If I were still in school (and if I were feeling very very cynical) I'd do a compare and contrast between this and the Co$ "Way to Happiness" booklet.
Admittedly, they take slightly different tacks: "Way To Happiness" takes obvious advice cribbed from someplace else and modifies it and then explains how its tenets do not actually prevent you from doing horrible things at Scientology's behest: "Do Not Harm a Person of Good Will", for instance, lets you harm anyone you like as long as you convince yourself that they are not "a Person of Good Will" (i.e., anyone who criticizes Scientology is, quite literally, fair game.) Likewise, "Respect the Religious Beliefs of Others" does not extend to Freezoners.
In contrast, Gristwood's principles are simple and obvious -- but not expressed that way. They are expressed in obscure terms and in metaphors that beg explanation ("Remember the triangle", "Don't go dark") -- I must wonder if the point of expressing them that way is so that they will need clarification, as actual "rules of thumb" typically do not.
Quite on the contrary, if after all their studying Microsoft is now trying to discredit the "freedom thing", isn't that an indication that emphasis on the freedom aspect is important, and should be increased rather than diminished!
That doesn't follow logically. Battles are fought not just over the most important prizes, but where conditions favor victory for the initiator. Look at the recent Presidential campaign where one of the parties aggressively pushed the perception of the other candidate as "boring". Was his boringness completely irrelevant to how good a President he would make? Absolutely. Did they hit him hard there because he was vulnerable there, because he could be made to look boring, and it could be made to look like a weakness? Absolutely.
And so it is with the usage of the word "free". We are using the word entirely correctly in one of its senses, but Microsoft is aiming at people thinking in a financial context, to whom the other sense of the word is what comes to mind when they hear the word. Mark Twain once said "There are times when the appearance of [a thing] is worth six of it." We can be completely truthful but that helps us very little if Microsoft can make us appear deceptive and/or deluded -- and a battlefield where we keep having to stop and explain "'free' as in 'speech', not 'free' as in 'beer'" is one we should choose to fight on as little as possible. The complexity of our position -- correct though it is -- gives Microsoft the upper hand on that battlefield, in a battle of perception.
I'm starting to wonder whether the phrase we need to push is "no strings attached". When managers hear "free", they think "as in beer", but "no strings attached" means "free as in no strings attached." When we get them looking at strings, that's the battlefield where we have the upper hand, because so much of Microsoft's model revolves around attached strings.
There seems to be this widespread misconception that the authors of the study proposed putting a 10,000 sq. mi. pool in the middle of the Sonora Desert.
They did not.
What they did was to calculate the total acreage that would need to be devoted to such production in order to equal our existing dependence upon oil.
Then, to put that raw figure in context, they made a comparison between that measure of acreage and the Sonora Desert. If they hadn't, I swear to you you'd have people, eager to say they "saw through" the next false hope, expressing doubt that the United States *had* 10,000 square miles that wasn't already being used. (Yes, it's a ridiculous claim, but just look at how much ignorance and innumeracy is already being waved around in this discussion.)
"One English teacher could readily tell which of her students essays were conceived on a computer. "They don't link ideas," the teacher said. "They just write one thing, and then they write another one, and they don't seem to see or develop the relationships between them."
First question in my mind: Was this English teacher's snap judgements about which essays were "conceived on a computer", whatever that means, ever checked against reality? Or was it a case where the test method was verified by "internal evidence" (i.e., counting exactly the same factors that led her teacher-dar to bleat "conceived on a computer" in the first place, as if it were a second, independent verification that ruled out the possibility of a false positive? Beware of that 'internal evidence' phrase; every time I see it, it seems to amount to "I have no actual evidence for the assertions I'm making, but they fit the way I already believe things to be, which is good enough for me.")
The whole point is that this incident may, or may not, point to serious weaknesses and vulnerabilities within the current structure and operation of the American intelligence apparatus. Starting with a blank, blind assumption that "American intelligence is still the best in the world" and expecting to get an accurate assessment out of that is damned silly.
I'll repeat it again: I don't know, and neither do you, how an anonymous tip gets to be "lead item on the threat matrix", or just what significance that has. You are doing your country no favors if you reason backwards from what you wish to be true, that American intelligence is just fine, and pretend this serves as proof that lead item on the threat matrix is a perfectly reasonable place for a threat from a videogame character to be.
If you wish to be an asset to your country, go read the original seminal "Groupthink" by Irving Janis. You will find that in many of history's tragic, preventable disasters, a key factor is that individuals privately had doubts and reservations about the wisdom of the actions they were about to take -- and because they assumed that the group knew better than they did, that they should keep those doubts to themselves. Was American intelligence the best in the world when it presented President Kennedy with the plan for the Bay of Pigs invasion? Clearly not -- and if JFK had had the foresight to look at the plan critically, rather than to assume that the CIA's experience and self-confidence made it right, he almost certainly would have avoided the worst blunder of his administration.
Perhaps some people are "allow[ing] an assumption to seem true for the sake of humor" in this affair. You are wrong, if you think this justifies your making the contrary assumption, that a threat from a videogame character making its way all the way up to the FBI director is perfectly normal.
What are the criteria for being at the top on the threat matrix for one day? What does it take? What puts something at the top?
That's just it. I don't know, and neither do you.
I don't see "top of the threat matrix" to mean "the most serious threat that all of our intelligence corroborates." I don't think it takes ANY corroboration at all to get on the matrix or reach the top. Actually, I am pretty damn sure this is the case.
Why? Because that's how you would run it if it was yours to run; because that's how any intelligent person would run it? That's a natural assumption to make, and it's also hella dangerous. Any reasonable person would also have assumed that if Joseph McCarthy stood up with a piece of paper in his hand and announced that it contained the names of known communists in the State Department, that surely the paper would have actual names on it -- that it would not be, in fact, blank.
Back in the 1980's, the authorities had a big checklist of symptoms that indicated a sexually abused child. The presence of any of these symptoms was considered to be a strong indicator of probable sexual abuse. This checklist was used to instigate many sexual abuse investigations, some of which ballooned to mammoth proportions.
Now you'd think that, where this was the checklist, the investigative tool, that someone would have thought to check whether those "symptoms" that indicated likely sexual abuse actually occurred in children who hadn't been abused, as well. But no one did, possibly because everyone assumed that such an obvious step had already been taken. (Just as you are assuming that being "the lead item on the threat matrix" must not mean they were attaching any special importance to it that they really should have reserved until it began corresponding to the real world.) And guess what? When someone finally thought of the elementary step of checking a control group, most of those "symptoms" turned out to be symptoms.... of being an entirely normal child.
Yes, despite the "illiterate dipshit" at the end. Uncalled for? Yes. So is claiming that the original material says "no such thing" when yes, it sure DOES.
Once made, they have to verify threats before they take them seriously.
From the story:
It was the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix one day last April.
I will be the first to admit that I don't know just what it means to be the "lead item" on the "daily threat matrix". But it sounds like the FBI did exactly the reverse of what you suggested: treated it as a serious matter, bringing it straight up to the attention of FBI director Robert Mueller, before taking any steps to find out whether the truth might be anything other than what an anonymous tipster claimed.
You seem to be claiming that because the hoax was at some point discovered to be just that, a hoax, that our counter-terrorism apparatus is clearly functioning just fine; and you seem to be attributing to all those who disagree the straw man position that the government should have known by "magic" or "telepathy" whether it was true or not.
But if this incident is true, then it points to a weakness in our counter-terrorism planning. How much manpower was wasted on this threat? How many real threats were pushed aside for this to become the lead item on the threat matrix? It sounds like whoever dropped this "tip" achieved a lot of reaction for very little effort. Whose goals does that sound like? Shouldn't the fact that this "reclusive but evil millionare" was unknown to their files have raised at least some suspicion before they elevated this to such importance?
But it has the potential to achieve one of the most important breakthroughs possible in science, which is to prove existing assumptions wrong.
Yes, you're right, that there is not a huge amount of energy being produced over and above what theory predicts. That pales in significance, though, next to the fact that extra energy is being created over and above what theory predicts, and the reasons why -- well, until we know the reasons why, we don't know what else is possible that our current state of theory cannot account for.
As pointed out in the article, the difference may be that in the actual experiments, where we're seeing extra heat production, the interaction between particles is taking place inside a lattice, whereas theory assumes that it makes no difference whether it's in a lattice or a vacuum -- that the atomic forces from the lattice need not be taken into account.
Now if this assumption is wrong -- well, let me put it this way. If our current knowledge of chemistry was based on the presumption that only those substances transformed during a chemical reaction were relevant to the reaction -- if we had no knowledge or concept of catalysts -- what things that we take for granted today would actually be unknown to us? What would be out there, overlooked, waiting for us to discover it?
To say this is trivial just because there is not a lot of extra heat production is like saying to Alexander Fleming that he's making too big a deal out of that petri dish where he can't get the cultures to grow -- after all, it's just one dish.
Mmmmm, but the original poster may have more of a point than you're aware of.
The most widespread view of war is that it comes from deprivation -- that people fight because they are hungry, and tired, and disenfranchised of their rights. This has some truth, but you also see a startling correspondence between places where significant natural resources exist for a "winning" side to gain control of in a war, and places where war has in fact broken out. Google on "resource wars" if you'd like to check some of the research.
So, no, the problems of the Middle East will not be solved if their major export becomes obsolete. But it may just take some fuel out of the fire -- it would be interesting to see which of the major players suddenly decide they have no compelling reason to be doing anything in that sphere.
Respectfully, I think you've identified part of the problem, but are misidentifying the "root".
"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."
So you're saying it would be okay if the company either a) invented the intellectual property in question itself, or b) was the direct manufacturer of a useful product embodying that intellectual property. You're saying the existence of middlemen is the root of the problem?
I don't see it that way. The founding fathers intended for someone who contributes to the intellectual wealth of the nation, to be rewarded with a short period of exclusive rights, a head start in the race to profit from that intellectual property.
Notice that the founding fathers said nothing about how the inventor or author was allowed to make their profit. An inventor who invented, say, a new kind of stove, could perfectly well try to become a manufacturer of stoves as well, and then a salesman of stoves, too, and try to make his profit that way. But who's to say that he'll be any good at both those jobs? Not only is he likely to be better at inventing than manufacturing or marketing, the more time he spends doing those two jobs, the less time he spends inventing -- and if his inventions are ultimately going to belong to the public, when the term expires, that means the public is punished with fewer inventions if he is made to try and do everything himself.
There is no reason, therefore, to think that the founding fathers would disapprove if the inventor chooses to make his profit by selling the exclusive rights he has to his property to another party, who assumes the risks and rewards of trying to make a profit during the period that those exclusive rights last. It frees up the inventor to do more inventing and gives the manufacturers more to manufacture. If the inventors sells the idea for too little -- well, that is sad, but it's not a structural problem, and not susceptible to structural remedy.
If it is not wrong for the inventor to sell their rights for profit, what is wrong about a party that has been sold such rights selling them in turn? Maybe it's an idea so great and revolutionary that no one manufacturer can make full use from it; licensing out the idea to multiple manufacturers is the only way to fully realize the profit potential of the idea. Is that somehow wrong because the manufacturers did not receive their approval to use the inventor's idea directly from the inventor?
I'm sorry, you have not identified the real root of the problem. The fact that there are middlemen in the intellectual property process is not it. Any of the following would be more accurate candidates for the root of the problem:
Congress apparently thinks that "strong intellectual property protection" is the goal rather than "balanced intellectual property protection", and so yields to every suggestion by big corporations that they should shift the balance of the deal: that Americans should pay more tax money, to support IP enforcement on the behalf of big corporations, for more decades, and should accept an even longer wait before the public receives any benefits from the intellectual property having even been created. There's no indication that the public receives anything in return in this renegotiated exchange.
The Patent Office, whose mission should be to grant the patents that deserve granting, and reject the patents that deserve rejection, openly treats its mission as granting as many patents as possible regardless of their merit, and is structurally set up so that their staff is rewarded for granting bad patents and punished for rejec
It really is a good thing you're not siding with Nintendo, because acknowledging why they want this sort of thing stopped doesn't give them one ounce more moral or legal right. Nor does the fact that these people are selling hardware, instead of giving away software, that interacts with their products.
But then again, you are siding with Nintendo, because you've assumed for reasons that simply aren't clear that what this company is doing is illegal. What's illegal about it?
Suppose Nintendo made inkjet cartridges and printers, instead of games and consoles. And suppose some other manufacturer said, "Hmmm, Nintendo puts the best ink in their cartridges, making them very popular. Why don't I make my own printer that can use Nintendo ink cartridges?"
And suppose Nintendo's reaction was to immediately get a patent on "printers that can use the Nintendo ink cartridge", thus creating an instant monopoly by fiat of the Patent Office. Furthermore, they sent a message out to all their existing customers, claiming "even though you have bought our Nintendo ink cartridges, and you are the legal owner of the ink inside, there is absolutely nothing you can do with that ink, legally, except what we approve of. It is illegal to use our cartridges in another manufacturer's printer; it is illegal for you to remove the ink from our cartridge and put it in another manufacturer's cartridge."
If this was the situation, would you recognize then how far Nintendo was overstepping their bounds?
Explain to him that the whole "social signals" system is a fault-tolerant handshaking protocol for humans. Two computer systems peering will exchange a rigid set of questions and response to verify that they are using compatible protocols and that what one says, the other will understand as it was meant. The same is true of human beings: if you dress in a socially-approved manner, practice socially-approved hygiene, conduct conversations according to socially-approved protocols, people are more likely to understand and believe that the two of you can cooperate to mutual benefit.
I particularly liked this part: "Generally, if an IP holder is able to demonstrate that others in the industry have taken a license, thereby respecting the IP holder's claims, that can be used as evidence that is persuasive to a jury,"
So the score is SCO 4 GPL 4,000,000.
I really like this, but I have to point out a subtle point that skews the 'scoring', and it is an important point, especially as it's what the Slashdot editors (WTH, Slashdot editors! WTH??) are getting wrong.
The reason that juries consider the existence and number of industry licensors to be significant is that it's assumed the licensors are "putting their money where their mouth is" -- they are investing their money in the licenses because they believe that they are paying the person who legally owns the intellectual property rights, in exchange for the freedom to use those rights safely and legally.
Of course, because juries make this consideration, it's becoming a less reliable consideration to make -- I think we can safely say that convicted software pirate Microsoft paid for its SCO licenses solely for the purpose of swaying public opinion and possible juries. And while we may decry their decision as foolish and/or cowardly, there is unfortunately a certain basic logic to EV1's decision to buy SCO's license; one can be entirely sure a claim is without merit and entirely unsure that a jury would recognize the lack of merit.
But fewer than 4,000,000 companies have put their money into Linux -- or if they have, the amounts have been orders of magnitude lower. Microsoft-funded "studies" on TCO aside, it is easier and cheaper to go with Linux, and in this specific arena, that works against us, because doing something that's easy and cheap doesn't make as much of a statement as something that's more costly and difficult. There is still a cost and effort to comply with the GPL -- companies like Cisco and Linksys have found that out -- but again, the 'investments' have been orders of magnitude lower.
And this is the central point that the Slashdot editors got wrong in the headline, stating that "Computer Associates Pays Off SCO" when the only party claiming that CA paid any amount of money for SCO's Linux licensing has been SCO. Why, again, would we take SCO's word for it? SCO could do this to anyone that pays them any money, for anything: throw in licenses for free and then claim that they weren't free, that they represent an investment of money and therefore an endorsement of SCO's claims.
Yes, Forbes published the egregiously wrong Dan Lyons "Linux's Hit Men" article. But in this case, Forbes published the correct and balanced information and it is Slashdot that grossly mischaracterized the events to the detriment of Linux.
You're begging the question of whether it is a "valid and legal" way in the first place. Even if SCO has in any way, shape or form, any sort of a valid claim, that in no way justifies all the invalid claims they've been pressing. They've claimed literal copying; they've claimed violation of contract; they've claimed a tortured theory of derivative works; they've claimed an absolutely boggling theory of why the GPL is invalid...
Let's look at that last one. I'm hardly the only one to point this out, but the only reason SCO was allowed to distribute Linux (which it did for years and years, and continued to do so after filing suit) was because it was cooperating with the GPL. If the GPL were to be found invalid, as SCO argues that it is, there would be two possibilities:
SCO owns every single line of code in Linux; or,
SCO has been distributing code that is others' copyrighted property, with no license or other legal right to do so.
So, SCO's distribution of Linux is illegal, unless they in fact own every single line of code in Linux. (Insert "yeah, and someday Andrea Dworkin will lapdance for Larry Flynt" comment.) It's a claim so outrageous that even SCO has not made it. In just the same way, unless each and every one of the defamatory accusations they have made are in fact truthful, then it is not a "valid and legal" way to take out the competition, it is FUD and slander.
Sure, I'll "reverse the situation", but I wouldn't come up with "Red Hat says they have proof that MS was using copyright code from one of its properitary dlls". That doesn't even begin to match the tremendous amount of slander that has issued forth from SCO.
The fact is, SCO has not produced a consistent theory of the case.
What they have consistently produced for media consumption is slander, libel and FUD.
And now Microsoft -- the same company that faked videotape evidence at its own federal trial, the company that faked letters from dead people to try and affect the outcome of its court case -- is paying the source of all this slander and FUD directed at what it has identified itself as its worst enemy -- and you think that Microsoft is doing this under the impression that it's "valid and legal"?
*no sound, save Dworkin's tassels twirling in the wind*
Then you're artificially filtering the debate. You're saying "Unless the most extreme version of their side of the argument is true... then my position, the most extreme versions of my side of the argument, has won." Or don't you agree with the letter-writer that FOSS is absolutely valueless because you can't pick up women in bars with it?
If someone installs your work from disc 3 of some Linux distro, they couldn't care less who you are. The whole fame thing you are telling me only works amongst geeks. The good looking, intelligent girl over there at the bar that you'd really like to talk to doesn't care much whether you are famous amongst a group of geeks and neither does she even remotely fathom why you'd be famous for that stuff in the first place. I mean - get real here.
Because God knows the respect of your peers means absolutely nothing if your peers are those icky "geek" people. God knows that intelligent girls don't have any interest in men who are also intelligent and who contribute to the well-being of the world -- and let's be honest: a girl? Who can "remotely fathom" the value of some non-makeup subject? Get real, girls aren't like that! When I say "intelligent" girl, Aidan, I only mean she can count the money you're leaving on her nightstand.
That's why I urge you to work only for a paycheck. That's because I am an executive who collects part of your paycheck even if I had nothing to do with it, and I need bright, talented programmers who have given up the quest for peer- and self-respect so that they can fund my liasions with "intelligent" girls I pick up in bars.
Yes, I was impressed/bemused by the clever weaseling of the article, never coming out and saying "SCO's actually got a solid case, you guys!" but implying it by giving undue amounts of attention to the unlikely outcome that SCO can get anything to stand up in court, and stuff like the following:
Clearly, if you believe you need protection, you should arrange for it before you get sued.
Notice how he's not even coming out behind the dubious proposition "You need protection from a company that so far hasn't substantiated even one of their claims in court", he's saying "If you believe you need protection..."
It's a clever use of the Existential Fallacy: the non-existent merits of SCO's case can be implied to exist by the way he's talking as if SCO is actually likely to win. Meanwhile, he never mentions the much, much more probable case of what will happen to people holding SCO stock when the SEC probes the company's behavior to prove a pump-and-dump case, or when suits are filed against SCO for misappropriating every single line of Linux code that was not written by SCO. Since, in reference to the millions and millions of lines that SCO has claimed were copied verbatim, they now claim they can't possibly identify one without IBM delivering to them every version of AIX ever -- Berlind's article is taking the position of an extreme devil's advocate but pretending to be useful information, instead of far-fetched speculation.
When Slashdot runs a story about OSDN, don't you think they themselves point out their relationship with OSDN?
Surpressing relevant information is dishonest. The fact that the person promoting the book as worthy of the attention of Slashdot readers is the same person that wrote the book is relevant information. When the people reporting the news are the same people making the news, that's relevant information, and resorting to the passive voice in order to avoid drawing attention to the connection is dishonest.
Again, I think you are missing the point. You are hearing from actual sufferers of the syndrome who are disagreeing with your simplistic, I-am-smarter-than-those-conformist-drones-who-actu ally-examine-evidence-scientifically view that we are simply not "good cogs in the machine". That when I am looking at the face of someone I love and trying with all my heart to listen to what they are saying and my mind is just absolutely not retaining the words as they pour across my ears -- that I am proving my individuality, I am Fyteing Teh Man, I am exhibiting Thoreauvian curmudgeonly independence, I am refusing to be "a good cog in the machine." Thank you, ass. If you define my relationships with family and friends as a machine, why, then, I guess my ADD does mean I'm not "a good cog in the machine."
The simpler explanation, however, is that you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and you don't have the common sense to shut up when you're hearing from people who know more about it than you ever will. The people who actually suffer with it, and whose suffering you mock and trivialize every time you pretend it's a label invented by The Conspiracy Of Fogies rather than a very real problem.
Alan E. Nourse. Underappreciated writer of so-called sf "juveniles" which frequently put his medical background to good use.
You are correct about the premise of the book, too. Health care had been all but outlawed (at least aboveground) on the Darwinian premise that giving less-adapted people assistance in surviving simply made the whole population less fit to survive on the average.
Human nature, of course, guaranteed that a black market health care system would spring up, and the titular character The Bladerunner is one of a number of individuals who make their living smuggling medical supplies to the scene of illegal surgeries.
I don't know of a single one of what you would call "hate-sites" -- not even the ones that clearly hate Scientology the most -- that advocates murder or even physical violence towards Scientologists.
On the other hand, I can look in the writings of L. Ron Hubbard and find the declaration that those "low on the tone scale" (translation: will never join Scientology) are worthless to humanity and a very clever solution for dealing with their existence would be to round them in concentration camps or simply just exterminate them.
I can study the court documents from "Operation Freakout" and view the plans that no reasonable person can deny were generated at high levels in the Church, plans to frame Paulette Cooper for crimes she had not committed in order to drive her to jail or a mental institution. Of course, Church dogma insists that anyone criticizing Scientology must be guilty of blood murder sex crime, but the point is, if Cooper was guilty of any such crime, why couldn't all the combined Clears of the entire Church find any? They had to go to huge lengths, committing crimes themselves that they then framed her for.
Please explain why people are not supposed to react negatively to a religion whose scriptures instruct its adherents to "manufacture evidence" to achieve their ends. Hubbard even invented terminology, "black PR", to describe the practice. Please explain why such a religion should be considered more credible than the "hate sites" that supposedly tell such lies about it.
See, you strike me as more honest than the typical Scientologist, because you at least openly admit that you are one. Most of the Scientologists who post to discussions like these try to pretend that they are third parties, not Scientologists but merely outside observers who, observing from the outside, just happen to be of the opinion that Scientology is right on every single count and Scientology's critics are clearly evil, lying people.
Know what? They always give themselves away. They're easy to spot, because they always offer the same defense of anything Scientology has done to its critics, no matter how dishonorable or inhumane: "It's nothing that those critics wouldn't do to Scientology, if they were competent enough to get away with it." And this goes to the heart of the matter, because that is just plain wrong. That's how Scientologists think everybody thinks, but it's not: other people believe that there are things that are wrong to do, even to your worst enemy. Scientology teaches that anything is right to do if it's done against an enemy of Scientology. Other people, when they talk about "ethics", they mean a single code of behavior which applies to everyone. Scientology talks about something they call "ethics", but that hides the fact that they're only describing the hardly-new, hardly-laudable double standard of "What's done for my country/race/religion is right; what's done against my country/race/religion is wrong, even if it's the very same thing I just did by the very people I did it to."
Slashdot Mirror
Admittedly, they take slightly different tacks: "Way To Happiness" takes obvious advice cribbed from someplace else and modifies it and then explains how its tenets do not actually prevent you from doing horrible things at Scientology's behest: "Do Not Harm a Person of Good Will", for instance, lets you harm anyone you like as long as you convince yourself that they are not "a Person of Good Will" (i.e., anyone who criticizes Scientology is, quite literally, fair game.) Likewise, "Respect the Religious Beliefs of Others" does not extend to Freezoners.
In contrast, Gristwood's principles are simple and obvious -- but not expressed that way. They are expressed in obscure terms and in metaphors that beg explanation ("Remember the triangle", "Don't go dark") -- I must wonder if the point of expressing them that way is so that they will need clarification, as actual "rules of thumb" typically do not.
And so it is with the usage of the word "free". We are using the word entirely correctly in one of its senses, but Microsoft is aiming at people thinking in a financial context, to whom the other sense of the word is what comes to mind when they hear the word. Mark Twain once said "There are times when the appearance of [a thing] is worth six of it." We can be completely truthful but that helps us very little if Microsoft can make us appear deceptive and/or deluded -- and a battlefield where we keep having to stop and explain "'free' as in 'speech', not 'free' as in 'beer'" is one we should choose to fight on as little as possible. The complexity of our position -- correct though it is -- gives Microsoft the upper hand on that battlefield, in a battle of perception.
I'm starting to wonder whether the phrase we need to push is "no strings attached". When managers hear "free", they think "as in beer", but "no strings attached" means "free as in no strings attached." When we get them looking at strings, that's the battlefield where we have the upper hand, because so much of Microsoft's model revolves around attached strings.
There seems to be this widespread misconception that the authors of the study proposed putting a 10,000 sq. mi. pool in the middle of the Sonora Desert.
They did not.
What they did was to calculate the total acreage that would need to be devoted to such production in order to equal our existing dependence upon oil.
Then, to put that raw figure in context, they made a comparison between that measure of acreage and the Sonora Desert. If they hadn't, I swear to you you'd have people, eager to say they "saw through" the next false hope, expressing doubt that the United States *had* 10,000 square miles that wasn't already being used. (Yes, it's a ridiculous claim, but just look at how much ignorance and innumeracy is already being waved around in this discussion.)
Does Hollywood bring in more money than the computer industry does? And which of them is getting its way?
First question in my mind: Was this English teacher's snap judgements about which essays were "conceived on a computer", whatever that means, ever checked against reality? Or was it a case where the test method was verified by "internal evidence" (i.e., counting exactly the same factors that led her teacher-dar to bleat "conceived on a computer" in the first place, as if it were a second, independent verification that ruled out the possibility of a false positive? Beware of that 'internal evidence' phrase; every time I see it, it seems to amount to "I have no actual evidence for the assertions I'm making, but they fit the way I already believe things to be, which is good enough for me.")
Wow, you do deserve your screen-name.
The whole point is that this incident may, or may not, point to serious weaknesses and vulnerabilities within the current structure and operation of the American intelligence apparatus. Starting with a blank, blind assumption that "American intelligence is still the best in the world" and expecting to get an accurate assessment out of that is damned silly.
I'll repeat it again: I don't know, and neither do you, how an anonymous tip gets to be "lead item on the threat matrix", or just what significance that has. You are doing your country no favors if you reason backwards from what you wish to be true, that American intelligence is just fine, and pretend this serves as proof that lead item on the threat matrix is a perfectly reasonable place for a threat from a videogame character to be.
If you wish to be an asset to your country, go read the original seminal "Groupthink" by Irving Janis. You will find that in many of history's tragic, preventable disasters, a key factor is that individuals privately had doubts and reservations about the wisdom of the actions they were about to take -- and because they assumed that the group knew better than they did, that they should keep those doubts to themselves. Was American intelligence the best in the world when it presented President Kennedy with the plan for the Bay of Pigs invasion? Clearly not -- and if JFK had had the foresight to look at the plan critically, rather than to assume that the CIA's experience and self-confidence made it right, he almost certainly would have avoided the worst blunder of his administration.
Perhaps some people are "allow[ing] an assumption to seem true for the sake of humor" in this affair. You are wrong, if you think this justifies your making the contrary assumption, that a threat from a videogame character making its way all the way up to the FBI director is perfectly normal.
That's just it. I don't know, and neither do you.
Why? Because that's how you would run it if it was yours to run; because that's how any intelligent person would run it? That's a natural assumption to make, and it's also hella dangerous. Any reasonable person would also have assumed that if Joseph McCarthy stood up with a piece of paper in his hand and announced that it contained the names of known communists in the State Department, that surely the paper would have actual names on it -- that it would not be, in fact, blank.
Back in the 1980's, the authorities had a big checklist of symptoms that indicated a sexually abused child. The presence of any of these symptoms was considered to be a strong indicator of probable sexual abuse. This checklist was used to instigate many sexual abuse investigations, some of which ballooned to mammoth proportions.
Now you'd think that, where this was the checklist, the investigative tool, that someone would have thought to check whether those "symptoms" that indicated likely sexual abuse actually occurred in children who hadn't been abused, as well. But no one did, possibly because everyone assumed that such an obvious step had already been taken. (Just as you are assuming that being "the lead item on the threat matrix" must not mean they were attaching any special importance to it that they really should have reserved until it began corresponding to the real world.) And guess what? When someone finally thought of the elementary step of checking a control group, most of those "symptoms" turned out to be symptoms.... of being an entirely normal child.
Mod this up.
Yes, despite the "illiterate dipshit" at the end. Uncalled for? Yes. So is
claiming that the original material says "no such thing" when yes, it sure DOES.
From the story:
I will be the first to admit that I don't know just what it means to be the "lead item" on the "daily threat matrix". But it sounds like the FBI did exactly the reverse of what you suggested: treated it as a serious matter, bringing it straight up to the attention of FBI director Robert Mueller, before taking any steps to find out whether the truth might be anything other than what an anonymous tipster claimed.
You seem to be claiming that because the hoax was at some point discovered to be just that, a hoax, that our counter-terrorism apparatus is clearly functioning just fine; and you seem to be attributing to all those who disagree the straw man position that the government should have known by "magic" or "telepathy" whether it was true or not.
But if this incident is true, then it points to a weakness in our counter-terrorism planning. How much manpower was wasted on this threat? How many real threats were pushed aside for this to become the lead item on the threat matrix? It sounds like whoever dropped this "tip" achieved a lot of reaction for very little effort. Whose goals does that sound like? Shouldn't the fact that this "reclusive but evil millionare" was unknown to their files have raised at least some suspicion before they elevated this to such importance?
But it has the potential to achieve one of the most important breakthroughs possible in science, which is to prove existing assumptions wrong.
Yes, you're right, that there is not a huge amount of energy being produced over and above what theory predicts. That pales in significance, though, next to the fact that extra energy is being created over and above what theory predicts, and the reasons why -- well, until we know the reasons why, we don't know what else is possible that our current state of theory cannot account for.
As pointed out in the article, the difference may be that in the actual experiments, where we're seeing extra heat production, the interaction between particles is taking place inside a lattice, whereas theory assumes that it makes no difference whether it's in a lattice or a vacuum -- that the atomic forces from the lattice need not be taken into account.
Now if this assumption is wrong -- well, let me put it this way. If our current knowledge of chemistry was based on the presumption that only those substances transformed during a chemical reaction were relevant to the reaction -- if we had no knowledge or concept of catalysts -- what things that we take for granted today would actually be unknown to us? What would be out there, overlooked, waiting for us to discover it?
To say this is trivial just because there is not a lot of extra heat production is like saying to Alexander Fleming that he's making too big a deal out of that petri dish where he can't get the cultures to grow -- after all, it's just one dish.
Mmmmm, but the original poster may have more of a point than you're aware of.
The most widespread view of war is that it comes from deprivation -- that people fight because they are hungry, and tired, and disenfranchised of their rights. This has some truth, but you also see a startling correspondence between places where significant natural resources exist for a "winning" side to gain control of in a war, and places where war has in fact broken out. Google on "resource wars" if you'd like to check some of the research.
So, no, the problems of the Middle East will not be solved if their major export becomes obsolete. But it may just take some fuel out of the fire -- it would be interesting to see which of the major players suddenly decide they have no compelling reason to be doing anything in that sphere.
Respectfully, I think you've identified part of the problem, but are misidentifying the "root".
So you're saying it would be okay if the company either a) invented the intellectual property in question itself, or b) was the direct manufacturer of a useful product embodying that intellectual property. You're saying the existence of middlemen is the root of the problem?
I don't see it that way. The founding fathers intended for someone who contributes to the intellectual wealth of the nation, to be rewarded with a short period of exclusive rights, a head start in the race to profit from that intellectual property.
Notice that the founding fathers said nothing about how the inventor or author was allowed to make their profit. An inventor who invented, say, a new kind of stove, could perfectly well try to become a manufacturer of stoves as well, and then a salesman of stoves, too, and try to make his profit that way. But who's to say that he'll be any good at both those jobs? Not only is he likely to be better at inventing than manufacturing or marketing, the more time he spends doing those two jobs, the less time he spends inventing -- and if his inventions are ultimately going to belong to the public, when the term expires, that means the public is punished with fewer inventions if he is made to try and do everything himself.
There is no reason, therefore, to think that the founding fathers would disapprove if the inventor chooses to make his profit by selling the exclusive rights he has to his property to another party, who assumes the risks and rewards of trying to make a profit during the period that those exclusive rights last. It frees up the inventor to do more inventing and gives the manufacturers more to manufacture. If the inventors sells the idea for too little -- well, that is sad, but it's not a structural problem, and not susceptible to structural remedy.
If it is not wrong for the inventor to sell their rights for profit, what is wrong about a party that has been sold such rights selling them in turn? Maybe it's an idea so great and revolutionary that no one manufacturer can make full use from it; licensing out the idea to multiple manufacturers is the only way to fully realize the profit potential of the idea. Is that somehow wrong because the manufacturers did not receive their approval to use the inventor's idea directly from the inventor?
I'm sorry, you have not identified the real root of the problem. The fact that there are middlemen in the intellectual property process is not it. Any of the following would be more accurate candidates for the root of the problem:
Congress apparently thinks that "strong intellectual property protection" is the goal rather than "balanced intellectual property protection", and so yields to every suggestion by big corporations that they should shift the balance of the deal: that Americans should pay more tax money, to support IP enforcement on the behalf of big corporations, for more decades, and should accept an even longer wait before the public receives any benefits from the intellectual property having even been created. There's no indication that the public receives anything in return in this renegotiated exchange.
The Patent Office, whose mission should be to grant the patents that deserve granting, and reject the patents that deserve rejection, openly treats its mission as granting as many patents as possible regardless of their merit, and is structurally set up so that their staff is rewarded for granting bad patents and punished for rejec
It really is a good thing you're not siding with Nintendo, because acknowledging why they want this sort of thing stopped doesn't give them one ounce more moral or legal right. Nor does the fact that these people are selling hardware, instead of giving away software, that interacts with their products.
But then again, you are siding with Nintendo, because you've assumed for reasons that simply aren't clear that what this company is doing is illegal. What's illegal about it?
Suppose Nintendo made inkjet cartridges and printers, instead of games and consoles. And suppose some other manufacturer said, "Hmmm, Nintendo puts the best ink in their cartridges, making them very popular. Why don't I make my own printer that can use Nintendo ink cartridges?"
And suppose Nintendo's reaction was to immediately get a patent on "printers that can use the Nintendo ink cartridge", thus creating an instant monopoly by fiat of the Patent Office. Furthermore, they sent a message out to all their existing customers, claiming "even though you have bought our Nintendo ink cartridges, and you are the legal owner of the ink inside, there is absolutely nothing you can do with that ink, legally, except what we approve of. It is illegal to use our cartridges in another manufacturer's printer; it is illegal for you to remove the ink from our cartridge and put it in another manufacturer's cartridge."
If this was the situation, would you recognize then how far Nintendo was overstepping their bounds?
Explain to him that the whole "social signals" system is a fault-tolerant handshaking protocol for humans. Two computer systems peering will exchange a rigid set of questions and response to verify that they are using compatible protocols and that what one says, the other will understand as it was meant. The same is true of human beings: if you dress in a socially-approved manner, practice socially-approved hygiene, conduct conversations according to socially-approved protocols, people are more likely to understand and believe that the two of you can cooperate to mutual benefit.
I really like this, but I have to point out a subtle point that skews the 'scoring', and it is an important point, especially as it's what the Slashdot editors (WTH, Slashdot editors! WTH??) are getting wrong.
The reason that juries consider the existence and number of industry licensors to be significant is that it's assumed the licensors are "putting their money where their mouth is" -- they are investing their money in the licenses because they believe that they are paying the person who legally owns the intellectual property rights, in exchange for the freedom to use those rights safely and legally.
Of course, because juries make this consideration, it's becoming a less reliable consideration to make -- I think we can safely say that convicted software pirate Microsoft paid for its SCO licenses solely for the purpose of swaying public opinion and possible juries. And while we may decry their decision as foolish and/or cowardly, there is unfortunately a certain basic logic to EV1's decision to buy SCO's license; one can be entirely sure a claim is without merit and entirely unsure that a jury would recognize the lack of merit.
But fewer than 4,000,000 companies have put their money into Linux -- or if they have, the amounts have been orders of magnitude lower. Microsoft-funded "studies" on TCO aside, it is easier and cheaper to go with Linux, and in this specific arena, that works against us, because doing something that's easy and cheap doesn't make as much of a statement as something that's more costly and difficult. There is still a cost and effort to comply with the GPL -- companies like Cisco and Linksys have found that out -- but again, the 'investments' have been orders of magnitude lower.
And this is the central point that the Slashdot editors got wrong in the headline, stating that "Computer Associates Pays Off SCO" when the only party claiming that CA paid any amount of money for SCO's Linux licensing has been SCO. Why, again, would we take SCO's word for it? SCO could do this to anyone that pays them any money, for anything: throw in licenses for free and then claim that they weren't free, that they represent an investment of money and therefore an endorsement of SCO's claims.
Yes, Forbes published the egregiously wrong Dan Lyons "Linux's Hit Men" article. But in this case, Forbes published the correct and balanced information and it is Slashdot that grossly mischaracterized the events to the detriment of Linux.
Let's look at that last one. I'm hardly the only one to point this out, but the only reason SCO was allowed to distribute Linux (which it did for years and years, and continued to do so after filing suit) was because it was cooperating with the GPL. If the GPL were to be found invalid, as SCO argues that it is, there would be two possibilities:
So, SCO's distribution of Linux is illegal, unless they in fact own every single line of code in Linux. (Insert "yeah, and someday Andrea Dworkin will lapdance for Larry Flynt" comment.) It's a claim so outrageous that even SCO has not made it. In just the same way, unless each and every one of the defamatory accusations they have made are in fact truthful, then it is not a "valid and legal" way to take out the competition, it is FUD and slander.
Sure, I'll "reverse the situation", but I wouldn't come up with "Red Hat says they have proof that MS was using copyright code from one of its properitary dlls". That doesn't even begin to match the tremendous amount of slander that has issued forth from SCO.
The fact is, SCO has not produced a consistent theory of the case.
What they have consistently produced for media consumption is slander, libel and FUD.
And now Microsoft -- the same company that faked videotape evidence at its own federal trial, the company that faked letters from dead people to try and affect the outcome of its court case -- is paying the source of all this slander and FUD directed at what it has identified itself as its worst enemy -- and you think that Microsoft is doing this under the impression that it's "valid and legal"?
*no sound, save Dworkin's tassels twirling in the wind*
Then you're artificially filtering the debate. You're saying "Unless the most extreme version of their side of the argument is true... then my position, the most extreme versions of my side of the argument, has won." Or don't you agree with the letter-writer that FOSS is absolutely valueless because you can't pick up women in bars with it?
Because God knows the respect of your peers means absolutely nothing if your peers are those icky "geek" people. God knows that intelligent girls don't have any interest in men who are also intelligent and who contribute to the well-being of the world -- and let's be honest: a girl? Who can "remotely fathom" the value of some non-makeup subject? Get real, girls aren't like that! When I say "intelligent" girl, Aidan, I only mean she can count the money you're leaving on her nightstand.
That's why I urge you to work only for a paycheck. That's because I am an executive who collects part of your paycheck even if I had nothing to do with it, and I need bright, talented programmers who have given up the quest for peer- and self-respect so that they can fund my liasions with "intelligent" girls I pick up in bars.
Notice how he's not even coming out behind the dubious proposition "You need protection from a company that so far hasn't substantiated even one of their claims in court", he's saying "If you believe you need protection..."
It's a clever use of the Existential Fallacy: the non-existent merits of SCO's case can be implied to exist by the way he's talking as if SCO is actually likely to win. Meanwhile, he never mentions the much, much more probable case of what will happen to people holding SCO stock when the SEC probes the company's behavior to prove a pump-and-dump case, or when suits are filed against SCO for misappropriating every single line of Linux code that was not written by SCO. Since, in reference to the millions and millions of lines that SCO has claimed were copied verbatim, they now claim they can't possibly identify one without IBM delivering to them every version of AIX ever -- Berlind's article is taking the position of an extreme devil's advocate but pretending to be useful information, instead of far-fetched speculation.
When Slashdot runs a story about OSDN, don't you think they themselves point out their relationship with OSDN?
Surpressing relevant information is dishonest. The fact that the person promoting the book as worthy of the attention of Slashdot readers is the same person that wrote the book is relevant information. When the people reporting the news are the same people making the news, that's relevant information, and resorting to the passive voice in order to avoid drawing attention to the connection is dishonest.
Again, I think you are missing the point. You are hearing from actual sufferers of the syndrome who are disagreeing with your simplistic, I-am-smarter-than-those-conformist-drones-who-actu ally-examine-evidence-scientifically view that we are simply not "good cogs in the machine". That when I am looking at the face of someone I love and trying with all my heart to listen to what they are saying and my mind is just absolutely not retaining the words as they pour across my ears -- that I am proving my individuality, I am Fyteing Teh Man, I am exhibiting Thoreauvian curmudgeonly independence, I am refusing to be "a good cog in the machine." Thank you, ass. If you define my relationships with family and friends as a machine, why, then, I guess my ADD does mean I'm not "a good cog in the machine."
The simpler explanation, however, is that you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and you don't have the common sense to shut up when you're hearing from people who know more about it than you ever will. The people who actually suffer with it, and whose suffering you mock and trivialize every time you pretend it's a label invented by The Conspiracy Of Fogies rather than a very real problem.
OMGWTF!
Alan E. Nourse. Underappreciated writer of so-called sf "juveniles" which frequently put his medical background to good use.
You are correct about the premise of the book, too. Health care had been all but outlawed (at least aboveground) on the Darwinian premise that giving less-adapted people assistance in surviving simply made the whole population less fit to survive on the average.
Human nature, of course, guaranteed that a black market health care system would spring up, and the titular character The Bladerunner is one of a number of individuals who make their living smuggling medical supplies to the scene of illegal surgeries.
I don't know of a single one of what you would call "hate-sites" -- not even the ones that clearly hate Scientology the most -- that advocates murder or even physical violence towards Scientologists.
On the other hand, I can look in the writings of L. Ron Hubbard and find the declaration that those "low on the tone scale" (translation: will never join Scientology) are worthless to humanity and a very clever solution for dealing with their existence would be to round them in concentration camps or simply just exterminate them.
I can study the court documents from "Operation Freakout" and view the plans that no reasonable person can deny were generated at high levels in the Church, plans to frame Paulette Cooper for crimes she had not committed in order to drive her to jail or a mental institution. Of course, Church dogma insists that anyone criticizing Scientology must be guilty of blood murder sex crime, but the point is, if Cooper was guilty of any such crime, why couldn't all the combined Clears of the entire Church find any? They had to go to huge lengths, committing crimes themselves that they then framed her for.
Please explain why people are not supposed to react negatively to a religion whose scriptures instruct its adherents to "manufacture evidence" to achieve their ends. Hubbard even invented terminology, "black PR", to describe the practice. Please explain why such a religion should be considered more credible than the "hate sites" that supposedly tell such lies about it.
See, you strike me as more honest than the typical Scientologist, because you at least openly admit that you are one. Most of the Scientologists who post to discussions like these try to pretend that they are third parties, not Scientologists but merely outside observers who, observing from the outside, just happen to be of the opinion that Scientology is right on every single count and Scientology's critics are clearly evil, lying people.
Know what? They always give themselves away. They're easy to spot, because they always offer the same defense of anything Scientology has done to its critics, no matter how dishonorable or inhumane: "It's nothing that those critics wouldn't do to Scientology, if they were competent enough to get away with it." And this goes to the heart of the matter, because that is just plain wrong. That's how Scientologists think everybody thinks, but it's not: other people believe that there are things that are wrong to do, even to your worst enemy. Scientology teaches that anything is right to do if it's done against an enemy of Scientology. Other people, when they talk about "ethics", they mean a single code of behavior which applies to everyone. Scientology talks about something they call "ethics", but that hides the fact that they're only describing the hardly-new, hardly-laudable double standard of "What's done for my country/race/religion is right; what's done against my country/race/religion is wrong, even if it's the very same thing I just did by the very people I did it to."
What is a credible and unbiased source, then? People who love your religion?