Well, isn't this surprising. I greatly enjoyed Titan A.E.. I think it's probably the best animated movie I've seen since Mulan. The character development was a bit loose, and the movie could have benefitted from being about 45 minutes longer with that time spent developing the characters a bit more. I think this would do very well as a series on Cartoon Networks afternoon Anime section. I liked the way the story moved, it wasn't anything revolutionary or earth shattering, but it was fun. Lots of things exploded, the melding of the traditional animation and the CGI stuff was excellent. The movie was VERY pretty, and well, it had my favorite character in any animated movie ever, That little turtle guy. I cracked up at almost everything he said, and I loved it when he yelled 'Who's your daddy?!' while blowing up dredge ships. Very fun. I thought the movie was pretty damn good personally.
As for pre-'82 REM fans... uh, their first album (EP really) was released in August of '82 so any fans before then were probably all Athens locals. I have yet to look for the Alan Parsons Project (wasn't that some sort of hovercraft?) and wouldn't know what to look for anyway, so I can't comment on that.
Unfortunately I was only 2 years old in 1982, but I have had the privelage of listening to a CD of some of REMs stuff they played on campus in 79 and 80 that was absolutely excellent. I've yet to actually get a copy of it though... It's hard to find. But there are plenty of people in the Athens area (I'm from there) that have old old REM stuff recorded from club and campus shows before their album came out. I'm actually kind of surprised none of it is on napster considering how prevelant it was on at UGA.
Well, unfortunately there's not a lot of money or glamour in artificial limbs. Now, if more people were losing limbs and had to pay for replacements, I'm sure that a lot more R&D would get done. How many of you guys out there have the slightest interest in developing better appendages for invalids? Thought not.
Screw the invalids! I want some for myself, now! The sooner the better, replace my crappy organic body with something more durable!
Are the gains to science from this really so large as to justify the cutting up of a living animal? I don't really find anything "laudably perverse" in taking a knife to the living tissue of another creature. You might say I'm over-reacting, and that it's "only" a lamprey. But there's something about this story that doesn't make me want to trust these people. "Laudably perverse", as a judgement on the death of a creature doesn't suggest much respect for life, does it? Children who torture flies grow up to torture dogs, and later, people. How long will it be before these people decide that for their research they need a cat? a monkey? a baby? I just don't want to trust them unless they are strictly regulated, and unless they are subject ot democratic control including the power for elected representatives to close down all research in this field forever Oh go on then, flame away. But there are millions of us "trolls" who care about animal cruelty, and if you want to maintain a freindly climate toward scientists, you'll need to respect us.
Well, guess what, I don't really care if they do try it out on humans. Once they get it working reliably on a Lamprey they SHOULD move up to something more complex, ideally they should replicate the natural body of the creature as best as possible. And once they've figured it out to a sufficiently advanced level they can try it on me. I've always wanted an Immortal Robot Body to hang out in.... Animal Cruelty takes a back seat to pretty much everything in my mind. If it serves a purpose then go for it. Animal cruelty for personal amusement I disapprove of. This isn't a flame, it's a different point of view, and you aren't a troll, you just happen to have a view that is counter to a lot of other slashdotters.
The most prominent logo in my cubicle is the little grey 'Dell' at the bottom of my monitor. My clothes and shoes are all logoless. The only things with identifying Logos are my Printer, Monitor, and the box of Jax cartridgeson my desk. Oh well... Guess I'm not getting my daily recommended amount of marketing, who should I call to step up my advertising dosage?
Or at least if he does put up a website, just don't call people names, say they're drunks, sluts etc. It would be more constructive to his cause if he wrote it explaining his situation saying what's been said of him, and by who. Calling someone back and saying they're a drunk or a slut won't help your cause, and like in this case can come back to bite you.
But if it's TRUE then that might actually be the poroblem. He hasn't done anything worthy of having his comp confiscated, or any kind of legal action beyond a lawsuit. And then, if he's found to be in violation of something during the suit they have grounds to punish him in some way. But simply making accusations against government officials is NOT punishable by incarceration in this country.
Do you believe that any of your suggestions would NOT be a major pain in the ass for the administration? This is exactly the sort of activism I'm planning. What did you think I meant? Blowing up their cars? Yeesh... I'm going to organize student protests over unfair treatment. Try to get funding re-allocated from sports to academics. Try to get some of the more incompetent teachers fired. All manner of annoying things like that. I'm not going to shoot anyone.>:)
Well fuck you too budy. That's not what I recommend, there's lot that I would recommend but it seems your pent up anger prevents you from even having a civil discussion with someone you don't even know on slashdot. So calm down and when you can talk without every second sentence telling me to fuck myself we can discuss it.
heh, that was too easy... Did you just respond to abuse with abuse?! Gad! You hypocrite! My pent up anger is fairly easily controlled by years of Martial Arts. I can choose to unleash it (Which is why I can break 2" pressure treated hardwood with my kicks) or I can keep it reigned in, which is why I haven't killed anyone. BUT, It's been many many years since I sat still and endured abuse from anyone. I don't put up with it anymore. And I don't think anyone else should either. It's not this guys fault he got harassed. We should be finding out why he was this pissed off and punished the people responsible before they push the kid over the edge. Not everyone can find a way to control their anger and focus it. This kid opened fire with a website, not a machine gun. I think should be encouraged.
Perhaps what they did was not illegal... Are you aware of all the facts in the case?
Why are any of us sitting in judgement of this kid, or the school, when, quite frankly, 99% of us probably do not have all the facts?
Hrmmm, so claiming that one of his friends is ummm, promiscuous, in the school newspaper is OK. But him saying it about other girls in school on a website is an Arrestable offence?
Ranting on the web is hardly the only way of dealing with stress. There's so much more to do, workout, play a game, ride your bike, etc. You don't have to get even to relieve stress. If his friend was attacked in the newspaper write a followup article to it. In our university paper friends of mine were involved in a similar situation (probably liberlous as well) and simply wrote back replies which were published.
So you recommend taking the abuse quietly, dealing with it in some quiet, non intrusive manner, and allowing people to keep piling shit on you while you deal with it all nice and neatly by some mechanism which doesn't inconvenience anyone. Well, Fuck you. I say fight back. If you can kill the mother fuckers then at least expose then for the shit eating bastards they are. I still have a lot of rage pent up inside me at high school officials and students because of the abuse I recieved. I'm a martial artist, I work out a lot, I play quake, I relieve stress with all of these. But it doesn't always work. Especially when something like this comes up. All of the rage I have inside of me starts to bubble to the surface because it's still there. I can never get rid of it because I didn't have any effective way of preventing the abuse I was recieving. Sitting quietly and taking their shit is NOT AN EFFECTIVE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM. And I'm getting tired of sanctimonious bastards that claim it is. You might be content to get the shit kicked out of you every other day, endure verbal abuse, and psychological abuse while quietly dealing with it but some of us are NOT. We want it to STOP and we WILL stop it. I'm 20, I eventually plan on ending up back near my old high school where I will become a serious pain in the ass for the administration there. I don't like to see kids get crapped all over and have no recourse but to sit and take it. If someone pulled that kind of crap at work I'd have them fired. But in school there's nothing he can do. The administration doesn't help people like him, they want him to conform and shut up. So don't get all holier than thou and tell us to sit quietly and take it. Get your sorry ass out there and try to put a stop to it. Because if it goes on long enough more people are gonna start seeing columbine as a viable solution to their problems.
Once again... Doing something illegal (assuming that's what it was) in response to something illegal, does not make either action legal.
If his action was illegal then why have the students/faculty responsible for the newspaper and website not been arrested as well? I don't see anyone holding them responsible for their actions.
Not quite. Posting a web site is akin to publishing a document. Not only are you humiliating your targets but you are unfairly criticizing them in the presence of others who might heed your criticism. Sure, confiscating the kid's computer is a bit harsh, but we cannot ignore the damage that could have resulted if the school board believed the student's claims and investigated the employees who he called "drunk" or "incompetant."
Libel is libel, plain and simple. Your claim that it is simply high-tech bullying is misguided. Bullying is a very personal action (believe me, I've been subjected to it, too), while publishing a web page constitutes using a public medium. As a result, it is subjected to libel laws. Of course, if a bully makes hurtful and *damaging* statements about a student, he can sue for defamation.
While I do not invoke the Katz filter, I can understand why people do. Katz has a strong analytical ability but his tendency for sensationalism is rivaled only by the tabloids. Here, he is trying to connect two very different and independent issues in an attempt to make a grandiose statement about how society unfairly treats people who don't fit in--again. Try again, Jon; if you cast often enough, you may catch something.
Hrmmm, so you are saying that if the officials were investigated and found to be drunken incompitants then you would have a problem with it? If what he says is true then it isn't libel. Also, this webpage is only his side of the conflict, before he did this he and his friends were attacked by a school sponsored news paper and a school sponsored website.
Learned in one of my business law classes last semester that you can go through and take any steps you want toward murdering someone, and as long as you don't actually attempt it, you're perfectly safe. You could go through and mail your good old dad your 300 page murder plan and still not have broken any laws.
Ok, I now fear businesses. For a PRIVATE CITIZEN what you just described is called CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER and is illegal as hell. People are routinely arrested for such things after they are caught planning to rob a bank, kill someone, etc...
So you might want to go find your business law professor and check his degree, he might have gotten it from one of those mexican correspondance courses.>:)
I don't agree with him being bugged in school, and there's a lot of cases where nothing is done about that, but responding by posting a web site like this is not the way to deal with it.
Rant Mode: On
So what is the way to deal with it??? The kid did NOT resort to violence. He couldn't go to the authorities, they were part of the problem. Remember, one of the incidents he was responding to was an attack on one of his friends by the school newspaper. So should he have walked into his school with a machine gun and a backpack full of bombs? No. He vented on the web. What's wrong with that? Are we going to take away all mechanisms for dealing with stress that people have and let them explode and commit suicide or mass homicide? I'm tired of people saying 'That's not the way to handle it' and not offering a better way. So either put up or shut the fuck up and get the fuck out. We don't need people pretending they are all holy and don't get angry and rant at people that piss them off. The kid didn't kill anyone, he relieved his stress and made his point. I think he did the RIGHT thing by defending his friends. He also complimented some of the teachers he thought deserved it, AND he claims he can prove all of his accusations. If he can do that then it's not Libel.
Calling someone a slut vocally is slander, calling them that online is libel.
Seems to me libel has always been more capable of taking legal action against that slander.
Our rights online may be being taken away left and right, but this seems a pretty clear cut case to me. The fact that online libelous writing hasn't been taken up in courts before this has no bearing on it.
It's not libel if it's true. Also, he and his friends were libeled first. The school news papers gossip column and a school run website. His retaliation might have been a bit harsh, but it was justified and in a similar manner to the abuse he recieved.
His father told reporters his son was fighting back against hostile peers. "For him, it was just a tit-for-tat thing. Everything he has done up to this point was in retaliation for what other kids did, stuff that was just as vulgar and just as hurtful. For me, the question isn't whether [my son] is going to be held accountable. It's whether the others are going to be held to the same standard."
Not likely. In 21st Century America, harassment and cruelty are fine as long as you don't do it on a computer.
He was retaliating against web-based libel by a school run website, AND by the school newspaper against one of his friends. If the students responsible for that are not held to exactly the same standards then I, myself, despite the consequences will fly to Utah, walk into that school, and well... Leave the rest to the imaginations of the people involved. I'm tired of these fucking double standards, the school officials can harass students, punish them for nothing, anything they want without retribution. And if a student says 'Teacher suchandsuch is a fucking moron.' instant suspension. And apparently if you say it on a website you get arrested. Well I'm fucking tired of it. I talk about it all the time, I lived through it in school, I watched my little brother live through it and I watched a few people not quite make it out. I'm done talking, I'm going to start doing something about it. *Goes looking for the phone # of the local school board*
Please... GET IT THRU YOUR THICK SKULL! 90% of windows APIs are freely avalible on msdn.microsoft.com.... the source that implements those APIs is not freely avalible. Contrary to what most penguin dicks lead you to believe, you don't need the source code to the implementation of those APIs to write windows apps. Sheesh!
What does being able to write the app have to do with being able to write a STABLE app? How do we know that the API's are fully documented? Are there things in them that MSFT uses that they haven't told the rest of us about? How would opening the APIs hurt MSFT? All it would do is benefit everyone else. How can that possibly be bad?
If you read the document, you'll see that they're not charging for access to the API's, they're requesting the right to charge for access to the SOURCE CODE of the API's, and demanding reciprocity. You-can-see-my-source-if-I-can-see-yours. Elsewhere in the document stringent conditions were laid down regarding how source code access would be handled.
No, they are saying "You can see my source if I can see your source and an as yet undisclosed amount of money for the privelage." Then entire industry would be benefitted by MSFT playing nice with everyone and opening their APIs, just as it would be benefitted by every other company that has closed APIs opening them up. Maybe the next version of Windows would actually be stable of some of the people programming the Apps for them knew WTF they were programming for a little better.... Of course, even MSFTs own programmers couldn't make that happen... so I dunno...
Those in the know all say that it would take an awful long time, though.
Hah! Drop a bucket of Kudzu on the surface of mars, waite 3 weeks, instant terraforming! Everyone knows Kudzu will live anywhere, in anything, and obscenely fast. Of course, it's impossible to get rid of after it finishes terraforming the place.... Hrmm....
Interestingly, Israeli officers were at one time renowned for their battle-cry: "Aharai". It means "After me" and describes how they would lead a charge. I don't know if it's still applicable. Also interesting--Israel has had many military leaders who have become political leaders, such as Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin--and these people will frequently have been in danger of dying in combat themselves. Doubtless there are other countries where this happens as well. I don't know that you get a perceptible benefit out of it (though I prefer the Baraks and Rabins of this world to the Netanyahus)
And how often do you see the israeli's as the agressors in international conflicts? Not very often. So in theory if your leaders have actually had to risk their lives fighting they will be less likely to send others to do the same unless the cause actually has meaning. But that's only in theory....
The French had the English massively outnumbered and out provisioned and still managed to get spanked twice on their own turf. Is fighting a battle when your enemy has 3 times your number cowardice, or is it only cowardice when you use a tech and tactical edge to win decisively?
And despite this down the road a bit further in the amercian revolution the English lined up in little rows, wearing bright red, and marched through the woods while being shot at from hiding. Tradition is not the way to win wars people. Innovation, surprise, and if possible overwhelming force win wars.
Sure, that's their strategy. But people didn't buy Dreamcasts, so they could get PS2s; I doubt those people are going to wait again for the X box!
And then there are the REAL gamers who have a Dreamcast, a Playstation, an N64, a Super Nintendo, a Regular Nintendo, a Game boy, and will have a PSX2, a Dolphin, and an X-Box.
I mean, come on, why buy just one when you can buy all 3?
I can understand being morally uncomfortable about risklessly killing people at a distance. I would guess this is a remnant from the times when personal man-to-man battles were the only honorable form of combat. But, really, arguing that you MUST pay in blood to achieve military goals...
I think we should go back to 1v1 combat. If someone wants to invade another country then the leaders go at it with swords. Maybe if there were more of a risk of the nation's rulers being killed they wouldn't be so eager to send their citizens into battle.
Negative Income Tax. ( devised by Nobel exonimist Milton Friedman ) if you made less then the established minimum income, you would get a check from the IRS, for bring them up to that standard. or read the idea of Ezra Pound, Robert Theobald, etc.... there is lots we can do to comisate, those who's jobs the internet has made opsoleite.
Hmm, would this be paid out weekly? Monthly? Yearly? Who pays for the infrastructure needed to take care of it? What happens if it's paid out yearly and 3 months into the year an artist finds out they just aren't going to be able to afford food AND art/music/sculpting/whatever supplies.
Not to mention, what if I spend 12 months sleeping on my couch, do I still get paid by the IRS?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, isn't this surprising. I greatly enjoyed Titan A.E.. I think it's probably the best animated movie I've seen since Mulan. The character development was a bit loose, and the movie could have benefitted from being about 45 minutes longer with that time spent developing the characters a bit more. I think this would do very well as a series on Cartoon Networks afternoon Anime section. I liked the way the story moved, it wasn't anything revolutionary or earth shattering, but it was fun. Lots of things exploded, the melding of the traditional animation and the CGI stuff was excellent. The movie was VERY pretty, and well, it had my favorite character in any animated movie ever, That little turtle guy.
I cracked up at almost everything he said, and I loved it when he yelled 'Who's your daddy?!' while blowing up dredge ships. Very fun.
I thought the movie was pretty damn good personally.
Kintanon
As for pre-'82 REM fans... uh, their first album (EP really) was released in August of '82 so any fans before then were probably all Athens locals. I have yet to look for the Alan Parsons Project (wasn't that some sort of hovercraft?) and wouldn't know what to look for anyway, so I can't comment on that.
Unfortunately I was only 2 years old in 1982, but I have had the privelage of listening to a CD of some of REMs stuff they played on campus in 79 and 80 that was absolutely excellent. I've yet to actually get a copy of it though... It's hard to find. But there are plenty of people in the Athens area (I'm from there) that have old old REM stuff recorded from club and campus shows before their album came out. I'm actually kind of surprised none of it is on napster considering how prevelant it was on at UGA.
Kintanon
Well, unfortunately there's not a lot of money or glamour in artificial limbs. Now, if more people were losing limbs and had to pay for replacements, I'm sure that a lot more R&D would get done. How many of you guys out there have the slightest interest in developing better appendages for invalids? Thought not.
Screw the invalids! I want some for myself, now!
The sooner the better, replace my crappy organic body with something more durable!
Kintanon
Are the gains to science from this really so large as to justify the cutting up of a living animal? I don't really find anything "laudably perverse" in taking a knife to the living tissue of another creature. You might say I'm over-reacting, and that it's "only" a lamprey. But there's something about this story that doesn't make me want to trust these people. "Laudably perverse", as a judgement on the death of a creature doesn't suggest much respect for life, does it? Children who torture flies grow up to torture dogs, and later, people. How long will it be before these people decide that for their research they need a cat? a monkey? a baby? I just don't want to trust them unless they are strictly regulated, and unless they are subject ot democratic control including the power for elected representatives to close down all research in this field forever
Oh go on then, flame away. But there are millions of us "trolls" who care about animal cruelty, and if you want to maintain a freindly climate toward scientists, you'll need to respect us.
Well, guess what, I don't really care if they do try it out on humans. Once they get it working reliably on a Lamprey they SHOULD move up to something more complex, ideally they should replicate the natural body of the creature as best as possible. And once they've figured it out to a sufficiently advanced level they can try it on me. I've always wanted an Immortal Robot Body to hang out in....
Animal Cruelty takes a back seat to pretty much everything in my mind. If it serves a purpose then go for it. Animal cruelty for personal amusement I disapprove of. This isn't a flame, it's a different point of view, and you aren't a troll, you just happen to have a view that is counter to a lot of other slashdotters.
Kintanon
The most prominent logo in my cubicle is the
little grey 'Dell' at the bottom of my monitor.
My clothes and shoes are all logoless. The only
things with identifying Logos are my Printer, Monitor, and the box of Jax cartridgeson my desk.
Oh well...
Guess I'm not getting my daily recommended amount of marketing, who should I call to step up my advertising dosage?
Kintanon
I've read everything that is available to the public concerning the case that I can get without actually flying to Utah.
Kintanon
Or at least if he does put up a website, just don't call people names, say they're drunks, sluts etc. It would be more constructive to his cause if he wrote it explaining his situation saying what's been said of him, and by who. Calling someone back and saying they're a drunk or a slut won't help your cause, and like in this case can come back to bite you.
But if it's TRUE then that might actually be the poroblem. He hasn't done anything worthy of having his comp confiscated, or any kind of legal action beyond a lawsuit. And then, if he's found to be in violation of something during the suit they have grounds to punish him in some way. But simply making accusations against government officials is NOT punishable by incarceration in this country.
Kintanon
Do you believe that any of your suggestions would NOT be a major pain in the ass for the administration?
This is exactly the sort of activism I'm planning.
What did you think I meant? Blowing up their cars?
Yeesh...
I'm going to organize student protests over unfair treatment. Try to get funding re-allocated from sports to academics. Try to get some of the more incompetent teachers fired. All manner of annoying things like that.
I'm not going to shoot anyone.>:)
Kintanon
Well fuck you too budy. That's not what I recommend, there's lot that I would recommend but it seems your pent up anger prevents you from even having a civil discussion with someone you don't even know on slashdot. So calm down and when you can talk without every second sentence telling me to fuck myself we can discuss it.
heh, that was too easy...
Did you just respond to abuse with abuse?! Gad! You hypocrite!
My pent up anger is fairly easily controlled by years of Martial Arts. I can choose to unleash it (Which is why I can break 2" pressure treated hardwood with my kicks) or I can keep it reigned in, which is why I haven't killed anyone.
BUT, It's been many many years since I sat still and endured abuse from anyone. I don't put up with it anymore. And I don't think anyone else should either. It's not this guys fault he got harassed. We should be finding out why he was this pissed off and punished the people responsible before they push the kid over the edge.
Not everyone can find a way to control their anger and focus it. This kid opened fire with a website, not a machine gun. I think should be encouraged.
Kintanon
Perhaps what they did was not illegal... Are you aware of all the facts in the case?
Why are any of us sitting in judgement of this kid, or the school, when, quite frankly, 99% of us probably do not have all the facts?
Hrmmm, so claiming that one of his friends is ummm, promiscuous, in the school newspaper is OK.
But him saying it about other girls in school on a website is an Arrestable offence?
Kintanon
Ranting on the web is hardly the only way of dealing with stress. There's so much more to do, workout, play a game, ride your bike, etc. You don't have to get even to relieve stress. If his friend was attacked in the newspaper write a followup article to it. In our university paper friends of mine were involved in a similar situation (probably liberlous as well) and simply wrote back replies which were published.
So you recommend taking the abuse quietly, dealing with it in some quiet, non intrusive manner, and allowing people to keep piling shit on you while you deal with it all nice and neatly by some mechanism which doesn't inconvenience anyone.
Well, Fuck you.
I say fight back. If you can kill the mother fuckers then at least expose then for the shit eating bastards they are. I still have a lot of rage pent up inside me at high school officials and students because of the abuse I recieved. I'm a martial artist, I work out a lot, I play quake, I relieve stress with all of these. But it doesn't always work. Especially when something like this comes up. All of the rage I have inside of me starts to bubble to the surface because it's still there. I can never get rid of it because I didn't have any effective way of preventing the abuse I was recieving. Sitting quietly and taking their shit is NOT AN EFFECTIVE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM. And I'm getting tired of sanctimonious bastards that claim it is. You might be content to get the shit kicked out of you every other day, endure verbal abuse, and psychological abuse while quietly dealing with it but some of us are NOT. We want it to STOP and we WILL stop it. I'm 20, I eventually plan on ending up back near my old high school where I will become a serious pain in the ass for the administration there. I don't like to see kids get crapped all over and have no recourse but to sit and take it.
If someone pulled that kind of crap at work I'd have them fired. But in school there's nothing he can do. The administration doesn't help people like him, they want him to conform and shut up.
So don't get all holier than thou and tell us to sit quietly and take it. Get your sorry ass out there and try to put a stop to it. Because if it goes on long enough more people are gonna start seeing columbine as a viable solution to their problems.
Kintanon
Once again... Doing something illegal (assuming that's what it was) in response to something illegal, does not make either action legal.
If his action was illegal then why have the students/faculty responsible for the newspaper and website not been arrested as well? I don't see anyone holding them responsible for their actions.
Kintanon
Not quite. Posting a web site is akin to publishing a document. Not only are you humiliating your targets but you are unfairly criticizing them in the presence of others who might heed your criticism. Sure, confiscating the kid's computer is a bit harsh, but we cannot ignore the damage that could have resulted if the school board believed the student's claims and investigated the employees who he called "drunk" or "incompetant."
Libel is libel, plain and simple. Your claim that it is simply high-tech bullying is misguided. Bullying is a very personal action (believe me, I've been subjected to it, too), while publishing a web page constitutes using a public medium. As a result, it is subjected to libel laws. Of course, if a bully makes hurtful and *damaging* statements about a student, he can sue for defamation.
While I do not invoke the Katz filter, I can understand why people do. Katz has a strong analytical ability but his tendency for sensationalism is rivaled only by the tabloids. Here, he is trying to connect two very different and independent issues in an attempt to make a grandiose statement about how society unfairly treats people who don't fit in--again. Try again, Jon; if you cast often enough, you may catch something.
Hrmmm, so you are saying that if the officials were investigated and found to be drunken incompitants then you would have a problem with it? If what he says is true then it isn't libel.
Also, this webpage is only his side of the conflict, before he did this he and his friends were attacked by a school sponsored news paper and a school sponsored website.
Kintanon
Learned in one of my business law classes last semester that you can go through and take any steps you want toward murdering someone, and as long as you don't actually attempt it, you're perfectly safe. You could go through and mail your good old dad your 300 page murder plan and still not have broken any laws.
Ok, I now fear businesses.
For a PRIVATE CITIZEN what you just described is called CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER and is illegal as hell.
People are routinely arrested for such things after they are caught planning to rob a bank, kill someone, etc...
So you might want to go find your business law professor and check his degree, he might have gotten it from one of those mexican correspondance courses.>:)
Kintanon
I don't agree with him being bugged in school, and there's a lot of cases where nothing is done about that, but responding by posting a web site like this is not the way to deal with it.
Rant Mode: On
So what is the way to deal with it???
The kid did NOT resort to violence. He couldn't go to the authorities, they were part of the problem. Remember, one of the incidents he was responding to was an attack on one of his friends by the school newspaper. So should he have walked into his school with a machine gun and a backpack full of bombs?
No.
He vented on the web. What's wrong with that? Are we going to take away all mechanisms for dealing with stress that people have and let them explode and commit suicide or mass homicide?
I'm tired of people saying 'That's not the way to handle it' and not offering a better way.
So either put up or shut the fuck up and get the fuck out. We don't need people pretending they are all holy and don't get angry and rant at people that piss them off.
The kid didn't kill anyone, he relieved his stress and made his point. I think he did the RIGHT thing by defending his friends.
He also complimented some of the teachers he thought deserved it, AND he claims he can prove all of his accusations. If he can do that then it's not Libel.
Rant Mode: Off
Kintanon
Calling someone a slut vocally is slander, calling them that online is libel.
Seems to me libel has always been more capable of taking legal action against that slander.
Our rights online may be being taken away left and right, but this seems a pretty clear cut case to me. The fact that online libelous writing hasn't been taken up in courts before this has no bearing on it.
It's not libel if it's true.
Also, he and his friends were libeled first. The school news papers gossip column and a school run website. His retaliation might have been a bit harsh, but it was justified and in a similar manner to the abuse he recieved.
Kintanon
His father told reporters his son was fighting back against hostile peers. "For him, it was just a tit-for-tat thing. Everything he has done up to this point was in retaliation for what other kids did, stuff that was just as vulgar and just as hurtful. For me, the question isn't whether [my son] is going to be held accountable. It's whether the others are going to be held to the same standard."
Not likely. In 21st Century America, harassment and cruelty are fine as long as you don't do it on a computer.
He was retaliating against web-based libel by a school run website, AND by the school newspaper against one of his friends. If the students responsible for that are not held to exactly the same standards then I, myself, despite the consequences will fly to Utah, walk into that school, and well... Leave the rest to the imaginations of the people involved.
I'm tired of these fucking double standards, the school officials can harass students, punish them for nothing, anything they want without retribution. And if a student says 'Teacher suchandsuch is a fucking moron.' instant suspension. And apparently if you say it on a website you get arrested. Well I'm fucking tired of it. I talk about it all the time, I lived through it in school, I watched my little brother live through it and I watched a few people not quite make it out. I'm done talking, I'm going to start doing something about it.
*Goes looking for the phone # of the local school board*
Kintanon
Please... GET IT THRU YOUR THICK SKULL! 90% of windows APIs are freely avalible on msdn.microsoft.com.... the source that implements those APIs is not freely avalible. Contrary to what most penguin dicks lead you to believe, you don't need the source code to the implementation of those APIs to write windows apps. Sheesh!
What does being able to write the app have to do with being able to write a STABLE app? How do we know that the API's are fully documented? Are there things in them that MSFT uses that they haven't told the rest of us about? How would opening the APIs hurt MSFT? All it would do is benefit everyone else. How can that possibly be bad?
Kintanon
If you read the document, you'll see that they're not charging for access to the API's, they're requesting the right to charge for access to the SOURCE CODE of the API's, and demanding reciprocity. You-can-see-my-source-if-I-can-see-yours. Elsewhere in the document stringent conditions were laid down regarding how source code access would be handled.
No, they are saying "You can see my source if I can see your source and an as yet undisclosed amount of money for the privelage."
Then entire industry would be benefitted by MSFT playing nice with everyone and opening their APIs, just as it would be benefitted by every other company that has closed APIs opening them up. Maybe the next version of Windows would actually be stable of some of the people programming the Apps for them knew WTF they were programming for a little better....
Of course, even MSFTs own programmers couldn't make that happen... so I dunno...
Kintanon
Those in the know all say that it would take an awful long time, though.
Hah! Drop a bucket of Kudzu on the surface of mars, waite 3 weeks, instant terraforming!
Everyone knows Kudzu will live anywhere, in anything, and obscenely fast. Of course, it's impossible to get rid of after it finishes terraforming the place.... Hrmm....
Kintanon
Interestingly, Israeli officers were at one time renowned for their battle-cry: "Aharai". It means "After me" and describes how they would lead a charge. I don't know if it's still applicable. Also interesting--Israel has had many military leaders who have become political leaders, such as Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin--and these people will frequently have been in danger of dying in combat themselves. Doubtless there are other countries where this happens as well. I don't know that you get a perceptible benefit out of it (though I prefer the Baraks and Rabins of this world to the Netanyahus)
And how often do you see the israeli's as the agressors in international conflicts? Not very often. So in theory if your leaders have actually had to risk their lives fighting they will be less likely to send others to do the same unless the cause actually has meaning. But that's only in theory....
Kintanon
The French had the English massively outnumbered and out provisioned and still managed to get spanked twice on their own turf. Is fighting a battle when your enemy has 3 times your number cowardice, or is it only cowardice when you use a tech and tactical edge to win decisively?
And despite this down the road a bit further in the amercian revolution the English lined up in little rows, wearing bright red, and marched through the woods while being shot at from hiding.
Tradition is not the way to win wars people. Innovation, surprise, and if possible overwhelming force win wars.
Kintanon
Sure, that's their strategy. But people didn't buy Dreamcasts, so they
could get PS2s; I doubt those people are going to wait again for the X
box!
And then there are the REAL gamers who have a Dreamcast, a Playstation, an N64, a Super Nintendo, a Regular Nintendo, a Game boy, and will have a PSX2, a Dolphin, and an X-Box.
I mean, come on, why buy just one when you can buy all 3?
Kintanon
I can understand being morally uncomfortable about risklessly killing people at a distance. I would guess this is a remnant from the times when personal man-to-man battles were the only honorable form of combat. But, really, arguing that you MUST pay in blood to achieve military goals...
I think we should go back to 1v1 combat. If someone wants to invade another country then the leaders go at it with swords. Maybe if there were more of a risk of the nation's rulers being killed they wouldn't be so eager to send their citizens into battle.
Kintanon
Negative Income Tax. ( devised by Nobel exonimist Milton Friedman ) if you made less then the established minimum income, you would get a check from the IRS, for bring them up to that standard.
or read the idea of Ezra Pound, Robert Theobald, etc....
there is lots we can do to comisate, those who's jobs the internet has made opsoleite.
Hmm, would this be paid out weekly? Monthly? Yearly? Who pays for the infrastructure needed to take care of it?
What happens if it's paid out yearly and 3 months into the year an artist finds out they just aren't going to be able to afford food AND art/music/sculpting/whatever supplies.
Not to mention, what if I spend 12 months sleeping on my couch, do I still get paid by the IRS?
Kintanon