"I pulled facts from the public domain and fit them together into a well-researched report with accurate citations". Booooring.
"I'm presenting this report because I know you're cleared, and I believe you have the need to know. It's TOP SECRET, Compartmentalized, Code Fushia". Sex-ay!
Farnsworth: "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in... get the hell off my property!"
Free Waterfall Junior: "You can't own property, man."
Farnsworth: "I can. But that's because I'm not a penniless hippie."
I can agree with that. I'd love to see the DMCA challenged on that very ground. I'd love to see the DMCA thrown out altogether. To boil the whole bloody thread down, my only real disagreement with him is over IP being inherently evil and/or inevitably leading to abuse.
I'm willing to wager that if you know your way around inside the Prius, there are components that are small, light, and in demand that offer more "bang for the buck" to a would-be thief. Where's the computer that controls the thing? How often do they go bad? Nevermind that. If you steal any given part often enough, you automaticly create a market for replacements.
1. Find easily stolen do-dad in car.
2. Sell them to shady dealers.
3. Shady dealers move "refurbished" units to unsuspecting victims.
4. Profit!
Where on the continuum of "Gone with the wind" to "number 4" does "Gone with the wind" ceases to be the magical "Intellectual Property" and becomes "ordinary numbers"?
At the same place where a fetus becomes a human life.
If you do not believe me, make this simple thought experiment: Who owns the number "4"? How would you establish an "ownership" of the number "4" or any other integer number? Is there only one number "4" or does everyone who thinks "four" in their heads get another unique number "4" to materialize in their brains? If you cannot answer these, why do you believe that a sequence of integers is somehow magically more suitable to be "owned"? Because, you know, all information is ultimately capable of being encoded as a series of integers....
This one is an old-standby of the anti-IP crowd. OK. Owning 4 is ridiculous. Now let's encode "Gone with the Wind" and print it out in decimal. Wow. Given a novel of that length, how many other numbers are there that represent nonsense, or some other novel?
In other words 4!=(an astronomical number beyond human comprehension). In other words, it requires judgement and common sense.
BTW, I'm done with this thread. You have a core belief that IP is an invalid concept, and I don't. That's all we can really establish here, and it's very unlikely that either side will sway the other in a reasonable ammount of time.
1. Having dealt with the issue of patents in software I would agree with you that in *some* areas, patents impede progress. Most software people, myself included, don't want patents in our field; but we still want copyright. Even the FSF doesn't want to get rid of copyright, because without it all their work would be Public Domain--they wouldn't be able to prevent people from using it in works that are a trade secret. You will never be able to eliminate trade secrets, even if you abolish intellectual property law. If you try to eliminate trade secrets, then you have the government knocking on the doors of businesses, forcing them to report on their processes. Now who is the totalitarian?
2. You are making judgements regarding the type of material that would be produced under IP vs. a patronage system. Who are you to judge? In fact, we already have patronage systems (PBS, art galleries, the symphony etc.) for those who have want "highbrow" entertainment. The two systems co-exist side-by-side. Nothing says Daniel Steele and Dostoyevski can't sit on the same shelf. At any rate, you are holding patronage art in higher esteme than industrial art. It's a value judgement. And if patronage were the only wan to fund works then who, praytell, sits on the board of patronage? I'll tell you. The same people who write the laws now. Now who is the totalitarian?
The bottom line? I think Dave Barry said it best when he said the government ought to have a "department of Ida Mae". Ida Mae was a hypothetical aunt who knew nothing other than common sense. Were there such a department, the DMCA would be thrown out. The patent regime would be reduced, and Fewer patents would be issued; but when you came to here and asked her to eliminate all forms of IP she would say NO to that too.
In the 2nd paragraph of your analogy, you introduce a concept that's patently silly (no pun intended).
For most people, copyright is not fundamentally silly. The problem with your arguments is that you assumes non-silly ideas inevitably degenerate into silly ideas, which inevitably degenerate into evil ideas.
Of course, ANY idea can degenerate if it's placed in the hands of evil, power-hungry people. The only real way to prevent that from happening is to negotiate positions around the idea, not eliminate it or equate it with what it might become in the hands of the wrong people. It's like arguing that freedom is totalitarianism because it can degenerate into totalitarianism.
So (see my other reply to your reply) while you get no argument from me that powerful interests have perverted IP law, you have failed to convince me that IP is an inherently flawed concept. Getting rid of it would be like closing all the public parks because drug dealers and pervs are hanging out in them.
OK, let's assume (dangerous, I know) that IP is evil and must be eliminated because it inevitably lead to totalitarianism. By elimination of IP, I mean placing all works into the Public Domain. It doesn't take too much imagination to see the problems this would cause, in terms of disincentives to create. No new drugs, because no patents. Less literature of consequence, becausee no royalties. Please don't cite examples like Radio Head, because they got bootstrapped by the IP system.
Don't get me wrong: I'm fully opposed to the DMCA and the way it's being used.
The DMCA fits into your model of "control of information", but not all IP does that. Patents even require publication.
My only real beef with you and other anti-IP people is that take abuses, such as the DMCA, and use them to paint all IP with a broad brush of evil that's not deserved.
And yeah, the analogy was sure to have flaws as it was whipped up quite hastily. Sorry about that.
How hard would it be to do what the Blues Brothers did, and supply a bogus address to the authorities? If you are swinging against CoS, you probably already know about the fair gaming thing, and may be using a front. It's funny that CoS used a front too. Then you've got two fronts going against eachother, and the authorities just toss the case into a cardboard box to be shredded at some date in the future. The only real victims would be the poor saps who criticise such an organization without realizing that they just tossed marinara on the don's nice white shirt.
Totalitarian control is the only outcome of IP? And this got modded up to 5?
I've seen some pretty ridiculous shit from the anti-IP people; but that's one heck of a strawman you've got there. IP is a tool like any other. A totalitarian government will use it as a tool to enforce draconian discipline. A better government will use it to secure rights for creative people. Let's have some fun:
IP is nowhere near as deadly as road construction. That is why, as I keep pointing out, the so called "transportation infrastructure" has the ulitmate effect of creating a totalitarian society. It happens via the deadly mix of technological progress creating increased mobility for both the populace and the military, and resulting in the ever more draconian incursion of armed troops into daily life. That impacts society so because the ability to move troops is the control of our everday lives (as is the only logical outcome of road construction) and must lead to a totalitarian society as a whole.
They should allow disassembly of the drive. Presumeably, if it's possible to recover the data, you need to use something other than that stock read/write head. Somebody else mentioned electron microscopes. Not sure what you'd see with that. Can you see magnetic domains with an electron microscope? Maybe that's how the real spooks do it.
Reading/., I don't even notice I'm using a different browser except for the slightly different look at the top. It has a few annoying quirks, like suggesting search terms when I type a URL instead of just suggesting previous URLs. It appears to have a nice little spell-checker enabled by default as I type this. I was going to say that it makes no difference and isn't worth the space on my drive, but now I might decide to keep it just for that little built-in spell check feature.
As for ad-block, I went with the "nuclear option" a while ago: I use a HOSTS file. It kills a lot of the non-annoying ads that don't pop up, pop under, or make noise. This is unfortunate, because I really hate to hurt legit advertisers who are placing non-intrusive ads. The other guys drove me to it though, and I don't shed any tears over the collateral damage.
Language | PiTA when version X.x is no longer supported and you need to upgrade?
PHP | yes
Perl | yes
Tcl | yes
Python | yes
Ruby | yes
Javascript | yes
At least, if you are big enough to control the server (as opposed to being Joe Blow using a hosting company) you can control when the upgrade occurs. OTOH, if the old version has security issues your hand is forced. Javascript is in the browser, so any change to the implementation that breaks your code may get sprung upon you at any time. I haven't actually used Tcl, but I've read about it, and it's been around a long time. Perhaps this one is the most stable, but who uses it for major web sites?
...it seems like this would be good news for Obama. I think the McCain campaign handed him a prize here. Biden looked like a bad choice because he didn't bring a big swing state (electoral votes, not geographic size) to the table. Palin doesn't do that either, so the "swing state" strategy is off the table. The experience card is off the table too, and that was a significant burden on Obama. I don't think most Hillary voters will cross party lines just because she's a woman. The typical Hillary voter is PRO CHOICE and she isn't! When I heard the announcement, I was like... wow! McCain shot himself in the foot.
You left out the other big advantage of tabs: You can move across one level of indentation with one keystroke. Whenever I come across code that uses spaces for indent, if it's a four-space indent I have to use 4 keystrokes, or hold the key down a fixed ammount of time. Some people have the dexterity for this, or consider carpal tunnel a badge of honor. Or, maybe they're like one of my co-workers who prefers vi--but she also plays a musical instrument and I don't. I sometimes wonder if playing a musical instrument helps build the dexterity to handle an editor that requires more challenging key sequences... but anyway, I digress. Continue to use tabs. The wrists you save might be your own.
As the summary acknowledges, the fusor has been around for a while. If it were theoreticly possible to get net power gain, don't you think it would have been tried?
I doubt many of the people experimenting with the fusor are seriously trying to get net power gain. It's useful as a neutron source. Thus, you could make isotopes with it. That's rather scary, and something that I'm sure a lot of people would not want advertised; but it's also common knowledge for anybody who has an interest in nuclear science.
I literally LOL'd at the Jim Morrison thing. The sundae incident, as others have pointed out, makes the reviewer as bad as the trainee, just in a different way.
Maybe, just maybe, the book is bad enough to be good, like "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" or "Plan 9 from Outer Space".
Slashdot Mirror
"I pulled facts from the public domain and fit them together into a well-researched report with accurate citations". Booooring.
"I'm presenting this report because I know you're cleared, and I believe you have the need to know. It's TOP SECRET, Compartmentalized, Code Fushia". Sex-ay!
Farnsworth: "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in... get the hell off my property!"
Free Waterfall Junior: "You can't own property, man."
Farnsworth: "I can. But that's because I'm not a penniless hippie."
Yeah! Me too. Right off the coast of TeSPLASH GLUNK, GLUNK. NO CARRIER.
Wow. If they paid that much for an LED, I wonder how much they would pay for a flashlight. Do you have their number?
I can agree with that. I'd love to see the DMCA challenged on that very ground. I'd love to see the DMCA thrown out altogether. To boil the whole bloody thread down, my only real disagreement with him is over IP being inherently evil and/or inevitably leading to abuse.
I'm willing to wager that if you know your way around inside the Prius, there are components that are small, light, and in demand that offer more "bang for the buck" to a would-be thief. Where's the computer that controls the thing? How often do they go bad? Nevermind that. If you steal any given part often enough, you automaticly create a market for replacements.
1. Find easily stolen do-dad in car.
2. Sell them to shady dealers.
3. Shady dealers move "refurbished" units to unsuspecting victims.
4. Profit!
OK, I lied. One last dig:
Where on the continuum of "Gone with the wind" to "number 4" does "Gone with the wind" ceases to be the magical "Intellectual Property" and becomes "ordinary numbers"?
At the same place where a fetus becomes a human life.
If you do not believe me, make this simple thought experiment: Who owns the number "4"? How would you establish an "ownership" of the number "4" or any other integer number? Is there only one number "4" or does everyone who thinks "four" in their heads get another unique number "4" to materialize in their brains? If you cannot answer these, why do you believe that a sequence of integers is somehow magically more suitable to be "owned"? Because, you know, all information is ultimately capable of being encoded as a series of integers....
This one is an old-standby of the anti-IP crowd. OK. Owning 4 is ridiculous. Now let's encode "Gone with the Wind" and print it out in decimal. Wow. Given a novel of that length, how many other numbers are there that represent nonsense, or some other novel?
In other words 4!=(an astronomical number beyond human comprehension). In other words, it requires judgement and common sense.
BTW, I'm done with this thread. You have a core belief that IP is an invalid concept, and I don't. That's all we can really establish here, and it's very unlikely that either side will sway the other in a reasonable ammount of time.
1. Having dealt with the issue of patents in software I would agree with you that in *some* areas, patents impede progress. Most software people, myself included, don't want patents in our field; but we still want copyright. Even the FSF doesn't want to get rid of copyright, because without it all their work would be Public Domain--they wouldn't be able to prevent people from using it in works that are a trade secret. You will never be able to eliminate trade secrets, even if you abolish intellectual property law. If you try to eliminate trade secrets, then you have the government knocking on the doors of businesses, forcing them to report on their processes. Now who is the totalitarian?
2. You are making judgements regarding the type of material that would be produced under IP vs. a patronage system. Who are you to judge? In fact, we already have patronage systems (PBS, art galleries, the symphony etc.) for those who have want "highbrow" entertainment. The two systems co-exist side-by-side. Nothing says Daniel Steele and Dostoyevski can't sit on the same shelf. At any rate, you are holding patronage art in higher esteme than industrial art. It's a value judgement. And if patronage were the only wan to fund works then who, praytell, sits on the board of patronage? I'll tell you. The same people who write the laws now. Now who is the totalitarian?
The bottom line? I think Dave Barry said it best when he said the government ought to have a "department of Ida Mae". Ida Mae was a hypothetical aunt who knew nothing other than common sense. Were there such a department, the DMCA would be thrown out. The patent regime would be reduced, and Fewer patents would be issued; but when you came to here and asked her to eliminate all forms of IP she would say NO to that too.
In the 2nd paragraph of your analogy, you introduce a concept that's patently silly (no pun intended).
For most people, copyright is not fundamentally silly. The problem with your arguments is that you assumes non-silly ideas inevitably degenerate into silly ideas, which inevitably degenerate into evil ideas.
Of course, ANY idea can degenerate if it's placed in the hands of evil, power-hungry people. The only real way to prevent that from happening is to negotiate positions around the idea, not eliminate it or equate it with what it might become in the hands of the wrong people. It's like arguing that freedom is totalitarianism because it can degenerate into totalitarianism.
So (see my other reply to your reply) while you get no argument from me that powerful interests have perverted IP law, you have failed to convince me that IP is an inherently flawed concept. Getting rid of it would be like closing all the public parks because drug dealers and pervs are hanging out in them.
OK, let's assume (dangerous, I know) that IP is evil and must be eliminated because it inevitably lead to totalitarianism. By elimination of IP, I mean placing all works into the Public Domain. It doesn't take too much imagination to see the problems this would cause, in terms of disincentives to create. No new drugs, because no patents. Less literature of consequence, becausee no royalties. Please don't cite examples like Radio Head, because they got bootstrapped by the IP system.
Don't get me wrong: I'm fully opposed to the DMCA and the way it's being used.
The DMCA fits into your model of "control of information", but not all IP does that. Patents even require publication.
My only real beef with you and other anti-IP people is that take abuses, such as the DMCA, and use them to paint all IP with a broad brush of evil that's not deserved.
And yeah, the analogy was sure to have flaws as it was whipped up quite hastily. Sorry about that.
How hard would it be to do what the Blues Brothers did, and supply a bogus address to the authorities? If you are swinging against CoS, you probably already know about the fair gaming thing, and may be using a front. It's funny that CoS used a front too. Then you've got two fronts going against eachother, and the authorities just toss the case into a cardboard box to be shredded at some date in the future. The only real victims would be the poor saps who criticise such an organization without realizing that they just tossed marinara on the don's nice white shirt.
Totalitarian control is the only outcome of IP? And this got modded up to 5?
I've seen some pretty ridiculous shit from the anti-IP people; but that's one heck of a strawman you've got there. IP is a tool like any other. A totalitarian government will use it as a tool to enforce draconian discipline. A better government will use it to secure rights for creative people. Let's have some fun:
IP is nowhere near as deadly as road construction. That is why, as I keep pointing out, the so called "transportation infrastructure" has the ulitmate effect of creating a totalitarian society. It happens via the deadly mix of technological progress creating increased mobility for both the populace and the military, and resulting in the ever more draconian incursion of armed troops into daily life. That impacts society so because the ability to move troops is the control of our everday lives (as is the only logical outcome of road construction) and must lead to a totalitarian society as a whole.
They should allow disassembly of the drive. Presumeably, if it's possible to recover the data, you need to use something other than that stock read/write head. Somebody else mentioned electron microscopes. Not sure what you'd see with that. Can you see magnetic domains with an electron microscope? Maybe that's how the real spooks do it.
Awesome! Multiple keyboards and monitors. Truly slapped together. I wonder when they got their first KVM.
Reading /., I don't even notice I'm using a different browser except for the slightly different look at the top. It has a few annoying quirks, like suggesting search terms when I type a URL instead of just suggesting previous URLs. It appears to have a nice little spell-checker enabled by default as I type this. I was going to say that it makes no difference and isn't worth the space on my drive, but now I might decide to keep it just for that little built-in spell check feature.
As for ad-block, I went with the "nuclear option" a while ago: I use a HOSTS file. It kills a lot of the non-annoying ads that don't pop up, pop under, or make noise. This is unfortunate, because I really hate to hurt legit advertisers who are placing non-intrusive ads. The other guys drove me to it though, and I don't shed any tears over the collateral damage.
You hack into the satellite and change the coordinates. I'll break into Page's and Brin's houses and set up the giant popcorn tin.
(That's a Real Genius reference for those who were out of geek culture class that day)
When will it all end?
When people stop posting replies. Zero replies, zero page hits, zero ad revenue, zero profit. Then, it will eventually be cut since it's a cost sink.
1. Find non-geek.
2. Do what they say.
3. No matter how much you doubt it, do what they say.
4. Step. Away. From. The. Tools.
Unless of course, she's a geek too. Then, show her the plans and don't be hurt when she wants to change them. You can even let her use the tools.
Language | PiTA when version X.x is no longer supported and you need to upgrade?
PHP | yes
Perl | yes
Tcl | yes
Python | yes
Ruby | yes
Javascript | yes
At least, if you are big enough to control the server (as opposed to being Joe Blow using a hosting company) you can control when the upgrade occurs. OTOH, if the old version has security issues your hand is forced. Javascript is in the browser, so any change to the implementation that breaks your code may get sprung upon you at any time. I haven't actually used Tcl, but I've read about it, and it's been around a long time. Perhaps this one is the most stable, but who uses it for major web sites?
...it seems like this would be good news for Obama. I think the McCain campaign handed him a prize here. Biden looked like a bad choice because he didn't bring a big swing state (electoral votes, not geographic size) to the table. Palin doesn't do that either, so the "swing state" strategy is off the table. The experience card is off the table too, and that was a significant burden on Obama. I don't think most Hillary voters will cross party lines just because she's a woman. The typical Hillary voter is PRO CHOICE and she isn't! When I heard the announcement, I was like... wow! McCain shot himself in the foot.
Did anybody else misread this as "cow vs. robot"?
You left out the other big advantage of tabs: You can move across one level of indentation with one keystroke. Whenever I come across code that uses spaces for indent, if it's a four-space indent I have to use 4 keystrokes, or hold the key down a fixed ammount of time. Some people have the dexterity for this, or consider carpal tunnel a badge of honor. Or, maybe they're like one of my co-workers who prefers vi--but she also plays a musical instrument and I don't. I sometimes wonder if playing a musical instrument helps build the dexterity to handle an editor that requires more challenging key sequences... but anyway, I digress. Continue to use tabs. The wrists you save might be your own.
As the summary acknowledges, the fusor has been around for a while. If it were theoreticly possible to get net power gain, don't you think it would have been tried?
I doubt many of the people experimenting with the fusor are seriously trying to get net power gain. It's useful as a neutron source. Thus, you could make isotopes with it. That's rather scary, and something that I'm sure a lot of people would not want advertised; but it's also common knowledge for anybody who has an interest in nuclear science.
I literally LOL'd at the Jim Morrison thing. The sundae incident, as others have pointed out, makes the reviewer as bad as the trainee, just in a different way.
Maybe, just maybe, the book is bad enough to be good, like "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" or "Plan 9 from Outer Space".