I stopped by the bike shop because I had a question about my motorcycle (I am a newbie and the service manual is on order...so till I get it I have to go ask)
While I was waiting for one of the guys to finish what he was doing I stopped in the bathroom. On the toilet was a sticker by the company that cleans the toilet for them....it had a company logo and on the bottom:
"A publicly traded company"...isn't that nice... Logos logos everywhere...even on the can.
Incidently...the only clothing with logos I buy are the logos of non-profit orgs whose causes I support. (unless it happends to be a shirt with a funny picture or something that just happens to have a logo on it...but I wear them for the funny picture...not the logo)
> The same Idea applies to protests, as the police > are legally allowed to end the protest if the > bystanders become violent.
Your missing the point....
Imagine a group of protesters were protesting in front of the GAP, and got violent. Instead of stopping the protest, the police shut down the GAP.
The person being kicked did nothing to warrent being removed from service. Someone else did something to him, and he was punished for it. IMNSHO that is morally wrong, regardless of legality.
However, it may not be legal anyway. There are laws to protect consumers from buisnesses. All he did was state his opinion, no ISP I have ever seen would call that an AUP violation.
(WARNING: I am holding back nothing...not even major plot spoilers)
> a) Can't write a sex scene well at all (yet > insists on doint it)
Well certainly Henry Miller he aint. However, I think he gets the point across, even if they arn't the most uhm "intgeresting"...tho you will notice none of his book shave bare chested men on the front either.
> b) Has so much trouble with the end on his > stories.
Here I definitly agree. I read both Snow Crash and cryptonomicon (not in that order) and really enjoyed both books, but the endings really sucked.
In fact, I noticed around page 600 that the ending wasn't going to be very good. 2/3rds of the book were gone and some major pieces of plot development hadn't even happened yet. It was obvious that they would be very rushed and underdeveloped.
I do see what he was doing, contrasting the life of the characters ancestors with them, as the stories of their lives converge into one story. It was very clever (if not totally original, its a theme that has been used before...tho what hasn't?). However, this format really makes the book lengthen...and that made it obvious that 300 pages wasn't going to be enough to wrap the book up, and it wasn't.
I really would have liked to see more development and detail on Randy's relationship with Amy. (which was obviously comming from their first meeting). Also the ending itself....they melt the gold....it seems like he just said "Oh, time to end it now....quick and dirty solution".
SNow crash had some of the same problems...lots of buildup and doing this and that....all to a big fizzle. The ending just left me saying "Yea and?"
Other than the endings, I have really enjoyed his books. They are entertaining and thought provoking, he does know how to get a story started off and going. My favorite so far has to be the begining of Snow Crash with the "Delivorator"....that was just great.
You can't just throw things into a contract (especially a contract that is not signed and agreed to in the normal legal manner) and just have it automatically be legal.
There are certain things you can't require of people and can't do to people, no matter what your contract says. No court is going to recognize a clause, for example, that requires you to kill yourself if you can't make the payments you owe me.
Is this one of those things? It probably is. I certainly could imagine situations where it would be. In any case, thats for a court to decide. (if things of this type were for me to decide, the world would probably make alot more sense...at least to me...)
Well at first I thought you said Americain Airlines...and remembering my experience with them, was thinking that he should thank them...that is, however, besides the point:)
> Realistically, if the ISP is targeted because of > the content brought forth by one user (not in > violation of any AUP),
No, the ISP is targeted because some OTHER ISPs users are juvenile and feel that it is just fine and dandy for them to go around and deny other people internet service because they disagree with what that person has to say.
This is NOT the fault of the ISPs user. To blame it on him is just plain wrong. They did not get attacked because "He said something controversial" they got attacked because some people feel they have the right to attack others when they are insulted or because they dislike someone.
As you said, he did not violate the AUP. what this effecvtivly means is that the REAL AUP is not what is written on their web page, but includes an unwritten clause saing "It is no acceptable to express viewpoints which cause other people to attack you".
I don't know what you think, but thats fairly broad. That means if I see someone posting on usenet from that ISP talking about how much they love god, and that offends me, all I need to do is DoS them and that ISP will pull them.
I don't care if they are a private company or what. Their action of pulling this acount is, in my eyes, immoral. I think all of their customers should be advised that this is their policy, written or not, so they will know exactly what type of people they are doing buisness with.
In fact, I woul dgo farther and say that it is their right as consumers to know about this, and their duty as moral human beings to discontinue patronizing the services of this company. (of course, if they chose not to fullfill that duty, that is up to them and their own conscience)
> Obviously, the real solution here is betteR > cooperation among ISPs so that DoS attacks can > be tracked
Here I wholeheartedly agree. People who would strike out violently (in this case not physically violent but "virtually violent" they are activly and willfully stopping service that they have no right to interfere with).
> While the critical number of lines to write is > probably greater than 50 (maybe several > hundred), it is obvious you haven't reached it, > so in this respect, you know less than us who > did.
Ok I take issue with this statment.
I have never Programmed in Python. I want to try it out, even though I am initially repulsed by the whitespace thing (I am used to C style languages, so I am uncomfortable with this...I admit that this is my personal bias and nothing more)...
however...You seem to be implying that anyone who uses python long enough will find out that they love it, and they love this feature of it. I don't think that this is true.
Python Syntax WILL be a problem for some people, just as C syntax is a problem for some people. There is no "One True Way" that will please everyone.
While I agree with you that my fellow Americans (at least until I decide its time to ex-patriate) seem to think that the entire world is a US colony (assuming they know it exists) and that any parts that arn't are run by horrid dictaors and just plain savages, I DO think that the place is in defite danger of falling from US political pressure.
The US just needs to find a way to put the pressure on, and they are experts at that. Start by finidn gsome things that most people object too...certainly some of the most widely objectionable groups in the world will use the service, so that wont be hard.
Then its a matter of drawing attention to these and vilifing the data haven. Once they have drawn everyones attention to the "Worst of the Worst" (and the media will oblidge...they love to scare people, its good for ratings), then they have a "Reason" to put the pressure on.
The easiest way would probably be to pressure any countries that have physical internet connections to the haven to shut them down, also the companies that are providing them.
The data haven could respond by telling them to screw off. This may get their connections shut down and thus put them out of buisness.
Of course...this assumes that places like Britain wont do it first. Certainly most governments would like to not see this place exist.
If these things happen, they may be forced to make changes, start with a few tiny changes that allow pedofiles to be turned over to local authorities...noone will fight that. Then slowly more and more protections will erode. Most buisnesses wont care (much like most citizens don't care when laws are passed that effect other people).
Course...they could also make a back room deal with him to compromise the system and allow them access to all the information, as long as they don't reveal that fact....could be very lucrative.
> I wanted to spend 8 years defending the US > constitution. > I spent 8 years defending American corporate > interests. FTN
Well, of course.
The only place where the US consititution is under attack is right here IN the US...mostly by congress and the courts.
I always think its funny when congressmen complain about "Flag Burning" when they have desicrated everything that the US Flag is suposed to stand for, and done much it much worst disgrace.
Didn't you know? Oxygen is a highly poissonous gas. A little too much, and youll go blind, more and you die.
So no need to wait for a spark...just set it up and kill everyone off with excess oxygen.
Might work well in underground bunkers. However, any place with air exchange to the outside will be pumping in enough co2 and other gasses to make the output of one of these fairly useless.
My point was simply this....they did NOT show that the people named actually truely did anything...all they did was find evidence that they "Might have" or "Probably did".
In my view, it is quite simply morally wrong to punish an individual (as each and every person on the list was an individual) because they might have done something.
It was wrong of metalica to demand that people be banned, unless they specifically verified each and every name on the list, not only for file names, but for actual content.
It was doubly wrong of napster to bann them without demanding that this be done.
it is NOT ok to punish someone, regardless of guilt, simply because you have provided a way for them to have the punishment taken away later. It would be like a court sending a person to jail for muder because "Well he might have done it, and if he didn't he can apeal anyway...so its ok"
-Steve (who has never even used napster - and now never will)
This is something I thought of a few weeks back. How can they have possibly verified that EVERY person was actually distributing their songs?
If I sang a song called "metalica sucks" and distributed it on napster...would I be banned?
That would be very silly....and probably not very probable...but hey...its possible.
All they can really say is "It seems as if every person on this list might be distributing songs we made", which is not a very strong argument for banning them.
> And "stand up to be counted" is sometimes the > right thing to do, but often is not. For > example, I believe that drugs should be > legalized. I am prepared to argue the point in > forums like Slashdot,
This is a good point.
Throughout history governments and large groups of many differnt kinds have used all sorts of pressures, ranging from threats of violence to social pressures to silence dissenting voices.
Even in the US we are not free of these problems. Whether the power group is a large corperation, a cult, or the government itself, sometimes anonimity is the only way a person can talk about certain subjects without putting themself at risk.
Re:Do it & it's adios. I'll tell banner ad folks t
on
Privacy vs. Anonymity
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· Score: 2
> But that just doesn't happen anymore - it's all > just spam like the "first post-a-lizer" and oher > crap.
Personally, I very rarely post AC (I have on ocasion). I like that the option is there. It would allow me to post things that I would not normally feel comfortable posting under my name becasuse things I say could be traced to real people, other than myself. (people I know whose story I am relating etc).
Yea, there is alot of stupid spam, but its hardly so much that it really gets in the way of discussion. I tend to think it gets allot more attention than it deserves.
> if you don't like it, well, it *is* my site > after all,
Very true. You have the right to do whatever you wish, including getting rid of AC, closing the site, or changing it to a porn site.
Hell if it were my site, I woudn't have logins at all, I would get rid of moderation, and take steps to make sure that even I couldn't remove or modify posts. (as it is I am planning to setup an IRC server that has no concept of ops and no way for the admin to kick or ban people in any way)...but, thats just how _I_ like to do things:)
> No. That would imply that there's some U >S federal government other than that created by > the constitution which could agree to it.
No...It would be what is refered to as a "Social Contract" ie a contract between the People and the "government".
> The constitution *is* the government, in that it > creates the thing out of thin air.
No it doesn't. The constitution is a piece of paper with shit written on it. Nothing more. It doesn't "create government".
Government is a fiction. It is imaginary. It exists only in peoples minds. It is a game. The constitution is the written rules of the game that define titles and who can do what when.
The government has power ONLY because the vast majority of people believe that it has power. It has power because a bunch of armed men, called police, or army, believe that it has power, and will do what the people who have been given "titles" say.
The only thing that makes the Senate any different from any group of old men who get together to dicuss things and enumerate what is wrong with the world, is simply that there is an army that will follow the orders of this particular group of old kooks. (well in accordance with the rules of the game anyway)
> Originally it didn't include any rights in it at > all, because many of the framers felt that 1) no > democratic republic would attempt to infringe on > human rights 2) if human rights were ennumerated > anything that got left out would be fair game, > so it was better to not list any at all.
As you seem to state....the latter was true and the former wrong. Sort of a "Damned if you do, damn't if you don't".
Too bad so many people think this silly game is real. Then again it is true that the silliest people define reality. (one of Dilbert's Principalls)
>> capital punishment -- murder by government >> edict
> Society, like a private citizen, has the right > to act in self-defense.
If you pull a gun on me, and I shoot you, thats self defense. If you pull a gun on me...then 3 weeks later I see you walking down the street and I shoot you in the back, thats NOT self-defense.
> Wrong answer... someone walks into my house I > have the legal right to unload a clip into their > head
I wont be visiting your house anytime soon. Its only self defense if you are in fear for your life. Stepping foot inside your door does not give you automatic legal right to blow someones brains out.
I have to agree here...and I am a perfect example.
A number of years ago, before I switced to linux entirely, I used to copy software. What did I have copies of?
I ll tell ya, whole bunches of software that I couldn't afford to buy, even if I wanted to. Thats what I had. If I didn't copy them, I wouldn't have bought them, I simply didn't have the money then. So whether I copy the software or not, the company still sees the same profit...0. (from me). So what exactly was I "taking from them"?
Now of course, this was years ago. I don't even have a copy of windows anymore, much less all the software I copied.
Any claim that merely copying software is causing a company to lose money is bogus. Why? Because even without the copying, they STILL would not have necissarily had any more sales.
Re:Cost of redundant servers
on
Linux Failover?
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· Score: 2
Yup, I know all that.
However, you should note that I offered 2 solutions. One of them being almost exactly what he asked for, but implimented in hardware (and as someone else pointed out, possibly firmware too) which requires no driver software to work (beyond that of whatever existing ethernet card one has)
The other solution, yes its alot more costly. Yes it MAY not be right for the given situation. However, I felt it should be offered up anyway, and to let the person in that situation decide.
> I just called up 3com and said, "Please send me > two of those pieces of hardware with
Well thats nice. Look, I have no use for these things myself. I don't know what the product is called, I never bought one. I was simply trying to offer an idea and point in the right dircetion. I never claimed to be able to do more.
I probably could find out the name of the product, but not in the time frame where it would matter wrt slashdot comments.
> I think you want two servers with the same RAID > array....[snip]
Yup...a very good way to do it...I agree (of course it doesn't handle the raid array itself having a catastrofic failure...but given the redundancy in a good array, that should be more rare than a system blowing)
>> Of course, why thats even needed is beyond me. > apparantly..
Thank you for changing the order of what I said so that it looks like I said something different than I did.
If you were to look at my original comment, I said this about the case of SIMPLE ethernet line failover NOT the redundant servers case.
Good to know that you are buzzword compliant... I understand thats very important to some people, and if I ever figure out who those people are, I will probably avoid them like the plague.
As for fallover...check out 3com....long ago a man (who would later go on to teach Unix courses at WPI and be one of the best teachers I ever had for anything) designed a piece of hardware with 1 ethernet port on one side, and 2 on the other...it was designed to do JUST THAT.
Completely in hardware. He did it for a company that was later bought out by 3com...he claimed (a couple of years ago, when I was in his course) that they still sell the product that he designed.
Of course, why thats even needed is beyond me. For better redundancy, you really want seprate redundant servers, each with RAID arrays and probably a couple of localdirectors (or round robin DNS for a cheaper solution) direcing connections between them (giving both fallover and increased availability) but...thats just IMNSHO.
Afterall, if a CPU fries, or a power supply starts letting its magic smoke out...all the duel port NICs in the world wont help.
> I admit my post was not very clever, and the > idea about killing the president was a try to > scratch a patriotic feeling;-)
Patriotim...what a horrid thing. Its been used to justify about as much loss of rights as religion.
My fellow americains always make me laugh. Often you hear them talk about "freedom" and say "this is a free country". Yet, as soon as you start pointing out how its not...then how do they stick to their belif in freedom? They tell you "Well if you don't like it, why don't you leave" (Thats not to say ALL do this, I don't, but the vast majority do).
> allowing criminals to bypass their country's > laws
Well define criminals?
What about political activists who are supressed by their government? Wouldn't you support people in say...Iraq using the internet to anonymously put up web pages on servers in other countries, so they can let their views be heard, without being subject to their government stopping the page and punishing them?
Well....according to their country, they are criminals. If you would support them (would you?) then why would you not support a person who disagrees with US or French law from doing the same? Or is it that these governments are more "Pure and good" and any citizen of one of them who dislikes his government is just a dangerous and evil criminal?
Just a note.... while Yahoo is a US company, they do buisness in france, they even have offices with an address in France, so they are not Entirely based and residing in the US.
(Someone I know looked them up in a french directory online, they do indeed have an address)
However, I do think this is a silly thing. Just one more example of a government whose attitude is "We wish it would just go away, so you can't have it". (The US does it with drugs, and a host of other things, Germany does it with porn and certain types of litterature....evidently with france it is War Memoribilia - I can see why its a period of history they wish they could just bury their head in the sand and forget about)
More likely it would give the secret service a site to monitor teenagers with too much time on their hands.
Seriously...you think only terrorists read up on bomb making and how to kill people? They alreay know how to do it! They get their training from more experienced terroists.
That is the fundamental flaw I see in all of these arguments like "Terrorists can use encryption and the net to communicate and plan" or like your sugestion....there are a thousand other ways to plan things and carry out their operations.
Please point out the anti-semitism in "Swindler's Lust". I heard the song (its the only PE song I ever heard actually)
Certainly anti-corpatism. Definitly Anti-Recording industry. However, anti-sematism? I must have missed it.
Or is it the title that you call "anti-semitic"? While Schindler's List was a good movie, and definitly dealt with seious issues...I don't see it as some sacred cow that can't be made fun of in any way without the result being "anti-semitic"
Slashdot Mirror
I was thinking about this yesterday...
I stopped by the bike shop because I had a question about my motorcycle (I am a newbie and the service manual is on order...so till I get it I have to go ask)
While I was waiting for one of the guys to finish what he was doing I stopped in the bathroom. On the toilet was a sticker by the company that cleans the toilet for them....it had a company logo and on the bottom:
"A publicly traded company"...isn't that nice...
Logos logos everywhere...even on the can.
Incidently...the only clothing with logos I buy are the logos of non-profit orgs whose causes I support. (unless it happends to be a shirt with a funny picture or something that just happens to have a logo on it...but I wear them for the funny picture...not the logo)
> The same Idea applies to protests, as the police
> are legally allowed to end the protest if the
> bystanders become violent.
Your missing the point....
Imagine a group of protesters were protesting in front of the GAP, and got violent. Instead of stopping the protest, the police shut down the GAP.
The person being kicked did nothing to warrent being removed from service. Someone else did something to him, and he was punished for it. IMNSHO that is morally wrong, regardless of legality.
However, it may not be legal anyway. There are laws to protect consumers from buisnesses. All he did was state his opinion, no ISP I have ever seen would call that an AUP violation.
(WARNING: I am holding back nothing...not even major plot spoilers)
> a) Can't write a sex scene well at all (yet
> insists on doint it)
Well certainly Henry Miller he aint. However, I think he gets the point across, even if they arn't the most uhm "intgeresting"...tho you will notice none of his book shave bare chested men on the front either.
> b) Has so much trouble with the end on his
> stories.
Here I definitly agree. I read both Snow Crash and cryptonomicon (not in that order) and really enjoyed both books, but the endings really sucked.
In fact, I noticed around page 600 that the ending wasn't going to be very good. 2/3rds of the book were gone and some major pieces of plot development hadn't even happened yet. It was obvious that they would be very rushed and underdeveloped.
I do see what he was doing, contrasting the life of the characters ancestors with them, as the stories of their lives converge into one story. It was very clever (if not totally original, its a theme that has been used before...tho what hasn't?). However, this format really makes the book lengthen...and that made it obvious that 300 pages wasn't going to be enough to wrap the book up, and it wasn't.
I really would have liked to see more development and detail on Randy's relationship with Amy. (which was obviously comming from their first meeting). Also the ending itself....they melt the gold....it seems like he just said "Oh, time to end it now....quick and dirty solution".
SNow crash had some of the same problems...lots of buildup and doing this and that....all to a big fizzle. The ending just left me saying "Yea and?"
Other than the endings, I have really enjoyed his books. They are entertaining and thought provoking, he does know how to get a story started off and going. My favorite so far has to be the begining of Snow Crash with the "Delivorator"....that was just great.
IANAL but I suspect you arn't either.
Anyway...I DO know that that doesn't mean much.
You can't just throw things into a contract (especially a contract that is not signed and agreed to in the normal legal manner) and just have it automatically be legal.
There are certain things you can't require of people and can't do to people, no matter what your contract says. No court is going to recognize a clause, for example, that requires you to kill yourself if you can't make the payments you owe me.
Is this one of those things? It probably is. I certainly could imagine situations where it would be. In any case, thats for a court to decide. (if things of this type were for me to decide, the world would probably make alot more sense...at least to me...)
-Steve
> Obviously, it sucks for Mr. Rushdie
:)
Well at first I thought you said Americain Airlines...and remembering my experience with them, was thinking that he should thank them...that is, however, besides the point
> Realistically, if the ISP is targeted because of
> the content brought forth by one user (not in
> violation of any AUP),
No, the ISP is targeted because some OTHER ISPs users are juvenile and feel that it is just fine and dandy for them to go around and deny other people internet service because they disagree with what that person has to say.
This is NOT the fault of the ISPs user. To blame it on him is just plain wrong. They did not get attacked because "He said something controversial" they got attacked because some people feel they have the right to attack others when they are insulted or because they dislike someone.
As you said, he did not violate the AUP. what this effecvtivly means is that the REAL AUP is not what is written on their web page, but includes an unwritten clause saing "It is no acceptable to express viewpoints which cause other people to attack you".
I don't know what you think, but thats fairly broad. That means if I see someone posting on usenet from that ISP talking about how much they love god, and that offends me, all I need to do is DoS them and that ISP will pull them.
I don't care if they are a private company or what. Their action of pulling this acount is, in my eyes, immoral. I think all of their customers should be advised that this is their policy, written or not, so they will know exactly what type of people they are doing buisness with.
In fact, I woul dgo farther and say that it is their right as consumers to know about this, and their duty as moral human beings to discontinue patronizing the services of this company. (of course, if they chose not to fullfill that duty, that is up to them and their own conscience)
> Obviously, the real solution here is betteR
> cooperation among ISPs so that DoS attacks can
> be tracked
Here I wholeheartedly agree. People who would strike out violently (in this case not physically violent but "virtually violent" they are activly and willfully stopping service that they have no right to interfere with).
> While the critical number of lines to write is
> probably greater than 50 (maybe several
> hundred), it is obvious you haven't reached it,
> so in this respect, you know less than us who
> did.
Ok I take issue with this statment.
I have never Programmed in Python. I want to try it out, even though I am initially repulsed by the whitespace thing (I am used to C style languages, so I am uncomfortable with this...I admit that this is my personal bias and nothing more)...
however...You seem to be implying that anyone who uses python long enough will find out that they love it, and they love this feature of it. I don't think that this is true.
Python Syntax WILL be a problem for some people, just as C syntax is a problem for some people. There is no "One True Way" that will please everyone.
While I agree with you that my fellow Americans (at least until I decide its time to ex-patriate) seem to think that the entire world is a US colony (assuming they know it exists) and that any parts that arn't are run by horrid dictaors and just plain savages, I DO think that the place is in defite danger of falling from US political pressure.
The US just needs to find a way to put the pressure on, and they are experts at that. Start by finidn gsome things that most people object too...certainly some of the most widely objectionable groups in the world will use the service, so that wont be hard.
Then its a matter of drawing attention to these and vilifing the data haven. Once they have drawn everyones attention to the "Worst of the Worst" (and the media will oblidge...they love to scare people, its good for ratings), then they have a "Reason" to put the pressure on.
The easiest way would probably be to pressure any countries that have physical internet connections to the haven to shut them down, also the companies that are providing them.
The data haven could respond by telling them to screw off. This may get their connections shut down and thus put them out of buisness.
Of course...this assumes that places like Britain wont do it first. Certainly most governments would like to not see this place exist.
If these things happen, they may be forced to make changes, start with a few tiny changes that allow pedofiles to be turned over to local authorities...noone will fight that. Then slowly more and more protections will erode. Most buisnesses wont care (much like most citizens don't care when laws are passed that effect other people).
Course...they could also make a back room deal with him to compromise the system and allow them access to all the information, as long as they don't reveal that fact....could be very lucrative.
> I wanted to spend 8 years defending the US
> constitution.
> I spent 8 years defending American corporate
> interests. FTN
Well, of course.
The only place where the US consititution is under attack is right here IN the US...mostly by congress and the courts.
I always think its funny when congressmen complain about "Flag Burning" when they have desicrated everything that the US Flag is suposed to stand for, and done much it much worst disgrace.
No its worst than that....its chemical warefare!
Didn't you know? Oxygen is a highly poissonous gas. A little too much, and youll go blind, more and you die.
So no need to wait for a spark...just set it up and kill everyone off with excess oxygen.
Might work well in underground bunkers. However, any place with air exchange to the outside will be pumping in enough co2 and other gasses to make the output of one of these fairly useless.
My point was simply this....they did NOT show that the people named actually truely did anything...all they did was find evidence that they "Might have" or "Probably did".
In my view, it is quite simply morally wrong to punish an individual (as each and every person on the list was an individual) because they might have done something.
It was wrong of metalica to demand that people be banned, unless they specifically verified each and every name on the list, not only for file names, but for actual content.
It was doubly wrong of napster to bann them without demanding that this be done.
it is NOT ok to punish someone, regardless of guilt, simply because you have provided a way for them to have the punishment taken away later. It would be like a court sending a person to jail for muder because "Well he might have done it, and if he didn't he can apeal anyway...so its ok"
-Steve
(who has never even used napster - and now never will)
This is something I thought of a few weeks back. How can they have possibly verified that EVERY person was actually distributing their songs?
If I sang a song called "metalica sucks" and distributed it on napster...would I be banned?
That would be very silly....and probably not very probable...but hey...its possible.
All they can really say is "It seems as if every person on this list might be distributing songs we made", which is not a very strong argument for banning them.
> And "stand up to be counted" is sometimes the
> right thing to do, but often is not. For
> example, I believe that drugs should be
> legalized. I am prepared to argue the point in
> forums like Slashdot,
This is a good point.
Throughout history governments and large groups of many differnt kinds have used all sorts of pressures, ranging from threats of violence to social pressures to silence dissenting voices.
Even in the US we are not free of these problems. Whether the power group is a large corperation, a cult, or the government itself, sometimes anonimity is the only way a person can talk about certain subjects without putting themself at risk.
> But that just doesn't happen anymore - it's all
:)
> just spam like the "first post-a-lizer" and oher
> crap.
Personally, I very rarely post AC (I have on ocasion). I like that the option is there. It would allow me to post things that I would not normally feel comfortable posting under my name becasuse things I say could be traced to real people, other than myself. (people I know whose
story I am relating etc).
Yea, there is alot of stupid spam, but its hardly
so much that it really gets in the way of discussion. I tend to think it gets allot more attention than it deserves.
> if you don't like it, well, it *is* my site
> after all,
Very true. You have the right to do whatever you wish, including getting rid of AC, closing the site, or changing it to a porn site.
Hell if it were my site, I woudn't have logins at
all, I would get rid of moderation, and take steps to make sure that even I couldn't remove or modify posts. (as it is I am planning to setup an IRC server that has no concept of ops and no way for the admin to kick or ban people in any way)...but, thats just how _I_ like to do things
> No. That would imply that there's some U
>S federal government other than that created by
> the constitution which could agree to it.
No...It would be what is refered to as a "Social Contract" ie a contract between the People and the "government".
> The constitution *is* the government, in that it
> creates the thing out of thin air.
No it doesn't. The constitution is a piece of paper with shit written on it. Nothing more. It doesn't "create government".
Government is a fiction. It is imaginary. It exists only in peoples minds. It is a game. The constitution is the written rules of the game that define titles and who can do what when.
The government has power ONLY because the vast majority of people believe that it has power. It has power because a bunch of armed men, called police, or army, believe that it has power, and will do what the people who have been given "titles" say.
The only thing that makes the Senate any different from any group of old men who get together to dicuss things and enumerate what is wrong with the world, is simply that there is an army that will follow the orders of this particular group of old kooks. (well in accordance with the rules of the game anyway)
> Originally it didn't include any rights in it at
> all, because many of the framers felt that 1) no
> democratic republic would attempt to infringe on
> human rights 2) if human rights were ennumerated
> anything that got left out would be fair game,
> so it was better to not list any at all.
As you seem to state....the latter was true and the former wrong. Sort of a "Damned if you do, damn't if you don't".
Too bad so many people think this silly game is real. Then again it is true that the silliest
people define reality. (one of Dilbert's Principalls)
-Steve
>> capital punishment -- murder by government
... someone walks into my house I
>> edict
> Society, like a private citizen, has the right
> to act in self-defense.
If you pull a gun on me, and I shoot you, thats
self defense. If you pull a gun on me...then 3
weeks later I see you walking down the street and
I shoot you in the back, thats NOT self-defense.
> Wrong answer
> have the legal right to unload a clip into their
> head
I wont be visiting your house anytime soon.
Its only self defense if you are in fear for your
life. Stepping foot inside your door does not
give you automatic legal right to blow someones
brains out.
I have to agree here...and I am a perfect example.
A number of years ago, before I switced to linux
entirely, I used to copy software. What did I have
copies of?
I ll tell ya, whole bunches of software that I
couldn't afford to buy, even if I wanted to. Thats
what I had. If I didn't copy them, I wouldn't have
bought them, I simply didn't have the money then.
So whether I copy the software or not, the company
still sees the same profit...0. (from me).
So what exactly was I "taking from them"?
Now of course, this was years ago. I don't even
have a copy of windows anymore, much less all the
software I copied.
Any claim that merely copying software is causing
a company to lose money is bogus. Why? Because
even without the copying, they STILL would not
have necissarily had any more sales.
Yup, I know all that.
However, you should note that I offered 2 solutions. One of them being almost exactly what he asked for, but implimented in hardware (and as someone else pointed out, possibly firmware too) which requires no driver software to work (beyond that of whatever existing ethernet card one has)
The other solution, yes its alot more costly. Yes it MAY not be right for the given situation. However, I felt it should be offered up anyway, and to let the person in that situation decide.
> I just called up 3com and said, "Please send me
> two of those pieces of hardware with
Well thats nice. Look, I have no use for these
things myself. I don't know what the product is
called, I never bought one. I was simply trying
to offer an idea and point in the right dircetion.
I never claimed to be able to do more.
I probably could find out the name of the product,
but not in the time frame where it would matter
wrt slashdot comments.
> I think you want two servers with the same RAID
> array....[snip]
Yup...a very good way to do it...I agree (of
course it doesn't handle the raid array itself
having a catastrofic failure...but given the
redundancy in a good array, that should be more
rare than a system blowing)
>> Of course, why thats even needed is beyond me.
> apparantly..
Thank you for changing the order of what I said
so that it looks like I said something different
than I did.
If you were to look at my original comment, I said
this about the case of SIMPLE ethernet line
failover NOT the redundant servers case.
-Steve
All I know about it is what the person who
designed it wa sbragging about. I really am not
fammiliar enough with the device to say more.
As I remember (this was a while ago) he was
proud to have done it "Completely with PAL
logic" and "not using a microcontroller".
> We are a growing B2B company;
Good to know that you are buzzword compliant...
I understand thats very important to some people,
and if I ever figure out who those people are, I
will probably avoid them like the plague.
As for fallover...check out 3com....long ago a
man (who would later go on to teach Unix courses
at WPI and be one of the best teachers I ever
had for anything) designed a piece of hardware
with 1 ethernet port on one side, and 2 on the
other...it was designed to do JUST THAT.
Completely in hardware. He did it for a company
that was later bought out by 3com...he claimed
(a couple of years ago, when I was in his course)
that they still sell the product that he designed.
Of course, why thats even needed is beyond me.
For better redundancy, you really want seprate
redundant servers, each with RAID arrays and
probably a couple of localdirectors (or round
robin DNS for a cheaper solution) direcing
connections between them (giving both fallover and
increased availability) but...thats just IMNSHO.
Afterall, if a CPU fries, or a power supply starts
letting its magic smoke out...all the duel port
NICs in the world wont help.
> I admit my post was not very clever, and the ;-)
> idea about killing the president was a try to
> scratch a patriotic feeling
Patriotim...what a horrid thing. Its been used
to justify about as much loss of rights as
religion.
My fellow americains always make me laugh. Often
you hear them talk about "freedom" and say "this
is a free country". Yet, as soon as you start
pointing out how its not...then how do they
stick to their belif in freedom? They tell you
"Well if you don't like it, why don't you leave"
(Thats not to say ALL do this, I don't, but the
vast majority do).
> allowing criminals to bypass their country's
> laws
Well define criminals?
What about political activists who are supressed
by their government? Wouldn't you support people
in say...Iraq using the internet to anonymously
put up web pages on servers in other countries,
so they can let their views be heard, without
being subject to their government stopping the
page and punishing them?
Well....according to their country, they are
criminals. If you would support them (would you?)
then why would you not support a person who
disagrees with US or French law from doing the
same? Or is it that these governments are more
"Pure and good" and any citizen of one of them
who dislikes his government is just a dangerous
and evil criminal?
Just a note....
while Yahoo is a US company, they do buisness in
france, they even have offices with an address
in France, so they are not Entirely based
and residing in the US.
(Someone I know looked them up in a french
directory online, they do indeed have an address)
However, I do think this is a silly thing. Just
one more example of a government whose attitude
is "We wish it would just go away, so you can't
have it". (The US does it with drugs, and a host
of other things, Germany does it with porn and
certain types of litterature....evidently with
france it is War Memoribilia - I can see why its
a period of history they wish they could just
bury their head in the sand and forget about)
More likely it would give the secret service a
site to monitor teenagers with too much time on
their hands.
Seriously...you think only terrorists read up on
bomb making and how to kill people? They alreay
know how to do it! They get their training from
more experienced terroists.
That is the fundamental flaw I see in all of
these arguments like "Terrorists can use
encryption and the net to communicate and plan"
or like your sugestion....there are a thousand
other ways to plan things and carry out their
operations.
ntfs doesn't piss me off at all....ive never used
it and don't have to use it for anything...so its
no problem for me.
NFS on the other hand is a steaming pile of
shit.
I wonder how CODA is doing these days...
Please point out the anti-semitism in "Swindler's
Lust". I heard the song (its the only PE song
I ever heard actually)
Certainly anti-corpatism. Definitly Anti-Recording
industry. However, anti-sematism? I must have
missed it.
Or is it the title that you call "anti-semitic"?
While Schindler's List was a good movie, and
definitly dealt with seious issues...I don't see
it as some sacred cow that can't be made fun of
in any way without the result being "anti-semitic"