to find him at home. I don't think anyone was offended. I cannot understand how or why a teacher would have any interest whatsoever in encountering students outside of the classroom, especially socially.
This is long. You may want to skip it. It's kind of a rant.
I honestly have to assume that at least some people who are afraid of guns and gun owners watch a hell of a lot of television. It's also fairly interesting the amount of stereotyping which goes on unchallenged about gun owners and their motivations. In many cases the people who routinely stereotype gun owners are the same ones who get bent out of shape when they, themselves, are stereotyped in some way.
My gun has killed a few hundred soda cans.
That's it.
All of the time and energy that could be spent actually trying to do something to address the completely fucked way this culture has come to regard and often glorify violence is spent in this bizarrely misguided struggle to take guns away from the people least likely to abuse them, and then money and time spent fighting these same efforts - money that could be used for gun safety education or some other effort to address the disturbing turn this country has taken in the past few years. I *am* afraid. I am afraid of the complete lack of ethics or sense of citizenship - by which I mean membership in and ownership of a society - that people seem to feel. I watch people litter and tag their own communities, pissing in the proverbial same river they drink from. It makes no sense to me. I certainly do not think that violence *isn't* a problem or that violence is over-hyped. There's a problem in the US, and it needs addressing - we have become an ugly, decadent culture, somehow...
But the guns follow; they certainly do not lead. If that was the case, we would have had the problems we have now a hundred years ago.
But the tone of this debate isn't helping. I admit that I contribute to it because I get wound up, insulted, and feel threatened sometimes by things I hear others advocate which would directly impact me, personally.
Most disturbing is the sanctimonious "I am so incredibly enlightened" attitude that some people who have an agenda against gun owners seem to have. In particular, this is vexing coming from the Left, who will (rightly) point to the abuses of this administration and its taste for police-state style surveillance measures against its own citizens, the illegal detention of people they refuse to charge with a crime, phony wars fought under completely false pretexts, and so on. And yet they will, in the end, suggest to you that they are entirely comfortable with this government having a completely monopoly on guns. In the end, even the loudest critics of government, would not want to be far from the safety of its embrace. Which is revolting to me, personally, but there it is.
There are people who, even after all of the incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, and crass cruelty of this administration, still trust them more than they do their neighbors. It really bothered me to watch the gun confiscation that went on in New Orleans, even when something that everyone said was impossible happened - and civilization broke down completely. There were few police around at all, but there were enough, apparently, to take guns from homeowners and residents, leaving them at the mercy of looters and criminals. This scenario was, until Katrina, a supposedly paranoid hypothetical that people claimed time and time again would not - and could not - happen in modern America. And yet, it did, and the police did the absolute worst thing they could (The NRA actually sued over this, and won).
If you ask me who we should really be afraid of, it's not peaceable gun owners. It's people who are paranoid and afraid of the freedoms of others. It's not just the serious, organized, politically active gun control advocates either - it's the people who think all homosexuals are potential pedophiles, or people who want to control what you can read or watch or listen to. It's the person in the room who wants all conversations sanitized because someone *might* be offended by something being discussed. Its the busybodies who report their neighbors to H
I've worked for women supervisors for 8 years now, and I've never had any problems. The most petty, hormonal thing to happen to me at work was from a dude, the first guy I worked for when I came on board.
I think a lot of guys who complain about working for women have some personal issues they need to sort out. I'm sure there are bad female bosses, but I've done alright now, 3 for 3.
Seconded. I can keep my (Gentoo) working OS austere and conservative with what I install on it. Meanwhile, I have Ubuntu running in QEMU, which I treat like a dirty slut, installing anything I want promiscuously onto it, if I want to experiment with different WMs or dodgy software (Side unrelated note: Was pretty impressed by Ubuntu, having only installed it for the first time recently - I see why all the hype; it was the simplest install I've ever seen for a Linux distro, coupled with all the goodness of Synaptic and apt-get that I'm used to from Debian - bravo). Likewise I have Windows XP running in QEMU that I can use if I need to open a Windows document or want to use Windows software. I have no need for a dedicated Windows machine or even a dual boot scenario, so QEMU plugs this gap wonderfully.
:)
I'm old enough still that I'm not used to getting such a cool thing for free. And the work of volunteers like Bellard and Xhaard are deeply appreciated.
I've donated to the Quanta+ project in the past, too. I've never been so ruggedly productive with a single piece of software which I use for editing code and HTML.
Really there are a lot of projects worth throwing some bucks toward. Given how free-as-in-beer the free software world is, it's really worth it to save up a little and throw toward your favorite projects. I seem to remember from some time back that OpenSSH was having financial issues, and if you want to talk about a foundational application that absolutely must be supported, it's that.
Though it's been awhile since I used Windows, I can think of two superb pieces of freeware worth a donation - Irfanview, which I still use at work, and which is probably the best image viewer (for my purposes) that I've found for Windows - light, fast, yet fairly powerful. And then there is the superb Xnews, which I used right up until I stopped using Windows altogether.
Other than as an enthusiastic user, I have no personal connection to any of these projects. But I think that to the extent that it is possible, it is definitely worth financially supporting these efforts as much as possible. Think about these people, especially, after tax time when the rebates come back, if you're fortunate enough to get one.
Free software *shouldn't* work according to everything people have tried to tell me about the world. Sometimes the universe talks back; grease the wheels of human virtue when you can. A couple less pizzas a year, is all it takes
Yeah, actually I just tried Ubuntu out for the first time about 3 hours ago. To install Java, I went to the Synaptic Package Manager, clicked Search, typed in "Java" and then selected j2re1.4-mozilla-plugin, then clicked "Apply" and it installed.
Procedure was the same for Flash.
Total for both took about 60 seconds, and didn't require any command line stuff at all.
Actually, I was impressed with Ubuntu. I am a Gentoo user, but really I've never seen any OS install easier than Ubuntu (on my desktop, in QEMU, anyway) - sound, networking, no problem.
The install process was lightning fast, and synaptic is a great tool for people new to Linux (or even not new to Linux).
Same goes for the original recordings of some classic albums. I don't want the greatest hits copyrighted from 2006, I want to buy a brand new CD with the same record that I grew up with. Take THAT Corey Hart, you stupid Canadian money grubber. You had what, two records? And one of them was a hit? I want to buy your "First Offense" CD, not the Corey Hart greatest hits. It's absurd that you've even got a greatest hits anyway, when "First Offense" had all of hits anyway.
Thanks. This bit just sent me into a jimson weed-like hell trip. At present I am drowning in the semen of an Enochian fire demon who is grunting Anne Murray's "Shadows in the Moonight" at me backward while roasting me over an open flame fueled by the manure of two thousand backbenchers in Satan's all-goat parliament.
When I come to, I am going to hunt you down, and I am going to go to work on you with a crucifix made of papal bones and a water tower full of holy water. Consider yourself marked, Legion - I will drive you out of our dear friend, Profane MuthaFucka - a prince...nay, a SAINT. I will cure him of this terrible affliction. The power of Christ compels you. And yeah, fuck you, I'm bringing Max Von Sydow with me. With the old Ming the Merciless getup too. And ninjas. I am not fucking around.
Original Corey Hart releases are not available because all responsible for his career have been hunted down and "staked" to the earth in graveyards under full moons; it is precisely this kind of decency and sensibility that we Americans look for in our Canadian friends to the North; unlike us they contain and *deal* with their evil. For the most part. I can see you've evaded them.
We must fight for the souls of all mankind. And as soon as I get out of this fiery demon-seed apocalypse (and recover from the week or so of temporary blindness which typically results), and following the aforementioned exorcism, I'm going after what is left of Loverboy. Even in my significantly reduced state, I should prevail.
Remember:
No one can take away your right to fight...
and...
to never surrender.
Glad to see that everyone's staying on message on the music/movie piracy thing.
Bank of America works...Of course, they're the official bank of the antichrist, so there's that.
There's a big fuckin' difference between the chair warmers who work administrative jobs (like grossly overpaid principals) and teachers who actually go in to educate children. This wouldn't have been okay if it was a teacher who did this either, but it ticks me off twice as much that it was a principal.
This woman is a bully and an authoritarian. It would have been different if they held the kid, took a few hours to investigate, and admitted their mistake publicly - these things happen, especially in the irrationally paranoid environment we live in. I'm sure the mistake would have been understandable had this been dealt with rationally, and an honest apology was issued.
Instead, they jailed the kid - who is, incidentally, an honors student who had never even had detention before, without even investigating the situation.
The little kangaroo-court-style comment by the principal suggests to me that she is yet another little authoritarian with her dumb little fiefdom, and I openly hope she suffers, personally. I hope she is sued personally somehow (whether this is possible I do not know), and the kid gets his college education paid for.
Your point has some merit though - I never got in trouble with teachers. I never had detention. In my entire academic life, the only discipline I had to suffer was a one-time suspension for one day for defending myself against someone who physically attacked me. Yes, it sticks in my craw to this day - not because of the incident itself, but because it makes me think about what the real victims of injustice go through around the world to this day, and yes, this includes the as yet uncharged prisoners denied due process in Guantanamo Bay. Even as a "good kid" who never got into trouble, I was always wary of school administrators, who never seemed to do much but gladhand parents and shuffle paper around in offices while our educational system sunk lower and lower into the toilet.
If there is one class of people who I'd like to see purged from this society, it is authoritarians like this principal. Based on her comment alone, there's no doubt she's cut from the same cloth as the statist junta presently in charge of the United States government. Only chance has relegated her into the relatively impotent position of being a school principal.
This could happen to you, or your kid. We'll see how flippant and sarcastic you are then. It's always a bunch of people whining until it affects you personally, but hey, that's the American way. That attitude has served the agendas of our reprehensible authority figures magnificently.
Just don't forget that they're doing it *in your name*.
"Fall mountains, just don't fall on me."