The US has had an astronaught die in space. One of the maneuvering jets in an X-15 got stuck open. I remember seeing cockpit footage of it once when I was a kid. What an awful way to die.
On the one hand, the article is full of bias. To me it doesn't read like a piece of journalism. It reads like some geeky programmers got there hands on this thing and they published the article. They want it to be Watergate. If it was Watergate there would be no reason for them to say so every 3rd paragraph. It would just be.
Towards the end there is also a very liberal anti-conservative slant to it. A good piece of journalism has no slant in either direction.
So anyone that reads this article and is not sold is forgiven.
That being said.
This entire issue makes two very strong cases (and it doesn't even try).
1. The need for the software in voting machines to be open source. I am not one to push open source software. I don't see why it should be required in the government, schools or any other place. But the voting booth is different. Force the electronic voting booth companies to make there software open source. If they do that then there isn't a state in this country that will have to spend one silver dime on an outside company to audit there software. Geeks the world over will be more then happy to do it for them. I can think of no better (and democratic) way to ensure fair elections.
2. This is a really good anti-DCMA argument. Thing is this. The DCMA basicaly says that it is against the law to break encryption. So if it is against the law to break encryption, then there is no need for strong encryption. Case in point, this article is based out of New Zealand. It links to a page that is loaded with zips (all key code encrypted) that contain (I suppose, I haven't downloaded and looked yet) source files and documentation. Now in the US I don't think I have broken any laws mearly downloading those files. But once I break that easily broken zip encryption I have (they linked to a site that will do just that). At that point I have broken a law. So if there is something to keep under wraps then Diebold can do so quite easily. They can DCMA any website linked to those files. Hell they can prosecute anyone that has opened them.
I would put these kids in jail first. I would push for terrorist charges. I would try to get one of those sentences where they are not allowed within 15 feet of a computer for like 15 years.
Then (just to piss them off) I would release Linux for the xBox just as they asked.
The icing on my cake? I would charge like $100 for it.
Alas, Bill isn't that entertaining. He probably has better things to do with his life then screw with these two morons.
I wonder if this is the real problem. I think Tron 2.0 is the name of the new movie coming out, and probably the name of the crappy video game tie in as well.
You think he grabbed some images of the game and posted them to his website?
I wonder if he hadn't done that if they would have left him alone.
In my oppinion there is a part of the DMCA (or maybe it is the Patriot act, or both?) that is getting ignored, but in some ways more evil then the whole copyright bit.
It is the way they make it illegal to break encryption.
I see it like this. Encryption is made to be broken. Seriously. Walking around saying something dumb like 'It is illegal to break encryption, so we don't need better encryption.' makes as much sense as saying 'If we make gun ownership illegal, all criminals will stop owning guns.'.
In a way this mirrors the gun debate. There is nothing fundamentaly bad about breaking encryption itself, just like there is nothing fundamentaly bad about pointing a rifle at a target. But point that rifle at a person....
The thing about encryption is that if you want to know HOW a criminal or a corporate spy or anyone else might break your encryption you gotta do it yourself. And once you do you roll better encryption.
Anyone else remember when 128 bit encryption was unbreakable?
Those students and geeks that get together and challenge themselves to break the latest and greatest encryption are doing buisnesses and geeks everywhere an enormous favor. They are pushing for better encryption.
We need this. This is not bad.
If you want an encryption law then put it in perspective. How about we just change it to 'Breaking encryption on a product you are not licensed to use is illegal.'.
I think I could live with that. Seems like a nice middle ground to me, it protects those people that, well they are risking jail time now.
In all fairness... If you are a business and you are backing up to CD then you deserve to go under.
I didn't read the article (I know, I know...) but I have not heard of people including digital back up tapes in the same boat with CD's, so I don't buy the idea there will be any additional taxes of levy's on that media.
And besides an 8gb backup tape is sooooo 21st century. The company I work for (far from the cutting edge) uses 40 gb backup tapes.
I seriously don't see this hurting IT. As for other things....
If such a law were to pass IN ANY STATE. I hereby swear to never make a legal music or movie purchase AT ALL. INCLUDING STUFF I LIKE. Until the law is overturned.
I am gonna get all hypothetical here. Me thinks this could be done. But it isn't being worked on to the best of my knowledge.
Okay I have say 1000 tracks available on my hard drive. What if I built a P2P system that required you to 'borrow' tracks from my drive.
In other words my tracks would have some sort of DRM on them. When you checked them out you would be granted lets say 7 days worth of time, but I would be restricted from listening to those tracks via DRM for an equal 7 days.
The DRM would only allow the original owner to 'lend' (you couldn't lend your copy out).
According to what I have read the RIAA supports this (I am not buying that they do mind you, I am calling this guy a liar) and he says that they don't enforce copyright against people who borrow CD's from libraries and copy them at home, so I should not expect them to go after me (the original owner who is not cheating the system) because some jackass is making an audio dub of the file.
When CD's were new they were introduced to the market at an extravogent rate. People were in shock how expensive CD's were.
I remember reading articles that simplyfied supply and demand and tried to explain how if people were only willing to pay those stupid high rates in only a few years CD's would be less expensive then tapes.
I think CD's costed something like $20 a piece.
So you see, when the RIAA makes a statement about things in the future they generaly know what they are talking about and don't lie at all.
'"And speaking of the EU. What is the deal with that montrosity anyways? You have all these people just boiling over with jealousy about the US, saying all kinds of nasty things. But they all are appearing to emulate us. I mean 250 years ago we were a collection of territories that all were independent."
jelousy? i doubt. emulate? i hope not. and for the degree of independence of states please explain the "war of secession". and somehow i don't think the US have a license on a union.'
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My point was that on paper some of the states are still technicaly independent, they are called 'Commonwealths'. I think there are 7 of them, although I honestly don't know which ones they are. But it is only a technicality. For every decade and century that goes by they are less and less in reality independent of anything. Believe me I only have to travel 100 miles south of where I am to find people that dissagree with the outcome of 'the war of secessio', they refer to it as 'the war of northern agression'. They say 'The South shall rise again' and they mean it.
I was just trying to say that the road you are on leads to (a) failure or (b) and outcome like ours, where the individual countries that you have all but dissapear and the history of the area is only a collective organism under one nation. This isn't a bad thing mind you, but the only person you are fooling is yourself if you think there is a different outcome.
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'define what you mean with "socialism" and explain why you don't like it.'
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By a differnt name, liberalism. Or the pleasing of everyone by government edict on a massive scale.
State controlled health care for one. The Canadians have a centralized health care system like you envy and it is a real mess. Rich Canadians regularly come to the US for there health care needs. Why would they do that? Because the Canadian health care system isn't working as advertised. For all the faults our health care system does have it is still better then a socialist, i.e. liberal, i.e. centralized health care system.
Ditto for education. Can the student read English? Can they add and subtract? Know the definition of a mile? The history of the US? Then we are done talking about Government controlled education. We regulate it at the State and most often local level. The reason is simple. Different communities want different things out of the education system. The Southern Baptist people want something different then the people in NY. If you have a kid and you don't like the public system where you live and you can't afford private then there is nothing stopping you from moving to a community where you like and agree with the public system. It is a good system.
1. The Euro will follow. Just wait. I was never in denial about the dollar, I just knew it was taking us a little longer.
2. I was poking fun at the Euro. I think it is a stupid name for currency. I think the currency looks even stupider. Sorry, my oppinion.
3. Regulate education? On the outset it sounds like a good idea. But in practice it is just insane. In the US education is left at the State level, and most States pretty much leave it at the local level. You can't please everyone and you shouldn't try. That is why you shouldn't regulate education. If you try to regulate it you end up with a mess of trying to please everyone.
4. Your currency is only 4 years old. I don't care how strong you think it is. It is still only 4 years old. You just can't get around that. Currency has ups and downs. Sometimes you are strong, sometimes weak. I question wether countries that just 6 years ago had independent currencies are going to sit around and weather the storm when the euro eventually goes through a down spell. France has a sordid history of changing there minds acording to the direction of the wind. Is the Euro capable of surviving a large company opting out when the going gets rough?
5. You are confusing Iraq with the US. We stopped a country that practiced state-sponsored killing on a massive scale. As far as Muslim's and Islam, the US enjoys a massive population of Muslims. Those people are not the bad guys, and we know it. The bad guys are (1) new Muslim immigrants from the middle East and (2) part of the population of newly converted Muslims within our own country (before you say I am trolling do some research about WHO those people make up and my point will be made self-evident). Look, these people have declared war on our country. Us being suspicious of them is every bit as valid as us being suspicious of German citizens during WW1 and 2. And as far as persecuting our own citizens, we did that, WW2 and Japanese. We view it as a mistake on a grand scale. We won't be doing it again.
Someone needs to explain to me how the EU can enforce American companies to collect a tax for the EU.
Seems to me that what is reall going on is liberal 'fairness'. Think about it. You live in the EU and you can buy stuff online cheaper from the US then actually walking into a local store and buying it. Gee that isn't 'fair'. Seems fair to me. The problem isn't the local store or the American business. The problem is at home. It is with the taxes the EU is charging, it is the exchange rate. If the EU fixes those things on there end then the price for buying something from the US and shipping it really shouldn't matter.
But I really am not understanding this. What legal means is the EU going to use to enforce American businesses to charge these taxes?
Now I can see one way. If those businesses have branches in the EU. Then the government has them by the short hairs.
But otherwise the EU is a paper tiger.
And speaking of the EU. What is the deal with that montrosity anyways? You have all these people just boiling over with jealousy about the US, saying all kinds of nasty things. But they all are appearing to emulate us. I mean 250 years ago we were a collection of territories that all were independent. Hell, according to some modes of thinking some states still are independent. Those States are known as Commonwealths. So in some respects it appears that the EU is trying to emulate someone they despise.
But I can look at it another way too. There is another (defunct and sad place today) place that did the same damn thing. The USSR. And we all know what kind of nasty failure that was.
Sometimes the EU just smacks a little too much of socialism for my taste. I think if I lived there I would be very, very unhappy with the state of affairs. I am not even sure if a common currency is a good idea. What happens if the disney dollar, oh I am sorry, the euro tanks? How quickly will countries wash there hands of it? Especially countries that had a decent currency before the Euro. As soon as those countries start giving up on it everyone looses.
And YES the US was there too. If you want to know just how hard it is to do what you are trying to do just look at the history of currency in the US. For a good period of time, up until the civil war the states all had there own currency. It was a mess.
A very smart women once told me that you must choose your battles. Some battles are not worth the cost of winning.
I think this is as true for spam as anything else in life.
I think we need to look at the battle to kill spam and reduce it in scope a bit. This idea of simply 'spam bad, kill it' is actually too broad.
It leaves open too many issues, like companies that allow opt-in lists and the like.
I can't wait for the first time that some kid decides to send an email to every kid in his school and the kid or the school gets sued under some spam law. That would prove the validity of my point.
However Porn (yummy) is a fight worth winning. It is so clear and concise. How can you argue against it? Playboy and Penthouse have some fascinating articles in them sometimes (or at least they used to, I haven't read one in years). Would you have a problem with me giving your 12 year old a copy of Penthouse just because I thought some article in it would interest him?
I just don't see how any reasonable person can find any circumstance where putting porn in the hands of kids is acceptable.
If the companies say that they don't know how to tell the difference between a 12 year olds email address and an adults I think we should just agree with them that that is a real headscracther.
It just might not be possible to spam porn.
The hardship in this fight needs to be squarely placed on the shoulders of the porn industry. There is no reason to force kids to register special email addresses, that is what they porn industry would ask for and they need to be denied it.
Tell the porn industry this. If someone pays you money to access your sight then you can spam the email address that is tied with that account. That way you got the industry in a trap. If some kid stole daddies card and daddy finds the porn in the kids mailbox later on then the porn industry is still at fault for distributing porn to a minor.
Moral Speeding? I dare you to drive 55 on the PA turnpike around Pittsburg.
Email me if you survive the experience.
Dude that is more like speeding to stay alive.
The first time I drove on that stretch of the turnpike I came through an area where there pretty much was no shoulder. Every 1/2 mile or so they had carved a space out where a truck or a couple of cars could pull over in case of a problem. Aside from those spots you were in deep trouble if you had engine problems. Well traffic was, wow. I think I was too young to be driving on that road. I remember driving like 10 or 15 miles over the speed limit, something like 75 or 80 and being scared to death to go any faster. Problem was I was holding up traffic something fierce. People were crawling up my ass and pushing me to go faster.
In one of those holes there was a cop sitting. As God as my witness (and co-pilot if I remember correctly) that cop was just simply sitting there taking his time. Everyone was speeding. He would sit there and occasionally and randomly put on his lights and pull someone over.
I have bought more games this year then I think I have ever before. And every year I buy less and less music.
And there is nothing strange about it.
The RIAA has gotten me to the point where I feel like a schmuck every time I buy music.
But the game industry on the other hand. You know it is kind of strange. Cause I don't think that PC games are any less buggy this year then any other. But this year I am treating them differntly. I download them off Usenet and give them a try. If I can't get the game to run or the control is just god awful (like the Matrix, what a crime that is) then I count myself lucky I downloaded the game and I don't worry about it. If on the other hand the game runs fine and I play it a couple of times, I buy a legit copy.
Sometimes if the game is buggy but has potential (like Need For Speed 2 6 months ago) I put it aside and try to patch it. If the patch solves the problem I buy it.
Granted my plan is skirting the law. But the honest truth is that 2 years ago I was so fed up with the general bugginess of PC games that I had given up playing them at all. It is a crime when they advertise a game will work and it doesn't.
I am waiting for that. I have owned Walkmans of every type over the years, high quality, low quality, radios, tape players, CD players. The only exception is an MP3 device. I have learned my lesson.
For whatever reason on ALL of these devices within a couple months of buying them I break the headphone jack on the device. It will get loose and start to loose the stereo sound and then eventually it won't be useable at all. I have never had an understanding of what I was doing to break all of them.
But I do know that iPods and the like are way too expensive for me to just break them a month down the road. A bluetooth iPod and a bluetooth enabled headset seems to me like a killer combination that would resolve that problem.
I am a big fan of laying all the facts out on the table and seeing what is really going on.
It isn't that I want to pave the world. That is just stupid. It is that I want balance. Humans have carved out a pretty neat little niche for ourselves. I have to question wether we really have the science to mesure if we are destroying the world or not. Hell, I question if we can really destroy the world, short of nukes that is. I read an article earlier this year about how scientists have found some sort of screwed up natural chemical reaction in the atmosphere that automaticaly cleans up the air.
Thing is, these people are just socialists in disguise. They don't know the facts. Don't believe me, just ask them. Ask them to back up what they believe in.
You said about that double negative thing, we have the same weapon. Ask them to explain to you where they got there facts that X amount of land is being destroyed in the rain forest.
Check this out... Go here: http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/rainforest/7 2/3rain.html This page says that 35 acres of land are being destroyed every second... that is 11037600000 That is 11 BILLION acres of land in a year. 11 effing billion acres of land a year. That means that in just 10 years we have destroyed, 110 BILLION (that is ILLION with a B) acres of land. yeah, right, gotcha.
Lets try another site.
Go here: http://www.ames.k12.ia.us/schools/ahs/class es/scie nce/biology/honors/McElvain/destruction.html
This site says that every second the size of a football field of rain forest are being destroyed. Damn, why did I go to that site? Now I have to convert a football field into acreage... I came up with 9.917 acres to a football feild. That comes out to... 312742512 Wait a minute, that is only 312 million acres a year... what gives?
Okay lets try a third site... http://ths.sps.lane.edu/biomes/rain3/rain 3.html 80 acres a minute. That comes out to... 42048000 That is only 42 million acres a year.
Hey this is fun, one more...
Ooohhh screw that. I just found a fun fact (yeah fact, I say this tongue in cheek) from here: http://www.aceer.org/htm_docs/rainforest.ht ml
They say that a few thousand years ago rain forests covered 5 billion acres of the Earths surface. Must have been an ice age or something. Maybe the humans grew larger rain forests. Maybe this imbecile needs to get in contact with the imbecile from the first web page I listed.
Okay if you look at the pages I RANDOMLY selected (as in I googled them and took the first few pages with information I could use) you will notice that they are not very professional. I am suspicious that at least two of them are high school kids.
But.... I am also suspicious that at least two of them that are high school kids are class projects of something, which means the teacher signed off on them.
I am also suspicious that this same teacher who thinks that 11 billion acres of land are being destroyed a year would be all over me for my spelling.
I started out by saying that I don't want to pave the world. And that is true. All I want is balance.
It is hard to get balance when you can't get your facts straight. It isn't that that I don't want reasonable laws and measures taken. It is that I want to start with a table and facts on them. Go from there.
These 'Green' people want to say to me 'Well no we don't know the number, but trust us it is large.'. Well, I need the number and I don't trust you.
If you can give me real information then we will go from there. But until then I refuse to go along with a stupid plan that says that the Earth would be an unliveable mess by they year 2000.
Think about that last statement. This whole green movement has been around a while now. 20 years ago the oceans were supposed to have frozen and the Earth would be unliveable by 2000. What happened?
OOOHHHHH I disagree with the animal rights movement. Gotcha. Better sensor my ideas. Wouldn't want any impressionable kids to see my line of reasoning. Next thing you know they will be conservatives, and we couldn't deal with that.
I have a question for you people that think I am a troll.
Since we have instituted the Endangered Species List what percentage of the species we have put on that list have been taken off that list as being 'No longer in danger of extinction'.
Back up your claim.
See the system is broken. I know you find the idea offensive that somehow my life is worth more then say a bunny rabbit, or a turtle, or possibly the SARS virus. I know the mere thought of Capitalism is offensive.
Speaking of that. Has anyone else taken notice to how this whole 'Green' thing is really bent around 'anti-capitilism'?
Look at the yearly G-8 fiascos. Since when is rioting and looting gas stations doing anything to help the environment, or poor people.
From where I sit if you think I am a troll then you look like a troll to me.
Speaking of that, am I alone out of getting more satisfaction out of modding people up then modding trolls?
I let other people modd trolls, I mod people interesting and informative. I like rewarding.
Oh, there is that conservative liberal thing again. Sorry about that.
Compare the truss design of the WTC to the design of the Empire State.
You will see the that Empire State is basically a series of boxes on top of each other. The WTC is supported from the outside along 4 main walls, the Empire State is supported from within with many, many supports.
If you want a really good idea of what is going on google pictures of both buildings during construction and you will see that the Empire is basicaly over built and the WTC is not.
This idea that a couple of mice outweighs million dollar projects in the US and projects in China that will result in people not getting killed by annual floods is just flawed.
Nature itself causes animal extinctions every day. Nature doesn't need our help with that.
Thing is you need balance. And right now the damn animal activists are against that. 18,000 people dying a year overweighs the extinction problems.
And as far as less important projects, we need balance. If I own a house and an endangered turtle shows up then tough shit for the turtle. I guess if a zoo or foundation wanted to grab it then I wouldn't protest. Course I might be inclined to say they pay for it, or the right to come on my property and take it.
But these rulings that say that people cannot improve property they own, that is nuts.
I say it boils down to this. If there is an ecosystem that can support the creature then a fair amount of that land should be protected (notice I didn't say the contested ecosystem) and an intelligent amount of animals moved to it. Then construction should follow.
Down with ecoterrorists. They are just like normal terrorists, except for the eco- part.
Slashdot Mirror
The US has had an astronaught die in space. One of the maneuvering jets in an X-15 got stuck open. I remember seeing cockpit footage of it once when I was a kid.
What an awful way to die.
I made you all look bad and read the article.
On the one hand, the article is full of bias. To me it doesn't read like a piece of journalism. It reads like some geeky programmers got there hands on this thing and they published the article. They want it to be Watergate. If it was Watergate there would be no reason for them to say so every 3rd paragraph. It would just be.
Towards the end there is also a very liberal anti-conservative slant to it. A good piece of journalism has no slant in either direction.
So anyone that reads this article and is not sold is forgiven.
That being said.
This entire issue makes two very strong cases (and it doesn't even try).
1. The need for the software in voting machines to be open source.
I am not one to push open source software. I don't see why it should be required in the government, schools or any other place.
But the voting booth is different.
Force the electronic voting booth companies to make there software open source. If they do that then there isn't a state in this country that will have to spend one silver dime on an outside company to audit there software.
Geeks the world over will be more then happy to do it for them. I can think of no better (and democratic) way to ensure fair elections.
2. This is a really good anti-DCMA argument.
Thing is this. The DCMA basicaly says that it is against the law to break encryption. So if it is against the law to break encryption, then there is no need for strong encryption.
Case in point, this article is based out of New Zealand. It links to a page that is loaded with zips (all key code encrypted) that contain (I suppose, I haven't downloaded and looked yet) source files and documentation.
Now in the US I don't think I have broken any laws mearly downloading those files. But once I break that easily broken zip encryption I have (they linked to a site that will do just that).
At that point I have broken a law.
So if there is something to keep under wraps then Diebold can do so quite easily. They can DCMA any website linked to those files. Hell they can prosecute anyone that has opened them.
Talking to a computer is a fantascticly awful experience.
....
Case in point:
Clair (automated voice operator from hell, Sprint PCS customers know who I am talking about)
Clair: 'Welcome to Sprint. How may I help you?'
(I begin to sweat, my blood pressure goes up)
'Ummm.... ughhhh...'
Clair: 'Sorry, I don't recognize that response. How may I help you?'
Me: 'ummm Why is there a charge on my phone bill I don't recognize?'
Clair: 'Sorry, I don't recognize that response. How may I help you?'
(If at first you don't succeed, chew clair out)
Me: 'I hate you clair. You are ugly, and your Mom was a 56K modem. Your Dad is an out of work IBM.'
Clair: 'Sorry, I don't recognize that response. How may I help you?'
Me: 'Billing problems?'
Clair: 'Sorry, I don't recognize that response. How may I help you?'
goes on and on and on and on...
So yeah, talking to a computer gets me real excited.
Repeat after me, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD.
I would put these kids in jail first. I would push for terrorist charges. I would try to get one of those sentences where they are not allowed within 15 feet of a computer for like 15 years.
Then (just to piss them off) I would release Linux for the xBox just as they asked.
The icing on my cake? I would charge like $100 for it.
Alas, Bill isn't that entertaining.
He probably has better things to do with his life then screw with these two morons.
I wonder if this is the real problem.
I think Tron 2.0 is the name of the new movie coming out, and probably the name of the crappy video game tie in as well.
You think he grabbed some images of the game and posted them to his website?
I wonder if he hadn't done that if they would have left him alone.
Hmmmm....
I see the words 'bootable CD' and the words 'linux distro'....
I know nothing about Linux.
Is running this thing as simple as booting the CD?
In my oppinion there is a part of the DMCA (or maybe it is the Patriot act, or both?) that is getting ignored, but in some ways more evil then the whole copyright bit.
It is the way they make it illegal to break encryption.
I see it like this. Encryption is made to be broken. Seriously. Walking around saying something dumb like 'It is illegal to break encryption, so we don't need better encryption.' makes as much sense as saying 'If we make gun ownership illegal, all criminals will stop owning guns.'.
In a way this mirrors the gun debate. There is nothing fundamentaly bad about breaking encryption itself, just like there is nothing fundamentaly bad about pointing a rifle at a target. But point that rifle at a person....
The thing about encryption is that if you want to know HOW a criminal or a corporate spy or anyone else might break your encryption you gotta do it yourself.
And once you do you roll better encryption.
Anyone else remember when 128 bit encryption was unbreakable?
Those students and geeks that get together and challenge themselves to break the latest and greatest encryption are doing buisnesses and geeks everywhere an enormous favor. They are pushing for better encryption.
We need this. This is not bad.
If you want an encryption law then put it in perspective. How about we just change it to 'Breaking encryption on a product you are not licensed to use is illegal.'.
I think I could live with that. Seems like a nice middle ground to me, it protects those people that, well they are risking jail time now.
In all fairness...
If you are a business and you are backing up to CD then you deserve to go under.
I didn't read the article (I know, I know...) but I have not heard of people including digital back up tapes in the same boat with CD's, so I don't buy the idea there will be any additional taxes of levy's on that media.
And besides an 8gb backup tape is sooooo 21st century.
The company I work for (far from the cutting edge) uses 40 gb backup tapes.
I seriously don't see this hurting IT. As for other things....
If such a law were to pass IN ANY STATE.
I hereby swear to never make a legal music or movie purchase AT ALL. INCLUDING STUFF I LIKE. Until the law is overturned.
I will spend '0' dollars in a full-on boycott.
Lets see,
The new Terminator 2 Extreme DVD: $20
The new Britney Spears: $18-$20
DVD's should be more expensive then CD's.
Period.
Screw inflation, everything you need to know is right there.
I am gonna get all hypothetical here. Me thinks this could be done. But it isn't being worked on to the best of my knowledge.
Okay I have say 1000 tracks available on my hard drive. What if I built a P2P system that required you to 'borrow' tracks from my drive.
In other words my tracks would have some sort of DRM on them. When you checked them out you would be granted lets say 7 days worth of time, but I would be restricted from listening to those tracks via DRM for an equal 7 days.
The DRM would only allow the original owner to 'lend' (you couldn't lend your copy out).
According to what I have read the RIAA supports this (I am not buying that they do mind you, I am calling this guy a liar) and he says that they don't enforce copyright against people who borrow CD's from libraries and copy them at home, so I should not expect them to go after me (the original owner who is not cheating the system) because some jackass is making an audio dub of the file.
When CD's were new they were introduced to the market at an extravogent rate. People were in shock how expensive CD's were.
I remember reading articles that simplyfied supply and demand and tried to explain how if people were only willing to pay those stupid high rates in only a few years CD's would be less expensive then tapes.
I think CD's costed something like $20 a piece.
So you see, when the RIAA makes a statement about things in the future they generaly know what they are talking about and don't lie at all.
'"And speaking of the EU. What is the deal with that montrosity anyways?
You have all these people just boiling over with jealousy about the US, saying all kinds of nasty things. But they all are appearing to emulate us. I mean 250 years ago we were a collection of territories that all were independent."
jelousy? i doubt. emulate? i hope not. and for the degree of independence of states please explain the "war of secession".
and somehow i don't think the US have a license on a union.'
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My point was that on paper some of the states are still technicaly independent, they are called 'Commonwealths'. I think there are 7 of them, although I honestly don't know which ones they are.
But it is only a technicality. For every decade and century that goes by they are less and less in reality independent of anything.
Believe me I only have to travel 100 miles south of where I am to find people that dissagree with the outcome of 'the war of secessio', they refer to it as 'the war of northern agression'. They say 'The South shall rise again' and they mean it.
I was just trying to say that the road you are on leads to (a) failure or (b) and outcome like ours, where the individual countries that you have all but dissapear and the history of the area is only a collective organism under one nation.
This isn't a bad thing mind you, but the only person you are fooling is yourself if you think there is a different outcome.
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'define what you mean with "socialism" and explain why you don't like it.'
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By a differnt name, liberalism. Or the pleasing of everyone by government edict on a massive scale.
State controlled health care for one. The Canadians have a centralized health care system like you envy and it is a real mess. Rich Canadians regularly come to the US for there health care needs.
Why would they do that?
Because the Canadian health care system isn't working as advertised. For all the faults our health care system does have it is still better then a socialist, i.e. liberal, i.e. centralized health care system.
Ditto for education. Can the student read English? Can they add and subtract? Know the definition of a mile? The history of the US? Then we are done talking about Government controlled education. We regulate it at the State and most often local level. The reason is simple. Different communities want different things out of the education system. The Southern Baptist people want something different then the people in NY. If you have a kid and you don't like the public system where you live and you can't afford private then there is nothing stopping you from moving to a community where you like and agree with the public system.
It is a good system.
1. The Euro will follow. Just wait. I was never in denial about the dollar, I just knew it was taking us a little longer.
2. I was poking fun at the Euro. I think it is a stupid name for currency. I think the currency looks even stupider. Sorry, my oppinion.
3. Regulate education? On the outset it sounds like a good idea. But in practice it is just insane. In the US education is left at the State level, and most States pretty much leave it at the local level. You can't please everyone and you shouldn't try. That is why you shouldn't regulate education. If you try to regulate it you end up with a mess of trying to please everyone.
4. Your currency is only 4 years old. I don't care how strong you think it is. It is still only 4 years old. You just can't get around that. Currency has ups and downs. Sometimes you are strong, sometimes weak. I question wether countries that just 6 years ago had independent currencies are going to sit around and weather the storm when the euro eventually goes through a down spell. France has a sordid history of changing there minds acording to the direction of the wind. Is the Euro capable of surviving a large company opting out when the going gets rough?
5. You are confusing Iraq with the US. We stopped a country that practiced state-sponsored killing on a massive scale. As far as Muslim's and Islam, the US enjoys a massive population of Muslims. Those people are not the bad guys, and we know it. The bad guys are (1) new Muslim immigrants from the middle East and (2) part of the population of newly converted Muslims within our own country (before you say I am trolling do some research about WHO those people make up and my point will be made self-evident). Look, these people have declared war on our country. Us being suspicious of them is every bit as valid as us being suspicious of German citizens during WW1 and 2.
And as far as persecuting our own citizens, we did that, WW2 and Japanese. We view it as a mistake on a grand scale. We won't be doing it again.
Someone needs to explain to me how the EU can enforce American companies to collect a tax for the EU.
Seems to me that what is reall going on is liberal 'fairness'. Think about it. You live in the EU and you can buy stuff online cheaper from the US then actually walking into a local store and buying it.
Gee that isn't 'fair'.
Seems fair to me. The problem isn't the local store or the American business. The problem is at home. It is with the taxes the EU is charging, it is the exchange rate.
If the EU fixes those things on there end then the price for buying something from the US and shipping it really shouldn't matter.
But I really am not understanding this. What legal means is the EU going to use to enforce American businesses to charge these taxes?
Now I can see one way. If those businesses have branches in the EU. Then the government has them by the short hairs.
But otherwise the EU is a paper tiger.
And speaking of the EU. What is the deal with that montrosity anyways?
You have all these people just boiling over with jealousy about the US, saying all kinds of nasty things. But they all are appearing to emulate us. I mean 250 years ago we were a collection of territories that all were independent.
Hell, according to some modes of thinking some states still are independent. Those States are known as Commonwealths.
So in some respects it appears that the EU is trying to emulate someone they despise.
But I can look at it another way too. There is another (defunct and sad place today) place that did the same damn thing. The USSR. And we all know what kind of nasty failure that was.
Sometimes the EU just smacks a little too much of socialism for my taste. I think if I lived there I would be very, very unhappy with the state of affairs. I am not even sure if a common currency is a good idea.
What happens if the disney dollar, oh I am sorry, the euro tanks?
How quickly will countries wash there hands of it?
Especially countries that had a decent currency before the Euro. As soon as those countries start giving up on it everyone looses.
And YES the US was there too. If you want to know just how hard it is to do what you are trying to do just look at the history of currency in the US.
For a good period of time, up until the civil war the states all had there own currency. It was a mess.
I do it specificaly to annoy you.
Consider 'Operation Annoy Anonymous Coward' a success.
Why yes, as a matter of fact it is a conspiracy against you. Us insiders just refer to it as the 'O double A C'.
A very smart women once told me that you must choose your battles. Some battles are not worth the cost of winning.
I think this is as true for spam as anything else in life.
I think we need to look at the battle to kill spam and reduce it in scope a bit. This idea of simply 'spam bad, kill it' is actually too broad.
It leaves open too many issues, like companies that allow opt-in lists and the like.
I can't wait for the first time that some kid decides to send an email to every kid in his school and the kid or the school gets sued under some spam law. That would prove the validity of my point.
However Porn (yummy) is a fight worth winning.
It is so clear and concise. How can you argue against it?
Playboy and Penthouse have some fascinating articles in them sometimes (or at least they used to, I haven't read one in years). Would you have a problem with me giving your 12 year old a copy of Penthouse just because I thought some article in it would interest him?
I just don't see how any reasonable person can find any circumstance where putting porn in the hands of kids is acceptable.
If the companies say that they don't know how to tell the difference between a 12 year olds email address and an adults I think we should just agree with them that that is a real headscracther.
It just might not be possible to spam porn.
The hardship in this fight needs to be squarely placed on the shoulders of the porn industry. There is no reason to force kids to register special email addresses, that is what they porn industry would ask for and they need to be denied it.
Tell the porn industry this. If someone pays you money to access your sight then you can spam the email address that is tied with that account.
That way you got the industry in a trap. If some kid stole daddies card and daddy finds the porn in the kids mailbox later on then the porn industry is still at fault for distributing porn to a minor.
Moral Speeding?
I dare you to drive 55 on the PA turnpike around Pittsburg.
Email me if you survive the experience.
Dude that is more like speeding to stay alive.
The first time I drove on that stretch of the turnpike I came through an area where there pretty much was no shoulder. Every 1/2 mile or so they had carved a space out where a truck or a couple of cars could pull over in case of a problem. Aside from those spots you were in deep trouble if you had engine problems.
Well traffic was, wow. I think I was too young to be driving on that road. I remember driving like 10 or 15 miles over the speed limit, something like 75 or 80 and being scared to death to go any faster.
Problem was I was holding up traffic something fierce. People were crawling up my ass and pushing me to go faster.
In one of those holes there was a cop sitting. As God as my witness (and co-pilot if I remember correctly) that cop was just simply sitting there taking his time. Everyone was speeding. He would sit there and occasionally and randomly put on his lights and pull someone over.
It was a real mess.
I have bought more games this year then I think I have ever before.
And every year I buy less and less music.
And there is nothing strange about it.
The RIAA has gotten me to the point where I feel like a schmuck every time I buy music.
But the game industry on the other hand.
You know it is kind of strange. Cause I don't think that PC games are any less buggy this year then any other.
But this year I am treating them differntly. I download them off Usenet and give them a try. If I can't get the game to run or the control is just god awful (like the Matrix, what a crime that is) then I count myself lucky I downloaded the game and I don't worry about it.
If on the other hand the game runs fine and I play it a couple of times, I buy a legit copy.
Sometimes if the game is buggy but has potential (like Need For Speed 2 6 months ago) I put it aside and try to patch it. If the patch solves the problem I buy it.
Granted my plan is skirting the law. But the honest truth is that 2 years ago I was so fed up with the general bugginess of PC games that I had given up playing them at all. It is a crime when they advertise a game will work and it doesn't.
I think I have a pretty good system.
I am waiting for that.
I have owned Walkmans of every type over the years, high quality, low quality, radios, tape players, CD players. The only exception is an MP3 device.
I have learned my lesson.
For whatever reason on ALL of these devices within a couple months of buying them I break the headphone jack on the device. It will get loose and start to loose the stereo sound and then eventually it won't be useable at all.
I have never had an understanding of what I was doing to break all of them.
But I do know that iPods and the like are way too expensive for me to just break them a month down the road.
A bluetooth iPod and a bluetooth enabled headset seems to me like a killer combination that would resolve that problem.
I am waiting....
I am a big fan of laying all the facts out on the table and seeing what is really going on.
7 2/3rain.html
s es/scie nce/biology/honors/McElvain/destruction.html
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t ml
It isn't that I want to pave the world. That is just stupid.
It is that I want balance. Humans have carved out a pretty neat little niche for ourselves.
I have to question wether we really have the science to mesure if we are destroying the world or not.
Hell, I question if we can really destroy the world, short of nukes that is.
I read an article earlier this year about how scientists have found some sort of screwed up natural chemical reaction in the atmosphere that automaticaly cleans up the air.
Thing is, these people are just socialists in disguise. They don't know the facts.
Don't believe me, just ask them.
Ask them to back up what they believe in.
You said about that double negative thing, we have the same weapon.
Ask them to explain to you where they got there facts that X amount of land is being destroyed in the rain forest.
Check this out...
Go here: http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/rainforest/
This page says that 35 acres of land are being destroyed every second... that is 11037600000
That is 11 BILLION acres of land in a year.
11 effing billion acres of land a year.
That means that in just 10 years we have destroyed, 110 BILLION (that is ILLION with a B) acres of land.
yeah, right, gotcha.
Lets try another site.
Go here:
http://www.ames.k12.ia.us/schools/ahs/clas
This site says that every second the size of a football field of rain forest are being destroyed. Damn, why did I go to that site? Now I have to convert a football field into acreage...
I came up with 9.917 acres to a football feild.
That comes out to... 312742512
Wait a minute, that is only 312 million acres a year... what gives?
Okay lets try a third site...
http://ths.sps.lane.edu/biomes/rain3/rai
80 acres a minute. That comes out to... 42048000
That is only 42 million acres a year.
Hey this is fun, one more...
Ooohhh screw that. I just found a fun fact (yeah fact, I say this tongue in cheek) from here:
http://www.aceer.org/htm_docs/rainforest.h
They say that a few thousand years ago rain forests covered 5 billion acres of the Earths surface.
Must have been an ice age or something.
Maybe the humans grew larger rain forests.
Maybe this imbecile needs to get in contact with the imbecile from the first web page I listed.
Okay if you look at the pages I RANDOMLY selected (as in I googled them and took the first few pages with information I could use) you will notice that they are not very professional.
I am suspicious that at least two of them are high school kids.
But....
I am also suspicious that at least two of them that are high school kids are class projects of something, which means the teacher signed off on them.
I am also suspicious that this same teacher who thinks that 11 billion acres of land are being destroyed a year would be all over me for my spelling.
I started out by saying that I don't want to pave the world. And that is true.
All I want is balance.
It is hard to get balance when you can't get your facts straight. It isn't that that I don't want reasonable laws and measures taken. It is that I want to start with a table and facts on them. Go from there.
These 'Green' people want to say to me 'Well no we don't know the number, but trust us it is large.'. Well, I need the number and I don't trust you.
If you can give me real information then we will go from there. But until then I refuse to go along with a stupid plan that says that the Earth would be an unliveable mess by they year 2000.
Think about that last statement. This whole green movement has been around a while now. 20 years ago the oceans were supposed to have frozen and the Earth would be unliveable by 2000. What happened?
Who needs Neilson when we have Tivo?
I am absolutely serious. That is the data Tivo needs to be selling.
I fail to see how I am a troll.
OOOHHHHH I disagree with the animal rights movement. Gotcha. Better sensor my ideas. Wouldn't want any impressionable kids to see my line of reasoning.
Next thing you know they will be conservatives, and we couldn't deal with that.
I have a question for you people that think I am a troll.
Since we have instituted the Endangered Species List what percentage of the species we have put on that list have been taken off that list as being 'No longer in danger of extinction'.
Back up your claim.
See the system is broken. I know you find the idea offensive that somehow my life is worth more then say a bunny rabbit, or a turtle, or possibly the SARS virus. I know the mere thought of Capitalism is offensive.
Speaking of that.
Has anyone else taken notice to how this whole 'Green' thing is really bent around 'anti-capitilism'?
Look at the yearly G-8 fiascos.
Since when is rioting and looting gas stations doing anything to help the environment, or poor people.
From where I sit if you think I am a troll then you look like a troll to me.
Speaking of that, am I alone out of getting more satisfaction out of modding people up then modding trolls?
I let other people modd trolls, I mod people interesting and informative. I like rewarding.
Oh, there is that conservative liberal thing again. Sorry about that.
Now back to our regularly scheduled ranting.
Compare the truss design of the WTC to the design of the Empire State.
You will see the that Empire State is basically a series of boxes on top of each other.
The WTC is supported from the outside along 4 main walls, the Empire State is supported from within with many, many supports.
If you want a really good idea of what is going on google pictures of both buildings during construction and you will see that the Empire is basicaly over built and the WTC is not.
Animal extinction crap is over-rated.
This idea that a couple of mice outweighs million dollar projects in the US and projects in China that will result in people not getting killed by annual floods is just flawed.
Nature itself causes animal extinctions every day. Nature doesn't need our help with that.
Thing is you need balance. And right now the damn animal activists are against that.
18,000 people dying a year overweighs the extinction problems.
And as far as less important projects, we need balance. If I own a house and an endangered turtle shows up then tough shit for the turtle. I guess if a zoo or foundation wanted to grab it then I wouldn't protest. Course I might be inclined to say they pay for it, or the right to come on my property and take it.
But these rulings that say that people cannot improve property they own, that is nuts.
I say it boils down to this. If there is an ecosystem that can support the creature then a fair amount of that land should be protected (notice I didn't say the contested ecosystem) and an intelligent amount of animals moved to it.
Then construction should follow.
Down with ecoterrorists.
They are just like normal terrorists, except for the eco- part.