With the majority of people running around in todays world, seemingly talking to themselves, cludging funny plastic fetishes to their head, a behaviour formely a "priviledge" of some alcoholic homeless has already become mainstream. As if this isn't ridiculus enough.
I know there is No Such Agency that is able to keep ahead of technological development with a ten year head start. But it makes me think. Only a few days ago I would have dismissed any person, telling me to be eavesdropped and tracked down by secret government agencies through toothimplants, as a random crackpot. No I'm not so sure anymore.
Next thing is Bruce Willis dropping into my car, telling my he was send from the future to find out about a twelve monkey conspiracy:)
Apple will never port QuickTime to Linux in the near future, for pure political reasons. Luckily Quicktime is a fairly open standard so to everyone interested in an open and free implementation of QuickTime I strongly recommend to visit the OpenQuickTime Site on SourceForge. There are more links available there.
... since Walmart alone makes about 20% of the US sales
volume in records.
Ooops, I should 've checked my numbers: Walmart makes about 10% of the US sales volume in records.
Only if you don't know what the word 'censorship' means. When Wal-Mart chooses not to sell an album its management finds objectionable, that's exercising editorial discretion.
I think I formulated the point about censorship wrong, the better way to put it is "Some people describe as censorship."
Because record sales are higher the more exposure they get (more spontanous sales), a record lacking the exposure might not make as much money as it could (or no money at all). Editorial discretion is self censorship. So what would happen if Walmart would own 90% of the market?
The record sales of the explicit lyrics branded records would drop to nirvana, so no major record company would sign up a band/artists who uses these words.
The prices for uncensored or rare material rocket. Or uncensored material is simply not available, because the record company in anticipated obediency chooses not to make it public.
This happened to me with Kittie's new album "Oracle" where all the live-tracks are virtually unhearable (at least for a picky audiophile like me), because they edited all the so called bad words by reversing sound direction ("Come on you crazy srekcufrehtom"). Sounds horrible.
The uncensored version is simply not available in my country, not even in my well sorted local record store. Sony simply chose not to publish it. (if the person from the record store would've found a way to get it, it would've cost me three times the price of a normal cd, which in itself is a form of censorship).
From the so called www and the shops therein... well amazon for example doesn't list if it's the censored or uncensored version.
They have the right to refuse to sell it, and you have the right to buy the album in uncut form elsewhere (there's this thing you might have heard of... the World Wide Web).
The only difference between self censorship and state imposed censorship is that anyone selling you the cd the state has forbidden has to face a severe fine.
The effects on you, the buyer, are nearly the same: You don't have easy access to the records. The record's cost for the time you have to invest to find it and money wise are higher. Or the records are simply not available in hearable form.
Walk into a random record shop and say "Tipper Gore" then, assuming you survive, count the percentage of people who don't know.
Funny, when I read it I thought - what the heck is he talking about.
Then I looked it up and started laughing. It seems that she was the one bringing us the "explicit lyrics" sticker on records, also known as "the north american sticker for high quality music".
What I also didn't know was that Walmart and others are refusing to sell those records, which seem to be a big deal, since Walmart alone makes about 20% of the US sales volume in records. So what happens can be described as censorship.
In my opinion, everybody has the right to say fuck if she likes to, the only thing that is hurt is other peoples opinion about her vocabulary and/or her manners.:)
I also have to agree with Alan's statement about "our" state of political organization, although I wouldn't use his rather harsh sounding words.
The first question we need to adress is "What level of political organization do we want?"
My anwer would be "None". The free software community is all about getting that cozy warm feeling if you could chat with similar technical interested people about... well, your technical interests.
So what you (akb) see as a potential political grassroots movement is just the equivalent of a global rabbitbreeder club.
As an example I might recap a political, free software related, argument with a friend I had, it boiled down to those two opinions:
one: "IBM is good for the free software movement. They help us get recognition through giant ad campaigns they invest millions in. They bring linux to the corporate market so everyone can see what a great OS this is and eventually switch their machines at home. they contribute code back (thus playing nicely) and help us standardize."
the other: "IBM is bad. We do not need recognition by ad campaigns we need recognition for our superior os/usability experience. What people see if you bring them Linux is what a great server-os linux is. No end user would switch his pc at home because he likes the CLI. IBM has taken over the LSB only to impose the standards on us they control (the recent rpm vs deb decision being one example), not the ones that are technically best."
If I take the rpm vs. deb descision of the LSB.
"Traditional" geek-politics would be that the technical superior technology wins, aka deb would become a standard.
This wasn't the case.
how do you expect the politics outside of the realm of technical descisions to be, if even our own political descisions are that inconsequent?
<flamebait>
And don't even get me started about the neo-capitalist fuckers from the EFF. The only way I can explain their famousness is the complete lack of political education among their admirers.
<flamebait>
So my advice would be: forget about political organization. If you feel like engaging in politics, it's very likely you find more people with the same opinion as yours outside of the so called nerd community. Brainpower has a tendency to diversify.
In Ghandi's words:
Whatever you do is insignificant -
but its very important that you DO it.
Ok, they did it again - just a little more obvious this time...
taken from the EvangeList
Subject: [RANT] Absolute proof that M$ sells your Hotmail address
From: "Shane Anderson"
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 17:18:43 +1100
Here is a little experiment for you to try.
1) Create a Hotmail account using random letters and numbers, say
S5_44ff.vd7@hotmail.com. This way SPAM apps that just think up the addresses
from dictionary names will not find it.
2) Don't give the number to anyone, don't even check it for say 9 months.
3) Then check your account and enjoy 826 SPAM mail awaiting you.
This is what I did, and I had that many SPAM mails awaiting me.
And you M$ people complained about my tongue in cheek comment, what have you
to say about this?
The moral of the story: Do not use Hotmail!
The tongue in cheek comment he refers to: the Microsoft servers rejected the Lists mail (Shane is the lists' maintainer), saying he was a potential source for virii.
His comment was to not use ms mail services if you want to get all your email.
Well, since this is a macintosh list, in a sense m$ was right.:)
in short: the GPL grants you the right to use the software in more ways than the normal copyright grants you. it extends international copyright laws to what stallman et al. call copyleft.
but that still means you have to obey copyright laws: you have to mark your work as derivative, and conform to the license, which in case of the GPL states that you have to make the sourcecode of your work available.
So in the linked slashdot article above, in the case of macosx.forked.net that would have meant that they made package desciptor files (".pmsp" on mac os x, the only form one can modify the package. To my understanding it represents the "preferred form" the GPL talks of) available, as well as noting that the files origin were fink packages, both of which they didn't do 'til today.
Slashdot Mirror
I know there is No Such Agency that is able to keep ahead of technological development with a ten year head start. But it makes me think. Only a few days ago I would have dismissed any person, telling me to be eavesdropped and tracked down by secret government agencies through toothimplants, as a random crackpot. No I'm not so sure anymore.
Next thing is Bruce Willis dropping into my car, telling my he was send from the future to find out about a twelve monkey conspiracy :)
Apple will never port QuickTime to Linux in the near future, for pure political reasons. Luckily Quicktime is a fairly open standard so to everyone interested in an open and free implementation of QuickTime I strongly recommend to visit the OpenQuickTime Site on SourceForge. There are more links available there.
So, no need to buy anything :)
Ooops, I should 've checked my numbers: Walmart makes about 10% of the US sales volume in records.
I think I formulated the point about censorship wrong, the better way to put it is "Some people describe as censorship."
Because record sales are higher the more exposure they get (more spontanous sales), a record lacking the exposure might not make as much money as it could (or no money at all). Editorial discretion is self censorship. So what would happen if Walmart would own 90% of the market?
The record sales of the explicit lyrics branded records would drop to nirvana, so no major record company would sign up a band/artists who uses these words.
The prices for uncensored or rare material rocket. Or uncensored material is simply not available, because the record company in anticipated obediency chooses not to make it public.
This happened to me with Kittie's new album "Oracle" where all the live-tracks are virtually unhearable (at least for a picky audiophile like me), because they edited all the so called bad words by reversing sound direction ("Come on you crazy srekcufrehtom"). Sounds horrible.
The uncensored version is simply not available in my country, not even in my well sorted local record store. Sony simply chose not to publish it. (if the person from the record store would've found a way to get it, it would've cost me three times the price of a normal cd, which in itself is a form of censorship).
From the so called www and the shops therein... well amazon for example doesn't list if it's the censored or uncensored version.
The only difference between self censorship and state imposed censorship is that anyone selling you the cd the state has forbidden has to face a severe fine.
The effects on you, the buyer, are nearly the same: You don't have easy access to the records. The record's cost for the time you have to invest to find it and money wise are higher. Or the records are simply not available in hearable form.
Funny, when I read it I thought - what the heck is he talking about.
Then I looked it up and started laughing. It seems that she was the one bringing us the "explicit lyrics" sticker on records, also known as "the north american sticker for high quality music".
What I also didn't know was that Walmart and others are refusing to sell those records, which seem to be a big deal, since Walmart alone makes about 20% of the US sales volume in records. So what happens can be described as censorship.
In my opinion, everybody has the right to say fuck if she likes to, the only thing that is hurt is other peoples opinion about her vocabulary and/or her manners. :)
I also have to agree with Alan's statement about "our" state of political organization, although I wouldn't use his rather harsh sounding words. ... well, your technical interests.
The first question we need to adress is "What level of political organization do we want?"
My anwer would be "None". The free software community is all about getting that cozy warm feeling if you could chat with similar technical interested people about
So what you (akb) see as a potential political grassroots movement is just the equivalent of a global rabbitbreeder club.
As an example I might recap a political, free software related, argument with a friend I had, it boiled down to those two opinions:
one: "IBM is good for the free software movement. They help us get recognition through giant ad campaigns they invest millions in. They bring linux to the corporate market so everyone can see what a great OS this is and eventually switch their machines at home. they contribute code back (thus playing nicely) and help us standardize."
the other: "IBM is bad. We do not need recognition by ad campaigns we need recognition for our superior os/usability experience. What people see if you bring them Linux is what a great server-os linux is. No end user would switch his pc at home because he likes the CLI. IBM has taken over the LSB only to impose the standards on us they control (the recent rpm vs deb decision being one example), not the ones that are technically best."
If I take the rpm vs. deb descision of the LSB.
"Traditional" geek-politics would be that the technical superior technology wins, aka deb would become a standard.
This wasn't the case.
how do you expect the politics outside of the realm of technical descisions to be, if even our own political descisions are that inconsequent?
<flamebait> And don't even get me started about the neo-capitalist fuckers from the EFF. The only way I can explain their famousness is the complete lack of political education among their admirers. <flamebait>
So my advice would be: forget about political organization. If you feel like engaging in politics, it's very likely you find more people with the same opinion as yours outside of the so called nerd community. Brainpower has a tendency to diversify.
In Ghandi's words:
Whatever you do is insignificant -
but its very important that you DO it.
So I have to agree with Alan again. :)
Kind regards -Ahaldra
taken from the EvangeList
Subject: [RANT] Absolute proof that M$ sells your Hotmail address
From: "Shane Anderson"
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 17:18:43 +1100
Here is a little experiment for you to try.
1) Create a Hotmail account using random letters and numbers, say S5_44ff.vd7@hotmail.com. This way SPAM apps that just think up the addresses
from dictionary names will not find it.
2) Don't give the number to anyone, don't even check it for say 9 months.
3) Then check your account and enjoy 826 SPAM mail awaiting you.
This is what I did, and I had that many SPAM mails awaiting me.
And you M$ people complained about my tongue in cheek comment, what have you
to say about this?
The moral of the story: Do not use Hotmail!
The tongue in cheek comment he refers to: the Microsoft servers rejected the Lists mail (Shane is the lists' maintainer), saying he was a potential source for virii. :)
His comment was to not use ms mail services if you want to get all your email.
Well, since this is a macintosh list, in a sense m$ was right.
it has been challenged. the challenge was successful. see this slashdot article and discussion for details.
in short: the GPL grants you the right to use the software in more ways than the normal copyright grants you. it extends international copyright laws to what stallman et al. call copyleft.
but that still means you have to obey copyright laws: you have to mark your work as derivative, and conform to the license, which in case of the GPL states that you have to make the sourcecode of your work available.
So in the linked slashdot article above, in the case of macosx.forked.net that would have meant that they made package desciptor files (".pmsp" on mac os x, the only form one can modify the package. To my understanding it represents the "preferred form" the GPL talks of) available, as well as noting that the files origin were fink packages, both of which they didn't do 'til today.
so yes, the GPL has been successfully challenged.
I saw this:
No web site is configured at this address.
using mighty wget:
wget --spider www.wehavethewayout.com
--11:49:59-- http://www.wehavethewayout.com/
=> `index.html'
Resolving www.wehavethewayout.com... done.
Connecting to www.wehavethewayout.com[130.94.214.143]:80...
connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
11:50:01 ERROR 404: Not Found.
far out. :D
I'll stick with mac os x for now