Oskar's Profile

  • Dec 21, 2006
  • 86
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Latest comments made by: Oskar

  • Is it normal for Apple to announce consumer products/services at the developer-targeted WWDC?
    Oskar had this to say on Aug 04, 2006 Posts: 86
    iPod To Become Video, Game Savvy?
  • A) Downloading a television show via p2p 
vs. 
B) Recording it on a VCR Recording a show with a VCR for personal use is fine, because you’ve already paid for it (with your service fees to the local cable company and your exposure to their ads). Distributing via p2p neither compensates the content provider nor abides by copyright law. I contend that downloading a tv show is an act of civil disobedience and a victimless crime, unless it is somehow costing them a sale, which is not the case here given that the VCR or DVR is the alternative. And I contend that you do not know what civil disobedience means. It means that you commit a crime out in the open, letting the authorities know exactly what you’re doing, in order to provide a catalyst for political change. Rosa Parks was engaging in civil disobedience; you, sir, are no Rosa Parks. You’re simply pirating media because you don’t want to spend your money. And just to say again, I never said that you shouldn’t have to pay again to buy a new version of the same movie.  By now you should know better, and let the buyer beware. You have however condoned piracy when you don’t perceive it to be “hurting” the industry. And I say again, this standard is completely subjective and flies in the face of copyright law. It doesn’t matter if you can record the latest episode of Desperate Housewives with your VCR; it doesn’t justify violating the law to get it from a p2p network.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 16, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • I just want to add one more thing to what I said here: If you want to see their movie or listen to their music, you have to pay them, and do it now. Please don't suggest that you've already paid for it. When you bought the DVD for the movie Finding Nemo, you did not buy ownership rights to every version of that movie to come in the future, such as the HD edition. You have a specific contract: The right to watch that movie on that DVD disc. You can't redefine the terms of the contract later on to justify pirating the HD version. It doesn't work that way.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • sydneystephan, Wow, did you read my post? A large portion of it was dedicated to discussing DRM. And below, yet more discussion about it. You're being a bit anal. Chicken, How I referred to property rights is in the consumers eyes, You are redefining property rights. You can't force a corporation to give you something for free; it is their intellectual property, and as such they can charge $0 or $1,000,000 for a DVD if they wanted to. You, in turn, have the freedom to buy it or not. That's what the right to property means. ...while downloading a show I would never have watched and may now buy at some point in the future when it makes sense as a consumer, to me, that’s not stealing that’s giving them a future customer and a fan. How would you like it if someone stole your car and left a note saying that he "may" compensate you "at some point in the future"? This isn't the way contracts work. If you want to see their movie or listen to their music, you have to pay them, and do it now. I’m with holding my money, performing a form of civil disobedience that isn’t hurting anyone, Nice rationalization, but you are absolutely hurting them: you are robbing their intellectual property without the required compensation. Piracy is gross disrespect for other peoples' property, plain and simple.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • You sure do talk a lot. Responding to your three points: 1) Nazis still exist, but they are marginalized and no longer a military threat. Any trouble they start is dealt with at the police level. 2) No, only Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "vaporized," if the term is understood to mean "nuked." Dresden, Tokyo, and other cities were only hit by conventional bombs. 3) I can't find any point where I accused anyone of comparing America to Nazi Germany. And the rest: -I didn't say I was for DRM. I said that if you don't like it, don't buy it and let others decide for themselves. Beeb and others actually want the government to step in and force companies to open their DRM. If you're going to violate the property rights of a corporation for the sake of "the public good," don't be surprised when right-wingers like myself accuse you of being a socialist in sheep's clothes. -I haven't argued that DRM "helps artists." I don't care about the artists. I care about the property rights of the corporations. -I haven't heard that the RIAA is trying to prevent incidental copies. They absolutely have the right to do so via DRM, but I don't think they should actually change the law. -The right to life applies to non-Americans, but not to enemy combatants. They can be tortured if it will help intelligence-gathering. And yes, this right is more important than derivative rights, because it makes them possible. If protecting derivative rights works against protecting one's right to life, there's a conflict. I choose to prioritize protecting the more fundamental one; liberals choose to prioritize protecting the derivative ones. -I'm surprised you knew about the right to property and its relation to the DoI - most people don't know that. You're right that I believe it is a fundamental right; the four fundamental rights are life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. -Don't make assumptions about me. I stressed fiscal conservative for a reason: I'm an atheist with no desire at all to promote religion using government or unnecessarily control everyone's personal lives. So yes, I'm for legalizing drugs - for adults. As for those who sell drugs to kids, they deserve execution. -You can't compare the war on drugs to the war on piracy. Adults using drugs doesn't hurt anyone; stealing intellectual property emphatically does hurt people, so legalizing it is wrong-headed. The fact that both are uncontrollable black markets doesn't matter; child pornography is also an uncontrollable black market, but I seriously doubt you'd suggest we legalize that, too. -The open source movement might actually interest me were it not dominated by anti-corporate, anti-IP, privacy-paranoid, pro-nambla liberal wackos.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • The people who agree with this batshit craziness are in charge of the US govt. Um? Bush constantly denies torture and wiretapping (he may be insincere, but I would be open about it), says Islam is a religion of peace, promotes entitlements, puts troops in danger to avoid killing civilians, and insists on using diplomacy against Iran. You have nothing to fear: They people in charge do not agree with me.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 14, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • For Islamists, yes. God may have mercy on them, but I won't.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • I guess this means you support violations of the Geneva convention. No, I support withdrawing from it so such is impossible.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • I've mentioned no parallels between Islamofascism and Nazism, other than that they both will one day (God willing) be in the same dustbin. And no, I don't need another lecture from a liberal on why we shouldn't go to war (or on what betraying one's country means, for that matter). Remember: I go to college. I'm surrounded by you guys all the time. You could fit the entire GOP club in a Prius (not that you could convince them to go into one). I hear your arguments from my profs every day - and if I skip, I can catch them in the textbooks we're made to buy. I even commit them to memory, less my papers get points deducted for displaying indecent viewpoints. God bless America!
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • But you’re not talking about war with Iran. You’re talking about war against Islamo-fascism, which is an ‘ism like the war on terrorism, not a war against a country and not a war that has any definable victories or end. And since Iran is one of the ideological centers (if not the) for Islamofascism, taking them out would deal enough of a physical and moral blow to the movement to vanquish it to the dustbin of history alongside Nazism. But that's a debate for another time. So Oskar advocates DEATH for those who make political comparisons Oskar is offended by. Um, I hate to put an end to your opportunistic deducations, but the word "traitor" has many different contexts in the English language, and you conventiently chose the wrong one. The word can simply mean someone who is intellectually betraying his country. So no, I don't advocate any legal punishment at all for the aforementioned offensive comparisons.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • I love how when YOU complain about fascism (Islamo- or otherwise), it’s okay. When someone else does, it’s a paranoia and fear-mongering. That's because I'm actually using the word "fascism" correctly: Iran has de facto government ownership of private property and actively restricts freedom of speech. When liberals use the word "fascism" to describe America, the freest country on the planet, they either don't understand the term or are attempting to say we're morally equivalent to a nation that hangs fourteen-year-old girls for showing their ankles. Those who make such an offensive comparison are indeed fear-mongers and traitors. If you’re not guaranteed the right to privacy, certainly you are not guaranteed the right to go to Walmart hazard-free. Why not? The right to life is fundamental; the right to privacy is derivative. You can't conflate the two. And since conservatives are defending everything from govt snooping, wiretapping without a warrant, torture and denial of right to trial (as in Getmo), then there is NO line at which you are not willing to give up everyone’s civil liberty in the name of false security. I'm not sure how you can judge them to be "false security," since you clearly don't know what information they're gleaning from the "snooping." If they're getting valuable information to protect Americans, but are doing so at the cost of derivative privacy rights, then they're performing the very "triage" I speak of. Gitmo is an oddball for you to mention - they aren't Americans, they are enemy combatants, so I don't care if they're being tortured or having their diaries read. But Medicare is somehow over the line? What a joke. Medicare violates fundamental rights by redistributing income - so yes, it's "over the line." Wiretapping, properly done, protects fundamental rights (sometimes at the expense of derivative ones) - so no, it's not "over the line." There's my line. If you'd like me to define "fundamental," I can do so, but we may drift even further off-topic...
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • Beeb, 1. I agree completely that the war is ill-defined and so could go on forever. No politician today has the guts to admit that the enemy is Islamofascism, and that the war will end precisely when the center of this ideology (Iran) is neutered. Instead, they vaguely call it a “war on terrorism.” But the solution is to explicitly state when the end is, NOT to go on a screaming rampage over the NSA’s latest attempt to institute “fascism.” 2. I did not say that the government should “protect life”; I said it should protect the right to life. It’s a negative right, not a positive one. It means the right to provide yourself with sustenance, NOT the right to have it handed out to you. Therefore, no, the government should not provide people with life-saving medicines, and yes, I am for the free market. 3. I fully believe in personal responsibility. That, however, has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. I’m not advocating taking away all freedoms, but rather performing “triage” during a time of war by putting a priority on protecting everyone’s right to life over protecting derivative, procedural rights at the expensive of the more fundamental ones. Devanshu, Fascism has indeed existed before, but please don’t make a lowly college student like myself educate you on the myriad differences between the United States today and pre-Nazi Weimar Germany.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • Beeb, let's make this clear. Civil liberties are derivative rights, not fundamental ones. They include such procedural rights as "trial by jury" and "right to not be searched without a warrant." The most fundamental of all rights is the right to life; without it, no other right can exist. So yes, during a wartime situation, the government may decide to prioritize and temporarily restrain certain civil liberties for the sake of protecting our most fundamental right of all. And it’s astonishing to me how quickly and easily people are willing to give up their rights and civil liberties simply because someone makes a reference to terrorists and pedophiles, as if that’s what NSA eavesdropping or DRM is really about. -Beeblebrox (my bold) Why is this hard to believe? We were attacked on September 11th, and pedophilia is a widespread epidemic. These aren't made-up problems. Fascist dictatorship, on the other hand, is a made-up problem. I always thought the people now in charge were supposed to be for LESS intrusive govt and MORE freedoms. -Beeblebrox If you're talking about fiscal conservatives like myself, we believe in LIMITED government, not vague terms like "small government" or "less intrusive government." Limited means that they have one role: To protect individual rights, including the right to life. Within that limited role, they can and should do whatever it takes to accomplish that mission, including (in the case of World War II) vaporizing two cities and napalming several more. That said, Bush is not my ideal. His horrific medicare bill is just an example of how far-removed he is from his free-market base. (I probably won't be able to reply for like three hours.)
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • I've had it with these panty-in-a-bundle privacy geeks trying to promote their views with unintellectual publicity stunts. They shouted in horror over Google's inclusion of relevent ads in Gmail and the recent Browser Sync program. Now DRM is a privacy threat too? Here's a tip: Don't buy it. Don't use it. And leave everyone else alone to make up their own minds. Their paranoia has really gone over the edge - especially in the political realm. They're constantly fear-mongering over every single bill in Congress that goes after (a) terrorists or (b) pedophiles, as if they're all just attempts to institute a fascist dictatorship. *Rips hair out*
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
  • Oskar, indirect loss of profits from competition is NOT the same as paying a hardware manufacturer for outsourcing, which is what you were originally talking about and which is, of course, not correct. -Beeblebrox No, I never meant to suggest that one must directly pay Dell & Friends for the priviledge of including one's OS, you just misread me. I spoke of outsourcing to them as a "tax" because of the opportunity cost. And like I said, my argument is that the increase in revenue from licensing the OS would more than make up for the loss of revenue (which you are NOW referring to) in hardware sales. -Beeblebrox The question is, why would selling OS X on generic PCs sell more copies? Of course, it's because PCs are cheaper. So why can't Apple simply make cheaper hardware themselves? They'll increase volume just the same, and yet they'll be able to keep all the profits to themselves. That's the point I'm making. And why o’ why must everyone cite Gruber? -Beeblebrox I just agree with him in this instance and would rather just cite him than reproduce his arguments here. Less work.
    Oskar had this to say on Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 86
    Free Mac with Each iPod Sold