Ethan Rafe's Techdirt Profile

Ethan Rafe

About Ethan Rafe

Ethan Rafe's Comments comment rss

  • Jun 08, 2009 @ 03:34pm

    Yes! my country isn't quite as fucked up as I feared it was becoming! now if we just add some reasonable things like provisions for independent invention, maybe I'll stop crying for the destruction of the patent system completely!

    Tata guys, I'm going to get plastered this news is so good!

  • Apr 19, 2009 @ 11:39am

    See, why the gov deserves a chunk of cash from downloads is that they paid for the infrastructure for this, too.

  • Apr 03, 2009 @ 07:29pm

    Re: RE:

    Just Not true...

  • Mar 19, 2009 @ 03:15pm

    Re: Linux?

    If I lock the BIOS of my machine, as well as the recovery terminal, and start not as root, damn good luck changing anything without the root password... Naturally, the disk must be encrypted as well - but with all those, either the encryption of the password must be cracked to change things. That's way beyond the ability of typical criminals...

  • Mar 18, 2009 @ 07:13pm

    I believe the producers of the food apple should have the domain .apple - as much as I like the company, the food is just so much more important.

  • Mar 10, 2009 @ 07:31pm

    Re: Re:

    Ever hear of Tin Hat linux? Look it up. Oh, and yes, I can statistically prove how impossible it is to break into it. Naturally, I don't use javascript of flash on it.

    The other alternative is to run linux on an old box with a few megs of ram - their viruses wouldn't run on it :P
    Using a different chip architecture will help too.

    But you might be right about those people not being aware - I have no experience with Australians, although I hear their elections are all won by FUD.

  • Mar 10, 2009 @ 07:07pm

    I have one thing to say to them: Please, do - that would convert 90% of windows users to GNU/Linux users - which is uncrackable unless your deliberately cripple yourself.

    Good fucking luck cracking SELinux!

  • Feb 18, 2009 @ 06:27pm

    Here's why: We are a hotbed of piracy! Everyone I know downloads everything... But we still go watch all the imaxes! At least someone knows how to give us a good experience!

  • Jan 26, 2009 @ 09:20pm

    Trust me, you do NOT want you kids on most Fanfic!

    This is just one example of the demented people who write there. Nothing in the real world compares with this; I'd rather show my the reality of war then have them read this!

    Given that, there is a heck of a lot of fanfiction much better then what I've read in books; and lot of better books then JKR wrote.

    Note also that 2/3 of the stories have slash in them, so really...

  • Jan 07, 2009 @ 09:01pm

    Here's one way of easy way of secure computing:

    Wait for the computer to pass the turning test - then you know you shouldn't even care!

  • Nov 24, 2008 @ 04:51pm

    I think it's a great idea!

    This plan is essentially a great idea not because it is a rental but because 2/3 of the money you pay is "refunded" is songs you own permanently. It's kinda like 5$/month to listen to unlimited music - and you buy your favorite album of them all. For many people who buy music, I believe they would spend 5$/month to listen to all the music they wanted, get 10 songs, and probably buy even more of the music. If you subscription goes to hell, you've still got some songs to listen to. I might get a zune just because of this plan - although it would require me to pay, which I really don't like to do...

  • Aug 14, 2008 @ 07:33am

    I'd say that anyone who prefers electronic communication to being physically with the person a) likes to be anonymous, or b)wants to be unable to be hurt by the other person.

    Also would bet a lot more guys are happier with electronic then girls. I call em all crazy, though. Nothing beats face to face!

  • Jun 28, 2008 @ 07:59am

    Way over your head here...

    Mike, I respect you a great deal, but this time I'm going to have to disagree. To start off, I'm going to tell you of the beginning of WW1. WW1 had started in an area of relative peace, for the generation that lived there. Soldiers had shot at trees, apples, etc, but never anything like a human. They learned to be accurate, but were not psychologically prepared to shoot other humans. When the war began, people had no idea what they were getting into. When a soldier lifted his rifle, and looked at his enemy, sometimes they couldn't shoot. And those who did were usually stunned, and just stood there, unable to contemplate killing another human. Of course, as the war got going, people began to imagine shooting the Germans, Russians, etc, and this problem disappeared because people were prepared psychologically to kill a human, and they had a motivation the first soldiers didn't: Fear.

    As I stated earlier, any generation which has not been exposed to inhumanities suffers greatly from doing so at fist. I think that is actually a wonderful thing. If you asked a man of 16 a year before WW1 to list the actions he could do to his brother, kill wound NOT have been listed.

    Now, the military was understandably unhappy about how WW1 started, and decided to make the silhouette of a human torso on their targets. Just this act alone prepared people for battle a lot. You may or may not be aware that video games were an invention sponsored by the military. The reason? To prepare soldiers for shooting a real human.

    Now, beyond the military, I'm gonna talk about what violent games really do. No, they usually should not make you go want to shoot your neighbor. But, if you see James Bond knifing an annoying person, you could very easily see yourself doing that to the next annoying person you meet. And you want to do it in a wishful way, not in a regretful one. You do not thing you would suffer from killing him.

    My point is that the games remove doubt about doing an action, and make you believe that it is OK. The things stopping you from doing an action are now society - AKA the police and the law. I think that is the reason America has the highest ratio of criminals to not. Their law system, i.e. their restraining system, is portrait as broken.
    The consequences are still there do deter you from killing/hurting another.

    I'm not sure how well I've communicated, but what I'm trying to say is that video games make killing someone something you would consider. But the law is still there, and you fear the consequences. But let me be clear: Video Games remove the humanity of your enemy. The fact that they are human is no longer what stops you from killing them,a s it is in people who do not see people regularly killed in video games.

  • Jun 25, 2008 @ 09:07pm

    I get so annoyed at teachers...

    I have often criticized teachers who send their students online for information wherever I can. Teachers should first make sure that the information they ask students to find online is online, and in a readily accessible format. It could be argued that a web site is similar to a textbook. Obviously, teachers do not make students look through multiple textbooks, so why should it be different with sites? I feel that any information a teacher sends a student online to look for should be in Wikipedia - or the teacher should add it. After all, I think Wikipedia could be considered some sort of a standard.

  • Jun 23, 2008 @ 02:33pm

    Is everyone in office totally stupid?

    Do they even understand what a proxy is? There are many ways to avoid blocks - I circumvent them all the time at my school, (admittedly, for the less dramatic purpose of playing games)and I'm 15! I think they should have ISPs report the logs of who visits those websites, and then send those people to psychologists. I really think looking at an image shouldn't be sending people to jail for years, regardless of what is on the photo.

    People go to jail for longer for looking at child porn then burning someone's house down! We need Priorities!