The answer is clear if you have a grasp of recent
American history.
The value to the authorities of widespread surveillance
is not that they can or want to arrest everyone who
smokes a joint. The value is that if someone becomes
a pain in their collective ass, and it turns out that they
smoked a joint, they can be neutralized.
This isn't blithering paranoia. Just read any
historical account of the New Left of the 1960s
and 70s.
There's a book dedicated in part to this point.
It's by Michel Foucault and it's called _Discipline
and Punish_. (The title is confusing at first; the
trick is that "discipline" is used as a verb.) I
enjoyed it a lot, though the language can be a little
dense. I recommend it in general.
You're not helpless. You can pressure your government
to do what you think is right. If they receive enough
pressure from you and people who think like you do,
then they may choose not to toe the USA's line.
He didn't say that Slashdot shouldn't brook dissent.
He said that the Slashdot community, or the apparent
majority thereof who are in favor of intellectual
property reform, ought to get off our asses and do
something about it.
I've had problems making their stuff work on Mac OS X -- their codec is apparently not supported -- but I bet they'd be willing to work on that if enough people complain.
A Congressional inquiry, huh? Pretty cool. The same government official I know was also eligible for the draft, but was morally opposed to the war, so he applied for conscientious objector status. That was a whole big deal too, he had to fight all the way up to the Supreme Court before he was recognized as a conscientious objector.
I want to hear about the time(s) you turned down sex for ethical reasons.
I mean, it must have been subtler than say, Hewlett-Packard sending a woman (or man or sheep or whatever) to your house wrapped in a bow and carrying a printer. How did it happen?
Even if Apple didn't give away any really interesting code (and they have), I would be happy with them, just for making a BSD-based operating system with a lot of nice native GUI applications and a promise of more to come.
The open-source part is just gravy -- they did it primarily because it benefits them and their users, and I respect that.
Slashdot Mirror
The answer is clear if you have a grasp of recent
American history.
The value to the authorities of widespread surveillance
is not that they can or want to arrest everyone who
smokes a joint. The value is that if someone becomes
a pain in their collective ass, and it turns out that they
smoked a joint, they can be neutralized.
This isn't blithering paranoia. Just read any
historical account of the New Left of the 1960s
and 70s.
Very good call!
There's a book dedicated in part to this point.
It's by Michel Foucault and it's called _Discipline
and Punish_. (The title is confusing at first; the
trick is that "discipline" is used as a verb.) I
enjoyed it a lot, though the language can be a little
dense. I recommend it in general.
When I said "serious perl heads", I didn't mean
"drunks I met on the street". I meant "people
involved with the perl design process".
I know some serious perl heads who say they
wouldn't suggest using it for a large project.
You're not helpless. You can pressure your government
to do what you think is right. If they receive enough
pressure from you and people who think like you do,
then they may choose not to toe the USA's line.
He didn't say that Slashdot shouldn't brook dissent.
He said that the Slashdot community, or the apparent
majority thereof who are in favor of intellectual
property reform, ought to get off our asses and do
something about it.
... "They should have asked me to do it. They could
have saved a lot of money."
That leaves .09% of your time unaccounted for.
Nose-picking?
You're making my point for me very effectively.
Hmm ... I'm having trouble parsing the needed
;-)
file names out of this HTML soup.
Asking me to read HTML myself is almost like asking
me to run Windows.
I guess I'm not a karma whore any more.
How about adforum.com?
I've had problems making their stuff work on Mac OS X -- their codec is apparently not supported -- but I bet they'd be willing to work on that if enough people complain.
What about my comment was karma whoring?
(Just because someone modded me up undeservedly
doesn't make me a karma whore.)
If they were working with Sun on a fix, why did Sun
take a week to get the patch out after the vulnerability
was disclosed?
I'm very unhappy with Sun's response time on this.
My nightmare is that I would buy one, and that it
would *work* -- and then I'd be stuck with it.
Isn't HMV owned by Bertelsmann?
If so, they're definitely implicated in music industry
shenanigans in a way that say, J&R Music World
isn't.
People who are willing to eat flaming death aren't
likely to be daunted by the Microsoft interview process.
I said "likely" for a reason.
Internal consistency is what lets you know that "-r" is likely to mean recursive and "-v" is likely to mean verbose, etc.
A Congressional inquiry, huh? Pretty cool. The same government official I know was also eligible for the draft, but was morally opposed to the war, so he applied for conscientious objector status. That was a whole big deal too, he had to fight all the way up to the Supreme Court before he was recognized as a conscientious objector.
BTW, just because you're a stickler for spelling and grammar, it's "brothel".
Now that you mention it, I recall that a small-time
government official of my acquaintance has described
refusing bribes just by playing dumb.
Thanks for answering my question.
I'm off to look up the Mustang Ranch, that sounds
like an awfully interesting story in and of itself.
Since it's so obvious, you should figure it out for yourself.
Oh, ok. Go to the article that this story points to and
look at the yellow box in the upper left, that talks
about Novell.
There's lots of use of words like "moaning" and "whining".
These are loaded words, used here to dismiss what certain
people have to say.
The premise of the article itself tends towards machismo,
though the interviewer and interviewee didn't have to
take it in that direction.
I want to hear about the time(s) you turned down sex for ethical reasons.
I mean, it must have been subtler than say, Hewlett-Packard sending a woman (or man or sheep or whatever) to your house wrapped in a bow and carrying a printer. How did it happen?
Even if Apple didn't give away any really interesting code (and they have), I would be happy with them, just for making a BSD-based operating system with a lot of nice native GUI applications and a promise of more to come.
The open-source part is just gravy -- they did it primarily because it benefits them and their users, and I respect that.