That is exactly my point. The majority of trackers out there have no intention of removing the offending material. Their intent is to facilitate the illegal download of copyrighted material. I'm not going to argue if this is right or wrong. I'm just looking at it from a legal vs. illegal point of view.
I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one still playing Ultima Online after all these years. I see that UO itself is supported, but I've yet to read about anyone having much success getting some of the helper apps (UOA, UOAM) to work reliably under Linux...
Though it is completely possible that I've missed any success stories. If that's the case, I'd love it if someone could point me towards one.
All that's keeping me from dropping XP completely is a few games. If there was significant support for an alternative OS, complete with good time wasters, I mean diversions, I mean games, I'd be completely Windows free.
(1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence.
Great, "contemporary community standards." Do I want my bible thumping neighbors and coworkers deciding what is and is not OK? Answer: No. I can see it now: "Oh no! You can tell that woman has boobies underneath that armor! Boobies are bad!!!1!"
(2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors.
Again, who is to judge this? I would guess that those people making these decisions wouldn't have let me see movies like Robocop as a child. But, last time I checked, I thought I was a well adjusted member of adult society. Violent movies (since there wasn't a large amount of realistic violent video games as I was growing up) didn't warp my perceptions and make me want to shoot up my office.
(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minor
I can see it now:
Literary or artistic: We live in a society where Britney Spears is a mind bogglingly successful recording "artist." Does anything else really need to be said to point out the fact that society as a whole would be most unlikely to spot something with artistic merit even if it was sitting on their nose?
Political: It goes against the prevailing political norms, so it must be bad. How dare a video game put forth the idea that corporations are wielding greater and greater influence over the US government. It is teh bad.
Scientific: And what percentage of Americans actually believe in the creationist theory that the world is only 6000 years old?
Why can parents not just step of and, god forbid, monitor what their children are doing? Why is it the governments decision to decide what is and is not OK for your children?
OK, hypothetical time, in the same vein as Google vs. BT Tracker:
While its spiders are crawling the web, Google indexes a website that traffics in child porn. Before Google is made aware of this so that they can remove it from their index, and report the site to the proper authorities, someone uses Google to find the site.
Are you still going to tell me that the difference between Google and the scum running the site is the number of lawyers? I know it's popular on/. to disparage wealthy corporations, but come on...
Google happened to crawl a disgusting site. If given the chance I have no doubt that it would be reported and removed from the index. Those running the offending site on the other hand have no intention removing the content and should be taken out and shot.
IANAL, but my understanding of the difference between Google and a tracker under US law is the intent. Google has no intent to assist in the unlawful distribution of copyrighted material, it just indexes whatever it happens to find.
Many trackers on the other hand exist solely to assist in the unlawful distribution of copyrighted material. Yes, I understand that there are trackers out there that offer completely lawful downloads, but we are only concerned with those that offer unlawful downloads for this discussion.
At that point I can't see why any "normal" user would want to use Windows.
Because most "normal" users don't even realize that an alternative is out there. People are used to being spoon fed, which Microsoft does (with a very large and forceful spoon). If you say the word "Linux" to most people, they'll think you're talking about a piano playing Peanuts character. We won't even go into the looks you'll get when you start using names like "Ubuntu."
It has been shown that a large percentage of Americans (yes, I'm going to stick to one country, as I can't speak for anyone else) don't care that their personal freedoms and rights are being eroded. Do you really think they care where their OS comes from?
For most "normal" users XP works. They just want to look at myspace, play their games, and download their porn. For these purposes, as far as their concerned, XP does what they need.
Although the head of the state Gambling Commission says it is unlikely that individual online gamblers will be targeted for arrest, the new law carries stiff penalties: as much as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
This one falls into two categories with one go...:
I don't think I need to even mention how ridiculous it is that playing poker online can land a greater prison sentence than child porn. In fact, I'm sure it's already been said, so there's no need to delve into that one.
Do we really need another law on the books that is either unenforced, or unenforceable? No wonder the rights of American citizens are eroding and no one seems to care. I'm willing to bet that many Americans see the laws that are being passed as nothing more that words that won't be enforced. Imagine how surprised they will be if (I can only hope that it is an 'if') they're wrong...
China has accused the makers of the technology developed by the chipmaking giant Intel of unethical behaviour...
Did I really just see China accusing others of ethical violations? I wonder when the last time Intel employees were jailed/killed/"disappeared" because they didn't agree with their employer...
The company that graciously employees me had profits in excess of $5 billion in 2005. They project profits of approximately $5.8 billion in 2006. (Both sums are dependent on the exchange rate. For expediacy, I used todays exchange rates with Google's currency conversion calculator.)
What does this have to do anything? Oh, yeah, the company makes mistakes, and still has profits eclipsing Nintendo's by a fair margin.
Moral of the story: profits do not mean a company does not make mistakes. If they were perfect, the profits would have been even greater.
I lost my phone number when I switched to Vonage. The carrier I was then using wouldn't release it, saying they never received a request. Fine, maybe something got lost in translation, but they more or less refused to help me get the issue resolved when it was brought to their attention.
Other than that I've had no complaints with Vonage. No issues with dropped calls, sound quality is within reason. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones.
Speaking as someone who works for the American arm of a company that manufactures digital cameras, I would say that straight resolution is more important to many people than raw image quality.
The number of people who ohh and ahh over the latest camera that uses a sensor with as many pixels crammed onto it is astounding. It doesn't matter to them that the detail in the photo has been transformed to mush, it only matters that they have the BIGGEST camera (in their mind).
Slashdot Mirror
As I said before, it comes down to intent.
Though it is completely possible that I've missed any success stories. If that's the case, I'd love it if someone could point me towards one.
All that's keeping me from dropping XP completely is a few games. If there was significant support for an alternative OS, complete with good time wasters, I mean diversions, I mean games, I'd be completely Windows free.
Great, "contemporary community standards." Do I want my bible thumping neighbors and coworkers deciding what is and is not OK? Answer: No. I can see it now: "Oh no! You can tell that woman has boobies underneath that armor! Boobies are bad!!!1!"
(2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors.
Again, who is to judge this? I would guess that those people making these decisions wouldn't have let me see movies like Robocop as a child. But, last time I checked, I thought I was a well adjusted member of adult society. Violent movies (since there wasn't a large amount of realistic violent video games as I was growing up) didn't warp my perceptions and make me want to shoot up my office.
(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minor
I can see it now:
Why can parents not just step of and, god forbid, monitor what their children are doing? Why is it the governments decision to decide what is and is not OK for your children?
While its spiders are crawling the web, Google indexes a website that traffics in child porn. Before Google is made aware of this so that they can remove it from their index, and report the site to the proper authorities, someone uses Google to find the site.
Are you still going to tell me that the difference between Google and the scum running the site is the number of lawyers? I know it's popular on /. to disparage wealthy corporations, but come on...
Google happened to crawl a disgusting site. If given the chance I have no doubt that it would be reported and removed from the index. Those running the offending site on the other hand have no intention removing the content and should be taken out and shot.
Many trackers on the other hand exist solely to assist in the unlawful distribution of copyrighted material. Yes, I understand that there are trackers out there that offer completely lawful downloads, but we are only concerned with those that offer unlawful downloads for this discussion.
Because most "normal" users don't even realize that an alternative is out there. People are used to being spoon fed, which Microsoft does (with a very large and forceful spoon). If you say the word "Linux" to most people, they'll think you're talking about a piano playing Peanuts character. We won't even go into the looks you'll get when you start using names like "Ubuntu."
It has been shown that a large percentage of Americans (yes, I'm going to stick to one country, as I can't speak for anyone else) don't care that their personal freedoms and rights are being eroded. Do you really think they care where their OS comes from?
For most "normal" users XP works. They just want to look at myspace, play their games, and download their porn. For these purposes, as far as their concerned, XP does what they need.
It looks to me like they're taking a risk either way.
This one falls into two categories with one go...:
China has accused the makers of the technology developed by the chipmaking giant Intel of unethical behaviour... Did I really just see China accusing others of ethical violations? I wonder when the last time Intel employees were jailed/killed/"disappeared" because they didn't agree with their employer...
It just should not happen, end o' story.
The company that graciously employees me had profits in excess of $5 billion in 2005. They project profits of approximately $5.8 billion in 2006. (Both sums are dependent on the exchange rate. For expediacy, I used todays exchange rates with Google's currency conversion calculator.)
What does this have to do anything? Oh, yeah, the company makes mistakes, and still has profits eclipsing Nintendo's by a fair margin.
Moral of the story: profits do not mean a company does not make mistakes. If they were perfect, the profits would have been even greater.
I lost my phone number when I switched to Vonage. The carrier I was then using wouldn't release it, saying they never received a request. Fine, maybe something got lost in translation, but they more or less refused to help me get the issue resolved when it was brought to their attention. Other than that I've had no complaints with Vonage. No issues with dropped calls, sound quality is within reason. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones.
Speaking as someone who works for the American arm of a company that manufactures digital cameras, I would say that straight resolution is more important to many people than raw image quality.
The number of people who ohh and ahh over the latest camera that uses a sensor with as many pixels crammed onto it is astounding. It doesn't matter to them that the detail in the photo has been transformed to mush, it only matters that they have the BIGGEST camera (in their mind).
Most people will never need an 8MP camera anyway.