What kind of wanker do you have to be to make the leap of logic from, "This Xbox sucks, I wish I hadn't bought it" to "This Xbox sucks, and microsoft owes me a million bucks"?
The kind that hates Microsoft for the usual semi-hypocritcal idealogical reasons (but really want to play the games) and are not-very-secretly delighted that an MS product has a problem. It's a chance to publicly whine about MS, paint them as somehow evil for not making a carpet-proof power supply, and to enter the lawsuit lottery. He's not expecting to actually win a lawsuit, he's just hoping for a settlement that will net him a few thousand bucks for being the squeeky wheel. Why he didn't just ask for his money back used to be beyond me, but juries of no-job-having-hate-The-Man idiots have been demonstrating again and again that (no matter how ill-conceived), any suit against a large company is a likely cash cow.
All of the poisonous anti-corporate/business rhetoric actually gets to some people and they begin to think that companies actually owe them something just for existing, and owe them a lot more if they are in any way inconvenienced. This is a cultural problem, made worse by a media-based celebration of victimhood and misfortune-as-fortune. The prevailing sense of entitlement is truly astonishing, and this is just another sorry example.
Of course, it also says a lot about the loser gamer involved that he had so much of his personal happiness tied up in whether or not he could run is XBox's power supply on the carpeting. Of course, that's BS - he's just reaching for cash.
I'm sure you [NRA] thought the "cars kill orders of magnitude more people than guns" argument was a good idea at the time. A few more years of this, and I'm going to bicycle over to your HQ and give you a good talking-to!
No, this actually helps the NRA. Because now they'll be able to say that not only is it people that kill people (rather than their tools, like guns or cars), but that government-regulated/monkeyed-with tools actually do cause deaths by operating stupidly when you least expect them to. This issue is pretty much exactly like the "smart gun" initiatives that would rely on magic decoder rings, fingerprint sensors, etc., to enable your sidearm to work. Just what you want when you're trying to defend your life... "hold it right there, Mr. Breaking-and-Entering With A Knife! Don't threaten me and make me get go get my e-braclet or wash the dirt off of my fingers so I can then actually shoot you!"
You know - like when your GPS-satellite-sensing car won't let you pass the flaming fuel truck in front of you as a no-breaks-having cattle truck is bearing down on you from behind. Sheesh.
by performing a service for their customers worthy of continual profits. No job requires copyyright.
How do you define "continual?" Say I publish a book and sell it today. Why, my work might even interest people for the whole rest of the week, selling copies for days on end. So, I worked for the last 3 years to produce the material, and then - whoa! - I'm making "continual" profit for several days following! You must be horrified by my greed and the "monopoly" on my own work. Just continuing, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - all week!- to make money on years of work that I'm no longer doing. Shameful.
The strict anarchocapitalist view hoods that property rights are what sets all other rights
And you say that as if it matters. Why, the strict slave-holding view holds that if I point a gun at you, I can make you clean my toilet, too. You're my property then, aren't you? Frankly, I don't care how benignly you try to use the word "anarcho" as a prefix for anything. Actually practice it for real, and all bets are off. May the best armed win.
we see that all legal coercion is bad
But we don't see that at all. You don't make that case, and the very concept is irrational. If your neighbor wakes up each morning and shoots one of your cattle for fun, any sensible legal framework must include the ability for the rule of law to coerce different behavior on the part of your neighbor. If no body/institution is invested with those constitutionally structured powers, then we're back to The Best Armed Guy Wins. And while I am the best armed guy in my neighborhood, I prefer to reserve that for coercing venison and pheasant meat into my freezer.
(note I blogged about this today)
Whew! That's good news. I'd hate to think of the dreadful loss to intelligent, reasoned discourse if you hadn't. And to think that I was going to spend my day writing so that, during some distant week when I wasn't going to be providing a service in real-time, I could realize some income as a return on my investment. But now I see that I should become a wandering lecturer/trubador, working for room and board as those opportunities present themselves, and spend today reading your blog instead.
Again, the story there was Bush's Air National Guard record, and what they reported was true. The story was not how they came about the documentation.
No, the point of the "reporting" was that Bush's C.O. had a crappy opinion of him, and they cited his supposed writings to prove the point. What a shock that no one in the C.O.'s family (even after his former subordinate became CinC!) ever actually said anything like the words that were being put into his mouth by a notably loopy guy with an axe to grind. No, Rather's producer was so jazzed by the prospect of finally having some indication that someone from Bush's Guard duty period actually had something bad to say about him that she immediately got on the phone with Bush's campaign opponents (to give them a heads up and get some spin - how objective! how neutral! how journalistically even handed!) and then built a story around the clearly bogus documents. Without the fake memos putting fake words in the mouth of a dead man, the story was smoke. CBS knew it, and Rather let his subordinates burn while he pretended like he thought some recent memos typed in MS Word were 30-year-old typewriter memos completely at odds with their alleged author's spoken recollections were good, solid journalism.
The story was not how they came about the documentation.
No, the story was the "documentation," which turned out to be completely false. The point is that the third party that offered up the fake memos was desperately trying (again) to sell an image of Bush's C.O.'s position, entirely for political reasons, and with that position demonstrated to be a total fabrication, the story was gone.
mouth breathers in middle America
Ah, now we see what you're made of. What a surprise!
CBS actually reports the truth and then is attacked over the methods they obtain this truth and subsequently are painted as suspect, even though what they're reporting is 100% truthful and based on fact.
I don't think that using blatantly forged documents in an attempt to sway election results really counts as "methods of obtaining truth." Of course you already know this, because you're actually using the phrase "based on fact." A news organization should actually report facts, not make up stories that you say are "based on facts." Not even CBS is claiming that their material in that case was factual (which is why they fired people).
"Based on facts." Incredible. I'll settle for just "facts" and let you CBS whip up some "based on" stuff that suits both your idealogy and theirs.
Fox news just flat out lies.
Really? Which forged documents were they passing around prior to the election? Really! I'm curious. Please expand on that so that we can all be reminded.
Whew! Then it's a good thing I wasn't making an analogy. My point is that industries (pants retailers or film makers) cannot do what they do if they go broke doing it. What they do will simply stop if they cannot recoup (and profit on) what they've invested and pay their employees (whether it's the people who put the pants on the shelves, or the people that coil cables on a movie set). Both industries have to make money or they'll go away. If someone prefers the entertainment produced by people that are choosing to give it way, then that's great. But Peter Jackson (to stick with my example) isn't likely to make spectacular films with big, talented casts and crew, and give the work away. The people that say they respect him, but would probably have a hard time looking him the eye as they rip off a copy of his work, don't seem to make the connection between paying for their entertainment and the person who creates it being able to continue in that line of work.
If your point is that it's essentially free to distribute a film, you should have no problem convincing Peter Jackson or Pixar to spend a few (or many) million creating a film, selling one DVD of it for $20, and then watching it P2P its way around the world. After all, the marginal cost is $0, right? No reason to make any more than just that one sale, after all, right?
Or maybe your point is that smart people shouldn't have to stoop to paying for their entertainment the way that average people do? Pretty insulting, and pathetic (not that you'll understand why).
The problem with your way of looking at things is that you're thinking of the group of file-sharers as a single, rational entity
You're right. My mistake. Because if they were rational (even as a subset, within their larger information-wants-to-be-free irrationality), they'd actually experience an uncomfortable feeling as they sat down to watch that pirated movie in the first place. You know, guilt. But since we're talking about millions of people who are way past anything like a reasoned take on the world, it's time for defensive survival.
Pretty much (as you say) the way that your average retailer must now dedicate shocking resources towards preventing and prosecuting shoplifters and inside theft. Without getting into the infringement-isn't-theft conversation, I'm still comfortable saying that a culture that thinks its entertainers should work for free probably will have a harder time explaining why the people at Banana Republic should be providing nice pants for free. And so, we have Digital Pants Management at the register, armed guards in the mall, and cameras everywhere. It's the same mentality when it comes to ripping movies and music, at least for untold millions of kids who no longer find it worth their time to mow a lawn so they can enjoy their copy of some music.
Private individuals want free access those materials
Should read
"Some private individuals want the people who produce all that shiny stuff to work for them for free."
"Private individuals" that actually create and produce things for a living don't want free access. They probably want more flexible access to what they've purchased, and probably want their customers/audience to have some variation on the same. But they don't want it for free, because they also wish to make a living, and actually get that it can't all be for free, or it won't exist at all, except on an amateur scale.
slashdot user on fast track to hyperbole
on
RIAA vs Linux and DVDs
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The entertainment industry has put itself on the fast-track to destruction
Oh, please. Even the people who don't think they should have to pay for their expensively produced entertainment will have to realize that actual destruction of the entertainment industry will leave them without anyone really professional to rip off. I mean, you don't have to sleep with a copy of Atlas Shrugged to see the basic truth of it. The rubber has to meet the road someplace, and at some point the Peter Jacksons of the world will not be able to raise the cash for a Really Swell Giant Ape Movie.
And before someone says that artistic patronage, bar gigs, miming in the streets and wearing sandals was good enough 2500 years ago, and real artists shouldn't care about financing actors and makeup artists, blahditty blah... oh, never mind. There, I've said it for you. It's not about whether or not there should be a rational way to play your DVD on your Linux laptop. There should be. The problem is the shrill tone (and glee) in comments like the original post. That does not help matters.
The ability for idiots to troll on Wikipedia is simply part of its nature, and (unless fundamentally changed) means that it can never be viewed as an objective, neutral, authoritative, comprehensive, or in any way lasting resource. The people to complain about are the users who so readily link to Wikipedia to settle every argument or copy-and-paste to pass every writing assignment. They give it a artificial air of credibility, and they take it into their lives without any sense of context.
There are probably plenty of blogs and tinfoil-lined web sites that do his reputation much worse than the entry in question, but he doesn't really need to worry about those because they are obscure. Wikipedia has become an intellectual crutch for millions of lazy visitors, and thus something of an institution. It smells authoritative and is treated that way by too many people. The only cure is for smart people who know better to cite better, direct information and to let Wikipedia play the role that its entire structure demands that it play: one big idealogical squabble-fest.
Sorry, I couldn't quite get that out - I was finishing a hamburger. You know, putting some foreign tissue into my body. I think it's pretty obvious why... wait... [smack!]. Sorry, I had to swat a mosquito. It was busy getting some of its fluids into my body. In fact, that reminds me of how I was in an elevator this morning respirating the same damp air as the other ten people in there. Other people's exhalations, microbes, viruses and all!
Look, you stand way more of a chance of getting a disease from sitting on a public toilet than you do from a highly scrutinized tissue transplant. In fact, you could just as easily die from an anti-biotic-resistant lung infection picked up environmentally while you're in the hospital having your own blood transfused back into you.
I think you doth protest too much, and that your issue is strictly a superstitious one, similar to those that prevent people from donating their loved ones' perfectly good organs after an accidental death. I'm always amazed that people would rather bury a good liver in the ground (or burn it) than let some poor kid get a new lease on life. But I'm even more amazed by someone who would rather die than take in an organ from a screened donor. That's OK though - helps us evolve more rational people.
people break into homes, for the very most part, to take your ipod/dvd/laptop/flat screen/jewellery, not to sexually assault your child
But that's just part of the cost of doing business for a burglar... they have to know that their intentions cannot be deduced as they cut through your back door's window, etc. In fact, many in-house injuries/deaths from intruders happen when a burglar is surprised to discover that someone is home, and reacts violently. They may not be there to assault someone, but assaults sometimes stem from the fact that they're trespassing and have just been caught. Asking them to leave is not always effective, and it's reasonable to err on the side of assuming that a caught-off-guard burglar may be or become violent.
One of the major benefits of living in a community where more houses are occupied by rational gun owners isn't a higher number of dead burglars (nice as that would be), it's the reduced number of burglary attempts. Your average B&E specialist is generally a coward, and tend to leave high dog/gun-frequency neighborhoods alone. But it's important for that aspect of the local culture to be well known, and people who case such houses when they know nobody is home also have know that the local custom is to keep valuables (especially firearms) in a safe.
All that being said: I know that my wife, confronted with a stranger in the house, would absolutely show them the business end of a shotgun. And if that person didn't run out the door at full throttle (no doubt with 150 pounds of our dogs hot on his tail/trail), she'd use it. When you're 5'-2", 115 pounds, you don't take a lot of time to wonder if the strange person who broke into your house is or isn't going to respect your personal space. She's experienced someone (in total, drug-addled maniac mode) trying to pound his way through our back door at 2:00AM, and doesn't appreciate wondering about motives. You break into someone's house, you waive all rights to any claim that you weren't there to hurt someone.
That's like saying you don't believe in wire fraud, or don't believe in insurance scams. The point is that it's a class of criminal activity that wouldn't exist without the internet. The internet doesn't create those crimes, but those particular crimes couldn't exist without it. Just like cars don't cause auto theft, but without which, it wouldn't happen. Do you believe in the theft of automobiles? I don't need to believe in it - it's real no matter what I label it.
Some cybercrime victims are merely stupid users
Which users are those? Surely you're not suggesting that people, out of stupidity, inadvertantly transfer their life's savings into an offshore bank account owned by the Russian mob? Or do you mean users that are so dumb that they accidentally go online and have expensive electronics shipped to someone they don't know in the Bronx? Maybe it's stupid users that are so dumb that somehow they cause someone else to get a line of credit with their personal info? Obviously that's all BS... only the actions of the Bad Guys can actually leverage someone's ignorance and steal their money or fraudulently use their ID in the commission of a crime. Again: you don't have to believe in those acts... they're happening all around you, and not just because someone's grandma isn't savvy enough to see through a phishing scheme. The fact of her ignorance doesn't cause the guy in Russia using a zombie machine in Korea to send her that fake e-mail and then run off with her cash or reputation. Her igornance is a weakness, just like the glass windows on your house are a weakness that another sort of criminal easily exploits.
My fear is that defending the cybercrime idea will only help make more wealthy lawyers and give politicians more abusive power.
If you're worried about that, then why worry about other compartmentalized flavors of crime? Securities fraud involves some particular methods, practitioners, and types of victims. Enough so that we have a special name for it, even though it's still just basically deceit and theft. If specialized pursuit and prosecution of a certain type of crime is just going to make lawyers rich and politicians abusive, then would you recommend backing off of the guys that ran Enron's investors into the ground because we already have laws against theft and fraud?
We live in a highly specialized civilization, and need to deal with criminal specialists with specilialized laws and enforcement.
When Pat Buchannan flaps his lips, do you think it reflects badly on you?
Well, he's been doing it for so long, that I just assumed it was sort of a constant, like gravity. After a while you just stop feeling the way it weighs you down. It's the innovative, freshly new crazy stuff (like exo-diplomacy concerns within the retired Canadian government circles) that sort of stick out. That, and actual media coverage thereof!
That "forward base" on the moon bit is priceless, really... everything with the rest of the universe would be great if not for Bush! Why, if Kerry had won, there wouldn't be any risk of intergalactic war at all! But now, well... time to start stockpiling cans of chili and whatnot, I suppose. What's interesting isn't that a former Canadian defense minister said (or things) this, it's that there aren't 100 Canadian slashdot users screaming how not them this is. Well, it's early yet.
If that's a rant, then rant on. I don't buy the "guilt of thy fathers" rap, and I don't buy that the founding fathers of the US, given the circumstances and immediate history/economics into which they were born, makes any flaws in their works of genius somehow evil. The US was a great idea then, and it's a great idea now - especially in contrast with those that are suggesting other social frameworks (like retro-medieval theocracies or we'll-get-it-right-this-time communism, etc). Yes, Thanksgiving has Puritanical roots... because many of the first settlers in colonial America were Puritans. But the concept is valid, even if the society has evolved around it - I'm not giving thanks to a deity, for example, but it's pleasant to sit around with my family and reflect on how great it is to live how and where we live.
Like you, my patience for the droning time-traveling guilt trip attempts is at its limits. Stop Global Whining (um, and Happy Thanksgiving!).
who cares about the bloody history of how america was founded? its not like it has any baring on americas conduct in the world today or anything
True, we could have just let the bloody regime that formed the colonies stay in power, and it could have had a non-stop, continual bloody fight with the French, the Spaniards, and everyone else with an interest in more land, gold, etc.
This will be easier: give me a run-down of the cultures and geographical spots that do not have a bloody history going back several centuries, so that we can get all of our societal guidance from them. Western Europe? Nope. Eastern Europe? Nope. Central/South America? Nope. Asia (in any quarter thereof? Nope. North America before the Europeans showed up? Nope. Australia? I could use a refresher on their history, but don't think that continent is free of bloodletting. Hmmm.
Yes, forgetting history can be an aspect of repeating it... but what makes you think that's a peculiarly American thing? Or that America's history is any more bloody than, say, the Middle East, or the Caucuses, or anyplace else? Now, review the most recent 200 or so years of global history, reviewing the frequency with which the people in each culture and country have had regular, peaceful, democratic changes in government every few years. The US has had its procession of leaders and representatives partially interrupted by one civil war, but has otherwise performed civilly, not bloodily.
At no point during that history has gathering around a table with family been somehow less about gathering around a table with family. Whether or not some sects or towns or states have made pronouncements along the way about other meanings of the (age old) harvest feasts held this time of year, such gatherings provide their own meaning - and for most people (not counting turkeys), it's peaceful and a moment to reflect on giving a damn about at least some members of our families.
Yes, I'm really going to have to talk to my grandparents about that. Oh, wait... that was almost 400 years ago.
Any chance we can just enjoy the tradition as it is currently enjoyed by millions of people? You know - in the general spirit of family togetherness, and blissfully minus too much of the commercialization (um, other than transportation use) that makes the rest of the holidays such a mess?
No, I explicitly cite things like elevator, security, and fire systems exactly because they are black-box-software systems. Do you know how to alter the software that runs your car engine? Do you know what sort of telemetry it records in the 15 seconds prior to an accident?
On the other hand, proprietary software is central to how some of these companies do what they do, and is part of what makes their products competitive. If you don't like proprietary software securing your office building, or running your car's engine, buy those services/products from companies that prefer to expose their expensive R&D to their competitors. Especially security-related systems.
or you can explain how they can spend thousands of dollars on software that no one except Microsoft knows how it really works
Sorry, I don't buy it. Most companies trust their elevator vendors, boiler-room maintenace contractors, fire suppression vendors, and so on with their lives. How many company managers actually know how their telephone systems work, under the hood? How many companies actually know how their bulding security company's systems work, and where every potential copy of surveilance footage, biometric data, and other telemetry may go? They don't know that - they trust the vendor, and usually have some agreement in place about what should happen in the case of a breech of that trust.
But would the vendor of the company's building-wide smoke detector and fire supression system agree to disclose everything about how their hardware/software works, give up source code for it, and make themselves liable for anything that happens in the event that something occurs beyond their ability to do anything about it? Never. People use MS stuff because, despite all of the bitching here, it works well enough to run a business, and in a manner comfortable enough for its users. You don't really think that a company using Linux on its boxes is going to also run out and buy an accounting system - with the accompanying hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of code - and arrange somehow to analyze that code before using it to run payroll, do you? No... they're going to trust somebody, and hire consultants to make sure it's actually functioning day-to-day.
You're suggesting that the #1 reason people don't use MS is because they can't see under the hood. I'm saying that the #1 reason people do use MS stuff is because they don't have the time to look under the hood, and are paying professionals to help them select, implement, and work with their tools. My company deals with hundreds of MS-using businesses, some of them small, some very large. You may know the #1 reason people aren't on that list - but we've yet to run across a single customer that wanted to leave their MS business software behind and go Linux. That doesn't mean they're not out there, because of course they are. But you're making it sound like something other than a minority - which it still very much is.
Of the other tech people I actually work with (mostly on the web app hosting side of things), the main reason they go Linux is because they can tell the bosses it's cheaper - even though the real cost (labor) never goes away anyway. I've never heard a credible person pitch Linux (and the accompanying huge disruption) to a boss on the grounds that they're concerned that IIS might be sending hidden messages to Redmond, or that they're frustrated that they can't re-compile Windows Server 2003 to cluster a little differently.
Slashdot Mirror
What kind of wanker do you have to be to make the leap of logic from, "This Xbox sucks, I wish I hadn't bought it" to "This Xbox sucks, and microsoft owes me a million bucks"?
The kind that hates Microsoft for the usual semi-hypocritcal idealogical reasons (but really want to play the games) and are not-very-secretly delighted that an MS product has a problem. It's a chance to publicly whine about MS, paint them as somehow evil for not making a carpet-proof power supply, and to enter the lawsuit lottery. He's not expecting to actually win a lawsuit, he's just hoping for a settlement that will net him a few thousand bucks for being the squeeky wheel. Why he didn't just ask for his money back used to be beyond me, but juries of no-job-having-hate-The-Man idiots have been demonstrating again and again that (no matter how ill-conceived), any suit against a large company is a likely cash cow.
All of the poisonous anti-corporate/business rhetoric actually gets to some people and they begin to think that companies actually owe them something just for existing, and owe them a lot more if they are in any way inconvenienced. This is a cultural problem, made worse by a media-based celebration of victimhood and misfortune-as-fortune. The prevailing sense of entitlement is truly astonishing, and this is just another sorry example.
Of course, it also says a lot about the loser gamer involved that he had so much of his personal happiness tied up in whether or not he could run is XBox's power supply on the carpeting. Of course, that's BS - he's just reaching for cash.
Stop global whining before it's too late.
I'm sure you [NRA] thought the "cars kill orders of magnitude more people than guns" argument was a good idea at the time. A few more years of this, and I'm going to bicycle over to your HQ and give you a good talking-to!
No, this actually helps the NRA. Because now they'll be able to say that not only is it people that kill people (rather than their tools, like guns or cars), but that government-regulated/monkeyed-with tools actually do cause deaths by operating stupidly when you least expect them to. This issue is pretty much exactly like the "smart gun" initiatives that would rely on magic decoder rings, fingerprint sensors, etc., to enable your sidearm to work. Just what you want when you're trying to defend your life... "hold it right there, Mr. Breaking-and-Entering With A Knife! Don't threaten me and make me get go get my e-braclet or wash the dirt off of my fingers so I can then actually shoot you!"
You know - like when your GPS-satellite-sensing car won't let you pass the flaming fuel truck in front of you as a no-breaks-having cattle truck is bearing down on you from behind. Sheesh.
by performing a service for their customers worthy of continual profits. No job requires copyyright.
How do you define "continual?" Say I publish a book and sell it today. Why, my work might even interest people for the whole rest of the week, selling copies for days on end. So, I worked for the last 3 years to produce the material, and then - whoa! - I'm making "continual" profit for several days following! You must be horrified by my greed and the "monopoly" on my own work. Just continuing, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - all week!- to make money on years of work that I'm no longer doing. Shameful.
The strict anarchocapitalist view hoods that property rights are what sets all other rights
And you say that as if it matters. Why, the strict slave-holding view holds that if I point a gun at you, I can make you clean my toilet, too. You're my property then, aren't you? Frankly, I don't care how benignly you try to use the word "anarcho" as a prefix for anything. Actually practice it for real, and all bets are off. May the best armed win.
we see that all legal coercion is bad
But we don't see that at all. You don't make that case, and the very concept is irrational. If your neighbor wakes up each morning and shoots one of your cattle for fun, any sensible legal framework must include the ability for the rule of law to coerce different behavior on the part of your neighbor. If no body/institution is invested with those constitutionally structured powers, then we're back to The Best Armed Guy Wins. And while I am the best armed guy in my neighborhood, I prefer to reserve that for coercing venison and pheasant meat into my freezer.
(note I blogged about this today)
Whew! That's good news. I'd hate to think of the dreadful loss to intelligent, reasoned discourse if you hadn't. And to think that I was going to spend my day writing so that, during some distant week when I wasn't going to be providing a service in real-time, I could realize some income as a return on my investment. But now I see that I should become a wandering lecturer/trubador, working for room and board as those opportunities present themselves, and spend today reading your blog instead.
Again, the story there was Bush's Air National Guard record, and what they reported was true. The story was not how they came about the documentation.
No, the point of the "reporting" was that Bush's C.O. had a crappy opinion of him, and they cited his supposed writings to prove the point. What a shock that no one in the C.O.'s family (even after his former subordinate became CinC!) ever actually said anything like the words that were being put into his mouth by a notably loopy guy with an axe to grind. No, Rather's producer was so jazzed by the prospect of finally having some indication that someone from Bush's Guard duty period actually had something bad to say about him that she immediately got on the phone with Bush's campaign opponents (to give them a heads up and get some spin - how objective! how neutral! how journalistically even handed!) and then built a story around the clearly bogus documents. Without the fake memos putting fake words in the mouth of a dead man, the story was smoke. CBS knew it, and Rather let his subordinates burn while he pretended like he thought some recent memos typed in MS Word were 30-year-old typewriter memos completely at odds with their alleged author's spoken recollections were good, solid journalism.
The story was not how they came about the documentation.
No, the story was the "documentation," which turned out to be completely false. The point is that the third party that offered up the fake memos was desperately trying (again) to sell an image of Bush's C.O.'s position, entirely for political reasons, and with that position demonstrated to be a total fabrication, the story was gone.
mouth breathers in middle America
Ah, now we see what you're made of. What a surprise!
CBS actually reports the truth and then is attacked over the methods they obtain this truth and subsequently are painted as suspect, even though what they're reporting is 100% truthful and based on fact.
I don't think that using blatantly forged documents in an attempt to sway election results really counts as "methods of obtaining truth." Of course you already know this, because you're actually using the phrase "based on fact." A news organization should actually report facts, not make up stories that you say are "based on facts." Not even CBS is claiming that their material in that case was factual (which is why they fired people).
"Based on facts." Incredible. I'll settle for just "facts" and let you CBS whip up some "based on" stuff that suits both your idealogy and theirs.
Fox news just flat out lies.
Really? Which forged documents were they passing around prior to the election? Really! I'm curious. Please expand on that so that we can all be reminded.
>>"It smells authoritative and is treated that way by too many people"
;-)
You mean like Fox News?
Well, more like CBS, but yeah.
This means your analogy is basically worthless
Whew! Then it's a good thing I wasn't making an analogy. My point is that industries (pants retailers or film makers) cannot do what they do if they go broke doing it. What they do will simply stop if they cannot recoup (and profit on) what they've invested and pay their employees (whether it's the people who put the pants on the shelves, or the people that coil cables on a movie set). Both industries have to make money or they'll go away. If someone prefers the entertainment produced by people that are choosing to give it way, then that's great. But Peter Jackson (to stick with my example) isn't likely to make spectacular films with big, talented casts and crew, and give the work away. The people that say they respect him, but would probably have a hard time looking him the eye as they rip off a copy of his work, don't seem to make the connection between paying for their entertainment and the person who creates it being able to continue in that line of work.
If your point is that it's essentially free to distribute a film, you should have no problem convincing Peter Jackson or Pixar to spend a few (or many) million creating a film, selling one DVD of it for $20, and then watching it P2P its way around the world. After all, the marginal cost is $0, right? No reason to make any more than just that one sale, after all, right?
Or maybe your point is that smart people shouldn't have to stoop to paying for their entertainment the way that average people do? Pretty insulting, and pathetic (not that you'll understand why).
The problem with your way of looking at things is that you're thinking of the group of file-sharers as a single, rational entity
You're right. My mistake. Because if they were rational (even as a subset, within their larger information-wants-to-be-free irrationality), they'd actually experience an uncomfortable feeling as they sat down to watch that pirated movie in the first place. You know, guilt. But since we're talking about millions of people who are way past anything like a reasoned take on the world, it's time for defensive survival. Pretty much (as you say) the way that your average retailer must now dedicate shocking resources towards preventing and prosecuting shoplifters and inside theft. Without getting into the infringement-isn't-theft conversation, I'm still comfortable saying that a culture that thinks its entertainers should work for free probably will have a harder time explaining why the people at Banana Republic should be providing nice pants for free. And so, we have Digital Pants Management at the register, armed guards in the mall, and cameras everywhere. It's the same mentality when it comes to ripping movies and music, at least for untold millions of kids who no longer find it worth their time to mow a lawn so they can enjoy their copy of some music.
Private individuals want free access those materials
Should read
"Some private individuals want the people who produce all that shiny stuff to work for them for free."
"Private individuals" that actually create and produce things for a living don't want free access. They probably want more flexible access to what they've purchased, and probably want their customers/audience to have some variation on the same. But they don't want it for free, because they also wish to make a living, and actually get that it can't all be for free, or it won't exist at all, except on an amateur scale.
The entertainment industry has put itself on the fast-track to destruction
Oh, please. Even the people who don't think they should have to pay for their expensively produced entertainment will have to realize that actual destruction of the entertainment industry will leave them without anyone really professional to rip off. I mean, you don't have to sleep with a copy of Atlas Shrugged to see the basic truth of it. The rubber has to meet the road someplace, and at some point the Peter Jacksons of the world will not be able to raise the cash for a Really Swell Giant Ape Movie.
And before someone says that artistic patronage, bar gigs, miming in the streets and wearing sandals was good enough 2500 years ago, and real artists shouldn't care about financing actors and makeup artists, blahditty blah... oh, never mind. There, I've said it for you. It's not about whether or not there should be a rational way to play your DVD on your Linux laptop. There should be. The problem is the shrill tone (and glee) in comments like the original post. That does not help matters.
The ability for idiots to troll on Wikipedia is simply part of its nature, and (unless fundamentally changed) means that it can never be viewed as an objective, neutral, authoritative, comprehensive, or in any way lasting resource. The people to complain about are the users who so readily link to Wikipedia to settle every argument or copy-and-paste to pass every writing assignment. They give it a artificial air of credibility, and they take it into their lives without any sense of context.
There are probably plenty of blogs and tinfoil-lined web sites that do his reputation much worse than the entry in question, but he doesn't really need to worry about those because they are obscure. Wikipedia has become an intellectual crutch for millions of lazy visitors, and thus something of an institution. It smells authoritative and is treated that way by too many people. The only cure is for smart people who know better to cite better, direct information and to let Wikipedia play the role that its entire structure demands that it play: one big idealogical squabble-fest.
Wull, mghuh-hmm-srtch-hmmm.
Sorry, I couldn't quite get that out - I was finishing a hamburger. You know, putting some foreign tissue into my body. I think it's pretty obvious why... wait... [smack!]. Sorry, I had to swat a mosquito. It was busy getting some of its fluids into my body. In fact, that reminds me of how I was in an elevator this morning respirating the same damp air as the other ten people in there. Other people's exhalations, microbes, viruses and all!
Look, you stand way more of a chance of getting a disease from sitting on a public toilet than you do from a highly scrutinized tissue transplant. In fact, you could just as easily die from an anti-biotic-resistant lung infection picked up environmentally while you're in the hospital having your own blood transfused back into you.
I think you doth protest too much, and that your issue is strictly a superstitious one, similar to those that prevent people from donating their loved ones' perfectly good organs after an accidental death. I'm always amazed that people would rather bury a good liver in the ground (or burn it) than let some poor kid get a new lease on life. But I'm even more amazed by someone who would rather die than take in an organ from a screened donor. That's OK though - helps us evolve more rational people.
people break into homes, for the very most part, to take your ipod/dvd/laptop/flat screen/jewellery, not to sexually assault your child
But that's just part of the cost of doing business for a burglar... they have to know that their intentions cannot be deduced as they cut through your back door's window, etc. In fact, many in-house injuries/deaths from intruders happen when a burglar is surprised to discover that someone is home, and reacts violently. They may not be there to assault someone, but assaults sometimes stem from the fact that they're trespassing and have just been caught. Asking them to leave is not always effective, and it's reasonable to err on the side of assuming that a caught-off-guard burglar may be or become violent.
One of the major benefits of living in a community where more houses are occupied by rational gun owners isn't a higher number of dead burglars (nice as that would be), it's the reduced number of burglary attempts. Your average B&E specialist is generally a coward, and tend to leave high dog/gun-frequency neighborhoods alone. But it's important for that aspect of the local culture to be well known, and people who case such houses when they know nobody is home also have know that the local custom is to keep valuables (especially firearms) in a safe.
All that being said: I know that my wife, confronted with a stranger in the house, would absolutely show them the business end of a shotgun. And if that person didn't run out the door at full throttle (no doubt with 150 pounds of our dogs hot on his tail/trail), she'd use it. When you're 5'-2", 115 pounds, you don't take a lot of time to wonder if the strange person who broke into your house is or isn't going to respect your personal space. She's experienced someone (in total, drug-addled maniac mode) trying to pound his way through our back door at 2:00AM, and doesn't appreciate wondering about motives. You break into someone's house, you waive all rights to any claim that you weren't there to hurt someone.
I don't personally believe in cybercrime
That's like saying you don't believe in wire fraud, or don't believe in insurance scams. The point is that it's a class of criminal activity that wouldn't exist without the internet. The internet doesn't create those crimes, but those particular crimes couldn't exist without it. Just like cars don't cause auto theft, but without which, it wouldn't happen. Do you believe in the theft of automobiles? I don't need to believe in it - it's real no matter what I label it.
Some cybercrime victims are merely stupid users
Which users are those? Surely you're not suggesting that people, out of stupidity, inadvertantly transfer their life's savings into an offshore bank account owned by the Russian mob? Or do you mean users that are so dumb that they accidentally go online and have expensive electronics shipped to someone they don't know in the Bronx? Maybe it's stupid users that are so dumb that somehow they cause someone else to get a line of credit with their personal info? Obviously that's all BS... only the actions of the Bad Guys can actually leverage someone's ignorance and steal their money or fraudulently use their ID in the commission of a crime. Again: you don't have to believe in those acts... they're happening all around you, and not just because someone's grandma isn't savvy enough to see through a phishing scheme. The fact of her ignorance doesn't cause the guy in Russia using a zombie machine in Korea to send her that fake e-mail and then run off with her cash or reputation. Her igornance is a weakness, just like the glass windows on your house are a weakness that another sort of criminal easily exploits.
My fear is that defending the cybercrime idea will only help make more wealthy lawyers and give politicians more abusive power.
If you're worried about that, then why worry about other compartmentalized flavors of crime? Securities fraud involves some particular methods, practitioners, and types of victims. Enough so that we have a special name for it, even though it's still just basically deceit and theft. If specialized pursuit and prosecution of a certain type of crime is just going to make lawyers rich and politicians abusive, then would you recommend backing off of the guys that ran Enron's investors into the ground because we already have laws against theft and fraud?
We live in a highly specialized civilization, and need to deal with criminal specialists with specilialized laws and enforcement.
Is it worse that you made the joke, or that I got it? (and i'm not even a model train fan!)
Oh, it's definitely worse that you got it. No question.
When Pat Buchannan flaps his lips, do you think it reflects badly on you?
Well, he's been doing it for so long, that I just assumed it was sort of a constant, like gravity. After a while you just stop feeling the way it weighs you down. It's the innovative, freshly new crazy stuff (like exo-diplomacy concerns within the retired Canadian government circles) that sort of stick out. That, and actual media coverage thereof!
That "forward base" on the moon bit is priceless, really... everything with the rest of the universe would be great if not for Bush! Why, if Kerry had won, there wouldn't be any risk of intergalactic war at all! But now, well... time to start stockpiling cans of chili and whatnot, I suppose. What's interesting isn't that a former Canadian defense minister said (or things) this, it's that there aren't 100 Canadian slashdot users screaming how not them this is. Well, it's early yet.
Much more pulling power, anyway, and the little fake trees scale better.
It's always the coverup that gets you, not the original crime. Martha Stewart, Richard Nixon...
To paraphrase, "That depends on "it's" and what its meaning is."
If that's a rant, then rant on. I don't buy the "guilt of thy fathers" rap, and I don't buy that the founding fathers of the US, given the circumstances and immediate history/economics into which they were born, makes any flaws in their works of genius somehow evil. The US was a great idea then, and it's a great idea now - especially in contrast with those that are suggesting other social frameworks (like retro-medieval theocracies or we'll-get-it-right-this-time communism, etc). Yes, Thanksgiving has Puritanical roots... because many of the first settlers in colonial America were Puritans. But the concept is valid, even if the society has evolved around it - I'm not giving thanks to a deity, for example, but it's pleasant to sit around with my family and reflect on how great it is to live how and where we live.
Like you, my patience for the droning time-traveling guilt trip attempts is at its limits. Stop Global Whining (um, and Happy Thanksgiving!).
who cares about the bloody history of how america was founded? its not like it has any baring on americas conduct in the world today or anything
True, we could have just let the bloody regime that formed the colonies stay in power, and it could have had a non-stop, continual bloody fight with the French, the Spaniards, and everyone else with an interest in more land, gold, etc.
This will be easier: give me a run-down of the cultures and geographical spots that do not have a bloody history going back several centuries, so that we can get all of our societal guidance from them. Western Europe? Nope. Eastern Europe? Nope. Central/South America? Nope. Asia (in any quarter thereof? Nope. North America before the Europeans showed up? Nope. Australia? I could use a refresher on their history, but don't think that continent is free of bloodletting. Hmmm.
Yes, forgetting history can be an aspect of repeating it... but what makes you think that's a peculiarly American thing? Or that America's history is any more bloody than, say, the Middle East, or the Caucuses, or anyplace else? Now, review the most recent 200 or so years of global history, reviewing the frequency with which the people in each culture and country have had regular, peaceful, democratic changes in government every few years. The US has had its procession of leaders and representatives partially interrupted by one civil war, but has otherwise performed civilly, not bloodily.
At no point during that history has gathering around a table with family been somehow less about gathering around a table with family. Whether or not some sects or towns or states have made pronouncements along the way about other meanings of the (age old) harvest feasts held this time of year, such gatherings provide their own meaning - and for most people (not counting turkeys), it's peaceful and a moment to reflect on giving a damn about at least some members of our families.
by 1637
Yes, I'm really going to have to talk to my grandparents about that. Oh, wait... that was almost 400 years ago.
Any chance we can just enjoy the tradition as it is currently enjoyed by millions of people? You know - in the general spirit of family togetherness, and blissfully minus too much of the commercialization (um, other than transportation use) that makes the rest of the holidays such a mess?
But who do you call when your comma key is stuck on?
You're right about the snail mail, though. Especially if you spend the buck or so to send it certified. That always gets attention.
No, I explicitly cite things like elevator, security, and fire systems exactly because they are black-box-software systems. Do you know how to alter the software that runs your car engine? Do you know what sort of telemetry it records in the 15 seconds prior to an accident?
On the other hand, proprietary software is central to how some of these companies do what they do, and is part of what makes their products competitive. If you don't like proprietary software securing your office building, or running your car's engine, buy those services/products from companies that prefer to expose their expensive R&D to their competitors. Especially security-related systems.
or you can explain how they can spend thousands of dollars on software that no one except Microsoft knows how it really works
Sorry, I don't buy it. Most companies trust their elevator vendors, boiler-room maintenace contractors, fire suppression vendors, and so on with their lives. How many company managers actually know how their telephone systems work, under the hood? How many companies actually know how their bulding security company's systems work, and where every potential copy of surveilance footage, biometric data, and other telemetry may go? They don't know that - they trust the vendor, and usually have some agreement in place about what should happen in the case of a breech of that trust.
But would the vendor of the company's building-wide smoke detector and fire supression system agree to disclose everything about how their hardware/software works, give up source code for it, and make themselves liable for anything that happens in the event that something occurs beyond their ability to do anything about it? Never. People use MS stuff because, despite all of the bitching here, it works well enough to run a business, and in a manner comfortable enough for its users. You don't really think that a company using Linux on its boxes is going to also run out and buy an accounting system - with the accompanying hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of code - and arrange somehow to analyze that code before using it to run payroll, do you? No... they're going to trust somebody, and hire consultants to make sure it's actually functioning day-to-day.
You're suggesting that the #1 reason people don't use MS is because they can't see under the hood. I'm saying that the #1 reason people do use MS stuff is because they don't have the time to look under the hood, and are paying professionals to help them select, implement, and work with their tools. My company deals with hundreds of MS-using businesses, some of them small, some very large. You may know the #1 reason people aren't on that list - but we've yet to run across a single customer that wanted to leave their MS business software behind and go Linux. That doesn't mean they're not out there, because of course they are. But you're making it sound like something other than a minority - which it still very much is.
Of the other tech people I actually work with (mostly on the web app hosting side of things), the main reason they go Linux is because they can tell the bosses it's cheaper - even though the real cost (labor) never goes away anyway. I've never heard a credible person pitch Linux (and the accompanying huge disruption) to a boss on the grounds that they're concerned that IIS might be sending hidden messages to Redmond, or that they're frustrated that they can't re-compile Windows Server 2003 to cluster a little differently.