Voder-Vocoder

For the record:

I find it disgusting that this society glorifies piracy and trivializes it by equating it with copyright infringement.

There is nothing I hate more than vinyl siding. It has no class.

What do you hate?

I hate the term middle east. East is a direction. Why not West Asia, or Southwest Asia? Asia is a place.

And some people use the term middle-east to simply mean Israel/Palestine, which ignores every other resident of the area.

“When does life begin?”
“When does life end?”
You guys are asking the wrong questions. Bacteria are alive.
My (hypothetical) cancerous tumor is alive. Fuck life.

I know that most of my friends are believers, but if I hear anyone mention anything in conjuntion with any belief in hard vitalism anytime soon, I might do something violent.

Sorry for the inconvience.

“No mystical energy field controls my destiny - it’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.”

MORE PROPAGANDA BY HAL.

I checked my pocket today and I had two shiny Wisconsin quarters. I strongly disapprove of the design.

Stupid cow.

Let’s explain what these “central vote-counting” machines are. Basically, it’s a machine running Microsoft Windows with a Microsoft Access database attached. (Note to the computer-savvy among you: Yes, I shit you not. MS Access. Jeez.)

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From thelookingglass.blogspot.com (1, 2)

From a slashdot post:

Copying bits that are arranged in a deliberate order against the stated wishes of the material’s creator is theft. So is “borrowing” it.

Incorrect. Those actions are copyright infringement, not theft. Theft involves taking something from its owner, with the intent to deprive them of it. When you make infringing copies you are taking something, but not depriving anyone else of it.

If it’s worth owning, wait for it and pay for it.

Agreed. Just don’t apply labels that don’t fit. “Theft” has legal and moral meanings that don’t apply to copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is a crime, and although it doesn’t deprive anyone of anything, it does violate an important social contract, so what it is is enough, without calling it something else.

If you don’t “wanna pay for it”, and the creator hasn’t told you it’s free for the taking, you have no right to possess a copy of it.

More precisely, we as a society have decided that to give up that right, mostly, for a time, in order to promote the publication of more works. We as individuals should understand and honor this choice, because it’s a good one. Again, though, don’t make the mistake of assuming that the author of a work has some natural right to control the work. The only natural right the author has is to decide whether or not to create it, and whether or not to publish it. Everything after that is a legal fiction (for a good reason).

—swillden (source)

If responsibility is not balanced by an equal amount of authority—and vice versa—bad things tend to happen.

Example: The commander of Abu Ghraib prison, General Janis Karpinski, will be punished for the actions of her soldiers, even though she did not have the authority to stop it.

“The orders from occupation commanders in Iraq effectively made a military intelligence officer, rather than an military police officer, responsible for the military police units, the report said. This arrangement was not supported by General Karpinski, the report added.” (source)

Example: A certain world leader has the authority to start a war, but refuses to take responsibility to stop it once it was revealed that congress granted that authority under false pretenses. And he’s arguing before the Supreme Court that the executive branch needs more authority without responsibility, like the ability to detain US citizens without any legislative or judicial oversight.

UPDATE 2004-08-11: After thinking about it, General Karpinski could have kept better tabs
on her troops. I’m no expert on military law, but I’d say the burden of proof is on her to prove that she was barred from overseeing her own troops.