Why would we want to? 90% of the time my first-page search results are relevant. Good enough for me. It seems, like was said previously, that this amounts to companies whining that they aren't the first result.
Most bad results come from bad search strings. Its amazing the amount of people who don't know how to search.
EdwinBoyd Plays GTA2000 for x hours a day. Terroristy also plays GTA2000 for x hours a day. THEREFORE: EdwinBoyd might be a terrorist.
Yes it is paranoia right now, but who knows for how long. Also think of the future marketing based on these demographics. Think of selling it to people with the info you give to Microsoft (not sure of their EULA or privacy agreement there).
And to premempt someone who posted further down earlier. This isn't slippery slope as in FALLACY. This is SS in the fact that things can be widdled away. Thing of it as the Darwinian theory of Dystopia.
Actually it didn't seem that bad. As much as it pains me to say that. I mostly stick with Google from habit now, since their limitations are becomeing more clear. Their about 90 by internet standards, so it is only a matter of time before some younger technology kicks their butt.
It seems that MSN is based off of Google, with a faster update cycle, right now. Though, for my search it mostly returned irrelivent results, though I did that on purpose. Google returns one relevent result on the first page, where MSN did not.
Also the interface is much larger and more elementary (as in school) looking.
Being superficial, I know. I am just waiting for a revolution (as in Yahoo -> Google), and not a minor tweak.
Though, dial-up can still be hell, depending on where you live.
Right now, according to computer, I'm connected at a BLAZING 26.4k. And its not the modem, its old wires in my apartment. And people would think it would be as simple as a call, but they ignore the blame game. The telco says its the apartments, and the apartments blame the telco. Meaning, in the real world, live with it.
DSL is out of the question here, too, since the line is so bad. Cable is too damn expensive, and my cable company (Cox I think) won't let me get internet without getting cable (I don't even have rabbit ears on my set, its dedicated game/movie, television rots your brain) which is a waste of money in my life.
Just think, 2 months ago I was sharing a T1 with a couple people (dorm). And now...
On the bright side, I remember DREAMING of getting 26.6 when it came out, such a HUGE step up from my 14.4, but I skipped directly to 56k. So now I get to experience the joy of... er... speed. (put that in a REALLY small font).
Could be worse, I could be finding excuses to go for a walk so I don't have to watch ASCII render on my old 2800.
Oh lord... Don't remind me... Thats one reason I quit playing "the most addictive game ever". At 60, its just tedium.
I remember my 60 druid, pre-druid patch. "Heal heal, heal, RAISE!, envigorate!, wash rinse repeat." And remember never go feral to save your hide.
Meh to that game. Suffers the same problems as Diablo II multi. Do the same formula to collect better items, to compete with wankers with WAY too much time on their hands.
Sorry then for the semi-troll. It sounded like an elitist comment at the time. God bless the internet-text-medium, breeding misunderstanding for 30 years.
Until a bad power-supply fried my mobo/chip I did use mostly XP for business, and heavy use. The switching thing was mostly after being pissed off (3rd PSU to act up in my system), rather than some choice for simplicity.
If my PC was still up and running, I would probably put as much time on it is I do on my power-book, because it can do more, though with much cussing and fiddling (and hardware costs). Linux, right now, is just too much of a hastle, and has less viable software than OS X (sorry, the Gimp doesn't cut it for business graphics, or most professional photography, nor does Oo.org).
Tangent aside, about 1/4th of Mac users are "techies on vacation", but about half are about as bottom of the barrel as your general XP user. So you are right there. Apple, though, seems to have less of a history of idiot bugs, it is more difficult to propigate "free pr0n" worms because of the nice (BSD) underpinnings of the OS itself. It would be interesting to see a widespread OS X worm/trojan/virus go out, just to see what the reaction would be, ditto for Linux, of course. Some actual data on the idiocy of users of on the alt-OS scene would be interesting.
Doubfully (and thankfully), it won't happen for quite awhile, though. So all else is speculation.
but it is not good enough to deal with some of the more sophisticated threats of the day.
I wouldn't call adding a thumbnail to a malicious executable 'sophisticated'.
Basically, any program that wants to contact the internet, access files it did not create, or modify other applications should have to ask the user for that privilege.
OS X does. It asks for your admin password. This is generally a clue that it might be doing something critical.
like a visual clue to differentiate data and programs
Heh... The.jpg, and.tgz extentions are a dead give away. Though I agree that OS X might need some form of executable extention. Only an idiot turns off extentions. Though sadly OS X and Windows do it by default.
I also think that OS X might need to actually tell you WHY you are putting in your admin password, in terms that both the knowledgable and typical user would understand. It does beat the "Yes" dialogue that we have to come to express from Windows, though, but there is room for improvement.
So, why allow customization of icons? That's the key area of the attack. People think they're opening an image, but its not.
Err... As someone above you commented, it has been Mac OS functionality for 20+ years. And this is the first 'exploit', seems a pretty good record. It makes for a nicer experience, when I distribute my own.dmg, I can brand it for my program, or operation. You can brand you windows executables too, so this isn't an odd feature, or a bad one. One wanker misuses a valid feature in a social engeneering type worm, and suddenly the feature becomes insecure... Nope.
Yes, when I was still running my (now fried, hardware, not virus) Windows box, I didn't have a virus in over 10 years, nor worm, nor whatever the kids are calling them now. Not because of intrisnic security (every OS is insecure, equally so, I would say) but because of smart managment, and a healthy dose of paranoia. An exploit that is caused by user error is inevitiable on every OS, wait until Linux gets a bigger user-share, then the exploits will trickle in. The Windows crowd is about as idiotic as the Mac crowd, their both plebeian platforms, so most people have no clue as to security.
that's exactly who you've got sitting in the chairs of home mac users. If they were computer literate, they'd likely have bought one of those other "hard to use" operating systems.
And you lost credibility there, isn't OS flaming a bit passe by now? I wish I was as "1337" (insert derision) as you one year Linux kids! Or are we considering Windows as an "advanced" OS? Go to an IT conferance and count the PowerBooks.
But, much of neurology, to agree with the parent, is right now no more than staring at blotches on a computer screen, and loosly associating it with what the subject was asked to do. Thats why there is such a small amount of agreement between neuroscientists, as opposed to older, more established disciplines.
The brain is truly a complicated beast, even when ignoring the "neuron" level, and paying attention to the "structure" level. All of the hard, cut and dry (as presented in the pop-media) structures are really loose and fuzzy, and interact in many diverse ways on a per-function basis. The flexability also is problematic, since we can say "I see these splotches in the 'perfect brain', under x circumstance", but damaged, or structurally different brains still will display the same empheria in most cases.
In my brief stint in neurology (for psych) a glaring problem was the lack of transition between perceived, subjective, experience, and the empirical brain data. I can tell you what areas light up when you look at an apple (as opposed to a straight line), but as of yet know one (that I know of) has a plausable theory of how this translates into perception. Yes, we can say the process is the translation/perception, but this too is slightly problematic. Granted I'm not a neurologist, so I wouldn't mind be proven wrong.
The brain is sort of like genetics. At first everyone thought, given sufficient technology, that it would be rather easy to crack (height gene, complexion gene, eye color gene, ADD gene, schizophrenia gene, etc..) But it turns into a rather few simple structure performing more jobs, and interacting in odd ways. I over simplify, since the brain has always had a complex mystique, but you get the point.
Yes, we have many practical effects of modern neuroscience, but very little actual understanding. This will change as time goes on, I'm sure.
(though, at times, philosophically, I wonder how much about the mind can be expressed in reductionalist neuroscience... But that is neither here nor there)
Going to get modded troll, or such for this. (where is the Devil's Advocate mod?)
But whats wrong with spidering the net? All of this is PUBLIC information, terrorist or angsty teen, when you post ANYTHING online it is public information. I've been operating on this supposition for years, and I thought it common knowledge. It doesn't seem like they will be spidering anything but common information, meaning open sites/data. No problem there.
Being against this would have the logical idealistic conclusion that government officials should not be able to actually look at webpages, or open FTP ports. Which is rather absurd. Oh no, the government can READ MY BLOG! Oh no, the government can read my/. posts! Dear me, what keeps then from doing so anyway, its not like we are all participating in some superduper(tm) private public discourse. I'd be rather flattered the the government is paying attention to my frothings.
On the other hand I CAN dismiss this as a waste of money. How many terrorists on Blogspot, Livejournal, are dumb enough to say "So, I a muslim extremist, am going to blow up x, anyone want to join in?" None, I'm guessing. I'm sure they all use code like good little badgers with something to hide. Probably PGP, or simpler (book type, or conversational) code. How can you distinguish "I need to go to the garden and pull some weeds" in a legit sense, and a nefarious sense? Even the most sophisticated data mining/analysis tool wouldn't be able to link that with a plan to blow up something.
To be fare, the previous wiretap story concerns me. Since there is a problem with privacy, and the legitimacy of these taps. There is no way to call the government on misuse due to the opacity of the process. There needs to be culpability there. Here, this is all a public process. If terrorists infliltrated a radio station, and used the mindless between ad banter (or call-ins) for attack code, would be be in a huff if the government listened in on radio broadcasts? Probably not, since all of that information is BROADCAST on a public medium. Ditto with blogs. Or any form of online distribution.
My tinfoil hat is in the wash, sorry. I'll try harder to be paranoid next time.
Thanks for clarifying. Now I know that APPLE IS STEALING FROM ME! And each time I burn one of my authorized CDs (5/day), they will come to the door and kill me, since it is perfectly legal to RIP said music (not MP3, AAC) CD and have a non DRM'd track.
Through iTunes I do purchase the music, in that I have a copy of it, a copy which I can do pretty much whatever I want with. And when I stick that copy on a CD, I have a physical object, which I can do ANYTHING I want which, seems like property to me.
If iTunes refused to let me burn their DRM AACs to disk, then you'd be right, though.
Actually the DRM can make itself appearent at times. When you are sharing your library over a network, for example.
In college dorms (at least where I went) there is a very large, per dorm network, with roughly 30-40 people sharing their libraries at any given time, but half of them are at their 5 user per day limit. This limit only exists because of one or two purchased songs, but inflicts itself on your entire playlist.
This doesn't make sense for two reasons. The first of which is that only one or two songs are purchased/DRM'd (on my computer 3 out of a couple thousand), making it nonsensical to block the entire playlist. The second reason is that we are dealing with a listen-only transmition, 99% of users will just HEAR the song, there is no copying (in a technical sense there is, but not in a practical sense), and there is no piracy. Granted there might be someone out their using OurTunes, or grabbing the stream, but generally the listening is legit.
This has also effected other small networks I've been on (family, work, and freinds).
Other than that, your right, the iTunes DRM is pretty good, as much as DRM goes. Though Hymn is still a good thing, for the above reason, and for principled reasons. Controlling my property is always a bad thing, in my eyes.
Safari is quite sufficient, but I have a couple problems with it. Like its utter lack of flexibility (no extentions), and each patch breaks Pithhelmet, and the like, the only decent adblockers for it. It is, I think, the only browser other than Konquerer that does ACID2, right now, and the webkit is quite fast compaired to even Firefox and Opera. Even the RSS, aggragator funtionality is better than most Firefox extentions (such as Sage).
But I want my extentions. Even when Pithhelmet is up to date, it crashes Safari daily, something that my current load of Firefox extentions never do. In limited use, Firefox (before leakage) is even a little bit more memory friendly.
Opera, I really do like it. And it does run well, and with an hour of customization, it even looks neat. It does handle memory better than either Safari or FF. The wand feature breaks about once a week though. I have something against software holding a bunch of unwanted features, too.
I guess I use FF because I've been using Mozilla since it was Phoenix, and have a certain amount of pride for the project. Sadly, it works fine on WinXP, but didn't quite follow through the Mac transition as other projects (but better than OpenOffice.org, which is a sack of moldering feces on Macs). Also the OSS roots of FF fits my ideological bent.
I do keep Opera sitting around, waiting for me to get mad enough, though.
Wow, violent aren't we? I prefer to be as peacable as possible, and find that life is much easier that way. Granted, if someone had a clear intent to KILL or cause GREVIOUS harm, and was completely closed to a peacable solution, then yes, I would fight, maim, kill. But ONLY if the situation is closed to a peacable, and REASONABLE solution.
Being detained by a security guard is NOT kidnapping. It is them showing legitimate force, within their rights, to detain you. 90% of the time you are doing something wrong, even if you are ignorant to it, or disagree with it.
So, according to your logic, we should empty the prisons, right? These people are being detained, pardon, kidnapped, against their will. And thus have the right to kill others?
Call me old fasioned, but NO ONE DESERVES TO DIE. Killing someone is inexusable, even if you can cough up all sorts of sophist claims to back your possition of murder. No one has the RIGHT to kill anyone, no matter what they do to you, if it is less than the threat (direct) of personal death. So, if they hold you in an office against your will, waiting for police to show up, this some how makes MURDER worthwhile? No, that is an absurd statement, since your infringment on their rights (and theft of total freedom, in the most fundamental way) is exponentially greater than your inconvenience.
No, your later point is incorrect. Since YOU voted for them (if not, shut the hell up, you have no say, period). You gave them power. Thus you are culpable for their use of power. Thats the only good thing about democracy, is spreads blaim to where it belongs, in the hands of the people. Your taking part in the system makes you as culpable as any other agent within the system.
Stop being an extremist. Idealism leads to atrocity. People always come first, even if you disagree with them.
And sadly up here in Northern AZ they might just have been eating each other... Of course this was a responce to the White Devil's coming 1000 years in the future.
Though, according to the PC climate around here, we're not supposed to talk about this. Only discuss the transgressions of the dominate majority (white males), never the minority.
I'm so sick of 'liberal education', I was forced to take a sociology class which claimed that *I* am the source of all the worlds problems, and towards the end of the class it turned into sanctioned male bashing, but the minute I opened my mouth I was called a misogamist.
That's the core of your post, a bleating and transparent lie that there really aren't security guards who deserve to be shot.
I find a problem with this statement. Is there really ANYONE who deserves to be shot? Perhaps fired. Perhaps face extreme legal action. Perhaps a swift kick to the jewels. But shot, or killed? Don't you find that a little bit extreme, even as hyberbole?
Yes, I have met a handful (out of hundreds) of security guards who have taken their job a bit too seriously, but never have seen this as a capital crime. They deserve much lesser then death, always, or in the most part any form of bodily injury.
The only excuse to shoot someone (shooting generally means intent to kill, as I was trained in firearms at an early age, "don't pull a gun unless you intend to kill something") is if it is the least amount of force to extract yourself from a life threatening situation. Being arrested or detained by a guard doesn't qualify, sorry. The least amount of force is to submit, and then exert force (via legal action) after the fact.
Violence should always be the LAST course of action.
One better, there used to be a store in Flagstaff, AZ called Ruff's Guns. You could buy a pack of smokes, a fifth of Beam, a porno, a 9mm, and ammo for it, all in one stop.
Sadly, they changed into a pure gunshop about a year ago. I used to take all of my foreign freinds there for a small slice of what makes America great, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would we want to? 90% of the time my first-page search results are relevant. Good enough for me. It seems, like was said previously, that this amounts to companies whining that they aren't the first result.
Most bad results come from bad search strings. Its amazing the amount of people who don't know how to search.
I tried this strategy in college for awhile... It works just fine, until alcohol is involved.
Linux does the laundry
Linux does your shopping
Linux takes your poodle for a walk!
You can even slice a tomato with Linux!
Stays sharp, never dulls!
EdwinBoyd Plays GTA2000 for x hours a day. Terroristy also plays GTA2000 for x hours a day. THEREFORE: EdwinBoyd might be a terrorist.
Yes it is paranoia right now, but who knows for how long. Also think of the future marketing based on these demographics. Think of selling it to people with the info you give to Microsoft (not sure of their EULA or privacy agreement there).
And to premempt someone who posted further down earlier. This isn't slippery slope as in FALLACY. This is SS in the fact that things can be widdled away. Thing of it as the Darwinian theory of Dystopia.
Actually it didn't seem that bad. As much as it pains me to say that. I mostly stick with Google from habit now, since their limitations are becomeing more clear. Their about 90 by internet standards, so it is only a matter of time before some younger technology kicks their butt.
It seems that MSN is based off of Google, with a faster update cycle, right now. Though, for my search it mostly returned irrelivent results, though I did that on purpose. Google returns one relevent result on the first page, where MSN did not.
Also the interface is much larger and more elementary (as in school) looking.
Being superficial, I know. I am just waiting for a revolution (as in Yahoo -> Google), and not a minor tweak.
Though, dial-up can still be hell, depending on where you live.
Right now, according to computer, I'm connected at a BLAZING 26.4k. And its not the modem, its old wires in my apartment. And people would think it would be as simple as a call, but they ignore the blame game. The telco says its the apartments, and the apartments blame the telco. Meaning, in the real world, live with it.
DSL is out of the question here, too, since the line is so bad. Cable is too damn expensive, and my cable company (Cox I think) won't let me get internet without getting cable (I don't even have rabbit ears on my set, its dedicated game/movie, television rots your brain) which is a waste of money in my life.
Just think, 2 months ago I was sharing a T1 with a couple people (dorm). And now...
On the bright side, I remember DREAMING of getting 26.6 when it came out, such a HUGE step up from my 14.4, but I skipped directly to 56k. So now I get to experience the joy of... er... speed. (put that in a REALLY small font).
Could be worse, I could be finding excuses to go for a walk so I don't have to watch ASCII render on my old 2800.
Oh lord... Don't remind me... Thats one reason I quit playing "the most addictive game ever". At 60, its just tedium.
I remember my 60 druid, pre-druid patch. "Heal heal, heal, RAISE!, envigorate!, wash rinse repeat." And remember never go feral to save your hide.
Meh to that game. Suffers the same problems as Diablo II multi. Do the same formula to collect better items, to compete with wankers with WAY too much time on their hands.
Too add to your question, does it have cache?
*runs off to MSN.com*
Okay. It does. So there goes my one HUGE excuse for only using Google. Does it have the Blog problem, though?
*quickly wipes cookies and history so no one can see I went to MSN.com*
Last time I checked, and PC with a network card could use MAC. Actually most Macs, can run MAC too. Or at least they all have them...
And now you understand how /. became the font of wisdome and sage opinion that is today. Such great forefathers we have here...
Ahem...
Sorry then for the semi-troll. It sounded like an elitist comment at the time. God bless the internet-text-medium, breeding misunderstanding for 30 years.
Until a bad power-supply fried my mobo/chip I did use mostly XP for business, and heavy use. The switching thing was mostly after being pissed off (3rd PSU to act up in my system), rather than some choice for simplicity.
If my PC was still up and running, I would probably put as much time on it is I do on my power-book, because it can do more, though with much cussing and fiddling (and hardware costs). Linux, right now, is just too much of a hastle, and has less viable software than OS X (sorry, the Gimp doesn't cut it for business graphics, or most professional photography, nor does Oo.org).
Tangent aside, about 1/4th of Mac users are "techies on vacation", but about half are about as bottom of the barrel as your general XP user. So you are right there. Apple, though, seems to have less of a history of idiot bugs, it is more difficult to propigate "free pr0n" worms because of the nice (BSD) underpinnings of the OS itself. It would be interesting to see a widespread OS X worm/trojan/virus go out, just to see what the reaction would be, ditto for Linux, of course. Some actual data on the idiocy of users of on the alt-OS scene would be interesting.
Doubfully (and thankfully), it won't happen for quite awhile, though. So all else is speculation.
I do think, though,
but it is not good enough to deal with some of the more sophisticated threats of the day.
.jpg, and .tgz extentions are a dead give away. Though I agree that OS X might need some form of executable extention. Only an idiot turns off extentions. Though sadly OS X and Windows do it by default.
I wouldn't call adding a thumbnail to a malicious executable 'sophisticated'.
Basically, any program that wants to contact the internet, access files it did not create, or modify other applications should have to ask the user for that privilege.
OS X does. It asks for your admin password. This is generally a clue that it might be doing something critical.
like a visual clue to differentiate data and programs
Heh... The
I also think that OS X might need to actually tell you WHY you are putting in your admin password, in terms that both the knowledgable and typical user would understand. It does beat the "Yes" dialogue that we have to come to express from Windows, though, but there is room for improvement.
So, why allow customization of icons? That's the key area of the attack. People think they're opening an image, but its not.
.dmg, I can brand it for my program, or operation. You can brand you windows executables too, so this isn't an odd feature, or a bad one. One wanker misuses a valid feature in a social engeneering type worm, and suddenly the feature becomes insecure... Nope.
Err... As someone above you commented, it has been Mac OS functionality for 20+ years. And this is the first 'exploit', seems a pretty good record. It makes for a nicer experience, when I distribute my own
Yes, when I was still running my (now fried, hardware, not virus) Windows box, I didn't have a virus in over 10 years, nor worm, nor whatever the kids are calling them now. Not because of intrisnic security (every OS is insecure, equally so, I would say) but because of smart managment, and a healthy dose of paranoia. An exploit that is caused by user error is inevitiable on every OS, wait until Linux gets a bigger user-share, then the exploits will trickle in. The Windows crowd is about as idiotic as the Mac crowd, their both plebeian platforms, so most people have no clue as to security.
that's exactly who you've got sitting in the chairs of home mac users. If they were computer literate, they'd likely have bought one of those other "hard to use" operating systems.
And you lost credibility there, isn't OS flaming a bit passe by now? I wish I was as "1337" (insert derision) as you one year Linux kids! Or are we considering Windows as an "advanced" OS? Go to an IT conferance and count the PowerBooks.
We definatly have the visual system hammered.
But, much of neurology, to agree with the parent, is right now no more than staring at blotches on a computer screen, and loosly associating it with what the subject was asked to do. Thats why there is such a small amount of agreement between neuroscientists, as opposed to older, more established disciplines.
The brain is truly a complicated beast, even when ignoring the "neuron" level, and paying attention to the "structure" level. All of the hard, cut and dry (as presented in the pop-media) structures are really loose and fuzzy, and interact in many diverse ways on a per-function basis. The flexability also is problematic, since we can say "I see these splotches in the 'perfect brain', under x circumstance", but damaged, or structurally different brains still will display the same empheria in most cases.
In my brief stint in neurology (for psych) a glaring problem was the lack of transition between perceived, subjective, experience, and the empirical brain data. I can tell you what areas light up when you look at an apple (as opposed to a straight line), but as of yet know one (that I know of) has a plausable theory of how this translates into perception. Yes, we can say the process is the translation/perception, but this too is slightly problematic. Granted I'm not a neurologist, so I wouldn't mind be proven wrong.
The brain is sort of like genetics. At first everyone thought, given sufficient technology, that it would be rather easy to crack (height gene, complexion gene, eye color gene, ADD gene, schizophrenia gene, etc..) But it turns into a rather few simple structure performing more jobs, and interacting in odd ways. I over simplify, since the brain has always had a complex mystique, but you get the point.
Yes, we have many practical effects of modern neuroscience, but very little actual understanding. This will change as time goes on, I'm sure.
(though, at times, philosophically, I wonder how much about the mind can be expressed in reductionalist neuroscience... But that is neither here nor there)
Going to get modded troll, or such for this. (where is the Devil's Advocate mod?)
/. posts! Dear me, what keeps then from doing so anyway, its not like we are all participating in some superduper(tm) private public discourse. I'd be rather flattered the the government is paying attention to my frothings.
But whats wrong with spidering the net? All of this is PUBLIC information, terrorist or angsty teen, when you post ANYTHING online it is public information. I've been operating on this supposition for years, and I thought it common knowledge. It doesn't seem like they will be spidering anything but common information, meaning open sites/data. No problem there.
Being against this would have the logical idealistic conclusion that government officials should not be able to actually look at webpages, or open FTP ports. Which is rather absurd. Oh no, the government can READ MY BLOG! Oh no, the government can read my
On the other hand I CAN dismiss this as a waste of money. How many terrorists on Blogspot, Livejournal, are dumb enough to say "So, I a muslim extremist, am going to blow up x, anyone want to join in?" None, I'm guessing. I'm sure they all use code like good little badgers with something to hide. Probably PGP, or simpler (book type, or conversational) code. How can you distinguish "I need to go to the garden and pull some weeds" in a legit sense, and a nefarious sense? Even the most sophisticated data mining/analysis tool wouldn't be able to link that with a plan to blow up something.
To be fare, the previous wiretap story concerns me. Since there is a problem with privacy, and the legitimacy of these taps. There is no way to call the government on misuse due to the opacity of the process. There needs to be culpability there. Here, this is all a public process. If terrorists infliltrated a radio station, and used the mindless between ad banter (or call-ins) for attack code, would be be in a huff if the government listened in on radio broadcasts? Probably not, since all of that information is BROADCAST on a public medium. Ditto with blogs. Or any form of online distribution.
My tinfoil hat is in the wash, sorry. I'll try harder to be paranoid next time.
Thanks for clarifying. Now I know that APPLE IS STEALING FROM ME! And each time I burn one of my authorized CDs (5/day), they will come to the door and kill me, since it is perfectly legal to RIP said music (not MP3, AAC) CD and have a non DRM'd track.
Through iTunes I do purchase the music, in that I have a copy of it, a copy which I can do pretty much whatever I want with. And when I stick that copy on a CD, I have a physical object, which I can do ANYTHING I want which, seems like property to me.
If iTunes refused to let me burn their DRM AACs to disk, then you'd be right, though.
Actually the DRM can make itself appearent at times. When you are sharing your library over a network, for example.
In college dorms (at least where I went) there is a very large, per dorm network, with roughly 30-40 people sharing their libraries at any given time, but half of them are at their 5 user per day limit. This limit only exists because of one or two purchased songs, but inflicts itself on your entire playlist.
This doesn't make sense for two reasons. The first of which is that only one or two songs are purchased/DRM'd (on my computer 3 out of a couple thousand), making it nonsensical to block the entire playlist. The second reason is that we are dealing with a listen-only transmition, 99% of users will just HEAR the song, there is no copying (in a technical sense there is, but not in a practical sense), and there is no piracy. Granted there might be someone out their using OurTunes, or grabbing the stream, but generally the listening is legit.
This has also effected other small networks I've been on (family, work, and freinds).
Other than that, your right, the iTunes DRM is pretty good, as much as DRM goes. Though Hymn is still a good thing, for the above reason, and for principled reasons. Controlling my property is always a bad thing, in my eyes.
Safari is quite sufficient, but I have a couple problems with it. Like its utter lack of flexibility (no extentions), and each patch breaks Pithhelmet, and the like, the only decent adblockers for it. It is, I think, the only browser other than Konquerer that does ACID2, right now, and the webkit is quite fast compaired to even Firefox and Opera. Even the RSS, aggragator funtionality is better than most Firefox extentions (such as Sage).
But I want my extentions. Even when Pithhelmet is up to date, it crashes Safari daily, something that my current load of Firefox extentions never do. In limited use, Firefox (before leakage) is even a little bit more memory friendly.
Opera, I really do like it. And it does run well, and with an hour of customization, it even looks neat. It does handle memory better than either Safari or FF. The wand feature breaks about once a week though. I have something against software holding a bunch of unwanted features, too.
I guess I use FF because I've been using Mozilla since it was Phoenix, and have a certain amount of pride for the project. Sadly, it works fine on WinXP, but didn't quite follow through the Mac transition as other projects (but better than OpenOffice.org, which is a sack of moldering feces on Macs). Also the OSS roots of FF fits my ideological bent.
I do keep Opera sitting around, waiting for me to get mad enough, though.
pedant
noun
a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning.
Wow, violent aren't we? I prefer to be as peacable as possible, and find that life is much easier that way. Granted, if someone had a clear intent to KILL or cause GREVIOUS harm, and was completely closed to a peacable solution, then yes, I would fight, maim, kill. But ONLY if the situation is closed to a peacable, and REASONABLE solution.
Being detained by a security guard is NOT kidnapping. It is them showing legitimate force, within their rights, to detain you. 90% of the time you are doing something wrong, even if you are ignorant to it, or disagree with it.
So, according to your logic, we should empty the prisons, right? These people are being detained, pardon, kidnapped, against their will. And thus have the right to kill others?
Call me old fasioned, but NO ONE DESERVES TO DIE. Killing someone is inexusable, even if you can cough up all sorts of sophist claims to back your possition of murder. No one has the RIGHT to kill anyone, no matter what they do to you, if it is less than the threat (direct) of personal death. So, if they hold you in an office against your will, waiting for police to show up, this some how makes MURDER worthwhile? No, that is an absurd statement, since your infringment on their rights (and theft of total freedom, in the most fundamental way) is exponentially greater than your inconvenience.
No, your later point is incorrect. Since YOU voted for them (if not, shut the hell up, you have no say, period). You gave them power. Thus you are culpable for their use of power. Thats the only good thing about democracy, is spreads blaim to where it belongs, in the hands of the people. Your taking part in the system makes you as culpable as any other agent within the system.
Stop being an extremist. Idealism leads to atrocity. People always come first, even if you disagree with them.
And sadly up here in Northern AZ they might just have been eating each other... Of course this was a responce to the White Devil's coming 1000 years in the future.
Though, according to the PC climate around here, we're not supposed to talk about this. Only discuss the transgressions of the dominate majority (white males), never the minority.
I'm so sick of 'liberal education', I was forced to take a sociology class which claimed that *I* am the source of all the worlds problems, and towards the end of the class it turned into sanctioned male bashing, but the minute I opened my mouth I was called a misogamist.
Where is my cut of the damn caucasion patriarchy?
Will it make me his bitch?
If my house floods, does it become public property?
That's the core of your post, a bleating and transparent lie that there really aren't security guards who deserve to be shot.
I find a problem with this statement. Is there really ANYONE who deserves to be shot? Perhaps fired. Perhaps face extreme legal action. Perhaps a swift kick to the jewels. But shot, or killed? Don't you find that a little bit extreme, even as hyberbole?
Yes, I have met a handful (out of hundreds) of security guards who have taken their job a bit too seriously, but never have seen this as a capital crime. They deserve much lesser then death, always, or in the most part any form of bodily injury.
The only excuse to shoot someone (shooting generally means intent to kill, as I was trained in firearms at an early age, "don't pull a gun unless you intend to kill something") is if it is the least amount of force to extract yourself from a life threatening situation. Being arrested or detained by a guard doesn't qualify, sorry. The least amount of force is to submit, and then exert force (via legal action) after the fact.
Violence should always be the LAST course of action.
One better, there used to be a store in Flagstaff, AZ called Ruff's Guns. You could buy a pack of smokes, a fifth of Beam, a porno, a 9mm, and ammo for it, all in one stop.
Sadly, they changed into a pure gunshop about a year ago. I used to take all of my foreign freinds there for a small slice of what makes America great, though.