So, the page it gave me was www.hotsex.com. I guess this concept is just one more data point in the question: "What is the average time in between the introduction of an information sharing method and the first instance of it being used to share pornography?" --
While I am all in favor of freedom of speech in most cases, freedom of speech should not be freedom to insult religions. This is an area where the constitution of the US could use a lot of work
As an atheist, there are many things that puzzle and upset me about religous people. I think the main one is their inability to try to look at themselves from another perspective. Their religion relentlessly teaches them that there is only one way to see the world, and that this way is clearly better than any other way. In fact, it's so good that there isn't even any need to examine other ways of thinking.
So, this leads to nifty statements like: "Free speech is fine, so long as you say anything I don't like." Sigh. If you don't like the first amendment, just say so. Don't pretend you think that freedom is a good thing just because you want people to have freedom to do what you want them to.
Oh yeah, and the other that I find endlessly strange about religous people, and hardcore Xians in particular, is that it's impossible to know when they're being serious. Look at some of the posts that come up on this thread. The Xian AC is being serious, right? So how in the world are you supposed to do a xian troll? Is there anything you could possibly say in jest that would be loonier than what so many fundies say in earnest?
ROS (mournfully): Not Daikatana. I don't believe in it anyway.
GUIL: What?
ROS: Daikatana.
GUIL: Just a conspiracy of gaming magazines, you mean?
ROS: I mean I don't believe it! (Calmer.) I have no image. I try to picture it arriving in stores, at Babbage's perhaps... or EB... a sales clerk to point it out... its shiny red box... playing it for a day or a fortnight and then uninstalling it... That would be the logical kind of thing....But my mind remains a blank. No. It can't be real.
GUIL: Yes... yes... (Rallying.) But you don't believe anything til it happens. And it has gone gold. Hasn't it?
...
(just another of the wierd things that pop into my brain)
For the life of me, I can't contemplate any legal use for Napster.
Napster, as you probably already know, is a way to download files from another person's computer, and to allow others to download from yours. You can't imagine any legal use for this??
The legality of the situation rests solely on the status of the content. One legal use -- *the* legal use of Napster -- is to download mp3s whose distribution is legally unrestricted. Why would I go to mp3.com and have to sift through pages of cluttered html, when I can use Napster instead, searching for the names of bands I know I like, and finding new bands in the collections of people who like the same things I do?
Ask yourself why you can't imagine information being freely distributed.
I'm all for copyrighted material, but (a popular phrase around here nowadays) I'm not about to go out of my way to attack data distribution software and small-potatoes piracy just to support the status quo.
But really. Your solution is more taxes and only government-funded art. I don't think you can be serious.
I'm quite serious. If you have a freely replicable product whose distribution cannot be controlled, then it is a public good. Take roads for example. There is no economic incentive for me to put up the money to build a road from my house to the city center, as I will shoulder the expense, yet everyone will get to use the road. It is much better for me to wait for someone else to build the road, and then use it for free. But of course, once everyone does this then no roads will be built.
The solution, as practiced all over the world, is to implement a tax whose revenue can be used to build and maintain the roads. This is a practical solution -- everyone wants roads, so few complain that tax money is being used for this purpose.
If music is a public good, and everyone wants there to be music, then I see very little difference between the gov't funding that and the gov't funding road-building. (stereotypes of 'government-funded art' notwithstanding)
Of course, as you bring up, a controlled distribution might work much better for certain products, such as movies. I'm not against that. Filmmakers release film to movie theatres in a format that is not used by the public at large. People pay to see these movies because if they don't, they won't get to see the movie.
For some products, however, it might be better to use an uncontrolled distribution model, and receive the benefits of the free flow of information.
To give an example, let's say there is no copyright any more -- anybody can copy anything freely. In such a world, why would anybody make a movie? I mean a good movie with sets, and special effects, and location shoots, etc. etc.? It all costs money (as in millions of $) and given that you could never get enough monetary return from it, movies would simply not be made any more. Of course you'll get unlimited amount of amateur footage of backyards and dogs shot on consumer-grade camcorders, but that probably wouldn't quite compensate, would it?
There is a sort of producers' supply and demand that would take place in such an event. If movies were traded freely, then there would be no economic incentive to create movies, but there would be a fame incentive. If I made the best movie of the year, I would become quite famous, a outcome for many as desirable as being rich. In a world in which Steven Spielberg et al are making beloved expensive blockbusters, there is no benefit for me to make a low-budget yet quality movie, as few people will see it. If no movies were being made but crappy camcorder deals, there would be a great demand for decent movies, and people would act to fill that demand. Since making merely a non-crappy film would get you lots of recognition, the rewards would vastly exceed the effort required. You will never reach a point at which no movies are made.
IANAE, but I do own a first-year economics textbook. In it, it describes how goods can be divided into four categories. A good is excludable if the person selling the good can decide who receives the good and who does not. A good is rival if one person's use of the good diminishes another person's enjoyment of it.
What would happen if movies were copied and traded freely? In this situation, a movie would be a non-excludable good: A person who produces a movie cannot prevent people from viewing it. And of course, a movie would still be non-rival. Me viewing a film does not prevent a second person from seeing that same film.
Goods that are non-rival and non-excludable are referred to as public goods. Some examples of public goods include national defense and uncongested non-toll roads. Because a good is public, does that mean that society will stop producing it? Of course not, it simply means that the way it is produced will be different.
For example, suppose the government collected a 'music tax' from all music loving citizens. This money would be offered up as prizes in a yearly contest among musicians to produce the best content. Musicians would be motivated to produce music by the same three factors they are today: money, fame, and art. The consumers on the other hand, would no longer have to limit their music consumption by what they can afford. All the music produced would be distributed freely among the population.
Even in our hypothetical situation of movies being copied all over the place, there is no reason to assume that people would not still enjoy going to a movie theatre to watch a movie. In fact, if movie theatre owners pooled their resources, they could probably afford to hire people to make movies for them. These movies would show in the theatres of those who paid for them, and many people would pay to see them, as it is an enjoyable thing to go to a movie theatre, in addition to the fact that the film shown would not show up on the free information network for at least a little while.
So in conclusion, the current system we have today is not the only way to create and distribute information goods. It has its advantages, and it has its disadvantages. To say that no other system can possibly work as well is naive, and dangerous at a time when technology may force changes.
--
Re:Freedom without responsibility?
on
CFP 2000 Wrapup
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· Score: 2
Okay, one last time.
'Information wants to be free' refers to the following set of facts:
-- information can be easily duplicated at basically no cost to the holder.
-- humans enjoy sharing information.
Because of the above, information duplication is widespread and quick. In fact, observing the immense speed and scope of information transfer, one might anthropomorphize it, saying that it has the quality of "wanting to be free."
Keeping information secret is difficult. Sometimes, the cost of keeping a bit of information is secret is less than the value of having the secret information.
Sometimes the cost of keeping information secret (ensuring that nobody who possesses a copyrighted mp3 shares that information with anyone?) is greater than the benefits.
Give me the lowest lows of depression and the highest highs of deluded ecstasy and the clouded judgment of a manic depressive mind in action over the cubicle confined nine-to-five inactive, emotionally sterile subservient work-a-day drone's mind any day.
Easy for you to *say.* Have you ever suffered from a mental illness? Depression is not an extreme form of sadness. It's a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes obsessively negative thinking.
When my father was in the hospital a few years ago, being treated for depression, I saw that depression is not a minor illness. It thoroughly changes a person, keeps them stuck in a mindset that doesn't let them feel happiness. It is not a condition I ever wish to have in my life.
It's true, not everyone who is unhappy is depressed. Not everyone who is creative, anti-social, or otherwise kooky has a problem. However, there are many people out there who need help, and it is not just the ones who see visions and have suicidal thoughts.
By your logic, a broken arm is nothing to see a doctor about. Having a broken arm makes you different from all the conformist drones and their intact skeletons, and therefore cannot be a bad thing. It won't kill you, and you'll still be able to do your work almost as well as before. Why would you shut yourself off from life by encasing your arm in plaster? Feeling the pain of aggravating your injury is just part of enjoying life to its fullest.
Internet evolution is a vague process that's pretty difficult to pin down while you're actually in the middle of it. It seems to me to be a continuous process, and it's hard to see single events that might have been 'turning points.' Can you pin down the exact time when the internet shifted from an academic playground to a potential business model? When web pages went from bored college student's biographies to chat rooms and company advertising?
Re:you make the same mistake!
on
The Mind of God
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· Score: 1
The only rational position is "I'll reserve judgement until I see proof, seeing as both sides have none at the moment."
Oh sure, that might be the most rational position, but what fun is it? Can you *prove* everything? Can you prove that all of the other users of Slashdot are real people, and not just some AI gone horribly wrong? Are you reserving judgement on that?
Besides, think about all the perks religious people get -- free holidays, invisible friends, an inflated sense of moral worth... are you going to give all that up just to be rational? Just make up your own religion -- there's no proof that the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist, and it doesn't it just feel like the universe is incomplete without her? Who knows, maybe you'll get luckly like L. Ron, and it'll take.
--matt (a strong atheist, sometimes a taoist, a Bokononist, or a follower of the IPU)
At this point, Keanu's character says, "EMP? What's that?" Now, he's been "chosen" because of his skills. Because he is smart, because he is smarter than most, right? Well then how come he doesn't know what an EMP is?
Hint: How many people in the audience know off the top of their head what an EMP is? It's just another case of a science fiction story having to explain itself to its audience... sometimes it can be done subtlely, and sometimes not.
Scientist #1: "If things keep getting worse, we may have to resort to using the Figulon Device..."
Scientist #2: "The Figulon Device? You mean the device that can rip a hole in the fabric of space-time allowing us to journey to the dimension of the squid-people?"
Man, Salon needs a little work before they're ready for serious journalism. As far as I can tell, this article was just the interviewer throwing a couple of softball pro-piracy questions out there, and letting Valenti swat them around with the company line. If you want to run an interview, fine. Ask the person about their work or whatever it is that makes them interesting to people. If you want to do a "free information vs. corporate control" piece, then don't make it into an interview -- have people write some point-counterpoint articles, or maybe even an ongoing email debate... Oh well, I guess it's better than the interview with Orson Scott Card, where the interviewer talked about herself for about half the write-up.
Man, I had NO IDEA that you could pirate a DVD and INSTANTLY send it to 6-BILLION people all around the world... INSTANTLY Man, I must have one REAL slow connection. And when did everyone on the planet get connected? This man's lies need to be corrected.
*sigh*. Everyone on slashdot seems perfectly willing to babble on about Valenti being clueless, even though he's clearly a savvy businessman. (working for the minions of evil, but still reasonably intelligent)
It gets to the point where the criticism becomes even more inane than the original point. Seriously, how long will it take until you *are* able to send a DVD in just a few minutes to millions of people. Five years? Ten? Two?
If we could only transpose that to the non-cyber world - but there's no "Beam me to Punjab, Scotty" yet. *Sigh*.
Check out some of Larry Niven's short stories about Earth in the future where transporter technology is effective and reasonbly cheap. People are effectively able to hop anywhere in the world they want to, but of course this technology has its misuses...
I don't remember the exact name of this particular story, I think it was called "The Last Days of the Floating Riot Club." This group of people would teleport themselves into a location, and start an interesting disurbance. The more interesting the disturbance, the more people from all over the country come to watch it, and when the place hits critical mass, a riot erupts.
Basically just a fun idea... like a real-life DoS attack...
Uh oh... I don't seem to fit into Katz' definition of a geek. What should I do? Write more code? Buy a Star Trek T-shirt? Run home after school and play Quake?
Please... someone give me a label... I desperately need one to pin my identity on.
Why do all of you think the X-Files is so great? I'm not trying to be a troll, I just have hell trying to get myself to sit through an entire episode of it...
Ok ok... I guess I feel compelled to reply to this. There are many good reasons to like the X-Files, some people like it for its spooky atmosphere and horror episodes, and some people like it for its nonsensical convolted conspiracy plotlines. Myself I think it's entertaining, and a least an order of maginitude higher quality than all other TV shows.
Some key points in favor of the show:
1. Great characters. Say what you will about Gill and sex appeal, many people are attracted to at least one of Mulder and Scully. They're good-looking, they're funny, and they have a whole host of surrounding dramatis personae. The Lone Gunmen, for example... good enough to base a whole nother series on, maybe. (Actually, I'd much rather watch a spinoff focussing on Cancerman and the Consortium, but that's just me.)
2. Good writing/acting. Ok, so not every episode is the original piece of plot in the world. At least it's not lame Hollywood crap. Plus, there are some real gems of episodes tossed in the mix. I recommend watching the show for at least a couple of weeks (one ep/day) before casting judgement.
3. Excellent photography/direction. Like I said, ten times better than almost all other TV shows. It's dark, it's stylish, it's just plain fun to watch.
4. Cool music. It goes past the theme too. Nothing like eerie music to add the sweet finishing touches to a good horrifying scene.
Anyway, that's about all I have to say about that. I hope there isn't a LGM spinoff, just because spinoffs are usually not that great, and Chris Carter hasn't gone anything good in several years.
Re:Out with the old, in with the new
on
Is Usenet Dying?
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Well, creating a new Usenet format probably wouldn't be THAT difficult to do, except for one minor little detail that screws the whole thing up: Usenet's current problems aren't caused by poor technology, they are caused by people.
Just like massive multiplayer online games and Communism... they're great ideas, but then you realise that you have to depend on the cooperation of complete strangers and other fsckups to make them work.
And what can really be done about that while maintaining the things that make Usenet great, like anonymity, diversity, widespread access and ease of use?
Anonymity is vastly overrated. If every user had to correspond to a unique real-life person, then there would be no more spam. Anyone who posted disallowed stuff would quickly be banned, and soon spammers would run out of real people to create users off of. Of course, in order to have such a situation, you would need monitors with a great deal of power/responsibility. This is why people veer away from police states in real life, but must the 'net be a completely analogous domain?
Nah... I don't buy the Gibson-is-literature argument. He comes up with some neat writing here and there, but overall the draw is his future worlds and his cyberpunk styles.
Of course, Gibson is great at this, and Neuromancer is surely a sci-fi classic on many merits. I just find that by the second or third book of his, I feel like I'm reading the same thing all over again.
On the 'my author can beat up your author' subject, here are my authors:
Neal Stephenson. If you haven't read The Diamond Age, go read it now. Stephenson's plots are intricate, entertaining, and vibrant.
Jeff Noon. If you haven't read Vurt, go read it now. Noon's tripped out future world is imagination at its finest.
-- "All my life I wanted to be someone... guess I should have been more specific."
I don't mean to troll here, but screw the Libertarian party. It'd be nice if Congress disappeared, and we got to start all over with making our government system, but it'd be even nicer if the member of Congress were replaced by competent people loyal to the American public. As far as I can tell, libertarians fall into two bunches: the anarchists, who believe that everything would be peachy if we just obliterated anything vaguely resembling a power structure, and the private-sector lovers, who think that government power structures are bad, and private power structures are good. Myself, of course, I diagree with both. If all of our organisations were torn down, we would simply rebuild it again. Throughout history, humans have preferred building hierarchies to tearing them down. Perhaps because, if we were able to return to what people commonly refer to as a "state of nature," all of our social advances would deteriorate, eventually leaving us in a place where life was nasty, butish, and short. As for the matter of private institutions vs. public institutions, private institutions have no responsibility to look out for the welfare of the majority. If our government looks bad, it's only because over the years it's turned into a private institution, and shrugged off its mantle of representing the will of the people. So yes, I know the comment was supposed to be funny, and yes, I found it amusing. For some reason I just have a knee-jerk to over plugs for the LP...
Actually, the Communists have been saying for years that we should eliminate the concept of private property. The idea that total democracy may not be the best way to make decisions has been around a lot longer than communism. We have voting in this country, but what are we really voting for? We're voting for a representative to make our laws for us -- to make the decisions that are best made by some intelligent and benevolent odd-ball. The problem, in my opinion, is that the people who are getting elected have made it their job only to get elected, and rarely understand just what it is they've been elected to do.
Re:This Author is on a National Censor List (OT)
on
Author Unknown
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· Score: 2
Wake up, smell the big oil.. the man was legally elected, and we will now come out of the 8 year nightmare that Wake up, smell the big oil.. the man was legally elected, and we will now come out of the 8 year nightmare that was clinton. was clinton.
(from the nice folks at the Onion, who always seem to say it best.)
(from the article)
Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."
"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."
Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."
Slashdot Mirror
So, the page it gave me was www.hotsex.com. I guess this concept is just one more data point in the question: "What is the average time in between the introduction of an information sharing method and the first instance of it being used to share pornography?"
--
As an atheist, there are many things that puzzle and upset me about religous people. I think the main one is their inability to try to look at themselves from another perspective. Their religion relentlessly teaches them that there is only one way to see the world, and that this way is clearly better than any other way. In fact, it's so good that there isn't even any need to examine other ways of thinking.
So, this leads to nifty statements like: "Free speech is fine, so long as you say anything I don't like." Sigh. If you don't like the first amendment, just say so. Don't pretend you think that freedom is a good thing just because you want people to have freedom to do what you want them to.
Oh yeah, and the other that I find endlessly strange about religous people, and hardcore Xians in particular, is that it's impossible to know when they're being serious. Look at some of the posts that come up on this thread. The Xian AC is being serious, right? So how in the world are you supposed to do a xian troll? Is there anything you could possibly say in jest that would be loonier than what so many fundies say in earnest?
--
GUIL: What?
ROS: Daikatana.
GUIL: Just a conspiracy of gaming magazines, you mean?
ROS: I mean I don't believe it! (Calmer.) I have no image. I try to picture it arriving in stores, at Babbage's perhaps... or EB... a sales clerk to point it out... its shiny red box... playing it for a day or a fortnight and then uninstalling it... That would be the logical kind of thing. ...But my mind remains a blank. No. It can't be real.
GUIL: Yes... yes... (Rallying.) But you don't believe anything til it happens. And it has gone gold. Hasn't it?
(just another of the wierd things that pop into my brain)
--
Napster, as you probably already know, is a way to download files from another person's computer, and to allow others to download from yours. You can't imagine any legal use for this??
The legality of the situation rests solely on the status of the content. One legal use -- *the* legal use of Napster -- is to download mp3s whose distribution is legally unrestricted. Why would I go to mp3.com and have to sift through pages of cluttered html, when I can use Napster instead, searching for the names of bands I know I like, and finding new bands in the collections of people who like the same things I do?
Ask yourself why you can't imagine information being freely distributed.
I'm all for copyrighted material, but (a popular phrase around here nowadays) I'm not about to go out of my way to attack data distribution software and small-potatoes piracy just to support the status quo.
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I'm quite serious. If you have a freely replicable product whose distribution cannot be controlled, then it is a public good. Take roads for example. There is no economic incentive for me to put up the money to build a road from my house to the city center, as I will shoulder the expense, yet everyone will get to use the road. It is much better for me to wait for someone else to build the road, and then use it for free. But of course, once everyone does this then no roads will be built.
The solution, as practiced all over the world, is to implement a tax whose revenue can be used to build and maintain the roads. This is a practical solution -- everyone wants roads, so few complain that tax money is being used for this purpose.
If music is a public good, and everyone wants there to be music, then I see very little difference between the gov't funding that and the gov't funding road-building. (stereotypes of 'government-funded art' notwithstanding)
Of course, as you bring up, a controlled distribution might work much better for certain products, such as movies. I'm not against that. Filmmakers release film to movie theatres in a format that is not used by the public at large. People pay to see these movies because if they don't, they won't get to see the movie.
For some products, however, it might be better to use an uncontrolled distribution model, and receive the benefits of the free flow of information.
--
There is a sort of producers' supply and demand that would take place in such an event. If movies were traded freely, then there would be no economic incentive to create movies, but there would be a fame incentive. If I made the best movie of the year, I would become quite famous, a outcome for many as desirable as being rich. In a world in which Steven Spielberg et al are making beloved expensive blockbusters, there is no benefit for me to make a low-budget yet quality movie, as few people will see it. If no movies were being made but crappy camcorder deals, there would be a great demand for decent movies, and people would act to fill that demand. Since making merely a non-crappy film would get you lots of recognition, the rewards would vastly exceed the effort required. You will never reach a point at which no movies are made.
IANAE, but I do own a first-year economics textbook. In it, it describes how goods can be divided into four categories. A good is excludable if the person selling the good can decide who receives the good and who does not. A good is rival if one person's use of the good diminishes another person's enjoyment of it.
What would happen if movies were copied and traded freely? In this situation, a movie would be a non-excludable good: A person who produces a movie cannot prevent people from viewing it. And of course, a movie would still be non-rival. Me viewing a film does not prevent a second person from seeing that same film.
Goods that are non-rival and non-excludable are referred to as public goods. Some examples of public goods include national defense and uncongested non-toll roads. Because a good is public, does that mean that society will stop producing it? Of course not, it simply means that the way it is produced will be different.
For example, suppose the government collected a 'music tax' from all music loving citizens. This money would be offered up as prizes in a yearly contest among musicians to produce the best content. Musicians would be motivated to produce music by the same three factors they are today: money, fame, and art. The consumers on the other hand, would no longer have to limit their music consumption by what they can afford. All the music produced would be distributed freely among the population.
Even in our hypothetical situation of movies being copied all over the place, there is no reason to assume that people would not still enjoy going to a movie theatre to watch a movie. In fact, if movie theatre owners pooled their resources, they could probably afford to hire people to make movies for them. These movies would show in the theatres of those who paid for them, and many people would pay to see them, as it is an enjoyable thing to go to a movie theatre, in addition to the fact that the film shown would not show up on the free information network for at least a little while.
So in conclusion, the current system we have today is not the only way to create and distribute information goods. It has its advantages, and it has its disadvantages. To say that no other system can possibly work as well is naive, and dangerous at a time when technology may force changes.
--
'Information wants to be free' refers to the following set of facts:
-- information can be easily duplicated at basically no cost to the holder.
-- humans enjoy sharing information.
Because of the above, information duplication is widespread and quick. In fact, observing the immense speed and scope of information transfer, one might anthropomorphize it, saying that it has the quality of "wanting to be free."
Keeping information secret is difficult. Sometimes, the cost of keeping a bit of information is secret is less than the value of having the secret information.
Sometimes the cost of keeping information secret (ensuring that nobody who possesses a copyrighted mp3 shares that information with anyone?) is greater than the benefits.
(just my two cents)
--
Easy for you to *say.* Have you ever suffered from a mental illness? Depression is not an extreme form of sadness. It's a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes obsessively negative thinking.
When my father was in the hospital a few years ago, being treated for depression, I saw that depression is not a minor illness. It thoroughly changes a person, keeps them stuck in a mindset that doesn't let them feel happiness. It is not a condition I ever wish to have in my life.
It's true, not everyone who is unhappy is depressed. Not everyone who is creative, anti-social, or otherwise kooky has a problem. However, there are many people out there who need help, and it is not just the ones who see visions and have suicidal thoughts.
By your logic, a broken arm is nothing to see a doctor about. Having a broken arm makes you different from all the conformist drones and their intact skeletons, and therefore cannot be a bad thing. It won't kill you, and you'll still be able to do your work almost as well as before. Why would you shut yourself off from life by encasing your arm in plaster? Feeling the pain of aggravating your injury is just part of enjoying life to its fullest.
--
--
Appropriate Tom Toles cartoon
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Oh sure, that might be the most rational position, but what fun is it? Can you *prove* everything? Can you prove that all of the other users of Slashdot are real people, and not just some AI gone horribly wrong? Are you reserving judgement on that?
Besides, think about all the perks religious people get -- free holidays, invisible friends, an inflated sense of moral worth... are you going to give all that up just to be rational? Just make up your own religion -- there's no proof that the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist, and it doesn't it just feel like the universe is incomplete without her? Who knows, maybe you'll get luckly like L. Ron, and it'll take.
--matt (a strong atheist, sometimes a taoist, a Bokononist, or a follower of the IPU)
--
Hint: How many people in the audience know off the top of their head what an EMP is? It's just another case of a science fiction story having to explain itself to its audience... sometimes it can be done subtlely, and sometimes not.
Scientist #1: "If things keep getting worse, we may have to resort to using the Figulon Device..."
Scientist #2: "The Figulon Device? You mean the device that can rip a hole in the fabric of space-time allowing us to journey to the dimension of the squid-people?"
Scientist #1: "Exactly."
--
> I'd be hard pressed to find *2* gigs of
>DECENT porn.
Hm, it's so hard to choose between the obvious responses. I guess I like:
a) If by 'DECENT' you mean 'fully clothed,' then yes.
and
b) Then you must not be doing it right :p
Man, Salon needs a little work before they're ready for serious journalism. As far as I can tell, this article was just the interviewer throwing a couple of softball pro-piracy questions out there, and letting Valenti swat them around with the company line. If you want to run an interview, fine. Ask the person about their work or whatever it is that makes them interesting to people. If you want to do a "free information vs. corporate control" piece, then don't make it into an interview -- have people write some point-counterpoint articles, or maybe even an ongoing email debate... Oh well, I guess it's better than the interview with Orson Scott Card, where the interviewer talked about herself for about half the write-up.
*sigh*. Everyone on slashdot seems perfectly willing to babble on about Valenti being clueless, even though he's clearly a savvy businessman. (working for the minions of evil, but still reasonably intelligent)
It gets to the point where the criticism becomes even more inane than the original point. Seriously, how long will it take until you *are* able to send a DVD in just a few minutes to millions of people. Five years? Ten? Two?
Check out some of Larry Niven's short stories about Earth in the future where transporter technology is effective and reasonbly cheap. People are effectively able to hop anywhere in the world they want to, but of course this technology has its misuses...
I don't remember the exact name of this particular story, I think it was called "The Last Days of the Floating Riot Club." This group of people would teleport themselves into a location, and start an interesting disurbance. The more interesting the disturbance, the more people from all over the country come to watch it, and when the place hits critical mass, a riot erupts.
Basically just a fun idea... like a real-life DoS attack...
I'm really trying to understand what you mean by "cool things." I can really only think of two:
1. Rewrite it from scratch.
2. Write a program that removes Outlook from the network, and prevents it from ever being reinstalled. (no small feat)
You are in a maze of twisty, browish-grey passages, all alike.
There is a ravenous fiend here.
>kill fiend
What do you want to kill the fiend with?
>nail gun
You do not have that weapon.
The fiend leaps on you! You are torn apart by its sharp claws.
**** You have died ****
Please... someone give me a label... I desperately need one to pin my identity on.
Ok ok... I guess I feel compelled to reply to this. There are many good reasons to like the X-Files, some people like it for its spooky atmosphere and horror episodes, and some people like it for its nonsensical convolted conspiracy plotlines. Myself I think it's entertaining, and a least an order of maginitude higher quality than all other TV shows.
Some key points in favor of the show:
1. Great characters. Say what you will about Gill and sex appeal, many people are attracted to at least one of Mulder and Scully. They're good-looking, they're funny, and they have a whole host of surrounding dramatis personae. The Lone Gunmen, for example... good enough to base a whole nother series on, maybe. (Actually, I'd much rather watch a spinoff focussing on Cancerman and the Consortium, but that's just me.)
2. Good writing/acting. Ok, so not every episode is the original piece of plot in the world. At least it's not lame Hollywood crap. Plus, there are some real gems of episodes tossed in the mix. I recommend watching the show for at least a couple of weeks (one ep/day) before casting judgement.
3. Excellent photography/direction. Like I said, ten times better than almost all other TV shows. It's dark, it's stylish, it's just plain fun to watch.
4. Cool music. It goes past the theme too. Nothing like eerie music to add the sweet finishing touches to a good horrifying scene.
Anyway, that's about all I have to say about that. I hope there isn't a LGM spinoff, just because spinoffs are usually not that great, and Chris Carter hasn't gone anything good in several years.
Just like massive multiplayer online games and Communism... they're great ideas, but then you realise that you have to depend on the cooperation of complete strangers and other fsckups to make them work.
And what can really be done about that while maintaining the things that make Usenet great, like anonymity, diversity, widespread access and ease of use?
Anonymity is vastly overrated. If every user had to correspond to a unique real-life person, then there would be no more spam. Anyone who posted disallowed stuff would quickly be banned, and soon spammers would run out of real people to create users off of. Of course, in order to have such a situation, you would need monitors with a great deal of power/responsibility. This is why people veer away from police states in real life, but must the 'net be a completely analogous domain?
Of course, Gibson is great at this, and Neuromancer is surely a sci-fi classic on many merits. I just find that by the second or third book of his, I feel like I'm reading the same thing all over again.
On the 'my author can beat up your author' subject, here are my authors:
Neal Stephenson. If you haven't read The Diamond Age, go read it now. Stephenson's plots are intricate, entertaining, and vibrant.
Jeff Noon. If you haven't read Vurt, go read it now. Noon's tripped out future world is imagination at its finest.
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"All my life I wanted to be someone... guess I should have been more specific."
I don't mean to troll here, but screw the Libertarian party. It'd be nice if Congress disappeared, and we got to start all over with making our government system, but it'd be even nicer if the member of Congress were replaced by competent people loyal to the American public. As far as I can tell, libertarians fall into two bunches: the anarchists, who believe that everything would be peachy if we just obliterated anything vaguely resembling a power structure, and the private-sector lovers, who think that government power structures are bad, and private power structures are good. Myself, of course, I diagree with both. If all of our organisations were torn down, we would simply rebuild it again. Throughout history, humans have preferred building hierarchies to tearing them down. Perhaps because, if we were able to return to what people commonly refer to as a "state of nature," all of our social advances would deteriorate, eventually leaving us in a place where life was nasty, butish, and short. As for the matter of private institutions vs. public institutions, private institutions have no responsibility to look out for the welfare of the majority. If our government looks bad, it's only because over the years it's turned into a private institution, and shrugged off its mantle of representing the will of the people. So yes, I know the comment was supposed to be funny, and yes, I found it amusing. For some reason I just have a knee-jerk to over plugs for the LP...
Actually, the Communists have been saying for years that we should eliminate the concept of private property. The idea that total democracy may not be the best way to make decisions has been around a lot longer than communism. We have voting in this country, but what are we really voting for? We're voting for a representative to make our laws for us -- to make the decisions that are best made by some intelligent and benevolent odd-ball. The problem, in my opinion, is that the people who are getting elected have made it their job only to get elected, and rarely understand just what it is they've been elected to do.
(from the nice folks at the Onion, who always seem to say it best.)
Bush: 'Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over.'
(from the article)
Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."
"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."
Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."
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