might be to buy the Mac version instead of Windows and then download the Linux execuables. This would have the benefit of showing up as a non-Windows sale, helping the concept of cross-platform games.
I presume then, that you always abide by speed limits and declare your mail order purchases so that you can pay sales tax on them. Everyone has broken the letter of the law, probably quite often, and absolutely nobody is hurt by doing what the original poster suggested.
No, that's not good. Stealing is bad. No matter who it's from. I wouldn't care if Bill Gates had killed little puppies with dull axes to build his fortune, it's still his fortune.
Agreed in principle. You do not have a right to someone else's property because you think you "need" it more than he does.
If you think for a minute that this clown is going to steal a copy of Quake 3, then buy the linux version later, when the binaries are all that he needs, think again. $45 or a download... idealism aside, he'll go the cheaper route.
Oops, that post went downhill fast. First, there is a difference between copyright infringement and stealing. Second, I find it fascinating that you know that the "clown" will not buy the Linux version with such certainty.
Personally, I hope id puts in an airtight CD key scheme like Half-Life so I won't see so many warez kiddies trading it around like pokemon cards.
Yeah, that's a great idea. Nobody ever cracks copy protection schemes, and they never inconvenience the legitimate owners.
The way it was explained to me, the reason hate crimes have a special distinction is because a gay person has to live in fear of being killed just because he is gay, and if we can more quickly and effectively punish those who would kill him because he is gay, he doesn't have to be afraid anymore.
That makes no sense. We can't "quickly and effectively punish those who would kill him" unless we're willing to put people in prison for the "crime" of having racist/sexist/homophobic thoughts. Somehow I don't see that happening. The only way we can punish racist killers is after they commit a murder, in which case they're already going to prison for a long time.
A 'normal' murder, while very very bad and definitely deserved of punishment as well, does not make the general populace live in fear of dying because of who they are.
Ok, say Mr. X commits a "hate crime" by killing a member of protected group Y. Once X is convicted, the members of Y are actually safer, because a killer that would prey on them has been stopped. The possibly legitimate fear that group Y feels is not due to the actions of X, but due to the *thoughts* of other bigots like X who may commit similar crimes in the future. The only way to prevent hate crimes against members of Y is to criminalize anti-Y thoughts.
Re:This is why there are moderated groups
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Usenet Gag Order
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· Score: 1
I don't know the details, but if this fellow was threatening or harassing people, a restraining order is probably reasonable. Societies' right not to have to put up with morons overrules individual freedoms.
No, it absolutely does not. I and probably almost everyone else would agree that KKK members are a bunch of morons. That does not mean they lose their right to express their opinions.
I could understand a ban on actual threats or harassment, but a blanket prohibition is not a good thing.
Of course corporations are responsible to the people. They can only make money by selling to consumers who are willing to pay for their product. (Well, also by lobbying for corporate welfare, but that's back to government.) It's relatively easy to avoid dealing with a corporation you don't like. It's not so easy to tell the IRS you disagree with your tax bill.
This would be the same Uncle Sam that created Echelon, the most secretive, wide ranging, illegal, and unconstitutional surveillance scheme in history? At least RealPlayer was free; the NSA takes our money and uses it to spy on us. Between a corrupt corporation and a corrupt government, I'll take my chances with the corporation.
No, it is absolutely not more beneficial to you to vote for the "lesser of two evils". You are correct in that your vote for a third party candidate will not cause that candidate to be elected. But neither will your vote for a Democrat or Republican. Unless the election is decided by a margin of one vote, your individual vote is not going to affect the result. Essentially, all your vote accomplishes is making a statement. That statement can either be "I support the current two-party system" (closer to one party as far as I can tell) or "I'm fed up with the current situation and I want a change". If you aren't satisfied with the two current parties, yet continue to vote for them, you're just encouraging them to continue on their present course.
Re: If Mac users are influential with Apple...
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Whither Netscape 5.0?
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You can use the MoviePlayer application from Quicktime 3.x to get the standard Mac interface. It can play all QT4 media types (Sorenson, MP3, etc), I don't remember if it can do streaming or not.
I agree. I would like to know what the NSA does for us. However, I would also like to know what the NSA does *to* us. Specifically Echelon, the hindering of strong crypto, and forcing software companies to insert backdoors into their products.
I didn't realize not wanting to pay for incompetent government services was a selfish and poor attitude. I do know that private schools with similar or lower spending per student have consistently performed better than public schools. Perhaps that's because private schools actually have to show results or they will lose their customers, in contrast to government schools which have a captive audience.
Maybe you should take a logic class yourself, and learn that it is possible for two groups of people to disagree, without one side being selfish, immoral, or evil.
To me, the main difference is that the cameras in a convenience store are known and visible. I don't have a huge problem with monitoring employees (although whether it's necessary is another matter) as long as the employees are informed that it is happening. When it's done secretly it makes it seem like a sting operation.
Also, I don't especially agree that occasionally checking stock prices or news sites is such a grave offense against your employer. I'd put it on the same level as having conversations with coworkers about non-work related topics, which companies aren't trying to forbid (as far as I know).
I don't think it's invasion of privacy in the legal sense, because it is in fact the company's hardware. I do think it is bordering on unethical, and very tacky. If a company wants to prevent inappropriate use of their systems using monitoring tools, out of respect for their employees they should make that policy known. Secret monitoring gives the impression that they're more interested in punishing violators rather than actually preventing the violations.
The analogy I think of is speeding tickets. If cops really wanted to slow traffic down, they could stop their cars in a conspicuous location that everyone would see. Instead, they conceal themselves and catch people in speed traps, because their real objective is to raise money.
I'm not going to argue the merits of the Libertarian party, but I strongly disagree with the "wasted vote" theory. It is a virtual certainty that your individual vote will not decide the election. By your reasoning a vote for Dole in the 96 election was wasted because it was a foregone conclusion that he would lose. The only way to waste your vote is to vote for a candidate who is not your preferred choice.
I am impressed by your ability to profoundly miss the point. I'm sorry that I was not clear enough. Let's try again: Galileo violated the social norms of his society by proposing a scientific theory that was opposed to the teachings of the church. By your "reasoning", his work was stupid and a waste of time.
I will disregard your fourth paragraph except to note that you appear to be rather fond of name calling yourself.
Regarding your fifth paragraph, it is true that you did not advocate direct censorship. You do appear to be advocating indirect censorship, since the government requires vchips to be installed in all new TVs (and thus requires consumers to pay for them), intimidated broadcasters into the ratings system, and is incessantly producing anti-violence anti-sex anti-anything-controversial propaganda. And I have no idea how you got the idea that I wish your speech to be suppressed, since I specifically mentioned that freedom of speech (which I believe is a right and you appear not to) allows you to state your opinions, even though I profoundly disagree with them. Ever hear of Voltaire? (Oops, another allusion. Too bad, look it up.)
I have never said this on Slashdot before, but you are an idiot. Who appointed you the moral guardian of the media? Why are you uniquely endowed with insight as to what makes one expression meaningful and another garbage? To take an example you brought up, many people with three digit IQs are able to see a great deal of social commentary in South Park. Oh, but I forgot, it "violates all social norms", so therefore it's evil. We can't have people running around expressing new ideas, look what trouble that lunatic Galileo caused. As far as natrual rights, perhaps you should take a look at the First Amendment or its equivalent in other nations. It even protects your right to produce such anti-freedom fascist horse excrement.
Fine, that is your right. You can set rules about what your son can and can't watch and I won't complain at all. I will complain when the government forces all TV manufacturers to include a censorware chip and thus forces all consumers to pay for it whether or not they want it (You can buy a standard transmission. Very soon I will be unable to buy a non-vchip-crippled TV). I will also complain when the government intimidates the networks into establishing a ratings system that would be illegal if done through a law.
The book is much better. It gets more into the global implications of receiving an alien message, they send five people, and the ending makes a whole lot more sense and is much cooler. Read it.
Unisys comes across as a bunch of idiots. "We don't use freeware because it could be trash." So nobody there has ever written a Perl script? And I can think of one or two non-free pieces of software for which the term "trash" is generous. On the other hand, I agree that zealots who instantly let obscenities fly are also idiots, and hurt the cause far more than they help it.
This is always the objection liberals raise, and it is always false. Every national sales tax plan includes a universal rebate system, which gives X dollars per year to every person or family. This way poor people effectively pay zero or negative taxes, because the sales tax they do pay is more than offset by the rebate. Richer people spend more, so even if they get a rebate they still wind up paying. When a liberal says that a national sales tax is regressive, he is lying through his teeth. He just doesn't want the IRS deprived of its power over American citizens. (I'm not accusing the previous poster of trying to mislead anyone, the universal rebate component is not as well publicized as it should be, so it is easy to come to that conclusion if you hear the simplistic explanation of the sales tax.)
Absolutely, ISPs need to stop pretending that they have any sort of duty to protect the privacy of their paying customers. It would be so much easier if they would just post a log of all their users' activities to their web site. Along with their addresses and phone numbers so that it's easy to stop this sort of hooliganism. America Online should be admired for disclosing confidential information to the Navy about that gay officer, without making them go through all that pointless "due process" drivel. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
Be very careful here. Just about anything can be shown to be "medically harmful". Steak, french fries, and beer for example. As you pointed out, the real issue should be whether the manufacturers of a product deliberately lied about its effects. This probably did happen in the case of tobacco before the 60s, and I believe they can be held responsible for those actions. However anyone who's been smoking since then is fully aware of the risks, and does not deserve to enrich themselves and a bunch of lawyers because of their poor judgment.
And Israel used to have problems with terrorist attacks on schools, until they started allowing the teachers to carry weapons. No more shootings in years. There's also a lessor in there.
I will never understand this. The average family owes something like $3000 in credit card debt at obscene interest rates, and don't even realize how much they're getting ripped off. I was once talking to an extremely bright developer and could not convince him why it was not a good idea to put money in a savings account earning 4% when he had credit card debt at 18%.
I do have credit cards, and I use them often. I also pay the balance in full every month. It's really not that hard.
Slashdot Mirror
might be to buy the Mac version instead of Windows and then download the Linux execuables. This would have the benefit of showing up as a non-Windows sale, helping the concept of cross-platform games.
I presume then, that you always abide by speed limits and declare your mail order purchases so that you can pay sales tax on them. Everyone has broken the letter of the law, probably quite often, and absolutely nobody is hurt by doing what the original poster suggested.
That makes no sense. We can't "quickly and effectively punish those who would kill him" unless we're willing to put people in prison for the "crime" of having racist/sexist/homophobic thoughts. Somehow I don't see that happening. The only way we can punish racist killers is after they commit a murder, in which case they're already going to prison for a long time.
Ok, say Mr. X commits a "hate crime" by killing a member of protected group Y. Once X is convicted, the members of Y are actually safer, because a killer that would prey on them has been stopped. The possibly legitimate fear that group Y feels is not due to the actions of X, but due to the *thoughts* of other bigots like X who may commit similar crimes in the future. The only way to prevent hate crimes against members of Y is to criminalize anti-Y thoughts.
No, it absolutely does not. I and probably almost everyone else would agree that KKK members are a bunch of morons. That does not mean they lose their right to express their opinions.
I could understand a ban on actual threats or harassment, but a blanket prohibition is not a good thing.
Of course corporations are responsible to the people. They can only make money by selling to consumers who are willing to pay for their product. (Well, also by lobbying for corporate welfare, but that's back to government.) It's relatively easy to avoid dealing with a corporation you don't like. It's not so easy to tell the IRS you disagree with your tax bill.
This would be the same Uncle Sam that created Echelon, the most secretive, wide ranging, illegal, and unconstitutional surveillance scheme in history? At least RealPlayer was free; the NSA takes our money and uses it to spy on us. Between a corrupt corporation and a corrupt government, I'll take my chances with the corporation.
No, it is absolutely not more beneficial to you to vote for the "lesser of two evils". You are correct in that your vote for a third party candidate will not cause that candidate to be elected. But neither will your vote for a Democrat or Republican. Unless the election is decided by a margin of one vote, your individual vote is not going to affect the result. Essentially, all your vote accomplishes is making a statement. That statement can either be "I support the current two-party system" (closer to one party as far as I can tell) or "I'm fed up with the current situation and I want a change". If you aren't satisfied with the two current parties, yet continue to vote for them, you're just encouraging them to continue on their present course.
You can use the MoviePlayer application from Quicktime 3.x to get the standard Mac interface. It can play all QT4 media types (Sorenson, MP3, etc), I don't remember if it can do streaming or not.
I agree. I would like to know what the NSA does for us. However, I would also like to know what the NSA does *to* us. Specifically Echelon, the hindering of strong crypto, and forcing software companies to insert backdoors into their products.
Maybe you should take a logic class yourself, and learn that it is possible for two groups of people to disagree, without one side being selfish, immoral, or evil.
Also, I don't especially agree that occasionally checking stock prices or news sites is such a grave offense against your employer. I'd put it on the same level as having conversations with coworkers about non-work related topics, which companies aren't trying to forbid (as far as I know).
The analogy I think of is speeding tickets. If cops really wanted to slow traffic down, they could stop their cars in a conspicuous location that everyone would see. Instead, they conceal themselves and catch people in speed traps, because their real objective is to raise money.
I'm not going to argue the merits of the Libertarian party, but I strongly disagree with the "wasted vote" theory. It is a virtual certainty that your individual vote will not decide the election. By your reasoning a vote for Dole in the 96 election was wasted because it was a foregone conclusion that he would lose. The only way to waste your vote is to vote for a candidate who is not your preferred choice.
I will disregard your fourth paragraph except to note that you appear to be rather fond of name calling yourself.
Regarding your fifth paragraph, it is true that you did not advocate direct censorship. You do appear to be advocating indirect censorship, since the government requires vchips to be installed in all new TVs (and thus requires consumers to pay for them), intimidated broadcasters into the ratings system, and is incessantly producing anti-violence anti-sex anti-anything-controversial propaganda. And I have no idea how you got the idea that I wish your speech to be suppressed, since I specifically mentioned that freedom of speech (which I believe is a right and you appear not to) allows you to state your opinions, even though I profoundly disagree with them. Ever hear of Voltaire? (Oops, another allusion. Too bad, look it up.)
I have never said this on Slashdot before, but you are an idiot. Who appointed you the moral guardian of the media? Why are you uniquely endowed with insight as to what makes one expression meaningful and another garbage? To take an example you brought up, many people with three digit IQs are able to see a great deal of social commentary in South Park. Oh, but I forgot, it "violates all social norms", so therefore it's evil. We can't have people running around expressing new ideas, look what trouble that lunatic Galileo caused. As far as natrual rights, perhaps you should take a look at the First Amendment or its equivalent in other nations. It even protects your right to produce such anti-freedom fascist horse excrement.
Fine, that is your right. You can set rules about what your son can and can't watch and I won't complain at all. I will complain when the government forces all TV manufacturers to include a censorware chip and thus forces all consumers to pay for it whether or not they want it (You can buy a standard transmission. Very soon I will be unable to buy a non-vchip-crippled TV). I will also complain when the government intimidates the networks into establishing a ratings system that would be illegal if done through a law.
The book is much better. It gets more into the global implications of receiving an alien message, they send five people, and the ending makes a whole lot more sense and is much cooler. Read it.
It always amuses me when anti-anonymity posts come from ACs...
Let's just all use PNG and end this insanity.
This is always the objection liberals raise, and it is always false. Every national sales tax plan includes a universal rebate system, which gives X dollars per year to every person or family. This way poor people effectively pay zero or negative taxes, because the sales tax they do pay is more than offset by the rebate. Richer people spend more, so even if they get a rebate they still wind up paying. When a liberal says that a national sales tax is regressive, he is lying through his teeth. He just doesn't want the IRS deprived of its power over American citizens. (I'm not accusing the previous poster of trying to mislead anyone, the universal rebate component is not as well publicized as it should be, so it is easy to come to that conclusion if you hear the simplistic explanation of the sales tax.)
Absolutely, ISPs need to stop pretending that they have any sort of duty to protect the privacy of their paying customers. It would be so much easier if they would just post a log of all their users' activities to their web site. Along with their addresses and phone numbers so that it's easy to stop this sort of hooliganism. America Online should be admired for disclosing confidential information to the Navy about that gay officer, without making them go through all that pointless "due process" drivel. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
Be very careful here. Just about anything can be shown to be "medically harmful". Steak, french fries, and beer for example. As you pointed out, the real issue should be whether the manufacturers of a product deliberately lied about its effects. This probably did happen in the case of tobacco before the 60s, and I believe they can be held responsible for those actions. However anyone who's been smoking since then is fully aware of the risks, and does not deserve to enrich themselves and a bunch of lawyers because of their poor judgment.
And Israel used to have problems with terrorist attacks on schools, until they started allowing the teachers to carry weapons. No more shootings in years. There's also a lessor in there.
I do have credit cards, and I use them often. I also pay the balance in full every month. It's really not that hard.