I love/., but we've got to stay consistent. What do we believe, anyway?
Want Freedom of speech and information? It has a price. Gotta allow libel, privacy invading companies, and probably spam. I don't like it, but I don't see any way around it.
Well, there's... http://www.kuro5hin.org/ where they let readers vote for which submitted stories should reach the front page, and then there's http://theGEEK.org/ which is also pretty cool.
Don't get me wrong, I love Slashdot. When I want to read news, I come to/. but when I want to write news, I got to theGEEK or kuro5in.
"For context switching, the stacking and overlapping of windows confuses people, makes partially obscured windows fairly unusable, and results in poor usage of the limited screen real-estate."
This annoys me, too, but I've never been able to think of a better method. Maybe translucent windows? How do you put multiple interfaces on a single 2D moniter in a way that's good for context switching? Maybe have multiple virtual screens, one holds internet stuff, another multimedia, another sysadmin stuff? Have all windows on a virtual screen use all the space but have nothing overlapped?
"A better interface could be based around HTML, with automatically generated web-like pages serving the purpose of a directory, and having the advantage that they can be annotated by the user so she doesn't lose track of what the file is for."
Yeah, HTML could work for that. What we'd really need is a database, maybe formatted HTML - where every entry is a file, every field is a little bit of data about that file. Type in what you're looking for, and a list of related files pops up. Of course, then we run into the limitations of keyword searching, but it's better than what we have now.
"For dialogs, windows are pretty poor too - they're only appropriate for cases where some catastrophic event occured and the user's work flow absolutely must be interrupted."
Yeah, they work for interrupting the flow of work, but when interrupting isn't needed, they're mighty annoying. What should we use for less important events? Some kind of Mozilla-like sidebar, or the url entry bar on top? It displays where you are at all times, yet lets you change it, too. There's a good replacement for dialog boxes.
"A small question... How many gun deaths per capita do you have in the US?"
Not sure, but it ain't much. Imho, it'd be less if the government stopped the "war on drugs," but I'm not currently interested in any of the molecules the FDA sees fit to call drugs... but that's beside the point.
I don't know how many gun deaths we have per capita.
"Give me somewhere safe.... like a battlefield... any day."
I'm sure you're well aware that there is nowhere safe. However, if you want to trust your government, you may be perfectly happy with your choice. I would not be, so we'll probably stay in or wind up in different countries.
Personally, I think fear, and wanting safety, is what created some of our culture's biggest problems. I think freedom is more important than safety, and much more attainable.
"Yeah! If there's going to be any pseudo-cooperation around here, ESR is going to enforce it with his own guns!"
:) I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but...
If ESR wanted that, he'd want to be the only one aroudn with guns - he'd support gun control and find loopholes on his own. He doesn't - he wants everyone to have guns.
When you can't trust anyone, trust everyone. When you can't trust a friend, trust a stranger. When one group gets too powerful, spread the power around. Governments are no more trustworthy than roving street gangs, or super-corporations. We need balance, and we are currently too far along the path of big government and big business. We need some more anarchy, aka freedom.
"Yes, people get picked on, and yes it hurts. I've been picked on plenty, and I never had a supportive roll-model to explain to me the real issues of the abuse. I've also never killed anyone or wanted to kill anyone. Whats the difference between Klebold, Harris and me? I have a conscience, while they never did."
Most of us have consciences, but that doesn't always keep us from doing wrong things. It just makes us feel guilty about it, and that makes us less likely to do it, but it doesn't stop us.
Personally, I have wished people dead. Never once acted on it, but I know how it is to hate someone. I'm a geek, and a Christian, so I basically get ridiculed by both sides. For awhile, it was too much. I feel for the victims, and for the murderers. I know what hate feels like, and it can tear a person apart inside, doing as much damage as possible to the people close to them.
Yeah, the murderers deserved to die, and they did. I'm not happy about it, though - I'd rather they were captured and helped through their problems. I don't think that Cassie Bernall, for example, was one of the cool, popular people who picked on the geeks - yet she was killed along with the rest. Nothing fair about it - but what I would blame is the public school system. They are the ones in control, and they have created a culture where the cool kids can do anything they want, and get away with it. I've got plenty of ideas for improvements, but that'd be offtopic.
One thing offtopic I will bring up... Will geeks and science fans stop fighting with christians? Please? It's sickening, the bickering on sides. Faith and science do not in any way conflict.
Science and research tells us how, religion and philosophy tells us why. Whatever the truth is, they will both approximate, over time. There is no need to bicker over apparant contradictions.
If you disagree, feel free to tell me why. I'd love to hear it.
Re:Will RMS shut up for once??
on
RMS On eBooks
·
· Score: 2
> One point that Stallman and his anti-intellectual-property cronies seem to miss is this: A) AUTHORS/MUSICIANS/EVERYONE HAVE TO EAT. B) YOU CAN'T SELL SUPPORT FOR BOOKS AND MUSIC
True. Example: Larry Niven is rich. If he wasn't, or if his books didn't cost money, I'd give him money, because I love his stories. I also love Micheal Flynn's stories. I may send him money. If their books were for free, you bet I'd send them money. Maybe there aren't enough people like me to support an industry of artists. If there aren't, maybe our culture doesn't deserve artists. If we go without art for a decade or two, maybe we'll learn its true value.
> These people run around claiming they're not communists. Well, guess what, capitalism depends on intellectual property. If there's no intellectual property, all creative/scientific works have to be done for the fun of it by hobbyists.
A: Communism and Capitalism aren't the only ways to go, there are other options. Otoh, let me state, for the record, that I love capitalism. I believe in the free market. I believe God has His hand on the free market. Despite it's bad points, capitalism can never really fail, unless the people start giving away their rights. I also think IP, at least our current IP system, is corrupt. I can believe both these things with no conflict between the two - capitalism is a system of scarcity - information is not scarce. The free market will find a way to reward artists, or we never deserved them in the first place. If we don't deserve artists, the free market will teach us what they are worth by taking them away from us. This is a good thing - we need to learn it.
B: Are you dissing work done by hobbyists? A professional does something because he's paid to. An amateur does it because he loves it. Professionals gave us Apple, Microsoft, Intel, DEC, IBM, Sun, Transmeta, etc... Amateurs gave us Linux, Apache, Perl, Sendmail, Freenet, Ogg Vorbis, etc. I'm not saying professionals can't do good work - they can, if they love what they're doing. I'd dearly love to see more hobbyist art and research.
> The groundwork for GCC was laid at Microsoft Research. Being responsible academics, the group at MR published their results, and Stallman, being a thief, plagiarized the work and took credit for it.
Do you have any evidence? No offense, but you sound like a troll and flamebait. Sounds like you're sick of rms, but are afraid to stick your name on it. Please prove me wrong.
> He's gotten away with this only because nobody in the "free" software "movement" has any formal computer science training at all.
This, at least, is blatantly untrue. Not many people do, I don't, but there are some. If you mean "few", not "nobody", please say so.
Evidence, links, documentation? Do I have the slightest reason to believe you?
Re:Wormhole-building Engineering Challenges
on
Wormholes? Maybe.
·
· Score: 1
> Mass in exotic matter is negative, thus it pushes away on gravity.
Ahh - so, two negative masses are pulled together because the minus signs cancel out, I see...
But what I want to know is, does exotic matter have negative inertia? (I have no idea what I just asked, but I think it's like... If you push it north, does it start moving south? Seems to me it must...)
Oh, if you leave them in their orbits when you squish them, it wouldn't hurt anything. If you replaced Jupiter with a black hole of equal mass, the Jovian moons would keep on orbiting like they always did, so I'm sure the other planets would be fine.
No moderator points, but if I had some, you'd get'm.:) Oh, wait... I've posted here...
Re:Wormhole-building Engineering Challenges
on
Wormholes? Maybe.
·
· Score: 1
> If you want to overcome the fact that the wormhole is solidly packed with exotic matter, simply use exotic neutrinos. Their exotic nature will keep the wormhole open, but weak interactivity should allow normal matter to pass right through them.
Aye, but how will you keep the neutrinos in the wormhole? I've heard of something called a "standing neutrino wave," but beats me silly what it could be.
Re:Wormhole-building Engineering Challenges
on
Wormholes? Maybe.
·
· Score: 1
> Something with negative matter would fall apart spontaneously because the particles inside it repel each other.
Not always. A planet-sized mass of negative, aka exotic matter would fly apart, and no exotic stars could form, but a bar of negative steel would be easy to make. We probably couldn't even tell it from regualr steel, if negative matter is attracted by gravity. If the object is light enough, the strength "matters" more.:P Okay, I'm tired if I'm making puns.:)
Positive matter attracts itself, and is attracted by gravity.
Negative matter repels itself.
Does negative matter emit antigravity, or does it simply react oppositely to regular gravity? If the first, then negative matter should be attracted to gravity just like anything. I'm thinking meteors.:) Only when we collect a lot of meteorites do we notice that, while they fall toward the earth, some of them repel each other. OTOH, if the second, then negative matter emits regular gravity, but we'll never find a big enough piece to test.
Who knows?:)
Re:Wormhole-building Engineering Challenges
on
Wormholes? Maybe.
·
· Score: 2
> Black Holes have such a steep gravity gradiant that they shred anything that comes near them well before the object enters the hole's event horizon. While a wormhole may not require black hole-levels of mass, and so may not have a signifigant gravity gradient, there will be a region of highly curved space near the location of the entrance/egress - what effects would that extreme spacial curvature have on a nearby physical object?
Actually, the more massive a black/worm hole you have, the gentler the gravity gradient is at the event horizon, iirc. I don't remember the exact math, but I'm fairly sure that's how it works.
*scribbles furiously for awhile*
The Event Horizon is the distance from the black hole at which the escape velocity is the speed of light. Tide is the difference in pull - falling feetfirst, the black hole pulls harder on your feet than your head, so the victim turns into spaghetti.
Acceleration due to gravity is inversely proportional to the square of distance to the singularity. Tide is inversely proportional to the cube. The greater the mass, the less tide there is for a certain strength of gravity, since the gravity well spreads out over a larger space. IIRC, at the event horizon, the tide is far weaker for a bigger, more massive hole.
Seriously, though - I was getting pretty disappointed - hearing the idealists saying, "if only I had the time, the talent, I'd do this and that..." Meanwhile, the ones with the talent and time were locking everything down under patents and IP and junk...
Then I hear about Freenet, and Ogg Vorbis, and your music... made my day. There are skilled people who love to give away their work.
I haven't gone over to www.mp3.com/ChrisJ or www.mp3.com/RFW yet, but I'm going now...
> > The notion that there should be restrictions on copying of information is a form of protectionism.
> Not any more than the idea that a man with a bigger club cannot just take away your house is protectionism.
I know it's a cliche by now, but the two are not analogous. Taking material goods and copying intellectual goods have nothing to do with each other. Copying data doesn't diminish the value of the original, unless the original's value is based in its scarcity. Picasso paintings, ancient cathedrals, etc cannot be copied, and if they could be, they'd be worth far less.
> To give an example, let's say there is no copyright any more -- anybody can copy anything freely. In such a world, why would anybody make a movie?...
We'd see many more low budget films, many less expensive ones. Some people like the idea, some hate it. Me, I'll enjoy it either way, but I think the natural evolution of filmmaking will tend toward cheaper from now on. Cheaper doesn't have to be bad, nor is it inherantly good. We'll wait and see.
"I applaud you, sir, for not bothering to muck around debating the issues, but instead proceeding directly to demonizing anyone with the temerity to disagree with you. Why waste time constructing an articulate argument when you can simply dismiss your opponents as "a bunch of pirates and thieves and communists and stuff"? Have you ever considered a career in mainstream media?"
If I had moderator points, I'd moderate you up. To be fair, though, he's not quite the same as a reporter in the mainstream media. At least the reporters are proud enough of their opinion to put their name on what they say.
Guns have two purposes, near as I can tell. To kill, and to threaten to kill. Both have valid uses. Killing in self defense, or defending someone you love, (protecting my wife from a burgler) protecting someone you have a duty to protect, (the police) or in fighting a Hitler. (the army) Threatening to kill can scare off muggers. I'm a vegetarian, but I grew up around hunters. Can't say I have a problem with it. If you do, good for you, we need people like you, too.
> Anyway, bad example in this case..
Iyho. Thank you, but I stand by my comment.
> A tool can be invented for a certain purpose. Guns are invented for killing, and as such the tool itself is at fault. Sometimes the user can however make good use of a gun and in such cases there is nothing wrong eventho the tool itself should not have existed.
Guns are made for killing, yes. However, killing is not always wrong, and guns aren't, either.
Btw, I'm a vegetarian, never shot a gun, never owned a gun, think they are horrid, brutish things. But gun control is far more terrifying.
> If you use Napster, there is a greater than 99.9% chance that you are a thief.
Thief? Yeah, most people who use Napster are breaking that interpretation of the law, but they're not pirates, and they're not thieves. They copy, they don't steal.
Is it breaking copyright law to distribute copyrighted material? Yes. Is it breaking it to download it? Even a judge I heard talking about the issue doesn't know for sure, and he's an expert who had just ruled on the issue.
Economics says that a product is worth what the supplier and customer can agree on. Not what the supplier decides it is. To me, an 'nsyc cd is worth nothing - while the girl next door might donate a kidney. Even the arguement that the Napsterites are stealing the monetary "worth" of the cd is meaningless.
"There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine."
No, more like, "Everything that exists I have a right to look at, listen to, or watch."
"I can think of dozens of legitimate uses for freenet but it's creators should also honestly address its liabilities. If their goal is to create an tool for illegally distributing copyrighted material then acknowledge that and move on, if not then work to address it."
Their goal is to allow free, anonymous speech. Copyright is irrelavent. Freenet, iirc, doesn't exist to destroy copyright, but it won't protect it, either. Yes, it will facilitate copyright violation, but that isn't the purpose of Freenet. Making copyright violation easier is just a side effect.
"... Concerned readers of all political persuasions attempt to correct the info, but all of that sort of info is "moderated down" and a number of teenagers in desperate situations try it. Some are hospitalized, one dies. "
It would be a tragedy, and if we could find the terrorists responsible, they should be punished as harshly as possible. Freenet would be completely innocent. People could use US mail to send bad messages, or UPS, Fed-Ex, the Web, the telephone, email, anonymous email, anonymous web pages, anything.
I would also join the multitude of alarmed teenagers warning everyone about those people, the instant I found out about it.
Cars can be used for transportation, or murder. Guns can be used for self defense, or hunting, or murder. Kitchen knives can be used to stab battered wives, lock picks can be used in a burglery. It's the same thing. It's the user's fault, not the tool or the toolmaker's.
"If I play your GPLed song in a place where people pay to get in, is that commercial use? (Or is it considered a service?)"
My *guess* is you can - after all, you can assemble gpl'd software and sell the cd. GPL says we have to make it free as in speech, but anyone can charge for it.
"Do I have to put all the rest of my songs in the same set under the same license?"
If a performance is like a distribution, than you don't have to - gpl'd software can be sold along with proprietary stuff.
Imho, I don't think you should have to, but that's just me. Maybe there are reasons why it should be so, but I don't see them.
"Do I have to tape the show and make it available for modification?"
I don't think so, but I think you'd have to let anyone in the audience, or the place that invited you, to record you. Like the Grateful Dead do. As for modification, beats me.
"Since when is RSA nothing but code? RSA is an encryption algorithm. The source code is an implementation of that algorithm (a.k.a. process). RSA can be described without a scrap of source code. It is a mathematical algorithm."
True. RSA, Wavelets, fractal compression, gif - they are all mathematical algorithms. Mathmatical expressions. Speech just like art, writing, source code, recipies in a cookbook, or the latest Niven book.
Copyright covers speech, not patents. Patents don't apply to RSA, or any other mathematical algorithm.
Note: I am aware that I'm not talking about the opinion of the USPTO, or anyone else - I'm talking about the nature of speech.
Btw, imho, corporations supressing people's speech is censorship, no matter the exact legal definitions - whether it's done by corporations, governments, parents, libraries, or yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
How is it not hypocrisy?
/., but we've got to stay consistent. What do we believe, anyway?
I love
Want Freedom of speech and information? It has a price. Gotta allow libel, privacy invading companies, and probably spam. I don't like it, but I don't see any way around it.
Well, there's... http://www.kuro5hin.org/ where they let readers vote for which submitted stories should reach the front page, and then there's http://theGEEK.org/ which is also pretty cool.
Don't get me wrong, I love Slashdot. When I want to read news, I come to /. but when I want to write news, I got to theGEEK or kuro5in.
"For context switching, the stacking and overlapping of windows confuses people, makes partially obscured windows fairly unusable, and results in poor usage of the limited screen real-estate."
This annoys me, too, but I've never been able to think of a better method. Maybe translucent windows? How do you put multiple interfaces on a single 2D moniter in a way that's good for context switching? Maybe have multiple virtual screens, one holds internet stuff, another multimedia, another sysadmin stuff? Have all windows on a virtual screen use all the space but have nothing overlapped?
"A better interface could be based around HTML, with automatically generated web-like pages serving the purpose of a directory, and having the advantage that they can be annotated by the user so she doesn't lose track of what the file is for."
Yeah, HTML could work for that. What we'd really need is a database, maybe formatted HTML - where every entry is a file, every field is a little bit of data about that file. Type in what you're looking for, and a list of related files pops up. Of course, then we run into the limitations of keyword searching, but it's better than what we have now.
"For dialogs, windows are pretty poor too - they're only appropriate for cases where some catastrophic event occured and the user's work flow absolutely must be interrupted."
Yeah, they work for interrupting the flow of work, but when interrupting isn't needed, they're mighty annoying. What should we use for less important events? Some kind of Mozilla-like sidebar, or the url entry bar on top? It displays where you are at all times, yet lets you change it, too. There's a good replacement for dialog boxes.
"A small question... How many gun deaths per capita do you have in the US?"
Not sure, but it ain't much. Imho, it'd be less if the government stopped the "war on drugs," but I'm not currently interested in any of the molecules the FDA sees fit to call drugs... but that's beside the point.
I don't know how many gun deaths we have per capita.
"Give me somewhere safe.... like a battlefield... any day."
I'm sure you're well aware that there is nowhere safe. However, if you want to trust your government, you may be perfectly happy with your choice. I would not be, so we'll probably stay in or wind up in different countries.
Personally, I think fear, and wanting safety, is what created some of our culture's biggest problems. I think freedom is more important than safety, and much more attainable.
"Yeah! If there's going to be any pseudo-cooperation around here, ESR is going to enforce it with his own guns!"
:) I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but...
If ESR wanted that, he'd want to be the only one aroudn with guns - he'd support gun control and find loopholes on his own. He doesn't - he wants everyone to have guns.
When you can't trust anyone, trust everyone. When you can't trust a friend, trust a stranger. When one group gets too powerful, spread the power around. Governments are no more trustworthy than roving street gangs, or super-corporations. We need balance, and we are currently too far along the path of big government and big business. We need some more anarchy, aka freedom.
"There is no simple set of Axioms that define human behavior."
:)
Actually, there are. Courtesy of Scott Adams...
* Stupidity
* Selfishness
* Horniness
From this perspective, the future isn't hard to predict.
"Yes, people get picked on, and yes it hurts. I've been picked on plenty, and I never had a supportive roll-model to explain to me the real issues of the abuse. I've also never killed anyone or wanted to kill anyone. Whats the difference between Klebold, Harris and me? I have a conscience, while they never did."
Most of us have consciences, but that doesn't always keep us from doing wrong things. It just makes us feel guilty about it, and that makes us less likely to do it, but it doesn't stop us.
Personally, I have wished people dead. Never once acted on it, but I know how it is to hate someone. I'm a geek, and a Christian, so I basically get ridiculed by both sides. For awhile, it was too much. I feel for the victims, and for the murderers. I know what hate feels like, and it can tear a person apart inside, doing as much damage as possible to the people close to them.
Yeah, the murderers deserved to die, and they did. I'm not happy about it, though - I'd rather they were captured and helped through their problems. I don't think that Cassie Bernall, for example, was one of the cool, popular people who picked on the geeks - yet she was killed along with the rest. Nothing fair about it - but what I would blame is the public school system. They are the ones in control, and they have created a culture where the cool kids can do anything they want, and get away with it. I've got plenty of ideas for improvements, but that'd be offtopic.
One thing offtopic I will bring up... Will geeks and science fans stop fighting with christians? Please? It's sickening, the bickering on sides. Faith and science do not in any way conflict.
Science and research tells us how, religion and philosophy tells us why. Whatever the truth is, they will both approximate, over time. There is no need to bicker over apparant contradictions.
If you disagree, feel free to tell me why. I'd love to hear it.
> One point that Stallman and his anti-intellectual-property cronies seem to miss is this: A) AUTHORS/MUSICIANS/EVERYONE HAVE TO EAT. B) YOU CAN'T SELL SUPPORT FOR BOOKS AND MUSIC
True. Example: Larry Niven is rich. If he wasn't, or if his books didn't cost money, I'd give him money, because I love his stories. I also love Micheal Flynn's stories. I may send him money. If their books were for free, you bet I'd send them money. Maybe there aren't enough people like me to support an industry of artists. If there aren't, maybe our culture doesn't deserve artists. If we go without art for a decade or two, maybe we'll learn its true value.
> These people run around claiming they're not communists. Well, guess what, capitalism depends on intellectual property. If there's no intellectual property, all creative/scientific works have to be done for the fun of it by hobbyists.
A: Communism and Capitalism aren't the only ways to go, there are other options. Otoh, let me state, for the record, that I love capitalism. I believe in the free market. I believe God has His hand on the free market. Despite it's bad points, capitalism can never really fail, unless the people start giving away their rights. I also think IP, at least our current IP system, is corrupt. I can believe both these things with no conflict between the two - capitalism is a system of scarcity - information is not scarce. The free market will find a way to reward artists, or we never deserved them in the first place. If we don't deserve artists, the free market will teach us what they are worth by taking them away from us. This is a good thing - we need to learn it.
B: Are you dissing work done by hobbyists? A professional does something because he's paid to. An amateur does it because he loves it. Professionals gave us Apple, Microsoft, Intel, DEC, IBM, Sun, Transmeta, etc... Amateurs gave us Linux, Apache, Perl, Sendmail, Freenet, Ogg Vorbis, etc. I'm not saying professionals can't do good work - they can, if they love what they're doing. I'd dearly love to see more hobbyist art and research.
> The groundwork for GCC was laid at Microsoft Research. Being responsible academics, the group at MR published their results, and Stallman, being a thief, plagiarized the work and took credit for it.
Do you have any evidence? No offense, but you sound like a troll and flamebait. Sounds like you're sick of rms, but are afraid to stick your name on it. Please prove me wrong.
> He's gotten away with this only because nobody in the "free" software "movement" has any formal computer science training at all.
This, at least, is blatantly untrue. Not many people do, I don't, but there are some. If you mean "few", not "nobody", please say so.
Evidence, links, documentation? Do I have the slightest reason to believe you?
> Mass in exotic matter is negative, thus it pushes away on gravity.
Ahh - so, two negative masses are pulled together because the minus signs cancel out, I see...
But what I want to know is, does exotic matter have negative inertia? (I have no idea what I just asked, but I think it's like... If you push it north, does it start moving south? Seems to me it must...)
Oh, if you leave them in their orbits when you squish them, it wouldn't hurt anything. If you replaced Jupiter with a black hole of equal mass, the Jovian moons would keep on orbiting like they always did, so I'm sure the other planets would be fine.
No moderator points, but if I had some, you'd get'm. :) Oh, wait... I've posted here...
> If you want to overcome the fact that the wormhole is solidly packed with exotic matter, simply use exotic neutrinos. Their exotic nature will keep the wormhole open, but weak interactivity should allow normal matter to pass right through them.
Aye, but how will you keep the neutrinos in the wormhole? I've heard of something called a "standing neutrino wave," but beats me silly what it could be.
> Something with negative matter would fall apart spontaneously because the particles inside it repel each other.
:P Okay, I'm tired if I'm making puns. :)
:) Only when we collect a lot of meteorites do we notice that, while they fall toward the earth, some of them repel each other. OTOH, if the second, then negative matter emits regular gravity, but we'll never find a big enough piece to test.
:)
Not always. A planet-sized mass of negative, aka exotic matter would fly apart, and no exotic stars could form, but a bar of negative steel would be easy to make. We probably couldn't even tell it from regualr steel, if negative matter is attracted by gravity. If the object is light enough, the strength "matters" more.
Positive matter attracts itself, and is attracted by gravity.
Negative matter repels itself.
Does negative matter emit antigravity, or does it simply react oppositely to regular gravity? If the first, then negative matter should be attracted to gravity just like anything. I'm thinking meteors.
Who knows?
> Black Holes have such a steep gravity gradiant that they shred anything that comes near them well before the object enters the hole's event horizon. While a wormhole may not require black hole-levels of mass, and so may not have a signifigant gravity gradient, there will be a region of highly curved space near the location of the entrance/egress - what effects would that extreme spacial curvature have on a nearby physical object?
Actually, the more massive a black/worm hole you have, the gentler the gravity gradient is at the event horizon, iirc. I don't remember the exact math, but I'm fairly sure that's how it works.
*scribbles furiously for awhile*
The Event Horizon is the distance from the black hole at which the escape velocity is the speed of light. Tide is the difference in pull - falling feetfirst, the black hole pulls harder on your feet than your head, so the victim turns into spaghetti.
Acceleration due to gravity is inversely proportional to the square of distance to the singularity. Tide is inversely proportional to the cube. The greater the mass, the less tide there is for a certain strength of gravity, since the gravity well spreads out over a larger space. IIRC, at the event horizon, the tide is far weaker for a bigger, more massive hole.
When I grow up, I wanna be just like you. :)
Seriously, though - I was getting pretty disappointed - hearing the idealists saying, "if only I had the time, the talent, I'd do this and that..." Meanwhile, the ones with the talent and time were locking everything down under patents and IP and junk...
Then I hear about Freenet, and Ogg Vorbis, and your music... made my day. There are skilled people who love to give away their work.
I haven't gone over to www.mp3.com/ChrisJ or www.mp3.com/RFW yet, but I'm going now...
> > The notion that there should be restrictions on copying of information is a form of protectionism.
...
> Not any more than the idea that a man with a bigger club cannot just take away your house is protectionism.
I know it's a cliche by now, but the two are not analogous. Taking material goods and copying intellectual goods have nothing to do with each other. Copying data doesn't diminish the value of the original, unless the original's value is based in its scarcity. Picasso paintings, ancient cathedrals, etc cannot be copied, and if they could be, they'd be worth far less.
> To give an example, let's say there is no copyright any more -- anybody can copy anything freely. In such a world, why would anybody make a movie?
We'd see many more low budget films, many less expensive ones. Some people like the idea, some hate it. Me, I'll enjoy it either way, but I think the natural evolution of filmmaking will tend toward cheaper from now on. Cheaper doesn't have to be bad, nor is it inherantly good. We'll wait and see.
"I applaud you, sir, for not bothering to muck around debating the issues, but instead proceeding directly to demonizing anyone with the temerity to disagree with you. Why waste time constructing an articulate argument when you can simply dismiss your opponents as "a bunch of pirates and thieves and communists and stuff"? Have you ever considered a career in mainstream media?"
If I had moderator points, I'd moderate you up. To be fair, though, he's not quite the same as a reporter in the mainstream media. At least the reporters are proud enough of their opinion to put their name on what they say.
Guns have two purposes, near as I can tell. To kill, and to threaten to kill. Both have valid uses. Killing in self defense, or defending someone you love, (protecting my wife from a burgler) protecting someone you have a duty to protect, (the police) or in fighting a Hitler. (the army) Threatening to kill can scare off muggers. I'm a vegetarian, but I grew up around hunters. Can't say I have a problem with it. If you do, good for you, we need people like you, too.
> Anyway, bad example in this case..
Iyho. Thank you, but I stand by my comment.
> A tool can be invented for a certain purpose. Guns are invented for killing, and as such the tool itself is at fault. Sometimes the user can however make good use of a gun and in such cases there is nothing wrong eventho the tool itself should not have existed.
Guns are made for killing, yes. However, killing is not always wrong, and guns aren't, either.
Btw, I'm a vegetarian, never shot a gun, never owned a gun, think they are horrid, brutish things. But gun control is far more terrifying.
> If you use Napster, there is a greater than 99.9% chance that you are a thief.
Thief? Yeah, most people who use Napster are breaking that interpretation of the law, but they're not pirates, and they're not thieves. They copy, they don't steal.
Is it breaking copyright law to distribute copyrighted material? Yes. Is it breaking it to download it? Even a judge I heard talking about the issue doesn't know for sure, and he's an expert who had just ruled on the issue.
Economics says that a product is worth what the supplier and customer can agree on. Not what the supplier decides it is. To me, an 'nsyc cd is worth nothing - while the girl next door might donate a kidney. Even the arguement that the Napsterites are stealing the monetary "worth" of the cd is meaningless.
I agree with Ian, personally.
"There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine."
No, more like, "Everything that exists I have a right to look at, listen to, or watch."
"I can think of dozens of legitimate uses for freenet but it's creators should also honestly address its liabilities. If their goal is to create an tool for illegally distributing copyrighted material then acknowledge that and move on, if not then work to address it."
Their goal is to allow free, anonymous speech. Copyright is irrelavent. Freenet, iirc, doesn't exist to destroy copyright, but it won't protect it, either. Yes, it will facilitate copyright violation, but that isn't the purpose of Freenet. Making copyright violation easier is just a side effect.
"... Concerned readers of all political persuasions attempt to correct the info, but all of that sort of info is "moderated down" and a number of teenagers in desperate situations try it. Some are hospitalized, one dies. "
It would be a tragedy, and if we could find the terrorists responsible, they should be punished as harshly as possible. Freenet would be completely innocent. People could use US mail to send bad messages, or UPS, Fed-Ex, the Web, the telephone, email, anonymous email, anonymous web pages, anything.
I would also join the multitude of alarmed teenagers warning everyone about those people, the instant I found out about it.
Cars can be used for transportation, or murder. Guns can be used for self defense, or hunting, or murder. Kitchen knives can be used to stab battered wives, lock picks can be used in a burglery. It's the same thing. It's the user's fault, not the tool or the toolmaker's.
"If I play your GPLed song in a place where people pay to get in, is that commercial use? (Or is it considered a service?)"
My *guess* is you can - after all, you can assemble gpl'd software and sell the cd. GPL says we have to make it free as in speech, but anyone can charge for it.
"Do I have to put all the rest of my songs in the same set under the same license?"
If a performance is like a distribution, than you don't have to - gpl'd software can be sold along with proprietary stuff.
Imho, I don't think you should have to, but that's just me. Maybe there are reasons why it should be so, but I don't see them.
"Do I have to tape the show and make it available for modification?"
I don't think so, but I think you'd have to let anyone in the audience, or the place that invited you, to record you. Like the Grateful Dead do. As for modification, beats me.
"Since when is RSA nothing but code? RSA is an encryption algorithm. The source code is an implementation of that algorithm (a.k.a. process). RSA can be described without a scrap of source code. It is a mathematical algorithm."
True. RSA, Wavelets, fractal compression, gif - they are all mathematical algorithms. Mathmatical expressions. Speech just like art, writing, source code, recipies in a cookbook, or the latest Niven book.
Copyright covers speech, not patents. Patents don't apply to RSA, or any other mathematical algorithm.
Note: I am aware that I'm not talking about the opinion of the USPTO, or anyone else - I'm talking about the nature of speech.
If I had moderator points, I'd moderate you up.
People: Best post on copyright I've seen yet.
Btw, imho, corporations supressing people's speech is censorship, no matter the exact legal definitions - whether it's done by corporations, governments, parents, libraries, or yourself.