that's just immoral. up to now i had mostly technical reasons i disliked microsoft. now, i have stonger ethical and moral reasons as well. i won't forget. that's just bordering on treason.
... in contrast to who, and what attitude, did you think? ms always plays everything to get ahead, to it's advantage, legal, moral, ethical, technically smart, agreements compliant,... or not.
we need is to figure out a way to get some money for people to do more work on open source. perhaps a model where a title is published initially for-pay, and when it reaches a particular sales level, goes open-source. it should encourage people to buy it now, knowing they are actually contributing toward a soon-to-be open source product. it doesn't provide for the programmer while he's working however. another model could be to organize vacations, camps or trips for programmers to nice locations to go and stay for a while and work on a particular product while they're there, and whatever comes out of it becomes open source.
they're called subways, electric trains, and now there is personal rapid transit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit. just slap a 10% monthly tax increase on emissions engines and fuels, and suddenly every driver, company, and person will be interested in electric everything, enough people to make anything work overnight. mechanics will install electric engines, overhead road power will magically be installed, the limited power of current batteries will suddenly be good-enough, trains and rails will be built, people will move closer to their jobs, buildings will be build closer to work places, nuclear power and other power generators will be built, urban population densities will increase, bicycles and skateboards will get used, i don't see any adapting problems. "the economy will suffer" is only if you're scared of change or in the pocket of oil companies, everyone else get to work and will be fine. combustion engines will become as important as vinyl records, and that's it.
hmm yes actually the microsoft eula does give you money back if you reject the contract, doesn't it? they could make it legal by doing that perhaps. not too practical to put the contract outside the box, but they could have a URL and a short summary for the contract on the box. in any case, in the case of software the response for many people is actually "i choose to disagree, use the product anyway, not pay for it, and completely violate the terms, betting on 99-percent likelihood of no personal adverse consequences." the problem lies in that socially, there are some adverse consequences.
if google wants to start a campaign to promote democracy and human rights in china on all websites in the world, forcing the people's republic to censor the whole world, effectively re-isolating themselves, they can do it. if they want to take another strategy, and make all of google inacessible from all of china, imposing some isolation on them, they also can. they can pressure other organizations to do the same. but continuing to play footsie with capitalism and fascism and maoism and government monopolies and expect good results is going to continue getting nothing. at worst, google would lose china, at least while that government continues, but gain a lot of respect in the rest of the world.
http://www.idealist.org/ is not a bad place to start. i've heard good things of habitat for humanity. telecom specialists are badly needed in haiti, but that's a bit of overkill for a short vacation. some international group, with contacts in lots of places, would be nice. i've done stuff with the humanist movement and indymedia / independent media center. doctors without borders and reporters without borders are pretty serious too. many hospitals and entities have volunteer coordinators, you can just go straight there and ask. you can forget the internet usually, many entities have no websites or web programmers, and sometimes little use for one, the reality is more immediate. that said, volunteering isn't easy to coordinate. lots of people want to donate a small amount of time and effort to volunteering, but think of coordinating all these people who have no knowledge of the operation, needs, places, etc, a declared short, limited commitment, limited will and professionalism to continue ahead with difficult conditions and situations, etc. so, if you really want to volunteer, you will have a much easier time if you realize you're no longer in a company and a job, where everyone has salaries and there's money to buy stuff. the volunteer coordinator also needs help and is in over his head. it's the real world, everything is impossible for some, difficult for others, be very flexible, listen a lot, speak little and criticize only very wisely, people are trying their best, given their limited knowledge, ability, education, resources, etc. if you want something easy, yes, go to a church, it's small and simple, and they they do mostly relatively simple humanitarian stuff. and you can find one even on the beach here in brazil.
... comes responsibility. of people using it, to use it as best they know, and people creating, legislating, and distributing it. i'm actually an isp and content provider in one, running a cyber cafe. want to help publish educational content for people here? no, it's not terribly profitable, games are more profitable, so we'll have to work for very little money, or publish stupid content, games and facebook, beer and porn and silly entertainment that sells, and have more users. that's how the money distribution system works, like it or not, people are rewarded for creating stupid content or punished financially for creating smart content. complaining about it has been done plenty, and changed nothing, so waste your time complaining if you want, and get nothing done. if you want something done, do it. organize some people to research or create better work compensation and recognition mechanisms, and then maybe we will stop having poor repairmen and teachers, and rich sportspeople and prostitutes and corrupt politicians.
Illegal means ILLEGAL. The U.S. has yet to grant its citizens the privilege to pick and choose which laws they wish to abide by without consequence.
cross the street off the ped xing, throw your bubble gum on sidewalk, download an mp3, and the red and blue lights will come screeching at you immedietely, carrying the attoney general in person. yup. all laws are immediately enforceable. especially if you're a senator soliciting sex from teenagers.
I just left it with wep, though my devices aren't wpa compliant. after cracking wep a couple of times, i saw that any sufficiently good networking tech can do it, but it's not for really just any amateur. one needs to know where to get the tools, and how to implement and operate them. need to understand wifi fairly well, networking, linux, and cracking, besides being in the neighborhood by chance, or being motivated enough to hang around outside on the street cracking my wep. and so now i have the wep key of a few neighbors. so what? i have internet already, and i don't see any use in seeing their files or their email or their breaking the copyright laws. and even if i did want to do that, it would be quite a lot more work, time and expense. it's not just about what is technically doable, it's more about how much it is feasible or practical to be done.
if a couple hundred channels were available instead of just 14 or so, i think it could work much better. that would veer off the 2.4ghz frequency i suppose, but it's the only way that i see. in fact if a whole bunch of stuff was moved onto frequency-hopping we could get more available frequency, and cleaner.
i'm all for enforcement of child porn, prostitution laws, and drug laws. as long as it includes arresting public authorities everywhere - especially in DC - who routinely engage in all kinds of sick stuff. as long as all the tough law enforcement is on humble people who can't pay for powerful lawyers as well as get "special treatment", the law is one-sided, corrupt and far from justice. laws are to guide public behavior, just as the example from those who make the laws. their example however shows that you're supposed to do as you please, then do your best to evade the law, and that's what many people do.
it was real kiddie porn. Under those circumstances you should only need one offense to get thrown into the slammer.
That will fill the jails with overweight boys, at enormous public expense - they eat too much. it would be more efficient and economical to have immediae executions. Given the political climate, it appears a public hanging would be appropriate. Charge for tickets and convert the jailing expense into a profit. All the organs of offenders could be sold beforehand, even transplanted immediately, and thereby create some more social good, lowering the market demand for stolen organs. The state could earn a profit, finance more policemen, making more arrests and executions possible. It could even finance a whole new business sector, by privatizing arrests and executions, generating thousands of jobs.
The tons of "abandonware" games out there attest to this reality. For commercial apps as well, there should be "end-of-life" terms right at the time of purchase, and put into the EULA. At a minimum, access to binaries and some sort of new-users-enabling license after the product is no longer sold. Ideally, the source should become accessible, under some sort of license, after a number of years, to allow updates etc. Smaller publishers would perhaps include an agreement to open-source it after a certain amount in sales. Source to the community features, system applets, and servers need to be included for some products. Basically the EULA agreements, as contracts, have to be reviewed to include rights for users too, not just publishers, or they should be refused. Shall we shart demanding user-sponsored lawyers to rewrite publishers EULA contracts before certain user groups recommend the products "fair EULA terms" ?
I assume you are looking for a server. If it's for a desktop, more users and software help a lot. Although BSD and Solaris are more reliable indeed, the intricately, meticulously designed user-oriented design interface of Linux provides details and config files enough to entertain for generations. I have never tried out GnuStep, however an open source nextstep-like interface seems promising.
I'm starting to install clearos because it supports dual-wan. I don't know how well it works yet. But it seems to be the first open source, free, project to support dual wan. I'm in a cybercafe in Sao Paulo, the connections here go down occasionally, so we have two ISP's. Have been looking for a dual-wan, fast router for a while. ClearOS used to be ClarkConnect, which had only a paid version. They restructured their economics and went open source.
A humanist position would be that which most benefits humanity and human beings. Corporations are not human beings. Money, profit margins, products, economic principles, social systems, concepts, traditions and laws are not human beings. Opposing violence and ignorance in all forms is at the core of humanist proposals. The free flow of information, ideas, and communication benefits humanity. Copying information qualifies as communication, the flow of ideas. So "copyright" and "copy-no-rights" and patent law is censorship, simply. Which is clearly demonstrated by the raids, prosecutions, arrests, spying, censorship, etc on anyone who openly disobeys the copyright law. Yes, the economic systems create diffculties, too.
That would problably be an excellent ground to start challenging these policies. Since many of these censorship results are visible in many countries, all kinds of people can mount a legal challenge against Chinese censorship from home. Plus, all the media and legal content abount censorship in china will have to be censored in china. Slowly the whole internet will be censored...
The New York metropolitan area contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, enumerating 619,427 individuals as of the 2007 American Community Survey Census statistical data, including at least 6 Chinatowns, not to mention fledgling ethnic Chinese enclaves emerging throughout the New York metropolitan area.
it seems that most companies now, at the request of various governments, copyright groups, spy groups, "security" policies, police, pro-paranoia parents groups, etc are working on many ways to censor everything. and in many cases, succeeding to a good extent, as a result of the work done. in the US, it's mostly corporations using lawyers- but it works. what happened to the "uncensorable" internet? where are the projects to make communication "uncensorable" again? perhaps these belong more properly in the political-technical-legal area, and not possible in the purely technical area.
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that's just immoral. up to now i had mostly technical reasons i disliked microsoft. now, i have stonger ethical and moral reasons as well. i won't forget. that's just bordering on treason.
... in contrast to who, and what attitude, did you think? ms always plays everything to get ahead, to it's advantage, legal, moral, ethical, technically smart, agreements compliant, ... or not.
we need is to figure out a way to get some money for people to do more work on open source. perhaps a model where a title is published initially for-pay, and when it reaches a particular sales level, goes open-source. it should encourage people to buy it now, knowing they are actually contributing toward a soon-to-be open source product. it doesn't provide for the programmer while he's working however. another model could be to organize vacations, camps or trips for programmers to nice locations to go and stay for a while and work on a particular product while they're there, and whatever comes out of it becomes open source.
they're called subways, electric trains, and now there is personal rapid transit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit. just slap a 10% monthly tax increase on emissions engines and fuels, and suddenly every driver, company, and person will be interested in electric everything, enough people to make anything work overnight. mechanics will install electric engines, overhead road power will magically be installed, the limited power of current batteries will suddenly be good-enough, trains and rails will be built, people will move closer to their jobs, buildings will be build closer to work places, nuclear power and other power generators will be built, urban population densities will increase, bicycles and skateboards will get used, i don't see any adapting problems. "the economy will suffer" is only if you're scared of change or in the pocket of oil companies, everyone else get to work and will be fine. combustion engines will become as important as vinyl records, and that's it.
the computer doesn't work on holidays? what, it wants overtime?
strange, ibm surely has it's own supercomputers to do this stuff.
hmm yes actually the microsoft eula does give you money back if you reject the contract, doesn't it? they could make it legal by doing that perhaps. not too practical to put the contract outside the box, but they could have a URL and a short summary for the contract on the box. in any case, in the case of software the response for many people is actually "i choose to disagree, use the product anyway, not pay for it, and completely violate the terms, betting on 99-percent likelihood of no personal adverse consequences." the problem lies in that socially, there are some adverse consequences.
if google wants to start a campaign to promote democracy and human rights in china on all websites in the world, forcing the people's republic to censor the whole world, effectively re-isolating themselves, they can do it. if they want to take another strategy, and make all of google inacessible from all of china, imposing some isolation on them, they also can. they can pressure other organizations to do the same. but continuing to play footsie with capitalism and fascism and maoism and government monopolies and expect good results is going to continue getting nothing. at worst, google would lose china, at least while that government continues, but gain a lot of respect in the rest of the world.
ah, one more thing. schools and youth centers are also easy to help with, and might fit both of you well.
http://www.idealist.org/ is not a bad place to start. i've heard good things of habitat for humanity. telecom specialists are badly needed in haiti, but that's a bit of overkill for a short vacation. some international group, with contacts in lots of places, would be nice. i've done stuff with the humanist movement and indymedia / independent media center. doctors without borders and reporters without borders are pretty serious too. many hospitals and entities have volunteer coordinators, you can just go straight there and ask. you can forget the internet usually, many entities have no websites or web programmers, and sometimes little use for one, the reality is more immediate. that said, volunteering isn't easy to coordinate. lots of people want to donate a small amount of time and effort to volunteering, but think of coordinating all these people who have no knowledge of the operation, needs, places, etc, a declared short, limited commitment, limited will and professionalism to continue ahead with difficult conditions and situations, etc. so, if you really want to volunteer, you will have a much easier time if you realize you're no longer in a company and a job, where everyone has salaries and there's money to buy stuff. the volunteer coordinator also needs help and is in over his head. it's the real world, everything is impossible for some, difficult for others, be very flexible, listen a lot, speak little and criticize only very wisely, people are trying their best, given their limited knowledge, ability, education, resources, etc. if you want something easy, yes, go to a church, it's small and simple, and they they do mostly relatively simple humanitarian stuff. and you can find one even on the beach here in brazil.
... comes responsibility. of people using it, to use it as best they know, and people creating, legislating, and distributing it. i'm actually an isp and content provider in one, running a cyber cafe. want to help publish educational content for people here? no, it's not terribly profitable, games are more profitable, so we'll have to work for very little money, or publish stupid content, games and facebook, beer and porn and silly entertainment that sells, and have more users. that's how the money distribution system works, like it or not, people are rewarded for creating stupid content or punished financially for creating smart content. complaining about it has been done plenty, and changed nothing, so waste your time complaining if you want, and get nothing done. if you want something done, do it. organize some people to research or create better work compensation and recognition mechanisms, and then maybe we will stop having poor repairmen and teachers, and rich sportspeople and prostitutes and corrupt politicians.
Illegal means ILLEGAL. The U.S. has yet to grant its citizens the privilege to pick and choose which laws they wish to abide by without consequence.
cross the street off the ped xing, throw your bubble gum on sidewalk, download an mp3, and the red and blue lights will come screeching at you immedietely, carrying the attoney general in person. yup. all laws are immediately enforceable. especially if you're a senator soliciting sex from teenagers.
I just left it with wep, though my devices aren't wpa compliant. after cracking wep a couple of times, i saw that any sufficiently good networking tech can do it, but it's not for really just any amateur. one needs to know where to get the tools, and how to implement and operate them. need to understand wifi fairly well, networking, linux, and cracking, besides being in the neighborhood by chance, or being motivated enough to hang around outside on the street cracking my wep. and so now i have the wep key of a few neighbors. so what? i have internet already, and i don't see any use in seeing their files or their email or their breaking the copyright laws. and even if i did want to do that, it would be quite a lot more work, time and expense. it's not just about what is technically doable, it's more about how much it is feasible or practical to be done.
since when does pointing out the alt text of an xkcd comic get +5 informative?
ever since the perfect justice plugin was implemented.
if a couple hundred channels were available instead of just 14 or so, i think it could work much better. that would veer off the 2.4ghz frequency i suppose, but it's the only way that i see. in fact if a whole bunch of stuff was moved onto frequency-hopping we could get more available frequency, and cleaner.
i'm all for enforcement of child porn, prostitution laws, and drug laws. as long as it includes arresting public authorities everywhere - especially in DC - who routinely engage in all kinds of sick stuff. as long as all the tough law enforcement is on humble people who can't pay for powerful lawyers as well as get "special treatment", the law is one-sided, corrupt and far from justice. laws are to guide public behavior, just as the example from those who make the laws. their example however shows that you're supposed to do as you please, then do your best to evade the law, and that's what many people do.
it was real kiddie porn. Under those circumstances you should only need one offense to get thrown into the slammer.
That will fill the jails with overweight boys, at enormous public expense - they eat too much. it would be more efficient and economical to have immediae executions. Given the political climate, it appears a public hanging would be appropriate. Charge for tickets and convert the jailing expense into a profit. All the organs of offenders could be sold beforehand, even transplanted immediately, and thereby create some more social good, lowering the market demand for stolen organs. The state could earn a profit, finance more policemen, making more arrests and executions possible. It could even finance a whole new business sector, by privatizing arrests and executions, generating thousands of jobs.
The tons of "abandonware" games out there attest to this reality. For commercial apps as well, there should be "end-of-life" terms right at the time of purchase, and put into the EULA. At a minimum, access to binaries and some sort of new-users-enabling license after the product is no longer sold. Ideally, the source should become accessible, under some sort of license, after a number of years, to allow updates etc. Smaller publishers would perhaps include an agreement to open-source it after a certain amount in sales. Source to the community features, system applets, and servers need to be included for some products. Basically the EULA agreements, as contracts, have to be reviewed to include rights for users too, not just publishers, or they should be refused. Shall we shart demanding user-sponsored lawyers to rewrite publishers EULA contracts before certain user groups recommend the products "fair EULA terms" ?
I assume you are looking for a server. If it's for a desktop, more users and software help a lot. Although BSD and Solaris are more reliable indeed, the intricately, meticulously designed user-oriented design interface of Linux provides details and config files enough to entertain for generations. I have never tried out GnuStep, however an open source nextstep-like interface seems promising.
I'm starting to install clearos because it supports dual-wan. I don't know how well it works yet. But it seems to be the first open source, free, project to support dual wan. I'm in a cybercafe in Sao Paulo, the connections here go down occasionally, so we have two ISP's. Have been looking for a dual-wan, fast router for a while. ClearOS used to be ClarkConnect, which had only a paid version. They restructured their economics and went open source.
A humanist position would be that which most benefits humanity and human beings. Corporations are not human beings. Money, profit margins, products, economic principles, social systems, concepts, traditions and laws are not human beings. Opposing violence and ignorance in all forms is at the core of humanist proposals. The free flow of information, ideas, and communication benefits humanity. Copying information qualifies as communication, the flow of ideas. So "copyright" and "copy-no-rights" and patent law is censorship, simply. Which is clearly demonstrated by the raids, prosecutions, arrests, spying, censorship, etc on anyone who openly disobeys the copyright law. Yes, the economic systems create diffculties, too.
The free software, or the free informaion about pirated software, or the free money the BSA offers for denouncing software piracy?
That would problably be an excellent ground to start challenging these policies. Since many of these censorship results are visible in many countries, all kinds of people can mount a legal challenge against Chinese censorship from home. Plus, all the media and legal content abount censorship in china will have to be censored in china. Slowly the whole internet will be censored...
The New York metropolitan area contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, enumerating 619,427 individuals as of the 2007 American Community Survey Census statistical data, including at least 6 Chinatowns, not to mention fledgling ethnic Chinese enclaves emerging throughout the New York metropolitan area.
it seems that most companies now, at the request of various governments, copyright groups, spy groups, "security" policies, police, pro-paranoia parents groups, etc are working on many ways to censor everything. and in many cases, succeeding to a good extent, as a result of the work done. in the US, it's mostly corporations using lawyers- but it works. what happened to the "uncensorable" internet? where are the projects to make communication "uncensorable" again? perhaps these belong more properly in the political-technical-legal area, and not possible in the purely technical area.