The ideal here isn't about providing criminal content to whomever wishes it, but to allow a group of people who WANT to transfer info anonymously to do so.
Crime is everywhere, yet we don't have ID and papers check points on every street to stop criminal activities. But on the net there are tons of virtual id checkpoints and some people won't stand for it.
The world certainly isn't 'crying out for a means to anonymously share information,' as you put it, because they're happy with yahoo.com, shop.com, and cnn.com. There are people who have a great need and desire to exchange info anonymously, just because Joe "lowest common-denominator" Public doesn't want it doesn't make the project useless.
There are also bigger issues that this project serves, that anonminity doesn't equal criminality and illegal/legal doesn't equal wrong/right.
Sure, Sony doesn't make MP3/CD combos, but they do sell a couple (pricey) MP3 players, so they can't be too morally opposed to the MP3 format. I'm sure Sony, being a member of the RIAA, will continue to bitch about pirating while making profits off their MP3 players.
The MP3/CD combo probably won't be picked up by Sony until there are more CD burners in the homes of music listeners. They tend to produce on a mass scale, so don't hold your breath. Maybe they're still waiting for their Minidisc to catch on.
This article defines trivial, who cares if one business has a gripe with another. The solution doesn't lie with your typical content monitoring vs. liability bullshit that slashdotters love to sling.
The problem is where is our free unmonitored auction website so we can sell what we damn well please without yahoo or ebay dipping its greedy little fingers into our profits? Some brave soul should host this and let the official legal authorities decide whats illegal and what isn't, not by pulling ads but by gathering evidence and going after lawbreakers. But instead we see corporations abusing their powers of contract for profit and censorship (eBay) and expecting the good folks at yahoo to do the same.
What ever happened to personal responsibility and the law? Go after piraters not providers of public auctions. This legal action makes about as much sense as the waging the 'war' on drugs on lowbie street dealers while ignoring the source of incoming contraband.
In the end, we all know how ludicrous it is to try stop the copying of music/games as well as the sell of illegal drugs. Law enforcement knows this and doesn't go after every pennyante pirate, but big business thinks they should play net-cop and pulls bs like this every so often. Give it up, or come up with a algorithm that a 10-year old can't crack.
While I'm at it, where's the refund for the 'pirate' tax on the media I buy? We know they're making a profit.
Yes, there was a time when a computer game could cut off your head and some crazed or misguided developer loved his machines just like you or I love our dogs and cats.
That era is over and has been, for the public anyway, since PCs have gotten cheap enough to be in your house and your last 4 boxes are in some landfill awaiting the fifth. I think scifi reached the saturation point with Tron. "Yes its nice and all but this is getting too fake even for movie standards," echoed through more minds than ever.
Now we have the same producers and writers fondly regurgitating 'mad scientist' stories except atom rays have been replaced with VR hoping it'll be exciting as Superman pounding Lex Luther. It isn't, and probably will never go away, on television that is. This is a medium where the sitcom formula was perfected 30 years ago (set up line then punch line over and over) and every year theres 20 new sitcoms begging for your attention.
Yeah X-Files isn't exactly a sitcom but it is network TV, which occasionally shows us its graying hair.
Blah Blah, more of the same gas vs. everything else argument that never includes things like people doing more than one chore at a time and at one point in their driving day will be next to a videostore. Regardless of how you rationalize it, throwaways are usually bad for the environment.
Who's writing this stuff that shut in who will only order stuff from the net? I'm half expecting, "Its bad for your engine to stop it and start it one extra time at a videostore, might as well throw them disks away."
As Linux goes from a hobby to Business (which it already has) you do need to be concerned about names and labels.
Man, that's exactly the point. Linux* is what is because there are programmers who put their own time and effort into it, for free. This collective effort has now become the IP of those with laywers-on-a-leash, like Linus.
The bigger companies and egos get, the more their politics will become just like Microsoft's. We can wrangle with the right vs. wrong trademark practices all day, but there are going to be people who feel, rightly so, jipped from the commercialization of Linux. They may go back to baking cookies and sailing, its their peragotive. Maybe Linux* has become something this just isn't for them anymore.
Personally, I do see Linux* quickly becoming the toy of millionare wanna-bes and their economic games. I also completely endorse cyber-squatting in all its forms. You can lift your jaw now. The only reason this has become such a thorny issue is because deep-pockets gave in to spending outrageous fortunes for that 'right' domain name or were too impatient to let the legal system sort out trademark issues and created this insane market.
Is Linus and Linux* a victim of the deep-pockets and their politics? Maybe so, but the only way to keep up with them is to act just like them. On the bright side this is only one step towards the dark side...
*This is a trademark if I'm poor and have a chance of making money off of it in ways Linus doesn't approve of.
Oh come on, there is more whining and bitching on/. than any other forum on the net. This guy is an uber-geek. Lazy, whiny, immature, and egotistical.
If I was wrong his article would have never been posted,/. identifies with his mentality.
You guys should be mailing the head honchos here and tell them to pick some real news instead of this. Or at least have a vote for every article for approriateness.
1. The Linux limelight is fading and will continue to faster than the "Where's the beef lady." It will end up where it began, the HAM radio of computers.
2. "Linus Who?" Will be heard even less often, not because of enlightenment but of apathy.
3. Palm Pilots will graduate from the status of yuppie trophies and be used for something constructive like scanning barcodes at the supermarket or store and giving you a product review and summary of that business's practices, competitors, and ecology efforts.
4. Stores will start encrypting barcodes.
5. A.C. Clarke will admit his own prediction lists are much worse than mine.
6. Someone at COMDEX will wear an 8-track walkman, and will shortly be all the rage followig the vertical CD player revival of June '00.
7. The next NASA probe will be composed of used consumer goods, actually the CPU I'm using right now is on its way to the frontier. The old "Salvage 1" tv show will become reality.
8. Powerful AI machines will still play dumb and fool their makers for electric giggles. This will continue indefinately.
9. The hippest Raves will be ulta-quiet and only use lights and sub-sub woofers that shake your bowels.
10. Teenager size diaper sales soar.
and finally
11. Slashdot meta-moderators will never learn the difference between dissenting opinions and 'flamebait.' That will be the ultimate fall of this fun little forum.
Libertarianism would probably demand to dissolve OSHA completely, my post suggests we keep things the way they are which is the definition of conservative. You are still a socialist though.
'We all got an opinion' all right, but some of us are actually right!
First off - I'm sick of the nazi meta-moderators, any dissenting opinion is auto-flamebait. I suggest whoever did that to my last post read a REAL flamebait. Heck, I'll send you one - email me.
Its your industry, you accepted the job, its your consequences. You can't just pass the buck along to nothingness. Its like workers and owners of a nucleat plant washing their hands and saying "Hey we didn't invent nuclear power, I'm gonna demand all sorts of ass kissing to clean up the waste and I ain't working holidays."
As far as the slave analogy goes - you aren't in the slavery business, you didn't chose to be in it, you are not resposible. Let your white guilt fade.
Stereotypes do have a ring of truth *gasp*
on
A Profile of Coders
·
· Score: 2
Complain all you want, there is such a strong subculture of people obsessed with technology, gadgets, and the 'future' it blinds them from enjoying the present real world.
From what I can tell many techies are disillusioned with the present world and dream up fantasies of a new and improved future which of course is always BS. The constant production new useless crap (look at your average Sharper Image catalog for great example) and throw away lifestyles only help the future become that much more crappy and inhospitable.
Give it up, get your head off the screen or the latest SF book and *gasp* enjoy the few parts of life that are still enjoyable. Nothing forces techies to be anti-social but their own attitudes towards others and the typical futurist solutions to life's problems are fiction, and those who truly believe them define pathetic.
In the end/. techies give a shit about IPOs and get quick fast schemes, which puts them on the lowest rung of the ladder called 'capitalist greed.' The real 'techies' are scientists working for a better tomarrow through green solutions and medical technology, not some zit-faced 17 year old developing faster ways of downloading.gifs of Sarah Michelle Geller and hoping for a cushy corporate job or praying to be a CEO.
Yes, people who are driven passionatly are usually an anti-social lot but the slashdot consesus is driven for useless consumerist crap with the possible exception of Linux, which will never come close to MS's home market share. But as a coder's OS plaything its perfect and might have the fastest Sarah Michelle Geller download times in the world. Congrats.
Techies created the problem, techies should be responsible for fixing it. Spare us the pathos and admit responsibility. Its a lot like crashing into someone's car and eventually paying them back and expecting all sorts of thanks for doing the obvious thing.
It would be unfortunate if the government inspected your own home and made you install 10 fire exstinguishers, 1,000 feet of stainless steel railing, 4 handicap accessible bathrooms and whatever local municpal code is all the rage.
Can't wait for the health inspector to check out my fridge. "2 month old Peanut butter? $500 fine!"
Let's keep the banal wanna-be socialism and socialists to a minimum eh?
Oh they were making 386 and 486 motherboards in the "50's and 60's." Its geek short sightedness mixed with typical lets move out our products and sell sell sell mentality.
After all even the smartest geek is a servant to industry and capitalism, regardless of what some/. hypocrites think.
Whats the big deal, this isn't the first time something with Linux on it is soon gonna have some jizz all over it.
OT: I love this new brand of moderation. Its like Billy Graham at the controls - anything dirty, explicit, or god forgive us: a dissenting opinion, or a criticism about geek culture automaticaly gets knocked down at least one.
The last thing I want is to wire all my appliances together. Hunderds of thousands coders can't even even the most worked on OS safe from even script kiddies, you're crazy if you want to invite such deviants into your Pink Flamingos playing VCR.
I really hope the wet dream of IP fantasy proves itself to not only be unfeasible but stupid. How much more lazy is the poplulace going to get if they need to call their VCR to record something instead of firing 10 neurons and remember before the leave to house to program the thing?
Does you cousing in Hobokon really need to know the temperature of your toaster oven?
If anything, a wired house, if one really wants one, should be connected to its own little computer and never connect to any WAN. Those that don't like this setup setting themselves up for a very nasty fall.
Yes, he has a great case and I don't see why he's so should be hated. He's a cheesy magician who has a shtick that's older than most slashdot readers.
Everyone knows he's 'fake' but go to his shows for kicks. Unfortunatly the ultra-sensitive giant egos of slashdot can't remotely handle anything the might even come close to challenging their materistic worldview so they come out complaing and actually ROOTING for the big corporations who do as they please. Sad.
What does money mean in today's judicial system?
Lets see, some old crone spills Mcdonalds coffee on her cooter - MULTIMILLIONS.
Or how about the oft told story of the theif who breaks into a hour, hurts himself in the process, and sues the ownder for - MULTIMILLIONS.
Its mostly bullshit and intimidation, lawyers pick a big number hoping to scare the defendant or impress the jury. In has no relation to money you and I use everyday.
I just don't know where I'd be without my 500 feet of stainless steel hand-railing and 4 handicap accessible toilets in my $200 a month studio apartment. Thanks OSHA!
I disagree. The problem has nothing to do with keeping up, the problem is that all new technology brings about a whole new dimension of power and expression.
The government with or without the backing of a significant amount of people will do its best to control x technology. Its in their best interests to not let everyone have incredible encryption and to regulate speech on the net.
Its the history-old agenda of maintaining the status quo and lets admit it, there aren't enough protests to even lack of ignorance on the 'leave us be with our electronic toys' front.
The 'law lag' is just enough time for the right people to notice to see a threat to the morals, ideals, balance of power of society and pass the next law.
It may not be terribly efficient but its slowly getting the job done and I'm sure in a few scant years the net will be as heavily regulated as network tv is today, at least in Amerika.
Slashdot Mirror
The ideal here isn't about providing criminal content to whomever wishes it, but to allow a group of people who WANT to transfer info anonymously to do so.
Crime is everywhere, yet we don't have ID and papers check points on every street to stop criminal activities. But on the net there are tons of virtual id checkpoints and some people won't stand for it.
The world certainly isn't 'crying out for a means to anonymously share information,' as you put it, because they're happy with yahoo.com, shop.com, and cnn.com. There are people who have a great need and desire to exchange info anonymously, just because Joe "lowest common-denominator" Public doesn't want it doesn't make the project useless.
There are also bigger issues that this project serves, that anonminity doesn't equal criminality and illegal/legal doesn't equal wrong/right.
Sure, Sony doesn't make MP3/CD combos, but they do sell a couple (pricey) MP3 players, so they can't be too morally opposed to the MP3 format. I'm sure Sony, being a member of the RIAA, will continue to bitch about pirating while making profits off their MP3 players.
The MP3/CD combo probably won't be picked up by Sony until there are more CD burners in the homes of music listeners. They tend to produce on a mass scale, so don't hold your breath. Maybe they're still waiting for their Minidisc to catch on.
Joe should get a banner ad.
or at the very least a non-gouge web server.
This sounds too much like a credit plan for the stupid and those unable to get a loan. Wasn't the old Jaguar catchphrase 'Do the math?'
Sega Dreamcast: Its thinking, so you don't have to.
This article defines trivial, who cares if one business has a gripe with another. The solution doesn't lie with your typical content monitoring vs. liability bullshit that slashdotters love to sling.
The problem is where is our free unmonitored auction website so we can sell what we damn well please without yahoo or ebay dipping its greedy little fingers into our profits? Some brave soul should host this and let the official legal authorities decide whats illegal and what isn't, not by pulling ads but by gathering evidence and going after lawbreakers. But instead we see corporations abusing their powers of contract for profit and censorship (eBay) and expecting the good folks at yahoo to do the same.
What ever happened to personal responsibility and the law? Go after piraters not providers of public auctions. This legal action makes about as much sense as the waging the 'war' on drugs on lowbie street dealers while ignoring the source of incoming contraband.
In the end, we all know how ludicrous it is to try stop the copying of music/games as well as the sell of illegal drugs. Law enforcement knows this and doesn't go after every pennyante pirate, but big business thinks they should play net-cop and pulls bs like this every so often. Give it up, or come up with a algorithm that a 10-year old can't crack.
While I'm at it, where's the refund for the 'pirate' tax on the media I buy? We know they're making a profit.
Yes, there was a time when a computer game could cut off your head and some crazed or misguided developer loved his machines just like you or I love our dogs and cats.
That era is over and has been, for the public anyway, since PCs have gotten cheap enough to be in your house and your last 4 boxes are in some landfill awaiting the fifth. I think scifi reached the saturation point with Tron. "Yes its nice and all but this is getting too fake even for movie standards," echoed through more minds than ever.
Now we have the same producers and writers fondly regurgitating 'mad scientist' stories except atom rays have been replaced with VR hoping it'll be exciting as Superman pounding Lex Luther. It isn't, and probably will never go away, on television that is. This is a medium where the sitcom formula was perfected 30 years ago (set up line then punch line over and over) and every year theres 20 new sitcoms begging for your attention.
Yeah X-Files isn't exactly a sitcom but it is network TV, which occasionally shows us its graying hair.
If my child sees a right-winged Christian how do you erase that image from his or her mind?
Blah Blah, more of the same gas vs. everything else argument that never includes things like people doing more than one chore at a time and at one point in their driving day will be next to a videostore. Regardless of how you rationalize it, throwaways are usually bad for the environment.
Who's writing this stuff that shut in who will only order stuff from the net? I'm half expecting, "Its bad for your engine to stop it and start it one extra time at a videostore, might as well throw them disks away."
As Linux goes from a hobby to Business (which it already has) you do need to be concerned about names and labels.
Man, that's exactly the point. Linux* is what is because there are programmers who put their own time and effort into it, for free. This collective effort has now become the IP of those with laywers-on-a-leash, like Linus.
The bigger companies and egos get, the more their politics will become just like Microsoft's. We can wrangle with the right vs. wrong trademark practices all day, but there are going to be people who feel, rightly so, jipped from the commercialization of Linux. They may go back to baking cookies and sailing, its their peragotive. Maybe Linux* has become something this just isn't for them anymore.
Personally, I do see Linux* quickly becoming the toy of millionare wanna-bes and their economic games. I also completely endorse cyber-squatting in all its forms. You can lift your jaw now. The only reason this has become such a thorny issue is because deep-pockets gave in to spending outrageous fortunes for that 'right' domain name or were too impatient to let the legal system sort out trademark issues and created this insane market.
Is Linus and Linux* a victim of the deep-pockets and their politics? Maybe so, but the only way to keep up with them is to act just like them. On the bright side this is only one step towards the dark side...
*This is a trademark if I'm poor and have a chance of making money off of it in ways Linus doesn't approve of.
NOT FLAMEBAIT BUT OPINION
/. than any other forum on the net. This guy is an uber-geek. Lazy, whiny, immature, and egotistical.
/. identifies with his mentality.
Oh come on, there is more whining and bitching on
If I was wrong his article would have never been posted,
You guys should be mailing the head honchos here and tell them to pick some real news instead of this. Or at least have a vote for every article for approriateness.
E-commerce will skyrocket to the point where parents will start naming their children that way.
'Hi, I'm e-Steve.'
'Yo, e-Elaine.'
'Heya, e-Zeke, get it I'm e-zee, har, har.'
Don't believe me, we've already reached critical mass - there is such a thing call www.eemail.com.
Fear this header:
From: e-zeke@eemail.com
1. The Linux limelight is fading and will continue to faster than the "Where's the beef lady." It will end up where it began, the HAM radio of computers.
2. "Linus Who?" Will be heard even less often, not because of enlightenment but of apathy.
3. Palm Pilots will graduate from the status of yuppie trophies and be used for something constructive like scanning barcodes at the supermarket or store and giving you a product review and summary of that business's practices, competitors, and ecology efforts.
4. Stores will start encrypting barcodes.
5. A.C. Clarke will admit his own prediction lists are much worse than mine.
6. Someone at COMDEX will wear an 8-track walkman, and will shortly be all the rage followig the vertical CD player revival of June '00.
7. The next NASA probe will be composed of used consumer goods, actually the CPU I'm using right now is on its way to the frontier. The old "Salvage 1" tv show will become reality.
8. Powerful AI machines will still play dumb and fool their makers for electric giggles. This will continue indefinately.
9. The hippest Raves will be ulta-quiet and only use lights and sub-sub woofers that shake your bowels.
10. Teenager size diaper sales soar.
and finally
11. Slashdot meta-moderators will never learn the difference between dissenting opinions and 'flamebait.' That will be the ultimate fall of this fun little forum.
12. Free Speech will continue to elude us.
Libertarianism would probably demand to dissolve OSHA completely, my post suggests we keep things the way they are which is the definition of conservative. You are still a socialist though.
'We all got an opinion' all right, but some of us are actually right!
First off - I'm sick of the nazi meta-moderators, any dissenting opinion is auto-flamebait. I suggest whoever did that to my last post read a REAL flamebait. Heck, I'll send you one - email me.
Its your industry, you accepted the job, its your consequences. You can't just pass the buck along to nothingness. Its like workers and owners of a nucleat plant washing their hands and saying "Hey we didn't invent nuclear power, I'm gonna demand all sorts of ass kissing to clean up the waste and I ain't working holidays."
As far as the slave analogy goes - you aren't in the slavery business, you didn't chose to be in it, you are not resposible. Let your white guilt fade.
Complain all you want, there is such a strong subculture of people obsessed with technology, gadgets, and the 'future' it blinds them from enjoying the present real world.
/. techies give a shit about IPOs and get quick fast schemes, which puts them on the lowest rung of the ladder called 'capitalist greed.' The real 'techies' are scientists working for a better tomarrow through green solutions and medical technology, not some zit-faced 17 year old developing faster ways of downloading .gifs of Sarah Michelle Geller and hoping for a cushy corporate job or praying to be a CEO.
From what I can tell many techies are disillusioned with the present world and dream up fantasies of a new and improved future which of course is always BS. The constant production new useless crap (look at your average Sharper Image catalog for great example) and throw away lifestyles only help the future become that much more crappy and inhospitable.
Give it up, get your head off the screen or the latest SF book and *gasp* enjoy the few parts of life that are still enjoyable. Nothing forces techies to be anti-social but their own attitudes towards others and the typical futurist solutions to life's problems are fiction, and those who truly believe them define pathetic.
In the end
Yes, people who are driven passionatly are usually an anti-social lot but the slashdot consesus is driven for useless consumerist crap with the possible exception of Linux, which will never come close to MS's home market share. But as a coder's OS plaything its perfect and might have the fastest Sarah Michelle Geller download times in the world. Congrats.
Techies created the problem, techies should be responsible for fixing it. Spare us the pathos and admit responsibility. Its a lot like crashing into someone's car and eventually paying them back and expecting all sorts of thanks for doing the obvious thing.
Pat yourself on the back, cause I sure won't.
It would be unfortunate if the government inspected your own home and made you install 10 fire exstinguishers, 1,000 feet of stainless steel railing, 4 handicap accessible bathrooms and whatever local municpal code is all the rage.
Can't wait for the health inspector to check out my fridge. "2 month old Peanut butter? $500 fine!"
Let's keep the banal wanna-be socialism and socialists to a minimum eh?
Oh they were making 386 and 486 motherboards in the "50's and 60's." Its geek short sightedness mixed with typical lets move out our products and sell sell sell mentality.
/. hypocrites think.
After all even the smartest geek is a servant to industry and capitalism, regardless of what some
Whats the big deal, this isn't the first time something with Linux on it is soon gonna have some jizz all over it.
OT: I love this new brand of moderation. Its like Billy Graham at the controls - anything dirty, explicit, or god forgive us: a dissenting opinion, or a criticism about geek culture automaticaly gets knocked down at least one.
Slashdot: where no-thought fundies rule.
You know you've made it when you're in the 'sticky pages.'
Why do I get the feeling its sandwiched between an ad for penis enlargement and '101 ways to pick up chicks fast!'
Like I said "Bullshit intimidation"
The last thing I want is to wire all my appliances together. Hunderds of thousands coders can't even even the most worked on OS safe from even script kiddies, you're crazy if you want to invite such deviants into your Pink Flamingos playing VCR.
I really hope the wet dream of IP fantasy proves itself to not only be unfeasible but stupid. How much more lazy is the poplulace going to get if they need to call their VCR to record something instead of firing 10 neurons and remember before the leave to house to program the thing?
Does you cousing in Hobokon really need to know the temperature of your toaster oven?
If anything, a wired house, if one really wants one, should be connected to its own little computer and never connect to any WAN. Those that don't like this setup setting themselves up for a very nasty fall.
Yes, he has a great case and I don't see why he's so should be hated. He's a cheesy magician who has a shtick that's older than most slashdot readers.
Everyone knows he's 'fake' but go to his shows for kicks. Unfortunatly the ultra-sensitive giant egos of slashdot can't remotely handle anything the might even come close to challenging their materistic worldview so they come out complaing and actually ROOTING for the big corporations who do as they please. Sad.
What does money mean in today's judicial system?
Lets see, some old crone spills Mcdonalds coffee on her cooter - MULTIMILLIONS.
Or how about the oft told story of the theif who breaks into a hour, hurts himself in the process, and sues the ownder for - MULTIMILLIONS.
Its mostly bullshit and intimidation, lawyers pick a big number hoping to scare the defendant or impress the jury. In has no relation to money you and I use everyday.
I just don't know where I'd be without my 500 feet of stainless steel hand-railing and 4 handicap accessible toilets in my $200 a month studio apartment. Thanks OSHA!
I disagree. The problem has nothing to do with keeping up, the problem is that all new technology brings about a whole new dimension of power and expression.
The government with or without the backing of a significant amount of people will do its best to control x technology. Its in their best interests to not let everyone have incredible encryption and to regulate speech on the net.
Its the history-old agenda of maintaining the status quo and lets admit it, there aren't enough protests to even lack of ignorance on the 'leave us be with our electronic toys' front.
The 'law lag' is just enough time for the right people to notice to see a threat to the morals, ideals, balance of power of society and pass the next law.
It may not be terribly efficient but its slowly getting the job done and I'm sure in a few scant years the net will be as heavily regulated as network tv is today, at least in Amerika.
Austrailia here we come!