Just went and RTFA, and I'm frustrated by a lack of hard details about the new threat:
- The article states that all x86 processors "could" be vulnerable. Does that mean the *entire* series of Pentium chips, even the older PIII and PII's? If so, are they equally as easy to compromise as the modern versions?
- There is no mention of AMD architecture. Doesn't AMD have an equivalent "overheat failsafe" halt-and-cooldown function? Wouldn't that make AMDs vulnerable to this type of exploit as well, or do they require a slightly different attack?
- Isn't the motherboard BIOS FlashROM responsible for the monitoring of and responding to dangerous CPU temperatures? Haven't they already been safeguarded against unauthorized writes, due to the Chernobyl virus?
I think I'll hold off on ordering the prototype Borg implants when they come on the market....:-(
Sorry, but I have to disagree with you: the US military *does* look for "bad muthafuckas" who can jump into a firefight without even twitching. Read this article:
When I asked my "Army vet buddy" about this, he told me that recruiters *love* gangbangers, ESPECIALLY ones who have used firearms! It means the recruits are already mentally toughened, socially conditioned to work in a hierarchy, and have "tasted blood"! To a recruiter, that's prime candidate material for a soldier. So you can bet that most of those new recruits being shipped to Iraq came straight from the streets....
Btw, my friend enlisted while he was in a Chicago street gang, so he's an example of the rule as well.;-)
You betcha! Strange but true, Carl Sagan was interviewed at considerable length by Playboy, which published it in one of its issues during the 1980s (don't know if it was reprinted in Playboy's 100 Greatest Interviews, but I hope so). In the interview, Sagan gave his candid thoughts on such topics as
- the infamous SDI "Star Wars" program: "...even if the system were ninety percent effective -- which no one thinks it could be -- and the Soviets launched, let's say, ten thousand warheads, and we shot down ninety percent of them -- a thousand warheads would still get through. A thousand nuclear explosions on American soil is enough to destroy the United States many times over. Star Wars is a delusion."
- the (lack of) scientific understanding among Americans: "Look at Mr. [George H.W.] Bush! On several occasions, he has said that he can't understand *anything* about science, as if he were proud of it. I don't think that's something to be proud of. It's a sign of a nation that doesn't care about its future. Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many even have a *weekly* science column?"
- the "BILLions and BILLions" quote: "The oddest part is that I never said 'billions and billions.' Then again, Humphrey Bogart never said, 'Play it again, Sam,' and in the books, Sherlock Holmes never said, 'Elementary, my dear Watson.'"
- the debate over global warming: "If anybody doubts that a big carbon-dioxide greenhouse effect can be dangerous, look at Venus. Nine-hundred degrees Fahrenheit! Now tell me that the greenhouse effect is just made up by liberal college professors!" (It is important to note that Venus is actually *hotter* than Mercury, which is the closest planet to the Sun!)
- the accusation that Sagan was just a scientific doomsayer: "Well, suppose it's decades in the future and we're actually in the grips of some monstrous environmental disaster, and then I have to look back at my conduct. Which is better -- to say I warned of this but people paid no attention... or that I kept quiet for fear of bothering people? In which case would I feel that I had fulfulled my obligation to my children, my grandchildren? The answer is clear." Playboy: "But instead of facing the problems, some people just want to close their eyes to them." Sagan: "Psychologists have a word for that. Denial." [Looks up, smiles] "And as the Dire Straits song goes, 'Denial ain't just a river in Egypt....'"
I was so impressed by the interview that I clipped it out of the magazine and put it in clear plastic document protectors (the kind that go into a 3-ring binder) -- where it remains in near-perfect condition to this day! (Ditto for Playboy's Arthur C. Clarke interview.)
> There is a 13 yr old son at home or school that needs food, clothing, a place to stay and all those other little things that a child needs growing up. If I could provide more of those "little things" or better "little things" and most importantly MORE TIME to spend with him enjoying those little things I'd be there
Good to hear that you're a dedicated father who dotes on your son -- certainly you have good intentions. Just some food for thought:
"With mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paved." -- William James (better known as "the road to hell is paved with good intentions.")
"We do not inherit the earth from out parents. We borrow it from our children." -- Native American proverb
And finally, a sig from one of our very own Slashdotters:
"I worry that some day my child will ask me, 'Dad, where were you when they took freedom of the press from the internet?'"
> Who wants to pay for their past actions every day?
My "Army vet buddy" told me of the things (some funny, some ugly) he and his fellow soldiers did in both Korea and Nam. We get along great, but I always wonder (but never inquire) if there's more and even nastier shit that he hasn't let me know of. I know that he's constantly fighting depression (he's been medically diagnosed as having it) and every so often he talks about wanting to do something like take a saw and cut off his own legs (self-destructive thoughts) -- so we're talking about some pretty heavy inner demons.
Here's the weird thing about our friendship: he's an all-American white guy, while I'm a full-blooded Korean. I've noticed that guys like us tend to stay away from each other (though this seems to get less and less true as time goes on) -- in fact, he confessed to me that in his youth he was a racist asshole who absolutely *hated* Korea when he served there. Yet, ever since the day I first met him, I consider him to be the most intelligent and respectful person I've known.
Maybe that's my friend's way of making up for what he was and what he did....
> Nope. Most theologians correctly pair faith and reason together as inextricably tied.
Uh-huh. So... based on that line of reasoning, we can trust in theology to be a reliable source of logic and reason? Wasn't it theologians who maintained that the world was flat, the sun revolved around the Earth, and that the Moon is a perfectly smooth sphere?-- all conclusions based entirely on their reasoning?
Hell, even scientists can screw up royally when they become overdependent on reasoning -- everyone used to think Venus was a tropic-like "sister planet" of the Earth, simply because all telescope observations of Venus revealed a heavily clouded atmosphere, so dense that no surface features were visible. Their line of reasoning went something like this:
"Damn! I wish I could see through Venus's clouds."
"Yeah, but since it's cloudy all over Venus, we at least know it's got plenty of water."
"Uh-huh. It must rain on Venus a hell of a lot -- maybe all the time."
"You mean, like a planet-sized rain forest?"
"Hell, yeah! Of course, a lot of the surface must be covered by water, so Venus must have seas and oceans like Earth -- maybe more than us!"
"Wow! The whole planet could be teeming with life already! On land *and* sea!"
"Cool!!"
Of course, astronomers had no way to test these theories, but that didn't stop sci-fi writers from having a field day cooking up ideas on what life on Venus must be like. It never occurred to anyone that the clouds of Venus might not be made of water....
Enter radio astronomy, which gives observers the power to determine the precise chemistry and temperature of objects in space -- stars, planets, gas clouds, etc. When the first radio telescopes were aimed at Venus, astronomers were in for *two* shocks:
1.) The clouds of Venus consisted almost entirely of sulfur oxide and sulfuric acid -- corrosive and deadly to every living thing we know of, and
2.) The average surface temperature on Venus is over *eight-hundred degrees Fahrenheit*! "Too hot for me!"
Furthermore, both findings were proven conclusively when the first Venus probes were launched by NASA in its "Pioneer Venus" program. Sadly, none of the probes lasted much more than an hour after landing on the surface. (However, try bathing any machine in sulfuric acid rain while baking it at 800 degrees and see how long *it* lasts!)
Science isn't about reasoning alone: it also involves observation and experimentation, vital to the formulating *and proving* of ideas. Without them, it's easy to start from bad premises, reason with unproven assumptions, and reach flawed conclusions which never get tested! (Until some wiseass like Galileo comes along and starts spouting off about how this and that idea being stated as fact by the Church *is total bullshit* -- and that he has proof!)
> This is what many people now equate with any kind of religious faith, or any kind of faith in general, but it is not the traditional western view of faith. Perhaps now the term is charged with that meaning and may be why this debate is a little unclear.
"Perhaps"? "May be"? You don't get out much, do you?;-)
When I was studying software engineering, the instructors and professors spoke of "confidence", "optimism", "probability" and "statistical likelihood", "certainty" (but only in a relative sense -- e.g.: "high certainty" vs. "low certainty"), "trustworthy" and "reliability". NO ONE ever spoke of "faith".
My first lecturer, a professor teaching an introductory course, said, "No matter if it's design or execution, question everything! It's always the one thing you *didn't* think about that turns around and bites you in the ass!" He went on by recounting to us numerous engineering fuckups in history, including the sinking of the Titanic and the Challenger space shuttle disaster. He concluded by telling us bluntly, "You fuck up, someone else dies."
> they still need to advertise the new weapons, these american tv-wars are great for that.
Carl Sagan made a wry observation about exactly that, back during Iraq War I when the TV news programs were loaded with glowing reports about the Patriot interceptor missiles, "smart" bombs, etc. "[It] was a massive arms bazaar arranged by the United States to showcase some of the products that you, too, might acquire -- and only for all the critical resources of your society that might otherwise be spent on bettering your people. Line up over here!" (excerpt from the Playboy interview).
> i have to agree that america needs war, but look at how the economy changes for the better everytime there is a war.
Reminds me of a debate I got into with one of those neo-con pro-biz warhawks just a few years ago about the (yet to occur) effects of the US war on Iraq. Mr. Warhawk was practically beaming about how occupying and rebuilding Iraq would pay for itself, how the US would reap enormous wealth from the influx of Iraqi oil, and that military spending would actually *strengthen* the American economy -- like the massive military expenditures during the Reagan Years! (Can you say "trickle-down theory"?)
I let him finish gushing about Ronnie Raygun, paused, then said, "Okay, sooooo.... war is the answer."
That kind of took the wind out of his sails. What I didn't say (but in retrospect really wish I had) was, "Therefore, the most important reason to wage a war in which hundreds to thousands of our American troops will be sent to a foreign land to fight and die...ISN'T to defend our country, ISN'T to protect our liberty, and ISN'T to promote democracy...it's to MAKE SOME MONEY?!?"
Alright, so let's accept the capitalist-pig view that war is all about feeding the money machine. How close (or how far) are we to breaking even on money spent on Iraq? How much is the federal deficit now? How much have gasoline prices changed, *and in what direction*? How much has consumer confidence and employee satisfaction improved (or worsened)?
Also, what of non-economic matters? How much safer (or more frightened) do we Americans feel about another attempted terrorist attack on US soil? How (un)successful have we been in establishing peace and starting a new democracy in Iraq? How much (or how little) respect do we have from the other nations of the world?
What of the veterans who return home (if they ever do -- for many US troops, tours of duty keep getting extended indefinitely)? If you develop PTSD and have screaming nightmares whenever you try to sleep, how much money is that worth? Or if you jump whenever a car backfires or a kid sets off a firecracker within earshot? Or if your mind keeps replaying the memory of a fellow soldier -- maybe a close buddy -- being shot in the head or blown to bloody bits? What amount of value, what price tag, can you possibly assign to that?
Btw, my closest friend is a retired Army master drill sergeant who served in Korea *and* Vietnam. I've seen him wake up in cold sweats during the middle of the night, and he keeps a bowie knife next to his pillow "just in case." Oh, and he despises Dubya.:-D
> Yes spying and everything is wrong. But with the NSA having more power than ever and needing to acquire/sift through more and more information all the time, wouldn't it be a very cool place to work.
Dude, are you SERIOUS?! That's like a physics student saying, "Yes, killing and everything is wrong. But with the defense industry having more power than ever and needing to develop/upgrade more and more weapons all the time, wouldn't it be a very cool job to have?"
To me that's the ethical equivalent of selling your soul to the Devil. You may reap material rewards for the time being, but at the cost of permanently subverting your humanity. Some nuclear physicists who worked in military research realized this later in their careers, and developed a form of "executioner's guilt" -- one such scientist admitted to being unable to get any decent sleep because he kept dreaming of hearing a million screams coming from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That diatribe was aimed at the programmers who cooked up the Sony DRM software. So how much more outrage is warranted for *a tech who actively develops the tools to arm Big Brother*?
> Just because you don't know what you will (or will not) find does not make something non-science.
True, but even Arthur C. Clarke is on record saying there is always the possibility that *there may be no other life forms in the universe*. And we're talking about one of the biggest authors in science fiction!
There is also something to be said about healthy skepticism when it comes to a prolonged lack of evidence in spite of ample opportunity. As James "The Amazing" Randi put it, if you stay up on Christmas Eve night every year, waiting by the chimney yet never see Santa Claus, you haven't proven there is no Santa Claus. But after doing it for twenty years, you should probably call it quits.:-D
Given: God is omnipotent, which means God is all-powerful and can do anything. Question: Can God create a stone so heavy that even He cannot lift it?
This is the worst kind of contradiction possible -- a dilemma. If God can make a stone too heavy for Him to lift, then he's not omnipotent! If God can't make a stone too heavy for himself, he's *still* not omnipotent AND he gets embarrassed by us humans! (Ever packed too many books in a large box and discovered you couldn't lift it off the floor?)
While you're mulling that one over, here's something just for shits and giggles:
Given: God is omnipresent, which means God is everywhere and is in everything. Therefore: God is inside all of us, and is inside all parts of us...including our asses. Therefore: God has his head up everyone's asses. And... If: "Everyone" includes "God" Then: God has his head up his ass!
That definitely explains why everything is so fucked up here....:-D
> why are my ears facing forward instead of backwards? i can see forward, so wouldn't the greatest benefit come from having my ears pointed backwards so i could better hear prey coming up from behind?
You ears face forward so that sounds originating from *behind* you sound different from sounds originating *in front* of you. That way you can determine the direction of a noise source more accurately.
Jeez, I learned that in junior high biology. What the hell were they teaching *you*?
> how is being sexual in nature more conducive to survival?
Dude, were you even AWAKE during biology class?? I guess not....;-)
> My point was simply the idea of faith as based on evidence....
Sounds to me like you're deliberately abusing the word faith. As I understand it (and as I hear people around me use it) "faith" means "absolute belief regardless of proof."
When a scientist collects his data, documents his observations, then uses that evidence to form a theory, he has to come up with methods to prove the theory. Faith doesn't fit in the equation: if the scientist is already convinced his theory is good, he's in deep trouble because his mind can play tricks on itself -- focusing on favorable evidence while ignoring damning evidence, or "remembering the hits but forgetting the misses."
When Kepler received the collection of astronomical observations from Tycho, he was working on proving the heliocentric (sun at the center) model of the cosmos. Imagine his shock when, after he analyzed Tycho's records, Kepler found that they didn't fit the model! The problem was that Kepler was working from the common belief that *the planets follow perfectly circular orbits*. In essence, it was an article of faith: Everyone assumed that the heavens were the domain of perfection, and that planetary orbits had to be perfect circles.
Everyone was wrong.
The only way Kepler could explain the apparent position and movement of the planets was that they travelled in *elliptical* orbits, which are like imperfect circles. Then the theory matched the data. It took an enormous effort on Kepler's part (as shown in his journals) when he rejected faith in the face of stark truth.
This is why honest scientists avoid putting faith in many things, and frankly it annoys me as well when you blithely accuse such people of being no different than the ID zealot crowd. A scientist may have *confidence* in a theory, but if AND ONLY IF the evidence supports it. To paraphrase JFK, "theory is always subject to proof."
And as for putting faith in the sun rising tomorrow morning....did you know our ancestors feared the sun was dying every time there was an eclipse? Faith told them that the gods were angry (or that Nature was faltering) and that only loud prayers and sacrifices would bring the sun back. Science, of course, tells us to just sit tight and wait things out (and maybe dress up a little warmly) because IT'S JUST THE MOON PASSING IN FRONT OF THE SUN.
You're entitled to your belief, of course, and you can have it...all to yourself. However, the next time you go spouting off about the divine, you might think about this choice quote from an ancient Greek:
"Behold, the people think epilepsy divine because they do not understand it; but if all things we did not understand were divine, why, there would be no end to divine things."
The man was Hippocrates, best known as the father of medicine (the Hippocratic Oath comes from him) and who formed the theory that illness and disease were caused by purely physical means -- *not* by divine retribution or evil curse. Before Hippocrates, it was a common belief that people fell ill because they had angered the gods or had become possessed by a demonic evil, and so were either ostracized (literally, voted out of society) or put to death to prevent the "curse" from spreading.
Carl Sagan put it simply: "If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate." One method relies on nothing but faith. The other doesn't.
- The Jewish God? (Jehovah?) - The Muslim God? (Allah?) - The Deist or Unitarian God? - The Native American God? (the "Great Spirit"?) - The Ancient Greek God? (Zeus, ruler of the Olympians?) - The Old Norse God? (Odin?) - The Great Pumpkin?? - The Flying Spaghetti Monster??? (I've left out the Christian God, since that involves a nasty fork bomb.)
Good point. It's like corporate tools / CEOs pretending to be ordinary customsers so they can check out their competition.
With Micro$OFT, however, I suspect it is far more sinister. How else are the Microdrones going to know *exactly* how to fuck up a Linux server so that the piece-of-shit Win2K machine in the testbench looks like the winner?
Okay, let's see if this works: I'll explain things as comprehensively as I reasonably can, and if at any point you disagree *stop reading and disregard this entire post*.
The music corporations care about one thing and one thing only: they want to make money. Music is merely the means to an end, and the artist/band serves only as resources to be exploited to that end. This is true for any corporation, regardless of the nature of business it is involved with, and in spite of any ethical issue, popular concern, or public hazard. (Think General Dynamics, Enron, Halliburton, etc. ad nauseum.)
Music companies wish to sell music to the people. As I noted in an earlier post, however, people don't buy music they don't like, and they don't like music they don't hear. How then do music companies make money off of people?
One word: EXPOSURE.
This is why music blares in every supermarket, in every retail store, in every shopping mall, in every goddamn elevator lobby, and all over the airwaves. Exposure breeds familiarity, and familiarity fosters enjoyment (though some people find certain kinds of music more enjoyable than others do -- natural variance).
The same "saturation technique" is used by music companies regarding radio stations. They literally bombard the broadcasters with a flood of free CDs on a regular basis, enough so that the station and its program director *plus every DJ and his/her SO and the receptionist and the janitor* get a free copy, complete with jewel box and liner notes. Pretty generous for an industry that claims to be losing billions in lost sales due to downloading, no? No, because the recording companies only care about getting their music over the air. They want to increase the odds that *someone* at the station will like their product, even if it is total shit -- because they want EXPOSURE.
(What if *nobody* likes their music? Believe it or not, many companies will try to bully the station into playing the music anyway, even to the point of threatening to cut off all future shipments of CDs! My program director got a good laugh when some music rep tried this on him, since that would mean the record company would be cutting itself off from a publicity outlet -- which would then exclusively receive material from its competing labels! Not a very intelligent threat at all!)
Still with me? Good. Now let's look back at the dawn of videotape machines, where TV interests tried to outlaw the first VCR:
The Betamax case was filed in the U.S. Federal District Court of Los Angeles in November 1976 and went to trial on 30 January 1979. In its defense, Sony asserted that a consumer had the absolute right to record programs at home for private use. It drew an analogy to the audio cassette recorder, which was introduced in the 1960s and had made music tapers out of millions of American teenagers. Although the practice had not been tested in the courts, Sony believed a tradition had been established.
Feeling a little deja vu? Here we had content providers (producers of TV programming) claiming that the act of recording shows off of TV was a violation of copyright law! However, the court wisely ruled that idea to be patently ridiculous, stating that the use of TV recording equipment for personal use qualifies as permissible practice under a certain provision of copyright law. What was that legal provision?
Two words: FAIR USE
This was based directly on the example of audio-only sound recorders, which had (amazingly!) failed to bankrupt any of the music companies. Read on:
Handing down its decision in October 1979, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Sony, stating that taping off air for entertainment or time shifting constituted fair use; that copying an entire program also qualified as fair use; that set manufacturers could profit fro
I sympathize with everyone out there who gets annoyed at the (semi-)annual fundraising programs on public broadcast outlets -- I don't like them very much, either.
That said, I've seen what it's like on the other side of the fence. The college radio station I worked at was licensed as "public service" by the FCC, so it was prohibited from receiving commercial sponsorship. That meant its only sources of revenue were:
- The annual "Fun Drive" (I know, silly pun) - Public service announcements "underwritten" by donors (usually local businesses) - Various scattered fundraising events (on-campus music concerts, or dance parties featuring actual station DJs playing the music).
The station was not part of the college curriculum (i.e.: no courses or credit for broadcast journalism, etc.) nor did it have official status with the school, so it was something of an unwanted stepchild. On two separate occasions the station was unceremoniously "dumped" from its location and had to find a new home on campus. Yet everyone on the staff pitched in to keep the operation going, no matter how bad or hopeless things looked. It is important to note that this station was run entirely by volunteers (students and faculty)!
So when it was time for the Fun Drive, it was more than just an irritating "beg-a-thon." We poured our hearts into the station, and every one of us knew that it would be a tragedy to see the ship sink for lack of funds. Hell, it would be a travesty: imagine being at a radio station where the management *encourages* weird and unique show ideas like a music program called "Your Band Sucks!" (My personal favorite? "Cooler Than Jesus.")
Yes, fund drives are still annoying. Just remember that at least some of those people asking for your money are doing it because they believe in and care about what they're doing. I know I did.:-)
LOL! Excellent counterpost! "In a war of words, no weapon is more powerful than the truth."
Reminds me of the book "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" in which author Al Franken exposes countless inaccuracies, contradictions, and baldfaced whoppers that have come out of Limbaugh's mouth and gone over his broadcasted shows -- all of which could have easily been prevented by a reasonably competent fact-checker (that alone was the basis for a running gag in the book: [We Call] Rush Limbaugh's Fact Checker)
Hell, even a junior high school student surfing search engines would have done the job. In this modern Age of Google, there's no excuse to be that fucking misinformed. Of course, the Dittoheads are always convinced that *they* know the truth -- because "Rush Said So!" Wonder if they ever really listened to that song by Living Colour:
I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face in your TV
I'm the Cult of Personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
I'm the Cult of Personality
Reminds me of a classic bit from the Dave Letterman show (can't remember if it was pre-CBS or post-NBC). Dave pauses during his opening monologue, then smiles at the camera. "Ladies and gentlemen in the viewing audience at home: If you would like a videotaped copy of tonight's show.... TURN ON YOUR DAMN VCRs!!" (Massive laughter from studio audience.)
The point of the joke was to poke fun at the semi-common practice of offering videotaped recordings of TV shows for sale during the actual broadcast. Doing so, of course, is in no way illegal. *Neither is recording the broadcast on your own for your personal enjoyment.* That act is by definition "fair use" and it is covered by law.
The important thing to realize is that the act remains the same *regardless of the mechanism being used*. If I connect an audio patch cable from my radio's headphone jack to my computer's sound card input, I can record broadcasted music off the air. Since I didn't use a traditional tape machine, does that automatically make my actions ILLEGAL? Come on, get a clue already.
I started learning to play the piano when I was four years old. Much later, when I was in high school, one of my music teachers introduced me to "fake books". These are massive collections of songs written as a kind of abbreviated sheet music: each song is shown as a simple melody with lyrics and the appropriate chord progressions for harmony and bass line. These music books got their name because when they first came out *they were outlawed*. The sheet music publishing companies didn't want anyone cutting in on their action so they used the copyright law to make such books illegal! However, fake books became so popular and useful to musicians that they became widespread, and now fake books are no more illegal than taping music off the radio.
Sound familiar?
Still later, I became a DJ at my college's radio station and got to see the side of the music industry that the consumer rarely sees. You complain about music downloads hurting the music artists? Well, what if I told you that music publishers regularly send hundreds and thousands of *free* copies of albums to radio stations around the world ON A WEEKLY BASIS? It's called "broadcast promotions" and it works like this:
- You've got a new album by some random music artist/group. Print a shitload of CDs. - Send at least *two* of those CDs to the target radio station -- one for the station's music library, the other for the program director. - Better yet, send a few more CDs as well -- enough for all the music show DJs at the station to keep as personal copies. - Even better, send even more CDs so that everyone at the station (including the receptionist and the janitor) gets a free copy. Everybody wants one, everybody gets one! - Also, try to send a "press kit" including glowing descriptions of the music act's style, a biography, glossy photos, posters, etc. - Is the artist/band on a concert tour, and are they going to be performing near the target station? Send free concert tickets!!
Now take the above case, *which is only for one album*, and multiply by:
- the number of artists/bands handled by your music company, and - the number of broadcast stations around the world (commercial and public service).
If music downloads are hurting the recording industry so much, HOW CAN THEY AFFORD TO GIVE AWAY THAT MUCH SHIT EVERY WEEK, EVERY MONTH, EVERY YEAR AND STILL STAY IN BUSINESS???
It helps to note the production cost of a CD is below $1 US, while the typical price for same CD in the music store is $15-$19 US -- and *only a fraction of that goes to the artist/band who actually made the music*. The majority of that goes to the music company. So you'll pardon me if I say your argument sounds...a little off key.
Btw, I can personally attest to the fact that most of the music being published really is lousy. At one point we threw away an entire box of music because it was so bad, no one wanted to play it -- much less listen to it. But if that's all the music companies will send, then that's all the radio stations have to choose from.
>I see this infrastructure in the same light as the public highway system. Imagine what that would be if it were run by private industry.
I don't have to imagine it -- I've seen it. Back in the 90s the Orange County Board of Directors approved of a plan to build a toll road that cuts through San Joaquin Hills, then a pristine California wilderness area. The toll road was touted as a completely privatized, non-tax funded roadway that would quickly pay for itself and become a model for similar toll roads across the nation.
Fast forward to the present. The San Joaquin / Foothill 73 Toll Road is a fiscal nightmare and a public outrage:
- Despite all claims to the contrary, the toll road was financed by taxpayer revenue, which has never been recouped by the Transportation Corridor Authority (TCA), the private entity responsible for building and running the toll road system. - Instead of paying for itself and becoming a profitable operation, the toll road loses from *hundreds to thousands of dollars every day* -- due to inflated ridership projections and poor road surface maintenance. (Who wants to drive a speedway full of potholes?) - Far from becoming an exemplary precedent for other toll road proposals, the SoCal toll road has turned into a transportation fiasco, discouraging other municipalities across the US from embarking on similar privatized public-access roadway projects.
After years of accumulating massive financial losses, the TCA had to sell portions of the toll road to the Orange County Transportation Agency (or OCTA, which runs the freeway and public bus system) -- on the condition that OCTA must not widen existing freeways! In other words, a government transportation department is barred from upgrading its freeway system to better accomodate rising traffic *because it would make a useless toll road even more useless*.
It's corporation-hatched disasters like this and Enron that make me extremely suspicious of business nowadays. Then again, history is full of shady business dealings. Reminds me of a political cartoon of a CEO at his office desk saying, "At our company we make money the old-fashioned way. We steal it...."
Reminds me of the author of the anti-pr0n Comstock Act that was passed back in 1873. When Anthony Comstock died, people were shocked to discover he had amassed an enormous personal collection of pr0n.
What a fucking hypocrite. And all you good little Christians should remember that Jesus had some pointed words in the New Testament about hypocrites....
Slashdot Mirror
Just went and RTFA, and I'm frustrated by a lack of hard details about the new threat:
:-(
- The article states that all x86 processors "could" be vulnerable. Does that mean the *entire* series of Pentium chips, even the older PIII and PII's? If so, are they equally as easy to compromise as the modern versions?
- There is no mention of AMD architecture. Doesn't AMD have an equivalent "overheat failsafe" halt-and-cooldown function? Wouldn't that make AMDs vulnerable to this type of exploit as well, or do they require a slightly different attack?
- Isn't the motherboard BIOS FlashROM responsible for the monitoring of and responding to dangerous CPU temperatures? Haven't they already been safeguarded against unauthorized writes, due to the Chernobyl virus?
I think I'll hold off on ordering the prototype Borg implants when they come on the market....
Sorry, but I have to disagree with you: the US military *does* look for "bad muthafuckas" who can jump into a firefight without even twitching. Read this article:
- a-mexican/24749/
;-)
http://www.ocweekly.com/columns/ask-a-mexican/ask
When I asked my "Army vet buddy" about this, he told me that recruiters *love* gangbangers, ESPECIALLY ones who have used firearms! It means the recruits are already mentally toughened, socially conditioned to work in a hierarchy, and have "tasted blood"! To a recruiter, that's prime candidate material for a soldier. So you can bet that most of those new recruits being shipped to Iraq came straight from the streets....
Btw, my friend enlisted while he was in a Chicago street gang, so he's an example of the rule as well.
> Wait. Carl Sagan did an interview in Playboy!?!
You betcha! Strange but true, Carl Sagan was interviewed at considerable length by Playboy, which published it in one of its issues during the 1980s (don't know if it was reprinted in Playboy's 100 Greatest Interviews, but I hope so). In the interview, Sagan gave his candid thoughts on such topics as
- the infamous SDI "Star Wars" program:
"...even if the system were ninety percent effective -- which no one thinks it could be -- and the Soviets launched, let's say, ten thousand warheads, and we shot down ninety percent of them -- a thousand warheads would still get through. A thousand nuclear explosions on American soil is enough to destroy the United States many times over. Star Wars is a delusion."
- the (lack of) scientific understanding among Americans:
"Look at Mr. [George H.W.] Bush! On several occasions, he has said that he can't understand *anything* about science, as if he were proud of it. I don't think that's something to be proud of. It's a sign of a nation that doesn't care about its future. Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many even have a *weekly* science column?"
- the "BILLions and BILLions" quote:
"The oddest part is that I never said 'billions and billions.' Then again, Humphrey Bogart never said, 'Play it again, Sam,' and in the books, Sherlock Holmes never said, 'Elementary, my dear Watson.'"
- the debate over global warming:
"If anybody doubts that a big carbon-dioxide greenhouse effect can be dangerous, look at Venus. Nine-hundred degrees Fahrenheit! Now tell me that the greenhouse effect is just made up by liberal college professors!" (It is important to note that Venus is actually *hotter* than Mercury, which is the closest planet to the Sun!)
- the accusation that Sagan was just a scientific doomsayer:
"Well, suppose it's decades in the future and we're actually in the grips of some monstrous environmental disaster, and then I have to look back at my conduct. Which is better -- to say I warned of this but people paid no attention... or that I kept quiet for fear of bothering people? In which case would I feel that I had fulfulled my obligation to my children, my grandchildren? The answer is clear."
Playboy: "But instead of facing the problems, some people just want to close their eyes to them."
Sagan: "Psychologists have a word for that. Denial." [Looks up, smiles] "And as the Dire Straits song goes, 'Denial ain't just a river in Egypt....'"
I was so impressed by the interview that I clipped it out of the magazine and put it in clear plastic document protectors (the kind that go into a 3-ring binder) -- where it remains in near-perfect condition to this day! (Ditto for Playboy's Arthur C. Clarke interview.)
> There is a 13 yr old son at home or school that needs food, clothing, a place to stay and all those other little things that a child needs growing up. If I could provide more of those "little things" or better "little things" and most importantly MORE TIME to spend with him enjoying those little things I'd be there
Good to hear that you're a dedicated father who dotes on your son -- certainly you have good intentions. Just some food for thought:
"With mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paved." -- William James
(better known as "the road to hell is paved with good intentions.")
"We do not inherit the earth from out parents. We borrow it from our children." -- Native American proverb
And finally, a sig from one of our very own Slashdotters:
"I worry that some day my child will ask me, 'Dad, where were you when they took freedom of the press from the internet?'"
Thanks for the reply, tibman!
> Who wants to pay for their past actions every day?
My "Army vet buddy" told me of the things (some funny, some ugly) he and his fellow soldiers did in both Korea and Nam. We get along great, but I always wonder (but never inquire) if there's more and even nastier shit that he hasn't let me know of. I know that he's constantly fighting depression (he's been medically diagnosed as having it) and every so often he talks about wanting to do something like take a saw and cut off his own legs (self-destructive thoughts) -- so we're talking about some pretty heavy inner demons.
Here's the weird thing about our friendship: he's an all-American white guy, while I'm a full-blooded Korean. I've noticed that guys like us tend to stay away from each other (though this seems to get less and less true as time goes on) -- in fact, he confessed to me that in his youth he was a racist asshole who absolutely *hated* Korea when he served there. Yet, ever since the day I first met him, I consider him to be the most intelligent and respectful person I've known.
Maybe that's my friend's way of making up for what he was and what he did....
> Nope. Most theologians correctly pair faith and reason together as inextricably tied.
;-)
Uh-huh. So... based on that line of reasoning, we can trust in theology to be a reliable source of logic and reason? Wasn't it theologians who maintained that the world was flat, the sun revolved around the Earth, and that the Moon is a perfectly smooth sphere?-- all conclusions based entirely on their reasoning?
Hell, even scientists can screw up royally when they become overdependent on reasoning -- everyone used to think Venus was a tropic-like "sister planet" of the Earth, simply because all telescope observations of Venus revealed a heavily clouded atmosphere, so dense that no surface features were visible. Their line of reasoning went something like this:
"Damn! I wish I could see through Venus's clouds."
"Yeah, but since it's cloudy all over Venus, we at least know it's got plenty of water."
"Uh-huh. It must rain on Venus a hell of a lot -- maybe all the time."
"You mean, like a planet-sized rain forest?"
"Hell, yeah! Of course, a lot of the surface must be covered by water, so Venus must have seas and oceans like Earth -- maybe more than us!"
"Wow! The whole planet could be teeming with life already! On land *and* sea!"
"Cool!!"
Of course, astronomers had no way to test these theories, but that didn't stop sci-fi writers from having a field day cooking up ideas on what life on Venus must be like. It never occurred to anyone that the clouds of Venus might not be made of water....
Enter radio astronomy, which gives observers the power to determine the precise chemistry and temperature of objects in space -- stars, planets, gas clouds, etc. When the first radio telescopes were aimed at Venus, astronomers were in for *two* shocks:
1.) The clouds of Venus consisted almost entirely of sulfur oxide and sulfuric acid -- corrosive and deadly to every living thing we know of, and
2.) The average surface temperature on Venus is over *eight-hundred degrees Fahrenheit*! "Too hot for me!"
Furthermore, both findings were proven conclusively when the first Venus probes were launched by NASA in its "Pioneer Venus" program. Sadly, none of the probes lasted much more than an hour after landing on the surface. (However, try bathing any machine in sulfuric acid rain while baking it at 800 degrees and see how long *it* lasts!)
Science isn't about reasoning alone: it also involves observation and experimentation, vital to the formulating *and proving* of ideas. Without them, it's easy to start from bad premises, reason with unproven assumptions, and reach flawed conclusions which never get tested! (Until some wiseass like Galileo comes along and starts spouting off about how this and that idea being stated as fact by the Church *is total bullshit* -- and that he has proof!)
> This is what many people now equate with any kind of religious faith, or any kind of faith in general, but it is not the traditional western view of faith. Perhaps now the term is charged with that meaning and may be why this debate is a little unclear.
"Perhaps"? "May be"? You don't get out much, do you?
When I was studying software engineering, the instructors and professors spoke of "confidence", "optimism", "probability" and "statistical likelihood", "certainty" (but only in a relative sense -- e.g.: "high certainty" vs. "low certainty"), "trustworthy" and "reliability". NO ONE ever spoke of "faith".
My first lecturer, a professor teaching an introductory course, said, "No matter if it's design or execution, question everything! It's always the one thing you *didn't* think about that turns around and bites you in the ass!" He went on by recounting to us numerous engineering fuckups in history, including the sinking of the Titanic and the Challenger space shuttle disaster. He concluded by telling us bluntly, "You fuck up, someone else dies."
Maybe there's a (gasp!) VALID REASON why some
> Is this in reference to SETI or ID?
;-)
Actually, I was thinking of WMDs.
Interesting you should use that bit of nonsense. Someone pointed out the fallacy in that excuse rather well:
2 0323
http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=
After all, if the Dubya camp are innocent, WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?
> they still need to advertise the new weapons, these american tv-wars are great for that.
Carl Sagan made a wry observation about exactly that, back during Iraq War I when the TV news programs were loaded with glowing reports about the Patriot interceptor missiles, "smart" bombs, etc. "[It] was a massive arms bazaar arranged by the United States to showcase some of the products that you, too, might acquire -- and only for all the critical resources of your society that might otherwise be spent on bettering your people. Line up over here!" (excerpt from the Playboy interview).
> i have to agree that america needs war, but look at how the economy changes for the better everytime there is a war.
...ISN'T to defend our country, ISN'T to protect our liberty, and ISN'T to promote democracy ...it's to MAKE SOME MONEY?!?"
:-D
Reminds me of a debate I got into with one of those neo-con pro-biz warhawks just a few years ago about the (yet to occur) effects of the US war on Iraq. Mr. Warhawk was practically beaming about how occupying and rebuilding Iraq would pay for itself, how the US would reap enormous wealth from the influx of Iraqi oil, and that military spending would actually *strengthen* the American economy -- like the massive military expenditures during the Reagan Years! (Can you say "trickle-down theory"?)
I let him finish gushing about Ronnie Raygun, paused, then said, "Okay, sooooo.... war is the answer."
That kind of took the wind out of his sails. What I didn't say (but in retrospect really wish I had) was, "Therefore, the most important reason to wage a war in which hundreds to thousands of our American troops will be sent to a foreign land to fight and die
Alright, so let's accept the capitalist-pig view that war is all about feeding the money machine. How close (or how far) are we to breaking even on money spent on Iraq? How much is the federal deficit now? How much have gasoline prices changed, *and in what direction*? How much has consumer confidence and employee satisfaction improved (or worsened)?
Also, what of non-economic matters? How much safer (or more frightened) do we Americans feel about another attempted terrorist attack on US soil? How (un)successful have we been in establishing peace and starting a new democracy in Iraq? How much (or how little) respect do we have from the other nations of the world?
What of the veterans who return home (if they ever do -- for many US troops, tours of duty keep getting extended indefinitely)? If you develop PTSD and have screaming nightmares whenever you try to sleep, how much money is that worth? Or if you jump whenever a car backfires or a kid sets off a firecracker within earshot? Or if your mind keeps replaying the memory of a fellow soldier -- maybe a close buddy -- being shot in the head or blown to bloody bits? What amount of value, what price tag, can you possibly assign to that?
Btw, my closest friend is a retired Army master drill sergeant who served in Korea *and* Vietnam. I've seen him wake up in cold sweats during the middle of the night, and he keeps a bowie knife next to his pillow "just in case." Oh, and he despises Dubya.
> Yes spying and everything is wrong. But with the NSA having more power than ever and needing to acquire/sift through more and more information all the time, wouldn't it be a very cool place to work.
8 1.html
Dude, are you SERIOUS?! That's like a physics student saying, "Yes, killing and everything is wrong. But with the defense industry having more power than ever and needing to develop/upgrade more and more weapons all the time, wouldn't it be a very cool job to have?"
To me that's the ethical equivalent of selling your soul to the Devil. You may reap material rewards for the time being, but at the cost of permanently subverting your humanity. Some nuclear physicists who worked in military research realized this later in their careers, and developed a form of "executioner's guilt" -- one such scientist admitted to being unable to get any decent sleep because he kept dreaming of hearing a million screams coming from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Here's something more for you to chew on:
http://www.pigdog.org/auto/software_jihad/link/25
That diatribe was aimed at the programmers who cooked up the Sony DRM software. So how much more outrage is warranted for *a tech who actively develops the tools to arm Big Brother*?
> Just because you don't know what you will (or will not) find does not make something non-science.
:-D
True, but even Arthur C. Clarke is on record saying there is always the possibility that *there may be no other life forms in the universe*. And we're talking about one of the biggest authors in science fiction!
There is also something to be said about healthy skepticism when it comes to a prolonged lack of evidence in spite of ample opportunity. As James "The Amazing" Randi put it, if you stay up on Christmas Eve night every year, waiting by the chimney yet never see Santa Claus, you haven't proven there is no Santa Claus. But after doing it for twenty years, you should probably call it quits.
Okay, here's a contradiction for you:
...including our asses.
:-D
Given: God is omnipotent, which means God is all-powerful and can do anything.
Question: Can God create a stone so heavy that even He cannot lift it?
This is the worst kind of contradiction possible -- a dilemma. If God can make a stone too heavy for Him to lift, then he's not omnipotent! If God can't make a stone too heavy for himself, he's *still* not omnipotent AND he gets embarrassed by us humans! (Ever packed too many books in a large box and discovered you couldn't lift it off the floor?)
While you're mulling that one over, here's something just for shits and giggles:
Given: God is omnipresent, which means God is everywhere and is in everything.
Therefore: God is inside all of us, and is inside all parts of us
Therefore: God has his head up everyone's asses.
And...
If: "Everyone" includes "God"
Then: God has his head up his ass!
That definitely explains why everything is so fucked up here....
> why are my ears facing forward instead of backwards? i can see forward, so wouldn't the greatest benefit come from having my ears pointed backwards so i could better hear prey coming up from behind?
;-)
You ears face forward so that sounds originating from *behind* you sound different from sounds originating *in front* of you. That way you can determine the direction of a noise source more accurately.
Jeez, I learned that in junior high biology. What the hell were they teaching *you*?
> how is being sexual in nature more conducive to survival?
Dude, were you even AWAKE during biology class?? I guess not....
> My point was simply the idea of faith as based on evidence....
....did you know our ancestors feared the sun was dying every time there was an eclipse? Faith told them that the gods were angry (or that Nature was faltering) and that only loud prayers and sacrifices would bring the sun back. Science, of course, tells us to just sit tight and wait things out (and maybe dress up a little warmly) because IT'S JUST THE MOON PASSING IN FRONT OF THE SUN.
...all to yourself. However, the next time you go spouting off about the divine, you might think about this choice quote from an ancient Greek:
Sounds to me like you're deliberately abusing the word faith. As I understand it (and as I hear people around me use it) "faith" means "absolute belief regardless of proof."
When a scientist collects his data, documents his observations, then uses that evidence to form a theory, he has to come up with methods to prove the theory. Faith doesn't fit in the equation: if the scientist is already convinced his theory is good, he's in deep trouble because his mind can play tricks on itself -- focusing on favorable evidence while ignoring damning evidence, or "remembering the hits but forgetting the misses."
When Kepler received the collection of astronomical observations from Tycho, he was working on proving the heliocentric (sun at the center) model of the cosmos. Imagine his shock when, after he analyzed Tycho's records, Kepler found that they didn't fit the model! The problem was that Kepler was working from the common belief that *the planets follow perfectly circular orbits*. In essence, it was an article of faith: Everyone assumed that the heavens were the domain of perfection, and that planetary orbits had to be perfect circles.
Everyone was wrong.
The only way Kepler could explain the apparent position and movement of the planets was that they travelled in *elliptical* orbits, which are like imperfect circles. Then the theory matched the data. It took an enormous effort on Kepler's part (as shown in his journals) when he rejected faith in the face of stark truth.
This is why honest scientists avoid putting faith in many things, and frankly it annoys me as well when you blithely accuse such people of being no different than the ID zealot crowd. A scientist may have *confidence* in a theory, but if AND ONLY IF the evidence supports it. To paraphrase JFK, "theory is always subject to proof."
And as for putting faith in the sun rising tomorrow morning
You're entitled to your belief, of course, and you can have it
"Behold, the people think epilepsy divine because they do not understand it; but if all things we did not understand were divine, why, there would be no end to divine things."
The man was Hippocrates, best known as the father of medicine (the Hippocratic Oath comes from him) and who formed the theory that illness and disease were caused by purely physical means -- *not* by divine retribution or evil curse. Before Hippocrates, it was a common belief that people fell ill because they had angered the gods or had become possessed by a demonic evil, and so were either ostracized (literally, voted out of society) or put to death to prevent the "curse" from spreading.
Carl Sagan put it simply: "If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate." One method relies on nothing but faith. The other doesn't.
> What god?
....WHICH god??
...None of The Above.
;-)
Better yet
- The Jewish God? (Jehovah?)
- The Muslim God? (Allah?)
- The Deist or Unitarian God?
- The Native American God? (the "Great Spirit"?)
- The Ancient Greek God? (Zeus, ruler of the Olympians?)
- The Old Norse God? (Odin?)
- The Great Pumpkin??
- The Flying Spaghetti Monster???
(I've left out the Christian God, since that involves a nasty fork bomb.)
Hmmm.... I guess I'll pick
Wow. My headache's gone.
Good point. It's like corporate tools / CEOs pretending to be ordinary customsers so they can check out their competition.
With Micro$OFT, however, I suspect it is far more sinister. How else are the Microdrones going to know *exactly* how to fuck up a Linux server so that the piece-of-shit Win2K machine in the testbench looks like the winner?
Okay, let's see if this works: I'll explain things as comprehensively as I reasonably can, and if at any point you disagree *stop reading and disregard this entire post*.
The music corporations care about one thing and one thing only: they want to make money. Music is merely the means to an end, and the artist/band serves only as resources to be exploited to that end. This is true for any corporation, regardless of the nature of business it is involved with, and in spite of any ethical issue, popular concern, or public hazard. (Think General Dynamics, Enron, Halliburton, etc. ad nauseum.)
Music companies wish to sell music to the people. As I noted in an earlier post, however, people don't buy music they don't like, and they don't like music they don't hear. How then do music companies make money off of people?
One word: EXPOSURE.
This is why music blares in every supermarket, in every retail store, in every shopping mall, in every goddamn elevator lobby, and all over the airwaves. Exposure breeds familiarity, and familiarity fosters enjoyment (though some people find certain kinds of music more enjoyable than others do -- natural variance).
The same "saturation technique" is used by music companies regarding radio stations. They literally bombard the broadcasters with a flood of free CDs on a regular basis, enough so that the station and its program director *plus every DJ and his/her SO and the receptionist and the janitor* get a free copy, complete with jewel box and liner notes. Pretty generous for an industry that claims to be losing billions in lost sales due to downloading, no? No, because the recording companies only care about getting their music over the air. They want to increase the odds that *someone* at the station will like their product, even if it is total shit -- because they want EXPOSURE.
(What if *nobody* likes their music? Believe it or not, many companies will try to bully the station into playing the music anyway, even to the point of threatening to cut off all future shipments of CDs! My program director got a good laugh when some music rep tried this on him, since that would mean the record company would be cutting itself off from a publicity outlet -- which would then exclusively receive material from its competing labels! Not a very intelligent threat at all!)
Still with me? Good. Now let's look back at the dawn of videotape machines, where TV interests tried to outlaw the first VCR:
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/betamaxc ase/betamaxcase.htm
The Betamax case was filed in the U.S. Federal District Court of Los Angeles in November 1976 and went to trial on 30 January 1979. In its defense, Sony asserted that a consumer had the absolute right to record programs at home for private use. It drew an analogy to the audio cassette recorder, which was introduced in the 1960s and had made music tapers out of millions of American teenagers. Although the practice had not been tested in the courts, Sony believed a tradition had been established.
Feeling a little deja vu? Here we had content providers (producers of TV programming) claiming that the act of recording shows off of TV was a violation of copyright law! However, the court wisely ruled that idea to be patently ridiculous, stating that the use of TV recording equipment for personal use qualifies as permissible practice under a certain provision of copyright law. What was that legal provision?
Two words: FAIR USE
This was based directly on the example of audio-only sound recorders, which had (amazingly!) failed to bankrupt any of the music companies. Read on:
Handing down its decision in October 1979, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Sony, stating that taping off air for entertainment or time shifting constituted fair use; that copying an entire program also qualified as fair use; that set manufacturers could profit fro
I sympathize with everyone out there who gets annoyed at the (semi-)annual fundraising programs on public broadcast outlets -- I don't like them very much, either.
:-)
That said, I've seen what it's like on the other side of the fence. The college radio station I worked at was licensed as "public service" by the FCC, so it was prohibited from receiving commercial sponsorship. That meant its only sources of revenue were:
- The annual "Fun Drive" (I know, silly pun)
- Public service announcements "underwritten" by donors (usually local businesses)
- Various scattered fundraising events (on-campus music concerts, or dance parties featuring actual station DJs playing the music).
The station was not part of the college curriculum (i.e.: no courses or credit for broadcast journalism, etc.) nor did it have official status with the school, so it was something of an unwanted stepchild. On two separate occasions the station was unceremoniously "dumped" from its location and had to find a new home on campus. Yet everyone on the staff pitched in to keep the operation going, no matter how bad or hopeless things looked. It is important to note that this station was run entirely by volunteers (students and faculty)!
So when it was time for the Fun Drive, it was more than just an irritating "beg-a-thon." We poured our hearts into the station, and every one of us knew that it would be a tragedy to see the ship sink for lack of funds. Hell, it would be a travesty: imagine being at a radio station where the management *encourages* weird and unique show ideas like a music program called "Your Band Sucks!" (My personal favorite? "Cooler Than Jesus.")
Yes, fund drives are still annoying. Just remember that at least some of those people asking for your money are doing it because they believe in and care about what they're doing. I know I did.
LOL! Excellent counterpost! "In a war of words, no weapon is more powerful than the truth."
Reminds me of the book "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" in which author Al Franken exposes countless inaccuracies, contradictions, and baldfaced whoppers that have come out of Limbaugh's mouth and gone over his broadcasted shows -- all of which could have easily been prevented by a reasonably competent fact-checker (that alone was the basis for a running gag in the book: [We Call] Rush Limbaugh's Fact Checker)
Hell, even a junior high school student surfing search engines would have done the job. In this modern Age of Google, there's no excuse to be that fucking misinformed. Of course, the Dittoheads are always convinced that *they* know the truth -- because "Rush Said So!" Wonder if they ever really listened to that song by Living Colour:
I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face in your TV
I'm the Cult of Personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
I'm the Cult of Personality
Reminds me of a classic bit from the Dave Letterman show (can't remember if it was pre-CBS or post-NBC). Dave pauses during his opening monologue, then smiles at the camera. "Ladies and gentlemen in the viewing audience at home: If you would like a videotaped copy of tonight's show.... TURN ON YOUR DAMN VCRs!!" (Massive laughter from studio audience.)
...well, to paraphrase an old saying, "You can lead a mind to understanding, but you can't make it think."
The point of the joke was to poke fun at the semi-common practice of offering videotaped recordings of TV shows for sale during the actual broadcast. Doing so, of course, is in no way illegal. *Neither is recording the broadcast on your own for your personal enjoyment.* That act is by definition "fair use" and it is covered by law.
The important thing to realize is that the act remains the same *regardless of the mechanism being used*. If I connect an audio patch cable from my radio's headphone jack to my computer's sound card input, I can record broadcasted music off the air. Since I didn't use a traditional tape machine, does that automatically make my actions ILLEGAL? Come on, get a clue already.
If you honestly don't get it, try this link:
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
If you *still* don't get it
I have. You can see the Brave New EULA at this URL:
t ouse.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/licensing/how
Read it and weep. Your (more or less) useable, legit copy of WinXP/Vista is invalid *if your PC dies or retires*. Don't you just love Micro$oft?
Thanks to Slashdotter aj50 for original post of the link.
Tell me, are you a musician?
...a little off key.
I started learning to play the piano when I was four years old. Much later, when I was in high school, one of my music teachers introduced me to "fake books". These are massive collections of songs written as a kind of abbreviated sheet music: each song is shown as a simple melody with lyrics and the appropriate chord progressions for harmony and bass line. These music books got their name because when they first came out *they were outlawed*. The sheet music publishing companies didn't want anyone cutting in on their action so they used the copyright law to make such books illegal! However, fake books became so popular and useful to musicians that they became widespread, and now fake books are no more illegal than taping music off the radio.
Sound familiar?
Still later, I became a DJ at my college's radio station and got to see the side of the music industry that the consumer rarely sees. You complain about music downloads hurting the music artists? Well, what if I told you that music publishers regularly send hundreds and thousands of *free* copies of albums to radio stations around the world ON A WEEKLY BASIS? It's called "broadcast promotions" and it works like this:
- You've got a new album by some random music artist/group. Print a shitload of CDs.
- Send at least *two* of those CDs to the target radio station -- one for the station's music library, the other for the program director.
- Better yet, send a few more CDs as well -- enough for all the music show DJs at the station to keep as personal copies.
- Even better, send even more CDs so that everyone at the station (including the receptionist and the janitor) gets a free copy. Everybody wants one, everybody gets one!
- Also, try to send a "press kit" including glowing descriptions of the music act's style, a biography, glossy photos, posters, etc.
- Is the artist/band on a concert tour, and are they going to be performing near the target station? Send free concert tickets!!
Now take the above case, *which is only for one album*, and multiply by:
- the number of artists/bands handled by your music company, and
- the number of broadcast stations around the world (commercial and public service).
If music downloads are hurting the recording industry so much, HOW CAN THEY AFFORD TO GIVE AWAY THAT MUCH SHIT EVERY WEEK, EVERY MONTH, EVERY YEAR AND STILL STAY IN BUSINESS???
It helps to note the production cost of a CD is below $1 US, while the typical price for same CD in the music store is $15-$19 US -- and *only a fraction of that goes to the artist/band who actually made the music*. The majority of that goes to the music company. So you'll pardon me if I say your argument sounds
Btw, I can personally attest to the fact that most of the music being published really is lousy. At one point we threw away an entire box of music because it was so bad, no one wanted to play it -- much less listen to it. But if that's all the music companies will send, then that's all the radio stations have to choose from.
>I see this infrastructure in the same light as the public highway system. Imagine what that would be if it were run by private industry.
I don't have to imagine it -- I've seen it. Back in the 90s the Orange County Board of Directors approved of a plan to build a toll road that cuts through San Joaquin Hills, then a pristine California wilderness area. The toll road was touted as a completely privatized, non-tax funded roadway that would quickly pay for itself and become a model for similar toll roads across the nation.
Fast forward to the present. The San Joaquin / Foothill 73 Toll Road is a fiscal nightmare and a public outrage:
- Despite all claims to the contrary, the toll road was financed by taxpayer revenue, which has never been recouped by the Transportation Corridor Authority (TCA), the private entity responsible for building and running the toll road system.
- Instead of paying for itself and becoming a profitable operation, the toll road loses from *hundreds to thousands of dollars every day* -- due to inflated ridership projections and poor road surface maintenance. (Who wants to drive a speedway full of potholes?)
- Far from becoming an exemplary precedent for other toll road proposals, the SoCal toll road has turned into a transportation fiasco, discouraging other municipalities across the US from embarking on similar privatized public-access roadway projects.
After years of accumulating massive financial losses, the TCA had to sell portions of the toll road to the Orange County Transportation Agency (or OCTA, which runs the freeway and public bus system) -- on the condition that OCTA must not widen existing freeways! In other words, a government transportation department is barred from upgrading its freeway system to better accomodate rising traffic *because it would make a useless toll road even more useless*.
It's corporation-hatched disasters like this and Enron that make me extremely suspicious of business nowadays. Then again, history is full of shady business dealings. Reminds me of a political cartoon of a CEO at his office desk saying, "At our company we make money the old-fashioned way. We steal it...."
Reminds me of the author of the anti-pr0n Comstock Act that was passed back in 1873. When Anthony Comstock died, people were shocked to discover he had amassed an enormous personal collection of pr0n.
What a fucking hypocrite. And all you good little Christians should remember that Jesus had some pointed words in the New Testament about hypocrites....