Have we forgotten that the system is supposed to be PEER-TO-PEER, not PEER-TO-SPYWARE-EMBEDDED-GET-RICH-QUICK-SCHEME-TO- PEER?
True file sharing technology should not sneak Gator onto your hard drive or try to sell you CDs you don't want
The future of P2P belongs to technologies like GNUtella, which can be used to set up truly decentralized file-sharing networks that CANNOT be struck down by tyrants disguised in business suits
Yes, GNUtella is harder to use, klunkier, and tends to access smaller listings of files, but given time and work, these problems will be alleviated as greed-driven fake P2P systems like Napster and Kazaa are crushed by the moneyed interests controlling the legal system.
Anyway, True Freedom belongs to those willing to work for it. Strong, free geeks will always find a way to overcome the forces of oppression. Forget Kazaa. P2P4Profit is a deservedly dead end.
And so the mighty software chess intellects duke it out in the web for all to see. It is tribute to humynkind's creative impulses that we find such enjoyment in watching our creations interact with one another. As with the television show "Robotwars", the duelling automatons seem to take on lives of their own.
The next expected step will be to combine the two, software intellects with hardware brawn, creating robot minions that do not require human controllers. Of course if we are not careful, the darwinian effect of these artificial gladiators' constant struggle with one another may be to bring about a race of super robot warriors that turn on their creators and exterminate humankind, turning the Earth into a real-life version of the nightmarish Cylon Empire featued in the "Battlestar Galactica" television program.
So we must be careful not to let the cheap thrills we get out of watching robot conflicts get the best of us. We must do all we can to integrate peaceful, loving ideals into software and robot development so that perhaps in the future we will be able to lie in harmony rather than strife with our creations.
Note the use of Orwellian doublespeak euphemism in the BSA's chilling press release:
...for whatever reason, some businesses may not have managed their software assets properly Translation: Robbers! Sinners! Repent, O ye unclean ones!
The Grace Period...is a great opportunity for businesses to resolve any compliance issues before they become subjects of a BSA investigation. Translation: the Gestapo is on the way. Grab your ankles and smile.
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is the voice of the world's software and Internet industry Translation: The BSA is out to squeeze every last possible dollar out of software users
BSA worldwide members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, FileMaker, Macromedia, Microsoft, Symantec, and Unigraphics Solutions No comment necessary.
Those who scoff at Open Source/GNU should consider whether they want to live in a world where the tentacles of the BSA and their ilk -- and in an increasingly digitized world, expect, oh yes, do expect similar organizations to crop up defending the interests of digital text publishers, media broadcasters, etc.-- extend, oozing, slimy and cold, into every crevice and opening of what we used to quaintly refer to as our "private lives".
Haves, have-nots, rich and poor, the schism between those with access to capital and those without grows daily. Consider the MaxiMog, an awesome powerhouse of scientific research technology packed into a bomb-proof ultra-rugged expeditionary vehicle (with impressive 9.5 mpg, given what a tank the thing is). Part Armored Personnel Carrier, part laboratory, the MaxiMog is equipped to explore the four corners of the earth and beyond, given its boat and aerial reconnaissance vehicle options.
No price information is mentioned on the website. Presumably, if you have to ask, you can't afford one.
Who will be using the MaxiMog? Who will be storming the remote regions of the planet in data-gathering expeditions?
Why the rich, of course.
As expensive technology plays a larger and larger role in scientific research, the danger grows that developing countries who lack the funds to train people to understand and utilize new scientific breakthroughs, will fall farther and farther behind.
Technology is a means, not an end. It is a betrayal of the humyn impulse to obtain wisdom if the scientific advances are accessible only to a small fraction of humynity. The tech and knowledge gap resulting from income inequality is one of the central dilemmas of modern society.
We all remember the "Tragedy of the Commons" lesson back in basic economics class: the commons is an open green field (common property, hence the name) where all the residents of a village are allowed to graze their sheep free of charge, with no limitations. The tragedy of the title comes about when all the villagers, beholden to no one as to the use of the commons, blithely allow their sheep to overgraze the precious grass. Soon there is no grass for anyone, because everyone got too greedy.
The analogy with the music "industry" is clear. The rich musical heritage of humynity is a common good, like education, public health, or the environment. In this "cyber" age, music is controlled more than ever by corporations seeking to hold this public good in thrall for private gain. A point illustrated by this statement from the article: (n)ow everyone is paralyzed, horrified by the idea that this online world will rearrange the portions and leave some people with less than they had before. Weapons are drawn. Lawyers have been retained. Nobody is budging.
A conference about the future of music,music --everything from the simple act of whistling a happy tune, singing "Happy Birthday", teaching the ABC's song to a child, or contemplating the sublime accomplishments of Ockgehem or Poulenc-- is today nothing more than a massive multi-party lawsuit waiting to happen.
The representatives of the recording and radio industries stand like villagers ready to bust each others' heads open to give their sheep the best oppportunity to graze the commons to the dirt. They care only about profits, and are willing to ever more intrusive, cumbersome, and expensive technologies to protect their precious bottom line. Compared with these soulless greed merchants, those strong, free souls who use peer-to-peer software to share.ogg and.mp3 files can be seen as latter-day Robin Hoods, living by their wits, using their tech savy to ensure that the public good of music is not depleted by the wealthy few.
This camera is unquestionably an exciting use of embedded Linux. Few things rival the coolness factor of a panoramic lightning storm color photo spread. But I worry.
...what's next?
I think back to the film Real Genius probably the high point of Val Kilmer's acting career. In the film, the character of Hollyfield, a madman who lives in a closet, is described as "a gifted scientist, until he found out the government was using one of his inventions to kill people" (emphasis mine).
With that thought, the chilling possibility arises: if Linux can be used for good, like in cameras, how long before it is used for evil? How will Slashdot report on the first embedded-linux-using guided atomic bomb?This is something the needs to be seriously considered now. The Linux community cannot afford to wait until embedded Linux is used in torture devices by some fascist regime before confronting the possibilities of using Linux for evil.
A "Linux Bill of Rights" should be drawn up, roundly condemning the use of Linux for destructive, sexist, racist, or environmentally degrading practices. So much progress has been made through Linux. This great OS, the product of strong, free geeks, must not be allowed to become a tool for evil. The voices of the Linux community must be heard: rememer the lesson of Real Genius!
For Linux to achieve ubiquity by being bundled with giveaway computers in some pie-in-the-sky bureaucrat's wet dream would be the final insult toward well-meaning, strong, free geeks and she-geeks everywhere.
Linux is not a government freebie like a pork-barrel defense plant or a welfare check. Linux is the product of thousands upon thousands of geek-hours of coding, the goal of which was goal to develop a stable, versatile operating system. It should be used by those who are willing to accept its challenges. Linux should be adopted by those who love computers, networking, and coding. The Linux OS should be used by those willing to learn to recompile, to manage packets, to.tar,.gz,.bz, and.gcc. Linux belongs with those who will caress it tenderly like the quivering privates of a respected lover, not those conditioned by "user-friendly" OS's into indifferently humping away until they get what they need.
In other words, forcing Linux on a public who can barely grasp the concept of drag-and-drop will do more harm than good. Millions of people brought up on candy-coated GUIs will view the challenges offered by Linux as a waste of valuable TV-watching time. They will see a blank screen and a blinking cursor as a step backwards rather than the jumping off point to a realm of limitless options. They simply will not understand. Like enlightenment, Linux belongs to those willing to work at it.
What, really, is the source of hatred of freeloaders? What, really, is freeloading? Is not the "freeloader" the person who is ingenious enough to figure out a way to obtain for nothing what others can only come by through sweat and muscle?
I would say he is.
What, then, is the source of this urge to "punish" freeloaders? Could it be the resentment of the brutish toward the clever? Where was most of the hostility toward the peer-to-peer file-sharing masses emanating form, if not form the hard-working, tech-ignorant, "ordinary joe" segment of society, so brainwashed into spending their hard-earned dollars on Backstreet Boys CD's that they saw the rise of Gnutella, Kazaa, and Audiogalaxy as a threat to their very beings?
And so, like Socrates being forced to chugalug that hemlock forty, those responsible for file-sharing software find themselves on the business end of some truly fierce lawsuits. The stoop-browed, grunting element of humanity is, as is its nature, attempting yet again, to crush those more ingenious than themselves, through raw force. When will they learn? When will they learn?
So, the corrosive forces of libertarianism continue to eat away at the foundations of society. Our very system of justice is being digitized and networked, just one more data stream at the beck and call of those with the fattest pipe and the biggest wallet.
Once the right to face your accuser meant something. Our nation was forged by men who journeyed for days to debate one another in the flesh, about the ways in which our government should take shape. The founding documents of this country were forged in the crucible of human interaction, not by pixellated images on glowing monitors! Soon, jurors will muse over the fates of their fellow human beings from the comfort of their homes talking with one another in "chat rooms", never having seen in person the poor souls on whom they sit in judgement. Life-or-death decisions will be as simple as a Slashdot poll.
Anyone who has experienced the gripping film Twelve Angry Men will know in their hearts the importance of human interaction in the process if deliberative justice. We as citizens of this country need to take a hard look at what's happening here. We must take back our irreplacable Third Estate from the hands of greedy corporations more concerned with lining their own pockets than with the true meaning of justice.
I'll never forget last summer. I was sixteen, an only son, living with my 36 year-old single mother. Mom keeps herself in good shape, hitting the gym 3 days a week. Her long auburn hair, big, buoyant bosom, and curvy hips make her highly attractive to men, and she dated around some after the divorce, but never really settled in with a steady guy. Anyway, ever since my parents' breakup, I'd been spending a lot of time in my room, surfing the net, chatting, downloading warez, all that good stuff. Of course like anyone I ran across my share of porn, and I had a nice cache of the good stuff on my hard drive for spending quality time with my little friend Rosy Palms;-)
So one day I got home a little early from baseball practice. There was Mom, in my room, sitting at my computer desk, her eyes glued to my monitor: guess what was on the screen! She was right in the middle of one of my hotter double-entry MMF.avi's, so engrossed in it that she didn't even notice me walk in! When I caught sight of my Mother, I was so startled, I dropped my bookbag. The loud thump caused her to turn around.
Mom's eyes were wide open and her full, red lips were moist with saliva. For a while we just stood there and stared at each other in silence. I was totally flabbergasted. I had all my porn nicely organized by theme, with separate folders for lesbians, 3-way, anal, interracials, and so on, and I found myself wondering how long Mom had been sitting there. Then mom asked, in a tone of voice somewhere between a whisper and a moan: "do you like looking at these pictures, Billy?". I didn't know what to say, I was so shocked. How do you answer a question like that: "Yeah, sure mom, I beat off to 'em all the time!"?
Without waiting for an answer, Mom got up from the chair and started across the room in my direction. My heart started hammering, and I felt my face flush hotly when I noticed that her big thick nipples were hard. "Do you like doing those things with girls, Billy?" asked Mom, advancing towards me. I'd made out with a few girls on dates, and felt up a tit or two, but at that point in my life, I'd never experienced anything like the sex on my porn stash. My cock, much to my embarrassment, began hardening as my Mother brought her warm, fleshy bod closer and closer to me. To my shock and delight, almost as if I was standing outside my body watching myself, I found myself reaching my hand out, groping toward her firm rounded
All this money, all this work, all this energy, all those SETI screensavers. For what? For a quixotic attempt to contact intelligent life forms that may be somewhere out there. A colossally expensive and time-consuming act of denial.
Denial of the fact that in all likelihood there is no one out there, and if there is, we will not be able to contact them, and if we do receive their messages, we will not be able to understand them.
Why this obsession with talking to aliens? Why do we not try talking... to each other? It seems we have finally given up hope of communicating with our fellow human beings? We have finally relented to the hatred that has left a trail of the dead through Israel, Yugoslavia, New York City. We instead turn our eyes to the sky, where God once was, hoping for a kind word from above, hoping that as-yet-undiscovered intellects from across the stars will provide the answers we have failed to find within ourselves.
from: mpsherwwod@crapco.com to: klfrancis@crapco.com Don't you just hate all that "spam" in your mailbox? Well now there's this great contest where you can write poems satirizing junk e-mail!
from: klfrancis@crapco.com to: mpsherwwod@crapco.com Ha! I have one: "Roses are red/Violets are blue/I hate spam/And so do you!
from: mpsherwood@crapco.com to: klfrancis@crapco.com LOL! Good one! here's mine: Doubt that the stars are fire/Doubt that the Earth doth move/Doubt truth to be a liar/But never doubt that you can Make Money Now!!!
from: klfrancis@crapco.com to: mpsherwood@crapco.com ROTFL! That was great! Here's one I just thought up: How do I hate spam? Let me count the ways/I hate spam to the death and breadth and sight/my eyes can see by monitor's white light/For the ends of 'boxes free from junk/"enlarge your cock" and other bunk
from: mpsherwood@crapco.com to: klfrancis@crapco.com LMAO! Oh, that was priceless! I just came up with another one: Rather than words/comes the sight of junk e-mail/The porn-comprehending URLs/And beyond them, the internet/That holds nothing/And is nowhere/And is endless.
from: klfrancis@crapco.com to: mpsherwood@crapco.com ROTFLMAO!!! That was the best one! Oh man, my sides ache. So, do you have the assault rifles ready for Thursday?
from: mpsherwood@crapco.com to: klfrancis@crapco.com You bet. Downsize us!?! I don't think so, fuckers.
Slashdot Mirror
True file sharing technology should not sneak Gator onto your hard drive or try to sell you CDs you don't want
The future of P2P belongs to technologies like GNUtella, which can be used to set up truly decentralized file-sharing networks that CANNOT be struck down by tyrants disguised in business suits
Yes, GNUtella is harder to use, klunkier, and tends to access smaller listings of files, but given time and work, these problems will be alleviated as greed-driven fake P2P systems like Napster and Kazaa are crushed by the moneyed interests controlling the legal system.
Anyway, True Freedom belongs to those willing to work for it. Strong, free geeks will always find a way to overcome the forces of oppression. Forget Kazaa. P2P4Profit is a deservedly dead end.
The next expected step will be to combine the two, software intellects with hardware brawn, creating robot minions that do not require human controllers. Of course if we are not careful, the darwinian effect of these artificial gladiators' constant struggle with one another may be to bring about a race of super robot warriors that turn on their creators and exterminate humankind, turning the Earth into a real-life version of the nightmarish Cylon Empire featued in the "Battlestar Galactica" television program.
So we must be careful not to let the cheap thrills we get out of watching robot conflicts get the best of us. We must do all we can to integrate peaceful, loving ideals into software and robot development so that perhaps in the future we will be able to lie in harmony rather than strife with our creations.
Note the use of Orwellian doublespeak euphemism in the BSA's chilling press release:
Translation: Robbers! Sinners! Repent, O ye unclean ones!
The Grace Period ...is a great opportunity for businesses to resolve any compliance issues before they become subjects of a BSA investigation.
Translation: the Gestapo is on the way. Grab your ankles and smile.
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is the voice of the world's software and Internet industry
Translation: The BSA is out to squeeze every last possible dollar out of software users
BSA worldwide members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, FileMaker, Macromedia, Microsoft, Symantec, and Unigraphics Solutions
No comment necessary.
Those who scoff at Open Source/GNU should consider whether they want to live in a world where the tentacles of the BSA and their ilk -- and in an increasingly digitized world, expect, oh yes, do expect similar organizations to crop up defending the interests of digital text publishers, media broadcasters, etc.-- extend, oozing, slimy and cold, into every crevice and opening of what we used to quaintly refer to as our "private lives".
No price information is mentioned on the website. Presumably, if you have to ask, you can't afford one.
Who will be using the MaxiMog? Who will be storming the remote regions of the planet in data-gathering expeditions?
Why the rich, of course.
As expensive technology plays a larger and larger role in scientific research, the danger grows that developing countries who lack the funds to train people to understand and utilize new scientific breakthroughs, will fall farther and farther behind.
Technology is a means, not an end. It is a betrayal of the humyn impulse to obtain wisdom if the scientific advances are accessible only to a small fraction of humynity. The tech and knowledge gap resulting from income inequality is one of the central dilemmas of modern society.
The analogy with the music "industry" is clear. The rich musical heritage of humynity is a common good, like education, public health, or the environment. In this "cyber" age, music is controlled more than ever by corporations seeking to hold this public good in thrall for private gain. A point illustrated by this statement from the article: (n)ow everyone is paralyzed, horrified by the idea that this online world will rearrange the portions and leave some people with less than they had before. Weapons are drawn. Lawyers have been retained. Nobody is budging.
A conference about the future of music,music --everything from the simple act of whistling a happy tune, singing "Happy Birthday", teaching the ABC's song to a child, or contemplating the sublime accomplishments of Ockgehem or Poulenc-- is today nothing more than a massive multi-party lawsuit waiting to happen.
The representatives of the recording and radio industries stand like villagers ready to bust each others' heads open to give their sheep the best oppportunity to graze the commons to the dirt. They care only about profits, and are willing to ever more intrusive, cumbersome, and expensive technologies to protect their precious bottom line. Compared with these soulless greed merchants, those strong, free souls who use peer-to-peer software to share .ogg and .mp3 files can be seen as latter-day Robin Hoods, living by their wits, using their tech savy to ensure that the public good of music is not depleted by the wealthy few.
...what's next?
I think back to the film Real Genius probably the high point of Val Kilmer's acting career. In the film, the character of Hollyfield, a madman who lives in a closet, is described as "a gifted scientist, until he found out the government was using one of his inventions to kill people " (emphasis mine).
With that thought, the chilling possibility arises: if Linux can be used for good, like in cameras, how long before it is used for evil? How will Slashdot report on the first embedded-linux-using guided atomic bomb?This is something the needs to be seriously considered now. The Linux community cannot afford to wait until embedded Linux is used in torture devices by some fascist regime before confronting the possibilities of using Linux for evil.
A "Linux Bill of Rights" should be drawn up, roundly condemning the use of Linux for destructive, sexist, racist, or environmentally degrading practices. So much progress has been made through Linux. This great OS, the product of strong, free geeks, must not be allowed to become a tool for evil. The voices of the Linux community must be heard: rememer the lesson of Real Genius!
Linux is not a government freebie like a pork-barrel defense plant or a welfare check. Linux is the product of thousands upon thousands of geek-hours of coding, the goal of which was goal to develop a stable, versatile operating system. It should be used by those who are willing to accept its challenges. Linux should be adopted by those who love computers, networking, and coding. The Linux OS should be used by those willing to learn to recompile, to manage packets, to .tar, .gz, .bz, and .gcc. Linux belongs with those who will caress it tenderly like the quivering privates of a respected lover, not those conditioned by "user-friendly" OS's into indifferently humping away until they get what they need.
In other words, forcing Linux on a public who can barely grasp the concept of drag-and-drop will do more harm than good. Millions of people brought up on candy-coated GUIs will view the challenges offered by Linux as a waste of valuable TV-watching time. They will see a blank screen and a blinking cursor as a step backwards rather than the jumping off point to a realm of limitless options. They simply will not understand. Like enlightenment, Linux belongs to those willing to work at it.
I would say he is.
What, then, is the source of this urge to "punish" freeloaders? Could it be the resentment of the brutish toward the clever? Where was most of the hostility toward the peer-to-peer file-sharing masses emanating form, if not form the hard-working, tech-ignorant, "ordinary joe" segment of society, so brainwashed into spending their hard-earned dollars on Backstreet Boys CD's that they saw the rise of Gnutella, Kazaa, and Audiogalaxy as a threat to their very beings?
And so, like Socrates being forced to chugalug that hemlock forty, those responsible for file-sharing software find themselves on the business end of some truly fierce lawsuits. The stoop-browed, grunting element of humanity is, as is its nature, attempting yet again, to crush those more ingenious than themselves, through raw force. When will they learn? When will they learn?
Once the right to face your accuser meant something. Our nation was forged by men who journeyed for days to debate one another in the flesh, about the ways in which our government should take shape. The founding documents of this country were forged in the crucible of human interaction, not by pixellated images on glowing monitors! Soon, jurors will muse over the fates of their fellow human beings from the comfort of their homes talking with one another in "chat rooms", never having seen in person the poor souls on whom they sit in judgement. Life-or-death decisions will be as simple as a Slashdot poll.
Anyone who has experienced the gripping film Twelve Angry Men will know in their hearts the importance of human interaction in the process if deliberative justice. We as citizens of this country need to take a hard look at what's happening here. We must take back our irreplacable Third Estate from the hands of greedy corporations more concerned with lining their own pockets than with the true meaning of justice.
So one day I got home a little early from baseball practice. There was Mom, in my room, sitting at my computer desk, her eyes glued to my monitor: guess what was on the screen! She was right in the middle of one of my hotter double-entry MMF .avi's, so engrossed in it that she didn't even notice me walk in! When I caught sight of my Mother, I was so startled, I dropped my bookbag. The loud thump caused her to turn around.
Mom's eyes were wide open and her full, red lips were moist with saliva. For a while we just stood there and stared at each other in silence. I was totally flabbergasted. I had all my porn nicely organized by theme, with separate folders for lesbians, 3-way, anal, interracials, and so on, and I found myself wondering how long Mom had been sitting there. Then mom asked, in a tone of voice somewhere between a whisper and a moan: "do you like looking at these pictures, Billy?". I didn't know what to say, I was so shocked. How do you answer a question like that: "Yeah, sure mom, I beat off to 'em all the time!"?
Without waiting for an answer, Mom got up from the chair and started across the room in my direction. My heart started hammering, and I felt my face flush hotly when I noticed that her big thick nipples were hard. "Do you like doing those things with girls, Billy?" asked Mom, advancing towards me. I'd made out with a few girls on dates, and felt up a tit or two, but at that point in my life, I'd never experienced anything like the sex on my porn stash. My cock, much to my embarrassment, began hardening as my Mother brought her warm, fleshy bod closer and closer to me. To my shock and delight, almost as if I was standing outside my body watching myself, I found myself reaching my hand out, groping toward her firm rounded
Denial of the fact that in all likelihood there is no one out there, and if there is, we will not be able to contact them, and if we do receive their messages, we will not be able to understand them.
Why this obsession with talking to aliens? Why do we not try talking... to each other? It seems we have finally given up hope of communicating with our fellow human beings? We have finally relented to the hatred that has left a trail of the dead through Israel, Yugoslavia, New York City. We instead turn our eyes to the sky, where God once was, hoping for a kind word from above, hoping that as-yet-undiscovered intellects from across the stars will provide the answers we have failed to find within ourselves.
We hope in vain.
to: klfrancis@crapco.com
Don't you just hate all that "spam" in your mailbox? Well now there's this great contest where you can write poems satirizing junk e-mail!
from: klfrancis@crapco.com
to: mpsherwwod@crapco.com
Ha! I have one: "Roses are red/Violets are blue/I hate spam/And so do you!
from: mpsherwood@crapco.com
to: klfrancis@crapco.com
LOL! Good one! here's mine: Doubt that the stars are fire/Doubt that the Earth doth move/Doubt truth to be a liar/But never doubt that you can Make Money Now!!!
from: klfrancis@crapco.com
to: mpsherwood@crapco.com
ROTFL! That was great! Here's one I just thought up: How do I hate spam? Let me count the ways/I hate spam to the death and breadth and sight/my eyes can see by monitor's white light/For the ends of 'boxes free from junk/"enlarge your cock" and other bunk
from: mpsherwood@crapco.com
to: klfrancis@crapco.com
LMAO! Oh, that was priceless! I just came up with another one: Rather than words/comes the sight of junk e-mail/The porn-comprehending URLs/And beyond them, the internet/That holds nothing/And is nowhere/And is endless.
from: klfrancis@crapco.com
to: mpsherwood@crapco.com
ROTFLMAO!!! That was the best one! Oh man, my sides ache. So, do you have the assault rifles ready for Thursday?
from: mpsherwood@crapco.com
to: klfrancis@crapco.com
You bet. Downsize us!?! I don't think so, fuckers.