OK, so now it is "destructive towards the foundations of a society"...
This is slightly better. But still suffers from the flaw that anyone could say this about any politician they do not like, providing he changed anything. And the motivation, goal, means, etc. still do not match up. So even if you could prove that Obama is actually destructive towards the foundations... and even more so than any other politician - the comparison still sucks.
This is just a case of "lets paint the guy we do not like as that villain from that movie".
Normally, I would agree that changing around menus and second-guessing the user mostly leads to annoyance and little else.
However, when it comes to Firefox' location bar, I just don't see the problem. In order to get rid of the "faulty hits", you just keep typing what you were already typing, for a few more characters. I don't find that very annoying, and I love being able to find stuff without remembering anything specific about the URL and just something about it, or the page.
That said, I would love some more configuration options, such as whether to weigh time-since-last-visit, frequency of visit, keywords, or whatever the most.
Re. different points, then you specifically said: "Did I ever call him a flamingo? Let me answer for you, no." As if my argument in any way hinges on this. We are talking about when it makes sense to say "X is similar to Y" (not, as you tried to paint me, as claiming "X is Y"). I even think we agree what constitutes a fair comparison - the two subjects must share some relevant attribute.
If you are only "explaining" the poster, then you may very well be right that someone believes Obama and the Joker to be somehow similar. For all I know, sharing the letter O in their names is one of the better candidates.
However, you seem to also say that the similarity is non-trivial and justified. This is where I strongly disagree.
Your candidate for a shared attribute is that one wants to destroy society to return to a "law of the jungle" situation, because he wants to show people how ugly they are (roughly). The other wants to remake (which entails some deconstruction of existing institutions) certain laws and parts of government, to improve on the state in general.
Now, the only similar point here is that some parts of society will cease to be like they are now. You may find Obama's changes more radical than what you are used to from politics - this does not make him unlike politicians and like terrorists. It makes him a (very, very slightly) more radical politician.
I asked you how you, in the hypothetical situation of getting the chance of undoing what you dislike about Obama's changes, would be different. You said that you would only be "reconstruction". Now, this would still entail tearing down existing structure, and since the Joker is also "reconstructing" a pre-society situation, your argument is selfdefeating. But it would be more accurate to say it misses the point. The only similarity you are pointing to is still "removes existing societal structure". Saying that you would be doing so for a different motivation and with a different goal in mind does not remove you from that category. If you want the Joker and Obama in that category, no matter their motives, means and goals, then you have to include everyone in it. Or maybe you want to tell me some other ways they are alike...? As it stands, the comparison is incredibly weak: "wants to change/remove some parts of society". On a scale of radicalim, they are nowhere near each other.
If you care to reread my previous post, you will note that I specifically pointed out the difference you now find so important. It is not.
It is the structure of the argument that is wrong, not (just) the conclusion. The structure is that you found some, for the case otherwise irrelevant, attritbute which the two shared and then claimed they were substantively alike (enough to warrant a Obama-as-Joker poster). I never said your argument was the same as claiming he was a flamingo. I claimed it was the same as claiming he is "similar to a flamingo". And it is.
I understand why you would rather paint me as making a different point, rather than defend yourself against the one I actually made.
"But he wants a new society nonetheless, which means dismantling to some degree the one we have, which is what he has in common with the Joker."
Also, he breathes oxygen, which makes him similar to a cow. He has two legs, which make him similar to flamingo.
Your comparison is still completely wrong. One wants to destroy certain things for one goal, the other wants to change/redo a very minor subset of those things for a completely different reason.
This very strenuous link between them is in no way relevant! Here in Denmark, we have a famous example of failed logic that "mom can't fly, a stone cannot fly, ergo mom is a stone". What you are doing is no less silly, but just a bit more vague as you only claim that "they have something in common".
A few years from now, you may find yourself in the position of working in local politics to undo certain things Obama has instated. Please mail me if this happens, and we can have this discussion again - with you being compared to the Joker using the exact same argument you are presenting now...
A few post up:
Me: "You are actually arguing that remake is the same as destruction?"
You: "Yes, that's what I'm arguing..."
I hope you will forgive me for taking this to mean that you are saying remake is the same as destruction.
I still think the comparison is ludicrous - a fictional character who wants to strip away civilization in order for people to realize what animals they really are... and a politician who wants to replace and/or seriously change certain political institutions. I just don't see it...
My analogy is fine. You are claiming that "remake" equals "destruction" because (in some cases) remake entails some destruction.
This is no less silly than saying a car is a wheel, because a car necessarily contains some wheels.
Also, your argument suffers from the basic flaw that "destruction" is not the same as "remake". No analogy is really need to show why that is silly.
Furthermore, I am not at all sure we agree why the founding fathers would rebel, and which side they would be on. I for one do not believe they would accept a "democracy" where big corporations, the military and the media moguls have the power to sway the people and the government.
OK. You are actually arguing that remake is the same as destruction?
Because what, remake entails destruction? Even if that were true, then it would make your original claim no more true than "a car is a wheel because there are wheels on cars".
And if you think there is any substantial difference to politics under Obama or Bush, then you are sadly mistaken. Both are capitalist systems, with a small vent of "democracy" added. You are discussing what kind of topping you want on your soft ice. Business as usual...
Jefferson et al. had no clue as to the level of power money and industry would wield today, I posit they would have rebelled some time ago had they been alive.
If you can describe something in enough detail to put it in a certain category (X writes likes this), then you can also imitate that category from that same description (I will now write like this in order to seem like X).
I do not really see how you would ever expect different.
Right. So "remake" is the same as "destroy". Got it.
BTW, claiming Obama's changes have anything to do with fundamentals is... well, wrong. Democrat vs Republican debates may tell you differently, but it is the same politican/economic system they want to tweak. And comparing the "remake" with tearing down basic social cohesion such as "lets not kill each other when we cross on the street" is absurd.
Computers are making it possible for us to delegate some responsibilities, such as spelling, to them.
We are letting them do this.
This is not a "loss" of the ability to spell, any more than cars are "losing" us the ability to get around.
(I am aware that cars have made us less able to get around without cars, but this is hardly relevant as we can still get around. Same with spelling.)
The really interesting bit is that I do not feel unable to spell, nor unable to remember words (though I mostly use wordweb or google for this previously intra-mental task). And people with cars feel able to do their shopping in town in 20 minutes. We are not wrong. We are just counting these technological artifacts as part of ourselves.
Typing is moving your ability to spell around. Inside you. (For certain values of you).
Actually, I would say it is Apple who is in violation of the spirit of the GPL. Some of that proprietary "taint" could be said to "rub off" on the distributors of this game, but no more than it does on the iPhone customers.
Or maybe this is clearer: yes, the iPhone community does not enjoy the full range of benefits from the code your angry developer wanted to give them when he GPL'ed his code. But that is their own damn fault! If they want to be able to run any program on their handheld, they can pay Apple whatever they demand, jailbreak it or buy a real handheld computer (as opposed to semi-renting a locked one from a corporate entity).
It is a sad (and weird, seeing as the source is free) state of affairs that the developer in question would have to pay for being able to distribute the binaries for the iPhone or otherwise give all customers equal and free (-as-in-beer) access to his code. I suggest he contact Apple about it...
I agree 100% on your solution!
However, I still find the article interesting, as it highlights RIAA's business model, moral fiber, intelligence/net-savvy and irrelevance. I will be boring my friends with this story tomorrow - and maybe one of them will understand a bit more about how outdated the old ways of thinking are, compared to the revolution Mr. Moglen and others are speaking of...
...this charming bloke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashleigh_Brilliant) seems to have set some precedence for a very small byte-count-threshold for what i copyrightable. I should think it would be an easy matter to create a program which delivers every conceivable combination of words to form a longish sentence - if the results are copyrighted by virtue of having been produced by my program...?
Of course it will never hold up in court, but it is a wonderful metaphor for how insane software patents are!
Are you claiming the camera does this without consuming any power from the battery?
Of course not.
OK. Great. Then how is the camera now safe, if it still has to use power from the battery - which you say can make it explode?
I am asking you an open question about what you believe
No, you're asking a "have you stopped beating your wife?" question; i.e., one that is filled with faulty assumptions. And I'm not going to feed you, so please stop asking.
Well, I guess we disagree on that one. I do not see any hidden assumptions, what are they and in what question?
If I did make some mistake and assumed something which is wrong, let me know. I just went ahead and assumed that the "check battery"-function would consume some non-zero amount of power, and that consuming power was "dangerous" on an unchecked battery. Is it one of these assumptions which is false?
OK, so you think your initial post was a mild scolding and I found it rather pissy. I think I am being real clever and logic-ey, and you think I am a troll.
Who is not answering a simple question?
* You claim the batteries can explode from drawing power from them (I'll defer to your knowledge on the matter).
* You claim we will be safe if the camera checks the battery for safety.
* Are you claiming the camera does this without consuming any power from the battery?
I am trying to find out what it is you are saying. I am not going to look through your articles - I am going to see if you are serious about giving your opinion here, or whether you would rather posture as being "better than a troll".
I am asking you an open question about what you believe. I humbly posit that this is not exactly troll-like behaviour, and that in the spirit of open debate, you should be willing to defend, or at least clarify, your beliefs.
So using the battery, not recharging it, is enough for it to be potentially dangerous?
Yes.
OK, great. Then I wont have to read your articles.
If so, could you point me to the Battery University article
If it weren't for the fact that you're trolling, I'd just give a straight answer -- even though I've already posted that link above. Too bad you're only interested in starting a fight, rather than having a genuine interest in increasing your knowledge.
I am sorry, but this is me being facetious, because you started with an broad attack and better knowing tone.
Now you are being called out on how a camera is going to perform the check function without using any power and endangering the camera and user, were you seem to accept exactly zero risk.
And you wont answer that. You will not even tell me which article explains how a camera performs such a calculation without drawing power from the battery...
So using the battery, not recharging it, is enough for it to be potentially dangerous?
If so, could you point me to the Battery University article that explains how a camera performs a function (such as checking the battery for whether it is from a certain manufacturer or not) without using any power, and thus endangering camera and user?
Before posting, I read through the comments here to see if ANYONE had a clue regarding the dangers of Lithium Ion (and especially Lithium Polymer) batteries.
Nope. Not a one. Zero, zip, nada. Everyone wants to bash Panasonic rather than do a little research first.
Talk about knee-jerk responses.
Someone made this point before you, politely and to-the-point (http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1280593&cid=28458001).
He got a succint answer (and I miss my mod points on both of them), which goes:
Have the camera deny to charge the battery, then. Or give, and this is a wild thought, the consumer the choice of whether to use the battery!
The really wild thing to do, though, would be this: let people know how the charger operates, so batteries will "fit". Allow only batteries build to specs.
Credit Sony, who is one of the pioneers (if not THE pioneer) of Lithium battery safety, for protecting their customers.
Sheesh, you people are as bad as any other herd of sheeple. Not everything that a corporation does is evil.
No, but stock-board-shareholder-management mechanisms ensure they will always do what is best for the corp itself, and not give a shit about whether it is evil or not. Assuming they did this for their own sake is not company-bashing; thinking anything else is sheer stupidity and/or an assumption of extreme incompetence on their part.
The interesting part is whether they are doing it so their cameras won't blow up and get them sued/blogged about, or to sell more batteries. Me? I think it is a bit of both.
Actually, in Frank Herberts Dune, it is quite obvious that the Guild monopoly is enforced through simple secrecy. Nobody knows exactly how a navigator looks, or how their prescience works.
Personally, I would rather extrapolate from that and assume the Guild refuses to deal with planets which are trying to break their monopoly, build heighliners, train/evolve navigators, etc.
Or, you could take the word of two hacks who cannot seperate the Dune and Terminator universes...
Karl Marx would have called for government to come in and heavily regulate software...
That would be Stalin, or some other person who misread Marx and thought you could enforce the communist revolution top-down. A close reading of Marx would have told the Russian revolutionaries that their experiment could not work (at least not at that time).
I absolutely agree that proprietary software is basically 'Stalinist' in flavour (heavy top-down control, zero tolerance for deviance, slow to react, etc. etc.), and further agree with Mr. Moglen that free software might more accurately be called 'anarchist production'.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, so now it is "destructive towards the foundations of a society"...
This is slightly better. But still suffers from the flaw that anyone could say this about any politician they do not like, providing he changed anything.
And the motivation, goal, means, etc. still do not match up. So even if you could prove that Obama is actually destructive towards the foundations... and even more so than any other politician - the comparison still sucks.
This is just a case of "lets paint the guy we do not like as that villain from that movie".
Normally, I would agree that changing around menus and second-guessing the user mostly leads to annoyance and little else.
However, when it comes to Firefox' location bar, I just don't see the problem. In order to get rid of the "faulty hits", you just keep typing what you were already typing, for a few more characters. I don't find that very annoying, and I love being able to find stuff without remembering anything specific about the URL and just something about it, or the page.
That said, I would love some more configuration options, such as whether to weigh time-since-last-visit, frequency of visit, keywords, or whatever the most.
Re. different points, then you specifically said:
"Did I ever call him a flamingo? Let me answer for you, no."
As if my argument in any way hinges on this. We are talking about when it makes sense to say "X is similar to Y" (not, as you tried to paint me, as claiming "X is Y"). I even think we agree what constitutes a fair comparison - the two subjects must share some relevant attribute.
If you are only "explaining" the poster, then you may very well be right that someone believes Obama and the Joker to be somehow similar. For all I know, sharing the letter O in their names is one of the better candidates.
However, you seem to also say that the similarity is non-trivial and justified. This is where I strongly disagree.
Your candidate for a shared attribute is that one wants to destroy society to return to a "law of the jungle" situation, because he wants to show people how ugly they are (roughly).
The other wants to remake (which entails some deconstruction of existing institutions) certain laws and parts of government, to improve on the state in general.
Now, the only similar point here is that some parts of society will cease to be like they are now. You may find Obama's changes more radical than what you are used to from politics - this does not make him unlike politicians and like terrorists. It makes him a (very, very slightly) more radical politician.
I asked you how you, in the hypothetical situation of getting the chance of undoing what you dislike about Obama's changes, would be different. You said that you would only be "reconstruction". Now, this would still entail tearing down existing structure, and since the Joker is also "reconstructing" a pre-society situation, your argument is selfdefeating.
But it would be more accurate to say it misses the point. The only similarity you are pointing to is still "removes existing societal structure". Saying that you would be doing so for a different motivation and with a different goal in mind does not remove you from that category. If you want the Joker and Obama in that category, no matter their motives, means and goals, then you have to include everyone in it.
Or maybe you want to tell me some other ways they are alike...? As it stands, the comparison is incredibly weak: "wants to change/remove some parts of society". On a scale of radicalim, they are nowhere near each other.
If you care to reread my previous post, you will note that I specifically pointed out the difference you now find so important.
It is not.
It is the structure of the argument that is wrong, not (just) the conclusion.
The structure is that you found some, for the case otherwise irrelevant, attritbute which the two shared and then claimed they were substantively alike (enough to warrant a Obama-as-Joker poster).
I never said your argument was the same as claiming he was a flamingo. I claimed it was the same as claiming he is "similar to a flamingo".
And it is.
I understand why you would rather paint me as making a different point, rather than defend yourself against the one I actually made.
"But he wants a new society nonetheless, which means dismantling to some degree the one we have, which is what he has in common with the Joker."
Also, he breathes oxygen, which makes him similar to a cow. He has two legs, which make him similar to flamingo.
Your comparison is still completely wrong. One wants to destroy certain things for one goal, the other wants to change/redo a very minor subset of those things for a completely different reason.
This very strenuous link between them is in no way relevant!
Here in Denmark, we have a famous example of failed logic that "mom can't fly, a stone cannot fly, ergo mom is a stone". What you are doing is no less silly, but just a bit more vague as you only claim that "they have something in common".
A few years from now, you may find yourself in the position of working in local politics to undo certain things Obama has instated. Please mail me if this happens, and we can have this discussion again - with you being compared to the Joker using the exact same argument you are presenting now...
A few post up:
Me: "You are actually arguing that remake is the same as destruction?"
You: "Yes, that's what I'm arguing..."
I hope you will forgive me for taking this to mean that you are saying remake is the same as destruction.
I still think the comparison is ludicrous - a fictional character who wants to strip away civilization in order for people to realize what animals they really are... and a politician who wants to replace and/or seriously change certain political institutions. I just don't see it...
My analogy is fine. You are claiming that "remake" equals "destruction" because (in some cases) remake entails some destruction.
This is no less silly than saying a car is a wheel, because a car necessarily contains some wheels.
Also, your argument suffers from the basic flaw that "destruction" is not the same as "remake". No analogy is really need to show why that is silly.
Furthermore, I am not at all sure we agree why the founding fathers would rebel, and which side they would be on. I for one do not believe they would accept a "democracy" where big corporations, the military and the media moguls have the power to sway the people and the government.
OK. You are actually arguing that remake is the same as destruction?
Because what, remake entails destruction? Even if that were true, then it would make your original claim no more true than "a car is a wheel because there are wheels on cars".
And if you think there is any substantial difference to politics under Obama or Bush, then you are sadly mistaken. Both are capitalist systems, with a small vent of "democracy" added. You are discussing what kind of topping you want on your soft ice. Business as usual...
Jefferson et al. had no clue as to the level of power money and industry would wield today, I posit they would have rebelled some time ago had they been alive.
If you can describe something in enough detail to put it in a certain category (X writes likes this), then you can also imitate that category from that same description (I will now write like this in order to seem like X).
I do not really see how you would ever expect different.
Right. So "remake" is the same as "destroy". Got it.
BTW, claiming Obama's changes have anything to do with fundamentals is... well, wrong. Democrat vs Republican debates may tell you differently, but it is the same politican/economic system they want to tweak. And comparing the "remake" with tearing down basic social cohesion such as "lets not kill each other when we cross on the street" is absurd.
So... the Joker wants to destroy society and Obama says he wants to improve it. So they are the same?
Yeah.
...deface one lil' president ... well, then everyone loses their minds...
Computers are making it possible for us to delegate some responsibilities, such as spelling, to them.
We are letting them do this.
This is not a "loss" of the ability to spell, any more than cars are "losing" us the ability to get around.
(I am aware that cars have made us less able to get around without cars, but this is hardly relevant as we can still get around. Same with spelling.)
The really interesting bit is that I do not feel unable to spell, nor unable to remember words (though I mostly use wordweb or google for this previously intra-mental task). And people with cars feel able to do their shopping in town in 20 minutes. We are not wrong. We are just counting these technological artifacts as part of ourselves.
Typing is moving your ability to spell around. Inside you. (For certain values of you).
It bears repeating...
Actually, I would say it is Apple who is in violation of the spirit of the GPL. Some of that proprietary "taint" could be said to "rub off" on the distributors of this game, but no more than it does on the iPhone customers.
Or maybe this is clearer: yes, the iPhone community does not enjoy the full range of benefits from the code your angry developer wanted to give them when he GPL'ed his code. But that is their own damn fault! If they want to be able to run any program on their handheld, they can pay Apple whatever they demand, jailbreak it or buy a real handheld computer (as opposed to semi-renting a locked one from a corporate entity).
It is a sad (and weird, seeing as the source is free) state of affairs that the developer in question would have to pay for being able to distribute the binaries for the iPhone or otherwise give all customers equal and free (-as-in-beer) access to his code. I suggest he contact Apple about it...
I agree 100% on your solution!
However, I still find the article interesting, as it highlights RIAA's business model, moral fiber, intelligence/net-savvy and irrelevance. I will be boring my friends with this story tomorrow - and maybe one of them will understand a bit more about how outdated the old ways of thinking are, compared to the revolution Mr. Moglen and others are speaking of...
...this charming bloke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashleigh_Brilliant) seems to have set some precedence for a very small byte-count-threshold for what i copyrightable. I should think it would be an easy matter to create a program which delivers every conceivable combination of words to form a longish sentence - if the results are copyrighted by virtue of having been produced by my program...?
Of course it will never hold up in court, but it is a wonderful metaphor for how insane software patents are!
Brilliant! Someone build a mechanical implementation in lego, for those of us who don't typo so good... :-)
Are you claiming the camera does this without consuming any power from the battery?
Of course not.
OK. Great. Then how is the camera now safe, if it still has to use power from the battery - which you say can make it explode?
I am asking you an open question about what you believe
No, you're asking a "have you stopped beating your wife?" question; i.e., one that is filled with faulty assumptions. And I'm not going to feed you, so please stop asking.
Well, I guess we disagree on that one. I do not see any hidden assumptions, what are they and in what question? If I did make some mistake and assumed something which is wrong, let me know. I just went ahead and assumed that the "check battery"-function would consume some non-zero amount of power, and that consuming power was "dangerous" on an unchecked battery. Is it one of these assumptions which is false?
OK, so you think your initial post was a mild scolding and I found it rather pissy. I think I am being real clever and logic-ey, and you think I am a troll.
Who is not answering a simple question?
* You claim the batteries can explode from drawing power from them (I'll defer to your knowledge on the matter).
* You claim we will be safe if the camera checks the battery for safety.
* Are you claiming the camera does this without consuming any power from the battery?
I am trying to find out what it is you are saying. I am not going to look through your articles - I am going to see if you are serious about giving your opinion here, or whether you would rather posture as being "better than a troll".
I am asking you an open question about what you believe. I humbly posit that this is not exactly troll-like behaviour, and that in the spirit of open debate, you should be willing to defend, or at least clarify, your beliefs.
So using the battery, not recharging it, is enough for it to be potentially dangerous?
Yes.
OK, great. Then I wont have to read your articles.
If so, could you point me to the Battery University article
If it weren't for the fact that you're trolling, I'd just give a straight answer -- even though I've already posted that link above. Too bad you're only interested in starting a fight, rather than having a genuine interest in increasing your knowledge.
I am sorry, but this is me being facetious, because you started with an broad attack and better knowing tone.
Now you are being called out on how a camera is going to perform the check function without using any power and endangering the camera and user, were you seem to accept exactly zero risk.
And you wont answer that. You will not even tell me which article explains how a camera performs such a calculation without drawing power from the battery...
So using the battery, not recharging it, is enough for it to be potentially dangerous?
If so, could you point me to the Battery University article that explains how a camera performs a function (such as checking the battery for whether it is from a certain manufacturer or not) without using any power, and thus endangering camera and user?
Before posting, I read through the comments here to see if ANYONE had a clue regarding the dangers of Lithium Ion (and especially Lithium Polymer) batteries.
Nope. Not a one. Zero, zip, nada. Everyone wants to bash Panasonic rather than do a little research first.
Talk about knee-jerk responses.
Someone made this point before you, politely and to-the-point (http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1280593&cid=28458001). He got a succint answer (and I miss my mod points on both of them), which goes: Have the camera deny to charge the battery, then. Or give, and this is a wild thought, the consumer the choice of whether to use the battery! The really wild thing to do, though, would be this: let people know how the charger operates, so batteries will "fit". Allow only batteries build to specs.
Listen, Lithium Ion technology is DANGEROUS. It catches fire easily -- very easily -- and destroys everything around it.
Credit Sony, who is one of the pioneers (if not THE pioneer) of Lithium battery safety, for protecting their customers.
Sheesh, you people are as bad as any other herd of sheeple. Not everything that a corporation does is evil.
No, but stock-board-shareholder-management mechanisms ensure they will always do what is best for the corp itself, and not give a shit about whether it is evil or not. Assuming they did this for their own sake is not company-bashing; thinking anything else is sheer stupidity and/or an assumption of extreme incompetence on their part. The interesting part is whether they are doing it so their cameras won't blow up and get them sued/blogged about, or to sell more batteries. Me? I think it is a bit of both.
Actually, in Frank Herberts Dune, it is quite obvious that the Guild monopoly is enforced through simple secrecy. Nobody knows exactly how a navigator looks, or how their prescience works.
Personally, I would rather extrapolate from that and assume the Guild refuses to deal with planets which are trying to break their monopoly, build heighliners, train/evolve navigators, etc.
Or, you could take the word of two hacks who cannot seperate the Dune and Terminator universes...
Karl Marx would have called for government to come in and heavily regulate software...
That would be Stalin, or some other person who misread Marx and thought you could enforce the communist revolution top-down. A close reading of Marx would have told the Russian revolutionaries that their experiment could not work (at least not at that time).
I absolutely agree that proprietary software is basically 'Stalinist' in flavour (heavy top-down control, zero tolerance for deviance, slow to react, etc. etc.), and further agree with Mr. Moglen that free software might more accurately be called 'anarchist production'.