Obviously it's a good thing. At least always better than letting Halliburton, Enron and Total decide what our future looks like.::facepalm::
Yeah, because we know that Greenpeace, PETA, Nancy Pelosi, the DailyKOS/MoveOn crowd, George Soros, Al Gore, and Harry Reid will make reasoned, informed decisions balancing the peoples' and the nations' needs with the demands of the environmental whack-jobs.
Get real.
(Yeah, I know. This will almost certainly get modded down to oblivion by KOSdot mods, probably modded "-1 Troll" but screw it. I've got the karma to burn.)
Just sign a treaty that has many important-to-world-trade parts in the agreement, while also including what you're *really* seeking to put into law. With the other important stuff thrown in with the garbage in a take-it-or-leave-it treaty up-or-down vote, this puts a lot of pressure on legislative bodies to accept what they normally wouldn't for either ideological or re-election-fear reasons while giving them an "out" to deflect criticism from their constituents and opposition members.
It's small wonder they don't want to reveal anything about this treaty. That would simply give the various countries' legislative bodies and populations time to think about possible ramifications and ways to defeat it once they start to "get it" and realize what this may do to their freedoms and economies.
It's nearly the same game they play with domestic intelligence. It's generally illegal for a US agency to spy on US citizens without a warrant, but there's no law against the UK (for example) spying on US citizens and handing the info over to a US intelligence agency.
Basically it's using treaties and agreements with other nations as a way to get around domestic laws, controls, oversight, and the will of the citizens. It's what happens when governments get too large and powerful; they forget that they are the *servants*, NOT the masters.
I'm very afraid though that at this point, correcting this imbalance and returning the reins of the country's government and its' destiny back to the citizens will require much violence, chaos, and the blood of many patriots, as the citizenry has been asleep for far too long and allowed far too much encroachment of central government power over their lives. That powerful & greedy government will not relinquish any of its' wealth or power without a tremendous fight.
I fear we are cursed to live in "interesting times". I wonder if the guillotine of the French Revolution will make a comeback, and if it will be televised?
Maybe you could have read his post instead of imagining what it was and then commenting that he is wrong.
What, and sully such a longstanding/. tradition?
Besides, that also means that one would actually have to think and respond to certain facts and logical arguments put forth by another person. Such tedium!
He was talking about PC-BSD, a FreeBSD-based distro designed for desktop use. Since it has many pre-built packages and a GUI front-end for ports, it is actually quite a usable desktop distro. Pretty much about as easy as Ubuntu. I normally prefer linux because of hardware compatibility, so I usually use Ubuntu as my desktop and debian or Ubuntu-server for servers, but PC-BSD is pretty nice.
Not only a GUI front-end for ports, but also an entire package system using ".PBI" packages (sort of like ".deb" packages in Debian Linux, only with less dependency-hell) for click-to-install behavior closely resembling that of Windows software installation packages. You can use both systems to install and remove software along with all the various CLI port-managers, not either-or, so another bonus.
I must also say that the PC-BSD system installer works great and is far faster and friendlier/informative/easier to use than the Windows system installer. PC-BSD (and FreeBSD itself) has made tremendous progress as far as hardware compatibility/drivers/kernel modules and supports most anything Ubuntu does. There's also Java and Flash Player support, so one can browse/watch YouTube videos and use most webpage-embedded Java apps.
If you're tired of Ubuntu and/or want or need a desktop OS with the features, software, security, and power of a more Unix-like system than Linux then PC-BSD may be for you.
I don't get it either. As if I'd want FreeBSD to be a desktop OS. Desktop OS's are supposed to be ready for the desktop. Not FreeBSD.
That's...not altogether true. Though maybe kind of. It depends a good deal on how you view computers. If a person views computers as simply a tool, a means to do something mainly concerning the "real world" and events surrounding it, but of no interest as to the computer plus software in and of itself, then that person would probably be better-served with something with Windows installed or with an Apple system.
People who have more of an interest in, for various reasons, or fascination with, the computer and its' software and want/need to have a different system are more likely to take a different path as the features and openness that some other systems provide may not be available in the common PC/Mac machines.
Many of those peoples' needs are met by linux, then there are others that have OS needs or wants that lead them to other systems.
I suspect many are like myself that have multiple OS's installed and use whatever works best for a specific task.
(I currently have Mandriva '08, PC-BSD 7.1/Galileo, XP-ProSP3 on this box, and also an SGI Octane workstation running IRIX UNIX 6.5.30. XP for a lot of gaming and some few other tasks/software that are still Windows-only or Windows-best.)
My PC-BSD system is amazingly friendly for a FreeBSD-based desktop, maybe rivaling or even surpassing Ubuntu in some ways IMHO. The PC-BSD packaging system using click-to-install ".PBI" packages (as well as having the ports system with some cool GUI port-managers available) is getting to be quite usable by the less computer-savvy user.
The automatic updates manager is no slouch either and seems to work great with both system &.PBI-package updates with little hassle. Features/development seems to be chugging right along also, as PC-BSD now is commercially-sponsored by iXsystems a "Provider of enterprise servers for open source and corporate sponsor of PC-BSD".
I have high hopes here as so far (I've been using PC-BSD since about version 0.76RC(?) or so), as PC-BSD has gotten to be very nice and easy to use to the point where I'm more comfortable there than Mandriva's desktop system as far as a non-MS desktop system with comparable features, simplicity, and ease-of-use. Of course this is purely anecdotal, but I do think PC-BSDs' version of a FreeBSD-based desktop is worth checking out if you're interested in a non-MS/Apple/Linux-based desktop system. No, I'm not associated with PC-BSD, iXsystems, or anyone affiliated with either in any way or have any interest other than as a user.
PS, there's no justification for hiding military equipment or personnel in "holy sites" or apartment complexes to avoid attack and force your enemy to cause huge civilian casualties, no matter how much you believe in your cause.
[sarcasm] It's perfectly fine to do that as long as it's the USA that your fighting against, and the USA is at fault for any civilian deaths or collateral damage whatsoever no matter who or how many people you behead for any reason at all.
Didn't you get the memo? [/sarcasm]
There have always been different rules for the USA as opposed to anyone else.
again, I've never been to a concert, but your $50000 for "gross tour income" seems a little disconcerting. I can imagine $200 a ticket for famous artists and maybe $100 for less famous ones, and that would mean 500 total fans during the whole tour in your example. unbelievable!
Tickets to the average concert in the US are much, much less. More like $15 to $50 in place of your $100 to $200 examples.
Who is this judge? What is his/her name? I'm thinking that if there are shenanigans going on here, some digging with the judges' name should bring up some possible links to the reason(s) why the judge would bend over for the RIAA, if that's what is happening here. Did one of the RIAA labels offer the Judges' niece a record deal or something? Or did the RIAAs' private investigators obtain some nasty blackmail material on the judge?
This *does* seem rather bizarre. What next? "Judge announces summary judgment for the Plaintiff, but Plaintiff ordered to pay Defendant double the amount requested by Defendant in original infringement case against Plaintiff plus lawyer fees of Defendant for both cases, details of judgment sealed, gag ordered for Plaintiff against discussing any details of case in perpetuity."??
This is just so ominous and strange that nothing would surprise me at this point.
And they are mostly known today by their statements and/or their looks.
I'm not in the music industry, but don't singing artists get most of their income with the tours after the release of a new album? can anyone give some sort of breakdown for a typical singer? (actual sales, tours, merchandise, royalties,...) what's the point of having copyright lasting longer than 10 years from the creation when I'm sure that in any case most people would still like to attend a concert with the original singer, but enjoy a karaoke of the same song at home or in the local pub without the risk of someone knocking at the door and saying "do you know that this song was made 120 years ago and you'll have to pay a dead body?"
I'll post this link again, as I still find many people haven't read this. It's quite the eye-opener for those unfamiliar with how artists and bands are treated by "the Biz".
My band and I have been approached on a couple of occasions by "label" A&R guys. Slimy suckers. One ended up wearing a beer. We still regret the lack of foresight in that we could have saved the beer and and doused him with the slightly-used article instead.
And even more interesting is the sentence compared to many other crimes that you can get convicted for in Sweden.
As for a case where a driver killed someone while DUI at 0.15% - Five months in prison. So it seems like it's a lot better to drive drunk and kill people than to run a search engine for torrent downloads.
Well, of course!
Killing some average person doesn't hurt the media cartels in any meaningful way, now does it? The average person doesn't have boatloads of money to give to politicians' (re)election campaigns and control of media to either promote or attack politicians.
To the politicians' way of thinking, what's one, or a hundred, or a thousand lousy nobodies' life/lives compared to something that directly affects their climb to, and length of time in, power? Unless it suddenly is both publicized and widespread outrage ensues, of course.
Politicians are the most amoral creatures known to exist. Their only imperative is gaining and remaining in power. They will lie, cheat, steal, bribe, drown kittens, and happily contribute to the death of millions if they think it would help them in their ambitions.
That's one big reason (of many) why career politicians are a very, very bad idea.
"All that protesting and freedom of speech stuff is only for *us* when anyone other than us are in power! Didn't you get the memo?"
Wow, offtopic maybe, but flamebait?Apparently Kosdot mods are in full effect. So here, I've got karma to burn, the people who spent the previous 8 yrs telling everybody that dissent is the most patriotic thing, were ones attempting to marginalize and mischaracterize the April 15th protests and protesters.
Kinda proves the point, doesn't it? I'd bet though that the fact that it *does* prove the point didn't even enter into their knee-jerk reaction of anger and indignation that someone would dare to disagree and actually say so publicly.
Exactly the same reaction the Tea Party protesters got from these same people.
I wonder how many votes a party called "The Dastardly Evildoers" would get, specially if their leader was called Dick......no, not Dick Cheney before anyone points out that he'd suit the role rather well.
I prefer "Snidely Whiplash" myself. Although Boris and Natasha might be some competition. Personally, I think we'd probably be more free and less-taxed with the "Dastardly Evil-Doer" party than either the D's or R's.
Unfortunately, we seem to be ruled currently by a bunch of Dudley Do-Rights that want to micro-manage every aspect of our lives while taxing us to death for the privilege. Then, if some have the gall to actually complain, they're publicly ridiculed in the national mainstream media and called all sorts of nasty names, including racist for simply having the audacity to disagree and say so publicly. "All that protesting and freedom of speech stuff is only for *us* when anyone other than us are in power! Didn't you get the memo?"
> Also consider that no OS would be immune from that. With cooperation a trojan could be slipped into Linux, OS X, Solaris, OpenBSD, Trusted. Anything where you're getting software from somewhere else.
He'd probably be pretty safe if he accessed the ransom website from a computer booted from a Live-CD of a less popular distro. We're talking about a guy committing some serious crimes... it would be worth his time to compile Minix or something totally obscure and use telnet to grab the webpage from the ransom site.
Hell, I just saw a kid browsing a webpage on his DS the other day. There are a lot of ways this guy could have avoided getting caught. I'm glad he got caught of course. But he could have at least tried a little harder:-).
The real weak link would be whenever and whereever he physically took possession of the money. That's where his real identity must interact with the "chain" the money has followed.
PS IAACFI (I am a computer forensics investigator).
This is the kind of thing where the perpetrator would want to use Anonym.OS Live CD along with connecting from a random cracked wireless router or WiFi hot-spot.
That would be pretty darned tough to track/crack for law enforcement, given a reasonably-clued perpetrator.
You have failed to worship Obama. Your freedoms will be removed shortly after your guns are removed.
Really? Has that happened a single time? I'd love to know.
Well, to be fair, it doesn't exactly bode well for gun owners when Obama goes to Mexico, and in a speech there, knowingly makes a completely disingenuous and deceptive statement on the percentage of U.S. guns being used by the drug cartels.
Obama stated in his speech that 90% of the guns being confiscated from the drug cartels came from the USA.
This is not correct. The B.A.T.F., which is working with Mexico's Calderon administration, is given serial numbers by the Mexican government to identify that Mexico has already determined probably originated in the USA. They aren't given serial numbers for weapons that Mexico has already identified as coming from elsewhere, and are therefor not included.
If Mexico is not reporting weapons to the B.A.T.F. that they know are from places other than the USA, then of course the percentage of serial numbers being of US origin reported by the B.A.T.F. is going to be extremely high.
This statistic has already been widely debunked, so why would Obama want to keep trying to cite it unless it plays into plans to further restrict guns in the USA? He also took the trouble to mention that these guns came from gun stores near the US/Mexico border. That would put the majority in Texas, Arizona, and Nevada which are generally Republican and/or conservative states with independent-minded populations and strong beliefs in personal gun ownership.
He hasn't done anything specific *yet* about further personal gun ownership/sales restrictions, but those kind of deliberate and knowing misstatements of fact are not reassuring to those who believe in the 2nd Amendment right to freely own personal guns that Obama does *not* intend to attack and weaken that right as it exists. Especially when he advocated as a presidential candidate for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.
Strat
Ah, an "Overrated" mod. The unintelligent persons' way of saying; "I disagree/don't like what you said, but lack the facts and/or wit to make a cohesive argument in reply".
Or else an Obama/Democrat supporter/staffer with mod points was simply doing what they're paid to do, as do the Republicans/conservatives on the other foot, of burying critical/uncomfortably-truthful-to-their-side posts though not nearly to the same degree or frequency. It's truly sad however when individuals take it upon themselves do such deeds without even being shrewd enough to be compensated.
It would be interesting if Taco or Neal were to have the moderation logs parsed, as I'm sure there would be detectable patterns to organized/paid political astroturf mods.
You have failed to worship Obama. Your freedoms will be removed shortly after your guns are removed.
Really? Has that happened a single time? I'd love to know.
Well, to be fair, it doesn't exactly bode well for gun owners when Obama goes to Mexico, and in a speech there, knowingly makes a completely disingenuous and deceptive statement on the percentage of U.S. guns being used by the drug cartels.
Obama stated in his speech that 90% of the guns being confiscated from the drug cartels came from the USA.
This is not correct. The B.A.T.F., which is working with Mexico's Calderon administration, is given serial numbers by the Mexican government to identify that Mexico has already determined probably originated in the USA. They aren't given serial numbers for weapons that Mexico has already identified as coming from elsewhere, and are therefor not included.
If Mexico is not reporting weapons to the B.A.T.F. that they know are from places other than the USA, then of course the percentage of serial numbers being of US origin reported by the B.A.T.F. is going to be extremely high.
This statistic has already been widely debunked, so why would Obama want to keep trying to cite it unless it plays into plans to further restrict guns in the USA? He also took the trouble to mention that these guns came from gun stores near the US/Mexico border. That would put the majority in Texas, Arizona, and Nevada which are generally Republican and/or conservative states with independent-minded populations and strong beliefs in personal gun ownership.
He hasn't done anything specific *yet* about further personal gun ownership/sales restrictions, but those kind of deliberate and knowing misstatements of fact are not reassuring to those who believe in the 2nd Amendment right to freely own personal guns that Obama does *not* intend to attack and weaken that right as it exists. Especially when he advocated as a presidential candidate for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.
The above linked websites (plus many thousands of brick-and-mortar shops) sell knives that are specifically designed to kill. Should they be convicted of something akin to accessory to murder if someone buys a knife from them and uses it for its' intended purpose and the purpose for which it is marketed and sold, to kill a human?
It's not the knife/gun that kills, it's the person wielding it with that intent and outcome. It's not the provider of a tracker that infringes copyright, or even has any contact at all with the copyrighted work in question (unlike the knife/gun dealer that actually supplies the murder weapon for a profit), it's the person that then takes that tracker and uses it to download a copy of a copyrighted work which was not authorized to him by the copyright holder.
Not arguing either way on either subject, but pointing out how these things are treated very differently considering the outcomes.
In one, a copyright holder has a civil tort and in the other, a human being loses their life. In the case of the civil tort, criminal sanctions including jail may result from even a contributory role judged under rules of evidence and procedures much less strict than a normal criminal judicial proceeding. In the case of the killing tool, no negative legal outcomes at all except for the actual perpetrator of a killing judged to be illegal in a criminal court with very high standards of evidence and very strict procedures.
In case you did not notice: The first link were a Reuters article;-)
The article that was linked stated that members of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment were fired upon by "protesters" armed with AK-47s. The Airborne are not exactly known for being undisciplined or prone to panic. The statements that they fired unprovoked and that the "protesters" were unarmed came from Iraqi "bystanders" with unknown allegiances and possibly with an interest in spreading propaganda and in seeing the US humiliated, and possibly even motivated by hopes of monetary compensation.
Taking the unsubstantiated word of these "bystanders" with possible motive to fabricate facts over the word of one of the worlds' most highly regarded and most professional military units ever to exist seems like desperate reaching and searching for reasons to denigrate those troops and the U.S. mission by those opposed to the war and to the U.S. in general.
The "insurgents" controlling Fallujah were overwhelmingly local Iraqis, some of which were islamists. Fallujah had for a long time been a center for the resistance to the US occupation, and some of the first larger confrontations between the occupation and the Iraqis happened in Fallujah. You may remember that the citizens of Fallujah demonstrated to get the occupation forces to leave a school, but were fired upon.
This led to widespread anger in Iraq and particularly Fallujah. As the strength and resolve of the resistance grew, it were able to force the occupation out of Fallujah, and for a time Fallujah were controlled and rebuild by Iraqis. When the US decided to crush the rebellion, the local leaders wrote an appeal to Kofi Annan.
After the assault and massacre at Fallujah, the Iraqi resistance drew one important lesson: Taking control of an area were too dangerous for their families, because of the US onslaught. Thus, they shifted their strategy from large scale uprisings to hit and run tactics.
[citation needed]
Hint: Anti-war, liberal/Democrat, pro-jihadi, United Nations, and war-protest websites and sources with obvious anti-West, anti-US, anti-Bush, and anti-war agendas don't count as citation.
How about the civilians of Falluja? After all, it was their homes that were blown up, their families that were murdered.
Wasn't that the reason the US troops went in?
To stop the killing and terrorizing of Fallujahs' civilians by the insurgents, many if not most of which were not Iraqis but jihadists from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc? Isn't that what basically turned the war around for the Coalition, that the civilians were tired of being bullied, held as hostages/human shields, and killed by all the foreign insurgents and decided to stand with the Coalition forces and defy the insurgents?
Oh dear lord. I don't call that a joke, I call that horrendous. The fact that the website seems to be targeting children gives me chills. If my son or daughter was suddenly upset with my fishing and hunting habit because PETA told her its mean to kill "sea kittens", I'm gonna be marching down to headquarters in my camouflage to take care of the problem MY way.
Fucking PETA. I'm going to eat a creek kitten right now. A trout. And, by the way, PETA, I paid $30 to be licensed to actually catch that trout, and I have a limit to how many I can take daily. The money I paid for that license is used to A. Figure out just how many fish I can catch without too much of an impact on the ecosystem, and B. hatch me new trout for every season.
And I'm gonna wash down my creek kitten meal with some milk. I'll do my best to make sure the milk comes from a cow whose offspring went to the veal factory, and for dessert I'm going to have bear-liver pate spread on bread made with yeast that were genetically engineered to feel the pain of being baked at 350F.
I think Dennis Leary says it best (starts at approx. 6:20 in, although the whole thing is great).
Oh, I wasn't trying to further discredit Palin. I simply point out that even _that_ one, which was relatively innocuous, had political content worth leaking, even though you somehow seem to have missed the parts in her email about state appointments and the Department of Public Safety.
The appointments are a political matter, as she can appoint who she wants. Governors' and presidents' appointments have always been a political matter and the selection & decision process has not been considered traditionally or legally to my knowledge as a public information matter before a decision is announced.
The ones concerning DPS are a harder call, as they have components of both the political and the official due to the whole deal with a DPS officers' personal relationship with a Palin relative. I'd be willing to allow some leeway here because as I stated, this one would be a hard one to classify for any fair-minded person. If she used official email channels, she might have charges leveled she used them for personal use, using her own, she's been labeled as avoiding governmental transparency rules. Tough call.
But with that in mind, I'm contradicting the person who just claimed that most of what's on Wikileaks "should have remained secret and for good reason". That conent, like many others on Wikileaks, is not interesting to everyone but is material with excellent reasons to be revealed.
Agreed, one mans' good reason for secrecy is another mans' good reason for publicity. Better to err on the side of openness, in most cases.
Even Sarah Palin's email showed how she was doing government business on her personal account that she should have turned over to previous subpoenas she'd received.
Oh geez, lay off the partisan kool-aid already, would ya? The election is over, your guy won. The Palin emails showed nothing of the sort. If anything, they showed that she was careful to not use government email services paid for by the taxpayers for personal and/or political purposes. This has already been beat to death. If there had been anything to those allegations, the teams of lawyers air-dropped in D-Day-esque mass-waves to try to "get" Palin on any possible thing they could during the election would have already had her indicted six ways from Sunday.
If you want to rail against political shenanigans, why not start with the stunts pulled by the Congressionally-financed Acorn Group? I don't care if they pushed for people with R's OR D's after their names. The things they did on the taxpayers' dime far, far outweigh anything Palin has been accused of even by the most radical frothy-mouthed partisan.
No, I'm not a Republican OR a Democrat. I'm just callin' 'em as I see 'em. Most people I talk to are, like myself, just sick of hearing the piling-on re: Palin. For you Democrats, here's a tip: it's now become counter-productive in that most people are so tired from all the election garbage they now simply stop listening and roll their eyes and shake their heads in disgust every time another shrill partisan attacks Palin and her family. It's diluting your message as people stop listening to you.
Seems like the Virginia state police has painted a picture of the average terrorist that describes themselves much more accurately than it describes anyone on Slashdot.
Silly person, the Virginia State Police can't be terrorists because they're the "good guys"! They are the ones who label others terrorists, not the other way around!
Besides, they have uniforms and badges and *everything*!
I'm much more "libertarian" with a small "L" as the current policies and platforms espoused by the Libertarian Party aren't realistic in many ways IMO. I don't like the actions of either of the two major parties and haven't for many, many years. I never said the Republicans were any better. Especially the last Republican administration. Both parties are two faces of the same B.S. The current Democrat administration & congress are, however, taking the tax & spend strategy to new heights.
I mentioned the Tea Partys as an example of dissent and unrest among the citizens concerning the new heights of tax & spend being reached. As far as I'm aware, the Tea Parties have participants from all parties, although sadly lacking in participants from the Obamabots and Democrat partisans in general.
Please don't attach party loyalties to me that I do not have, nor espoused in the post you're replying to.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously it's a good thing. ::facepalm::
At least always better than letting Halliburton, Enron and Total decide what our future looks like.
Yeah, because we know that Greenpeace, PETA, Nancy Pelosi, the DailyKOS/MoveOn crowd, George Soros, Al Gore, and Harry Reid will make reasoned, informed decisions balancing the peoples' and the nations' needs with the demands of the environmental whack-jobs.
Get real.
(Yeah, I know. This will almost certainly get modded down to oblivion by KOSdot mods, probably modded "-1 Troll" but screw it. I've got the karma to burn.)
Strat
...voting populations and legislative bodies.
Just sign a treaty that has many important-to-world-trade parts in the agreement, while also including what you're *really* seeking to put into law. With the other important stuff thrown in with the garbage in a take-it-or-leave-it treaty up-or-down vote, this puts a lot of pressure on legislative bodies to accept what they normally wouldn't for either ideological or re-election-fear reasons while giving them an "out" to deflect criticism from their constituents and opposition members.
It's small wonder they don't want to reveal anything about this treaty. That would simply give the various countries' legislative bodies and populations time to think about possible ramifications and ways to defeat it once they start to "get it" and realize what this may do to their freedoms and economies.
It's nearly the same game they play with domestic intelligence. It's generally illegal for a US agency to spy on US citizens without a warrant, but there's no law against the UK (for example) spying on US citizens and handing the info over to a US intelligence agency.
Basically it's using treaties and agreements with other nations as a way to get around domestic laws, controls, oversight, and the will of the citizens. It's what happens when governments get too large and powerful; they forget that they are the *servants*, NOT the masters.
I'm very afraid though that at this point, correcting this imbalance and returning the reins of the country's government and its' destiny back to the citizens will require much violence, chaos, and the blood of many patriots, as the citizenry has been asleep for far too long and allowed far too much encroachment of central government power over their lives. That powerful & greedy government will not relinquish any of its' wealth or power without a tremendous fight.
I fear we are cursed to live in "interesting times". I wonder if the guillotine of the French Revolution will make a comeback, and if it will be televised?
Strat
Maybe you could have read his post instead of imagining what it was and then commenting that he is wrong.
What, and sully such a longstanding /. tradition?
Besides, that also means that one would actually have to think and respond to certain facts and logical arguments put forth by another person. Such tedium!
He was talking about PC-BSD, a FreeBSD-based distro designed for desktop use. Since it has many pre-built packages and a GUI front-end for ports, it is actually quite a usable desktop distro. Pretty much about as easy as Ubuntu. I normally prefer linux because of hardware compatibility, so I usually use Ubuntu as my desktop and debian or Ubuntu-server for servers, but PC-BSD is pretty nice.
Not only a GUI front-end for ports, but also an entire package system using ".PBI" packages (sort of like ".deb" packages in Debian Linux, only with less dependency-hell) for click-to-install behavior closely resembling that of Windows software installation packages. You can use both systems to install and remove software along with all the various CLI port-managers, not either-or, so another bonus.
I must also say that the PC-BSD system installer works great and is far faster and friendlier/informative/easier to use than the Windows system installer. PC-BSD (and FreeBSD itself) has made tremendous progress as far as hardware compatibility/drivers/kernel modules and supports most anything Ubuntu does. There's also Java and Flash Player support, so one can browse/watch YouTube videos and use most webpage-embedded Java apps.
If you're tired of Ubuntu and/or want or need a desktop OS with the features, software, security, and power of a more Unix-like system than Linux then PC-BSD may be for you.
Definitely worth trying, IMHO.
Strat
I don't get it either. As if I'd want FreeBSD to be a desktop OS.
Desktop OS's are supposed to be ready for the desktop. Not FreeBSD.
That's...not altogether true. Though maybe kind of. It depends a good deal on how you view computers. If a person views computers as simply a tool, a means to do something mainly concerning the "real world" and events surrounding it, but of no interest as to the computer plus software in and of itself, then that person would probably be better-served with something with Windows installed or with an Apple system.
People who have more of an interest in, for various reasons, or fascination with, the computer and its' software and want/need to have a different system are more likely to take a different path as the features and openness that some other systems provide may not be available in the common PC/Mac machines.
Many of those peoples' needs are met by linux, then there are others that have OS needs or wants that lead them to other systems.
I suspect many are like myself that have multiple OS's installed and use whatever works best for a specific task.
(I currently have Mandriva '08, PC-BSD 7.1/Galileo, XP-ProSP3 on this box, and also an SGI Octane workstation running IRIX UNIX 6.5.30. XP for a lot of gaming and some few other tasks/software that are still Windows-only or Windows-best.)
My PC-BSD system is amazingly friendly for a FreeBSD-based desktop, maybe rivaling or even surpassing Ubuntu in some ways IMHO. The PC-BSD packaging system using click-to-install ".PBI" packages (as well as having the ports system with some cool GUI port-managers available) is getting to be quite usable by the less computer-savvy user.
The automatic updates manager is no slouch either and seems to work great with both system & .PBI-package updates with little hassle. Features/development seems to be chugging right along also, as PC-BSD now is commercially-sponsored by iXsystems a "Provider of enterprise servers for open source and corporate sponsor of PC-BSD".
I have high hopes here as so far (I've been using PC-BSD since about version 0.76RC(?) or so), as PC-BSD has gotten to be very nice and easy to use to the point where I'm more comfortable there than Mandriva's desktop system as far as a non-MS desktop system with comparable features, simplicity, and ease-of-use. Of course this is purely anecdotal, but I do think PC-BSDs' version of a FreeBSD-based desktop is worth checking out if you're interested in a non-MS/Apple/Linux-based desktop system. No, I'm not associated with PC-BSD, iXsystems, or anyone affiliated with either in any way or have any interest other than as a user.
Strat
PS, there's no justification for hiding military equipment or personnel in "holy sites" or apartment complexes to avoid attack and force your enemy to cause huge civilian casualties, no matter how much you believe in your cause.
[sarcasm]
It's perfectly fine to do that as long as it's the USA that your fighting against, and the USA is at fault for any civilian deaths or collateral damage whatsoever no matter who or how many people you behead for any reason at all.
Didn't you get the memo?
[/sarcasm]
There have always been different rules for the USA as opposed to anyone else.
Strat
again, I've never been to a concert, but your $50000 for "gross tour income" seems a little disconcerting. I can imagine $200 a ticket for famous artists and maybe $100 for less famous ones, and that would mean 500 total fans during the whole tour in your example. unbelievable!
Tickets to the average concert in the US are much, much less. More like $15 to $50 in place of your $100 to $200 examples.
Strat
Who is this judge? What is his/her name? I'm thinking that if there are shenanigans going on here, some digging with the judges' name should bring up some possible links to the reason(s) why the judge would bend over for the RIAA, if that's what is happening here. Did one of the RIAA labels offer the Judges' niece a record deal or something? Or did the RIAAs' private investigators obtain some nasty blackmail material on the judge?
This *does* seem rather bizarre. What next? "Judge announces summary judgment for the Plaintiff, but Plaintiff ordered to pay Defendant double the amount requested by Defendant in original infringement case against Plaintiff plus lawyer fees of Defendant for both cases, details of judgment sealed, gag ordered for Plaintiff against discussing any details of case in perpetuity."??
This is just so ominous and strange that nothing would surprise me at this point.
Strat
And they are mostly known today by their statements and/or their looks.
I'm not in the music industry, but don't singing artists get most of their income with the tours after the release of a new album? ...)
can anyone give some sort of breakdown for a typical singer? (actual sales, tours, merchandise, royalties,
what's the point of having copyright lasting longer than 10 years from the creation when I'm sure that in any case most people would still like to attend a concert with the original singer, but enjoy a karaoke of the same song at home or in the local pub without the risk of someone knocking at the door and saying "do you know that this song was made 120 years ago and you'll have to pay a dead body?"
I'll post this link again, as I still find many people haven't read this. It's quite the eye-opener for those unfamiliar with how artists and bands are treated by "the Biz".
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
My band and I have been approached on a couple of occasions by "label" A&R guys. Slimy suckers. One ended up wearing a beer. We still regret the lack of foresight in that we could have saved the beer and and doused him with the slightly-used article instead.
Strat
And even more interesting is the sentence compared to many other crimes that you can get convicted for in Sweden.
As for a case where a driver killed someone while DUI at 0.15% - Five months in prison. So it seems like it's a lot better to drive drunk and kill people than to run a search engine for torrent downloads.
Well, of course!
Killing some average person doesn't hurt the media cartels in any meaningful way, now does it? The average person doesn't have boatloads of money to give to politicians' (re)election campaigns and control of media to either promote or attack politicians.
To the politicians' way of thinking, what's one, or a hundred, or a thousand lousy nobodies' life/lives compared to something that directly affects their climb to, and length of time in, power? Unless it suddenly is both publicized and widespread outrage ensues, of course.
Politicians are the most amoral creatures known to exist. Their only imperative is gaining and remaining in power. They will lie, cheat, steal, bribe, drown kittens, and happily contribute to the death of millions if they think it would help them in their ambitions.
That's one big reason (of many) why career politicians are a very, very bad idea.
Strat
"All that protesting and freedom of speech stuff is only for *us* when anyone other than us are in power! Didn't you get the memo?"
Wow, offtopic maybe, but flamebait?Apparently Kosdot mods are in full effect. So here, I've got karma to burn, the people who spent the previous 8 yrs telling everybody that dissent is the most patriotic thing, were ones attempting to marginalize and mischaracterize the April 15th protests and protesters.
Kinda proves the point, doesn't it? I'd bet though that the fact that it *does* prove the point didn't even enter into their knee-jerk reaction of anger and indignation that someone would dare to disagree and actually say so publicly.
Exactly the same reaction the Tea Party protesters got from these same people.
Strat
I wonder how many votes a party called "The Dastardly Evildoers" would get, specially if their leader was called Dick......no, not Dick Cheney before anyone points out that he'd suit the role rather well.
I prefer "Snidely Whiplash" myself. Although Boris and Natasha might be some competition. Personally, I think we'd probably be more free and less-taxed with the "Dastardly Evil-Doer" party than either the D's or R's.
Unfortunately, we seem to be ruled currently by a bunch of Dudley Do-Rights that want to micro-manage every aspect of our lives while taxing us to death for the privilege. Then, if some have the gall to actually complain, they're publicly ridiculed in the national mainstream media and called all sorts of nasty names, including racist for simply having the audacity to disagree and say so publicly. "All that protesting and freedom of speech stuff is only for *us* when anyone other than us are in power! Didn't you get the memo?"
Strat
> Also consider that no OS would be immune from that. With cooperation a trojan could be slipped into Linux, OS X, Solaris, OpenBSD, Trusted. Anything where you're getting software from somewhere else.
He'd probably be pretty safe if he accessed the ransom website from a computer booted from a Live-CD of a less popular distro. We're talking about a guy committing some serious crimes... it would be worth his time to compile Minix or something totally obscure and use telnet to grab the webpage from the ransom site.
Hell, I just saw a kid browsing a webpage on his DS the other day. There are a lot of ways this guy could have avoided getting caught. I'm glad he got caught of course. But he could have at least tried a little harder :-).
The real weak link would be whenever and whereever he physically took possession of the money. That's where his real identity must interact with the "chain" the money has followed.
PS IAACFI (I am a computer forensics investigator).
This is the kind of thing where the perpetrator would want to use Anonym.OS Live CD along with connecting from a random cracked wireless router or WiFi hot-spot.
That would be pretty darned tough to track/crack for law enforcement, given a reasonably-clued perpetrator.
Strat
It is about a once in a lifetime opportunity for the 'enlightened good progressives' to get almost total control over all aspects of life in the West
You say that like it's a bad thing.
I thought we had already decided slavery and indentured servitude were bad. Have you decided it's a good thing, now?
Slavery is a lot more appealing to people who envision themselves as masters.
Godwin post in 3..2..1..
"If you want to breathe oxygen, you'll have to go up several hundred metres. "
So what am I breathing here at ground level?
[Morphius]"You think that's air you're breathing?"[/Morphius]
Strat
You have failed to worship Obama. Your freedoms will be removed shortly after your guns are removed.
Really? Has that happened a single time? I'd love to know.
Well, to be fair, it doesn't exactly bode well for gun owners when Obama goes to Mexico, and in a speech there, knowingly makes a completely disingenuous and deceptive statement on the percentage of U.S. guns being used by the drug cartels.
Obama stated in his speech that 90% of the guns being confiscated from the drug cartels came from the USA.
This is not correct. The B.A.T.F., which is working with Mexico's Calderon administration, is given serial numbers by the Mexican government to identify that Mexico has already determined probably originated in the USA. They aren't given serial numbers for weapons that Mexico has already identified as coming from elsewhere, and are therefor not included.
If Mexico is not reporting weapons to the B.A.T.F. that they know are from places other than the USA, then of course the percentage of serial numbers being of US origin reported by the B.A.T.F. is going to be extremely high.
This statistic has already been widely debunked, so why would Obama want to keep trying to cite it unless it plays into plans to further restrict guns in the USA? He also took the trouble to mention that these guns came from gun stores near the US/Mexico border. That would put the majority in Texas, Arizona, and Nevada which are generally Republican and/or conservative states with independent-minded populations and strong beliefs in personal gun ownership.
He hasn't done anything specific *yet* about further personal gun ownership/sales restrictions, but those kind of deliberate and knowing misstatements of fact are not reassuring to those who believe in the 2nd Amendment right to freely own personal guns that Obama does *not* intend to attack and weaken that right as it exists. Especially when he advocated as a presidential candidate for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.
Strat
Ah, an "Overrated" mod. The unintelligent persons' way of saying; "I disagree/don't like what you said, but lack the facts and/or wit to make a cohesive argument in reply".
Or else an Obama/Democrat supporter/staffer with mod points was simply doing what they're paid to do, as do the Republicans/conservatives on the other foot, of burying critical/uncomfortably-truthful-to-their-side posts though not nearly to the same degree or frequency. It's truly sad however when individuals take it upon themselves do such deeds without even being shrewd enough to be compensated.
It would be interesting if Taco or Neal were to have the moderation logs parsed, as I'm sure there would be detectable patterns to organized/paid political astroturf mods.
Strat
You have failed to worship Obama. Your freedoms will be removed shortly after your guns are removed.
Really? Has that happened a single time? I'd love to know.
Well, to be fair, it doesn't exactly bode well for gun owners when Obama goes to Mexico, and in a speech there, knowingly makes a completely disingenuous and deceptive statement on the percentage of U.S. guns being used by the drug cartels.
Obama stated in his speech that 90% of the guns being confiscated from the drug cartels came from the USA.
This is not correct. The B.A.T.F., which is working with Mexico's Calderon administration, is given serial numbers by the Mexican government to identify that Mexico has already determined probably originated in the USA. They aren't given serial numbers for weapons that Mexico has already identified as coming from elsewhere, and are therefor not included.
If Mexico is not reporting weapons to the B.A.T.F. that they know are from places other than the USA, then of course the percentage of serial numbers being of US origin reported by the B.A.T.F. is going to be extremely high.
This statistic has already been widely debunked, so why would Obama want to keep trying to cite it unless it plays into plans to further restrict guns in the USA? He also took the trouble to mention that these guns came from gun stores near the US/Mexico border. That would put the majority in Texas, Arizona, and Nevada which are generally Republican and/or conservative states with independent-minded populations and strong beliefs in personal gun ownership.
He hasn't done anything specific *yet* about further personal gun ownership/sales restrictions, but those kind of deliberate and knowing misstatements of fact are not reassuring to those who believe in the 2nd Amendment right to freely own personal guns that Obama does *not* intend to attack and weaken that right as it exists. Especially when he advocated as a presidential candidate for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.
Strat
Yeah, but knives aren't specifically meant for murder.
Some aren't. Some are. Some places sell the former, some sell the latter.
http://www.knifecenter.com/knifecenter/index/specops.html
http://www.specialforces.com/store/catalog/category_493_Knives__Machetes_Combat_Knives_page_1.html
http://www.knife-depot.com/knives-245.html
The above linked websites (plus many thousands of brick-and-mortar shops) sell knives that are specifically designed to kill. Should they be convicted of something akin to accessory to murder if someone buys a knife from them and uses it for its' intended purpose and the purpose for which it is marketed and sold, to kill a human?
It's not the knife/gun that kills, it's the person wielding it with that intent and outcome. It's not the provider of a tracker that infringes copyright, or even has any contact at all with the copyrighted work in question (unlike the knife/gun dealer that actually supplies the murder weapon for a profit), it's the person that then takes that tracker and uses it to download a copy of a copyrighted work which was not authorized to him by the copyright holder.
Not arguing either way on either subject, but pointing out how these things are treated very differently considering the outcomes.
In one, a copyright holder has a civil tort and in the other, a human being loses their life. In the case of the civil tort, criminal sanctions including jail may result from even a contributory role judged under rules of evidence and procedures much less strict than a normal criminal judicial proceeding. In the case of the killing tool, no negative legal outcomes at all except for the actual perpetrator of a killing judged to be illegal in a criminal court with very high standards of evidence and very strict procedures.
Interesting times, indeed.
Strat
In case you did not notice: The first link were a Reuters article ;-)
The article that was linked stated that members of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment were fired upon by "protesters" armed with AK-47s. The Airborne are not exactly known for being undisciplined or prone to panic. The statements that they fired unprovoked and that the "protesters" were unarmed came from Iraqi "bystanders" with unknown allegiances and possibly with an interest in spreading propaganda and in seeing the US humiliated, and possibly even motivated by hopes of monetary compensation.
Taking the unsubstantiated word of these "bystanders" with possible motive to fabricate facts over the word of one of the worlds' most highly regarded and most professional military units ever to exist seems like desperate reaching and searching for reasons to denigrate those troops and the U.S. mission by those opposed to the war and to the U.S. in general.
Again; [citation needed] for the article linked.
Strat
The "insurgents" controlling Fallujah were overwhelmingly local Iraqis, some of which were islamists. Fallujah had for a long time been a center for the resistance to the US occupation, and some of the first larger confrontations between the occupation and the Iraqis happened in Fallujah. You may remember that the citizens of Fallujah demonstrated to get the occupation forces to leave a school, but were fired upon.
This led to widespread anger in Iraq and particularly Fallujah. As the strength and resolve of the resistance grew, it were able to force the occupation out of Fallujah, and for a time Fallujah were controlled and rebuild by Iraqis. When the US decided to crush the rebellion, the local leaders wrote an appeal to Kofi Annan.
After the assault and massacre at Fallujah, the Iraqi resistance drew one important lesson: Taking control of an area were too dangerous for their families, because of the US onslaught. Thus, they shifted their strategy from large scale uprisings to hit and run tactics.
[citation needed]
Hint: Anti-war, liberal/Democrat, pro-jihadi, United Nations, and war-protest websites and sources with obvious anti-West, anti-US, anti-Bush, and anti-war agendas don't count as citation.
Strat
How about the civilians of Falluja? After all, it was their homes that were blown up, their families that were murdered.
Wasn't that the reason the US troops went in?
To stop the killing and terrorizing of Fallujahs' civilians by the insurgents, many if not most of which were not Iraqis but jihadists from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc? Isn't that what basically turned the war around for the Coalition, that the civilians were tired of being bullied, held as hostages/human shields, and killed by all the foreign insurgents and decided to stand with the Coalition forces and defy the insurgents?
Strat
Oh dear lord. I don't call that a joke, I call that horrendous. The fact that the website seems to be targeting children gives me chills. If my son or daughter was suddenly upset with my fishing and hunting habit because PETA told her its mean to kill "sea kittens", I'm gonna be marching down to headquarters in my camouflage to take care of the problem MY way.
Fucking PETA. I'm going to eat a creek kitten right now. A trout. And, by the way, PETA, I paid $30 to be licensed to actually catch that trout, and I have a limit to how many I can take daily. The money I paid for that license is used to A. Figure out just how many fish I can catch without too much of an impact on the ecosystem, and B. hatch me new trout for every season.
And I'm gonna wash down my creek kitten meal with some milk. I'll do my best to make sure the milk comes from a cow whose offspring went to the veal factory, and for dessert I'm going to have bear-liver pate spread on bread made with yeast that were genetically engineered to feel the pain of being baked at 350F.
I think Dennis Leary says it best (starts at approx. 6:20 in, although the whole thing is great).
Strat
Oh, I wasn't trying to further discredit Palin. I simply point out that even _that_ one, which was relatively innocuous, had political content worth leaking, even though you somehow seem to have missed the parts in her email about state appointments and the Department of Public Safety.
The appointments are a political matter, as she can appoint who she wants. Governors' and presidents' appointments have always been a political matter and the selection & decision process has not been considered traditionally or legally to my knowledge as a public information matter before a decision is announced.
The ones concerning DPS are a harder call, as they have components of both the political and the official due to the whole deal with a DPS officers' personal relationship with a Palin relative. I'd be willing to allow some leeway here because as I stated, this one would be a hard one to classify for any fair-minded person. If she used official email channels, she might have charges leveled she used them for personal use, using her own, she's been labeled as avoiding governmental transparency rules. Tough call.
But with that in mind, I'm contradicting the person who just claimed that most of what's on Wikileaks "should have remained secret and for good reason". That conent, like many others on Wikileaks, is not interesting to everyone but is material with excellent reasons to be revealed.
Agreed, one mans' good reason for secrecy is another mans' good reason for publicity. Better to err on the side of openness, in most cases.
Strat
Even Sarah Palin's email showed how she was doing government business on her personal account that she should have turned over to previous subpoenas she'd received.
Oh geez, lay off the partisan kool-aid already, would ya? The election is over, your guy won. The Palin emails showed nothing of the sort. If anything, they showed that she was careful to not use government email services paid for by the taxpayers for personal and/or political purposes. This has already been beat to death. If there had been anything to those allegations, the teams of lawyers air-dropped in D-Day-esque mass-waves to try to "get" Palin on any possible thing they could during the election would have already had her indicted six ways from Sunday.
If you want to rail against political shenanigans, why not start with the stunts pulled by the Congressionally-financed Acorn Group? I don't care if they pushed for people with R's OR D's after their names. The things they did on the taxpayers' dime far, far outweigh anything Palin has been accused of even by the most radical frothy-mouthed partisan.
No, I'm not a Republican OR a Democrat. I'm just callin' 'em as I see 'em. Most people I talk to are, like myself, just sick of hearing the piling-on re: Palin. For you Democrats, here's a tip: it's now become counter-productive in that most people are so tired from all the election garbage they now simply stop listening and roll their eyes and shake their heads in disgust every time another shrill partisan attacks Palin and her family. It's diluting your message as people stop listening to you.
Strat
Seems like the Virginia state police has painted a picture of the average terrorist that describes themselves much more accurately than it describes anyone on Slashdot.
Silly person, the Virginia State Police can't be terrorists because they're the "good guys"! They are the ones who label others terrorists, not the other way around!
Besides, they have uniforms and badges and *everything*!
Don't you understand how this works?
Now move along and stop this crazy-talk before the police taser you three times within seconds, then shoot you three times point-blank in the chest with a .40-cal while in convulsions for being a "person of interest"!
Strat
I'm much more "libertarian" with a small "L" as the current policies and platforms espoused by the Libertarian Party aren't realistic in many ways IMO. I don't like the actions of either of the two major parties and haven't for many, many years. I never said the Republicans were any better. Especially the last Republican administration. Both parties are two faces of the same B.S. The current Democrat administration & congress are, however, taking the tax & spend strategy to new heights.
I mentioned the Tea Partys as an example of dissent and unrest among the citizens concerning the new heights of tax & spend being reached. As far as I'm aware, the Tea Parties have participants from all parties, although sadly lacking in participants from the Obamabots and Democrat partisans in general.
Please don't attach party loyalties to me that I do not have, nor espoused in the post you're replying to.
Strat