On a mostly unrelated note, I was reading the comic strip Boy on a Stick and Slither... about how people tend to boil things down to black and white issues... I just wanted to say I think both the parent and grandparent posts are right - and all these posts saying "More prisoners should be locked up on an island with moldy bread for food" and "the multi-billion dollar prison industry does more to harm the country than help it" are two ends of a ridiculous extreme.
Can there be a middle ground, where we punish people for their crimes and at the same time respect their rights? Jesus H. Christ, can the guards not be torturers, and the can the prisoners not call them pigs? or is that just too heavy for this planet?
Wow, I'm glad I'm not the only cynical bastard: I count 3 responses so far saying the 1/3 who cheated went on to sucessful careers as lawyers and CEO's. I was about to make the same remark.
But on another equally cynical note - who cares about who is driving a nice car? Since when is money/posessions the measure of success and living the Good Life(TM)?
*looks around my California neighborhood* Oh shit. Nevermind.:)
They arent legally liable for anything. They handed the data over voluntarily, thats it. If they won the case, then they would be legally allowed to hand it over voluntarily in further cases, regardless of the circumstances of the aledged crime commited.
See, that's where I think this case could get interesting - at some point, I imagine that there will be a lawsuit where Comcast will have to fight with the RIAA about "well, you gave us their contact information, why not share your logs about what your users are doing? If you don't let us see those, we'll sue you next for criminal facilitation (or some other BS)"(It's probably the beer post-work and taxes at this point, but) At what point does this become a slippery slope for Comcast?
Uhm, not to rain on the parade right now, but the suit just got filed. No one has won (or lost) yet. So all of this is just speculation...
If we're speculating, and this woman wins her fight against Comcast revealing her information to the RIAA, that means a victory for privacy advocates? Does it mean that Comcast loses, and has to foot her fine to the RIAA? Or does it means the RIAA loses the ability to sue her?
If Comcast wins, what does that mean? Does this mean they are legally liable to know and track ALL of their users, and know what they are doing 24 hours a day 7 days a week? Does that mean they have to start handing over music-swappers to the RIAA, movie-watchers to the MPAA, kiddie-porn people to the FBI, tax-fraudsters to the IRS, etc?
This is a case of purposeful government waste in order to create a market for some companies. Like if I started printing my own paper tax forms, charging $10 for them, then lobbied Congress to stop the IRS from printing tax forms because it was "competing with private industry."
I wish I could mod that up. It summarizes the problems that result from the "fiscal conservatives" attempting to starve the government beast, and some of the problems with the social conservatives who are lying in bed with corporate donors.
Oh, here is the rant I was thinking about: Hey, man, that Clarence Thomas thing, I guess you watched that, eh? Boy, I tell you something, I learned something very important watching the Clarence Thomas hearings, you know what I learned? I don't stand a fucking chance. Don't even call the committee to order. It'd be a real short hearing.
"Uh, Mistuh Hicks, are you familiah at all with a video series called 'Clam Lappers' Volumes One through Ninety?
"All of them? I don't recall."
"Uh-huh. Uh, Mistuh Hicks, are you familiah at all with a man named Manuel, who works at the Show World Adult Video Parlor?"
"Manny!"
"Mista Hicks, dey subpoena me, dey subpoena me!"
Shit. Boy, I tell you, after the Pee-wee Herman thing, and then after the Clarence Thomas hearings, pornography has gotten a really bad name in our country. And I'd like to state, for the record, right now - I love pornography. Love it. I have tapes that are pure fucking art, I'm telling ya. People fucking, sucking, every imaginable position, the finest looking women, fucking, sucking - I love it. For the record.
"Mistuh Hicks, thank you for your testimony. I don't know if we have a place for you right now on the Supreme Court-but, boy, you ever thought about becoming a Senator? C'mere, boy. Bring some of them tapes over here, lookit that-whooah. Bring them over Teddy's house, yeah, look at that there-oooh. She go to that like a duck to water, look at that there. How, how, how."
That is one of my big fears in life, that I'm gonna die, you know, and my parents are gonna come to clean out my apartment, find that porno wing I've been adding onto for years. There'll be two funerals that day. I can see my mom going through my stuff.
"Look, honey, here's Bill when he was a Cub scout. Look at how cute my baby is. His little short pants, his little hat. Look how cute my baby was... I wonder what's in this box over here. 'Rear Entry', Volumes One through Forty?!" Eeeeerrrr, CRASH! The only guy going through the gates of Heaven with his mom spanking him. Spank!
"Mom, they were on sale!" Spank! Spank! "Someone named Manny called." "Oh, shit!" Spank! Spank!
No, the problem is that I've never seen anyone here go to great lengths to rationalize and justify this type of copyright infringement. But when Slashbork posts the *AA-story-of-the-week you can browse at +5 and read the most mind-bending, self-serving "commentary" about why copyright is "evil", the *AA sucks, the artists are getting screwed and "we're sticking it to the man so fire up eMule and let's get it on". To claps and assenting nods from the peanut gallery. Time and time again.
The insightful comments I see in the "Slashbork *AA-story-of-the-week" posts regarding copyright violation seem to revolve around the *AA groups referring to the acts as "theft" or "piracy", and the community saying that "it's copyright infringement, which isn't as bad as theft or piracy." Which doesn't mean that copyright infringement is good, just that it's less bad than the other two, and should be punished in an equitable manner (ie, with fines, acknowledgment of wrongdoing, etc. not the cliched Office Space pound-me-in-the-ass Federal Prison).
I think you're right, but I really wonder how many people are using Metacity independent of Gnome.All the other WM's from the GGP can stand up on their own.
Well, before you break out the actors from your favorite CSI/Law & Order divisions, some researchers notice that suicides tend to cluster together, and are occassionally thought of as "contagious". That is, people who are close (family, friends, and business associates) have an increased risk of suicide when someone near them commits suicide as well.
So unless you have some other information about those suicides that makes them look less coincidental, perhaps you should allow the dead to rest instead of furthering a tin-foil hat craze.:)
So what? She acts, talks and behaves like a real person, which is much more important.
Exactly the point I was trying to make - for some people, despite not looking like a "real person", video game characters (and movie characters) can seem to be just as real.
Slashdot Mirror
On a mostly unrelated note, I was reading the comic strip Boy on a Stick and Slither ... about how people tend to boil things down to black and white issues... I just wanted to say I think both the parent and grandparent posts are right - and all these posts saying "More prisoners should be locked up on an island with moldy bread for food" and "the multi-billion dollar prison industry does more to harm the country than help it" are two ends of a ridiculous extreme.
Can there be a middle ground, where we punish people for their crimes and at the same time respect their rights? Jesus H. Christ, can the guards not be torturers, and the can the prisoners not call them pigs? or is that just too heavy for this planet?
Wow, I'm glad I'm not the only cynical bastard: I count 3 responses so far saying the 1/3 who cheated went on to sucessful careers as lawyers and CEO's. I was about to make the same remark.
:)
But on another equally cynical note - who cares about who is driving a nice car? Since when is money/posessions the measure of success and living the Good Life(TM)?
*looks around my California neighborhood* Oh shit. Nevermind.
They arent legally liable for anything. They handed the data over voluntarily, thats it. If they won the case, then they would be legally allowed to hand it over voluntarily in further cases, regardless of the circumstances of the aledged crime commited.
See, that's where I think this case could get interesting - at some point, I imagine that there will be a lawsuit where Comcast will have to fight with the RIAA about "well, you gave us their contact information, why not share your logs about what your users are doing? If you don't let us see those, we'll sue you next for criminal facilitation (or some other BS)"(It's probably the beer post-work and taxes at this point, but) At what point does this become a slippery slope for Comcast?
Uhm, not to rain on the parade right now, but the suit just got filed. No one has won (or lost) yet. So all of this is just speculation...
If we're speculating, and this woman wins her fight against Comcast revealing her information to the RIAA, that means a victory for privacy advocates? Does it mean that Comcast loses, and has to foot her fine to the RIAA? Or does it means the RIAA loses the ability to sue her?
If Comcast wins, what does that mean? Does this mean they are legally liable to know and track ALL of their users, and know what they are doing 24 hours a day 7 days a week? Does that mean they have to start handing over music-swappers to the RIAA, movie-watchers to the MPAA, kiddie-porn people to the FBI, tax-fraudsters to the IRS, etc?
This is a case of purposeful government waste in order to create a market for some companies. Like if I started printing my own paper tax forms, charging $10 for them, then lobbied Congress to stop the IRS from printing tax forms because it was "competing with private industry."
;)
Shhhh! Quiet fool, you'll give them ideas!
I read it as "Man dree vuh" and thought it sounded like a small Eastern bloc country occupied by the Soviets after World War II.
I can't believe no one has said this yet:
In Soviet Russia, Mandriva renames YOU!
ew, now I feel all... dirty. Blech.
I wish I could mod that up. It summarizes the problems that result from the "fiscal conservatives" attempting to starve the government beast, and some of the problems with the social conservatives who are lying in bed with corporate donors.
Maybe the solution is to take away domain names. No more letters. Instead replace it with phone number type domains.
I suppose what you're looking for already exists
[sarcasm on]
I can see it now:
"So I was reading this article on 66.35.250.150, and it totally reminded be of this quote on 216.154.206.222..."
Yeah, that'd be so much more useful and easy.
[sarcasm off]
Stallman was quick to label the activity a 'cheap stunt'.
...
Emphasis in this case on "cheap"
Oh, here is the rant I was thinking about:
Hey, man, that Clarence Thomas thing, I guess you watched that, eh? Boy, I tell you something, I learned something very important watching the Clarence Thomas hearings, you know what I learned? I don't stand a fucking chance. Don't even call the committee to order. It'd be a real short hearing.
"Uh, Mistuh Hicks, are you familiah at all with a video series called 'Clam Lappers' Volumes One through Ninety?
"All of them? I don't recall."
"Uh-huh. Uh, Mistuh Hicks, are you familiah at all with a man named Manuel, who works at the Show World Adult Video Parlor?"
"Manny!"
"Mista Hicks, dey subpoena me, dey subpoena me!"
Shit. Boy, I tell you, after the Pee-wee Herman thing, and then after the Clarence Thomas hearings, pornography has gotten a really bad name in our country. And I'd like to state, for the record, right now - I love pornography. Love it. I have tapes that are pure fucking art, I'm telling ya. People fucking, sucking, every imaginable position, the finest looking women, fucking, sucking - I love it. For the record.
"Mistuh Hicks, thank you for your testimony. I don't know if we have a place for you right now on the Supreme Court-but, boy, you ever thought about becoming a Senator? C'mere, boy. Bring some of them tapes over here, lookit that-whooah. Bring them over Teddy's house, yeah, look at that there-oooh. She go to that like a duck to water, look at that there. How, how, how."
That is one of my big fears in life, that I'm gonna die, you know, and my parents are gonna come to clean out my apartment, find that porno wing I've been adding onto for years. There'll be two funerals that day. I can see my mom going through my stuff.
"Look, honey, here's Bill when he was a Cub scout. Look at how cute my baby is. His little short pants, his little hat. Look how cute my baby was... I wonder what's in this box over here. 'Rear Entry', Volumes One through Forty?!"
Eeeeerrrr, CRASH! The only guy going through the gates of Heaven with his mom spanking him. Spank!
"Mom, they were on sale!"
Spank! Spank!
"Someone named Manny called."
"Oh, shit!"
Spank! Spank!
Any media set to self destruct after a set date is no use to anyone.
I disagree - Many people wouldn't want their pr0n backups lasting forever for their grieving family to find. (cue Bill Hicks joke...)
No, the problem is that I've never seen anyone here go to great lengths to rationalize and justify this type of copyright infringement. But when Slashbork posts the *AA-story-of-the-week you can browse at +5 and read the most mind-bending, self-serving "commentary" about why copyright is "evil", the *AA sucks, the artists are getting screwed and "we're sticking it to the man so fire up eMule and let's get it on". To claps and assenting nods from the peanut gallery. Time and time again.
The insightful comments I see in the "Slashbork *AA-story-of-the-week" posts regarding copyright violation seem to revolve around the *AA groups referring to the acts as "theft" or "piracy", and the community saying that "it's copyright infringement, which isn't as bad as theft or piracy." Which doesn't mean that copyright infringement is good, just that it's less bad than the other two, and should be punished in an equitable manner (ie, with fines, acknowledgment of wrongdoing, etc. not the cliched Office Space pound-me-in-the-ass Federal Prison).
A better commentary on the crisis is available here, here, and here.
I think you're right, but I really wonder how many people are using Metacity independent of Gnome.All the other WM's from the GGP can stand up on their own.
at least you had the common sense to leave out Gnome and KDE from your rant. :D
Well, before you break out the actors from your favorite CSI/Law & Order divisions, some researchers notice that suicides tend to cluster together, and are occassionally thought of as "contagious". That is, people who are close (family, friends, and business associates) have an increased risk of suicide when someone near them commits suicide as well.
:)
So unless you have some other information about those suicides that makes them look less coincidental, perhaps you should allow the dead to rest instead of furthering a tin-foil hat craze.
And you thought you had problems with auditing out comments with *ahem* language in poor taste...
"you f-ckin' piece of sh-t! Work right or I'm gonna throw you in the d-mn river!"
"syntax error."
Long Live Enterprise (in syndication, just like the other 'Treks.)
I can only hope that the judges are more sane than the persecutors.
;)
I was about to say "You misspelled 'prosecutor'" but then realized that in this case, you're right.
heh. I take it we should seriously boycot W & G then?
I think that Wallace and Grommet should be boycotted by the slashdot community for their negative stereotyping of penguins as evil criminal masterminds!
(you do realize this is a joke, right?)
Heh, I really wanted to include that in the article summary too, but couldn't find anything resembling a changelog off of the front page. Thanks!
Does the First Amendment still apply in this country anymore?
Dude, when your comment is moderated as "Funny" I think it sends a pretty clear answer to your question.
I guess I'm thinking more of RPG's than FPS for video game characters with some "soul" to them. But you've got a point.
So what? She acts, talks and behaves like a real person, which is much more important.
Exactly the point I was trying to make - for some people, despite not looking like a "real person", video game characters (and movie characters) can seem to be just as real.