well, every now and then we get the sabre-rattling right. If someone clearly implies "gee, we happen to have the #1 requirement for nukes now," the best response is "gee, we happen to be better than ever at nullifying ballistics."
i don't often get to be proud of our propaganda machine lately, let me enjoy it:P
case "$1" in sun-mon-tue-wed) log_begin_msg "Starting work..."
# set up environment chroot =/usr/local/office/desk ;;
weekend) log_begin_msg "Getting out of the house..."
if [ -f $local_band_playing ] && [ -n $wallet ]; then cd $venue ./beer.sh
if [ -f $band_good ] && [ -n $wallet ]; then cd $merchtable talk tty0 $band ./buy 'cd' else more beer.hic fi fi esac
----
seriously. sloppy halfassed bash-ing aside, lose the losers. go out and listen to the 10 billion people who work for a living cause they aren't riding this corrupt, crap-promoting industry, and yet who still manage to get out there and play - for the need for it, the love of it, or the hell of it.
last 10 cds i bought were handed to me by the band who made 'em, in exchange for me putting the cash physically into their hands. If it's against your religion to leave the house, find 'em online.
Screw the RIAA; not as a slogan, but as a verb. Help speed the irrelevance you feel them consigned to; not by engaging in the BS smokescreen 'piracy' charged-debate, but by supporting the alternatives!
"Identity theft is out of hand and we don't know what to do about it. The thieves are more technically savvy than we, and have gotten pretty good at using random bits of into to fake, infer, or gloss over what's missing. So therefore, clearly, let's make a technological solution that puts all the eggs in one newfangled basket when we can't even tell which foxes are in what henhouses today."
And of course,
"This is to prevent ID theft and to prevent Terrirrirststts from entering our fine country. Therefore, if you already live here, make sure before y'go outside the border to take a copy of your entire life story with you for easy stealing and replication."
Not to mention,
"We're going to register your ass and stuff and undisclosed amount and type of information into a Sekrit Gummint Database that'll be used to guide the gentle hand of Law Enforcement to punish those the system (that we don't know how to work properly; see first point above) identifies as Bad Guys."
which leads nicely into,
"We're the Government. Don't worry about it. Trust us."
Um... okay. So? I mean i guess it's cool they could do it and all, but... the PSP's screen size, frex, is acceptible. Barely. But my cellphone...? (I like how the articles cites "...the original Quake 3 for the Playstation," btw. Uh...)
I just don't get how it's desireable or even not-painful to be looking at smaller and smaller screens and cramming higher resolutions on them. So WHAT? You REALLY want to watch a full length movie on a moving train/bus/backseat on a screen the size of your hand? Ow. Ugh. Oh what an experience. Nah....I'll just go back to waiting for the optic nervesplice HUD overlay, thanks:D
Article clearly states, right of the bat, that it's when you apply for a passport. So that's a point against hysterics.
However, it also states "...and will be put on a registry," so might as well leave the 1984 alarm running. Let's see:
Some random thoughts, concerns, questions for the crowd and more than a bit of polemic inspired by this latest tidbit in the Tony Loves George show:
This is effing ridiculous. Why not just rebuild the Berlin Wall, only turn the gun towers around t'other way? As Carmichael says in the linked article, "the only way to opt of the system is to give up your right to travel abroad."
Here's another amusing bit:
"Tony Blair was not able to attend the debate after his plane was grounded by engine troubles in South Africa."
Is this "engine trouble, wink wink nudge nudge"? He still found the time to utter that gem about it being "just sensible," and never mind all this Liberty rubbish... but maybe they felt it'd be easier to pass along without him there for opposition to focus against... or maybe he just didn't feel like getting yelled at today:D.
(Before you object to any of the above speculation, please convince me that at any given moment, a plane actually cannot be found for the Prime Minister of Anywhere, and it is more secure to be a known grounded sitting duck? Right. If so, fire your entire staff now please, your life is in grave danger...)
Anyway. Interesting that the US and the UK are making two halves of the citizen lockdown; we talk about a US ID card, but first went ahead with the RFID passports. The UK looks like it stands a good chance of having the ID cards first. From there, it's pretty easy for each to point to the "success" of the other, and respectively pass their missing halves. Yum, compulsory RFID Citizen Cards.
Do you have a reason for crossing the border, Comrade? Why did you spend 3 hours at that truck stop, Comrade? Did you know you've been travelling with an Enemy of the State, Comrade? Please step out of the car now, Comrade.
Think that's BS? I wish. Sadly, only when more and more people who consider themselves the "normal" folks are being stopped and searched will they start to realize that maybe this isn't Liberty after all - if, of course, they haven't completed their indoctrinations into thinking it is.
As long as it looks like just black-wearing tattoed freaks and foreginers are being harassed, that's still Liberty, right?
Final, desperate plea/question to those who still doubt how this is going: Since when, in the history of Ever, has information been collected and compiled - and not used? Since when has power been sought and gained - and not abused? Explain to me how, exactly, you can collect and correlate so much data on so many private citizens with increasingly efficient and effective means of making it meaningful, finally - but when it comes to suspect uses of that information, oh don't worry, just trust them with no accountability or oversight.
"They wouldn't do that! They're the good guys!"
someone kindly wake up the great sleeping mass in the center of the country - they're used up all their Snooze button hits already.
Ah, i see: in Communism as it is attempted, you make your own country hell on earth. In Capitalism as it is attempted, the hell is exported to everyone else's.
(Not to mention the manufacturing base).
Thanks for the clarification! The logically flawed namecalling at the end always *really* seals the deal in proving one's moral and intellectual superiority, too.
Well, as nice and comfortable as it might be to have a One Stance Fits All solution, mmmmaybe... something things... are situational?
Or are you really considering '0rd3r v!4gr4 n0W!!!' to be perfectly equivalent to instructions on bypassing a system that'll sic big brother on your ass for daring to learn about non-approved thoughts?
I think i could deal very well with never getting another "smallcap" mail in my inbox again.
At the same time, if the internet prevented my finding ay site that happens to contain the phrase "screw Bush," i'd be rather pissed and very interested in following up on any info distributed by people working their way around that. Doing some careful research on it first, of course.
"spam bad or spam good" seems to trivialize what's at stake here - from both sides of the 'spam' binary solution set you present. We're either for spam or against it...? Hmmm...
I agree. What is with the stateless value inspection? It inspires some quick absolute judgements, but seems less meaningful over time...
Look how many companies do business in China. Their purpose is to make money, and that's it, they're done. Certainly, they could use this foothold to lead by example, show alternatives to repression by how they operate, once in... but most seem content to keep the wider profit margins. Remember Nike? Oh, that's old news, and that Liberal filmmaker guy talked about it, so we don't wanna be called nutjobs by the right; best drop the topic.
Let's complain about filtered search engine results; it takes the pressure off the people beating up women in sweatshops, like Disney.
Insanely, you can find that US companies defy Chinese worker-rights laws and oppose unions illegally... i'm sorry, but if you've pissed off the Chinese government by rights violations, that's a noteworthy achievement in the annals of Bastardness.
Ask, how fast can change occur? Will any occur at all if we leave China to closed borders and pretend our hands are squeaky-clean 'cause we refuse to touch it? Yeah, but it'd be ugly, and slow.
The real issue may be more along the lines of, "once there, what do they DO?" Will Google keep playing along with the status quo forever? Will they lead by example? Will they be a freeing influence or a repressive influence?
If the first rule is "sign here or you don't get to play at all," then it's called a "compromise." Those without the illusion of self-purity make them now and then, since getting real work done means getting your hands dirty. The question is whether you attempt to wash your hands after, or like staying dirty and profit from it - like American companies have been doing for a couple of decades now.
But we bash Google 'cause they dared to say "Do no evil." We tacitly accept that, by default, everyone else can do as much evil as they want, or what...? Their mantra is 'do no evil,' not 'do not sully thy hands.'
Slow tho it may be, progress is made, even in China. Even by China. You will leave billions of their working poor to rot, isolated and alone, because your sense of moral purity doesn't allow you to deal with their government?
How nice for you. Most people in the world don't have that option.
Really now.
The odd things is, you picked an interesting bit of the article - instead of the silliness displayed above, why don't you, y'know, talk about it or something? People actually come here for that sort of thing. Shocking, I know.
It does - in hopefully, uncolored by our friend here, a non-conspiracy way - make me think about the Gummint, tho. Conflict of interest?
As mentioned, the fines are practically pointless for the fined - where does the money go? Who gets to spend it? So the consumer is screwed, the corporation loses a pittance, and the FTC gets a paycheck. Why doesn't the fine money go back to the screwed consumer? How does Corp A screwing Citizen B means "government makes more money?"
And, of course, what incentive does the FTC have to enforce any real changes here? Screw up and we make some cash, get to posture about how we care, and slap you with some lax security requirements while the public eye is on us all. What happens in the 2 years between audits? And when they pass the audits, and 10 months later this happens again... what then? Anything? Oh, more fine cash for the FTC. And more screwed consumers.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
That in mind, I hope this offtopic to the offtopic is three lefts. Note the above post.
"Huge flaming annoying banner ads are evil work of the devil and i hate them and you should burn in hell for making me see them."
Then consider the next line:
"No it's okay because it's for Firefox and your browser sucks."
Can we maybe see a connection between this and the topic at hand, especially as regards the "linus vs. richard" speculation this is devolving in to? Because really, this is getting to the heart of people's, or possibly our perception of Linus' at least, ire with the current direction of the GPL and its creators:
Horrible bad evil things are horrible bad and evil and inexcusable, until they are done in the name of something I support, in which case it's not only not-bad but actually very-good, and here's my list of excus^H^H^H^H perfectly valid reasons why.
"First of all, their office of management and budget made this policy."
Couldn't agree more. It's just a government policy. Those are optional. If the CIA, NSA and others started just following policy, where would we be? Anarchy, i tell you. Besides, if the TLAs start doing every little thing by the book, they'll be permanently hobbled in the War On Terrirrr and we'll lose.
"I hate reporting like this because then it takes away from things we should be legitimately concerned with."
Yeah. Funny that, huh? Amazing really. Seems like every time something important comes close to pushing thru the SitCom haze to our viewing audience, some goofy triviality pops up in our 'liberal' media to make a sideshow; or some minor, lesser scandal takes center stage.
Why you'd almost think there were highly-paid, experienced professionals *made* to turn things around in such a fashion, but that's crazy! You'd have to spend all day sitting around thinking ways up to deflect and turn issues you Don't Like in your own favor - "Spinning" them, to coin a phrase - requiring the skill of a surgeon, or a Doctor, really.
And if some budding young eager (if perhaps vapid and technically clueless) journalist was handed a story with all the currently popular buzzwords - privacy? NSA? Domestic Spying? - i strongly doubt they'd go ahead with it. Who likes to cash in on trends? Pshaw!
But anyway. Only liberal antiamerican crackpots come up with such conspiracies. Even if it was done right out in the open - in fact, i bet even if it was a HUGE and well-paid, high-powered industry in its own right - why, i'd just call it a 'wacko conspiracy' thereby preventing anyone from taking it seriously.
After all this is a land of ideas and free speech, so don't even think about it and don't mention it again.
"The cold hard truth is that this has very little to do with MS or monopolies. The EU is just trying to hurt the US economy by hurting the largest American company."
Are you insane?
let's review...
the 'cold hard truth' is the EU woke up this morning and said (collectively, in a booming cartoon-villain French-accented voice), "we need to destroy the uncultured Americans! Let's pretend that Microsoft failed to comply with a ruling *that it hasn't successfully challenged* and just fine them, oh, some silly amount per day, to DESTROY the AMERICAN ECONOMY! MUAHAHAHAH! All hail the tinfoil hat.
Oh, wait. i see. You're one of those guys who thinks "the assets of the incalcuably wealthy" == "the economy," and while Bush continues his only successful war - the one on the working poor of this country - your moral outrage and proclamations of doom stem from someone asking the most wealthy among us to (gasp!) follow the ^&%$*(#?!!ing rules.
Moreover, your childish and inaccurate sniping at the Linux community "playing ball in a windows world" is... fascinating. Are you talking about servers? Are you kidding?
And anyway, this is aimed at groupware integration, primarily... what the hell's that got to do with your implied "nyah nyah Linux has to cheat to compete with Windows which pwnz0rs lololol!" This isn't about "the general class of all things that got served," such as yourself.
"Their ideology is based on 'first strike' principles - on elimiting potential [b]threads[/b] as they surface."
Since there's so much material to be had here, from Freudian slips to the obvious censorship references to a few 5-quality invocations of 'First Strike Principles' on selected/. threads - I will simply allow the reader to mentally insert whichever they choose.
No, you're not understanding the scary realities here. This retroactively rewrites reality (say that X times fast).
If the patent goes through, then it is a "legal fact" that Creative "thought of it first." Whatever "it" happens to be defined as. There is no 'everybody knows' in a court of law unless or until the court declares that everybody knew it.
This is the CRUCIAL ISSUE OF PATENTS (now i will be sued by a RAM manufacturer). I make something, you use it, you make something, we all use it, everybody makes their own, Fred patents it, it goes through. From that point on, Fred thought of it, and if you don't agree, you have the freedom to be sued.
I apologize to all the eyes that were harmed from trying to read my previous comment. In penance I shall now cross mine 'til they stay that way like my mother warned me they would.
"I'm tired of seeing Slashdot headlines about "poor Chinese people behind the Great Firewall" when they don't seem to be having any trouble hammering on my SSH door."
Fat, stupid, rich Americans go abroad and piss people off. Therefore, all Americans must be fat, stupid and rich. Do we see the fallacy here?
They *aren't the same people,* guy. I don't want to shock you or anything, but I hear China has a fairly good-sized population!
More seriously, tho, realize that like any good Comcast or Roadrunner or Formerly Known As AT&T Broadband cable zombie knows, rather than some Vast Asian Conspiracy being in place, they get owned&operated like anyone else... and with such perfect scapegoats as "OMGazncrackers!" they are an attractive host to redirect attacks via. You might legally request and get the server logs from some machine in England that was taken over and used to stage attacks from. But from China? Hahahahahah! Good luck.
As much as I laughed at your post, i remembered that "microsoft and symantec were consulted to ignore the rootkit," meaning they knew damn well what it was and their lawyers advised them to feign ignorance for fear of fisticuffs with Sony.
Now Microsoft and Symantec are going to hang out together and tell us what the new threats are? I wish I could be there to voice concerns over the "private backroom deal for corporate interests" attack vector. It's an old one, but it's only getting bigger.
If you really want to see how bad it is, consider the above then read aticles such as this one http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1884677,00.as p
and note the wording. Oh, Microsoft is now "concerned," are they? As of the 9th or so when the back really hit the lash? What pathetic public posturing they've perfected. But the various news sites report this - you can find a dozen easy with identical copy, from the 9th and 10th - with no comment on their earlier complicity. They couch it terms of "not sure what kind of threat," instead of "not sure which way the wind is blowing" or "how little they can get away with doing" or "stabbing their buddies in the back to damage-control the PR angle."
Microsoft and Symantec know, do nothing, then pretend to be "concerned" when the pressure grows. F4I screams and points at Symantec, "But but but they said it wasn't malware when we asked!" Sony has done nothing wrong, just ask 'em. The RIAA, meanwhile, as we all i'm sure have read by now, realized its Stupid Statement Quota wasn't met this month and came out to spew some nonsensical gibberish about All Our PCs Will Belong To Them.
It's too soon to declare this a Victory of the Blogs over the Giants, as some euphorically have. The spin continues, and even the short-term promises of those involved have yet to be fully imped.
It's interesting to note how all the players here point fingers at all the others for the responsibility, while, say, wielding the Australian legal system to hold Kazaa's creators and maintainers responsible for every past, present and potential user of the software.
This is a significant ground gain, no question. But that's when it's time to press the attack, not sit back and congratulate each other how we stuck it to the man. It's time to get legislation changes and public awareness that WILL stick, and force the issue of equal enforcement that will demonstrate all current and planned forms of DRM and the DCMA as undesireable, impractical, unenforceable crap. It's buggy, hole-ridden, crap legislation like the code of this damn rootkit.
seriously. at best, you don't LOSE AS MANY for the 'feeding' thing. nice to see standards in the country running so high!
i'm glad the grandparent can't "stand to see anyone badmouth his mother." i can't stand to see the crappy state of parenting in this country, so i guess that makes us even.
"My degree is in the recording industry. I know what I am talking about."...
You realize there used to be a saying went something like "Rock'n'roll will be dead when you need a degree to get a job in it," right?
Murderer.
While it's true that jotting a crappy poem on a napkin in a bar makes that poem copywrit Me, do try to remember that the courts have little to do with truth and all to do with who can produce the most documentation.
Otherwise suing someone for using your crap in 7.274% of their song or album would mean that you're entitled to a maximum of 7.274% of the results*.
*Yes, i know, the Stones could argue that their work is recognizable and their reputation enhanced etc. blah blah blah, but if you strain, you'll recall that this is how U2's label whose name i don't care to say (or remember....) whacked Negativland, and should really be just about impossible to "prove" yet it is taken as solid fact.
It's nice to actually see an artist be able to do a damn thing about this. How many songs or some clips - some of them quite obscure - have you heard selling SUVs, perfume, crap?
Frex, Moby songs are all over the SUV ads. How does Moby feel about this? Who cares, since he doesn't own the song and NEVER WILL? Google for "in perpetuity" and "dirty stinking bastard RIAA-slave congressmen whores" and tell me what you find.
I can't tell you how many tunes i've heard on ads from obscure, or struggling, or undermarketed, or unknown bands - who can't get any damn radio airplay, but some marketing wanker decided 10 seconds of Clip 37A would really enhance the "mood" of this Victoria's Secret boobshot, so they pay the label a pittance and that's that. Artist permission neither sought nor required, nor thought of.
If Eminem retains the rights and has the ability to veto any use of his music, then he HAS to sue Apple, and everyone else trying to test him on it.
Thank you for your interest, Citizen! Here is your copy of the New Paranoia Mandatorily Happy Rule Book. Putting it down is treason. Removing it from its experiemental plasma-chamber suspensor is treason. Not knowing the rules is treason, and doubting what I say and looking it up in the book is also treason. In addition, wh^H^H if the plasma destablizes, surviving the explosion is something only a mutant could do, which would be treason. Have A Nice Day.
"I disagree. In an election year, with America as divided as ever, with all the political innuendo about corruption that's getting airtime lately, how can you release something like this and NOT make it political?"
ehhh.... and if it was one of the three other years that aren't tagged thusly, it would be divisive / disruptive to the war effort / counterproductive to this needed time of coming together / etc. ad nauseum.
It is "political" in the sense that it is talking about some politicians... how else may one address the actions of our elected officials? Inevitably, any criticism of our noble Caesar will be discounted as "merely political."
Honestly, ask yourself, what administration of any stripe has *ever* responded to criticism with "gee, you're right, we really oughtta stop doing that. Thank you for your concern and hard work! The democratic process is alive and well!"
Ha ha ha you wish.
Invariably the horde of spindoctors and PR cogs leap into inaction, attempting to cover the issue with a signal to noise ratio that glazes the eyes of the average American before they get to think about it too hard. Don't let Joe Wageslave hear about supressed reports and campaign contributions and policy decisions based on selective ignorance - instead fill his ears and the 6:00 news about how much the whole world picks on America and now those damned intellectuals are jumping on the bandwagon too. Nothing to see here, they just like to pick on our honorable President, the bastards.
And we're falling into it here, by allowing the debate to be about the *motivations of the scientists,* rather than *the issues they have raised!*
Why? Because arguing that America should drink more lead to prevent business interests from cutting into their executive billions would be patently ridiculous. The issues raised are not addressed, this way - they are (attempted to be) invalidated, by tarring it with "Oh yeah? Well you're a bunch of jerks with ulterior motives too, so there!" Don't argue you're not bad: shout that your opponents are just as bad as you are.
This has been the way of political success for some time, you'll notice. It feeds off our carefully cultivated inertia... talk to people at work, on the street, in crowds, whatever. Everyone thinks they're too damn tired and overworked and stupid to contain all these ideas in their brain, BUT, they're genuinely concerned and bothered by the idea that they're being misled or taken advantage above.
It's such a relief when the whole thing's cancelled out! Oh, they don't really care, this report is just political. Whew. Back to the status quo.
Slashdot Mirror
well, every now and then we get the sabre-rattling right. If someone clearly implies "gee, we happen to have the #1 requirement for nukes now," the best response is "gee, we happen to be better than ever at nullifying ballistics." i don't often get to be proud of our propaganda machine lately, let me enjoy it :P
Did you make your name up just for this article??
. /lib/daysofweek
/usr/local/office/desk
./beer.sh
case "$1" in
sun-mon-tue-wed)
log_begin_msg "Starting work..."
# set up environment
chroot =
;;
weekend)
log_begin_msg "Getting out of the house..."
if [ -f $local_band_playing ] && [ -n $wallet ]; then
cd $venue
if [ -f $band_good ] && [ -n $wallet ]; then
cd $merchtable
talk tty0 $band
./buy 'cd'
else
more beer.hic
fi
fi
esac
----
seriously. sloppy halfassed bash-ing aside, lose the losers. go out and listen to the 10 billion people who work for a living cause they aren't riding this corrupt, crap-promoting industry, and yet who still manage to get out there and play - for the need for it, the love of it, or the hell of it.
last 10 cds i bought were handed to me by the band who made 'em, in exchange for me putting the cash physically into their hands. If it's against your religion to leave the house, find 'em online.
Screw the RIAA; not as a slogan, but as a verb. Help speed the irrelevance you feel them consigned to; not by engaging in the BS smokescreen 'piracy' charged-debate, but by supporting the alternatives!
Good question. Some quickies to ponder:
"Identity theft is out of hand and we don't know what to do about it. The thieves are more technically savvy than we, and have gotten pretty good at using random bits of into to fake, infer, or gloss over what's missing. So therefore, clearly, let's make a technological solution that puts all the eggs in one newfangled basket when we can't even tell which foxes are in what henhouses today."
And of course,
"This is to prevent ID theft and to prevent Terrirrirststts from entering our fine country. Therefore, if you already live here, make sure before y'go outside the border to take a copy of your entire life story with you for easy stealing and replication."
Not to mention,
"We're going to register your ass and stuff and undisclosed amount and type of information into a Sekrit Gummint Database that'll be used to guide the gentle hand of Law Enforcement to punish those the system (that we don't know how to work properly; see first point above) identifies as Bad Guys."
which leads nicely into,
"We're the Government. Don't worry about it. Trust us."
Um... okay. So?
...I'll just go back to waiting for the optic nervesplice HUD overlay, thanks :D
I mean i guess it's cool they could do it and all, but... the PSP's screen size, frex, is acceptible. Barely. But my cellphone...? (I like how the articles cites "...the original Quake 3 for the Playstation," btw. Uh...)
I just don't get how it's desireable or even not-painful to be looking at smaller and smaller screens and cramming higher resolutions on them. So WHAT? You REALLY want to watch a full length movie on a moving train/bus/backseat on a screen the size of your hand? Ow. Ugh. Oh what an experience. Nah.
Article clearly states, right of the bat, that it's when you apply for a passport. So that's a point against hysterics.
:D.
However, it also states "...and will be put on a registry," so might as well leave the 1984 alarm running. Let's see:
Some random thoughts, concerns, questions for the crowd and more than a bit of polemic inspired by this latest tidbit in the Tony Loves George show:
This is effing ridiculous. Why not just rebuild the Berlin Wall, only turn the gun towers around t'other way? As Carmichael says in the linked article, "the only way to opt of the system is to give up your right to travel abroad."
Here's another amusing bit:
"Tony Blair was not able to attend the debate after his plane was grounded by engine troubles in South Africa."
Is this "engine trouble, wink wink nudge nudge"? He still found the time to utter that gem about it being "just sensible," and never mind all this Liberty rubbish... but maybe they felt it'd be easier to pass along without him there for opposition to focus against... or maybe he just didn't feel like getting yelled at today
(Before you object to any of the above speculation, please convince me that at any given moment, a plane actually cannot be found for the Prime Minister of Anywhere, and it is more secure to be a known grounded sitting duck? Right. If so, fire your entire staff now please, your life is in grave danger...)
Anyway. Interesting that the US and the UK are making two halves of the citizen lockdown; we talk about a US ID card, but first went ahead with the RFID passports. The UK looks like it stands a good chance of having the ID cards first. From there, it's pretty easy for each to point to the "success" of the other, and respectively pass their missing halves. Yum, compulsory RFID Citizen Cards.
Do you have a reason for crossing the border, Comrade? Why did you spend 3 hours at that truck stop, Comrade? Did you know you've been travelling with an Enemy of the State, Comrade? Please step out of the car now, Comrade.
Think that's BS? I wish. Sadly, only when more and more people who consider themselves the "normal" folks are being stopped and searched will they start to realize that maybe this isn't Liberty after all - if, of course, they haven't completed their indoctrinations into thinking it is.
As long as it looks like just black-wearing tattoed freaks and foreginers are being harassed, that's still Liberty, right?
Final, desperate plea/question to those who still doubt how this is going: Since when, in the history of Ever, has information been collected and compiled - and not used? Since when has power been sought and gained - and not abused? Explain to me how, exactly, you can collect and correlate so much data on so many private citizens with increasingly efficient and effective means of making it meaningful, finally - but when it comes to suspect uses of that information, oh don't worry, just trust them with no accountability or oversight.
"They wouldn't do that! They're the good guys!"
someone kindly wake up the great sleeping mass in the center of the country - they're used up all their Snooze button hits already.
Ah, i see: in Communism as it is attempted, you make your own country hell on earth. In Capitalism as it is attempted, the hell is exported to everyone else's. (Not to mention the manufacturing base). Thanks for the clarification! The logically flawed namecalling at the end always *really* seals the deal in proving one's moral and intellectual superiority, too.
Well, as nice and comfortable as it might be to have a One Stance Fits All solution, mmmmaybe... something things... are situational?
Or are you really considering '0rd3r v!4gr4 n0W!!!' to be perfectly equivalent to instructions on bypassing a system that'll sic big brother on your ass for daring to learn about non-approved thoughts?
I think i could deal very well with never getting another "smallcap" mail in my inbox again.
At the same time, if the internet prevented my finding ay site that happens to contain the phrase "screw Bush," i'd be rather pissed and very interested in following up on any info distributed by people working their way around that. Doing some careful research on it first, of course.
"spam bad or spam good" seems to trivialize what's at stake here - from both sides of the 'spam' binary solution set you present. We're either for spam or against it...? Hmmm...
Look how many companies do business in China. Their purpose is to make money, and that's it, they're done. Certainly, they could use this foothold to lead by example, show alternatives to repression by how they operate, once in... but most seem content to keep the wider profit margins. Remember Nike? Oh, that's old news, and that Liberal filmmaker guy talked about it, so we don't wanna be called nutjobs by the right; best drop the topic.
Let's complain about filtered search engine results; it takes the pressure off the people beating up women in sweatshops, like Disney.
Insanely, you can find that US companies defy Chinese worker-rights laws and oppose unions illegally... i'm sorry, but if you've pissed off the Chinese government by rights violations, that's a noteworthy achievement in the annals of Bastardness. Ask, how fast can change occur? Will any occur at all if we leave China to closed borders and pretend our hands are squeaky-clean 'cause we refuse to touch it? Yeah, but it'd be ugly, and slow. The real issue may be more along the lines of, "once there, what do they DO?" Will Google keep playing along with the status quo forever? Will they lead by example? Will they be a freeing influence or a repressive influence?
If the first rule is "sign here or you don't get to play at all," then it's called a "compromise." Those without the illusion of self-purity make them now and then, since getting real work done means getting your hands dirty. The question is whether you attempt to wash your hands after, or like staying dirty and profit from it - like American companies have been doing for a couple of decades now.
But we bash Google 'cause they dared to say "Do no evil." We tacitly accept that, by default, everyone else can do as much evil as they want, or what...? Their mantra is 'do no evil,' not 'do not sully thy hands.'
Slow tho it may be, progress is made, even in China. Even by China. You will leave billions of their working poor to rot, isolated and alone, because your sense of moral purity doesn't allow you to deal with their government?
How nice for you. Most people in the world don't have that option.
The odd things is, you picked an interesting bit of the article - instead of the silliness displayed above, why don't you, y'know, talk about it or something? People actually come here for that sort of thing. Shocking, I know.
It does - in hopefully, uncolored by our friend here, a non-conspiracy way - make me think about the Gummint, tho. Conflict of interest?
As mentioned, the fines are practically pointless for the fined - where does the money go? Who gets to spend it? So the consumer is screwed, the corporation loses a pittance, and the FTC gets a paycheck. Why doesn't the fine money go back to the screwed consumer? How does Corp A screwing Citizen B means "government makes more money?"
And, of course, what incentive does the FTC have to enforce any real changes here? Screw up and we make some cash, get to posture about how we care, and slap you with some lax security requirements while the public eye is on us all. What happens in the 2 years between audits? And when they pass the audits, and 10 months later this happens again... what then? Anything? Oh, more fine cash for the FTC. And more screwed consumers.
Bah.
That in mind, I hope this offtopic to the offtopic is three lefts. Note the above post.
"Huge flaming annoying banner ads are evil work of the devil and i hate them and you should burn in hell for making me see them."
Then consider the next line:
"No it's okay because it's for Firefox and your browser sucks."
Can we maybe see a connection between this and the topic at hand, especially as regards the "linus vs. richard" speculation this is devolving in to? Because really, this is getting to the heart of people's, or possibly our perception of Linus' at least, ire with the current direction of the GPL and its creators:
Horrible bad evil things are horrible bad and evil and inexcusable, until they are done in the name of something I support, in which case it's not only not-bad but actually very-good, and here's my list of excus^H^H^H^H perfectly valid reasons why.
C.f. "slippery slope."
amusing, but it's been done.
"First of all, their office of management and budget made this policy."
Couldn't agree more. It's just a government policy. Those are optional. If the CIA, NSA and others started just following policy, where would we be? Anarchy, i tell you. Besides, if the TLAs start doing every little thing by the book, they'll be permanently hobbled in the War On Terrirrr and we'll lose.
"I hate reporting like this because then it takes away from things we should be legitimately concerned with."
Yeah. Funny that, huh? Amazing really. Seems like every time something important comes close to pushing thru the SitCom haze to our viewing audience, some goofy triviality pops up in our 'liberal' media to make a sideshow; or some minor, lesser scandal takes center stage.
Why you'd almost think there were highly-paid, experienced professionals *made* to turn things around in such a fashion, but that's crazy! You'd have to spend all day sitting around thinking ways up to deflect and turn issues you Don't Like in your own favor - "Spinning" them, to coin a phrase - requiring the skill of a surgeon, or a Doctor, really.
And if some budding young eager (if perhaps vapid and technically clueless) journalist was handed a story with all the currently popular buzzwords - privacy? NSA? Domestic Spying? - i strongly doubt they'd go ahead with it. Who likes to cash in on trends? Pshaw!
But anyway. Only liberal antiamerican crackpots come up with such conspiracies. Even if it was done right out in the open - in fact, i bet even if it was a HUGE and well-paid, high-powered industry in its own right - why, i'd just call it a 'wacko conspiracy' thereby preventing anyone from taking it seriously.
After all this is a land of ideas and free speech, so don't even think about it and don't mention it again.
Are you insane?
let's review...
the 'cold hard truth' is the EU woke up this morning and said (collectively, in a booming cartoon-villain French-accented voice), "we need to destroy the uncultured Americans! Let's pretend that Microsoft failed to comply with a ruling *that it hasn't successfully challenged* and just fine them, oh, some silly amount per day, to DESTROY the AMERICAN ECONOMY! MUAHAHAHAH! All hail the tinfoil hat.
Oh, wait. i see. You're one of those guys who thinks "the assets of the incalcuably wealthy" == "the economy," and while Bush continues his only successful war - the one on the working poor of this country - your moral outrage and proclamations of doom stem from someone asking the most wealthy among us to (gasp!) follow the ^&%$*(#?!!ing rules.
Moreover, your childish and inaccurate sniping at the Linux community "playing ball in a windows world" is ... fascinating. Are you talking about servers? Are you kidding?
And anyway, this is aimed at groupware integration, primarily... what the hell's that got to do with your implied "nyah nyah Linux has to cheat to compete with Windows which pwnz0rs lololol!" This isn't about "the general class of all things that got served," such as yourself.
Well, never mind. I think we both know the chances of either of us arguing the other 'round to a different point of view, and tinfoil hats amplify Gummint signals anyway.
"Their ideology is based on 'first strike' principles - on elimiting potential [b]threads[/b] as they surface."
/. threads - I will simply allow the reader to mentally insert whichever they choose.
Since there's so much material to be had here, from Freudian slips to the obvious censorship references to a few 5-quality invocations of 'First Strike Principles' on selected
No, you're not understanding the scary realities here. This retroactively rewrites reality (say that X times fast).
If the patent goes through, then it is a "legal fact" that Creative "thought of it first." Whatever "it" happens to be defined as. There is no 'everybody knows' in a court of law unless or until the court declares that everybody knew it.
This is the CRUCIAL ISSUE OF PATENTS (now i will be sued by a RAM manufacturer). I make something, you use it, you make something, we all use it, everybody makes their own, Fred patents it, it goes through. From that point on, Fred thought of it, and if you don't agree, you have the freedom to be sued.
I apologize to all the eyes that were harmed from trying to read my previous comment. In penance I shall now cross mine 'til they stay that way like my mother warned me they would.
"I'm tired of seeing Slashdot headlines about "poor Chinese people behind the Great Firewall" when they don't seem to be having any trouble hammering on my SSH door." Fat, stupid, rich Americans go abroad and piss people off. Therefore, all Americans must be fat, stupid and rich. Do we see the fallacy here? They *aren't the same people,* guy. I don't want to shock you or anything, but I hear China has a fairly good-sized population! More seriously, tho, realize that like any good Comcast or Roadrunner or Formerly Known As AT&T Broadband cable zombie knows, rather than some Vast Asian Conspiracy being in place, they get owned&operated like anyone else... and with such perfect scapegoats as "OMGazncrackers!" they are an attractive host to redirect attacks via. You might legally request and get the server logs from some machine in England that was taken over and used to stage attacks from. But from China? Hahahahahah! Good luck.
As much as I laughed at your post, i remembered that "microsoft and symantec were consulted to ignore the rootkit," meaning they knew damn well what it was and their lawyers advised them to feign ignorance for fear of fisticuffs with Sony.
Now Microsoft and Symantec are going to hang out together and tell us what the new threats are? I wish I could be there to voice concerns over the "private backroom deal for corporate interests" attack vector. It's an old one, but it's only getting bigger.
If you really want to see how bad it is, consider the above then read aticles such as this ones p
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1884677,00.a
and note the wording. Oh, Microsoft is now "concerned," are they? As of the 9th or so when the back really hit the lash? What pathetic public posturing they've perfected. But the various news sites report this - you can find a dozen easy with identical copy, from the 9th and 10th - with no comment on their earlier complicity. They couch it terms of "not sure what kind of threat," instead of "not sure which way the wind is blowing" or "how little they can get away with doing" or "stabbing their buddies in the back to damage-control the PR angle."
Microsoft and Symantec know, do nothing, then pretend to be "concerned" when the pressure grows. F4I screams and points at Symantec, "But but but they said it wasn't malware when we asked!" Sony has done nothing wrong, just ask 'em. The RIAA, meanwhile, as we all i'm sure have read by now, realized its Stupid Statement Quota wasn't met this month and came out to spew some nonsensical gibberish about All Our PCs Will Belong To Them.
It's too soon to declare this a Victory of the Blogs over the Giants, as some euphorically have. The spin continues, and even the short-term promises of those involved have yet to be fully imped.
It's interesting to note how all the players here point fingers at all the others for the responsibility, while, say, wielding the Australian legal system to hold Kazaa's creators and maintainers responsible for every past, present and potential user of the software.
This is a significant ground gain, no question. But that's when it's time to press the attack, not sit back and congratulate each other how we stuck it to the man. It's time to get legislation changes and public awareness that WILL stick, and force the issue of equal enforcement that will demonstrate all current and planned forms of DRM and the DCMA as undesireable, impractical, unenforceable crap. It's buggy, hole-ridden, crap legislation like the code of this damn rootkit.
seriously. at best, you don't LOSE AS MANY for the 'feeding' thing. nice to see standards in the country running so high!
i'm glad the grandparent can't "stand to see anyone badmouth his mother." i can't stand to see the crappy state of parenting in this country, so i guess that makes us even.
"My degree is in the recording industry. I know what I am talking about." ...
You realize there used to be a saying went something like "Rock'n'roll will be dead when you need a degree to get a job in it," right?
Murderer.
While it's true that jotting a crappy poem on a napkin in a bar makes that poem copywrit Me, do try to remember that the courts have little to do with truth and all to do with who can produce the most documentation.
Otherwise suing someone for using your crap in 7.274% of their song or album would mean that you're entitled to a maximum of 7.274% of the results*.
*Yes, i know, the Stones could argue that their work is recognizable and their reputation enhanced etc. blah blah blah, but if you strain, you'll recall that this is how U2's label whose name i don't care to say (or remember....) whacked Negativland, and should really be just about impossible to "prove" yet it is taken as solid fact.
a dog named Snuffles, bey0tch.
It's nice to actually see an artist be able to do a damn thing about this. How many songs or some clips - some of them quite obscure - have you heard selling SUVs, perfume, crap?
Frex, Moby songs are all over the SUV ads. How does Moby feel about this? Who cares, since he doesn't own the song and NEVER WILL? Google for "in perpetuity" and "dirty stinking bastard RIAA-slave congressmen whores" and tell me what you find.
I can't tell you how many tunes i've heard on ads from obscure, or struggling, or undermarketed, or unknown bands - who can't get any damn radio airplay, but some marketing wanker decided 10 seconds of Clip 37A would really enhance the "mood" of this Victoria's Secret boobshot, so they pay the label a pittance and that's that. Artist permission neither sought nor required, nor thought of.
If Eminem retains the rights and has the ability to veto any use of his music, then he HAS to sue Apple, and everyone else trying to test him on it.
Did I mention "$^*?!! the RIAA" yet?
Ok, good.
Thank you for your interest, Citizen! Here is your copy of the New Paranoia Mandatorily Happy Rule Book. Putting it down is treason. Removing it from its experiemental plasma-chamber suspensor is treason. Not knowing the rules is treason, and doubting what I say and looking it up in the book is also treason. In addition, wh^H^H if the plasma destablizes, surviving the explosion is something only a mutant could do, which would be treason. Have A Nice Day.
"I disagree. In an election year, with America as divided as ever, with all the political innuendo about corruption that's getting airtime lately, how can you release something like this and NOT make it political?"
ehhh.... and if it was one of the three other years that aren't tagged thusly, it would be divisive / disruptive to the war effort / counterproductive to this needed time of coming together / etc. ad nauseum.
It is "political" in the sense that it is talking about some politicians... how else may one address the actions of our elected officials? Inevitably, any criticism of our noble Caesar will be discounted as "merely political."
Honestly, ask yourself, what administration of any stripe has *ever* responded to criticism with "gee, you're right, we really oughtta stop doing that. Thank you for your concern and hard work! The democratic process is alive and well!"
Ha ha ha you wish.
Invariably the horde of spindoctors and PR cogs leap into inaction, attempting to cover the issue with a signal to noise ratio that glazes the eyes of the average American before they get to think about it too hard. Don't let Joe Wageslave hear about supressed reports and campaign contributions and policy decisions based on selective ignorance - instead fill his ears and the 6:00 news about how much the whole world picks on America and now those damned intellectuals are jumping on the bandwagon too. Nothing to see here, they just like to pick on our honorable President, the bastards.
And we're falling into it here, by allowing the debate to be about the *motivations of the scientists,* rather than *the issues they have raised!*
Why? Because arguing that America should drink more lead to prevent business interests from cutting into their executive billions would be patently ridiculous. The issues raised are not addressed, this way - they are (attempted to be) invalidated, by tarring it with "Oh yeah? Well you're a bunch of jerks with ulterior motives too, so there!" Don't argue you're not bad: shout that your opponents are just as bad as you are.
This has been the way of political success for some time, you'll notice. It feeds off our carefully cultivated inertia... talk to people at work, on the street, in crowds, whatever. Everyone thinks they're too damn tired and overworked and stupid to contain all these ideas in their brain, BUT, they're genuinely concerned and bothered by the idea that they're being misled or taken advantage above.
It's such a relief when the whole thing's cancelled out! Oh, they don't really care, this report is just political. Whew. Back to the status quo.
Stop falling for this crap!
for forgetting which &$#?!! site im on and leaving HTML formatted, which was a terrible, terrible lie. My poor paragraphs....