I care, because I'd rather pay a little more for something that lasts longer. Maybe I'm a fool. Or maybe I just find a small amount of pleasure in stability.
Yes, I buy flourescent bulbs instead of incandescents where possible:)
And I'm considering LCD over DLP (replaceable bulb) or Plasma (trash in five years or after accidentally leaving the nintendo on).
I hope it was clear I was joking, and not questioning your logic, which I basically agree with.
But I do wonder, more seriously, do you extend unborn children the same protection? I say unborn children to distinguish a cell blob from a fetus that is past the point of viability -- currently around 7 months, I believe?
Just curious...
I don't know where I draw the line on that one yet... but I do find "birth" to be a bit arbitrary.
In a ridiculouse situation like that I think most people would save something dear to them rather than something they had no familiarity with. It's fairly instinctual.
I don't think this says anything about objective value (a flawed concept) or even my values. And certainly nothing about the gray areas where most decision making lies.
Extreme hypotheticals are mostly useful for shutting down interesting or subtle thought in favor of knee-jerk reactions.
Hmmm, well, with all the "no animal testing" products out there, by companies which are often at the forefront of the research, I guess there must be a way around this, no?
I'm guessing there aren't that many totally unknown chemicals being introduced into cosmetics. And new formulations can be safely tested on humans who are willing to put up with a possible itchy red spot for $25.
(I was once paid to be a lab rat myself, mind you).
But sure -- if there's some truly unknown but seemingly useful substance and nobody can come up with a way to test it without torturing animals... I'd probably say go ahead. Once you know, stop testing it that way. But you don't need to squirt 500 new variations on the same 20 shampoo ingredients into a hundred rabbit eyes every year because the color or fragrance ratios have changed.
What a lousy hypothetical. If my baby and a random person were both in the path of a speeding truck I'd save my baby. What about if it were my dog and some random person. I'd probably save my dog.
"Logic" is useless when misapplied.
You're creating a false dilemma. The point of the parent post was that we can still minimize the suffering of living things while continuing to value human life above non-human life.
In the land mine case I say "go for it". It doesn't seem cruel to the rats and it saves lives (human, dog) and loads of money. For me this is a good enough solution.
Squirting irritant cosmetic products in rabbits eyes? Not so sure about that. I'd prefer if we didn't, thank you.
De-beaked chickens clawing, shitting and rotting all over each other while waiting to be processed? No thanks. I'll buy free range meat whenever I can.
Just because you can reduce every decision to a black-and-white hypothetical doesn't mean that the real world works that way.
Yeah, I know. I don't blame Apple for the DRM, really. That's the only way to play ball. There was an interview with Jobs, where he mentioned that right from the get-go they told the RIAA people that whatever DRM they came up with would be cracked. And of course they were right. I wonder how long the RIAA will force them to keep up the charade. Especially since it's obvious to anyone who pirates stuff that DRM has no effect on piracy whatsoever.
I know. That's why I used the "|", to designate "or" as in, "whoever you feel like blaming". I know Apple doesn't have much choice. But they're playing ball. Do I blame them? No. But whatever. The whole thing's a mess anyway.
One change mentioned on the page (if anyone actually read it) is that the new version strips the DRM, but leaves intact the Apple User ID who originally purchased the song. That is pretty cool - as it give them some legal justification. If people share stuff they can be ID'd. This is perfect for me, as I just wanted to be able to play my songs on whichever computer I use but wouldn't share them with anyone other than my wife. (Which for all I know, might be illegal, but WTF is with that?)
Breaking the DRM doesn't allow people to pirate the music. It's CD's and MP3's that make up the bulk of pirating. DRM or no, legitimately purchased AAC files don't make up any substantial portion of pirating anyways.
I would guess that approximately ZERO pirates have been twarted by DRM and LOTS of legitimate users have been annoyed by the restrictions.
Why are they (Apple|RIAA) so intent on DRM anyways?
Oh well then. Suffer away. Idiots will run the country as long as the more intelligent people hold on to this purist attitued that only a perfect candidate should get their vote, as opposed to the best likely winner.
Oh yes, and if you're going to throw your vote away in the meantime, please vote for voting reform whenever possible.
I was thinking the other day that when it comes to the law, fines should always be calculated as a percentage of your income. Being rich comes with all sorts of great advantages, but being able to ignore criminal penalties because the fee is so small shouldn't really be one of them.
I thought of this mainly in the fact that when I was poor, a speeding ticket could ruin my budget for months, whereas now I am pretty well off and couldn't give a damn about a $100 ticket. I'm not much of a speeder anyways, but it just doesn't make sense that the penalty is less meaningful to me just because I make more money.
I know there are punative damages in civil cases (which are great, but shouldn't go to the plaintiff as they do now). Is there any similar system in criminal cases? Certainly not in most fines that I see -- they're flat.
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars can and should land you in jail plain and simple.
Get a sense of perspective, for God's sake!
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars film should get you a stiff fine at worst. Prison? Are you kidding? I don't think people should breach copyright (sorry, it's not the same as stealing), but your extreme view shows you're way off base. Prison is for people who are dangerous to society. I am 100% sure that you yourself have done things that are more dangerous to society than downloading a stinking movie online.
What we all really know for sure:
1) Copyright and patent law in this country are out of hand, giving people the impetus for unlawful resistence.
2) Unlawful resistence is unlawful and not particularly effective in this case.
Everything else is speculation and fiery opinion. Personally I'm for reforming the laws. In the meantime, as an artist myself I have released some of my work under a creative commons lisence. I encourage other artists to do the same.
It has one big restriction: it has to be desgined by us stupid humans. If we set our minds to killing people using dumb methods (like guns, bombs, poisons, etc) then we're smart enough to pull it off. But I seriously doubt we could design a nanobot that could intelligently attack our inner workings and defend itself from our immune system and replicate like mad and...
Didn't all the participants in the desert robot race just get disqualified? And that's Easy with a capital "E".
Sorry, there's lots of ways we can kill each other. Outsmarting nature with nanotech isn't likely one of them:)
And I think that anyone who believes that humans could ever execute planned social darwinism without fucking it up is terribly naive.
What will happen in 200 years if we use nanobots to eliminate "undesirable" people? We'll upset whatever small amout of equilibrium we've achieved over the past million years and a whole new, and perhaps different, set of problems would take their place. Things would get terribly worse for a while and a thousand years later we'd probably get back to about where we are now.
Though even the best of us sometimes rail against diversity, it is really important. This has been shown again and again through history both in human-to-human endeavors and human-to-animal endeavors.
Though slower, evolution usually brings about better, more stable results than revolution.
> > I'm not convinced that a tiny nanobot army is > > going to be more intelligent, adaptable or effective > > as my own immune system anytime soon. > > Maybe not at first, but eventually, yes. Just compare > the very first computers with what we have now.
Actually, that's a great example. Some folks worried that computers with huge processing power would make the human mind obsolete. But despite their amazing progress, they haven't. And anyone who knows AI will tell you it isn't going to happen by pumping up the gigahertz either.
Nanobots are not going to be more effective than our immune system anytime soon. (Not that they have to be, you can always just poison someone, you know). But I actually laugh at the idea of humans designing something as amazing as a white blood cell.
In fact, if you look at all our inventions, even ones that are obviously much stronger than us... say forklifts... they are still prone to break down and require constant feeding and care, not to mention that they just sit there and rust unless we make them go.
Hard to believe sometimes, but from a practicality standpoint a few million years of random evolution beats the pants off of anything we've ever conceived in our clever little brains.
Humans won't be obsolete any time soon:)
Cheers.
Sexist Mumblings
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I remember me and a buddy convinced our girlfriends to play D&D with us a couple times back when we were around 22. Neither of them had played before, but I remember being surprised at how well they took to the the role-playing aspects. In fact the role-playing aspects came so naturally that it didn't seem particularly fun to them. We ended up not playing much.
If I let myself be a sexist bastard I would say it is because most women tend to role-play in real life a lot more than men; by controlling people's perceptions of them with acting. So most women don't really see the point of setting aside time to put on an act.
Despite that this seems to work well in practice it sure undermines many of my romantic ideals.
There is no surer way to convince the next generation that copying music and movies is cool than to have a bunch of suits preaching at them about it in school. Whoever thought this up must have been the hall monitor back in junior high.
I'm an old fart at 30 and I still buy my music (though I'm pretty much just indie these days). But all the people I know under 25 think that paying for music is stupid. I'm not going to make a morality call, but the mindshare is nearly lost on the next generation. Taking it to school and telling them it's as bad as smoking pot isn't going to get them very far.
Too bad they don't realize that they're just going to have to downsize the industry. Modern realities ensure they just can't sell stuff the way they used to for the prices they used to. Oh well.
You forget that this country was mostly established by Christians.
And you forget that those Christians had just left an awful Christian government and were absolutely adamant that religion would play no role in the law of their new nation. Yes, it was Christians -- smart ones who understood the limits of their beliefs -- who originally demanded the seperation of church and state. As a non-Christian I have great respect for the founding fathers having such insight. Too bad so few Christians seem to remember this today.
Before getting all angry and/or sad about DeDRMS, remember this:
Every song that you could unprotect with this tool is available online already unprotected for free (illegally). They're also for sale, legally, unprotected at your local record store. If you buy them used you might even get them less than 99 cents, uncompressed, unprotected... at which point you could do illegal stuff like put them up on a P2P network.
The point is that this tool doesn't allow you to do anything new. It just carries over to online music stores the same abilities we've had for years now. Heck, maybe without the DRM annoyances people will be more apt to buy songs on the music store, since they now directly compete with what is available already elsewhere.
Why is it people get so worried up about this (playfair, etc)?
I see where you are coming from, and there's no terribly obvious final answer. But as I see it patent scalping is bad for the process. Companies will always seek the quickest buck, and the current patent system encourages this behavior. Fewer companies invent, more companies sue. Those are more related to patent scalping than to the other root causes you mention.
And I do agree on both of your other root causes. Those should be addressed as well. The patent system is failing at it's original goal and needs an overhaul.
Sorry about the Unisys dig. But the fact is they are most famous for the GIF issue. I'm sure they do some useful stuff too, but they caused more trouble with that move than they could pay back with their "office solutions".
I agree -- patents need to be transferrable for the reasons you stated. And submarine patents are probably the most important issue to address at this time.
But I guess what I was thinking is that there is also a problem with something that might be thought of as "patent scalping": where a company purchases a patent from a small inventor solely with the intent of pumping up the price.
I support small inventors selling their patents to a company who will make use of it. I also support an inventor licensing a patent for other's use. What I don't support is a company who made no invention and makes no product to gather money because they managed to get their grubby hands on a slip of paper before anyone else.
They said they want to make money off of IP. I'm sure that they would much rather just collect license fees than have to sue,
And that, though legal and perfectly reasonable sounding, is the root of the problem. Companies that did not invent anything and have no intent of producing a useful product are gobbling up patent slips and collecting license fees or firing of C&D's. It is certainly an abuse of the intent, if not the letter of IP law.
If patent reform isn't possible now, at least investors and other companies should blacklist these bully corporations.
Unisys, SCO, Forgent, Rambus... interesting how the ones most famous for this garbage produce nothing particularly useful. Is this the type of thing the founding fathers were trying to encourage when they set up patents in the first place?
Since you know the voting system is messed up it is a bit crazy to stand on principal and, yes, throw your vote away. It burns me that our voting system is so poor, but I can't see any benefit in being stubborn about it and letting idiots choose the next president.
I think that one of the reasons we get shitty elected officials sometimes is this tendency for intelligent and/or ethical people to vote their heart, damn reality, damn the consequences.
In a presidential election as grave as the upcoming one, please vote for the lesser of two evils, and vote for election reform, but make yourself useful, dammit!
You are right that if you are in a state where the outcome is obvious you may get away with a "political statement" vote. But be careful as the polls better be coming in 10% margin before that's a safe bet.
Slashdot Mirror
I care, because I'd rather pay a little more for something that lasts longer. Maybe I'm a fool. Or maybe I just find a small amount of pleasure in stability.
:)
Yes, I buy flourescent bulbs instead of incandescents where possible
And I'm considering LCD over DLP (replaceable bulb) or Plasma (trash in five years or after accidentally leaving the nintendo on).
Cheers.
I hope it was clear I was joking, and not questioning your logic, which I basically agree with.
But I do wonder, more seriously, do you extend unborn children the same protection? I say unborn children to distinguish a cell blob from a fetus that is past the point of viability -- currently around 7 months, I believe?
Just curious...
I don't know where I draw the line on that one yet... but I do find "birth" to be a bit arbitrary.
Cheers.
In a ridiculouse situation like that I think most people would save something dear to them rather than something they had no familiarity with. It's fairly instinctual.
I don't think this says anything about objective value (a flawed concept) or even my values. And certainly nothing about the gray areas where most decision making lies.
Extreme hypotheticals are mostly useful for shutting down interesting or subtle thought in favor of knee-jerk reactions.
Cheers.
Hmmm, well, with all the "no animal testing" products out there, by companies which are often at the forefront of the research, I guess there must be a way around this, no?
I'm guessing there aren't that many totally unknown chemicals being introduced into cosmetics. And new formulations can be safely tested on humans who are willing to put up with a possible itchy red spot for $25.
(I was once paid to be a lab rat myself, mind you).
But sure -- if there's some truly unknown but seemingly useful substance and nobody can come up with a way to test it without torturing animals... I'd probably say go ahead. Once you know, stop testing it that way. But you don't need to squirt 500 new variations on the same 20 shampoo ingredients into a hundred rabbit eyes every year because the color or fragrance ratios have changed.
Cheers.
What a lousy hypothetical. If my baby and a random person were both in the path of a speeding truck I'd save my baby. What about if it were my dog and some random person. I'd probably save my dog.
"Logic" is useless when misapplied.
You're creating a false dilemma. The point of the parent post was that we can still minimize the suffering of living things while continuing to value human life above non-human life.
In the land mine case I say "go for it". It doesn't seem cruel to the rats and it saves lives (human, dog) and loads of money. For me this is a good enough solution.
Squirting irritant cosmetic products in rabbits eyes? Not so sure about that. I'd prefer if we didn't, thank you.
De-beaked chickens clawing, shitting and rotting all over each other while waiting to be processed? No thanks. I'll buy free range meat whenever I can.
Just because you can reduce every decision to a black-and-white hypothetical doesn't mean that the real world works that way.
Cheers.
I thought the line for sentience was self-realization. For (bad) example some animals can tell if the image in the mirror is them, and some can't.
;)
Humans don't develop this ability until 1 or 2 years of age. So maybe we should use infants for mine detection?
Cheers.
Yeah, I know. I don't blame Apple for the DRM, really. That's the only way to play ball. There was an interview with Jobs, where he mentioned that right from the get-go they told the RIAA people that whatever DRM they came up with would be cracked. And of course they were right. I wonder how long the RIAA will force them to keep up the charade. Especially since it's obvious to anyone who pirates stuff that DRM has no effect on piracy whatsoever.
I know. That's why I used the "|", to designate "or" as in, "whoever you feel like blaming". I know Apple doesn't have much choice. But they're playing ball. Do I blame them? No. But whatever. The whole thing's a mess anyway.
Cheers.
One change mentioned on the page (if anyone actually read it) is that the new version strips the DRM, but leaves intact the Apple User ID who originally purchased the song. That is pretty cool - as it give them some legal justification. If people share stuff they can be ID'd. This is perfect for me, as I just wanted to be able to play my songs on whichever computer I use but wouldn't share them with anyone other than my wife. (Which for all I know, might be illegal, but WTF is with that?)
Cool
Breaking the DRM doesn't allow people to pirate the music. It's CD's and MP3's that make up the bulk of pirating. DRM or no, legitimately purchased AAC files don't make up any substantial portion of pirating anyways.
I would guess that approximately ZERO pirates have been twarted by DRM and LOTS of legitimate users have been annoyed by the restrictions.
Why are they (Apple|RIAA) so intent on DRM anyways?
Cheers.
Oh well then. Suffer away. Idiots will run the country as long as the more intelligent people hold on to this purist attitued that only a perfect candidate should get their vote, as opposed to the best likely winner.
Oh yes, and if you're going to throw your vote away in the meantime, please vote for voting reform whenever possible.
Cheers.
I was thinking the other day that when it comes to the law, fines should always be calculated as a percentage of your income. Being rich comes with all sorts of great advantages, but being able to ignore criminal penalties because the fee is so small shouldn't really be one of them.
I thought of this mainly in the fact that when I was poor, a speeding ticket could ruin my budget for months, whereas now I am pretty well off and couldn't give a damn about a $100 ticket. I'm not much of a speeder anyways, but it just doesn't make sense that the penalty is less meaningful to me just because I make more money.
I know there are punative damages in civil cases (which are great, but shouldn't go to the plaintiff as they do now). Is there any similar system in criminal cases? Certainly not in most fines that I see -- they're flat.
Just a wondering...
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars can and should land you in jail plain and simple.
Get a sense of perspective, for God's sake!
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars film should get you a stiff fine at worst. Prison? Are you kidding? I don't think people should breach copyright (sorry, it's not the same as stealing), but your extreme view shows you're way off base. Prison is for people who are dangerous to society. I am 100% sure that you yourself have done things that are more dangerous to society than downloading a stinking movie online.
What we all really know for sure:
1) Copyright and patent law in this country are out of hand, giving people the impetus for unlawful resistence.
2) Unlawful resistence is unlawful and not particularly effective in this case.
Everything else is speculation and fiery opinion. Personally I'm for reforming the laws. In the meantime, as an artist myself I have released some of my work under a creative commons lisence. I encourage other artists to do the same.
Cheers.
Nanotech will have no such restrictions.
:)
It has one big restriction: it has to be desgined by us stupid humans. If we set our minds to killing people using dumb methods (like guns, bombs, poisons, etc) then we're smart enough to pull it off. But I seriously doubt we could design a nanobot that could intelligently attack our inner workings and defend itself from our immune system and replicate like mad and...
Didn't all the participants in the desert robot race just get disqualified? And that's Easy with a capital "E".
Sorry, there's lots of ways we can kill each other. Outsmarting nature with nanotech isn't likely one of them
Cheers.
I've thought about this, yes.
And I think that anyone who believes that humans could ever execute planned social darwinism without fucking it up is terribly naive.
What will happen in 200 years if we use nanobots to eliminate "undesirable" people? We'll upset whatever small amout of equilibrium we've achieved over the past million years and a whole new, and perhaps different, set of problems would take their place. Things would get terribly worse for a while and a thousand years later we'd probably get back to about where we are now.
Though even the best of us sometimes rail against diversity, it is really important. This has been shown again and again through history both in human-to-human endeavors and human-to-animal endeavors.
Though slower, evolution usually brings about better, more stable results than revolution.
Cheers.
> > I'm not convinced that a tiny nanobot army is
> > going to be more intelligent, adaptable or effective
> > as my own immune system anytime soon.
>
> Maybe not at first, but eventually, yes. Just compare
> the very first computers with what we have now.
Actually, that's a great example. Some folks worried that computers with huge processing power would make the human mind obsolete. But despite their amazing progress, they haven't. And anyone who knows AI will tell you it isn't going to happen by pumping up the gigahertz either.
Nanobots are not going to be more effective than our immune system anytime soon. (Not that they have to be, you can always just poison someone, you know). But I actually laugh at the idea of humans designing something as amazing as a white blood cell.
In fact, if you look at all our inventions, even ones that are obviously much stronger than us... say forklifts... they are still prone to break down and require constant feeding and care, not to mention that they just sit there and rust unless we make them go.
Hard to believe sometimes, but from a practicality standpoint a few million years of random evolution beats the pants off of anything we've ever conceived in our clever little brains.
Humans won't be obsolete any time soon
Cheers.
I remember me and a buddy convinced our girlfriends to play D&D with us a couple times back when we were around 22. Neither of them had played before, but I remember being surprised at how well they took to the the role-playing aspects. In fact the role-playing aspects came so naturally that it didn't seem particularly fun to them. We ended up not playing much.
If I let myself be a sexist bastard I would say it is because most women tend to role-play in real life a lot more than men; by controlling people's perceptions of them with acting. So most women don't really see the point of setting aside time to put on an act.
Despite that this seems to work well in practice it sure undermines many of my romantic ideals.
Cheers.
There is no surer way to convince the next generation that copying music and movies is cool than to have a bunch of suits preaching at them about it in school. Whoever thought this up must have been the hall monitor back in junior high.
I'm an old fart at 30 and I still buy my music (though I'm pretty much just indie these days). But all the people I know under 25 think that paying for music is stupid. I'm not going to make a morality call, but the mindshare is nearly lost on the next generation. Taking it to school and telling them it's as bad as smoking pot isn't going to get them very far.
Too bad they don't realize that they're just going to have to downsize the industry. Modern realities ensure they just can't sell stuff the way they used to for the prices they used to. Oh well.
Cheers.
You forget that this country was mostly established by Christians.
And you forget that those Christians had just left an awful Christian government and were absolutely adamant that religion would play no role in the law of their new nation. Yes, it was Christians -- smart ones who understood the limits of their beliefs -- who originally demanded the seperation of church and state. As a non-Christian I have great respect for the founding fathers having such insight. Too bad so few Christians seem to remember this today.
Cheers.
Before getting all angry and/or sad about DeDRMS, remember this:
Every song that you could unprotect with this tool is available online already unprotected for free (illegally). They're also for sale, legally, unprotected at your local record store. If you buy them used you might even get them less than 99 cents, uncompressed, unprotected... at which point you could do illegal stuff like put them up on a P2P network.
The point is that this tool doesn't allow you to do anything new. It just carries over to online music stores the same abilities we've had for years now. Heck, maybe without the DRM annoyances people will be more apt to buy songs on the music store, since they now directly compete with what is available already elsewhere.
Why is it people get so worried up about this (playfair, etc)?
Cheers.
Is blocking an entire country like this the future of spamfighting, or has something gone horribly wrong?
I'll take door number two, Monty.
Wouldn't verifiable source addresses eliminate the majority of this?
Ah well, tragedy of the commons in action.
Cheers.
I see where you are coming from, and there's no terribly obvious final answer. But as I see it patent scalping is bad for the process. Companies will always seek the quickest buck, and the current patent system encourages this behavior. Fewer companies invent, more companies sue. Those are more related to patent scalping than to the other root causes you mention.
And I do agree on both of your other root causes. Those should be addressed as well. The patent system is failing at it's original goal and needs an overhaul.
Sorry about the Unisys dig. But the fact is they are most famous for the GIF issue. I'm sure they do some useful stuff too, but they caused more trouble with that move than they could pay back with their "office solutions".
Cheers.
I agree -- patents need to be transferrable for the reasons you stated. And submarine patents are probably the most important issue to address at this time.
But I guess what I was thinking is that there is also a problem with something that might be thought of as "patent scalping": where a company purchases a patent from a small inventor solely with the intent of pumping up the price.
I support small inventors selling their patents to a company who will make use of it. I also support an inventor licensing a patent for other's use. What I don't support is a company who made no invention and makes no product to gather money because they managed to get their grubby hands on a slip of paper before anyone else.
Cheers.
They said they want to make money off of IP. I'm sure that they would much rather just collect license fees than have to sue,
And that, though legal and perfectly reasonable sounding, is the root of the problem. Companies that did not invent anything and have no intent of producing a useful product are gobbling up patent slips and collecting license fees or firing of C&D's. It is certainly an abuse of the intent, if not the letter of IP law.
If patent reform isn't possible now, at least investors and other companies should blacklist these bully corporations.
Unisys, SCO, Forgent, Rambus... interesting how the ones most famous for this garbage produce nothing particularly useful. Is this the type of thing the founding fathers were trying to encourage when they set up patents in the first place?
Cheers.
Since you know the voting system is messed up it is a bit crazy to stand on principal and, yes, throw your vote away. It burns me that our voting system is so poor, but I can't see any benefit in being stubborn about it and letting idiots choose the next president.
I think that one of the reasons we get shitty elected officials sometimes is this tendency for intelligent and/or ethical people to vote their heart, damn reality, damn the consequences.
In a presidential election as grave as the upcoming one, please vote for the lesser of two evils, and vote for election reform, but make yourself useful, dammit!
You are right that if you are in a state where the outcome is obvious you may get away with a "political statement" vote. But be careful as the polls better be coming in 10% margin before that's a safe bet.
Cheers.