America - The Republic that voted to become a Totalitarianism.
Nice.sig - I agree with the sentiment completely - except that it is grammatically incorrect.
One can be a totalitarian - but not a totalitarianism. The fact that a "Republic" (sic) is a plurality does not change this.
For example, consider the following conversation:
Me: "Of what political affiliation are you?"
Bill Clinton: "I'm a Democrat."
Bill would not say, "I'm a Democratic," obviously. Neither would George Bush answer, "I'm a totalitarianism." Well, perhaps he would, but only because he is an idiot.
I suggest rephrasing your.sig thusly:
America - The republic that voted itself into totalitarianism.
This isn't a flame or a troll, or even much of a nitpick. I just happen to agree with you, and would like to see an opinion with which I am in concurrence expressed more eloquently.:-)
Furthermore, anti-spam legislation has the potential to curb one's right to free speech, and would violate the Constitution.
Companies don't have a right to free speech (and this includes everything from mom-and-pop businesses to multi-national corporations).
Many of the personal e-mails which I send are unsolicited and, while I am certainly not a spammer, could violate anti-spam laws because the recipient did not specifically request to be sent e-mail.
No violation would exist, because you are not sending bulk unsolicited e-mail. The key word here is BULK. While I know that the definition of bulk is open to quibbling, most such arguments are disingenuous, and ridiculous.
Legislating one's right to communicate freely goes against everything this country was founded upon, and anti-spam legislation is just another example of an overly powerful government taking away the rights of its citizens. I, for one will not support any such law, or any lawmaker who supports such a law.
That statement is so rah-rah and flag-waving that it is cloying. Our country was presumably founded by individuals with common sense (remember Thomas Paine?). I imagine that if spamming would have been possible in their day, the spammers would have been summarily executed.:-)
P.S.
As an aside, I consider the founding father's original intentions to be largely irrelevant. When they framed the Constitution, women and blacks were excluded from its protection. We are now going through a similar fight and readjustment with homosexuality.
What ever happened to the disposable phone from Dieceland Technologies, which was supposed to be made from laminated paper?
They are promoting it as self-activating, and to be available in convenience stores and gas stations. I imagine the cheap manufacturing process and economies of scale would keep the cost low.
I do find it painful. Not in a literal sense, of course, but I cringe in the same way that I might if I were addressed by a drunk standing too close to me, reeking of halitosis, with snot dripping from his mustache.
No, I'm not trolling, this isn't flamebait, and I'm not being elitist. I'm just pointing out that some readers do experience a visceral response to poor spelling and grammar.
Grammar doesn't have to be perfect, or I would never post. Spelling is a nearly impossible chore for some: it is acceptable, for them, if dyslexia or a similar disorder is their excuse. However, poor spelling and grammar, if due to laziness or indifference, does offend me.
Further, from experience, I have seldom read a thought worth reading that was contained within a syntactical nightmare.
I've been reading Slashdot for years, and I have noticed that the literacy levels - and levels of intelligibility and thoughtfulness - have declined as it has become a destination visited by more people.
Has anyone else noticed this deterioration? It has gotten so bad that I'm now reading www.kuo5hin.org more often than Slashdot.
Now that this message has rambled entirely off-topic, can anyone recommend intelligent, literate forums with a high volume of traffic? They _don't_ have to be tech-oriented.
I don't know who you are, but you apparently know who I am.
First, I didn't know that Hae Jin was pregnant until long after the fact. Second, I didn't abandon her. I loved her deeply, and tried to marry her, but she stopped responding to any of my phone calls or letters.
I tried to locate her for years on the Internet to no avail. I still think about her, I still love her - because if you ever really loved someone you always do - and I want to know desperately what happened to her.
I am happily married now, but I still wonder about her quite often.
Did Hae Jin really have my child?
Hmm. Was this just a troll, and am I the victim? No matter. I can't take the chance that it isn't and not respond. I really want to know what happened to Hae Jin.
Your ISP has a number of valid reasons (IMO) to ban p2p -- bandwidth is a completely fair one. Illegality (if proven) is another. However, morality has got to be just about the worst reason.
I personally don't care whether something is illegal or not. I have no moral obligation to obey unjust laws; I have an obligation, in fact, to actively oppose unjust laws. Use laws to oppose laws, if possible. If not, use ethical means to change unjust laws, even if those means are not legal in and of themselves. But that is another topic.
And I don't want my ISP presuming that what I am doing is illegal. The burden of proof for illegal activities should be on the ISP, NOT the customer.
Every time that a policeman makes an arrest it is under the asuumption that you are guilty. Do you really think that a policeman could legally kidnap and incarcerate you if the actual presumption were not that you were guilty, the "innocent and proven guilty" notion aside?
Policeman: "I'm sorry, but I'm going to cuff you, cage you, humiliate you in front of family and friends, severely stress you out and scare the shit out of you, but I really do think that you are innocent. Really."
That's what arrest and taking into custody is: legal kidnapping. In other words, kidnapping which the government, and by extraopolation, all (or most) of us, approve. The prisoner is presumed to have been doing something illegal.
American Express and Discover have recently been sued for aiding and abetting illegal on-line gambling casinos. The assertion is that American Express and Discover profit from illegal online gambling by issuing merchant accounts to casino operators who accept bets from customers located in areas where such gambling is illegal.
I haven't followed the suit, so I don't know whether it is pending or finished, or, if finished, how it was resolved, but my sympathies aren't with American Express or Discover. Yes, I'm saying that I consider that an ISP which allows p2p warez distribution to occur is guilty of aiding and abetting. Banning p2p programs, used almost exclusively for warez distribution, is merely preventive health management.
I realize you are not the ISP you work for. However, while you are distancing yourself from their decision, you also said that "we are not weeping at their loss". You can't have it both ways.
When posting hurriedly in the middle of the night, it is often difficult to remember which hat one is wearing.
Okay, that isn't the only explantion for my "I/we" dualism.
I personally feel that sharing warez across p2p network is theft, and is justifiably discouraged. Let me add, however, that I consider it theft because consumers agree that it is. If you buy a piece of software covered by a particular EULA, and that EULA specifically forbids sharing copies with friends or strangers, then the only moral option is to return that software if you disgree with that contract. Whether you consider the contract fair or not is irrelavant, as is any other consideration (those who whine that the EULA can't be viewed before purchase, as an example). Virtually all EULA's contain such restrictions, so it shouldn't take a brain surgeon to realize that the Warcraft III EULA probably contains the same restriction.
I know that returning opened software can be difficult or impossible. If I bought a product which did not allow me to view the EULA beforehand, and I later objected to its provisions, I would first attempt to return the software. If return was impossible, I would protest to the software manufacturer. If they did not accomodate me, I would feel free to make as many copies as I could and distribute them widely. Consider these "spite" or protest copies, if you will, but I do believe that the principle is more important than the law, and, after attempting to right a wrong within the framework of the law, and failing, it is my natural inclination (and perhaps obligation) to ignore the law while attempting to change it by reasonable means.
ON THE OTHER HAND, the software industry does complain too much. The vast majority of software traded on p2p networks is traded by individuals who would never have bought it in the first place, but the thrill is in the collecting. As they were never potential customers, no theft is involved no matter how many copies they produce or cause to be produced. It is only theft when the software manufacturer has been denied their (due) profit.
I consider that the profit is "due" any time you, as a customer, agree to a EULA. You agree to a EULA everytime you purchase a product 1) with the foreknowledge that it will have an unnaceptable EULA and you buy it anyway, 2) or when, to you HONEST SURPRISE, you find the EULA unnacceptable but do not take reasonable measures to return it for a refund.
As I said before, if they don't honor their EULA by refunding your money when the EULA indicates that it will, then make as many copies as you want. Your obligation to them has ended.
If ftp, http, e-mail, usenet, etc., had been designed for the *primary* purpose of aiding and abetting thieves, then my employers would not be in the ISP business.
I am not defending their decision, but nor am I condemning it; they are following their own conscience, and I admire anyone who values principle over business considerations.
The reason I contributed to this thread was not to engage in a discussion regarding the morality of exchanging warez via a p2p network, but rather to indicate that RoadRunner might be blocking access to KaZaA for reasons that hadn't been yet suggested.
Not all businesses are run by predatory immoral bastards.
To further clarify, I have not expressed my own views regarding p2p file-sharing because it isn't relevant within the context of this thread.
I work for an ISP in the Pacific Northwest, and we block access to all p2p file-sharing programs.
These programs {KaZaA, etc.) are blocked because the owners feel that they promote activities which are immoral and wrong. Yes, that _is_ the primary reason. If you can demonstrate to them that you have reasons for using a p2p file-sharing program which do not violate their principles, then they will remove the block for you individually.
As a beneficial side-effect, getting rid of, or limiting the 5% of our users who used these programs, saved us over 50% of our bandwidth. We are not weeping at their loss.
So did I, for a decade. We have at least that much in common.
...(except the Persian Gulf -- I was too young by about 3 years).
Our first difference. I served in the Persian Gulf.
That flag is a symbol of what we've fought for since 1776.
True enough. However, note the word symbol in that sentence.
When you burn it you spit in our faces and stomp on our graves.
Our first major difference. When you burn the flag, you destroy by fire a piece of muli-hued fabric. Nothing less, nothing more.
Fuckers like you piss me off. You have no comprehension of what freedom means. Yeah, you're free to burn an american flag -- but only because people like me are willing to die to protect that freedom. Doesn't that strike you as a little odd? Maybe just a bit insulting to us?
Dumbasses like you piss me off. You, and everyone like you who seem unable to distinguish between a symbol and the real liberty and freedom which that symbol represents.
Ban the burning of the flag today. Ban the burning of the Bible tomorrow. Ban the burning of the Koran next week. Then let's ban the burning of the Book of Mormon, Scientology's various copyrighted works, the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and Ellen G. White and Edgar Cayce and the Bab and Karl Marx and Martin Luther King Jr. and John F.Kennedy.
I say that those who are offended easily deserve to be offended.
That's my motto, but it still pisses me off to hear dumbasses like you spout.
You can't download a current JVM from MS, but that is only important to Sun's PR lackey's, not in the real world.
MS's own JVM works flawlessly on every web site I've ever visited which required Java. Joe Average Consumer doesn't care who wrote it or or even what it is, as long as it works.
Joe Educated Consumer might care, but there aren't enough of that breed to ever make Sun an important player in the client-side language market.
No flaming here, but I've never seen a client-side Java application that wasn't mediocre, anyway. I know that it has been relatively successful in the area of web services, but the public doesn't see that, so Sun's mindshare is particularly low, despite their recent move toward a more open Java.
There is/was nothing crappy about MS's JVM. Yes, it violated Sun's licensing agreement, but it was both fast and functional.
I am an addicted web surfer... I visit hundreds of sites weekly, and, of the sprinkling which require Java, MS's JVM always performs flawlessly.
The average web surfer still doesn't understand that there is a difference between Java and Javascript, or that Sun, when it is capitalized and appearing in the same sentence as Java, is not referring to solar heated coffee. In other words, this decision is of zero importance to MS or Sun, because the great unwashed mass of their customers will never read past the headline, and won't understand what they are reading if they do.
Watergate overshadows all of the other manufactured "scandals" that you mention above. It was easily the biggest scandal of the last 50 years, and will be discussed by historians centuries hence, long after the name "Vince Foster" had faded from memory.
Why? How about being able to play a properly DM'd game even when my local buddies are all otherwise occupied? In my underwear? At any hour? How about, when I care to DM myself, being able to avoid of the tedium of character creation and rolling dice and the minutia of hundreds of rules?
I stopped playing tabletop dungeons because I hated that tedium. Showing up at as friend's house for a game that was supposed to start at noon and no one had even finished rolling their fucking characters by 3pm. No thank you.
All of the benefits and none of the body odor and spilled cheese dip and delays or interruptions.
While technically you are correct, the Internet did indeed kill BBS's. Yes, BBS's didn't get their start until the early 1980's, which the Internet long predates, but vitually no one had Internet access at home until the early 1990's, after which BBS's rapidly declined.
However, the Internet was not the only killer of the BBS scene. BBS's were also killed by their own popularity. In 1986, it was possible to have intelligent, literate conversations on BBS's, but this had become nearly impossible a few years later. Why? The invasion of punks. The trolls, the flamebaits, and the emergence of "doodz."
I was a SysOp for many years, and as soon as the nicks and handles started to become WizzyTheOrgasmicGod and CyberFucker, I knew the end was nigh. I'm sure that others can recount similar stories about IRC and Usenet.
I saw the first Star Wars movie opening night when I was 16 years old. I was honestly perplexed that anybody thought that it was other than shallow, contrived shit. I persevered, watching every SW film afterwards on opening night, wanting to understand why this derivative garbage had so captured the pysche of the nation. I wanted to belong, damnit!
For Phantom Menace, I attended just because I'd seen the other three. Of course, I was disappointed. Last night, I went to see Clones, KNOWING that it was going to be trash.
Happily, for the very first time, I was wrong. Lucas finally presented to me a world that I had never seen before. Sometimes the CGI was disappointing, but only occasionally and never to the point of distraction. It was fast-paced, but still contained enough of a story to hold my interest. The eye candy was fantastic. Almost every alien and every craft and every city was amazing.
Omit the Anakin masturbation scene, and the Sound of Music scene, and much of the dialogue between our two young lovers (no chemistry, and that is hard to imagine considering that Natalie is HOT and a capable actor), and the movie was the second best I've seen this year (Brotherwood of the Wolf being the first).
Of course, I was disturbed that Natalie's character simpers so often, and, even after Anakin reveals that he is a mass murderer of women and chidren, she still marries him.
Still, I enjoyed it more than anything I've seen Lucas direct since American Graffiti or THX 1138.
Thank you, George.
Re:Artistic and Theft are not mutually exclusive
on
Mashed-Up Music
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Okay, let's follow this logic using the print media.
I take Stephen King's Carrie and Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October, and and I "mash" it together so that it is arguably a new and different work.
The originals haven't been touched (literally, Stephen and Tom have the master manuscripts), and "clean" originals can still be published, so no plagiarism has taken place.
But has plagiarism occurred? I argue yes, and the definition of plagiarism certainly helps my argument: to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
Now, I submit that, if borrowing text is theft, then so is borrowing musical samples.
We can quibble over definitions, and the greater need of society, and your rights to do what you want with anything that you have purchased, but you are still a thief if you deprive me of anything that is rightfully mine, and this includes depriving me of profits from any of my creations.
If Stephen King and Tom Clancy want to have their works "mashed" together, then it is their right to decide whether this occurs, and their right to the resultant profits.
I'm sorry, but as a university student (especially one who describes himself as an "eternal" student), you shouldn't be relying on grammar checkers for simple stuff like subject-verb agreement and active/passive voice.
I am not a grammar Nazi, but I find a thesaurus more of an enemy than a tool. I've revised hundreds of papers for friends and family, and it always obvious when someone with the vocabulary of a gnat has overdosed on the use of a thesaurus.
Grammar checkers are only useful tools for people who already have at least a basic understanding of grammar. Too many times, I've watched my wife or my friends blindly make a change suggested by Word because they assumed that Word was infallible.
Yes, I've probably made numerous grammatical errors above, so there is no need for a wit to point them out.
He is also notorious for having compiled, edited and released two seminal SF anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions.
I've been waiting for Last Dangerous Visions for over 25 years, but Harlan has never released it, for reasons that he has never explained.
Ellison's has insisted for over 25 years that it will be completed, but it remains one of the most famous ever not-published books. Christopher Priest wrote about it amusingly in The Last Deadloss Visions, but, at Christopher's request, that e-text has been withdrawn from the Internet. And, no, it wasn't withdrawn due to censorship or Harlan's bullying, but for more commercial reasons: you can now order it in book form from Amazon as The Book on the Edge of Forever : An Enquiry into the Non-Appearance of Harlan Ellison's the Last Dangerous Visions.
Sadly, I haven't read it for years, so I can't recount the details here.
Imagine if you got fined $270 every time you were one second late for something, anything.
Hmm. I've just imagined this scenario... and do you know what? I've come up with a solution guaranteed, 100% of the time, to avoid those fines.
It's called BEING ON TIME. I manage it, nearly every day. Almost every time. I have a schedule at least as hectic as anyone I know, but I arrive at work, and at appointments, etc., ON TIME. It's easy being punctual. It is actually a stress reducer, to cruise into an appointed place at the appointed time with five minutes or so to spare.
Most people who are habitually tardy are very poor managers of their time. I've had co-workers who lived UPSTAIRS from their workplace - it took them literally 30 seconds to open the door and stroll to work - yet they were late almost daily.
Also, have you ever noticed that the impatient, inconsiderate drivers who pass at every opportunity, who tailgate, who jet across yellow lights, etc., always arrive at the sam parking lot at the same time you do?
I conclude with this simple sentence: "If you want something done, ask a busy person." This sentence is very true, but ask yourself WHY IS IT TRUE?
It is true because busy people know how to manage their fucking time!
Charlatans Exist Because We Love Them
on
The Magic Box Hoax
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Sometimes it is good to be a cynic.
No, but sometimes it is good to be a skeptic. In fact, in my own experience, it is always good to be a skeptic.
The cynics I've known were convinced that all human behavior was motivated wholly by self-interest, which, even if it is true in an ultimate sense, is an attitude guaranteed to close your mind. The skeptics, on the other hand, merely insist that all claims be testable and repeatable: they doubt, but their doubt is healthy and reasonable, and leave them with a mind-set that I think of as structured incredulity.
If more people were skeptics, charlatans like John Edwards and James Van Praagh wouldn't be able to make a living, and this "Magic Box Hoax" could have never occurred.
I'm sorry, but I miss your "visitation" reference entirely. I assume that it is filmic. To which motion picture are you alluding?
And have you ever heard of Suffolk pink? Many houses in the UK are painted that color (which, charmingly, is/was traditionally produced by mixing buttermilk and pig's blood to the paint).
Isn't science supposed to be testable? With Mars close enough that testing is within the realm of possibility, why publish this type of nearly-tabloid-like supposition prematurely?
Is real research really that hard up for media attention? Is science not "sellable" unless is about transporters and FTL devices?
That's my theory, which might also explain why charlatans such as John Edward and James von Praagh receive such consistently high ratings...
Slashdot Mirror
America - The Republic that voted to become a Totalitarianism.
.sig - I agree with the sentiment completely - except that it is grammatically incorrect.
.sig thusly:
:-)
Nice
One can be a totalitarian - but not a totalitarianism. The fact that a "Republic" (sic) is a plurality does not change this.
For example, consider the following conversation:
Me: "Of what political affiliation are you?"
Bill Clinton: "I'm a Democrat."
Bill would not say, "I'm a Democratic," obviously. Neither would George Bush answer, "I'm a totalitarianism." Well, perhaps he would, but only because he is an idiot.
I suggest rephrasing your
America - The republic that voted itself into totalitarianism.
This isn't a flame or a troll, or even much of a nitpick. I just happen to agree with you, and would like to see an opinion with which I am in concurrence expressed more eloquently.
Furthermore, anti-spam legislation has the potential to curb one's right to free speech, and would violate the Constitution.
:-)
Companies don't have a right to free speech (and this includes everything from mom-and-pop businesses to multi-national corporations).
Many of the personal e-mails which I send are unsolicited and, while I am certainly not a spammer, could violate anti-spam laws because the recipient did not specifically request to be sent e-mail.
No violation would exist, because you are not sending bulk unsolicited e-mail. The key word here is BULK. While I know that the definition of bulk is open to quibbling, most such arguments are disingenuous, and ridiculous.
Legislating one's right to communicate freely goes against everything this country was founded upon, and anti-spam legislation is just another example of an overly powerful government taking away the rights of its citizens. I, for one will not support any such law, or any lawmaker who supports such a law.
That statement is so rah-rah and flag-waving that it is cloying. Our country was presumably founded by individuals with common sense (remember Thomas Paine?). I imagine that if spamming would have been possible in their day, the spammers would have been summarily executed.
P.S.
As an aside, I consider the founding father's original intentions to be largely irrelevant. When they framed the Constitution, women and blacks were excluded from its protection. We are now going through a similar fight and readjustment with homosexuality.
What ever happened to the disposable phone from Dieceland Technologies, which was supposed to be made from laminated paper?
They are promoting it as self-activating, and to be available in convenience stores and gas stations. I imagine the cheap manufacturing process and economies of scale would keep the cost low.
I do find it painful. Not in a literal sense, of course, but I cringe in the same way that I might if I were addressed by a drunk standing too close to me, reeking of halitosis, with snot dripping from his mustache.
No, I'm not trolling, this isn't flamebait, and I'm not being elitist. I'm just pointing out that some readers do experience a visceral response to poor spelling and grammar.
Grammar doesn't have to be perfect, or I would never post. Spelling is a nearly impossible chore for some: it is acceptable, for them, if dyslexia or a similar disorder is their excuse. However, poor spelling and grammar, if due to laziness or indifference, does offend me.
Further, from experience, I have seldom read a thought worth reading that was contained within a syntactical nightmare.
I've been reading Slashdot for years, and I have noticed that the literacy levels - and levels of intelligibility and thoughtfulness - have declined as it has become a destination visited by more people.
Has anyone else noticed this deterioration? It has gotten so bad that I'm now reading www.kuo5hin.org more often than Slashdot.
Now that this message has rambled entirely off-topic, can anyone recommend intelligent, literate forums with a high volume of traffic? They _don't_ have to be tech-oriented.
All suggestions welcome.
I don't know who you are, but you apparently know who I am.
First, I didn't know that Hae Jin was pregnant until long after the fact. Second, I didn't abandon her. I loved her deeply, and tried to marry her, but she stopped responding to any of my phone calls or letters.
I tried to locate her for years on the Internet to no avail. I still think about her, I still love her - because if you ever really loved someone you always do - and I want to know desperately what happened to her.
I am happily married now, but I still wonder about her quite often.
Did Hae Jin really have my child?
Hmm. Was this just a troll, and am I the victim? No matter. I can't take the chance that it isn't and not respond. I really want to know what happened to Hae Jin.
Your ISP has a number of valid reasons (IMO) to ban p2p -- bandwidth is a completely fair one. Illegality (if proven) is another. However, morality has got to be just about the worst reason.
I personally don't care whether something is illegal or not. I have no moral obligation to obey unjust laws; I have an obligation, in fact, to actively oppose unjust laws. Use laws to oppose laws, if possible. If not, use ethical means to change unjust laws, even if those means are not legal in and of themselves. But that is another topic.
And I don't want my ISP presuming that what I am doing is illegal. The burden of proof for illegal activities should be on the ISP, NOT the customer.
Every time that a policeman makes an arrest it is under the asuumption that you are guilty. Do you really think that a policeman could legally kidnap and incarcerate you if the actual presumption were not that you were guilty, the "innocent and proven guilty" notion aside?
Policeman: "I'm sorry, but I'm going to cuff you, cage you, humiliate you in front of family and friends, severely stress you out and scare the shit out of you, but I really do think that you are innocent. Really."
That's what arrest and taking into custody is: legal kidnapping. In other words, kidnapping which the government, and by extraopolation, all (or most) of us, approve. The prisoner is presumed to have been doing something illegal.
American Express and Discover have recently been sued for aiding and abetting illegal on-line gambling casinos. The assertion is that American Express and Discover profit from illegal online gambling by issuing merchant accounts to casino operators who accept bets from customers located in areas where such gambling is illegal.
I haven't followed the suit, so I don't know whether it is pending or finished, or, if finished, how it was resolved, but my sympathies aren't with American Express or Discover. Yes, I'm saying that I consider that an ISP which allows p2p warez distribution to occur is guilty of aiding and abetting. Banning p2p programs, used almost exclusively for warez distribution, is merely preventive health management.
I realize you are not the ISP you work for. However, while you are distancing yourself from their decision, you also said that "we are not weeping at their loss". You can't have it both ways.
When posting hurriedly in the middle of the night, it is often difficult to remember which hat one is wearing.
Okay, that isn't the only explantion for my "I/we" dualism.
I personally feel that sharing warez across p2p network is theft, and is justifiably discouraged. Let me add, however, that I consider it theft because consumers agree that it is. If you buy a piece of software covered by a particular EULA, and that EULA specifically forbids sharing copies with friends or strangers, then the only moral option is to return that software if you disgree with that contract. Whether you consider the contract fair or not is irrelavant, as is any other consideration (those who whine that the EULA can't be viewed before purchase, as an example). Virtually all EULA's contain such restrictions, so it shouldn't take a brain surgeon to realize that the Warcraft III EULA probably contains the same restriction.
I know that returning opened software can be difficult or impossible. If I bought a product which did not allow me to view the EULA beforehand, and I later objected to its provisions, I would first attempt to return the software. If return was impossible, I would protest to the software manufacturer. If they did not accomodate me, I would feel free to make as many copies as I could and distribute them widely. Consider these "spite" or protest copies, if you will, but I do believe that the principle is more important than the law, and, after attempting to right a wrong within the framework of the law, and failing, it is my natural inclination (and perhaps obligation) to ignore the law while attempting to change it by reasonable means.
ON THE OTHER HAND, the software industry does complain too much. The vast majority of software traded on p2p networks is traded by individuals who would never have bought it in the first place, but the thrill is in the collecting. As they were never potential customers, no theft is involved no matter how many copies they produce or cause to be produced. It is only theft when the software manufacturer has been denied their (due) profit.
I consider that the profit is "due" any time you, as a customer, agree to a EULA. You agree to a EULA everytime you purchase a product 1) with the foreknowledge that it will have an unnaceptable EULA and you buy it anyway, 2) or when, to you HONEST SURPRISE, you find the EULA unnacceptable but do not take reasonable measures to return it for a refund.
As I said before, if they don't honor their EULA by refunding your money when the EULA indicates that it will, then make as many copies as you want. Your obligation to them has ended.
If ftp, http, e-mail, usenet, etc., had been designed for the *primary* purpose of aiding and abetting thieves, then my employers would not be in the ISP business.
I am not defending their decision, but nor am I condemning it; they are following their own conscience, and I admire anyone who values principle over business considerations.
The reason I contributed to this thread was not to engage in a discussion regarding the morality of exchanging warez via a p2p network, but rather to indicate that RoadRunner might be blocking access to KaZaA for reasons that hadn't been yet suggested.
Not all businesses are run by predatory immoral bastards.
To further clarify, I have not expressed my own views regarding p2p file-sharing because it isn't relevant within the context of this thread.
I work for an ISP in the Pacific Northwest, and we block access to all p2p file-sharing programs.
These programs {KaZaA, etc.) are blocked because the owners feel that they promote activities which are immoral and wrong. Yes, that _is_ the primary reason. If you can demonstrate to them that you have reasons for using a p2p file-sharing program which do not violate their principles, then they will remove the block for you individually.
As a beneficial side-effect, getting rid of, or limiting the 5% of our users who used these programs, saved us over 50% of our bandwidth. We are not weeping at their loss.
I serve proudly in the US military.
...(except the Persian Gulf -- I was too young by about 3 years).
So did I, for a decade. We have at least that much in common.
Our first difference. I served in the Persian Gulf.
That flag is a symbol of what we've fought for since 1776.
True enough. However, note the word symbol in that sentence.
When you burn it you spit in our faces and stomp on our graves.
Our first major difference. When you burn the flag, you destroy by fire a piece of muli-hued fabric. Nothing less, nothing more.
Fuckers like you piss me off. You have no comprehension of what freedom means. Yeah, you're free to burn an american flag -- but only because people like me are willing to die to protect that freedom. Doesn't that strike you as a little odd? Maybe just a bit insulting to us?
Dumbasses like you piss me off. You, and everyone like you who seem unable to distinguish between a symbol and the real liberty and freedom which that symbol represents.
Ban the burning of the flag today. Ban the burning of the Bible tomorrow. Ban the burning of the Koran next week. Then let's ban the burning of the Book of Mormon, Scientology's various copyrighted works, the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and Ellen G. White and Edgar Cayce and the Bab and Karl Marx and Martin Luther King Jr. and John F.Kennedy.
I say that those who are offended easily deserve to be offended.
That's my motto, but it still pisses me off to hear dumbasses like you spout.
You can't download a current JVM from MS, but that is only important to Sun's PR lackey's, not in the real world.
MS's own JVM works flawlessly on every web site I've ever visited which required Java. Joe Average Consumer doesn't care who wrote it or or even what it is, as long as it works.
Joe Educated Consumer might care, but there aren't enough of that breed to ever make Sun an important player in the client-side language market.
No flaming here, but I've never seen a client-side Java application that wasn't mediocre, anyway. I know that it has been relatively successful in the area of web services, but the public doesn't see that, so Sun's mindshare is particularly low, despite their recent move toward a more open Java.
Microsoft includes their crappy Java with IE.
There is/was nothing crappy about MS's JVM. Yes, it violated Sun's licensing agreement, but it was both fast and functional.
I am an addicted web surfer... I visit hundreds of sites weekly, and, of the sprinkling which require Java, MS's JVM always performs flawlessly.
The average web surfer still doesn't understand that there is a difference between Java and Javascript, or that Sun, when it is capitalized and appearing in the same sentence as Java, is not referring to solar heated coffee. In other words, this decision is of zero importance to MS or Sun, because the great unwashed mass of their customers will never read past the headline, and won't understand what they are reading if they do.
Watergate overshadows all of the other manufactured "scandals" that you mention above. It was easily the biggest scandal of the last 50 years, and will be discussed by historians centuries hence, long after the name "Vince Foster" had faded from memory.
Why? How about being able to play a properly DM'd game even when my local buddies are all otherwise occupied? In my underwear? At any hour? How about, when I care to DM myself, being able to avoid of the tedium of character creation and rolling dice and the minutia of hundreds of rules?
I stopped playing tabletop dungeons because I hated that tedium. Showing up at as friend's house for a game that was supposed to start at noon and no one had even finished rolling their fucking characters by 3pm. No thank you.
All of the benefits and none of the body odor and spilled cheese dip and delays or interruptions.
I honestly can't think of a single DISadvantage.
While technically you are correct, the Internet did indeed kill BBS's. Yes, BBS's didn't get their start until the early 1980's, which the Internet long predates, but vitually no one had Internet access at home until the early 1990's, after which BBS's rapidly declined.
However, the Internet was not the only killer of the BBS scene. BBS's were also killed by their own popularity. In 1986, it was possible to have intelligent, literate conversations on BBS's, but this had become nearly impossible a few years later. Why? The invasion of punks. The trolls, the flamebaits, and the emergence of "doodz."
I was a SysOp for many years, and as soon as the nicks and handles started to become WizzyTheOrgasmicGod and CyberFucker, I knew the end was nigh. I'm sure that others can recount similar stories about IRC and Usenet.
Those were the days...
This isn't a flame or a troll or a personal attack, but I do have to ask you this question:
Why would you watch a film three times that you consider overrated?!?
Drop the self-important B.S.
Self-importance describes an exaggerated estimate of one's own importance, of arrogant or pompous behavior. Of self-conceit, even.
If you think that the words that you quoted reveal even an infinitesimal amount of these qualities, then I suggest that you hone your reading skills.
I know that Katz bashing is a sport on Slashdot, but let's be at least consistent and fair about it.
Or are we all too self-important for that?
I saw the first Star Wars movie opening night when I was 16 years old. I was honestly perplexed that anybody thought that it was other than shallow, contrived shit. I persevered, watching every SW film afterwards on opening night, wanting to understand why this derivative garbage had so captured the pysche of the nation. I wanted to belong, damnit!
For Phantom Menace, I attended just because I'd seen the other three. Of course, I was disappointed. Last night, I went to see Clones, KNOWING that it was going to be trash.
Happily, for the very first time, I was wrong. Lucas finally presented to me a world that I had never seen before. Sometimes the CGI was disappointing, but only occasionally and never to the point of distraction. It was fast-paced, but still contained enough of a story to hold my interest. The eye candy was fantastic. Almost every alien and every craft and every city was amazing.
Omit the Anakin masturbation scene, and the Sound of Music scene, and much of the dialogue between our two young lovers (no chemistry, and that is hard to imagine considering that Natalie is HOT and a capable actor), and the movie was the second best I've seen this year (Brotherwood of the Wolf being the first).
Of course, I was disturbed that Natalie's character simpers so often, and, even after Anakin reveals that he is a mass murderer of women and chidren, she still marries him.
Still, I enjoyed it more than anything I've seen Lucas direct since American Graffiti or THX 1138.
Thank you, George.
Okay, let's follow this logic using the print media.
I take Stephen King's Carrie and Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October, and and I "mash" it together so that it is arguably a new and different work.
The originals haven't been touched (literally, Stephen and Tom have the master manuscripts), and "clean" originals can still be published, so no plagiarism has taken place.
But has plagiarism occurred? I argue yes, and the definition of plagiarism certainly helps my argument: to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
Now, I submit that, if borrowing text is theft, then so is borrowing musical samples.
We can quibble over definitions, and the greater need of society, and your rights to do what you want with anything that you have purchased, but you are still a thief if you deprive me of anything that is rightfully mine, and this includes depriving me of profits from any of my creations.
If Stephen King and Tom Clancy want to have their works "mashed" together, then it is their right to decide whether this occurs, and their right to the resultant profits.
Ditto musical creations and musical artists.
I'm sorry, but as a university student (especially one who describes himself as an "eternal" student), you shouldn't be relying on grammar checkers for simple stuff like subject-verb agreement and active/passive voice.
I am not a grammar Nazi, but I find a thesaurus more of an enemy than a tool. I've revised hundreds of papers for friends and family, and it always obvious when someone with the vocabulary of a gnat has overdosed on the use of a thesaurus.
Grammar checkers are only useful tools for people who already have at least a basic understanding of grammar. Too many times, I've watched my wife or my friends blindly make a change suggested by Word because they assumed that Word was infallible.
Yes, I've probably made numerous grammatical errors above, so there is no need for a wit to point them out.
He is also notorious for having compiled, edited and released two seminal SF anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions.
I've been waiting for Last Dangerous Visions for over 25 years, but Harlan has never released it, for reasons that he has never explained.
Ellison's has insisted for over 25 years that it will be completed, but it remains one of the most famous ever not-published books. Christopher Priest wrote about it amusingly in The Last Deadloss Visions, but, at Christopher's request, that e-text has been withdrawn from the Internet.
And, no, it wasn't withdrawn due to censorship or Harlan's bullying, but for more commercial reasons: you can now order it in book form from Amazon as The Book on the Edge of Forever : An Enquiry into the Non-Appearance of Harlan Ellison's the Last Dangerous Visions.
Sadly, I haven't read it for years, so I can't recount the details here.
Imagine if you got fined $270 every time you were one second late for something, anything.
Hmm. I've just imagined this scenario... and do you know what? I've come up with a solution guaranteed, 100% of the time, to avoid those fines.
It's called BEING ON TIME. I manage it, nearly every day. Almost every time. I have a schedule at least as hectic as anyone I know, but I arrive at work, and at appointments, etc., ON TIME. It's easy being punctual. It is actually a stress reducer, to cruise into an appointed place at the appointed time with five minutes or so to spare.
Most people who are habitually tardy are very poor managers of their time. I've had co-workers who lived UPSTAIRS from their workplace - it took them literally 30 seconds to open the door and stroll to work - yet they were late almost daily.
Also, have you ever noticed that the impatient, inconsiderate drivers who pass at every opportunity, who tailgate, who jet across yellow lights, etc., always arrive at the sam parking lot at the same time you do?
I conclude with this simple sentence: "If you want something done, ask a busy person." This sentence is very true, but ask yourself WHY IS IT TRUE?
It is true because busy people know how to manage their fucking time!
Sometimes it is good to be a cynic.
No, but sometimes it is good to be a skeptic. In fact, in my own experience, it is always good to be a skeptic.
The cynics I've known were convinced that all human behavior was motivated wholly by self-interest, which, even if it is true in an ultimate sense, is an attitude guaranteed to close your mind. The skeptics, on the other hand, merely insist that all claims be testable and repeatable: they doubt, but their doubt is healthy and reasonable, and leave them with a mind-set that I think of as structured incredulity.
If more people were skeptics, charlatans like John Edwards and James Van Praagh wouldn't be able to make a living, and this "Magic Box Hoax" could have never occurred.
I'm sorry, but I miss your "visitation" reference entirely. I assume that it is filmic. To which motion picture are you alluding?
And have you ever heard of Suffolk pink? Many houses in the UK are painted that color (which, charmingly, is/was traditionally produced by mixing buttermilk and pig's blood to the paint).
Isn't science supposed to be testable? With Mars close enough that testing is within the realm of possibility, why publish this type of nearly-tabloid-like supposition prematurely?
Is real research really that hard up for media attention? Is science not "sellable" unless is about transporters and FTL devices?
That's my theory, which might also explain why charlatans such as John Edward and James von
Praagh receive such consistently high ratings...
The Gates Testimony - Why Microsoft Will Win