Handguns are sometimes referred to as 'equalizers.' Let's face it, if someone is attacking you, they have prepared, and you quite likely haven't. So any weapon that requires skill and training, the assailant is at an advantage. A handgun, on the other hand, just requires a certain amount of training, and then is useful at close range without needing to be 'primed' or 'fit'. A smaller woman, for instance, can defend herself quite adequately with a handgun if she's had a bit of training in it's use. Let's not turn this into a ninja discussion.
Dude, this isn't about ninja. Quit acting stupid. My wife has been raped a total of 4 times, and each time the rapist had the element of surprise for him. By the time she knew what was happening, she was on the ground with her wrists held and the man's weight pushing her down. A handgun is completely worthless in this situation. Judo, on the other hand, is exactly the right tool for this situation, especially for a smaller woman. You use the assailant's strength against him. When my aunt was raped (only once), she WAS carrying a small lady's handgun tucked away in her purse. Do you think she could even grab the thing?
Carrying a handgun can actually be dangerous for the person doing it. They feel "safe" and anything that might threaten them they feel like they can take it. That overconfidence can cost them that fraction of a second they need to take action in a tight spot.
Proper training, on the other hand, takes effect without even consulting the brain. The movements are kept in the spine, where all your other reflexes are. Working out is good for you, and if you work out by training with some form of hand-to-hand combat, then you will be MUCH better equipped to deal with these situations.
Now here's some numbers for you. 1 in 4 women are sexually attacked every year. The nature of a sexual attack requires the element of surprise on the side of the assailant. Therefore, the person who is being attacked cannot depend on having enough warning to draw any sort of weapon, nor can they depend on being in a position to use it by the time it gets drawn. I forget numbers on armed robbery, and I generally don't pay attention to any other numbers.
I support a worldwide boycott by scientists, engineers and techs from getting hired or coerced by any regimes to work on those devices, and I condemn any who are currently doing so. I condemn them.
Um, you left something out here, too.:)
Any scientist who has been coerced, kidnapped, etc, to build these fancy weapons for such rulers has a moral obligation to suicide. Now, I realize that it sounds unreasonable to suicide to save potentially millions of people, but what would YOU rather live with? Knowledge that your actions (albeit coerced) brought about the deaths of millions? I don't know about you, but I don't wanna live with that on my conscience.
Furthermore, I don't think it's unreasonable to place such an obligation upon somebody. If the best thing a person can do for the world is die, and their alternative life is unlivable, then the answer presents itself.
In spite of your fairly thorough assessment and with my addition added, though, it still seems possible that someone would be successfully coerced into building such a weapon. In that case, he'd better make sure it's a damn good weapon so that there won't be anybody around afterwards to do the duty he failed to do himself.
There's only one small problem with your post, although I agree with the message.:)
You use the appropriate tool to deal with the appropriate problem. One badguy right up close in your face, probably better to pull a handgun.
Wouldn't a knife, or some real martial arts training be more appropriate in this case? A handgun requires a certain amount of overhead to use in close quarters. You have to draw it, and you have to pull the trigger. With a knife, you only have to draw it. With your hands, you can strike on pure reflex. If you want to *win*, you include the speed of the weapon in your quality assessment of its usefulness, and hands are the fastest weapon to use in this case.
If you're referring to the Master of Sinanju, you should probably spell it "Chiun". His name was originally Nuihc, but his first student also of that name left the village to ply his trade without sending any of the proceeds back to the village, forcing Chiun to go back out into the world and earn for his village. To disown Nuihc, Chiun reversed the letters in his name. Remo comes up against him a few times, the first time being in the book Union Bust, Destroyer #7.
ANd, yes, the books make the movie look like a fucking cartoon.
I suppose this is that 'some day' we've all been dreaming about, when common sense comes to the foreground.
Uh, no, sorry. This just proves one of the underlying concepts of statistical math, that highly unlikely events happen no matter how low their probability is. Or something like that.
The point is that there isn't any reason to use DRM for the benefit of the world, because it will almost never benefit the world. Therefore it makes pragmatic sense to outlaw it.
Um, didn't Linux provide a way that it could benefit the world? If you configure your machine to only run code that is signed with a trusted signature, then you are more secure, so long as the signatures you accept are really trustworthy. The difference between this case and Palladium is that in this case, YOU make the choice. Palladium is Soviet Russia DRM.
Your argument brings nothing. You would have to argue your claimed fact that killing almost never brings benefits to the world. Maybe it's true, maybe not. (some countries still have the middle-age custom of executing people, they must think it provides some benefit.)
Yes, I realized that not supporting the argument weakened it.:) I was trying to exploit the poster's obvious belief that murder is wrong to point out pragmatic reasons for outlawing it compared to idealistic reasons. Mass murder, more specifically, certainly fits my argument without requiring much supporting facts. OTOH, I could argue where mass murder might actually benefit society, because if you wiped out a certain group of people that was trying to change society to their liking, you wind up with a society more to your liking (theoretically), and therefore you'd view the mass murder as a benefit to society.
You'd also have to explain precisely in which way DRM brings benefit to the world. For that matter, I'd also like to see an analysis showing how a copyrigth-extension from life+70 to life+90 benefits the world.
Reminds me, DRM in concept, in my opinion, does not benefit the world and should be fought. Linus was talking about (I think, it's been a few hours since I read the post) how the technology itself wasn't inherently evil and presented at least one case where it might actually be good. But the idea that jumps out at "Digital Rights Management" strikes me as borderline offensive, and I don't get offended often or easily. Rights aren't something you carefully manage, limiting them here and extending them there. You either have them, or you don't. And since most proposed DRM schemes involve letting some 3rd party corporation manage your digital rights without your consent, then there's yet to be a good reason to have it.
Given that he holds that belief, it makes every sense for him to continually argue his point. Because he believes he is fighting for a cause that attempts to rescue society from an unchecked evil, he in fact has a responsibility to pursue change in every way.
Um, for the record, I wasn't trying to disagree with Stallman's actions. In fact, I tend to agree with him that proprietary software is damaging to society. It's like cocaine. Great business around it, great feelings doing it, but ultimately it'll kill you. ANyway, I was responding to the poster who tried to say that "murder is right from the point of view of the murderer" and suggest the the grandparent poster was trying to say that we allow murder because it's right from a certain point of view. So I said "No, we don't, because murder is damaging to society." That's all I was saying.:)
Now, the difference between the metaphors is that in the first case, murder, we can point and say "That guy is dead. He no longer lives. That is not good." In the second case, Stallman's case of free software, what do we point at to say "Proprietary software is evil, it damages us." What proof to offer? Most people agree that murder is a bad thing, no matter how many different ways they dream up to describe it. It's not that simple with Free Software vs proprietary software.
Sure, you've got some guns to protect you from the "tyrannical" gov't and you and your pals decide it's time for a revolt. So,you guys pack up your 30.06s, your 9mms, and your 12 gauge shotguns and march on D.C. to overthrow the gov't. How far do you really think those pitiful weapons are going to go against Apache helicopters, M-1 tanks, guided missiles, etc. Let me assure you, not too damn far.
You are right as rain, but let me assure you, when I say "no gun control", I mean putting tanks in people's yards, with rocket launchers and so forth. We can't have the fullest technological capabilities of the government, but we can come damn close.
Mind you, one of the first things a tyrannical government does (or early things) is disarm its citizenry so they can't fight. And many revolutions are still carried out. You can't say "in this day and age overthrowing your government is impossible" because in this day and age, several industrialized and well-armed governments have already been overthrown. Any Soviet Russia jokes? In Soviet Russia, people overthrow YOU.
The reason the rhetoric is important isn't to arm the public getting ready to fight.:) It's to remind people that our government is ours as a result of a contract, and if they violate that contract it's our responsibility to see them replaced. It's also to remind people of one of the many warning signs of a government approaching tyranny, that of the mass disarmament of the population. Drop the rhetoric, forget the responsibility. It's our country, and if/when it comes time to take it back, this rhetoric is going to become a helluva lot more meaningful.
ahh yes;) Anthrax's CD "The Sound of White Noise". I have that one, it's great. And Packaged Rebellion (track 4) is one of my favorite tracks.
Heh, personally I'd like to see that particular CD supplant the bible as the modern collection of wisdom. Especially the part that says "Easy to turn my back on the system hard not to be an atheist".:)
In fact, I don't have that album anymore, but I've got most/all of the mp3's for it, so I'm burning up some to go listen to when I leave the house in a few minutes.:)
That's a circular argument: Murder is illegal killing, and should therefore be considered "wrong".
Um, that's about the worst summary of one of my arguments I've ever seen.:) You'll *never* catch me saying that something should be considered "wrong" because it's illegal. That's placing too much trust and credit on the heads of politicians. "She's a politician, and they're *not* to be trusted."
My argument was that there are some behaviors (murder is one of them) that are damaging to the world at large. Mass murder, specifically, because small murders don't hurt the world, they only hurt a few individuals. But that's not saying that smaller murders should be allowed either. The point is that there isn't any reason to use killing for the benefit of the world, because it will almost never benefit the world. Therefore, it makes pragmatic sense to outlaw it. It's not a question of ethics. You want a peaceful world? Outlaw violence, and then enforce the law. Right?
The hard part is not arguing that murder is wrong: that's axiomatic. The hard part is determining when killing another is murder and when it isn't.
If we stay in the realm of ideology, then it's simple. All murder is wrong.:) But again, from a pragmatic point of view, there are times when murder is good. For example, assassinate Hussein rather than fight a war and ruin a country. The latter is unnecessary mass murder that is brought about because of some deranged morality saying that assassination is wrong (of course, that deranged morality is based on a healthy sense of self-preservation. wanna guess which politician gets assassinated first when politicians start saying that assassination is good?).
Think "Gun control" for a hard problem. (Philosophically, increased accountability for firearm use may render it a simple problem, but such rational approaches have not been socially accepted on a wide scale, so the problem remains "hard").
Gun control's not a hard problem either. Guns are a tool, just like any other. I can kill you with my 16 oz Snap-on sledge hammer. I can kill you with my hands, better cut them off! Limiting the tools people can use legally to commit murder is circular logic in the fullest. If someone's gonna kill someone else, there ain't any law that's gonna be able to stop them. OTOH, the right to bear arms has something to do with protecting yourself and the country from tyranny, foreign invasion, etc. The right to bear arms means that if/when our own government becomes too tyrannical, we will be armed and ready to flush them out by whatever means necessary. That we can tell our own president "Get out of this country, take your kids with you, and don't ever come back" and have the means to back it up.
Alright, so I'm a subjective person sometimes. Sue me.:)
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Especially in light of the fact that history generally looks more kindly on Einstein than on von Braun
Not really, since von Braun declared, when his first rockets fired, that the space age has started. Wanna take out bets that he made the rockets on his own agenda?
I also have a hard time believing that von Braun did anything bad, per se, since his invention has been improved upon by so many people in so many different parts of the world, and with some small exceptions, it's purpose today is still to kill people. The exceptions, of course, are generally referred to as "Space Programs".
Yes, but we are certain he's had heterosexual sex at least 2 (or is it 3?) times. That's far better that most/.ers (I was about to say 2 or 3 times better, but anything times 0 is 0).
Um, actually, we only know that LInus's WIFE has had heterosexual sex at least 2 or 3 times, but with technology moving like it is, that's not even guaranteed anymore.
We won't know that Linus was actually involved in any way until his kids grow up, write their own kernels, and start telling everyone that RMS is crazy.
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I suppose that one shouldn't push the "ideology" that treating others worse than one would ever want to be treated one's self, either? Do we let others pursue their chosen "ideology" of murder? If not, then why not, and what makes us "right" and others "wrong"? These are the (hard) questions to ask.
Not that hard, if you actually put your brain to the task.:) There is a core set of behavior that is damaging to society as a whole, whether the behavior is practiced by politicians or criminals (the same class!) or whatever. Murder is in this class of behavior. This behavior, when let run wild (as in the favorite cite of Nazism) isn't just damaging to the world we live in, it can potentially destroy the whole world and all of human existence. Therefore, for pragmatic reasons, this behavior shouldn't be allowed by the forces that be, and if they practice this behavior, they should be thrown out and new powers installed.
Guess what: driven people have strong opinions, and are willing to risk unpopularity (and often, much worse things), to stand by them. Such people make good friends and allies, though they do have enemies as well.
How's that song go? "I don't wanna hear how you're so driven" some more stuff, then "If you say it, mean it, if you mean it, do it. You can't live your live through me, if you do it, live it, if you live it, say it, action is the air you breathe." Yeah, that's right, take your packaged rebellion.:)
In the end, I have to side with the evil overlords(tm). I feel that when you sell something, your should be able to decide for yourself what terms you offer to customers.
I have to side with the evil overlords for much the same reason, actually. It says in my service agreement (originally with @home, care to guess who now?:) ) that I will only hook up one computer. Luckily, when it switched to AT&T they told us to use NAT to setup a home network, but don't call support unless you plug in a windows or mac box directly to the modem. Of course, that didn't help, the support guy still wanted to send someone over for $700 or something. And their network was down. Anyway, now Comcast has it. I've stuck with this connection through AT&T for 2 years now, and I've been loyal. They've lost customers at each change that aren't likely to come back, but I've stuck it out. If they start sniffing my NAT and telling me I can't have my home network, with the unauthorized wireless access point, I'll find someone else who will let me. And I"ll make sure that someone else doesn't give a shit if I run my own public server.
The reason I side with them, actually, in spite of that last paragraph, is because it *also* says in my service agreement (and if comcast ever sends one, it'll be there too, I promise) that I can't share my network with the neighbors. I can't run an ethernet cable across the yard to the next house. Just like I can't run my phone line, water lines, electrical lines, etc. You pay for access to ONE RESIDENCE. Violate that, and you should be disconnected. If you want access for two residences, pay for access to two residences. Simple enough, right?
Now, that said, I've broken that agreement too, sorta. I live in a house that was built for one residence, but has been modified to support two. I've shared my connection with the upstairs neighbor. BUT, and (like my own) this is a BIG BUT, AT&T (it was theirs at the time) wouldn't connect separate internet connections. They just wouldn't. I asked, they said they wouldn't. Said it was one residence no matter how the landlord partitioned it. So I guess I wasn't really breaking that agreement after all, eh?:)
That doesn't solve the record companies' problem of controlling their intellectual property.
Their problem isn't controlling their intellectual property, it's that they're trying too hard to control consumers, and consumers don't want to be controlled. We want to pick and choose how we listen, what we listen to, and so forth, and the record companies don't want us to chose. They want us to bend over and take it the only way they're willing to give it.
Imagine Torvalds charging $100/license for the Linux kernel. Would he be filthy rich, or would we all migrate to *BSD?
You left out the part where Torvalds turns around and claims that everyone of us that migrates to BSD would be costing him a $100 license, thus forcing the government to charge extra money on every CD released that *could* hold a Linux kernel, to reimburse him for his losses.
Hey, I've got an idea for a new business!
First we'll create something that doesn't require work on our part, we'll exploit talented workers and screw them out of every dime they have, then when nothing sells we'll pick out a scapegoat and make the government pay us!
That's right, we'll be (wait for it) *contractors*.
I never did quite understand how Firebird or Phoenix were supposed to indicate 'small, compact, anti-bloat'.
Why don't they just call it Miatta? That would indicate small, compact, and anti-bloat.
Especially since the beginning Mozilla hasn't exactly shown a lot of originality. Great programming, apparently, but original? Let's see, XPCOM is modeled after MS COM, then we've got a huge fire-breathing lizard named **zilla. Except it's red, not green, and it didn't climb up out of the ocean to terrorize Japanese cities, instead it can be said to be trying to climb up out of the ocean to terrorize cities in western Washington.
Don't misinterpret me, I LOVE mozilla. But especially after seeing the story of how FirebirdSQL got their name, I wonder why Mozilla can't adopt it for the same reason? I mean, really, Netscape was going under getting stomped by the big bad Microsoft, so they thrust their product into Open Source to give it new life. Can you say.... Firebird?
Except the FirebirdSQL guys did it first, and if Mozilla does it now, well, it'll cause problems for the FirebirdSQL guys.
It's a stupid fight, but at least they're not namecalling.:) (note: I haven't taken sides, because "that which we call a rose" and all that)
to be taken seriously you need to conduct yourself in a professional manner. A mass posting campaign is on the same maturity level that an organization like Earth First operates at.
What about dropping butterfly flyers all over the city and spraying the same pattern all over walls and crap? Is that acting professionally?
I also tried submitting an artical on/. yesterday or the day before. My artical got rejected. As my writing skills lack polish I just assumed that it wasn't clear enough for the editors.
Maybe you just used vocabulary skills that required at least a 10-year old's reading capabilities?
But most certainly Postgres is not in this category.
or example SAP DB is in the same category as Oracle, DB2
I read an article recently, and I wish I had a link to give you, that showed Postgres outperforming the shit out of Oracle and DB2. Interesting that you should put it in a class with MySQL, I've been under the understanding that PostgreSQL is an enterprise database, which MySQL isn't really.
Maybe I will read it, though I got bogged down in the last "new" Heinlein book I tried to read. I would agree that his older stuff is generally better and the newer stuff is sometimes weird to the point that I lose interest.
Job bogs down a bit, still, what with the lead waxing romantic and all over his chick. I find all the fawning his characters do over one another, themselves, and everything else to be quite a drag, and really hold down the story. Some of the newer books are really interesting, to a point. The point where they fall off is usually right about when Lazarus Long makes his appearance. Heh. But Job keeps the action moving, a little too long there also. The first time I read it, after awhile I kept reading just because I figured "I've gotten this far, dammit, I'm going to finish it!". In a way, I'm still unhappy that I never finished Fellowship of the Ring because it bogged down too much for me (especially since I really enjoyed the two movies made, so far).
Personally, though, I typically like his books that are targetted more at adolescents than the ones targetted at adults. They're almost always great adventure stories, like Tunnel in the Sky was. They're not as deep in the characters and themes and stuff as I like, but his short stories typically satisfy my more adult needs. (Adult needs referring to depth, not porn:) ) But another good book, if you haven't read it already, is Revolt in 2100. That's hands down my favorite book of his. It's a tad older, so it doesn't bog down at all. It's also a collection of short stories with the first one being more like a novella than a short story, and revolves around a revolution in the US to overthrow a religious dictatorship. The scary thing is, even today there's a chance someone like Nehemiah Scudder could come along and sweep the country off its feet into religious dictatorship. If that happens, though, I'm not too worried. Nehemiah Scudder is one of my fans.:)
No, I haven't, though I've read several other Heinlein stories, like "The Door into Summer," "Starship Troopers" (the movie was an abomination), the one about the survival course (I can't remember the title), and others I can't think of off the top of my head.
The one about the survival course is called "Tunnel in the Sky" and is one that I reread pretty often, along with the Door into Summer. I like his older stuff much more than his newer stuff, and Job is in his newer stuff. You should definitely give it a read. The main character is a hard-core strict fundamentalist who falls in love with a woman that believes in and follows the Norse pantheon (Odin, Loki, Thor, and the rest). It's subtitled "A comedy of justice", and is taken in many ways directly from the corresponding book in the bible. But it's much longer, and much better.:) Some great theological discussion in there, actually. The lead character almost gets you believin' his stuff. In fact, I almost putting it down, thinking "when the fuck did Heinlein become a fundamentalist?".
How is it "fair use" to take a copy and not compensate the copyright holder?
Ok, I'll answer, but I don't think that's gonna finish the discussion.:)
Copyright laws were created to allow the creator of a creative work to be the only one that can make money off his work. For anybody else to make money, they need his permission. Fair use was created as a compromise, to allow people to use the work as they see fit, within certain limitations. Under the fair use clause (ignoring case history for the moment) we're allowed to make copies and distribute them, so long as we charge at most the cost of materials. I.e. we can't make a profit, only the original creator (or his approved affiliates) can do that. So, if you come over to my house, listen to a CD, and like it, I'm authorized under copyright law to copy it for you and give it to you.
Morally, yes, you are under an obligation at some point to actually purchase the CD yourself or get rid of your copy. From a practical standpoint, that may or may not happen. Assuming availability of the CD, then it's safe to say that the rule (not the exception) is that you will purchase the CD or not, but you will almost defnitely either throw the tape away (or CD, this is a new day, after all) or record over it, or give it to someone else, thus passing on your moral obligation to buy or destroy your copy.
The reason for this moral obligation is to maintain the spirit of the agreement implied by the fair use clause, which is that we need to make sure the artist is compensated for his work. However, and I wish I still had the link, if you google for "courtney love does the math" you will read an article that explains that the artist does NOT get compensated. In the end, the RIAA-affiliated labels actually totally screw over the artist. Under these mitigating circumstances, the moral obligation to compensate the artist is best taken in a different venue, i.e. by buying a ticket to the concert. I do not know how ticketmaster rips off the artists, but I hear there's similar problems over there. But when we can be certain that the artist won't actually get our money when we're attempting to fulfill the morality of the agreement, then the obligation is to be fulfilled differently. But as far as the recording goes, we no longer need to purchase the CD.
It's important to keep in mind that I'm only talking about known RIAA labels. There are indy labels that also take advantage of the artists, and it's up to the individual to determine that. But I understand that your money has a much higher likelihood of reaching the artist if you support indy labels than if you support the mainstream establishment, in which case you would still be under obligation to purchase the CD or destroy your copy.
And everyone that receives a copy of the song is under this obligation, morally. The only exception is when you know (as in my case with pretty much all the music I've downloaded) that it's either impossible to compensate the artist (the band broke up, music's out of print, etc.) or that you have already given them plenty of money, and you are likely to again (as in the case of all the Anthrax I've downloaded). In the second case, it's part of the relationship you have with the band. If the band wishes to cancel that part of the relationship, then you might want to consider canceling your part of the relationship, like I did with Metallica. They may not care that I'm never giving them money again, but I've spent hundreds of my hard-earned cash on them in the past.
Is that answer sufficient? It's clear that I don't support stealing from the artists either, and that I feel that we should live up to our obligations. If you don't want to live up to an obligation, don't create it.
By the way, I enjoyed "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," especially the AI with MPD (maybe it's not a disorder for AI's), though I doubt Heinlein intended it as an authentic history (unless he was/will be there).:)
While we're at it, then, have you read Job? The one by Heinlein, not the one in the Bible....;)
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Handguns are sometimes referred to as 'equalizers.' Let's face it, if someone is attacking you, they have prepared, and you quite likely haven't. So any weapon that requires skill and training, the assailant is at an advantage. A handgun, on the other hand, just requires a certain amount of training, and then is useful at close range without needing to be 'primed' or 'fit'. A smaller woman, for instance, can defend herself quite adequately with a handgun if she's had a bit of training in it's use. Let's not turn this into a ninja discussion.
Dude, this isn't about ninja. Quit acting stupid. My wife has been raped a total of 4 times, and each time the rapist had the element of surprise for him. By the time she knew what was happening, she was on the ground with her wrists held and the man's weight pushing her down. A handgun is completely worthless in this situation. Judo, on the other hand, is exactly the right tool for this situation, especially for a smaller woman. You use the assailant's strength against him. When my aunt was raped (only once), she WAS carrying a small lady's handgun tucked away in her purse. Do you think she could even grab the thing?
Carrying a handgun can actually be dangerous for the person doing it. They feel "safe" and anything that might threaten them they feel like they can take it. That overconfidence can cost them that fraction of a second they need to take action in a tight spot.
Proper training, on the other hand, takes effect without even consulting the brain. The movements are kept in the spine, where all your other reflexes are. Working out is good for you, and if you work out by training with some form of hand-to-hand combat, then you will be MUCH better equipped to deal with these situations.
Now here's some numbers for you. 1 in 4 women are sexually attacked every year. The nature of a sexual attack requires the element of surprise on the side of the assailant. Therefore, the person who is being attacked cannot depend on having enough warning to draw any sort of weapon, nor can they depend on being in a position to use it by the time it gets drawn. I forget numbers on armed robbery, and I generally don't pay attention to any other numbers.
I support a worldwide boycott by scientists, engineers and techs from getting hired or coerced by any regimes to work on those devices, and I condemn any who are currently doing so. I condemn them.
Um, you left something out here, too. :)
Any scientist who has been coerced, kidnapped, etc, to build these fancy weapons for such rulers has a moral obligation to suicide. Now, I realize that it sounds unreasonable to suicide to save potentially millions of people, but what would YOU rather live with? Knowledge that your actions (albeit coerced) brought about the deaths of millions? I don't know about you, but I don't wanna live with that on my conscience.
Furthermore, I don't think it's unreasonable to place such an obligation upon somebody. If the best thing a person can do for the world is die, and their alternative life is unlivable, then the answer presents itself.
In spite of your fairly thorough assessment and with my addition added, though, it still seems possible that someone would be successfully coerced into building such a weapon. In that case, he'd better make sure it's a damn good weapon so that there won't be anybody around afterwards to do the duty he failed to do himself.
There's only one small problem with your post, although I agree with the message. :)
You use the appropriate tool to deal with the appropriate problem. One badguy right up close in your face, probably better to pull a handgun.
Wouldn't a knife, or some real martial arts training be more appropriate in this case? A handgun requires a certain amount of overhead to use in close quarters. You have to draw it, and you have to pull the trigger. With a knife, you only have to draw it. With your hands, you can strike on pure reflex. If you want to *win*, you include the speed of the weapon in your quality assessment of its usefulness, and hands are the fastest weapon to use in this case.
Not if you're Chun.
If you're referring to the Master of Sinanju, you should probably spell it "Chiun". His name was originally Nuihc, but his first student also of that name left the village to ply his trade without sending any of the proceeds back to the village, forcing Chiun to go back out into the world and earn for his village. To disown Nuihc, Chiun reversed the letters in his name. Remo comes up against him a few times, the first time being in the book Union Bust, Destroyer #7.
ANd, yes, the books make the movie look like a fucking cartoon.
I suppose this is that 'some day' we've all been dreaming about, when common sense comes to the foreground.
Uh, no, sorry. This just proves one of the underlying concepts of statistical math, that highly unlikely events happen no matter how low their probability is. Or something like that.
The point is that there isn't any reason to use DRM for the benefit of the world, because it will almost never benefit the world. Therefore it makes pragmatic sense to outlaw it.
Um, didn't Linux provide a way that it could benefit the world? If you configure your machine to only run code that is signed with a trusted signature, then you are more secure, so long as the signatures you accept are really trustworthy. The difference between this case and Palladium is that in this case, YOU make the choice. Palladium is Soviet Russia DRM.
Your argument brings nothing. You would have to argue your claimed fact that killing almost never brings benefits to the world. Maybe it's true, maybe not. (some countries still have the middle-age custom of executing people, they must think it provides some benefit.)
Yes, I realized that not supporting the argument weakened it. :) I was trying to exploit the poster's obvious belief that murder is wrong to point out pragmatic reasons for outlawing it compared to idealistic reasons. Mass murder, more specifically, certainly fits my argument without requiring much supporting facts. OTOH, I could argue where mass murder might actually benefit society, because if you wiped out a certain group of people that was trying to change society to their liking, you wind up with a society more to your liking (theoretically), and therefore you'd view the mass murder as a benefit to society.
You'd also have to explain precisely in which way DRM brings benefit to the world. For that matter, I'd also like to see an analysis showing how a copyrigth-extension from life+70 to life+90 benefits the world.
Reminds me, DRM in concept, in my opinion, does not benefit the world and should be fought. Linus was talking about (I think, it's been a few hours since I read the post) how the technology itself wasn't inherently evil and presented at least one case where it might actually be good. But the idea that jumps out at "Digital Rights Management" strikes me as borderline offensive, and I don't get offended often or easily. Rights aren't something you carefully manage, limiting them here and extending them there. You either have them, or you don't. And since most proposed DRM schemes involve letting some 3rd party corporation manage your digital rights without your consent, then there's yet to be a good reason to have it.
Nevermind, I'm too sleepy to talk. 'night.
Given that he holds that belief, it makes every sense for him to continually argue his point. Because he believes he is fighting for a cause that attempts to rescue society from an unchecked evil, he in fact has a responsibility to pursue change in every way.
Um, for the record, I wasn't trying to disagree with Stallman's actions. In fact, I tend to agree with him that proprietary software is damaging to society. It's like cocaine. Great business around it, great feelings doing it, but ultimately it'll kill you. ANyway, I was responding to the poster who tried to say that "murder is right from the point of view of the murderer" and suggest the the grandparent poster was trying to say that we allow murder because it's right from a certain point of view. So I said "No, we don't, because murder is damaging to society." That's all I was saying. :)
Now, the difference between the metaphors is that in the first case, murder, we can point and say "That guy is dead. He no longer lives. That is not good." In the second case, Stallman's case of free software, what do we point at to say "Proprietary software is evil, it damages us." What proof to offer? Most people agree that murder is a bad thing, no matter how many different ways they dream up to describe it. It's not that simple with Free Software vs proprietary software.
Sure, you've got some guns to protect you from the "tyrannical" gov't and you and your pals decide it's time for a revolt. So,you guys pack up your 30.06s, your 9mms, and your 12 gauge shotguns and march on D.C. to overthrow the gov't. How far do you really think those pitiful weapons are going to go against Apache helicopters, M-1 tanks, guided missiles, etc. Let me assure you, not too damn far.
You are right as rain, but let me assure you, when I say "no gun control", I mean putting tanks in people's yards, with rocket launchers and so forth. We can't have the fullest technological capabilities of the government, but we can come damn close.
Mind you, one of the first things a tyrannical government does (or early things) is disarm its citizenry so they can't fight. And many revolutions are still carried out. You can't say "in this day and age overthrowing your government is impossible" because in this day and age, several industrialized and well-armed governments have already been overthrown. Any Soviet Russia jokes? In Soviet Russia, people overthrow YOU.
The reason the rhetoric is important isn't to arm the public getting ready to fight. :) It's to remind people that our government is ours as a result of a contract, and if they violate that contract it's our responsibility to see them replaced. It's also to remind people of one of the many warning signs of a government approaching tyranny, that of the mass disarmament of the population. Drop the rhetoric, forget the responsibility. It's our country, and if/when it comes time to take it back, this rhetoric is going to become a helluva lot more meaningful.
ahh yes ;) Anthrax's CD "The Sound of White Noise". I have that one, it's great. And Packaged Rebellion (track 4) is one of my favorite tracks.
Heh, personally I'd like to see that particular CD supplant the bible as the modern collection of wisdom. Especially the part that says "Easy to turn my back on the system hard not to be an atheist". :)
In fact, I don't have that album anymore, but I've got most/all of the mp3's for it, so I'm burning up some to go listen to when I leave the house in a few minutes. :)
That's a circular argument: Murder is illegal killing, and should therefore be considered "wrong".
Um, that's about the worst summary of one of my arguments I've ever seen. :) You'll *never* catch me saying that something should be considered "wrong" because it's illegal. That's placing too much trust and credit on the heads of politicians. "She's a politician, and they're *not* to be trusted."
My argument was that there are some behaviors (murder is one of them) that are damaging to the world at large. Mass murder, specifically, because small murders don't hurt the world, they only hurt a few individuals. But that's not saying that smaller murders should be allowed either. The point is that there isn't any reason to use killing for the benefit of the world, because it will almost never benefit the world. Therefore, it makes pragmatic sense to outlaw it. It's not a question of ethics. You want a peaceful world? Outlaw violence, and then enforce the law. Right?
The hard part is not arguing that murder is wrong: that's axiomatic. The hard part is determining when killing another is murder and when it isn't.
If we stay in the realm of ideology, then it's simple. All murder is wrong. :) But again, from a pragmatic point of view, there are times when murder is good. For example, assassinate Hussein rather than fight a war and ruin a country. The latter is unnecessary mass murder that is brought about because of some deranged morality saying that assassination is wrong (of course, that deranged morality is based on a healthy sense of self-preservation. wanna guess which politician gets assassinated first when politicians start saying that assassination is good?).
Think "Gun control" for a hard problem. (Philosophically, increased accountability for firearm use may render it a simple problem, but such rational approaches have not been socially accepted on a wide scale, so the problem remains "hard").
Gun control's not a hard problem either. Guns are a tool, just like any other. I can kill you with my 16 oz Snap-on sledge hammer. I can kill you with my hands, better cut them off! Limiting the tools people can use legally to commit murder is circular logic in the fullest. If someone's gonna kill someone else, there ain't any law that's gonna be able to stop them. OTOH, the right to bear arms has something to do with protecting yourself and the country from tyranny, foreign invasion, etc. The right to bear arms means that if/when our own government becomes too tyrannical, we will be armed and ready to flush them out by whatever means necessary. That we can tell our own president "Get out of this country, take your kids with you, and don't ever come back" and have the means to back it up.
Alright, so I'm a subjective person sometimes. Sue me. :)
Especially in light of the fact that history generally looks more kindly on Einstein than on von Braun
Not really, since von Braun declared, when his first rockets fired, that the space age has started. Wanna take out bets that he made the rockets on his own agenda?
I also have a hard time believing that von Braun did anything bad, per se, since his invention has been improved upon by so many people in so many different parts of the world, and with some small exceptions, it's purpose today is still to kill people. The exceptions, of course, are generally referred to as "Space Programs".
Yes, but we are certain he's had heterosexual sex at least 2 (or is it 3?) times. That's far better that most /.ers (I was about to say 2 or 3 times better, but anything times 0 is 0).
Um, actually, we only know that LInus's WIFE has had heterosexual sex at least 2 or 3 times, but with technology moving like it is, that's not even guaranteed anymore.
We won't know that Linus was actually involved in any way until his kids grow up, write their own kernels, and start telling everyone that RMS is crazy.
I suppose that one shouldn't push the "ideology" that treating others worse than one would ever want to be treated one's self, either? Do we let others pursue their chosen "ideology" of murder? If not, then why not, and what makes us "right" and others "wrong"? These are the (hard) questions to ask.
Not that hard, if you actually put your brain to the task. :) There is a core set of behavior that is damaging to society as a whole, whether the behavior is practiced by politicians or criminals (the same class!) or whatever. Murder is in this class of behavior. This behavior, when let run wild (as in the favorite cite of Nazism) isn't just damaging to the world we live in, it can potentially destroy the whole world and all of human existence. Therefore, for pragmatic reasons, this behavior shouldn't be allowed by the forces that be, and if they practice this behavior, they should be thrown out and new powers installed.
Guess what: driven people have strong opinions, and are willing to risk unpopularity (and often, much worse things), to stand by them. Such people make good friends and allies, though they do have enemies as well.
How's that song go? "I don't wanna hear how you're so driven" some more stuff, then "If you say it, mean it, if you mean it, do it. You can't live your live through me, if you do it, live it, if you live it, say it, action is the air you breathe." Yeah, that's right, take your packaged rebellion. :)
As usual the bourgeoisie try to extract more and more money from the masses through the corporations they control.
In other news, China doesn't block Slashdot.
In the end, I have to side with the evil overlords(tm). I feel that when you sell something, your should be able to decide for yourself what terms you offer to customers.
I have to side with the evil overlords for much the same reason, actually. It says in my service agreement (originally with @home, care to guess who now? :) ) that I will only hook up one computer. Luckily, when it switched to AT&T they told us to use NAT to setup a home network, but don't call support unless you plug in a windows or mac box directly to the modem. Of course, that didn't help, the support guy still wanted to send someone over for $700 or something. And their network was down. Anyway, now Comcast has it. I've stuck with this connection through AT&T for 2 years now, and I've been loyal. They've lost customers at each change that aren't likely to come back, but I've stuck it out. If they start sniffing my NAT and telling me I can't have my home network, with the unauthorized wireless access point, I'll find someone else who will let me. And I"ll make sure that someone else doesn't give a shit if I run my own public server.
The reason I side with them, actually, in spite of that last paragraph, is because it *also* says in my service agreement (and if comcast ever sends one, it'll be there too, I promise) that I can't share my network with the neighbors. I can't run an ethernet cable across the yard to the next house. Just like I can't run my phone line, water lines, electrical lines, etc. You pay for access to ONE RESIDENCE. Violate that, and you should be disconnected. If you want access for two residences, pay for access to two residences. Simple enough, right?
Now, that said, I've broken that agreement too, sorta. I live in a house that was built for one residence, but has been modified to support two. I've shared my connection with the upstairs neighbor. BUT, and (like my own) this is a BIG BUT, AT&T (it was theirs at the time) wouldn't connect separate internet connections. They just wouldn't. I asked, they said they wouldn't. Said it was one residence no matter how the landlord partitioned it. So I guess I wasn't really breaking that agreement after all, eh? :)
That doesn't solve the record companies' problem of controlling their intellectual property.
Their problem isn't controlling their intellectual property, it's that they're trying too hard to control consumers, and consumers don't want to be controlled. We want to pick and choose how we listen, what we listen to, and so forth, and the record companies don't want us to chose. They want us to bend over and take it the only way they're willing to give it.
Imagine Torvalds charging $100/license for the Linux kernel. Would he be filthy rich, or would we all migrate to *BSD?
You left out the part where Torvalds turns around and claims that everyone of us that migrates to BSD would be costing him a $100 license, thus forcing the government to charge extra money on every CD released that *could* hold a Linux kernel, to reimburse him for his losses.
Hey, I've got an idea for a new business!
First we'll create something that doesn't require work on our part, we'll exploit talented workers and screw them out of every dime they have, then when nothing sells we'll pick out a scapegoat and make the government pay us!
That's right, we'll be (wait for it) *contractors*.
I never did quite understand how Firebird or Phoenix were supposed to indicate 'small, compact, anti-bloat'.
Why don't they just call it Miatta? That would indicate small, compact, and anti-bloat.
Especially since the beginning Mozilla hasn't exactly shown a lot of originality. Great programming, apparently, but original? Let's see, XPCOM is modeled after MS COM, then we've got a huge fire-breathing lizard named **zilla. Except it's red, not green, and it didn't climb up out of the ocean to terrorize Japanese cities, instead it can be said to be trying to climb up out of the ocean to terrorize cities in western Washington.
Don't misinterpret me, I LOVE mozilla. But especially after seeing the story of how FirebirdSQL got their name, I wonder why Mozilla can't adopt it for the same reason? I mean, really, Netscape was going under getting stomped by the big bad Microsoft, so they thrust their product into Open Source to give it new life. Can you say.... Firebird?
Except the FirebirdSQL guys did it first, and if Mozilla does it now, well, it'll cause problems for the FirebirdSQL guys.
It's a stupid fight, but at least they're not namecalling. :) (note: I haven't taken sides, because "that which we call a rose" and all that)
to be taken seriously you need to conduct yourself in a professional manner. A mass posting campaign is on the same maturity level that an organization like Earth First operates at.
What about dropping butterfly flyers all over the city and spraying the same pattern all over walls and crap? Is that acting professionally?
I also tried submitting an artical on /. yesterday or the day before. My artical got rejected. As my writing skills lack polish I just assumed that it wasn't clear enough for the editors.
Maybe you just used vocabulary skills that required at least a 10-year old's reading capabilities?
But most certainly Postgres is not in this category.
or example SAP DB is in the same category as Oracle, DB2
I read an article recently, and I wish I had a link to give you, that showed Postgres outperforming the shit out of Oracle and DB2. Interesting that you should put it in a class with MySQL, I've been under the understanding that PostgreSQL is an enterprise database, which MySQL isn't really.
Maybe I will read it, though I got bogged down in the last "new" Heinlein book I tried to read. I would agree that his older stuff is generally better and the newer stuff is sometimes weird to the point that I lose interest.
Job bogs down a bit, still, what with the lead waxing romantic and all over his chick. I find all the fawning his characters do over one another, themselves, and everything else to be quite a drag, and really hold down the story. Some of the newer books are really interesting, to a point. The point where they fall off is usually right about when Lazarus Long makes his appearance. Heh. But Job keeps the action moving, a little too long there also. The first time I read it, after awhile I kept reading just because I figured "I've gotten this far, dammit, I'm going to finish it!". In a way, I'm still unhappy that I never finished Fellowship of the Ring because it bogged down too much for me (especially since I really enjoyed the two movies made, so far).
Personally, though, I typically like his books that are targetted more at adolescents than the ones targetted at adults. They're almost always great adventure stories, like Tunnel in the Sky was. They're not as deep in the characters and themes and stuff as I like, but his short stories typically satisfy my more adult needs. (Adult needs referring to depth, not porn :) ) But another good book, if you haven't read it already, is Revolt in 2100. That's hands down my favorite book of his. It's a tad older, so it doesn't bog down at all. It's also a collection of short stories with the first one being more like a novella than a short story, and revolves around a revolution in the US to overthrow a religious dictatorship. The scary thing is, even today there's a chance someone like Nehemiah Scudder could come along and sweep the country off its feet into religious dictatorship. If that happens, though, I'm not too worried. Nehemiah Scudder is one of my fans. :)
No, I haven't, though I've read several other Heinlein stories, like "The Door into Summer," "Starship Troopers" (the movie was an abomination), the one about the survival course (I can't remember the title), and others I can't think of off the top of my head.
The one about the survival course is called "Tunnel in the Sky" and is one that I reread pretty often, along with the Door into Summer. I like his older stuff much more than his newer stuff, and Job is in his newer stuff. You should definitely give it a read. The main character is a hard-core strict fundamentalist who falls in love with a woman that believes in and follows the Norse pantheon (Odin, Loki, Thor, and the rest). It's subtitled "A comedy of justice", and is taken in many ways directly from the corresponding book in the bible. But it's much longer, and much better. :) Some great theological discussion in there, actually. The lead character almost gets you believin' his stuff. In fact, I almost putting it down, thinking "when the fuck did Heinlein become a fundamentalist?".
How is it "fair use" to take a copy and not compensate the copyright holder?
Ok, I'll answer, but I don't think that's gonna finish the discussion. :)
Copyright laws were created to allow the creator of a creative work to be the only one that can make money off his work. For anybody else to make money, they need his permission. Fair use was created as a compromise, to allow people to use the work as they see fit, within certain limitations. Under the fair use clause (ignoring case history for the moment) we're allowed to make copies and distribute them, so long as we charge at most the cost of materials. I.e. we can't make a profit, only the original creator (or his approved affiliates) can do that. So, if you come over to my house, listen to a CD, and like it, I'm authorized under copyright law to copy it for you and give it to you.
Morally, yes, you are under an obligation at some point to actually purchase the CD yourself or get rid of your copy. From a practical standpoint, that may or may not happen. Assuming availability of the CD, then it's safe to say that the rule (not the exception) is that you will purchase the CD or not, but you will almost defnitely either throw the tape away (or CD, this is a new day, after all) or record over it, or give it to someone else, thus passing on your moral obligation to buy or destroy your copy.
The reason for this moral obligation is to maintain the spirit of the agreement implied by the fair use clause, which is that we need to make sure the artist is compensated for his work. However, and I wish I still had the link, if you google for "courtney love does the math" you will read an article that explains that the artist does NOT get compensated. In the end, the RIAA-affiliated labels actually totally screw over the artist. Under these mitigating circumstances, the moral obligation to compensate the artist is best taken in a different venue, i.e. by buying a ticket to the concert. I do not know how ticketmaster rips off the artists, but I hear there's similar problems over there. But when we can be certain that the artist won't actually get our money when we're attempting to fulfill the morality of the agreement, then the obligation is to be fulfilled differently. But as far as the recording goes, we no longer need to purchase the CD.
It's important to keep in mind that I'm only talking about known RIAA labels. There are indy labels that also take advantage of the artists, and it's up to the individual to determine that. But I understand that your money has a much higher likelihood of reaching the artist if you support indy labels than if you support the mainstream establishment, in which case you would still be under obligation to purchase the CD or destroy your copy.
And everyone that receives a copy of the song is under this obligation, morally. The only exception is when you know (as in my case with pretty much all the music I've downloaded) that it's either impossible to compensate the artist (the band broke up, music's out of print, etc.) or that you have already given them plenty of money, and you are likely to again (as in the case of all the Anthrax I've downloaded). In the second case, it's part of the relationship you have with the band. If the band wishes to cancel that part of the relationship, then you might want to consider canceling your part of the relationship, like I did with Metallica. They may not care that I'm never giving them money again, but I've spent hundreds of my hard-earned cash on them in the past.
Is that answer sufficient? It's clear that I don't support stealing from the artists either, and that I feel that we should live up to our obligations. If you don't want to live up to an obligation, don't create it.
By the way, I enjoyed "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," especially the AI with MPD (maybe it's not a disorder for AI's), though I doubt Heinlein intended it as an authentic history (unless he was/will be there). :)
While we're at it, then, have you read Job? The one by Heinlein, not the one in the Bible.... ;)