The major problem that hasn't really been addressed is civil and criminal liability for mistakes that can wipe out entire food chains. If you make a mistake with a car, you can stop replication, change the design and restart. No way you can do that with GMO crops. Once they get going, they can be very hard to stop.
Considering the many ways in which genes can be expressed, particularly foreign genes, I doubt that we're remotely smart enough to engineer food safely. I even think it will be several decades before we are, and by then, it will be too late.
If Monsanto were willing to label their food and accept liability, that would make things a bit better. But they just want the royalties and vendor lock-in that GMOs produce. Remember how these guys fought tooth and nail to prevent labeling here and in Europe? Now we know why.
I agree with your point. I have serious reservations about Microsoft in terms of how they do business. I don't necessarily hate them, I just disagree with how they do business. And when I make comments about them, I try to frame it about something they do, not who they are. I try to keep it level and neutral and just state the facts.
My feelings are the same for Apple. I won't buy Apple or Microsoft products until they start to embrace and support free standards that can be used by anybody. That's really what I'm looking for more than anything else. if a software company supports free and open standards, I'll listen and I will probably buy their products.
But I haven't seen that much from the major players. The only major player I've seen actively promoting open standards is Google and the Linux distributions.
Now this isn't to say that people shouldn't buy products from MS and Apple. They're free to do so in my mind. I would just prefer that they do so on the basis of a fully informed decision about the standards they promote when they use products by MS and Apple.
Well, then. You offered a good counter-point to the guy who says that Radiohead was a big enough band to pull it off. But there are still small bands out there that need exposure. Jamendo is a case in point. There's a website just for musicians who want to generate exposure through the creative commons.
I also happen to like eMusic with their DRM-free tracks and flat fee pricing for the number of songs I want to download. And they too, offer some free music.
Look, I'm not advocating that musicians should give everything away for free. They can still make money many other ways besides selling CDs. But I don't buy the position that they have to extract every last cent they can from copyrights. There is such a thing as goodwill among men.
Your point is well taken, but it only assumes that people aren't moral. People who value the cost of goods are going to pay for them because they understand the tragedy of the commons. If we're talking about physical goods, then I would agree with you. But we're talking about a commodity that has been reduced to 1s and 0s.
On the other hand, the poster with the point about Janis Ian made a good point. Did you read that? Janis seems to like getting paid for CDs of recordings made 30 years ago. These recordings would never get any exposure without a means of providing free samples. Free downloads provide that.
The point with Radiohead is not what you pointed out. Yes, they're a big band with a worldwide reputation. But they simply asked for what the market will bear and still made more money off of that album than any single project they did with a label (straight from one of their interviews). There will always be people who want to pay zero and there will be, I think, a majority that will be willing to pay something.
And as you've probably noticed, enforcement is really difficult so some other financing regime for performers will eventually surface. Hopefully, it's a good one.
I was going to mention the suppression of innovation through patents, but I hadn't considered how hard it is for people to get here if they want to come. So even highly skilled can't get here because they could be terrorists or they could take a job. I like your analysis of brain drain. I hadn't really thought of that before but it makes perfect sense to me.
The UofU is a public school of higher education *and* it has an ubuntu mirror. Very cool. Check them out and ask around to see how they did it. Considering the conservative leanings of the electorate in this state, someone should be complaining about that mirror, but I don't see it happening.
Exactly. I want my tax dollars paying for something that will survive the vendor. Documented vendor extensions of a file format are great as long as they become an open, unencumbered standard available for the government to use to solicit new contracts.
This will still allow vendors freedom to make their own private standards for private use. But as soon as they get into government contracts, out comes the documentation.
Perhaps, but would you *want* private companies running utilities and roads. How would it feel to be a "profit center" everywhere you turn? Consider that in some countries, because the water is a private utility, it is illegal to use barrels to collect rain water.
A private monopoly can be far worse than a public one. Just ask Microsoft.
The assumption is that it is yours to begin with. A man only has as much power as other people are willing to give him. Consider all of the contributions you received before you learned how to acquire property.
"Ubuntu", I am me because of all of you.
I'm not saying that there should be no property rights, though I would certainly say that IP is questionable at best. I am saying that any property rights you have should be comprehended within the context of society. If you're a part of society, then you recognize the contributions made to you and pay taxes accordingly. If not, you might live in a remote location, far from others.
While I think that Libertarians have their point (as your sig suggests), they should stop eating books.
You could be thinking of FA Hayek, in "The Road to Serfdom". I like what he says about laws. A good law is where no one can predict who will benefit from the law. In other words, everyone benefits from the law equally. That would be fair.
IP law is about as unfair as can be. Just think "Disney".
In Microsoft's fantasy world, everyone is dependent on them. Everyone uses Microsoft operating systems, applications, and development tools. There is simply no competition.
Not to worry. The real money for Microsoft is the servers. The reason Windows OEM licensing is so cheap is to drive server sales as well as maintain market share on the desktop. If you're using IE for a browser, that drives sales of all of their development tools and servers. Have you seen the pricing for SQL Server? Exchange? How about pricing for CALs? All of them are hideously expensive when you start talking big numbers for a company.
What I like to do is buy the computer, image it, and then wipe it. If I decide I want to sell it, it is likely that the buyer will want Windows. In less than 15 minutes, the computer will be ready for sale.
Depriving Windows of a place on your hard drive will help to encourage the use of open standards, and that's why I like to use Linux on my machine. You could spend the time chasing down the license fee or simply image the computer for sale or donation at a later date when the unit no longer meets your needs. Take your pick.:)
Ok, I've been using Google News for as long as I can remember. I can't recall *ever* seeing an ad displayed alongside news results. Now if I do a regular search, *then* I see ads. And when I get to the source article, I see ads there, too. Seems like Google is doing someone a service.
I like Google News because I have found it to be the best resource for comparing news stories. I've even found clear cases of plagiarism and reported them to the original author after doing some tracking.
In some circles it is acknowledged that the newspapers provide a news hole as a service. Some have even said that people who read the newspapers aren't the real consumers of the news since advertisers pay for the news and are therefore the consumers. Nearly the entire printed page (except the front page) is advertising and somewhere in the middle, is the actual news. What newspapers have found is that it's nearly impossible to get a good impression (ads on eyeballs) with a web page. Why? I can adjust the size of the type so that the ads are pushed off to the side. With a sight impairment, this is a requirement.
There may also be an ulterior motive: they don't want us checking facts in articles across news sources. Google makes it easy for me to do that. The hits returned on a news story come from a variety of sources and allow me to compare articles for the perspectives and the facts stated. This allows me to form an opinion on a topic of news from a variety of sources instead of just one. The paywall would help to accomplish the goal of limiting my sources on a story. If I'm paying for one, I won't be paying for another and I won't be comparing sources.
So, unless I'm searching the "web" section of Google, Google isn't going to make any money from ads. This issue is clearly missing from the debate, perhaps intentionally so. Google has been *very* clear about making this distinction and seems to be offering a free service to the news outlets on the web. As some have noted, newspapers are dead, they just don't know it yet. I take a different view. Newspapers are just waking up to being wrapped up by a (web) spider, they just don't know what to do yet.
Any minute now they're going to figure out that their beloved paywall finished the job for the spider.
The only question left in my mind is this: Why aren't they complaining about all the other search sites? Why just Google?
Keepass is cross platform works on PC and Linux.:) Makes it easy to keep different credentials for every site you go to. Keeps passwords in an encrypted file.
Legal immigrant labor. I got it that illegal immigration is a problem. So if we have the power to topple Saddam Hussein to make Iraq a better place to live, then we can do the same thing to Mexico so that people will want to stay there and earn a living.
I know it doesn't make sense, either. But the point is, to sue and prevail, even if it doesn't make sense. I really think these guys are going after the weakest players in the market to set precedent. Then they can go after the big guys.
Slashdot Mirror
I like it. But enforcement would be almost impossible.
That would make our politicians "captured" managers or regulators.
The major problem that hasn't really been addressed is civil and criminal liability for mistakes that can wipe out entire food chains. If you make a mistake with a car, you can stop replication, change the design and restart. No way you can do that with GMO crops. Once they get going, they can be very hard to stop.
The seed becomes the bomb.
Considering the many ways in which genes can be expressed, particularly foreign genes, I doubt that we're remotely smart enough to engineer food safely. I even think it will be several decades before we are, and by then, it will be too late.
If Monsanto were willing to label their food and accept liability, that would make things a bit better. But they just want the royalties and vendor lock-in that GMOs produce. Remember how these guys fought tooth and nail to prevent labeling here and in Europe? Now we know why.
I agree with your point. I have serious reservations about Microsoft in terms of how they do business. I don't necessarily hate them, I just disagree with how they do business. And when I make comments about them, I try to frame it about something they do, not who they are. I try to keep it level and neutral and just state the facts.
My feelings are the same for Apple. I won't buy Apple or Microsoft products until they start to embrace and support free standards that can be used by anybody. That's really what I'm looking for more than anything else. if a software company supports free and open standards, I'll listen and I will probably buy their products.
But I haven't seen that much from the major players. The only major player I've seen actively promoting open standards is Google and the Linux distributions.
Now this isn't to say that people shouldn't buy products from MS and Apple. They're free to do so in my mind. I would just prefer that they do so on the basis of a fully informed decision about the standards they promote when they use products by MS and Apple.
So they found something that works, even if only once. Maybe they can't do it again. But they proved it could be done. See here: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/radiohead_make_10_million_from_in_rainbows.html
Well, then. You offered a good counter-point to the guy who says that Radiohead was a big enough band to pull it off. But there are still small bands out there that need exposure. Jamendo is a case in point. There's a website just for musicians who want to generate exposure through the creative commons.
I also happen to like eMusic with their DRM-free tracks and flat fee pricing for the number of songs I want to download. And they too, offer some free music.
Look, I'm not advocating that musicians should give everything away for free. They can still make money many other ways besides selling CDs. But I don't buy the position that they have to extract every last cent they can from copyrights. There is such a thing as goodwill among men.
Your point is well taken, but it only assumes that people aren't moral. People who value the cost of goods are going to pay for them because they understand the tragedy of the commons. If we're talking about physical goods, then I would agree with you. But we're talking about a commodity that has been reduced to 1s and 0s.
On the other hand, the poster with the point about Janis Ian made a good point. Did you read that? Janis seems to like getting paid for CDs of recordings made 30 years ago. These recordings would never get any exposure without a means of providing free samples. Free downloads provide that.
The point with Radiohead is not what you pointed out. Yes, they're a big band with a worldwide reputation. But they simply asked for what the market will bear and still made more money off of that album than any single project they did with a label (straight from one of their interviews). There will always be people who want to pay zero and there will be, I think, a majority that will be willing to pay something.
And as you've probably noticed, enforcement is really difficult so some other financing regime for performers will eventually surface. Hopefully, it's a good one.
I think Radiohead answered that question rather well when they released In Rainbows.
I was going to mention the suppression of innovation through patents, but I hadn't considered how hard it is for people to get here if they want to come. So even highly skilled can't get here because they could be terrorists or they could take a job. I like your analysis of brain drain. I hadn't really thought of that before but it makes perfect sense to me.
I can imagine that someone at the Patent Office wants a job at Microsoft when they graduate.
The UofU is a public school of higher education *and* it has an ubuntu mirror. Very cool. Check them out and ask around to see how they did it. Considering the conservative leanings of the electorate in this state, someone should be complaining about that mirror, but I don't see it happening.
Hope that helps.
Exactly. I want my tax dollars paying for something that will survive the vendor. Documented vendor extensions of a file format are great as long as they become an open, unencumbered standard available for the government to use to solicit new contracts.
This will still allow vendors freedom to make their own private standards for private use. But as soon as they get into government contracts, out comes the documentation.
Perhaps, but would you *want* private companies running utilities and roads. How would it feel to be a "profit center" everywhere you turn? Consider that in some countries, because the water is a private utility, it is illegal to use barrels to collect rain water.
A private monopoly can be far worse than a public one. Just ask Microsoft.
The assumption is that it is yours to begin with. A man only has as much power as other people are willing to give him. Consider all of the contributions you received before you learned how to acquire property.
"Ubuntu", I am me because of all of you.
I'm not saying that there should be no property rights, though I would certainly say that IP is questionable at best. I am saying that any property rights you have should be comprehended within the context of society. If you're a part of society, then you recognize the contributions made to you and pay taxes accordingly. If not, you might live in a remote location, far from others.
While I think that Libertarians have their point (as your sig suggests), they should stop eating books.
You could be thinking of FA Hayek, in "The Road to Serfdom". I like what he says about laws. A good law is where no one can predict who will benefit from the law. In other words, everyone benefits from the law equally. That would be fair.
IP law is about as unfair as can be. Just think "Disney".
Just a private monopoly in progress.
In Microsoft's fantasy world, everyone is dependent on them. Everyone uses Microsoft operating systems, applications, and development tools. There is simply no competition.
Hence the busy signals.
Not to worry. The real money for Microsoft is the servers. The reason Windows OEM licensing is so cheap is to drive server sales as well as maintain market share on the desktop. If you're using IE for a browser, that drives sales of all of their development tools and servers. Have you seen the pricing for SQL Server? Exchange? How about pricing for CALs? All of them are hideously expensive when you start talking big numbers for a company.
:)
What I like to do is buy the computer, image it, and then wipe it. If I decide I want to sell it, it is likely that the buyer will want Windows. In less than 15 minutes, the computer will be ready for sale.
Depriving Windows of a place on your hard drive will help to encourage the use of open standards, and that's why I like to use Linux on my machine. You could spend the time chasing down the license fee or simply image the computer for sale or donation at a later date when the unit no longer meets your needs. Take your pick.
Ok, I've been using Google News for as long as I can remember. I can't recall *ever* seeing an ad displayed alongside news results. Now if I do a regular search, *then* I see ads. And when I get to the source article, I see ads there, too. Seems like Google is doing someone a service.
I like Google News because I have found it to be the best resource for comparing news stories. I've even found clear cases of plagiarism and reported them to the original author after doing some tracking.
In some circles it is acknowledged that the newspapers provide a news hole as a service. Some have even said that people who read the newspapers aren't the real consumers of the news since advertisers pay for the news and are therefore the consumers. Nearly the entire printed page (except the front page) is advertising and somewhere in the middle, is the actual news. What newspapers have found is that it's nearly impossible to get a good impression (ads on eyeballs) with a web page. Why? I can adjust the size of the type so that the ads are pushed off to the side. With a sight impairment, this is a requirement.
There may also be an ulterior motive: they don't want us checking facts in articles across news sources. Google makes it easy for me to do that. The hits returned on a news story come from a variety of sources and allow me to compare articles for the perspectives and the facts stated. This allows me to form an opinion on a topic of news from a variety of sources instead of just one. The paywall would help to accomplish the goal of limiting my sources on a story. If I'm paying for one, I won't be paying for another and I won't be comparing sources.
So, unless I'm searching the "web" section of Google, Google isn't going to make any money from ads. This issue is clearly missing from the debate, perhaps intentionally so. Google has been *very* clear about making this distinction and seems to be offering a free service to the news outlets on the web. As some have noted, newspapers are dead, they just don't know it yet. I take a different view. Newspapers are just waking up to being wrapped up by a (web) spider, they just don't know what to do yet.
Any minute now they're going to figure out that their beloved paywall finished the job for the spider.
The only question left in my mind is this: Why aren't they complaining about all the other search sites? Why just Google?
Keepass is cross platform works on PC and Linux. :) Makes it easy to keep different credentials for every site you go to. Keeps passwords in an encrypted file.
http://keepass.info/
Legal immigrant labor. I got it that illegal immigration is a problem. So if we have the power to topple Saddam Hussein to make Iraq a better place to live, then we can do the same thing to Mexico so that people will want to stay there and earn a living.
Wow. Thanks for the story about that. I'm not a programmer, but I'm impressed with the work you and people like you do with open source projects.
That was really refreshing to read.
I know it doesn't make sense, either. But the point is, to sue and prevail, even if it doesn't make sense. I really think these guys are going after the weakest players in the market to set precedent. Then they can go after the big guys.
He hasn't been terminated. He's just in sleep mode.