is Kevin's specialty. That kind of skill will never be obsolete
Perhaps not, but his expertise in that particular area would make me even more dubious about hiring him. How would you ever know whether he was really reformed, or whether you were just another victim of his 'social engineering'?
He has this valueable knowledge and changes are someone will approach him with an offer
I rather suspect that's precisely what's worrying his ex-prosecutor.
What happens when his business is doing poorly and someone makes him an offer he can't refuse? Though I suspect that given his current celebrity/notoriety, that's unlikely to happen in the near future.
the Act criminalizes the reproduction or distribution of one or more copyrighted works that have an aggregrate retail value of $1000 over a period of 180 days.
But you didn't say anything about uploading being criminal, which it may well be under certain circumstances. You claimed that downloading copyrighted material made you a criminal.
Bah huh? Since when did college students have a positive appearance in the public eye? Seems to me that college students are largely regarded as generally lazy, cheap, and annoying
Perhaps so, but on the other hand, it seems from this side of the Atlantic that Ivy League students grow up and run the country. I imagine that at least some influential people will have a bit of empathy as far as this is concerned, and hopefully the present generation of students won't allow this stuff to happen when their turn for power comes.
I'm not surprised your friends don't have recording contracts. If they did, they'd soon learn that for 95% of the musicians who have them, they aren't much help when the rent is due either.
For most musicians, a recording contract is a form of indentured slavery. It's only those who either have a long and sustained career with regular sales, or those who sell gold albums who actually make a significant living from it.
Don't be fooled. This isn't about money for artists. It's about profits for companies and shareholders. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but at least be honest enough to tell it like it really is.
I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's flawed, in fact, in law and in logic.
Criminal = in breach of the criminal law. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the person in the aforementioned case is being sued for copyright infringement, a breach of civil law? Ergo, not criminal.
Again, I'm completely unaware of any criminal statutes that prohibit downloading copyrighted material. Again, not criminal.
If you actually bothered to read the article, you'd find that all that the guy did was create a Google like search engine that indexed all files on SMB shares in Princeton. I don't see the owners of Google getting arrested, but the RIAA clearly wants to send a message to young people, and they have decided to do this by targetting the brightest and best, and hitting them with an outrageous law suit which appears to stand little real chance of success of anything other than ruining an innocent young man's life.
You don't need a cracked copy if you're running it on Linux. As long as you aren't running it in a production environment, Oracle is, to all intents and purposes, shareware.
No nasty nag screens or missing functionality either.
If you have free time you're wasting your parents tuition money.
Well, I'd argue that he'd only be wasting it if it was a barber or clown college, or some other trade school he was attending.
If he was going to college for a proper education, on the other hand, the goal is to teach you how to think critically, not to cram as many facts into your head in the shortest possible time.
And that should leave him plenty of free time to write open source software, or pursue more college traditional life-enhancing activities like getting drunk, smoking weed and getting laid.
Communism is flawed because it allows powerhungry people to obtain a permanant position without checks and balances.
You're confusing the political philosophy with the bureaucratic organization of the state apparatus. There's no inherent connection between these two things. There's absolutely no reason why you can't have a communist state that has free and full elections and limits on holding power.
Communism as a political philosophy may have flaws, but they aren't the ones you say they are.
It's rubbish. A collection of partial half truths and ignored data. The HIV hypothesis is now so robust as to be generally accepted by anyone with an ounce of scientific training.
More than one researcher has argued that something is wrong with the research done on aids.
More than one researcher has argued that the world is flat, but that's not true either. These critics clearly have no conception of how science actually works.
I'm not into conspiracy
You clearly are. The alternative explanation is that you're just ignorant, so I'd rather take a charitable view.
But I am into thinking and evaluating what experts tell me.
Then you need to think a little harder about how you evaluate what constitutes an 'expert'.
If you wish to blindly follow what is said and not inquire as to why we have no simple definition of HIV or AIDs, after how many years, fine.
There are 'simple definitions' of both HIV and AIDS. If you don't understand them, then I'd argue that the failure lies with you, not with the definitions.
HIV is a virus that is implicated in the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The latter is so called because it describes a cluster of symptoms and illnesses associated with failure of the immune system. Acquired because it isn't congenital (as other immune deficiencies are.)
What was so difficult about that? Can you point to somewhere aside from an AIDS conspiracy theorist where those definitions are contested?
Mbeke seems to be doing all he can to find out why so many of his citizens are dying and why no cure is available.
He'd do rather better to focus on what he can do to help treat them. There's no cure for cancer or the common cold either, but both conditions are treatable, and as with AIDS, indefinite remission is possible with some cancers.
I guess his advisors might be more qualified than you?
If so, you'd be guessing wrong. His advisors are clearly fuckwits who have no idea about how to evaluate scientific evidence.
In summary your view might be correct, but there is no evidence so far to support it.
Here's a question for you. How much of the mainstream research on HIV and AIDS have you actually read? I'd be willing to bet you any amount of money that the amount adds up to none, and you get *all* of your information from these conspiracy theorists.
If there is no evidence so far how much longer must we wait for evidence to appear?
One last time. The evidence today that HIV is a causal factor in AIDS is overwhelming. Everything from the epidemiological data on transmission to what we know about treatment draws us to this conclusion. Yes, there may be co-factors involved -- but there's no strong evidence for this yet. Yes, some people may have a degree of resistance to it. That's true of other viral infections as well. Yes, the virus is mutating or different strains are being found. This is also true of other viruses. (Hepatitis, for example.)
Apartheid ("separate development") is more alive than ever in South Africa
Is that so? When did the South African government pass laws dictating who people could and couldn't marry, where they could and couldn't live and work? Where is it that they are throwing the weight of the regime into imprisoning people who challenge this system?
Oh yeah, that's right. They didn't, did they. They just moved over to a democratic system and you don't like the idea of being governed by a black majority. Well tough. My heart bleeds. Not.
I have nothing against black people, but the majority of them are worse off now than they ever were during the apartheid.
Yeah, yeah. Slave owners used to say the same thing about slavery as well. Funny how few black people say it though.
It is very clear to me that you have no backgound in usability or GUI design.
Heh. I'm curious as to how you'd reach that conclusion.
It's apparent from the nature of your arguments. Your arguments are all derived from the way you -- a relatively expert power user -- utilizes his screen real-estate with maximum efficiency.
Someone with real expertise in useability or user interface design would be working from the basis of having observed novice users and determined what seems most intuitive and most straightforward to them.
I've no doubt that there are many people who can romp through a document in Emacs far faster than someone can in say, BBEdit. That doesn't make Emacs a triumph of useability or good user interface design (at least, not in the sense the word is normally used.)
Personally, I don't use tabs myself -- even when I use Mozilla, but I still think you're dead wrong about how useable they are.
Not only is the Mac market bigger (and captive; no ability to just boot Windows if they wanted to play), the support for OpenGL is more polished and it would give them a proving ground for their work.
Are you sure about this? Just last week, I was reading that the sales of Linux boxed sets would put Linux desktops on a par with the Mac user base, and if you include iso downloads, then Linux will have overtaken Mac use for the first time ever.
I can't recall where I read it, though I've a strong suspicion it was in last Thursday's Guardian.
Like it or not, everything musical you purchase has an association with the RIAA; if the RIAA goes bankrupt from the rampant internet piracy of their intellectual property, the whole world will suffer, because all sources of music will dry up.
Back in the 80's, virtually all the news and comment that people read came from traditional media -- newspapers and magazines. When the internet came along and people started to give that stuff away for free, the old media started to panic, worried that nobody would want to read their lame old periodicals any more and they'd all collapse through lack of revenue.
Well, we're still waiting. People still read a lot of news online, but I don't see any signs that the media is collapsing. Far from drying up, two of the biggest UK news sites are those of The Guardian and the BBC, but both organizations have grown steadily over the last ten years.
Clearly, the RIAA doesn't have the wit or the imagination to make the most of technological progress. However, I see no reason whatsoever to subsidize them for their lack of imagination in this regard.
I'd spam them in the morning,
I'd spam them in the evening,
All over this land,
I'd spam about Viagra,
I'd spam about penis enhancement,
I'd spam about the love between a brother and a sister,
All-all, all over this XXX adult website.
Maybe the developers are just too lazy to build their systems "from scratch" like they used to
Sigh. You're another of those Slashdot commies, aren't you?
The problem with building cars "from scratch" is that it's an open source process, and as we all know, open source is a cancer that will destroy the whole of the automobile industry.
Putting Windows CE in your cars is the right thing to do. The patriotic thing to do. And the fact that these OS's normally take a good few service packs before they get it right is good for the industry and good for the US economy (and God knows she needs all the help she can get at the moment.)
Frustration with bugs and crashes will force people to upgrade (buy new cars) more and more frequently, and we'll need a growing technical support industry to help those people who can't be bothered to RTFM.
"What's that you say, sir? Stuck in a traffic jam with a BSOD? Would you mind reading your product identification code please? No, that's OK, I'm sure the 10,000 people behind you won't mind waiting while you raise the hood and find the sticker on the engine.
First, if there is a problem, Iwould prefer that my doctor could call MS and get courteous, knowledgeable assistance.
Dr. Brain: Help, help. I've got a patient under the knife and the screen has turned all blue on me. Unless I can get this machine up and running in the next twenty minutes, I'm going to lose the patient.
Microsoft drone: I'm very sorry to hear that sir. Tell me, do you have one of our support contracts?
Doctor Brain: How the fuck do I know? I'm a surgeon, not a pencil necked geek. Just tell me how to fix the damn thing.
Microsoft drone: I'm sorry sir, but unless you can quote us your support contract ID number. we'll have to charge you for the support call. We do accept Visa, Mastercard or American Express.
Doctor Brain: I'm in my scrubs in a sterile operating room. Do you really expect me to go out and get my wallet so that I can... oh, for fuck's sake.
Feet leaving the room, then returning
Doctor Brain: OK, it's VISA and the name is Dr. Ivor Bigg-Brain. The card number is 0123-4321-1234-5433.
Microsoft drone: And what's the expiry date, please sir?
Doctor Brain: Expiry date? Um, that would be about two minutes ago. The poor bastard has just died.
Microsoft drone: In order to avoid such embarrassing and inconvenient incidents in the future, sir, can I suggest that your hospital become a member of our Platinum Support Scheme. It will only cost you ten zillion zlotys a week, and we'll be able to avoid all of this tiresome checking before hand.
Doctor Brain: Oh, I suppose so. Go on then, sign me up...
Microsoft Drone: And which hospital would that be, sir?
Doctor Brain: (Growing snippish and exasperated. He's upset about this as it's the first time he's ever lost a patient.) St. Teresa of the Miraculous Pocket Protector, Buttfuck, Missouri.
Long pause while nothing is said. We hear the frantic pounding of keys at the other end of the line.
Doctor Brain: Hello? Are you still there? Can we get this signed up and done? I don't want this happening again in the futute.
Microsoft drone: Uh, actually, it seems that your hospital has been signed up to our platinum support programme for the last fifteen years -- since you bought your first IBM PC. It's just that nobody's ever bothered to make an enquiry before today, which is why there was a delay.
Doctor Brain: Jesus Christ... Well, I suppose you'd better tell me what I should do to fix the damn thing. I've got another surgery scheduled in twenty minutes.
Microsoft drone: Well, my operating procedure manual says that you should hold down the following keys simultaneously....ctrl, alt and delete. And if that doesn't fix it, please feel free to call me back and we'll see what we can do next time.
Slashdot Mirror
You raise a good point, but I don't know why the hell you're raising it here
I raised it here because it was your comment that prompted the thought.
The social engineer knowledge
ie, being an accomplished liar...
is Kevin's specialty. That kind of skill will never be obsolete
Perhaps not, but his expertise in that particular area would make me even more dubious about hiring him. How would you ever know whether he was really reformed, or whether you were just another victim of his 'social engineering'?
He has this valueable knowledge and changes are someone will approach him with an offer
I rather suspect that's precisely what's worrying his ex-prosecutor.
What happens when his business is doing poorly and someone makes him an offer he can't refuse? Though I suspect that given his current celebrity/notoriety, that's unlikely to happen in the near future.
have you checked out the BMW 330D? 204bhp, 296lb/ft.
Wow, it really *is* Alan Partridge. And all this time, I'd just assumed you were some Slashdot geek who was pretending...
Sheesh! I was taught that if you break the law, you're a criminal.
You were taught wrong, in that case. Criminals are people who break the criminal law.
So what do you call someone who's in breach of a civil law? A civilal?
The defendant, usually. As opposed to the plaintiff (who brings the action against them.)
the Act criminalizes the reproduction or distribution of one or more copyrighted works that have an aggregrate retail value of $1000 over a period of 180 days.
But you didn't say anything about uploading being criminal, which it may well be under certain circumstances. You claimed that downloading copyrighted material made you a criminal.
Once again, reference please?
Bah huh? Since when did college students have a positive appearance in the public eye? Seems to me that college students are largely regarded as generally lazy, cheap, and annoying
;-)
Perhaps so, but on the other hand, it seems from this side of the Atlantic that Ivy League students grow up and run the country. I imagine that at least some influential people will have a bit of empathy as far as this is concerned, and hopefully the present generation of students won't allow this stuff to happen when their turn for power comes.
OK, so I can dream, can't I?
I'm not surprised your friends don't have recording contracts. If they did, they'd soon learn that for 95% of the musicians who have them, they aren't much help when the rent is due either.
For most musicians, a recording contract is a form of indentured slavery. It's only those who either have a long and sustained career with regular sales, or those who sell gold albums who actually make a significant living from it.
Don't be fooled. This isn't about money for artists. It's about profits for companies and shareholders. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but at least be honest enough to tell it like it really is.
what is SO hard about this concept?
I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's flawed, in fact, in law and in logic.
Criminal = in breach of the criminal law. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the person in the aforementioned case is being sued for copyright infringement, a breach of civil law? Ergo, not criminal.
Again, I'm completely unaware of any criminal statutes that prohibit downloading copyrighted material. Again, not criminal.
If you actually bothered to read the article, you'd find that all that the guy did was create a Google like search engine that indexed all files on SMB shares in Princeton. I don't see the owners of Google getting arrested, but the RIAA clearly wants to send a message to young people, and they have decided to do this by targetting the brightest and best, and hitting them with an outrageous law suit which appears to stand little real chance of success of anything other than ruining an innocent young man's life.
Now *that's* fucking criminal.
You don't need a cracked copy if you're running it on Linux. As long as you aren't running it in a production environment, Oracle is, to all intents and purposes, shareware.
No nasty nag screens or missing functionality either.
Tens of thousands...
Probably won't get you a booth-babe, but you should qualify for one of the she-males that hustle their butts at the Holland Tunnel.
Barber or clown?
If you have free time you're wasting your parents tuition money.
Well, I'd argue that he'd only be wasting it if it was a barber or clown college, or some other trade school he was attending.
If he was going to college for a proper education, on the other hand, the goal is to teach you how to think critically, not to cram as many facts into your head in the shortest possible time.
And that should leave him plenty of free time to write open source software, or pursue more college traditional life-enhancing activities like getting drunk, smoking weed and getting laid.
Communism is flawed because it allows powerhungry people to obtain a permanant position without checks and balances.
You're confusing the political philosophy with the bureaucratic organization of the state apparatus. There's no inherent connection between these two things. There's absolutely no reason why you can't have a communist state that has free and full elections and limits on holding power.
Communism as a political philosophy may have flaws, but they aren't the ones you say they are.
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/
It's rubbish. A collection of partial half truths and ignored data. The HIV hypothesis is now so robust as to be generally accepted by anyone with an ounce of scientific training.
More than one researcher has argued that something is wrong with the research done on aids.
More than one researcher has argued that the world is flat, but that's not true either. These critics clearly have no conception of how science actually works.
I'm not into conspiracy
You clearly are. The alternative explanation is that you're just ignorant, so I'd rather take a charitable view.
But I am into thinking and evaluating what experts tell me.
Then you need to think a little harder about how you evaluate what constitutes an 'expert'.
If you wish to blindly follow what is said and not inquire as to why we have no simple definition of HIV or AIDs, after how many years, fine.
There are 'simple definitions' of both HIV and AIDS. If you don't understand them, then I'd argue that the failure lies with you, not with the definitions.
HIV is a virus that is implicated in the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The latter is so called because it describes a cluster of symptoms and illnesses associated with failure of the immune system. Acquired because it isn't congenital (as other immune deficiencies are.)
What was so difficult about that? Can you point to somewhere aside from an AIDS conspiracy theorist where those definitions are contested?
Mbeke seems to be doing all he can to find out why so many of his citizens are dying and why no cure is available.
He'd do rather better to focus on what he can do to help treat them. There's no cure for cancer or the common cold either, but both conditions are treatable, and as with AIDS, indefinite remission is possible with some cancers.
I guess his advisors might be more qualified than you?
If so, you'd be guessing wrong. His advisors are clearly fuckwits who have no idea about how to evaluate scientific evidence.
In summary your view might be correct, but there is no evidence so far to support it.
Here's a question for you. How much of the mainstream research on HIV and AIDS have you actually read? I'd be willing to bet you any amount of money that the amount adds up to none, and you get *all* of your information from these conspiracy theorists.
If there is no evidence so far how much longer must we wait for evidence to appear?
One last time. The evidence today that HIV is a causal factor in AIDS is overwhelming. Everything from the epidemiological data on transmission to what we know about treatment draws us to this conclusion. Yes, there may be co-factors involved -- but there's no strong evidence for this yet. Yes, some people may have a degree of resistance to it. That's true of other viral infections as well. Yes, the virus is mutating or different strains are being found. This is also true of other viruses. (Hepatitis, for example.)
Learn about Occams razor and apply it here.
Apartheid ("separate development") is more alive than ever in South Africa
Is that so? When did the South African government pass laws dictating who people could and couldn't marry, where they could and couldn't live and work? Where is it that they are throwing the weight of the regime into imprisoning people who challenge this system?
Oh yeah, that's right. They didn't, did they. They just moved over to a democratic system and you don't like the idea of being governed by a black majority. Well tough. My heart bleeds. Not.
I have nothing against black people, but the majority of them are worse off now than they ever were during the apartheid.
Yeah, yeah. Slave owners used to say the same thing about slavery as well. Funny how few black people say it though.
It is very clear to me that you have no backgound in usability or GUI design. Heh. I'm curious as to how you'd reach that conclusion.
It's apparent from the nature of your arguments. Your arguments are all derived from the way you -- a relatively expert power user -- utilizes his screen real-estate with maximum efficiency.
Someone with real expertise in useability or user interface design would be working from the basis of having observed novice users and determined what seems most intuitive and most straightforward to them.
I've no doubt that there are many people who can romp through a document in Emacs far faster than someone can in say, BBEdit. That doesn't make Emacs a triumph of useability or good user interface design (at least, not in the sense the word is normally used.)
Personally, I don't use tabs myself -- even when I use Mozilla, but I still think you're dead wrong about how useable they are.
Is this one of those inane 'In Soviet Russia' jokes then?
Not only is the Mac market bigger (and captive; no ability to just boot Windows if they wanted to play), the support for OpenGL is more polished and it would give them a proving ground for their work.
Are you sure about this? Just last week, I was reading that the sales of Linux boxed sets would put Linux desktops on a par with the Mac user base, and if you include iso downloads, then Linux will have overtaken Mac use for the first time ever.
I can't recall where I read it, though I've a strong suspicion it was in last Thursday's Guardian.
Am i supposed to pay the fines for someone that downloads music when all i download is software.
I suppose you and I will just have to wait until Bill Gates demands his ten dollars a week from ISP's to pay for the warez we've been leeching.
Like it or not, everything musical you purchase has an association with the RIAA; if the RIAA goes bankrupt from the rampant internet piracy of their intellectual property, the whole world will suffer, because all sources of music will dry up.
Back in the 80's, virtually all the news and comment that people read came from traditional media -- newspapers and magazines. When the internet came along and people started to give that stuff away for free, the old media started to panic, worried that nobody would want to read their lame old periodicals any more and they'd all collapse through lack of revenue.
Well, we're still waiting. People still read a lot of news online, but I don't see any signs that the media is collapsing. Far from drying up, two of the biggest UK news sites are those of The Guardian and the BBC, but both organizations have grown steadily over the last ten years.
Clearly, the RIAA doesn't have the wit or the imagination to make the most of technological progress. However, I see no reason whatsoever to subsidize them for their lack of imagination in this regard.
Let the fuckers crash and burn.
"If I were a spammer"
I'd spam them in the morning,
I'd spam them in the evening,
All over this land,
I'd spam about Viagra,
I'd spam about penis enhancement,
I'd spam about the love between a brother and a sister, All-all, all over this XXX adult website.
Ahem. Sorry about that but I couldn't resist...
Anonymous Coward writes:
I always drop down to (-1) to see who got FP today (...) I've got 3 FP's myself and I'm damn proud of it to.
Just three? But you appear to get it every on every article? Someone else is clearly posting with your user name.
Maybe the developers are just too lazy to build their systems "from scratch" like they used to
Sigh. You're another of those Slashdot commies, aren't you?
The problem with building cars "from scratch" is that it's an open source process, and as we all know, open source is a cancer that will destroy the whole of the automobile industry.
Putting Windows CE in your cars is the right thing to do. The patriotic thing to do. And the fact that these OS's normally take a good few service packs before they get it right is good for the industry and good for the US economy (and God knows she needs all the help she can get at the moment.)
Frustration with bugs and crashes will force people to upgrade (buy new cars) more and more frequently, and we'll need a growing technical support industry to help those people who can't be bothered to RTFM.
"What's that you say, sir? Stuck in a traffic jam with a BSOD? Would you mind reading your product identification code please? No, that's OK, I'm sure the 10,000 people behind you won't mind waiting while you raise the hood and find the sticker on the engine.
WILL YOU PEOPLE STOP PICKING NITS FROM MY POST AND HELP ME! I AM DESPERATE!
;-).
Heh. It sounds like you've had some experience of trying to get support for the GPL version of Smoothwall
First, if there is a problem, Iwould prefer that my doctor could call MS and get courteous, knowledgeable assistance.
Dr. Brain: Help, help. I've got a patient under the knife and the screen has turned all blue on me. Unless I can get this machine up and running in the next twenty minutes, I'm going to lose the patient.
Microsoft drone: I'm very sorry to hear that sir. Tell me, do you have one of our support contracts?
Doctor Brain: How the fuck do I know? I'm a surgeon, not a pencil necked geek. Just tell me how to fix the damn thing.
Microsoft drone: I'm sorry sir, but unless you can quote us your support contract ID number. we'll have to charge you for the support call. We do accept Visa, Mastercard or American Express.
Doctor Brain: I'm in my scrubs in a sterile operating room. Do you really expect me to go out and get my wallet so that I can... oh, for fuck's sake.
Feet leaving the room, then returning
Doctor Brain: OK, it's VISA and the name is Dr. Ivor Bigg-Brain. The card number is 0123-4321-1234-5433.
Microsoft drone: And what's the expiry date, please sir?
Doctor Brain: Expiry date? Um, that would be about two minutes ago. The poor bastard has just died.
Microsoft drone: In order to avoid such embarrassing and inconvenient incidents in the future, sir, can I suggest that your hospital become a member of our Platinum Support Scheme. It will only cost you ten zillion zlotys a week, and we'll be able to avoid all of this tiresome checking before hand.
Doctor Brain: Oh, I suppose so. Go on then, sign me up...
Microsoft Drone: And which hospital would that be, sir?
Doctor Brain: (Growing snippish and exasperated. He's upset about this as it's the first time he's ever lost a patient.) St. Teresa of the Miraculous Pocket Protector, Buttfuck, Missouri.
Long pause while nothing is said. We hear the frantic pounding of keys at the other end of the line.
Doctor Brain: Hello? Are you still there? Can we get this signed up and done? I don't want this happening again in the futute.
Microsoft drone: Uh, actually, it seems that your hospital has been signed up to our platinum support programme for the last fifteen years -- since you bought your first IBM PC. It's just that nobody's ever bothered to make an enquiry before today, which is why there was a delay.
Doctor Brain: Jesus Christ... Well, I suppose you'd better tell me what I should do to fix the damn thing. I've got another surgery scheduled in twenty minutes.
Microsoft drone: Well, my operating procedure manual says that you should hold down the following keys simultaneously....ctrl, alt and delete. And if that doesn't fix it, please feel free to call me back and we'll see what we can do next time.