It's a tool for politicians to be able to yap about how they "care about the environment" while at the same time accomplishing little but disrupting the economy.
I use Linux on my laptop because it works, not because it is Open Source. No doubt the REASON it works is because of the Open Source development cycle, but if a closed source program works well I use it. I am more than happy to use Skype, Adobe Reader, Real Player, codecs, ATI drivers, Windows Wifi drivers with NDIS Wrapper, Flash Player, Picasa, Google Earth, Windows stuff on Wine, and other programs (and I use GRUB to dual boot Vista and Linux). I use them because THEY WORK TOO.
I want FOSS to be about giving people options. More options = more freedom. It is no more wrong for Linux to have proprietary apps than it is for Open Source apps to be ported to Windows or Mac or (before it was free) Java or for FOSS apps to be written with.net.
I would like to remind you, if people could not mix and match, Firefox would never have caught on, and everyone would still design websites using non-standard HTML and CSS and IE would be the despot of the web (and MS likely never would have bothered creating IE 7 which helped IE become a modern browser). If nobody's hardware worked and nobody's must have apps like Flash Player worked, nobody would ever switch to Linux.
It is also worth mentioning that if MS didn't exist, Linux couldn't have existed. MS, in cooperation with IBM, standardized the PC market. If the 386 architecture had not caught on, Linux would never have become more than a pet project for Linus Torvalds, since nobody else would have had hardware that worked with the early releases (originally, Linux was written by Torvalds so he could learn about the 386 platform, and thus is was very 386 dependent, it wasn't until later that it would be ported to every architecture imaginable).
Your car should do everything you want it to. If you don't like the way it works, it's time to get engineering and manufacturing.
Not really. This is more along the lines of if Ford cars suck because of the tires that come with it (provided by another company), it is time for Ford to find a new tire vendor, or put their own tires on cars or else they lose business.
I think this all has to do with judeo-christian cultural values
You are probably right, but it is odd for Abrahamic religions to develop a taboo surrounding nudity. If you look in the bible, you will find that non-sexual nudity isn't really seen as negative. In fact, Adam and Eve were quite content to walk around naked. This was before there was sin in the world. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life, committing the original sin, they suddenly felt bad about nudity. Since the world was without sin before eating from the tree, it is logical to conclude that non-sexual nudity is not sinful (there are Christian nudist groups that promote this view).
What COULD he do? As a Senator, he could only do 3 things;
Nonsense. After it passes he could introduce a bill to amend it, he could propose amendments during the debate, he could have introduced his own bill before this ever came about. If he really wanted to stop this legislation, he could fillibuster it (he might be clotured, but oh well, he could try). He did little but vote on a few amendments and vote in favor of it. Maybe he simply doesn't care that much. I don't care much about this particular issue, there are bigger issues. It wouldn't surprise me. But what is upsetting is saying one thing and doing another, and not really even trying to do what he said he would.
If you read the PDF you'll see that members are already prohibited from posting official communications outside the house.gov domain. Is this really such a ridiculous restriction? I know I'm not allowed to post official work-related material on my personal website.
But does your job forbid you from posting your OWN opinions on your personal website?
Firstly, anyone who actually contends that the Fairness Doctrine targeted conservative viewpoints is so mindnumbingly stupid that it defies belief they have the opposable thumbs to actually type a blog. The Fairness Doctrine applied to both liberal and conservative viewpoints, and anyone who says differently is a liar.
Bullshit. Conservatives dominate radio, democrats dominate the cable news networks, "documentaries", and newspapers. There is no reason at all that talk radio should be silenced, but TV News, Newspapers, and Documentaries shouldn't.
Yes, and in a down-turning economy, as the value of their "holdings" declines, they will turn increasingly to this type of litigation-for-profit to try to keep their stock price up.
Unlikely, a company suing an individual will seldom recoup enough from the suit itself to pay for the legal fees involved in suing them (people suing companies is another story, remember the lady who won a multimillion dollar lawsuit against McDonald's after she poured coffee on herself?). The Cartel only hopes to scare people into not downloading their products, though if cases like this start reaching mainstream press coverage, the cartel will lose so much credibility that many will assume their risk of being sued isn't even affected by actually pirating anything, that it is all random.
And I think the idea of the GPL is actually closer to the spirit of copyright as the Founders intended. The public can benefit from the selfish motivations of the individual. Copyright was intended to "encourage the useful arts and sciences". Not create the RIAA. Not give fat old men in executive offices yet another yacht. The idea was an inducement to the creative to create.
Mod parent up. It is very true that copyright was intended to restrict businesses, not people. Copyright was created to prevent businesses who owned printing presses from taking a book an author wrote and printing it without compensating the author. It was never intended to restrict private citizens, since presumably only businesses would have had access to a printing press. I suppose it could have restricted anyone who wanted to hand-copy a book, but I highly doubt that was raised as an issue.
Copyright was intended to create a market in which an artist could create a work and license the right to copy to a company so that the artist could recoup their losses and if they so desired, continue producing works. "Work Made For Hire", companies suing private individuals, etc. were never intended to exist. Copyright originally lasted about a decade and a half, by that time it was assumed a good artist would have managed to recoup their losses (they could pay for another term if they wanted, but no more). Artist would have to keep producing.
Really, our current system of trying to enforce the will of companies that don't want people copying their stuff on the masses is something akin to corporate welfare.
No matter how many guns you've got, the US military has more
Not true, there are more gun owners in the USA then there are troops in the US military.
The best you'd be able to hope for is a Iraq style guerrilla insurgency, but even that wouldn't work, since the troops you're fighting against would be from a similar cultural background as you.
Similar cultural background is more likely to hurt the military than the civilians. I imagine many soldiers would have a lot more hesitation firing on their own countrymen.
So when their leader tells them, for example, that global warming is not real, they believe what they're told despite evidence to the contrary.
But there is also the other side of the equation. Some people refuse to listen to dissent. Continuing with global warming, some people seem to assume anyone who questions global warming has been bought out, or they must be discredited, and seem to think that any degree of skepticism and dissent from the majority is evil. It is perfectly rational to accept dissent, and historically, the dissenting scientist have been right on several occasions. Dissent is always healthy.
The schools and hospitals mostly got contracted out to incompetent or corrupt people who never finished or did a sloppy job
Bullshit. The majority of contracted work has been going along smoothly. There have indeed been incidents of corruption (which is to be expected in any big project), but this has been in the minority of cases.
the few that actually got built were destroyed by insurgents
Bullshit, once again. Once again, the cases of this occouring are in the minority.
with most of the electrical grid down most of the time.
This is part true, and part bullshit. Yes, overall, Iraq's utilities are in poor shape, though they weren't exactly in great shape to begin with. There have been increased power outages, but this varies widely by area. Some areas lose power all the time, some areas seldom ever do, and some have hardly ever had it.
It's amazing how many "STAY THE COURSE!" people don't know about this.
Bullshit once again. I don't have any statistics, but I have noticed that indeed many of the stay the course people are well aware of the issues Iraq has. Many can think of no alternative that doesn't involve Iraq collapsing, then likely being invaded by Iran, which would likely lead to a conflict with Iran vs. Saudi Arabia, and of course, we have to go back and deal with that. A few insurgents vs. a regional conflict, you be the judge.
These people are not stupid, and they know that other people exist. If anyone in that tribe wanted to contact the outside world, they'd just walk over to a logging camp or a park headquarters.
Or perhaps they are just afraid of us. People naturally ph34r the unknown.
But I don't really think politicians are that stupid; I think they know this, but want the excuse to be in the best example of Orwellian arguments to tyranny, however subtly and slowly it creeps upon us.
Or, more likely, they panic over everything they don't understand, thinking that if it exist, it must be regulated somehow. I doubt the same politicians that can't agree on a tax code that is less than 10,000 pages could successfully be planning in some vast conspiracy to remove your rights. Never attribute to conspiracy what can be attributed to incompetence.
But even in the most equitable countries on earth the OVERWHELMING majority of resources (land and otherwise) is owned by a miniscule fraction of very rich people.
So what? I don't give a damn how much of the pie I have so long as I have enough to live a good life. In America, the gap between rich and poor is constantly growing, but the quality of life has continued improving for both rich and poor and for everyone in between thanks to advances in technology. We have gone from the poor's biggest concern being starvation to the poor's biggest concern being obesity. Every time the gap between rich and poor shrinks or stops growing, it is generally because the rich are not growing, not because the poor are catching up.
I don't have the answer either. But I find it amazingly arrogant to think that ones wealth is entirely due to oneself.
True, but of all the millionaires and billionaires in America, 10% or so inherit their money, the rest go out and earn it. Of course they don't do it alone. When someone hires an employee or makes a deal with someone, they are investing in that person.
Had I been born to a single, uneducated teenage mother in Ghana, my life would've been very -VERY- different.
Ghana has plenty of natural resources. Gold, timber, etc. It has one of West Africa's highest GDP's (per person). I know it is nothing like the USA, but as far as west africa goes, it is well off.
I don't think these people have ever seen bad workspaces. Adobe is "unfriendly"? They have lots of light, lots of space, good furniture, palm trees... oh yeah, they have a fsckin' basketball court. Piss poor facilities, obviously. It sort of reminds me of the Xilinx building. I toured the Colorado Xilinx building once, it is wide open, a lot of stuff has a modern but natural feel to it. I liked it.
Half the reason *nix is so 'secure' is because it is more daunting for idiots to use. Yes, I am sure it has nothing to do with decent user permissions and holes being patched quicker.
As a way to deal with the information overload, after the baseline system has been established, citizens should be able to nominate a representative to cast their vote on their behalf. Not someone who has chosen to run, but anyone who they feel they trust most.
We have those, they are called primaries and caucuses, and you can usually write in candidates.
I've always thought that a direct democracy, in which everyone has the right to vote on every issue, would be a good base.
In direct democracies there is the issue of majority tyranny. What checks the majority and stops them from abusing the minority? The US constitution provides for protections (bill of rights, bicameral legislature, federalism). I could see a local direct democracy sort of working where instead of a city council you have online or townhall votes, but even then you are very subject to only the radicals on both sides being the only ones showing up to vote. Also many seniors cannot use a computer. My Great-Grandmother can't. She wouldn't be happy about that.
Basically, a new constitution is needed that lays all this out, and supporting infrastructure needs to be built.
Well, I doubt we will ever have 2/3 of both houses and 3/4 of all state legislatures voting to get rid of themselves.
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It's a tool for politicians to be able to yap about how they "care about the environment" while at the same time accomplishing little but disrupting the economy.
"This Administration" is not part of the court that blocked these new regulations.
I want FOSS to be about giving people options. More options = more freedom. It is no more wrong for Linux to have proprietary apps than it is for Open Source apps to be ported to Windows or Mac or (before it was free) Java or for FOSS apps to be written with .net.
I would like to remind you, if people could not mix and match, Firefox would never have caught on, and everyone would still design websites using non-standard HTML and CSS and IE would be the despot of the web (and MS likely never would have bothered creating IE 7 which helped IE become a modern browser). If nobody's hardware worked and nobody's must have apps like Flash Player worked, nobody would ever switch to Linux.
It is also worth mentioning that if MS didn't exist, Linux couldn't have existed. MS, in cooperation with IBM, standardized the PC market. If the 386 architecture had not caught on, Linux would never have become more than a pet project for Linus Torvalds, since nobody else would have had hardware that worked with the early releases (originally, Linux was written by Torvalds so he could learn about the 386 platform, and thus is was very 386 dependent, it wasn't until later that it would be ported to every architecture imaginable).
Not really. This is more along the lines of if Ford cars suck because of the tires that come with it (provided by another company), it is time for Ford to find a new tire vendor, or put their own tires on cars or else they lose business.
You are probably right, but it is odd for Abrahamic religions to develop a taboo surrounding nudity. If you look in the bible, you will find that non-sexual nudity isn't really seen as negative. In fact, Adam and Eve were quite content to walk around naked. This was before there was sin in the world. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life, committing the original sin, they suddenly felt bad about nudity. Since the world was without sin before eating from the tree, it is logical to conclude that non-sexual nudity is not sinful (there are Christian nudist groups that promote this view).
Nonsense. After it passes he could introduce a bill to amend it, he could propose amendments during the debate, he could have introduced his own bill before this ever came about. If he really wanted to stop this legislation, he could fillibuster it (he might be clotured, but oh well, he could try). He did little but vote on a few amendments and vote in favor of it. Maybe he simply doesn't care that much. I don't care much about this particular issue, there are bigger issues. It wouldn't surprise me. But what is upsetting is saying one thing and doing another, and not really even trying to do what he said he would.
But does your job forbid you from posting your OWN opinions on your personal website?
Bullshit. Conservatives dominate radio, democrats dominate the cable news networks, "documentaries", and newspapers. There is no reason at all that talk radio should be silenced, but TV News, Newspapers, and Documentaries shouldn't.
Unlikely, a company suing an individual will seldom recoup enough from the suit itself to pay for the legal fees involved in suing them (people suing companies is another story, remember the lady who won a multimillion dollar lawsuit against McDonald's after she poured coffee on herself?). The Cartel only hopes to scare people into not downloading their products, though if cases like this start reaching mainstream press coverage, the cartel will lose so much credibility that many will assume their risk of being sued isn't even affected by actually pirating anything, that it is all random.
Mod parent up. It is very true that copyright was intended to restrict businesses, not people. Copyright was created to prevent businesses who owned printing presses from taking a book an author wrote and printing it without compensating the author. It was never intended to restrict private citizens, since presumably only businesses would have had access to a printing press. I suppose it could have restricted anyone who wanted to hand-copy a book, but I highly doubt that was raised as an issue.
Copyright was intended to create a market in which an artist could create a work and license the right to copy to a company so that the artist could recoup their losses and if they so desired, continue producing works. "Work Made For Hire", companies suing private individuals, etc. were never intended to exist. Copyright originally lasted about a decade and a half, by that time it was assumed a good artist would have managed to recoup their losses (they could pay for another term if they wanted, but no more). Artist would have to keep producing.
Really, our current system of trying to enforce the will of companies that don't want people copying their stuff on the masses is something akin to corporate welfare.
Meh, I can afford to lose some Karma. Go ahead, mod me down since you disagree.
How horrible a papercut from this would be. You could behead a waterbuffalo with this paper.