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Good Bad Attitude

teidou writes "Paul Graham has posted a new essay titled 'Good Bad Attitude' talking about the hacker attitude toward rules and government regulation of Intellectual Property. Choice quote: "(Hackers) can sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.""

11 of 653 comments (clear)

  1. Dumb ass metaphor by Lord+Kano · · Score: 2, Informative

    (Hackers) can sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.

    People can sense approaching thunderstorms too, all you have to do is look around. Watch the leaves on trees. Smell the air. If that fails, look for dark clouds in the sky.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  2. Re:"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Nitish · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not quite... The wife of Dean Eisenhart (Dean of the Graduate College at Princeton when Feynman was a grad student there) said this when Feynman committed the social gaffe of saying that he wanted both cream and lemon in his tea.

    I have no idea why I know this... :-)

  3. Re:You almost made some sense, there! by the+arbiter · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sorry, I can't let this one go. You are so full of shit it's amazing.

    EVERY SINGLE Scandanavian "socialist" nation, is, once again this year, in the top ten as regards such minor factors as:

    per capita income
    GDP
    "standard of living"
    life expectancy

    You know, minor things like that. The U.S., if you're curious, is number 2 on the list. The "godless commie" state of Finland is number 1.

    Plus the chicks there are totally hot. Not that you would or will ever know.

    Thankfully, your idiotic way of thinking is fading into history, although not quickly enough, my clueless friend. Good luck with the education.

    --
    Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
  4. Re:GNP and freedom by glasse · · Score: 2, Informative

    Coming from a psychology background, I agree that the relationship is probably very complicated. RSF has some figures on press freedom, and I've never heard anyone object strongly to them. As they note:

    Wealth and press freedom don't always go together As in 2002, the ranking shows that a country's respect for press freedom is not solely linked to its economic development. The top 50 include countries that are among the poorest in the world, such as Benin (29th position), Timor-Leste (30th) and Madagascar (46th).

    Conversely, the 50 countries that respect press freedom least include such rich nations as Bahrain (117th) and Singapore (144th).


    While I know these numbers are for press freedom rather than personal freedom or anything more related to freedom of ideas, I think it's clear that greater freedom does not a GDP make. If anyone has any numbers on the GDPs of these nations, we can try to run the regression.

    Ethan

  5. Re:Choice quote? by fyngyrz · · Score: 2, Informative
    Parents don't understand computers, or hacking in general.

    Oh, come on. I'm a parent. An old parent. My kids are out of college, have degrees and do cool stuff with themselves, are having families of their own and so on (and they don't steal, either.) I know more about computers than most kids have dreamed of - yet. I designed the flipping things for years. Give me a break with the "poor, dumb, clueless parents" routine.

    Parents missing current information can learn. Computers, intellectual property issues, etc. They're pretty likely to be just as smart as their offspring, plus they generally already know its a bad idea to steal, break into places you don't have property rights to, pull nasty tricks on people, etc.

    Parents can teach these things, both generally and in context. Most parents could do all of the above without straining. If they don't, they suck as parents, and I blame them, as I said previously.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  6. Re:There is more on Earth than US by Stridar · · Score: 3, Informative


    >Really ?

    Yes. I provided an example by showing that a disproportional number number of nobel prize winners reside in the US. As another example, take the listing of the top universities in the world . In the top 10, only Oxford exists outside of the US. In the top 25, only 6 are outside of the US. In top 100, the US holds over 50% of the slots. One of the main reasons for this is the ability for the US to draw in the best talent in science and engineering from around the world.

    >You mean like stem cell research ?
    >Ummm ....

    Stem cell research is very active in the US. A simple google search would show you the research centers at NIH and University of Wisconsin-Madison . Even California is floating a $3billion dollar bond to support stem cell research. However, yes, the current ban on the harvesting of embroyonic stem cells is not doing much good to foster research in this area in the US.

    >I've always thought it wise to actually do the thinking part *BEFORE* the speaking part.

    You obviously think one way and act another.

  7. Re:Spider Sense by Hatta · · Score: 2, Informative

    As a fledgling biochemist, I can tell you science is all hacking. The way we reverse engineer the cell is exactly the way you might reverse engineer a network protocol. "Lets see what happens if we do this." And the wildest ideas sometimes pay off immensely. We can visually track the movement of single proteins by conjugating them to green fluorescent protein from jellyfish. Who knew jellyfish proteins would be so useful? But I'm glad someone looked.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  8. Re:Old school hackers vs. new school hackers. by msergeant · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.dvdsoon.com/ for all your ghost in the shell 2 needs, my copy arrived monday and I'm living in Brisbane. Heck I get a few dvd releases before the movie even gets to the cinemas in AU !!

    --
    -mutter- something something something...
  9. Re:((((GROAN)))) by say · · Score: 3, Informative

    >> look at what is happening in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, France, etc

    > Stagnant economies with high unemployment? Thanks, I'll pass.

    You are not very well informed. I'm from Norway, the country with the lowest unemployment rate in Europe, larger growth than the USA (last year or over the last 10 years) and (according to the UN (UNHDR 2004)) the highest standard of living in the world.

    Sweden came second in UNHDI, Belgium sixth, US of A: eight.

    The United States has the highest human poverty among the 17 high income OECD countries included in this year's human poverty index-2 (HPI). Source: HDR 2004.

    I'd pick any of the countries instead of the US, thank you very much.

    Oh, link to the facts? undp.org.

    --
    Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
  10. Re:Except Animals are more likely to be right. by cowbutt · · Score: 2, Informative
    Yeah. It was a good thing that the hackers picked up on that Nazi thing early, wasn't it?

    I expect that at least one or two of the exiles from Nazi-controlled states would be classed as 'hackers' by the modern definition.

    --

  11. Re:Old school hackers vs. new school hackers. by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 2, Informative
    "An example is Ghost in the Shell 2. I haven't seen any announcements for its cinematic (let alone DVD) release in Australia,",

    Region 1 DVD Release: Dec 28, 2004. Source: Main page of AnimeOnDVD. It was announced a couple of days ago. Though I do agree that there has been no Australian release date set.