Has anyone ever considered Jury Nullification to get folks to simply declare the concept of intellectual property and perpetual copyright invalid? If most folks agree (and I don't know if they do or not) that the law is broken, isn't the judge obliged to agree?
Most *implies* > 50%......perhaps we need a slashdot poll to end the contreversy? Do you trust the current administration? Do you trust the Government?
I have a Creative Zen Xtra that I'm looking to replace, but all I can find now are units that are under 6gigs or have oodles of video features that I'll never use. I'm personally more than a little upset that the neuros audio players didn't take off since they had so much potential with the open firmware, 80gb drives, and built-in FM receiver/transmitter.
I bought an eBook a while back. Now in order to unlock it and read it today, I have to use a credit card number that has long since expired and been replaced. I don't have that problem with paper.
Download the Knoppix 4.0 DVD...you can painlessly try OpenOffice.org 2.0 and a host of other apps. I have a machine without a harddrive that is perfectly functional using the DVD and USB thumbdrives.
If someone in the OSS community runs into a technical interoperability problem with Microsoft products, I want to know about it. In many cases, we'll be able to do something to resolve the issue. There may be a solution that already exists. Or the problem could be related to an issue that might need to be addressed by one of our product teams. But at the very least, I'll try my best to help and give you a straight answer.
How about an unencumbered document standard so that I can open Word docs in OpenOffice without losing significant formatting?
I have to reply to this. I just did a SharePoint Portal Server install on a locked down Windows 2003 Server. The installation failed repeatedly. I called Microsoft "support" (this is Gold Partner support mind you) and got the following responses:
Perhaps you're using an expired evaluation copy to install.
We escalate the problem and get:
Maybe you could get an exemption from securing the machine and just use a vanilla installation
Microsoft's support is TERRIBLE. Paid support is a security blanket for CIOs, but when you really need it, how much better is a phone droid when compared with the software's author or a community of users working with the same application in real-life scenarios?
FWIW, the installation problem was caused by the restriction of SAM shares. We had to make the user a local admin in order to get the installation to complete.
Idiot #2: That's a great idea! But jeepers, we don't have light sabers.
Idiot #1: I know! We can swing around these long, extremely brittle, light tubes.
Idiot #2: I don't know. They won't glow impressively and we'll look like "Star Wars Kid" with his broom stick.
Idiot #1: What if we fill them with gas and light them up? That would be impressive looking. Take that "Star Wars Kid!"
Idiot #3: Hello, emergency services, my two friends just went *boom*whoosh*. By the way, do you know of a good ISP where I can host a large video file?
Check out my site http://home.comcast.net/~dshookowsky
I probably paid the following:
$0 cabinet
~$200 TV
~$200 pentium 400 with 128MB RAM
~$150 Laminate
~$100 Controls from Happ
Please don't buy a cabinet. There are plenty of non-classic cabinets being dumped for free. Any cabinet that is being sold for money is likely to be more important than the money.
Many collectors are seriously miffed (with good reason) when a classic arcade cabinet is mutilated to become a MAME cab. Check your local newspaper or "penny saver" or "trading times" if available in your area.
I have built a serveral mame cabinets and you can get the cabinets for free in many cases.
Secondly, buy and IPAC or JPAC from ultimarc. This is so worth the money!
One can argue that software engineering is a flawed enough system without using it as a model for unrelated activities, but I think that a requirements gathering process would be useful in the legislative process in the U.S.A.
Each bill should have a well-defined purpose and anything that doesn't deal with that purpose should be eliminated. There must be other means of compromise in the Congress besides the practice of lumping unrelated issues into budget approvals and omnibus acts.
When I purchase a sandwich at a deli, I don't expect to have to pay for aluminum siding, so why does a bill about funding for troops in Iraq have to have unfunded federal mandates on driver's licenses?
The biggest problem here is that states have lost their sovreignty in the pursuit of federal funding.
This is probably the most insightful comment I've seen in a very long time. We Americans live in a country that mocks the theocracy of Afghanistan's Taliban and Iran's Imams, but is oh-so-cozy with Intelligent Design being taught in classrooms.
I was raised Catholic, and I was also raised to believe that people railing against the 10 Commandments were freaks with too much time on their hands. I don't believe the latter any longer. Sure there is a historical precedent, but the idea is that Atheists, Agnositics, Muslics, Jews, Christians, and whatever else are all equal in the eyes of the law.
The history of mankind has shown that zealots on any side are capable of barbarism. That's why any intrusion of religion into politics is anathema. That's why the conservative Christian vote is so terrifying.
A Christian (conservative or otherwise) state is as unfair to the citizens as is a Muslim state. No one in their right mind would advocate that McDonald's limit their Friday menu to McSalads and Filet-o-fish, but somehow right-wing Christian non-science seems like a good idea.
Every day Germany looks better. At least their memory is still there
Not only that, but if there are other nodes available, you only provided a portion of a copyrighted work - not even the whole thing. I'm not an expert on BitTorrent, but I don't think that the data you send to a peer even has to be contiguous.
I love when a friend or relative asks me if I can lend the Word or Excel because their home machine only came with Works.
I love when I've installed Office on my machine already, but I need to re-enter my product key and have the physical CD handy for an app that I haven't yet opened.
I really love the fact that HP doesn't have a single download for their printer drivers so that I can share my printer with Windows clients, instead they force me to download hundreds of megabytes of useless crap to replace the 7K postscript driver necessary in Linux
The reason that things are more difficult in Linux than Windows is not because of the OS - it's because of the vendor lock-in. It's because of a monopoly that prevents really open standards from flourishing. There is nothing that prevents my 2.6 kernel and Gnomad2 from identifying my Creative Zen Mp3 player except for Creative.
Most people use email, web browsing, and an office suite. Do you really think that those tasks are out of reach for a planet-full of developers?
I like to describe why I did things in a particular way. Much of what ends up in a design document describes what the system does (I can run the app to see that), or how it does it (that's what the code is there for and I guarantee that the code is more recent than the design document).
What always gets me is when I show up and ask "Why didn't you use XXXX?" No one knows. Often there is a really good reason that I find out after weeks of unsuccessfully attempting to implement XXXX.
I like Audio Lunchbox for a la carte, subscription-free, DRM-free music downloads, complete with artwork.
You can also get entire indy CDs (actual physical media - remember that?) from CD Baby. CD Baby artists may not get the same airplay, but there's a lot of good stuff on there. I highly recommend that you try browsing by flavor.
I have 40GB Nomad Jukebox with about 3GB remaining, and while I don't listen to every track in a sitting, I like the fact that I don't have to switch the tracks on it. Also, I don't need to pick and choose what music I have on there because invariably, I will get the urge to hear the Theme Song from Shaft as soon I've removed it from the player's (or is it playa's?) hard drive.
I put the entire list on shuffle and love the result. My friends think it's a train wreck. "How can you listen to punk followed by bluegrass, followed by Classical? What do you mean "Living Loving Maid" doesn't follow "Heartbreaker"?
For the past year and a half, I've had an hour (minimum) commute to work and I've really appreciated having a wide selection of music at my fingertips.
Drive starts upbeat, somewhat poppy
Speed increases on the turnpike, get a punk beat going
Congestion starts. Classical relaxes me for a moment.
Urge to kill rising. Time for metal!
State Trooper pulls me over. Cue "Bad Boys" reggae track from COPS
I'll second this, FreeBSD is pretty damn easy to get set up (assuming compatible hardware). I started with a floppy in a clean system and had a functioning system a couple of hours later. I never even downloaded or burned an ISO during the install process.
With that said, I am now running Gentoo. I won't say I didn't have my share of problems (HP multifunction scanner/printer), but the Gentoo forums and community are second to none. I now have network bonding, printing/scanning, 3D Video acceleration, on-the-fly VNC sessions over SSH, CD/DVD writing, Java Home Media Option for Tivo, Nomad Jukebox support, etc.
I had tried Red Hat (7.3) between FreeBSD and Gentoo, but little things were missing (libcss, the IOSlave in KDE that allows drag and drop MP3 encoding, etc). If your goal is to be productive immediately, go with a SusE or similar distro. My goal was to learn a bit more about the process without doing the Linux From Scratch thing and that's why I chose Gentoo.
One, more thing - Knoppix does a damn good job of figuring out your system configuration no matter what distro you use. You can always cheat and see how things are set up there. If you like it enough, you can even install to your hard drive permanently.
Slashdot Mirror
Has anyone ever considered Jury Nullification to get folks to simply declare the concept of intellectual property and perpetual copyright invalid? If most folks agree (and I don't know if they do or not) that the law is broken, isn't the judge obliged to agree?
Most *implies* > 50%......perhaps we need a slashdot poll to end the contreversy? Do you trust the current administration? Do you trust the Government?
A.K.A. The Ike Turner strategy
I have a Creative Zen Xtra that I'm looking to replace, but all I can find now are units that are under 6gigs or have oodles of video features that I'll never use. I'm personally more than a little upset that the neuros audio players didn't take off since they had so much potential with the open firmware, 80gb drives, and built-in FM receiver/transmitter.
I bought an eBook a while back. Now in order to unlock it and read it today, I have to use a credit card number that has long since expired and been replaced. I don't have that problem with paper.
Download the Knoppix 4.0 DVD...you can painlessly try OpenOffice.org 2.0 and a host of other apps. I have a machine without a harddrive that is perfectly functional using the DVD and USB thumbdrives.
How about an unencumbered document standard so that I can open Word docs in OpenOffice without losing significant formatting?
I have to reply to this. I just did a SharePoint Portal Server install on a locked down Windows 2003 Server. The installation failed repeatedly. I called Microsoft "support" (this is Gold Partner support mind you) and got the following responses:
Perhaps you're using an expired evaluation copy to install.
We escalate the problem and get:
Maybe you could get an exemption from securing the machine and just use a vanilla installation
Microsoft's support is TERRIBLE. Paid support is a security blanket for CIOs, but when you really need it, how much better is a phone droid when compared with the software's author or a community of users working with the same application in real-life scenarios?
FWIW, the installation problem was caused by the restriction of SAM shares. We had to make the user a local admin in order to get the installation to complete.
Actually, pysol (Windows Build Python Source) plays any solitaire version you've seen on Windows and dozens more!
Idiot #1: Hey let's film a light saber duel.
Idiot #2: That's a great idea! But jeepers, we don't have light sabers.
Idiot #1: I know! We can swing around these long, extremely brittle, light tubes.
Idiot #2: I don't know. They won't glow impressively and we'll look like "Star Wars Kid" with his broom stick.
Idiot #1: What if we fill them with gas and light them up? That would be impressive looking. Take that "Star Wars Kid!"
Idiot #3: Hello, emergency services, my two friends just went *boom*whoosh*. By the way, do you know of a good ISP where I can host a large video file?
Check out my site http://home.comcast.net/~dshookowsky I probably paid the following: $0 cabinet ~$200 TV ~$200 pentium 400 with 128MB RAM ~$150 Laminate ~$100 Controls from Happ
Please don't buy a cabinet. There are plenty of non-classic cabinets being dumped for free. Any cabinet that is being sold for money is likely to be more important than the money.
Many collectors are seriously miffed (with good reason) when a classic arcade cabinet is mutilated to become a MAME cab. Check your local newspaper or "penny saver" or "trading times" if available in your area.
I have built a serveral mame cabinets and you can get the cabinets for free in many cases.
Secondly, buy and IPAC or JPAC from ultimarc. This is so worth the money!
One can argue that software engineering is a flawed enough system without using it as a model for unrelated activities, but I think that a requirements gathering process would be useful in the legislative process in the U.S.A.
Each bill should have a well-defined purpose and anything that doesn't deal with that purpose should be eliminated. There must be other means of compromise in the Congress besides the practice of lumping unrelated issues into budget approvals and omnibus acts.
When I purchase a sandwich at a deli, I don't expect to have to pay for aluminum siding, so why does a bill about funding for troops in Iraq have to have unfunded federal mandates on driver's licenses?
The biggest problem here is that states have lost their sovreignty in the pursuit of federal funding.
.....but does it play OGG VORBIS?
It's a trap!!!!!
This is probably the most insightful comment I've seen in a very long time. We Americans live in a country that mocks the theocracy of Afghanistan's Taliban and Iran's Imams, but is oh-so-cozy with Intelligent Design being taught in classrooms.
I was raised Catholic, and I was also raised to believe that people railing against the 10 Commandments were freaks with too much time on their hands. I don't believe the latter any longer. Sure there is a historical precedent, but the idea is that Atheists, Agnositics, Muslics, Jews, Christians, and whatever else are all equal in the eyes of the law.
The history of mankind has shown that zealots on any side are capable of barbarism. That's why any intrusion of religion into politics is anathema. That's why the conservative Christian vote is so terrifying.
A Christian (conservative or otherwise) state is as unfair to the citizens as is a Muslim state. No one in their right mind would advocate that McDonald's limit their Friday menu to McSalads and Filet-o-fish, but somehow right-wing Christian non-science seems like a good idea.
Every day Germany looks better. At least their memory is still there
Not only that, but if there are other nodes available, you only provided a portion of a copyrighted work - not even the whole thing. I'm not an expert on BitTorrent, but I don't think that the data you send to a peer even has to be contiguous.
I think that what you're trying to say is that Oceania has always been at war with EastAsia
The reason that things are more difficult in Linux than Windows is not because of the OS - it's because of the vendor lock-in. It's because of a monopoly that prevents really open standards from flourishing. There is nothing that prevents my 2.6 kernel and Gnomad2 from identifying my Creative Zen Mp3 player except for Creative.
Most people use email, web browsing, and an office suite. Do you really think that those tasks are out of reach for a planet-full of developers?
It looks like we won't have to put in overtime on that 2038 Bug w00t!
I like to describe why I did things in a particular way. Much of what ends up in a design document describes what the system does (I can run the app to see that), or how it does it (that's what the code is there for and I guarantee that the code is more recent than the design document).
What always gets me is when I show up and ask "Why didn't you use XXXX?" No one knows. Often there is a really good reason that I find out after weeks of unsuccessfully attempting to implement XXXX.
Why did you take something that was so perfect and destroy it?
Is that too harsh? Ok, well let's try this:
When will you sign up Peter Jackson to make the REAL version?
I like Audio Lunchbox for a la carte, subscription-free, DRM-free music downloads, complete with artwork.
You can also get entire indy CDs (actual physical media - remember that?) from CD Baby. CD Baby artists may not get the same airplay, but there's a lot of good stuff on there. I highly recommend that you try browsing by flavor.
I have 40GB Nomad Jukebox with about 3GB remaining, and while I don't listen to every track in a sitting, I like the fact that I don't have to switch the tracks on it. Also, I don't need to pick and choose what music I have on there because invariably, I will get the urge to hear the Theme Song from Shaft as soon I've removed it from the player's (or is it playa's?) hard drive.
I put the entire list on shuffle and love the result. My friends think it's a train wreck. "How can you listen to punk followed by bluegrass, followed by Classical? What do you mean "Living Loving Maid" doesn't follow "Heartbreaker"?
For the past year and a half, I've had an hour (minimum) commute to work and I've really appreciated having a wide selection of music at my fingertips.
I'll second this, FreeBSD is pretty damn easy to get set up (assuming compatible hardware). I started with a floppy in a clean system and had a functioning system a couple of hours later. I never even downloaded or burned an ISO during the install process.
With that said, I am now running Gentoo. I won't say I didn't have my share of problems (HP multifunction scanner/printer), but the Gentoo forums and community are second to none. I now have network bonding, printing/scanning, 3D Video acceleration, on-the-fly VNC sessions over SSH, CD/DVD writing, Java Home Media Option for Tivo, Nomad Jukebox support, etc.
I had tried Red Hat (7.3) between FreeBSD and Gentoo, but little things were missing (libcss, the IOSlave in KDE that allows drag and drop MP3 encoding, etc). If your goal is to be productive immediately, go with a SusE or similar distro. My goal was to learn a bit more about the process without doing the Linux From Scratch thing and that's why I chose Gentoo.
One, more thing - Knoppix does a damn good job of figuring out your system configuration no matter what distro you use. You can always cheat and see how things are set up there. If you like it enough, you can even install to your hard drive permanently.