> The second amendment is inherently flawed. It > was passed at a time when America had no > standing army.
I dunno about you....but I am all for getting rid of the standing army again.
> Yes, Guns kill. Guns kill people.
What is your point?
Guns kill people...so do knives. So do any host of other things.
How would you propose that we not only get rid of guns, but stop people from making them on the black market? (we know how well things like drug prohibition work...its just IMPOSSIBLE to buy Methamphetimine now thats its illegal right?)
Is it ALWAYS wrong to kill people? If a man attacks me with a knife or gun, is it wrong of me to kill, or otherwise wound, him? Perhaps I should just stand there and allow him to attack me? Perhaps I am suposed to run and hope I can run faster than this person?
I will now iterate the stance of people who agree with me. "Guns do not kill people, people kill people". This means that a gun is a tool. Guns are USED to kill people, they do not kill people unless a person makes them.
Your argument is equivalent to that of "Hammers, and saws build houses". No, people build houses, and they use hammers, saws, and other equipment to perform this task.
> This is bad for the gaming community, since some > important mods have been lost on more than one > occasion when people's hard disks crashed
Once upon a time, I used windows (years ago). This was, needless to say, prior to my illumination.
I wrote a program and released it as shareware. I always felt that prices should be "fair" so I only charged $5 for it (I think in total 4 people registered).
A couple of hard drive crashes, and OS change later...I decided I would fuck it and GPL the sucker...however...I could not. The source code had been lost forever in a crash....I couldn't even modify it to take out the nag box (the only real difference between the shareware and "full" versions).
In the end I just pulled it from circulation and deleted my final copy of it.
> The Open Source movement is much more than the > GPL
I am a definite GPL supporter but...very much agreed. GPL is Free Software...but only part of it.
> A court ruling could stike a fatal blow to > copyleft and GNU licenses,
Well here is the thing...anyone who would challenge the GPL is a damned fool.
If you challenge the GPL...and win (ie the GPL is found invalid)...well the GPL was the only thing that gave you any right, under the law, to distribute at all... with no licence....the most restrictive possible situation is legally assumed. (now if only parts were found invalid...that would be different... but I doubt that).
Actually...if ANY licence holds up in court, then I think the GPL has an even better chance of standing up then say...the Microsoft EULA.
> lets pretend that this is the quake > source code > 12345 > and thats the code needed to make quake > run(it's oversimplicfication i know) > now iD owns the license on all that > right? > and the license they've granted is the > GPL > now.. if i make code thats 123945 > who owns the copywrite on the 9 > i do right?
Actually.... people should re-read their copyright law. This is clearly addressed in the US Copyright OFfice FAQs...
The new code is a derivitive of the original, and as such copyright is legally in the hands of the original author....NOT the modifier.
This means that if you make a simpsons episode (to use an example) that is not an obvious parody (which would be exempt under fair use), then the copyright on your episode is owned by the people who own the copyright on the simpsons.
In THIS CASE the GPL gives him the right to modify and redistribute (a right not normally granted). However...if he choses to ignore the stipulations of the GPL, then he has no right to distribute.
He either honors the GPL or never distributes to anyone. (Or gets special licence from ID... which obviously isn't happening)
Go check the US Copyright office web page...they spell it all out clearly.
> While it's sad and unfortuneate that a girl was > raped at a library, the logic in the argument is > flawed.
Whats worst....this girls unfortunate incident is being dragged through the media by this man and used as justification for his ends.
It is sad to see the misfortune of people and fammilies twisted and used by politicans and others to try to further their own social and political goals.
This is, sadly, not the only case of this. The anti-GHB legislation which either recently passed or is being passed by congress is named after a girl whose fammily was told she died after being drugged with GHB and date raped. Another investigater later noticed that her case did not show the symptoms of this, and with further investigation found out that she was not drugged at all...she died from a previously undiagnosed heart defect.
You can imagine how used this girls fammily felt when they found out that everything that had been told to them about her death was a lie.
Of course...as usual I am speaking about something which I read several months ago and the web page has dissapeared (probably because the bill has already passed). If anyone can find a reference to this story (or a correction of my telling) please let me know (or just post here)
In any case, I think it sad that these people are willing to take the misfortune of others and drag it around to further their own goals.
> The government shouldn't be spending the > people's money on anything that doesn't > have very strong upside potential. "That > government governs best, which governs least" > and all that.
Which Thoreau extended, quite correctly, to the obvious end "That government governs best that governs not at all". (I often wish that I had the courage to do what Thoreau did...to refuse to pay taxes and willingly go to jail for that belief - tis so hard to be an idealist)
> if I were to log on remotely to a site someplace > in Sweden from my home here in the US of A, > and do all my hacking there, then what?
Hmm interesting question actually.
If you used ssh to connect to the server in the other country...it could get very interesting.
I would imagine you would still be under US law sinc eyou were in the US when you did it (at least according to the authoritarians who run the US maff^H^H^H^HGovernment.
However, assuming you do not do this...then it would require them finding out it was a person in the US who did it...and ALL of the evidence would be on a machine in another country... This of course means requesting that either A) The sysadmins of the machine volunteer to cooperate with US authoritiarians or B) The US Authoritarian regime contacting the regime where the server is located and asking them to go through their process for forcing the admins to cooperate and give up the info.
Basically...if you were smart about it...and released any reverse engineered info in a fairly anonymous way...it would make prosecution nearly impossible.
Hmmm who else likes the idea of running fiber lines from 5 or 6 countries out into the middle of the ocean and setting up a platform in international waters just full of servers?
allow anyone to get an account for free and have a policy of not cooperating with ANY government wrt identitfication of acounts...support only ssh connections to the server...even add an anonymous remailer.
Course...I imagine within a year or so...all the governments would be pissed off to the point that they would just send a few ships out and sink the damned platform but...hey...its a nice idea.... perhaps some satilites....
too bad its all to expensive to offer accounts for free. I don't think people should have to pay to hide their identity.
In any case...it would make any discussion of making reverse engineering illegal a moot point... since anyone would have a safe place to do it and publish from.
Personally, I think people should be able to buy > whatever domains they want and do whatever they > want with them. domains should probably cost > more int the first place though.
If I remember right... domains were originally free. The only reason they cost money now is because the domain registrars found out that it cost them money to administer the database and keep up with requests (I could be wrong and would be happy to have my historical knowledge corrected)
> To my knowledge, it's perfectly legal for me to > reserve the phone number 1-800-walmart, even if > Wal-Mart inc. doesn't want me to. So why should > a domain name be any different?
Just because its legal, doesn't make it right.
The fact is that DNS is a resource shared by all internet users. As members of a community, we are responsible (morally IMNSHO) for our use of shared resources. We are responsible for ONLY taking what we need and giving back to the community what we don't need anymore. (thats not to say as soon as we no longer need it. I see nothing wrong with holding something for planned future expansion...but otherwise, I think it should be given back)
I realize that my view is not popular in the world today...afterall its not an ideal that is most condusive to serving the All-mighty dollar gods.
I know I am a late comer to this discussion... I have to vote for give it back.
The DNS system is a shared resource. Neither you nor anyone else ownes DNS space. You requested some because you needed it, and were given some. Now that you no longer need it, you should give it up.
This is the most fair solution. It gives anyone equal ability to register it, and use it.
DNS is a shared resource for all net users. It is up to each of us to use it responsibly and to only use what we need of it.
Well, I am a programer/sysadmin. Here a full work week is 35 hours, I work between 35 and 40. (not paid by the hour so I don't keep too close of track)
However, we are probably the exceptions. My father and a friend are both working Field Circus and regularly work over 50 hours. In fact, 50 is the smallest week they have had in the past year or two. Sometimes they hit 70 or 80 hours a week.
> The WHO is Kerningham and Richie (spelling?) > They invented two little things you may have > heard of - C and Unix.
Actually Ken Thompson is the father of Unix. If memory serves Thompson and Richie (T&R) worked together on version 2 of the Kernel which was written in K&R C
just a little trivia really.
> The wrote a book called (If I remember right) > "The Programming Elements of Style" (The book's > at work, and I'm at home ) It's just calles the > K&R for short.
Interesting...I don't have that book...I would generally associate K&R with pre-ansi C or the book I DO have "The C Programming Language" of course...thats generally refered to as the Old Testiment (yes I have the first edition)
> Do we really need another book on software > engineering. Its just a way for programmers to > go on ego trips by talking about programming all > the time, rather than doing it.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that really.
I am a programmer...most of the stuff I write is for our internal use (tho some of it may soon GPLd), mostly short programs to solve a problem.
The most I ever do is draw up a flow chart when I am about to use a technique I havn't used before
However...I do think that "Software Engineering" has its place. Some people work better that way. Certainly for a very large project, something with several programmers and a deadline...it makes alot of sense.
> Technique gets too much focus, if you want to be > a better coder just code more!
> I have wanted to install it on my computer but > have resisted because of the time and effort it > takes. I think a lot of the Linux community > believes it should take this much effort, and > that is what makes it such a good OS.
It is similar to what a co-worker said today when describing a piece of software that was rejected for use as something... "Its main feature was that it was really super flexible and you can do ANYTHING with it. The main drawback is that its really super flexible and you can do ANYTHING with it."
A Unix system (no I don't care about trademarks or source tree lineage...it IS a unix in my book) is VERY flexible. It can be setup in infinite numbers of configurations, from desktop machine with every option under the sun, to XTerminal, to simple server with ssh and httpd and nothin else running.
The problem is the install process. It has to be designed and setup. On one hand you want to have it work on as wide a number of machines as possible, and on the other, you want it to be as flexible as possible.
This is not an easy task necissarily. To get a good system up really requires alot of input and help from the user. Windows sacrifices alot of flexibility to attain its "ease of install" (which still isn't always easy) and so on.
The ease (or lack thereof) of install is on the heads of distribution maintainers. Its all about target audience and how much work they can put into it. Makeing an easy install is ALOT of work, not the least of which is sorting through litterally thousands of files and programs and decideing what to install, what not to bother with etc.
In many ways, this is one area where a comparison to microsoft is unfair...they have LOTS of money to hire programmers and make sure that time and energy are spent on these things.
It is Unix...Unix install never was a real normal user task...someday..it may be.
> See, that's what I was talking about in a > lower-numbered thread. Censorship is OK to some > people, as long as they disapprove of the groups > being censored... much as AC wants to censor the > Christians he disagrees with by marginalizing > them and their beliefs.
How interesting. However I would say that there is quite a large difference between voicing an opionion like "they are irrational" and actually trying to stop people from being able to access their material.
One is speach, the other is censorship. Contrary speach is not censorship.
Personally, I think the people who wish to have censored internet access in libraries should open their own, privatly run, libraries and offer censored terminals. Then they get what they want, without bothering the public at large.
> Why, oh why, is everything ludicrous attributed > to right-wingers? > > However, one of the fundamental conservate > tenets is freedom from government,
This of course begs the question of how one defines "right wing" and "Conservative".
The classical meaning of conservative has little or nothing to do with "freedom". In fact, if I remember my History courses, meant a mindset of maintaining the "status Quo" (no matter what it is) and refusing to make decisions while an issue is "hot". The idea being simply that people should not make big changes while their emotions are involved and thus "Conservatives" are people who resist change to protect the system from mistakes made out of clouded judgement.
An example would be that right after a big public murder, we should realize that our judgement right now is too clouded by the atrocity of the event to even think about making new laws to prevent it in the future.
This is not what is meant by "conservative" in the modern sense. In the modern sense Conservative seems to mean "I think like and act like this group of people , who also call themselves conservative". In fact, "Liberal" has come to mean the same thing.
Lately, I have trouble telling the differce between l"liberals" and "Conservatives"...the only difference I see is that they hate eachothers ideas with a passion.
Now...as to why "right wingers" (whatever they actually are) get blamed. Many of the groups who wish to shove their worldview down everyones throat tend to be hard core christian groups and identify themselves as "right wing".
> To spell it out for you - these people are just > that, people. Not some cartoonish corporate > supervillians sitting around trying to think of > ways to screw the public out of their god-given > rights.
Well this is very true...however...you should be reminding THEM of this as well.
What scares me the most about this article:
"We formed what is called a copyright assembly just two weeks ago, in which every single enterprise in this country to which copyright protection is vital [big list with NFL etc] -- they've all banded together to try and make it clear to the Congress..."
Yes, these are only men. Yes there are issues they may know alot about, and issues they are dumb about. They have fammilies and probably kids.
However, they also have big money and they KNOW how much power they have. They know that they can lobby congress and get what they want.
This makes them very dangerous. We can argue about whether it is legal to do this or that. We can argue about whether it is moral to break the law...these men can have the law changed in ways that can effect all of our lives.
We can argue until we are blue in the face about whether my reality (which is decidedly anarchistic) or your reality are better. However this man and his "friends" have the ability to actually inflict their reality upon us.
> What do you mean when you say "ole' boys > network"?
The "old Boy network" usually refers to almost an informal monopoly. Companies and individuals who have been in the buisness for a long time and know eachother.
I am not saying people shouldn't know eachother, however, the result of this is an small clique who control an industry.
The only way to get anywhere in the industry is to work through the network. Remember phrases like "Its not what you know, its who you know".
If I remember right, 90% of US media is controled by 4 men.
> Their whole gig is about getting their due. They > work to do a certain thing, they get their due.
I supose we are not to question what is really due to them?
> I mean, most people here at Slashdot like free > software, but hopefully few would say "You > -must- give away all your code."
There are many differnt world views and philosophies in the world. Not all of them are compatible with yours.
Not everyone sees what you would probably term as "Intellectual Property" as property that can be hoarded (still others would even argue that hoarding physical property is 'stealing' and is a resource that belongs to the masses)
As for being hopeful that their are few of us who would argue these things...I hope our numbers increase myself.
This all actually sounds very facinating, however it seems to me that the argument of "see all this order and all this that can explain how that works, there must be a God" is another example of the law of fives.
For the uninitiated in Discordian philosophy, I will try to explain it, (for more in depth examples of it, see "The Illuminatus! trilogy" and of course the Principia Discordia)
From the Pricipia: === The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5.
The Law of Fives is never wrong.
In the Erisian Archives is an old memo from Omar to Mal-2: "I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look." ===
What is the point of such a silly law? Well the point is that if you believe it, then it will be true.
It is more properly called "bias". If you believe there is a God to begin with, then all evidence you find, will lead you back to the conclusion that there is, in fact, a God. This is more a product of the mind and its amazing pattern matching abilities than anything else.
This is exactly why the answering of questions like "is there a God" is beyond the scope of science. Differnt people, with differnt bias, will look at the factual "evidence" and come to completely differnt conclusions.
Some will see amazing amounts of Complexity and Order...they will conclude that the mind was created by some supreme being. Others will see the same things as amazing amounts of disorder, and conclude that it all came together by chance and just happend to do what it does.
Is there a God? Beats the hell out of me. I see no hard evidence one way or the other. I seriously think the universe works fine without one...but then again, my bias is against the idea of a God, since it doesn't fit in with my world view.
> Wire up cables, sure you can charge everyone, > put free power in the air? nooooo, cant do that, > no money in that even tho its probably better.
As much as I like tesla, and think he had some neat inventions (I notice noone has mentioned his lesser known inventions, and as much as I sympathise with your anti-capitalist sentiment (I am anti-capitalist myself), I have to say Broadcasting power is just not a good idea.
A) It would make radio transmission nearly worthless. It tends to truely foul things up.
B) Tesla Coils are funny...they actually use the ground itself as 1 plate in a huge capacitor. Its a neat concept...really cool...but... big ones (like what are needed for broadcasting power) do weird things.
They tend to pump enough electrical energy into the earth that "ground" is no longer zero potential.
This doesn't even take into acount the strange properties of high frequency energy...which would probably make computers that we know and love almost impossible.
> I still don't see where the first amendment > comes in.
Perhaps you do not understand our side of the argument then.
> The first amendment doesn't give you > the right to look at kiddie porn.
No document can GIVE you a right. It can only attempt to define a right, or limit the right.
Even in a legal context...your point is highly debatable.
> The first amendment doesn't give you the right > to scream fire in a crowded theatre.
Which again is debatable (though current legal consensus agrees with you).
> The first amendment doesn't give you the right > to do anything you want, anywhere, anytime.
No but it is intended to protect your right to publish or speak your views without restriction. More to the point, it says that the government has no right to stand in the way of you publishing your views or speaking you rmind, nor may it stand in the way of you hearing others expressions of their views.
Your statments convey the idea that if something is sexually explicit, then it can not possibly be expressing a persons views or feelings. If it could be said blanketly that this is the case, then you would have grounds for saying the first ammendment does not aply.
> Many people feel they shouldn't have to worry > about their child seeing pornography over > someone's shoulder in the library
Perhaps we should pass a law stating that it is illegal for other countries to bomb the US? That way we wont HAVE to worry about being bombed?
Whether or not you worry about something is your choice. It is not anyone elses, much less the governments, responsibility to easy your mind. You can be worried about mothra attacking New York City...I will not support a law against Giant monstors named Mothra from entering NYC.
The point is that the whole reason for public internet terminals is to provide network access for people who can not afford private access.
Now, you want to premptivly restrict what they can do with these terminals. You want to use technology that has been proven to not work properly. Why? to solve a problem of people looking at porn in libraries...a problem that has yet to be demonstrated occuring. As someone (perhaps in the article?) said...in an entire year there were 6 incidents of people acting inapropriatly in the library...only 1 of those was over porn on a terminal.
How would you address the problem of a person who is doing research on porn, yet has no internet connection onf their own (or is personal research not a valid use for a library? maybe people who can't afford their own connection shouldn't be allowed to do their own research?)
Perhaps now we should make it illegal to say "fuck" in a public place, or to discuss anything sexual, for fear that your children might walk by and hear it.
> I can take my pants off and walk around my > house. I like to do it, it feels good. Does that > mean I'm being censored because I can't do that > at work or at the mall?
As a fairly utilitarian person about most things, I accept only 2 functions of clothing. 1) protecting the body from the elements 2) Pockets
As such I see no reason why you should not be allowed to walk around the mall completely naked (though one wonders where you would stow your wallet). In fact, I find the idea of men with guns comming out and forcibly dragging a person away and throwing them in a cage fairly barbaric...especially when all they were doing is walking around.
Being offended by something is a choice, noone else is responsible for the choices you make for yourself.
> This particular law would be justified and only > hurts the evildoers. No one has a legitimate > reason for sending packets out with the wrong IP > address.
I don't mean to rant...but i can't stand that attitude. So i guess I am gonna rant.
Why is it that as soon as a problem or possible soultion to a problem is identified, someon invariably says "lets make a law". Forget trying to use social force or suggestion to get all or most ISPs to adopt the policy, jump right to law making.
Do you realize that when you say "We should make a law", you are really saying "If someone doesn't do this, they deserve to have men with guns apear at their house and take them away". I am sorry but I don't think that a person who runs an ISP deserves to be strong armed by the threat of physical force into application of configs at his router.
The "lets make a law" mentality is responsible for the fact (to paraphrase shulgin) a person who can read war and peace in a week, would have to read at that same rate for 25,000 years to read all of the laws of the Unites States that are in effect as I write this (actually that figure is several years old...its probably somewhat larger now)
Now, I agree that generally speaking, there is little reason to allow IP spoofing. Yes, ISPs can and generally should block it. Why not do it in a similar way to UDP (Usenet Death Pen.) Get a bunch of organizations together, and when there is a problem with users spoofing from an ISP, threated with routing death penalty.
I think that ISPs would generally be glad to impliment such protections, if it was presented in a sane manner, and peopl epresenting it were willing to help them get it implimented.
Hell, they could stop spoofed packets right at the PPP interface. Or better yet...log all spoofed packets and contact anyone sending them.
Believe it or not...som epeopl emay have a reason for sending spoofed packets (or may not even be aware something "bad" was going on from their box)
Maybe I am a network admin and want to test my own anti-spoofing stuff at my router, so i want to go home and send spoofed packets to my router at work using spoofed intenal adresses, that way I can make sure it works.
Once I sent spoofed packets because a friend asked me to demonstrate something on his box (so I sent some spoofed packets that crashed his box)
as such I think a much better way to aproach the subject is just ask ISPs to set up monitoring for spoofing. Ask them to make a policy on it and enforce it. If ISPs logged all spoofed packets through them and the user sending them....it would make finding these people EASY.
Well....I also try to dismiss paranoia but... the ocasional paranoid delusion can provide some entertainment anyway:) It can be fun. Hell its not like worl dgovernments haven't given us enough real examples of abuse of power to be distrustful of their motives.
> 2.An act of the United States government against > its own people, possibly for the reasons > described in the post michael linked.
Ok as was mentioned...this apears to be a HUGE smurf attack of some sort (possiibly a new variation on the smurf theme that sliips through many of the old fixes)
Just looking at the logistics of it...a direct government attack doesn'r makes sense. While yes 1 GB/s of bandwidth would probably limit it to government if it were a single point attack. However, a single point attack would saturate everything between the originator and the target. This would mean that it would be easy to trace back through the route to a government setup.
However, from hundreds of machines all over the net, each with fairly differnt yet all high bandwidth paths....1 GB/s would be easy to generate.
So for the super paranoid delusion. Consider this scenario... (the most likely of the far out of left feild ideas)
1) NSA or equivalent figures a way to crack into some systems, and at least get user accounts, and a client that can be used to mount an attack from the machine remotely.
2) (optional) they break into a bunch of machines and install the client.
3) they obscure their starting adress with said acounts and other stuff...they get on irc and find som estupid script kiddies. Give them the "tools". and set them to work.
now...the script kiddies launch some attacks on high profile sites for shits and giggles.
The advantages:
1) no way to prove direct government involvement 2) script kiddies who can take the fall for the incidents, and don't even know themseleves that they were given the tools by the NSA (or equiv.)
There...nice model for a paranoid delusion. Just as Hitler burned down the Reichstaag, its actually a viable way to get public support behind the theings they wish to acomplish.
Of course...its much more likely that a bunch of script kiddies are doing this just for "shits and giggles". Then again, it could be a small band of hackers who are hopeing to raise awareness about these things and scare network admins and sysadmins into beefing up security internet-wide. (kind of a "propaganda by example" of sorts)
However...its more "fun" to blame it on evil agents with political goals...as such, Carp's law is applied which states, "Whichever possibility is the most fun to assert as true should be asserted as true"
> You mentioned the Boston Church of Christ, > Definately a cult they have been in our > newspapers quite a lot here in Perth, Australia.
Interesting. I have heard them accused of being a cult and there have been allegations of abuse etc. Really hard to say for an outsider. However a friends mother is a former member and has told me flat out they are a cult.
I feel kind of bad because I feel like I should intervene and help my friend, yet at the same time he truely NEEDS the guidence they give him on a very personal level.
> P.S. I've never used illegal drugs myself, but > I have a lot of friends (some of them geeks) > who've really have screwed themselves up with > drugs
I find that people who "screw themselves up" were actually screwed up before they used drugs.
It is often easy to blame "drugs" when a user suddenly becomes addicted and shirks their normal responsibilities. However, the fact that they do this, I think, underlines deeper problems that the person has in dealing with life.
In short drug use is a symptome of problems, not a cause. That is not to say ALL drug use is a symptom of a problem. As I tried to point out, it has more to do with the user themselves then the drugs.
> LSD (7 hits and your legally mental, count lost > at 200, not done in 2yrs)
Not true...after any number of hits of acid you are still legally sane. That is assuming you were legally sane to begin with and the LSD didn't trigger a latent psychosis....in those extreme cases....you would be right for any amount of LSD.
> Alcohol (Its addictive, I just don't like its > effect.)
I don't mind its effect...well it does kind of suck compared to others...but I am not big on CNS depressants. However, I can't drink it because OI have GERD and ethanol makes my stomac act up worst than any other substance I have found.
> Shrooms (Fun, but it makes you sick)
Sickness, AFAIK, generally caused by the mushroom bodies themselves. Method of ingestion matters. extracted drug from the mushroom should mitigate the stomac problems.
> Peyote (Quite fun.)
Mescaline and its related alkaloids from cacti are very nice. Very "fun" and euphoric (least I found). Profound compounds though, not for the casual seeker.
> Robotussin
BTW Dextromethorphan (which I hate the effect of) has been linked at least anecdotally to a potentially severe form of brain damage. While most users are relativly uaffected, extreme moderation is recomended.
> The moral of the story, kids, don't do drugs at > school.
I never used drugs when I had school the next day. Most drugs I woulfn't use if I had work the next day (maybe GHB or pot...but they are relativly short acting and mild in moderation)
Other than pot or GHB...there isn't much I could see doing more often then once a month or a few times a year.
DXM (robo) is the second worst drug I have ever done. I did dosages ranging from 200 mg up to 1 gram. I kept hoping with a larger dose maybe it would stop sucking...never did. So I stopped.
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> The second amendment is inherently flawed. It
> was passed at a time when America had no
> standing army.
I dunno about you....but I am all for getting rid
of the standing army again.
> Yes, Guns kill. Guns kill people.
What is your point?
Guns kill people...so do knives. So do any host
of other things.
How would you propose that we not only get rid
of guns, but stop people from making them on the
black market? (we know how well things like drug
prohibition work...its just IMPOSSIBLE to buy
Methamphetimine now thats its illegal right?)
Is it ALWAYS wrong to kill people? If a man
attacks me with a knife or gun, is it wrong of
me to kill, or otherwise wound, him? Perhaps I
should just stand there and allow him to attack
me? Perhaps I am suposed to run and hope I can
run faster than this person?
I will now iterate the stance of people who agree
with me. "Guns do not kill people, people kill
people". This means that a gun is a tool. Guns
are USED to kill people, they do not kill people
unless a person makes them.
Your argument is equivalent to that of "Hammers,
and saws build houses". No, people build houses,
and they use hammers, saws, and other equipment
to perform this task.
In any case, this is immaterial to this case.
> This is bad for the gaming community, since some
> important mods have been lost on more than one
> occasion when people's hard disks crashed
Once upon a time, I used windows (years ago). This
was, needless to say, prior to my illumination.
I wrote a program and released it as shareware. I
always felt that prices should be "fair" so I
only charged $5 for it (I think in total 4 people
registered).
A couple of hard drive crashes, and OS change
later...I decided I would fuck it and GPL the
sucker...however...I could not. The source code
had been lost forever in a crash....I couldn't
even modify it to take out the nag box (the only
real difference between the shareware and "full"
versions).
In the end I just pulled it from circulation and
deleted my final copy of it.
> The Open Source movement is much more than the
> GPL
I am a definite GPL supporter but...very much
agreed. GPL is Free Software...but only part of
it.
> A court ruling could stike a fatal blow to
> copyleft and GNU licenses,
Well here is the thing...anyone who would
challenge the GPL is a damned fool.
If you challenge the GPL...and win (ie the GPL
is found invalid)...well the GPL was the only
thing that gave you any right, under the law,
to distribute at all...
with no licence....the most restrictive possible
situation is legally assumed. (now if only parts
were found invalid...that would be different...
but I doubt that).
Actually...if ANY licence holds up in court,
then I think the GPL has an even better chance of
standing up then say...the Microsoft EULA.
-Steve
> lets pretend that this is the quake
> source code
> 12345
> and thats the code needed to make quake
> run(it's oversimplicfication i know)
> now iD owns the license on all that
> right?
> and the license they've granted is the
> GPL
> now.. if i make code thats 123945
> who owns the copywrite on the 9
> i do right?
Actually.... people should re-read their copyright
law. This is clearly addressed in the US Copyright
OFfice FAQs...
The new code is a derivitive of the original, and
as such copyright is legally in the hands of the
original author....NOT the modifier.
This means that if you make a simpsons episode (to
use an example) that is not an obvious parody
(which would be exempt under fair use), then the
copyright on your episode is owned by the people
who own the copyright on the simpsons.
In THIS CASE the GPL gives him the right to modify
and redistribute (a right not normally granted).
However...if he choses to ignore the stipulations
of the GPL, then he has no right to distribute.
He either honors the GPL or never distributes
to anyone. (Or gets special licence from ID...
which obviously isn't happening)
Go check the US Copyright office web page...they
spell it all out clearly.
-Steve
> While it's sad and unfortuneate that a girl was
> raped at a library, the logic in the argument is
> flawed.
Whats worst....this girls unfortunate incident is
being dragged through the media by this man and
used as justification for his ends.
It is sad to see the misfortune of people and
fammilies twisted and used by politicans and
others to try to further their own social and
political goals.
This is, sadly, not the only case of this. The
anti-GHB legislation which either recently passed
or is being passed by congress is named after
a girl whose fammily was told she died after
being drugged with GHB and date raped. Another
investigater later noticed that her case did not
show the symptoms of this, and with further
investigation found out that she was not drugged
at all...she died from a previously undiagnosed
heart defect.
You can imagine how used this girls fammily felt
when they found out that everything that had been
told to them about her death was a lie.
Of course...as usual I am speaking about something
which I read several months ago and the web
page has dissapeared (probably because the bill
has already passed). If anyone can find a
reference to this story (or a correction of my
telling) please let me know (or just post here)
In any case, I think it sad that these people are
willing to take the misfortune of others and drag
it around to further their own goals.
> The government shouldn't be spending the
> people's money on anything that doesn't
> have very strong upside potential. "That
> government governs best, which governs least"
> and all that.
Which Thoreau extended, quite correctly, to the
obvious end "That government governs best that
governs not at all". (I often wish that I had
the courage to do what Thoreau did...to refuse to
pay taxes and willingly go to jail for that
belief - tis so hard to be an idealist)
> if I were to log on remotely to a site someplace
> in Sweden from my home here in the US of A,
> and do all my hacking there, then what?
Hmm interesting question actually.
If you used ssh to connect to the server in
the other country...it could get very interesting.
I would imagine you would still be under US law
sinc eyou were in the US when you did it (at
least according to the authoritarians who run
the US maff^H^H^H^HGovernment.
However, assuming you do not do this...then it
would require them finding out it was a person in
the US who did it...and ALL of the evidence would
be on a machine in another country...
This of course means requesting that either
A) The sysadmins of the machine volunteer to
cooperate with US authoritiarians or B) The
US Authoritarian regime contacting the regime
where the server is located and asking them to
go through their process for forcing the admins
to cooperate and give up the info.
Basically...if you were smart about it...and
released any reverse engineered info in a
fairly anonymous way...it would make prosecution
nearly impossible.
Hmmm who else likes the idea of running fiber
lines from 5 or 6 countries out into the middle
of the ocean and setting up a platform in
international waters just full of servers?
allow anyone to get an account for free and have
a policy of not cooperating with ANY government
wrt identitfication of acounts...support only
ssh connections to the server...even add an
anonymous remailer.
Course...I imagine within a year or so...all the
governments would be pissed off to the point that
they would just send a few ships out and sink the
damned platform but...hey...its a nice idea....
perhaps some satilites....
too bad its all to expensive to offer accounts
for free. I don't think people should have to pay
to hide their identity.
In any case...it would make any discussion of
making reverse engineering illegal a moot point...
since anyone would have a safe place to do it and
publish from.
Personally, I think people should be able to buy > whatever domains they want and do whatever they
> want with them. domains should probably cost
> more int the first place though.
If I remember right... domains were originally
free. The only reason they cost money now is
because the domain registrars found out that it
cost them money to administer the database and
keep up with requests
(I could be wrong and would be happy to have my
historical knowledge corrected)
> To my knowledge, it's perfectly legal for me to
> reserve the phone number 1-800-walmart, even if
> Wal-Mart inc. doesn't want me to. So why should
> a domain name be any different?
Just because its legal, doesn't make it right.
The fact is that DNS is a resource shared by all
internet users. As members of a community, we
are responsible (morally IMNSHO) for our use
of shared resources. We are responsible for ONLY
taking what we need and giving back to the
community what we don't need anymore.
(thats not to say as soon as we no longer need it.
I see nothing wrong with holding something for
planned future expansion...but otherwise, I think
it should be given back)
I realize that my view is not popular in the world
today...afterall its not an ideal that is most
condusive to serving the All-mighty dollar gods.
I know I am a late comer to this discussion...
I have to vote for give it back.
The DNS system is a shared resource. Neither
you nor anyone else ownes DNS space. You requested
some because you needed it, and were given some.
Now that you no longer need it, you should give
it up.
This is the most fair solution. It gives anyone
equal ability to register it, and use it.
DNS is a shared resource for all net users. It is
up to each of us to use it responsibly and to only
use what we need of it.
> "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he
> reads." --- The Fifth Commandment of the
> Pentabarf
That reminds me...today is fridsay...
I will have to remember to partake joyously
of a Hotdog today.
Well, I am a programer/sysadmin. Here a full
work week is 35 hours, I work between 35 and 40.
(not paid by the hour so I don't keep too close
of track)
However, we are probably the exceptions. My
father and a friend are both working Field Circus
and regularly work over 50 hours. In fact, 50
is the smallest week they have had in the past
year or two. Sometimes they hit 70 or 80
hours a week.
course...they are paid by the hour.
> The WHO is Kerningham and Richie (spelling?)
> They invented two little things you may have
> heard of - C and Unix.
Actually Ken Thompson is the father of Unix.
If memory serves Thompson and Richie (T&R)
worked together on version 2 of the Kernel
which was written in K&R C
just a little trivia really.
> The wrote a book called (If I remember right)
> "The Programming Elements of Style" (The book's
> at work, and I'm at home ) It's just calles the
> K&R for short.
Interesting...I don't have that book...I would
generally associate K&R with pre-ansi C or the
book I DO have "The C Programming Language" of
course...thats generally refered to as the Old
Testiment (yes I have the first edition)
-Steve
> Do we really need another book on software
> engineering. Its just a way for programmers to
> go on ego trips by talking about programming all
> the time, rather than doing it.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that really.
I am a programmer...most of the stuff I write
is for our internal use (tho some of it may soon
GPLd), mostly short programs to solve a problem.
The most I ever do is draw up a flow chart when
I am about to use a technique I havn't used before
However...I do think that "Software Engineering"
has its place. Some people work better that way.
Certainly for a very large project, something with
several programmers and a deadline...it makes alot
of sense.
> Technique gets too much focus, if you want to be
> a better coder just code more!
"Just code more" almosty sounds like a mantra.
-Steve
> I have wanted to install it on my computer but
> have resisted because of the time and effort it
> takes. I think a lot of the Linux community
> believes it should take this much effort, and
> that is what makes it such a good OS.
It is similar to what a co-worker said today
when describing a piece of software that was
rejected for use as something...
"Its main feature was that it was really super
flexible and you can do ANYTHING with it. The
main drawback is that its really super flexible
and you can do ANYTHING with it."
A Unix system (no I don't care about trademarks
or source tree lineage...it IS a unix in my book)
is VERY flexible. It can be setup in infinite
numbers of configurations, from desktop machine
with every option under the sun, to XTerminal,
to simple server with ssh and httpd and nothin
else running.
The problem is the install process. It has to
be designed and setup. On one hand you want to
have it work on as wide a number of machines
as possible, and on the other, you want it to
be as flexible as possible.
This is not an easy task necissarily. To get a
good system up really requires alot of input and
help from the user. Windows sacrifices alot of
flexibility to attain its "ease of install" (which
still isn't always easy) and so on.
The ease (or lack thereof) of install is on the
heads of distribution maintainers. Its all about
target audience and how much work they can put
into it. Makeing an easy install is ALOT of
work, not the least of which is sorting through
litterally thousands of files and programs and
decideing what to install, what not to bother
with etc.
In many ways, this is one area where a comparison
to microsoft is unfair...they have LOTS of money
to hire programmers and make sure that time and
energy are spent on these things.
It is Unix...Unix install never was a real
normal user task...someday..it may be.
-Steve
> See, that's what I was talking about in a
> lower-numbered thread. Censorship is OK to some
> people, as long as they disapprove of the groups
> being censored... much as AC wants to censor the
> Christians he disagrees with by marginalizing
> them and their beliefs.
How interesting. However I would say that there
is quite a large difference between voicing an
opionion like "they are irrational" and actually
trying to stop people from being able to access
their material.
One is speach, the other is censorship. Contrary
speach is not censorship.
Personally, I think the people who wish to have
censored internet access in libraries should open
their own, privatly run, libraries and offer
censored terminals. Then they get what they
want, without bothering the public at large.
> Why, oh why, is everything ludicrous attributed
> to right-wingers?
>
> However, one of the fundamental conservate
> tenets is freedom from government,
This of course begs the question of how one
defines "right wing" and "Conservative".
The classical meaning of conservative has little
or nothing to do with "freedom". In fact, if I
remember my History courses, meant a mindset of
maintaining the "status Quo" (no matter what it
is) and refusing to make decisions while an issue
is "hot". The idea being simply that people should
not make big changes while their emotions are
involved and thus "Conservatives" are people who
resist change to protect the system from mistakes
made out of clouded judgement.
An example would be that right after a big public
murder, we should realize that our judgement right
now is too clouded by the atrocity of the event
to even think about making new laws to prevent it
in the future.
This is not what is meant by "conservative" in
the modern sense. In the modern sense Conservative
seems to mean "I think like and act like this
group of people , who also call themselves
conservative". In fact, "Liberal" has come to mean
the same thing.
Lately, I have trouble telling the differce
between l"liberals" and "Conservatives"...the
only difference I see is that they hate eachothers
ideas with a passion.
Now...as to why "right wingers" (whatever they
actually are) get blamed. Many of the groups who
wish to shove their worldview down everyones
throat tend to be hard core christian groups
and identify themselves as "right wing".
> To spell it out for you - these people are just
> that, people. Not some cartoonish corporate
> supervillians sitting around trying to think of
> ways to screw the public out of their god-given
> rights.
Well this is very true...however...you should
be reminding THEM of this as well.
What scares me the most about this article:
"We formed what is called a copyright assembly
just two weeks ago, in which every single
enterprise in this country to which copyright
protection is vital [big list with NFL etc] --
they've all banded together to try and make it
clear to the Congress..."
Yes, these are only men. Yes there are issues
they may know alot about, and issues they are
dumb about. They have fammilies and probably
kids.
However, they also have big money and they KNOW
how much power they have. They know that they
can lobby congress and get what they want.
This makes them very dangerous. We can argue
about whether it is legal to do this or that. We
can argue about whether it is moral to break the
law...these men can have the law changed in ways
that can effect all of our lives.
We can argue until we are blue in the face
about whether my reality (which is decidedly
anarchistic) or your reality are better. However
this man and his "friends" have the ability to
actually inflict their reality upon us.
-Steve
> What do you mean when you say "ole' boys
> network"?
The "old Boy network" usually refers to almost
an informal monopoly. Companies and individuals
who have been in the buisness for a long time and
know eachother.
I am not saying people shouldn't know eachother,
however, the result of this is an small clique
who control an industry.
The only way to get anywhere in the industry is
to work through the network. Remember phrases
like "Its not what you know, its who you know".
If I remember right, 90% of US media is controled
by 4 men.
> Their whole gig is about getting their due. They > work to do a certain thing, they get their due.
I supose we are not to question what is really
due to them?
> I mean, most people here at Slashdot like free
> software, but hopefully few would say "You
> -must- give away all your code."
There are many differnt world views and
philosophies in the world. Not all of them are
compatible with yours.
Not everyone sees what you would probably term
as "Intellectual Property" as property that can
be hoarded (still others would even argue that
hoarding physical property is 'stealing' and is
a resource that belongs to the masses)
As for being hopeful that their are few of us
who would argue these things...I hope our
numbers increase myself.
-Steve
This all actually sounds very facinating, however
it seems to me that the argument of "see all
this order and all this that can explain how that
works, there must be a God" is another example
of the law of fives.
For the uninitiated in Discordian philosophy,
I will try to explain it, (for more in depth
examples of it, see "The Illuminatus! trilogy"
and of course the Principia Discordia)
From the Pricipia:
===
The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES
OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5.
The Law of Fives is never wrong.
In the Erisian Archives is an old memo from Omar to Mal-2: "I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I
look."
===
What is the point of such a silly law? Well
the point is that if you believe it, then
it will be true.
It is more properly called "bias". If you believe
there is a God to begin with, then all evidence
you find, will lead you back to the conclusion
that there is, in fact, a God. This is more a
product of the mind and its amazing pattern
matching abilities than anything else.
This is exactly why the answering of questions
like "is there a God" is beyond the scope of
science. Differnt people, with differnt bias, will
look at the factual "evidence" and come to
completely differnt conclusions.
Some will see amazing amounts of Complexity and
Order...they will conclude that the mind was
created by some supreme being. Others will
see the same things as amazing amounts of
disorder, and conclude that it all came together
by chance and just happend to do what it does.
Is there a God? Beats the hell out of me. I see
no hard evidence one way or the other. I seriously
think the universe works fine without one...but
then again, my bias is against the idea of a
God, since it doesn't fit in with my world view.
The law of fives is never wrong.
Hail Eris!
-Steve
> Wire up cables, sure you can charge everyone,
> put free power in the air? nooooo, cant do that,
> no money in that even tho its probably better.
As much as I like tesla, and think he had some
neat inventions (I notice noone has mentioned
his lesser known inventions, and as much as I
sympathise with your anti-capitalist sentiment
(I am anti-capitalist myself), I have to say
Broadcasting power is just not a good idea.
A) It would make radio transmission nearly
worthless. It tends to truely foul things up.
B) Tesla Coils are funny...they actually use
the ground itself as 1 plate in a huge capacitor.
Its a neat concept...really cool...but...
big ones (like what are needed for broadcasting
power) do weird things.
They tend to pump enough electrical energy into
the earth that "ground" is no longer zero
potential.
This doesn't even take into acount the strange
properties of high frequency energy...which would
probably make computers that we know and love
almost impossible.
> I still don't see where the first amendment
> comes in.
Perhaps you do not understand our side
of the argument then.
> The first amendment doesn't give you
> the right to look at kiddie porn.
No document can GIVE you a right. It can only
attempt to define a right, or limit the right.
Even in a legal context...your point is highly
debatable.
> The first amendment doesn't give you the right
> to scream fire in a crowded theatre.
Which again is debatable (though current legal
consensus agrees with you).
> The first amendment doesn't give you the right
> to do anything you want, anywhere, anytime.
No but it is intended to protect your right to
publish or speak your views without restriction.
More to the point, it says that the government has
no right to stand in the way of you publishing
your views or speaking you rmind, nor may it
stand in the way of you hearing others expressions
of their views.
Your statments convey the idea that if something
is sexually explicit, then it can not possibly be
expressing a persons views or feelings. If it
could be said blanketly that this is the case,
then you would have grounds for saying the
first ammendment does not aply.
> Many people feel they shouldn't have to worry
> about their child seeing pornography over
> someone's shoulder in the library
Perhaps we should pass a law stating that it is
illegal for other countries to bomb the US?
That way we wont HAVE to worry about being bombed?
Whether or not you worry about something is your
choice. It is not anyone elses, much less the
governments, responsibility to easy your mind.
You can be worried about mothra attacking New
York City...I will not support a law against
Giant monstors named Mothra from entering NYC.
The point is that the whole reason for public
internet terminals is to provide network access
for people who can not afford private access.
Now, you want to premptivly restrict what they
can do with these terminals. You want to use
technology that has been proven to not work
properly. Why? to solve a problem of people
looking at porn in libraries...a problem that
has yet to be demonstrated occuring. As someone
(perhaps in the article?) said...in an entire
year there were 6 incidents of people acting
inapropriatly in the library...only 1 of those
was over porn on a terminal.
How would you address the problem of a person who
is doing research on porn, yet has no internet
connection onf their own (or is personal research
not a valid use for a library? maybe people who
can't afford their own connection shouldn't be
allowed to do their own research?)
Perhaps now we should make it illegal to say
"fuck" in a public place, or to discuss anything
sexual, for fear that your children might walk by
and hear it.
> I can take my pants off and walk around my
> house. I like to do it, it feels good. Does that
> mean I'm being censored because I can't do that
> at work or at the mall?
As a fairly utilitarian person about most things,
I accept only 2 functions of clothing.
1) protecting the body from the elements
2) Pockets
As such I see no reason why you should not be
allowed to walk around the mall completely
naked (though one wonders where you would stow
your wallet). In fact, I find the idea of men
with guns comming out and forcibly dragging a
person away and throwing them in a cage fairly
barbaric...especially when all they were doing is
walking around.
Being offended by something is a choice, noone
else is responsible for the choices you make for
yourself.
-Steve
> This particular law would be justified and only
> hurts the evildoers. No one has a legitimate
> reason for sending packets out with the wrong IP
> address.
I don't mean to rant...but i can't stand that
attitude. So i guess I am gonna rant.
Why is it that as soon as a problem or possible
soultion to a problem is identified, someon
invariably says "lets make a law". Forget trying
to use social force or suggestion to get all
or most ISPs to adopt the policy, jump right
to law making.
Do you realize that when you say "We should make
a law", you are really saying "If someone doesn't
do this, they deserve to have men with guns apear
at their house and take them away". I am sorry
but I don't think that a person who runs an ISP
deserves to be strong armed by the threat of
physical force into application of configs at
his router.
The "lets make a law" mentality is responsible for
the fact (to paraphrase shulgin) a person who
can read war and peace in a week, would have to
read at that same rate for 25,000 years to read
all of the laws of the Unites States that are
in effect as I write this (actually that figure is
several years old...its probably somewhat larger
now)
Now, I agree that generally speaking, there is
little reason to allow IP spoofing. Yes, ISPs
can and generally should block it. Why not
do it in a similar way to UDP (Usenet Death Pen.)
Get a bunch of organizations together, and when
there is a problem with users spoofing from an
ISP, threated with routing death penalty.
I think that ISPs would generally be glad to
impliment such protections, if it was presented
in a sane manner, and peopl epresenting it were
willing to help them get it implimented.
Hell, they could stop spoofed packets right at
the PPP interface. Or better yet...log all spoofed
packets and contact anyone sending them.
Believe it or not...som epeopl emay have a reason
for sending spoofed packets (or may not even be
aware something "bad" was going on from their
box)
Maybe I am a network admin and want to test my
own anti-spoofing stuff at my router, so i want
to go home and send spoofed packets to my router
at work using spoofed intenal adresses, that way
I can make sure it works.
Once I sent spoofed packets because a friend asked
me to demonstrate something on his box (so I sent
some spoofed packets that crashed his box)
as such I think a much better way to aproach the
subject is just ask ISPs to set up monitoring
for spoofing. Ask them to make a policy on it and
enforce it. If ISPs logged all spoofed packets
through them and the user sending them....it would
make finding these people EASY.
No laws required.
Well....I also try to dismiss paranoia but... :) It can be fun. Hell
the ocasional paranoid delusion can provide some
entertainment anyway
its not like worl dgovernments haven't
given us enough real examples of abuse of power
to be distrustful of their motives.
> 2.An act of the United States government against
> its own people, possibly for the reasons
> described in the post michael linked.
Ok as was mentioned...this apears to be a HUGE
smurf attack of some sort (possiibly a new
variation on the smurf theme that sliips through
many of the old fixes)
Just looking at the logistics of it...a direct
government attack doesn'r makes sense. While
yes 1 GB/s of bandwidth would probably limit it
to government if it were a single point attack.
However, a single point attack would saturate
everything between the originator and the
target. This would mean that it would be easy to
trace back through the route to a government
setup.
However, from hundreds of machines all over the
net, each with fairly differnt yet all high
bandwidth paths....1 GB/s would be easy to
generate.
So for the super paranoid delusion. Consider this
scenario... (the most likely of the far out of
left feild ideas)
1) NSA or equivalent figures a way to crack
into some systems, and at least get user
accounts, and a client that can be used to
mount an attack from the machine remotely.
2) (optional) they break into a bunch of machines
and install the client.
3) they obscure their starting adress with said
acounts and other stuff...they get on irc and
find som estupid script kiddies. Give them the
"tools". and set them to work.
now...the script kiddies launch some attacks on
high profile sites for shits and giggles.
The advantages:
1) no way to prove direct government involvement
2) script kiddies who can take the fall for the
incidents, and don't even know themseleves that
they were given the tools by the NSA (or equiv.)
There...nice model for a paranoid delusion.
Just as Hitler burned down the Reichstaag, its
actually a viable way to get public support
behind the theings they wish to acomplish.
Of course...its much more likely that a bunch
of script kiddies are doing this just for
"shits and giggles". Then again, it could be
a small band of hackers who are hopeing to
raise awareness about these things and
scare network admins and sysadmins into
beefing up security internet-wide.
(kind of a "propaganda by example" of sorts)
However...its more "fun" to blame it on evil
agents with political goals...as such, Carp's
law is applied which states, "Whichever
possibility is the most fun to assert as true
should be asserted as true"
-Steve
> You mentioned the Boston Church of Christ,
> Definately a cult they have been in our
> newspapers quite a lot here in Perth, Australia.
Interesting. I have heard them accused of being a
cult and there have been allegations of abuse
etc. Really hard to say for an outsider. However
a friends mother is a former member and has told
me flat out they are a cult.
I feel kind of bad because I feel like I should
intervene and help my friend, yet at the same time
he truely NEEDS the guidence they give him on a
very personal level.
> P.S. I've never used illegal drugs myself, but
> I have a lot of friends (some of them geeks)
> who've really have screwed themselves up with
> drugs
I find that people who "screw themselves up" were
actually screwed up before they used drugs.
It is often easy to blame "drugs" when a user
suddenly becomes addicted and shirks their
normal responsibilities. However, the fact that
they do this, I think, underlines deeper problems
that the person has in dealing with life.
In short drug use is a symptome of problems, not
a cause. That is not to say ALL drug use is a
symptom of a problem. As I tried to point out,
it has more to do with the user themselves then
the drugs.
> LSD (7 hits and your legally mental, count lost
> at 200, not done in 2yrs)
Not true...after any number of hits of acid you
are still legally sane. That is assuming you were
legally sane to begin with and the LSD didn't
trigger a latent psychosis....in those extreme
cases....you would be right for any amount of
LSD.
> Alcohol (Its addictive, I just don't like its
> effect.)
I don't mind its effect...well it does kind of
suck compared to others...but I am not big on
CNS depressants. However, I can't drink it because
OI have GERD and ethanol makes my stomac act
up worst than any other substance I have found.
> Shrooms (Fun, but it makes you sick)
Sickness, AFAIK, generally caused by the mushroom
bodies themselves. Method of ingestion matters.
extracted drug from the mushroom should mitigate
the stomac problems.
> Peyote (Quite fun.)
Mescaline and its related alkaloids from cacti
are very nice. Very "fun" and euphoric (least I
found). Profound compounds though, not for the
casual seeker.
> Robotussin
BTW Dextromethorphan (which I hate the effect of)
has been linked at least anecdotally to a
potentially severe form of brain damage. While
most users are relativly uaffected, extreme
moderation is recomended.
> The moral of the story, kids, don't do drugs at
> school.
I never used drugs when I had school the next
day. Most drugs I woulfn't use if I had work
the next day (maybe GHB or pot...but they are
relativly short acting and mild in moderation)
Other than pot or GHB...there isn't much I could
see doing more often then once a month or
a few times a year.
DXM (robo) is the second worst drug I have ever
done. I did dosages ranging from 200 mg up to
1 gram. I kept hoping with a larger dose maybe it
would stop sucking...never did. So I stopped.