Shameless reply to myself: there's no REASON to do so, either. Tolkien wrote tons and tons of history and stories to make movies with. Writing your own seems senseless and a waste.
If we are at war with Russia, and you are a Russian army member, and you're walking around somewhere where the US army can kill you, why is that a problem?
Now, I agree that if we AREN'T at war with army X and you are a US Citizen, then you should be arraigned and have a trial and all that if you are caught. But if we are at war with you... then I don't care if you're a US Citizen or not, you get treated like the rest of the army you're in.
In my mind - and I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned - if you are a traitor then you're not really a citizen any more. "Citizens" have certain rights of a country. If you are a traitor to that country, then I don't see why you have those rights anymore.
Nope, I definitely do not have complete faith in the government's ability. Nor do I think we need to have a court trial for everyone. It sounded like the original post I responded to was saying that US Citizenship should protect against even getting killed on the battlefield, because that is "execution."
Every US citizen should be worried about a process where the government is able to execute citizens without going through the court system.
Hi. I'm a US Citizen. I joined the Russian army and have bombed several US Embassies. But you can't kill me without a fair trial because I'm a US Citizen.
Something seems wrong with this picture.
I am not sure that US Citizenship protects you against your own actions that may make you an enemy target due to you joining a military at war with the US. I'm not saying that necessarily is happening her, since of course I didn't read the article, but your statement seems to be painting some pretty broad strokes, as if no US Citizen can ever be killed ("executed" - a much more sensationalist term) by "the government" (the military, etc) without their rights and a court trial.
ou're actually not the first to notice that. I have thought before that it'd be interesting for me to study the numerology and see if there is a deeper significance to that, since the next free UID Slashdot had available when I created this account is otherwise a "random" event beyond my control.
I wouldn't have thought so. I'm not into numerology, but the chances of it happening are interesting, anyways.:)
In the early 1990s Bill Hicks said that the USA is at about an eighth-grade emotional level, i.e. when taken as a whole. In all the time that has passed since then, he has not been proven wrong about this.
It's quite true. And if you look at the difference between high school students, college students, and those in their twenties, it would appear that very little changes in all those years. There's a lot of blame that could be thrown around. IMO, it really seems to boil down to the family and parents.
We desperately need to replace this short-term selfishness with something more like enlightened self-interest, as this may one day lead to a genuine concern for our fellow man.
Well, agreed there, at any rate. My guess is that we sharply disagree on a lot of things, since I'm a fairly conservative person... including politics, religion, education, etc... but the short-term selfishness, as you aptly refer to it, is NOT just a problem with "the other side." It seems that all sides - politically liberal, politically conservative, religious, non-religious, scientists, etc. - want to think that the problem is with everyone else, not their group. Seems like every group is just selfish in a different ideology at the moment.
But most symphonies are sold with individual tracks (and thus able to be bought individually).
And most people, even classical music listening people, only really recognize certain movements of symphonies or any multi-movement work, unless it's REALLY well-known.
Some composers actually started doing traditionally multi-movement works as one large piece with no breaks inbetween. Example: Liszt's piano sonata in b minor. Reason? He didn't wan the work split up. Same reason PF gives for their album. But Liszt accomplished it without having to rely on licensing and distribution restrictions; he just made it one continuous piece.
Your UID has only one non-7 digit in it, and it's a 6. That's kinda cool. hehe.
hey're doing what they believe is best, just as you would do what you believe is best if you were to produce an album or other artistic work.
Yup, and I personally have no problem with it. I don't like their music (from what I've heard), actually, hehe.
They just made the mistake of believing that only they would get to exercise such control.
Good point. I am not saying it's good that EMI is getting sued. I just don't like the somewhat hypocritical Slashdot standards for what artists should do. On one hand, they shouldn't care that music is getting downloaded illegally (talk about non-complete-albums...); on the other hand, PF should care about artistic integrity by trying to prevent people from buying their music unless they buy the entire album. To me, that doesn't make sense.
In general, I agree with you. I don't think what PF is doing is evil. I think it should be up to them what they do with their music. The problem I have is with the general Slashdot thing of not allowing even artists to do what they want with their own creations (whether that's with DRM, licensing, copyrights, or whatever)... unless it's in an incident like this, in which case we clearly root for Pink Floyd. Me? I support PF being able to do what they want with their music. Even if that includes DRM and copyrights. Is DRM a good thing? I dunno. But I think PF should be allowed to do it if they want to. And they should be allowed to sell it the way they want to, or not allow it to be sold in ways they don't want, etc. (especially if it is in their contract...).
Generally the people who run these corporations are egotistic, childish
I think you could remove "who run these corporations" from that statement and still be quite accurate in your perception:)
This is about art, and obviously art is more important than money for them.
Of course. They already HAVE the money.
It's easy to look like something is more important than money when you already have all the money you want.
I'm not saying your statement is true or false. I'm saying that this lawsuit does not necessarily prove that. Now, if they started giving all their money to charities... in other words, getting RID of their money... then I'd be more inclined to believe it. As it is, they're not losing anything, except possibly future sales. But we all know that isn't a loss, just like it's not a "theft" if you download an album instead of paying for it?;)
That Slashdot will generally back up PF in this, because they are standing up to the evil record label.
Which seems to be somewhat contradictory to the general opinion that record labels (and/or artists? information wants to be free? evil copyright?) should not be allowed to have such tight control over how things are sold.
So here's a record label making it EASIER to get tracks and we're upset about it, because PinkFloyd wants to only sell complete albums. I guess that's their artistic license... but aren't they being evil and putting strict terms on how you acquire their music? I've heard plenty of arguments how that shouldn't be allowed, it's not fair, etc., unless you're talking about physical media. And PF is now suing over distribution of non-physical media...
So yes: in my opinion, EMI is breaking a contract. Bad.
And in my opinion/guess, Slashdot is going to generally be contradicting themselves, upholding a "non-freedom" position (PF's) because it happens to be against what the record label wants.
If PF wanted it to be listened to as a whole, then make it one track. Or make it movements, like symphonies... etc. For that matter, think of all the symphonies that are sold by movement. Separately...:)
I agree. But since when is "violating open standards" illegal? Since when should that be cause to force a company to encourage competition by forcing them to refer to their competitors?
I am not saying that IE is a good browser. I'm saying the EU's response was bad and doesn't make sense to me. Should something have done? Well, I already said what I would have recommended. Force MS to make a good browser that complies to standards. At least that would have given MS the option of making a browser that "worked" according to the open standards and actually encouraging even MORE competition.
But I'm guessing that wouldn't have been good because then people would have no excuse to tell people not to use IE. As much as I hate to say it, I think a lot of people that hate MS are glad that IE is still a bad product. If it wasn't, the reasons to hate MS - other than spite - are getting fewer.:)
(I'm not accusing you of hating MS out of spite or whatever. You even spelled their name without a dollar sign, which is getting rare these days...:P)
many people use Internet Explorer simply because they are unaware of alternatives.
Did they want to be aware of alternatives? Or is this something where we are deciding they SHOULD be aware whether they want to be or not?
Which does not sound very consumer-oriented.
Why didn't the EU just force Microsoft to pass a certain set of standards with their browser or give users the choice? At least then they'd allow Microsoft to prevent the confusion by producing a quality product.
In my experience, the general user would rather not have to deal with the browser thing. Most people that aren't computer literate enough to download one they like (Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, Firefox, etc) or be able to talk intelligently about said choices usually just call it "the browser" or "the firefox" or "that icon" or "the Internet." They don't care about WHAT it is. They aren't interested in using a browser. They are interested in accessing the internet, usually very specific pages on the internet.
It's only the geek population that cares which browser they use. Unless they have security issues, of course... in which case I still say my choice to MS is better: make a secure browser or give a choice.
making it easier to get your Information out of Office
And into Google. Perhaps not with an actual lock-in... but when you have other services and you make them tie-in to each other... and don't tie-in with others (or just buy them!)...
As bad as Microsoft? Meh, no. I don't think so. Still bad? Seems like it. But I just use local copies and not Google docs (except on rare occasions when it is convenient) and don't complain about it.
People who think they are very self-important tend to underestimate the impact of things they did not directly influence. Perhaps he was not involved with the PC and thus thought it was destined to failure. You think I'm crazy? Not so. Just think of the old adage, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" and similar such phrases. True in some cases, sure... but the more self-important one starts seeing one's self, the less able that person is to view the innovation of others as worthwhile and lasting.
I think I basically agree with you in principle, but am not sure that there aren't groups of wacko people that want to kill you that simply don't respond to polite. Thanks for the discussion though.:)
...but you're still assuming that all those that your are "currently fighting" are cut from the same cloth. I think that's probably a mistake.
That could be. I'm not necessarily defending everything the US or any other country does, nor saying they don't make mistakes, etc. What I am saying, though, is that not doing anything - militarily/violently - against at least those that are actually consumed in this way... well, it won't help to do nothing. Furthermore, people are easily misled. People like hating. Pick any world leader or even a corporate leader and you'll find people that hate him.
Look at it this way: even assuming that you're correct in your depiction of current anti-US terrorists, there's a whole generation of kids growing up that haven't yet learned to hate the US. An opponent who relies on suicide bombers needs a constant supply of angry youth, or else they quickly run out of martyrs.
That's quite true. Unfortunately, youth are very easily swayed and very easily will hate someone for perceived - true or not - wrongs. Example... California's recent budget cuts and the students that got so filled with hate and got so upset that they took it out on completely innocent commuters (blocking I-80 for a while; it was closed in both directions). There was one report of a student breaking a commuter's windshield. Why? The commuter had likely NOTHING to do with the decision. So they had a public "demonstration" to show their hate for the decision - and I doubt they were just displaying hate for the decision and not the deciders - and they took it out on innocent people.
If young people can be led to get that upset about something like a state budget cut affecting education, I have no doubt young people can be led to get quite upset about complete lies. Especially when you combine that with censored media and all that...
(note: I'm not trying to argue for or against the education budget cuts, only using that as an example)
Yes, granted. And I am all for trying to be a nation that acts as best as possible. I am not sure, though, that the particular brand of terrorists that we are currently fighting would stop hating us. They hate Israel, they hate the West, they hate Westerners, they hate non-Islamic religions, they hate even fellow Muslims.
Think of it this way: if they are willing to kill their family members because that family member became a non-Muslim, I doubt they have as much struggle killing an infidel that never was a Muslim.
No, not all Muslims are that way; it seems very few are. I am not trying to blame all Muslims just like I don't go around calling myself, a Christian, a murderer because that's what "Christians" did in the Crusades. I will openly denounce and condemn that. I wish more Muslims openly denounced and condemned what the terrorists are doing, but that's another story, heh.
Yes, right changes in behavior shifting potential terrorists into the harmless category is a good thing, and I fully support it... depending on what "right changes in behavior" is. I mean, they would be happy if we adopted their religious laws, but I doubt we want to do that;) What the "right changes" are is subject to democracy in the US, and thus subject to much heated debate:)
Slashdot Mirror
Shameless reply to myself: there's no REASON to do so, either. Tolkien wrote tons and tons of history and stories to make movies with. Writing your own seems senseless and a waste.
How can you call something by a book name and not actually be referring to the book? That seems weird. *sigh*
If we are at war with Russia, and you are a Russian army member, and you're walking around somewhere where the US army can kill you, why is that a problem?
Now, I agree that if we AREN'T at war with army X and you are a US Citizen, then you should be arraigned and have a trial and all that if you are caught. But if we are at war with you... then I don't care if you're a US Citizen or not, you get treated like the rest of the army you're in.
In my mind - and I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned - if you are a traitor then you're not really a citizen any more. "Citizens" have certain rights of a country. If you are a traitor to that country, then I don't see why you have those rights anymore.
Nope, I definitely do not have complete faith in the government's ability. Nor do I think we need to have a court trial for everyone. It sounded like the original post I responded to was saying that US Citizenship should protect against even getting killed on the battlefield, because that is "execution."
Every US citizen should be worried about a process where the government is able to execute citizens without going through the court system.
Hi. I'm a US Citizen. I joined the Russian army and have bombed several US Embassies. But you can't kill me without a fair trial because I'm a US Citizen.
Something seems wrong with this picture.
I am not sure that US Citizenship protects you against your own actions that may make you an enemy target due to you joining a military at war with the US. I'm not saying that necessarily is happening her, since of course I didn't read the article, but your statement seems to be painting some pretty broad strokes, as if no US Citizen can ever be killed ("executed" - a much more sensationalist term) by "the government" (the military, etc) without their rights and a court trial.
Except in this case, "locked out of the market" == "not promoted by the competition."
I use SM on a Puppy install as well. It's much quicker than Firefox.
under my grandparent comment, from actual ibmers, verifying my description of their action plan to simply leave the usa
Ah-ha! That proves it!
...
ou're actually not the first to notice that. I have thought before that it'd be interesting for me to study the numerology and see if there is a deeper significance to that, since the next free UID Slashdot had available when I created this account is otherwise a "random" event beyond my control.
I wouldn't have thought so. I'm not into numerology, but the chances of it happening are interesting, anyways. :)
In the early 1990s Bill Hicks said that the USA is at about an eighth-grade emotional level, i.e. when taken as a whole. In all the time that has passed since then, he has not been proven wrong about this.
It's quite true. And if you look at the difference between high school students, college students, and those in their twenties, it would appear that very little changes in all those years. There's a lot of blame that could be thrown around. IMO, it really seems to boil down to the family and parents.
We desperately need to replace this short-term selfishness with something more like enlightened self-interest, as this may one day lead to a genuine concern for our fellow man.
Well, agreed there, at any rate. My guess is that we sharply disagree on a lot of things, since I'm a fairly conservative person... including politics, religion, education, etc... but the short-term selfishness, as you aptly refer to it, is NOT just a problem with "the other side." It seems that all sides - politically liberal, politically conservative, religious, non-religious, scientists, etc. - want to think that the problem is with everyone else, not their group. Seems like every group is just selfish in a different ideology at the moment.
But most symphonies are sold with individual tracks (and thus able to be bought individually).
And most people, even classical music listening people, only really recognize certain movements of symphonies or any multi-movement work, unless it's REALLY well-known.
Some composers actually started doing traditionally multi-movement works as one large piece with no breaks inbetween. Example: Liszt's piano sonata in b minor. Reason? He didn't wan the work split up. Same reason PF gives for their album. But Liszt accomplished it without having to rely on licensing and distribution restrictions; he just made it one continuous piece.
Your UID has only one non-7 digit in it, and it's a 6. That's kinda cool. hehe.
hey're doing what they believe is best, just as you would do what you believe is best if you were to produce an album or other artistic work.
Yup, and I personally have no problem with it. I don't like their music (from what I've heard), actually, hehe.
They just made the mistake of believing that only they would get to exercise such control.
Good point. I am not saying it's good that EMI is getting sued. I just don't like the somewhat hypocritical Slashdot standards for what artists should do. On one hand, they shouldn't care that music is getting downloaded illegally (talk about non-complete-albums...); on the other hand, PF should care about artistic integrity by trying to prevent people from buying their music unless they buy the entire album. To me, that doesn't make sense.
In general, I agree with you. I don't think what PF is doing is evil. I think it should be up to them what they do with their music. The problem I have is with the general Slashdot thing of not allowing even artists to do what they want with their own creations (whether that's with DRM, licensing, copyrights, or whatever) ... unless it's in an incident like this, in which case we clearly root for Pink Floyd. Me? I support PF being able to do what they want with their music. Even if that includes DRM and copyrights. Is DRM a good thing? I dunno. But I think PF should be allowed to do it if they want to. And they should be allowed to sell it the way they want to, or not allow it to be sold in ways they don't want, etc. (especially if it is in their contract...).
Generally the people who run these corporations are egotistic, childish
I think you could remove "who run these corporations" from that statement and still be quite accurate in your perception :)
What genres are you listening to?
I've heard plenty of quite good artists and artistic performances on the radio. But I listen to classical music, usually.
This is about art, and obviously art is more important than money for them.
Of course. They already HAVE the money.
It's easy to look like something is more important than money when you already have all the money you want.
I'm not saying your statement is true or false. I'm saying that this lawsuit does not necessarily prove that. Now, if they started giving all their money to charities... in other words, getting RID of their money ... then I'd be more inclined to believe it. As it is, they're not losing anything, except possibly future sales. But we all know that isn't a loss, just like it's not a "theft" if you download an album instead of paying for it? ;)
On the other hand, they've already made their fortunes. They can afford to have artistic integrity.
That Slashdot will generally back up PF in this, because they are standing up to the evil record label.
Which seems to be somewhat contradictory to the general opinion that record labels (and/or artists? information wants to be free? evil copyright?) should not be allowed to have such tight control over how things are sold.
So here's a record label making it EASIER to get tracks and we're upset about it, because PinkFloyd wants to only sell complete albums. I guess that's their artistic license... but aren't they being evil and putting strict terms on how you acquire their music? I've heard plenty of arguments how that shouldn't be allowed, it's not fair, etc., unless you're talking about physical media. And PF is now suing over distribution of non-physical media ...
So yes: in my opinion, EMI is breaking a contract. Bad.
And in my opinion/guess, Slashdot is going to generally be contradicting themselves, upholding a "non-freedom" position (PF's) because it happens to be against what the record label wants.
If PF wanted it to be listened to as a whole, then make it one track. Or make it movements, like symphonies... etc. For that matter, think of all the symphonies that are sold by movement. Separately... :)
Dry lettuce.
I agree. But since when is "violating open standards" illegal? Since when should that be cause to force a company to encourage competition by forcing them to refer to their competitors?
I am not saying that IE is a good browser. I'm saying the EU's response was bad and doesn't make sense to me. Should something have done? Well, I already said what I would have recommended. Force MS to make a good browser that complies to standards. At least that would have given MS the option of making a browser that "worked" according to the open standards and actually encouraging even MORE competition.
But I'm guessing that wouldn't have been good because then people would have no excuse to tell people not to use IE. As much as I hate to say it, I think a lot of people that hate MS are glad that IE is still a bad product. If it wasn't, the reasons to hate MS - other than spite - are getting fewer. :)
(I'm not accusing you of hating MS out of spite or whatever. You even spelled their name without a dollar sign, which is getting rare these days... :P)
many people use Internet Explorer simply because they are unaware of alternatives.
Did they want to be aware of alternatives? Or is this something where we are deciding they SHOULD be aware whether they want to be or not?
Which does not sound very consumer-oriented.
Why didn't the EU just force Microsoft to pass a certain set of standards with their browser or give users the choice? At least then they'd allow Microsoft to prevent the confusion by producing a quality product.
In my experience, the general user would rather not have to deal with the browser thing. Most people that aren't computer literate enough to download one they like (Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, Firefox, etc) or be able to talk intelligently about said choices usually just call it "the browser" or "the firefox" or "that icon" or "the Internet." They don't care about WHAT it is. They aren't interested in using a browser. They are interested in accessing the internet, usually very specific pages on the internet.
It's only the geek population that cares which browser they use. Unless they have security issues, of course... in which case I still say my choice to MS is better: make a secure browser or give a choice.
Dude, get your grammar right, it'd have to be iChoose not iChoice...
making it easier to get your Information out of Office
And into Google. Perhaps not with an actual lock-in... but when you have other services and you make them tie-in to each other ... and don't tie-in with others (or just buy them!) ...
As bad as Microsoft? Meh, no. I don't think so. Still bad? Seems like it. But I just use local copies and not Google docs (except on rare occasions when it is convenient) and don't complain about it.
Well there you go, I stand corrected. Yes, I'm young. But not self-important enough to think I can't be wrong. :)
And pretty young. I was not around in the 50s. ;)
People who think they are very self-important tend to underestimate the impact of things they did not directly influence. Perhaps he was not involved with the PC and thus thought it was destined to failure. You think I'm crazy? Not so. Just think of the old adage, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" and similar such phrases. True in some cases, sure... but the more self-important one starts seeing one's self, the less able that person is to view the innovation of others as worthwhile and lasting.
I think I basically agree with you in principle, but am not sure that there aren't groups of wacko people that want to kill you that simply don't respond to polite. Thanks for the discussion though. :)
...but you're still assuming that all those that your are "currently fighting" are cut from the same cloth. I think that's probably a mistake.
That could be. I'm not necessarily defending everything the US or any other country does, nor saying they don't make mistakes, etc. What I am saying, though, is that not doing anything - militarily/violently - against at least those that are actually consumed in this way ... well, it won't help to do nothing. Furthermore, people are easily misled. People like hating. Pick any world leader or even a corporate leader and you'll find people that hate him.
Look at it this way: even assuming that you're correct in your depiction of current anti-US terrorists, there's a whole generation of kids growing up that haven't yet learned to hate the US. An opponent who relies on suicide bombers needs a constant supply of angry youth, or else they quickly run out of martyrs.
That's quite true. Unfortunately, youth are very easily swayed and very easily will hate someone for perceived - true or not - wrongs. Example... California's recent budget cuts and the students that got so filled with hate and got so upset that they took it out on completely innocent commuters (blocking I-80 for a while; it was closed in both directions). There was one report of a student breaking a commuter's windshield. Why? The commuter had likely NOTHING to do with the decision. So they had a public "demonstration" to show their hate for the decision - and I doubt they were just displaying hate for the decision and not the deciders - and they took it out on innocent people.
If young people can be led to get that upset about something like a state budget cut affecting education, I have no doubt young people can be led to get quite upset about complete lies. Especially when you combine that with censored media and all that...
(note: I'm not trying to argue for or against the education budget cuts, only using that as an example)
Yes, granted. And I am all for trying to be a nation that acts as best as possible. I am not sure, though, that the particular brand of terrorists that we are currently fighting would stop hating us. They hate Israel, they hate the West, they hate Westerners, they hate non-Islamic religions, they hate even fellow Muslims.
Think of it this way: if they are willing to kill their family members because that family member became a non-Muslim, I doubt they have as much struggle killing an infidel that never was a Muslim.
No, not all Muslims are that way; it seems very few are. I am not trying to blame all Muslims just like I don't go around calling myself, a Christian, a murderer because that's what "Christians" did in the Crusades. I will openly denounce and condemn that. I wish more Muslims openly denounced and condemned what the terrorists are doing, but that's another story, heh.
Yes, right changes in behavior shifting potential terrorists into the harmless category is a good thing, and I fully support it... depending on what "right changes in behavior" is. I mean, they would be happy if we adopted their religious laws, but I doubt we want to do that ;) What the "right changes" are is subject to democracy in the US, and thus subject to much heated debate :)