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Comment: Re:Dammit, Texas! (Score 1) 277

by penguinoid (#43112733) Attached to: Texas Bills Would Bar Warrantless Snooping On Phone Location

Maybe you should call your representatives and ask them to make a law against forcing someone to have an abortion when they don't want one. I'm just saying that, cause you are acting like such a law is necessary. Personally, I thought that was already illegal.

PS: You also need to stop living under a rock, pro-abortion people don't exist. There's a world of difference between being in favor of legalization of something, than of being in favor of the thing itself. I assume you're a pro-picking-your-nose person because you don't think picking your nose should be illegal?

Comment: It's free to ask (Score 1) 217

by penguinoid (#43112663) Attached to: Canadian Newspaper Charging $150 License Fee To Publish Excerpts

I doubt there's any law against asking someone for money in exchange for a license to use copyrighted material. Nor is there any law against using copyrighted material without paying under the fair use exemption. You could pay money to use material even if you think it is covered under fair use, if you feel like it, but you don't need to.

There's no law that says people holding copyrights have to give you the capability to copy-paste the material. I know, cause one time I tried to sue someone because I couldn't copy-paste their print book. If you don't like it, type a copy, or copy-paste it after disabling Javascript, or blocking the ***holes at icopyright.net via adblocker or hosts file.

Comment: Who cares? (Score 2) 93

by penguinoid (#38585568) Attached to: Tivo Gets $215 Million Patent Settlement From AT&T

I won't be paying for cable TV, nor will any of my brothers. If the cable companies don't adapt and fast, they will die out with our parent generation. It's not so much that they're using the wrong technology, but rather that a similar but cheaper option is available. Internet can just as easily do phone, radio, and TV as well generic data. Adapt or die, content providers.

Comment: Re:Dangers of the right thing (Score 1) 175

by penguinoid (#31080476) Attached to: Re-Engineering the Immune System

Actually, the very first job of immune cells is to recognize self. After they can recognize self, then they go on to attack non-self. If the immune system were to attack self, you get various autoimmune diseases ranging from diabetes to arthritis. So what I wonder about these, given that they grow in a lab and never recognize you, is whether they will tag our own cells?

Comment: Re:Does freedom imply privacy? (Score 1) 324

by penguinoid (#19235095) Attached to: FBI Target Puts His Life Online
1. Freedom is your right to act as you choose so long as your actions do not harm others

No, Freedom is your right to act as you choose, without retaliation. Other people's freedom is their right not to be harmed in certain ways by your actions.

You might argue that lack of privacy can limit choices by the threat of embarrassment, but freedom does not preclude embarrassing actions from your choice set. In other words, freedom does not require your choices to be easy and embarrassment-free, just possible. This is not to say that privacy isn't a right worth fighting for. But I don't think we should use the right to freedom to justify the right to privacy.

Go live in a dictatorship for a while, and you will realize that while you might be "free" to do something, that doesn't mean that the government won't haul your ass in jail (or execute you) the next day if they found out about it. Much like in America you're "free" to break the speed limit, fuck a cow, copy music, smoke pot, or shoot off fireworks so long as the government doesn't find out you did it. If there is significant chance that your actions will be retaliated against, you're not really free to do them, even if you are physically capable to do so. It is for this reason that freedom requires privacy; if people take offense at your actions and retaliate, you are not really free to do them. You could argue that indifference on the part of everyone could substitute for privacy, but that will never happen. Inasmuch as people don't retaliate for things they don't know, privacy guarantees freedom.

Unfortunately, the sheeple won't realize that if you don't do anything wrong, you still might have something to hide (because illegal things aren't always wrong, and embarrassing things aren't always wrong), especially if the government should ever turn against its people.
United States

CA Proposes Rigorous Voting Machine Testing 172

Posted by kdawson
from the red-five-standing-by dept.
christian.einfeldt writes "During her successful campaign for California Secretary of State, newly-minted California Elections Czar Debra Bowen spoke repeatedly of the need to use free open source software in voting machines to ensure the integrity of California's elections. Now that Secretary Bowen is acting on that campaign pledge, closed-source voting machine vendor Diebold worries aloud that rejecting its black-box voting machines could snarl California's elections. Diebold's concerns come at the same time that it is suing Massachusetts for declining to purchase those same voting machines." Quoting: "California's elections chief is proposing the toughest standards for voting systems in the country, so tough that they could [have the result of banishing] ATM-like touch-screen voting machines from the state. For the first time, California is demanding the right to try hacking every voting machine with 'red teams' of computer experts and to study the software inside the machines, line-by-line, for security holes."
Google

Don't Google "How To Commit Murder" Before Killing 387

Posted by kdawson
from the gods-themselves-contend-in-vain dept.
An anonymous reader alerts us to a murder trial in New Jersey in which Google and MSN searches were used against a woman accused of killing her husband. In the days before the murder, prosecutors say the defendant searched for "How To Commit Murder," "instant poisons," "undetectable poisons," "fatal digoxin doses," and gun laws in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Her husband was killed with a gun procured in Pennsylvania. The crime occurred in 2004; of course, people now know to be careful about their searches.
PC Games (Games)

+ - Games for Windows - Live to Launch May 8

Submitted by
njkid1
njkid1 writes "Soon the PC gaming community will be able to experience all the unique features that Xbox Live gamers have been enjoying for years. And if you're already a paying member of Xbox Live you don't have to pay another cent to get it on Games for Windows. We speak with Microsoft's Kevin Unangst and Aaron Greenberg about the significance of bringing Live to Windows. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1547 9&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000014"

Someday your prints will come. -- Kodak

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