Please note: they screen each post for relevance, so no Mae Ling Mak Naked Drunk Petrified Spray Painted And Auctioned Off To Disney posts will get through.
I agree completely that Amazon.Com's attempt to enforce this b*s* patent on (essentially) electronic commerce is nonsense. And I agree that we need to take action. I suggest that a boycott might not be the right answer.
Consider this: Amazon.com has yet to turn a profit. In fact, Amazon.com probably loses money on every book they sell. If the goal of a boycott is to harm the business economically in order to adjust their behavior, then the logical course of action would be to buy lots and lots of books from Amazon, all at once, and bankrupt the company. I therefore propose that we set up a "Boycott Amazon" website and set that website up as a partner of Amazon.com.
This reverse-boycott has other benefits to it. For one, we would increase the workload on Amazon's shipping infrastructure, potentially slowing other, less costly orders, from ever shipping. For another, if people buy books from the "Boycott Amazon" website (with the little link to Amazon), then each purchase will only hurt Amazon's pocket more by reducing the revenue of each sale by 5%. These proceeds can then go (for example) to the Free Software Foundation.
...although it might have been smarter for Sun to include more GNU productivity tools with Solaris... things like GNU compilers and desktops, for example...
If I were them, I'd put some serious cash into the following:
First and foremost, web browser development. Put some serious capital behind the Mozilla project, to make up for the lack of support from Netscape/AOL. As Dave Whitinger pointed out, losing the Browser battle could lose us the War. Mozilla has the potential to be a much better browser than Internet Explorer, especially once it becomes XML and SGML compliant. If you can build perl and python interpreters into Mozilla, you have an IE slayer.
Linux Laptop development. Linux is a pain in the rear when it comes to laptops; if VA could start selling them commercially, they would have a virtual lock on the market.
Start putting some major capital into open source office suites like KOffice or GNOME Office. This is much less necessary than (1) or (2) since there already exist excellent office suites for Linux (including StarOffice), but it may still be a very good idea just-in-case Sun decides to pull the plug on Linux support, in favor of (say) Solaris 8 for Intel.
I'll grant you that free trade helps everyone economically; but not everyone is interested solely in economic help. What about being able to enact your own laws without a faceless organization stepping in and nullifying them? What about representative government? What about the environment? These things aren't covered in most Economics classes, and I have a feeling that they're extremely hard to quantify. The Kulturwehrmacht
There's reports coming out of the Seattle Independent Media Center that police have fired upon a fleeing crowd of protesters. A lot of the story is probably BS, but what this does indicate is that tensions are rising in Seattle. Joy.
There are about 30 "anarchists", dressed in black hooded sweatshirts and hiding behind gasmasks, smashing store windows (such as GAP and Starbacks) and spraypainting police cars and news cameras! They don't seem to have a cause or message; they just wanna have fun. One "anarachist" spoke with a news reporter and rambled about the Bush family being Nazis. Do we get to invoke Godwin's Law on these wanna-be anarchists?:-)
I think at this point the police should start sending SWAT to arrest the anarchists. If they complain, the cops can just tell them "We arrested you because we felt like it." No self-respecting anarchist can complain about that...
It must be a total madhouse in Seattle now. CNN is reporting that the opening ceremonies have been indefinitely postponed due to street protests, but that working sessions of the WTO conference will still be in session.
Police are denying allegations of tear gas or rubber bullets. Meanwhile, some demonstrators are throwing sticks at the police.
However, CNN is saying that the violence is concentrated on one area. Not much word on anything else happening.
Well, Fox News is reporting the cops have been using tear gas in places, and there've been more arrests. As you said, things are getting uglier.
It gets even better. Apparently the police are now also using rubber bullets. To quote the report from ZNet:
Seattle, WA, Tuesday, 11/30/1999 -- Despite CNN's reports that no rubber bullets have been used, the Indy Media Center has several witnesses that saw police firing this morning outside the WTO's meeting place. Despite one protester struck with a rubber bullet, and accounts of at least one more, Seattle police denied using rubber bullets and tear gas on CNN this morning.
Oliver De Marcellus, a 56-year-old activist with People's Global Action, visiting from Geneva, says a rubber bullet shattered the right lens of his glasses. Witnesses report that a rubber bullet also struck a nearby man in the head.
The police have put the entire city on red alert. Volunteer medics are calling for more eyewash for protesters affected by the gas.
Tell that to the McDonald's owner whose store got smashed up. Tell that to the delegates getting attacked. Tell that to the businesses whom these protestors block.
I'll grant you that violent protest is unacceptible.. and that's just what smashing a McDonald's or attacking delegates is, violent. People who conduct themselves in such a manner should be arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to hard time.
But if you think I'm going to shed tear one for anyone who has been inconvenienced by these protests, you've got to be kidding. In fact, a lot of these businesses are looking foreward to the revenue generated by all these out-of-town protesters. As far as anyone having a longer commute, or having a business slowdown -- speaking as a working stiff myself, why the hell not? Life goes on. Convenience is no more an inalienable right than having a big-screen TV in your living room.
Speaking frankly, I'd be very frightened to be a protester in Seattle right now. It's only a hunch, but I think things might get a lot uglier in Seattle by week's end...
At the risk of getting off-topic, I'd be very interested if native Seattlers could keep us informed about the situation in Seattle. After alll, what good is the "new media" of Internet if we can't get first-hand, unedited accounts of world events?
Liberal: anyone who believes in: the environment, gay rights, women's rights, abortion rights, religious freedom (for more than the Christian Right), and/or an economic safety net.
Goddamn Stinking Liberal: anyone who can back up these beliefs with evidence, logic, or legal reasoning.
Radical: a Goddamn Stinking Liberal who acts on these beliefs, in order to affect social change.
Communist: a Radical without a suit.
Unballanced dangerous Communist: a Radical or Communist with a concealed carry permit and/or an NRA membership (or equivalent).
Terrorist: a Radical who ties up traffic for more than two minutes.
Treasonist: a Radical who disagrees with the government's policies as the government is implementing said policies will full vigor.
If this cyberprotest doesn't manage to shut the website down cold, then whatever OS the site is running on has one hell of an anecdote.....
Maybe if we can get the electrohippies to code a Linux test site for us, we can use this same approach to simulate heavy Web traffic on, say, a Red Hat box with the new 2.4 kernel....
Apparently, they're anti-freedom protesters, attempting to block the free flow of information and preserve preferential policies that favor a few special interests...
Of course. As opposed to the delegates at the WTO, who are there to meet on strengthening intellecual property rights (that is, blocking the free flow of information) and removing such barriers to free trade as environmental and labor laws, on behalf of major corporations (read as a few special interests).
What's even better is, if you don't like what the WTO is doing, you can't even elect a different WTO. They're beholden to corporations and a few government officials, not to the people.
I tried both Netscape (which gave me same the error message you got) and IE5.0; IE gave me a simple 404 error.
Hopefully the web page went down with Slashdot effect, and not because of police intervention. Then again, with the world becoming the place it is, who knows.........
Male of average or above average intelligence. This is probably the only field in any doubt, if you read some of my posts...
Small circle of friends. Yep. I'm pretty selective about who I remain friends with.
Social outcast. Depends on the social circle. If you're talking freakazoids and weirdos, I'm practically The Man.
Facinated with cults, weapons, Satanism, and games involving violent death. Let's see. I own several firearms and I used to play Dungeons and Dragons. But I practise Wicca, which is neither a cult nor Satanic. So mark that as 50%.
History of bullying or drugs. Bullies are such fun to play with though. They turn all red when you make fun of them. No drugs tho.
Recent decline in marks. I wanted a PhD but settled for a Masters. Does this count?
Engages in attention-getting schemes. Absolutely! This is why I do stuff like organize Geeks with Guns events, perform in public, and write Open Source Software. Not to mention posting on Slashdot.
So there you have it. As Rogers and Hammerstein might put it, "I am the very model of the modern violent criminal." Except.................
I never killed anyone, and never intend to.
I donno....how did the FBI draw up that profile again?
The irony here is that George W. is the same guy who allegedly came up with the Willie Horton ad used against his father's opponent in 1988 -- and then released said ad against Dukakis via a political organization not officially affiliated with the Bush/Quayle campaign.
Bush probably has a good legal case for shutting down this site, or having some of its content altered. But given his past history, he doesn't have much of a moral case.
...that Penguin Computing still sells AMD systems; Compaq sells Alphas running Linux; Apple still sells PowerPC systems that are Linux-compatible; and that you can still by SPARC stations from Sun or for cheap from many auction houses and hardware resellers.
I had the chance to play with the Lego Mindstorms system earlier this year...the IR port on the RCX has a maximum range of 1.5 meters. This got me thinking...what about programming a team of, say, six Mindstorms to behave as a team? I'd certainly like to see any research someone has done on this....
Slashdot Mirror
Please note: they screen each post for relevance, so no Mae Ling Mak Naked Drunk Petrified Spray Painted And Auctioned Off To Disney posts will get through.
The Kulturwehrmacht
I agree completely that Amazon.Com's attempt to enforce this b*s* patent on (essentially) electronic commerce is nonsense. And I agree that we need to take action. I suggest that a boycott might not be the right answer.
Consider this: Amazon.com has yet to turn a profit. In fact, Amazon.com probably loses money on every book they sell. If the goal of a boycott is to harm the business economically in order to adjust their behavior, then the logical course of action would be to buy lots and lots of books from Amazon, all at once, and bankrupt the company. I therefore propose that we set up a "Boycott Amazon" website and set that website up as a partner of Amazon.com.
This reverse-boycott has other benefits to it. For one, we would increase the workload on Amazon's shipping infrastructure, potentially slowing other, less costly orders, from ever shipping. For another, if people buy books from the "Boycott Amazon" website (with the little link to Amazon), then each purchase will only hurt Amazon's pocket more by reducing the revenue of each sale by 5%. These proceeds can then go (for example) to the Free Software Foundation.
Comments?
The Kulturwehrmacht
I'm not sure this is the first time we've had an interspecies birth; I seem to recall a mare giving birth to a live zebra....
The Kulturwehrmacht
...although it might have been smarter for Sun to include more GNU productivity tools with Solaris ... things like GNU compilers and desktops, for example...
The Kulturwehrmacht
I'm working on it :)
The Kulturwehrmacht
If I were them, I'd put some serious cash into the following:
The Kulturwehrmacht
I'll grant you that free trade helps everyone economically; but not everyone is interested solely in economic help. What about being able to enact your own laws without a faceless organization stepping in and nullifying them? What about representative government? What about the environment? These things aren't covered in most Economics classes, and I have a feeling that they're extremely hard to quantify.
The Kulturwehrmacht
There's reports coming out of the Seattle Independent Media Center that police have fired upon a fleeing crowd of protesters. A lot of the story is probably BS, but what this does indicate is that tensions are rising in Seattle. Joy.
The Kulturwehrmacht
I think at this point the police should start sending SWAT to arrest the anarchists. If they complain, the cops can just tell them "We arrested you because we felt like it." No self-respecting anarchist can complain about that...
The Kulturwehrmacht
It must be a total madhouse in Seattle now. CNN is reporting that the opening ceremonies have been indefinitely postponed due to street protests, but that working sessions of the WTO conference will still be in session.
Police are denying allegations of tear gas or rubber bullets. Meanwhile, some demonstrators are throwing sticks at the police.
However, CNN is saying that the violence is concentrated on one area. Not much word on anything else happening.
You can read the original story on CNN here.The Kulturwehrmacht
It gets even better. Apparently the police are now also using rubber bullets. To quote the report from ZNet:
The Kulturwehrmacht
I'll grant you that violent protest is unacceptible .. and that's just what smashing a McDonald's or attacking delegates is, violent. People who conduct themselves in such a manner should be arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to hard time.
But if you think I'm going to shed tear one for anyone who has been inconvenienced by these protests, you've got to be kidding. In fact, a lot of these businesses are looking foreward to the revenue generated by all these out-of-town protesters. As far as anyone having a longer commute, or having a business slowdown -- speaking as a working stiff myself, why the hell not? Life goes on. Convenience is no more an inalienable right than having a big-screen TV in your living room.
The Kulturwehrmacht
As a service to those who are bad at cutting and pasting:
http://www.zmag.org/Cris esCurEvts/Globalism/GlobalEcon.htm
The Kulturwehrmacht
Speaking frankly, I'd be very frightened to be a protester in Seattle right now. It's only a hunch, but I think things might get a lot uglier in Seattle by week's end...
At the risk of getting off-topic, I'd be very interested if native Seattlers could keep us informed about the situation in Seattle. After alll, what good is the "new media" of Internet if we can't get first-hand, unedited accounts of world events?
The Kulturwehrmacht
After the (apparent) commercial success of the Furby and the AIBO, what do you see as the future of commercial autonomous robotics?
The Kulturwehrmacht
The Kulturwehrmacht
If this cyberprotest doesn't manage to shut the website down cold, then whatever OS the site is running on has one hell of an anecdote.....
Maybe if we can get the electrohippies to code a Linux test site for us, we can use this same approach to simulate heavy Web traffic on, say, a Red Hat box with the new 2.4 kernel....
The Kulturwehrmacht
It's working fine now. It was merely slashdotted.
Go nuts.
The Kulturwehrmacht
Of course. As opposed to the delegates at the WTO, who are there to meet on strengthening intellecual property rights (that is, blocking the free flow of information) and removing such barriers to free trade as environmental and labor laws, on behalf of major corporations (read as a few special interests).
What's even better is, if you don't like what the WTO is doing, you can't even elect a different WTO. They're beholden to corporations and a few government officials, not to the people.
The Kulturwehrmacht
I tried both Netscape (which gave me same the error message you got) and IE5.0; IE gave me a simple 404 error.
Hopefully the web page went down with Slashdot effect, and not because of police intervention. Then again, with the world becoming the place it is, who knows.........
The Kulturwehrmacht
- Male of average or above average intelligence. This is probably the only field in any doubt, if you read some of my posts...
- Small circle of friends. Yep. I'm pretty selective about who I remain friends with.
- Social outcast. Depends on the social circle. If you're talking freakazoids and weirdos, I'm practically The Man.
- Facinated with cults, weapons, Satanism, and games involving violent death. Let's see. I own several firearms and I used to play Dungeons and Dragons. But I practise Wicca, which is neither a cult nor Satanic. So mark that as 50%.
- History of bullying or drugs. Bullies are such fun to play with though. They turn all red when you make fun of them. No drugs tho.
- Recent decline in marks. I wanted a PhD but settled for a Masters. Does this count?
- Engages in attention-getting schemes. Absolutely! This is why I do stuff like organize Geeks with Guns events, perform in public, and write Open Source Software. Not to mention posting on Slashdot.
So there you have it. As Rogers and Hammerstein might put it, "I am the very model of the modern violent criminal." Except.................I never killed anyone, and never intend to.
I donno....how did the FBI draw up that profile again?
The Kulturwehrmacht
The irony here is that George W. is the same guy who allegedly came up with the Willie Horton ad used against his father's opponent in 1988 -- and then released said ad against Dukakis via a political organization not officially affiliated with the Bush/Quayle campaign.
Bush probably has a good legal case for shutting down this site, or having some of its content altered. But given his past history, he doesn't have much of a moral case.
The Kulturwehrmacht
...that Penguin Computing still sells AMD systems; Compaq sells Alphas running Linux; Apple still sells PowerPC systems that are Linux-compatible; and that you can still by SPARC stations from Sun or for cheap from many auction houses and hardware resellers.
The Kulturwehrmacht
I had the chance to play with the Lego Mindstorms system earlier this year...the IR port on the RCX has a maximum range of 1.5 meters. This got me thinking...what about programming a team of, say, six Mindstorms to behave as a team? I'd certainly like to see any research someone has done on this....
The Kulturwehrmacht
...my voices talk to me in Visual Basic. sigh...
The Kulturwehrmacht