I am late here for this story, but I would like to add something to it for the sake of the late readers anyway:)
In the second half of 2001 I was on a project for a long time defunct company called WorldInsure (hey, former Corelan guys, any of you still out there, working for Symcor by any chance?)
So, I came in about half way into the one year project, in a few months the person who was the most senior developer on the project left but the team was still about 40 people in total. The application was something like 5MegaBucks by the end, but the client didn't want to pay the last million, because the performance was outrageously slow. 12 concurrent transactions per second as opposed to the 200 that the client wanted on 2 gigantic for the time 4 way Sun servers.
The app was a very detailed page after page insurance questionnaire, that would branch into more and more pages and questions as previous questions were answered. At some point a PDF was generated with the answers and provided on one of the last pages. The problem was with moving from page to page, the waiting times were too long, approaching minute wait times for some pages.
I was asked to speed it up. Long story short, after 1.5 months of tinkering with code produced by a bunch of novices, here is the list of improvements that I can remember at this point:
1. Removed about 80% of unnecessary database reading by removing TopLink. 2. Removed about 80% of unnecessary database writing by changing the way the data was persisted. Instead of persisting the entire data set on each new page, only the incremental changes now were persisted. 3. Reduced the page pre-processing by getting rid of the XSLT transformers on XML structures and switching to JSPs instead. 4. Removed cluster IO thrashing by reducing the session object size from unnecessary 1MB to a manageable 10Kb. 5. Reduced CPU load by caching certain data sets instead of reprocessing them on each request within a user session. 6. Decoupled PDF generation into a separate application and communicated the request to generate the PDF via a simple home grown message queue done with a database table. This was one of the more serious problems within the app. because it could bring down a server due to the buggy code in the Adobe PDF generator that was used at the time. In fact the original application ran the PDF generation as a separate Java application that would be restarted after about 5 generations and would be called via System.execute call so not to bring down the BEA Weblogic. Later on this entire portion was rewritten and the Adobe code thrown away. I am sure that today the Adobe code is fine and all, but at the time it was a real pig. 7. Removed many many many many unnecessary System.out.println calls, and replaced with proper logging where needed. 8. Fixed the home grown servlet manager (similar to Struts main servlet), this code was freaking ugly as hell and totally unstable.
There were some other smaller fixes, but the main bulk is listed here. By the end of the month and a half the app was doing over 300 simultaneous transactions per second.
300/12, that's 25 times code performance improvement. I am not at all convinced that this improvement could have been achived through hardware at all, but even if it could, it would have cost much more than what I cost at the time (was like 70CAD/hr for 1.5 months.)
Oh, did I mention that the client coughed out the last million bucks after that? After all, the code met their performance expectations and exceeded them by half at least.
Don't know about Image composing software, but the concept of 'Surface' has surfaced plenty of times before Microsoft. When I saw this, I immediately remembered back in my days at the UofT, I think I took the HCI class in 97, that's when I first saw the multi-touch screen concept, with ideas of dragging/dropping various windows on the table, overlaying various 'filters', for example one filter would be used for zoom function, another filter would OCR text, another filter would convert file formats etc.
I also find it odd that so many americans find the very idea (of workers gathering together to form a stronger position for bargaining with employers) somehow offensive.
- I think you hit the nail on the head there. I personally do find it offensive to allow someone else do my bidding. It is offensive to me for someone to imply that I cannot do well on my own. If I can't, what the hell am I, what good am I then?
Yes, it is offensive. I think that the tech types realize that they are not really part of a herd, and unions are herds. Maybe it's because many of us are atheists too, but don't quote me on that.
- false. Wallmart closed a store in Ontario just at a hint that a union was forming. I say good for them, too bad for the small community that lost those jobs.
IT workers, training their Indian and Asian replacements in the US WOULD NOT BE HAPPENING if unions where present.
- false and true. The IT workers might not be training those replacements, but the replacement would still happen and not due to the bad bad employers, but due to the global economy that provides so much cheaper labor.
One of the biggest reasons I enjoy being a tech in the education sector is because I know even though I myself am not tenured like teachers are, my job is protected as long as I do it and do it right.
- just curious, why do you want a 'protected job'? I happily switch from contract to contract (I was studying and working simultaneously from 95 to the end of 2000 and then became a contractor.) As a contractor I had to find many new gigs but I never want to be part of a union or some such at least for the reason that I don't like 'to be part of something bigger then myself'. I prefer to be myself and survive based on my abilities, not on abilities of some union negotiator figure shit out for me.
I don't see why a company should not be able to hire/fire anyone at all they wish, especially a private company.
If it's a private enterprise, for example if I open a computer shop, why shouldn't I be able to post an ad, hire someone when I need them and then fire them when I don't need them? Where in your birth certificate does it say that when you are born you are given a right to a job provided by me exactly?
You also have laughable understanding about 'loyalty' of unions. In Canada we often see union bosses going against the wishes of the majority of workers to achieve something that only they see wanted. That's not new, it happens all the time, and it happens at the expense of those workers.
As a 'free market' type in IT industry, I hate even the idea of unions. I wouldn't work in a union, I wouldn't allow a union form in my shop, like one Wallmart store did in Ontario, when the union threatens to appear, just close shop and reopen later.
You don't like 'free market' because you don't like the idea that people have to actually earn what they make.
What they are going to do to these poor sharks is torture, like what they do in Guantanamo Bay! Don't be surprised if the sharks fight back and the next story will be about some eaten scientists. Pray that sharks don't decide to take it out on all the humans and start inventing lasers!
Yes, I do release software under the terms of the GPL. If copyright law did not exist, or if my only options were proprietary or public domain, I'd still choose public domain.
- if I didn't have an option of GPL and no copyright to my work I would not be releasing any software (free that is) at all. I may decide to release it for sale, but not for free.
You are pointing to an opinion piece as if it is some proof that copyright is bad in principle? Hell, the story is actually not even about copyright, it is a supposition that once people are all 'artists' (whatever that means, 17 billion people and 54% of them registered artists?) then at some point there will be nothing else left to create and they will have to recreate the old works over and over and over again.
In the story, the lady arguing against the law proposing a perpetual copyright says that not only copyright should not be perpetual, but that after the copyright no longer applies, the work should be deleted from the copyright database so that people would believe that they have created something original, something that has never been done before. This is just counter-productive and basically stupid. Instead of committing suicide, like her husband did in the story, because he couldn't create anything truly original, maybe he should have stopped trying create an 'original work of art' and tried himself in something else (maybe more useful even, like science.)
Anyway, just because you believe that this story is a proof that copyrights are bad, doesn't really make it true. There are problems with perpetual copyright, but the story you linked to does not really show them, instead it shows how limited the author of the story is.
The dispute of course, is whether the fetus merits protection. If its its own person it does merit protection. If its not a person, then you should be left alone to decide for yourself what its fate will be.
- a fetus merits protection only as much as the carrying mother decides to give it.
That's just me, making a moral judgement.
- agreed. My morals are not your morals though.
I think abortion-as-birth-control or as convenience is reprehensible.
- I don't. I don't believe in any greater good or evil, to me a life is only a random event that might or might not have happened, with no moral values attached to the concept. There is nothing reprehensible about it in my mind, because there is nothing reprehensible at all, anything goes.
Life after birth isn't all sunshine and rainbows either. My wife tells me that the first 6 months after our kids were born were far harder on her than the actual pregnancies themselves. Should we be allowed "post-partum abortions"? Surely not.
- surely yes. In fact in different places in the world (the ex ussr comes to mind) if a new mother killed her newborn within the first 48 hours after birth, nothing at all would have happened to her, from point of view of the law anyway. Life is not an absolute good and non-life is not the absolute evil.
What is the license that you are releasing it under and do you have a copyright notice in there?
Not that long ago I participated in this very long thread and a few times I mentioned that the copyright law is the only reason I release Free/free software (under GPL), and that without copyright law I would only be selling software. I have to get something back out of this, I already create software for myself and selling it is not what I am interested in doing right now, but at least copyright gives me the tools to maintain my credit (and a good way to maintain temporary monopoly on redistribution channels, which comes in handy for the non-free software that is sold for profit, then the copyright law can be used to fight illegal redistribution that is stealing the profit.)
I know that there are many people who release their work only because copyright law exists, not only software, but music and books.
Maybe you want to sell our your country to alberta religious hicks who use tax dollars to mail out pure propaganda, but I dont.
- aha, I know what the Block and the rest want, just the taxes from the Alberta oil field but no representation of the folks that work there in the government. Nice going, dividing the country in ways that are more profound than simple language differences.
CONservatives have CONvinced the rural populations to vote for them
- not just the rural population, I am a libertarian but I vote conservative. I don't have a libertarian representative in my riding in Toronto.
while they sell off their land to rich white folks.
- that's the strangest statement yet.
A conservative majority would be EXACTLY like a bush government.
- right. Spending trillions on war? I don't see that. That's not even possible in this country with only 30 million population.
Cronyism, incompetence, spending and tax breaks for business and the loss of our healthcare.
- what healthcare? Where is this magical healthcare? I don't see it, many people don't. You have nerve, talking about cronyism, incompetence and spending and tax breaks after 12 years of liberals doing exactly that. Let's see, how about cronyism and incompetence and money wasted on Quebec by Chretien, let's not forget the sponsorship scandal. That's incompetence, that's cronyism, that's money wasted. During the liberals there was most tax breaks given to corporations than ever in history of Canada. What tree are you living on?
This article very easily illustrates the kind of things that they would do if they had a majority.
- what are you talking about? Since when ACTRA and SOCAN became part of the conservative federal government? Again, what are you smoking?
We need to avoid that at all costs.
- oh really? Selling the country to the Quebec secessionists, that's the price? Only 500 million today, and then the untold trillions later.
Layton already had to change his stance on that '50 billion dollar tax cut to the corporations', which he was going to 'prevent'. Yeah, 'at all costs' means completely giving up one's ideals and selling out to the party whose only purpose is to break the country apart. Well you know what? If one side feels this, that it has to become the traitors and that's the cost of doing business, then the other side should attempt and remain in power 'at all costs'. I say bring in the tanks. Not like that is impossible (see Russia in 1991).
I dont want some wannabee american alberta secessionists running my country.
- you don't mind the Quebec secessionists though, speak French much?
The best most honest political figure in the debates was duceppe.
- Oh, definitely, he says right out: I want to break up this country but before I do this, I want the dough. He is absolutely honest, this I cannot deny. He is also a traitor who is in the government and is apparently running the show due to people like you.
I agree the liberal leadership is a joke. We need chretien back.
- Excellent, let's bring back the most corrupt incompetent liar, who held power for 12 years and provided the BQ with the power by allowing the party subsidies in the first place, so that now the Block can continue with their traitorous agenda.
You are so naive. Layton never had a real job in his life, he speaks for the 'common men'? He wishes he was Lenin, but he is not even that, too lazy for that.
The two classic counterexamples to your curmudgeonly and frankly unbelievable assertion (seriously, who doesn't listen to music?) are:
- hi. My name is Roman and I do not listen to music. I don't listen to music on purpose that is, I can't help it if it's playing in an elevator for example or as part of a movie that I am watching.
3. Robber does get shot, is otherwise a good person who was short on luck and made a mistake. His family gets to grieve because we value a life less than a wallet. The victim now has to deal with the reality of having killed another person.
- yeah, I wouldn't want to know what 'bad people' would do to the poor disabled grandpa, when 'good people' only beat and rob them.
Shoot em down, let god sort em out. In any case, there will be an investigation and if the shooter is found to be guilty, guess what, he'll be punished. Until then, it's self-defense.
Anyone can carry a taser and learn martial arts, that's all great. Now just imagine that you have a taser and know martial arts and 2 people attack you and they have guns. I think you'd die.
He didn't say he had that password stored, only that he forgot it. So it maybe that his browser is opened on that page with that password typed in and he didn't allow the browser to store the password. He didn't close the page yet though. Far fetched, but possible.
No, we really can't. You know why? Because you can't even state my thesis correctly. Look at what you wrote, it is barely coherent and from what I can make of it, is completely off base. You keep saying that without copyright there will be "no content generated at all" - which:
- then you are just as blind as you are unreasonable.
I never said there will be 'no content generated at all'. You keep creating these statements in your head and assigning them to me. I said that there is a large portion of content that is only generated because there is a concept of copyright. I have many examples, these include code, books and some music. I never said there will be no content generated at all.
However, these are your words:
(B) Big freaking deal if you and your buddies were to quit, there are literally millions of people who are unable to create new content in all kinds of mediums under the current system due to the inefficiencies of monopoly - the big 5 aren't called the content cartel without reason.
- and I do have something to say about it. Your premise is that copyright disallows creation of new content, but as far as I am concerned this is not in fact new content, it is regurgitation of the old content, if simply a copyright protection can stop this so called 'new content' from being generated by these supposed 'millions'. I personally, and many people who I know that follow the same logic, generate actual new content, not based on other peoples' copyrights. To you this does not matter, but to me it does, thus we cannot agree on this in principle.
Now, you insist that you had some sort of a 'thesis'. As far as I can say your 'thesis' is based on an idea that any content should be copyright free and that anyone should be able to redistribute any content free from any protection, (or the copyright produced temporary distribution monopoly). And you called me a communist?
I do not subscribe to a Marxist/Leninist idea, to which you seem to subscribe, that those who are able to produce must do so to the best of their abilities to satisfy the desires of those, who are not able to produce, but still desire to consume to satisfy their needs. I subscribe to an idea that if, IF, I decide to give something to someone, I will require some sort of satisfaction coming out of it. Be it monetary, be it credit based with certain temporary restrictions on the redistribution channels. I do not desire to give away things for free and without credit/ability to redistribute my creation in ways, which I approve of.
You are also mistaken about GPL in not a small way. Copyleft is not an actual law, while copyright is. GPL is not based on magical constructs, it is based in reality and that is why it is a real powerful, legal tool, that allows me to dictate how the original material and even changes to it must be redistributed.
Your only real point is this: Internet makes it increasingly difficult to enforce copyright. However while this is an actual valid point, it does not change the fact that illegal redistribution of copyrighted materials for profit can still be fought by legal means. In actuality the Internet did not cancel any laws, it simply allows the perpetrators to create more elaborate schemes to avoid punishment, however when deals start concerning profits and money, at this point it is still going to be profitable to fight such cases in court in order to maintain the usefulness of the law, and this law is useful, no matter how much it rubs you the wrong way.
Slashdot Mirror
I am late here for this story, but I would like to add something to it for the sake of the late readers anyway :)
In the second half of 2001 I was on a project for a long time defunct company called WorldInsure (hey, former Corelan guys, any of you still out there, working for Symcor by any chance?)
So, I came in about half way into the one year project, in a few months the person who was the most senior developer on the project left but the team was still about 40 people in total. The application was something like 5MegaBucks by the end, but the client didn't want to pay the last million, because the performance was outrageously slow. 12 concurrent transactions per second as opposed to the 200 that the client wanted on 2 gigantic for the time 4 way Sun servers.
The app was a very detailed page after page insurance questionnaire, that would branch into more and more pages and questions as previous questions were answered. At some point a PDF was generated with the answers and provided on one of the last pages. The problem was with moving from page to page, the waiting times were too long, approaching minute wait times for some pages.
I was asked to speed it up. Long story short, after 1.5 months of tinkering with code produced by a bunch of novices, here is the list of improvements that I can remember at this point:
1. Removed about 80% of unnecessary database reading by removing TopLink.
2. Removed about 80% of unnecessary database writing by changing the way the data was persisted. Instead of persisting the entire data set on each new page, only the incremental changes now were persisted.
3. Reduced the page pre-processing by getting rid of the XSLT transformers on XML structures and switching to JSPs instead.
4. Removed cluster IO thrashing by reducing the session object size from unnecessary 1MB to a manageable 10Kb.
5. Reduced CPU load by caching certain data sets instead of reprocessing them on each request within a user session.
6. Decoupled PDF generation into a separate application and communicated the request to generate the PDF via a simple home grown message queue done with a database table. This was one of the more serious problems within the app. because it could bring down a server due to the buggy code in the Adobe PDF generator that was used at the time. In fact the original application ran the PDF generation as a separate Java application that would be restarted after about 5 generations and would be called via System.execute call so not to bring down the BEA Weblogic. Later on this entire portion was rewritten and the Adobe code thrown away. I am sure that today the Adobe code is fine and all, but at the time it was a real pig.
7. Removed many many many many unnecessary System.out.println calls, and replaced with proper logging where needed.
8. Fixed the home grown servlet manager (similar to Struts main servlet), this code was freaking ugly as hell and totally unstable.
There were some other smaller fixes, but the main bulk is listed here. By the end of the month and a half the app was doing over 300 simultaneous transactions per second.
300/12, that's 25 times code performance improvement. I am not at all convinced that this improvement could have been achived through hardware at all, but even if it could, it would have cost much more than what I cost at the time (was like 70CAD/hr for 1.5 months.)
Oh, did I mention that the client coughed out the last million bucks after that? After all, the code met their performance expectations and exceeded them by half at least.
Don't know about Image composing software, but the concept of 'Surface' has surfaced plenty of times before Microsoft. When I saw this, I immediately remembered back in my days at the UofT, I think I took the HCI class in 97, that's when I first saw the multi-touch screen concept, with ideas of dragging/dropping various windows on the table, overlaying various 'filters', for example one filter would be used for zoom function, another filter would OCR text, another filter would convert file formats etc.
Yes but the people in charge today will be dead when nature/Gaia/God-Almighty/FSM decides to smite them for abusive assholes.
- so what's the problem then?
I also find it odd that so many americans find the very idea (of workers gathering together to form a stronger position for bargaining with employers) somehow offensive.
- I think you hit the nail on the head there. I personally do find it offensive to allow someone else do my bidding. It is offensive to me for someone to imply that I cannot do well on my own. If I can't, what the hell am I, what good am I then?
Yes, it is offensive. I think that the tech types realize that they are not really part of a herd, and unions are herds. Maybe it's because many of us are atheists too, but don't quote me on that.
Or it can work to protect your job
- false. Wallmart closed a store in Ontario just at a hint that a union was forming. I say good for them, too bad for the small community that lost those jobs.
IT workers, training their Indian and Asian replacements in the US WOULD NOT BE HAPPENING if unions where present.
- false and true. The IT workers might not be training those replacements, but the replacement would still happen and not due to the bad bad employers, but due to the global economy that provides so much cheaper labor.
One of the biggest reasons I enjoy being a tech in the education sector is because I know even though I myself am not tenured like teachers are, my job is protected as long as I do it and do it right.
- just curious, why do you want a 'protected job'? I happily switch from contract to contract (I was studying and working simultaneously from 95 to the end of 2000 and then became a contractor.) As a contractor I had to find many new gigs but I never want to be part of a union or some such at least for the reason that I don't like 'to be part of something bigger then myself'. I prefer to be myself and survive based on my abilities, not on abilities of some union negotiator figure shit out for me.
Cheers.
I don't see why a company should not be able to hire/fire anyone at all they wish, especially a private company.
If it's a private enterprise, for example if I open a computer shop, why shouldn't I be able to post an ad, hire someone when I need them and then fire them when I don't need them? Where in your birth certificate does it say that when you are born you are given a right to a job provided by me exactly?
You also have laughable understanding about 'loyalty' of unions. In Canada we often see union bosses going against the wishes of the majority of workers to achieve something that only they see wanted. That's not new, it happens all the time, and it happens at the expense of those workers.
As a 'free market' type in IT industry, I hate even the idea of unions. I wouldn't work in a union, I wouldn't allow a union form in my shop, like one Wallmart store did in Ontario, when the union threatens to appear, just close shop and reopen later.
You don't like 'free market' because you don't like the idea that people have to actually earn what they make.
Fuck that.
unions have a positive impact upon the distribution of wealth, and general level of prosperity.
- distribution of wealth from where to where? From those who work to those that are simply part of the union?
Don't count on me voting for any union, ever, that's my firm position.
What they are going to do to these poor sharks is torture, like what they do in Guantanamo Bay! Don't be surprised if the sharks fight back and the next story will be about some eaten scientists. Pray that sharks don't decide to take it out on all the humans and start inventing lasers!
Yes, I do release software under the terms of the GPL. If copyright law did not exist, or if my only options were proprietary or public domain, I'd still choose public domain.
- if I didn't have an option of GPL and no copyright to my work I would not be releasing any software (free that is) at all. I may decide to release it for sale, but not for free.
You are pointing to an opinion piece as if it is some proof that copyright is bad in principle? Hell, the story is actually not even about copyright, it is a supposition that once people are all 'artists' (whatever that means, 17 billion people and 54% of them registered artists?) then at some point there will be nothing else left to create and they will have to recreate the old works over and over and over again.
In the story, the lady arguing against the law proposing a perpetual copyright says that not only copyright should not be perpetual, but that after the copyright no longer applies, the work should be deleted from the copyright database so that people would believe that they have created something original, something that has never been done before. This is just counter-productive and basically stupid. Instead of committing suicide, like her husband did in the story, because he couldn't create anything truly original, maybe he should have stopped trying create an 'original work of art' and tried himself in something else (maybe more useful even, like science.)
Anyway, just because you believe that this story is a proof that copyrights are bad, doesn't really make it true. There are problems with perpetual copyright, but the story you linked to does not really show them, instead it shows how limited the author of the story is.
The dispute of course, is whether the fetus merits protection. If its its own person it does merit protection. If its not a person, then you should be left alone to decide for yourself what its fate will be.
- a fetus merits protection only as much as the carrying mother decides to give it.
That's just me, making a moral judgement.
- agreed. My morals are not your morals though.
I think abortion-as-birth-control or as convenience is reprehensible.
- I don't. I don't believe in any greater good or evil, to me a life is only a random event that might or might not have happened, with no moral values attached to the concept. There is nothing reprehensible about it in my mind, because there is nothing reprehensible at all, anything goes.
Life after birth isn't all sunshine and rainbows either. My wife tells me that the first 6 months after our kids were born were far harder on her than the actual pregnancies themselves. Should we be allowed "post-partum abortions"? Surely not.
- surely yes. In fact in different places in the world (the ex ussr comes to mind) if a new mother killed her newborn within the first 48 hours after birth, nothing at all would have happened to her, from point of view of the law anyway. Life is not an absolute good and non-life is not the absolute evil.
I am pro-abortion at least until the fetus is able to live in this world all by him/herself, so basically until about the end of University.
The robot wife is really great, but the mother in law is sort of a killjoy.
What is the license that you are releasing it under and do you have a copyright notice in there?
Not that long ago I participated in this very long thread and a few times I mentioned that the copyright law is the only reason I release Free/free software (under GPL), and that without copyright law I would only be selling software. I have to get something back out of this, I already create software for myself and selling it is not what I am interested in doing right now, but at least copyright gives me the tools to maintain my credit (and a good way to maintain temporary monopoly on redistribution channels, which comes in handy for the non-free software that is sold for profit, then the copyright law can be used to fight illegal redistribution that is stealing the profit.)
I know that there are many people who release their work only because copyright law exists, not only software, but music and books.
Maybe you want to sell our your country to alberta religious hicks who use tax dollars to mail out pure propaganda, but I dont.
- aha, I know what the Block and the rest want, just the taxes from the Alberta oil field but no representation of the folks that work there in the government. Nice going, dividing the country in ways that are more profound than simple language differences.
CONservatives have CONvinced the rural populations to vote for them
- not just the rural population, I am a libertarian but I vote conservative. I don't have a libertarian representative in my riding in Toronto.
while they sell off their land to rich white folks.
- that's the strangest statement yet.
A conservative majority would be EXACTLY like a bush government.
- right. Spending trillions on war? I don't see that. That's not even possible in this country with only 30 million population.
Cronyism, incompetence, spending and tax breaks for business and the loss of our healthcare.
- what healthcare? Where is this magical healthcare? I don't see it, many people don't. You have nerve, talking about cronyism, incompetence and spending and tax breaks after 12 years of liberals doing exactly that. Let's see, how about cronyism and incompetence and money wasted on Quebec by Chretien, let's not forget the sponsorship scandal. That's incompetence, that's cronyism, that's money wasted. During the liberals there was most tax breaks given to corporations than ever in history of Canada. What tree are you living on?
This article very easily illustrates the kind of things that they would do if they had a majority.
- what are you talking about? Since when ACTRA and SOCAN became part of the conservative federal government? Again, what are you smoking?
We need to avoid that at all costs.
- oh really? Selling the country to the Quebec secessionists, that's the price? Only 500 million today, and then the untold trillions later.
Layton already had to change his stance on that '50 billion dollar tax cut to the corporations', which he was going to 'prevent'. Yeah, 'at all costs' means completely giving up one's ideals and selling out to the party whose only purpose is to break the country apart. Well you know what? If one side feels this, that it has to become the traitors and that's the cost of doing business, then the other side should attempt and remain in power 'at all costs'. I say bring in the tanks. Not like that is impossible (see Russia in 1991).
I dont want some wannabee american alberta secessionists running my country.
- you don't mind the Quebec secessionists though, speak French much?
The best most honest political figure in the debates was duceppe.
- Oh, definitely, he says right out: I want to break up this country but before I do this, I want the dough. He is absolutely honest, this I cannot deny. He is also a traitor who is in the government and is apparently running the show due to people like you.
I agree the liberal leadership is a joke. We need chretien back.
- Excellent, let's bring back the most corrupt incompetent liar, who held power for 12 years and provided the BQ with the power by allowing the party subsidies in the first place, so that now the Block can continue with their traitorous agenda.
You are something else, aren't you?
You are so naive. Layton never had a real job in his life, he speaks for the 'common men'? He wishes he was Lenin, but he is not even that, too lazy for that.
While some canadians tell me that they believe people that this dude thinks that he is this dude, I completely disagree, however I think that
this guy believes himself to be this guy.
This asshole really wants to be this asshole
This goof is really this goof.
The two classic counterexamples to your curmudgeonly and frankly unbelievable assertion (seriously, who doesn't listen to music?) are:
- hi. My name is Roman and I do not listen to music. I don't listen to music on purpose that is, I can't help it if it's playing in an elevator for example or as part of a movie that I am watching.
Bye.
3. Robber does get shot, is otherwise a good person who was short on luck and made a mistake. His family gets to grieve because we value a life less than a wallet. The victim now has to deal with the reality of having killed another person.
- yeah, I wouldn't want to know what 'bad people' would do to the poor disabled grandpa, when 'good people' only beat and rob them.
Shoot em down, let god sort em out. In any case, there will be an investigation and if the shooter is found to be guilty, guess what, he'll be punished. Until then, it's self-defense.
I respect anyone's right of free speech, as long as they are not out to kill me. If they are, then I don't respect them at all, I kill them.
At the end of the day, the rights, the respects, it's all for nothing if you get hurt/killed.
You have a problem how a person uses a tool when he doesn't hurt others?
Anyone can carry a taser and learn martial arts, that's all great. Now just imagine that you have a taser and know martial arts and 2 people attack you and they have guns. I think you'd die.
He didn't say he had that password stored, only that he forgot it. So it maybe that his browser is opened on that page with that password typed in and he didn't allow the browser to store the password. He didn't close the page yet though. Far fetched, but possible.
No, we really can't. You know why? Because you can't even state my thesis correctly. Look at what you wrote, it is barely coherent and from what I can make of it, is completely off base. You keep saying that without copyright there will be "no content generated at all" - which:
- then you are just as blind as you are unreasonable.
I never said there will be 'no content generated at all'. You keep creating these statements in your head and assigning them to me. I said that there is a large portion of content that is only generated because there is a concept of copyright. I have many examples, these include code, books and some music. I never said there will be no content generated at all.
However, these are your words:
(B) Big freaking deal if you and your buddies were to quit, there are literally millions of people who are unable to create new content in all kinds of mediums under the current system due to the inefficiencies of monopoly - the big 5 aren't called the content cartel without reason.
- and I do have something to say about it. Your premise is that copyright disallows creation of new content, but as far as I am concerned this is not in fact new content, it is regurgitation of the old content, if simply a copyright protection can stop this so called 'new content' from being generated by these supposed 'millions'. I personally, and many people who I know that follow the same logic, generate actual new content, not based on other peoples' copyrights. To you this does not matter, but to me it does, thus we cannot agree on this in principle.
Now, you insist that you had some sort of a 'thesis'. As far as I can say your 'thesis' is based on an idea that any content should be copyright free and that anyone should be able to redistribute any content free from any protection, (or the copyright produced temporary distribution monopoly). And you called me a communist?
I do not subscribe to a Marxist/Leninist idea, to which you seem to subscribe, that those who are able to produce must do so to the best of their abilities to satisfy the desires of those, who are not able to produce, but still desire to consume to satisfy their needs. I subscribe to an idea that if, IF, I decide to give something to someone, I will require some sort of satisfaction coming out of it. Be it monetary, be it credit based with certain temporary restrictions on the redistribution channels. I do not desire to give away things for free and without credit/ability to redistribute my creation in ways, which I approve of.
You are also mistaken about GPL in not a small way. Copyleft is not an actual law, while copyright is. GPL is not based on magical constructs, it is based in reality and that is why it is a real powerful, legal tool, that allows me to dictate how the original material and even changes to it must be redistributed.
Your only real point is this: Internet makes it increasingly difficult to enforce copyright. However while this is an actual valid point, it does not change the fact that illegal redistribution of copyrighted materials for profit can still be fought by legal means. In actuality the Internet did not cancel any laws, it simply allows the perpetrators to create more elaborate schemes to avoid punishment, however when deals start concerning profits and money, at this point it is still going to be profitable to fight such cases in court in order to maintain the usefulness of the law, and this law is useful, no matter how much it rubs you the wrong way.
Good night.