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Comment Re:If selling is legal.. (Score 1) 281

What I'm saying is that if it's just for future purchases, the system loses all of its power. You can only use the "they don't have a digital deed, therefore they stole it" if there's no way they could have gotten the file otherwise. Which they can, since tons of CDs exist that can be ripped. Or digital files around now without deeds.

Comment Re:If selling is legal.. (Score 1) 281

Except it doesn't prove anything, because you can rip CDs. Unless you are suggesting that we are to go to this authority for the "digital deeds" for our songs ripped from CDs. And how do you prove you have the CD? How do you prove you bought it? What if you lost it? What if you ripped it, scratched it, and threw it away, since you have digital copies? Only way I seeing this "digital deeds" idea work is some serious Big Brother shit.

Comment Will USA be as against it as it is Iran's? (Score 1) 180

If this gets mainstream media coverage, we'll see how the USA thinks of Kenya behind closed doors. If the media says this is great for the poor of Kenya, and this will bring Africa out of poverty, etc, then we'll know Kenya is an ally. If the media says, like Iran, that this will just be used to make nuclear weapons and threaten its neighbors, we'll know Kenya is not an ally. Lack of media coverage might tell us something, too.

Comment You know... there is life without TV (Score 2, Insightful) 447

Why settle for not buying cable when you can just not watch TV period? All of a sudden I have time to learn guitar, read books, exercise, cook my own food, etc. Plus, I don't have advertisements constantly flashing before my eyes (which you pay to watch on cable; you "get them" for free on non-cable) telling me "consume, consume, CONSUME."

Comment Scary (Score 1) 141

The future is a scary place. I'm reminded of the Dune universe, in which there are no computers because the populace rose up, overthrew their AI robot masters, and banned them. I wonder when that will happen on Earth. Anybody think some day we're not going to want this sort of technology around?

Comment Re:"Most people don't care" (Score 1) 433

Eventually you'll find that "most people" are actually a lot more intelligent than you think they are, and they're laughing behind your back while you go on caring about inane shit that doesn't matter.

Where did I say anything about intelligence? I know many people who are intelligent, yet do not care about the world around them. I know many people who care deeply about the world around them, but are not intelligent. And I could really care less if some yahoo is laughing at me because he gets to play Angry Birds on his iPhone/Android Phone and I don't (not having one). I find enjoyment and fulfillment working (one very small step at a time) to make the world a better place.

Sure, not everyone enjoys the same stuff, and the enjoyment people get from sitting in front of the TV all evening is equivalent to the enjoyment I find in life. But I am saying that just because people don't care about FOSS doesn't mean proprietary software is acceptable/good/better, nor does it mean that the actions of Apple/Microsoft/Google/etc are acceptable either. The point is that "most people don't care about FOSS" is just a dumb argument.

Comment "Most people don't care" (Score 2) 433

Okay, yes, as many people seem to be parroting in the comments, most people don't care whether or not their software is free (as in freedom) and open source. However, I don't really see how that's an argument for proprietary software or the behavior of companies like Apple, Microsoft, and yes, Google. (And the statement is indeed being used to make such an argument.)

Most people don't care about much at all. They seem to care when, for example, a televised address from the President prevents them from watching their favorite program on the idiot box. They seem to care when their local sports team is beaten by another sports team. But when they are told that the company that controls the software on their mobile phone (already they are nodding off...) is spying on them, recording their location, and selling their personal information to other companies for profit, do they care? No. They don't even seem to care when can only install programs on their phones that the OS-maker allows them to. (Of course they don't care, they can still install Angry Birds.) They especially don't care when their phone company turns over their private conversations to the police without even putting up a fight for the consumer. That would be because it isn't *their* private conversations, it's the private conversations of those angry hooligans marching in the streets asking for change.

Most people don't care about freedom in general unless it interferes with their daily pleasures/addictions, and cannot see the long-term consequences of the slow unraveling of their freedoms. The fact remains that proprietary software *is* an attack on our freedoms that we may well end up regretting some day. The fact remains that there *is* an alternative in FOSS. The fact remains that we still have enough freedoms to take a stand against the corporations and the corruption in government. And, in my opinion, those of us that understand these things should indeed take a stand, as RMS is doing.

Comment $300 isn't low enough (Score 1) 196

Give me a $100 tablet and I'll buy one. Just have it run GNU/Linux (no OS fee) and require an SD card rather than an internal hard drive. Maybe have it be relatively cheap/slow compared to competitors, using older technology that is presumably cheaper to use. I'm not going to pay $300 for something which not only has a most-likely-shitty proprietary OS, a small (but internal) hard drive, and "iPad ripoff" quality.

Comment How is $60 unreasonable? (Score 5, Insightful) 372

I am surprised that so many people are saying the low price of the laptop matters. I have bought both laptop and desktop computers legitimately for that price. I've sold people old computers of mine for less. Hell, I've *given* people computers I don't use. I of course did not RTFA and maybe this is a top of the line laptop bought in a dark alley, but $60 does not cry "obviously stolen" to me.

Comment Secure cellular communications? (Score 1) 50

Are there any cellular protocols that are secure? That a criminal, corporation, or government couldn't hack? GPRS and CDMA are out from what I remember recently. Anything else been hacked? What hasn't been hacked yet?

Also, are cellular communications inherently less secure than wired communications like a land line? Or are those even easier for say your phone company or government to listen in on?

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