Office is an application suite. ODF is a document format. They're apples and oranges. With appropriate plugins, Office will interoperate with ODF documents -- just as any number of other applications will.
Claiming that OOXML is better than ODF because MS Office is better than OpenOffice is disingenuous; there's no reason MS Office and ODF can't be used together, and quite a bit of money and development time is being poured into making that an effective solution (thanks in no small part to.ma.us).
Waitaminute here -- why do you switch from talking about ODF to talking about OpenOffice? Unlike OpenXML, ODF was written based not on a single application's requirements (although that was used as a starting point), but by getting a bunch of interested parties (particularly, parties with an interest in long-term document archival and storage), and building to their requirements.
And ODF is absolutely the better standard. It leverages preexisting standards such as SVG and MathML instead of reinventing the wheel; it's structured to permit XSLT-style transformations; a complete implementation isn't required to have support for legacy bugs from MS Office. Version 1.2 of the standard will require that implementations preserve unknown attributes to allow support for lossless roundtripping to and from legacy formats; support for lossless roundtripping to and from Word is an early application for this, already available in prototype. The only serious deficiency I'm familiar with is that spreadsheet formulas are unspecified and left to the implementor -- and while that is unfortunate, it's not like there aren't de-facto standards to work from until it's resolved (also in OpenDocument 1.2).
I realize it's trendy to be jaded, and I have little love for many of Sun's actions -- but I'm pretty sure they're on the right side inasmuch as ODF is concerned.
You right now are embodying one of the most destructive impulses of hardcore Democrates: Demonizing the opposition.
Look -- I'm fairly typical Democrat material. I'm not associated with any organized religion. I'm in favor of gay marriage. I'm maybe even starting to think about conceding that universal healthcare might be a good idea. That said, any time someone simply shuts down and goes into an "us vs. them" mentality, it means they aren't seriously thinking about their opposition's viewpoint and perspective, other than coloring it in overbroad lines.
And that's bad.
Sure, it's not like the Rove & co. didn't do most of the escalation lately -- but the response to venom and hatred isn't to shut down your brain, because that stops you from thinking about why Average Joe Republican is in fact voting Republican. And ya know what? Chances are, Joe is unhappy about a lot of the same things you are -- but when you go on the attack (or only speak from your perspective without taking Joe's worldview into account), you lose the opportunity to make that sale. You're even turning me off right now, and I'm probably pretty typical of your target audiance.
It should be pretty obvious by now that I'd like to see Obama as President. I grew up right-wing Christian conservative and still have a working model of that mindset handy even though it's not something I espouse -- and Obama speaks to the old me as powerfully as the new one. The last thing we need now is more division, and Obama stands for a return to saner, less polarized politics more effectively than anyone else I know of.
As for my support for Ron Paul, the man has principals and he follows them. I don't like his personal social positions -- but he keeps those out of his voting record, and the principals which do reflect themselves in his voting record are such as to enact an effective policy of "first, do no harm". That's the kind of person I want holding the power of veto, no matter what banner he rides under.
Not "as bad as the current Republican administration" is an utterly unthinkable standard -- and while I used to think of McCain as a reasonable candidate, some of his more recent positions bely that. (Do I remember exactly what those positions are? Sorry, I don't -- and I'm at work, so browsing/. is bad enough; I can't apply my google-fu just now).
I'll vote Republican if they run Ron Paul (unless Obama gets the Democratic nod, in which case I'll have a tough decision); otherwise, I don't consider the options satisfactory.
It's obviously not "even once" -- if you read the article, it's specified that the counter is user-configured.
Destroying the data on excessive retries is an effective way of preventing a sustained brute-force attack. This implementation is completely useless, to be sure, but the concept is a good one.
As for his position on PATRIOT, he has supported legislation to weaken it, and voted against the wiretap provisions. Not as strong as Ron Paul's position, and if Ron Paul gets the Republican ticket and Obama gets the democratic one I'll have an extremely tough decision on my hands.
I don't expect that'll be the case, though.
So -- if Ron Paul gets the Republican ticket and Hillary gets the democratic one, I'm voting Republican. If Obama gets the democratic ticket and anyone who isn't Ron Paul gets the Republican one, I'm voting Democratic. If they each win their respective primaries, I'll have a great deal to think about on my way to the polling booth -- including avoidance of the flying pigs.
My issue with Hillary is that my politics and hers do not agree at all. (Also, given the Right's general distaste for her -- right or wrong -- I hardly see her as electable).
She panders to fear by supporting legislation intended to protect $TARGET_AUDIANCE from some exaggerated threat -- never mind that that legislation infringes on others' freedoms -- and is unwilling to take a clear stand on issues where one side is clearly on the side of encouraging liberties. Video games. Flag burning. Internet regulation. Hillary is not her husband -- she has her own legislative record, and I consider it horrible.
Obama is willing to take a stand on issues -- but does so while understanding and acknowledging the position behind his opposition, and applies his principals intelligently rather than viewing the world through a polarized lens. Politics-as-usual has been to paint one's opponents as deluded or demonic; Obama does nothing of the sort. I see Obama as a candidate with the ability to decrease the division between Left and Right in this country, as well as the ability to explain the Left's positions in terms which the Right understands. Hillary, on the other hand, stands for more of the same in terms of continuing our present political divide.
Additionally, it's a useful exercise to compare Obama's predictions regarding the Iraq war with what actually happened. Let me quote his 2002 speech on the topic:
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
Sound anything like what's occurred?
As for whether people are willing to give Obama a chance, I would argue that this is not so much an issue as it looks. Obama is easily one of today's most powerful political speakers as well as a widely-published author, and his prominence as a candidate gives him an opportunity to reach a substantial audience. Bigots aside, I can't see the country evaluating Obama on his skin tone rather than his character and positions after they've heard him speak or read his words.
More anecdotally -- my father, a lifelong Republican and a Christian conservative, is defecting from his party in protest over the war. Obama is his preferred candidate, and was such before we compared notes. My distinct impression from talking to Dad is that he finds himself quite unalone.
just look at the cast of clowns running for President in '08.
I'm rather convinced that Obama represents significant change from the status quo -- and I've spent a nontrivial amount of time looking at his positions. Can you clarify your claim that the set of candidates, as a whole, fail to provide any indication that they would run the executive branch significantly better?
In the 1999 timeframe, Linux was unique among Free and open source projects in terms of its public visibility within the nontechnical community. Firefox has joined it since then in terms of being well-known -- but identifying oneself as a part of this thing called "Linux" (which occasionally had a news article or somesuch written about it in the major media) was a much better way to raise public awareness about free and open source software in general, because there was actually a reasonable chance that folks would have heard about it (and thus would have something with which to relate the brief conversation they had with that guy with the penguin on his credit card). In short, Linux was a reasonable proxy for FLOSS in general in terms of public awareness of big-F Free Software.
We can agree that the FLOSS community is a closely-related superset of the Linux community, right? And we can agree that in 1999, Linux was the public figurehead for OSS software in general, right? If that's so, why is this any more objectionable than a credit card supporting dairy-related causes calling itself MilkFund even though funds are also used to lobby for cheese and yogurt-related purposes?
Oh, bloody hell. You're picking on the first part of my post, and ignoring the latter part (where I'm a bit less colloquial and more accurate regarding LinuxFund's stated mission, and when I discuss part of the reason why I, as a LinuxFund member, appreciate the naming and logo as they stand).
Jockying for points is hardly as useful as coming to consensus -- but this discussion hardly appears headed in the latter direction.
But OpenSSH should be getting it from the project they are part of: OpenBSD, which is a different community than the Linux community...
Huh?
LinuxFund isn't "a part of" the Linux community in any official way; rather, it's a nonprofit that advertised itself as an easy way to financially support what folks who are in the Linux community consider worthy causes by giving members the ability to vote on the direction of funds.
Sure, the BSD folks have their own subcommunity, but the larger free software/open source community is (petty infighting besides) largely big enough for everyone. Arguing that a nonprofit which allows the individuals who indirectly fund it to vote on where that funding goes is acting inappropriately because it has donated (with the consent of those donating, to the extent that they cared enough to go to the web site and vote) to a project associated with an operating system different than the one used in their name is silly, particularly when their mission statement makes it clear that they're more strongly associated with the free and open source software communities as a whole than Linux in particular.
Nobody who cared enough to read the mission statement or check the web site was being duped into supporting anything they didn't want to -- but a credit card with a cute penguin on it is a much better conversation-starter than one that says something about "floss". Please stop trolling.
The parent claimed that OpenSSH is important to the Linux community. Whether it's developed by the Linux community is hardly relevant to the accuracy of that claim.
I hold a LinuxFund card (and apparently missed the letter, because this is the first I've heard about them shutting down), and in no way consider donations to OpenBSD's OpenSSH development to be a misuse of funds.
The only infection my home Windows system has ever had came from a MySpace page my wife was browsing. Both of us appreciate good porn, and use that system for viewing it -- and, as I said, the only infection we've ever had was from MySpace.
The parent is not necessarily too uptight to admit surfing porn.
The parent is not necessarily confusing copyright and trademark law. I could see a defense based on some form of reliance-based estoppel, for instance.
That's a remarkably bad way to make the determination; looking at their actual positions would be much better. Being new doesn't mean being different any more than having been in the field for a while implies playing the game the same way everyone else does -- and Hillary is by no accounts a political neophyte.
Obama clearly appears (to anyone half watching) to vote heavily on his principals and be willing to speak his mind. Hillary clearly appears (to anyone half watching) to get onto whichever bandwagon is most likely to get her the most votes in short order.
Witness Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war, and the precise words with which he framed the reasoning and position associated with that opposition; witness Hillary's position on Iraq changing with the wind. Witness Obama's unqualified opposition to a ban on flag burning; witness Hillary's support for such a ban (though not as a Constitutional amendment, and neutered nearly to the point of unenforcability -- in short, as a sop to those who supported such a ban).
More importantly (from my perspective), witness Obama's attempts at bridge-building. The nuanced, thoughtful positions he takes on hot-button issues which are otherwise used to divide promises the potential to reduce the demonization and fear between the Right and the Left. Before you continue to badmouth Obama, take a look at his views -- his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention for a taste and The Audacity of Hope for a fuller appreciation of how he really does represent something other than politics as usual.
Even if this massive chasm in terms of the candidates' suitability did not exist, however, there would still be the compelling argument that the Democratic party should choose a candidate able to win in the general election. Hillary is hated and feared by the Right, rightly or not; Obama speaks to them using their own vocabulary -- describing principals generally in line with the Democratic Party's positions, but in terms familiar to those who consider morality grounded in faith -- and avoids characterizing those with whom he disagrees as ideologues who put their personal faith before their neighbors' wellbeing.
Yes; I like Ron Paul. If he somehow manages to get the Republic nomination and Obama gets the democratic, I'm going to have a *very* hard choice ahead of me. It would be a very happy choice to have, though -- either outcome I could be ecstatic about.
I know dgatwood IRL, and he's a fairly bright guy -- so I'm chalking the post in question down as being sorely misinformed (and an object lesson on fact checking) as opposed to evidence of general idiocy.
Obama has had two stints in the Illinois state senate, but is even now a junior member in the US senate. Further, his voting record is far less conducive to such charges than Clinton's -- her position on flag-burning and stances regarding gaming and government regulation of the Internet are considerably less Libertarian in nature. To be sure, my Libertarian side disagrees with Obama on gun control -- but that's true for both of them.
More importantly by far, Obama is the less divisive candidate, and goes far out of his way to acknowledge, respect and try to learn from opposing viewpoints. Given the enmity our recent politics have invoked -- both internal and external -- I cannot in good conscience cast my vote otherwise.
Refusing to allow me to view THEIR masterpieces unless I meet their conditions is fine by me. Forcing me to uniquely identify MY masterpieces in order to protect theirs is not acceptable.
Under what circumstances will one of YOUR masterpieces be running through the WMV or MPEG encoder built into a high-end PVR?
It's purpose is to impose restrictions on the person using it, and it's far more likely that it will be imposed on them (sneakily or otherwise) than for them to choose it.
Eh? The whole way watermarking is better than DRM is that it doesn't impose restrictions on what you're doing with your own hardware; rather, it simply allows for some post-facto accountability in the event that said hardware is badly misused.
A watermarking MPEG or WMV encoder won't stop you from recording that TV show or DVD to a hard drive, won't stop you from format-shifting it onto your laptop or video iPod, won't stop you from bringing that digital copy over to a friend's house, won't stop you from playing that video back on a Free Software platform -- but will make you accountable if you put that copy up on a P2P network somewhere one of the MPAA's hired guns can download it.
I think this is extremely reasonable behavior. Still, you can ask -- does it benefit you the consumer to have this functionality in your hardware? I can answer: Yes, it does -- by providing a counterargument to those would, in the name of preventing P2P movie sharing, illegalize creation of hardware which allows you space- and format-shifting possibilities.
This isn't meant to be undefeatable -- like the DRM it provides an alternative to, it's a deterrent and impediment. The advantage is that unlike DRM there's no automatic (and thus blind) enforcement, so it doesn't impede fair-use rights.
Obviously, having a police report saying that your device was stolen prior to the date encoded in the watermark is going to be an effective defense in any court. Obviously, using only sales records for enforcement is stupid -- phone-home functionality makes more sense; it's not a GPS, but you can still ask the ISP who had a given IP address at a given time. Is everyone going to have their set-top boxes hooked up to the Internet? Obviously not -- but those who want automatically downloaded TV guides or web browsing from their television or the ability to set shows to record without being at home or $OTHER_NIFTY_FEATURE will. As for the hardcore pirates, they won't buy this equipment in the first place.
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change The courage to change the things I can The wisdom to know the difference
Look -- obviously I know that the power structure is massively corrupt, as does anyone else with half an eye open. I'm not in a position to do anything about it, though -- I'm just a little guy with a family to feed. So I worry about things I can change; for the time being, it's what I can do.
Whether they're true or not, worrying about conspiracy theories does nothing to improve my immediate quality of life -- so I don't. Accuse me of burying my head in the sand all you want -- I'm quite certainly living a happier, more enjoyable life, and when I get a chance to change the things I can I'll take it. 'Till then, ta ta.
("WHITE HUMAN SLAVERY", eh? As if that's worse than any other kind?).
Yes, the multinationals do have a great deal of control over government policy. How does that change the reasonability of considering government mandate the line at which intrusiveness has become excessive? Without government mandate in place, I can still buy equipment which doesn't follow the rules, even if only from Chinese knock-off manufacturers. With government mandate and effective enforcement of the same, my ability to vote through my buying habits is impinged.
Government is a mighty big stick. I don't want it used against me, and I'm going to be very hesitant with regard to using it against anyone else as well.
Of course loss of rights only happen by increments -- but that's not to say that one cannot individually determine whether any given increment crosses the line -- and as far as I'm concerned, this one is far from it.
I'll consider it excessive when this behavior is government-mandated; right now it's nothing of the sort.
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Since when was MS Office an alternative to ODF?
.ma.us).
Office is an application suite. ODF is a document format. They're apples and oranges. With appropriate plugins, Office will interoperate with ODF documents -- just as any number of other applications will.
Claiming that OOXML is better than ODF because MS Office is better than OpenOffice is disingenuous; there's no reason MS Office and ODF can't be used together, and quite a bit of money and development time is being poured into making that an effective solution (thanks in no small part to
Waitaminute here -- why do you switch from talking about ODF to talking about OpenOffice? Unlike OpenXML, ODF was written based not on a single application's requirements (although that was used as a starting point), but by getting a bunch of interested parties (particularly, parties with an interest in long-term document archival and storage), and building to their requirements.
And ODF is absolutely the better standard. It leverages preexisting standards such as SVG and MathML instead of reinventing the wheel; it's structured to permit XSLT-style transformations; a complete implementation isn't required to have support for legacy bugs from MS Office. Version 1.2 of the standard will require that implementations preserve unknown attributes to allow support for lossless roundtripping to and from legacy formats; support for lossless roundtripping to and from Word is an early application for this, already available in prototype. The only serious deficiency I'm familiar with is that spreadsheet formulas are unspecified and left to the implementor -- and while that is unfortunate, it's not like there aren't de-facto standards to work from until it's resolved (also in OpenDocument 1.2).
I realize it's trendy to be jaded, and I have little love for many of Sun's actions -- but I'm pretty sure they're on the right side inasmuch as ODF is concerned.
You right now are embodying one of the most destructive impulses of hardcore Democrates: Demonizing the opposition.
Look -- I'm fairly typical Democrat material. I'm not associated with any organized religion. I'm in favor of gay marriage. I'm maybe even starting to think about conceding that universal healthcare might be a good idea. That said, any time someone simply shuts down and goes into an "us vs. them" mentality, it means they aren't seriously thinking about their opposition's viewpoint and perspective, other than coloring it in overbroad lines.
And that's bad.
Sure, it's not like the Rove & co. didn't do most of the escalation lately -- but the response to venom and hatred isn't to shut down your brain, because that stops you from thinking about why Average Joe Republican is in fact voting Republican. And ya know what? Chances are, Joe is unhappy about a lot of the same things you are -- but when you go on the attack (or only speak from your perspective without taking Joe's worldview into account), you lose the opportunity to make that sale. You're even turning me off right now, and I'm probably pretty typical of your target audiance.
It should be pretty obvious by now that I'd like to see Obama as President. I grew up right-wing Christian conservative and still have a working model of that mindset handy even though it's not something I espouse -- and Obama speaks to the old me as powerfully as the new one. The last thing we need now is more division, and Obama stands for a return to saner, less polarized politics more effectively than anyone else I know of.
As for my support for Ron Paul, the man has principals and he follows them. I don't like his personal social positions -- but he keeps those out of his voting record, and the principals which do reflect themselves in his voting record are such as to enact an effective policy of "first, do no harm". That's the kind of person I want holding the power of veto, no matter what banner he rides under.
Not "as bad as the current Republican administration" is an utterly unthinkable standard -- and while I used to think of McCain as a reasonable candidate, some of his more recent positions bely that. (Do I remember exactly what those positions are? Sorry, I don't -- and I'm at work, so browsing /. is bad enough; I can't apply my google-fu just now).
I'll vote Republican if they run Ron Paul (unless Obama gets the Democratic nod, in which case I'll have a tough decision); otherwise, I don't consider the options satisfactory.
It's obviously not "even once" -- if you read the article, it's specified that the counter is user-configured.
Destroying the data on excessive retries is an effective way of preventing a sustained brute-force attack. This implementation is completely useless, to be sure, but the concept is a good one.
Obama came out against the war in 2002, not 2004.
As for his position on PATRIOT, he has supported legislation to weaken it, and voted against the wiretap provisions. Not as strong as Ron Paul's position, and if Ron Paul gets the Republican ticket and Obama gets the democratic one I'll have an extremely tough decision on my hands.
I don't expect that'll be the case, though.
So -- if Ron Paul gets the Republican ticket and Hillary gets the democratic one, I'm voting Republican. If Obama gets the democratic ticket and anyone who isn't Ron Paul gets the Republican one, I'm voting Democratic. If they each win their respective primaries, I'll have a great deal to think about on my way to the polling booth -- including avoidance of the flying pigs.
She panders to fear by supporting legislation intended to protect $TARGET_AUDIANCE from some exaggerated threat -- never mind that that legislation infringes on others' freedoms -- and is unwilling to take a clear stand on issues where one side is clearly on the side of encouraging liberties. Video games. Flag burning. Internet regulation. Hillary is not her husband -- she has her own legislative record, and I consider it horrible.
Obama is willing to take a stand on issues -- but does so while understanding and acknowledging the position behind his opposition, and applies his principals intelligently rather than viewing the world through a polarized lens. Politics-as-usual has been to paint one's opponents as deluded or demonic; Obama does nothing of the sort. I see Obama as a candidate with the ability to decrease the division between Left and Right in this country, as well as the ability to explain the Left's positions in terms which the Right understands. Hillary, on the other hand, stands for more of the same in terms of continuing our present political divide.
Additionally, it's a useful exercise to compare Obama's predictions regarding the Iraq war with what actually happened. Let me quote his 2002 speech on the topic:Sound anything like what's occurred?
As for whether people are willing to give Obama a chance, I would argue that this is not so much an issue as it looks. Obama is easily one of today's most powerful political speakers as well as a widely-published author, and his prominence as a candidate gives him an opportunity to reach a substantial audience. Bigots aside, I can't see the country evaluating Obama on his skin tone rather than his character and positions after they've heard him speak or read his words.
More anecdotally -- my father, a lifelong Republican and a Christian conservative, is defecting from his party in protest over the war. Obama is his preferred candidate, and was such before we compared notes. My distinct impression from talking to Dad is that he finds himself quite unalone.
I'm rather convinced that Obama represents significant change from the status quo -- and I've spent a nontrivial amount of time looking at his positions. Can you clarify your claim that the set of candidates, as a whole, fail to provide any indication that they would run the executive branch significantly better?
You might try taking history into account.
In the 1999 timeframe, Linux was unique among Free and open source projects in terms of its public visibility within the nontechnical community. Firefox has joined it since then in terms of being well-known -- but identifying oneself as a part of this thing called "Linux" (which occasionally had a news article or somesuch written about it in the major media) was a much better way to raise public awareness about free and open source software in general, because there was actually a reasonable chance that folks would have heard about it (and thus would have something with which to relate the brief conversation they had with that guy with the penguin on his credit card). In short, Linux was a reasonable proxy for FLOSS in general in terms of public awareness of big-F Free Software.
We can agree that the FLOSS community is a closely-related superset of the Linux community, right? And we can agree that in 1999, Linux was the public figurehead for OSS software in general, right? If that's so, why is this any more objectionable than a credit card supporting dairy-related causes calling itself MilkFund even though funds are also used to lobby for cheese and yogurt-related purposes?
Oh, bloody hell. You're picking on the first part of my post, and ignoring the latter part (where I'm a bit less colloquial and more accurate regarding LinuxFund's stated mission, and when I discuss part of the reason why I, as a LinuxFund member, appreciate the naming and logo as they stand).
Jockying for points is hardly as useful as coming to consensus -- but this discussion hardly appears headed in the latter direction.
But OpenSSH should be getting it from the project they are part of: OpenBSD, which is a different community than the Linux community...
Huh?
LinuxFund isn't "a part of" the Linux community in any official way; rather, it's a nonprofit that advertised itself as an easy way to financially support what folks who are in the Linux community consider worthy causes by giving members the ability to vote on the direction of funds.
Sure, the BSD folks have their own subcommunity, but the larger free software/open source community is (petty infighting besides) largely big enough for everyone. Arguing that a nonprofit which allows the individuals who indirectly fund it to vote on where that funding goes is acting inappropriately because it has donated (with the consent of those donating, to the extent that they cared enough to go to the web site and vote) to a project associated with an operating system different than the one used in their name is silly, particularly when their mission statement makes it clear that they're more strongly associated with the free and open source software communities as a whole than Linux in particular.
Nobody who cared enough to read the mission statement or check the web site was being duped into supporting anything they didn't want to -- but a credit card with a cute penguin on it is a much better conversation-starter than one that says something about "floss". Please stop trolling.
The parent claimed that OpenSSH is important to the Linux community. Whether it's developed by the Linux community is hardly relevant to the accuracy of that claim.
I hold a LinuxFund card (and apparently missed the letter, because this is the first I've heard about them shutting down), and in no way consider donations to OpenBSD's OpenSSH development to be a misuse of funds.
She's out of town right now; gets back 11:30 this evening. Don't expect to see me posting much tonight or tomorrow.
Which reminds me -- I need to check the levels on the hot tub. *wanders off*
The only infection my home Windows system has ever had came from a MySpace page my wife was browsing. Both of us appreciate good porn, and use that system for viewing it -- and, as I said, the only infection we've ever had was from MySpace.
The parent is not necessarily too uptight to admit surfing porn.
The parent is not necessarily confusing copyright and trademark law. I could see a defense based on some form of reliance-based estoppel, for instance.
That's a remarkably bad way to make the determination; looking at their actual positions would be much better. Being new doesn't mean being different any more than having been in the field for a while implies playing the game the same way everyone else does -- and Hillary is by no accounts a political neophyte.
Obama clearly appears (to anyone half watching) to vote heavily on his principals and be willing to speak his mind. Hillary clearly appears (to anyone half watching) to get onto whichever bandwagon is most likely to get her the most votes in short order.
Witness Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war, and the precise words with which he framed the reasoning and position associated with that opposition; witness Hillary's position on Iraq changing with the wind. Witness Obama's unqualified opposition to a ban on flag burning; witness Hillary's support for such a ban (though not as a Constitutional amendment, and neutered nearly to the point of unenforcability -- in short, as a sop to those who supported such a ban).
More importantly (from my perspective), witness Obama's attempts at bridge-building. The nuanced, thoughtful positions he takes on hot-button issues which are otherwise used to divide promises the potential to reduce the demonization and fear between the Right and the Left. Before you continue to badmouth Obama, take a look at his views -- his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention for a taste and The Audacity of Hope for a fuller appreciation of how he really does represent something other than politics as usual.
Even if this massive chasm in terms of the candidates' suitability did not exist, however, there would still be the compelling argument that the Democratic party should choose a candidate able to win in the general election. Hillary is hated and feared by the Right, rightly or not; Obama speaks to them using their own vocabulary -- describing principals generally in line with the Democratic Party's positions, but in terms familiar to those who consider morality grounded in faith -- and avoids characterizing those with whom he disagrees as ideologues who put their personal faith before their neighbors' wellbeing.
Yes; I like Ron Paul. If he somehow manages to get the Republic nomination and Obama gets the democratic, I'm going to have a *very* hard choice ahead of me. It would be a very happy choice to have, though -- either outcome I could be ecstatic about.
I know dgatwood IRL, and he's a fairly bright guy -- so I'm chalking the post in question down as being sorely misinformed (and an object lesson on fact checking) as opposed to evidence of general idiocy.
Obama has had two stints in the Illinois state senate, but is even now a junior member in the US senate. Further, his voting record is far less conducive to such charges than Clinton's -- her position on flag-burning and stances regarding gaming and government regulation of the Internet are considerably less Libertarian in nature. To be sure, my Libertarian side disagrees with Obama on gun control -- but that's true for both of them.
More importantly by far, Obama is the less divisive candidate, and goes far out of his way to acknowledge, respect and try to learn from opposing viewpoints. Given the enmity our recent politics have invoked -- both internal and external -- I cannot in good conscience cast my vote otherwise.
Under what circumstances will one of YOUR masterpieces be running through the WMV or MPEG encoder built into a high-end PVR?
Eh? The whole way watermarking is better than DRM is that it doesn't impose restrictions on what you're doing with your own hardware; rather, it simply allows for some post-facto accountability in the event that said hardware is badly misused.
A watermarking MPEG or WMV encoder won't stop you from recording that TV show or DVD to a hard drive, won't stop you from format-shifting it onto your laptop or video iPod, won't stop you from bringing that digital copy over to a friend's house, won't stop you from playing that video back on a Free Software platform -- but will make you accountable if you put that copy up on a P2P network somewhere one of the MPAA's hired guns can download it.
I think this is extremely reasonable behavior. Still, you can ask -- does it benefit you the consumer to have this functionality in your hardware? I can answer: Yes, it does -- by providing a counterargument to those would, in the name of preventing P2P movie sharing, illegalize creation of hardware which allows you space- and format-shifting possibilities.
This isn't meant to be undefeatable -- like the DRM it provides an alternative to, it's a deterrent and impediment. The advantage is that unlike DRM there's no automatic (and thus blind) enforcement, so it doesn't impede fair-use rights.
Obviously, having a police report saying that your device was stolen prior to the date encoded in the watermark is going to be an effective defense in any court. Obviously, using only sales records for enforcement is stupid -- phone-home functionality makes more sense; it's not a GPS, but you can still ask the ISP who had a given IP address at a given time. Is everyone going to have their set-top boxes hooked up to the Internet? Obviously not -- but those who want automatically downloaded TV guides or web browsing from their television or the ability to set shows to record without being at home or $OTHER_NIFTY_FEATURE will. As for the hardcore pirates, they won't buy this equipment in the first place.
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
The wisdom to know the difference
Look -- obviously I know that the power structure is massively corrupt, as does anyone else with half an eye open. I'm not in a position to do anything about it, though -- I'm just a little guy with a family to feed. So I worry about things I can change; for the time being, it's what I can do.
Whether they're true or not, worrying about conspiracy theories does nothing to improve my immediate quality of life -- so I don't. Accuse me of burying my head in the sand all you want -- I'm quite certainly living a happier, more enjoyable life, and when I get a chance to change the things I can I'll take it. 'Till then, ta ta.
("WHITE HUMAN SLAVERY", eh? As if that's worse than any other kind?).
Yes, the multinationals do have a great deal of control over government policy. How does that change the reasonability of considering government mandate the line at which intrusiveness has become excessive? Without government mandate in place, I can still buy equipment which doesn't follow the rules, even if only from Chinese knock-off manufacturers. With government mandate and effective enforcement of the same, my ability to vote through my buying habits is impinged.
Government is a mighty big stick. I don't want it used against me, and I'm going to be very hesitant with regard to using it against anyone else as well.
Of course loss of rights only happen by increments -- but that's not to say that one cannot individually determine whether any given increment crosses the line -- and as far as I'm concerned, this one is far from it.
I'll consider it excessive when this behavior is government-mandated; right now it's nothing of the sort.