Just imagine if in a criminal court the prosecutor was not happy with the jury having dismissed the charges and went ahead and executed the defendant anyway. Is that justice?
The attack was specifically intended to take out Saddam.
So assassination is now considered fair fightin'? Somebody please tell that to the Secret Service.
Not that I disagree with this completely. I would rather see the idiots running the governments of the world killing each other than sending thousands of their citizens to die meaningless deaths.
And a policy of political assassination wouldn't really be anything new from the United States...
Depth of field is an optical property related to the focal length of the lens and the aperture used. Focal lengths on digital cameras are very short because the image sensors are smaller than a typical film frame. Even with large apertures, their depth of field is huge, making it next to impossible to achieve the shallow depth of field that gives you nice out-of-focus backgrounds in portraits, etc.
So basically, this is pretty useless for digital photography. Maybe it will be of limited use in fixed security cameras and stuff like that.
...One of the most effective tools of religious manipulation! Christianity has adopted every technique of history's most successful cults.
When I was thirteen, I stood in front of my congregation and swore an oath renouncing the ways of the Devil, which of course includes drugs, booze, and sex. I did it because all my friends were doing it. It was the culmination of years of religious training.
It took me nearly a decade to fully recover, but now I can enjoy pr0n nightly and feel no guilt whatsoever. Free your minds, folks! Human nature is not sin! Join me in the unholy sacrament:
Basically, this is why proprietary software in and of itself isn't evil, and this is why patents aren't evil, and copyrights, and so forth.
You are quite right, these things are not evil in and of themselves.
What is evil is the manner in which they are currently implemented and enforced, counter to the purposes for which they were originally created.
The concepts of patent and copyright have been badly abused, and the means to seek redress for these wrongs have been placed far out of reach of those whom they harm. We're told what we can and can't do with our own property. Knowledge is patented and copyrighted and can no longer be shared. Innovations in science, technology, and medicine that could improve our daily lives are witheld from the many to make a profit for the few. This evil threatens to undermine the very "FREEDOM OF CHOICE" you are so fond of!
Profit at the expense of your employees' welfare, your customers' satisfaction, and the general health of the economy in which you operate, is not a right. More to the point, it's very, very wrong, no matter how much your shareholders stand to gain from it.
This is something the executives of most large corporations no longer acknowledge!
If I don't profit, I can't afford to do it, QED.
You mean you've never done anything useful for the sake of charity, or for the advancement of humankind, or just for the hell of it? Ever heard of Linux?
If companies couldn't get a patent for something it would be much harder for them to profit and thus they wouldn't develop items/technology as quickly or at all.
Good. Screw them AND their shareholders!
First of all, profit is not a right. If a company can't come up with anything better than patenting the obvious and extorting money from other companies, do they really have a legitimate reason to exist? That's not healthy competition.
And second, we're talking about software patents here. Patents on real property like your laptop, and patents on intellectual (non-)property like software, are in two completely different arenas, regardless of what lawyers would have you believe. Profit is demonstrably not a necessary part of software development and innovation, and therefore not a justification for software patents.
5) They could even take this one step further by creating their own bootable CD thereby eliminating the need for a specific OS, but then...I'm not sure that's a very good idea as it turns a game company into an OS producer too, unless the micro kernel the game runs on is standardised for all games. If you manage that, you've essentially given PC users almost all the convenience of console gaming!
Hey, maybe there is a place for Linux in the games market!
What would it take to come up with a custom kernel and a standard platform for this kind of thing, basically providing existing APIs in a standardized way for game developers? One good hacker, about six cases of Dew, and a three-day weekend?
I'll ante up the Dew if I can write it off on my taxes...;o)
Why is it a big deal for some company (broadband provider) whose ToS contract up-front says only X number of machines can use this connection or else additional fees apply to expect their customers to comply with the terms of their contract?
Because such clauses are counter to the great promise of the Internet, which is a truly free exchange of ideas. Anyone should be able to host a server or do whatever they want with their connection. As the saying goes, "Freedom of the Press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Well, now I own one, and by God I'm gonna use it.
...at least until I say something the least bit controversial, then someone will complain and they'll use that clause as an excuse to pull the plug, without warning or recourse. *sigh* So much for Freedom.
The Constitution was a good start, but we've amended it in the past to fit better the ideals of the nation while stripping away parts that did not (examples of both aren't hard to think of).
I've heard the United States referred to as the "Great Experiment". I believe the experiment has been successful, but the test of time has shown some weaknesses in our Constitution and in democracy in general. We need to patch a few serious exploits...
Our rights do not come from the Constitution. Our Constitution is an acknowledgement by the government of certain rights which we posess simply by virtue of being human. Among those rights is the right of self-government. We would not be outside our rights to abolish the existing Constitution and reaffirm our belief in democracy with a new one. I think the Founding Fathers would quite approve.
But of course, there are not enough honest politicians in Washington to entrust our government with that task today!
I always thought P2P had fantastic potential for things like free software, educational materials, unpopular political speech...
What we need is a P2P network that outright will not allow certain types of content. That's the only way we'll ever keep the SNR down and avoid giving universities and ISPs an excuse to restrict usage.
I'm glad this has finally been settled.
on
Why VHS Was Better
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· Score: 1
If you can't deal with that, you need to a) grow up and realize the legal consequences or b) stop breaking the law.
Nonsense. Civil disobedience is perfectly ethical when other means of seeking redress of grievances have been exhausted (which they have been the government has been bought and there ain't nothin' we can do about it.) It is WRONG for any government or industry to make civil disobedience ineffective by violating the anonymity of the protesters.
My God, man! That's almost as bad as how they undermined our fundamental right to rise up in armed rebellion with gun registration and bans on the kinds of weapons they themselves use. What are you, some kind of Fascist?
2.) Tell us exactly what address or domain IE is allegedly connecting to, so I can block outbound connections to it at the router? Others in the house still use IE, the poor dopes...
It's simple economics: throw money at things you want to encourage. Pay teachers more, get more applicants, discard more lousy candidates.
Yeah, and while we're at it, let's pay programmers and webmasters big bucks. Then everybody and his brother will want to be one, and in a couple years we'll be able to pay them even less than we are now. That's the ticket!
Teachers aren't so bad off that they should be complaining. I'd kill for a $30K/year job right now. You don't understand how much money that is in most parts of the country. You're probably from a big city where the vast wealth of the resident slave drivers artificially inflates the price of everything.
To teachers in those cities: Get the hell out of town and let the corporate masters figure out what to do with their own spoiled rotten kids. That'll teach 'em.
While we're dreaming, let's pay the President and Congress minimum wage. To be fair, they're busy people, so let's pay them 24 hours a day.
Let's see...
$5.15 * 24 * 365 = $45,114
The President's salary in 2001: $400,000
Think about that for a moment.
And then think about the CEO who pays himself tens of millions of dollars a year for playing golf and attending board meetings, while his workers are getting laid off and his customers are getting shoveled crap for their hard-earned dollars.
Let's concentrate on the real problems with who's getting paid what in America, shall we?
Slashdot Mirror
Did they ever get around to releasing a subbed version of Mononoke Hime? Those stingy bastards.
I think that's how it works in Texas.
So assassination is now considered fair fightin'? Somebody please tell that to the Secret Service.
Not that I disagree with this completely. I would rather see the idiots running the governments of the world killing each other than sending thousands of their citizens to die meaningless deaths.
And a policy of political assassination wouldn't really be anything new from the United States...
Depth of field is an optical property related to the focal length of the lens and the aperture used. Focal lengths on digital cameras are very short because the image sensors are smaller than a typical film frame. Even with large apertures, their depth of field is huge, making it next to impossible to achieve the shallow depth of field that gives you nice out-of-focus backgrounds in portraits, etc.
So basically, this is pretty useless for digital photography. Maybe it will be of limited use in fixed security cameras and stuff like that.
No, I didn't RTA. It's Slashdotted.
When I was thirteen, I stood in front of my congregation and swore an oath renouncing the ways of the Devil, which of course includes drugs, booze, and sex. I did it because all my friends were doing it. It was the culmination of years of religious training.
It took me nearly a decade to fully recover, but now I can enjoy pr0n nightly and feel no guilt whatsoever. Free your minds, folks! Human nature is not sin! Join me in the unholy sacrament:
autopr0n
PicHunter
Sito Smax
Bijin's "homu"
You are quite right, these things are not evil in and of themselves.
What is evil is the manner in which they are currently implemented and enforced, counter to the purposes for which they were originally created.
The concepts of patent and copyright have been badly abused, and the means to seek redress for these wrongs have been placed far out of reach of those whom they harm. We're told what we can and can't do with our own property. Knowledge is patented and copyrighted and can no longer be shared. Innovations in science, technology, and medicine that could improve our daily lives are witheld from the many to make a profit for the few. This evil threatens to undermine the very "FREEDOM OF CHOICE" you are so fond of!
Profit at the expense of your employees' welfare, your customers' satisfaction, and the general health of the economy in which you operate, is not a right. More to the point, it's very, very wrong, no matter how much your shareholders stand to gain from it.
This is something the executives of most large corporations no longer acknowledge!
If I don't profit, I can't afford to do it, QED.
You mean you've never done anything useful for the sake of charity, or for the advancement of humankind, or just for the hell of it? Ever heard of Linux?
Good. Screw them AND their shareholders!
First of all, profit is not a right. If a company can't come up with anything better than patenting the obvious and extorting money from other companies, do they really have a legitimate reason to exist? That's not healthy competition.
And second, we're talking about software patents here. Patents on real property like your laptop, and patents on intellectual (non-)property like software, are in two completely different arenas, regardless of what lawyers would have you believe. Profit is demonstrably not a necessary part of software development and innovation, and therefore not a justification for software patents.
Hey, maybe there is a place for Linux in the games market!
What would it take to come up with a custom kernel and a standard platform for this kind of thing, basically providing existing APIs in a standardized way for game developers? One good hacker, about six cases of Dew, and a three-day weekend?
I'll ante up the Dew if I can write it off on my taxes... ;o)
Doesn't anyone else get the joke?
He shoulda been President...
Saw it on the History Channel. Must be true.
Because such clauses are counter to the great promise of the Internet, which is a truly free exchange of ideas. Anyone should be able to host a server or do whatever they want with their connection. As the saying goes, "Freedom of the Press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Well, now I own one, and by God I'm gonna use it.
...at least until I say something the least bit controversial, then someone will complain and they'll use that clause as an excuse to pull the plug, without warning or recourse. *sigh* So much for Freedom.
Or so they'll tell you. :o)
I've heard the United States referred to as the "Great Experiment". I believe the experiment has been successful, but the test of time has shown some weaknesses in our Constitution and in democracy in general. We need to patch a few serious exploits...
Our rights do not come from the Constitution. Our Constitution is an acknowledgement by the government of certain rights which we posess simply by virtue of being human. Among those rights is the right of self-government. We would not be outside our rights to abolish the existing Constitution and reaffirm our belief in democracy with a new one. I think the Founding Fathers would quite approve.
But of course, there are not enough honest politicians in Washington to entrust our government with that task today!
I always thought P2P had fantastic potential for things like free software, educational materials, unpopular political speech...
What we need is a P2P network that outright will not allow certain types of content. That's the only way we'll ever keep the SNR down and avoid giving universities and ISPs an excuse to restrict usage.
Now, which is better: DVD-R or DVD+R?
I've known this method since I was a little kid. It's described in a book called _The Great Brain at the Academy_.
Really it is. Mandrake desperately needs a release that isn't all fucked up if they want to stay in business.
Nonsense. Civil disobedience is perfectly ethical when other means of seeking redress of grievances have been exhausted (which they have been the government has been bought and there ain't nothin' we can do about it.) It is WRONG for any government or industry to make civil disobedience ineffective by violating the anonymity of the protesters.
My God, man! That's almost as bad as how they undermined our fundamental right to rise up in armed rebellion with gun registration and bans on the kinds of weapons they themselves use. What are you, some kind of Fascist?
What the hell has happened to America?
PLIF was awesome. So sad it's not drawn anymore.
Could you:
1.) Provide some documentation of this, and
2.) Tell us exactly what address or domain IE is allegedly connecting to, so I can block outbound connections to it at the router? Others in the house still use IE, the poor dopes...
Given #2, my firewall logs will satisfy #1.
And you might even get to go on a field trip to the Office of Homeland Security!
Yeah, and while we're at it, let's pay programmers and webmasters big bucks. Then everybody and his brother will want to be one, and in a couple years we'll be able to pay them even less than we are now. That's the ticket!
Teachers aren't so bad off that they should be complaining. I'd kill for a $30K/year job right now. You don't understand how much money that is in most parts of the country. You're probably from a big city where the vast wealth of the resident slave drivers artificially inflates the price of everything.
To teachers in those cities: Get the hell out of town and let the corporate masters figure out what to do with their own spoiled rotten kids. That'll teach 'em.
While we're dreaming, let's pay the President and Congress minimum wage. To be fair, they're busy people, so let's pay them 24 hours a day.
Let's see...
$5.15 * 24 * 365 = $45,114
The President's salary in 2001: $400,000
Think about that for a moment.
And then think about the CEO who pays himself tens of millions of dollars a year for playing golf and attending board meetings, while his workers are getting laid off and his customers are getting shoveled crap for their hard-earned dollars.
Let's concentrate on the real problems with who's getting paid what in America, shall we?