Exactly. Moody is a true troll if I ever read one. He's like Dvorak(sp?). He will take a totally extreme point with little facts just to get people angry, hence more hits to the site he rights for.
It is base, and effective. Here, I'll write a Moody piece for you right now.
"All computer technology has come, in one form or another from Microsoft and it's head, Bill Gates. The very first operating system, DOS, was written by Bill Gates as a young child genius. Although and initial competitor, his later aid to Apple Computer saved it from sure ruination. Less successful and less talented "Hackers" have recently thought to reinvent an old technology, Unix, under a new name Linux, after it's jealous creater Linus Tornour. Tornour and his horde have slapped together an old DOS look alike and praised it as the next big thing..." You get the idea. You can tell he has read about technology, but never gets it quite straight. Remember children, the devil mixes his lies with the truth.
See, I think your first statement is wrong. Peer to peer is between individuals, and making compilation tapes for friends is legal. Ask Orrin Hatch. Now I think they are trying to argue subtleties like, you need to know the person you give a copy to, and somehow an mp3 is different than a tape, but obviously that argument is still being fought.
1) How do I know to search for Metallica? Because I know the name of Metallica or the name of the song. You can name a file anything you want to. Lets say my song is Little Brown Jug on the spoons and armpit. I call it Little Brown Jug - Folk Traditional Armpit Spoons.mp3. It's just like searching on any other file system. Go on Napster right now and search under Folk, Alternative, etc. 2) Same as above 3) I don't think anyone is refighting the AHRA again. Well, I take that back the RIAA never liked it to begin with. 4) We are discussing Napster and its legal uses. I am indexing and sharing Wrapster files exactly the same as any other, using Napster. What do you think Gnutella et al, is? Hack, schmack, it's a legal use of Napster. 5) I won't get into a hairy Fair Use argument but even the RIAA has agreed that intra-personal sharing of video tapes between friends is legal. 6) Same as 1 and 2.
Regardless of my responses, looking at yours, 3 of the six I listed you have no legal arguments only a question about how to search for it. So if only one is legal, then Napster has legal use. For a technology to be declared illegal it needs to not have the possibility of substantial legal use. Are you telling me you can't think of any legal uses of a peer to peer, ".mp3" file sharing software? This was my initial post. That argument is rediculous. Just because a shit load of people use it for illegal uses has zero to do with whether the technology is illegal.
What is Napster stealing? Napster has possesion of no copyrighted materials anywhere on their servers. They have nothing, and so far, have not gotten any more from a single customer.
Technical problems of blocking pirated music is not Napsters problem. No industry is ever responsible for their product being used illegaly. If I drink Draino, that is my problem, not Draino's. There is nothing inherently illegal with Napster.
Napster is not in the music business, it is in the peer to peer file sharing business, so you first point is not applicable.
Maybe you are that stupid, so I'll explain to you what Napster and peer to peer file sharing is.
Napster is peer to peer file sharing software with a centralized directory of all the files available. This directory is stored on the Napster corporation servers. Peer to peer refers to a combination of server and client, working in tandem on one machine. The client providing the means to download files from other servers, and the server portion sharing files on the local machine to other outside clients. No actual mp3 files listed in this directory are actually stored on any of the Napster Corporation's servers. The directory at Napster only directs each client request to the appropriate server that has the requested files, and then its job is down. The two machine connect and one individuals machine download a file from another individuals machine. The Napster software only allows files with the.mp3 extension to be shared. These are mostly audio files, although they can be any type of file converted into an mp3 type file. Although it can be used by 2 differenct individuals to share copyrighted music files, it also has other uses. Some examples might be:
1) I have a song I recorded. I want to share it I use Napster. Legal
2) I have a speach by my favorite politician/author/neo-nazi in mp3 format that I want to share. Legal
3) I have purchased a copy of a tape by Metallica. I want to listen to the songs on my laptop. I download a copy of all the Metallica songs from that album using Napster. Legal
4) Using wrapster, I can convert any file format I want into a.mp3 file and share that using Napster. Legal
5) I have an mp3 file of a Metallica song, that I want to share with my friend John. I put it on Napster and tell him to search for ForJohn.mp3. Legal
6) I want to look for uncopyrighted mp3's on Napster. Legal
IANAL, but I don't see that what they SAY they want to do, make CD's obsolete, crash the entertainment industries distribution model, etc, has anything to do with the legality. Is what they are doing illegal is the question. Mark Furman may have said lots of racist things, he may have hated every black person alive, but that is irrelevant to whether he planted the glove or not? I have no particular love for Napster, in fact I think they are like any other business and have every intention of milking users for money at the first opportunity, BUT, I don't think what they are doing is illegal. Even if they could block pirated software, which they absolutely could not (having a file named Metallica - Holier Than Thou does not mean that this file contains an illegal copy of Metallica's Holier Than Though), why is it their responsibility to monitor their users actions? Thats B.S., no other industry has to do that, so this filing by RIAA is just about smoke around the real issue.
Yes, my bad. What I was thinking was that DeCSS itself and any copyright issues associated with it is not the issue, but what it does to copyrighted materials on DVD's. I know the statement I wrote to be totally false and am wondering how it was allowed out of my brain.
I think you are right, but this disturbs me. Why don't they just make one law that says, "Don't do anything wrong." Then thats all up to interpretation as to what is wrong. Maybe my Rube Goldberg device was to teach the dog not to pull on his leash by making a loud noise when he tugs. The example is rediculous, but someone else deciding what a third persons intent is gets in very shakey ground. This case is a perfect example. Is the point of DeCSS to what movies you bought legally, on your Linux box, or to bootleg "The Matrix" and sell it for $5 a pop?
I have both right here, and the T-shirt has the same code as the piece of paper, minus the static byte tables, so the info on the shirt is whats in question here. The byte tables are a key, but the device is in the code. This is what performs the cirumvention that they are crying about.
I don't think ownership matters in something like a mall. If it is open to the public without restrictions, membership or charge, it is still considered a public place. If you strip at a mall, you will be charged with public nudity.
Well public schools and laws have always walked on the rights of the young. (Because it is OK to be prejudiced against the young. Drivers licences, curveys, R ratings, drinking age, etc. because they have no money and can't vote, and parents can't raise their own children. But I digress.) They can ban anything they feel interferes with the smooth running of the school. So I am not surprised by the banning of alcohol/drug/violent T-shirts. (When I was in sixth grade a fad came out of wearing really oversized shirts. They were banned, including hockey jerseys, for no other fact than "Why do you need to wear a big shirt? Put on something that looks nice.") But I am guessing you are somewhere down south or in a very rural area, because the idea of banning a T-Shirt in a public place is never going to be legal under the constitution. If I am correct, I could wear a shirt saying "Kill Whitey" or "All Blacks should die." or as Sebastian Back once wore "AIDS kills fags, dead" The south is usually the only place that attempts to do this sort of thing. Yeah, free speach can be scarey and mean, but I personally think it is the greatest attribute of the US.
I see your argument, but the difference is that DeCSS is not copyrighted material. It is written to circumvent the encription of copyrighted material. DeCSS is open source, meaning there is no copyright.
First, I guarantee you that there are people out there right now that don't think smoking is bad for them. (There are people who don't think HIV causes AIDS.) The tobacco industry holds blame here. Yeah, these people are stupid, but does that mean they should die? Consumer laws are made to protect everyone, no matter how stupid they are. Which people should they protect? Up until the 70's the common perception was that smoking was not harmful to you. All the people dying of lung cancer now, were smoking then.
More importantly, you talk about people having responsibility, what about companies? If I mix up a batch of bathtub gin, sell it and 1/3 of the people I sell it to go blind, guess what, I'm going to jail. If Bacardi does the same thing, guess what? Zip. Nobody is going to jail. At most they would lose.001% of that years profit in a lawsuit. The president of Bacardi and his trophy wife would cry over their lobster dinner in Paris that night. Name one company where a member of the company has gone to jail because their products killed people. Even when it is clearly their fault, either intentional or gross negligence. ValuJet? No. Union Carbide at Bhopal? No. Construction at the MGM Grand Hotel? No. These are just big ones off the top of my head. Who made companies holy entities?
Now, what punishment do you give a company that has killed hundreds of thousands of people with their product, knowing that it will kill a third of them, with the other two thirds having to pay their bill? And CONTINUES to make the product that they know will kill 1/3 of all their customers. The hypocracy is rediculous.
Yes, in fact there are lots of ways to do things in this world. If you can do something one way, then you shouldn't be allowed to do it any other way? Since the USMail works, then FedEx, UPS, telegraph, ham radio, are superfluous.
I can put my mp3 on a floppy and mail it to everyone who requests it, I guess. But you know what, I don't want to and since I live in the US the law says I can do it whatever way I want unless what I am doing hurts someone else. Whether John and Bob use it for illegal purposes has nothing to do with me. They may be hurting the MPAA, but I and those downloading from me are not.
My version of LBJ is not copyrighted and the only person with rights to it is me. You need to explain to me how someone searching for my LBJ on Napster, and downloading it breaks any law.
If you can't, then you can't say that Napster has only illegal applications. Whether 19,999,999 people actually use it for illegal purposes is not relevant to the law. If you can show that it has "the possibility of substancial legitimate uses" then it cannot be declared illegal. That is from the betamax Sony decision.
I'm won't go into the complexities of letting 20,000,000 people know what my website address is, and that there is a free mp3 there, as they should be quite obvious.
To answer your last question, before Napster was shut down I had an incredibly efficient method of delivery for my material, and now I don't. Thats how it effects my right to distribute.
No, the previous comment is right. Legally it doesn't matter if the people who smoke are stupid as dirt or not. The company makes themselves liable by saying tabacco is not harmful. When proven that it is harmful, they are proven deceptive with a dangerous product and can get their asses sued off.
Thats not it at all. I want to be able to trade an MP3 of my armpit rendition of "Little Brown Jug". I should be able to trade it without a company monitoring, without the gubment saying I can't. 99.99% of people using Napster to share Britney Spears is irrelavent. There is nothing inherently illegal about Napster. It is MP3 file sharing. I can name several other legal uses of Napster as well. I own a tape of Metallica's Black album. I don't use my tape player anymore. Just CD's and MP3's. It is totally legal for me to download "Holier than Thou" off that "album" and listen to it. I already paid for the fucking thing. Just because people use a legal product illegally, does not make the company responsible for their behavior. Stun guns, lock picking sets, alcohol, etc...
Maybe it's your connection or where you are. Except for the DOS a few months back, I have never failed to connect once to/. in the past year. There are slowdowns of maybe 10 second pauses to load, but thats it. Now back 2 years ago is a differenct story.
That was really hilarious. I'm glad they put all their time into such a hilarious joke. It reminds me of the absolute genius behind such classics as the Good Times virus, and other pointless bullshit that bore everyone to tears.
Also, you could do a little image analysis to emphasize motion, or indicate if someone has moved into your blind spot, cut down on the headlights behind you and bring up what's around it so you can see better behind you, not to mention UV display. The good old eyeball has some advantages, but cameras and their images can give a lot of info they can't.
"But the simple act of selling cigarattes is not and should not be considered unethical."
So if I tell you to drink arsenic and assure you that there is no evidence that arsenic is bad for you, and you drink it, then I am in no way responsible for your death? If you are saying that the guy at the gas station that sells someone a pack of cigarettes isn't immoral, I would say he is not immoral if he honestly believes that cigarettes aren't bad for people, otherwise he is immoral.
The tobacco industry still will not admit that it's product causes cancer and emphysima. Nor will it admit that it is addictive, nor will it admit that it purposefully manipulates the amount of nicotine and chemicals such as ammonia that make nicotine enter the bloodstream faster. They have spent millions of dollars and convincing people that their product is not bad for them. On top of that, how much of non-smokers tax payers money/higher insurance rates, have gone to footing the bill for their shitty product made popular by their campaign of lies about it?
"Secondly, money represents resources..." Like I said, oil is going to run out sometime in the next 50 years, (Check out an investment book that discusses all this called "The Coming Oil Crisis" by Collin Campbell) or at least be scarse enough that the cost is going to go through the roof (supply and demand). My point is waiting until that time will cost a lot more simply by the fact of the money we will have to spend in the time that it takes to switch over, and by the reasoning that being forced to make such an unplanned change, will cost more than a controlled change. I don't think anyone will argue that the supply of oil is limitless and a change at some point in time will not be required. From a political standpoint it would also be nice that we were not so dependant on countries in a region that is anything but stable. Granted our largest supplier of oil is actually Canada, Opec is still large enough to control the price of oil on a whim.
"Specifically, fuel-efficient cars will require more labor and more natural resources than gas-powered cars" I don't know what you mean? Read my original post about economy of scale. If you make 20 of a car it costs more per unit than if you make 20,000 cars, yes. That is why you make it manditory so that they make the first batch a size of 20,000 or more and the price per consumer is controlled. Is this going to cost the car company money to retool, etc. Hell, yes. But first, as above, it is going to happen sometime and if they want to stay in the business of selling vehicles for transportation, sometimes they have to make changes, like when Japaneses cars entered the market. Secondly, many people talk about businesses as a leach on society. Businesses are also part of a community, and just like people, they have to be responsible and do things they don't like sometimes. I have to do a lot of crap I don't like because I'm a U.S. citizen, but thats the trade off of be part of this or any country.
This argument may be instightful, but it is full of holes. First, it worships money. The same logic would say the same thing about the tabacco industry. It doesn't matter if it kills thousands of people because Joe Sixpack would lose his job at the plant? "Don't stop smoking, Joe needs to feed his kids." If Joe Sixpack works for tabacco, I say f_ck him and his kids. The change would not be like a light switch, it would take time, so your countries and Joe Sixpack would have to realize that there is an economic shift, as there have been throughout history. Horses, rubber plants, salt, ice, etc. Cost effective comes with size of production. If you had GM, Toyota, Mazda, Ford, etc. making thousands of natural gas cars a day, it wouldn't cost any different. If they make 100, then yeah, they're going to cost $50k each. Taxes my ass. There's money coming out the governments asses. They, like everyone else, will use all of what you give them and want more. If you give them less, they will bitch, but survive. Plus, I think they have a trillion dollar surplus right now. Would the people working for the natural gas company or fuel cell company and its employees be exempt for paying taxes? We're not talking about killing them, just that they would have to switch jobs.
Lastly, the argument made elsewhere about infrastructure and production all happening at once is true. I would suggest that we start with something like the state of Arizona. All new cars purchased in Phoenix from 2002 on must be fuel cell/ NG or whatever. No gasoline. Gas stations know that they are going to have 10,000 customers with new needs and they will respond or someone else will. That part is basic economics. People learn from the problem, and the next Arizona city does it better. Then california does it better than that, etc. I will ask the question to people against a fuel change: What is going to happen when we do run out of gasoline? Whatever problems are associated with a change, is going to happen at some point whether we like it or not. I would rather do it by choice, than have to do it by force.
Also, I would be curious to see how many people that use Linux first tested it because of a good review they read, or because they heard about it from friends or colleagues. Linux is lot more word of mouth than media driven. It doesn't have a PR department for one thing. (Excluding the likes of Redhat.) I think reviews and articles are fine if you are trying to sell a boss-man on Linux, but I don't think anyone that actually uses it got it because the read a review on ZDnet or PC Magazine. Correct me if I am wrong, but that where you go to here about MS products, not free software.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Moody is a true troll if I ever read one. He's like Dvorak(sp?). He will take a totally extreme point with little facts just to get people angry, hence more hits to the site he rights for.
It is base, and effective. Here, I'll write a Moody piece for you right now.
"All computer technology has come, in one form or another from Microsoft and it's head, Bill Gates. The very first operating system, DOS, was written by Bill Gates as a young child genius.
Although and initial competitor, his later aid to Apple Computer saved it from sure ruination.
Less successful and less talented "Hackers" have recently thought to reinvent an old technology, Unix, under a new name Linux, after it's jealous creater Linus Tornour. Tornour and his horde have slapped together an old DOS look alike and praised it as the next big thing..."
You get the idea. You can tell he has read about technology, but never gets it quite straight.
Remember children, the devil mixes his lies with the truth.
See, I think your first statement is wrong. Peer to peer is between individuals, and making compilation tapes for friends is legal. Ask Orrin Hatch. Now I think they are trying to argue subtleties like, you need to know the person you give a copy to, and somehow an mp3 is different than a tape, but obviously that argument is still being fought.
1) How do I know to search for Metallica? Because I know the name of Metallica or the name of the song. You can name a file anything you want to. Lets say my song is Little Brown Jug on the spoons and armpit. I call it Little Brown Jug - Folk Traditional Armpit Spoons.mp3. It's just like searching on any other file system. Go on Napster right now and search under Folk, Alternative, etc.
2) Same as above
3) I don't think anyone is refighting the AHRA again. Well, I take that back the RIAA never liked it to begin with.
4) We are discussing Napster and its legal uses. I am indexing and sharing Wrapster files exactly the same as any other, using Napster. What do you think Gnutella et al, is? Hack, schmack, it's a legal use of Napster.
5) I won't get into a hairy Fair Use argument but even the RIAA has agreed that intra-personal sharing of video tapes between friends is legal.
6) Same as 1 and 2.
Regardless of my responses, looking at yours, 3 of the six I listed you have no legal arguments only a question about how to search for it. So if only one is legal, then Napster has legal use. For a technology to be declared illegal it needs to not have the possibility of substantial legal use.
Are you telling me you can't think of any legal uses of a peer to peer, ".mp3" file sharing software? This was my initial post. That argument is rediculous. Just because a shit load of people use it for illegal uses has zero to do with whether the technology is illegal.
Peace of Love my Brother.
I'll try it again.
What is Napster stealing? Napster has possesion of no copyrighted materials anywhere on their servers. They have nothing, and so far, have not gotten any more from a single customer.
Technical problems of blocking pirated music is not Napsters problem. No industry is ever responsible for their product being used illegaly. If I drink Draino, that is my problem, not Draino's. There is nothing inherently illegal with Napster.
Napster is not in the music business, it is in the peer to peer file sharing business, so you first point is not applicable.
Maybe you are that stupid, so I'll explain to you what Napster and peer to peer file sharing is.
.mp3 extension to be shared. These are mostly audio files, although they can be any type of file converted into an mp3 type file.
.mp3 file and share that using Napster. Legal
Napster is peer to peer file sharing software with a centralized directory of all the files available. This directory is stored on the Napster corporation servers.
Peer to peer refers to a combination of server and client, working in tandem on one machine. The client providing the means to download files from other servers, and the server portion sharing files on the local machine to other outside clients.
No actual mp3 files listed in this directory are actually stored on any of the Napster Corporation's servers. The directory at Napster only directs each client request to the appropriate server that has the requested files, and then its job is down. The two machine connect and one individuals machine download a file from another individuals machine.
The Napster software only allows files with the
Although it can be used by 2 differenct individuals to share copyrighted music files, it also has other uses. Some examples might be:
1) I have a song I recorded. I want to share it I use Napster. Legal
2) I have a speach by my favorite politician/author/neo-nazi in mp3 format that I want to share. Legal
3) I have purchased a copy of a tape by Metallica. I want to listen to the songs on my laptop. I download a copy of all the Metallica songs from that album using Napster. Legal
4) Using wrapster, I can convert any file format I want into a
5) I have an mp3 file of a Metallica song, that I want to share with my friend John. I put it on Napster and tell him to search for ForJohn.mp3. Legal
6) I want to look for uncopyrighted mp3's on Napster. Legal
7) etc...blah blah blah
Dillhole
I am sick of hearing this stupid argument.
No, you are right, there is absolutely nothing you can legally do with peer to peer file sharing software.
IANAL, but I don't see that what they SAY they want to do, make CD's obsolete, crash the entertainment industries distribution model, etc, has anything to do with the legality.
Is what they are doing illegal is the question. Mark Furman may have said lots of racist things, he may have hated every black person alive, but that is irrelevant to whether he planted the glove or not?
I have no particular love for Napster, in fact I think they are like any other business and have every intention of milking users for money at the first opportunity, BUT, I don't think what they are doing is illegal.
Even if they could block pirated software, which they absolutely could not (having a file named Metallica - Holier Than Thou does not mean that this file contains an illegal copy of Metallica's Holier Than Though), why is it their responsibility to monitor their users actions? Thats B.S., no other industry has to do that, so this filing by RIAA is just about smoke around the real issue.
Yes, my bad. What I was thinking was that DeCSS itself and any copyright issues associated with it is not the issue, but what it does to copyrighted materials on DVD's.
I know the statement I wrote to be totally false and am wondering how it was allowed out of my brain.
I think you are right, but this disturbs me. Why don't they just make one law that says, "Don't do anything wrong." Then thats all up to interpretation as to what is wrong. Maybe my Rube Goldberg device was to teach the dog not to pull on his leash by making a loud noise when he tugs. The example is rediculous, but someone else deciding what a third persons intent is gets in very shakey ground.
This case is a perfect example. Is the point of DeCSS to what movies you bought legally, on your Linux box, or to bootleg "The Matrix" and sell it for $5 a pop?
Yes, but the sole point of the law IS to make export impossible, so therefore the law is not only pointless, but rediculous.
I have both right here, and the T-shirt has the same code as the piece of paper, minus the static byte tables, so the info on the shirt is whats in question here. The byte tables are a key, but the device is in the code. This is what performs the cirumvention that they are crying about.
I don't think ownership matters in something like a mall. If it is open to the public without restrictions, membership or charge, it is still considered a public place. If you strip at a mall, you will be charged with public nudity.
Well public schools and laws have always walked on the rights of the young. (Because it is OK to be prejudiced against the young. Drivers licences, curveys, R ratings, drinking age, etc. because they have no money and can't vote, and parents can't raise their own children. But I digress.)
They can ban anything they feel interferes with the smooth running of the school. So I am not surprised by the banning of alcohol/drug/violent T-shirts. (When I was in sixth grade a fad came out of wearing really oversized shirts. They were banned, including hockey jerseys, for no other fact than "Why do you need to wear a big shirt? Put on something that looks nice.")
But I am guessing you are somewhere down south or in a very rural area, because the idea of banning a T-Shirt in a public place is never going to be legal under the constitution. If I am correct, I could wear a shirt saying "Kill Whitey" or "All Blacks should die." or as Sebastian Back once wore "AIDS kills fags, dead" The south is usually the only place that attempts to do this sort of thing. Yeah, free speach can be scarey and mean, but I personally think it is the greatest attribute of the US.
I see your argument, but the difference is that DeCSS is not copyrighted material. It is written to circumvent the encription of copyrighted material. DeCSS is open source, meaning there is no copyright.
First, I guarantee you that there are people out there right now that don't think smoking is bad for them. (There are people who don't think HIV causes AIDS.) The tobacco industry holds blame here. Yeah, these people are stupid, but does that mean they should die? Consumer laws are made to protect everyone, no matter how stupid they are. Which people should they protect?
.001% of that years profit in a lawsuit. The president of Bacardi and his trophy wife would cry over their lobster dinner in Paris that night.
Up until the 70's the common perception was that smoking was not harmful to you. All the people dying of lung cancer now, were smoking then.
More importantly, you talk about people having responsibility, what about companies?
If I mix up a batch of bathtub gin, sell it and 1/3 of the people I sell it to go blind, guess what, I'm going to jail. If Bacardi does the same thing, guess what? Zip. Nobody is going to jail. At most they would lose
Name one company where a member of the company has gone to jail because their products killed people. Even when it is clearly their fault, either intentional or gross negligence. ValuJet? No. Union Carbide at Bhopal? No. Construction at the MGM Grand Hotel? No. These are just big ones off the top of my head. Who made companies holy entities?
Now, what punishment do you give a company that has killed hundreds of thousands of people with their product, knowing that it will kill a third of them, with the other two thirds having to pay their bill? And CONTINUES to make the product that they know will kill 1/3 of all their customers.
The hypocracy is rediculous.
Yes, in fact there are lots of ways to do things in this world.
If you can do something one way, then you shouldn't be allowed to do it any other way? Since the USMail works, then FedEx, UPS, telegraph, ham radio, are superfluous.
I can put my mp3 on a floppy and mail it to everyone who requests it, I guess. But you know what, I don't want to and since I live in the US the law says I can do it whatever way I want unless what I am doing hurts someone else. Whether John and Bob use it for illegal purposes has nothing to do with me. They may be hurting the MPAA, but I and those downloading from me are not.
My version of LBJ is not copyrighted and the only person with rights to it is me.
You need to explain to me how someone searching for my LBJ on Napster, and downloading it breaks any law.
If you can't, then you can't say that Napster has only illegal applications. Whether 19,999,999 people actually use it for illegal purposes is not relevant to the law. If you can show that it has "the possibility of substancial legitimate uses" then it cannot be declared illegal. That is from the betamax Sony decision.
I'm won't go into the complexities of letting 20,000,000 people know what my website address is, and that there is a free mp3 there, as they should be quite obvious.
To answer your last question, before Napster was shut down I had an incredibly efficient method of delivery for my material, and now I don't. Thats how it effects my right to distribute.
No, the previous comment is right. Legally it doesn't matter if the people who smoke are stupid as dirt or not. The company makes themselves liable by saying tabacco is not harmful. When proven that it is harmful, they are proven deceptive with a dangerous product and can get their asses sued off.
Thats not it at all.
I want to be able to trade an MP3 of my armpit rendition of "Little Brown Jug". I should be able to trade it without a company monitoring, without the gubment saying I can't. 99.99% of people using Napster to share Britney Spears is irrelavent. There is nothing inherently illegal about Napster. It is MP3 file sharing.
I can name several other legal uses of Napster as well. I own a tape of Metallica's Black album. I don't use my tape player anymore. Just CD's and MP3's. It is totally legal for me to download "Holier than Thou" off that "album" and listen to it. I already paid for the fucking thing.
Just because people use a legal product illegally, does not make the company responsible for their behavior. Stun guns, lock picking sets, alcohol, etc...
Maybe it's your connection or where you are. Except for the DOS a few months back, I have never failed to connect once to /. in the past year. There are slowdowns of maybe 10 second pauses to load, but thats it. Now back 2 years ago is a differenct story.
That was really hilarious. I'm glad they put all their time into such a hilarious joke. It reminds me of the absolute genius behind such classics as the Good Times virus, and other pointless bullshit that bore everyone to tears.
Also, you could do a little image analysis to emphasize motion, or indicate if someone has moved into your blind spot, cut down on the headlights behind you and bring up what's around it so you can see better behind you, not to mention UV display. The good old eyeball has some advantages, but cameras and their images can give a lot of info they can't.
Maybe you could put little ones up from in the grill. The air would still get through for cooling, but you steal a little energy as it passes.
Read what I wrote. I'm not saying it will be better. I am saying it is inevitable and we should do it in a controlled manor, rather than in a panic.
"But the simple act of selling cigarattes is not and should not be considered unethical."
So if I tell you to drink arsenic and assure you that there is no evidence that arsenic is bad for you, and you drink it, then I am in no way responsible for your death?
If you are saying that the guy at the gas station that sells someone a pack of cigarettes isn't immoral, I would say he is not immoral if he honestly believes that cigarettes aren't bad for people, otherwise he is immoral.
The tobacco industry still will not admit that it's product causes cancer and emphysima. Nor will it admit that it is addictive, nor will it admit that it purposefully manipulates the amount of nicotine and chemicals such as ammonia that make nicotine enter the bloodstream faster.
They have spent millions of dollars and convincing people that their product is not bad for them.
On top of that, how much of non-smokers tax payers money/higher insurance rates, have gone to footing the bill for their shitty product made popular by their campaign of lies about it?
"Secondly, money represents resources..."
Like I said, oil is going to run out sometime in the next 50 years, (Check out an investment book that discusses all this called "The Coming Oil Crisis" by Collin Campbell) or at least be scarse enough that the cost is going to go through the roof (supply and demand). My point is waiting until that time will cost a lot more simply by the fact of the money we will have to spend in the time that it takes to switch over, and by the reasoning that being forced to make such an unplanned change, will cost more than a controlled change. I don't think anyone will argue that the supply of oil is limitless and a change at some point in time will not be required. From a political standpoint it would also be nice that we were not so dependant on countries in a region that is anything but stable. Granted our largest supplier of oil is actually Canada, Opec is still large enough to control the price of oil on a whim.
"Specifically, fuel-efficient cars will require more labor and more natural resources than gas-powered cars" I don't know what you mean? Read my original post about economy of scale. If you make 20 of a car it costs more per unit than if you make 20,000 cars, yes. That is why you make it manditory so that they make the first batch a size of 20,000 or more and the price per consumer is controlled. Is this going to cost the car company money to retool, etc. Hell, yes. But first, as above, it is going to happen sometime and if they want to stay in the business of selling vehicles for transportation, sometimes they have to make changes, like when Japaneses cars entered the market. Secondly, many people talk about businesses as a leach on society. Businesses are also part of a community, and just like people, they have to be responsible and do things they don't like sometimes. I have to do a lot of crap I don't like because I'm a U.S. citizen, but thats the trade off of be part of this or any country.
This argument may be instightful, but it is full of holes.
First, it worships money. The same logic would say the same thing about the tabacco industry. It doesn't matter if it kills thousands of people because Joe Sixpack would lose his job at the plant? "Don't stop smoking, Joe needs to feed his kids." If Joe Sixpack works for tabacco, I say f_ck him and his kids.
The change would not be like a light switch, it would take time, so your countries and Joe Sixpack would have to realize that there is an economic shift, as there have been throughout history. Horses, rubber plants, salt, ice, etc.
Cost effective comes with size of production. If you had GM, Toyota, Mazda, Ford, etc. making thousands of natural gas cars a day, it wouldn't cost any different. If they make 100, then yeah, they're going to cost $50k each.
Taxes my ass. There's money coming out the governments asses. They, like everyone else, will use all of what you give them and want more. If you give them less, they will bitch, but survive. Plus, I think they have a trillion dollar surplus right now. Would the people working for the natural gas company or fuel cell company and its employees be exempt for paying taxes? We're not talking about killing them, just that they would have to switch jobs.
Lastly, the argument made elsewhere about infrastructure and production all happening at once is true. I would suggest that we start with something like the state of Arizona. All new cars purchased in Phoenix from 2002 on must be fuel cell/ NG or whatever. No gasoline. Gas stations know that they are going to have 10,000 customers with new needs and they will respond or someone else will. That part is basic economics. People learn from the problem, and the next Arizona city does it better. Then california does it better than that, etc.
I will ask the question to people against a fuel change: What is going to happen when we do run out of gasoline? Whatever problems are associated with a change, is going to happen at some point whether we like it or not. I would rather do it by choice, than have to do it by force.
Also, I would be curious to see how many people that use Linux first tested it because of a good review they read, or because they heard about it from friends or colleagues. Linux is lot more word of mouth than media driven. It doesn't have a PR department for one thing. (Excluding the likes of Redhat.)
I think reviews and articles are fine if you are trying to sell a boss-man on Linux, but I don't think anyone that actually uses it got it because the read a review on ZDnet or PC Magazine. Correct me if I am wrong, but that where you go to here about MS products, not free software.