"Remember a few months back when it was announced that Hillary Rosen was leaving the RIAA to help write intellectual property laws in Iraq? Why is an american media executive writing laws for Iraqis?"
Why? Because she's had prior experience writing them for the US government. You think the government comes up with those draconian IP laws themselves???
Are you saying that the US is a self-appointed global policeman?
Defending our freedom? We are lazy, cowardly? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't America one of the most obese nations in the world today? That's what I'd call lazy.
Cowardice is hiding behind your nuclear arsenal while saying no one else can have one. If as you say the rest of the world is against you, then shouldn't it behove you to at least ask why?
The US killed millions when it dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US is the ONLY country to ever USE nuclear weapons on the battlefield.
And as for restraint! I don't call invading two countries (disclaimer: this number may increase) an act of restraint. If that is restraint, what is the alternative?!
It is NOT America's responsibility to "defend freedom" for the rest of the world. The world is more than capable of doing that in a consensual way, prevented only by continual US vetoes of UN security council resolutions.
You need to pull your arrogant head out of the sand and wake up to WHY the rest of the world has gone from grudging respect to open hatred in two short years.
"Hmmm, this Palladium of ours seems to be garnering a lot of bad press lately. I know, we'll call it NGSCB so no one will know what it really does!!" - Microsoft stooge.
"Man, this Total Information Awareness idea of ours seems to be upsetting those pesky privacy advocates. I know, we'll call it Terrorism Information Awareness, then if the privacy advocates cry foul we can call them unpatriotic and lock them up at Guantanamo." - John Poindexter.
Face it people, when a company/organisation changes the name of something to obfuscate it's true intentions, you know it's a bad thing.
I say play them at their own game. Just call spyware "Clariaware" from now on.
You've swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker if you think the "war" in Iraq or Afghanistan is about self defense.
No, the parent poster is right in that this "war" is over scarcity as well - scarcity of oil and natural gas.
America is systematically arraying its armed forces in all the areas where natural resources occur in large quantities. It's like a huge game of Risk, structured around the resources and the transport routes of those resources to the US.
You think Afghanistan is about stopping "terrorism"? Iraq? Hardly. Why not see where US forces have their presence in Afghanistan. They are guarding the huge trans-national pipeline leading from the Dauletabad Natural Gas Field and the Apsheron Trend Oil Basin in the Caspian Sea. The pipeline through Afghanistan is the most economical way to transport the resources to the sea where it can be loaded on ships and sent to the US. Turkey is another route to the sea, which is why the US continues to court them (and has the huge base at Incirlic). That's but a couple of examples. There are many more if you do some research.
There are other ways to secure the resources for the US too that don't involve war. Sometimes you can have a sympathetic government which will accede to US demands peacefully. Sometimes you can bribe or blackmail them. Sometimes the US manages to install its own sympathetic government. Occasionally though, those governments turn around and go against the wishes of the US strategic interest (ie. oil and gas supply). Then it's time to oust those governments either by force (Iraq) or surreptitiously (like Venezuela, Bolivia etc). More recently, amazingly, some of those governments have found that the common people have had the willpower to prevent this happening (Venezuela, Bolivia again).
Of course this is never openly acknowledged. They couch it in terms that make it sound like those governments are either an "Axis of Evil", or the heads have lost their minds, become unstable etc. Lack of proper media balance makes selling this version of the story easy.
Sure, it's not a perfect world. Saddam was undoubtedly a madman. But the US implicitly kept him in power knowing this because it was in their interest to keep the devil you know, as long as he played your game and didn't go doing stupid things (like openly invading Kuwait).
And yes, terrorists DO exist. But nowhere near as many as the government would like you to believe.
Just remember to look at wars objectively and try to assess what scarcity is behind them. You'll usually find one, be it arable land, food, oil, gas or any other resource needed to keep a population sustained.
I posted last week about running for parliament on a technology based platform. Well, I've set up the first draft of the party website:
http://www.users.on.net/grypen/politics/
Please mirror the site if you can, there's a ZIP file (92K) on site for those who want to download it. You can bitch and moan all you like, or you can DO something about it. I plan to.
I have finished the first draft of my website outlining the plan for building the political party needed to begin the process. Please be gentle with the server, it's the personal space I am allocated by my ISP:
http://www.users.on.net/grypen/politics/
Any and all mirrors are gratefully accepted, please list them under this post.
Not sure who modded this as a troll, I can assure you all this is nothing of the sort. I've already had plenty of replies to my hotmail address, so I've set up a new email address to take the load off my hotmail one. It is:
politics@leeming_NOSPAM_designs com
Please send emails to this address please. I've already had a tentative offer of server support (thanks), but please keep them coming if you feel you can contribute in any way.
Once I get some space that isn't going to melt under a potential Slashdotting, I'll post a proper site full of information on my ideas, plans etc. Stay tuned...
Thanks for your comment and you raise a great point - whilst I am trying to set up a political party that represents our broad interests, I should also acknowledge that if people would rather someone else to get elected, I will stand by that. After all, what I am trying to achieve is the election of someone who will truly understand and represent what I consider to be important issues. If I can do that (and I believe I can obviously or I would not put myself up for it) then well and good, but if along the way someone better comes along - great! Elect that person instead. That is the fundamental way politics is supposed to run.
I'm from NSW so a Victorian candidate would be wonderful. The more people willing to go for it the better.
I am an Australian who is quite frankly sick and tired of the corporate world slowly stomping away all our rights, privileges and national identity in the name of $$$. Look through my older posts for more insight on my views on copyright (short answer - they should be abolished).
I also don't believe in this "War on terrorism" we have enjoined with the United States. I see it as nothing more than a global land grab for US oil and gas interests. Read "Rebuilding America's Defenses" if you don't believe me (http://www.newamericancentury.org/).
Ironically it has taken the "war" to get me interested enough in where we are potentially headed to actually decide that if I can't change those IN power, I better get my voice heard by being in government myself.
So to this end I am interested in hearing from fellow Aussies (and others if you want to make your view known) on whether or not you want to support a future Senate candidate who is a geek at heart, and who plans to have a party based online with forums where everyone can make their voice heard. You've all heard that sending email to politicians is useless; well my view is that email and forums such as this are the BEST way to make issues known to those in politics (well, those that really care, anyway). It will allow me to disseminate my ideas and allow for consensus based policy making.
Anyone who wishes to help by donating a small amount of server space and forum expertise to set up a fledgling party page, please contact me at quizo_NOSPAM_69@hotmail.com and I will get back to you as soon as possible.
As we have learned from Pauline Hanson's screwups, I would need 500 registered party members to make this a legitimate endeavour, in time to run for the 2004 Federal Election. I'm not kidding myself though - as a lone Senator I would not be in much position to formulate national policy and have it succeed constantly, but I would be a tech savvy person who would vote down stupid laws that take away our privacy, and give $$$ to corporations at the expense of the citizenry.
Oh, and instead of a fridge magnet, I'd give everyone a CD with free software such as OpenOffice.org etc, and mandate that government use open standards to deal with the public.
Anyway, if anyone thinks they would like someone in office who is not a politician by nature (I'm a pilot by profession) then drop a comment here or email me (bear in mind Hotmail will die silently after the inbox fills so posting here is preferred!). If there's enough interest I'll begin the process of running for parliament next year.
I don't want to make this post too long so read my other posts for more insight into how I view the world.
Simple. If you want to be released from jail before life +90 years (or whatever stupid length US copyright is now) then you'd damn well better reduce the length of copyright!:)
I recently watched Kill Bill in the theater and much to my dismay, there were several instances of the CAP CODE splashed on the screen in white sections of the film, making them blindingly obvious to everyone.
I asked my wife if she saw any blotches in the movie without being specific to see if it was just me, but she described just the same thing I saw. One instance had a clearly defined open sided square just as O-Ren's aides opened the paper door at the House Of Blue Leaves.
Ostensibly this is to track cam jobs of the movie on the internet. In reality, all it did was annoy me (a PAYING customer) to such a point that I have decided that the next time I see a movie with these CRAP CODES in them, I am going to demand a refund from the theater. I'll point out exactly where the code is so I can prove I saw it. After that it's no more movies at the theater for me.
Screw 'em - if they think they need to ruin paying customers' enjoyment of a movie to supposedly stop cam jobs (which they won't dent one iota), then I will refuse to be legal myself and actively start pirating and encourage others to do likewise. Treat your customers like criminals and they will act like criminals.
Let's use your example of drugs being copied. You state that if everyone could copy them indiscriminately there would be no incentive to make them because there would be no profit. Your statement fails to take account of one glaring fact though - perhaps making life saving drugs is NOT ABOUT PROFIT. It is about saving lives. Therefore you would find that with money taken out of the equation, governments or concerned citizens would still develop these drugs because it is in the national interest to do so. In fact, this is the classic role of government in the first place - provide the essential services required by the community without favouring one group over another.
Now let's look at your comments about communism. TRUE communism is just that; community based government in which all citizens are given equal share of the resources and all citizens contibute back equally. Communism as practiced in China, the USSR etc is NOT communism because it has been perverted to favour a ruling elite above the rest with the GUISE that they are all equal. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." - George Orwell.
The overriding problem is that greed and profit over people is destroying the nature of true capitalism in favour of corporatism. Your remarks show this quite well.
The concept of copyright has been so corrupted as to have lost its original meaning long ago in favour of maintaining the status quo for dinosaur industries based on the artificial scarcity model. We as civilised society need to do away with the notion of copyright entirely in an age where digital information can be shared with little to no cost. Don't worry; artists would still be paid for their work, just in a different manner. Live performances, donations (as in the shareware concept but applied to music) and many other avenues. No, they won't make millions. But then again, why should they? Why should a musician who sings a few songs earn millions, while a doctor or nurse who actually saves lives, or a research scientist, makes but a fraction of that salary yet performs a much more important function in society?
Musicians and the record industry have had their days of being mega-rich. We will look back on this time in the future as an aberration, nothing more. A quaint time when musicians and actors were paid a ridiculous amount of money purely for entertaining people. Civilised society will have moved on to more community based living and the realisation that monetary inequality was largely responsible for the worst problems of the past.
Will the broadcast bit also be part of VCRs or DVD-Rs? I use my TV as a dumb monitor only for my VCR which has the channels tuned and is set up so I can record my TV for later viewing if necessary.
I can't see the technology taking off if Joe Sixpack can't buy his new HDTV VCR and continue to operate as he has done for the last twenty years.
I predict this tech being dead in the water around six months after it is introduced.
After all, if you can verify the barcode visually with the candidate's name on your printout, you can then deposit it into the tally box for later counting by a barcode reader which can be the first official tally. The computer record can be used to verify the barcode count, and any discrepancy can be solved by recounting the barcode/name ballot printout manually, since you can read in human form the candidate's name if necessary.
You know, this may actually be a workable electronic voting scenario, because it doesn't rely on a computer only count that no one can see, yet it makes the act of voting easy to actually do and doesn't require huge ballot sheets.
The answer to getting rid of these machines is to hack them in a massive way, putting in completely bogus candidates and making them win by a landslide. Mickey Mouse wins a state. Natalie Portman becomes a real life senator.
Do this on election day using Wireless hacks, from laptops or whatever else is needed. Make the election so completely screwed that the government is forced to drop electronic voting completely.
Why Americans can't follow the Australian way by simply marking a paper sheet with the numbers 1 thru 7 or putting a X in the candidate square you like, is beyond me. It's simple, easy to tally, and can be recounted ad nauseum if required with no allegations of vote tampering destroying the trust process of the election.
If you aren't intelligent enough to do that you shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Go to www.proxomitron.info, grab The Proxomitron, install, add JD5000's filter set (www.jd5000.net), and browse any site regardless of their IE only status. As a bonus, say goodbye to ads, popups, and a host of other internet annoyances forever (including Slashdot ads etc).
All free, and it works with any browser (in Windows, anyway).
Don't know of an equivalent in Linux but it would be great to be able to use the same filters if someone were to create a Linux version of Proxomitron...
I currently use my old copy of Paint Shop Pro 5, since it does everything I need in a graphics editor.
I tried GIMP for Windows since I am trying to move everything on my machine to free/open source software.
It lasted about 5 minutes before I uninstalled it. Why? Because the GUI sucked, quite frankly.
The problem with lots of these types of projects is that they are full of good intentions, and coders, but along the way they seem to forget about the GUI, the single "feature" that will make or break their product to the average user.
Now don't get me wrong - there are some excellent free/open source GUI products out there. I use OpenOffice.org exclusively and it's great (it could stand to use system fonts by default on installation on a Windows machine though). Mozilla Firebird is another great GUI.
What coders need to recognise is that to have a product that "just works" you need a lot of forethought put into the GUI before you start coding. GUI elements need to replicate default system behaviour expectations. If you code for a Windows version, use right mouse context menus. Use system fonts. Use the window model (unlike GIMP's multi-splat method!!). If you code for Linux, use hooks to allow the program to behave as the rest of the desktop does, KDE or Gnome or whichever other flavour you prefer.
Don't nest tabs. Don't saturate users with a thousand options they need to change. Don't use the registry. Allow the user to provide a custom data directory which can be stored on another drive to facilitate easy backup. Allow user settings to be exported and imported easily. Follow the KISS principle when it comes to designing your program's GUI.
Projects need to take on people who CAN'T code! You need people who are essentially clueless to coding but savvy in GUI design. Pick up a designer or two, but DON'T allow them to design gaudy non-standard buttons (see ANY recent Taiwan based interface like BIOS update programs etc!).
Keep to established standards. Keep it simple. Keep it intuitive. Then you will have programs you can show off. Until that happens you will forever remain a bit player when you could have so much more.
I tired the Extensions as well but found them to be ill designed and too confusing. Instead, I use the Tabbrowser Prefences extension that gives you only a couple of options but basically lets you choose to open all in a new tab and a couple of other minor options. Works great with Firebird 0.7.
CNN, Fox etc have no desire to make this story anything other than a "Chinese aiming to take the war into space therefore we must develop Star Wars and increase defence spending to counter the new threat." Watch for lots of militaristic quotes by Chinese "officials" in your news stories in relation to this event.
The US press is, by and large, simply a mouthpiece for US propaganda as much as it is "real" news. To have them laugh at the Chinese for their space program is rather ironic given the recent spate of US space failures. Remember also that Cape Canaveral was designed so that the viewing gallery was lined up with the launch pad and sunset, to generate more evocative photos. I love good space PR photos as much as the next guy, but to have CNN badmouth the Chinese for their PR is simply a disgusting display of just how screwed up the "free" US is today.
Americans, the most important lesson I can impress upon you is this: Take everything your media tells you with a large helping of salt, and do your best to find out the real story behind the "story". If you view everything by asking "What is the real purpose of this story?" and trying to work out who has the most to gain by giving you the story in the context you see it in, then you will be one step closer to being able to figure out the world around you without being blinded by your own country's propaganda (and don't kid yourself, it IS propaganda).
To the Chinese I say well done and congratulations on your achievement. May we work together in space as a united species forever, free from earthly politics and prejudices, to go further and faster than we ever have before, for the greater good of mankind.
The written purpose for Americans being allowed to have arms is so that they may rise up and unseat a tyrannical government. This includes unseating Bush by force if that were the will of the people.
The laws that make it a felony to even threaten to do this, should be illegal in themselves, as they counteract the legality of the right of the people to unseat their own government.
You state that this may have proceeded if the circumvention had been tougher to implement than holding down the "Shift" key.
My question is this - if they decide not to sue because it's too obvious how to cirumvent a "protection", then where does a judge in a later case that DOES make it to court, draw the line on what is obvious and non-obvious?
Could this retraction of the threat of a suit later be pointed to as the plaintiffs picking and choosing whom to sue based on the likelihood of success? After all, one could point to this incident as an example of the industry not enforcing the DMCA when they by rights should have (the law's interpretation), and then use that as a basis for dismissing a future suit they try to file on some other poor ($$$ wise) sucker who can't afford to fight their suit.
Finally, I'd like to see the student take SunnComm to court for slander and claim damages. It should be illegal to threaten a lawsuit without proceeding. Same goes for the RIAA - it should be illegal to threaten 12 year olds with lawsuits, then decide after much negative PR that they wouldn't in fact sue.
Thankyou for a very insightful comment. I'd mod you up but you are already at +5.
Society as a whole needs to recognise the folly of individual greed in an age where nearly anything is possible. Greed of the individual leads to just the sort of symptoms you describe - we have technology which could be made easily available to all, for nothing more than the labour it takes to build it, yet because individuals want to horde the riches for the technology, we only distribute it to those who can cough up the cash.
Another example is medicine - we have the technology to cure and help prevent many diseases such as AIDS etc, yet a few individuals would rather horde the loot for themselves than do the right thing and help their fellow man. "But it costs millions of dollars in development costs" you hear them say. "We need to recoup our investment" they shrill, laughing all the way to the bank as they pocket their stock dividends, oblivious to the millions they should really be paying attention to - the human beings who could be saved by the technology they invent.
It is this type of individual "I'm better than you" mentality that causes greed, war, corruption and the continued division between the rich and poor nations of the world. American greed for the world's oil and gas reserves leads them to annex half the world (the half with oil and gas of course). Pharmaceuticals' greed for money prevents millions of human beings from being saved even though we know how to save them and could easily do so.
Even the very ingrained concept of national borders continues to keep some wealthy at the human cost of keeping the rest poor. After all, you wouldn't be able to be "wealthy" if everyone was on a similar footing to you, would you? And there is the problem - our competitive nature ensures that we continue to backstab each other to the top in some orgy of self-destruction which helps only the few and hinders many more.
We now have the technology to prevent this, and the education to recognise our shortcomings, yet we do nothing. What does that say for our "superior" species?
You know what, you are right. Here's how it works if one party keeps an open line:
If the CALLER hangs up, it stays hung up.
If the RECEIVER hangs up, he or she can pick up again and still remain connected to the existing call.
Bugger!
Oh well, on to Plan B - firing off the air horn into the phone mic. Perhaps some high intensity feedback will force them to abandon their chosen career as a professional annoyer....:)
Slashdot Mirror
"Remember a few months back when it was announced that Hillary Rosen was leaving the RIAA to help write intellectual property laws in Iraq? Why is an american media executive writing laws for Iraqis?"
Why? Because she's had prior experience writing them for the US government. You think the government comes up with those draconian IP laws themselves???
Quizo69
Are you saying that the US is a self-appointed global policeman?
Defending our freedom? We are lazy, cowardly? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't America one of the most obese nations in the world today? That's what I'd call lazy.
Cowardice is hiding behind your nuclear arsenal while saying no one else can have one. If as you say the rest of the world is against you, then shouldn't it behove you to at least ask why?
The US killed millions when it dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US is the ONLY country to ever USE nuclear weapons on the battlefield.
And as for restraint! I don't call invading two countries (disclaimer: this number may increase) an act of restraint. If that is restraint, what is the alternative?!
It is NOT America's responsibility to "defend freedom" for the rest of the world. The world is more than capable of doing that in a consensual way, prevented only by continual US vetoes of UN security council resolutions.
You need to pull your arrogant head out of the sand and wake up to WHY the rest of the world has gone from grudging respect to open hatred in two short years.
Quizo69
Here's a government link:
o security/volume_10/C3/C3_index.htm
t _review.php
i on-awareness/
http://www.darpa.mil/body/tia/tia_report_page.htm
And here's some others (remove the Slashdot spaces):
http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/researchpub/publihouse/inf
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/20030523_tia_repor
http://havenworks.com/military/tia-total-informat
Quizo69
"Hmmm, this Palladium of ours seems to be garnering a lot of bad press lately. I know, we'll call it NGSCB so no one will know what it really does!!" - Microsoft stooge.
"Man, this Total Information Awareness idea of ours seems to be upsetting those pesky privacy advocates. I know, we'll call it Terrorism Information Awareness, then if the privacy advocates cry foul we can call them unpatriotic and lock them up at Guantanamo." - John Poindexter.
Face it people, when a company/organisation changes the name of something to obfuscate it's true intentions, you know it's a bad thing.
I say play them at their own game. Just call spyware "Clariaware" from now on.
Quizo69
You've swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker if you think the "war" in Iraq or Afghanistan is about self defense.
No, the parent poster is right in that this "war" is over scarcity as well - scarcity of oil and natural gas.
America is systematically arraying its armed forces in all the areas where natural resources occur in large quantities. It's like a huge game of Risk, structured around the resources and the transport routes of those resources to the US.
You think Afghanistan is about stopping "terrorism"? Iraq? Hardly. Why not see where US forces have their presence in Afghanistan. They are guarding the huge trans-national pipeline leading from the Dauletabad Natural Gas Field and the Apsheron Trend Oil Basin in the Caspian Sea. The pipeline through Afghanistan is the most economical way to transport the resources to the sea where it can be loaded on ships and sent to the US. Turkey is another route to the sea, which is why the US continues to court them (and has the huge base at Incirlic). That's but a couple of examples. There are many more if you do some research.
There are other ways to secure the resources for the US too that don't involve war. Sometimes you can have a sympathetic government which will accede to US demands peacefully. Sometimes you can bribe or blackmail them. Sometimes the US manages to install its own sympathetic government. Occasionally though, those governments turn around and go against the wishes of the US strategic interest (ie. oil and gas supply). Then it's time to oust those governments either by force (Iraq) or surreptitiously (like Venezuela, Bolivia etc). More recently, amazingly, some of those governments have found that the common people have had the willpower to prevent this happening (Venezuela, Bolivia again).
Of course this is never openly acknowledged. They couch it in terms that make it sound like those governments are either an "Axis of Evil", or the heads have lost their minds, become unstable etc. Lack of proper media balance makes selling this version of the story easy.
Sure, it's not a perfect world. Saddam was undoubtedly a madman. But the US implicitly kept him in power knowing this because it was in their interest to keep the devil you know, as long as he played your game and didn't go doing stupid things (like openly invading Kuwait).
And yes, terrorists DO exist. But nowhere near as many as the government would like you to believe.
Just remember to look at wars objectively and try to assess what scarcity is behind them. You'll usually find one, be it arable land, food, oil, gas or any other resource needed to keep a population sustained.
Quizo69
I posted last week about running for parliament on a technology based platform. Well, I've set up the first draft of the party website:
http://www.users.on.net/grypen/politics/
Please mirror the site if you can, there's a ZIP file (92K) on site for those who want to download it. You can bitch and moan all you like, or you can DO something about it. I plan to.
Quizo69
I have finished the first draft of my website outlining the plan for building the political party needed to begin the process. Please be gentle with the server, it's the personal space I am allocated by my ISP:
http://www.users.on.net/grypen/politics/
Any and all mirrors are gratefully accepted, please list them under this post.
Quizo69
Not sure who modded this as a troll, I can assure you all this is nothing of the sort. I've already had plenty of replies to my hotmail address, so I've set up a new email address to take the load off my hotmail one. It is:
politics@leeming_NOSPAM_designs com
Please send emails to this address please. I've already had a tentative offer of server support (thanks), but please keep them coming if you feel you can contribute in any way.
Once I get some space that isn't going to melt under a potential Slashdotting, I'll post a proper site full of information on my ideas, plans etc. Stay tuned...
Quizo69
Thanks for your comment and you raise a great point - whilst I am trying to set up a political party that represents our broad interests, I should also acknowledge that if people would rather someone else to get elected, I will stand by that. After all, what I am trying to achieve is the election of someone who will truly understand and represent what I consider to be important issues. If I can do that (and I believe I can obviously or I would not put myself up for it) then well and good, but if along the way someone better comes along - great! Elect that person instead. That is the fundamental way politics is supposed to run.
I'm from NSW so a Victorian candidate would be wonderful. The more people willing to go for it the better.
I'll post more as I start to coalesce the plan.
Regards,
Quizo69
I've had a few replies already, so bear with me as I try top respond to them all.
:)
The reason I have asked for server space is so that I can give you my views on the other major issues. Rest assured I have them
One of the issues I intend to cover is just what you say - the inability of the smaller parties to have any effect in parliament.
Thanks for the comments, and watch this space.
Quizo69
I am an Australian who is quite frankly sick and tired of the corporate world slowly stomping away all our rights, privileges and national identity in the name of $$$. Look through my older posts for more insight on my views on copyright (short answer - they should be abolished).
I also don't believe in this "War on terrorism" we have enjoined with the United States. I see it as nothing more than a global land grab for US oil and gas interests. Read "Rebuilding America's Defenses" if you don't believe me (http://www.newamericancentury.org/).
Ironically it has taken the "war" to get me interested enough in where we are potentially headed to actually decide that if I can't change those IN power, I better get my voice heard by being in government myself.
So to this end I am interested in hearing from fellow Aussies (and others if you want to make your view known) on whether or not you want to support a future Senate candidate who is a geek at heart, and who plans to have a party based online with forums where everyone can make their voice heard. You've all heard that sending email to politicians is useless; well my view is that email and forums such as this are the BEST way to make issues known to those in politics (well, those that really care, anyway). It will allow me to disseminate my ideas and allow for consensus based policy making.
Anyone who wishes to help by donating a small amount of server space and forum expertise to set up a fledgling party page, please contact me at quizo_NOSPAM_69@hotmail.com and I will get back to you as soon as possible.
As we have learned from Pauline Hanson's screwups, I would need 500 registered party members to make this a legitimate endeavour, in time to run for the 2004 Federal Election. I'm not kidding myself though - as a lone Senator I would not be in much position to formulate national policy and have it succeed constantly, but I would be a tech savvy person who would vote down stupid laws that take away our privacy, and give $$$ to corporations at the expense of the citizenry.
Oh, and instead of a fridge magnet, I'd give everyone a CD with free software such as OpenOffice.org etc, and mandate that government use open standards to deal with the public.
Anyway, if anyone thinks they would like someone in office who is not a politician by nature (I'm a pilot by profession) then drop a comment here or email me (bear in mind Hotmail will die silently after the inbox fills so posting here is preferred!). If there's enough interest I'll begin the process of running for parliament next year.
I don't want to make this post too long so read my other posts for more insight into how I view the world.
Quizo69
Simple. If you want to be released from jail before life +90 years (or whatever stupid length US copyright is now) then you'd damn well better reduce the length of copyright! :)
Quizo69
I recently watched Kill Bill in the theater and much to my dismay, there were several instances of the CAP CODE splashed on the screen in white sections of the film, making them blindingly obvious to everyone.
I asked my wife if she saw any blotches in the movie without being specific to see if it was just me, but she described just the same thing I saw. One instance had a clearly defined open sided square just as O-Ren's aides opened the paper door at the House Of Blue Leaves.
Ostensibly this is to track cam jobs of the movie on the internet. In reality, all it did was annoy me (a PAYING customer) to such a point that I have decided that the next time I see a movie with these CRAP CODES in them, I am going to demand a refund from the theater. I'll point out exactly where the code is so I can prove I saw it. After that it's no more movies at the theater for me.
Screw 'em - if they think they need to ruin paying customers' enjoyment of a movie to supposedly stop cam jobs (which they won't dent one iota), then I will refuse to be legal myself and actively start pirating and encourage others to do likewise. Treat your customers like criminals and they will act like criminals.
Quizo69
Let's use your example of drugs being copied. You state that if everyone could copy them indiscriminately there would be no incentive to make them because there would be no profit. Your statement fails to take account of one glaring fact though - perhaps making life saving drugs is NOT ABOUT PROFIT. It is about saving lives. Therefore you would find that with money taken out of the equation, governments or concerned citizens would still develop these drugs because it is in the national interest to do so. In fact, this is the classic role of government in the first place - provide the essential services required by the community without favouring one group over another.
Now let's look at your comments about communism. TRUE communism is just that; community based government in which all citizens are given equal share of the resources and all citizens contibute back equally. Communism as practiced in China, the USSR etc is NOT communism because it has been perverted to favour a ruling elite above the rest with the GUISE that they are all equal. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." - George Orwell.
The overriding problem is that greed and profit over people is destroying the nature of true capitalism in favour of corporatism. Your remarks show this quite well.
The concept of copyright has been so corrupted as to have lost its original meaning long ago in favour of maintaining the status quo for dinosaur industries based on the artificial scarcity model. We as civilised society need to do away with the notion of copyright entirely in an age where digital information can be shared with little to no cost. Don't worry; artists would still be paid for their work, just in a different manner. Live performances, donations (as in the shareware concept but applied to music) and many other avenues. No, they won't make millions. But then again, why should they? Why should a musician who sings a few songs earn millions, while a doctor or nurse who actually saves lives, or a research scientist, makes but a fraction of that salary yet performs a much more important function in society?
Musicians and the record industry have had their days of being mega-rich. We will look back on this time in the future as an aberration, nothing more. A quaint time when musicians and actors were paid a ridiculous amount of money purely for entertaining people. Civilised society will have moved on to more community based living and the realisation that monetary inequality was largely responsible for the worst problems of the past.
Quizo69
Will the broadcast bit also be part of VCRs or DVD-Rs? I use my TV as a dumb monitor only for my VCR which has the channels tuned and is set up so I can record my TV for later viewing if necessary.
I can't see the technology taking off if Joe Sixpack can't buy his new HDTV VCR and continue to operate as he has done for the last twenty years.
I predict this tech being dead in the water around six months after it is introduced.
I would change the order of the counting to:
1. Barcode
2. Candidate's name
3. Computer record
with the order of weight going:
1. Candidate's name
2. Barcode
3. Computer record
After all, if you can verify the barcode visually with the candidate's name on your printout, you can then deposit it into the tally box for later counting by a barcode reader which can be the first official tally. The computer record can be used to verify the barcode count, and any discrepancy can be solved by recounting the barcode/name ballot printout manually, since you can read in human form the candidate's name if necessary.
You know, this may actually be a workable electronic voting scenario, because it doesn't rely on a computer only count that no one can see, yet it makes the act of voting easy to actually do and doesn't require huge ballot sheets.
Well done.
The answer to getting rid of these machines is to hack them in a massive way, putting in completely bogus candidates and making them win by a landslide. Mickey Mouse wins a state. Natalie Portman becomes a real life senator.
Do this on election day using Wireless hacks, from laptops or whatever else is needed. Make the election so completely screwed that the government is forced to drop electronic voting completely.
Why Americans can't follow the Australian way by simply marking a paper sheet with the numbers 1 thru 7 or putting a X in the candidate square you like, is beyond me. It's simple, easy to tally, and can be recounted ad nauseum if required with no allegations of vote tampering destroying the trust process of the election.
If you aren't intelligent enough to do that you shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Quizo69
Go to www.proxomitron.info, grab The Proxomitron, install, add JD5000's filter set (www.jd5000.net), and browse any site regardless of their IE only status. As a bonus, say goodbye to ads, popups, and a host of other internet annoyances forever (including Slashdot ads etc).
All free, and it works with any browser (in Windows, anyway).
Don't know of an equivalent in Linux but it would be great to be able to use the same filters if someone were to create a Linux version of Proxomitron...
In short, best internet helper program EVER.
Quizo69
I currently use my old copy of Paint Shop Pro 5, since it does everything I need in a graphics editor.
I tried GIMP for Windows since I am trying to move everything on my machine to free/open source software.
It lasted about 5 minutes before I uninstalled it. Why? Because the GUI sucked, quite frankly.
The problem with lots of these types of projects is that they are full of good intentions, and coders, but along the way they seem to forget about the GUI, the single "feature" that will make or break their product to the average user.
Now don't get me wrong - there are some excellent free/open source GUI products out there. I use OpenOffice.org exclusively and it's great (it could stand to use system fonts by default on installation on a Windows machine though). Mozilla Firebird is another great GUI.
What coders need to recognise is that to have a product that "just works" you need a lot of forethought put into the GUI before you start coding. GUI elements need to replicate default system behaviour expectations. If you code for a Windows version, use right mouse context menus. Use system fonts. Use the window model (unlike GIMP's multi-splat method!!). If you code for Linux, use hooks to allow the program to behave as the rest of the desktop does, KDE or Gnome or whichever other flavour you prefer.
Don't nest tabs. Don't saturate users with a thousand options they need to change. Don't use the registry. Allow the user to provide a custom data directory which can be stored on another drive to facilitate easy backup. Allow user settings to be exported and imported easily. Follow the KISS principle when it comes to designing your program's GUI.
Projects need to take on people who CAN'T code! You need people who are essentially clueless to coding but savvy in GUI design. Pick up a designer or two, but DON'T allow them to design gaudy non-standard buttons (see ANY recent Taiwan based interface like BIOS update programs etc!).
Keep to established standards. Keep it simple. Keep it intuitive. Then you will have programs you can show off. Until that happens you will forever remain a bit player when you could have so much more.
I tired the Extensions as well but found them to be ill designed and too confusing. Instead, I use the Tabbrowser Prefences extension that gives you only a couple of options but basically lets you choose to open all in a new tab and a couple of other minor options. Works great with Firebird 0.7.
Here's one of CNN's takes on the Chinese space program:
p ro paganda.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/10/12/china.
CNN, Fox etc have no desire to make this story anything other than a "Chinese aiming to take the war into space therefore we must develop Star Wars and increase defence spending to counter the new threat." Watch for lots of militaristic quotes by Chinese "officials" in your news stories in relation to this event.
The US press is, by and large, simply a mouthpiece for US propaganda as much as it is "real" news. To have them laugh at the Chinese for their space program is rather ironic given the recent spate of US space failures. Remember also that Cape Canaveral was designed so that the viewing gallery was lined up with the launch pad and sunset, to generate more evocative photos. I love good space PR photos as much as the next guy, but to have CNN badmouth the Chinese for their PR is simply a disgusting display of just how screwed up the "free" US is today.
Americans, the most important lesson I can impress upon you is this: Take everything your media tells you with a large helping of salt, and do your best to find out the real story behind the "story". If you view everything by asking "What is the real purpose of this story?" and trying to work out who has the most to gain by giving you the story in the context you see it in, then you will be one step closer to being able to figure out the world around you without being blinded by your own country's propaganda (and don't kid yourself, it IS propaganda).
To the Chinese I say well done and congratulations on your achievement. May we work together in space as a united species forever, free from earthly politics and prejudices, to go further and faster than we ever have before, for the greater good of mankind.
Quizo69
The written purpose for Americans being allowed to have arms is so that they may rise up and unseat a tyrannical government. This includes unseating Bush by force if that were the will of the people.
The laws that make it a felony to even threaten to do this, should be illegal in themselves, as they counteract the legality of the right of the people to unseat their own government.
Quizo69
You state that this may have proceeded if the circumvention had been tougher to implement than holding down the "Shift" key.
My question is this - if they decide not to sue because it's too obvious how to cirumvent a "protection", then where does a judge in a later case that DOES make it to court, draw the line on what is obvious and non-obvious?
Could this retraction of the threat of a suit later be pointed to as the plaintiffs picking and choosing whom to sue based on the likelihood of success? After all, one could point to this incident as an example of the industry not enforcing the DMCA when they by rights should have (the law's interpretation), and then use that as a basis for dismissing a future suit they try to file on some other poor ($$$ wise) sucker who can't afford to fight their suit.
Finally, I'd like to see the student take SunnComm to court for slander and claim damages. It should be illegal to threaten a lawsuit without proceeding. Same goes for the RIAA - it should be illegal to threaten 12 year olds with lawsuits, then decide after much negative PR that they wouldn't in fact sue.
Quizo69
Thankyou for a very insightful comment. I'd mod you up but you are already at +5.
Society as a whole needs to recognise the folly of individual greed in an age where nearly anything is possible. Greed of the individual leads to just the sort of symptoms you describe - we have technology which could be made easily available to all, for nothing more than the labour it takes to build it, yet because individuals want to horde the riches for the technology, we only distribute it to those who can cough up the cash.
Another example is medicine - we have the technology to cure and help prevent many diseases such as AIDS etc, yet a few individuals would rather horde the loot for themselves than do the right thing and help their fellow man. "But it costs millions of dollars in development costs" you hear them say. "We need to recoup our investment" they shrill, laughing all the way to the bank as they pocket their stock dividends, oblivious to the millions they should really be paying attention to - the human beings who could be saved by the technology they invent.
It is this type of individual "I'm better than you" mentality that causes greed, war, corruption and the continued division between the rich and poor nations of the world. American greed for the world's oil and gas reserves leads them to annex half the world (the half with oil and gas of course). Pharmaceuticals' greed for money prevents millions of human beings from being saved even though we know how to save them and could easily do so.
Even the very ingrained concept of national borders continues to keep some wealthy at the human cost of keeping the rest poor. After all, you wouldn't be able to be "wealthy" if everyone was on a similar footing to you, would you? And there is the problem - our competitive nature ensures that we continue to backstab each other to the top in some orgy of self-destruction which helps only the few and hinders many more.
We now have the technology to prevent this, and the education to recognise our shortcomings, yet we do nothing. What does that say for our "superior" species?
Quizo69
You know what, you are right. Here's how it works if one party keeps an open line:
:)
If the CALLER hangs up, it stays hung up.
If the RECEIVER hangs up, he or she can pick up again and still remain connected to the existing call.
Bugger!
Oh well, on to Plan B - firing off the air horn into the phone mic. Perhaps some high intensity feedback will force them to abandon their chosen career as a professional annoyer....