Considering some television shows today (with breaks and incentives for shooting elsewhere) still run $4 million PER EPISODE, $19 million for two SEASONS is pretty much chicken scratch.
I was enamored with Space: 1999 when I was a kid (even had the little metal lunar ship too), and I caught up with it again when they were selling the complete series for $20 on Amazon. I know the series hasn't aged well, but I still think it's pretty good knowing they had a shoestring budget. After putting a name with a creation, I bought the "UFO" series (pretty good, for a futuristic show), "Thunderbirds" and "Fireball XL5" (thanks to amazon.com). I look at Mr. Anderson (heh.. no pun intended) as a great visionary creator who made marionettes cool. (and made me want their vehicles and space ships for my own toy collection).
He may not be missed by the current generation, but those of us old enough to remember 3 channel television, he will be greatly missed.
If everyone _carried_ guns there would be more of these shooting incidents too.
Not to go off-topic but this is false. In the "bad" days of the frontier west where guns were carried openly by just about everyone, there weren't as many shootings as there are in modern day Detroit (who up until recently had some of the most restrictive gun control laws this side of Europe.) Yet there were more guns per capita in the 19th century than today. (Not to say there were more people, just more guns per person.)
I don't see much evidence that "more guns" mean more shootings. If that were the case, Texas would be awash in blood. I remember the Brady Campaign people said after the Castle Doctrine was revised in Texas that it was a "license to murder". So far, gun related incidents haven't dramatically changed... In Texas, you can carry a gun in your car even without a CHL. I don't see everyone opening fire on the freeways (as it was so comically shown in "L.A. Story") And I don't see anyone being overly courteous either. It's the same as it was before it was legal to carry a gun in your car. Imagine that. Poor example.
As for the armed teacher argument, what's funny is that if the shooter didn't know which teacher/administrator was armed, how likely do you think said shooter would risk trying to kill them? If you choose a school to shoot up that might have teachers who are armed, would you be as likely to be brazenly shooting your way in? It'd only take one shot to bring you down, (even in body armor), and your goal of killing 20 kids would be unattainable. Let me give you a concrete example of that. When Florida passed their concealed carry law, criminals stopped targeting citizens of the state and looked for rental cars (and hung out on the roads leaving big airports, because rental cars used to have special tags). Robberies of tourists and visitors to Florida went up dramatically. So much so, the state had to remodel the rental car tag so it wasn't easy to tell who was tourist and who wasn't. So when there's an unknown gun quantity in a certain group, criminals who don't have a death wish target groups that there is a known gun quantity (or a known lack of guns, like at a school). It's not hard to see that connection.
It's more complex than that, I'm afraid. Protectionists can sometimes weasel that the copyright length extension is to protect America's "IP" from those evil brown people, but the true value of extending copyright is the ability to use the same copyrights against new, and otherwise innovative, businesses from breaking into the lucrative "copyright" cash cow. It is not in Disney's best interest to trademark Mickey... they have to copyright him so they can use all the media he appears in to roll over copycats (no pun intended) and parody artists who don't have deep pockets (parody may be protected speech, but it doesn't stop big conglomerates from suing you and bankrupting you in the court system while you're trying to prove that your parody is protected.)
Every time Mickey's copyright comes up for expiration into the public domain, the Congress (no matter which mascot is in charge) extends the length of copyright. The Supreme Court said in no uncertain terms that congress can extend "for a limited time" to be as long as Congress wants, provided there is an "end" to the time. So the age of perpetual copyright won't occur, but the age of insurmountable copyright is already here. Why? Because corporate interests paid for it. We, as individuals didn't. We had no say in it, even if we voted the bums out.
So this is more than protectionist policies. This is about spreading the misery to individuals (Youtube takedowns for background music anyone?) and lining the pockets of corporations who use copyright as a big stick to fend off newcomers to the marketplace and freeze creativity by making themselves the arbiters of what gets going and what stays in one's head. I don't like it any more than the next guy, and I don't agree that hatred of the entire process and how it has raped the Public Domain is somehow blather. X getting what they wanted (in this case Corporate Interests and conglomerates) IS bad for us. It ruins the concept of copyright, and it is not how the Founders intended copyright to work.
I am not of the mind that "no one can make Star Wars in their basement" which many cite as the good that comes from copyright's extension. The great democratization of creativity has had two significant events (among others) that have driven the establishment kicking and screaming into the future. The first was the Printing Press. The second was the Internet. There is nothing more disastrous to an established power than the loss of that power through progress and innovation. We should embrace the new age of creativity and tell Disney (and the rest of them) to fuck themselves.
I often wondered about the licensing of that music... the real problem with the AA's is replacement costs. If you've bought a "license", how come you can't get a replacement disc for a minor cost? Why do you have to buy the full license again (buying another copy, as it were)? Jack Valenti tried to weasel out of that question back when he wasn't wormfood... but his definition was as comprehensible as a spider monkey singing opera. (In other words, he danced around the issue, called the person who asked it a commie, and ignored the question.)
Quite true. The side issue is the relationship to "intellectual property" and "profit." There has been a concerted effort for a while now to claim that something copyrighted is guaranteed revenue, and infringement costs "real" dollars (though no one gets to write it off on their taxes....) Even "The Economist", not exactly anarcho-capitalists, said recently that copyright was never intended to be a property right. *shrug* Get corporations nuzzled up to the teat of perpetual revenue, and they'll fight tooth & nail to keep it.
It would also bar car dealerships with that logic as well. How about houses? I mean, would that eliminate the sale of used homes? Does the sale of existing homes ruin the market for new homes? The logic failure of the people arguing against secondary markets is colossal.
You make a shitload of assumptions, pal. You assume because someone owns a gun that a) they're paranoid dorks who shoot anything that moves, and b) are going to shoot anyone that comes near their house. Two things that people who hate guns always think. Two things that are so far from reality, it's comical.
Your lack of tolerance and stereotyping certainly don't bode well for a cohesive society... or is it a society that only thinks the way you do, and all others need not apply?
Why was his mom a fucking lunatic? Because she was a shooting enthusiast, had lots of guns, and encouraged her kids to shoot as well? Or was it because she didn't institutionalize her troubled son "just in case"? I genuinely don't know if there is new information that points to her mental state...
The problem here is in terms of mental health issues, let's say you are institutionalized for being suicidal. Does that mean you can never have a gun, ever? Why? This "reform" of the mental health system people are clamoring for is nothing more than an end-round play to ban guns based on "mental stability." I hate to break it to the/. crowd, but most of us could be considered "unbalanced" if the state, or an overzealous mental health system (or relatives) decided we were. Do we want to go back to the early 20th century where we put everyone who didn't fit a mold (gays, mildly retarded, sexual "deviants") into an institution and shocked, prodded, and medicated them until they really WERE fucked in the head?
The rational thing to do is to stop inching towards a police state in ALL aspects. That includes these symbolic "bans" on "assault" weapons and other horse shit. Return to a minimal Constitutionally sanctioned federal government...
Digging their own cables is a government problem. They gave the grants in the first place to the original companies via eminent domain and other means (usually shitty ones) to get the cables there in the first place. Now when someone else comes in and wants to do the same thing... the monopoly created by subsidized laying of infrastructure before comes to the government and greases palms to make it impossible to get the job done.
That coupled with the government sanctioned monopoly status granted by municipalities fudges up the whole works. Why do you think AT&T fought tooth and nail to be the final arbiter of line rental for other companies? So they could price competition out of the market. It took a bunch of doin' by the government to force AT&T to let others use the lines. The same AT&T who got all their infrastructure FROM the government and taxpayers through incentives and grants and guaranteed loans. I agree the random ISP can't afford to put down their own lines... but it's not solely because of cost. It's the government in the way and the government monopolies (both DSL and cable, who also got their lines laid the same way as AT&T did) crowding out the new guy. Crony Capitalism, if you prefer.
Not to mention when cities try municipal broadband, the entrenched players sue. Compete? They don't have to... they bite the hand that feeds them all the time.
People forget how difficult windows was just as they have forgotten how difficult DOS CP/M was. The "old" way of doing things isn't hard anymore... but I contend that moving from Windows to Linux is a breath of fresh air, if one gives it a proper chance.:) I am more productive, less frustrated, and overall more knowledgeable about computers having used Linux for a while. I can't say the same for Windows.
To each his own, YMMV, may cause rectal itching... etc. etc.
I suspect in some markets, that might be the case. The true problem is government-sanctioned monopolies. There needs to be competition. Where I live, there are two providers of Cable service, and the requisite DSL. Only DSL has a cap, and quite frankly, it's useless compared to the two cable companies. This idea of capping usage at a certain amount is not about traffic management at all. It's about trying to squeeze money out of customers. Throttling bandwidth during peak usage is more logical, but since they're not really doing it for that reason, they cap data. The FCC could, in the absence of market forces (competition), be more stringent about not gouging customers. After all, the company got a monopoly sanctioned by the local government... they wanted that sort of control. So since they wanted to play in that arena, the government who granted the monopoly should force their own regulations on them, backed by the regulatory power of the FCC. Or the ISP can let competition in. It's their choice. Normally, I'm market focused and loathe government interference, but since the market has been fiddled with by the government already to prevent competition and true market forces, I don't mind them manipulating the monopoly...
The "collective" rights model was a sham in the first place. The "People" in the First Amendment weren't "collective" they were individuals. In the 2nd Amendment, some people (I'll call them idiots) believed that the word 'militia' meant the "People" are now not individuals and are now some group that requires membership (the only reason for that is for their desire to regulate the living hell out of guns.) Some people think armed citizens are a threat to them. Those people shouldn't be in power in the first place. It's just that simple.
It wasn't illegal to own a gun in D.C. if you could go to the place that registered them... but they got around an outright "ban" by effectively making it impossible to comply with the law. That's how regulation does business, and that's why it should be stopped... Not because of intent... but because of abuse. It's a way for one person or group of people can tell you or I what they can and cannot have, in spite of what the Constitution (that they take an oath to uphold) says. There already are background checks. There are already rules regarding the legal ownership of guns in all 50 states. This is nothing more than the current Nanny State administration's ploy to exert more power over the (if you believe the last election) "willing" electorate. The government does enough to protect children. Why would banning a high capacity magazine or a semi-automatic rifle that Feinstein loves to froth at the mouth can call "killing machines" do anything? I ask that in a general sense of course. It's rhetorical. People who don't understand our Constitution loathe its ability to secure individual liberty. They feel like we're just a bunch of savages because we don't burn gun owners at the stake to appease the bullet god or something. I read plenty of non-American responses to these issues on Slashdot. Frankly they don't understand. If they'd take a moment to understand what the Constitution and Bill of Rights means to us, maybe they wouldn't be clamoring for our guns to be taken away so that "this won't happen again." If we've learned anything from Europe, or hell the last 5000 years of human history... there is more than one way to commit a massacre. We would be wise to recognize this before passing law after law so people will "feel better." I live in Texas. I am perfectly content and perfectly safe from harm both in my home and in my car. Because I carry a gun? No. Because the criminal doesn't know if I have one. The 2nd Amendment works.:)
People shouldn't be too willing to give power to the government, giving up their own in the process. The government doesn't give back the power it takes from the citizens. Why people can't see this, I'll never know.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
It's not a right granted by the 2nd Amendment. It is a right we already have, and it is enumerated because it specifically says things that are totally off limits to the government. It's just that simple. You don't get to decide how many guns I own. You don't get to decide I can only have one gun. The 2nd Amendment makes that clear. Don't like it? Feel free not to own guns.
Yes, while that's true... it's still misconduct. Just because the jury found no infringement doesn't mean they can ignore evidence, though this is civil, so I suppose there's a bit more leeway.
Exactly. Well put. The "dicks" are the ones that get the job done. They are the ones pushing... "nice" folks just get stomped out or marginalized without them even knowing it.
My take on RMS is that his message is clear, but there are some things he personally believes in strongly that sometimes get interjected into the narrative and, to outsiders, might seem that he's not focused. (It's because the public RMS and the private RMS are one in the same, I suppose.)
They said the same thing about every other leader of a movement (take your pick)... If you have issues with his delivery (he's pedantic at times, and his insistence on making sure he is heard on subjects ancillary to FSF are rather annoying), that's fine. But his message makes sense.
Copyright has been perverted to a perpetual "ATM machine" for the copyright cartels, and it is used as a weapon to strike innovation and new ideas down before they can blossom. What the GPL does is use that perversion of copyright against itself so that no matter what happens to the copyright law in the future (and believe me it's getting worse), we will have a way to keep innovation free from hoarding elements of the multinational corporations. It isn't the only license in the world, but by gum it's a pretty good alternative to the closed-source nonsense that passes for "commercial" software. DRM, proprietary formats, invasive and restrictive usage requirements (trying to completely kill Fair Use), and otherwise litigious bastards in the copyright retention business (they aren't the creators) can go eat a bag of dicks. The GPL has prevented them from strangling innovation and the sharing of ideas. Thanks to RMS, who I don't always agree with, for pioneering that.
For me, his positives outweigh his toe-cheese eating negatives. As a person, I'd probably hose him down from 40 feet... but as an idea... RMS has got the chops to put the establishment on notice.
This isn't about the cost of the binary. This is about the GPL and release of the source. No one is bitching that it's too high of a price to pay (well, some might, but they're cheapskates). What we want to iron out (and it's harder than it looks) is how or when the source is to be distributed. There seems to be some confusion w/r/t that portion of the license... none of us are lawyers here (at least not professing lawyers), so we're just speculating.
I'm amazed that customer attitudes aren't a bit more harsh. I hate the term "consumer"... it sounds like people are just receptacles for any shit a corporate entity feels the need to get a few bucks out of.
But internet users defend megaload by basically approving of a site thats primary useage is stealing things
You might get more people to believe your tripe if you stopped calling copyright infringement theft. It's not theft. Even the MPAA can't legally claim that. It's a TORT. So get off your MPAA high horse... and the next time you want to post something... shoot yourself in the face.
The difference is, mentioning how disgusted someone is of something is freedom of speech. They don't arrest you for it, and they sure as shit don't stone you for it. It isn't banned... And the government doesn't have laws against it... (sure some laws used to exist... but they used to exist in Europe too.)
Being okay with fake violence is not some "sick obsession"... I never understood why that is always mentioned as if it's barbaric and backwards. The funny part is, there are plenty of violent movies with nudity too...
Slashdot Mirror
Considering some television shows today (with breaks and incentives for shooting elsewhere) still run $4 million PER EPISODE, $19 million for two SEASONS is pretty much chicken scratch.
I was enamored with Space: 1999 when I was a kid (even had the little metal lunar ship too), and I caught up with it again when they were selling the complete series for $20 on Amazon. I know the series hasn't aged well, but I still think it's pretty good knowing they had a shoestring budget. After putting a name with a creation, I bought the "UFO" series (pretty good, for a futuristic show), "Thunderbirds" and "Fireball XL5" (thanks to amazon.com). I look at Mr. Anderson (heh.. no pun intended) as a great visionary creator who made marionettes cool. (and made me want their vehicles and space ships for my own toy collection).
He may not be missed by the current generation, but those of us old enough to remember 3 channel television, he will be greatly missed.
If everyone _carried_ guns there would be more of these shooting incidents too.
Not to go off-topic but this is false. In the "bad" days of the frontier west where guns were carried openly by just about everyone, there weren't as many shootings as there are in modern day Detroit (who up until recently had some of the most restrictive gun control laws this side of Europe.) Yet there were more guns per capita in the 19th century than today. (Not to say there were more people, just more guns per person.)
I don't see much evidence that "more guns" mean more shootings. If that were the case, Texas would be awash in blood. I remember the Brady Campaign people said after the Castle Doctrine was revised in Texas that it was a "license to murder". So far, gun related incidents haven't dramatically changed... In Texas, you can carry a gun in your car even without a CHL. I don't see everyone opening fire on the freeways (as it was so comically shown in "L.A. Story") And I don't see anyone being overly courteous either. It's the same as it was before it was legal to carry a gun in your car. Imagine that. Poor example.
As for the armed teacher argument, what's funny is that if the shooter didn't know which teacher/administrator was armed, how likely do you think said shooter would risk trying to kill them? If you choose a school to shoot up that might have teachers who are armed, would you be as likely to be brazenly shooting your way in? It'd only take one shot to bring you down, (even in body armor), and your goal of killing 20 kids would be unattainable. Let me give you a concrete example of that. When Florida passed their concealed carry law, criminals stopped targeting citizens of the state and looked for rental cars (and hung out on the roads leaving big airports, because rental cars used to have special tags). Robberies of tourists and visitors to Florida went up dramatically. So much so, the state had to remodel the rental car tag so it wasn't easy to tell who was tourist and who wasn't. So when there's an unknown gun quantity in a certain group, criminals who don't have a death wish target groups that there is a known gun quantity (or a known lack of guns, like at a school). It's not hard to see that connection.
It's more complex than that, I'm afraid. Protectionists can sometimes weasel that the copyright length extension is to protect America's "IP" from those evil brown people, but the true value of extending copyright is the ability to use the same copyrights against new, and otherwise innovative, businesses from breaking into the lucrative "copyright" cash cow. It is not in Disney's best interest to trademark Mickey... they have to copyright him so they can use all the media he appears in to roll over copycats (no pun intended) and parody artists who don't have deep pockets (parody may be protected speech, but it doesn't stop big conglomerates from suing you and bankrupting you in the court system while you're trying to prove that your parody is protected.)
Every time Mickey's copyright comes up for expiration into the public domain, the Congress (no matter which mascot is in charge) extends the length of copyright. The Supreme Court said in no uncertain terms that congress can extend "for a limited time" to be as long as Congress wants, provided there is an "end" to the time. So the age of perpetual copyright won't occur, but the age of insurmountable copyright is already here. Why? Because corporate interests paid for it. We, as individuals didn't. We had no say in it, even if we voted the bums out.
So this is more than protectionist policies. This is about spreading the misery to individuals (Youtube takedowns for background music anyone?) and lining the pockets of corporations who use copyright as a big stick to fend off newcomers to the marketplace and freeze creativity by making themselves the arbiters of what gets going and what stays in one's head. I don't like it any more than the next guy, and I don't agree that hatred of the entire process and how it has raped the Public Domain is somehow blather. X getting what they wanted (in this case Corporate Interests and conglomerates) IS bad for us. It ruins the concept of copyright, and it is not how the Founders intended copyright to work.
I am not of the mind that "no one can make Star Wars in their basement" which many cite as the good that comes from copyright's extension. The great democratization of creativity has had two significant events (among others) that have driven the establishment kicking and screaming into the future. The first was the Printing Press. The second was the Internet. There is nothing more disastrous to an established power than the loss of that power through progress and innovation. We should embrace the new age of creativity and tell Disney (and the rest of them) to fuck themselves.
I often wondered about the licensing of that music... the real problem with the AA's is replacement costs. If you've bought a "license", how come you can't get a replacement disc for a minor cost? Why do you have to buy the full license again (buying another copy, as it were)? Jack Valenti tried to weasel out of that question back when he wasn't wormfood... but his definition was as comprehensible as a spider monkey singing opera. (In other words, he danced around the issue, called the person who asked it a commie, and ignored the question.)
Quite true. The side issue is the relationship to "intellectual property" and "profit." There has been a concerted effort for a while now to claim that something copyrighted is guaranteed revenue, and infringement costs "real" dollars (though no one gets to write it off on their taxes....) Even "The Economist", not exactly anarcho-capitalists, said recently that copyright was never intended to be a property right. *shrug* Get corporations nuzzled up to the teat of perpetual revenue, and they'll fight tooth & nail to keep it.
It would also bar car dealerships with that logic as well. How about houses? I mean, would that eliminate the sale of used homes? Does the sale of existing homes ruin the market for new homes? The logic failure of the people arguing against secondary markets is colossal.
You make a shitload of assumptions, pal. You assume because someone owns a gun that a) they're paranoid dorks who shoot anything that moves, and b) are going to shoot anyone that comes near their house. Two things that people who hate guns always think. Two things that are so far from reality, it's comical.
Your lack of tolerance and stereotyping certainly don't bode well for a cohesive society... or is it a society that only thinks the way you do, and all others need not apply?
When the public knows I own a gun... they can mark off my property as "no access"... saves me from killing intruders.
Why was his mom a fucking lunatic? Because she was a shooting enthusiast, had lots of guns, and encouraged her kids to shoot as well? Or was it because she didn't institutionalize her troubled son "just in case"? I genuinely don't know if there is new information that points to her mental state...
The problem here is in terms of mental health issues, let's say you are institutionalized for being suicidal. Does that mean you can never have a gun, ever? Why? This "reform" of the mental health system people are clamoring for is nothing more than an end-round play to ban guns based on "mental stability." I hate to break it to the /. crowd, but most of us could be considered "unbalanced" if the state, or an overzealous mental health system (or relatives) decided we were. Do we want to go back to the early 20th century where we put everyone who didn't fit a mold (gays, mildly retarded, sexual "deviants") into an institution and shocked, prodded, and medicated them until they really WERE fucked in the head?
The rational thing to do is to stop inching towards a police state in ALL aspects. That includes these symbolic "bans" on "assault" weapons and other horse shit. Return to a minimal Constitutionally sanctioned federal government...
Digging their own cables is a government problem. They gave the grants in the first place to the original companies via eminent domain and other means (usually shitty ones) to get the cables there in the first place. Now when someone else comes in and wants to do the same thing... the monopoly created by subsidized laying of infrastructure before comes to the government and greases palms to make it impossible to get the job done.
That coupled with the government sanctioned monopoly status granted by municipalities fudges up the whole works. Why do you think AT&T fought tooth and nail to be the final arbiter of line rental for other companies? So they could price competition out of the market. It took a bunch of doin' by the government to force AT&T to let others use the lines. The same AT&T who got all their infrastructure FROM the government and taxpayers through incentives and grants and guaranteed loans. I agree the random ISP can't afford to put down their own lines... but it's not solely because of cost. It's the government in the way and the government monopolies (both DSL and cable, who also got their lines laid the same way as AT&T did) crowding out the new guy. Crony Capitalism, if you prefer.
Not to mention when cities try municipal broadband, the entrenched players sue. Compete? They don't have to... they bite the hand that feeds them all the time.
People forget how difficult windows was just as they have forgotten how difficult DOS CP/M was. The "old" way of doing things isn't hard anymore... but I contend that moving from Windows to Linux is a breath of fresh air, if one gives it a proper chance. :) I am more productive, less frustrated, and overall more knowledgeable about computers having used Linux for a while. I can't say the same for Windows.
To each his own, YMMV, may cause rectal itching... etc. etc.
The only thing you have to learn with iOS is how to lie down and take it...
I kid, I kid...
I suspect in some markets, that might be the case. The true problem is government-sanctioned monopolies. There needs to be competition. Where I live, there are two providers of Cable service, and the requisite DSL. Only DSL has a cap, and quite frankly, it's useless compared to the two cable companies. This idea of capping usage at a certain amount is not about traffic management at all. It's about trying to squeeze money out of customers. Throttling bandwidth during peak usage is more logical, but since they're not really doing it for that reason, they cap data. The FCC could, in the absence of market forces (competition), be more stringent about not gouging customers. After all, the company got a monopoly sanctioned by the local government... they wanted that sort of control. So since they wanted to play in that arena, the government who granted the monopoly should force their own regulations on them, backed by the regulatory power of the FCC. Or the ISP can let competition in. It's their choice. Normally, I'm market focused and loathe government interference, but since the market has been fiddled with by the government already to prevent competition and true market forces, I don't mind them manipulating the monopoly ...
The "collective" rights model was a sham in the first place. The "People" in the First Amendment weren't "collective" they were individuals. In the 2nd Amendment, some people (I'll call them idiots) believed that the word 'militia' meant the "People" are now not individuals and are now some group that requires membership (the only reason for that is for their desire to regulate the living hell out of guns.) Some people think armed citizens are a threat to them. Those people shouldn't be in power in the first place. It's just that simple.
It wasn't illegal to own a gun in D.C. if you could go to the place that registered them... but they got around an outright "ban" by effectively making it impossible to comply with the law. That's how regulation does business, and that's why it should be stopped... Not because of intent... but because of abuse. It's a way for one person or group of people can tell you or I what they can and cannot have, in spite of what the Constitution (that they take an oath to uphold) says. There already are background checks. There are already rules regarding the legal ownership of guns in all 50 states. This is nothing more than the current Nanny State administration's ploy to exert more power over the (if you believe the last election) "willing" electorate. The government does enough to protect children. Why would banning a high capacity magazine or a semi-automatic rifle that Feinstein loves to froth at the mouth can call "killing machines" do anything? I ask that in a general sense of course. It's rhetorical. People who don't understand our Constitution loathe its ability to secure individual liberty. They feel like we're just a bunch of savages because we don't burn gun owners at the stake to appease the bullet god or something. I read plenty of non-American responses to these issues on Slashdot. Frankly they don't understand. If they'd take a moment to understand what the Constitution and Bill of Rights means to us, maybe they wouldn't be clamoring for our guns to be taken away so that "this won't happen again." If we've learned anything from Europe, or hell the last 5000 years of human history... there is more than one way to commit a massacre. We would be wise to recognize this before passing law after law so people will "feel better." I live in Texas. I am perfectly content and perfectly safe from harm both in my home and in my car. Because I carry a gun? No. Because the criminal doesn't know if I have one. The 2nd Amendment works. :)
People shouldn't be too willing to give power to the government, giving up their own in the process. The government doesn't give back the power it takes from the citizens. Why people can't see this, I'll never know.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
It's not a right granted by the 2nd Amendment. It is a right we already have, and it is enumerated because it specifically says things that are totally off limits to the government. It's just that simple. You don't get to decide how many guns I own. You don't get to decide I can only have one gun. The 2nd Amendment makes that clear. Don't like it? Feel free not to own guns.
Because the NY Post says it is an assault rifle, doesn't mean it fits the legal definition of one. Logic if your friend.
Yes, while that's true... it's still misconduct. Just because the jury found no infringement doesn't mean they can ignore evidence, though this is civil, so I suppose there's a bit more leeway.
But funny thing is... after 9/11 we didn't ban airplanes.
Exactly. Well put. The "dicks" are the ones that get the job done. They are the ones pushing... "nice" folks just get stomped out or marginalized without them even knowing it.
My take on RMS is that his message is clear, but there are some things he personally believes in strongly that sometimes get interjected into the narrative and, to outsiders, might seem that he's not focused. (It's because the public RMS and the private RMS are one in the same, I suppose.)
he's not the only one :)
I'm an amateur. :)
They said the same thing about every other leader of a movement (take your pick)... If you have issues with his delivery (he's pedantic at times, and his insistence on making sure he is heard on subjects ancillary to FSF are rather annoying), that's fine. But his message makes sense.
Copyright has been perverted to a perpetual "ATM machine" for the copyright cartels, and it is used as a weapon to strike innovation and new ideas down before they can blossom. What the GPL does is use that perversion of copyright against itself so that no matter what happens to the copyright law in the future (and believe me it's getting worse), we will have a way to keep innovation free from hoarding elements of the multinational corporations. It isn't the only license in the world, but by gum it's a pretty good alternative to the closed-source nonsense that passes for "commercial" software. DRM, proprietary formats, invasive and restrictive usage requirements (trying to completely kill Fair Use), and otherwise litigious bastards in the copyright retention business (they aren't the creators) can go eat a bag of dicks. The GPL has prevented them from strangling innovation and the sharing of ideas. Thanks to RMS, who I don't always agree with, for pioneering that.
For me, his positives outweigh his toe-cheese eating negatives. As a person, I'd probably hose him down from 40 feet... but as an idea... RMS has got the chops to put the establishment on notice.
Or just use Debian... which Ubuntu is a parasite of. :)
This isn't about the cost of the binary. This is about the GPL and release of the source. No one is bitching that it's too high of a price to pay (well, some might, but they're cheapskates). What we want to iron out (and it's harder than it looks) is how or when the source is to be distributed. There seems to be some confusion w/r/t that portion of the license... none of us are lawyers here (at least not professing lawyers), so we're just speculating.
I'm amazed that customer attitudes aren't a bit more harsh. I hate the term "consumer"... it sounds like people are just receptacles for any shit a corporate entity feels the need to get a few bucks out of.
But internet users defend megaload by basically approving of a site thats primary useage is stealing things
You might get more people to believe your tripe if you stopped calling copyright infringement theft. It's not theft. Even the MPAA can't legally claim that. It's a TORT. So get off your MPAA high horse... and the next time you want to post something... shoot yourself in the face.
The difference is, mentioning how disgusted someone is of something is freedom of speech. They don't arrest you for it, and they sure as shit don't stone you for it. It isn't banned... And the government doesn't have laws against it... (sure some laws used to exist... but they used to exist in Europe too.)
Being okay with fake violence is not some "sick obsession"... I never understood why that is always mentioned as if it's barbaric and backwards. The funny part is, there are plenty of violent movies with nudity too...