What does "evil" have to do with anything? Did he say that the RIAA was evil? Do you think they're evil? They're just a bunch of people going after their own interests, too, and I'm sure there are lots of smart people amongst them as well...
Well, of course, as usual, human beings change their ideas over time. Someone can start out dyed-in-the-wool communist, then turn anarchist, then switch to libertarian, then green, then back to a hybrid libertarian socialist view... The possibilities for personal belief mutation are endless.
For evidence of this you need look no further than Ken MacLeod's own blog, http://kenmacleod.blogspot.com/ - Down in the end of the June 17th entry he writes: "However, the expose did give me something to throw in the faces of Trots who called me names for hob-nobbing with libertarians, or for upholding positions unpopular on the present-day left that were considered left-wing back when I originally acquired them. I'd probably have remained a lot closer to the libertarians than to the socialists I now hang out with, if it hadn't been for a third touch of the tentacle."
So he was socialist, but liked a lot of the libertarian ideas, but felt pressure from socialists over time to drop those ideas, and now is working with socialists again for apparently anti-commercial sentiments towards some libertarians...
Anyway, true socialism is libertarian and anarchic to begin with.
Why would you be required to read, listen to or watch the rebuttals? I haven't heard or read anything indicating that off-buttons would be removed from TVs or radios, or that you would be required to read every single word in the newspaper.
If anything, this forces the "elite few" who run the media to allow everyone to reply to what they say. Too costly for them? Well, maybe that will make them think twice about some of the things they print or broadcast.
To reiterate my subject, no one is forcing you to do anything, unless you own or run some form of media, which makes you one of an elite few. On the internet, less so, but I would still think there are far fewer well-read blogs & other sites than visitors.
Forcing elites to make some room, however small, for the non-elite, is one of the better functions of government.
I like my "fragile biological form", and if I want to live on Mars one day, how dare you suggest you're going to rip it up. As a future citizen of Mars, I regard that as a declaration of war.
In all seriousness, I have to say I think that is one of the most idiotic ideas I've ever heard. Most people like living in a biosphere. As much as I enjoy the works of Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod and Alastair Reynolds, and one day the universe probably will include many different cultures with body-changing, identity-shifting citizens, shouldn't there also be a place in that future universe for those of us who want to live on the planet of our choosing, in ways not too dissimilar from how humans have lived since the dawn of time?
If you must, use the asteroids, there's plenty to share. At worst, use a planet with much less chance of being terraformed. But stay away from Mars.
Frankly, I think you're deluding yourself if you really think technology is advancing so fast that we'll be ripping up Mars before terraforming it. Kurzweil is a prat, and most of what he says is nothing more than wishful thinking.
Actually, that I didn't post this anonymously was a mistake. I don't want any whored karma, and I hope people don't mod this up. They usually don't anyway...
By Frank Ahrens Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 14, 2003; Page E01
If broadcast networks such as ABC and Fox are prevented from buying more local television stations, viewers may soon have to watch NFL games on cable or satellite, meaning football fans who depend on free, over-the-air television would be out of luck.
Or if they are allowed to buy more stations, they would use their increased muscle to force network programming onto independently owned affiliate stations, even when they would rather show local programs or preempt network programs that may offend community standards.
Either and both arguments may be true. Local television station autonomy is at the heart of one of the media ownership rules set to be changed soon by the Federal Communications Commission. It was also Topic A yesterday at a Senate hearing chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) but starring Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin.
"Costs are going up, audience is going down, competition is increasing," Karmazin told the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Viacom owns CBS, 35 television stations and cable channels such as MTV and Nickelodeon. "The only way to help is to relax the ownership rules," allowing networks to buy more stations and increase revenue, he said.
On June 2, the FCC is scheduled to vote -- and likely pass -- several rules that will make it easier for media giants to buy more newspapers and radio and television stations. Several lawmakers and public interest groups oppose relaxing the rules. The FCC "is putting us on a glide path for big media conglomerates to gobble up independent stations," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said yesterday.
(Yesterday afternoon, Democratic FCC commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein asked Michael K. Powell, the agency's Republican chairman, to postpone the vote, a request typically honored under FCC tradition. Usually, such votes are rescheduled for the commission's next open meeting, about one month later. Powell said he will respond promptly. Republican commissioners Kathleen Q. Abernathy and Kevin J. Martin want the vote to proceed as scheduled.)
Perhaps the most controversial of the six major media ownership rules teed up for review is the "35-percent cap" on station ownership. Networks are not allowed to own a number of stations that combine to reach more than 35 percent of the national audience. Thanks to waivers and shifting market shares, all of the major networks hover around the 35 percent figure, with some actually above the limit, anticipating its lifting.
The FCC's media bureau has recommended raising that number to about 45 percent. Powell is sympathetic to Karmazin. The chairman has said that broadcast television needs regulatory help to continue providing free public-interest programming. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are steadily losing audience to cable channels. For the first time last year, the aggregate cable audience surpassed that of the combined networks. About 85 percent of viewers have cable or satellite service.
Further, cable channels have two revenue streams -- advertising and subscription -- where broadcast has one. The smallest major network, however, still has an audience larger than the biggest cable channel, meaning networks can charge advertisers more for commercials.
The rising cost of programming, especially rights fees that networks pay sports leagues to broadcast games, means that networks lose money by putting their shows on broadcast stations instead of cable, the networks say. "Sports content will be the first to go to cable," Karmazin warned, noting that CBS paid $6 billion to broadcast the NCAA men's basketball tournament for 11 years. "Then other [programming] will follow."
The surest way to save free television, the networks argue, is to let them to buy more stations, which routinely log profit margins of 20 percent to 50 percent.
I agree with you, I just want to say that I consider myself in #2 with, say, my left leg over in #3. I wish most people would at least care enough to do some basic checking about the products they buy day to day.
Some people want to be ideologically pure, but the other side of the coin, not caring at all, saddens me to no end. It's not too much trouble to care a little...
VHS is the waning standard, DVD is the up-and-coming standard. Does that clear it up for you?
No, it doesn't clear up for me why iTunes and iPod can't play Ogg Vorbis files. Any good DVD player can play VCDs, even though your average person on the street probably wouldn't even know what a VCD is. I have yet to hear one good reason why iTunes and iPod can't handle Vorbis files.
It's fine by me if the whole world decides to use AAC. Maybe after the usage conventions and compatibility issues have shaken out I'll switch to it, too. Yet, at the moment, here I am, ready and willing to give Apple my money, at least for an iPod, but they don't want my money.
Oh, and if by "determined to do things in whatever perverse way suits you" you mean I'm an individual with my own mind who prefers to make my own decisions rather than having others make them for me, then yes, I am.
From that page: " Ever noticed how ripping some music tracks to MP3 format creates a small gap between songs that interrupts the flow of your music? That's because many music CDs contain songs that blend into each other, but are separated by track numbers for reference (that is, concept albums, trance/electronic mix albums, classical performances and so on). Suffer the silence no more, since iTunes 4 comes with the new Join Tracks feature that lets you rip two or more tracks as a single, uninterrupted song."
(emphasis mine). That sounds to me like one audio file containing more than one track. That sounds to me like you can't separate the tracks if you want without re-ripping as individual tracks. that sounds stupid to me.
As for AAC being a standard, yes it is a standard with a few standards bodies. But it is far from being standard from a user's perspective. There are multiple AAC encoders that all have their own quirks, and there isn't really a standard method of playing them all. As Apple's site even hints at a few times with the "Mac only" note.
As for other people and other computers being able to play my AAC files, yes, I fully expect them to be extremely portable. My wife can listen to my CDs, she should be able to listen to my AAC files.
Then don't migrate your library. MP3 and AAC are good citizens of equal standing under QuickTime 6.2 and iTunes.
That's nice. But my library is in Ogg Vorbis format. I do very much care about Ogg, despite your insistence that I don't, and I'm not alone. Sorry about that.
I can live with oggs on a Mac, it's not impossible, but it's frustrating, especially since there's not reason for them not to support it. Whether I buy a Mac or not in the near future, and I'm still leaning towards it, Apple certainly won't get my money for an iPod - it's a useless hunk of metal to me. Too bad - I'd think a few extra features & capabilities would only be good for the marketing dept....
But MP3 and AAC aren't the only options. I've had my whole CD collection encoded as Ogg files for almost two years, and they sound great. But I'm not about to reencode them all to AAC, and certainly not to MP3, so I guess Apple won't see me "switching" anytime soon, let alone buying an iPod.
They could easily and painlessly support Vorbis just as they support MP3, and still have AAC be the "default" format. They'd have me buying from the iTunes store, too. It's not like I think AAC is a bad format - it isn't. But it's not any kind of standard.
If I did switch and redid all my music as AAC, would other people be able to play my AAC files? So far half the places that Apple mentions AAC they also mention "Mac-only". I wouldn't be suprised that they have some sort of Apple-invented tagging convention.
Furthermore, on the iTunes info pages they brag about iTunes' "gapless" capabilities, which seems to consist soley of ripping multiple tracks and encoding them into one audio file. That's not gapless playback, that's one giant audio file. Can you skip between tracks in that "gapless" file, like you can skip between tracks on a CD? Can you share just one track out of that big "gapless" file?
That's an idiotic, kludgy way of getting around the gapless problem. A better way would be to use (or at least support) a format that has gapless playback from the get-go, like Ogg Vorbis.
I'd choose AAC over MP3, too, but those aren't my only two options, and as long as Apple says they are, it's too much effort to switch. I can afford the Apple hardware tax, but my time is too precious.
(and yes, I could just use a different audio player on the Mac to play my Oggs, but I still can't go put them on an iPod and play them)
OK, before you mark me a troll or whatever, There are a fair number of us geeks out here who would love to "switch" to Apple, but we have our music collections in the open Vorbis format. OK, so we can use third party audio players on the Mac, but why won't Apple just support Vorbis and make everything easier? They don't have to make it the default, but for goodness' sake, it's free! The code's already there, just use it!
With the Apple service, you can share your music with your 3 friends (or their computers, anyway), but it's streaming, not copying. Once they've listened to the song, it's not sitting there on their computer to then share with their friends. If they want to do that, they have to go buy the music themselves.
Unfortunately, they've chose AAC as the "music format of the future" - an unfinalized format with no tagging standard and no good gapless playback support...
You're right about amendments... and people who agree on such things need to work together to fix such mistakes. Even if they disagree on other issues. Which is why I always urge people to vote for whatever 3rd parties they feel fit them best, but to stay away from the major two. I may be green, but I don't care that you're not.
Government has power that people give to it because it is made up of people. It is made up of people who have individual freedom to make up such a government. Individuals, acting together, form governments and their restrictions, by their personal will.
You are making the mistake of conceptualising "the government" as an entity. It is not.
As for green = socialism, All I see are 10 key values. How one approaches those values is up to the individual. Funny, that.
My socialistic ideas? Which ones would those be? I haven't expressed any that I'm aware of.
As for never being too gung-ho about freedom, there certainly can be too much freedom. Just look at the government. From your comments I expect you would be in favor of restrictions on the power of government, right? That's a freedom restriction right there. A desire for restrictions on the freedom of corporations is no different. And if you say that you would prefer to get rid of government altogether, just remember that that government was set up voluntarily by individuals, and with total freedom, that same government (or something similar, for better or worse) would be set up all over again.
Whoah, buddy - a little too gung-ho there about Freedom, for my tastes. Take note of the other replies to your post, especially by LordLucless and Joe the Lesser.
And for the love of all of us, keep your mind away from Ayn Rand! Avoid her writings at all costs! She'll lead you down into the inescapable vortex of Randian libertarian thought...
(and if you want my bias, I'm sort of a libertarian Green, with admitted emphasis on the Green - although that link has nothing to do with the greens...)
You're probably right. However, in the eyes of the majority of moderate muslims the world over, I'm an anti-war American, doing my part to try to help stop this insane madness...
You're right, there are militant muslims out there, and many of them may indeed be terrorists. However, there are many, many more non-militant muslims. Of course, our war actions may encourage more than a few of those to become militant and possibly even become terrorists...
GnuCash 1.8.0 was released February 3; haven't seen much mention of it anywhere, but since "a good finance program" is one of the things so many people say Linux is missing, I thought it would be worth mentioning. The new GnuCash features scheduled transactions, popular OFX and HBCI formats (think downloading from your bank), and other woundrous new stuff and fixes...
Sheesh people, Linux is what it is. There are people working at making it better in many, many ways, and they all have different motivations and goals. And *THAT* is what makes free software so great!
It is now much better for *all* of its possible uses (not just desktop) than it was last year, the year before, etc., and it will only continue to get better. There are more people using it now than ever before, and more people working on it than ever before. I see no reason that shouldn't increase as well.
"Linux" is not an entity comparable to any corporation, and "it" is not competing with any corporation. It just is what it is, and I choose to use it.
Slashdot Mirror
What does "evil" have to do with anything? Did he say that the RIAA was evil? Do you think they're evil? They're just a bunch of people going after their own interests, too, and I'm sure there are lots of smart people amongst them as well...
You guys have 8x8' cubicles? Wow! I wish I could get one that big; mine's only about 5x5' - if only I had a bigger one, I'd be happy!
Well, of course, as usual, human beings change their ideas over time. Someone can start out dyed-in-the-wool communist, then turn anarchist, then switch to libertarian, then green, then back to a hybrid libertarian socialist view... The possibilities for personal belief mutation are endless.
For evidence of this you need look no further than Ken MacLeod's own blog, http://kenmacleod.blogspot.com/ - Down in the end of the June 17th entry he writes: "However, the expose did give me something to throw in the faces of Trots who called me names for hob-nobbing with libertarians, or for upholding positions unpopular on the present-day left that were considered left-wing back when I originally acquired them. I'd probably have remained a lot closer to the libertarians than to the socialists I now hang out with, if it hadn't been for a third touch of the tentacle."
So he was socialist, but liked a lot of the libertarian ideas, but felt pressure from socialists over time to drop those ideas, and now is working with socialists again for apparently anti-commercial sentiments towards some libertarians...
Anyway, true socialism is libertarian and anarchic to begin with.
Why would you be required to read, listen to or watch the rebuttals? I haven't heard or read anything indicating that off-buttons would be removed from TVs or radios, or that you would be required to read every single word in the newspaper.
If anything, this forces the "elite few" who run the media to allow everyone to reply to what they say. Too costly for them? Well, maybe that will make them think twice about some of the things they print or broadcast.
To reiterate my subject, no one is forcing you to do anything, unless you own or run some form of media, which makes you one of an elite few. On the internet, less so, but I would still think there are far fewer well-read blogs & other sites than visitors.
Forcing elites to make some room, however small, for the non-elite, is one of the better functions of government.
I thought 2.6 was supposed to be out by now?
I like my "fragile biological form", and if I want to live on Mars one day, how dare you suggest you're going to rip it up. As a future citizen of Mars, I regard that as a declaration of war.
In all seriousness, I have to say I think that is one of the most idiotic ideas I've ever heard. Most people like living in a biosphere. As much as I enjoy the works of Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod and Alastair Reynolds, and one day the universe probably will include many different cultures with body-changing, identity-shifting citizens, shouldn't there also be a place in that future universe for those of us who want to live on the planet of our choosing, in ways not too dissimilar from how humans have lived since the dawn of time?
If you must, use the asteroids, there's plenty to share. At worst, use a planet with much less chance of being terraformed. But stay away from Mars.
Frankly, I think you're deluding yourself if you really think technology is advancing so fast that we'll be ripping up Mars before terraforming it. Kurzweil is a prat, and most of what he says is nothing more than wishful thinking.
Actually, that I didn't post this anonymously was a mistake. I don't want any whored karma, and I hope people don't mod this up. They usually don't anyway...
Media Fight Focuses on Local TV Stations
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 14, 2003; Page E01
If broadcast networks such as ABC and Fox are prevented from buying more local television stations, viewers may soon have to watch NFL games on cable or satellite, meaning football fans who depend on free, over-the-air television would be out of luck.
Or if they are allowed to buy more stations, they would use their increased muscle to force network programming onto independently owned affiliate stations, even when they would rather show local programs or preempt network programs that may offend community standards.
Either and both arguments may be true. Local television station autonomy is at the heart of one of the media ownership rules set to be changed soon by the Federal Communications Commission. It was also Topic A yesterday at a Senate hearing chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) but starring Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin.
"Costs are going up, audience is going down, competition is increasing," Karmazin told the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Viacom owns CBS, 35 television stations and cable channels such as MTV and Nickelodeon. "The only way to help is to relax the ownership rules," allowing networks to buy more stations and increase revenue, he said.
On June 2, the FCC is scheduled to vote -- and likely pass -- several rules that will make it easier for media giants to buy more newspapers and radio and television stations. Several lawmakers and public interest groups oppose relaxing the rules. The FCC "is putting us on a glide path for big media conglomerates to gobble up independent stations," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said yesterday.
(Yesterday afternoon, Democratic FCC commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein asked Michael K. Powell, the agency's Republican chairman, to postpone the vote, a request typically honored under FCC tradition. Usually, such votes are rescheduled for the commission's next open meeting, about one month later. Powell said he will respond promptly. Republican commissioners Kathleen Q. Abernathy and Kevin J. Martin want the vote to proceed as scheduled.)
Perhaps the most controversial of the six major media ownership rules teed up for review is the "35-percent cap" on station ownership. Networks are not allowed to own a number of stations that combine to reach more than 35 percent of the national audience. Thanks to waivers and shifting market shares, all of the major networks hover around the 35 percent figure, with some actually above the limit, anticipating its lifting.
The FCC's media bureau has recommended raising that number to about 45 percent. Powell is sympathetic to Karmazin. The chairman has said that broadcast television needs regulatory help to continue providing free public-interest programming. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are steadily losing audience to cable channels. For the first time last year, the aggregate cable audience surpassed that of the combined networks. About 85 percent of viewers have cable or satellite service.
Further, cable channels have two revenue streams -- advertising and subscription -- where broadcast has one. The smallest major network, however, still has an audience larger than the biggest cable channel, meaning networks can charge advertisers more for commercials.
The rising cost of programming, especially rights fees that networks pay sports leagues to broadcast games, means that networks lose money by putting their shows on broadcast stations instead of cable, the networks say. "Sports content will be the first to go to cable," Karmazin warned, noting that CBS paid $6 billion to broadcast the NCAA men's basketball tournament for 11 years. "Then other [programming] will follow."
The surest way to save free television, the networks argue, is to let them to buy more stations, which routinely log profit margins of 20 percent to 50 percent.
Not everyone agrees. Last week, Rep. Richard Burr
Mmmm... Miller-Ade...
I agree with you, I just want to say that I consider myself in #2 with, say, my left leg over in #3. I wish most people would at least care enough to do some basic checking about the products they buy day to day.
Some people want to be ideologically pure, but the other side of the coin, not caring at all, saddens me to no end. It's not too much trouble to care a little...
*sigh*
sorry for the off-topic post...
VHS is the waning standard, DVD is the up-and-coming standard. Does that clear it up for you?
No, it doesn't clear up for me why iTunes and iPod can't play Ogg Vorbis files. Any good DVD player can play VCDs, even though your average person on the street probably wouldn't even know what a VCD is. I have yet to hear one good reason why iTunes and iPod can't handle Vorbis files.
It's fine by me if the whole world decides to use AAC. Maybe after the usage conventions and compatibility issues have shaken out I'll switch to it, too. Yet, at the moment, here I am, ready and willing to give Apple my money, at least for an iPod, but they don't want my money.
Oh, and if by "determined to do things in whatever perverse way suits you" you mean I'm an individual with my own mind who prefers to make my own decisions rather than having others make them for me, then yes, I am.
Yes, the iTunes gapless feature does work the way I described, at least according to Apple's website: http://www.apple.com/itunes/encode.html
From that page: " Ever noticed how ripping some music tracks to MP3 format creates a small gap between songs that interrupts the flow of your music? That's because many music CDs contain songs that blend into each other, but are separated by track numbers for reference (that is, concept albums, trance/electronic mix albums, classical performances and so on). Suffer the silence no more, since iTunes 4 comes with the new Join Tracks feature that lets you rip two or more tracks as a single, uninterrupted song."
(emphasis mine). That sounds to me like one audio file containing more than one track. That sounds to me like you can't separate the tracks if you want without re-ripping as individual tracks. that sounds stupid to me.
As for AAC being a standard, yes it is a standard with a few standards bodies. But it is far from being standard from a user's perspective. There are multiple AAC encoders that all have their own quirks, and there isn't really a standard method of playing them all. As Apple's site even hints at a few times with the "Mac only" note.
As for other people and other computers being able to play my AAC files, yes, I fully expect them to be extremely portable. My wife can listen to my CDs, she should be able to listen to my AAC files.
Then don't migrate your library. MP3 and AAC are good citizens of equal standing under QuickTime 6.2 and iTunes.
That's nice. But my library is in Ogg Vorbis format. I do very much care about Ogg, despite your insistence that I don't, and I'm not alone. Sorry about that.
I can live with oggs on a Mac, it's not impossible, but it's frustrating, especially since there's not reason for them not to support it. Whether I buy a Mac or not in the near future, and I'm still leaning towards it, Apple certainly won't get my money for an iPod - it's a useless hunk of metal to me. Too bad - I'd think a few extra features & capabilities would only be good for the marketing dept....
I'm particularly thinking of the iPod...
But MP3 and AAC aren't the only options. I've had my whole CD collection encoded as Ogg files for almost two years, and they sound great. But I'm not about to reencode them all to AAC, and certainly not to MP3, so I guess Apple won't see me "switching" anytime soon, let alone buying an iPod.
They could easily and painlessly support Vorbis just as they support MP3, and still have AAC be the "default" format. They'd have me buying from the iTunes store, too. It's not like I think AAC is a bad format - it isn't. But it's not any kind of standard.
If I did switch and redid all my music as AAC, would other people be able to play my AAC files? So far half the places that Apple mentions AAC they also mention "Mac-only". I wouldn't be suprised that they have some sort of Apple-invented tagging convention.
Furthermore, on the iTunes info pages they brag about iTunes' "gapless" capabilities, which seems to consist soley of ripping multiple tracks and encoding them into one audio file. That's not gapless playback, that's one giant audio file. Can you skip between tracks in that "gapless" file, like you can skip between tracks on a CD? Can you share just one track out of that big "gapless" file?
That's an idiotic, kludgy way of getting around the gapless problem. A better way would be to use (or at least support) a format that has gapless playback from the get-go, like Ogg Vorbis.
I'd choose AAC over MP3, too, but those aren't my only two options, and as long as Apple says they are, it's too much effort to switch. I can afford the Apple hardware tax, but my time is too precious.
(and yes, I could just use a different audio player on the Mac to play my Oggs, but I still can't go put them on an iPod and play them)
OK, before you mark me a troll or whatever, There are a fair number of us geeks out here who would love to "switch" to Apple, but we have our music collections in the open Vorbis format. OK, so we can use third party audio players on the Mac, but why won't Apple just support Vorbis and make everything easier? They don't have to make it the default, but for goodness' sake, it's free! The code's already there, just use it!
With the Apple service, you can share your music with your 3 friends (or their computers, anyway), but it's streaming, not copying. Once they've listened to the song, it's not sitting there on their computer to then share with their friends. If they want to do that, they have to go buy the music themselves.
Unfortunately, they've chose AAC as the "music format of the future" - an unfinalized format with no tagging standard and no good gapless playback support...
Isn't there something inherently wrong with Slashdotting a webserver of the Church?
You're right about amendments ... and people who agree on such things need to work together to fix such mistakes. Even if they disagree on other issues. Which is why I always urge people to vote for whatever 3rd parties they feel fit them best, but to stay away from the major two. I may be green, but I don't care that you're not.
Government has power that people give to it because it is made up of people. It is made up of people who have individual freedom to make up such a government. Individuals, acting together, form governments and their restrictions, by their personal will.
You are making the mistake of conceptualising "the government" as an entity. It is not.
As for green = socialism, All I see are 10 key values. How one approaches those values is up to the individual. Funny, that.
My socialistic ideas? Which ones would those be? I haven't expressed any that I'm aware of.
As for never being too gung-ho about freedom, there certainly can be too much freedom. Just look at the government. From your comments I expect you would be in favor of restrictions on the power of government, right? That's a freedom restriction right there. A desire for restrictions on the freedom of corporations is no different. And if you say that you would prefer to get rid of government altogether, just remember that that government was set up voluntarily by individuals, and with total freedom, that same government (or something similar, for better or worse) would be set up all over again.
Whoah, buddy - a little too gung-ho there about Freedom, for my tastes. Take note of the other replies to your post, especially by LordLucless and Joe the Lesser.
t ml, especially the bit about Cooperative Commonwealths.
And for the love of all of us, keep your mind away from Ayn Rand! Avoid her writings at all costs! She'll lead you down into the inescapable vortex of Randian libertarian thought...
Instead, spend some time reading through the polemics at http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/polemica.h
(and if you want my bias, I'm sort of a libertarian Green, with admitted emphasis on the Green - although that link has nothing to do with the greens...)
Yeah, but my girlfriend wants to know, does it have a beat?
You're probably right. However, in the eyes of the majority of moderate muslims the world over, I'm an anti-war American, doing my part to try to help stop this insane madness...
You're right, there are militant muslims out there, and many of them may indeed be terrorists. However, there are many, many more non-militant muslims. Of course, our war actions may encourage more than a few of those to become militant and possibly even become terrorists...
GnuCash 1.8.0 was released February 3; haven't seen much mention of it anywhere, but since "a good finance program" is one of the things so many people say Linux is missing, I thought it would be worth mentioning. The new GnuCash features scheduled transactions, popular OFX and HBCI formats (think downloading from your bank), and other woundrous new stuff and fixes...
Sheesh people, Linux is what it is. There are people working at making it better in many, many ways, and they all have different motivations and goals. And *THAT* is what makes free software so great!
It is now much better for *all* of its possible uses (not just desktop) than it was last year, the year before, etc., and it will only continue to get better. There are more people using it now than ever before, and more people working on it than ever before. I see no reason that shouldn't increase as well.
"Linux" is not an entity comparable to any corporation, and "it" is not competing with any corporation. It just is what it is, and I choose to use it.