No. Copyrights can only be registered by those who wrote the initial work. Today, copyrights are automatic, and don't have to be registered, although there are benefits in doing so. Works that are in the public domain (either because of their age or because they were explicitly placed there by the author) cannot be copyrighted.
Doesn't this sound an awful lot like a conspiracy theory? I'm not saying it isn't true (I was not at all surprised when I first heard about Echelon), but doesn't it sound awfully like some paranoid ravings?
For most startups, it's all about one thing. Pizza. But almost as important as that is money. I'm sure you're going to get some really good suggestions here, and you should definitely look into them. But they're gonna cost you. Two things work in your favor here: 1) There are tons of venture capitalists out there just dying to throw money at startups. Its helps if you have a great product, but all you really need is good ideas and even better marketing. But you've got to find them, and every time you get money from VC, you give away a little bit of your company. 2) Nobody expects much from a startup. This is definitely a good thing. People will accept that you don't have the best equipment, the most stable code, etc. And features? You just keep telling them it will be in the next release, and they'll believe you. (They'll believe you more if you actually put the things in the next release.) What I'm trying to get around to is you don't have to have the best setup or the greatest equipment. Look at what's out there, but don't blow a bunch of money on something because you think it might be a little bit better than the second choice. (Do you really think you'll have enough traffic to require a T3? Most don't.) Don't be afraid to kludge. You have an old 486 you want to run as a web server? Great! Wanna use a Sparc2 as a file server? No problem! If it's enough, go for it. Sure, it might take some work, but remember, your own elbow grease is free. No need to waste money on a brand new PIII if you can get by on what you've got. If you're like most startups, and I bet you are, your resources are limited, and there will be plenty of costs you don't expect. (I wish I could say what some of those cost would be, but then you'd expect them, and they would no longer be costs you don't expect. You know how it works.) Weigh every purchase carefully, and try to stretch your money as much as you can.
If the decision is made to break Microsoft into several "Picosofts" (as I like to call them), what would be the benefits and drawbacks of this outcome? Specifically, who do you think would be hurt, and how; and who do you think would be helped, and how?
I've seen a lot of posts on here from people who don't understand why there are "war crimes" or why we would have any sort of "laws" about war.
It's actually fairly simple. A war crime is something that the majority of civilized people have expressed (through their leaders) as something unreasonably bad even as a part of war. A good example is biological weapons. These are cruel and inhumane, and generally considered inacceptable in any situation. Another example is wanton slaughter of innocent civilians, especially children. Other war crimes may just be dirty tricks, such as the one this article talks about.
Although I like having things be duty-free, I would really like to see an actual solution put in place. I am an e-commerce developer, and I would really prefer to have the law determined soon, even if it means paying a duty, so I do not have to go back and change my programs later. This also goes for the internet-sales-tax issue.
I have actually gone to the trouble of reading the (unbelievably biased) article, and it clarified a few things for me. I would like to share them:
1) No member of the newsgroup went to the police for help. The police were informed by a member of the Australian government, who was concerned by the nature of the posts. The police, after reading the posts from both sides, decided whom they wanted to contact. It was not Mr. Abraham (the guy to whom the court order was issued). 2) The order did not only restrain Mr. Abraham from posting to one specific newsgroup. It also included a 1000 foot restaining order and an order not to contact one of the "petitioners," just as any other harrassment suit. 3) Mr. Abraham was not the only one censured, but he was the only one ordered not to post. All other parties were warned not to post to the newsgroup, or at least to keep all posts strictly on topic. 4) This was not an ordinary flame war; independent readers (particularly an Australian govt. employee) felt the posts were serious enough that they may have eventually led to actual physical violence. I believe it is safe to assume that these posts were no longer about skiing. 5) Nothing in this article gave any facts about the nature of the posts, except in the form of opinion of the detective involved. One might imagine that, given the extremely biased nature of this article (and I believe this bias is abundantly clear), the article would offer evidence defending the respondant, if such were available.
Personally, I would like to see more information about the specific posts for which Mr. Abraham was censured. I find it difficult to make a decision about a specific case when I do not know the whole story. So unless those posts are made available, I can only assume that the judge, who did have all of the information, made the correct decision.
As I said, I don't know the details of the case, so I can't say for sure if this was taken into account. However, I can change my identity every time I post if I want, just so you can't block my posts (I have seen this done). If someone has been troublesome enough to qualify as harrassing, then it is surely reasonable that they might do this.
That's like saying that if someone always (and only) harrasses you when you go to a public park, you should just stop going to that park. Maybe that's not a bad idea, but the law says that the person who is in the wrong (i.e. the harrasser) should lose the priviledge of using the park, not the victim. There is no reason why the person who was harrassed should no longer be able to use the newsgroup. Your solution makes the abused suffer more and lets the abuser off without consequence.
I don't think this sounds too different from a normal restraining order. If you've caused someone enough trouble, you're not allowed to get near them, even if you intend only to make polite conversation. I don't know the details of the case, but I think the idea makes sense.
Okay, maybe it would be more correct to say, "Thay hate people who use libraries rather than purchasing books, because that means less money for them." I suppose they don't really hate libraries specifically, since the libraries do buy a copy or three.
Absolutely not. If this were in any way true the matter would be settled. The 99.9% you claim are false are the ones that are clearly and provably false. The other.1% are not proven to be false. They are not, however, proven to be true, either. That is an example of "converse error," which is the argument: 1) if P then Q; 2) Q; 3) therefore P. It should be clear that this is not valid.
This is also not a matter of probability. To assume that.1% (or any percentage) of UFO sightings are real begs the question, since you are attempting to argue that aliens exist. Assuming that UFOs are real implicitly assumes that aliens exist, and therefore invalidates such an argument. I could just as easily say that aliens do not exist, therefore no UFO sightings are real. (Now that I think about it, this would not beg the question, because while UFOs are dependent on aliens, the existance of aliens does not depend on UFOs.)
As a closing note, I would like to mention that I do not specifically discount all possibility of extra-terrestrial life, I just reject this argument. I remain open-minded, if skeptical.
I have my passwords tattooed on my forehead. Before you go saying that's a stupid idea, let me explain. I have them written backwards, so that other people can't read them. Then, when I sit in front of the computer, I can read them in my reflection in the monitor.
Does anyone know how to get to be one of the beta testers? I'd be willing to sacrifice my personal time and sanity to help test D2, for the sake of society.
I admit that I don't know a great deal about the situation, so I'm not going to judge what JP and others have done. However, I consider myself well-read and well-educated, and I object to several aspects of JP's reply.
First, I think it's cowardly and immature to agree to take questions, then refuse to answer any of them, whatever your reasons. If you want to refuse certain questions for specific reasons, fine, but at least a few of the submitted questions were perfectly valid, and should have been answered directly.
Also, I object to the tone of the essay. I am around JP's age, as are my friends, and I can clearly recognize the thin veil of civility JP tried to place over his words. He is just inches away from calling us all (including those of us who had nothing to do with this Q&A session) dirty names, and making rude comments about our mothers. I also have some experience in debate, and I believe his arguments are, for the most part, argumentative, unsubstantiated, and in one case inconsistant (unfortunate, since that was the only argument that I thought sounded valid).
Finally, I would like to point out that I find JP a great fool to agree to this Q&A session. The only reason I can see that would make him do so would be to defend himself. He claims no interest in that, and admits that opinions are not going to change about him because of this. So what's the point?
I don't write this merely to criticize JP. I couldn't care less about him or the arguments surrounding him. But I hate to see people posting childish, poorly planned arguments when they have ample opportunity to review them. It doesn't do anyone any good when we let our emotions get the better of us in a debate, aspecially when it's written correspondance. JP should have let this sit for a while, then come back and rewritten it after cooling off a little. And include some evidence! I hope if anyone who reads this and finds themselves in that situation will be a little more mature than JP has been.
Although I am a Linux fan, I don't see the point of porting linux to a palm. Since the palm differs so much from a desktop computer, how can it possibly share the same apps, even if it uses the same os? Are there going to be any new applications that will only run on the linux version of palm, and if so, why couldn't they make them for palmos instead, it seems to work pretty well for me?
Personally, I like a larger screen, because I like high-resolution but have bad eyesight. Small monitors mean I have to either limit my screen size or squint at my monitor. But I would also hate to lug around some huge laptop wherever I go. That's the problem with large screens on laptops, the whole laptop has to get bigger, too. Sure, that gives you room for more stuff (drives, a normal keyboard, etc.), but if that were enough reason, we'd have larger laptops already.
But I digress. The point at which I was actually driving is just that it's a matter of taste. As a developer, I stare at the screen all day, and size is important (insert crude joke here). I also don't feel the need to carry my workstation around with me, so laptops are more of a burden than a benefit. As far as portable computing goes, I'm satisfied with my Palm III. But I work with people whose jobs depend on using laptops, and I have little doubt their opinions differ from mine. Since there are so many different uses of portable machines, how can you ask for just one answer for how big they (or their screens) can be? You have as many answers as there are reasons for using a laptop. And even though/. has a large readership, I like to think (and I consider this a compliment) that/.ers do not represent the general populous, so even if we settled on a general solution, that wouldn't necessarily mean anything. I think the only way we'll ever really know what a reasonable size is will be to see what the market supports.
One thing most/. users are ignoring is that the internet is a global phenomenon...
That is certainly true, but does it really matter? There are of course many of us/.ers who are from the US, and so we naturally think first of the FBI, and we use them as an example. I doubt it would be any different in most other countries (as rde suggested), it's just a different name. And of course, if the protocols did contain wire-tapping, that would be available to all governments (and terrorists, too, yikes!), not just the US. And personally, I don't think there's any chance that wire-tapping will be build in to the standards, so I'm not going to worry about it anyways.
I don't know if this is on-topic, but the mention of "open source writing" made me think of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not the book, the web site. It is basically a collaboration of everyone who feels like contributing. It seems to me to be the embodyment of "open source writing."
is that anti-Linux, anti-Open Source, and pro-M$ post can be (and have been) posted freely. When one of these mainstream media types grabs a couple of posts off of/. there's nothing that stops them from getting these. When we read posts here, sure we see those, but we see them in context; we see how they are marked "flamebait," we see the responses, and we see the vast majority of comments directed the other way. We know those are not representative of/.ers. It's bad enough that the media can select joke posts out of context, and try to pass them off as actual beliefs of/.ers, but it would be much worse if they chose posts which simply contradicted the beliefs of the majority of us. Although I think people should be free to post whatever they want, I think we need to take steps to ensure they we are properly represented. (Maybe it's time to implement a three-strikes-and-you're-out policy - get marked with -1 from three moderators and be deleted.) We'll have to demand that journalists choose posts which fairly represent the majority of/.ers who posted to that topic, and if they don't comply, we/. 'em into submission. Or poke them with the soft cushions, your choice.
Just think, someday all jocks will want to use this to let them attach bigger, stronger limbs. Then one day they pick on a geek, and take his/her lunch money. He/she goes home that night and figures out how to hack into the bad guy's implants.
Give a whole new meaning to that "Stop hitting yourself" game, doesn't it? >:-)
Slashdot Mirror
It's a free (as in beer)...
Mmmm...beer
Sorry, couldn't help myself.
No. Copyrights can only be registered by those who wrote the initial work. Today, copyrights are automatic, and don't have to be registered, although there are benefits in doing so. Works that are in the public domain (either because of their age or because they were explicitly placed there by the author) cannot be copyrighted.
Doesn't this sound an awful lot like a conspiracy theory? I'm not saying it isn't true (I was not at all surprised when I first heard about Echelon), but doesn't it sound awfully like some paranoid ravings?
Hey, maybe the end really is near...
For most startups, it's all about one thing. Pizza. But almost as important as that is money. I'm sure you're going to get some really good suggestions here, and you should definitely look into them. But they're gonna cost you. Two things work in your favor here:
1) There are tons of venture capitalists out there just dying to throw money at startups. Its helps if you have a great product, but all you really need is good ideas and even better marketing. But you've got to find them, and every time you get money from VC, you give away a little bit of your company.
2) Nobody expects much from a startup. This is definitely a good thing. People will accept that you don't have the best equipment, the most stable code, etc. And features? You just keep telling them it will be in the next release, and they'll believe you. (They'll believe you more if you actually put the things in the next release.) What I'm trying to get around to is you don't have to have the best setup or the greatest equipment. Look at what's out there, but don't blow a bunch of money on something because you think it might be a little bit better than the second choice. (Do you really think you'll have enough traffic to require a T3? Most don't.) Don't be afraid to kludge. You have an old 486 you want to run as a web server? Great! Wanna use a Sparc2 as a file server? No problem! If it's enough, go for it. Sure, it might take some work, but remember, your own elbow grease is free. No need to waste money on a brand new PIII if you can get by on what you've got. If you're like most startups, and I bet you are, your resources are limited, and there will be plenty of costs you don't expect. (I wish I could say what some of those cost would be, but then you'd expect them, and they would no longer be costs you don't expect. You know how it works.) Weigh every purchase carefully, and try to stretch your money as much as you can.
If the decision is made to break Microsoft into several "Picosofts" (as I like to call them), what would be the benefits and drawbacks of this outcome? Specifically, who do you think would be hurt, and how; and who do you think would be helped, and how?
I've seen a lot of posts on here from people who don't understand why there are "war crimes" or why we would have any sort of "laws" about war.
It's actually fairly simple. A war crime is something that the majority of civilized people have expressed (through their leaders) as something unreasonably bad even as a part of war. A good example is biological weapons. These are cruel and inhumane, and generally considered inacceptable in any situation. Another example is wanton slaughter of innocent civilians, especially children. Other war crimes may just be dirty tricks, such as the one this article talks about.
Remember, it's only a crime if your side loses. :)
Although I like having things be duty-free, I would really like to see an actual solution put in place. I am an e-commerce developer, and I would really prefer to have the law determined soon, even if it means paying a duty, so I do not have to go back and change my programs later. This also goes for the internet-sales-tax issue.
I have actually gone to the trouble of reading the (unbelievably biased) article, and it clarified a few things for me. I would like to share them:
1) No member of the newsgroup went to the police for help. The police were informed by a member of the Australian government, who was concerned by the nature of the posts. The police, after reading the posts from both sides, decided whom they wanted to contact. It was not Mr. Abraham (the guy to whom the court order was issued).
2) The order did not only restrain Mr. Abraham from posting to one specific newsgroup. It also included a 1000 foot restaining order and an order not to contact one of the "petitioners," just as any other harrassment suit.
3) Mr. Abraham was not the only one censured, but he was the only one ordered not to post. All other parties were warned not to post to the newsgroup, or at least to keep all posts strictly on topic.
4) This was not an ordinary flame war; independent readers (particularly an Australian govt. employee) felt the posts were serious enough that they may have eventually led to actual physical violence. I believe it is safe to assume that these posts were no longer about skiing.
5) Nothing in this article gave any facts about the nature of the posts, except in the form of opinion of the detective involved. One might imagine that, given the extremely biased nature of this article (and I believe this bias is abundantly clear), the article would offer evidence defending the respondant, if such were available.
Personally, I would like to see more information about the specific posts for which Mr. Abraham was censured. I find it difficult to make a decision about a specific case when I do not know the whole story. So unless those posts are made available, I can only assume that the judge, who did have all of the information, made the correct decision.
As I said, I don't know the details of the case, so I can't say for sure if this was taken into account. However, I can change my identity every time I post if I want, just so you can't block my posts (I have seen this done). If someone has been troublesome enough to qualify as harrassing, then it is surely reasonable that they might do this.
That's like saying that if someone always (and only) harrasses you when you go to a public park, you should just stop going to that park. Maybe that's not a bad idea, but the law says that the person who is in the wrong (i.e. the harrasser) should lose the priviledge of using the park, not the victim. There is no reason why the person who was harrassed should no longer be able to use the newsgroup. Your solution makes the abused suffer more and lets the abuser off without consequence.
I don't think this sounds too different from a normal restraining order. If you've caused someone enough trouble, you're not allowed to get near them, even if you intend only to make polite conversation. I don't know the details of the case, but I think the idea makes sense.
Okay, maybe it would be more correct to say, "Thay hate people who use libraries rather than purchasing books, because that means less money for them." I suppose they don't really hate libraries specifically, since the libraries do buy a copy or three.
That leave at least .1% to be real right?
.1% are not proven to be false. They are not, however, proven to be true, either. That is an example of "converse error," which is the argument:
.1% (or any percentage) of UFO sightings are real begs the question, since you are attempting to argue that aliens exist. Assuming that UFOs are real implicitly assumes that aliens exist, and therefore invalidates such an argument. I could just as easily say that aliens do not exist, therefore no UFO sightings are real. (Now that I think about it, this would not beg the question, because while UFOs are dependent on aliens, the existance of aliens does not depend on UFOs.)
Absolutely not. If this were in any way true the matter would be settled. The 99.9% you claim are false are the ones that are clearly and provably false. The other
1) if P then Q;
2) Q;
3) therefore P.
It should be clear that this is not valid.
This is also not a matter of probability. To assume that
As a closing note, I would like to mention that I do not specifically discount all possibility of extra-terrestrial life, I just reject this argument. I remain open-minded, if skeptical.
They say they've got an alien skull. So what? I've got an alien skull, too.
:)
I just wear a big hat.
I have my passwords tattooed on my forehead. Before you go saying that's a stupid idea, let me explain. I have them written backwards, so that other people can't read them. Then, when I sit in front of the computer, I can read them in my reflection in the monitor.
Almost sounds like it could be true, doesn't it?
Does anyone know how to get to be one of the beta testers? I'd be willing to sacrifice my personal time and sanity to help test D2, for the sake of society.
I admit that I don't know a great deal about the situation, so I'm not going to judge what JP and others have done. However, I consider myself well-read and well-educated, and I object to several aspects of JP's reply.
First, I think it's cowardly and immature to agree to take questions, then refuse to answer any of them, whatever your reasons. If you want to refuse certain questions for specific reasons, fine, but at least a few of the submitted questions were perfectly valid, and should have been answered directly.
Also, I object to the tone of the essay. I am around JP's age, as are my friends, and I can clearly recognize the thin veil of civility JP tried to place over his words. He is just inches away from calling us all (including those of us who had nothing to do with this Q&A session) dirty names, and making rude comments about our mothers. I also have some experience in debate, and I believe his arguments are, for the most part, argumentative, unsubstantiated, and in one case inconsistant (unfortunate, since that was the only argument that I thought sounded valid).
Finally, I would like to point out that I find JP a great fool to agree to this Q&A session. The only reason I can see that would make him do so would be to defend himself. He claims no interest in that, and admits that opinions are not going to change about him because of this. So what's the point?
I don't write this merely to criticize JP. I couldn't care less about him or the arguments surrounding him. But I hate to see people posting childish, poorly planned arguments when they have ample opportunity to review them. It doesn't do anyone any good when we let our emotions get the better of us in a debate, aspecially when it's written correspondance. JP should have let this sit for a while, then come back and rewritten it after cooling off a little. And include some evidence! I hope if anyone who reads this and finds themselves in that situation will be a little more mature than JP has been.
Although I am a Linux fan, I don't see the point of porting linux to a palm. Since the palm differs so much from a desktop computer, how can it possibly share the same apps, even if it uses the same os? Are there going to be any new applications that will only run on the linux version of palm, and if so, why couldn't they make them for palmos instead, it seems to work pretty well for me?
Personally, I like a larger screen, because I like high-resolution but have bad eyesight. Small monitors mean I have to either limit my screen size or squint at my monitor. But I would also hate to lug around some huge laptop wherever I go. That's the problem with large screens on laptops, the whole laptop has to get bigger, too. Sure, that gives you room for more stuff (drives, a normal keyboard, etc.), but if that were enough reason, we'd have larger laptops already.
/. has a large readership, I like to think (and I consider this a compliment) that /.ers do not represent the general populous, so even if we settled on a general solution, that wouldn't necessarily mean anything. I think the only way we'll ever really know what a reasonable size is will be to see what the market supports.
But I digress. The point at which I was actually driving is just that it's a matter of taste. As a developer, I stare at the screen all day, and size is important (insert crude joke here). I also don't feel the need to carry my workstation around with me, so laptops are more of a burden than a benefit. As far as portable computing goes, I'm satisfied with my Palm III. But I work with people whose jobs depend on using laptops, and I have little doubt their opinions differ from mine. Since there are so many different uses of portable machines, how can you ask for just one answer for how big they (or their screens) can be? You have as many answers as there are reasons for using a laptop. And even though
One thing most /. users are ignoring is that the internet is a global phenomenon...
/.ers who are from the US, and so we naturally think first of the FBI, and we use them as an example. I doubt it would be any different in most other countries (as rde suggested), it's just a different name. And of course, if the protocols did contain wire-tapping, that would be available to all governments (and terrorists, too, yikes!), not just the US. And personally, I don't think there's any chance that wire-tapping will be build in to the standards, so I'm not going to worry about it anyways.
That is certainly true, but does it really matter? There are of course many of us
I don't know if this is on-topic, but the mention of "open source writing" made me think of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not the book, the web site. It is basically a collaboration of everyone who feels like contributing. It seems to me to be the embodyment of "open source writing."
is that anti-Linux, anti-Open Source, and pro-M$ post can be (and have been) posted freely. When one of these mainstream media types grabs a couple of posts off of /. there's nothing that stops them from getting these. When we read posts here, sure we see those, but we see them in context; we see how they are marked "flamebait," we see the responses, and we see the vast majority of comments directed the other way. We know those are not representative of /.ers. It's bad enough that the media can select joke posts out of context, and try to pass them off as actual beliefs of /.ers, but it would be much worse if they chose posts which simply contradicted the beliefs of the majority of us. Although I think people should be free to post whatever they want, I think we need to take steps to ensure they we are properly represented. (Maybe it's time to implement a three-strikes-and-you're-out policy - get marked with -1 from three moderators and be deleted.) We'll have to demand that journalists choose posts which fairly represent the majority of /.ers who posted to that topic, and if they don't comply, we /. 'em into submission. Or poke them with the soft cushions, your choice.
What's ./? :)
Just think, someday all jocks will want to use this to let them attach bigger, stronger limbs. Then one day they pick on a geek, and take his/her lunch money. He/she goes home that night and figures out how to hack into the bad guy's implants.
Give a whole new meaning to that "Stop hitting yourself" game, doesn't it? >:-)