then be prepared to continue to fight a losing battle.
It's not a recipe for success; it's a recipe for irrelevance. If you don't believe me, look where it's gotten you today.
I'll admit up front that what I'm about to say is harsh, but you're speaking as if the religious fundamentalists are somehow "winning". That's delusional. In fact, it is YOU that should be looking where your ideology has gotten you today: what political power you have derives from prostituting yourself to a political party that doesn't share your convictions but will gladly take your votes. Sure, every once in a while they'll pull a Terry Schiavo to make you feel good in your fight against the infidels, but for the most part they're using you to make themselves rich and powerful. Karl Rove is an atheist. Let that sink in for a bit.
Over time, as more and more people compare the empty promises of their faith with the actual results of the scientific approach, folks will follow Europe down the path of secularization. Science has made life better for humanity. It's hard for religions to make the same claim, especially the huge monolithic religions led by old men. That's not to say that science is perfect -- clearly it's not, and some scientific advances have actually made life more perilous. But overall, science has been the most successful approach to exploring our existence, and you do yourself and your children a disservice by fighting it.
Look around the world and compare secular societies to those dominated by religion. Which of those societies would you rather live in? Personally, I'm glad I live in a country that fosters an open marketplace of ideas in which science and reason can show their true merit.
But have CPUs been saturating gigabit connections for the past decade? Wouldn't that make a difference (as opposed to the =megabit connections that people used with older machines/OSs)? I'm not an expert on this, so I'm just looking for more info rather than being confrontational.
Just for the record, Microsoft is not a convicted criminal corporation. I'm sorry to say that you've fallen victim to lingering slashdot FUD (or maybe you're perpetrating it?). Microsoft was never charged under criminal statutes. US v Microsoft was a civil case, and losing a civil case is absolutely not the same thing as being convicted of a crime.
I know "convicted monopolist" has a certain ring to it, but you shouldn't be using it to describe Microsoft (unless you don't care about the truth).
And I hate people that refuse to recognize the truth just because it contradicts their naive fantasies. You'll have far more success solving problems if you're willing to accept the truth about the source of those problems.
The truth is that many WoW players prefer to trade cash for gold instead of time for gold. Until you deal with this demand, you'll never achieve your ideal fantasy world uncorrupted by companies like IGE.
No offense, but there are a lot of meatheads in the military (I was one of them, enlisted in the Army as a cavalry scout 19D). It's what you get when you have a bunch of armed 18-year-olds running around with the power of life or death. They're trained to work as a unit to kill the enemy, and I would never want to be facing our military in a fight, but that doesn't mean they're able to handle any mission they're given.
I remember footage from the invasion in 2003 that made me cringe: when a soldier covered Saddam's statue with an American flag before we pulled it down, or when a tank crew ran over several parked cars while the cars' owners yelled at them in a language our guys couldn't understand. You can't expect our enlisted guys to handle these situations with diplomatic finesse -- it's just not fair to them.
Less taxes now means I can invest and/or save more for later, and at a higher than the government.
The problem with your logic is that Bush is spending much more than you're saving. Even if he hadn't pushed through the tax cuts, we would be running a deficit right now. The tax cuts just add insult to injury.
Furthermore, this isn't just a issue for us, it's an issue for our children and grandchildren. THEY will be paying for the excesses of this decade, and they'll have to pay our debts at the same time they're funding Social Security for the baby boomers.
I shouldn't have used the word ignorant. I responded to your post's moderation in an overly-harsh manner.
I wasn't trying to say that I'm smart and you're not because I know the law is gray and you don't. I was trying to say that even though we all want useful answers from this guy, he's telling us that there are no useful answers, and you attacked him for it.
He could have played it safe and advised us all to do exactly what the RIAA says. That would ensure that none of us ever got sued. Very few of us would have been happy with that since we don't agree with the RIAA's interpretation of the law (and we're probably right). However, since there is a chance that their interpretation of the law will end up becoming the definitive interpretation, any course of action that doesn't conform to the RIAA's standards is fraught with peril due to their aggressiveness and their resources. So he is justified in saying that there is no correct answer: if you follow the RIAA standard, you could be giving up your rights, but if you oppose the RIAA, you could lose a lot of money and time even if you end up winning (plus there is a chance you will lose).
In other words, he cannot give out prescriptive advice to the general Slashdot audience because any advice he gives could end up screwing people out of their rights and/or their money. I know this isn't particularly useful, but in itself this lack of a useful answer illuminates the legal trainwreck we're facing, and to me that's the value of this interview.
Anyway, sorry to flame. This is a fascinating and important issue, and I'm glad it's getting debated here.
Okay, so... any more info? Where is the questioner wrong? Can we inform him any further? Just saying "You don't know what you're talking about" doesn't make him know any more about what he's talking about.
He was responding to someone that said he didn't know anything about copyright law, which is a silly thing to say. He responded more politely than most people would have.
This is a complicated, very muddled area of law with no clear answers even though everybody here is begging for clear answers. If you demand clear answers when no clear answers are available, you're going to get lies. You should be thankful that this guy is honest, and spending his valuable time trying to help us understand the true nature of the situation.
Your comment is the opposite of insightful. It's ignorant.
Everyone would love to have certainty, but this guy is trying to tell you that there is no certainty in this area of the law. People like things to be black and white, but very few things in life are.
When he says the law in this area is unsettled, that means that there are several legitimate but conflicting viewpoints, but no definitive answer yet from a court (or legislative body) as to which of these viewpoints is correct.
You're asking him to tell you with certainty who is going to win the Super Bowl in January, and he's trying to tell you that this is an impossible request. Sure, there are people out there that will say that so-and-so will win the Super Bowl for sure, and a lot of people believe them because they like certainty, but anyone with half a clue knows that you can't accurately predict the future.
The guy is on our side. Listen to what he's saying even though it isn't exactly what you want to hear.
Think about it for a second. Apache with Linux or BSD run a huge majority of the servers on the Web. If you wanted to deliver spyware, you'd exploit and infect these systems with a delivery mechanism. The reason malware authors have to target the client OS with email worms and things that start their own mini-webservers is that it's just too freaking difficult to compromise Unix-like systems.
Maybe the fact that experienced professionals run most of these servers is the real reason they are difficult to compromise. Maybe these same professionals could run secure servers using MS software. Maybe software and operating systems aren't the real source of malware problems. Maybe it's the novice users that install things they download off the net, or users that don't use firewalls or keep up with patches. Maybe those same users would have the exact same problems even if they were running Linux on their machines.
The interstate commerce clause merely gives the federal government the authority to regulate anything that affects interstate commerce. So Congress probably has authority under that clause to outlaw non-compete agreements, but I doubt that they ever will since a substantial portion of Congress is pro-business.
I found out last month that my mom bought a $25k+ car(!!!) on Ebay. I was flabbergasted that she would take that kind of risk. But she has the car, so I guess it worked out okay.
Open source does not and cannot die. There really is no debating this.
I can't comment on Open Source in general, but we shouldn't forget that Linux has an achilles heel: hardware.
Linux would not exist without the cheap standardized hardware created by Wintel behemoth. If this hardware equation changes dramatically (unlikely, but not impossible), then Linux would die.
It's hard for me to imagine such thing as an Open Source chip fab.
Slashdot Mirror
which 100 years?
If the Slashdot crowd's reaction to a new brand has any predictive power, then Bing is going to be a big hit.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/27/1625208
Very well said.
It's not a recipe for success; it's a recipe for irrelevance. If you don't believe me, look where it's gotten you today.
I'll admit up front that what I'm about to say is harsh, but you're speaking as if the religious fundamentalists are somehow "winning". That's delusional. In fact, it is YOU that should be looking where your ideology has gotten you today: what political power you have derives from prostituting yourself to a political party that doesn't share your convictions but will gladly take your votes. Sure, every once in a while they'll pull a Terry Schiavo to make you feel good in your fight against the infidels, but for the most part they're using you to make themselves rich and powerful. Karl Rove is an atheist. Let that sink in for a bit.
Over time, as more and more people compare the empty promises of their faith with the actual results of the scientific approach, folks will follow Europe down the path of secularization. Science has made life better for humanity. It's hard for religions to make the same claim, especially the huge monolithic religions led by old men. That's not to say that science is perfect -- clearly it's not, and some scientific advances have actually made life more perilous. But overall, science has been the most successful approach to exploring our existence, and you do yourself and your children a disservice by fighting it.
Look around the world and compare secular societies to those dominated by religion. Which of those societies would you rather live in? Personally, I'm glad I live in a country that fosters an open marketplace of ideas in which science and reason can show their true merit.
But have CPUs been saturating gigabit connections for the past decade? Wouldn't that make a difference (as opposed to the =megabit connections that people used with older machines/OSs)? I'm not an expert on this, so I'm just looking for more info rather than being confrontational.
Just for the record, Microsoft is not a convicted criminal corporation. I'm sorry to say that you've fallen victim to lingering slashdot FUD (or maybe you're perpetrating it?). Microsoft was never charged under criminal statutes. US v Microsoft was a civil case, and losing a civil case is absolutely not the same thing as being convicted of a crime.
I know "convicted monopolist" has a certain ring to it, but you shouldn't be using it to describe Microsoft (unless you don't care about the truth).
well done
And I hate people that refuse to recognize the truth just because it contradicts their naive fantasies. You'll have far more success solving problems if you're willing to accept the truth about the source of those problems.
The truth is that many WoW players prefer to trade cash for gold instead of time for gold. Until you deal with this demand, you'll never achieve your ideal fantasy world uncorrupted by companies like IGE.
Ultimately, humans have free will and choose their own actions.
What makes you say that? Free will is an assumption, not a scientific fact.
No offense, but there are a lot of meatheads in the military (I was one of them, enlisted in the Army as a cavalry scout 19D). It's what you get when you have a bunch of armed 18-year-olds running around with the power of life or death. They're trained to work as a unit to kill the enemy, and I would never want to be facing our military in a fight, but that doesn't mean they're able to handle any mission they're given.
I remember footage from the invasion in 2003 that made me cringe: when a soldier covered Saddam's statue with an American flag before we pulled it down, or when a tank crew ran over several parked cars while the cars' owners yelled at them in a language our guys couldn't understand. You can't expect our enlisted guys to handle these situations with diplomatic finesse -- it's just not fair to them.
The problem with your logic is that Bush is spending much more than you're saving. Even if he hadn't pushed through the tax cuts, we would be running a deficit right now. The tax cuts just add insult to injury.
Furthermore, this isn't just a issue for us, it's an issue for our children and grandchildren. THEY will be paying for the excesses of this decade, and they'll have to pay our debts at the same time they're funding Social Security for the baby boomers.
Seriously, this is bad.
If this technology gets good enough, none of us would ever need to learn a second language. That would be a bad thing, right?
I shouldn't have used the word ignorant. I responded to your post's moderation in an overly-harsh manner.
I wasn't trying to say that I'm smart and you're not because I know the law is gray and you don't. I was trying to say that even though we all want useful answers from this guy, he's telling us that there are no useful answers, and you attacked him for it.
He could have played it safe and advised us all to do exactly what the RIAA says. That would ensure that none of us ever got sued. Very few of us would have been happy with that since we don't agree with the RIAA's interpretation of the law (and we're probably right). However, since there is a chance that their interpretation of the law will end up becoming the definitive interpretation, any course of action that doesn't conform to the RIAA's standards is fraught with peril due to their aggressiveness and their resources. So he is justified in saying that there is no correct answer: if you follow the RIAA standard, you could be giving up your rights, but if you oppose the RIAA, you could lose a lot of money and time even if you end up winning (plus there is a chance you will lose).
In other words, he cannot give out prescriptive advice to the general Slashdot audience because any advice he gives could end up screwing people out of their rights and/or their money. I know this isn't particularly useful, but in itself this lack of a useful answer illuminates the legal trainwreck we're facing, and to me that's the value of this interview.
Anyway, sorry to flame. This is a fascinating and important issue, and I'm glad it's getting debated here.
Okay, so ... any more info? Where is the questioner wrong? Can we inform him any further? Just saying "You don't know what you're talking about" doesn't make him know any more about what he's talking about.
He was responding to someone that said he didn't know anything about copyright law, which is a silly thing to say. He responded more politely than most people would have.
This is a complicated, very muddled area of law with no clear answers even though everybody here is begging for clear answers. If you demand clear answers when no clear answers are available, you're going to get lies. You should be thankful that this guy is honest, and spending his valuable time trying to help us understand the true nature of the situation.
Your comment is the opposite of insightful. It's ignorant.
Everyone would love to have certainty, but this guy is trying to tell you that there is no certainty in this area of the law. People like things to be black and white, but very few things in life are.
When he says the law in this area is unsettled, that means that there are several legitimate but conflicting viewpoints, but no definitive answer yet from a court (or legislative body) as to which of these viewpoints is correct.
You're asking him to tell you with certainty who is going to win the Super Bowl in January, and he's trying to tell you that this is an impossible request. Sure, there are people out there that will say that so-and-so will win the Super Bowl for sure, and a lot of people believe them because they like certainty, but anyone with half a clue knows that you can't accurately predict the future.
The guy is on our side. Listen to what he's saying even though it isn't exactly what you want to hear.
Yeah, LA Story was good.
But Shopgirl was horrible. Talk about egocentric.
you speak the truth
Maybe the fact that experienced professionals run most of these servers is the real reason they are difficult to compromise. Maybe these same professionals could run secure servers using MS software. Maybe software and operating systems aren't the real source of malware problems. Maybe it's the novice users that install things they download off the net, or users that don't use firewalls or keep up with patches. Maybe those same users would have the exact same problems even if they were running Linux on their machines.
The interstate commerce clause merely gives the federal government the authority to regulate anything that affects interstate commerce. So Congress probably has authority under that clause to outlaw non-compete agreements, but I doubt that they ever will since a substantial portion of Congress is pro-business.
Technically, not obeying a judge's order is breaking the law.
long-finger at subalpine dot net Thanks!
I found out last month that my mom bought a $25k+ car(!!!) on Ebay. I was flabbergasted that she would take that kind of risk. But she has the car, so I guess it worked out okay.
Open source does not and cannot die. There really is no debating this.
I can't comment on Open Source in general, but we shouldn't forget that Linux has an achilles heel: hardware.
Linux would not exist without the cheap standardized hardware created by Wintel behemoth. If this hardware equation changes dramatically (unlikely, but not impossible), then Linux would die.
It's hard for me to imagine such thing as an Open Source chip fab.
nice
Well said.