Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
on
Death By DMCA
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· Score: 1
"The only thing I watch these days is Doctor Who"
I'm assuming you're from the UK so apologies if you aren't, but damn that's a good show you Brits have exported. I wish I could say the US has exported a show of such quality in the past few years, but all I can think of is Stargate SG-1/Atlantis, and I don't know how popular those are outside the US. [/OT]
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
on
Death By DMCA
·
· Score: 1
"then (3) the networks are working under a dysfunctional business model."
Ever since I was old enough to understand that TV is free because commercials pay for it (when I was about 4)[ignore cable TV for the moment] I have wondered why in the world networks expect people to sit there and watch a commercial when their program isn't going to be back on for 5 minutes. I mean... look.. I just screwed your business model.. I went to the bathroom.. that's some yummy smelling pizza.. oh crap I just missed the last 30 seconds of my show..
And then it hit me: This whole "show/advert/show/advert/show/end of show/advert, advert/next show starts" business model arose around, oh, 1947 when the Television was a NOVEL INVENTION and you just HAD to watch those moving pictures in your very own home. I mean, people would watch commercials just because it was so freaking cool to watch tv at home, and watch commercials they did: Commercials averaged 60 seconds or more in those days, far more than our barely-15-seconds-between-blank-screens shout fests called "a word from our sponsors."
This stopped being a meaningful business model about, oh, 30 years ago, and here it is still, only now they're getting to really see how little innovating they've done in 60 years and now they get to pay the piper for this doddering dinosaur called "Broadcast television." It's time they came up with a new way of doing business, I think.
"It introduces a large number of potential non-obvious and subtle social and emotional difficulties."
I would think in a culture based around polygamy, these issues generally take care of themselves. Not that they're non-existant, but that the culture has adapted ways to mitigate their effects. This is how cultures survive.
And that polygamy has survived to this day suggests it to be a bit more stable than some might think, or at the very least that it provides some social stability that is useful to cultures that practice it.
That is OT though, and I agree there's no reason aside from religious ones to ban it (and since there isn't absolute religious consensus, no reason for the government to ban it).
There *is* one caveat to needing to be proactive in order to form an air-tight conspiracy; and that's simple inaction. All you need do is know about something and look the other way and let it happen, and that doesn't really take much effort (well, maybe for some who like to mouth off, but most of the higher-ups in this administration won't even talk about their lunch menu, they so believe themselves to be above the 'average' American).
I've seen the evidence people use to try to claim the US Government was behind the attacks, and the thing is, even if you throw out every piece of evidence they claim, you still can't prove the US government wasn't involved, for the very simple reason one can't prove a negative. And I doubt seriously any evidence would ever appear that would let us prove the positive, that they WERE involved; not because it doesn't exist, but because if it DOES exist, it's probably right under someone's nose and they'll never see it.
Actually, I agree with you, in whole and in the entirety of what you said. I think we are ALL capable of doing evil things, things that under civilized conditions we believe we would NEVER do. I DO believe power corrupts, although I think there are those for whom it would corrupt less.
I was simply pre-emptively answering any claims that power doesn't corrupt. But I agree with you completely, and I have always taken the same stance on it that you do: In simplest terms, we are the product of our surroundings, as much as we like to believe otherwise. There is very little that is 'inherent' in our nature (although there are a few things); least of which is 'evil' or people that are 'inherently' evil. We're all capable of it, given the right experiences.
Sometimes that frightens me; sometimes I think that knowledge itself is a bulwark against being more evil that I might be otherwise. One caveat is that we're not unwilling participants in our own experiences, and sometimes we can influence what we choose to learn from an experience, whether it will make us worse or better people. But, that requires alot more intellectual involvement than most people are willing to exert.
"I would be no more excused for it than they should be."
I'm not saying they should be. I was only replying to the idea they thought it was ok, just because they owned slaves. They didn't think it was ok, but that didn't stop them because they were, in the end, politicians. The only mitigating factor for them is that most of them stipulated in their wills that their slaves go free upon their deaths (and many of them freed their slaves long before they died). But they DID think it was wrong and their legacy is ABSOLUTELY tainted with hypocrisy.
I openly recognize that, although in your other reply to me it seems you feel I'm advocating HIDING their shortcomings. Nothing could be further from the truth, all I wanted was to keep them in historical context (not for the purpose of excusing them, but for understanding them).
"And how was it that they found out? What measures of surveillance did they use?
Carnivore and other means of electronic surveillance have been in service long before 9/11, and long before this particular administration has been in office."
But that isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about the NSA wiretaps and phone record collection that began AFTER 9/11.
"And, like it or not, sometimes this kind of "violation" SAVES LIVES."
So you're saying the ends justify the means, then? Ok, I want to be rich. Do you mind if I come slaughter your family and steal your house? You do? But the ends justify the means. Wait, it's unjust for me to get rich that way?
Isn't it unjust to further infringe on my rights just to catch a terrorist or two? Freedom and liberty ARE NOT FREE, they ARE NOT EASY and they REQUIRE RESPONSIBILITY. THAT is why people like you so easily give up their freedoms: you can't stand responsibility and you can't stand the idea of living in a world without perfect and absolute safety.
You're willing to trade the danger of a terrorist for the danger of your own government using your own habits against you.
Is that worth a few lives? You may say I'm making a bigger issue of this than it really is - but I say I am not. Everytime we give the government more power, the less free we are. They're not going to go Totalitarian Dictatorship all at once - they're going to do it in pieces, just like this. I'm unwilling to try stopping them at the end of the road - I'd rather stop them somewhere as near the beginning as possible.
"We always can use smarter leaders, no matter what the situation. But to say we don't need more information and more invasive surveillance... sorry, that just doesn't make any sense to me."
So we DO need more invasive surveillance? How much is too much, for you? Cameras in your bathroom at home? Forgive the hyperbole but it certainly seems as though that's exactly what you would find appropriate.
"Contextually the criticism levied against the founding fathers is completely warranted, appropriate, and expected from a modern American."
This depends on the context. If, as you appropriately point out, you're measuring CURRENT standards of freedom and liberty against those achieved by the founders, you can say they missed something.
That is not the spirit of posts like "The founders envisioned a world with slaves and enslaved women." The spirit of such words is to say that the founders did NOT envision a world built on freedom or liberty, which is not the case.
"it is the right thing to do to acknowledge those shortcomings and acknowledge that the people of modern eras have tried to bring greater peace and freedom to their country."
I completely agree. I'm not saying they didn't construct a government that allowed slavery and denied women the vote - I'm saying that to say that was their legacy would be unfair at least.
As I responded to another poster, the founders weren't perfect. Jefferson for example had a very lowly opinion of women and wanted them kept completely out of politics. Not a very enlightened opionion, considering the guilt that he constantly carried for owning slaves.
"So I guess them owning slaves means they didn't support slavery?"
Actually no, it doesn't. Read up on the opinions written by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington regarding the owning of slaves - the founders who did own slaves by and large owned them ONLY so that their positions as wealthy, powerful men would not be questioned. They were well aware of the contradiction between advocating freedom and owning slaves.
They were still politicians, and they weren't perfect. They had their flaws. George Washington was a famous philanderer. Thomas Jefferson liked to spend the nights with his slave women. Alexander Hamilton had a horrible temper that got him killed.
"and most likely agreed with them."
You should know that in fact they didn't agree with them. But they chose their battles: The founders knew that attempting to outlaw slavery in the Constitution would more likely result in NO Constitution EVER being signed, and getting one signed was far more important.
This is, ironically, why the 3/5 clause of the Constitution exists (allowing slave states to count each slave as 3/5 of a person for representative purposes) - if it had been a foregone conclusion that slavery was OK, it would have been a straight out 1. It was in fact that exact issue that almost caused half of the men at the Constitutional Convention to leave, because they knew that a Constitution outlawing slavery would leave the slave states with little to no Congressional representation.
Sorry, do not pass go, do not collect $200, as my mother used to say. The event you have linked to occurred before September 11, 2001. LONG before, in fact. Which just weakens your case: These people can be, and WERE, caught, without the extreme measures that our current government is attempting to use.
In fact, dozens of FBI agents already knew that 9/11 was being planned long before it happened, but the "big wigs" decided to ignore them. So it seems then, that what we need isn't more information and more invasive surveillance, but smarter leaders.
"Yes. I understand women are allowed to vote and slavery has been abolished."
I get so steamed when I see people posting crap like this. And the sick part is, you're not even joking. You've bought into the propoganda that attempts to discredit the founding fathers by claiming they were elitist slave owners just trying to protect their own wealth.
You're guilty of an ad hominem attack, attacking the sender in an attempt to discredit their message, which is a logical fallacy of the highest order. Just because the founders were unsuccessful in abolishing slavery at the signing of the Constitution doesn't mean they supported slavery, nor does it mean they didn't try to change people's minds about it. Just because women weren't immediately enfranchised with the right to vote (and incidentally, nothing in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence DENY women the right to vote) doesn't mean the founders didn't respect strong roles for women.
Posts like yours attempt to take the founder's achievements out of historical context and use it to claim that the world they envisioned was one of injustice or any other derogatory word you could use. The founder's achievements were unparalleled in the history of the world, and they did it for the right reasons - it actually IS possible to look beyond your own interests and do things for the right reasons, and they did, and they jeopardized their lives to do it. They were almost certain they'd fail, and they knew the price for failure, but they did it anyway.
Don't try to cheapen what they DID accomplish, what they DID dream, by pointing out what they didn't do.
"The rights of the constution only apply to Americans"
Wrong. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it use the words "citizen", "American", or "US Citizen". It uses only ONE word: person.
As in, a human being. Remember, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights arose from Enlightenment thought that gave ALL HUMANS inalienable natural rights.
Yes, ALL people EVERYWHERE are protected by the US Consitution when it comes to the US Government handling them. No, our consitution doesn't protect YOU from YOUR government - but it DOES protect YOU from OUR government.
At least, it's supposed to.
But that's just too inconvenient for those in power, so they've conveniently chosen to strip the rights of anyone they don't like, anyone they consider an "Enemy Combatant."
Funny, the British did the same thing during the US Colonial days. That is exactly WHY the word "citizen" is not used in the Bill of Rights. It's too easy to revoke someone's citizenship in order to remove the protection of the law. By using the word 'person', no such removal is possible.
But then, that would assume an administration that has even a passing interest in following the law. This administration doesn't.
Or god forbid, get a virus that downloads 1GB of kiddie porn on your computer and installs itself on your damn BOOT SECTOR so that even reinstalling the operating system doesn't wipe everything and you have to totally rewrite the disc to get rid of it..
"is it actually legal for them to send US citizens to as prisoners to Guantanamo?"
It's UNCONSTITUTIONAL for them to send ANYONE to Guantanamo and hold them as prisoner without trial. Read the Bill of Rights. The word "citizen" is not used ONCE. This is on purpose - the founders wanted ALL HUMANS to have these rights, not just CITIZENS.
Why? Because the British government had similar laws written to protect CITIZENS - so all the British did during the colonial days was revoke someone's citizenship to strip them of that legal protection.
Sound familiar?
The founders didn't want the government to be able to do that to ANYONE - which is why they used the word 'person' instead of 'citizen'. And lo and behold, what has the Bush Administration done? Declared "enemy combatants" to be stripped of their rights.
Unfortunately for him, that doesn't relieve him of the Constitutional protections set up in the Bill of Rights. The federal government is not allowed to hold ANYONE the way they are holding these people. No law passed by Congress (*cough* PATRIOT ACT *cough*) can trump the Bill of Rights; only another Constitutional Amendment can do that, and there aren't any that strip you of your right to a public and speedy trial.
I can't wait for someone to successfully sue the federal government for these violations. Unfortunately, the now-conservative Supreme Court will just say "Oh, well, that's fine. NO biggy, you can fuck over the American people any way you want"
Right, like I have any reason to lie about this. Either you've never used iTunes or you've never had to reinstall Windows, but either way I'm not lying and frankly I don't care what you think.
If you can give me a link that explains how to tell iTunes to de-authorize a Windows installation that no longer exists, I'm more than willing to listen. But so far as I can find, there is no way. What part exactly do you think I'm lying about? Simply calling me a liar does not make me one.
Frankly, YOUR post was childish and YOU are the one deserving of no respect whatsoever.
The.NET languages (VB.NET, C#, J#, F#) compile to byte-code - this is an intermediate language that is then intepreted by the.NET runtime, which should be specific to the platform it is operating on (this way, only the runtime is platform specific instead of the language, libraries, and compiler all being platform specific).
With C code, the libraries and compiler are platform specific, because C compiles to native code. It requires no runtime; it runs straight on the computer's CPU.
"You need to get the boss out of your work, outside of course of agreeing on things like budgets, milestones and requirements."
Hehe. The company where I work only does government contracts - try telling THOSE guys what language you're going to force them to accept. For the part of the government I work for, there's a huge rivalry between the East and West coast divisions. As a consequence, each coast always wants exactly the opposite of what the other coast did.
We did one project for the East Coast division and they wanted it in Matlab (they wanted a GUI in freaking MATLAB.. ugh.. and they wouldn't take no for an answer because their own guys ONLY know Matlab). When it came time to replicate the project for the West Coast, they wanted... C#. So we get to write everything over again. And the biggest reason they do this is simply because they don't like each other, I have no idea why. Maybe competing for budget money or something.
Anyway my point is, doing government work we are rarely given the choice of what language to use. An office mate of mine is currently stuck "upgrading" one of their old pieces of software and they are refusing to let him update it to C# - they want him to rewrite it in VB6, which you can't even buy anymore!
Public Class DoSomething
Private m_MyTextyObject as Text.StringBuilder End Class
Ok, so here's the $1000 question:
Which Text namespace am I using there? You know it intuitively because it's followed by the StringBuilder object; but the compiler only sees "Text" and wonders "Ok, am I supposed to resolve to System.Text or System.Drawing.Text?"
It's a tiny problem and one that still exists in C# with 'using', but sometimes there's just no way around the full namespace resolution.
Not really an argument for or against either VB.NET or C# but one annoyance that comes with namespace/package-based application building.
"How do you ban something that's not even "bad" for consumers, as they don't have to buy the devices?"
Well, whether it's 'bad' for consumers is up for debate. If we find ourselves in a draconian system where the mere viewing a DVD with your friends without your friends ponying up too is considered a crime, I would consider that 'bad' for consumers. But I digress.
The main thing I wanted to reply to was whether consumers have to buy the devices. If the successor to the DMCA gets passed (I don't recall its name offhand), it will be illegal for devices to be sold in the US that don't fully support the whole gammit of DRM technologies - so consumers won't have a CHOICE. They will HAVE to buy DRM'd DVD and CD players.
I'm glad you pointed this out. At the end of the day, people don't realize how much of their income is actually disposable, i.e. fully theirs. I've often wondered why the hell we pay sales tax after I've already paid (state) income tax - it just further reduces my available income, so if I think I have $500 to spend on utilities and groceries, well, no really I don't, I have $400 after the extra taxes. For some people, that's a big bite out of available money for things like gas and food.
"That's like saying that Taco Bell is forcing beans on you, because they stuff beans INTO THE FOOD YOU BUY!"
Ummm.. no. You're quite aware that what you're buying has beans in it. Much of the newest forms of DRM being invented are designed to be completely hidden from the consumer.. until they become aware that their fancy new DVD player is what they would consider 'broken' compared to their previous player.
"lacking any fascist regulation of the marketplace, I'm sure that if all mainstream vendors go DRM, there'll be someone else to offer DRM-free hardware"
And precisely how do you propose to PREVENT the fascist regulation of the marketplace? The content companies have already bought Congress and the President. There's nobody else to buy. That's why the FSF is fighting so hard because, well, there's basically nobody else left who can, because Americans are too fucking apathetic to look out for their own interests.
"Today's producers already make that DRM opt in choice"
Three words for you.
Sony.
Root.
Kit.
Not particularly opt in.
And most DRM I have encountered is just as surruptitious and doesn't show itself until you try to do something with your own DVD/CD you think is perfectly fair, like when my computer crashes and I have to re-copy all my iTunes music onto the new installation and it tells me the music isn't authorized to play on that computer and provides me no method to remove the old computer from the authorized list.
Slashdot Mirror
"The only thing I watch these days is Doctor Who"
I'm assuming you're from the UK so apologies if you aren't, but damn that's a good show you Brits have exported. I wish I could say the US has exported a show of such quality in the past few years, but all I can think of is Stargate SG-1/Atlantis, and I don't know how popular those are outside the US.
[/OT]
"then (3) the networks are working under a dysfunctional business model."
Ever since I was old enough to understand that TV is free because commercials pay for it (when I was about 4)[ignore cable TV for the moment] I have wondered why in the world networks expect people to sit there and watch a commercial when their program isn't going to be back on for 5 minutes. I mean... look.. I just screwed your business model.. I went to the bathroom.. that's some yummy smelling pizza.. oh crap I just missed the last 30 seconds of my show..
And then it hit me: This whole "show/advert/show/advert/show/end of show/advert, advert/next show starts" business model arose around, oh, 1947 when the Television was a NOVEL INVENTION and you just HAD to watch those moving pictures in your very own home. I mean, people would watch commercials just because it was so freaking cool to watch tv at home, and watch commercials they did: Commercials averaged 60 seconds or more in those days, far more than our barely-15-seconds-between-blank-screens shout fests called "a word from our sponsors."
This stopped being a meaningful business model about, oh, 30 years ago, and here it is still, only now they're getting to really see how little innovating they've done in 60 years and now they get to pay the piper for this doddering dinosaur called "Broadcast television." It's time they came up with a new way of doing business, I think.
"It introduces a large number of potential non-obvious and subtle social and emotional difficulties."
I would think in a culture based around polygamy, these issues generally take care of themselves. Not that they're non-existant, but that the culture has adapted ways to mitigate their effects. This is how cultures survive.
And that polygamy has survived to this day suggests it to be a bit more stable than some might think, or at the very least that it provides some social stability that is useful to cultures that practice it.
That is OT though, and I agree there's no reason aside from religious ones to ban it (and since there isn't absolute religious consensus, no reason for the government to ban it).
There *is* one caveat to needing to be proactive in order to form an air-tight conspiracy; and that's simple inaction. All you need do is know about something and look the other way and let it happen, and that doesn't really take much effort (well, maybe for some who like to mouth off, but most of the higher-ups in this administration won't even talk about their lunch menu, they so believe themselves to be above the 'average' American).
I've seen the evidence people use to try to claim the US Government was behind the attacks, and the thing is, even if you throw out every piece of evidence they claim, you still can't prove the US government wasn't involved, for the very simple reason one can't prove a negative. And I doubt seriously any evidence would ever appear that would let us prove the positive, that they WERE involved; not because it doesn't exist, but because if it DOES exist, it's probably right under someone's nose and they'll never see it.
Oh god.. 5 years ago I would have laughed..
Today I sit back in horror and wait for it to happen.
Actually, I agree with you, in whole and in the entirety of what you said. I think we are ALL capable of doing evil things, things that under civilized conditions we believe we would NEVER do. I DO believe power corrupts, although I think there are those for whom it would corrupt less.
I was simply pre-emptively answering any claims that power doesn't corrupt. But I agree with you completely, and I have always taken the same stance on it that you do: In simplest terms, we are the product of our surroundings, as much as we like to believe otherwise. There is very little that is 'inherent' in our nature (although there are a few things); least of which is 'evil' or people that are 'inherently' evil. We're all capable of it, given the right experiences.
Sometimes that frightens me; sometimes I think that knowledge itself is a bulwark against being more evil that I might be otherwise. One caveat is that we're not unwilling participants in our own experiences, and sometimes we can influence what we choose to learn from an experience, whether it will make us worse or better people. But, that requires alot more intellectual involvement than most people are willing to exert.
"I would be no more excused for it than they should be."
I'm not saying they should be. I was only replying to the idea they thought it was ok, just because they owned slaves. They didn't think it was ok, but that didn't stop them because they were, in the end, politicians. The only mitigating factor for them is that most of them stipulated in their wills that their slaves go free upon their deaths (and many of them freed their slaves long before they died). But they DID think it was wrong and their legacy is ABSOLUTELY tainted with hypocrisy.
I openly recognize that, although in your other reply to me it seems you feel I'm advocating HIDING their shortcomings. Nothing could be further from the truth, all I wanted was to keep them in historical context (not for the purpose of excusing them, but for understanding them).
"And how was it that they found out? What measures of surveillance did they use?
Carnivore and other means of electronic surveillance have been in service long before 9/11, and long before this particular administration has been in office."
But that isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about the NSA wiretaps and phone record collection that began AFTER 9/11.
"And, like it or not, sometimes this kind of "violation" SAVES LIVES."
So you're saying the ends justify the means, then? Ok, I want to be rich. Do you mind if I come slaughter your family and steal your house? You do? But the ends justify the means. Wait, it's unjust for me to get rich that way?
Isn't it unjust to further infringe on my rights just to catch a terrorist or two? Freedom and liberty ARE NOT FREE, they ARE NOT EASY and they REQUIRE RESPONSIBILITY. THAT is why people like you so easily give up their freedoms: you can't stand responsibility and you can't stand the idea of living in a world without perfect and absolute safety.
You're willing to trade the danger of a terrorist for the danger of your own government using your own habits against you.
Is that worth a few lives? You may say I'm making a bigger issue of this than it really is - but I say I am not. Everytime we give the government more power, the less free we are. They're not going to go Totalitarian Dictatorship all at once - they're going to do it in pieces, just like this. I'm unwilling to try stopping them at the end of the road - I'd rather stop them somewhere as near the beginning as possible.
"We always can use smarter leaders, no matter what the situation. But to say we don't need more information and more invasive surveillance... sorry, that just doesn't make any sense to me."
So we DO need more invasive surveillance? How much is too much, for you? Cameras in your bathroom at home? Forgive the hyperbole but it certainly seems as though that's exactly what you would find appropriate.
"Contextually the criticism levied against the founding fathers is completely warranted, appropriate, and expected from a modern American."
This depends on the context. If, as you appropriately point out, you're measuring CURRENT standards of freedom and liberty against those achieved by the founders, you can say they missed something.
That is not the spirit of posts like "The founders envisioned a world with slaves and enslaved women." The spirit of such words is to say that the founders did NOT envision a world built on freedom or liberty, which is not the case.
"it is the right thing to do to acknowledge those shortcomings and acknowledge that the people of modern eras have tried to bring greater peace and freedom to their country."
I completely agree. I'm not saying they didn't construct a government that allowed slavery and denied women the vote - I'm saying that to say that was their legacy would be unfair at least.
As I responded to another poster, the founders weren't perfect. Jefferson for example had a very lowly opinion of women and wanted them kept completely out of politics. Not a very enlightened opionion, considering the guilt that he constantly carried for owning slaves.
"So I guess them owning slaves means they didn't support slavery?"
Actually no, it doesn't. Read up on the opinions written by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington regarding the owning of slaves - the founders who did own slaves by and large owned them ONLY so that their positions as wealthy, powerful men would not be questioned. They were well aware of the contradiction between advocating freedom and owning slaves.
They were still politicians, and they weren't perfect. They had their flaws. George Washington was a famous philanderer. Thomas Jefferson liked to spend the nights with his slave women. Alexander Hamilton had a horrible temper that got him killed.
"and most likely agreed with them."
You should know that in fact they didn't agree with them. But they chose their battles: The founders knew that attempting to outlaw slavery in the Constitution would more likely result in NO Constitution EVER being signed, and getting one signed was far more important.
This is, ironically, why the 3/5 clause of the Constitution exists (allowing slave states to count each slave as 3/5 of a person for representative purposes) - if it had been a foregone conclusion that slavery was OK, it would have been a straight out 1. It was in fact that exact issue that almost caused half of the men at the Constitutional Convention to leave, because they knew that a Constitution outlawing slavery would leave the slave states with little to no Congressional representation.
Sorry, do not pass go, do not collect $200, as my mother used to say. The event you have linked to occurred before September 11, 2001. LONG before, in fact. Which just weakens your case: These people can be, and WERE, caught, without the extreme measures that our current government is attempting to use.
In fact, dozens of FBI agents already knew that 9/11 was being planned long before it happened, but the "big wigs" decided to ignore them. So it seems then, that what we need isn't more information and more invasive surveillance, but smarter leaders.
Doesn't it?
I think the grandparent poster was joking.. at least that's how I read it. Extreme hyperbole.
"Yes. I understand women are allowed to vote and slavery has been abolished."
I get so steamed when I see people posting crap like this. And the sick part is, you're not even joking. You've bought into the propoganda that attempts to discredit the founding fathers by claiming they were elitist slave owners just trying to protect their own wealth.
You're guilty of an ad hominem attack, attacking the sender in an attempt to discredit their message, which is a logical fallacy of the highest order. Just because the founders were unsuccessful in abolishing slavery at the signing of the Constitution doesn't mean they supported slavery, nor does it mean they didn't try to change people's minds about it. Just because women weren't immediately enfranchised with the right to vote (and incidentally, nothing in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence DENY women the right to vote) doesn't mean the founders didn't respect strong roles for women.
Posts like yours attempt to take the founder's achievements out of historical context and use it to claim that the world they envisioned was one of injustice or any other derogatory word you could use. The founder's achievements were unparalleled in the history of the world, and they did it for the right reasons - it actually IS possible to look beyond your own interests and do things for the right reasons, and they did, and they jeopardized their lives to do it. They were almost certain they'd fail, and they knew the price for failure, but they did it anyway.
Don't try to cheapen what they DID accomplish, what they DID dream, by pointing out what they didn't do.
"The rights of the constution only apply to Americans"
Wrong. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it use the words "citizen", "American", or "US Citizen". It uses only ONE word: person.
As in, a human being. Remember, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights arose from Enlightenment thought that gave ALL HUMANS inalienable natural rights.
Yes, ALL people EVERYWHERE are protected by the US Consitution when it comes to the US Government handling them. No, our consitution doesn't protect YOU from YOUR government - but it DOES protect YOU from OUR government.
At least, it's supposed to.
But that's just too inconvenient for those in power, so they've conveniently chosen to strip the rights of anyone they don't like, anyone they consider an "Enemy Combatant."
Funny, the British did the same thing during the US Colonial days. That is exactly WHY the word "citizen" is not used in the Bill of Rights. It's too easy to revoke someone's citizenship in order to remove the protection of the law. By using the word 'person', no such removal is possible.
But then, that would assume an administration that has even a passing interest in following the law. This administration doesn't.
"Has that whole "power corrupts" idea been rescinded?"
If knowledge is power and power corrupts, how will human kind ever survive?
Well.. answer is.. it won't.. and isn't. We're legislating ourselves into obsolescence and extinction.
Some would argue that power doesn't corrupt, it only attracts those who are already corrupted. And that's exactly the point.
Or god forbid, get a virus that downloads 1GB of kiddie porn on your computer and installs itself on your damn BOOT SECTOR so that even reinstalling the operating system doesn't wipe everything and you have to totally rewrite the disc to get rid of it..
"is it actually legal for them to send US citizens to as prisoners to Guantanamo?"
It's UNCONSTITUTIONAL for them to send ANYONE to Guantanamo and hold them as prisoner without trial. Read the Bill of Rights. The word "citizen" is not used ONCE. This is on purpose - the founders wanted ALL HUMANS to have these rights, not just CITIZENS.
Why? Because the British government had similar laws written to protect CITIZENS - so all the British did during the colonial days was revoke someone's citizenship to strip them of that legal protection.
Sound familiar?
The founders didn't want the government to be able to do that to ANYONE - which is why they used the word 'person' instead of 'citizen'. And lo and behold, what has the Bush Administration done? Declared "enemy combatants" to be stripped of their rights.
Unfortunately for him, that doesn't relieve him of the Constitutional protections set up in the Bill of Rights. The federal government is not allowed to hold ANYONE the way they are holding these people. No law passed by Congress (*cough* PATRIOT ACT *cough*) can trump the Bill of Rights; only another Constitutional Amendment can do that, and there aren't any that strip you of your right to a public and speedy trial.
I can't wait for someone to successfully sue the federal government for these violations. Unfortunately, the now-conservative Supreme Court will just say "Oh, well, that's fine. NO biggy, you can fuck over the American people any way you want"
Right, like I have any reason to lie about this. Either you've never used iTunes or you've never had to reinstall Windows, but either way I'm not lying and frankly I don't care what you think.
If you can give me a link that explains how to tell iTunes to de-authorize a Windows installation that no longer exists, I'm more than willing to listen. But so far as I can find, there is no way. What part exactly do you think I'm lying about? Simply calling me a liar does not make me one.
Frankly, YOUR post was childish and YOU are the one deserving of no respect whatsoever.
The .NET languages (VB.NET, C#, J#, F#) compile to byte-code - this is an intermediate language that is then intepreted by the .NET runtime, which should be specific to the platform it is operating on (this way, only the runtime is platform specific instead of the language, libraries, and compiler all being platform specific).
With C code, the libraries and compiler are platform specific, because C compiles to native code. It requires no runtime; it runs straight on the computer's CPU.
"You need to get the boss out of your work, outside of course of agreeing on things like budgets, milestones and requirements."
Hehe. The company where I work only does government contracts - try telling THOSE guys what language you're going to force them to accept. For the part of the government I work for, there's a huge rivalry between the East and West coast divisions. As a consequence, each coast always wants exactly the opposite of what the other coast did.
We did one project for the East Coast division and they wanted it in Matlab (they wanted a GUI in freaking MATLAB.. ugh.. and they wouldn't take no for an answer because their own guys ONLY know Matlab). When it came time to replicate the project for the West Coast, they wanted... C#. So we get to write everything over again. And the biggest reason they do this is simply because they don't like each other, I have no idea why. Maybe competing for budget money or something.
Anyway my point is, doing government work we are rarely given the choice of what language to use. An office mate of mine is currently stuck "upgrading" one of their old pieces of software and they are refusing to let him update it to C# - they want him to rewrite it in VB6, which you can't even buy anymore!
It's an annoying situation, to say the least..
Imports System.Drawing
Public Class DoSomething
Private m_MyTextyObject as Text.StringBuilder
End Class
Ok, so here's the $1000 question:
Which Text namespace am I using there? You know it intuitively because it's followed by the StringBuilder object; but the compiler only sees "Text" and wonders "Ok, am I supposed to resolve to System.Text or System.Drawing.Text?"
It's a tiny problem and one that still exists in C# with 'using', but sometimes there's just no way around the full namespace resolution.
Not really an argument for or against either VB.NET or C# but one annoyance that comes with namespace/package-based application building.
"How do you ban something that's not even "bad" for consumers, as they don't have to buy the devices?"
Well, whether it's 'bad' for consumers is up for debate. If we find ourselves in a draconian system where the mere viewing a DVD with your friends without your friends ponying up too is considered a crime, I would consider that 'bad' for consumers. But I digress.
The main thing I wanted to reply to was whether consumers have to buy the devices. If the successor to the DMCA gets passed (I don't recall its name offhand), it will be illegal for devices to be sold in the US that don't fully support the whole gammit of DRM technologies - so consumers won't have a CHOICE. They will HAVE to buy DRM'd DVD and CD players.
I'm glad you pointed this out. At the end of the day, people don't realize how much of their income is actually disposable, i.e. fully theirs. I've often wondered why the hell we pay sales tax after I've already paid (state) income tax - it just further reduces my available income, so if I think I have $500 to spend on utilities and groceries, well, no really I don't, I have $400 after the extra taxes. For some people, that's a big bite out of available money for things like gas and food.
"That's like saying that Taco Bell is forcing beans on you, because they stuff beans INTO THE FOOD YOU BUY!"
Ummm.. no. You're quite aware that what you're buying has beans in it. Much of the newest forms of DRM being invented are designed to be completely hidden from the consumer.. until they become aware that their fancy new DVD player is what they would consider 'broken' compared to their previous player.
"lacking any fascist regulation of the marketplace, I'm sure that if all mainstream vendors go DRM, there'll be someone else to offer DRM-free hardware"
And precisely how do you propose to PREVENT the fascist regulation of the marketplace? The content companies have already bought Congress and the President. There's nobody else to buy. That's why the FSF is fighting so hard because, well, there's basically nobody else left who can, because Americans are too fucking apathetic to look out for their own interests.
"Today's producers already make that DRM opt in choice"
Three words for you.
Sony.
Root.
Kit.
Not particularly opt in.
And most DRM I have encountered is just as surruptitious and doesn't show itself until you try to do something with your own DVD/CD you think is perfectly fair, like when my computer crashes and I have to re-copy all my iTunes music onto the new installation and it tells me the music isn't authorized to play on that computer and provides me no method to remove the old computer from the authorized list.
That doesn't seem 'opt in' or 'fair' to me.