However....we must remember...this can only be a partial test. Even if it fails to hold up due to obscure US law...that does NOT mean that other countries laws and court systems would do the same.
As long as even one country fully honors the GPL, almost all countries would honor mattels copyright...which is why the GPL is important... without the GPL mattel could stop mirrors in justr about any country
All one has to do is put up a mirror in a free country...then its all set. Now comes the questions....
If a US citizen, residing in the US, puts up something on a web server that is in another country...is he bound by US law when that server is distributing files to US residents?
I really could see arguments go both ways on this. (somehow I think courts would rule that they are...tho what would you expect? authoritarians don't like to give up their illusions of power)
What about links? Would it be illegal for my web page, in the US on a US server, to link a copy of the program that is on a non-us server, in a country where the distribution is deemed legal?
Get a friend. Have freind read the source code and write a review of it. In the review have him talk about all the functions and what each of them does and how it works in minute detail. (nothing in copyright law, except maybe some of the horrible new stuff, says you can't write a reviw)
Then take his review...and use it to write a new software program that does exactly the same thing as cphack.
oops. New program...copyright by you... contains no old code (you never saw the code itself). Written from information in the text of an article...where the article itself is perfectly legal.
Yes I realize how a TV works. How it works makes perfect sense. A big coil that influences the path of a stream of electrons.
I never said coild don't have uses. I just have doubts about their ability to "nullify gravity".
Seriously...he is talking about photons...nearest I can figure he plans to just shove so much current through the wires that they glow like a light bulb....then why use insulated wire? Where will the light go?
Certainly that much heat (if thats what he is doing) would burn righ tthough any insulation I know of...furthermore the high temperature would cause the metal to oxidise very readily in normal atmosphere.
Yes it "seems bogus". No thats not a logical statment. Its a gut feeling based on presentation, and the fact that AFAIK the basic premise is flawed. (not to mention that people have been playing with putting huge currents into coils of wire for a long time and mysteriosluy noone has noticed this ability of theirs to "nullify gravity".
radiometers spin because the light is absorbed by the black surface....which heats it up. Thus when air (there is a small amount of air still in the glass tube...very low pressutre) strikes the black surface, it is heated and moves away with greater force,...thus pushing on the black side more than the cooler white side.
In the low air pressure (and thus low air friction ) environment...this is enough to make it spin.
However....
If you pump out even more air...thus lowering the air pressure even more...this effect becomes much less...and the fins actually DO spin in the opposite direction.
Look at the diagrams...thats all it is. A big metal tube with a couple of wire loops inside... looks like 2 or 3 turns each.
Now....he claims to be throwing 300 A into this sucker...depending on voltage...thats a shitload of juice. Perhaps he is producing a magnetic feild strong enough, and properly oriented so that the coil is actually being suspended above the electronics in the scale below it?
I dunno...it all seems really bogus. AFAIK the generally accepted theories of Gravity state that Mass warps space in 3 dimensions. So light is effected by gravity only because the space it is taveling thorough is bent (ie it follows a straight line in a curved space).
Personally...I am very quick to call this pure bunk. Its just too pretty. I notice he claims it has been tested...yet there are no pictures of the actual device...just diagrams.
It should also be mentioned that just because the math works, doesn't mean it physically works. You can play with math and make a good case for "white holes" (ie the opposite of a black hole.. it spews out matter and never takes any in) however...its just because the math works both ways...there is no evidence that a white hole would actually exist.
Perhaps this guy is just a crackpot...I would be interested to see more evidence myself. Another criticizm is...where are the photons comming from? He is talking about radiation etc...yet all he is really doing is dumping ALOT of current through a couple of coils that are near eachother.
> This ruling does not make it illegal for a web > store in Japan to send me the Dreamcast I > ordered.
Probably true...but then again...its not illegal for companies in the netherlands that sell Magic Mushrooms mail order to fill your order either. However...it would be quite illegal for you to order them and recieve the packge. By doing so you are importing something thats not "legal".
> And the post office isn't going to > open and inspect EVERY box coming into the US. > (easily millions if not billions per day). And > besides, customs agents have more IMPORTANT > things to look for, like guns or drugs. So how > exactly does this affect me again?
One never knows what they might inspect. One never knows what customs might do either. I was talking to someone who had a cactus imported mail order. Perfectly legal non-psycoactive cousin of peyote. The shipper marked the box with the word "peyote" by mistake...customs opened it...saw it wasn't peyote (which is interesting since it would be easy to mistake one for the other) then just to be assholes cut off the growing tip (cacti grow from the top...so this one will have to grow new tips in the form of buds before it will actually grow)
As for more important things...guns and drugs... how pointless. Good to see my tax dollars being spent to stop the importation of things that can be bought on any streetcorner, and always will be.
> If it was GPL'd, then they had already assigned > the rights to copy, modify and redistribute to > other people, and so could not legally sign this > agreement.
Nope...they licenced it. AFAIK they did not "assign rights" until they signed with Mattel
>If you GPL something, you can still sell the code > to someone under a non-exclusive license, but > you cannot transfer exclusive ownership in the > way the settlement appears to have done
Sure you can. Hell...goto the FSF website. They even say that if you don't want to take care of you GPLd program...you can sign over copyright to them, and they will take care of it, and defend it legally.
> This will not be a test of the validity of GPL. > If courts rule that this software is illegal, > the type of license it > was published under is irrelevant.
Actually....iuts VERY relevant.
Remember....if a court rules the software illegal...it is still legal in other countries. If it were NOT GPLd, then Mattel could go after distributers of it now for copyright violation.
Since they can't doi that....all they could do is use the draconian laws of the US to have it deemed illegal...then piss and moan about how US law doesn't do a damned thing when the distributer is in the UK, or Germany.
In those places...the GPL would still be valid... however the ruling of it being illegal wouldn't be.
> I really hope this is just the ignorance of the > journalist and not RMS trying to take > credit for Linux.
Its neither. RMS is saying something somewhat differnt. He is saying yes, linux is NOT a GNU project. However, Linux is also NOT an OS.
very simple... Linux is not an OS without tools. The GNU tools are not an OS withotu a kernel. Just about every linux dist is Linux kernel+GNU tools + other (some BSD tools, etc etc). However the main base tools tend to be mostly GNU (ls, cp tar etc). So... why does the kernel deserve all the credit in the name? GNU/Linux seems alot more apropriate.
> RMS needs to lighten his stance against Amazon.
I disagree... not just because I hate software patents and think this one is REALLY obvious... not only that but I swear I saw a website with "1 click ordering" quite a while before I ever even heard of "amazon.com".
All in all...his argument (bezos) boiled down to "Barnes and Nobel copies everything we did, so we had to stop them". Yea so? You see a good idea ...you use it. People are on this "innovation" kick lately...its the big buzzword if your not innovating its "bad". Hey...good ideas exist... you see a good idea...you use it. Nothing wrong with that in my book. Noone is criticizing car manafacturers for "not innovating" because they all make round wheels for their cars.
Well... The argument is (and I believe) that what you are asking for is the freedom to restric others. You want to be able to take the free software and then make it into something else...and then restrict what others can do with it.
Thats not really a freedom. Thats a restriction on the freedom of others.
I mean, I am listening to the MP3s now (off local copies that I saved). Its cool. I LIKE being able to listen to mp3s of the interview...however... it SHOULD be text also. Sometimes I much prefer to read, that way I can skip around better etc.
If it can't propagate faster than death rate... it wont survive. Then I guess one might say that Linux and orther Unix systems have healthy immune systems...
which would mean... Windows has no immune system whatsoever (unless you purchase one sepratly).
Or even better... you could look at the Virus scanners as Antibiotics....constantly feeding the windows machine antibiotics (I know not a perfect analogy since antibiotics are more apropriate for bacterial infections) which cause the pathogens to die off...all except the strongest ones which then have free reign to propagate until a better antibiotic is made.
> If you reprogram your digital watch to store > answers to a Calculus test, that's a very > ingenius hack. But it's still cheating, and > when you get tossed out of university > for cheating, I won't have much sympathy for you
Actually...studnets should be commended for such things. Its called Applying Knowledge to a real world situation. Simple proper use of a tool. A definite real life skill.
Besdies...as Einsein Said...never memorize anything that you can look up.
> It should be obvious to anyone that this is > wrong.
Yet it is not obvious. Perhaps that means you are making a fundamental error of assumption:) pretty common actually.
Of course whether it is right or wrong doesn't matter too much...least not once the armed enforcers come to cart you away.
Anyway...when I was at school a few years back, the people I knew were talking about doing something very similar. Actually...they were planning to have 1 of them get ethernet...then claim he had multiple machines and get IPs for them all ($5 each for extra IPs once you get the ethernet service).
> Now that's a load of bullshit. Have you ever > heard of copyright law?
Yes I have heard of it....fairly juvenile idea if you ask me.
I am not a legalist. Believe it or not, not everyone derives their sense of morality from a bunch of kooks who were good enough liars to win the great governmental popularity contest.
My government is nothing more then a bunch of armed thugs, who happen to be good at making people feel good about what they are doing. Hardly role models if you ask me.
These things wont be available to "anyone" for quite a long time. Noone except HUGE corperations and governments will be building them within the next 10 years or even more. Plenty of time.
Research is important. Science for the sake of science I say. Human society will adapt. Maybe a few eggs will have to break in the process... but in the end we get a good omlet.
Like any good tool, such things can be used for either good or evil. I think we should continue as we always have with technology...keep going forward and seal with the social raminifcations as we go.
No system is so sacred and important that it shouldn't be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.
> Although you may not like N-Sync or Backstreet > Boys or whoever
Yes I realize that...however I assert my right to call their music shitty cookie cutter music.
> Hardly a reason to pirate what you do like.
I never said it was. However I object to the term "Pirate". I prefer "share" or "Copy" as neither of them associate with murder and theft on the high seas.
I have no moral objection whatsoever with downloading mp3s. I have done it in the past... I don't have time or the will to do it now. Generally...I do buy the CDs of music I like As much to support the artist as so I can listen in my CD player and rip with a better bitrate.
Like I said, I love MP3.com...most of the music sucks (bu tthats true for major production music too), but I have bought a few mp3.com cds and they are great.
> As for those out there that have ever driven > drunk... Fuck You! You may think you're in > control enough to drive, but that sort of > arrogance just shows how out of control you > are.
Its sort of a tangent but...
This attitude is very justified. People shouldn't drive drunk, everyone says that, however, its not so simple of a problem as can be solved by just saying "don't drive drunk"....what is drunk?
This is something I thought about the very first (and very few) times that I got drunk. I was 16, and sitting on a friends couch. We were both drunk off our asses. As I sat their on the couch, I kept trying to asses "how impaired am I?". I felt fine. I kept thinking "im not impaired at all, I can't even feel it". In truth (truth that I found out as soon as I got up off the couch) is that I was plastered to the point that bipedal locomotion was quite a feat!
This is the real problem I see...the impairment caused by alcohol masks itself. With other drugs (like cannabis for instance) I can tell about how fucked up I am and about how impaired I am. With alcohol, I can't.
Certainly not everyone who drinks is too impaired to drive. It has alot to do with the individual, the amount they drank, the time frame of the drinking, whether they ate food that slowed the absorbtion etc etc. Compound that with the fact that it is hard fro an impaired person to tell how impaired they are.
I am not sure I know the answer to this problem. Perhaps a simple test of reflexes or some such that one needs to pass before they can operate their car? (such a thing could also catch overly tired drivers also)?
> What a pile of horseshit. It's amazing the > twisted logic that some will use to justify to > themselves their own theft
What about those of us who find the idea that making a COPY of something is tantamount to physical theft is fairly twisted logic.
I said it before, I will say it again, THEFT is taking something from someone who owns it without their permission. It is "morally wrong" because they no longer have what was theirs and they lost it against their will.
With copying, this is NOT the case.
> The point is this -- the artist who produces > the music owns it
Where is this written? You say this as if it is some fundamental law of the universe that is recognized by ever person, everywhere.
Have you considered the possibility that not everyone agrees with your assessment of the Universe?
I realise that you apear to believe in this as a fundamental rule. However, not everyone does. You can't expect everyone to believe in this any more than an Islamic can expect every human on the planet to believe the koran is the direct word of the Angel Gabriel as given to Mohammed.
The fact is that your statment is just as absurd to someone like myself who doesn't believe it, as it would be for a christian to hear that the Koran was the direct word of the Angel Gabriel.
> Yes this works for a few bands. But most of the > bands out there are *NOT* the Greatful Dead and > do not have and never will have as large a > faitfull following.
Very true. I am not much of a dead fan myself, I have exactly 3 CDs of theirs. I don't listen to it much, its not what I "usually listen to" but they do have some powerful music.
I ripped the entire 3 cds at 192 kbps (like I did with my whol emusic collection) so I could throw it all on a big playlist and listen while I work.
Some of the dead songs I could NOT leave in the playlist because the music evoked such a powerful emotional resonse that I couldn't work! (and one of these is an instrumental)
Lets see N-SYNC or the Spice Girls do that. (which happen to be perfect examples of what horrid crap gets produced under the current system)
Personally...I like the MP3.com distribution model. The artists do some work...have some CDs made. MP3.com distributes mp3s and sells CDs...I love to be able to listen to the music before I buy (I could listen for music on the radio...but that would require hearing the same "top 40" shit all the time...so I leave my radio on a classic rock station).
Windows is ok on security. Everything is easy and anybody could probably set it up and get it almost as secure as anyone else...however...its security is not "the best"
A unix system has the potential to be ALOT more secure, and more stable. However, it requires a competent admin. Too many places just install and leave it. Hell, even where I work we are "a few patch kits behind".
A system is only as good as the admins that run it. If the admins are not security consious, then any system it subject to fall, especially a Unix box, even more so than an NT box because unix systems tend to run alot more services. (just how many NT machines sit around running telnetd, sshd, portmapper, a host of RPC services and whatnot....along with a webserver etc?)
I dunno about you but...I couldn't care less if someone uses my code. Wait no...I love the idea. If someone uses code that I wrote, either as a whole, or part of something entirely differnt, then I feel that I shoul dbe glad.
There is nothing I like less then working on a program, finishing it, then have it NOT be used.
Slashdot Mirror
However....we must remember...this can only
be a partial test. Even if it fails to hold up
due to obscure US law...that does NOT mean that
other countries laws and court systems would
do the same.
As long as even one country fully honors the GPL,
almost all countries would honor mattels
copyright...which is why the GPL is important...
without the GPL mattel could stop mirrors in
justr about any country
All one has to do is put up a mirror in a free
country...then its all set. Now comes the
questions....
If a US citizen, residing in the US, puts up
something on a web server that is in another
country...is he bound by US law when that server
is distributing files to US residents?
I really could see arguments go both ways on this.
(somehow I think courts would rule that they
are...tho what would you expect? authoritarians
don't like to give up their illusions of power)
What about links? Would it be illegal for my web
page, in the US on a US server, to link a copy of
the program that is on a non-us server, in a
country where the distribution is deemed legal?
Better yet...try this...
Get a friend. Have freind read the source code
and write a review of it. In the review have
him talk about all the functions and what each
of them does and how it works in minute detail.
(nothing in copyright law, except maybe some of
the horrible new stuff, says you can't write
a reviw)
Then take his review...and use it to write
a new software program that does exactly the
same thing as cphack.
oops. New program...copyright by you...
contains no old code (you never saw the
code itself). Written from information in
the text of an article...where the article
itself is perfectly legal.
Just a thought.
Yes I realize how a TV works. How it works
makes perfect sense. A big coil that influences
the path of a stream of electrons.
I never said coild don't have uses. I just have
doubts about their ability to "nullify gravity".
Seriously...he is talking about photons...nearest
I can figure he plans to just shove so much
current through the wires that they glow like a
light bulb....then why use insulated wire? Where
will the light go?
Certainly that much heat (if thats what he
is doing) would burn righ tthough any
insulation I know of...furthermore the high
temperature would cause the metal to oxidise
very readily in normal atmosphere.
Yes it "seems bogus". No thats not a logical
statment. Its a gut feeling based on presentation,
and the fact that AFAIK the basic premise is
flawed. (not to mention that people have been
playing with putting huge currents into coils
of wire for a long time and mysteriosluy noone
has noticed this ability of theirs to
"nullify gravity".
correct and incorrect.
radiometers spin because the light is absorbed
by the black surface....which heats it up. Thus
when air (there is a small amount of air still in
the glass tube...very low pressutre) strikes the
black surface, it is heated and moves away with
greater force,...thus pushing on the black side
more than the cooler white side.
In the low air pressure (and thus low air friction
) environment...this is enough to make it spin.
However....
If you pump out even more air...thus lowering
the air pressure even more...this effect becomes
much less...and the fins actually DO spin in
the opposite direction.
Ok...basically he has 2 coils next to eachother.
Look at the diagrams...thats all it is. A big
metal tube with a couple of wire loops inside...
looks like 2 or 3 turns each.
Now....he claims to be throwing 300 A into
this sucker...depending on voltage...thats a
shitload of juice. Perhaps he is producing a
magnetic feild strong enough, and properly
oriented so that the coil is actually being
suspended above the electronics in the scale
below it?
I dunno...it all seems really bogus. AFAIK the
generally accepted theories of Gravity state that
Mass warps space in 3 dimensions. So light is
effected by gravity only because the space it
is taveling thorough is bent (ie it follows
a straight line in a curved space).
Personally...I am very quick to call this pure
bunk. Its just too pretty. I notice he claims it
has been tested...yet there are no pictures of
the actual device...just diagrams.
It should also be mentioned that just because the
math works, doesn't mean it physically works.
You can play with math and make a good case for
"white holes" (ie the opposite of a black hole..
it spews out matter and never takes any in)
however...its just because the math works both
ways...there is no evidence that a white hole
would actually exist.
Perhaps this guy is just a crackpot...I would be
interested to see more evidence myself. Another
criticizm is...where are the photons comming
from? He is talking about radiation etc...yet
all he is really doing is dumping ALOT of current
through a couple of coils that are near eachother.
I am definitly skeptical.
> This ruling does not make it illegal for a web
> store in Japan to send me the Dreamcast I
> ordered.
Probably true...but then again...its not illegal
for companies in the netherlands that sell Magic
Mushrooms mail order to fill your order either.
However...it would be quite illegal for you to
order them and recieve the packge. By doing so
you are importing something thats not "legal".
> And the post office isn't going to
> open and inspect EVERY box coming into the US.
> (easily millions if not billions per day). And
> besides, customs agents have more IMPORTANT
> things to look for, like guns or drugs. So how
> exactly does this affect me again?
One never knows what they might inspect. One
never knows what customs might do either. I was
talking to someone who had a cactus imported
mail order. Perfectly legal non-psycoactive
cousin of peyote. The shipper marked the box
with the word "peyote" by mistake...customs
opened it...saw it wasn't peyote (which is
interesting since it would be easy to mistake one
for the other) then just to be assholes cut off
the growing tip (cacti grow from the top...so this
one will have to grow new tips in the form of buds
before it will actually grow)
As for more important things...guns and drugs...
how pointless. Good to see my tax dollars
being spent to stop the importation of things
that can be bought on any streetcorner, and
always will be.
> If it was GPL'd, then they had already assigned
> the rights to copy, modify and redistribute to
> other people, and so could not legally sign this
> agreement.
Nope...they licenced it. AFAIK they did not
"assign rights" until they signed with Mattel
>If you GPL something, you can still sell the code
> to someone under a non-exclusive license, but
> you cannot transfer exclusive ownership in the
> way the settlement appears to have done
Sure you can. Hell...goto the FSF website. They
even say that if you don't want to take care
of you GPLd program...you can sign over copyright
to them, and they will take care of it, and
defend it legally.
> This will not be a test of the validity of GPL.
> If courts rule that this software is illegal,
> the type of license it
> was published under is irrelevant.
Actually....iuts VERY relevant.
Remember....if a court rules the software
illegal...it is still legal in other countries.
If it were NOT GPLd, then Mattel could go after
distributers of it now for copyright violation.
Since they can't doi that....all they could do
is use the draconian laws of the US to have it
deemed illegal...then piss and moan about how
US law doesn't do a damned thing when the
distributer is in the UK, or Germany.
In those places...the GPL would still be valid...
however the ruling of it being illegal wouldn't
be.
> I really hope this is just the ignorance of the
> journalist and not RMS trying to take
> credit for Linux.
Its neither. RMS is saying something somewhat
differnt. He is saying yes, linux is NOT a GNU
project. However, Linux is also NOT an OS.
very simple... Linux is not an OS without tools.
The GNU tools are not an OS withotu a kernel.
Just about every linux dist is Linux kernel+GNU
tools + other (some BSD tools, etc etc). However
the main base tools tend to be mostly GNU (ls,
cp tar etc). So... why does the kernel deserve
all the credit in the name? GNU/Linux seems alot
more apropriate.
> RMS needs to lighten his stance against Amazon.
I disagree... not just because I hate software
patents and think this one is REALLY obvious...
not only that but I swear I saw a website with
"1 click ordering" quite a while before I ever
even heard of "amazon.com".
All in all...his argument (bezos) boiled down to
"Barnes and Nobel copies everything we did, so
we had to stop them". Yea so? You see a good idea
...you use it. People are on this "innovation"
kick lately...its the big buzzword if your not
innovating its "bad". Hey...good ideas exist...
you see a good idea...you use it. Nothing wrong
with that in my book. Noone is criticizing car
manafacturers for "not innovating" because they
all make round wheels for their cars.
Well...
The argument is (and I believe) that what you are
asking for is the freedom to restric others.
You want to be able to take the free software
and then make it into something else...and then
restrict what others can do with it.
Thats not really a freedom. Thats a restriction
on the freedom of others.
I have to agree here...
I mean, I am listening to the MP3s now (off local
copies that I saved). Its cool. I LIKE being able
to listen to mp3s of the interview...however...
it SHOULD be text also. Sometimes I much prefer
to read, that way I can skip around better etc.
Ok so looking at viruses in Biological terms...
:)
If it can't propagate faster than death rate...
it wont survive. Then I guess one might say that
Linux and orther Unix systems have healthy
immune systems...
which would mean... Windows has no immune system
whatsoever (unless you purchase one sepratly).
Or even better... you could look at the Virus
scanners as Antibiotics....constantly feeding
the windows machine antibiotics (I know not a
perfect analogy since antibiotics are more
apropriate for bacterial infections) which cause
the pathogens to die off...all except the
strongest ones which then have free reign to
propagate until a better antibiotic is made.
Oh yes...I like this set of anaolgies alot
> If you reprogram your digital watch to store
> answers to a Calculus test, that's a very
> ingenius hack. But it's still cheating, and
> when you get tossed out of university
> for cheating, I won't have much sympathy for you
Actually...studnets should be commended for such
things. Its called Applying Knowledge to a real
world situation. Simple proper use of a tool.
A definite real life skill.
Besdies...as Einsein Said...never memorize
anything that you can look up.
This is certainly one of the funnier posts I have
read in a while. It does make a good point.
Tho...I never did understand the whole problem.
Afterall...its just sex...nothing to get all
worked up about.
> It should be obvious to anyone that this is
:)
> wrong.
Yet it is not obvious. Perhaps that means you
are making a fundamental error of assumption
pretty common actually.
Of course whether it is right or wrong doesn't
matter too much...least not once the armed
enforcers come to cart you away.
Anyway...when I was at school a few years back,
the people I knew were talking about doing
something very similar. Actually...they were
planning to have 1 of them get ethernet...then
claim he had multiple machines and get IPs for
them all ($5 each for extra IPs once you get the
ethernet service).
> Now that's a load of bullshit. Have you ever
> heard of copyright law?
Yes I have heard of it....fairly juvenile idea
if you ask me.
I am not a legalist. Believe it or not, not
everyone derives their sense of morality from
a bunch of kooks who were good enough liars to
win the great governmental popularity contest.
My government is nothing more then a bunch of
armed thugs, who happen to be good at making
people feel good about what they are doing. Hardly
role models if you ask me.
> Gimmie a break, lemmie know when you live in the
> real world and it's your work being stolen.
If someone wishes to use my work for something
then more power to them.
Why should I care? It makes me feel good to think
that someone actually saw enough value in
something that I did to use it.
Noone has ever been hurt by the copying of bits.
Bah.... thanks for the ludite argument.
These things wont be available to "anyone" for
quite a long time. Noone except HUGE corperations
and governments will be building them within the
next 10 years or even more. Plenty of time.
Research is important. Science for the sake of
science I say. Human society will adapt. Maybe
a few eggs will have to break in the process...
but in the end we get a good omlet.
Like any good tool, such things can be used for
either good or evil. I think we should continue
as we always have with technology...keep going
forward and seal with the social raminifcations
as we go.
No system is so sacred and important that it
shouldn't be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.
> Although you may not like N-Sync or Backstreet
> Boys or whoever
Yes I realize that...however I assert my right
to call their music shitty cookie cutter music.
> Hardly a reason to pirate what you do like.
I never said it was. However I object to the
term "Pirate". I prefer "share" or "Copy" as
neither of them associate with murder and theft
on the high seas.
I have no moral objection whatsoever with
downloading mp3s. I have done it in the past...
I don't have time or the will to do it now.
Generally...I do buy the CDs of music I like
As much to support the artist as so I can listen
in my CD player and rip with a better bitrate.
Like I said, I love MP3.com...most of the music
sucks (bu tthats true for major production music
too), but I have bought a few mp3.com cds and they
are great.
I hope more artists go that route.
> As for those out there that have ever driven
> drunk... Fuck You! You may think you're in
> control enough to drive, but that sort of
> arrogance just shows how out of control you
> are.
Its sort of a tangent but...
This attitude is very justified. People shouldn't
drive drunk, everyone says that, however, its not
so simple of a problem as can be solved by just
saying "don't drive drunk"....what is drunk?
This is something I thought about the very first
(and very few) times that I got drunk. I was 16,
and sitting on a friends couch. We were both
drunk off our asses. As I sat their on the couch,
I kept trying to asses "how impaired am I?".
I felt fine. I kept thinking "im not impaired at
all, I can't even feel it". In truth (truth that
I found out as soon as I got up off the couch) is
that I was plastered to the point that bipedal
locomotion was quite a feat!
This is the real problem I see...the impairment
caused by alcohol masks itself. With other drugs
(like cannabis for instance) I can tell about how
fucked up I am and about how impaired I am.
With alcohol, I can't.
Certainly not everyone who drinks is too impaired
to drive. It has alot to do with the individual,
the amount they drank, the time frame of the
drinking, whether they ate food that slowed the
absorbtion etc etc. Compound that with the fact
that it is hard fro an impaired person to tell
how impaired they are.
I am not sure I know the answer to this problem.
Perhaps a simple test of reflexes or some such
that one needs to pass before they can operate
their car? (such a thing could also catch overly
tired drivers also)?
> What a pile of horseshit. It's amazing the
> twisted logic that some will use to justify to
> themselves their own theft
What about those of us who find the idea that
making a COPY of something is tantamount to
physical theft is fairly twisted logic.
I said it before, I will say it again, THEFT is
taking something from someone who owns it without
their permission. It is "morally wrong" because
they no longer have what was theirs and they lost
it against their will.
With copying, this is NOT the case.
> The point is this -- the artist who produces
> the music owns it
Where is this written? You say this as if it is
some fundamental law of the universe that is
recognized by ever person, everywhere.
Have you considered the possibility that not
everyone agrees with your assessment of the
Universe?
I realise that you apear to believe in this as
a fundamental rule. However, not everyone does.
You can't expect everyone to believe in this
any more than an Islamic can expect every human
on the planet to believe the koran is the direct
word of the Angel Gabriel as given to Mohammed.
The fact is that your statment is just as absurd
to someone like myself who doesn't believe it,
as it would be for a christian to hear that the
Koran was the direct word of the Angel Gabriel.
> Yes this works for a few bands. But most of the
> bands out there are *NOT* the Greatful Dead and
> do not have and never will have as large a
> faitfull following.
Very true. I am not much of a dead fan myself,
I have exactly 3 CDs of theirs. I don't listen to
it much, its not what I "usually listen to" but
they do have some powerful music.
I ripped the entire 3 cds at 192 kbps (like I did
with my whol emusic collection) so I could throw
it all on a big playlist and listen while I
work.
Some of the dead songs I could NOT leave in the
playlist because the music evoked such a
powerful emotional resonse that I couldn't work!
(and one of these is an instrumental)
Lets see N-SYNC or the Spice Girls do that.
(which happen to be perfect examples of what
horrid crap gets produced under the current
system)
Personally...I like the MP3.com distribution
model. The artists do some work...have some
CDs made. MP3.com distributes mp3s and sells
CDs...I love to be able to listen to the music
before I buy (I could listen for music on the
radio...but that would require hearing the
same "top 40" shit all the time...so I leave my
radio on a classic rock station).
> This is disgusting, this guys has had a valid
> argument.
Did he? All he said seems to boil down to
"Microsoft rocks and is secure, you are all
jealous"
>erybody jumps on his ass and moderates him to 0
Nothing of the sort happend, AC posts start at
score 0. It just menas his flame bait wasn't
moderated up.
> I'm just sick of the Microsoft bashing, its
> getting old, and you have no real reason to be
> bitter except for jealousy
Having both used and supported microsoft products
I feel quite justified in calling them a steaming
pile of shit.
They have earned everything thats been said.
The watch analogy isn't the greatest really.
Its more like this:
Windows is ok on security. Everything is easy
and anybody could probably set it up and get it
almost as secure as anyone else...however...its
security is not "the best"
A unix system has the potential to be ALOT more
secure, and more stable. However, it requires
a competent admin. Too many places just install
and leave it. Hell, even where I work we are
"a few patch kits behind".
A system is only as good as the admins that run
it. If the admins are not security consious, then
any system it subject to fall, especially a Unix
box, even more so than an NT box because unix
systems tend to run alot more services.
(just how many NT machines sit around running
telnetd, sshd, portmapper, a host of RPC services
and whatnot....along with a webserver etc?)
I dunno about you but...I couldn't care less if
someone uses my code. Wait no...I love the idea.
If someone uses code that I wrote, either as a
whole, or part of something entirely differnt,
then I feel that I shoul dbe glad.
There is nothing I like less then working on a
program, finishing it, then have it NOT be used.