There are (at least) two faces to any religion,
The spiritual path and the social/cultural phenomenom created when followers of a spiritual path get together
Religious communities develop distinctive subcultures which are influenced by the parent culture at least as much as the spiritual path. There is a synergy between the two that produces something new.
Examples of such subcultures are the Quakers, the Wee Free Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
A religious community may develop features that are totally antithetical to that religion's spiritual path. The most obvious example is the US religious right and bible belt but the same thing happens in Islam and Judaism. These three religions, along with the religions of Capitalism and Communism, seem to be peculiarly prone to intolerance of other viewpoints, but the phenomenom is no confined to these religions.
It would take a book that no one has, to my knowledge, written, to explore the reasons this intolerance develops and that is not my aim here.
You are both right Christianity is a path and a culture. But if you really find "Christian" intolerance intolerable why are you letting it continue unchallenged. If you consider the Buchanans, Robertsons etc not to be "true christians" why are you not fighting them from within the church as creations of the devil designed to ruin the name of Christianity?
To try to drag this post back on topic, suppose a rich and influential organisation of pseudochristians issued a challenge to anyone who wanted concerning the literal validity of the bible but used threat of legal process to suppress publication of the entries. Would you be as supportive?
Closing the relays affects legitimate customers.
My original ISP (Demon Internet) has closed its relays but can't be bothered to implement the latest protocols which would allow me to send mail other than by dialling up from my home number.
This made me move onto Yahoo and other web based services since I travel a lot.
Suppose you modify the scenario with a website where people pledge money to be given to somebody under certain conditions - for example to the President if they resign office and leave politics two years before the next election. Or you could use this against a Tax official who abuses their powers.
The idea is that every person has their price. This could be a useful way of persuading some of the deadbeats only in politics for the money to leave.
Of course that would then leave the sickos who are only in it for the money power and free sex
As well as those who genuinely want to serve their country and humanity. But that person, if they exist, will never be bribed to leave in this way.
Copyright should be invested in the original creator with licences delegating copyright for limited periods for those commissioning them
to create works for publication.
If the publisher ceases to publish the work, e.g if a book is out of print, the license shouls terminate automatically and copyright should revert to the original creator.
If the work was created by a team then special rules would have to apply.
Apart from that, life of the author plus 20 years
with a possibility of extension for individual works ( at a price ) might work
Umm...
In any country Government hates the idea of an independently thinking well educated population.
In the UK however there is a long and unpleasant tradition of deference to authority and to ones social superiors. Couple that to the fact that the UK has always been on where animals are loved and children barely tolerated and you can see that children who think independently will be hated for that. They also make life harder for teachers and that makes them unpopular with the teachers.
I suggest you think independently but keep your mouth closed unless you can see a clear advantage to yourself in speaking up. It is frequently an advantage to be considered stupid and asking arkward questions when it embarrasses your teachers labels you as a trouble maker.
If however you have the courage and strength to stand up to these people I wish you good luck.
You might however consider forming a school skeptic society with a charter that explicitly forbids suppression of independent thinking. If the school forbids it form an extra curricular society.
However I don't think that, in general, things that aren't intended for causing injury to other people should be illegal.
Well in England and Holland at least it is illegal to carry even a swiss army knife on the grounds that you might lose your temper and stab someone with it. There are no similar restriction on screwdrivers or steel combs etc, but in Amsterdam it is illegal to carry any sharp objects on public transport.
We are talking the assumption that all knives are made for injuring people.
Of course these rules are prime examples of politicians making rules to satisfy a public panic while making another way to be sure that if they want to arrest you for criticizing them they can arrest you for something else.
This is SO cool! With this stuff you can turn your computer off, turn it back on and be right where you left off!
So when your system freezes and won't respond to anything else you pull the plug, start again and there you are, a frozen system again. Still, if they can get past that problem, it sounds promising
"Film studios say zoning is designed to minimise piracy. But Ms Cross said it was 'against the spirit of free competition and a potential trade barrier. We'll fight so the prices come down.'"
I would think there is scope for a legal challenge by writers and others paid royalties on sales, that regional pricing prevents them maximising their income and therefore damages them ( this assumes their contract does not base royalties on maximum worldwide price rather than local sale prices)
I have to agree with Cross. The regional codes are more about protecting their "right" to profit gouge rather than to prevent piracy.
Well piracy DOES damage profits. There must however be other ways to prevent piracy
Re:An easy way to deter unoriginal patents
on
Perens on Patents
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· Score: 1
I believe the suggestion is redundant. If prior art is demonstrated that renders the patent obvious or non-original that patent is invalid.
Where lawyers get rich is demonstrating or disproving the above.
I don't know about the record scene but as I recall it writers get at least 10% royalties. This reflects the risk the publisher takes: once they book is underway the writer can sit back ad rest for a week then get on with the next project.
I have tried to set up a business in the past. It takes time to market stuff. Generally speaking if the writer tries self publishing they won't write: you have to assume between 6 and twelve months intensive marketing before money comes in. I see no reason why it should be different for musicians.
There is, however, an increasing trend for writers to self publish and I can see this spreading to music. It's a trend could eventually be more of a threat to the big labels than MP3 or related technologies.
On the other hand self publishing is more suited to niche markets than to the mass markets the big labels need to tap in order to keep their marketing and other departments paid.
So I have no problem with big labels trying to protect their investment. There are things I don't like about the music industry, in particular tendency to be unwilling to use a small percentage of profits for experimental releases that don't hit the mass markets.
(this whole area is something I need to think about eventually to get ideas straigh but not just yet)
Would people here still think it right to pirate music if the musician was self publishing? Or it was a small independent label?
Yet another straw man to take the fall and to be used to justify more restrictions on the 'net. THe bill of rights died with the end of the Soviet Union. There's no more visible yardstick of what we (the US) cannot allow ourselves to become. PH33R the future.
Aghanistan?, Iraq?, Singapore (a very sinister and scary country)?, Syria?, Red China?... A long list, confounded by the fact that Dictatorships are considered OK as long as they are of use to the US Government.
Interesting set of replies here. Seems any effort by the US government to look at their own citizens is evil.
But any other government trying to take action to stop the US government spying on their citizens sparks of a load of insults directed against that government.
First time in my life I've felt any sympathy for the French.
In response to your point (1) 1) Do not confuse Anti-Christian with "left wing" There are quite a few agressively anti-christian rightwing groups. 2) Fighting for what you believe in is OK. Imposing your beliefs and way of life on others is not To point (2) 1) we are not talking about committed christians, we are talking about the religious right who I consider more akin psychologically to Hezbollah and the Taliban than to real Christians. A few years ago a man in Saudi Arabia was executed for merely posessing books on Polytheism and Magic. I have heard of people in America attacked with axes and knives purely for wearing a pentacle. (Do not infer anything about my spiritual path from this). I would argue that I met more real christians in a Quaker meeeting in Scotland than I would in a year in America's bible belt. 2) The statement that America was founded on Christian Principles is debatable, and the second statement that that was what made America great is not unproven and a non sequitur. As I understand it America became a world power only in the 20th century, an era characterised by the rise of oorganised crime and institutionalised political corruption on a scale unparalleled in world history. It was the ruthless attitude that went with these that made America great. Are these what you call Christian Principles? 3) There are, I hear from sources I trust, large areas of the USA, outside the main cities, where not calling oneself a Christian is dangerous to ones career and physical wellbeing. In some parts even Catholics are barely tolerated. This is one reason why, despite pressure from my wife, I will not look for work in the USA 4) You have a right to educate your children in accordance with your beliefs. You do not have the right to brainwash them. If my son ( baptised catholic) ever shows signs of being on a quest for a new spiritual path I will give him a reading list and tell him I will be always be willing to debate with him to clarify ideas and maybe learn. He will not learn about my spiritual path until he asks. Your point 4 sounds reasonable. I feel physical punishment should be a last resort, though sometimes a sharp slap will help teach a child not to put their hand in the mincer and switch it on. As stated I would agree with your point (5) but I suspect we would disagree with the interpetation and implementation. Your point (6) sounds reasonable at first, but "Porn" can be replaced by almost anything. I could continue and make this reply mor rigorous but I have other tasks to complete.
Re:Why UseNet will remain popular
on
Is Usenet Dying?
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· Score: 1
I started reading USENET around 1984 - certainly by 1990 I was reading it regularly. It's grown since then. Then I used RN, now I use Mac Soup or ( on UNIX) Netscape - which never savers my subscriptions, so I use it much less often. The difficulty with USENET is the sheer volume. I have to skim interesting threads as life is only so long. Spam is a minor problem compared with this. I agree largely with your post but I think the sheer VOLUME of news is a problem, and many users do not want to search through 30,000+ titles. Fortunately the better newsreaders can automate search, but the larger groups are too unwieldy for a dial up connection ( misc.jobs.offered should be split into multiple groups for example) No USENET will not die, but it needs radicallu new tools to prevent information overload.
Re:They're POLLUTING The Internet
on
Is Usenet Dying?
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· Score: 1
Nonsense. What may be killing USENET, because people don't know how to use kill files, is inappropriate commercial posts. It's not BIG companies that post all the junk, it's the small startup business plus the professional con man and his dupes, the porn sites and other small businesses. Now I sympathise with the small startup business. I tried to start one once. Being undercapitalised I got nowhere. Most realise rapidly that UNSENET is not a good advertising medium. Its the stupid and desparate that keep trying, aided by "journalists" who look at the number of users and conclude it must be a good medium. If you are getting a load of extra crap the solution is to refine your search progressively. My problem is that information I want is usually not on the web: as an up to date example, I was looking for a mobile phone emulator to run under LINUX or Solaris. Nothing. On the other hand a lot of material over 10 years old is unlikely to be on the Web. Project Gutenberg is doing a good job, for example, but nothing they put up is in my areas of interest.
I can't resist my favourite example of this: About ten years ago Immigration officials arrested about a dozen illegal immigrants while they were working - as cleaners in the UK Immigration Office near London.
Automation is not replacement for using the brain, merely a supplement. OK maybe they didn't have the electronic tools but they were able to collect a LOT of data and had a lot of people to analyse it. Not all were stupid, some doubtless pretended stupidity to keep the job and stay alive (In Stalin's time there was a good chance you would be shot before you finished analysis.). Remember the KGB earned the respect of Western Intelligence services. The tradition of collecting data is old in Russia. As I understand it Okhrana files are a major historical data source on the life of Rasputin. The current state of chaos in Russia is more likely to mean that government will not use this information, but the Mafia will.
Slashdot Mirror
Religious communities develop distinctive subcultures which are influenced by the parent culture at least as much as the spiritual path. There is a synergy between the two that produces something new.
Examples of such subcultures are the Quakers, the Wee Free Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
A religious community may develop features that are totally antithetical to that religion's spiritual path. The most obvious example is the US religious right and bible belt but the same thing happens in Islam and Judaism. These three religions, along with the religions of Capitalism and Communism, seem to be peculiarly prone to intolerance of other viewpoints, but the phenomenom is no confined to these religions.
It would take a book that no one has, to my knowledge, written, to explore the reasons this intolerance develops and that is not my aim here.
You are both right Christianity is a path and a culture. But if you really find "Christian" intolerance intolerable why are you letting it continue unchallenged. If you consider the Buchanans, Robertsons etc not to be "true christians" why are you not fighting them from within the church as creations of the devil designed to ruin the name of Christianity?
To try to drag this post back on topic, suppose a rich and influential organisation of pseudochristians issued a challenge to anyone who wanted concerning the literal validity of the bible but used threat of legal process to suppress publication of the entries. Would you be as supportive?
This is effectively no different from kidnapping the crackers and should be grounds for throwing out the case.
This made me move onto Yahoo and other web based services since I travel a lot.
The idea is that every person has their price. This could be a useful way of persuading some of the deadbeats only in politics for the money to leave.
Of course that would then leave the sickos who are only in it for the money power and free sex
As well as those who genuinely want to serve their country and humanity. But that person, if they exist, will never be bribed to leave in this way.
Who made them the "owners" anyway?
Come to that what gives people the right to own land, after all they didn't make it.
If the publisher ceases to publish the work, e.g if a book is out of print, the license shouls terminate automatically and copyright should revert to the original creator.
If the work was created by a team then special rules would have to apply. Apart from that, life of the author plus 20 years with a possibility of extension for individual works ( at a price ) might work
In the UK however there is a long and unpleasant tradition of deference to authority and to ones social superiors. Couple that to the fact that the UK has always been on where animals are loved and children barely tolerated and you can see that children who think independently will be hated for that. They also make life harder for teachers and that makes them unpopular with the teachers.
I suggest you think independently but keep your mouth closed unless you can see a clear advantage to yourself in speaking up. It is frequently an advantage to be considered stupid and asking arkward questions when it embarrasses your teachers labels you as a trouble maker.
If however you have the courage and strength to stand up to these people I wish you good luck.
You might however consider forming a school skeptic society with a charter that explicitly forbids suppression of independent thinking. If the school forbids it form an extra curricular society.
However I don't think that, in general, things that aren't intended for causing injury to other people should be illegal.
Well in England and Holland at least it is illegal to carry even a swiss army knife on the grounds that you might lose your temper and stab someone with it. There are no similar restriction on screwdrivers or steel combs etc, but in Amsterdam it is illegal to carry any sharp objects on public transport.We are talking the assumption that all knives are made for injuring people.
Of course these rules are prime examples of politicians making rules to satisfy a public panic while making another way to be sure that if they want to arrest you for criticizing them they can arrest you for something else.
So when your system freezes and won't respond to anything else you pull the plug, start again and there you are, a frozen system again. Still, if they can get past that problem, it sounds promising
I bookmarked the report this morning. This afternoon it is no loger on line.
I would think there is scope for a legal challenge by writers and others paid royalties on sales, that regional pricing prevents them maximising their income and therefore damages them ( this assumes their contract does not base royalties on maximum worldwide price rather than local sale prices)
I have to agree with Cross. The regional codes are more about protecting their "right" to profit gouge rather than to prevent piracy.
Well piracy DOES damage profits. There must however be other ways to prevent piracy
Where lawyers get rich is demonstrating or disproving the above.
I have tried to set up a business in the past. It takes time to market stuff. Generally speaking if the writer tries self publishing they won't write: you have to assume between 6 and twelve months intensive marketing before money comes in. I see no reason why it should be different for musicians.
There is, however, an increasing trend for writers to self publish and I can see this spreading to music. It's a trend could eventually be more of a threat to the big labels than MP3 or related technologies.
On the other hand self publishing is more suited to niche markets than to the mass markets the big labels need to tap in order to keep their marketing and other departments paid.
So I have no problem with big labels trying to protect their investment. There are things I don't like about the music industry, in particular tendency to be unwilling to use a small percentage of profits for experimental releases that don't hit the mass markets.
(this whole area is something I need to think about eventually to get ideas straigh but not just yet)
Would people here still think it right to pirate music if the musician was self publishing? Or it was a small independent label?
But any other government trying to take action to stop the US government spying on their citizens sparks of a load of insults directed against that government.
First time in my life I've felt any sympathy for the French.
In response to your point (1) 1) Do not confuse Anti-Christian with "left wing" There are quite a few agressively anti-christian rightwing groups. 2) Fighting for what you believe in is OK. Imposing your beliefs and way of life on others is not To point (2) 1) we are not talking about committed christians, we are talking about the religious right who I consider more akin psychologically to Hezbollah and the Taliban than to real Christians. A few years ago a man in Saudi Arabia was executed for merely posessing books on Polytheism and Magic. I have heard of people in America attacked with axes and knives purely for wearing a pentacle. (Do not infer anything about my spiritual path from this). I would argue that I met more real christians in a Quaker meeeting in Scotland than I would in a year in America's bible belt. 2) The statement that America was founded on Christian Principles is debatable, and the second statement that that was what made America great is not unproven and a non sequitur. As I understand it America became a world power only in the 20th century, an era characterised by the rise of oorganised crime and institutionalised political corruption on a scale unparalleled in world history. It was the ruthless attitude that went with these that made America great. Are these what you call Christian Principles? 3) There are, I hear from sources I trust, large areas of the USA, outside the main cities, where not calling oneself a Christian is dangerous to ones career and physical wellbeing. In some parts even Catholics are barely tolerated. This is one reason why, despite pressure from my wife, I will not look for work in the USA 4) You have a right to educate your children in accordance with your beliefs. You do not have the right to brainwash them. If my son ( baptised catholic) ever shows signs of being on a quest for a new spiritual path I will give him a reading list and tell him I will be always be willing to debate with him to clarify ideas and maybe learn. He will not learn about my spiritual path until he asks. Your point 4 sounds reasonable. I feel physical punishment should be a last resort, though sometimes a sharp slap will help teach a child not to put their hand in the mincer and switch it on. As stated I would agree with your point (5) but I suspect we would disagree with the interpetation and implementation. Your point (6) sounds reasonable at first, but "Porn" can be replaced by almost anything. I could continue and make this reply mor rigorous but I have other tasks to complete.
I started reading USENET around 1984 - certainly by 1990 I was reading it regularly. It's grown since then. Then I used RN, now I use Mac Soup or ( on UNIX) Netscape - which never savers my subscriptions, so I use it much less often. The difficulty with USENET is the sheer volume. I have to skim interesting threads as life is only so long. Spam is a minor problem compared with this. I agree largely with your post but I think the sheer VOLUME of news is a problem, and many users do not want to search through 30,000+ titles. Fortunately the better newsreaders can automate search, but the larger groups are too unwieldy for a dial up connection ( misc.jobs.offered should be split into multiple groups for example) No USENET will not die, but it needs radicallu new tools to prevent information overload.
Nonsense. What may be killing USENET, because people don't know how to use kill files, is inappropriate commercial posts. It's not BIG companies that post all the junk, it's the small startup business plus the professional con man and his dupes, the porn sites and other small businesses. Now I sympathise with the small startup business. I tried to start one once. Being undercapitalised I got nowhere. Most realise rapidly that UNSENET is not a good advertising medium. Its the stupid and desparate that keep trying, aided by "journalists" who look at the number of users and conclude it must be a good medium. If you are getting a load of extra crap the solution is to refine your search progressively. My problem is that information I want is usually not on the web: as an up to date example, I was looking for a mobile phone emulator to run under LINUX or Solaris. Nothing. On the other hand a lot of material over 10 years old is unlikely to be on the Web. Project Gutenberg is doing a good job, for example, but nothing they put up is in my areas of interest.
I can't resist my favourite example of this: About ten years ago Immigration officials arrested about a dozen illegal immigrants while they were working - as cleaners in the UK Immigration Office near London.
Automation is not replacement for using the brain, merely a supplement. OK maybe they didn't have the electronic tools but they were able to collect a LOT of data and had a lot of people to analyse it. Not all were stupid, some doubtless pretended stupidity to keep the job and stay alive (In Stalin's time there was a good chance you would be shot before you finished analysis.). Remember the KGB earned the respect of Western Intelligence services. The tradition of collecting data is old in Russia. As I understand it Okhrana files are a major historical data source on the life of Rasputin. The current state of chaos in Russia is more likely to mean that government will not use this information, but the Mafia will.
Yep, Do the words "Echelon" and "UKUSA" ring a bell?
Indeed nothing has changed. So let's have the story