> Hmm, call me naive, but I would think that "free speech" is an all-or-nothing concept: It's either available everywhere, universally and without restriction, or it simply isn't "free speech."
So what's your position on the whole "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre issue?
> If there are restrictions on the software that only allow it to be "free" in certain circumstances...
You mean restrictions like "You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty?" Absolute freedom from restrictions means that any for-profit company could do whatever they wanted with any open-source software and no one could say the first thing about it.
> My personal opinion (for what it's worth) is that the US pushes the concept of "free speech" a hell of a lot more then it actually practices it.
And my personal opinion is that if the government keeps you from saying something, it's almost 99% certain that you can walk two blocks and say it all you want. In all the examples given, not once were people kept from expressing their opinions unless they did it while lying on the sidewalk and obstructing traffic.
> A "Free Speech Zone" is about limiting citizens to excercising free speech in certain areas. Mainly to keep them out of your area.
I agree 100% and find the practice detestable. However, I think that it's a huge jump from "you can say whatever you want, you just can't say it wherever you want" to "there's no free speech in America" as is so often claimed here.
> 250 demonstrators had gathered: In some situations, the action itself can be considered a form of speech.
They didn't just gather, they did it to block access to a public building. I don't see how that can be an activity protected in any way by the 1st Amendment. And yes, my concept of speech is a bit narrow - but I restricted my comments specifically to the definition of speech as outlined in the 1st. In the examples given, speech was never interfered with (except in that one shady story) and neither were peacable assemblies - even when those assemblies numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
My comments about puppets and theatre, however, were just me being a smartass. Every time the trust-fund anarchists roll into town for whatever the cause du jour is, I can never stop wondering exactly what it is they're going on about with those big papier mache busts of what looks like the cast of The Golden Girls. The the inevitable "Hey hey! Ho ho! Blah blippy blah has got to go!" chants start and I have to turn off the tv and go stare at the clouds for a while to clear my head.
Example 1) Free Speech zone = citizens restrained from protesting the government in a specific place. No attempts made to curtail actual speech.
Example 2) ""We've heard," they told him "that you've been discussing President Bush, oil, Osama bin Laden" and other political matters. Barry was dumbfounded. "A lot of people have," he pointed out, and as far as he knew that was still allowed."You do, of course, have freedom of speech," one of the agents reassured him. "Thank you for reminding me," Barry replied. "This discussion is over." Intimidation maybe, but no attempts made to curtail actual speech. And the whole story sounds completely fishy to me anyway.
Example 3) "250 demonstrators had gathered to try and prevent conscripts from entering the building when the arrests were made." No attempts made to curtail actual speech.
Example 4) "Local deputies arrested 12 anti-war protesters for violating a new ban on roadside parking and camping near President Bush's ranch." No attempts made to curtail actual speech.
Example 5) "16,000 people picketed the White House and marched on the Capitol... only four arrests were made." "More than 250,000 protesters -- some estimates went as high as 500,000 -- poured down Pennsylvania Avenue..." "...more than 200,000 people attending rallies under the auspices of the National Peace Action Coalition." "The day would end with more than 7,000 arrests... thwarting an attempt to tie up key bridges into the city."
See, here's the problem. When you use worthless examples like this to prove that "there's no free speech in AmeriKKKA!" then it makes it a lot harder to get people to pay attention when the government really *is* up to some shenanigans. Trespassing and demonstrating and exposing the hypocrisy of the man via street theatre, big puppets, and not bathing might be a lot of things, but they're not *speech*.
> There just needs to be some sort of way to market these niche artists online
You mean something like... a record label?
Naah, that won't work. After reading this thread I've learned that running a record label involves a lot of being sucking blood and fucking people who don't deserve it. Oh, and being fat. Apparently musicians run on pure sucrose and signing them just turns you into some sort of serial vampire rapist. It's like Anne Rice on Viagra and corn syrup.
I've always preferred to think of "I could care less" as a shorter way of saying "I *could* care less, but I'm so disinterested in the subject that adjusting my level of caring would take more energy than I care to expend."
> If it's good enough to enjoy, and you're glad that the person who made the film (and his/her hundreds of co-workers and investors) spent the money and went to the trouble of producing it, why deliberately rip off the people making the stuff you do like?
You there - with the logic! Put your hands where we can see them and step backwards to the sound of my voice! Step away from the keyboard and nobody will get hurt.
And while I enjoy a bacon and egg sandwich as much as (probably more than, in fact) the average man, I really don't think that a television-burgling biker would be easily swayed to confess his telly-nabbing ways, no matter *how* delicious the treats with which you ply him.
..."We started Flock to build tools that empower people."
I don't want my browser to "empower" me, I want it to quickly and efficiently let me waste time between classes while reading about computers and things that explode. The thought of an "empowered" browser (and my experiences at a local women's college) brings up some very disturbing mental images.
Flock: You seem to be searching for pornography, which subjugates women and furthers the phallusocracy that keeps undeserving white men in power. Instead, I've directed your search towards some Andrea Dworkin you might want to peruse.
Flock: Your search for 'Black Norwegian Metal' returned 217,000 hits. But might I suggest some Natalie Merchant, Bikini Kill, Ani DiFranco, or other womyn-friendly artists?
Flock: I notice that your Slashdot history shows a disturbing number of posts that suggest discrimination towards homosexuals, people of African descent, and extraplanetary immigrants. Until you show a pattern of clicking and browsing of sites that further the cause of disenfranchised peoples of color or alternate sexuality, I will encrypt your "special" folder that you think I don't know about.
Don't count on it. People have been successfully prosecuted hundreds of times for selling "drugs" that turned out to be flour, oregano, pudding, etc. If you're representing your product as something illegal then you can't defend yourself by saying "but that coke was actually baby laxative, that's not illegal to sell!" The converse is just as true. If an undercover officer sells you something that you believe to be illegal, then you can't claim innocence when it turns out to be fake. I'm not saying that copyright law is 100% analogous to drug laws, but there's an *extremely* strong legal precedent there.
If there was ever a time to use the word, I'd say that this was it. If he's claiming that he's not getting paid for sales through iTunes, then he's a fucking liar. If he's saying that he deserves a cut of the sales of iPods, then he's a fucking thief. And when he says that "we have to get out of the mindset that our content has promotional value only" then I really have to say that I have no idea what the *fuck* he's talking about! What other value could music have? Does he want to collect personal property taxes on my old U2 albums? Dividends? Insulation value? Ham?
Now quick, somebody mod me up +5, fucking confused.
There hasn't been an original story since about three years after they invented speech. Ug the caveman begat the Greek legends, the Greek legends begot the folktales of yore, the folktales of yore begit Chaucer, Chaucer buggered Shakespeare, and then they made "Gigli."
Excusing movie piracy by claiming the stories are recycled is as weak an argument as condoning music piracy because they keep using those same damned notes over and over again.
"B-flat *again*?! Screw you, Beethoven - you're a HACK!"
Considering that the kid in question thought a bomb threat was a good way to start a school day, he'll probably be working fries for at least a few years before they trust him with network security. The guy's no hacker, he's just a juvenile thug who happens to be computer literate.
> The most effective way to forever put your data beyond the reach of cops and courts is: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
However, the most *fun* way to forever put your data beyond the reach of cops and courts can be found here.
Just to embarrass myself even more than I already have, I'll fess up to the fact that I've been on the net since before it had pictures - and I STILL have never seen "cow-orker" before. I guess it's time to go back to day one of Dilbert and start over. Yeesh...
> every time you see a cool portable computer, it has a big sticker on the back because Apple wouldn't pay them jack to show their logo
It's not that black & white, actually. Filmmakers / TV producers have to go through a fairly thorough process of getting legal clearance for any and every recognizable brand / logo / trademark / copyrighted song or photo that is seen and recognizable on the screen during a production. Want to have an Ansel Adams print on the wall of your character's apartment? You're gonna pay for it. Want that hot new tune by Billy Emo and the Shag Haircuts playing in the background of the prom scene? You're gonna pay for it. Want to slice a cop's ear off with a razor with a Coke machine clearly visible in the background? Never gonna happen without Coke's permission, which you aren't going to get because they won't allow their product to be used in a way that would cause negative association.
When you're working on a hit show or a movie that's guaranteed to get millions of butts in seats seeing it, though, the power shifts a little. If you're shooting an indie movie in a bar, you have to cover up all the logos or go through the trouble of getting clearance. When you're Spielberg, the beer companies will start lining up and asking (or paying) *you* to get their logos in there.
> It's really interesting to see which shows are such big whores that they'll bother to cover up a brand when they're not getting a kickback
It's more likely (especially on TV) that it's just easier to not show the logo than to go to the trouble of getting clearance to use it.
art director: "He needs a laptop. I like the silver one."
producer: "It's a Powerbook. If we see the logo it 'll take two days to get Legal to run it by Apple, and we shoot in two hours."
art director: [rips off a small square of gaffer's tape] "Now it's a silver laptop. Let's roll camera."
I wish I knew *your* secret. I spent a childhood playing Pac-Man, but my appetite for hanging about in dark rooms outlined in neon lights while eating pills in the dark to a bleepy synthetic melody has only gotten worse. Even worse is the fact that I've done it 254 times now... I fear the worst.
Slashdot Mirror
> when the author suddenly decides that free doesn't pay the bills
I don't think he decided it as much as he *realised* it.
> Hmm, call me naive, but I would think that "free speech" is an all-or-nothing concept: It's either available everywhere, universally and without restriction, or it simply isn't "free speech."
So what's your position on the whole "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre issue?
> If there are restrictions on the software that only allow it to be "free" in certain circumstances...
You mean restrictions like "You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty?" Absolute freedom from restrictions means that any for-profit company could do whatever they wanted with any open-source software and no one could say the first thing about it.
> My personal opinion (for what it's worth) is that the US pushes the concept of "free speech" a hell of a lot more then it actually practices it.
And my personal opinion is that if the government keeps you from saying something, it's almost 99% certain that you can walk two blocks and say it all you want. In all the examples given, not once were people kept from expressing their opinions unless they did it while lying on the sidewalk and obstructing traffic.
Shall we agree to respectfully disagree?
> A "Free Speech Zone" is about limiting citizens to excercising free speech in certain areas. Mainly to keep them out of your area.
I agree 100% and find the practice detestable. However, I think that it's a huge jump from "you can say whatever you want, you just can't say it wherever you want" to "there's no free speech in America" as is so often claimed here.
> 250 demonstrators had gathered: In some situations, the action itself can be considered a form of speech.
They didn't just gather, they did it to block access to a public building. I don't see how that can be an activity protected in any way by the 1st Amendment. And yes, my concept of speech is a bit narrow - but I restricted my comments specifically to the definition of speech as outlined in the 1st. In the examples given, speech was never interfered with (except in that one shady story) and neither were peacable assemblies - even when those assemblies numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
My comments about puppets and theatre, however, were just me being a smartass. Every time the trust-fund anarchists roll into town for whatever the cause du jour is, I can never stop wondering exactly what it is they're going on about with those big papier mache busts of what looks like the cast of The Golden Girls. The the inevitable "Hey hey! Ho ho! Blah blippy blah has got to go!" chants start and I have to turn off the tv and go stare at the clouds for a while to clear my head.
Example 1) Free Speech zone = citizens restrained from protesting the government in a specific place. No attempts made to curtail actual speech.
Example 2) ""We've heard," they told him "that you've been discussing President Bush, oil, Osama bin Laden" and other political matters. Barry was dumbfounded. "A lot of people have," he pointed out, and as far as he knew that was still allowed."You do, of course, have freedom of speech," one of the agents reassured him. "Thank you for reminding me," Barry replied. "This discussion is over." Intimidation maybe, but no attempts made to curtail actual speech. And the whole story sounds completely fishy to me anyway.
Example 3) "250 demonstrators had gathered to try and prevent conscripts from entering the building when the arrests were made." No attempts made to curtail actual speech.
Example 4) "Local deputies arrested 12 anti-war protesters for violating a new ban on roadside parking and camping near President Bush's ranch." No attempts made to curtail actual speech.
Example 5) "16,000 people picketed the White House and marched on the Capitol... only four arrests were made." "More than 250,000 protesters -- some estimates went as high as 500,000 -- poured down Pennsylvania Avenue..." "...more than 200,000 people attending rallies under the auspices of the National Peace Action Coalition." "The day would end with more than 7,000 arrests... thwarting an attempt to tie up key bridges into the city."
See, here's the problem. When you use worthless examples like this to prove that "there's no free speech in AmeriKKKA!" then it makes it a lot harder to get people to pay attention when the government really *is* up to some shenanigans. Trespassing and demonstrating and exposing the hypocrisy of the man via street theatre, big puppets, and not bathing might be a lot of things, but they're not *speech*.
All this kvetching about affect vs. effect and nobody's brain is exploding over "grammer?!"
I don't know if we should call in the Spelling Nazis or the Grammar Nazis, but there are *damned* sure some Nazis called for here!
> There just needs to be some sort of way to market these niche artists online
You mean something like... a record label?
Naah, that won't work. After reading this thread I've learned that running a record label involves a lot of being sucking blood and fucking people who don't deserve it. Oh, and being fat. Apparently musicians run on pure sucrose and signing them just turns you into some sort of serial vampire rapist. It's like Anne Rice on Viagra and corn syrup.
I've always preferred to think of "I could care less" as a shorter way of saying "I *could* care less, but I'm so disinterested in the subject that adjusting my level of caring would take more energy than I care to expend."
But perhaps that's just me...
> If it's good enough to enjoy, and you're glad that the person who made the film (and his/her hundreds of co-workers and investors) spent the money and went to the trouble of producing it, why deliberately rip off the people making the stuff you do like?
You there - with the logic! Put your hands where we can see them and step backwards to the sound of my voice! Step away from the keyboard and nobody will get hurt.
And while I enjoy a bacon and egg sandwich as much as (probably more than, in fact) the average man, I really don't think that a television-burgling biker would be easily swayed to confess his telly-nabbing ways, no matter *how* delicious the treats with which you ply him.
..."We started Flock to build tools that empower people."
I don't want my browser to "empower" me, I want it to quickly and efficiently let me waste time between classes while reading about computers and things that explode. The thought of an "empowered" browser (and my experiences at a local women's college) brings up some very disturbing mental images.
Flock: You seem to be searching for pornography, which subjugates women and furthers the phallusocracy that keeps undeserving white men in power. Instead, I've directed your search towards some Andrea Dworkin you might want to peruse.
Flock: Your search for 'Black Norwegian Metal' returned 217,000 hits. But might I suggest some Natalie Merchant, Bikini Kill, Ani DiFranco, or other womyn-friendly artists?
Flock: I notice that your Slashdot history shows a disturbing number of posts that suggest discrimination towards homosexuals, people of African descent, and extraplanetary immigrants. Until you show a pattern of clicking and browsing of sites that further the cause of disenfranchised peoples of color or alternate sexuality, I will encrypt your "special" folder that you think I don't know about.
And I bet it smells like patchouli, too.
Don't count on it. People have been successfully prosecuted hundreds of times for selling "drugs" that turned out to be flour, oregano, pudding, etc. If you're representing your product as something illegal then you can't defend yourself by saying "but that coke was actually baby laxative, that's not illegal to sell!" The converse is just as true. If an undercover officer sells you something that you believe to be illegal, then you can't claim innocence when it turns out to be fake. I'm not saying that copyright law is 100% analogous to drug laws, but there's an *extremely* strong legal precedent there.
If there was ever a time to use the word, I'd say that this was it. If he's claiming that he's not getting paid for sales through iTunes, then he's a fucking liar. If he's saying that he deserves a cut of the sales of iPods, then he's a fucking thief. And when he says that "we have to get out of the mindset that our content has promotional value only" then I really have to say that I have no idea what the *fuck* he's talking about! What other value could music have? Does he want to collect personal property taxes on my old U2 albums? Dividends? Insulation value? Ham?
Now quick, somebody mod me up +5, fucking confused.
"Decades old?"
You're kidding, right?
There hasn't been an original story since about three years after they invented speech. Ug the caveman begat the Greek legends, the Greek legends begot the folktales of yore, the folktales of yore begit Chaucer, Chaucer buggered Shakespeare, and then they made "Gigli."
Excusing movie piracy by claiming the stories are recycled is as weak an argument as condoning music piracy because they keep using those same damned notes over and over again.
"B-flat *again*?! Screw you, Beethoven - you're a HACK!"
Considering that the kid in question thought a bomb threat was a good way to start a school day, he'll probably be working fries for at least a few years before they trust him with network security. The guy's no hacker, he's just a juvenile thug who happens to be computer literate.
> The most effective way to forever put your data beyond the reach of cops and courts is: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
However, the most *fun* way to forever put your data beyond the reach of cops and courts can be found here.
Just to embarrass myself even more than I already have, I'll fess up to the fact that I've been on the net since before it had pictures - and I STILL have never seen "cow-orker" before. I guess it's time to go back to day one of Dilbert and start over. Yeesh...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156502&cid=131 21043
A "cow-orker?" Sweet lord, I can't stop picturing a "cow-orker!"
I think we can close the thread now, as that's the funniest thing we're going to see on Slashdot today.
Move along, nothing else to see here...
"I see that you're trying to write a letter. Would you like me to..."
baaa-WHOOOM!
CLIPPY has been killed with a RAILGUN!
October 2, 2003, if I read my log... er, recall correctly.
> Ah Mammon, we know ye too well . . .
What does Al Jolsen have to do with this?
That was no urinal, son... that was a glory hole. Twenty bucks says that there was someone behind that hole dressed like the Gimp.
> every time you see a cool portable computer, it has a big sticker on the back because Apple wouldn't pay them jack to show their logo
It's not that black & white, actually. Filmmakers / TV producers have to go through a fairly thorough process of getting legal clearance for any and every recognizable brand / logo / trademark / copyrighted song or photo that is seen and recognizable on the screen during a production. Want to have an Ansel Adams print on the wall of your character's apartment? You're gonna pay for it. Want that hot new tune by Billy Emo and the Shag Haircuts playing in the background of the prom scene? You're gonna pay for it. Want to slice a cop's ear off with a razor with a Coke machine clearly visible in the background? Never gonna happen without Coke's permission, which you aren't going to get because they won't allow their product to be used in a way that would cause negative association.
When you're working on a hit show or a movie that's guaranteed to get millions of butts in seats seeing it, though, the power shifts a little. If you're shooting an indie movie in a bar, you have to cover up all the logos or go through the trouble of getting clearance. When you're Spielberg, the beer companies will start lining up and asking (or paying) *you* to get their logos in there.
> It's really interesting to see which shows are such big whores that they'll bother to cover up a brand when they're not getting a kickback
It's more likely (especially on TV) that it's just easier to not show the logo than to go to the trouble of getting clearance to use it.
art director: "He needs a laptop. I like the silver one."
producer: "It's a Powerbook. If we see the logo it 'll take two days to get Legal to run it by Apple, and we shoot in two hours."
art director: [rips off a small square of gaffer's tape] "Now it's a silver laptop. Let's roll camera."
I wish I knew *your* secret. I spent a childhood playing Pac-Man, but my appetite for hanging about in dark rooms outlined in neon lights while eating pills in the dark to a bleepy synthetic melody has only gotten worse. Even worse is the fact that I've done it 254 times now... I fear the worst.