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User: iminplaya

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  1. Re:Microsoft happy with IE? on New Trojan Threatens Windows XP SP 2 · · Score: 1

    Maybe we should compare it to the albert hall?

  2. Re:Censorship resistant networks on Exeem "Successor" to Suprnova Announced · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...without regard for the people making the content (notice how those poor saps are never, ever mentioned in these discussions?).

    I mention them all the time. And I'll ask you the same question I ask the others. What makes them so special that they need special entitlements to do their work? It's no more valuable than my work, yet I have to show up and work if I want to get paid. They should be working the same damn way. Content producers don't need copyright to make their money. The government entitlement of copyright is thievery from the public. It is you who is clouding the real issue of self-distribution with nonsense like piracy(which the industry makes great use of itself) and infringement. It's the copyright holders who are demanding the free gov't handout of monopoly and control of information. That's your real issue right there. They want to insure that they own and control everything you see. Any program that enables a person to distribute information without going through the gatekeepers is a good thing. It matters not one bit that it can be used for disagreeable purposes to me. You can cry all you want about legalities. I'm going to do what I can to insure that people are able to communicate anonymously and freely, regardless of what is being communicated. No one person or group has right to control that.

  3. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    You aren't going to convince me that crooks should be allowed to run free.

    You already support a society that lets many of its crooks run free, and very nasty ones at that. So you are allowing it now. You don't need me to convince you of that. You already accept it. Your insistance that I am for it, just means you never did understand what I said. For some reason you think I am for no punishment. You also seem to think that prison is the only suitable punishment. Putting someone at direct risk of personal harm to protect property is every bit as bad as the accused criminal's actions. You don't need to respond. You will never convince me that prison is acceptable punishment for property crime. I also do my best to minimize my support of groups that let their crooks run free, and I advocate that others do likewise.

  4. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    Based on what you've written, there would be no reason not to be a thief.

    Incorrect. That conclusion is based on your misinterpretation of the origianl post.

    You just aren't thinking of the other options, of which there are many. Just because I say don't put them in jail, it doesn't mean you can't monitor and restrict their movements. Most thieves have jobs, believe it or not. It's not hard to garnish their present and future income. Hell, if you have to, tattoo "thief" on their foreheads. Just make damn sure you have the right guy. You're in deep doo-doo if you start taking down innocents. Public humiliation can be much more effective than prison. Prison is just more convenient, which seems to be what people really want(in addition to the revenge thing).

    But I don't want people feeling like they cna just steal anything they want and get away with it - and that's what your system does.

    Where did I say anything about letting them get away with it? I also never said that stealing is not harmful, but there is a difference between economic harm and personal harm, and economic harm should never be used to justify personally harming another person. Again you are saying that prison is the only solution. In that case, let's throw people who don't pay their parking tickets into jail. Better yet, eliminate parking tickets. Just issue a warrant for their arrest. Even better, replace all fines with prison terms. I consider habitual traffic offenders much more dangerous than petty thieves. They are much more likely to hurt somebody. Jail will nip that problem at the bud.

    ...they steal, they get caught, they get told "don't do it again"...

    That's just childish, and you should know that's not what I'm advocating.

    This is your plan - yet I'm a troll? Jeeze.

    Yes, your previous response was pure troll. It's part of your absolute failure to look at other options. You really need to consider what creates the desire to steal, and work from that. Like all other "bad" things, if you don't think of the desire for it, you'll never be able to do anything about it, unless you want to lock up everybody. People who feel a need to steal rarely think about the prison sentence while stealing. I hope you never steal pens, or paperclips, or Post-its from the office. I hope you never call in sick when you're not sick. I hope you don't lie on your time sheet at work if you have one, even a little. Please don't make any questionable deductions on your taxes. After all, stealing is stealing.

  5. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    Well, if I were to draw similar conclusions, I could say you're an ignorant, closed minded fool that believes revenge is the answer to all the world's problems. Worry not. I won't. Nothing good would come of it. Too bad logical thought on the matter is not on your agenda today. Tomorrow doesn't look good either, I take it. Trolling seem to be more satisfying to you, evidently. You seem to have lots of friends in that respect...for now. In the meantime, maybe you should check the numbers to see if harsh sentencing for petty crimes has done anything to reduce them, and see if you can draw logical conclusions from that to post here. Your hate can only bring on more of the same old...stuff.

  6. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    Are you actually saying that if someone steals your car, they shouldn't go to jail?

    Yes.

    Are you actually saying that if, while you are not home, they burn down your house, it's OK?

    No.

    Read the post. All of it...Please.

  7. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    So you're saying I should stay in the back of the bus? Simply because it's the law? If I am a woman, I should just stay in the kitchen and not fight for voting rights so I might be able to change the law? The freedoms you enjoy today were brought to you in a very large part by the lawbreakers. Sometimes it's the lawbreakers that are needed to expose the absurdity of some laws. The breakdown is coming because more and more people are seeing the hypocrisy of the lawmakers. It is indeed unfortunate they seem so unwilling to vote them out, but as seen in recent elections, whole voting blocks are becoming disenfranchised when they can't vote anyone into office to represent them.They have no voice in the process. They have no hope of changing any laws. If we don't apply the law equally to everybody(double for cops and legislators), you will see no respect for it, nor would it deserve any.

    Anyone willing to break the moral bounds imposed upon them (even if it's a petty moral bond such as "pot is bad" -- I think pot should be legal, until it is, I won't be smoking it) is dangerous.

    Whose moral bounds? Yours? I think not. Morality comes from within, not from a bunch of bald, old farts that represent the highest bidder. Those who want to impose moral bounds damn well better live by them, otherwise all bets are off.

  8. Re:What the? on Opportunity Rover Encounters Its Own Heat Shield · · Score: 1

    When I look at that map, I see the rover going from one interesting object to the next. It's cool that they've covered two kilometers, but it's the stopping and looking,...

    Sounds kinda like a dog looking for a place to pee.

  9. Re:You're missing the point on Following up on Torrent Shutdowns · · Score: 1

    You were so right on until the last line.

    IP is good,...

    There are extremely few things on this planet that could be more untrue. It's unfortunate you think that way. You speak as one that's dependant on the staus quo, no matter how corrupt it could be. The notion of intellectual property is so whack that it makes me have second thoughts about real property. To permit a person's exclusive monopoly over an ldea is just so abhorrent, that to hear someone speak in favor of it means to me that they are not entirely against the idea of owning slaves, and that the law is the law, and we owe it some kind of respect regardless of how bad it could be. There has been more than one reply to me to that affect. These laws are never going to be an issue with the voters. They won't be repealed(lucky for you evidently) anytime soon. The time has come to disregard them completely, and unless you're willing to adapt and show up for work like the rest of us "non-creative peons", you're going to be left in the lurch.

  10. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    There are a few white collar criminals in jail now, or were there before the Enron boys did their thing. It didn't seem to deter them from doing it anyway. And it just means that the next guy who does the same thing(Believe me. There will be lots of "next guys") is going to try harder not to get caught. They aren't thinking about the jail term. It doesn't matter how long it will be. The only thing on their mind, besides getting rich, is not getting caught.

  11. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    You didn't explain the punishment alocated out for those kinds of crimes. The indication from your post is that you live in a country that treats thieves very harshly. If that's the case, do you actually think that harsher laws and more prison time are going to solve the problem? Check out the relation between lots of jail time and the crime rate. Also check whether any changes to the law(longer sentences) has caused any change in the crime rate. A freebie for you. Check the punishment meted out for virtually any crime commited in, say Texas. Compare it with, oh I don't know, Minnesota. Then check to see which has the lower crime rate. Start with a biggie, like murder.

  12. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    If you think the iron fist is going to prevent any of this, you're in for a surprise. The numbers are not on your side. If you want any respect for your property, you need to work on the desire to commit the crime. All the harshest sentencing has yet to do anything about that. It only feeds revenge(and the backlash can be even harsher) and the certain industries, and I, for one, know that it's counterproductive. Otherwise the U.S, China, and a whole bunch of those little Southeast Asian countries would be almost completely free of any crime, against persons OR property. I also have to say that if you prefer to have a person who can't control his emotions(heat of passion is bullshit. A nice convenient way to get out of jail free) on the street and presents a REAL danger to everybody, than a petty thief that may have stolen something of yours, I tend to think that your priorities are somewhat...backwards? You're showing a higher regard for property than human life. I hope your wife isn't thinking of cheating on you. If she is, I hope she's quicker on the draw. Self defense trumps heat of passion any day of the week.

  13. Re:The genie is out of the bottle... on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    Nobody's trying to stop drug use or piracy or anything else. They want to create a new(for the U.S. They're tired of being second to China) class of labor. Prison labor. It's damn near free for the companies that use it, and those profiting from the prison infrastructure will rake in the dough. If everybody were to stop using drugs or bootlegging information today, a new set of laws would be created tomorrow to feed this monster. If everyone were to just go home and sit, they'll make that a criminal offense. When seen from this perspective, it looks like prohibition is working very well. Somebody's making a lot of money from it, and they don't want to see any changes made, except possibly longer prison terms. The solution is simple, but nobody's interested. We're all too humgry for power to give a damn. The law has become a sad joke that exists only to feed the rich and powerful. If we let this get much worse, any respect for the law that's left will completely disappear. That all the world's "terrorists" are gaining more friends every day should show how bad it's getting.

  14. Re:Wow. Up to 15 years. on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 1

    Prison isn't about punishment, much less rehabilitation. It's all about the money. Soon other countries will "outsource" their prisoners to the U.S. The prison industry is booming now, thanks to their criminalizing the smallest of offenses in order to feed it. They will become the world's prison colony soon enough. Revenge must be scarce. Everybody's so desperate to have it. They are willing to pay top dollar to acquire it at all costs.

  15. Re:Not sentenced yet on Feds Convict Warez Dealer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyway you just can't compare the two.

    Absolutely. Property crimes should never be equated with crimes against a person. There simply is no property crime that warrants incarceration. There are too many alternatives that are much more effective, but they never seem to satisfy the hunger for revenge. Again, only dangerous people should be locked away. Big money says otherwise.

  16. Re:Problems on The Semantics of Free Software vs. Open Source · · Score: 1

    Heh, you got THAT right! License bloat is a real problem. Someone can make a 15 line P2P program, but the license will take up 25K. If developers can forego the attribution thing and put everything into public domain anonymously, then they can safely ignore the IP issues, and we will have real progress. Let's get the egos(not invented here syndrome) out of the way, and begin some real collaboration. Those who want to make money selling software will just have to do contract work with the understanding that there will be no exclusivity. The money will be just as good as the present trickle down system we have today.

  17. Re:Uhm, hello........ on High Speed Steam Powered Car · · Score: 1

    If I remember right, If you want the quick response an internal combustion engine provides, you will lose a lot of the efficiency inherent with the Stirling. The same may apply to steam, unless you keep the boiler really hot. I would still prefer steam or Stirling due to the wide varieties of fuels you could use to power them. These types of engines would be ideal in a hybrid. They can run under a near constant load, with the battery supplying the burst power needed for a quick start. There's lots "new" here as far as applications go.

  18. Re:This car runs on gas on High Speed Steam Powered Car · · Score: 1

    This wont wind up in your garage.

    Well, if it's made by Ford, that's the only place it will end up.

  19. Re:Stanley Steamer on High Speed Steam Powered Car · · Score: 1

    You had to heat the boiler up for a long time before you could get going.

    Kinda like waiting for my computer to boot up. I'm sure nobody's going to use these as a getaway car. It would give new urgency to "keep the motor running".

  20. Re:Not To Sound Silly... on High Speed Steam Powered Car · · Score: 1

    Hello 1880's!

    Not quite. I don't think that these things will have us wading in horse crap all day. I bet they smell better also.

  21. Re:Make it illegal. on Spamfighting Since the Death of MakeLoveNotSpam? · · Score: 1

    Of course that's the only way, but people are a vengeful bunch, and they want blood and guts and "veins in their teeth". It provides them the illusion of power.

  22. Re:Throw Laptop In The Nearest Lake on Texas State Parks Offer Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    So, I guess Kentucky is not on the itinerary? :-)

  23. Re:If Copyright Infringment == Terrorism, yes on Universal Software Radio Peripheral From GnuRadio · · Score: 1

    It looks like the developers will have to work anonymously. If software is to become so heavily regulated, it will become time to quit looking for attribution and just throw everything into the public domain where nobody can do anything about it. It stuff gets used in closed source or proprietary software, it won't matter. They can't prevent us from using or selling it also. So the argument about GPL of other open source software being "stolen" amounts to nothing. Let 'em have their money. We still have our software.

  24. Re:Life Recorder on The Future of the P.C. · · Score: 1

    It's still more likely to suffer from that old game of "telephone", eventually subject to someone's interpretation
    Do you have no concept of digital replication? We can replicate digital information bit-for-bit, verifying each of them with 0% degredation. There is no interpretation necesary, something is either a 1 or a 0.


    I'm not sure, but I thought I read that making bit(or sector copies, I can't remember) copies of, say a CR-ROM is impossible to the nature of the errors inherent to the medium. Error correction usually takes care of the problem. I'm just not sure how exact the copies are. Another thing I'm not sure of is what happens if you, for example translate some C++ code into Python or Perl. The program may function the same way, but there are differences,no? I'm just asking because I'm not so certain as to how absolute digital is, with all this error correction going on. 500 or 1000 years could show that we aren't doing so well in the accuracy department. The errors we put up with now are very minor, but they could become uncorrectable on the long term. My problem with digital is that you may need to create a new program to read old info. If you don't know what's in the old info, how would you know your new program translated(parsed?) it correctly? With old medium we have plenty of time for attempted translation. We obviously could use high tech to help translate it. With new digital, the medium could quickly become unreadable, especially if you run out of power(by tripping over the extension cord). Audio recorded onto vinyl is known to last over 70 years already. There is no digital medium that I know of with that life span. 3D? Put it on film. I understand the limits of low tech. For convenient access, there's no beating digital, and it is more accurate, but we only have 20-30 years of work to look at. I'm sort of convinced that if you put a high tech digital archive in the same cool dark dry room with old tech paper, vinyl, or film, the old tech stuff will still be legible(?) after 50 years of neglect. Time capsule anyone? You should still be alive to open it in 50 years and see if I'm right. By then it probably won't matter to much to me. I wonder if, in 2000 years, we will have more legible archives from the bronze age or from the information age.

  25. Re:I wonder on Huge Parachute Saves Crashing Planes · · Score: 1

    If you want the best possible lift for volume, you'll want to fill the balloon with a vacuum. I'm not sure how many tanks of that you would need.