Your arguments are almost completely based upon personal conviction, thus they are difficult to reason with.
However, I must take issue with you on this point: For over 95% of the inhabitants of this planet, spiritual matters are a factor in life.
This is simply not true. According to Encarta, non-believers comprise approximately 21 percent of the people on the planet.
Just because your broadly defined "organized religions" are a majority in a sense, does not indicate, to me or most others who value the idea of democracy, that they should inflict others with rigid and arbitrary personal morays.
Also, I find this interesting:
People's convictions don't change simply because you change a law
Right. Laws change because societies convictions change.
Also, many of the religions you are putting under the same hat embrace diversity. Even some Christians believe it or not.
Well, to be fair, those drugs never have been legal per se, just a bit less criminal.
You do have to admit that the trend is towards legalization or at least de-criminalization of cannabis and probably other relatively socially harmless drugs.
I think the way our society accepts the deviations of it's minorities is indeed improving in real terms in comparison a half century ago.
Comparisons further back than that are difficult, as the country was a much different place both in terms of geographical definition, and in demographic makeup.
To me the obvious trend is toward liberalization of society. The radical fundamentalist movement is clearly a reaction to this.
The answer sadly is deeply embodied in a belief in controlling other people's moral behavior.
The dogma that comes hand in hand with most of the control freaks in Washington is that of ultra-conservatism, and the feeling of betrayal by the court system in terms of moral erosion.
These people are acting in a manner that is so close to that of the fundamentalist Muslim radicals they love to hate that it is simply amazing to me.
None the less, I believe their agenda and repressive actions will be short lived just as all their predecessors movements have been in this country.
One needs only to look at probation's short life, or the political legacy of Joe McCarthy to observe the fate of the current moral extremists.
Laws against spammers just makes the problem more complicated. Sure, it looks like you are doing something. Maybe you even collect a few settlements.
But the people making spam just change their methods. Maybe they start hijacking machines overseas, or using Trojans to spam from others machines.
The spam problem is huge no doubt, but the answer is not some silly anti-spam law.
The answer is a technical one. The systems we use for email were designed without any regard for trust. We live in a different world today.
Don't invest your time in trying to get laws passed to deal with a problem we ourselves created.
Lets instead try and move to trust based systems for communication. I don't have the technical expertise to provide the systems, but a lot of people who do are working on such systems right now. Let's direct our efforts to getting those systems implemented.
>If, on the other hand, linux users are seen as well prepared and educated, we could even stand to make gains in the business community.
Actually, thats what Programming/OS/CPU wars start. One group thinks they know more/their facts are "more" right.
How's that again? I don't think a positive public image has ever been started by a Programming/OS/CPU war. Becoming a good advocate for your cause can hardly be a bad thing.
To an outsider, you risk the chance to look like a shallow individual who seems to take delight in arguing petty details.
Nope. All I was saying is you need to know what to say if you become involved. That's all. I hear uninformed people give opinions on things they know nothing about all the time. All I'm advocating here is a little better signal to noise ratio.
Note:this is an article about a trip the CEO made to Japan. Is there really anything new here?
Well, if you had read the article, you would know it has little to do with a trip to Japan, and a lot to do with scare tactics to try and dissuade electronics manufacturers from using linux.
In my book, that that type of behavior is occurring is something valuable to know.
Why do we keep posting articles that we know are only to impose FUD on the Linux/Open source community?
Because it is very useful to have an informed community for the media to talk to.
You have to remember that the SCO fight is not only in court, but also largly in the court of public opinion.
If a user is contacted by the press, it is incredibly advantageous for them to be well informed of the allegations as well as the actions of the parties making them.
Even if we win in court, which I for one assume we will, the damage to linux adoption could be enormous if we come off as unknowledgeable and ill-prepared.
If, on the other hand, linux users are seen as well prepared and educated, we could even stand to make gains in the business community.
I know a lot of Domain Name Registrars use these methods on their web-based whois forms, to prevent spammers from harvesting email addresses and domains via automated scripts.
This type of system is so useless. The fact is, anyone who can write a script to do this will be smart enough to build a linux box.
You also have to have every machine in every nation you do business with have perfect security also.
How many stories have we all read on spammers using compromised machines to do their spamming form?
A US congressman friend of mine recently asked me what I thought about anti-spam legislation. I told him it is a waste of time. Legislation can't stop spam, deny lists wont stop spam, and firewalls wont stop spam.
The only way to stop spam is to scrap SMTP and build a new trust based system from the ground up. The protocol is broken and can't be fixed.
The problem with this argument is that Daubert has not and will not reduce the number of tort suits.
What it does do instead is take a lot of credible science out of the courtroom and force jurors to decide on feeling rather than scientific findings.
The defendants could use a reversal of Daubert to their advantage too. Science should not be locked out of the court by over-zealous judges who are motivated by emotion.
I just wanted to point out that the Bush administration is in fact attempting to cover up it's own appalling mistakes that caused September 11th with FUD like this because they are scared the public will take back the Whitehorse.
In May of 2001, the administration gave $43 million to the Taliban. It's not a liberal myth, its a fact reported by respected papers like the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
We have to stop Bush now, before the police state gets full control of our lives.
Saudi Arabia gives a greater percentage of its gross national product to foreign aid that any other nation in the world. Well, it would be nice to say its all relative to the GNP, but thats not the point. The USA still spends more on foreign aid. If other countries can't give more because they are still living under a monarchy...thats their fault.
You're just wrong. Even if you take into account our per-capita GDP to make everything equal, you still come out with Luxembourg beating us by a hundred miles.
Slashdot Mirror
Your arguments are almost completely based upon personal conviction, thus they are difficult to reason with.
However, I must take issue with you on this point:
For over 95% of the inhabitants of this planet, spiritual matters are a factor in life.
This is simply not true. According to Encarta, non-believers comprise approximately 21 percent of the people on the planet.
Just because your broadly defined "organized religions" are a majority in a sense, does not indicate, to me or most others who value the idea of democracy, that they should inflict others with rigid and arbitrary personal morays.
Also, I find this interesting:
People's convictions don't change simply because you change a law
Right. Laws change because societies convictions change.
Also, many of the religions you are putting under the same hat embrace diversity. Even some Christians believe it or not.
Well, to be fair, those drugs never have been legal per se, just a bit less criminal.
You do have to admit that the trend is towards legalization or at least de-criminalization of cannabis and probably other relatively socially harmless drugs.
I think the way our society accepts the deviations of it's minorities is indeed improving in real terms in comparison a half century ago. Comparisons further back than that are difficult, as the country was a much different place both in terms of geographical definition, and in demographic makeup.
To me the obvious trend is toward liberalization of society. The radical fundamentalist movement is clearly a reaction to this.
The answer sadly is deeply embodied in a belief in controlling other people's moral behavior.
The dogma that comes hand in hand with most of the control freaks in Washington is that of ultra-conservatism, and the feeling of betrayal by the court system in terms of moral erosion.
These people are acting in a manner that is so close to that of the fundamentalist Muslim radicals they love to hate that it is simply amazing to me.
None the less, I believe their agenda and repressive actions will be short lived just as all their predecessors movements have been in this country.
One needs only to look at probation's short life, or the political legacy of Joe McCarthy to observe the fate of the current moral extremists.
If you want real anonymity you need something called "plausible deniability" which you can get only from projects such as freenet.
Or, your neighbors un-protected wireless AP. You gotta love other peoples networks
I assumed that everyone just stayed at home and downloaded mp3's on the 4th of July.
I can't belive that many people really had something better to do than surf the web on a holiday.
Yeah, I bet he gets a lot of prank calls on that phone number. Looks real to me!
The truth is that none of them work well.
Laws against spammers just makes the problem more complicated. Sure, it looks like you are doing something. Maybe you even collect a few settlements.
But the people making spam just change their methods. Maybe they start hijacking machines overseas, or using Trojans to spam from others machines.
The spam problem is huge no doubt, but the answer is not some silly anti-spam law.
The answer is a technical one. The systems we use for email were designed without any regard for trust. We live in a different world today.
Don't invest your time in trying to get laws passed to deal with a problem we ourselves created.
Lets instead try and move to trust based systems for communication. I don't have the technical expertise to provide the systems, but a lot of people who do are working on such systems right now. Let's direct our efforts to getting those systems implemented.
However the article does a lot to enhance the "gamers are geeks" sterotype.
Don't belive me? Look at the kid in the picture.
>If, on the other hand, linux users are seen as well prepared and educated, we could even stand to make gains in the business community.
Actually, thats what Programming/OS/CPU wars start. One group thinks they know more/their facts are "more" right.
How's that again? I don't think a positive public image has ever been started by a Programming/OS/CPU war. Becoming a good advocate for your cause can hardly be a bad thing.
To an outsider, you risk the chance to look like a shallow individual who seems to take delight in arguing petty details.
Nope. All I was saying is you need to know what to say if you become involved. That's all. I hear uninformed people give opinions on things they know nothing about all the time. All I'm advocating here is a little better signal to noise ratio.
Note:this is an article about a trip the CEO made to Japan. Is there really anything new here?
Well, if you had read the article, you would know it has little to do with a trip to Japan, and a lot to do with scare tactics to try and dissuade electronics manufacturers from using linux.
In my book, that that type of behavior is occurring is something valuable to know.
Why do we keep posting articles that we know are only to impose FUD on the Linux/Open source community?
Because it is very useful to have an informed community for the media to talk to.
You have to remember that the SCO fight is not only in court, but also largly in the court of public opinion.
If a user is contacted by the press, it is incredibly advantageous for them to be well informed of the allegations as well as the actions of the parties making them.
Even if we win in court, which I for one assume we will, the damage to linux adoption could be enormous if we come off as unknowledgeable and ill-prepared.
If, on the other hand, linux users are seen as well prepared and educated, we could even stand to make gains in the business community.
This SCO stuff is anything but trivial.
Um, yeah...
What's your point?
I know a lot of Domain Name Registrars use these methods on their web-based whois forms, to prevent spammers from harvesting email addresses and domains via automated scripts.
This type of system is so useless. The fact is, anyone who can write a script to do this will be smart enough to build a linux box.
whois is a command line utility!
You would have to do more than that.
You also have to have every machine in every nation you do business with have perfect security also.
How many stories have we all read on spammers using compromised machines to do their spamming form?
A US congressman friend of mine recently asked me what I thought about anti-spam legislation. I told him it is a waste of time. Legislation can't stop spam, deny lists wont stop spam, and firewalls wont stop spam.
The only way to stop spam is to scrap SMTP and build a new trust based system from the ground up. The protocol is broken and can't be fixed.
The problem with this argument is that Daubert has not and will not reduce the number of tort suits.
What it does do instead is take a lot of credible science out of the courtroom and force jurors to decide on feeling rather than scientific findings.
The defendants could use a reversal of Daubert to their advantage too. Science should not be locked out of the court by over-zealous judges who are motivated by emotion.
I can't agree more.
I just wanted to point out that the Bush administration is in fact attempting to cover up it's own appalling mistakes that caused September 11th with FUD like this because they are scared the public will take back the Whitehorse.
In May of 2001, the administration gave $43 million to the Taliban. It's not a liberal myth, its a fact reported by respected papers like the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
We have to stop Bush now, before the police state gets full control of our lives.
Cop: give me your SSN!
dude: can you articulate your probable cause?
Saudi Arabia gives a greater percentage of its gross national product to foreign aid that any other nation in the world. Well, it would be nice to say its all relative to the GNP, but thats not the point. The USA still spends more on foreign aid. If other countries can't give more because they are still living under a monarchy...thats their fault.
You're just wrong. Even if you take into account our per-capita GDP to make everything equal, you still come out with Luxembourg beating us by a hundred miles.
How about almost everyone?
Bill Gates: Well those are our current competitors. I mean, it's no different than in the past people used [IBM's operating system] OS/2.
USA TODAY: Nobody used OS/2.
Wired slashdotted? You gotta be kidding me.
Sounds like you need broadband buddy.
Yeah man the Electronic Future Foundation is so 19th century...
I just did an install over 1.3 on w2k and everything went very smoothly.
:)
The installation is aware of mozilla.exe running, and prompts that it is shutting it down.
I didn't even have to restart.
I'll see how well the update goes on a redhat box when I get home from work
Global Deception, the information warfare game?
Says the scanner will give you a dose less than 2% of normal dosage picked up from background radiation.
Also, sales calls from parties with "established business relationships" are usually exempt.