The concepts of patent and copyright have been badly abused, and the means to seek redress for these wrongs have been placed far out of reach of those whom they harm. We're told what we can and can't do with our own property. Knowledge is patented and copyrighted and can no longer be shared. Innovations in science, technology, and medicine that could improve our daily lives are witheld from the many to make a profit for the few. This evil threatens to undermine the very "FREEDOM OF CHOICE" you are so fond of!
Indeed. I wasn't attempting to take a side in my post, although I definitely side on the part of throwing away our existing system and starting fresh.
I was basically just trying to point out to the original poster that the declaration of independence doesn't lay down any laws for us. In fact, I could be wrong, but I think it's governed by English law, if any specific law. Anyway, I was also trying to point out that many people are ignoring the fact that both sides can coexist.
I don't think I got my point across, I'm too sleepy, and OpenOffice.org just crashed taking with it a 250-line spreadsheet that I just spent an hour building.:( It resembled Excel greatly in that moment, I have to say OpenOffice.org is doing a great job of imitating MS Office, I just wish they weren't so damn good at it sometimes.
Yes it is: the Declaration of Independence lists "pursuit of happiness" as a right. You have the right to pursue profits (if you can do so without infringing anybody else's rights), and you have the right not to be prevented from attaining them. Also, once you make a profit, it's your property and you have a right to property, too.
Idiot. What does the declaration of independence have to do with law in this country? It's a legal document, yes. But all it does is declare that the 13 english colonies are no longer under English rule. The reasons stated are not laws, or rights, or anything else. The reasons stated explain why it was necessary to break free from English rule, and document exactly how the English crown was oppressing the colonies. Have you actually read it, in its entirety?
Leaving that, the "pursuit of happiness" != "happiness". In layman's terms, you have the right to PursuitOfHappiness(this), but that doesn't mean the function will return "happiness". It may return "unhappiness", in which case you need to rewrite it.
if your plan for happiness consists of "I'll let them do all the work and then I'll take advantage of the results," that is hardly consistent with all men being created equal;
This gets quite a bit offtopic, but the phrase "all men being created equal" isn't exactly an objective statement. First, it presupposes that everybody will be of equal intelligence, skill sets, physical strength, and so forth. This is obviously not true. Second, it presupposes that there is a god or something to do the creating in the first place. It may have been beautiful english for the time, but it's definitely time to rewrite it. (If I recall correctly, that phrase is in the Consitution)
But guess what: if you want to turn one of them into a physical product or a typed-in program, it takes work, and that eats up time and resources and money that could have gone to other things.
What irritates me about most of this is that people seem to ignore certain things. Both your post and the one you responded to seem to be forgetting something.
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
What?
Basically, this is why proprietary software in and of itself isn't evil, and this is why patents aren't evil, and copyrights, and so forth. Say I write a program to do my home finances. I don't give a shit about selling it and making money. I do it because I want something tailored to my needs. What's wrong with GPL'ing it and opening up a project on sourceforge? NOTHING.
Look at it from the other perspective. I see that the existing home finance packages are shit, or that there's a definite need not being addressed. So I spend a bunch of time putting one together. While doing it (or before, whatever) I determine that something I'm going to do is truly unique and functional and what-have-you. Patent-worthy. So I go ahead and patent it. The idea from the beginning was to make money, so I would take every step along way that was needed to protect my investment of time.
Both of these are good ways to develop software, or any other "product". Would you believe that I created, in my own home, a wheeled cart to replace a laundry hamper? You put it where you put your hamper. You put all your clothes in it. Then, when the time comes, you wheel it to the laundry and put it all in the laundry. Fuck sorting it. Just throw it all in together. Cuts introductory laundry time in half, very beneficial. Easy to push around, so my pregnant wife can use it. There wasn't anything on the market at the time I built this thing that does what it does. Or if there was, we didn't see it. Patent it and make money? Fuck no! We didn't have the money to put together a manufacturing company. It was also a derivative work, because it was built by cutting pieces off of and welding new pieces onto a microwave stand. At the time, it was patentable. It didn't take huge resources to build, develop, and test. I could take the exact device and make it a marketable device with some paint, a rotary tool, and a grind bit. Why bother? I made it for my convenience, not my profit.
In the end, I think that existing IP laws are oppressive, but I don't think that IP laws are inherently bad. Nor do I think that everything a person produces should be crammed under IP laws to prevent other people from hurting his precious right to make money off his idea. What if he doesn't want to make money off it? Or better yet, what if he doesn't have the startup capital needed, but he wants to allow other people to make money off it and improve it and so forth?
NASA maybe least deserving of the bashing but it is also a sympton of what is wrong. NASA's budget has been slashed time and time again because no one can see the benefits both in terms of science and in terms of "Man we went to the MOON" type feelings.
Moreover, (to continue the essay, if you don't mind) NASA is now stuck in a typical catch-22. They can't get more budget without proving that it's worthwhile to explore space and colonize the moon and so forth; they can't prove that it's worthwhile without getting more budget. While it is true that NASA did some screwing around for awhile, there's plenty of well-wishers backing NASA at this moment. They have a lot of popular support, if only for the fact that people are feeling guilty about the Columbia. In any case, I'd really really really like to see NASA with some real money right now. Give 'em the torch and see what they'll do. RIght after somebody dies is when the US usually gets energetic (ref: pearl harbor, the world trade center, etc).
That sort of thing is becoming deeply embedded in the American spirit, the attitude of "Well we've done it a couple of times why would we want to do it again." Its a shame you can't apply that thinking to Iraq.
Ah hell. I wouldn't stay married that long if I applied this philosophy to my wife, and I've still got decades of exploration left on her. (no, she's not fat)
Good point. I propose that we adopt the Sid Meier's Civilization test - the Space Race will be won by the first nation to establish a permanent off-world colony. Anything less than that is simply theatrics.
We can't do that. Some warmongering armor units will show up out of nowhere and conquer us all while we're building for the space race, the entire time saying "There's two ways to win this game..."
America, once you had the pioneering spirit, the need to go out and actually stand on new places, see sights with your own eyes never before seen. Now you couldn't be bothered getting off your arse to change the channel.
I agree with you completely, 100%. I would just like to point out that ending your post with the sentence Now you couldn't be bothered getting off your arse to change the channel. and then quoting an English tv show probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.....
You're whole argument falls apart because of your last statement. When I was a kid, and as far as I know this is still going on, schools are instructing kids not to talk to strangers. The reason is this:
And it is because of irresponsible parenting such as that, that we now have to face the prospect of some generalised censorship of the net. Your right to educate your children as you alone deem fit, while it must be respected, is not absolute. Your children will still inhabit society, your (in)actions in raising them will have effects on my children.
That justification is used to teach a lot of stuff to kids in schools and so forth. It's the same justification used to drug kids and label them as "bad" kids. It is, in fact, the same kind of generalized reasoning that brings about oppression and tyranny in the first place. Once you assume my responsibility as a parent for my kids, you are taking away my freedom. Furthermore, you are laying the groundwork for someone else to take yours.
It's like the old story goes, "When they came for the Polish, I didn't speak up. I was not Polish. When they came for the Jews, I didn't speak up. I was not a jew. When they came for..." So, if you sit and let someone remove my parenting rights now, who's going to speak for you when they come for you?
I would have agreed with you. However, although this suit is likely to be extremely expensive for Lindows, it brings them much-needed exposure and this *could* if properly leveraged allow their name recognition to help them sell lots of systems.
eh? I don't see how this precludes agreeing with me...:) I didn't even touch this aspect of the case, I was only talking about my estimation of Microsoft's strategy and motivation for pursuing the case. Microsoft has made a few PR mistakes recently, and this might be one of them. I certainly agree with you on this aspect of the case.
I am not a fan of Lindows, but anything that brings attention to Linux is good at this time, I think.
I certainly agree with this too, and I think Microsoft realized it and that's why they haven't been targetting the GPL as hard as they were. Microsoft says "The GPL is a cancer!" $person says "What is the GPL that Microsoft hates so much?" - googles for gpl, finds gnu.org - "Hey, that looks cool! Does anybody actually use it?" - googles some more, downloads $linuxdistribution - "This is cool! I don't need Windows. Microsoft is trying to oppress me!"
Just for the record, from Win98 on, the ONLY non-native drivers I've had to install are for the video card and for an SBLive, and then only with Win98. Everything else was autodetected and provided by Win98/2k/ME/XP (Win2K had the best Matrox video driver I've ever seen, why it went away in XP is beyond me).
that's great. Why don't you come over here and explain to my win2k installation how to use a TNT PCI card. While you're at it, convince it to use the 100mbs network card that's in it. It won't recognize either of those, and at least in the case of the video card, the manufacturer isn't supporting it.
I realize you can say "You're using out-dated software!". And you're both right and wrong. The ethernet card was purchased brand new within the last year. The video card was a hand-me-down. Most importantly, Mandrake Linux 8.2 and 9.0 both recognized both of these pieces of hardware, along with the rest of the stuff I've got (a certain VIA southbridge, for example, on the kt266a set).
So, in my network, my subjective experience is that Mandrake Linux is easier to install than Windows 2000.
mmmm, I did buy a cheap ethernet card that winMe and win2k both failed to identify. They also both failed to run the driver supplied by the manufacturer. It was supposed to go in my upstairs neighbor's computer. I wound up digging out an old card and giving that to her and putting the new one in one of my linux boxes. And guess what? It was recognized and automatically configured for me.
Just fuckin' face it. Linux hardware configuration *is* competitive to Windows hardware configuration. It hasn't always been that way, I realize. But it is. The linux kernel is more stable, was built with security in mind from the ground up. It has a robust threading library (even better ones coming in the next kernel!). There are a plethora of applications available that take care of everything that is available in your proprietary world. The only ones I haven't found are small-business accounting and CRM. But those aren't easy to find in that configuration for Windows, either.
When it comes down to it, Linux isn't just "ready" for the desktop. It's ready for all-purpose general use. And it's getting better. This Longhorn that Microshaft has been working on had better be something really kick-ass. Otherwise, they look more like a rabbit in the middle of a highway than they do the 800 lb gorilla they're usually credited with.
Except that question is not the only concern of religion. nor is religion the only way to answer it.
Indeed, I find that the way religion addresses the other issues typically associated with it (morality) a poor method of dealing with the problem. The ten commandments are intended to be bought purely on faith, and do not take into account the vast number of possible ways to break the commandments. For example, "Thou shalt not steal". I've stolen food before, I've been that far down in poverty. I find the commandment sorely lacking a way to deal with that problem.
While i agree w/ your sensitivity to language, the limits and perils of linguistic traps of all kinds (war is peace, lavey's anti-church church) I dont see why you are so hostile to people who are Atheists.
I'm generally speaking not hostile to Atheists. I'm just generally sick of the whole Agnostic/Atheist dispute. I don't see much difference in the two. They are both labels intended to describe a lack of something, specifically, a lack of a belief in god (substitute any deity you want there:) ). A side issue is that I find it somewhat hypocritical for Atheists to celebrate the winter solstice in place of Christmas. Do they celebrate the summer solstice with the same tradition? How about the equinoxes? What makes the winter solstice so special?
Alot of atheists feel Religion is a MAJOR PROBLEM. I agree.
I think religion is the #1 problem in the world today.:) So relax, I'm not going around chasing prophecies and gods and pretending to know how the world works. When people ask me my religion, I tell them "I don't know." Or "that word doesn't apply to me". It just doesn't. I have no system of beliefs based solely on faith, which is frequently what religion amounts to. I have certain "beliefs" that are based on personal experience. Others with similar experiences frequently have similar "beliefs". I have a hard time calling it philosophy, because it doesn't quite fall under the heading. "Belief" it is not, because I can point to specific instances in my life that justify whatever the point of view is.
The bottom line is, I don't think that associating yourself with religion is the solution to the problem of religion. Disassociating yourself is a start. I also don't think that I'm required to respect deeply held personal beliefs. That's a typical argument, especially from a more fanatical group (also more likely not to respect yours in return). I think that if a person does either of these things, he is contributing to the problem and not the solution.
Therefore, I have no religion. I'm not an atheist, agnostic, or secular humanist. I'm not a satanist, for that matter. If you really insist on labeling me, please choose the last one, as that is the most offensive of the group. I don't respect religion, and I tend not to respect people who are deeply religious. Stupid is just plain stupid, and I'm not going to contribute to the problem. From a practical standpoint, I tend to let it slide when people I know are religious, so long as they don't toss it in my face. In return, I don't toss my own opinions in their face. As soon as someone starts breaking that convention, I get damn offensive quickly.:) (I even keep a copy of the satanic bible around just for the purpose of being offensive in these situations)
Both can be overcome with objective thougt
While I agree with this, I don't think it's practical. My solution may well not be any more practical, though.:) I don't think that a problem should be ignored, but I don't think that fitting yourself into the hierarchy of the problem is a solution. For this reason, when people ask my ethicity, I say "American". I do not say Italian-American (valid), Anglo-American (valid). I'm not a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, for the racial-slur-challenged). I am an "American". If you want more detail, go ask someone who gives a fuck about it.:)
Sometimes I flat out lie about it, though.:) I've told phone surveys that I'm "African-American". I even threw out "Persian-American" one time. I tried on "American-American", and when asked I said "I'm the result of several centuries worth of inbreeding and cannablism." It's great when you turn a telemarketing call into a prank call.;)
Atheism is the fastest growing religion in the world.
And as a result of this fact, it's the fastest-growing problem in the world. I have noticed quite a few Atheists with the herd mentality. Now, I've spoken on this before, and it's worth repeating.:) Anytime a community grows, it attracts herd members. When it gets big enough, there will be a certain proportion that are guaranteed to be herd members. The Free Software community reached this point awhile back, before I joined up. So I came in and found myself somewhat disgusted with what I saw. Anyway, the fact is, when a group gets big enough, it attracts a herd. The herd wants to be told what to think, how to think, how to act, etc. Atheism has definitely gotten big enough for that. In the long-term, Atheism might well be a viable solution to the religion problem. In the short-term I see as much possibility for atheists to do to other religions as other religions have done to them and each other for millenia. From my point of view, there's not much difference between an Atheist and a Christian, except that I'm likely to agree more with an Atheist.
And if my views offend you, well, do I really need to finish that sentence?:P
The point is you didn't get it. You dont compile anything for the livecd. You take the iso, shove it in your burner, boot from the resulting CD-ROM, watch the init messagesscroll by, start X and play UT2003. Then you turn off your computer.
And I can no longer talk about my computer's uptime compared to lesser systems. I don't like this one bit. Sorry.:) Also, I won't dual install Windows for the simple fact that I don't want to have to boot everytime I want to do something different. So I rdesktop into my Windows box instead, and I'm happy with the solution.
Rebooting a computer isn't something you should have people do as a standard operating procedure. Sure, this stuff is great to show off a new platform (ala Knoppix) or a new game, or a new gaming platform. But people expect, rightly so, to be able to install the platform itself once, and then play the games separately.
Perhaps a better solution is a pci card that contains the platform itself, ala a java card, and then the games compile for the card. The card then uses drivers to tell the host OS what to do with the stuff. Eh?
Actually, no, I'm agnostic. Atheists actively try to dismantle religion (in my experience, some may claim otherwise).
As much as I agree with your signature, I'm getting pretty sick of the whole agnostic/atheist front. Just like racism, the problem won't go away if you attach a label to yourself so that you can be classified in the system somehow. So long as there are African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Anglo-Americans, and what-have-you, there will never be freedom from racism. When we're all "Americans", we'll stand a chance at freeing ourselves.
Religion is no different in this respect. Call yourself an agnostic to differentiate yourself from Atheists, all the while both of you are attempting to label yourselves in relation to other religions of the world.
If the beginning of wisdom is the statement "I do not know", then I advise people to answer that as their religious preference. Since religion so often revolves around how the world came into being and why you should worship the reason, perhaps it's better to say "I do not know how the world came into being" than it is to attempt to provide an answer.
There's nothing wrong with saying "I do not know". Why is that? I don't know. Before you can deal with ignorance, you must accept that you have it. I'm not saying that you specifically are ignorant (although you are:) , we all are, as a matter of fact). I just find too often that when people throw a religion at me it's because they're afraid to say "I do not know where people came from."
Even Anton LaVey made this mistake of attempting to describe himself in relation to a religion. As much as his philosophy so closely aligns with that of Free Software, by defining himself in relation to Christianity he attracted the same sorts of people that are attracted to religion in the first place, thus turning his church into an oxymoron all its own.
Atheism and Agnosticism and all those other silly -isms are going down the same path.
Ok but the point is my friends are early adopter type people. They were the first to leave there home PCs on 24/7. Now even my aunt who's a salesman for a shipping company does. Stuff we do tends to drip down to the masses. More and more people are leaving there computer on 24/7. I think the pattern is going to continue until everyone but the I don't have a cell phone crowd does it. At that point people are going to adopt newer clients and protocols that will eventually turn it email.
The solution is for your IM client to turn on an away message automatically when you're idle, much like turning on a screensaver. GAIM does it with the MSN plugin, I don't know how many other IM setups support it. Presumably it'll do it for AIM as well. In fact, MSN does it too.
The underlying assumption is that if you're at your desk, you're using the computer, and that your idle is representative of your presence. I've gotten in the habit of wiggling the mouse when I'm on the phone just to keep the idler from turning on, but for most users it's probably good enough. Short of a webcam that shows you're available for IM, anyway.
Re:I've got no good jokes for this story...
on
Server In A Fly
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I'm a pretty funny guy, no I take that back, a REALLY funny guy, but other than the obvious "waiter there's a server in my fly," I just can't think of any good ones.
Wait'll you find out where Mozilla's Bugzilla is hosted...
BTW, check http://oralse.cx - someone on/. had it the other day in a sig. It's a clever one and has quite a few funny images on a 'contrib' page.
I've seen it.:) it definitely rocks. Heh. A buddy of mine told me that seeing goatse will leave scars, and I sent him that link and he said it did a good job of repairing the damage caused by initially seeing goatse.
I figure much better way of fighting something you don't approve is to build awareness, rather than hide in ignorance - we completely agree here.
Lucky for us.:) There are plenty of foundations in recent american history to demonstrate that we're actually right.:)
Let's see, sex education in schools. More kids use condoms as a result, since they understand the risks better. AIDS education really helped for awhile to bring down the spread of the virus, but I understand it's been neglected a lot for awhile, and the spread of AIDS is increasing again. Drugs. As much as I hate to say it, Nancy Reagan did a good job getting kids to know about drugs and what they did. "Just Say No" as such wound up being a failure, at least in my generation, but I think that a lot of people my age haven't gone to the extremes of drug use because they know more about the long-term affects.
I'm sure there are other numerous examples.
Also, as much as I hate to say it, I tend to use the Metallica song Dyers' Eve as a bit of a guide, personally. My interpretation (and I think it's a correct one, but I could be wrong) of that song is right along the lines of this discussion.
The subject has come up quite a bit with my wife, who was raised in a much more "protective" fashion than I was. As a result of her "protection", at a very early age she sought out all the things that she was "protected" from, and through ignorance got hurt a lot as a result. Still, she clings to her upbringing a bit. I'm a die-hard metalhead with the hair and guitar to prove it:) (and some recorded music, check out my sig). She was once concerned about the effects of heavy metal on a child and didn't want the kids to hear my music. After some "tense discussion" she saw things my way, a bit. She still has problems with some of it (King Diamond, mostly), but good reasons for that. (The kids have nightmares from watching LOTR, I can see them having nightmares about getting possessed by demons and drinking tea with their grandma as a result of listening to King Diamond)
Anyway, some time recently I came up with a definition of adulthood that I like.:) Adulthood is a state you reach when you have completely evaluated every aspect of your upbringing and can state in all honesty that your thoughts, beliefs, and prejudices are your own. Since this is almost an impossible state to reach, I figure if you hit 70% you're probably doing pretty well. As a result of this definition, I feel that my job as a parent is to teach my kids the skills they need to be able to evaluate everything they learn (from me and from other people) to come up with their own thoughts on the matter. So, I figure that analytical reasoning and logic are more important than morality, in fact. Problem solving will do them a lot more good than just teaching them what is "right".
So, any ideas on a methodology that will accurately come up with "the right thing" most of the time? Keeping in mind, of course, that the actual "right thing" varies greately from person to person and culture to culture....
What exactly is that page you're talking about? Not that one with.cx in url, I hope.
Lol. I'm wanting to GIMP that one and close the hole with my guitar embedded "to the hilt".
Also, I'd like to point out that anything with a.cx isn't automatically evil. Check out ecasound. If you setup your filter to filter out domains with.cx in it, then your musically-inclined kid might well miss out on the leading open source audio application.
Slashdot Mirror
The concepts of patent and copyright have been badly abused, and the means to seek redress for these wrongs have been placed far out of reach of those whom they harm. We're told what we can and can't do with our own property. Knowledge is patented and copyrighted and can no longer be shared. Innovations in science, technology, and medicine that could improve our daily lives are witheld from the many to make a profit for the few. This evil threatens to undermine the very "FREEDOM OF CHOICE" you are so fond of!
Indeed. I wasn't attempting to take a side in my post, although I definitely side on the part of throwing away our existing system and starting fresh.
I was basically just trying to point out to the original poster that the declaration of independence doesn't lay down any laws for us. In fact, I could be wrong, but I think it's governed by English law, if any specific law. Anyway, I was also trying to point out that many people are ignoring the fact that both sides can coexist.
I don't think I got my point across, I'm too sleepy, and OpenOffice.org just crashed taking with it a 250-line spreadsheet that I just spent an hour building. :( It resembled Excel greatly in that moment, I have to say OpenOffice.org is doing a great job of imitating MS Office, I just wish they weren't so damn good at it sometimes.
That was hilarious! Normally I can't stand slashdot trolls because they're very stupid, but this was actually funny.
Yes it is: the Declaration of Independence lists "pursuit of happiness" as a right. You have the right to pursue profits (if you can do so without infringing anybody else's rights), and you have the right not to be prevented from attaining them. Also, once you make a profit, it's your property and you have a right to property, too.
Idiot. What does the declaration of independence have to do with law in this country? It's a legal document, yes. But all it does is declare that the 13 english colonies are no longer under English rule. The reasons stated are not laws, or rights, or anything else. The reasons stated explain why it was necessary to break free from English rule, and document exactly how the English crown was oppressing the colonies. Have you actually read it, in its entirety?
Leaving that, the "pursuit of happiness" != "happiness". In layman's terms, you have the right to PursuitOfHappiness(this), but that doesn't mean the function will return "happiness". It may return "unhappiness", in which case you need to rewrite it.
if your plan for happiness consists of "I'll let them do all the work and then I'll take advantage of the results," that is hardly consistent with all men being created equal;
This gets quite a bit offtopic, but the phrase "all men being created equal" isn't exactly an objective statement. First, it presupposes that everybody will be of equal intelligence, skill sets, physical strength, and so forth. This is obviously not true. Second, it presupposes that there is a god or something to do the creating in the first place. It may have been beautiful english for the time, but it's definitely time to rewrite it. (If I recall correctly, that phrase is in the Consitution)
But guess what: if you want to turn one of them into a physical product or a typed-in program, it takes work, and that eats up time and resources and money that could have gone to other things.
What irritates me about most of this is that people seem to ignore certain things. Both your post and the one you responded to seem to be forgetting something.
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
What?
Basically, this is why proprietary software in and of itself isn't evil, and this is why patents aren't evil, and copyrights, and so forth. Say I write a program to do my home finances. I don't give a shit about selling it and making money. I do it because I want something tailored to my needs. What's wrong with GPL'ing it and opening up a project on sourceforge? NOTHING.
Look at it from the other perspective. I see that the existing home finance packages are shit, or that there's a definite need not being addressed. So I spend a bunch of time putting one together. While doing it (or before, whatever) I determine that something I'm going to do is truly unique and functional and what-have-you. Patent-worthy. So I go ahead and patent it. The idea from the beginning was to make money, so I would take every step along way that was needed to protect my investment of time.
Both of these are good ways to develop software, or any other "product". Would you believe that I created, in my own home, a wheeled cart to replace a laundry hamper? You put it where you put your hamper. You put all your clothes in it. Then, when the time comes, you wheel it to the laundry and put it all in the laundry. Fuck sorting it. Just throw it all in together. Cuts introductory laundry time in half, very beneficial. Easy to push around, so my pregnant wife can use it. There wasn't anything on the market at the time I built this thing that does what it does. Or if there was, we didn't see it. Patent it and make money? Fuck no! We didn't have the money to put together a manufacturing company. It was also a derivative work, because it was built by cutting pieces off of and welding new pieces onto a microwave stand. At the time, it was patentable. It didn't take huge resources to build, develop, and test. I could take the exact device and make it a marketable device with some paint, a rotary tool, and a grind bit. Why bother? I made it for my convenience, not my profit.
In the end, I think that existing IP laws are oppressive, but I don't think that IP laws are inherently bad. Nor do I think that everything a person produces should be crammed under IP laws to prevent other people from hurting his precious right to make money off his idea. What if he doesn't want to make money off it? Or better yet, what if he doesn't have the startup capital needed, but he wants to allow other people to make money off it and improve it and so forth?
Um, actually that was DD Harriman's business plan, one of the few Heinlein characters I wish was a real man. :(
NASA maybe least deserving of the bashing but it is also a sympton of what is wrong. NASA's budget has been slashed time and time again because no one can see the benefits both in terms of science and in terms of "Man we went to the MOON" type feelings.
Moreover, (to continue the essay, if you don't mind) NASA is now stuck in a typical catch-22. They can't get more budget without proving that it's worthwhile to explore space and colonize the moon and so forth; they can't prove that it's worthwhile without getting more budget. While it is true that NASA did some screwing around for awhile, there's plenty of well-wishers backing NASA at this moment. They have a lot of popular support, if only for the fact that people are feeling guilty about the Columbia. In any case, I'd really really really like to see NASA with some real money right now. Give 'em the torch and see what they'll do. RIght after somebody dies is when the US usually gets energetic (ref: pearl harbor, the world trade center, etc).
That sort of thing is becoming deeply embedded in the American spirit, the attitude of "Well we've done it a couple of times why would we want to do it again." Its a shame you can't apply that thinking to Iraq.
Ah hell. I wouldn't stay married that long if I applied this philosophy to my wife, and I've still got decades of exploration left on her. (no, she's not fat)
Good point. I propose that we adopt the Sid Meier's Civilization test - the Space Race will be won by the first nation to establish a permanent off-world colony. Anything less than that is simply theatrics.
We can't do that. Some warmongering armor units will show up out of nowhere and conquer us all while we're building for the space race, the entire time saying "There's two ways to win this game..."
America, once you had the pioneering spirit, the need to go out and actually stand on new places, see sights with your own eyes never before seen. Now you couldn't be bothered getting off your arse to change the channel.
I agree with you completely, 100%. I would just like to point out that ending your post with the sentence Now you couldn't be bothered getting off your arse to change the channel. and then quoting an English tv show probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.....
Kiss my wild white ass with your filthy puckered lips. Show respect while demanding it, idiot.
Ok, fine. I like my women like I like my coffee - sweet, with a lot of milk.
Actually, I suspect the mission will be held up indefinitely will they invent new words in French for all the equipment involved.
Nah, that won't hold it up too long. What'll really hold it up will be trying to spell the new french words.
Especially when he's talking about building [space.com] nuclear powered interplanetary exploration craft
Um, actually Bush is talking about building "nukilur po'erd inta pranerary explodation craft"
You're whole argument falls apart because of your last statement. When I was a kid, and as far as I know this is still going on, schools are instructing kids not to talk to strangers. The reason is this:
And it is because of irresponsible parenting such as that, that we now have to face the prospect of some generalised censorship of the net. Your right to educate your children as you alone deem fit, while it must be respected, is not absolute. Your children will still inhabit society, your (in)actions in raising them will have effects on my children.
That justification is used to teach a lot of stuff to kids in schools and so forth. It's the same justification used to drug kids and label them as "bad" kids. It is, in fact, the same kind of generalized reasoning that brings about oppression and tyranny in the first place. Once you assume my responsibility as a parent for my kids, you are taking away my freedom. Furthermore, you are laying the groundwork for someone else to take yours.
It's like the old story goes, "When they came for the Polish, I didn't speak up. I was not Polish. When they came for the Jews, I didn't speak up. I was not a jew. When they came for..." So, if you sit and let someone remove my parenting rights now, who's going to speak for you when they come for you?
I would have agreed with you. However, although this suit is likely to be extremely expensive for Lindows, it brings them much-needed exposure and this *could* if properly leveraged allow their name recognition to help them sell lots of systems.
eh? I don't see how this precludes agreeing with me... :) I didn't even touch this aspect of the case, I was only talking about my estimation of Microsoft's strategy and motivation for pursuing the case. Microsoft has made a few PR mistakes recently, and this might be one of them. I certainly agree with you on this aspect of the case.
I am not a fan of Lindows, but anything that brings attention to Linux is good at this time, I think.
I certainly agree with this too, and I think Microsoft realized it and that's why they haven't been targetting the GPL as hard as they were. Microsoft says "The GPL is a cancer!" $person says "What is the GPL that Microsoft hates so much?" - googles for gpl, finds gnu.org - "Hey, that looks cool! Does anybody actually use it?" - googles some more, downloads $linuxdistribution - "This is cool! I don't need Windows. Microsoft is trying to oppress me!"
Just for the record, from Win98 on, the ONLY non-native drivers I've had to install are for the video card and for an SBLive, and then only with Win98. Everything else was autodetected and provided by Win98/2k/ME/XP (Win2K had the best Matrox video driver I've ever seen, why it went away in XP is beyond me).
that's great. Why don't you come over here and explain to my win2k installation how to use a TNT PCI card. While you're at it, convince it to use the 100mbs network card that's in it. It won't recognize either of those, and at least in the case of the video card, the manufacturer isn't supporting it.
I realize you can say "You're using out-dated software!". And you're both right and wrong. The ethernet card was purchased brand new within the last year. The video card was a hand-me-down. Most importantly, Mandrake Linux 8.2 and 9.0 both recognized both of these pieces of hardware, along with the rest of the stuff I've got (a certain VIA southbridge, for example, on the kt266a set).
So, in my network, my subjective experience is that Mandrake Linux is easier to install than Windows 2000.
mmmm, I did buy a cheap ethernet card that winMe and win2k both failed to identify. They also both failed to run the driver supplied by the manufacturer. It was supposed to go in my upstairs neighbor's computer. I wound up digging out an old card and giving that to her and putting the new one in one of my linux boxes. And guess what? It was recognized and automatically configured for me.
Just fuckin' face it. Linux hardware configuration *is* competitive to Windows hardware configuration. It hasn't always been that way, I realize. But it is. The linux kernel is more stable, was built with security in mind from the ground up. It has a robust threading library (even better ones coming in the next kernel!). There are a plethora of applications available that take care of everything that is available in your proprietary world. The only ones I haven't found are small-business accounting and CRM. But those aren't easy to find in that configuration for Windows, either.
When it comes down to it, Linux isn't just "ready" for the desktop. It's ready for all-purpose general use. And it's getting better. This Longhorn that Microshaft has been working on had better be something really kick-ass. Otherwise, they look more like a rabbit in the middle of a highway than they do the 800 lb gorilla they're usually credited with.
Except that question is not the only concern of religion. nor is religion the only way to answer it.
Indeed, I find that the way religion addresses the other issues typically associated with it (morality) a poor method of dealing with the problem. The ten commandments are intended to be bought purely on faith, and do not take into account the vast number of possible ways to break the commandments. For example, "Thou shalt not steal". I've stolen food before, I've been that far down in poverty. I find the commandment sorely lacking a way to deal with that problem.
While i agree w/ your sensitivity to language, the limits and perils of linguistic traps of all kinds (war is peace, lavey's anti-church church) I dont see why you are so hostile to people who are Atheists.
I'm generally speaking not hostile to Atheists. I'm just generally sick of the whole Agnostic/Atheist dispute. I don't see much difference in the two. They are both labels intended to describe a lack of something, specifically, a lack of a belief in god (substitute any deity you want there :) ). A side issue is that I find it somewhat hypocritical for Atheists to celebrate the winter solstice in place of Christmas. Do they celebrate the summer solstice with the same tradition? How about the equinoxes? What makes the winter solstice so special?
Alot of atheists feel Religion is a MAJOR PROBLEM. I agree.
I think religion is the #1 problem in the world today. :) So relax, I'm not going around chasing prophecies and gods and pretending to know how the world works. When people ask me my religion, I tell them "I don't know." Or "that word doesn't apply to me". It just doesn't. I have no system of beliefs based solely on faith, which is frequently what religion amounts to. I have certain "beliefs" that are based on personal experience. Others with similar experiences frequently have similar "beliefs". I have a hard time calling it philosophy, because it doesn't quite fall under the heading. "Belief" it is not, because I can point to specific instances in my life that justify whatever the point of view is.
The bottom line is, I don't think that associating yourself with religion is the solution to the problem of religion. Disassociating yourself is a start. I also don't think that I'm required to respect deeply held personal beliefs. That's a typical argument, especially from a more fanatical group (also more likely not to respect yours in return). I think that if a person does either of these things, he is contributing to the problem and not the solution.
Therefore, I have no religion. I'm not an atheist, agnostic, or secular humanist. I'm not a satanist, for that matter. If you really insist on labeling me, please choose the last one, as that is the most offensive of the group. I don't respect religion, and I tend not to respect people who are deeply religious. Stupid is just plain stupid, and I'm not going to contribute to the problem. From a practical standpoint, I tend to let it slide when people I know are religious, so long as they don't toss it in my face. In return, I don't toss my own opinions in their face. As soon as someone starts breaking that convention, I get damn offensive quickly. :) (I even keep a copy of the satanic bible around just for the purpose of being offensive in these situations)
Both can be overcome with objective thougt
While I agree with this, I don't think it's practical. My solution may well not be any more practical, though. :) I don't think that a problem should be ignored, but I don't think that fitting yourself into the hierarchy of the problem is a solution. For this reason, when people ask my ethicity, I say "American". I do not say Italian-American (valid), Anglo-American (valid). I'm not a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, for the racial-slur-challenged). I am an "American". If you want more detail, go ask someone who gives a fuck about it. :)
Sometimes I flat out lie about it, though. :) I've told phone surveys that I'm "African-American". I even threw out "Persian-American" one time. I tried on "American-American", and when asked I said "I'm the result of several centuries worth of inbreeding and cannablism." It's great when you turn a telemarketing call into a prank call. ;)
Atheism is the fastest growing religion in the world.
And as a result of this fact, it's the fastest-growing problem in the world. I have noticed quite a few Atheists with the herd mentality. Now, I've spoken on this before, and it's worth repeating. :) Anytime a community grows, it attracts herd members. When it gets big enough, there will be a certain proportion that are guaranteed to be herd members. The Free Software community reached this point awhile back, before I joined up. So I came in and found myself somewhat disgusted with what I saw. Anyway, the fact is, when a group gets big enough, it attracts a herd. The herd wants to be told what to think, how to think, how to act, etc. Atheism has definitely gotten big enough for that. In the long-term, Atheism might well be a viable solution to the religion problem. In the short-term I see as much possibility for atheists to do to other religions as other religions have done to them and each other for millenia. From my point of view, there's not much difference between an Atheist and a Christian, except that I'm likely to agree more with an Atheist.
And if my views offend you, well, do I really need to finish that sentence? :P
The point is you didn't get it. You dont compile anything for the livecd. You take the iso, shove it in your burner, boot from the resulting CD-ROM, watch the init messagesscroll by, start X and play UT2003. Then you turn off your computer.
And I can no longer talk about my computer's uptime compared to lesser systems. I don't like this one bit. Sorry. :) Also, I won't dual install Windows for the simple fact that I don't want to have to boot everytime I want to do something different. So I rdesktop into my Windows box instead, and I'm happy with the solution.
Rebooting a computer isn't something you should have people do as a standard operating procedure. Sure, this stuff is great to show off a new platform (ala Knoppix) or a new game, or a new gaming platform. But people expect, rightly so, to be able to install the platform itself once, and then play the games separately.
Perhaps a better solution is a pci card that contains the platform itself, ala a java card, and then the games compile for the card. The card then uses drivers to tell the host OS what to do with the stuff. Eh?
Actually, no, I'm agnostic. Atheists actively try to dismantle religion (in my experience, some may claim otherwise).
As much as I agree with your signature, I'm getting pretty sick of the whole agnostic/atheist front. Just like racism, the problem won't go away if you attach a label to yourself so that you can be classified in the system somehow. So long as there are African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Anglo-Americans, and what-have-you, there will never be freedom from racism. When we're all "Americans", we'll stand a chance at freeing ourselves.
Religion is no different in this respect. Call yourself an agnostic to differentiate yourself from Atheists, all the while both of you are attempting to label yourselves in relation to other religions of the world.
If the beginning of wisdom is the statement "I do not know", then I advise people to answer that as their religious preference. Since religion so often revolves around how the world came into being and why you should worship the reason, perhaps it's better to say "I do not know how the world came into being" than it is to attempt to provide an answer.
There's nothing wrong with saying "I do not know". Why is that? I don't know. Before you can deal with ignorance, you must accept that you have it. I'm not saying that you specifically are ignorant (although you are :) , we all are, as a matter of fact). I just find too often that when people throw a religion at me it's because they're afraid to say "I do not know where people came from."
Even Anton LaVey made this mistake of attempting to describe himself in relation to a religion. As much as his philosophy so closely aligns with that of Free Software, by defining himself in relation to Christianity he attracted the same sorts of people that are attracted to religion in the first place, thus turning his church into an oxymoron all its own.
Atheism and Agnosticism and all those other silly -isms are going down the same path.
Getting a little defensive, are we?
That said, I use IM to fight with my dad, and I'm just under the 30 mark. :)
Ok but the point is my friends are early adopter type people. They were the first to leave there home PCs on 24/7. Now even my aunt who's a salesman for a shipping company does. Stuff we do tends to drip down to the masses. More and more people are leaving there computer on 24/7. I think the pattern is going to continue until everyone but the I don't have a cell phone crowd does it. At that point people are going to adopt newer clients and protocols that will eventually turn it email.
The solution is for your IM client to turn on an away message automatically when you're idle, much like turning on a screensaver. GAIM does it with the MSN plugin, I don't know how many other IM setups support it. Presumably it'll do it for AIM as well. In fact, MSN does it too.
The underlying assumption is that if you're at your desk, you're using the computer, and that your idle is representative of your presence. I've gotten in the habit of wiggling the mouse when I'm on the phone just to keep the idler from turning on, but for most users it's probably good enough. Short of a webcam that shows you're available for IM, anyway.
what if an old lady swallows it?
Obviously she'd have to go down on slashdot, so it'll catch the webserver, er, fly.
The world has been waiting for innovations like these... too bad there's animal cruelty involved
In the grand scheme of things, dead flies are actually considered "spices", and not potential food. Therefore, there's no animal cruelty involved.
Now, if it were embedded in a live mouse...what would it taste like?
In Soviet Russia, fly embeds chip in YOU.
I'm a pretty funny guy, no I take that back, a REALLY funny guy, but other than the obvious "waiter there's a server in my fly," I just can't think of any good ones.
Wait'll you find out where Mozilla's Bugzilla is hosted...
BTW, check http://oralse.cx - someone on /. had it the other day in a sig. It's a clever one and has quite a few funny images on a 'contrib' page.
I've seen it. :) it definitely rocks. Heh. A buddy of mine told me that seeing goatse will leave scars, and I sent him that link and he said it did a good job of repairing the damage caused by initially seeing goatse.
I figure much better way of fighting something you don't approve is to build awareness, rather than hide in ignorance - we completely agree here.
Lucky for us. :) There are plenty of foundations in recent american history to demonstrate that we're actually right. :)
Let's see, sex education in schools. More kids use condoms as a result, since they understand the risks better. AIDS education really helped for awhile to bring down the spread of the virus, but I understand it's been neglected a lot for awhile, and the spread of AIDS is increasing again. Drugs. As much as I hate to say it, Nancy Reagan did a good job getting kids to know about drugs and what they did. "Just Say No" as such wound up being a failure, at least in my generation, but I think that a lot of people my age haven't gone to the extremes of drug use because they know more about the long-term affects.
I'm sure there are other numerous examples.
Also, as much as I hate to say it, I tend to use the Metallica song Dyers' Eve as a bit of a guide, personally. My interpretation (and I think it's a correct one, but I could be wrong) of that song is right along the lines of this discussion.
The subject has come up quite a bit with my wife, who was raised in a much more "protective" fashion than I was. As a result of her "protection", at a very early age she sought out all the things that she was "protected" from, and through ignorance got hurt a lot as a result. Still, she clings to her upbringing a bit. I'm a die-hard metalhead with the hair and guitar to prove it :) (and some recorded music, check out my sig). She was once concerned about the effects of heavy metal on a child and didn't want the kids to hear my music. After some "tense discussion" she saw things my way, a bit. She still has problems with some of it (King Diamond, mostly), but good reasons for that. (The kids have nightmares from watching LOTR, I can see them having nightmares about getting possessed by demons and drinking tea with their grandma as a result of listening to King Diamond)
Anyway, some time recently I came up with a definition of adulthood that I like. :) Adulthood is a state you reach when you have completely evaluated every aspect of your upbringing and can state in all honesty that your thoughts, beliefs, and prejudices are your own. Since this is almost an impossible state to reach, I figure if you hit 70% you're probably doing pretty well. As a result of this definition, I feel that my job as a parent is to teach my kids the skills they need to be able to evaluate everything they learn (from me and from other people) to come up with their own thoughts on the matter. So, I figure that analytical reasoning and logic are more important than morality, in fact. Problem solving will do them a lot more good than just teaching them what is "right".
So, any ideas on a methodology that will accurately come up with "the right thing" most of the time? Keeping in mind, of course, that the actual "right thing" varies greately from person to person and culture to culture....
What exactly is that page you're talking about? Not that one with .cx in url, I hope.
Lol. I'm wanting to GIMP that one and close the hole with my guitar embedded "to the hilt".
Also, I'd like to point out that anything with a .cx isn't automatically evil. Check out ecasound. If you setup your filter to filter out domains with .cx in it, then your musically-inclined kid might well miss out on the leading open source audio application.