If I am going to watch it in a week anyway on Free-to-Air TV and time-shift the commercials out, why is it wrong to download it a and watch it a week earlier?
We are Australian - our economy is doing just fine thanks to us exporting dirt to china, unlike America's economy which relies on exporting crap (ie. Movies, TV and reality drama) to the rest of the western world.
Sorry if I don't believe that bittorrenting supports terrorism or is un-patriotic.
Isn't this a fantastic demonstration of how well democracy works is in today's world.
Yeah, America's democracy is VASTLY DIFFERENT from communist China.
Here we have the greatest democracy in the world forcing propaganda on its citizens to assert a law that, more than half the population not only DO NOT AGREE WITH, but when told what it is, ADMIT TO HAVING BROKEN.
Dear America: I don't give a rats arse that you are so apathetic about your government's move to one dollar per vote rather than one person per vote, nor do I give a rats arse about your complete apathy as your 'select few' keep passing shitty laws to protect their power, but would you please tell them to stop forcing it on the rest of the world in the form of "free trade" treaties. In the meantime, enjoy your illusion of choice.
You can see a video of hovertank on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7juV9zo5Tk
Amazing to see how similar level 1 of hovertank is to level 1 of wolf 3d. It looks like all they've done for Wolf level 1 was to reskin the walls and put in new sprites!
Did anyone else get completely pissed off that game journalists for the next fifteen years _always_ called DOOM the first 3D FPS??
Sorry, I was talking about two different racks - the cheap home-made ones bent, the APC ones were very well built (and were actually bloody expensive), but had the front rails built into the side wall, so you couldn't route cables between the rail and the side of the rack. (APC did this on purpose to prevent front-back airflow around equipment).
It's kinda hard to find pictures, but if you look here:
You can see there is no gap between the vertical rails and the side of the rack. Whereas, if you have a normal rack, you have a space between the doors/sides and the rails, you can route a stray Ethernet cable sideways, using 0 RU.
To answer the poster's direct question: Yes, I have dealt with racks that you can't get to the back of. I've dealt with racks that have the vertical rails integrated into the sides. I've dealt with half-height racks, wall mounted racks that swing out so you can get to the back of them, and I've dealt with home-made racks that have rails that bend when you hang a server from the front. I've also worked with Compaq servers with mounting brackets that don't work unless your rails are exactly the right distance apart front-to-back (meaning you need to tear down a whole rack to re-position the rails, to mount one bloody server).
I have the following advice:
1. DO NOT BUY WALL MOUNTED RACKS (unless you are a large corporate or a public building). They are ugly as sin, they are never deep enough, and in a small-business or home environment they are only good for bumping heads on. If they swing out, half the time the installer hasn't accounted for the full weight of a loaded rack and it feels like it's going to fall off the wall.They are not built to deal with the heat of POE switches, let alone servers. Unless you need the security given by them, it's cheaper, more attractive and more accessible to mount a switch vertically on a wall or in a cupboard.
2. DO NOT BUY HALF-HEIGHT RACKS (unless you desperately need the space) They cost almost as much as full-height racks, they often get replaced with full-height racks after 2 years because they get full - in the end they are almost never worth it.
3. LOOK VERY CLOSELY AT CHEAP RACKS A good rack will last you 10 years. A bad rack will last you 20 years and piss you off every time you go near it. Imagine mounting a full-depth POE switch to the front rail of a rack, then seeing that the back of the switch is about 2RU lower than the front, because the front vertical rail has bent under the weight. That's what happens when they make the vertical rails out of 1mm low tensile steel, not 2mm high tensile steel. Or, imagine having a server or router that has decided to put a RJ45 port on the front (usually an iLo port) and you find you have to either leave a whole RU free above the server to run the cat-5 cable back. Welcome to the joys of an APC rack, where the vertical rails are moulded to the edge of the rack.
4. AT HOME - USE A CABINET MAKER If you want the best & cheapest solution - I'd build a cupboard big enough for you to put a second hand 42RU rack on wheels into it, and terminate your RJ45's on 6-gang wall outlets at the top of the cupboard. For cooling, put a vent in the top of the door and run a ducted air-con duct to the bottom of the cupboard. Then you just roll your rack out when you need it, to guests it looks like a cupboard, and the next home owner will turn it into a linen closet. But, if you want something that looks a million dollars, I would take the internal steel of a comms rack and mount it on rolling cupboard rails (do the maths on the weight) and integrate it into a full-height cupboard, so when you open the cupboard door the whole rack slides out for you. If you get a friendly cabinet maker to do it while you're building the house, you would probably have the whole thing done for less than the price of an APC rack.
I would argue that the Bill and Melinda gates foundation is far more efficient at getting money to people who need it than any government that collects taxes.
I think if you did the sums you'd find every dollar that Microsoft pays its shareholders does more public good than every dollar they pay in Tax.
Winchester make firearms, now say for the sake of argument, they own a gun club, and the allow people to use their firearms but Winchester own and maintain them.
Now, a gun-club member takes one of the Winchester firearms and shoots a fellow member in the head.
So, since the member pulled the trigger, they were instrumental in causing the person to die, but they didn't actually _do_ it. Because if Winchester had not created and maintained the firearm, the trigger action would not have caused the bullet to leave the weapon, so nobody would have died.
Therefore, Winchester was responsible for this death, not the person pulling the trigger.
However, if Winchester had created the gun and SOLD it to the individual, then it's clear-cut murder.
This is a very interesting case. In Australia it is legal to record from the TV for personal use. Telstra has paid the Australian football federations a huge amount of money for the digital streaming rights for their content. Optus essentially side-stepped this by allowing individuals to use a hosted PVR to record the Free-to-Air transmission, and play it back on their mobile device.
Telstra. the AFL and the NRL did a huge media campaign about how Optus was 'stealing' their content - but the first judge ruled it legal, and frankly - it's not Autralia's fault if our biggest Telco buys something for millions of dollars that turns out to be worth stuff-all (didn't stop them threatening to change the laws, because just like the argument for pokies - if the AFL and NRL can't sell these new media rights for millions of dollars, they'll go belly up and nobody in Australia will ever be able to watch the football again - even though football has existed for many years before new-media rights existed, and that there is considerable evidence to say that the more people who have access to watch a sport on TV are then more likely to go to a game - Telstra had millions of dollars at stake here!).
Optus's argument was that it is no different from someone doing the same thing with a PVR at home - which was protected under Australia's fair-use laws. The very interesting thing about this case is that the full bench of the federal court (the second highest court in the land) overruled the first judgement (which was: "Yes, it is the same, and it's not illegal") and said: 'Because Optus wrote the software that records the TV, because they host the servers and hardware, and without Optus's help, nothing would be recorded - the subscriber may _cause_ the recording to be created, but Optus are the ones that actually create it. Therefore, because it is Optus creating the recording, not the subscriber, you are not protected by our Domestic fair-use laws".
This is interesting because not last week the _exact same court_ upheld the rights for an ISP to not be responsible for their users' copyright infringements - but in this case they ruled that in the capacity of a cloud-hosting provider - they were responsible for their user's actions - because their server & software did the copying.
So now, in Australia it is legal to record from Free-to-air TV and stream it to your own mobile device as long as you own the hardware. It is legal to make the software that allows people to do that, and it is legal to sell hardware devices that let them do exactly that - but: If a company does _exactly the same thing_ as a hosted provider - it's illegal.
So, what does that mean if someone runs bit-torrent on a hosted virtual server that I provide?... or, if someone uses a virtual server to steal my content - should I sue the end-user (who has no money), or the cloud provider (who will probably settle to avoid going to court)?
Well that's because most CEO's have handed out three letter titles in lieu of pay increases for the past few years. Their ex-sysadmin IT Managers (CIO) have three letter titles so they can be at the same level as the head beancounter (CFO) and their customer support team leader (COO).
If they had qualified the question first with "Does your CIO have more than 5 people reporting to them, and do they know what NPV stands for (answer should be yes) and do they know what the clock rate of an Apple A4 chip is (answer should be no)" they might weed out the IT guys with funky titles.
Change the headline to what it really is: "IT Managers with funky titles Dismissed As Techies Without Business Savvy By CEOs" - and it doesn't sound like news any more.
The surprising part about this news is that they actually had to pass a law making this practice illegal!
You would think this is such an obvious invasion of privacy that it would be covered by existing laws.
Still, if the great US of A is lecturing the world about "Internet Freedoms" while simultaneously perusing wikileaks for "terrorism", trying to pass laws like the SOPA, PIPA and shoving the ACTA down the throats of the rest of the world, I guess we shouldn't take anything for granted.
Ahh, where else but America... "The land of the free".
A dollar has value, but it is a specific kind of value. Just as a bushel of corn has value, but of a specific kind.
Let me demonstrate the worthlessness of a dollar... Imagine you have a billion dollars, but you will never come into contact with another person ever again.
Now, which would you prefer in this situation? A billion dollars, or a bushel of corn?
The value of a dollar is this: It is a tool that makes other people do things for you.
But, It only has value as long as people will perform for the dollar... which means it only has value while others think it has value. All it takes for a dollar to be value-less is for it to be no longer respected by people, or for there to be no people. A photocopied dollar would be just as valuable as a dollar if only people would respect it as a currency.
Interesting you bring up "Stealing an Idea", since, Ideas cannot be protected under our legal system.
So, I can come up with the idea of an iPad. I can't patent it, I can't copyright it... Then, when apple make billions of dollars from my idea, I am entitled to.... NOTHING.
I can come up with a business process that saves companies around the world millions. Another example of something that cannot be copyrighted, patented, or protected in any way. I can write it down then the written copy can be copyrighted, but not the process. So, when someone "steals" it, again, I'm entitled to nothing.
So, does this mean that nobody comes up with new ideas for stuff? Nobody develops better business processes?
To my point: If I'm caught stealing kiss, stealing away in the night, stealing a peek, stealing a base, stealing one's thunder, stealing an idea, stealing one's heart, or stealing a business process... I have have not "stolen" anything according to the law. You say that stealing music and movies is just like the aformentioned?... well, I'd say they differ only because have legal protection.
But the kicker is... if I copy a movie because it's free, and I wouldn't have bought it anyway, because I don't think it's worth $1; and you still have your copy - what exactly have I deprived anyone of?
Lotus Notes?!!!?!... Your post almost seemed coherent, but then you ended it with... LOTUS NOTES!?!!
Speaking of pretending we are still living in the 90's... why don't you plug that first-rate, extendible, user-friendly email software into your brand new Novel network, and ask to be paid more money than your boss!
While you're programming in Notes, why don't you brush up on your COBOL skills to make sure you're employable well into the future!
"I've been a nerd since I was 13 and I want a uni degree but I won't want to have to learn about stuff that doesn't relate to my narrow field of interest"
University isn't about giving you skills to be a better computer programmer. The gen-ed courses are the most important - they force you to learn about how the rest of the world works, and how nobody in the real world gives a rats arse about the differences between.NET and perl.
If you want to be a computer programmer for the rest of your life, why are you going to uni in the first place? Just go and hit the job market until you find someone who will employ you on your programming skills.
Look on the bright side - Those annoying gen-ed classes (especially the ones in the art faculty) are likely to have some girls in `em. And as any uni-grad will tell you - THAT is what university is really about.
Even back in the days of kingdoms the rich tycoons didn't pay taxes.
Taxes are a way for the king (now government) to get income back from the individuals in the kingdom who don't naturally contribute (on balance) to the kingdom.
The likes of Microsoft, Google, Warren Buffett and Donald Trump don't have to pay taxes and shouldn't pay taxes because their contribution to society is giving others thousands of others jobs - and those thousands of others pay taxes - in essence they don't have to pay tax themselves because they have _CREATED_ wealth for the kingdom.
Company taxes are immoral and sneaky, because it is a double tax - shareholders and employees pay taxes when they selfishly earn income that they have a tendency to not share with others (by saving).
The moral to the story is stop bitching about the fact that you are paying taxes, and do something for society and try to become one of the people who employs thousands of others - and thus deserves the right not to pay taxes, rather than sitting on a wage, saving every penny you can, and bitching that the government is forcibly taking 30% of that to pay for services that you have otherwise done nothing to fund.
These loopholes are just a modern day incarnation of what used to be a gentlemen's agreement with the king.
Slashdot Mirror
Truecrypt.
That's all I have to say on the matter.
Why is this a problem?
If I am going to watch it in a week anyway on Free-to-Air TV and time-shift the commercials out, why is it wrong to download it a and watch it a week earlier?
We are Australian - our economy is doing just fine thanks to us exporting dirt to china, unlike America's economy which relies on exporting crap (ie. Movies, TV and reality drama) to the rest of the western world.
Sorry if I don't believe that bittorrenting supports terrorism or is un-patriotic.
Isn't this a fantastic demonstration of how well democracy works is in today's world.
Yeah, America's democracy is VASTLY DIFFERENT from communist China.
Here we have the greatest democracy in the world forcing propaganda on its citizens to assert a law that, more than half the population not only DO NOT AGREE WITH, but when told what it is, ADMIT TO HAVING BROKEN.
Dear America: I don't give a rats arse that you are so apathetic about your government's move to one dollar per vote rather than one person per vote, nor do I give a rats arse about your complete apathy as your 'select few' keep passing shitty laws to protect their power, but would you please tell them to stop forcing it on the rest of the world in the form of "free trade" treaties. In the meantime, enjoy your illusion of choice.
You can see a video of hovertank on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7juV9zo5Tk
Amazing to see how similar level 1 of hovertank is to level 1 of wolf 3d. It looks like all they've done for Wolf level 1 was to reskin the walls and put in new sprites!
Did anyone else get completely pissed off that game journalists for the next fifteen years _always_ called DOOM the first 3D FPS??
I did an MBA rather than a CS degree because an MBA doesn't have a math requirement.
true story.
Sorry, I was talking about two different racks - the cheap home-made ones bent, the APC ones were very well built (and were actually bloody expensive), but had the front rails built into the side wall, so you couldn't route cables between the rail and the side of the rack. (APC did this on purpose to prevent front-back airflow around equipment).
It's kinda hard to find pictures, but if you look here:
http://www.64bit.eu/gallery/3437/apc-netshelter-sx-42u-labels-for-rack-mount-default.jpg
You can see there is no gap between the vertical rails and the side of the rack. Whereas, if you have a normal rack, you have a space between the doors/sides and the rails, you can route a stray Ethernet cable sideways, using 0 RU.
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/wp-content/uploads/stack-overflow-server-rack-back-small.jpg
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/wp-content/uploads/stack-overflow-server-rack-front-small.jpg
Where are my mod points when you need them.
+5 Funny
Couldn't agree more.
To answer the poster's direct question: Yes, I have dealt with racks that you can't get to the back of. I've dealt with racks that have the vertical rails integrated into the sides. I've dealt with half-height racks, wall mounted racks that swing out so you can get to the back of them, and I've dealt with home-made racks that have rails that bend when you hang a server from the front. I've also worked with Compaq servers with mounting brackets that don't work unless your rails are exactly the right distance apart front-to-back (meaning you need to tear down a whole rack to re-position the rails, to mount one bloody server).
I have the following advice:
1. DO NOT BUY WALL MOUNTED RACKS (unless you are a large corporate or a public building).
They are ugly as sin, they are never deep enough, and in a small-business or home environment they are only good for bumping heads on. If they swing out, half the time the installer hasn't accounted for the full weight of a loaded rack and it feels like it's going to fall off the wall.They are not built to deal with the heat of POE switches, let alone servers. Unless you need the security given by them, it's cheaper, more attractive and more accessible to mount a switch vertically on a wall or in a cupboard.
2. DO NOT BUY HALF-HEIGHT RACKS (unless you desperately need the space)
They cost almost as much as full-height racks, they often get replaced with full-height racks after 2 years because they get full - in the end they are almost never worth it.
3. LOOK VERY CLOSELY AT CHEAP RACKS
A good rack will last you 10 years. A bad rack will last you 20 years and piss you off every time you go near it. Imagine mounting a full-depth POE switch to the front rail of a rack, then seeing that the back of the switch is about 2RU lower than the front, because the front vertical rail has bent under the weight. That's what happens when they make the vertical rails out of 1mm low tensile steel, not 2mm high tensile steel. Or, imagine having a server or router that has decided to put a RJ45 port on the front (usually an iLo port) and you find you have to either leave a whole RU free above the server to run the cat-5 cable back. Welcome to the joys of an APC rack, where the vertical rails are moulded to the edge of the rack.
4. AT HOME - USE A CABINET MAKER
If you want the best & cheapest solution - I'd build a cupboard big enough for you to put a second hand 42RU rack on wheels into it, and terminate your RJ45's on 6-gang wall outlets at the top of the cupboard. For cooling, put a vent in the top of the door and run a ducted air-con duct to the bottom of the cupboard. Then you just roll your rack out when you need it, to guests it looks like a cupboard, and the next home owner will turn it into a linen closet.
But, if you want something that looks a million dollars, I would take the internal steel of a comms rack and mount it on rolling cupboard rails (do the maths on the weight) and integrate it into a full-height cupboard, so when you open the cupboard door the whole rack slides out for you. If you get a friendly cabinet maker to do it while you're building the house, you would probably have the whole thing done for less than the price of an APC rack.
I heard this on the radio this morning, along with a heap of upset residents!
Those Poms will complain about anything.
I'd be wrapped to have a missile array on my roof!
I would argue that the Bill and Melinda gates foundation is far more efficient at getting money to people who need it than any government that collects taxes.
I think if you did the sums you'd find every dollar that Microsoft pays its shareholders does more public good than every dollar they pay in Tax.
Sure, I'll give you an analogue...
Winchester make firearms, now say for the sake of argument, they own a gun club, and the allow people to use their firearms but Winchester own and maintain them.
Now, a gun-club member takes one of the Winchester firearms and shoots a fellow member in the head.
So, since the member pulled the trigger, they were instrumental in causing the person to die, but they didn't actually _do_ it. Because if Winchester had not created and maintained the firearm, the trigger action would not have caused the bullet to leave the weapon, so nobody would have died.
Therefore, Winchester was responsible for this death, not the person pulling the trigger.
However, if Winchester had created the gun and SOLD it to the individual, then it's clear-cut murder.
This is a very interesting case. In Australia it is legal to record from the TV for personal use. Telstra has paid the Australian football federations a huge amount of money for the digital streaming rights for their content. Optus essentially side-stepped this by allowing individuals to use a hosted PVR to record the Free-to-Air transmission, and play it back on their mobile device.
... or, if someone uses a virtual server to steal my content - should I sue the end-user (who has no money), or the cloud provider (who will probably settle to avoid going to court)?
Telstra. the AFL and the NRL did a huge media campaign about how Optus was 'stealing' their content - but the first judge ruled it legal, and frankly - it's not Autralia's fault if our biggest Telco buys something for millions of dollars that turns out to be worth stuff-all (didn't stop them threatening to change the laws, because just like the argument for pokies - if the AFL and NRL can't sell these new media rights for millions of dollars, they'll go belly up and nobody in Australia will ever be able to watch the football again - even though football has existed for many years before new-media rights existed, and that there is considerable evidence to say that the more people who have access to watch a sport on TV are then more likely to go to a game - Telstra had millions of dollars at stake here!).
Optus's argument was that it is no different from someone doing the same thing with a PVR at home - which was protected under Australia's fair-use laws. The very interesting thing about this case is that the full bench of the federal court (the second highest court in the land) overruled the first judgement (which was: "Yes, it is the same, and it's not illegal") and said: 'Because Optus wrote the software that records the TV, because they host the servers and hardware, and without Optus's help, nothing would be recorded - the subscriber may _cause_ the recording to be created, but Optus are the ones that actually create it. Therefore, because it is Optus creating the recording, not the subscriber, you are not protected by our Domestic fair-use laws".
This is interesting because not last week the _exact same court_ upheld the rights for an ISP to not be responsible for their users' copyright infringements - but in this case they ruled that in the capacity of a cloud-hosting provider - they were responsible for their user's actions - because their server & software did the copying.
So now, in Australia it is legal to record from Free-to-air TV and stream it to your own mobile device as long as you own the hardware. It is legal to make the software that allows people to do that, and it is legal to sell hardware devices that let them do exactly that - but: If a company does _exactly the same thing_ as a hosted provider - it's illegal.
So, what does that mean if someone runs bit-torrent on a hosted virtual server that I provide?
Buggered if I know, the poster didn't explain the acronyms.
WTF is SoC?
Well that's because most CEO's have handed out three letter titles in lieu of pay increases for the past few years. Their ex-sysadmin IT Managers (CIO) have three letter titles so they can be at the same level as the head beancounter (CFO) and their customer support team leader (COO).
If they had qualified the question first with "Does your CIO have more than 5 people reporting to them, and do they know what NPV stands for (answer should be yes) and do they know what the clock rate of an Apple A4 chip is (answer should be no)" they might weed out the IT guys with funky titles.
Change the headline to what it really is: "IT Managers with funky titles Dismissed As Techies Without Business Savvy By CEOs" - and it doesn't sound like news any more.
The surprising part about this news is that they actually had to pass a law making this practice illegal!
You would think this is such an obvious invasion of privacy that it would be covered by existing laws.
Still, if the great US of A is lecturing the world about "Internet Freedoms" while simultaneously perusing wikileaks for "terrorism", trying to pass laws like the SOPA, PIPA and shoving the ACTA down the throats of the rest of the world, I guess we shouldn't take anything for granted.
Ahh, where else but America... "The land of the free".
A dollar has value, but it is a specific kind of value. Just as a bushel of corn has value, but of a specific kind.
... which means it only has value while others think it has value. All it takes for a dollar to be value-less is for it to be no longer respected by people, or for there to be no people. A photocopied dollar would be just as valuable as a dollar if only people would respect it as a currency.
Let me demonstrate the worthlessness of a dollar... Imagine you have a billion dollars, but you will never come into contact with another person ever again.
Now, which would you prefer in this situation? A billion dollars, or a bushel of corn?
The value of a dollar is this: It is a tool that makes other people do things for you.
But, It only has value as long as people will perform for the dollar
Interesting you bring up "Stealing an Idea", since, Ideas cannot be protected under our legal system.
.... NOTHING.
... I have have not "stolen" anything according to the law. You say that stealing music and movies is just like the aformentioned? ... well, I'd say they differ only because have legal protection.
So, I can come up with the idea of an iPad. I can't patent it, I can't copyright it... Then, when apple make billions of dollars from my idea, I am entitled to
I can come up with a business process that saves companies around the world millions. Another example of something that cannot be copyrighted, patented, or protected in any way. I can write it down then the written copy can be copyrighted, but not the process. So, when someone "steals" it, again, I'm entitled to nothing.
So, does this mean that nobody comes up with new ideas for stuff? Nobody develops better business processes?
To my point: If I'm caught stealing kiss, stealing away in the night, stealing a peek, stealing a base, stealing one's thunder, stealing an idea, stealing one's heart, or stealing a business process
But the kicker is... if I copy a movie because it's free, and I wouldn't have bought it anyway, because I don't think it's worth $1; and you still have your copy - what exactly have I deprived anyone of?
Yeah, he could've at least tried to hide as many things in his jacket as this kid does into his baggy levies -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ade7dO8dmd4
(it's okay, it is safe for work)
How the hell did this make the front page?
We gotta find out how to get more meaningless crap like this to make the front page, and work out how we can do that for PROFIT!
Then my evil plan will be complete!
BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
... Your post almost seemed coherent, but then you ended it with ... LOTUS NOTES!?!!
Lotus Notes?!!!?!
Speaking of pretending we are still living in the 90's... why don't you plug that first-rate, extendible, user-friendly email software into your brand new Novel network, and ask to be paid more money than your boss!
While you're programming in Notes, why don't you brush up on your COBOL skills to make sure you're employable well into the future!
I did this for my wedding, everyone loved it.
I must warn you though, it's not easy and you will be bloody sick of it by the time you've made 80 of them.
See the finished result here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgJbxDYSZX8
And how to make it here: http://extremecards.blogspot.com/2009/11/rubber-band-pop-up-cube.html
lol!!
You sir, made my day.
I bet the GP poster is fat and ugly and stinks like shit. He probably has delusions of adequacy though.
In the infamous scene at Flexicorp in 1986?
I guess the Trek databases didn't teach him the difference between an iPhone 4S and a Macintosh Classic...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hShY6xZWVGE&feature=related
"I've been a nerd since I was 13 and I want a uni degree but I won't want to have to learn about stuff that doesn't relate to my narrow field of interest"
University isn't about giving you skills to be a better computer programmer. The gen-ed courses are the most important - they force you to learn about how the rest of the world works, and how nobody in the real world gives a rats arse about the differences between .NET and perl.
If you want to be a computer programmer for the rest of your life, why are you going to uni in the first place? Just go and hit the job market until you find someone who will employ you on your programming skills.
Look on the bright side - Those annoying gen-ed classes (especially the ones in the art faculty) are likely to have some girls in `em. And as any uni-grad will tell you - THAT is what university is really about.
Even back in the days of kingdoms the rich tycoons didn't pay taxes.
Taxes are a way for the king (now government) to get income back from the individuals in the kingdom who don't naturally contribute (on balance) to the kingdom.
The likes of Microsoft, Google, Warren Buffett and Donald Trump don't have to pay taxes and shouldn't pay taxes because their contribution to society is giving others thousands of others jobs - and those thousands of others pay taxes - in essence they don't have to pay tax themselves because they have _CREATED_ wealth for the kingdom.
Company taxes are immoral and sneaky, because it is a double tax - shareholders and employees pay taxes when they selfishly earn income that they have a tendency to not share with others (by saving).
The moral to the story is stop bitching about the fact that you are paying taxes, and do something for society and try to become one of the people who employs thousands of others - and thus deserves the right not to pay taxes, rather than sitting on a wage, saving every penny you can, and bitching that the government is forcibly taking 30% of that to pay for services that you have otherwise done nothing to fund.
These loopholes are just a modern day incarnation of what used to be a gentlemen's agreement with the king.