Brighter than any star on a particular frequency I can accept. I can't accept the Earth is brighter than the super massive black hole at the center of the milky way at any frequency, that thing eats stars like monkey eats peanuts and it's a sloppy eater at all frequencies.
Excuse me but...WHOOSH...
The GP's tip is about avoiding accidentally inserting an assignment operator "=" when you intended to put an equivalence operator "==". If you follow the GP's habit there can be no such accidents because it's illegal to assign a value to a constant. The coding tip itself has been circulating for 23yrs that I personally know about, in those days compilers did not warn you about assignments within conditionals, the compiler saw valid syntax and assumed you knew what you were doing. This is why lint was so popular at the time. Even with warnings enabled it is still a good advice since following the habit will always produce a hard error when ( by Murphy's law) you inevitably make that particular typo.
That's quite an old and sensible trick with C, I was taught it at uni in the late 80's on a System V terminal. These days C/C++ compilers will flag an assignment in a logical expression with a warning.
The strangest error I got from a compiler was with MSVC 1.52, it was a real head scratcher so I had to resort to the debugger, the culprit was an innocent looking i++ statement, when disassembled it was clear the compiler had inserted two INC statements. Thus the counter was incrementing by 2 each time it executed the statement. We rebuilt the same code on the same machine and the problem disappeared. When weird shit like that happens everyone just shrugs and keeps going, but it sticks in your head for a long time and often comes to mind at inappropriate times such as during take off in a modern plane.
My favorite linker error also comes from Sytem V; "Bad magic number."
Despite the fact that gods are a product of the human mind, the worshiper if forbidden from knowing the mind of God, which is a very neat trick that effectively prevents the worshiper from engaging in introspection. This god that lives as a mental construct inside the head of the worshiper is as "real" as any other perception, it's a human personality that manages the universe, it's not necessarily a benevolent personality, it might enjoy trolling humans via works such as the bible, maybe that's why it created us, perhaps we're its troll food and all the other gods are its sockpuppets. Their belief is not rational it's emotional, logic is not the cure, introspection and self-skepticisim is, only through these "self help" acts will the absurdity of one's religion/ideology become apparent to oneself.
Disclaimer: I have experienced vivid audio and visual hallucinations (from lack of sleep and severe dehydration), I have no doubt "god talks" to people.
Regulation is like fertilizer, too much of the wrong type will damage the crops, too little of the right type and you might as well go back to picking wild berries. The definitions of "right" and "wrong" are left as an exercise for the reader.
I don't think you know what a free market is. The bandwidth market in the US is heavily, heavily government regulated.
If you think a free market it's something that is free from government regulation then I'm absolutely sure you don't know what it is. A market is a set or rules governing trade, a fundamental rule of all markets is property law, you are free to participate in a free market provided you play by the rules. A market without rules is an oxymoron, like much of the political debate in the US it's ideological nonsense.
A trivial example of a non-free market is the plutonium market, it's is an existing market but it's not free because it is not open to all players (nor should it be). Public bandwidth auctions are by definition a free market, without top down regulation of the radio spectrum there would be no bandwidth market, it would be replaced by a bottom up arms race in transmitter power. Utilities operate a lot better when the distribution network is treated as a single entity like roads and sewers, wholesalers and retailers then compete with each other over who can most efficiently build/use the same universal infrastructure. Much like construction companies and trucking companies compete to build bridges and deliver goods. It's bad enough telco's get to put their ugly poles on the public property directly in front of my house, worse still is the fact that these poles cause up to a third of all bushfires in my country. We went through the idiocy of rolling out two cable TV networks being rolled out side by side in the 90's, I really don't want more poles and wires just because corporations want to control rather than share infrastructure.
Forget all the "free market" babble, it's a mental cage that a lot of Americans have locked themselves in and thrown away the key. The questions should be more like what rules do we need to get the best outcome for all players in this particular market? What rules will lead to an expanding and innovative market? What about markets such as tobacco and alcohol, do we really want to expand those markets, should the rules be mindful of children or the fact that the products are unhealthy, should they be banned and therefore self-regulated by organized crime in so called "black markets"? Once these things are decided and implemented, does it work as advertised? They're the sort of questions that are asked and answered by genuine representatives of the people with the aid of a public service that is not afraid to speak truth to power.
Problem is that in the modern world we are overwhelmed by such questions and the self interested propaganda that accompanies them. It's physically impossible to understand every major issue in any depth, let alone come up with a sensible response. It's much easier to just ignore the details and take solace in a soundbite, the monorail guy from the Simpsons is much more entertaining than a bunch of dry academics, anyone who can sing and dance like that must know what they are doing, right?
Yes, evidence that backs up your idea is a good way to get a science grant, science grants have a proven track record of increasing our knowledge of the world around us.
Nowadays you HAVE to incorporate gas-influenced Climate Change into EVERYTHING you produce.Otherwise you risk losing your grant to a malleable researcher.
Yeah right because the 100+ nations that fund the IPCC all have exactly the same political agenda and every mainstream scientist, science journal and scientific institute on the planet has been bought of by an international system of grants that doesn't actually exist. Do you realize how fucking crazy paranoid you have to be to believe that, it's the same anti-science shit you hear from creationists, anti-vax'ers, and other groups of whacko's who don't like specific aspects of the natural world and choose to walk around with their head up their arse. Geology is the only tool we have to investigate past climate, get a grip on your paranoid delusions and go read a climate science text book, particularly the chapters on paleo-climatology.
There are plenty of posts calling for FB to withdraw from Germany, the fact that you can't see them suggests you are the one suffering from brand myopia, not slashdot.
Thet're not normal businesses, they are global financial institutions with the power to economically strangle small to medium businesses anywhere on the planet, they get special treatment by governments and society, in return they get special responsibilities. Global telecommunications are the same deal, people would soon start screaming if ISP's were selectively blocking internet banking transactions.
The alternative is to keep the peace and lock them up. It's not about shutting them up, it's about stopping them from getting their jollies by harrasing strangers. Any ideology such as "free speech" when taken to extremes that override common decency will collapse under it's own weight, ideology is a guideline not a commandment.
It's got nothing to do with free speech, picketting a private funeral is a clear case of organised harrasment, they should be locked up for disturbing the peace. Annonymous are just as bad and have all the moral standing of a lynch mob.
Wholeheartedly agree with your post! Not every beach is in the US, my beach is in Australia. When the roaring 40's are blowing full strength in winter I can almost smell the penguin shit from Antarctica, so the GP wasn't that far off, lol.
PS: Sorry to hear about your partner, I've lost loved ones to cancer it's a horrifying experience for any family.
My point was that if a cigarette was as expensive as a hit of heroine (due to prohibition) then people would steal to buy cigarettes, like they do with heroine and meth because these substances are HIGHLY addictive. Joints are already expensive but few people steal TV's to buy dope because at worst dope is MILDLY addictive. In my 35yr experience smoking with all sorts of people from junkies to off-duty cops, I have seen bad reactions to dope on two occasions, neither were violent reactions. Both were diagnosed schizophrenics who knew they should not be smoking the stuff, one got ultra paranoid and highly agitated, the other walked around muttering to herself and pulling her hair.
I've lost count of the number of violent drunks I've seen in my life time, one of the first recollections of a drunken brawl I have is from the mid 70's, it involves a guy who was just sitting on a couch at a civilized party getting his head split open by a drunken gatecrasher with a pair of nun-chucks.
I live on Port Phillip bay, 45min drive SE of Melbourne CBD. It's a 1930's weatherboard beach house, not a beach front property, it's about six rows of houses further back than that, close enough that there's a constant stream of beach-goers walking past my house this time of year. The house is very livable but old and virtually worthless by itself, it's the 650m^2 block that is valuable. Location is the only thing that matters in real estate, I'm a five minute walk to the beach, shops, train station, and 2 schools. Apartments are springing up like mushrooms around here even though the city as a whole is in a "depressed" housing market. You could easily fit three townhouses (maybe squeeze 4) on my block which is why developers regularly approach me via real estate agents. A modern beach front townhouse can be had for ~$800K, my lady friend also makes good money and has her own house nearby (worth more than mine), so selling both and buying one on the beach is not out of reach for our retirement.
I am a grandfather of three and living proof your stereotype is a Hollywood fantasy. I'm not rich nor did I claim to be, I'm comfortable and earn about twice the national average wage, I worked damned hard for decades to get into that financial position thank you very much, including a one year stint on a fishing trawler in Bass straight. I don't give a flying fuck what you put in your body just as long as you recognize that since you made the choice to consume it, you are still responsible for your behavior regardless of how shitfaced you are, please extend the same courtesy to others.
For these reasons the vast majority of pot users are unable to make a living for themselves and thus depend on public assistance and petty crime to support themselves and their habit.
Bollocks, been smoking the stuff for 35yrs, I'm currently puffing on a joint while sitting in my $0.5M+ beach house. Depending on where you live, up to a third of the people you work with (including your bosses and friends) smoke the stuff, for obvious reasons they're not keen on telling you about it. OTOH: It's true that a lot of teenagers just want to smoke (or drink) themselves into a permanent stupor but teenagers are not fully developed people either physically or mentally. Just take a look at the small crowd in Seattle who turned up at midnight to celebrate the new law coming into effect by lighting up a joint under the space needle, most of them were middle aged, all of them were orderly and polite, nobody was sitting/lying/throwing up in the gutter.
Also different strains of dope will have different effects on how lethargic you feel, some strains actually wake you up, most notably the stuff Zulu warriors used to ritually smoke before going on the warpath (less notably, the stuff I smoke before doing the housework). Anyway the point of my post is to ask you to stop trying to read the minds of people who smoke, you obviously know nothing about them other than the stereotypes you've seen in the movies and a few real people you know who have confirmed that stereotype with their behavior.
Ignorance like yours is why the US has 25% of the world's prison population but only 5% of the total population. Running out of heroine will make you break into people's houses, so will alcohol and nicotine (if they were to be added to the prohibition list), these substances are highly addictive and addicts will go to great lengths to obtain them. Dope is no more addictive than coffee, running out does not normally lead to acts of desperation.
A "market" is a set of rules governing trade, therefore a "market without controls" is an oxymoron. What you are complaining about are biased rules and corrupt players. PS: "Free" means anyone can participate, it does not mean free from government control
The Aussie laws were changed some 20 odd years ago to ban automatic weapons, it has not made a significant difference in the number of gun deaths (~200/yr). However it has made a repeat of the massacre that triggered the laws virtually impossible to anyone but a trained sniper. There are plenty of legitimate reason to own a gun, here in Australia "self defense" is not one of them. There is (currently) no legitimate reason for owning a semi-automatic weapon in Australia. Hand guns have never been culturally popular in Australia even when you could buy them at the hardware store. However you can still own one if you join a registered gun club.
Gun laws are not black and white, it's not an binary choice between guns and no guns. If Uzi's are available to the general public then you will get more people dying at these kind of massacres simply because that is what those weapons are designed for. When semi-auto are available you will get massacres like this one, simply because they make it possible. When all that is available is a musket, someone will just take it off him after the first shot.
Arming primary school teachers won't deter anybody, nor is it a sign of a healthy society. These nutters have decided to go to war with society, they know it's a suicide mission and that's often part of the goal. If they had a nuclear missile they would use it, so it's probably best not to give nuclear weapons to the general public, I agree with the laws here and draw the line at semi-auto's, others will place it elsewhere. The culture of the country affects normal people, nutters want to blow it all up. Where US/AU differs culturally with guns are the attitudes surrounding shooting people to protect property, most Aussies think people are more important, even if they do deserve to be shot. Carrying any sort of weapon for self defense is seen as a somewhat cowardly behavior, but someone living in the bush should still keep a shotgun handy to scare off drunken troublemakers.
We still have just as many nutters, there was one in the news the other day, he whacked a cop with a hammer without warning, stole his gun, then ran off to a nearby park and shot himself in the head.
The corporations have the same legal rights as a person (huge mistake IMO) and then do EVERYTHING possible to obfuscate their actions. Meanwhile people fighting back against their tyranny form groups with a public face (like ANONYMOUS) to shield their identities and are branded criminals for it. Makes you wonder who the real bad guys are.....
"[A]ll of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense once we go inside" The Monkeysphere.
Not at all. Michael Jackson paid about $273k for distribution rights for each of 4000 Beatles songs. $222k is certainly in that ballpark. If Thomas wanted to set up an online record store like iTunes,blah,blah,blah
The whole point is that she never intended to do this and is highly unlikely to have achieved it via a single torrent client. Now lie to me and tell me you or a member of your family have never done exactly the same thing.
You cannot codify "justice" or morality, those words are defined by the speaker's worldview. The rule of law is the next best thing we have, sometimes it delivers justice, other times it delivers revenge and convenient scape goats. It's an imperfect reflection of ourselves. During my lifetime (I'm 53) it has clearly progressed in favor of the little guy, there's been a bit of back peddling the last decade but I still think the big social picture looks good for the US. It will be interesting to see what happens in relation to Washington and Colorado legalizing the weed industry. On the other side of the US political divide you have a majority of states passing anti-union laws that would have caused riots in the 60's and 70's.
Slashdot Mirror
Brighter than any star on a particular frequency I can accept. I can't accept the Earth is brighter than the super massive black hole at the center of the milky way at any frequency, that thing eats stars like monkey eats peanuts and it's a sloppy eater at all frequencies.
Excuse me but...WHOOSH...
The GP's tip is about avoiding accidentally inserting an assignment operator "=" when you intended to put an equivalence operator "==". If you follow the GP's habit there can be no such accidents because it's illegal to assign a value to a constant. The coding tip itself has been circulating for 23yrs that I personally know about, in those days compilers did not warn you about assignments within conditionals, the compiler saw valid syntax and assumed you knew what you were doing. This is why lint was so popular at the time. Even with warnings enabled it is still a good advice since following the habit will always produce a hard error when ( by Murphy's law) you inevitably make that particular typo.
That's quite an old and sensible trick with C, I was taught it at uni in the late 80's on a System V terminal. These days C/C++ compilers will flag an assignment in a logical expression with a warning.
The strangest error I got from a compiler was with MSVC 1.52, it was a real head scratcher so I had to resort to the debugger, the culprit was an innocent looking i++ statement, when disassembled it was clear the compiler had inserted two INC statements. Thus the counter was incrementing by 2 each time it executed the statement. We rebuilt the same code on the same machine and the problem disappeared. When weird shit like that happens everyone just shrugs and keeps going, but it sticks in your head for a long time and often comes to mind at inappropriate times such as during take off in a modern plane.
My favorite linker error also comes from Sytem V; "Bad magic number."
Despite the fact that gods are a product of the human mind, the worshiper if forbidden from knowing the mind of God, which is a very neat trick that effectively prevents the worshiper from engaging in introspection. This god that lives as a mental construct inside the head of the worshiper is as "real" as any other perception, it's a human personality that manages the universe, it's not necessarily a benevolent personality, it might enjoy trolling humans via works such as the bible, maybe that's why it created us, perhaps we're its troll food and all the other gods are its sockpuppets. Their belief is not rational it's emotional, logic is not the cure, introspection and self-skepticisim is, only through these "self help" acts will the absurdity of one's religion/ideology become apparent to oneself.
Disclaimer: I have experienced vivid audio and visual hallucinations (from lack of sleep and severe dehydration), I have no doubt "god talks" to people.
Regulation is like fertilizer, too much of the wrong type will damage the crops, too little of the right type and you might as well go back to picking wild berries. The definitions of "right" and "wrong" are left as an exercise for the reader.
I don't think you know what a free market is. The bandwidth market in the US is heavily, heavily government regulated.
If you think a free market it's something that is free from government regulation then I'm absolutely sure you don't know what it is. A market is a set or rules governing trade, a fundamental rule of all markets is property law, you are free to participate in a free market provided you play by the rules. A market without rules is an oxymoron, like much of the political debate in the US it's ideological nonsense.
A trivial example of a non-free market is the plutonium market, it's is an existing market but it's not free because it is not open to all players (nor should it be). Public bandwidth auctions are by definition a free market, without top down regulation of the radio spectrum there would be no bandwidth market, it would be replaced by a bottom up arms race in transmitter power. Utilities operate a lot better when the distribution network is treated as a single entity like roads and sewers, wholesalers and retailers then compete with each other over who can most efficiently build/use the same universal infrastructure. Much like construction companies and trucking companies compete to build bridges and deliver goods. It's bad enough telco's get to put their ugly poles on the public property directly in front of my house, worse still is the fact that these poles cause up to a third of all bushfires in my country. We went through the idiocy of rolling out two cable TV networks being rolled out side by side in the 90's, I really don't want more poles and wires just because corporations want to control rather than share infrastructure.
Forget all the "free market" babble, it's a mental cage that a lot of Americans have locked themselves in and thrown away the key. The questions should be more like what rules do we need to get the best outcome for all players in this particular market? What rules will lead to an expanding and innovative market? What about markets such as tobacco and alcohol, do we really want to expand those markets, should the rules be mindful of children or the fact that the products are unhealthy, should they be banned and therefore self-regulated by organized crime in so called "black markets"? Once these things are decided and implemented, does it work as advertised? They're the sort of questions that are asked and answered by genuine representatives of the people with the aid of a public service that is not afraid to speak truth to power.
Problem is that in the modern world we are overwhelmed by such questions and the self interested propaganda that accompanies them. It's physically impossible to understand every major issue in any depth, let alone come up with a sensible response. It's much easier to just ignore the details and take solace in a soundbite, the monorail guy from the Simpsons is much more entertaining than a bunch of dry academics, anyone who can sing and dance like that must know what they are doing, right?
Nowadays you HAVE to incorporate gas-influenced Climate Change into EVERYTHING you produce.Otherwise you risk losing your grant to a malleable researcher.
Yeah right because the 100+ nations that fund the IPCC all have exactly the same political agenda and every mainstream scientist, science journal and scientific institute on the planet has been bought of by an international system of grants that doesn't actually exist. Do you realize how fucking crazy paranoid you have to be to believe that, it's the same anti-science shit you hear from creationists, anti-vax'ers, and other groups of whacko's who don't like specific aspects of the natural world and choose to walk around with their head up their arse. Geology is the only tool we have to investigate past climate, get a grip on your paranoid delusions and go read a climate science text book, particularly the chapters on paleo-climatology.
There are plenty of posts calling for FB to withdraw from Germany, the fact that you can't see them suggests you are the one suffering from brand myopia, not slashdot.
Thet're not normal businesses, they are global financial institutions with the power to economically strangle small to medium businesses anywhere on the planet, they get special treatment by governments and society, in return they get special responsibilities. Global telecommunications are the same deal, people would soon start screaming if ISP's were selectively blocking internet banking transactions.
Of course it's not intelligent design, fish don't need hands. Intelligent design would give them something useful to a fish, like an outboard motor, .
The alternative is to keep the peace and lock them up. It's not about shutting them up, it's about stopping them from getting their jollies by harrasing strangers. Any ideology such as "free speech" when taken to extremes that override common decency will collapse under it's own weight, ideology is a guideline not a commandment.
It's got nothing to do with free speech, picketting a private funeral is a clear case of organised harrasment, they should be locked up for disturbing the peace. Annonymous are just as bad and have all the moral standing of a lynch mob.
I think you just invented the BBS.
Wholeheartedly agree with your post! Not every beach is in the US, my beach is in Australia. When the roaring 40's are blowing full strength in winter I can almost smell the penguin shit from Antarctica, so the GP wasn't that far off, lol.
PS: Sorry to hear about your partner, I've lost loved ones to cancer it's a horrifying experience for any family.
My point was that if a cigarette was as expensive as a hit of heroine (due to prohibition) then people would steal to buy cigarettes, like they do with heroine and meth because these substances are HIGHLY addictive. Joints are already expensive but few people steal TV's to buy dope because at worst dope is MILDLY addictive. In my 35yr experience smoking with all sorts of people from junkies to off-duty cops, I have seen bad reactions to dope on two occasions, neither were violent reactions. Both were diagnosed schizophrenics who knew they should not be smoking the stuff, one got ultra paranoid and highly agitated, the other walked around muttering to herself and pulling her hair.
I've lost count of the number of violent drunks I've seen in my life time, one of the first recollections of a drunken brawl I have is from the mid 70's, it involves a guy who was just sitting on a couch at a civilized party getting his head split open by a drunken gatecrasher with a pair of nun-chucks.
Melbourne Australia, not Melbourne Florida. ;)
I live on Port Phillip bay, 45min drive SE of Melbourne CBD. It's a 1930's weatherboard beach house, not a beach front property, it's about six rows of houses further back than that, close enough that there's a constant stream of beach-goers walking past my house this time of year. The house is very livable but old and virtually worthless by itself, it's the 650m^2 block that is valuable. Location is the only thing that matters in real estate, I'm a five minute walk to the beach, shops, train station, and 2 schools. Apartments are springing up like mushrooms around here even though the city as a whole is in a "depressed" housing market. You could easily fit three townhouses (maybe squeeze 4) on my block which is why developers regularly approach me via real estate agents. A modern beach front townhouse can be had for ~$800K, my lady friend also makes good money and has her own house nearby (worth more than mine), so selling both and buying one on the beach is not out of reach for our retirement.
I am a grandfather of three and living proof your stereotype is a Hollywood fantasy. I'm not rich nor did I claim to be, I'm comfortable and earn about twice the national average wage, I worked damned hard for decades to get into that financial position thank you very much, including a one year stint on a fishing trawler in Bass straight. I don't give a flying fuck what you put in your body just as long as you recognize that since you made the choice to consume it, you are still responsible for your behavior regardless of how shitfaced you are, please extend the same courtesy to others.
For these reasons the vast majority of pot users are unable to make a living for themselves and thus depend on public assistance and petty crime to support themselves and their habit.
Bollocks, been smoking the stuff for 35yrs, I'm currently puffing on a joint while sitting in my $0.5M+ beach house. Depending on where you live, up to a third of the people you work with (including your bosses and friends) smoke the stuff, for obvious reasons they're not keen on telling you about it. OTOH: It's true that a lot of teenagers just want to smoke (or drink) themselves into a permanent stupor but teenagers are not fully developed people either physically or mentally. Just take a look at the small crowd in Seattle who turned up at midnight to celebrate the new law coming into effect by lighting up a joint under the space needle, most of them were middle aged, all of them were orderly and polite, nobody was sitting/lying/throwing up in the gutter.
Also different strains of dope will have different effects on how lethargic you feel, some strains actually wake you up, most notably the stuff Zulu warriors used to ritually smoke before going on the warpath (less notably, the stuff I smoke before doing the housework). Anyway the point of my post is to ask you to stop trying to read the minds of people who smoke, you obviously know nothing about them other than the stereotypes you've seen in the movies and a few real people you know who have confirmed that stereotype with their behavior.
Ignorance like yours is why the US has 25% of the world's prison population but only 5% of the total population. Running out of heroine will make you break into people's houses, so will alcohol and nicotine (if they were to be added to the prohibition list), these substances are highly addictive and addicts will go to great lengths to obtain them. Dope is no more addictive than coffee, running out does not normally lead to acts of desperation.
A "market" is a set of rules governing trade, therefore a "market without controls" is an oxymoron. What you are complaining about are biased rules and corrupt players. PS: "Free" means anyone can participate, it does not mean free from government control
The Aussie laws were changed some 20 odd years ago to ban automatic weapons, it has not made a significant difference in the number of gun deaths (~200/yr). However it has made a repeat of the massacre that triggered the laws virtually impossible to anyone but a trained sniper. There are plenty of legitimate reason to own a gun, here in Australia "self defense" is not one of them. There is (currently) no legitimate reason for owning a semi-automatic weapon in Australia. Hand guns have never been culturally popular in Australia even when you could buy them at the hardware store. However you can still own one if you join a registered gun club.
Gun laws are not black and white, it's not an binary choice between guns and no guns. If Uzi's are available to the general public then you will get more people dying at these kind of massacres simply because that is what those weapons are designed for. When semi-auto are available you will get massacres like this one, simply because they make it possible. When all that is available is a musket, someone will just take it off him after the first shot.
Arming primary school teachers won't deter anybody, nor is it a sign of a healthy society. These nutters have decided to go to war with society, they know it's a suicide mission and that's often part of the goal. If they had a nuclear missile they would use it, so it's probably best not to give nuclear weapons to the general public, I agree with the laws here and draw the line at semi-auto's, others will place it elsewhere. The culture of the country affects normal people, nutters want to blow it all up. Where US/AU differs culturally with guns are the attitudes surrounding shooting people to protect property, most Aussies think people are more important, even if they do deserve to be shot. Carrying any sort of weapon for self defense is seen as a somewhat cowardly behavior, but someone living in the bush should still keep a shotgun handy to scare off drunken troublemakers.
We still have just as many nutters, there was one in the news the other day, he whacked a cop with a hammer without warning, stole his gun, then ran off to a nearby park and shot himself in the head.
It wasn't violated, it was abused by vested interests.
The corporations have the same legal rights as a person (huge mistake IMO) and then do EVERYTHING possible to obfuscate their actions. Meanwhile people fighting back against their tyranny form groups with a public face (like ANONYMOUS) to shield their identities and are branded criminals for it. Makes you wonder who the real bad guys are.....
"[A]ll of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense once we go inside" The Monkeysphere.
Unless you're already dead there's always something to lose, even then you can still lose things like reputation and dignity.
Not at all. Michael Jackson paid about $273k for distribution rights for each of 4000 Beatles songs. $222k is certainly in that ballpark. If Thomas wanted to set up an online record store like iTunes,blah,blah,blah
The whole point is that she never intended to do this and is highly unlikely to have achieved it via a single torrent client. Now lie to me and tell me you or a member of your family have never done exactly the same thing.
You cannot codify "justice" or morality, those words are defined by the speaker's worldview. The rule of law is the next best thing we have, sometimes it delivers justice, other times it delivers revenge and convenient scape goats. It's an imperfect reflection of ourselves. During my lifetime (I'm 53) it has clearly progressed in favor of the little guy, there's been a bit of back peddling the last decade but I still think the big social picture looks good for the US. It will be interesting to see what happens in relation to Washington and Colorado legalizing the weed industry. On the other side of the US political divide you have a majority of states passing anti-union laws that would have caused riots in the 60's and 70's.