Another point which I forgot to mention about India - take something like File sharing.
A leading newspaper in Delhi, once printed an article about how easy filesharing is and recommending it to all users - with diagrams! No corporation raised an eyebrow.
In short, people have better things to do than to go around policing.
Having said that, there are strong social norms. But it's easy to ignore social norms rather than legal ones.
It's interesting to note that India has a lot more freedom than any other country.
The main reason for this is that though there can be laws, no one is interested in implementing "high blown" stuff and the police more or less only stick to the basics like real crime fighting. Politicians fight so much that there's no consensus on anything really, and in light of what I see happening in other countries, that's a good thing!
And perhaps best of all, it's highly consumer friendly - corporations don't dictate diddly squat.
Another point is that with a population of over a billion, India has simply too many people to control or survey - and it's a democracy unlike China which has some of the same features
Forget jailbreaking the iShit.... just don't buy one, problem solved. Ohhhh, you want to use the iWhateverStuff? Live with the DRM then, sucker!
Your logic would be relevant if Apple provided an alternative means to get apps on the iPhone. Otherwise, true it's their store, but I don't have a choice and am forced to use it - Therefore, I am also forced to Jailbreak it so that I can run whatever apps I want on my phone.
Him being a lousy customer - not Illegal or Unethical
Amazon not wanting to sell him anything again - not Illegal or Unethical
Ensuring that he can't use his expensive Kindle (not being able to download archived books or new ones from the company that sold it to him) - Unethical and Dubiously legal
So you buy an expensive book reader solely for the purpose of reading books and you can't ever read any new content on it from the company he's supposed to buy from?
I totally agree with this. The whole concept of contract to pay for the subsidized phone is a smokescreen. Phones should NEVER be locked.
If people feel that no one in America can afford to buy a phone at it's full price, how come people in less developed countries (India, China) can? People in developed places are supposed to find it easier to purchase things than those in not-so-developed countries. Even the lower exchange rate comes nowhere close to making up the difference
In India, people don't even understand the concept of a contract for a phone. They change their phones every two or three months and their plans as well. Everything works with everything else. You can use whatever software you want on any hardware/OS that supports it. They tried to introduce the locked iPhone in India and their sales are a disaster having sold less than 12,000 units till now (In a country that has the second largest cell phone market in the world). No Indian in his right senses will be willing to get locked in for a contract. And you can get great phones with ease (Example HTC touch) that work with any damn network. It's not a question of the price either - The blackberry which costs a similar amount has been a huge success.
As an Indian who has just come to visit America and go back after a while, I can't help feeling that you guys are getting screwed over by AT&T/Verizon/Comcast etc. It shouldn't be such a big expensive commitment to buy a phone - period. You should be able to use and throw with great rates (unlike the pre paid phones here) using whatever hardware you like with whatever carrier you like.
That's isn't a valid argument. This isn't cut and dried like a scientific field such as physics. "Experts" have frequently come up with disastrous solutions. Ex: Japan's stagflation.
Bottom line: Economics isn't really science and sometimes common sense is just as useful (or useless) as Nobel prize winning theory.
Kasparov had immortality to gain. In fact I'm fairly certain most people today remember him only as The First Person To Lose Against A Computer In Chess and have no idea who deep blue is.
Kasparov was the first World Champion to lose to a computer in a full fledged match with standard time controls.
A bird doesn't learn how to build a nest. Neither does a spider acquire the experience to spin a web after experimentation. That knowledge is built into them and is instinct, and not cogent though in spite of your high blown words like "multi dimensional gradient" and "quantization".
Without a doubt, the chimp in question learned a pattern. I leave it as an exercise to you to guess what that pattern was.
The distinction between instinct and cogent thought is very real unlike what you imply. If spiders had to learn how to spin a web, they would starve, and so in their case, cogent thought is neither needed nor important.
In other news, birds build nests before hatching eggs. Elephants travel days to go to salt-licks. Spiders build webs before catching prey.
I'm not saying that these aren't different from what this ape has done, but let us better characterize what that difference is first. How is building a pile of stones to throw different than a bird building a nest before laying eggs? Let us be careful and differentiate between planning, intentional planning, and be wary of attributing planning to behavior that **looks** human.
I would guess that the difference lies in the fact that the Chimps behavior was not a product of instinct, but that of cogent thought.
One might argue that birds building a nest before laying eggs is not forethought, but merely programming, as is the building of a web by a spider.
Because in the US, or any country with large corporates who don't care about what customers want, you're stuck with what they decide to shell out to you and call the "greatest".
For example, the RIAA trying to stop progress by opposing any technology that actually makes life easier.
You obviously haven't heard that Gandhi was willing to fast to death to achieve his so called by you - "lofty" goals.
You haven't heard of Guru Tegh Bahadur who withstood torture and was unwilling to let go of his "noble" ideas.
People are willing to starve and undergo torture to protect their ideals. If you aren't willing to do that, at least don't insult their memory by claiming that they were fools to do so. We need more people like them, not less.
Why should anyone have a "right" to get paid for what technology makes free? New innovation constantly makes offerings obsolete and that's just the way it is.
They don't need to be compensated in any way. That's their tough luck
I disagree. Free speech is the most important foundation of a free country.
India fought for independence when fighting for the right to self determination even though there were homeless people at that time too. Should the freedom fighters have said "We have bigger problems?"
The lower infrastructural facilities in India deserve attention, no doubt, but not at the cost of what makes India a free country. Also, why is are you implying that the two are exclusive? You can't say - "First I will do this, and then I will do that".
Tolerating Free speech is about changing an attitude. Where does the lack of clean water come into this?
True. It is hard to fire a judge here. However, the courts and specially the Supreme Court is seen to be one of the saviors of India because they are not afraid of the political classes.
Also, the judge who delivered this judgment was no less than the Chief Justice himself. Thing is, he hasn't said that what the blogger said was wrong. He says that the blogger is responsible for what he writes.
I'm disturbed by this. I believe the Internet should be a place where anyone can say anything. This will only increase anonymous blogging. On the other hand, I would be very hesitant to trash the judiciary as it's one of the few pillars of Indian society that is keeping corrupt politicians from doing whatever the hell they want.
This is the Supreme court. I seriously doubt that anyone or any political party has "bought" them.
In addition, this was delivered by the Chief Justice of India himself and he is known to be an upright man.
Even though I find it disturbing, the Chief Justice has not said that what the blogger said was wrong - that's another issue. He is saying that bloggers are liable for what they say. That isn't really a first though - Barkha Dutt and NDTV threatened to sue a blogger from criticizing them, and they were a media house!
The real problem is that bloggers who are individuals can be intimidated by the threat of legal action by powerful organizations even though the charges have no merit. Sounds like the RIAA. Same problems all over the world.
I can't blame the charities. Of course, they will lobby. But usually the government doesn't listen to them.
The government chooses to listen to them now since they want an excuse to do this under the smokescreen of listening to charity institutions.
I agree. Just look at this statement:
"The focus of their work is not the safety of particle accelerators per se but the chances of any particular scientific argument being wrong."
Can you get any broader than that? What they're essentially saying is that anything can be wrong - Including their own paper.
Suppose my wife and I agree to act out a fantasy that we've just met in school, and she and I are both dressed as if we're 15 or 16, would that constitute child Porn?
The argument that we're not really kids won't hold any more, nor will the argument that we're not showing it to anyone else since the court has now decided that even drawings in the privacy of our homes are illegal.
This si quite the thin end of the wedge.
Slashdot Mirror
Another point which I forgot to mention about India - take something like File sharing.
A leading newspaper in Delhi, once printed an article about how easy filesharing is and recommending it to all users - with diagrams! No corporation raised an eyebrow.
In short, people have better things to do than to go around policing.
Having said that, there are strong social norms. But it's easy to ignore social norms rather than legal ones.
It's interesting to note that India has a lot more freedom than any other country.
The main reason for this is that though there can be laws, no one is interested in implementing "high blown" stuff and the police more or less only stick to the basics like real crime fighting. Politicians fight so much that there's no consensus on anything really, and in light of what I see happening in other countries, that's a good thing!
And perhaps best of all, it's highly consumer friendly - corporations don't dictate diddly squat.
Another point is that with a population of over a billion, India has simply too many people to control or survey - and it's a democracy unlike China which has some of the same features
Forget jailbreaking the iShit.... just don't buy one, problem solved. Ohhhh, you want to use the iWhateverStuff? Live with the DRM then, sucker!
Your logic would be relevant if Apple provided an alternative means to get apps on the iPhone. Otherwise, true it's their store, but I don't have a choice and am forced to use it - Therefore, I am also forced to Jailbreak it so that I can run whatever apps I want on my phone.
But in general, his principal is right. There's an article about how mortgages should be banned that I wrote that discusses just this.
Him being a lousy customer - not Illegal or Unethical
Amazon not wanting to sell him anything again - not Illegal or Unethical
Ensuring that he can't use his expensive Kindle (not being able to download archived books or new ones from the company that sold it to him) - Unethical and Dubiously legal
So you buy an expensive book reader solely for the purpose of reading books and you can't ever read any new content on it from the company he's supposed to buy from?
How f****d up is that?
I don't think we can blame Google for annoying us with their ads. They can be very spot on too.
If people feel that no one in America can afford to buy a phone at it's full price, how come people in less developed countries (India, China) can? People in developed places are supposed to find it easier to purchase things than those in not-so-developed countries. Even the lower exchange rate comes nowhere close to making up the difference
In India, people don't even understand the concept of a contract for a phone. They change their phones every two or three months and their plans as well. Everything works with everything else. You can use whatever software you want on any hardware/OS that supports it. They tried to introduce the locked iPhone in India and their sales are a disaster having sold less than 12,000 units till now (In a country that has the second largest cell phone market in the world). No Indian in his right senses will be willing to get locked in for a contract. And you can get great phones with ease (Example HTC touch) that work with any damn network. It's not a question of the price either - The blackberry which costs a similar amount has been a huge success.
As an Indian who has just come to visit America and go back after a while, I can't help feeling that you guys are getting screwed over by AT&T/Verizon/Comcast etc. It shouldn't be such a big expensive commitment to buy a phone - period. You should be able to use and throw with great rates (unlike the pre paid phones here) using whatever hardware you like with whatever carrier you like.
Bottom line: Economics isn't really science and sometimes common sense is just as useful (or useless) as Nobel prize winning theory.
Kasparov had immortality to gain. In fact I'm fairly certain most people today remember him only as The First Person To Lose Against A Computer In Chess and have no idea who deep blue is.
Kasparov was the first World Champion to lose to a computer in a full fledged match with standard time controls.
A bird doesn't learn how to build a nest. Neither does a spider acquire the experience to spin a web after experimentation. That knowledge is built into them and is instinct, and not cogent though in spite of your high blown words like "multi dimensional gradient" and "quantization".
Without a doubt, the chimp in question learned a pattern. I leave it as an exercise to you to guess what that pattern was.
The distinction between instinct and cogent thought is very real unlike what you imply. If spiders had to learn how to spin a web, they would starve, and so in their case, cogent thought is neither needed nor important.
In other news, birds build nests before hatching eggs. Elephants travel days to go to salt-licks. Spiders build webs before catching prey.
I'm not saying that these aren't different from what this ape has done, but let us better characterize what that difference is first. How is building a pile of stones to throw different than a bird building a nest before laying eggs? Let us be careful and differentiate between planning, intentional planning, and be wary of attributing planning to behavior that **looks** human.
I would guess that the difference lies in the fact that the Chimps behavior was not a product of instinct, but that of cogent thought.
One might argue that birds building a nest before laying eggs is not forethought, but merely programming, as is the building of a web by a spider.
For example, the RIAA trying to stop progress by opposing any technology that actually makes life easier.
This post tries to put it in words.
You haven't heard of Guru Tegh Bahadur who withstood torture and was unwilling to let go of his "noble" ideas.
People are willing to starve and undergo torture to protect their ideals. If you aren't willing to do that, at least don't insult their memory by claiming that they were fools to do so. We need more people like them, not less.
They don't need to be compensated in any way. That's their tough luck
India fought for independence when fighting for the right to self determination even though there were homeless people at that time too. Should the freedom fighters have said "We have bigger problems?"
The lower infrastructural facilities in India deserve attention, no doubt, but not at the cost of what makes India a free country. Also, why is are you implying that the two are exclusive? You can't say - "First I will do this, and then I will do that".
Tolerating Free speech is about changing an attitude. Where does the lack of clean water come into this?
Also, the judge who delivered this judgment was no less than the Chief Justice himself. Thing is, he hasn't said that what the blogger said was wrong. He says that the blogger is responsible for what he writes.
I'm disturbed by this. I believe the Internet should be a place where anyone can say anything. This will only increase anonymous blogging. On the other hand, I would be very hesitant to trash the judiciary as it's one of the few pillars of Indian society that is keeping corrupt politicians from doing whatever the hell they want.
In addition, this was delivered by the Chief Justice of India himself and he is known to be an upright man.
Even though I find it disturbing, the Chief Justice has not said that what the blogger said was wrong - that's another issue. He is saying that bloggers are liable for what they say. That isn't really a first though - Barkha Dutt and NDTV threatened to sue a blogger from criticizing them, and they were a media house!
The real problem is that bloggers who are individuals can be intimidated by the threat of legal action by powerful organizations even though the charges have no merit. Sounds like the RIAA. Same problems all over the world.
I can't blame the charities. Of course, they will lobby. But usually the government doesn't listen to them. The government chooses to listen to them now since they want an excuse to do this under the smokescreen of listening to charity institutions.
I agree. Just look at this statement: "The focus of their work is not the safety of particle accelerators per se but the chances of any particular scientific argument being wrong." Can you get any broader than that? What they're essentially saying is that anything can be wrong - Including their own paper.
Suppose my wife and I agree to act out a fantasy that we've just met in school, and she and I are both dressed as if we're 15 or 16, would that constitute child Porn? The argument that we're not really kids won't hold any more, nor will the argument that we're not showing it to anyone else since the court has now decided that even drawings in the privacy of our homes are illegal. This si quite the thin end of the wedge.