Funny how almost no story or commentary about this ever mentions that current, in-force US laws may have been broken in the publication of this information:
Perhaps no one cares about your little local laws?
And remember, whether or not you fundamentally *agree* with the law is irrelevant. It's either illegal, or not.
And remember, whether it is illegal or not is irrelevent to people with morals, things are either right or wrong (or more usually somewhere messy in the middle).
In this case, the criminal law has no business in what should be a civil matter, and it certainly shouldn't be possible to use the law against third parties. Apple has every right to jump on people who have violated an agreement, but the journalists made no such agreement, and the state has no legitimate standing in this issue at all.
If Apple's management are incompitent, then why should the state be wading in with guns blazing to clean up the mess?
Is it journalism and free speech when you violate laws to obtain information?
Er, yes. What a stupid question. That's like asking ``Is it driving and transportation when you violate traffic laws when going from A to B?''.
we either enforce rule of law as set by society in this country, or we don't
Unless you have a job in the criminal justice system, `we' don't have that decision to make. `We' can only cheer or throw bricks.
Clearly they need another/. section for `Ask Mum' (or perhaps `Mom' for you wierdoes over there).
I mean, take some of the the current front page headlines:
Gates Blackmails Danes
``I blame the parents letting them play with that rough Gates boy''
Night Vision Scope
``You should be in bed anyway''
Annodex
``Shouldn't you be out in the fresh air?''
Wave Energy
``Wave goodbye to grandma''
Data Stolen
``I told you to look after it!''
Linux Cat Feeder
``I knew you'd get bored and I'd end up having to feed and clean up after it''
Phone with iTunes
``What do you want with that, you have a perfectly good phone, and if you'd have kept up with your piano lessons...''
Except for the obvious of course - before it gets digitised at the point of recording.
A significant amount of non-vocal music probably never exists in an analog form even there -- goinf staight from digital instruments to digital recording.
If someone can develop digital air for use in recording studioes, we can then eliminate the last remaining analog link!
I'd prefer a pristine analogue copy that I could convert myself...
There is no such things as a `pristine' analogue copy. First of all the original recording will be band limited and with a certain noise level - it is, after all, an analog of the original, not a copy. Then, you will get additional noise and possibly spectrum manipulation at each generation of copy.
That, after all, is why we do things digitally these days. So the third point is that there was probably never an analog recording of whatever you want if it is relatively recent.
It's way underpowered for anything resembling a primary CPU.
Then again, today's CPUs are way overpowered for the jobs they are actually doing. Most of the power is used for sometimes important, sometimes pointless stuff around the edges such as antialiasing fonts and making icons bounce up and down.
A chip designed to be able to cooperate with others should have an advantage in that kind of environment. If the CPU can concentrate on actually running the word processor, and efficiantly coordinate with others doing the peripheral activities for it, that should be a big win.
Think about it - why should Steve hitch his incredibly successful product with another entertainment company's content
And US (or is it NA) only. The iPod is a worldwide sucess, and doubling the number of models they have to make to get US and non-US versions is probably a BadThing.
I might be tempted by a ipod with a DAB radio (except the iPod is already too big and rechargable and has moving parts...), since I already carry a DAB radio and an MP3 player in my jacket pocket. But is it worth Apple localising the iPod for every digital radio system in the world?
Science and religion don't overlap, so neither can `trump' the other.
Individual religious traditions make claims about things which are better handled by science, but you can see this is not part of religion per-se by the fact that the different traditions dissagree so violently over these ideas. Religious traditions make claims about art too, eg that polyphony is morally suspect. Chemists make claims about cold fusion. Such things are a result of a common human trait wherby people like to think that knowledge in one area means they are experts in everything.
the key point is that it happens the same way in both directions. A scientist making claims about how to live a good life based on physics looks as silly as a priest asserting that the earth goes around the sun, based on theology.
Did not every serious observer, from John Kerry to MI5, believe that Saddam had WMD's prior to the war?
John Kerry a serious observer? LOL
MI5 is internal security, paralel to the secret service and the security bits of the FBI (all of which is presumably now somewhere under the department of Love and Joy, sorry, Homeland Security.
The British intelligence services seem to have thought their might be some WMDs somewhere which could be brought into action given enough time. There might have been, after all it just takes a hole somewhere which only 3 senior Iraqi military people knew the location of, and them being dead or not talking.
More or less everyone in a position to hold an opinion believed SH still aspired to holding WMDs and they (falsely it seems) believed there would be active programmes developing supporting technology.
However, the idea that there were WMDs which were available for immediate use, either for handing over to terrorists or for use if Iraq were attacked, seems to have been an invention of one Iraqi source trying to be `helpful', picked up by the politicians and their immediate advisors as a useful political lie.
Actually I believe Blair believed it. It is a common and useful attribute of politicians to come to beleiev the things they initially make up or adopt as useful fictions. Whether Bush did I don't know. He always seemed reluctant to use the claim.
Mind you with 60% of Americans thinking Iraq was behind 9/11, he had a much better lie to use.
Actually, patents are a temporary monopoly on a design.
They are rather wider than that. They are monopolies on an idea. It's not just the specific design of the Amazon one-click buying system which was claimed.
Whichis where the ability to rip of other people's work comes from. If I have a patent and you, in ignorance, produce a better implementation than mine of that idea, I can assume control of your work.
Some modest proposals for a perhaps useful software patent system:
Lifetime of patent limited to something in keeping with software development lifecycle. Say 5 years. (that is long enough to sell alot of copies and time to develop your next idea)
Patent only enforcable while the holder has a product available which uses the patented mechanism. (no submarines)
The source code of the up to date version of the relevent part of that product must be kept published and in the public domain at all times during the lifetime of the patent.
So, you get your monopoly for a time to get money out of it, but at the end of that time everyone gets a working implementation of the idea to start from. This basicly reflects the original intent of patents - it exchanges a limited time monopoly for the idea being published and available for others to learn from and to use at the end of the monopoly.
Basicly, what if software patents were a lever for creation of more free software.
and what incentive will you have, sir, to protect your hard-work from those who'd not hesitate to rip it off you?
Patent's don't protect your work, copyrights do that.
Patents are a licence to rip off other people's work, granted by the state as an incentive for you to publish your work. There were perfectly good reasons for this at the time the system developed, but few if any of the reasons still exist.
If you are going to make (somewhat obscure) references, you should give credit where credit it due...
Anyone to who doesn't already know who wrote one of the most famous SF novels of all time, and probably the number 1 most memorable title, is probably not interested, and indeed isn't reading comments under this story at all. For some things, citeing the source is an insult to the reader and the thing cited.
There is nothing in conflict between atheism and religion. Only some religions are theistic.
None of the non-human religions in B5 are monotheistic that I can remember (who knows what the pakmara worship, except that it likes singing, and the Drazi presumably have a purple god and a green god and choose who to worship at random).
You could see the whole shadow war storyline as an attack on the stupidity of looking to a magical being to show you how to solve your problems.
"religious issues"? Is that really necessary in science fiction?
Nothing is neccessary, but religion is a very traditional element in SF. After all, SF is about using ideas from science to be able to write directly about questions which are hard to aproach other than metaphorically in `mainstream' art (eg the nature of time, whether Vulcan women have pubic hair). Religious questions fit right in.
Consider more or less anything by PKD or H.G Wells or Stapledon. Or all the `Force' drivel in the Star Wars films. Or just about all of Babylon 5.
More specifically, one of the reasons for the existance of robots in SF is asking the question of what it means to be a person, and a good number of possible answers to that are the religious ones. The new Battlestar Galactica is all about that question (with some fun space ship battles thrown in), so naturally religion is going to turn up.
I was overwhelmed by the ammount of mods and addons one could download for it.
Er, so don't go looking, just sit down and play. It's not as if they come 'round and bury your TV under a pile of CDs of mods, so you have to dig through before you can start playing.
My reason for not buying a console is that all the main consoles are made by Evil Bastards. Of course, the same is true of Windows, but since I have to have a Windows machine, I have already tarnished my soul and may as well play games on it.
Well, there is also the fact that I blame console-suck for the fact that Invisible War was crap.
I've lost more than a few converts that ended up switching to Linux because they didn't feel comfortable using a satanic UNIX.
If you find this a problem, stop dealing with bottom feeders.
Or, if you must, start a satanic cult featuring worship of satan in his form as a penguin (symbolising the cold of the innermost circle of hell, and his consumption of christian souls, traditionally symbolised by fish). Then get your cult on the TV news and in the tabloids (a few naked women around the place will do it) and bob is your antichrist.
Slashdot Mirror
That would seem to indicate that they have sort of missed onr of the min points of the original.
Perhaps no one cares about your little local laws?
And remember, whether or not you fundamentally *agree* with the law is irrelevant. It's either illegal, or not.
And remember, whether it is illegal or not is irrelevent to people with morals, things are either right or wrong (or more usually somewhere messy in the middle).
In this case, the criminal law has no business in what should be a civil matter, and it certainly shouldn't be possible to use the law against third parties. Apple has every right to jump on people who have violated an agreement, but the journalists made no such agreement, and the state has no legitimate standing in this issue at all.
If Apple's management are incompitent, then why should the state be wading in with guns blazing to clean up the mess?
Is it journalism and free speech when you violate laws to obtain information?
Er, yes. What a stupid question. That's like asking ``Is it driving and transportation when you violate traffic laws when going from A to B?''.
we either enforce rule of law as set by society in this country, or we don't
Unless you have a job in the criminal justice system, `we' don't have that decision to make. `We' can only cheer or throw bricks.
Clearly they need another /. section for `Ask Mum' (or perhaps `Mom' for you wierdoes over there).
I mean, take some of the the current front page headlines:
Gates Blackmails Danes ``I blame the parents letting them play with that rough Gates boy'' Night Vision Scope ``You should be in bed anyway'' Annodex ``Shouldn't you be out in the fresh air?'' Wave Energy ``Wave goodbye to grandma'' Data Stolen ``I told you to look after it!'' Linux Cat Feeder ``I knew you'd get bored and I'd end up having to feed and clean up after it'' Phone with iTunes ``What do you want with that, you have a perfectly good phone, and if you'd have kept up with your piano lessons...''Is there anything which could hear up there to tell if it was working? IIRC, bats top out around 100.
A significant amount of non-vocal music probably never exists in an analog form even there -- goinf staight from digital instruments to digital recording.
If someone can develop digital air for use in recording studioes, we can then eliminate the last remaining analog link!
Just because you get it on an analog format, that doesn't mean it was originally recorded using analog technology.
There is no such things as a `pristine' analogue copy. First of all the original recording will be band limited and with a certain noise level - it is, after all, an analog of the original, not a copy. Then, you will get additional noise and possibly spectrum manipulation at each generation of copy.
That, after all, is why we do things digitally these days. So the third point is that there was probably never an analog recording of whatever you want if it is relatively recent.
Then again, today's CPUs are way overpowered for the jobs they are actually doing. Most of the power is used for sometimes important, sometimes pointless stuff around the edges such as antialiasing fonts and making icons bounce up and down.
A chip designed to be able to cooperate with others should have an advantage in that kind of environment. If the CPU can concentrate on actually running the word processor, and efficiantly coordinate with others doing the peripheral activities for it, that should be a big win.
And the student gets marked absent from all classes.
Er, if a school isn't keeping track of where the kids are and what they are doing, it's not doing it's job.
And US (or is it NA) only. The iPod is a worldwide sucess, and doubling the number of models they have to make to get US and non-US versions is probably a BadThing.
I might be tempted by a ipod with a DAB radio (except the iPod is already too big and rechargable and has moving parts...), since I already carry a DAB radio and an MP3 player in my jacket pocket. But is it worth Apple localising the iPod for every digital radio system in the world?
Science and religion don't overlap, so neither can `trump' the other.
Individual religious traditions make claims about things which are better handled by science, but you can see this is not part of religion per-se by the fact that the different traditions dissagree so violently over these ideas. Religious traditions make claims about art too, eg that polyphony is morally suspect. Chemists make claims about cold fusion. Such things are a result of a common human trait wherby people like to think that knowledge in one area means they are experts in everything.
the key point is that it happens the same way in both directions. A scientist making claims about how to live a good life based on physics looks as silly as a priest asserting that the earth goes around the sun, based on theology.
John Kerry a serious observer? LOL
MI5 is internal security, paralel to the secret service and the security bits of the FBI (all of which is presumably now somewhere under the department of Love and Joy, sorry, Homeland Security.
The British intelligence services seem to have thought their might be some WMDs somewhere which could be brought into action given enough time. There might have been, after all it just takes a hole somewhere which only 3 senior Iraqi military people knew the location of, and them being dead or not talking.
More or less everyone in a position to hold an opinion believed SH still aspired to holding WMDs and they (falsely it seems) believed there would be active programmes developing supporting technology.
However, the idea that there were WMDs which were available for immediate use, either for handing over to terrorists or for use if Iraq were attacked, seems to have been an invention of one Iraqi source trying to be `helpful', picked up by the politicians and their immediate advisors as a useful political lie.
Actually I believe Blair believed it. It is a common and useful attribute of politicians to come to beleiev the things they initially make up or adopt as useful fictions. Whether Bush did I don't know. He always seemed reluctant to use the claim.
Mind you with 60% of Americans thinking Iraq was behind 9/11, he had a much better lie to use.
They are rather wider than that. They are monopolies on an idea. It's not just the specific design of the Amazon one-click buying system which was claimed.
Whichis where the ability to rip of other people's work comes from. If I have a patent and you, in ignorance, produce a better implementation than mine of that idea, I can assume control of your work.
- Lifetime of patent limited to something in keeping with software development lifecycle. Say 5 years. (that is long enough to sell alot of copies and time to develop your next idea)
- Patent only enforcable while the holder has a product available which uses the patented mechanism. (no submarines)
- The source code of the up to date version of the relevent part of that product must be kept published and in the public domain at all times during the lifetime of the patent.
So, you get your monopoly for a time to get money out of it, but at the end of that time everyone gets a working implementation of the idea to start from. This basicly reflects the original intent of patents - it exchanges a limited time monopoly for the idea being published and available for others to learn from and to use at the end of the monopoly.Basicly, what if software patents were a lever for creation of more free software.
Patent's don't protect your work, copyrights do that.
Patents are a licence to rip off other people's work, granted by the state as an incentive for you to publish your work. There were perfectly good reasons for this at the time the system developed, but few if any of the reasons still exist.
Anyone to who doesn't already know who wrote one of the most famous SF novels of all time, and probably the number 1 most memorable title, is probably not interested, and indeed isn't reading comments under this story at all. For some things, citeing the source is an insult to the reader and the thing cited.
But now I must go and work in the garden.
There is nothing in conflict between atheism and religion. Only some religions are theistic.
None of the non-human religions in B5 are monotheistic that I can remember (who knows what the pakmara worship, except that it likes singing, and the Drazi presumably have a purple god and a green god and choose who to worship at random).
You could see the whole shadow war storyline as an attack on the stupidity of looking to a magical being to show you how to solve your problems.
And Taoism.
Have you ever asked yourself if androids dream of electric sheep?
Nothing is neccessary, but religion is a very traditional element in SF. After all, SF is about using ideas from science to be able to write directly about questions which are hard to aproach other than metaphorically in `mainstream' art (eg the nature of time, whether Vulcan women have pubic hair). Religious questions fit right in.
Consider more or less anything by PKD or H.G Wells or Stapledon. Or all the `Force' drivel in the Star Wars films. Or just about all of Babylon 5.
More specifically, one of the reasons for the existance of robots in SF is asking the question of what it means to be a person, and a good number of possible answers to that are the religious ones. The new Battlestar Galactica is all about that question (with some fun space ship battles thrown in), so naturally religion is going to turn up.
Not to mention the mormon connection.
Er, so don't go looking, just sit down and play. It's not as if they come 'round and bury your TV under a pile of CDs of mods, so you have to dig through before you can start playing.
My reason for not buying a console is that all the main consoles are made by Evil Bastards. Of course, the same is true of Windows, but since I have to have a Windows machine, I have already tarnished my soul and may as well play games on it.
Well, there is also the fact that I blame console-suck for the fact that Invisible War was crap.
Ignoring other people's beliefs is not narrow-mindedness, it is basic politeness.
If you find this a problem, stop dealing with bottom feeders.
Or, if you must, start a satanic cult featuring worship of satan in his form as a penguin (symbolising the cold of the innermost circle of hell, and his consumption of christian souls, traditionally symbolised by fish). Then get your cult on the TV news and in the tabloids (a few naked women around the place will do it) and bob is your antichrist.
How about a clown?
Does anyone believe McDonalds is anything less than rigorously professional in their operations?