Decius wrote:

Apple Computer appears to have invoked the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to stop the dissemination of methods allowing Mac OS X to run on chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

Yea that works. Everyone knows crackers are ALWAYS deterred by extra steps taken to prevent them from breaking copy protection.

Anyone remember a little company called DirecTV once upon a time boasted their encryption to be "hack proof"? "O Rly?" said the hackers...

Stuff like this is the equivalent of painting a big red bull’s eye on your ass. Tell crackers they "cant" and they WILL - that much faster. It will now become even more of a game to be the one to do it first.

-LB

RE: DMCA axes sites discussing Mac OS for PCs | Tech News on ZDNet

unmanaged wrote:

Well what gets me is that most of you think that all smokers are bad and have a carton a day habit. Some of us smokers do enjoy a pipe or a cig. every once and a while but that is we enjoy it.

No... we don't think you're bad (well, I don't). I grew up in a 6 person household, where 4 of the people in my family were heavy smokers (pack+ a day). Amazingly I never took so much as a drag off of a cig - I always viewed it as a stupid, grotesque addiction that I wanted nothing to do with. Growing up all around it, it was annoying then, its equally annoying now - possibly more so since I don't deal with it day in and day out (my wife quit years ago thank god).

For most of us non-smokers, smoking is a bizarre habit that we don't grasp or comprehend. Most people say they took up smoking because they felt it would improve their social acceptance. I.E. caving to peer pressure. Anything done out of peer pressure is bad; ill advised, done for all the wrong reasons.

I believe in people being free to do whatever they enjoy, so long as it doesn't impinge on another’s freedom. I should have the freedom to walk into a bar, enjoy a beer and not leave the place with my body and clothes reeking of smoke. Most of you don’t seem to have a problem with taking it outside. But some of you seem to think it’s your god given right to fill any enclosed public space that may or may NOT have adequate ventilation with fallout from your addiction. That’s the issue, and it’s NOT your right - no more so than it’s your right to blare your stereo at ear-splitting volume any time of the night you choose. Smokers have been up till now riding along for free because non-smokers just politely tolerated it. Finally someone had the balls to stand up and say “take it outside”. And they (we) are right.

Btw, ditch the pickup lines and just be yourself, and you might get some....

Amen to that. Words of wisdom kids.

-LB

RE: Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke

What, then, if smoking disappears from the District's bars next January?

Then I can only hope similar legislation finds its way to Atlanta!

Sorry smokers... when I go to a bar, I go to DRINK – not to smoke… not to have my eyes burning from irritation of half a room of cigs going nonstop... and not to walk out having myself reek of smoke for days.

(Don't worry - I won't play the "2'nd hand smoke causes cancer!" card - that’s unproven by most studies.)

So while I might sympathize with the possible detrimental effects a bar ban on smoking could have on your sex life, I don’t think that argument will play well into the hands of lawmakers. :)

I can only advise you single folks to brush up on your pickup lines.

-LB

RE: Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke

Fucking SWEET guys! Nice gig! Did you 2 get to keep the badge, and more importantly if so, how do you intend to share it? every other week or month? lol!

RE: Rattle and Decius at Alito Confirmation Hearing

bucy wrote:
] ]
] ] Since that time, the situation has changed. Today the
] ] BIOS is no longer burned in ROM; it is stored in
] ] nonvolatile writable memory that users can rewrite. Today
] ] the BIOS sits square on the edge of the line. It comes
] ] prewritten in our computers, and normally we never
] ] install another. So far, that is just barely enough to
] ] excuse treating it as hardware. But once in a while the
] ] manufacturer suggests installing another BIOS, which is
] ] available only as an executable. This, clearly, is
] ] installing a non-free program--it is just as bad as
] ] installing Microsoft Windows, or Adobe Photoshop, or
] ] Sun's Java Platform. As the unethical practice of
] ] installing another BIOS executable becomes common, the
] ] version delivered inside the computer starts to raise an
] ] ethical problem issue as well.
]
] FSF is starting to make a stink about BIOS now.

I'm equally perplexed about why this is suddenly an issue. Its not as if motherboard manufacturers are stuck with using a single companies BIOS. How much do you think out of the cost of a mobo is a license fee for the BIOS?

And Intel is automaticly "the bad guy" because they are not immediately keen to release the specs FSF demands of their intellectual property? So whats next? Demand CPU manufacturers disclose the blueprints for their chips so someone can make a "free CPU"?? FHF! Heh!

FSF - while a noble cause none the less, occasionally has their head up their ass.

LB

RE: FSF - Campaign for Free BIOS

] A New York man convicted of using the network of Internet
] service provider EarthLink to send out hundreds of
] millions of unsolicited commercial (spam) e-mail was
] sentenced to between three-and-a -half and seven years in
] prison Thursday, according to Brad Maione, a spokesman
] for New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Hope he gets raped repeatedly and mercilessly. Often. -lb

Buffalo spammer gets 3.5 to 7 years

] From a former professor:
]
] At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George
] Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him.
] In my class, he declared that "people are poor because
] they are lazy." He was opposed to labor unions, social
] security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public
] schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal
] Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission
] were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition."
] To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism."
] Recently, President Bush's Federal Appeals Court Nominee,
] California's Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown, repeated
] the same broadside at her Senate hearing. She knew that
] her pronouncement would please President Bush and Karl
] Rove and their Senators. President Bush and his brain,
] Karl Rove, are leading a radical revolution of destroying
] all the democratic political, social, judiciary, and
] economic institutions that both Democrats and moderate
] Republicans had built together since Roosevelt's New
] Deal.

[ Yeah... as a Vanderbilt grad, i've had my own exposure to the "people are poor because they don't want to work hard". And as much as i try to be fair to people, it's usually the most intellectually lazy sons and daughters of priviledge that have this opinion. It's a bullshit argument from people who lack any perspective on what a normal human being is like. Bush is a rich kid. He's never been poor, and he's never been close enough to it to have a clue what it means. I don't think he's interested in discovering what it really means to be poor, or what it takes to help people. His policies are transparent, like every so-called fiscal conservative i've ever met. I'm convinced most fiscal conservatives are like most fundamentalist christians... going through the motions, preaching self righteously about beliefs and ideals they don't actually live by, when their true motivating factors are power and greed. You want to support a candidate because he'll hook you up with more money, and fuck the rest? Fine, say so outright. But i'm pretty sick of hearing the "i'm fiscally conservative, but socially liberal" line. Bullshit. 9 times out of 10 you're greedy and want more money... quit sugar coating it. Bush is bad for the average american. Period. -k]

The Bush Social Policy

ryan is the supernicety wrote:
] ] Senate bill 500, sponsored by conservative Republicans
] ] and members of the Green Party and libertarians, would
] ] add printers to Georgia’s 26,000 computerized voting
] ] booths so that officials have the ability to review any
] ] election.
] ]
] ] "What Senate bill 500 does is say there ought to be a
] ] paper trail. There ought to be a ballot like we did
] ] before that is cast for every single individual, so that
] ] if there's a problem or a question there's a check," said
] ] state Senator Tom Price (R-Roswell).
]
] Ryan -- we should find a way to support this...

thank GOD. Yea it WOULD be kinda nice to be able to review and verify the results of something trivial like an ELECTION OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS, wouldn't it? :)

I'm actually amazed the electronic voting machines were approved without any sort of checks and balances. No one was smart / brave enought to ask the tough questions... "what if the system crashes or is hacked? how can you verify how people voted?" -LB

RE: Atlanta,Georgia,11Alive,ATLANTA,News,Weather,Doppler,sports,events

w1ld wrote:
] ] For Ulan McKnight, it's being the first customer to enter
] ] Apple Computer Inc.'s flagship San Francisco store --
] ] after waiting two nights outside the entrance and braving
] ] the rain.
] ]
] ] McKnight, who turned 40 Saturday, was joined by hundreds
] ] of others who wrapped around a city block in the city's
] ] prime shopping district for the opening of Apple's
] ] two-story store, the computer maker's fifth major store
] ] worldwide.
] ]
] ] For McKnight, a self-proclaimed "Mac-head," waiting in line
] for two days was his way
] ] of showing his appreciation to Apple for products that he
] says have improved his life.
] ]
] ] The tab adds to the roughly $100,000 McKnight estimates he
] has spent on Apple
] ] products for himself since buying his first Apple product
] more than 20 years ago.
]
] $100k?!?!?!??

Well, lets do the math. First, we can postulate anyone so fanatical that he stands in line for 2 days in the rain for ANYthing, let alone a freaking STORE to open just to say "I was the first customer - wheee!" likely = single, 40-something loser still living in mom and dads basement. Lets say 20 years rent free @ a conservative (for SF) $1,000 a month x 12 months x 20 years = $240k in cost of living expenses that he can blow on computer stuff instead.

As for income, even flippping burgers part time for $5k a year works out to $100,000 over 20 years.

Sure - the numbers pan out. -LB

RE: CNN.com - Apple opens big store with pomp - Feb. 28, 2004

] President Bush took advantage of the Congressional recess
] today to bypass Senate Democrats and install Alabama's
] attorney general, William H. Pryor, on a federal appeals
] court that oversees three Southern states.
]
] The president named Mr. Pryor, who has gained prominence as an
] outspoken opponent of legalized abortion and as an advocate for a
] greater Christian influence in government, to the United States Court
] of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

Well, this pisses me off.

There is, at first glance, an extreme hypocrisy in telling the Iraqi governing council that you are a methodist, and that you would like to be able to practice your religion in their country, while on the other hand appointing a fundamentalist from Alabama, whose track record clearly shows that he is opposed to freedom of religion, to a federal appeals court in your own country. The only way to resolve this inconsistency is to accept that Bush doesn't actually believe in freedom of religion. He believes in the propagation of the Christian faith, and he sees freedom of religion in the middle east as a stepping stone toward achieving that goal.

It is very very well established in history that religious states fail because they are religious states. History is very agnostic in the consistent failure of religious states due entirely to the corruption that "ultimate truth" brings to bare on a society when it carries the force of arms, regardless of what religion we're talking about or who runs it. This is not really a matter of opinion.

There are many people on this planet whose religious beliefs do not allow them to accept this fact, no matter how consistent and comprehensive the historical record has been. There is only one way to think about those people. They are irrational. Irrational + Powerful = Dangerous.

Bush Seats Judicial Nominee That Senate Democrats Blocked