This may be (-1, Redundant) in discussions like this, but still: could this sort of copy protection conceivably provoke a valid "fair use" lawsuit?
To be more specific, do these copy protection schemes violate my right to fair use of copyrighted material that I've purchased legally, by eliminating my ability to make personal backup copies or use the material in a different medium (transfer to an iPod or whatever)? And if they do, would I have a leg to stand on if I sued, say, Universal for this?
If a lawsuit could conceivably be successful, I wish someone like the EFF, ACLU, etc. would get one going. I for one already donate to the ACLU, and would donate to the EFF for this purpose. High-minded (but valid) arguments about treating customers like thieves aside, it seems actionable to me (although, of course, always and forever, IANAL).
Yeah! I said the same thing when they started giving out awards for the worst academic prose. But no one listened, and now there are hordes of people going into philosophy and English just to win prestigious awards for terrible prose. And don't get me started on the Razzies, which have clearly encouraged intentionally poor filmmaking. I mean, why would you purposely award bad things? Oh, the humanity!
Re:just another viewpoint getting in the way
on
Disinformation.com
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· Score: 2
And by the way, in re Marty's rant about cheerleaders: maybe we will never know if there is a higher power, but it certainly IS relevant, or does he disagree with Pascal's logic in the matter?
Pascal's Wager is a bad argument for belief. There are a ton of resources out there debunking it, but my favorite is that, considering the possible consequences of belief in the wrong God, atheism may actually be a better bet than theism.
The Man supressing useful reptilian articles?
on
Disinformation.com
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· Score: 5, Insightful
From Disinfo's main "Paranormal" page:
"It is interesting to see how the Internet's development has been hand-in-hand with the mass proliferation of inter-dimensional information. The reptilian phenomenon is of the astral or imaginal realm. The process of our coming to grips with the possible existence of reptilians, and fully comprehending the dimension of the mind, has the potential to trigger a larger awareness of our own multidimensionality, our spirituality and our relationship with Creation."
Yeah. I been thinkin that for years.
I just can't be bothered to sift through crap like this to possibly find something somewhere in there worth reading. Generally, when I hear something like:
"links are refreshingly open-minded, incorporating ideas, opinions and responses far beyond traditional definitions of 'progressive.'"
I consider it code for "they'll print any damn thing, even if it's silly, badly written, and completely devoid of usefulness." And sure enough, that's usually the correct assumption.
Some of this stuff, I'm sure, is ignored by the Man because it challenges the status quo. But for much of it, well, there's probably a good reason why it's never been picked up by the mainstream media: it sucks.
Some people might really like the new iMac from a physical/enclosure design standpoint, but might not like OSX (see plentyofarticles as to why), or might just prefer Linux. So, buy the Mac, run Linux on it, and you get basically what you want.
Well, I can't get to the site, but my guess would be that the $199 is for a full retail package with support and bundled apps/utilities, as with most commercial Linux packages. My further guesses are that (a) they'll eventually offer some sort of stripped-down version for download, with no support and no bundled apps/utils; and (b) that $199 will allow as many installs as you want, as opposed to Win2K/XP/etc., which cost $199 per install.
Point b is the biggie, and it may prove compelling to many corporate and govt. customers if Lindows really runs Win32 apps flawlessly at a cost savings of thousands of dollars or more. But as I say, I can't get through to their site, and they're not even in beta yet, so this is purely speculation on my part.
Because those who engage in bad behavior tend to do it again and again if nothing changes. A program like this could hopefully alleviate some of that recidivism. You commonly hear that kids go into the criminal life because dealing drugs pays way better than McDonalds: well, being a programmer pays pretty well too, it's much more conducive to self-respect than flipping burgers, and there's less chance of getting shot on the job.
I for one would much rather that a convicted drug dealer did a smaller amount of time, got job training, and committed fewer crimes as a result of building a good life. I realize this doesn't satisfy the desire many people have for vengeance, but personally I'm more concerned with trying to reduce crime than making sure everyone gets their ass kicked as solidly as possible. I guess that makes me a bleeding heart.
And in any case I don't get the impression that good kids are excluded from such a program, just that bad kids aren't either.
But it's possible that the person isn't asking to *win* a numbers game, per se; rather, I get the impression that they want to prove that Linux can be deployed on the desktop in largish enterprises. In other words, they want to be able to show numerous examples of large enterprises using Linux on the dekstop (the larger the better, the more like theirs the better), as opposed to showing that there are more organizations with MS than Linux.
I noticed this too. I guess the song's contents don't matter if the artist has been known to express certain political opinions. This, IMO, is just WAY more offensive than banning specific songs.
Unbelievable. Seriously; this whole list, and the thinking of the people who came up with it, just absolutely boggles the mind.
Well, I can't disagree with the 1% assertion.:) But, if something like this was done well, it would absolutely be well-received.
And you're right that only #s 1-3 are directly affected by the OS, but the rest of the list could be affected indirectly; with developer time and effort less spread out, more robust and better designed tools for the chosen jobs could be created. It would be a matter of focusing resources more tightly, on stuff like apps and the GUI.
An open-source collaboration wouldn't have to worry about that, but I doubt anything useful would come out of it for a very long time. Writing OS:es isn't child play.
Oh, absolutely. But doesn't this apply to an even greater extent to a general-purpose OS? I'm just saying that there are many 1%s out there who would welcome something directed towards them, whereas yet another general-purpose OS might find an even smaller audience due to indifference. If it's general purpose, why AtheOS rather than Linux?
Well, I'll try to address this from my own experience: I'm a musician who would be thrilled to see an OS targeted at audio recording; in fact, there are Linux distros based around this premise. So, among others, I'd look for the following qualities:
1. Very low latency
2. Good performance in common audio operations, and hopefully a very high number of simultaneous tracks playing back and/or recording with no stuttering
3. Compatibility with a wide variety of sound cards, and ESPECIALLY with high-end, prosumer cards and peripherals
4. Cross-application, built-in effects (not unlike Direct X plugins)
5. A good set of applications (audio recording, mixing, mastering, sampling, MIDI, etc.)
6. A simple GUI that would stay the hell out of my way and not adversely affect performance.
For me, then, to hell with running Quake 3, to hell with running MS Office, to hell with robust network administration tools/capabilities; I might want a simple web browser and e-mail client, and some word processing, but for the most part if I needed much more beyond that I'd boot into another OS. In fact, I've looked at some of the audio-editing Linux distros, but if someone built an OS that was DAW-oriented from the ground up, I think it would find a place as well.
That's what I mean by my original post w/r/t "aiming"; I've referred to my own situation, but video editing folks would have their own set of needs, etc. etc. It wouldn't be for everyone, but I don't see how yet another general-purpose OS will be especially useful to the public at large. If the devs have fun and learn, great, but why should I, as a non-dev, look at it?
It seems to me that it'll be extremely difficult for AtheOS (or any new OS, really) to do everything well; even Linux, which is pretty widely used, isn't a be-all, end-all solution yet (and maybe never will be, or never should be).
So have you considered limiting the scope of AtheOS (possibly severely), and aiming at doing a relatively few things exceptionally well? Here I'm thinking of BeOS, which was usually promoted as a "multimedia OS." It seems to me that this might be a way for alternative OSes now and in the future to stake out some territory: do a few things very very effectively rather than trying to be all things to all people.
Of course, if you're doing this as a fun/interesting thing, you may not care as much about a niche or widespread acceptance. But, still.
With my current gear, I really don't feel a need to upgrade based on what I've seen out there. But what I want more than anything is to be able to avoid having to carry multiple gadgets around with me, and to have good wireless internet access.
So for me:
Start with the Kyocera Smartphone - phone and PDA in one not-obscenely-large device;
The ability to play mp3s and support for some kind of optional larger-capacity storage (e.g. CompactFlash);
A good-quality, well-lit color screen;
Easy expandability, using something like the Visor Springboard;
10-12 hours of battery life no matter what I'm doing (playing mp3s while surfing the net, interspersed with longish phone calls);
Reasonably fast (solid 56K-plus) web/e-mail access, through a regular ISP (I don't want to be forced to use Palm's approved providers and/or websites or however they do it)
Finally, I'd like to sync reasonably quickly with my home/office PC wirelessly, and thus either save new info, or get back to where I was if I have a crash that wipes out data while I'm on the road.
For me, until I can get all/most of this in one device that clips onto my belt, I don't feel a strong need to upgrade from the IIIx and a Nokia 5165.
(I'll add here the caveat that I have comparatively little experience with advanced PDAs/phones/mp3 players, so some of what I want may be available, or may not be available for 20 years.)
...when the GeForce2 GTS first came out. nVidia's marketroids said it was "a major step toward achieving [Pixar-level animation]." Pixar's Tom Duff commented:
"Do you really believe that their toy is a million times faster than one of the cpus on our Ultra Sparc servers? What's the chance that we wouldn't put one of these babies on every desk in the building? They cost a couple of hundred bucks, right? Why hasn't NVIDIA tried to give us a carton of these things? -- think of the publicity milage they could get out of it.
"At Moore's Law-like rates (a factor of 10 in 5 years), even if the hardware they have today is 80 times more powerful than what we use now, it will take them 20 years before they can do the frames we do today in real time. And 20 years from now, Pixar won't be even remotely interested in TS2-level images, and I'll be retired, sitting on the front porch and picking my banjo, laughing at the same press release, recycled by NVIDIA's heirs and assigns."
It seems to me that there's an interesting problem facing websites targeted at (potentially) large audiences; if the site is good, and gets popular, they're likely going to reach a point where meager ad/subscription revenues can't keep up with bandwidth costs. Are good sites going to be doomed by their own popularity? That kind of sucks to contemplate.
I thought Suck's original announcement said that it was a "break" for the summer. When I read that, I was kind of like, right, probably eventually a permanent break. But have they now confirmed that it's for good? If so, it's a damn shame, and when Salon dies I'm personally losing my favorite magazine, print or otherwise.
-brennan
Really? I didn't see that. Could you link it? (Google cache or some such) In that case I could see the University (or possibly the FBI) removing that message, but shutting the entire site down and prosecuting the guy who runs it? I don't see that as constitutionally defensible.
True enough, but those instances cause property damage, or break the law, whereas as far as I can tell no one in the case we're talking about did anything illegal, or constitutionally impermissible.
In any case, my point was that "their servers, their right to what's on them" simply isn't true, or at least it ignores a very important aspect of the situation. Of course you can't cause damage, or threaten the president, or anything similarly forbidden/illegal, but it should be beyond the power of a few silly administrators to keep you from simply talking in a way they don't like.
See, people keep saying this, but I don't think that's entirely true. It's a goverment organization, right? Then, they're *our* servers, as in, the citizens' servers; in any case, they're sure as hell not the administration's servers. I think there's more of a First Amendment issue here than many people are admitting. I may be wrong about this, though. Did I mention IANAL?
The University of Utah, as do most universities, has a code of conduct. If he violated it, then they have no obligation to support his speech by lending him their servers, bandwidth, domain name, etc.
This would be completely true if they were a private entity, but since they're not, it's more complicated. As far as I understand it, if a government entity offers a public forum for speech, they cannot in any way, shape, or form, revoke that right based on what a user says without violating the First Amendment. They can't offer a public forum and then say "but you can't say x, y, and z" if x, y, and z are constitutionally protected forms of speech.
I believe that in order for UU to be in the right here, they have to prove that there was abuse of an unconstitutional nature going on (threats, fighting words, etc.). Otherwise, they're engaging in content discrimination, it's probably unconstitutional, and hopefully it'll be pursued. It doesn't sound like there was any speech on his page that would be unprotected; rather, it just sounds like the administration didn't like it. Of course, we're only getting one side of the story, so there may well have been threats or something.
When will people get this through their heads? There is a significant difference between "free speech" and "supported speech."
The "supported speech" argument is well-suited to disputes with private organizations, but a government-run organization is a whole 'nother ball of wax, I think. I mean, since the entire internet is at its core a government project, couldn't you argue by this logic that *any* website is "supported speech", which support the government can revoke at any time?
Get serious. You're embarrassing yourself now. Can't you make an argument without resorting to exaggeration and strawmen? If not, what does that say about your arguments?
Normally I would think this is just a troll, but I'm pretty sure that there are actually some people who believe stuff like this is accurate.
Fine, then ban the 48 pink triangles they have laying all around the school! If a school promotes one view, but does not allow the opposing view, then we have a problem.
Hmm. Well, I think this is more complicated than you're making it. My own view on the subject is that kids are younger citizens, and should be accorded the rights that all citizens have. But the Supreme Court has explicitly rejected that view, and given schools pretty much free reign to do whatever they want to "keep the peace." If something can be viewed as disrupting the learning environment, it can be yanked, regardless of viewpoint neutrality or lack thereof.
This, as far as I know (and correct me if I'm wrong), is pretty much settled law. The Vietnam/black armband case gave students equal footing in one instance, but I believe subsequent decisions severely limited those rights again. And rather than being a liberal initiative, I think the limits were imposed by the conservatives on the Burger Court
let's have schools have school prayers and the Ten Commandments on every wall. Oops, can't have that, some people don't like religion in school because they are worried that the government is mandating a religion. Kind of like schools mandating a "lifestyle".
No disrespect, but get serious. The comparison to school prayer only holds up if schools were mandating that students make out with the same-sex person nearest them. Otherwise, they're not mandating ANYONE'S lifestyle.
If these pink triangles advertising a student group and/or meetings, then I see nothing wrong whatsoever; Christian student groups meet in schools all over the place, and AFAIK advertise as well.
That said, personally, I believe the "straight pride" shirt should have been allowed to stay. The kid wearing it was pretty clearly going out of his way to be an asshole, and he succeeded. As if high school isn't tough enough for gay kids, they get something that hopefully helps them feel more comfortable, coming at no one's expense, and some little dickhead has to say "no, you don't belong - get back in the closet." But, he should have the right to be a prick.
I know others will say it, but your post is a TOTAL oversimplification. Freep is pretty much a collection of raving lunatics, but so long as they're privately held, they have a right to tell anyone they want that they can't post on their site, on their servers. In the U.S., "freedom of speech" refers only to protection against governmental censorship. It could be this particular guy they're banning, or Thomas Jefferson; it doesn't matter. They have the right to ban the guy. If he keeps pushing, they have the right to ask the law to step in. He has no right whatsoever to keep posting once they say he can't.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand this now - thanks to you and others who clarified it.
:P
Damn.
-brennan
This may be (-1, Redundant) in discussions like this, but still: could this sort of copy protection conceivably provoke a valid "fair use" lawsuit?
To be more specific, do these copy protection schemes violate my right to fair use of copyrighted material that I've purchased legally, by eliminating my ability to make personal backup copies or use the material in a different medium (transfer to an iPod or whatever)? And if they do, would I have a leg to stand on if I sued, say, Universal for this?
If a lawsuit could conceivably be successful, I wish someone like the EFF, ACLU, etc. would get one going. I for one already donate to the ACLU, and would donate to the EFF for this purpose. High-minded (but valid) arguments about treating customers like thieves aside, it seems actionable to me (although, of course, always and forever, IANAL).
-brennan
Yeah! I said the same thing when they started giving out awards for the worst academic prose. But no one listened, and now there are hordes of people going into philosophy and English just to win prestigious awards for terrible prose. And don't get me started on the Razzies, which have clearly encouraged intentionally poor filmmaking. I mean, why would you purposely award bad things? Oh, the humanity!
And by the way, in re Marty's rant about cheerleaders: maybe we will never know if there is a higher power, but it certainly IS relevant, or does he disagree with Pascal's logic in the matter?
Pascal's Wager is a bad argument for belief. There are a ton of resources out there debunking it, but my favorite is that, considering the possible consequences of belief in the wrong God, atheism may actually be a better bet than theism.
The Secular Web has an index that provides a pretty thorough analysis.
-brennan
From Disinfo's main "Paranormal" page:
"It is interesting to see how the Internet's development has been hand-in-hand with the mass proliferation of inter-dimensional information. The reptilian phenomenon is of the astral or imaginal realm. The process of our coming to grips with the possible existence of reptilians, and fully comprehending the dimension of the mind, has the potential to trigger a larger awareness of our own multidimensionality, our spirituality and our relationship with Creation."
Yeah. I been thinkin that for years.
I just can't be bothered to sift through crap like this to possibly find something somewhere in there worth reading. Generally, when I hear something like:
"links are refreshingly open-minded, incorporating ideas, opinions and responses far beyond traditional definitions of 'progressive.'"
I consider it code for "they'll print any damn thing, even if it's silly, badly written, and completely devoid of usefulness." And sure enough, that's usually the correct assumption.
Some of this stuff, I'm sure, is ignored by the Man because it challenges the status quo. But for much of it, well, there's probably a good reason why it's never been picked up by the mainstream media: it sucks.
-brennan
Some people might really like the new iMac from a physical/enclosure design standpoint, but might not like OSX (see plenty of articles as to why), or might just prefer Linux. So, buy the Mac, run Linux on it, and you get basically what you want.
Also, the whole "because it's there" thing.
-brennan
Well, I can't get to the site, but my guess would be that the $199 is for a full retail package with support and bundled apps/utilities, as with most commercial Linux packages. My further guesses are that (a) they'll eventually offer some sort of stripped-down version for download, with no support and no bundled apps/utils; and (b) that $199 will allow as many installs as you want, as opposed to Win2K/XP/etc., which cost $199 per install.
Point b is the biggie, and it may prove compelling to many corporate and govt. customers if Lindows really runs Win32 apps flawlessly at a cost savings of thousands of dollars or more. But as I say, I can't get through to their site, and they're not even in beta yet, so this is purely speculation on my part.
-brennan
Because those who engage in bad behavior tend to do it again and again if nothing changes. A program like this could hopefully alleviate some of that recidivism. You commonly hear that kids go into the criminal life because dealing drugs pays way better than McDonalds: well, being a programmer pays pretty well too, it's much more conducive to self-respect than flipping burgers, and there's less chance of getting shot on the job.
I for one would much rather that a convicted drug dealer did a smaller amount of time, got job training, and committed fewer crimes as a result of building a good life. I realize this doesn't satisfy the desire many people have for vengeance, but personally I'm more concerned with trying to reduce crime than making sure everyone gets their ass kicked as solidly as possible. I guess that makes me a bleeding heart.
And in any case I don't get the impression that good kids are excluded from such a program, just that bad kids aren't either.
-brennan
But it's possible that the person isn't asking to *win* a numbers game, per se; rather, I get the impression that they want to prove that Linux can be deployed on the desktop in largish enterprises. In other words, they want to be able to show numerous examples of large enterprises using Linux on the dekstop (the larger the better, the more like theirs the better), as opposed to showing that there are more organizations with MS than Linux.
-brennan
I noticed this too. I guess the song's contents don't matter if the artist has been known to express certain political opinions. This, IMO, is just WAY more offensive than banning specific songs.
Unbelievable. Seriously; this whole list, and the thinking of the people who came up with it, just absolutely boggles the mind.
Well, I can't disagree with the 1% assertion. :) But, if something like this was done well, it would absolutely be well-received.
And you're right that only #s 1-3 are directly affected by the OS, but the rest of the list could be affected indirectly; with developer time and effort less spread out, more robust and better designed tools for the chosen jobs could be created. It would be a matter of focusing resources more tightly, on stuff like apps and the GUI.
An open-source collaboration wouldn't have to worry about that, but I doubt anything useful would come out of it for a very long time. Writing OS:es isn't child play.
Oh, absolutely. But doesn't this apply to an even greater extent to a general-purpose OS? I'm just saying that there are many 1%s out there who would welcome something directed towards them, whereas yet another general-purpose OS might find an even smaller audience due to indifference. If it's general purpose, why AtheOS rather than Linux?
-brennan
Well, I'll try to address this from my own experience: I'm a musician who would be thrilled to see an OS targeted at audio recording; in fact, there are Linux distros based around this premise. So, among others, I'd look for the following qualities:
1. Very low latency
2. Good performance in common audio operations, and hopefully a very high number of simultaneous tracks playing back and/or recording with no stuttering
3. Compatibility with a wide variety of sound cards, and ESPECIALLY with high-end, prosumer cards and peripherals
4. Cross-application, built-in effects (not unlike Direct X plugins)
5. A good set of applications (audio recording, mixing, mastering, sampling, MIDI, etc.)
6. A simple GUI that would stay the hell out of my way and not adversely affect performance.
For me, then, to hell with running Quake 3, to hell with running MS Office, to hell with robust network administration tools/capabilities; I might want a simple web browser and e-mail client, and some word processing, but for the most part if I needed much more beyond that I'd boot into another OS. In fact, I've looked at some of the audio-editing Linux distros, but if someone built an OS that was DAW-oriented from the ground up, I think it would find a place as well.
That's what I mean by my original post w/r/t "aiming"; I've referred to my own situation, but video editing folks would have their own set of needs, etc. etc. It wouldn't be for everyone, but I don't see how yet another general-purpose OS will be especially useful to the public at large. If the devs have fun and learn, great, but why should I, as a non-dev, look at it?
-brennan
It seems to me that it'll be extremely difficult for AtheOS (or any new OS, really) to do everything well; even Linux, which is pretty widely used, isn't a be-all, end-all solution yet (and maybe never will be, or never should be).
So have you considered limiting the scope of AtheOS (possibly severely), and aiming at doing a relatively few things exceptionally well? Here I'm thinking of BeOS, which was usually promoted as a "multimedia OS." It seems to me that this might be a way for alternative OSes now and in the future to stake out some territory: do a few things very very effectively rather than trying to be all things to all people.
Of course, if you're doing this as a fun/interesting thing, you may not care as much about a niche or widespread acceptance. But, still.
-brennan
So for me:
For me, until I can get all/most of this in one device that clips onto my belt, I don't feel a strong need to upgrade from the IIIx and a Nokia 5165.
(I'll add here the caveat that I have comparatively little experience with advanced PDAs/phones/mp3 players, so some of what I want may be available, or may not be available for 20 years.)
Source
Some of the stuff the GeForce3 can do is great, but let's calm down. Move along...nothing to see here...
-brennan
-brennan
I thought Suck's original announcement said that it was a "break" for the summer. When I read that, I was kind of like, right, probably eventually a permanent break. But have they now confirmed that it's for good? If so, it's a damn shame, and when Salon dies I'm personally losing my favorite magazine, print or otherwise. -brennan
-brennan
In any case, my point was that "their servers, their right to what's on them" simply isn't true, or at least it ignores a very important aspect of the situation. Of course you can't cause damage, or threaten the president, or anything similarly forbidden/illegal, but it should be beyond the power of a few silly administrators to keep you from simply talking in a way they don't like.
-brennan
See, people keep saying this, but I don't think that's entirely true. It's a goverment organization, right? Then, they're *our* servers, as in, the citizens' servers; in any case, they're sure as hell not the administration's servers. I think there's more of a First Amendment issue here than many people are admitting. I may be wrong about this, though. Did I mention IANAL?
-brennan
This would be completely true if they were a private entity, but since they're not, it's more complicated. As far as I understand it, if a government entity offers a public forum for speech, they cannot in any way, shape, or form, revoke that right based on what a user says without violating the First Amendment. They can't offer a public forum and then say "but you can't say x, y, and z" if x, y, and z are constitutionally protected forms of speech.
I believe that in order for UU to be in the right here, they have to prove that there was abuse of an unconstitutional nature going on (threats, fighting words, etc.). Otherwise, they're engaging in content discrimination, it's probably unconstitutional, and hopefully it'll be pursued. It doesn't sound like there was any speech on his page that would be unprotected; rather, it just sounds like the administration didn't like it. Of course, we're only getting one side of the story, so there may well have been threats or something.
The "supported speech" argument is well-suited to disputes with private organizations, but a government-run organization is a whole 'nother ball of wax, I think. I mean, since the entire internet is at its core a government project, couldn't you argue by this logic that *any* website is "supported speech", which support the government can revoke at any time?
-brennan
And yes, I'm posting this way way late. I know. It's mainly to test my karma to see if I'm getting the +1 automatic bonus finally.
-brennan
Normally I would think this is just a troll, but I'm pretty sure that there are actually some people who believe stuff like this is accurate.
-brennan
This, as far as I know (and correct me if I'm wrong), is pretty much settled law. The Vietnam/black armband case gave students equal footing in one instance, but I believe subsequent decisions severely limited those rights again. And rather than being a liberal initiative, I think the limits were imposed by the conservatives on the Burger Court
No disrespect, but get serious. The comparison to school prayer only holds up if schools were mandating that students make out with the same-sex person nearest them. Otherwise, they're not mandating ANYONE'S lifestyle.If these pink triangles advertising a student group and/or meetings, then I see nothing wrong whatsoever; Christian student groups meet in schools all over the place, and AFAIK advertise as well.
That said, personally, I believe the "straight pride" shirt should have been allowed to stay. The kid wearing it was pretty clearly going out of his way to be an asshole, and he succeeded. As if high school isn't tough enough for gay kids, they get something that hopefully helps them feel more comfortable, coming at no one's expense, and some little dickhead has to say "no, you don't belong - get back in the closet." But, he should have the right to be a prick.
-brennan
-brennan