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  1. NOT so simple on Best Presidential Candidate for Nerds? · · Score: 1

    The problem I have with that chart is this: few "strictly personal" matters are so easily defined. A perfect example is country crack usage or crystal meth usage: is this purely personal? When more people in an area are using this stuff all sorts of other crimes go up - theft, personal invasion, child and spouse abuse, etc. Yes, these are already crimes and we have plenty of laws to use against the people making these "bad personal choices." Problem is policing all that added crime means more court expenses, more beat officers, etc.

    So, not placing laws against personal use of these sorts of drugs means more burden on the courts AND the people in the area where the crimes are taking place... but legislating and enforcing laws against same also means more burden on the courts and police. But not having laws potentially means allowing crystal meth usage in certain areas to become as common as alcohol abuse today, complete with neighborhood stores selling the stuff. I suppose the one redeeming feature of this scenario would be that crystal meth will at least kill the person faster, thus ridding society (and especially the person's family) of that burden.

    I hate the nanny state - but pretending _any_ actions are purely personal requires taking a logical leap of faith that is every bit as beyond reason as a great many of our current nanny-laws. Whether I am sitting in my home gambling away my money and setting myself up for dependency on a welfare state, or polluting the lungs of my kids with cigarette smoke, or drinking myself silly every day instead of feeding and caring for my family, or locking myself away in a bedroom and surfing porn every day, our actions affect everyone around us. So where does that leave your flowchart of doom?

  2. Surely you jest... on 2008 - The Year Internet TV Became Mainstream? · · Score: 1

    I haven't had cable tv since like 1986. Haven't had sat since 2003. And I MUST be mainstream, since NBC sends me all those questionnaires...

  3. Welcome to the new AT&T! on Is Speech Recognition Finally 'Good Enough'? · · Score: 3, Funny

    Press or say one to speak with a representative in english...

    One

    When you hear the option you are calling about you may say it at any time. If you are calling about a billing problem, say billing. If you are calling about a technical issue, say technical. If you are calling about new service, say new customer. If you are...

    Billing

    I'm sorry, that is not an option. When you hear the option you are calling about you may say it at any time. If you are calling about a billing problem, say billing. If you are calling about a technical issue, say technical. If you are calling about new...

    Billing!

    I'm sorry, that is not an option. When you hear the option...

    Billing billing billing!

    I'm sorry, that is not an option. When you...

    Fuck you! Give me a human! Human human human!

    I'm sorry, that is not an option. When you hear the option...

  4. Not only, but... on Broadband isn't Broadband Unless its 2Mbps? · · Score: 1

    The government has, for years, provided grant and low interest loans to any interest able to demonstrate a need and viable plan for broadband deployment in rural areas. This is one of the *good* government programs set up to answer the call for government subsidy type programs (aka Japan, etc). It's helped a lot of rural communities gain broadband access and helped launch many *community* oriented broadband startups.

    This is the other boot waiting to kick us all in the head: as soon as the definition of "broadband" changes from 200kbps service to 2Mbps service, the bar is considerably raised - in many cases, to an impossibly high level - for many of the low end community projects these grants have helped launch. This measure will do nothi9ng except help protect the interests of all the big cell companies who fear not having the wireless field to themselves when and if they decide to launch wimax as an alternative to limited range dsl and overpriced satellite services.

  5. Where do I get in line? on Transformers Full Theatrical Trailer Available · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I never got into the tv show, it wasn't of my generation. I'm an old man of 45, and these trailers have me convinced I need to be getting in line because this one deserves the big screen.

    And I *never* actually go to the movies anymore.

  6. And u call yourselves geeks? on Transformers Full Theatrical Trailer Available · · Score: 1

    Plays just fine (and looks marvelous) on my open sores ubuntu boxen with with xine, mplayer, totem...

    What's this about worse player ever? Xine is one of the best ever!

  7. read the law on Many Americans Still Don't Have Home Net Access · · Score: 1

    Is there any requirement in your state that an ISP "register?" There certainly isn't in mine. We provide free wifi access and everyone knows it - that makes us an isp. Period.

  8. Re:Europe very different than US on No Passport For Britons Refusing Mass Surveillance · · Score: 1

    at least in the US, the only ones who really need to fear the authorities are those with something that's punishable by the authorities.

    Which is an ever-widening corral. How long until they come for you?

    Have you ever read Payne? Jefferson? American history at all?

    Moron.

    When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

    Thomas Jefferson

  9. Pandering on Connecticut Wants to Restrict Social Networking · · Score: 1

    Is illegal in most states.

    Hmmmm. And what does that make the law?

  10. Re:Lazy parents. on Connecticut Wants to Restrict Social Networking · · Score: 1

    Let's put this another way: My daughter has a friend of about the same age. Her mother is very lax about letting the kids smoke, drink, and go to the mall alone. I am worried about my daughter possibly smoking, or drinking, or going to the mall alone with her friend and getting hurt. Do I cut her off now from her friend?

    Duh.

    If you haven't raised your daughter to be trusted and/or you refuse to trust her, then you have no other choice. It may suck, but it's the bed you made by not raising her to be more responsible for her own choices.

    If I was a kid acting out in a mall, most any nearby adult would have considered it proper to issue a little correction.

    And guess what? This is the world YOU PARENTS who refuse to take responsibility for your own kids have created! Having bought outright the hand wringing fears peddled by the MSM, you have instilled in this country such an irrational fear of being labelled "pervert" and hauled downtown and lambasted in the local news - or worse (or not), being sued for issuing such a "corrrection" against the wishes of another one of these parents who refuse to raise their kids responsibly - that adults now FEAR APPROACHING STRANGE CHILDREN. Even when it may mean that child is about to get into a life threatening situation and die.

    Something about lying in the bed one has dressed comes to mind...

  11. If we can put a man on the moon... on Connecticut Wants to Restrict Social Networking · · Score: 5, Funny

    WTF don't we just send all the politicians there?

  12. Man, you're a real idiot. on New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio · · Score: 1

    Whether they give cash to the RIAA oe head to Hilary Rosen, they ARE affiliated with the RIAA. They directly contribute to its power base. They enjoy benefits from being a "reporting affiliate" or whater stupid wordgame you'd like to play as you delude yourself that you are not supporting the very people you claim to revile just so you don't have to go without your debbie gibson fix.

    I could have listed 100 examples fo you but its oibvious even that wouldn't be enough, because you CHOOSE TO BELIEVE. Ah well, then I guess those old press releases won't make any differnce either... you know, the ones where emusic openly admit they are RIAA affiliated by way of the labels they represent.

    Oh yeah... and they're OWNED by fucking Vivendi... er, they were. Until they were bought up by some obscure LLC partnership (an old trick for hiding parent company ties) that also owns "The Orchard" - a company that, itself, has a very bad reputation for screwing artists. So it goes from being owned outright by one of the largest RIAA partners to being owned by a secret partnership with a reputation for being pretty much as bad to artists as the "majors."

    Now, repeat after me: Bahhh... Bahhh.

    http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2003/0 8/emusic_is_a_freedomproof_busin.html
    http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/29/151021 1&mode=thread

  13. hippie school on Schools Banning Homework? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think you must have just gone to one of those hippie schools. Like me. You know, one of those schools where they had freaky programs like art and music and history class actually taught something about the constitution. Most young people I meet today not only haven't a clue how a piano works, they seem to have no familiarity with the bill of rights, either.

  14. clueless on New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio · · Score: 2

    If you look at something like eMusic today, which doesn't carry the RIAA labels...

    Dude, you're clueless. emusic is laden with RIAA labels. Being an "indie" does NOT mean "not RIAA affiliated." I even signed up for their "25 free" promo to check out just how many RIAA labels there are on emusic - there's thousands listed on emusic, and you can bet thousands of those are RIAA affiliates. They carry cocteau twins and breeders (for example) who are on 4ad. And who owns 4ad? Beggars Banquet - and BB is an RIAA affiliate.

    Emusic likes to play up the "indie" part - but dont think for a minute that doesn't mean any purchases made there aren't going to help fund the RIAA, cuz it does.

    If Internet radio stations commit to changing the majority of their playlist to artists on non-RIAA labels then the majority of profits will be diverted from the RIAA

    It's a great idea. And guess what? There are already plenty of places that do this - I can go to Magnatune, for example, and listen all day for nothing. All the stuff they play is their own label.

    Doesn't mean squat, because "most folks" want to hear the shit they've heard ten thousand times and aren't interested in expanding their horizons. There's nothing stopping anyone today from starting up a non-label stream and this law can't stop those unaffiliated artists from allowing such broadcasters to play their works. Doesn't matter, because "internet radio" means "radio" and most people don't hear Jackalopes and Wicked Boy on the radio, they hear Micheal Jackson and P Diddy - and that's what they want to listen to online.

  15. Socialised music? on New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    So we still don't have health care for a huge chunk of the population that doesn't require them to forfeit their solvency, but at least they have easy access to pop music.

    Yeah, sounds great. Especially that part where my money is taken by force and funneled into some coffer to be doled out to an industry I despise and religions I disdain.

  16. 3.5 vs 2.5 aint valid on Build an Environmentally-Friendly PC · · Score: 1

    What's the biggest 2.5" drive you can get? And at what cost? A 500gb 3.5" drive sucks about 12w and costs about $150. You'd need at least 3 2.5" drives for the same storage at a price of about $600. Those 3 drives would suck about 8w in operation and how much more energy to build than one 500gb drive? A 750gb drive uses about the same amount as a 500gb and it would take 6 2.5" drives to replace it. These drives would suck up about 18w, or nearly 50% MORE energy than a single 3.5" drive. They'd also cost about five times more than the 3.5" drive. If they were configured in raid5 they might be a bit more reliable than a single 3.5" drive, but you could buy a hell of a lot of energy credits with that extra $800 spent on the laptop drives, use 2 750gb drives in raid 1, and still come out way ahead in terms of "being green."

    The other thing that gets me about the article is he buys a 965 motherboard. I HAVE a 965 motherboard and am about to replace it with a 945 motherboard BECAUSE of all the extra energy it dumps into the case - that gma3000 gets hotter than hell, and doesn't do video and desktop stuff any better than the much lower power 945.

    If you're really interested in saving energy, make a raid out of a couple of flash cards and stick'em on the IDE channel. Power down the storage discs when the machine is idle and use flash for the system.

    I wonder if he'll be running one of the distributed computing nodes on his "low power" machine?

  17. Who's the idiot on RIAA Announces New Campus Lawsuit Strategy · · Score: 1

    You spent all those words to say "you cannot be a customer and a thief at the same time." So I guess if I go to k-mart and wear a pair of boots out the door i didnt pay for while I go through the checkout for the pants a shirt I want to take home, I'm still "not a customer."

    Uh huh. Right.

  18. We're all "customers" on RIAA Announces New Campus Lawsuit Strategy · · Score: 1

    You are only a customer if you buy something.

    More from the chorus. Thing is, we ARE customers. Someone may not have paid for every movie on their computer, but most of us DO rent DVDs (often to rip them to our drives), most of us go to movies and a great many even go to concerts.

    The problem isn't that the copyright holders are suing their customers - the problem is there's so little opportunity for the competing voice to reach the folks affected by this - to remind them that, while Universal and Sony may sue them into oblivion for helping distribute their content, there's a whole world of stuff out there by folks who WON'T do this. If the people being sued would realize this and look for alternative content they would surely find something they like - but they don't. Everyone seems to want a change, but hardly anyone seems willing to do what it takes to put meaningful pressure on these media conglomerates.

  19. youtube isnt slashdot on Audio Watermark Web Spider Starts Crawling · · Score: 2, Informative

    Miss Information meet... Miss Information.

    Nowhere does it say youtube will be watermarking all content. For this to work that's the OPPOSITE of what needs to happen - but if all the content providers embrace some sort of standard watermark then it will be trivial for youtube to SCAN your "original" content and see whether or not it is ACTUALLY YOUR CONTENT. How will they know? Because YOUR content will either contain YOUR watermark or it will contain no watermark at all.

    And youtube allows you to "retract" anything you say anytime you want. You can make your content private if you like, restrict it to select "friends," or take it back completely.

    It is about copyright and who controls and distributes under that copyright, but youtube isn't slashdot. It isn't even itunes, where their business model is built around watermarking everything and charging for individual access to it.

    And for the other geniuseseses who think you can simply "blur it out," RTFA on digimarc. Duh, if it were so simple to "blur it out" then it would be pretty damn useless, now wouldn't it? Some websites have been watermarking their images for years now and contracting with companies who DO crawl p2p services and usenet looking for infringers, and while it aint 100% effective it has been pretty damn effective at stopping people from sharing their shit. This isn't a watermark like on paper, it's a DIGITAL watermark - it's "visible" (or audible) but only in the sense it adds noise to the picture or sound and degrades its quality; you can "blur" it but that won't completely obliterate the embedded information as it is essentially an encrypted piece of copyright information steganographically embedded into the media.

    I hate the way this stuff degrades the quality, but most dfon't even notice it. I know this because I've worked with some of these sites and I seemed to be one of the very few who ever had any complaint about it. I've shared marked and unmarked content hundreds of times and very few people seem able to tell the difference... so, without knowing what to look for in the file source, how will you even know what content to "blur" and what not to blur?

    if this were adopted widely, it seems the biggest problem would be - ironically - with "original" content composed from fairly used bits and pieces of other works. If you just rip and post a part of a movie or tv show you're going to be pissing off only one content creator - but what if you make an original montage from ten different pieces of protected media? The watermarks would all still be there, you'd potentially be getting takedown notices and/or lawsuit papers from ten different content owners.

    The technology is useful. But what's really needed (still) is meaningful regulation of terms and fair public use policy enforcement.

  20. Aha! on YouTube Set To Filter Content · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But that's just it: fair use allows certain repurposing of the work in other (your own) works. But when all you are doing is stripping out 30 seconds and posting it to a sharing site, you are not adding any new context or value. Copyright holders may turn a blind eye toward such use, but they don't have to.

    Producers may not mind yet another repost of Abigail Breslin running around the kitchen screaming or chasing after a VW van, but those people who keep reposting her "funny dance" are essentially giving away the punchline to the entire movie. Never mind that also removes her "funny dance" from its original context and potentially changes its meaning into something much darker than intended, it also blows the ending of a great movie for those who have yet to see it.

    The people who invested considerable energy and time into creating such a work deserve the right to protect the work from such misuse. Not forever, sure, but the work needs to be given at least enough time to realize its full potential value.

  21. Consistency. please on YouTube Set To Filter Content · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So... they just produce "crap," but then people post it and many people watch and enjoy it. Or... it's not piracy if it's crap?

    Ultimately they may be shooting themselves in the foot, but the fact is there are LOTS of shows and movies posted on youtube in their entirety. They're idiots if they start taking down short "best of" clips, but I don't think Youtube was ever envisioned as a place where you could go add the complete Boondock Saints to your playlist.

  22. Re:Free Speech for Free Speech's Sake on Ex-judge Gets 27 Months on Evidence From Hacked PC · · Score: 1

    I'm not naive... you're the one inflicting these "adult" feelings and values upon the child. The child is doing what the child enjoys, and yes, children emulate - that's HOW they prepare to be adults. Calling someone a "whore" because she dresses or dances in a way that offends you is not her problem, it's yours. It's YOUR baggage that you are heaping upon someone else. "Conform to my values or be judged by me." Who was it that said "judge not lest ye be judged?" He wasn't talking about dog and pony shows.

    it becomes a seriously brain involving task to a child to decypher the meaning behind what they sing / do.

    A child has no need to decipher such stuff - "she bop" is a funny pop song to a six year old and that's all she needs to know. To judge her (or her parents) because she enjoys this song and dance routine is not her perversion or her parents, it's the one making the perverse judgements.

    I have a daughter, but she's 22. If you want video of her shaking her butt, you'll likely need to ask her husband. However, by her own account she did "shake her butt" quite a lot (and collected good tips for it) when she was carhopping at sonic, and I can assure you she ain't no whore.

  23. Re:You're so smart,dumbass on Ex-judge Gets 27 Months on Evidence From Hacked PC · · Score: 1

    for example, they could be the ones involved in the abuse. If that were the case, I'm sure they could convince her that whatever act she was doing had something to do with being a "star".

    Now define "abuse."

    The fact is parents are responsible for their kids. If they put those kids in harms way then they are responsible for that - but prosecuting someone over VALUES is not somethign the government has any business in. A few years ago a woman was prosecuted by cps, threatened with loss of her infant child, because she innocently mentioned to one of her friends oneday while talking about the joys of beign a new mom, how breastfeeding her baby made her feel somewhat aroused. She was prosecuted for FEELINGS. Prosecuting someone for their FEELINGS denies them their basic humanity - the state is telling them they have no right to FEEL this way or that. Yes, there are good and bad feelings - but coping with them is not in any way the duty of the state - it's the responsibility of friends, trusted peers, the church, etc.

    If a parent wants to raise their child to be unbound by the shame and bulshit that's heaped upon sexuality, how is not their basic right? Other nations recognize this right, but in the US it's now gone so far that we have courts saying americans have no basic right to sexual privacy. Who is "victimizing" a child taught not to feel shame or guilt over something as innate as their sexuality? The person raising them with these "liberal" values, or those who would heap shame and guilt upon them for embracing their own thoughts and feelings?

    Also, as I've never been a victim of such abuse, I'm not going to play "guess how people feel about it".

    I haven't either - but I've known many women who were. None of them seemed to have any real damage, and one in particular still, at 25, spoke unashamedly how she enjoyed her experiences with her brother and cousin that began when she was only 9. At 12 she slept with her 17 year old sister's husband, and her sister beat the hell out of her for it - not because she was too young, but because she slept with her sister's husband... age had nothing to do with it. She instigated the rendevous and she had zero baggage about any of it - in part, most likely, because she was not surrounded by a group of busybodies and bible thumpers telling her how she'd burn in hell for enjoying sensuous pleasure or how she was a "victim" of her own feelings. Those are the people who are instilling these perversions throughout our society. Telling children they face eternal damnation unless they embrace your narrow life views is fucking twisted, and the people who do that shit are the embodiment of evil. It's coercive and abusive, but it's OK because it's a "normal" value.

    Had it consisted of real-life murders, carried out with the purpose of including them on the programme, and with the perpetrators being paid (with the implication that they would likely profit by doing the same in the future), I might agree with you.

    People who fuck children don't do it to make money, they do it because they feel some need to fuck children - the documentation of the event goes along with it as a way to relive the moment. For all the rest that's considered "child porn" in this increasingly perverted nation, it's not different at all.. it's just another glamour. Arresting 14 year olds and prosecuting them as producers of child porn and possibly forcing them to register as sex offenders because they willingly exchanged photos of themselves enjoying those pleasures most 14 year olds are just beginning to discover is as great a perversion of humanity as that commited by any but the most twisted "adult" child molester.

  24. Re:You're so smart,dumbass on Ex-judge Gets 27 Months on Evidence From Hacked PC · · Score: 1

    Are you talking about hardcore pornography between consenting adults (which I have nothing against) or child pornography?

    Here's an idea.. define child pornography. Cuz I guarantee whatever you might think it is, in this country it's that and a lot more. SOme guys in florida are being charged with distributing cp even though the kids weren't nude, they were modeling age appropriate clothes bought at the fucking mall, and they weren't harmed in any way by the photographs UNTIL the "community" decided they didnt like their little girls being looked at by people who might entertain impure thoughts about little girls. You tell me what's more damaging: a little girl enjoying herself being a "star" while modeling entirely age appropriate clothes with her parents full knowledge and consent, or an overzealous district attorney knocking on the door and telling her how what she's doing is somehow shameful and if she doesn't stop she might not get to live with mommy and daddy anymore?

    This world has gone absofuckinglutley batshit over nonsense like this. Politicians give all kinds of lip service to parents teaching their kids values, but what they really mean is they think all parents should have to teach kids THEIR OWN fucked up, puritannical, backwoods values.

    If the latter, are you claiming that "free speech" should extend towards material whose consumption supports the molestation of children?

    Like watching reruns of Miami Vice "supports" murder and drug abuse? Like watching The Sopranos "supports" organized crime?

  25. Re:Free Speech for Free Speech's Sake on Ex-judge Gets 27 Months on Evidence From Hacked PC · · Score: 1

    Fraud is against the law not because of speech, but because you took money from someone under false pretense as part of a conspiracy. Blackmail is illegal not on speech grounds but because you are forcing someone to give you something againsdt their will. Physical assault of another person is also against the law many times over - stopping the speech relating to the act does not prevent the act - in fact, equating an image of the act with the act itself only further demeans the victim of the act.

    Distribution of these images may be distasteful, but it in no way compares with the damage done by the act itself... and for that matter, even that wouldn't be such a big deal if the puritannical hypocrites didn't themselves make such a huge freaking deal about it. Raping a child may cause that child real physical harm, but its this society of meddling do-gooder buysbodies that is compounding the _emotional_ harm. Just look at the comments people leave on youtube every time someone posts a video of a kid doing the most innocent stuff - people calling a six year old shaking her butt to a pop song a "whore in training" is fucking inexcusable, and the prevalence of such despicable behavior is directly related to these laws which have caused everyone in this fucked up society to view images of children through the eyes of a pedophile.