How is sharing bits on computers not free speech? We're doing it right now. Thus, since the US has the most stringent and heavily enforced anti-filesharing laws, it seems that the US is crushing free speech.
The difference between the US and China is only in the targets of censorship. In both cases the censorship is entirely political, and in both cases it is done "for the good of the people." It is also pure sophist BS in both cases.
That's hilarious. What sex would you assign to a person with both male and female organs? Or a person with neither? Such things do exist, always have and always will.
I agree about religions though. Everyone has a metaphysical system, even if it is entirely negative. Any way you slice it, it's not verifiable by sense perception (except for the most blatantly simplistic views, like god lives on top of the clouds and has long blonde hair and a beard).
I don't use IM for the same reason I keep my cellphone turned off unless I want to make a call. I don't want my train of thought or my present activities interrupted by whatever random person feels like contacting me just whenever.
I know a guy named George Bush (we call him "Dubya" here in Houston, cuz he's just another good ol' boy) who doesn't even get informed of purchases less than a billion dollars.
10 million dollars is what you show to the poor folks when you want them to swallow a regressive tax with a smile. All those uninsured mouth-breathers love the lottery almost as much as beer. Probably because they've been strongly discouraged from learning any math or logic, in the same way slaves used to be discouraged from reading. A spoonful of sugar helps the medecine go down. In a most delightful way!
I am perpetually surprised at the number of people who seem to think that "justice" and the legal system are synonymous. Look at how and why laws are made and enforced and it becomes blindlingly clear that true justice cannot be dispensed by man. As Leibniz said, "justice is nothing but the charity of the wise" and so the highest justice can only come from the highest wisdom. That is also why religions are always the basis of legal systems and prophets, such as Moses, are referred to as lawgivers.
I feel the same way, but after reading this article by Bill Clinton's ex-advisor I think maybe we will be all right thanks to India:
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Com ment/DickMorris/072005.html
This is the first time I've seen a political pundit mention robotics replacing manual laborers, though I've heard it's what the Japanese are banking on to help them stay competetive with China. After all, how much will it cost China to make cars in a few years?
I totally agree. IMHO, it's kind of like open-source software or free music. People who are making tons of money off these things end up doing it for the cash, whereas people who give away knowledge for free are genuinely just trying to make the world a better place. Of course, some are like advertisers and have an agenda, and some people get paid a lot for what they do because they are great at it, but either way we have to rely on our own judgement when deciding who to listen to and who to ignore.
For instance, I have always wondered, ever since I was a kid, how it is possible for AIDS to be sexually transmitted, and yet hardly anyone has it. It has always seemed to me like exponential growth is the clear and unique attribute of communicable diseases. Then last year I discovered that there are some very smart people, nobel-prize winners and such, who have a different idea of how AIDS is spread. So I read their papers, which were clear and logically precise. And they convinced me, in the face of all the hundreds of magazine articles and teachers and public service announcements, that AIDS isn't spread by sexual activity.
I vividly remember, as a child, watching Oprah and seeing a guest who was HIV+ denying that they would get AIDS and encouraging people not to take their medecine, and I (along with all of the studio audience) was appalled that someone could be so foolish as to ignore the wisdom recieved from so many highly-paid healthcare experts. The difference between me now and me 15 years ago is that now I have the self-confidence and intellectual sophistication to investigate the evidence presented and ignore the clamoring masses when I make a decision. The scientific method. One does not have to study much history at all to find many situations in which the medical experts convinced the vast majority to follow a course of action that was totally wrong and very harmful.
Well then I suppose you 'assemble' your motherboards from off the shelf atoms. I use stock hydrogen to generate all the other elements, and I built a chip fabrication plant in my garage (manned by my rabbit and a tube sock with a happy face on it).
C'mon man, Dell is the top PC manufacturer and they just "assemble" shit by your definition. Give us a break.
You are right. What you fail to recognise is that any ideology can be used to justify mass slaughter or anything else you can think of.
Look at religions, or the Albigensian crusades, or the War on Drugs, or abortion, or anything else. It's as plain as day that people do whatever the hell they want and then justify it afterwards however they feel is most likely to benefit them. You know a little bit of history, now learn some more.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi
on
Death Penalty For Hackers?
·
· Score: 0, Insightful
I disagree with your characterization of 'poor'. If poverty was starvation and/or homelessness, then almost nobody in America would be poor. Our poor people have cable TV and air conditioning, and are often morbidly obese. My point is, I think poor is a relative term, and people are 'poor' only by comparision to some group of people. Even the head chief caveman would've been 'poor' by your definition. What do you think?
Just to be a jerk, I must take issue with the statement that you "know the moral choice." If "knowing" has any non-random meaning, it means to know without a doubt, always and forever. In math we "know" things because we prove them. In natural science, we don't "know" anything but we at least have strong empirical evidence. So my question is, how can you possibly claim to have any kind of knowledge in the moral realm?
I don't think we have any more moral knowledge than people did a thousand years ago, or even more than animals and plants have. Certainly I haven't heard of anyone who can prove otherwise.
I wholeheartedly agree. That phrase sounds like something Douglas Rushkoff would write, which is another way of saying that it's enough to turn a person away from computers (or whatever else he's espousing) forever.
I just hate it when liberal arts majors take a computer programming class.
The games that precisely fill the niche you discuss are first person shooters like Unreal 2004. The gameplay is similar enough across the whole genre that being very good at one means you're not bad at the others and can pick up quickly. What makes it hard for seasoned gameplayers like myself to get into MMOGs is that you spend so much time learning each game's arcane rules, and then mechanically performing the most efficient algorithm you can come up with. Or take a chance and do some serious exploring, which usually ends in player death.
I'd also like to add that there's also social interaction on FPS gameservers, because after you play for a while the regulars get to know each other (mostly because you end up at the same place at the same time, and either help or massacre each other depending on team affiliation). Once you throw in the forums and the clans then it seems to me that the only people who would even want to play RPGs are those with WWWWAAAYYYY too much time on their hands. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just saying that I know I already play too much myself, yet RPGs require much much more time than even I'm willing to spend.
I never understood how NASCAR drivers are iconified. I mean, that's like putting a horse jockey on a pedestal, or saying that without Neil Armstrong nobody would've walked on the moon.
Plus, Howard Dean as chair of the DNC is kind of wierd, but the chair of the RNC is a homosexual! That's fine and all, but WTF y'know?
Sorry I'm such a jerk sometimes. I was having a bad day, but that's no excuse.
I personally find it impossible to get much understanding of something the first time I read it, I usually have to reread at least twice before I feel like I have even a handle to start understanding a subject. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think there's much correlation between reading speed and intelligence or comprehension. Surely a beginner can't scan a 400 page introduction to quantum mechanics in less than a month?
Okay you english types obviously didn't pass introductory math. Let me break it down for you:
You assert that you can "easily" read a 400 page book in 8 hours. So you read 50 pages an hour, or about a page a minute. I broke out my Kurt Godel Collected Works vol III which is about the size of a standard big book and it contains 40 lines of text per page. So you read better than a line every 2 seconds. For 8 hours straight. Without pause.
What I am getting at is that you are a either a pitifully inept liar or (inclusive) you don't know the difference between "reading to understand" and "looking at a page". What has been clearly and rigorously demostrated here, using the axiomatic method, is that you are a buffoon.
Then play Super Mario Brothers like all the other pre-teens, jerk. Bionic commando is the grown-up version, with big cool guns and a reanimated Hitler (whose head fucking EXPLODES IN A BLOODY CATACLYSM) instead of magic mushrooms and flying turtles.
I was a fat college student (285 lbs, 130 kg, couldn't do a pushup) when I joined the Army as Airborne Infantry. I had to lose 40 lbs just to go to basic training. I went through basic training and RIP twice because I couldn't do enough pushups.
Three years later I was a corporal who had attended Ranger school, had an Expert infantry badge and a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I could bench 285 and my physical fitness was graded on the extended scale, because I maxed out all the scores. When I came home, people assumed I was a football player, but I was still your average slashdotter within (much to the dismay of more than one young lady, believe it or not. Ever seen a 240 lb ripped giant scurry away redfaced from a group of wanton coeds who were vociferously sharing their positive evaluations of his ass?)
Sorry about the literary masturbation, but my point is that if you really totally dedicate yourself to something then in 5 years time you can do absolutely anything, whether physical or mental or other. Will is the moving force of the world.
I couldn't stand it either. So I steered my realplayer on over to the real homepage guide, and now I'm watching a Britney Spears mega-mix video. It's much more interesting.
I suggest the AVI or MPG or DIVX standard. After all, why should hollywood need 45 gigs to store a movie trilogy when Afghani bootleggers can put all 3 "Lord of the Rings" on 1 DVD-compatible disc? Or (so I've heard from others) one can typicaly download a DVD-quality 2 hour movie in less than 700 megs, certainly under a gig.
Of course, hollywood is nowhere near as efficient as these capitalist bootleggers, since they sell these movie trilogy sets for $3 with large profit margins. Maybe we should outsource hollywood! (Or are we already doing that with bittorrent? I know puretna.com has will fulfilled all my porn-related needs for my entire life. An equivalnet video/TV/movie site could easily do the same to ABC, CBS, Fox, and all the studios and record companies combined!)
I think that something tangible WAS "stolen" by this "thief".
The guy took CREDIT for the other guy's work. Credit, as in claimed experience, is very valuable. I wish I could take credit for the proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis from the axioms of ZF set theory, but I would be stealing credit from someone else who really DID do such a thing. So I guess I can agree with copyright, patent, and trademark holders that lying about your relationship with the creation of a product of the imagination involves "stealing". Stealing of credit, which is totally invasive and morally wrong, because it's outright barefaced self-interested lying.
Of course your time isn't free. Neither is mine, or anyone else's. But we all know that to learn new software, even if it does a better job and is more efficient or even if it has a better interface, takes time. But even if you're not a hardcore perl-scripting-on-a-daily-basis programmer you can appreciate the value and the ideal behind open source software, and you can see what a wonderful world it will lead to just down the road a bit if only everyone would take a little time and effort to contribute.
You don't have to be writing code to help free software. All you have to do is use it, and let the increasing stats on server usage do the rest. Drivers, 3rd party support, cutting edge, first-release software, it will all be developed for linux too (for instance, this has already happened in the world of servers itself, see Apache/linux destroying the hideously expensive SUN systems.)
That's my opinion anyway.
I think the most informative thing in the article was where it said MS search had only 13% of the market share. This is absolutely despicably low if you note that internet explorer now uses MS search by default every time there's an error in the address box.
I bet that has a lot to do with all the spyware which replaces the default search with it's own crapulent all-ad search engine.
Slashdot Mirror
How is sharing bits on computers not free speech? We're doing it right now. Thus, since the US has the most stringent and heavily enforced anti-filesharing laws, it seems that the US is crushing free speech.
The difference between the US and China is only in the targets of censorship. In both cases the censorship is entirely political, and in both cases it is done "for the good of the people." It is also pure sophist BS in both cases.
That's hilarious. What sex would you assign to a person with both male and female organs? Or a person with neither? Such things do exist, always have and always will.
I agree about religions though. Everyone has a metaphysical system, even if it is entirely negative. Any way you slice it, it's not verifiable by sense perception (except for the most blatantly simplistic views, like god lives on top of the clouds and has long blonde hair and a beard).
I don't use IM for the same reason I keep my cellphone turned off unless I want to make a call. I don't want my train of thought or my present activities interrupted by whatever random person feels like contacting me just whenever.
I know a guy named George Bush (we call him "Dubya" here in Houston, cuz he's just another good ol' boy) who doesn't even get informed of purchases less than a billion dollars.
10 million dollars is what you show to the poor folks when you want them to swallow a regressive tax with a smile. All those uninsured mouth-breathers love the lottery almost as much as beer. Probably because they've been strongly discouraged from learning any math or logic, in the same way slaves used to be discouraged from reading. A spoonful of sugar helps the medecine go down. In a most delightful way!
I am perpetually surprised at the number of people who seem to think that "justice" and the legal system are synonymous. Look at how and why laws are made and enforced and it becomes blindlingly clear that true justice cannot be dispensed by man. As Leibniz said, "justice is nothing but the charity of the wise" and so the highest justice can only come from the highest wisdom. That is also why religions are always the basis of legal systems and prophets, such as Moses, are referred to as lawgivers.
I feel the same way, but after reading this article by Bill Clinton's ex-advisor I think maybe we will be all right thanks to India:m ment/DickMorris/072005.html
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Co
This is the first time I've seen a political pundit mention robotics replacing manual laborers, though I've heard it's what the Japanese are banking on to help them stay competetive with China. After all, how much will it cost China to make cars in a few years?
I totally agree. IMHO, it's kind of like open-source software or free music. People who are making tons of money off these things end up doing it for the cash, whereas people who give away knowledge for free are genuinely just trying to make the world a better place. Of course, some are like advertisers and have an agenda, and some people get paid a lot for what they do because they are great at it, but either way we have to rely on our own judgement when deciding who to listen to and who to ignore.
For instance, I have always wondered, ever since I was a kid, how it is possible for AIDS to be sexually transmitted, and yet hardly anyone has it. It has always seemed to me like exponential growth is the clear and unique attribute of communicable diseases. Then last year I discovered that there are some very smart people, nobel-prize winners and such, who have a different idea of how AIDS is spread. So I read their papers, which were clear and logically precise. And they convinced me, in the face of all the hundreds of magazine articles and teachers and public service announcements, that AIDS isn't spread by sexual activity.
I vividly remember, as a child, watching Oprah and seeing a guest who was HIV+ denying that they would get AIDS and encouraging people not to take their medecine, and I (along with all of the studio audience) was appalled that someone could be so foolish as to ignore the wisdom recieved from so many highly-paid healthcare experts. The difference between me now and me 15 years ago is that now I have the self-confidence and intellectual sophistication to investigate the evidence presented and ignore the clamoring masses when I make a decision. The scientific method. One does not have to study much history at all to find many situations in which the medical experts convinced the vast majority to follow a course of action that was totally wrong and very harmful.
Well then I suppose you 'assemble' your motherboards from off the shelf atoms. I use stock hydrogen to generate all the other elements, and I built a chip fabrication plant in my garage (manned by my rabbit and a tube sock with a happy face on it).
C'mon man, Dell is the top PC manufacturer and they just "assemble" shit by your definition. Give us a break.
You are right. What you fail to recognise is that any ideology can be used to justify mass slaughter or anything else you can think of.
Look at religions, or the Albigensian crusades, or the War on Drugs, or abortion, or anything else. It's as plain as day that people do whatever the hell they want and then justify it afterwards however they feel is most likely to benefit them. You know a little bit of history, now learn some more.
I disagree with your characterization of 'poor'. If poverty was starvation and/or homelessness, then almost nobody in America would be poor. Our poor people have cable TV and air conditioning, and are often morbidly obese. My point is, I think poor is a relative term, and people are 'poor' only by comparision to some group of people. Even the head chief caveman would've been 'poor' by your definition. What do you think?
Just to be a jerk, I must take issue with the statement that you "know the moral choice." If "knowing" has any non-random meaning, it means to know without a doubt, always and forever. In math we "know" things because we prove them. In natural science, we don't "know" anything but we at least have strong empirical evidence. So my question is, how can you possibly claim to have any kind of knowledge in the moral realm?
I don't think we have any more moral knowledge than people did a thousand years ago, or even more than animals and plants have. Certainly I haven't heard of anyone who can prove otherwise.
I wholeheartedly agree. That phrase sounds like something Douglas Rushkoff would write, which is another way of saying that it's enough to turn a person away from computers (or whatever else he's espousing) forever.
I just hate it when liberal arts majors take a computer programming class.
The games that precisely fill the niche you discuss are first person shooters like Unreal 2004. The gameplay is similar enough across the whole genre that being very good at one means you're not bad at the others and can pick up quickly. What makes it hard for seasoned gameplayers like myself to get into MMOGs is that you spend so much time learning each game's arcane rules, and then mechanically performing the most efficient algorithm you can come up with. Or take a chance and do some serious exploring, which usually ends in player death.
I'd also like to add that there's also social interaction on FPS gameservers, because after you play for a while the regulars get to know each other (mostly because you end up at the same place at the same time, and either help or massacre each other depending on team affiliation). Once you throw in the forums and the clans then it seems to me that the only people who would even want to play RPGs are those with WWWWAAAYYYY too much time on their hands. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just saying that I know I already play too much myself, yet RPGs require much much more time than even I'm willing to spend.
I guess the Taurus will still lose, won't it?
I never understood how NASCAR drivers are iconified. I mean, that's like putting a horse jockey on a pedestal, or saying that without Neil Armstrong nobody would've walked on the moon.
Plus, Howard Dean as chair of the DNC is kind of wierd, but the chair of the RNC is a homosexual! That's fine and all, but WTF y'know?
Well put. Please accept my heartfelt apology.
Sorry I'm such a jerk sometimes. I was having a bad day, but that's no excuse.
I personally find it impossible to get much understanding of something the first time I read it, I usually have to reread at least twice before I feel like I have even a handle to start understanding a subject. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think there's much correlation between reading speed and intelligence or comprehension. Surely a beginner can't scan a 400 page introduction to quantum mechanics in less than a month?
Okay you english types obviously didn't pass introductory math. Let me break it down for you:
You assert that you can "easily" read a 400 page book in 8 hours. So you read 50 pages an hour, or about a page a minute. I broke out my Kurt Godel Collected Works vol III which is about the size of a standard big book and it contains 40 lines of text per page. So you read better than a line every 2 seconds. For 8 hours straight. Without pause.
What I am getting at is that you are a either a pitifully inept liar or (inclusive) you don't know the difference between "reading to understand" and "looking at a page". What has been clearly and rigorously demostrated here, using the axiomatic method, is that you are a buffoon.
Then play Super Mario Brothers like all the other pre-teens, jerk. Bionic commando is the grown-up version, with big cool guns and a reanimated Hitler (whose head fucking EXPLODES IN A BLOODY CATACLYSM) instead of magic mushrooms and flying turtles.
I was a fat college student (285 lbs, 130 kg, couldn't do a pushup) when I joined the Army as Airborne Infantry. I had to lose 40 lbs just to go to basic training. I went through basic training and RIP twice because I couldn't do enough pushups. Three years later I was a corporal who had attended Ranger school, had an Expert infantry badge and a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I could bench 285 and my physical fitness was graded on the extended scale, because I maxed out all the scores. When I came home, people assumed I was a football player, but I was still your average slashdotter within (much to the dismay of more than one young lady, believe it or not. Ever seen a 240 lb ripped giant scurry away redfaced from a group of wanton coeds who were vociferously sharing their positive evaluations of his ass?) Sorry about the literary masturbation, but my point is that if you really totally dedicate yourself to something then in 5 years time you can do absolutely anything, whether physical or mental or other. Will is the moving force of the world.
WORD. mod that ni66a up!
I couldn't stand it either. So I steered my realplayer on over to the real homepage guide, and now I'm watching a Britney Spears mega-mix video. It's much more interesting.
Yes, it certainly is!
Does it look to anyone else like the software world is splitting up between open- and closed-source software providers?
I suggest the AVI or MPG or DIVX standard. After all, why should hollywood need 45 gigs to store a movie trilogy when Afghani bootleggers can put all 3 "Lord of the Rings" on 1 DVD-compatible disc? Or (so I've heard from others) one can typicaly download a DVD-quality 2 hour movie in less than 700 megs, certainly under a gig.
Of course, hollywood is nowhere near as efficient as these capitalist bootleggers, since they sell these movie trilogy sets for $3 with large profit margins. Maybe we should outsource hollywood! (Or are we already doing that with bittorrent? I know puretna.com has will fulfilled all my porn-related needs for my entire life. An equivalnet video/TV/movie site could easily do the same to ABC, CBS, Fox, and all the studios and record companies combined!)
I think that something tangible WAS "stolen" by this "thief".
The guy took CREDIT for the other guy's work. Credit, as in claimed experience, is very valuable. I wish I could take credit for the proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis from the axioms of ZF set theory, but I would be stealing credit from someone else who really DID do such a thing. So I guess I can agree with copyright, patent, and trademark holders that lying about your relationship with the creation of a product of the imagination involves "stealing". Stealing of credit, which is totally invasive and morally wrong, because it's outright barefaced self-interested lying.
Of course your time isn't free. Neither is mine, or anyone else's. But we all know that to learn new software, even if it does a better job and is more efficient or even if it has a better interface, takes time. But even if you're not a hardcore perl-scripting-on-a-daily-basis programmer you can appreciate the value and the ideal behind open source software, and you can see what a wonderful world it will lead to just down the road a bit if only everyone would take a little time and effort to contribute. You don't have to be writing code to help free software. All you have to do is use it, and let the increasing stats on server usage do the rest. Drivers, 3rd party support, cutting edge, first-release software, it will all be developed for linux too (for instance, this has already happened in the world of servers itself, see Apache/linux destroying the hideously expensive SUN systems.) That's my opinion anyway.
I think the most informative thing in the article was where it said MS search had only 13% of the market share. This is absolutely despicably low if you note that internet explorer now uses MS search by default every time there's an error in the address box.
I bet that has a lot to do with all the spyware which replaces the default search with it's own crapulent all-ad search engine.