What the hell are you talking about? Anonymous the name attributed to (and embraced by) the many and varied denizens of 4chan's Random (/b/) board. They rose to fame with their protests against scientology, but anyone who has ever visited/b/ could tell you that:
1) Anonymous is a 'group' only in the loosest sense of the word. There's no organization, no leader, and no real agenda. It works more like flash mobs. One person suggests something, and if enough people go along with it to achieve critical mass, then it's epic. Otherwise, it's just a few internet nerds making idiots out of themselves.
2) Anonymous has no real code, moral stance, or ethical guideline./b/ frequently delves into such subjects as drug use, murder, petty crime, and child porn.
3) Anonymous does everything they do for their very own personal amusement. Any claim to be standing on principle is really just part of the joke. Since anonymous is kind of an intersection of Slashdot and MySpace when it comes to demographics, you'll find you agree with many of their 'positions.' However, don't expect any real loyalty from them.
For each document I create, I bury a vacuum sealed collection of discs including the document, the software used to create it, any ancillary software that would be useful, and the operating system I created it on, along with a current desktop computer. Fortunately I have a large amount of land in which to bury these things. The problem I am having right now is that erosion and shifting soil are moving my archived documents around and screwing up my document to coordinate map.
No, what's awesome is that they actually pull[ed] the content right off of Wikipedia's servers as requests were made. So not only were they making money off of ads using Wikipedia's logo and content, they were draining Wikipedia's server resources at the same time. They contributed literally NOTHING.
How can you not see the difference between renting and reproducing something? Of course you can't make prints of someone else's painting, just like I can't make DVD copies of Titanic and sell them on the Internet. You could, however, rent the painting out to a museum for 6 months. Or rent it out to your neighbor for one night for a party. The basic principle of copyright is that you can't duplicate someone else's work without their permission. You can loan it out, rent it out, shoot it into space, burn it, or attempt to have sex with it, but you can't copy it. There are a few other things you can't do, such as public exhibition, or creating derivative works, but renting is NOT one of the restrictions. Except for phonorecord and software.
Because I seem to remember running Photoshop, HyperCard and AppleWorks in classic just fine. They were just as fast as they were when actually booted in OS 9. In fact, I remember writing angry letters to Apple pissing and moaning because OS X was so damned slow compared to Classic.
I STILL wish Apple had gone for more of a compromise like Rhapsody/Yellow Box, but I understand what they were doing.
It's not so much that. It's that they developed their instincts (now permanently crystallized in their aging minds) in a different world than you did. If you want to know what I mean, take your 60 year old aunt to the grocery store, pick up the first brand name product you find, and listen to her rattle on about how that's ridiculously overpriced, and this one is much better quality and costs half as much and blah blah blah blah. Her 'bullshit detector' is calibrated for a different set of situations than yours.
You grew up around the Internet, and are familiar with the types of people and scams that are common. It feels like common sense because it developed as a sort of mental reflex. But I doubt you even bother to compare ingredients and price for more than the two major competing brands at the supermarket./To preclude a pointless argument, I may be wrong, your aunt may be terrible at shopping, and you may be a genius at bargain finding. My core point still holds though. They didn't grow up with the kinds of con artists and scams we deal with on a day-to-day basis. That's why they're easily taken in by fraudsters.
Given how useful a tool fear has become in getting the American public to go along with virtually anything, do you really think this is being designed to use on terrorists?
Maybe the flights you always fly on Hooker Airlines are filled with hot, friendly chicks, but here's a list of the people I've sat next to on airline flights:
A fat man Another fat man A surprisingly fat man An old woman who needed oxygen and smelled like cheese Two fat men A little brat (boy) who kept kicking the seat in front of him and throwing things across the aisle at his mother (on the other side of me) who in turn kept screaming at him for the whole flight An exhausted mom and her toddler who banged on his musical sesame street toy and screamed the whole flight.
He shouldn't be, and wasn't. However, police often have to write a report about things like this, so there's an official record of what happened (in the event of a lawsuit or otherwise.) Obviously, one of the things you'd want to put into the report is the identities of the individuals involved. In addition, the officer probably wanted to run a search to see if the guy had any outstanding warrants or, at the very least, a record that would indicate something might be amiss. The easiest way of reasonably verifying someone's identity is to consult their driver's license.
Most people are accustomed to showing their DL for just about everything, so it's unusual when someone refuses - especially to a police officer under threat of arrest. While I probably have more respect for our police force than the average slashdotter, some of them really are the stupid ex-bullies they're all stereotyped as, and get really aggressive when you don't submit to their authoritah. On top of that, police aren't experts in case law as it relates to constitutional freedom of movement. The guy probably thought he'd busted John Gacy or some shit.
There's a flaw in your code. You use an logical OR (||) when you should be using logical AND (&&). Otherwise, your statement would allow anything that acted OR talked like a duck, which I'm pretty sure does not reflect the specification:
"If it looks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, and it acts like a duck, then it must be a duck."
Also, you included 'then,' which is obviously unnecessary and invalid in light of the curly brace.
Clever argument, and I like it. Unfortunately, any protectable element of a copyrighted work is just as protected as the work as a whole. So they've still got him on every part of the coupon that's not the serial number.
Because even though we can GET to space, all the really interesting stuff you can do up there is infeasible due to the fact that the only way to get anything INTO space at the moment is to strap a rocket to it and pray. Provided it gets there at all, it still costs tens of thousands of dollars per pound to get something up there. And once it's up there, there's no way to get it back down except to drop it.
The gigantic, orbiting space stations we envisioned as children won't be possible until we can get stuff to outer space cheaply and easily. Neither will manned missions to mars.
With a space elevator, all you do is load it up onto a climber and send it up the cable. It'll get there in a few days. Not as fast as a rocket, sure, but a hell of a lot cheaper, easier, and safer.
Would you do business with a supposedly reputable company with unrelated ads splattered all over its pages? It makes your carefully crafted web presence look like a Geocities nightmare, and the client may choose to do business with someone else. If that happens enough, it could put a small company out of business.
2) Not being immediately shut down when some troll posts necro-pedo-beastility images as part of some SA vs. Fark vs. 4chan contest to find the most simultaneously illegal and offense image to post.
It depends on whether or not you're thinking in terms of black and white or shades of gray. Wherever freedom is involved, you're going to get a lot of black and white thinking. ("Give me liberty of give me death!" "Those who would sacrifice a little bit of freedom for a little bit of safety deserve neither." etc.) It's not the fact that they're disallowing kiddie porn that makes people angry. It's the fact that they're disallowing anything at all. From the black and white perspective of absolute freedom or nothing at all, "Free with some restrictions" is a worthless concept.
Obviously, a large aspect of our society is capable of more nuanced, shade-of-gray thinking. "Evidence of governmental wrongdoing good. Kiddie porn bad. Political parody good. Snuff bad. etc." Which is fine, as long as the government's idea of good and bad always matches up perfectly with yours. From such a perspective, arguing that disallowing kiddie porn is censorship is tantamount to endorsing child porn.
Note that neither side likes the other all that much. But if you understand where people are coming from, their arguments start gaining, at the very least, the makings of coherent thought.
It's not clear what "the people" want. It's clear what a few people on the internet want. Outside of this insular coccoon, you'll find that the vast majority of folks side with the RIAA/MPAA on things. Without understanding the mechanisms involved (which most are seemingly incapable of), it's easy to buy the "Downloading = Stealing" argument. What non-technical people here (when they hear anything at all) is that "pirates" are distributing "computer codes" which allow them to "hack" movies and "steal" them. And that's why they have to buy new copies of all their expensive HD-DVDs, along with a new player. And so they hate us "pirates." (Nevermind that the real pirates are in China making bit for bit copies that work just fine.)
Real change only comes through education. Start educating the people, and the change will come. Not today, not tomorrow, probably not in your lifetime. But eventually. That's the way the system works, like it or not.
Slashdot Mirror
What the hell are you talking about? Anonymous the name attributed to (and embraced by) the many and varied denizens of 4chan's Random (/b/) board. They rose to fame with their protests against scientology, but anyone who has ever visited /b/ could tell you that:
1) Anonymous is a 'group' only in the loosest sense of the word. There's no organization, no leader, and no real agenda. It works more like flash mobs. One person suggests something, and if enough people go along with it to achieve critical mass, then it's epic. Otherwise, it's just a few internet nerds making idiots out of themselves.
2) Anonymous has no real code, moral stance, or ethical guideline. /b/ frequently delves into such subjects as drug use, murder, petty crime, and child porn.
3) Anonymous does everything they do for their very own personal amusement. Any claim to be standing on principle is really just part of the joke. Since anonymous is kind of an intersection of Slashdot and MySpace when it comes to demographics, you'll find you agree with many of their 'positions.' However, don't expect any real loyalty from them.
Awesome communism troll.
For each document I create, I bury a vacuum sealed collection of discs including the document, the software used to create it, any ancillary software that would be useful, and the operating system I created it on, along with a current desktop computer. Fortunately I have a large amount of land in which to bury these things. The problem I am having right now is that erosion and shifting soil are moving my archived documents around and screwing up my document to coordinate map.
No, what's awesome is that they actually pull[ed] the content right off of Wikipedia's servers as requests were made. So not only were they making money off of ads using Wikipedia's logo and content, they were draining Wikipedia's server resources at the same time. They contributed literally NOTHING.
Awesome.
How can you not see the difference between renting and reproducing something? Of course you can't make prints of someone else's painting, just like I can't make DVD copies of Titanic and sell them on the Internet. You could, however, rent the painting out to a museum for 6 months. Or rent it out to your neighbor for one night for a party. The basic principle of copyright is that you can't duplicate someone else's work without their permission. You can loan it out, rent it out, shoot it into space, burn it, or attempt to have sex with it, but you can't copy it. There are a few other things you can't do, such as public exhibition, or creating derivative works, but renting is NOT one of the restrictions. Except for phonorecord and software.
Really?
Because I seem to remember running Photoshop, HyperCard and AppleWorks in classic just fine. They were just as fast as they were when actually booted in OS 9. In fact, I remember writing angry letters to Apple pissing and moaning because OS X was so damned slow compared to Classic.
I STILL wish Apple had gone for more of a compromise like Rhapsody/Yellow Box, but I understand what they were doing.
http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF160-The_Dreamcatcher3000.gif
It's not so much that. It's that they developed their instincts (now permanently crystallized in their aging minds) in a different world than you did. If you want to know what I mean, take your 60 year old aunt to the grocery store, pick up the first brand name product you find, and listen to her rattle on about how that's ridiculously overpriced, and this one is much better quality and costs half as much and blah blah blah blah. Her 'bullshit detector' is calibrated for a different set of situations than yours.
/To preclude a pointless argument, I may be wrong, your aunt may be terrible at shopping, and you may be a genius at bargain finding. My core point still holds though. They didn't grow up with the kinds of con artists and scams we deal with on a day-to-day basis. That's why they're easily taken in by fraudsters.
You grew up around the Internet, and are familiar with the types of people and scams that are common. It feels like common sense because it developed as a sort of mental reflex. But I doubt you even bother to compare ingredients and price for more than the two major competing brands at the supermarket.
Given how useful a tool fear has become in getting the American public to go along with virtually anything, do you really think this is being designed to use on terrorists?
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I hate the new system too.
Maybe the flights you always fly on Hooker Airlines are filled with hot, friendly chicks, but here's a list of the people I've sat next to on airline flights:
A fat man
Another fat man
A surprisingly fat man
An old woman who needed oxygen and smelled like cheese
Two fat men
A little brat (boy) who kept kicking the seat in front of him and throwing things across the aisle at his mother (on the other side of me) who in turn kept screaming at him for the whole flight
An exhausted mom and her toddler who banged on his musical sesame street toy and screamed the whole flight.
I would have given anything for porn!
He shouldn't be, and wasn't. However, police often have to write a report about things like this, so there's an official record of what happened (in the event of a lawsuit or otherwise.) Obviously, one of the things you'd want to put into the report is the identities of the individuals involved. In addition, the officer probably wanted to run a search to see if the guy had any outstanding warrants or, at the very least, a record that would indicate something might be amiss. The easiest way of reasonably verifying someone's identity is to consult their driver's license.
Most people are accustomed to showing their DL for just about everything, so it's unusual when someone refuses - especially to a police officer under threat of arrest. While I probably have more respect for our police force than the average slashdotter, some of them really are the stupid ex-bullies they're all stereotyped as, and get really aggressive when you don't submit to their authoritah. On top of that, police aren't experts in case law as it relates to constitutional freedom of movement. The guy probably thought he'd busted John Gacy or some shit.
*yawn*
And he'll be replaced by another indistinguishable "long time friend of Bush."
At least Chertoff doesn't openly advocate torture... at least that I know of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff
There's a flaw in your code. You use an logical OR (||) when you should be using logical AND (&&). Otherwise, your statement would allow anything that acted OR talked like a duck, which I'm pretty sure does not reflect the specification:
"If it looks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, and it acts like a duck, then it must be a duck."
Also, you included 'then,' which is obviously unnecessary and invalid in light of the curly brace.
I respectfully submit my version for review:
if ( compare(&securom,&duck,LOCOMOTION ) && compare(&securom,&duck,DIALOGUE ) && compare( &securom,&duck,APPEARANCE ) )
{
&securom=
}
Clever argument, and I like it. Unfortunately, any protectable element of a copyrighted work is just as protected as the work as a whole. So they've still got him on every part of the coupon that's not the serial number.
I prefer: "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock."
You're fat. And don't try to sugar coat it either, or you'll probably just eat that too.
Because even though we can GET to space, all the really interesting stuff you can do up there is infeasible due to the fact that the only way to get anything INTO space at the moment is to strap a rocket to it and pray. Provided it gets there at all, it still costs tens of thousands of dollars per pound to get something up there. And once it's up there, there's no way to get it back down except to drop it.
The gigantic, orbiting space stations we envisioned as children won't be possible until we can get stuff to outer space cheaply and easily. Neither will manned missions to mars.
With a space elevator, all you do is load it up onto a climber and send it up the cable. It'll get there in a few days. Not as fast as a rocket, sure, but a hell of a lot cheaper, easier, and safer.
Would you do business with a supposedly reputable company with unrelated ads splattered all over its pages? It makes your carefully crafted web presence look like a Geocities nightmare, and the client may choose to do business with someone else. If that happens enough, it could put a small company out of business.
2) Not being immediately shut down when some troll posts necro-pedo-beastility images as part of some SA vs. Fark vs. 4chan contest to find the most simultaneously illegal and offense image to post.
I'm going to win this year! I know it!
It depends on whether or not you're thinking in terms of black and white or shades of gray. Wherever freedom is involved, you're going to get a lot of black and white thinking. ("Give me liberty of give me death!" "Those who would sacrifice a little bit of freedom for a little bit of safety deserve neither." etc.) It's not the fact that they're disallowing kiddie porn that makes people angry. It's the fact that they're disallowing anything at all. From the black and white perspective of absolute freedom or nothing at all, "Free with some restrictions" is a worthless concept.
Obviously, a large aspect of our society is capable of more nuanced, shade-of-gray thinking. "Evidence of governmental wrongdoing good. Kiddie porn bad. Political parody good. Snuff bad. etc." Which is fine, as long as the government's idea of good and bad always matches up perfectly with yours. From such a perspective, arguing that disallowing kiddie porn is censorship is tantamount to endorsing child porn.
Note that neither side likes the other all that much. But if you understand where people are coming from, their arguments start gaining, at the very least, the makings of coherent thought.
It's not clear what "the people" want. It's clear what a few people on the internet want. Outside of this insular coccoon, you'll find that the vast majority of folks side with the RIAA/MPAA on things. Without understanding the mechanisms involved (which most are seemingly incapable of), it's easy to buy the "Downloading = Stealing" argument. What non-technical people here (when they hear anything at all) is that "pirates" are distributing "computer codes" which allow them to "hack" movies and "steal" them. And that's why they have to buy new copies of all their expensive HD-DVDs, along with a new player. And so they hate us "pirates." (Nevermind that the real pirates are in China making bit for bit copies that work just fine.)
Real change only comes through education. Start educating the people, and the change will come. Not today, not tomorrow, probably not in your lifetime. But eventually. That's the way the system works, like it or not.
No.