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User: pseudochaotic

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Comments · 199

  1. Re:Why shouldn't they ? on Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux? · · Score: 1

    Come on, this can't possibly be legal. Suing people for using your competitors' products? :/ There's got to be a law against that somewhere, and in any case, Microsoft is the *last* company that should be testing the limits of antitrust laws these days.

  2. Re:Next media should be defined by the community. on First Blu-ray Drives Won't play Blu-ray Movies · · Score: 1

    It seems kind of odd to complain about Matroska specifically not working, and then going on to say that you wouldn't know anyway, because you can't get multimedia working. :p

  3. Re:VLSI on DRAM Makers Accused of Price Fixing · · Score: 1

    I mean, I say zero, but to all intents and purposes it may as well be so, it's a such small fraction of a penny that it's not worth remarking on the value of the physical item. Assume the plant, the research and development has been paid for and the obvious thing must be stated...

    So, let me paraphrase...ignoring the majority of costs, producing RAM costs almost nothing? Bzzt, you lose, thanks for playing.

  4. Re:don't get Congress involved please! on U.S. House Rejects Net Neutrality · · Score: 2, Funny

    Waitm so, he believes that google just happens to have an insane amount of bandwidth... for free?

    Does he also believe in Santa Claus?

  5. Re:Voting as a message on ThePirateBay.org Raided and Shut Down · · Score: 1

    Well, I just can't let this go by without mentioning Preston Brooks, the South Carolina Senator who nearly beat abolitionist Charles Sumner to death with a cane.

  6. Re:Will the company ever release a product? on Infinium Tries 'Phantom' Name Change · · Score: 3, Funny

    And let me guess, you've been playing this all afternoon with your girlfriend...

    No, no, that's entirely too outlandish.

  7. Re:Um... on Captain America vs. The Patriot Act? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, slashdot. Where your pet issues are the only important, meaningful ones.

  8. Re:the usual confusion on Homeland Security Uncovers Critical Flaw in X11 · · Score: 1

    +1 point for pointing out a factual error in the article
    -1 point for somehow dragging in Microsoft in an article about X
    ---------
    0 total points

    Sorry, you lose.

  9. Exactly wrong! on Wiki to Help Solve Millennium Problems? · · Score: 1

    That simply does not work. If you have a million monkeys, on a million typewriters, you'll end up with millions and millions of pages of garbage, with maybe a correct solution in there somewhere. That's not even the problem we're trying to solve. The real problem is finding a million qualified people to screen the random text the monkeys are producing, and find a solution. And if you were to somehow manage to do so, that would be a million less qualified people actually working on a solution. So in the end, after all this effort getting the monkeys and the typewriters, you've actually done more harm than good.

  10. Re:Blockbusters on BitTorrent User Guilty Of Piracy · · Score: 1

    Perhaps they are using the other definition of blockbuster; "A high-explosive bomb used for demolition purposes."

  11. Re:But what about.... on ESA Selects Targets for Asteroid Deflection Test · · Score: 2, Funny

    You're so worried about your chances of meeting a woman, you posted to slashdot about it. -_- Right.

  12. Re:The Cisco Advisory on Cisco Flaw Opens Routers to Attack · · Score: 1

    If they get /.ed, maybe now they'll rethink making such fast routers. :)

  13. Hahaha. on New, Faster Attack against SHA-1 Revealed · · Score: 1

    I absolutely love how this was modded redundant. Apparently, the mods have a sense of humor today!

  14. Or not. on Panel Challenges NASA Over Shuttle Safety · · Score: 1

    People are saying that the shuttle is dangerous, and that may be so now, but the fact remains that it still has a success rate of ~99%. This is an extremely good record, especially considering the inherent risks in space travel.

    (Disclaimer: I live in Houston, and may therefore be slightly biased.)

  15. Re:Looks like firefox on IE7 Bugs and Reviews · · Score: 1

    Yup, and Opera is just a poor imitation of Greek Drama.

    Yeah, and real life is but a poor imitation of the internet.

  16. Re:This could have an upside on EU Record Companies Push to Extend Copyright · · Score: 0
    Oh yeah? Well, wait till you hear my story.

    As a South Asian pirate, my business faces ruin. Pirated CD sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many pirated CDs as they did just a year ago. Revenue is down and costs are up. My store has survived for years, but I now face the prospect of bankruptcy. Every day I ask myself why this is happening.

    I bought the store about 12 years ago. It was one of those boutique record stores that pirates obscure, independent releases that no-one else will sell, least of all the industry that created them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Hindu rock sections that I know of.

    The business strategy worked. People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase pirated records without profanity or violent lyrics. Over the years I expanded the business and took on more clean-cut and friendly employees. It took hard work and long hours but I had achieved my dream - owning a profitable business that I had built with my own hands, from the ground up. But now, this dream is turning into a nightmare.

    Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer pirated CDs. Why is no one buying pirated CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - The recording industry is mostly to blame. The statistics speak for themselves - thousands of pirates prosecuted, on the mere suspicion of having engaged in piracy. On The Internet, you can be sued for millions of dollars for downloading hundreds of dollars worth of music in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the pirate industry, from rippers, to syndicates, to pirate stores like my own. Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the pirated book store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike CDs, books have no built-in copy protection.

    A week ago, an unpleasant experience with kids gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.

    "Dude, I'm going to turn this guy in for pirating music."

    "Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."

    I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the pirate industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to turn me in to your friends in the R.I.A.A., punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.

    "Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.

    "That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.

    So that's my idea - a national blacklist of industry tools. If somebody cannot obey the basic rules of piracy, then they should be excluded from piracy. If the music industry wants to steal from the pirate industry, then the pirate industry should exclude them. It's that simple. One strike, and you're out - no reputable pirated record store will allow you to buy another ripped CD. If the industry can't sell the CDs to begin with, then why should they bother us about copying them? It's no different from patients buying cheap prescription drugs in Canada.

    I have just written a letter to the RIAA outlining my proposal. Stealing CDs one by one isn't going far enough. Not to mention the RIAA uses the fact that they're being pirated to unfairly portray themselves as victims. A national register of industry shills would make the problem far easier to deal with. People would be encouraged to give the names of suspected tools to a hotline, similar to TIPS. Once we

  17. Re:Check For Updates Feature Used to Identify User on DVD Decrypter Author Served With Take-Down Order · · Score: 2, Funny

    So what he should do, is add an automatic update that disables automatic updating, thus protecting the users from this sort of thing.

  18. Re:Legal anime bittorrents... on The Other Side of BitTorrent · · Score: 1

    Try animesuki.com. They have BT links to loads of fansubbed anime that's legal in the US.

  19. Well, then.. on U.S. Rejects Canadian Rejection of DMCA · · Score: 1

    I suppose in that case, Canada is officially banned within the US. Make sure to knock the dirt off your shoes before crossing the border. :)

  20. Microsoft would love that. on U.S. IT Infrastructure Highly Vulnerable · · Score: 1

    I'm sure Microsoft would love that. Then they would have some sort of basis for pushing DRM, and could cause all sorts of problems for free OSes.

  21. Re:But can it compete? on Nero Burning for Linux · · Score: 1

    I suppose this is what commercial software gets for ignoring Linux for so long. Somebody else writes something better for free, and the market they're aiming for with this completely vanishes.

  22. Re:It's stolen ? on CherryOS Mac Emulator Resurfaces · · Score: 1

    That's nothing. I heard about this awesome warez site, sourceforge.net, that will let you download it for free!

  23. Re:Efficiency? on Wireless Power Recharging Nears Fruition · · Score: 1

    Just be sure you don't drop your credit cards on the pad with everything else. :/

  24. Something like this? on Jail Time For P2P Developers? · · Score: 1

    Maybe something like this.

    if prompt_user("Do you plan to do anything illegal?"):
    ___ sys.exit(0)

  25. Re:Conspiracy! on Intelsat Loses Another Satellite · · Score: 1

    Nah, it's more likely that it just got struck by lightning or something.