> So you don't think weed laced with opium can > lead to regular opium use which can lead to > Heroin?
This is why I'd rather grow my own weed.
Prohibition shifts the focus of a society away from the true causes of a drug problem, and intead onto villainizing the symptoms. Instead of trying to educate and improve the lives of its citizens, government throws them in jail. This is a self-destructive act by the society.
Prohibition makes things WORSE. Prohibition obscures real problems. The only thing it prohibits is the ability of society, through institutions like government and private organizations, to address the real problems, and address the drug PROBLEMS, rather than the simple existence of drugs.
Some of this opinion is based on Elliot Currie's Reckoning: Drugs, The CiIties, and the American Future. Chapter six is called Reconstructing Communities and explores some of what I said in a bit more depth.
A little thought and it should be obvious: the goal should be to dig deeper beyond just the drugs, to realize that drugs are a significant part of other problems (and they are), and not the only problem themselves.
If you can't explain FS in on buzzword, then you shouldn't try. FS is a complicated concept. That explaining you must do is an opputunity to educate someone about the idea of FS.
I admire RMS for his attempt to change things. Look at how much has already been changed, in only 20 years!
There are so many copies of the code out there... I have posted several to various spots on the net..
I just did a search for "css-auth.tar.gz" on google and got 300 matches. "css dvd linux download source" got 650. these aren't huge numbers, but that's just the hits for public web sites. i'm sure.. 5 times that maybe.. hold it privately on disk.
I charge someone, anyone, who can do it to submit to the next obfuscated c code contest (www.ioccc.org) a rewrite of the software in the shape of a nice pretty picture. Then it could be protected under our stupid copyright laws. Course, that would be a supreme bitch to maintain!!
let's examine these plaintiff-supplied "facts" and conclusions. [All <blockquote>s are from Kaplan's memorandum opinion]
DVDs are five-inch wide discs that, in this application, hold full-length motion pictures. They are the latest technology for private home viewing of recorded motion pictures. This technology drastically improves the clarity and overall quality of a motion picture shown on a television or computer screen.
This is not a fact, this is an advertisement.
...DeCSS that enables users to break the CSS copy protection system and hence to make and distribute digital copies of DVD movies.
This is not a straight fact this is a distorted fact. DeCSS enables users to break the CSS copy protection system and hence to watch movies on DVDs. CSS is not a disc-copy protection system. It is a disc-use restriction system. This is the prime lie in all this which must be made clear.
Members of the hacker community then stepped up efforts to distribute DeCSS to the widest possible audience in an apparent attempt to preclude effective judicial relief
And probably successful. Also, what hacker community? Slashdot? 2600 magazine?
The plaintiffs must show that irrepairable harm was done. If they can supply an accurate and valid account of how many DVD discs were permenantly unsold (ie, a condition analagous to stolen) then maybe I'll believe their case.
Moreover, just as in the case of direct copyright infringement, the extent of the harm plaintiffs will suffer as a result of defendants' alleged activities cannot readily be measured, suggesting that the injury truly would be irreparable.
right
As defendants have failed to submit affidavits or other materials indicating that they had nothing to do with the offending Web sites, the Court infers from the evidence before it, for the purpose of this motion, that they are responsible for the content of the sites. Of course, plaintiffs will bear the burden of proof on this issue at trial.
Guilty until proven innocent! Oh, wait, no of course not, that's not what we meant,... umm...
Unfortunately, the judge here does not seem to be at all sympathetic to the defendents. He seems to have had his mind made up for him by the DVD folks and their shiny new grand imperial status quo.
I that the DMCA must be challenged explicitly, and this case is the right oppurtunity. The DMCA does back up the DVD cartel, wrongly and without sufficient balances to artistic and personal freedom.
My uncle is a copyright lawyer in L.A. We've had many a long, heated conversation late at night over issues like this (and let me tell you, it's fsckin HARD to argue with a lawyer!) Free software people; hip hop, (some) techno, dj/remix music, and other sampled music people; people who are used to free information (software, mp3's, for examplee) are not convinced fully of the necesity and benefit of copyright law. Copyright law rarely protects artists, it usually protects distributors, owners, managers, (the MPAA), and now, makers of hardware. This is something wich is and must be challenged and reconsidered. This is one of the more radical threads of the cyber (permit me) explosion; this is our revolution.
enough soapboxing. stop reading this. go back to work. pull your share of capitalism. because we said so. do it!
it is well known among most radio pirates that ramsey makes transmitters easily modifiable to broadast fm signals over a significant range.
likewise, i'm sure they produce many other products that could be used as a component of or modified to produce a device or system that you could use to break the law
so does every gun manufacturer, knife manufacturer, power tool manufacturer, garden supply manufacturer, office supply manufacturer...
these are just useful tools; it should not be against the law to make them, it should be against the law to harm others with them.
I stubled upon an anthology of short stories last year called "After yesterday's Crash" edited by Larry McCaffery. It's one of my favorites now. Has a Gibson/G. G. Bridge story. pretty cool stuff. ISBN 0 14 02.4085 3
pparently didn't even bother L0pht... to emphasize how horribly the media continues to mangle the term "hacker".
Or it was edited out. The editors of the program have supreme control, to decide what does and doesn't get included. Ofthen, the questions are invented and recorded well after the "interview".
now, when i saw "dvorak takes on crackers" i thought it meant that dvorak key layouts were taking on crackers. i have a dvorak key map (sometimes), and a friend of mine does always. he also has his telnet daemon hacked to do dvorak.
thats a damn good defense system against anybody, and a formidable obstacle in the path of anyone who doesn't know dvorak
Just this morning I was thinking to myself "I should get back to making stuff with Gimp". Too bad this book is $40 (on amazon). That's too much money for me to spend on something that I may put aside in favor of learning by playing around... which is how I learned to do most stuff in Gimp.
I remember a game in which players, in turn, propose "laws", that is, new rules to the game, which the other members vote on. The goal is to get the most tokens or something. The trick is fooling the other players into voting on laws which seem good to them at the time, but in the long run, get them to give you their tokens or something. You can also have fun with "I propose that from now on, the meaning of "yes" and "no" shall be reversed from their meanings prior to this moment" etc.
The way you change the Social System Algorithm it seems, is via the Social System Algorithm. This is at the same time kind of neat and possibly flawed.
According to the Bureau of Consular Affairs web page (http://travel.state.gov), if you become a citizen of another country, you can probably keep your US citizenship.
Q: If I become a dual citizen will it affect my U.S.citizenship?
A: The automatic acquisition or retention of a foreign nationality does not affect U.S. citizenship; however, under limited circumstances, the acquisition of a foreign nationality by application and certain other acts may cause loss of U.S. citizenship under Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. In order for loss of nationality to occur under Section 349(a)(1), for example, it must be established that the naturalization was obtained voluntarily by a person eighteen years of age or older with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship. Such an intention may be shown by the person's statements or conduct but in most cases it is assumed that Americans who are naturalized in other countries intend to keep their U.S. citizenship. As a result, they have both nationalities. While recognizing the existence of dual nationality and the fact that some Americans to have other nationalities, the U.S. Government does not endorse dual nationality. Claims of other countries upon dual-national U.S. citizens can place them in situations where their obligations to one country are in conflict with the laws of the other. In addition, their dual nationality may hamper U.S. efforts to provide diplomatic and consular protection to its citizens when they are abroad, especially in the country of their other nationality. For further advice, call the Office of Overseas Citizens Services at 202-647-5226.
Well, at least I'll admit it-- I'm attracted to Linux because it's cool, and by using it, I think that I will become cool and special.
Yes, I'm worried that the apeal and quality of the Whole Linux Thing will degrade as it becomes more popular-- when anything enters into a cultural mainstream, it loses something - that it was alternative, non-mainstream, and special.
I agree whole-heartedly with Syslevel's comments that "Integration is the name of the game" and his dislike of anything-but-Micorosoft attitude.
My futurological opinion is that many operating systems and variations thereof should be available. The truly innovative solutions are those which network and link these many platforms in intelligent ways. I want a powerful unix environment with lots of cool software. I use Linux.
My grandmother wants to balance her finances, read the news and talk about politics with people online, and send emails to her grandson. She doesn't want to deal with command lines and config files, but she also doesn't want to deal with DLLs and Active Desktops. Where is the start-up with enough balls to write a brand-new OS from scratch, which is simple, uncluttered and unbloated, well-suited for the simple everyday tasks that the majority of the people with the desire and means to own a computer want? Where is the diversity and variation? Why are people afraid of having more than one product in any particular market? Why is competition passe' (for all the talk of Big Business, take a look at the recent merger-mania. The only two banks here in MA big enough to have branches in more than a few towns, Fleet and Bank Boston, are merging)
If anybody has any happy news about companies doing just that, or even people studying this anti-competition phenomenon, I'd be less depressed if they'd share.
well, i think you're right. you're just choosing not to distribute it. perhaps it is akin to the version of gnu-utility-x you customized for yourself, but diddn't post on sunsite or freshmeat or wherever because there really is no good reason to. but i agree, that is against the spirit of the gpl. if you make free software worthy of use by others, to distribute it somehow would be the right thing to do.
to take advantage of the free labor provided by "the open source community". we (the public) get a database package to use, and improve. then, if the mil. likes the improvements, they can use them.
Then again, they may just be jumping on the open-source buzzword bandwagon.
Slashdot Mirror
This is why I'd rather grow my own weed.
Prohibition shifts the focus of a society away from the true causes of a drug problem, and intead onto villainizing the symptoms. Instead of trying to educate and improve the lives of its citizens, government throws them in jail. This is a self-destructive act by the society.
Prohibition makes things WORSE.
Prohibition obscures real problems.
The only thing it prohibits is the ability of society, through institutions like government and private organizations, to address the real problems, and address the drug PROBLEMS, rather than the simple existence of drugs.
Some of this opinion is based on Elliot Currie's Reckoning: Drugs, The CiIties, and the American Future. Chapter six is called Reconstructing Communities and explores some of what I said in a bit more depth.
A little thought and it should be obvious: the goal should be to dig deeper beyond just the drugs, to realize that drugs are a significant part of other problems (and they are), and not the only problem themselves.
If you can't explain FS in on buzzword, then
you shouldn't try. FS is a complicated concept.
That explaining you must do is an opputunity
to educate someone about the idea of FS.
I admire RMS for his attempt to change things.
Look at how much has already been changed, in
only 20 years!
There are so many copies of the code out there...
.. 5 times that maybe.. hold it privately on disk.
I have posted several to various spots on the net..
I just did a search for "css-auth.tar.gz" on google and got 300 matches. "css dvd linux download source" got 650. these aren't huge numbers, but that's just the hits for public web sites. i'm sure
I charge someone, anyone, who can do it to submit to the next obfuscated c code contest (www.ioccc.org) a rewrite of the software in the shape of a nice pretty picture. Then it could be protected under our stupid copyright laws. Course, that would be a supreme bitch to maintain!!
let's examine these plaintiff-supplied "facts" and conclusions. [All <blockquote>s are from Kaplan's memorandum opinion]
This is not a fact, this is an advertisement.
This is not a straight fact this is a distorted fact. DeCSS enables users to break the CSS copy protection system and hence to watch movies on DVDs. CSS is not a disc-copy protection system. It is a disc-use restriction system. This is the prime lie in all this which must be made clear.
And probably successful. Also, what hacker community? Slashdot? 2600 magazine?
The plaintiffs must show that irrepairable harm was done. If they can supply an accurate and valid account of how many DVD discs were permenantly unsold (ie, a condition analagous to stolen) then maybe I'll believe their case.
right
Guilty until proven innocent! Oh, wait, no of course not, that's not what we meant, ... umm...
Unfortunately, the judge here does not seem to be at all sympathetic to the defendents. He seems to have had his mind made up for him by the DVD folks and their shiny new grand imperial status quo.
I that the DMCA must be challenged explicitly, and this case is the right oppurtunity. The DMCA does back up the DVD cartel, wrongly and without sufficient balances to artistic and personal freedom.
My uncle is a copyright lawyer in L.A. We've had many a long, heated conversation late at night over issues like this (and let me tell you, it's fsckin HARD to argue with a lawyer!) Free software people; hip hop, (some) techno, dj/remix music, and other sampled music people; people who are used to free information (software, mp3's, for examplee) are not convinced fully of the necesity and benefit of copyright law. Copyright law rarely protects artists, it usually protects distributors, owners, managers, (the MPAA), and now, makers of hardware. This is something wich is and must be challenged and reconsidered. This is one of the more radical threads of the cyber (permit me) explosion; this is our revolution.
enough soapboxing. stop reading this. go back to work. pull your share of capitalism. because we said so. do it!
http://www.zerohou r.net/zhbbs/post/100/01/17/technews144428.html
it is well known among most radio pirates
that ramsey makes transmitters easily
modifiable to broadast fm signals over a significant range.
likewise, i'm sure they produce many other
products that could be used as a component of
or modified to produce a device or system
that you could use to break the law
so does every gun manufacturer, knife manufacturer, power tool manufacturer, garden supply manufacturer, office supply manufacturer...
these are just useful tools; it should not be against the law to make them, it should be against the law to harm others with them.
I stubled upon an anthology of short stories last year called "After yesterday's Crash" edited by Larry McCaffery. It's one of my favorites now. Has a Gibson/G. G. Bridge story. pretty cool stuff. ISBN 0 14 02.4085 3
now, when i saw "dvorak takes on crackers"
i thought it meant that dvorak key layouts
were taking on crackers. i have a dvorak
key map (sometimes), and a friend of mine does
always. he also has his telnet daemon hacked
to do dvorak.
thats a damn good defense system against anybody, and a formidable obstacle in the path of anyone who doesn't know dvorak
Just this morning I was thinking to myself "I should get back to making stuff with Gimp". Too bad this book is $40 (on amazon). That's too much money for me to spend on something that I may put aside in favor of learning by playing around... which is how I learned to do most stuff in Gimp.
I remember a game in which players, in turn, propose "laws", that is, new rules to the game, which the other members vote on. The goal is to get the most tokens or something. The trick is fooling the other players into voting on laws which seem good to them at the time, but in the long run, get them to give you their tokens or something. You can also have fun with "I propose that from now on, the meaning of "yes" and "no" shall be reversed from their meanings prior to this moment" etc.
The way you change the Social System Algorithm it seems, is via the Social System Algorithm. This is at the same time kind of neat and possibly flawed.
According to the Bureau of Consular Affairs web page (http://travel.state.gov), if you become a citizen of another country, you can probably keep your US citizenship.
From http://travel.state.gov/ocs_faq.html:
Well, at least I'll admit it-- I'm attracted to Linux because it's cool, and by using it, I think that I will become cool and special.
Yes, I'm worried that the apeal and quality of the Whole Linux Thing will degrade as it becomes more popular-- when anything enters into a cultural mainstream, it loses something - that it was alternative, non-mainstream, and special.
I agree whole-heartedly with Syslevel's comments that "Integration is the name of the game" and his dislike of anything-but-Micorosoft attitude.
My futurological opinion is that many operating systems and variations thereof should be available. The truly innovative solutions are those which network and link these many platforms in intelligent ways. I want a powerful unix environment with lots of cool software. I use Linux.
My grandmother wants to balance her finances, read the news and talk about politics with people online, and send emails to her grandson. She doesn't want to deal with command lines and config files, but she also doesn't want to deal with DLLs and Active Desktops. Where is the start-up with enough balls to write a brand-new OS from scratch, which is simple, uncluttered and unbloated, well-suited for the simple everyday tasks that the majority of the people with the desire and means to own a computer want? Where is the diversity and variation? Why are people afraid of having more than one product in any particular market? Why is competition passe' (for all the talk of Big Business, take a look at the recent merger-mania. The only two banks here in MA big enough to have branches in more than a few towns, Fleet and Bank Boston, are merging)
If anybody has any happy news about companies doing just that, or even people studying this anti-competition phenomenon, I'd be less depressed if they'd share.
Then again, they may just be jumping on the open-source buzzword bandwagon.