When the public sees an iMac-esque computer, what do they think of? Apple's iMacs, that's what. It's not that I feel Apple should be able to control who uses what cases, I just think that companies like eMachines that are blatently stealing Apple's designs... well, I think they're theives. Am I wrong?
I knew a girl in Metz, France about ten years ago. Whenever I (or any of the Americans I knew) saw her, we thought of Kim Basinger. Thief!
Of course we knew she wasn't Kim Basinger. And no member of the public could get past the first boot-up or amy demo screen without seeing the Win95 logo and Start Button.
There's a big difference between being "reminiscent of" and being "confusing". Any person who confuses a Win machine with a Mac doesn't have any idea what "mac" even means. E-machines didn't confuse them. They walked in confused on such a fundamantal level that they wouldn' recognize a non-iMac as a legitimate Mac (I've seen it happen with Quadra's and PPCs -- "That's not a Mac!")
Now if you want to argue that E-machines deliberately confuse users about their integrated video (onboard chips charing main memory and system bus, rather than separate video RAM on a separate card with its own on-card RAMDAC bus) I'd be on your side
I'm pleased you replied. You confirm my initial impression that you are a reasonable person
Do I feel that the ACLU behaved in a manner that I would have? Hell no. The KKK can go bugger themselves, and I don't think that there's anything and I don't think that there's anything wrong with plowing a church's parking lot,if that's where 1/2 the town goes the morning that it snows. \
I actually like to think the ACLU *did* behave in the manner I would have, though I am by no means a flaming liberal.
For clarification: I was born in Georgia, and while I am not black, I am of an asian ethnicity that was uncommin in Georgia in the 60's and 70's and don't pass the 'paper bag' test in GA or Boston (where there were race riots when I moved here in 1975.)
I, too, think the KK can go bugger itself (but not necessarily in Georgia;-> I believe the Supreme court ruled on GA's blanket prohibition on sodomy even within the bounds of marriage) However, I do not see that defending a specific right is the same as defending every act or belief of the defendant. just because I'd prosecute a murder or assault on a KKK member, doesn't mean I support all other opinions he might hold.
However, if 1/2 the town went to the cockfights or brothel on Sunday morning, I wouldn't necessarily agree that they are entitled to full town services (as opposed to prosecution)
I do not agree with their positions on a moral level. But I aboslutely support their right to do this, and I think that the ACLU has single-handledly reshaped the manner in which our country applies our Constitution to every day life.
I treat the ACLU's right to take a stand on the same level as the KKK's right to take a stand. But the right to expression is independent of the view or whether I happen to hold it -- e.g. I'm dead straight heterosexual, but I support treating homosexuals as humans, and respecting their choices that don't impose on others (and they rarely do)
Incidentally, just because they dramatically shaped our interpretation of the constituion doesn't suggest I should support them. There was a flip side to each of those debates, and that side had an equal effect: the ACLU doesn't always win.
But if I don't support a specific view, especially on moral grounds, then whether KKK or ACLU, I don't support it. Period. With no 'halo effect' judgement of whether they are usually 'good guys' or 'bad guys'
I believe that Aristotle pointed out that even the world'd greatest fool isn't always wrong, nor the world's wisest man always right. (Some days I'm not sure which side Aristotle fell on)
I do believe that the issue is addressed in the MGLA (Massachusetts General Laws Annotated) which would have significant (but not comprehensive) application in this case.
Among the many (scattered) relevant passages are: Chapter 223: Section 31. Summons; leaving at last known address, etc.
Section 31. In an action brought in the district court, if service is made at the last and usual place of abode, the officer making service shall forthwith mail first class a copy of the summons to such last and usual place of abode. The date of mailing and the address to which the summons was sent shall be set forth as required by section thirty-five in the officer's return.
Chapter 223: Section 34. Further notice to absent defendant.
Section 34. If the defendant is out of the commonwealth, or if his residence is not known to the officer, and no personal service is made on him or on his agent appointed under section five of chapter two hundred and twenty-seven, he shall, in addition to the service herein prescribed, be entitled to further notice of the action as provided in said chapter.
Though, in my experience, arguing improper service doesn't always get too far, since judges tend to feel 'you know you did something wrong" unless your lawyer is very diligent about arguing that this is a far cry from knowing you were actually required to appear in a certain place at a certain tim. [that asssumption makes a judges life much easier - though I'd blame the court clerk for not at least trying to confirm proper service)
BTW, Ch 227 sect 5, cited above. seems to apply only to those doing business in Massachusetts, but even entities doing business in Mass are entitled to more than e-service. To wit: Chapter 227: Section 5. Agents for service of process; duty to appoint by certain individuals; penalty.
Section 5. Every individual not an inhabitant of the commonwealth and every partnership composed of persons not such inhabitants, having a usual place of business in the commonwealth, temporarily or permanently, or engaged here, temporarily or permanently, and with or without a usual place of business here, in the construction, erection, alteration or repair of a building, bridge, railroad, railway, or structure of any kind, shall, before doing business in the commonwealth, appoint in writing a person who is a citizen and resident thereof to be his or its true and lawful attorney upon whom all lawful processes against such individual or partnership may be served with like effect as if served on such person or partnership; and said writing or power of attorney shall contain an agreement on the part of the maker that the service of any lawful process on said attorney shall be of the same force and validity as service on such individual or partnership. The power of attorney shall be filed in the office of the state secretary, and copies certified by him shall be taken as sufficient evidence thereof. Such agency shall be continued so long as such individual or partnership does business as aforesaid in the commonwealth, and the power of attorney shall not be revoked until a similar power is given to another citizen and resident of the commonwealth and filed as aforesaid. If such individual or partnership fails to appoint an agent and does business in this commonwealth, service of process, in duplicate, may be made upon the state secretary. The secretary shall, upon a payment of a fee of five dollars by the plaintiff, give notice to the defendant of said action by mailing by registered mail, return receipt requested, a copy of the legal process to the defendant's last known address which shall be furnished to the secretary by the plaintiff or his attorney.
I'm sure you're a great guy, and I certainly support you and the ACLU you in this, but your statement makes me cringe:
"The way I figure it, either you're a supporter of the ACLU, or you're opposed to portions of the US constitution. "
Is it possible that you really believe that you are privy to the One True Interpretation of the Constitution, and that anyone who disagrees with you is Anti-Constitution?
If that's true (and I'm sure you simply made an unintended overstatement), then I can guarantee that you don't have a good grip on what the Founding Fathers intended. Too much of the Constitution was deliberately (and skillfully) crafted with the understanding that honorable, educated men of good will would disagree on how it could and should be interpreted.
Of course, they didn't have to be too insightful to see that. It was happening on every streetcorner during the Constitutional Convention (with enough blindly greedy, self-interested, bad will to throw all the good will into stark relief)
I don't understand how any reasonable American that supports constitutional rights could ever be opposed to the ACLU.
Please, please! They are idealistic people who put in hard hours in support of their ideals, but they aren't deities. I would oppose this characterization of anyone -- Linus and RMS (who I knew back in the 70's, when it was an interesting experience and often a privilege, but not some sort of twisted honor) included.
Do you ever disagree with your sig. other? Heroes? Self? I do. It's called life. It's messy. That's why I like Ideals. They're tidier. I like to think the ACLU would defend my right to disagree.
They support constitutional rights, fairly, every time. Even when they do something that I don't like, which is a good chunk of the time, I'm entirely in favour of it.
Now that's downright silly. I understand you're going through a lot, and you probably tired. Lord knows that there have been times when I've been under life-altering attack for no other reason than that I was painfully clearly right; and I'd probably have built an altar and performed human sacrifices (well almost) to the ACLU if they'd rescued me (they might have, if I'd brought it to their attention. My issues had that kind of scope)
But I am never in favor of people doing anything I don't like. (I try to keep my definition of 'like' in line with that -- to do otherwise is to risk hypocracy and other self-deceptive evils) At best, I am glad that I live in a world where they can and do oppose me on a relatively level playing field -- because I know I'm not always right, and because I know what it's like to play on an uneven playing field.
To tell me that you are always in favor of them when they oppose you is a total abdication and abnegation of your own reason.
They're welcome to convince me (and they sometimes have) but as long as I disagree, I disagree. I hope that's what they stand for,
I am grateful to this organization (and others like it) for existing. I have also been grateful, on a few occasions, that they were opposed. i can take this position because we monkey-descendants and our self-concocted ideals are not even close to being a complete and comprehensive description of a reality that exceeds our grasp, existed before we did, and will exist after we are either gone or hopelessly mocked by descendants who have come to implicitly see the errors we never could.
But I can't blindly support anyone even when they oppose me. that would be intellectualy dishonest. Or so I grok -- and I've studied the subject seriously for over 20 years.
My apologies for correcting the "Subject:" spelling. i just couldn't look at it anymore.
I was thinking that, but I guess I thought it was a given.
But I too, have had experiences that indicate that it isn't, not when an admin has so many other things to do in a day. Once again, many eyes makes bugs shallow.
I've spent many hours discussing this with my sister (a JD herself, who spent many years (after getting her JD) as a computer consultant and trainer in law firms.
(as an aside: you would not believe how primitive the systems at many big firms are! Even firms that brag about how up to date they are.)
We've concluded that it's because the outlook best suited to legal training is one where argument and subjectivity rule. As Joseph Weizacker (the MIT prof who invented the term 'hacker') pointed out, one of the reasons many techie types find computers so addictively appealing is that it is so strictly rational -- unlike the largely arbitrary human world around them.
Admittedly his argument that "if the CPU doesn't run your instructions, you know you are wrong, not the machine" is a bit naive now, when computers and operating systems are so complex that errors may indeed be CPU errata or reside in flawed code elsewhere in the system. Still, I doubt few of us could tolerate 0.01% indeterminacy, much less 10%
I've had some interesting arguments with my lawyer friends over who was more 'logical': a doctor or a lawyer. (I went to med school) The best argument I have ever heard was: "Scientists have the luxury of repeating their experiments. A criminal lawyer can never repeat the crime. We have to use pure logic, and available data."
"Yes," I said, "but isn't it true that most legal cases would turn out differently with a different judge, argument, or other detail that had nothing to do with actual guilt or innocence?"
"Of course," she said, as if scientific reproducibility was irrelevant, "So what?" Her definition of 'logic' was directly descended from the Greek 'rhetoric' (In ancient Greek courts, evidence was largely irrelevant -- it was a matter of swaying the masses who showed up)
I've given her 'lawyers are more logical' argument to many lawyers in our debates (they think it's as clever as I did) but none has ever done as good a job of defending it as she did -- or been impressed with the need for reproducibility. I guess they can't be -- it would drive them crazy in their work. Most cases are reproducible, given the arguments used, but if even 1% aren't, it would eat at their souls. [no jokes]
A doctor has to live with a lot of uncertainty, but at least there isn't anoth er team of doctors on the other side, trying to kill the patient.
BTW, because law recognizes the indeterminacy of court cases, a legal appeal usually is NOT PERMITTED to use a better argument. You have to argue an error in the original proceedings, given the original arguments.
Atty. Einstein, your appeal is rejected, as were the previous appeals by Newton et alia, on the grounds that they were not raised in the original Aristotle v. Observable Universe
1) If the law becomes effective, yank your server HDD's and place them in off-line machines
2) post a new '404' on your server that says all accounts need to be re-registered
3) as accounts are re-registered, copy each user directory back on the server (automate this to be a customer service one-click function)
4) (optional) since the real concern of the original french article seemed to be datamining, add a watermarking routine to your server that stamps each page with the user info (as Geocities once did with their logo) It should be hard for OCR to read the watermarked data against a variety of user backgrounds. Concerned users would use 'privacy enhancing backgrounds' until the European parliament has a chance to point out that French laws (more the Jan 19 law (which madated release of user info to all third parties) than the current one) are illegal under European data privacy.
The Admin is only liable if he doesn't exercise the equivalent of 'due diligence' in requiring the users to identify themselves when they first register for webspace.
What is due diligence in France? I don't know. Would e-mail address verification count? I certainly recall that requirement (though not government mandated) on many US sites going back to the 70's (E.g. Denver U. FreeNet public shell access account had a variety of methods including a nominal $1 personal check; or all the school and work accounts I've ever had)
CmdrTaco says: "The immediate consequence for this is that free Web hosting services in France, like altern.org or multimania.com, won't be able to continue. "
Hardly. It merely requires that they make a creditable attempt to ensure users identify themselves when they register.
However, on Jan. 19, the French passed a law that said hosts had to provide this ID info to any third party. The original French article seemed quite emphatic that they were afraid of 'data harvesting' by commercial interests (in violation of European data privacy laws) not freedom of speech issues.
The January law was objectionable, and probably illegal in Europe. In its absence, the current law would simply force the hosts to have something to turn over (under court order), or take liability for the things that are said (if there was criminal or civil liability: libel, etc.). But combine the two laws, and it's mandatory publishing of private info.
(incidentally, a stopgap might be to automark watermark the info onto the page with a graphic, as Geocities does (did) with their logo. Human readable, and automated (hence cheaper than responding to individual requests), yet hard or impossible to harvest (I don't think current OCR would be up to it, given the highly variable page backgrounds) Clearly what the spammers want is a datadisk of 'all users'
BTW, will someone fill us in on what the French definition of 'due diligence' ('diligences appropriées') is?
I certainly find it interesting that the original French article doesn't express any real outrage at: "Les auteurs de sites web doivent donner leur identité à leur hébergeur préalablement à toute communication publique sous peine prison." [My translation: "Web authors must identify themselves to their hostsite before publicly publishing, under pain of prison" -- up to six months, I believe. In other words: don't lie on your registration form.]
At first I thought Big Brother (okay, Frere Grand) was just petulant at the prospect of not having someone to slap around, if something embarrassing gets posted -- but I think we should be looking for deeper implications (aside from the obvious potential spread of this precedent to other jurisidictions)
Thus far, I have only been able to come up with one: civil liability in libel cases, the release of commercially privileged info, hoax sites (with possible criminal intent) etc. It would at least give the injured party someone to sue. While not innocuous, I think this may be justifiable. What nation defines "free speech" as including the right to lie? Or a protected right to hide one's malicious wrongdoing? (Note: I specified civil liability here, which narrows the issue to damages to a 'innocent' party)
On its face, this law is futile, since there is no shortage of anonymous and free (as beer) hosting on the internet. Unless they close the e-borders, any French person can simply set up shop in the US and any french person can see such a page. (Note: the law holds French sys admins liable vs. forcing French end users to identify themselves in all web pages they own)
It could readily be represented as a 'principled stand' against 'anonymous (written) terrorism'. I'm not sure I'd buy it, but it's not outrageous.
Orpheus "yelling 'Liar' in a crowded public forum"
AMSAT- the real amateur satellite network (since 1
on
Trying to Save Iridium
·
· Score: 3
Before chasing the unfeasible, look into AMSAT These guys have a real amateur satellite system (over 30 satellites, 20 currently operational) going back 30+ years.
If the S.O.S people excite you, consider contributing your efforts here. They have a strong volunteer/hacker base of regulatory and technical know-how and experience that most of us obviously never believed could exist! If they don't want Iridium, it's not workable; and if they do... they are 501(3)(c) certified, so Iridium could conceivably be donated. AZny way you look at it, they're a lot more qualified to run the network than the SOS guys.
(from the web page http://amsat.org/amsat/amsat-na/amhist.html) The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (as AMSAT is officially known) was formed in 1969 as a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered in the District of Columbia. Its aim is to foster Amateur Radio's participation in space research and communication. Since that time, other like-minded groups throughout the world have formed to pursue the same goals. Many of these groups share the "AMSAT" name. While the affiliations between the various groups are not formal, they do cooperate very closely with one another. For example, international teams of AMSAT volunteers are often formed to help build each other's space hardware, or to help launch and control each other's satellites.
Since the very first OSCAR satellites (OSCAR stands for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) were launched in the early 1960s, AMSAT's international volunteers, often working quite literally in their basements and garages, have pioneered a wide variety of new communications technologies that are now taken for granted in the world's satellite marketplace. These breakthroughs have included some of the very first satellite voice transponders as well as highly advanced digital "store-and-forward" messaging transponder techniques. All of these accomplishments have been achieved through close cooperation with international space agencies which often have provided launch opportunities at significantly reduced costs in return for AMSAT's technical assistance in developing new ways to launch paying customers. Spacecraft design, development and construction has also occurred in a fiscal environment of individual AMSAT member donations, thousands of hours of volunteer effort, and the creative use of leftover materials donated from aerospace industries worldwide.
[MAN-o-MAN! It took ten tries and over two hours to get this article to go through to the 'accept screen'. I hope I haven't littered/. with multiples.]
If you want original solutions, you have to re-examine your precepts. E.g. "What is music?" [if you're impatient for solutions, click 'read more' to see the end of this article]
Music has been around longer than man himself. I don't mean birdsong. Primate-style music-for-entertainment probably antedates homo sapiens, since modern primates, even in the wild, respond to it much as we do. It fills a host of psychological desires and has many physiological effects. If we dismiss the "true root" of music as merely primitive, or a bygone 'style' we risk a music culture that grows less satisfying and more faddish as it fails to fulfill needs it has long forgotten.
Recording is NOT intrinsic to music. Until (roughly) this past century, recording music was impossible. I've been studying how 'recorded music' has been changing music itself (as have other technologies:the first widespread [vs. local] notation systems; printed and published sheet music; broadcast radio; etc.) It's almost horrifying to consider the options and modes that all but died out in the last 1500 years for purely techno-social reasons in Europe alone.
In my study, I've seen history repeat itself through each successive technology and if I may be flip, the first step is always to brainwash the musicians into thinking "this is the only way". After all... without control of the musicians, you have nothing.
Before recording, musicians made ALL their money (if any) by performing -- meeting the true needs of the audience. "Performance art" wasn't conceived in the 70's by the likes of Kristos and Laurie Anderson (to pick two famous, but not necessarily significant, names). In fact, what we call 'avant garde' performance art actually echoes many lost traditions of music. It only seems otherwise because we're using a narrow, commercially promulgated view.
The fact that I even have to say this shows how good a job the 'music industry' has done, at making 'music' synonymous with 'recorded music'. But if it isn't a 'piece' or 'song', you've probably never heard it, so I can't even cite meaningful examples of what humans were doing all those thousands of years
The 'music industry' read: 'recording/distribution industry') is a 20th century artifact of a developing technology. It basically didn't exist in the 19th century, and once hopes that (with the help of the current easier to use, musician empowering technologies) it will basically not exist in the 21st, unless we fossilize it in our thinking, laws, and commercial structures. I don't know when another 'fossil smasher' as big as the internet will come along
Royalties were never the primary income for musicians (except for a tiny handful). Even headliners made most of their money on performances. It was originally as much a publicity mechanism as an income stream (early performers were wild for Demo Tapes of their best work and/or sold their records at a table after a gig for fans to take home) It was a potent tool in accessing and broadening the appreciative audience most musicians crave.
This is the first role that was filled by each of the emerging technologies, from sheet music to record to radio to internet, because it is the one that most readily enlists the cooperation of musicians.
Later, each technology grew to dinosaur proportions, and dictated to the musician by becoming a tastemaker. The radio station and music label chose what songs you heard or had much chance of hearing. This is an incredible power -- but it's the same 'access to the audience' that the musician originally wanted, now grown into a monster. Why? because he wanted it for himself but it had always been in the hands of others.
If we are not careful, our new technologies will result in the same fate. We must take our understanding of how technology changes cultures create tools that empower the musician to reach the audience directly [he can have his own webmaster -- but if he's forced to become a client at "MusicianAccess.com", such sites will become a new corrupted industry interlinked with the rest.]
Isn't it interesting that the standard 'fair use' doctrine is reversed in music? The individual private user is actively pursued and charge full price, while the commercial user (e.g. radio station) pays only a nominal fee? That's because of interlocking commercial interests
We need artists (musicians, composers, lyricists) and artists need an audience. If we return to 'performance', instead of 'property' of as the basis for our model of payment, then we can eliminate the middleman. Instead of paying for audio track as "property" we'd pay for the 'perfomance' of making the CD,concert, whatever. The recording could een be free for private use, because the musician would already have been paid. (and unlike today, the commercial radio stations might have to truly pay for using the music their business is based on!]
This does not cheat the artist. It just changes what he's paid for. Right now, the industry cheats him with the illusion that he can watch the royalties roll in if he hits the jackpot. In real life, he sweats out concerts and gigs for his real income (though a hit significantly raises his fee) while the label 'hits the jackpot' on the records.
In the schemes below, the fees would be much less than the corresponding CD now costs. they would be on the order of the less than $2 of a current CD's price goes to royalties and studio production costs.
Patronage (subscription) - Is this so outrageous? Hardly. It's a very viable model in many areas of society, from a huge array of non-profits [e.g. 'Consumer Union'and their Consumer Reports magazine], special interest groups [AARP, NRA] cultural groups [most local symphonies, etc.], and numerous other institutions. Would you pay $5 directly to the [band of your choice] fan club to keep the free music flowing? Remember, they retain their current primary income from gigs, concerts, live media appearances, etc.
"Play-for-Pay" CD: The band agrees to release (or produce) an album, a specified number of people subscribe to it, assuring production costs and reasonable income are met. Subscriptions are not charged to the subscriber credit card until the threshold is met.
"Play-for-Pay" performances: The band agrees to a gig, concert, whatever in a specific city, when sufficient subscriptions are made. In this case there are several options:
Additional ticket sale beyond the threshold (after concert is announced) are bonus income
Pledge price deducted from ticket price (or given an even larger discount)
based on the budgets of programs like Boston's free 'Concerts on the Common', which has very popular headliners, I'd say we could readily fund FREE public concerts by major groups, using a very attainable number of subscribers. (Music wants to be free?)
Companies, groups, or radio stations can sponsor, too, as they often do today
subscribers benefit from 'helping the event happen' even if they don't attend, because the 'live in concert' MP3 will be circulating, free and legal, in the morning. The musician's commodity cannot be 'stolen'. He's already been paid. You can't pirate 'LIVE'!
Increased fees fo commercial use, free private use, as done in most fields.
Clearly, these are just a very few of the possibilities. Imagine what a mob of talented Web entrepreneurs and Open-sourcers could do with this.
It's terrifyingly simple. No one pays a painter or sculptor 'by the eyeball' (They just sell the piece, no strings attached), but the record labels claim a right to charge 'per ear' -- while simultaneously giving away the right to broadcast to millions for almost free.
1) GPL covers DISTRIBUTION not modification. You are free to modify your own copy AT WILL
2) You are not free to distribute the MODIFIED FORM of a GPL'ed work, except under GPL.
3) The question of whether you use DIFF or PATCH to generate changes is irrelevant. A GPL'ed program may be used to generate non-GPL'ed works, like The Great American Novel (or Great Asian OS). In the case of DIFF, the 'source code' is just data, just another textfile.
4) Unlike GPL, many licenses contain language to forbid the processes (e.g. reverse engineering) required to create your own patches, or forbid unauthorized alteration. (This is a gray area. The interpretation and enforceability of such language is subject to the time, place, laws, and other details.)
5) IF you have the right to modify your own copy, you may use a program to automate the process. It can even ship on the same CD. (There is no code apartheid! GPL and non-GPL'ed source/binary often exist on the same media.)
6) A court may look askew at "mix your own" boot CD's that say "Do you agree to our license?" and then automatically install/modify in one apparent step. Then again, it may not. That's for a judge to decide. Whether something legal is 'effectively' something illegal is one of the slipperiest issues in law. Often judges allow obvious circumventions (going around a one-way street to get to the other end is allowed; while training your parrot to shoot your wife isn't)
7) "clean room" code writing *does* exist, whether you can 'imagine' it or not. Given that, the actual code that is patched into the original may owe nothing to GPL code, outside of the general art of programming. If diligent 'clean room' can be documented, even identical code can be deemed to be 'coincidence' not infringement. So don't rely on commonality of code (or your imaginings) to protect your license.
8) Most users don't care. They don't read licenses. They certainly don't base their purchase decisions on that stuff.
9) It's awfully easy for a lot of people to insist on their right to do something, and fume at others for doing it, in the same sentence. Being a hacker doesn't entitle you to drawback-free solutions. In fact, hackers need to understand the need and ubiquity of compromises. If you don't get that, I hope I never see your code, much less install it on my machine.
10) AFAIK, GPL has not been proofed in the courts. Even if it was, licenses get broken (it happens), and when they are provebly broken, the result is usually a settlement, not eternal damnation. After all, licenses exist for commercial purposes, not theological ones.
Many people are so wedded to their conception of music and the music business that they have no idea that it's entirely a 20th century accident/invention.
I think there's lot to be said for intellectual property, but I think that in todays world 70 years may be too long for a *model* of intellectual property to stand unexamined, much less a specific grant of license! The questions simply change with time and (ever accelerating) technology. But given half a chance people get lazy about assumptions.
For example: "Who's going to pay the composer/musician/etc?"... gee, I guess we didn't have any of those before the invention of the phonograph! [We have millenia of history to indicate that countless other payment models exist, and that yes, artists will produce art -and well!- for the sheer love of it!]
The following is an EXTREME summary of a very long article I've been researching (out of personal interest) on the effects of society, values, and technology on the very fundamental conception of music itself through history. I hope it makes sense with all the supporting data removed.
Music probably evolved when we were primates (modern primates respond positively to it, and have distinct tastes), but music has not been, and was generally never intended to be, an isolated "hi-fi" audio-only experience -- from the days of the campfire to the modern rock concert. Moreover, until *extremely* recently, music was never almost experienced except in the culture of its origin. recording was impossible, and imported musicians were considered a pale substitute for hearing it in its intended polysensory setting.
Music was also intimately intertwined with the oral tradition that defined the vast majority of human experience prior to Gutenberg. We fixate on the scroll and hieroglyphs now, but that has litle to do with how 99.9% of human lived. They learned their history, culture, values, and understanding of nature from bards, troubadours, etc.
A 'piece' had to be copied and re-played by others or it died out. The authors were acknowledged (though borrowing was at least as common as it is today), but modern notions of intellectual property would have killed most music at almost any time in history.
When sheet music became widely used, music changed dramatically (prior to Gutenberg, written systems were largely local, but the following applies to these, too):
it became quantized in notes, specific scale systems, timing, etc.
forms that did not fit into these sytems faded;
it was now possible to play a song without ever having heard it, so...
it became divorced from its context, and became firmly sound-only
it became divorced from the musician's interpretation
reading music required training; music became a less participatory form
music began to fall under the intellectual property notions of written works. (please note that through most of history, we didn't even speak of "writing" music, but rather of creating it -- an act that was barely analogous.
music was codified as distinct "pieces" of specified length (per fashion) and content. (which such works existed earlier, they were hardly universal. Hours of atonal chanting, jam sessions or courtly 'background music', etc. were far more common)
despite attempts to annotate music to include untranscribable factors, it became seen as a particular series of sounds *only*. (in the past, a musician might play improvisations on a theme to fit a mood)
distinct styles became even more rigidly codified
and far too many other changes to list here; some far more profound than those listed, but difficult to describe in bullet summary
These changes proceeded over the centuries, reaching (IMHO) a pinnacle in a little ditty called "Good Morning to all" in 1893. This trivial ditty, published with the same type of slap-together attitude as the cheap newspaper 'broadsides' of the era, became one of the best-known, most played, songs of all time, when the words were changed to "Happy Birthday to You", and was the object of some ludicrous copyright enforcement crack-downs a few years back (it was in all the papers) forcing most organizations to adopt their own self-composed birthday songs, from restaturants to Boy Scouts (the Girl Scouts settled and paid a fee to continue using it, and many other 'traditional' songs).
Around 1890, two other major technological changes supplanted writing: recording (Edison 1877, et alia) and broadcast (Marconi 1901, et alia).
The Phonograph changed music forever by crystalizing a performance. Until then, performers were paid for perform, not for having performed, and songs were considered performance art (in keeping with their polysensory roots) not crystalized set-pieces.
Broadcast has experiemented repeated with schemes for paying artists, but the predominant function it has served over the past century was twofold
as a publicity medium, playing music for essentially free
as a tastemaker -- you can choose a station, but not the songs it plays!
Now comes the CONTROVERSIAL part.
After many experiments (and new ones pop up all the time), the standard music business arrangement goes like this:
A performer's take-home pay is still primarily derived from performaces (gigs and concerts) and they earn very little from album sales [source: numerous lawsuits against recording companies] whatever profits derive from albums/CDs are quickly swallowed by the legendary creative accounting practices common in the industry. The composer's interests are scarcely better protected -- royalties are few and far between.
The marketing/distribution conglomerates make all the money on recordings. To do this, in an era when the clamoring of marketing voices has always sat precisely at the individual's saturation tolerance (which rose over the decades), the tastemakers of radio (later Tv, later... well, we'll get to that) were accorded a free ride. Charging the highly profitable broadcast industry for the use of the musician's work would be equitable, and pay the artist more, but it wouldn't provide free publicity for the RECORD sales, where the RECORDING company makes its bucks. Any recording company that chraged more than its competitors would be at a competitive disadvantage, so the fee is a nominal blanket fee, barely enough to preserve the musician's trademark/etc. rights (ownership myst be defended against lapsing into public domain)
But worst of all, marketing has ruled the format of music with an iron hand. At one time the 3-6 minute song was no more important to music than the short story was to literature before Poe. Now it is almost all that is published aside from classical (which has a similar stereotyping of its own). This is a crime against music!
But the performers need the recording companies, because without albums (and the publicity machine) it's hard to generate the public interest that fuels concert attendance -- where the performers do what they always did (and got paid for): performing.
The market/distribution companies -- an incidental function -- however, are what Congress and most of us consider the "music business".
If it seems odd that marketing/distribution should accidentally fall into the catbird seat, let me point out that an entire multi-billion MTV-industry bloomed in a few years from 'music videos', which are *clearly* incidental promotional activities (Incidentally, iin the early 80's many major musicians protested bitterly against the music videos they were forced to do -- videos that offered frightening opportunities for more "creative accounting" and largely generated increased sales for the record labels -- win-win for the record labels)
The Digital Era --------------- Some odd possibilities:
digital "home/private studio" production could potentially weaken the recording labels -- but they have been distribution/marketing not 'recording' companies for decades now.
digital distribution could weaken the existing structure by being an alternative broadcast media -- only user-selected, not driven by DJ/station manager/business interests THIS IS WHAT RECORD COMPANIES FEAR. Their arguments of artistic theft are interesting, considering the many times they have prevented artists from voluntarily giving away work (RUN-DMC MP3s were one example) and even deliberately squashed artists by refusing to publish/distribute works while holding exclusive rights on future works (many cases). it's not about marketing/distribution anymore, it's about owning the public ear. If you hear it, they want it a cut of it.
an established artist could actually produce albums funded by his fans, releasing albums when they sold enough subscriptions to fund it (I talked to Nils Loftgren -- for you 70's fans -- 2-3 years back, and he said he'd do exactly that. I don't have his website URL handy, but I believe the album is already out. I don't know if its MP3 or CD)
MBONE (multimedia broadcast via internet) and similar new media are widely used for events of many types now -- including business conferences. True, I'd rather atttend an old-fashioned rock concert, but if downloading a rock star's MP3's and attending his "Live from Shea Stadium" MBONE broadcast at Foxboro Stadium (Boston) puts more money in his pocket (and more time in his musicimaking schedule) than buying his CD and forcing him to tour for six months... well, which better serves the music? Don't ask the record label! For those musicians who don't fill stadiums, small nightclubs can do much the same
More importantly, with the focus back on musicians, we could see musicians selling their skills in new ways -- how about Santana's "101 Tasty Licks for Your Home Studio"? Or any of a thousand other schemes? If "Five Angry Guitarists" are looking for new material, could they accept (digitally signed) material via their website instead of relying on their old record-studio-party contacts?
No matter what format is chosen, I suspect that "stars" will largely remain a record label phenomenon, since "the star-making machinery" was always a recording industry invention to maximize their sales. However, tastes ill diversify, and subniches will multiply. In DaVinci's one could see an astonishing divcersity of talent across Europe from Spain to Turkey to Finland and back, as each village had it's own musicians and styles (travel was rare, and culture was less homogenized), I think that more diversity beats the heck out of America's Top 40 (How can America even have a single Top 40?)
While many will complain about the 'balkanization of tastes', I think that there does remain a distinction between good music and bad. The MP3.com of the future will have mechanisms that help distinguish the good, and allow the public to find what suits their personal tastes. Whatever happened tothe FireFly.com model of a few years back? (A joint electronic agent and "community" system: you rated 30 or so works (movies, music etc.) on a scale of 1-10, and were were informed of similar works enjoyed by others of similar tastes. You could also find others (by username) with similar tastes to chat, review their ratings (and other user-provided personal data). Meanwhile, the more works you rated, the better its recommendations became, and more data it collected for making recommendations to others
My own MP3 Jukebox has taught me that often merely hearing pre-selected favorites is vastly inferior to hearing a mix, especially a semi-random one. There are unexpected justapositions, pacing, flow -- I call it "breathing": the inhale and exhale are equally important. Many songs that wouldn't make it into my list play an important role in my 'random mix' -- even though I've been listening to oldies I know well lately. In fact, I just bought a dozen CDs of artists I earlier never thought twice about!
Incidentally, let's not forget the epitome of the 'recorded set-piece' (vs. performance) theory of music: the one hit wonder (Somebody cue "Number three" by they might be giants) How man budding musicians might have "two good songs" in them? Wouldn't music benefit, if we could all hear thise songs, instead of only hearing the geniuses who can turn out a full career's worth?
There's much more to say. is it possible that we're THIS blind to the options. Once, there was no such thing as a bookstore, and the Gutenberg press was a clearly dangerous invention. We adapted. How many fixtures of medieval life fell by the wayside? The barber now merely cuts hair, andn the record-company may soon just be a mix-provider, an ancillary to our primary collections
"Dum vivimus, vivamus": While I live, let me live "Dum spiro, spero": While I breathe, let me hope
>The environmental factors are acting all through >out the identical twins life time to make their >DNA different. They're know as viruses. Other >mutagens will also cause even more differences >over time.
I'm afraid not. Generally mutagenic changes to each cell will be idiosyncratic -- that is they don't change every cell and the cells that are changed are altered differently, so they get washed out as 'noise' in a PCR RFLP.
You are very correct in citing viruses as one of the few agents (mutagens are not at all uncommon) that could cause a highly consistent change in the genome, but they are rarely (never, so far as I know) so consistent that they approach total alteration.
On a PCR-PAGE gel (with an adequate sample, this could result in abberant or extra bands, it should not erase bands that already exist (beecause some unaltered cells remain. therefore twins would definitely register as positives for each other -- though perhaps with some abberrant bands
>Then there is the testing method. The >electrophersis gel tests used have rather poor >repeatability.
Maybe they aren't perfect, but they are pretty darn good. I certainly would never call their reproducibility "poor".
The things that produce bad results are well known, and avoidable. But I don't doubt that technician error or carelessness could create real problems
>Sure some things can be done to help make them >better. I wouldn't accept a match when the >samples are done on two different machines in >different labs. Having two different gel >suppliers also makes a huge difference. The test >is really only telling you the length of strands >between markers where the chemicals split the >strands into segments.
I, too, would want both samples run on adjoining lanes on the same gel (though irreproducibility would be *far, far* more likely to produce false negatives than false positives)
I don't think they still do RFLP on DNA IDs -- but I could be wrong. PCR RFLP would seem the way to go -- a stronger signal with a tiny sample, and many other advantages.
MY NIGHTMARE:
The tired/careless/whatever technician who double-dips (placing/contminating) my DNA in both the "evidence" and "suspect" lane, and creating a match (especially with PCR RFLP
>The most important thing to understand is that >this anomalous case does not invalidate DNA >evidence... (assuming the methodology of the >tests is good) is exactly as useful now as it >was before
I DON'T hate statistics. I hate what is often done with it.
As a result I can see that the assumption of independent assortment is severly flawed. This makes DNA IDs very useful for its negative predictive value (if it says you're not guilty, you almost certainly are not) but it's positive predictive value is much weaker.
That's why blood tests are far more accurate at disproving paternity than proving it: it may be impossible to prove a negative ["I have never fathered a child"] but it may be easy to disprove a positive assertion ["You fathered this child"]
>1: The chance of a DNA match (in this 6-loci >case) is 1 to 37000000.
Where does it say that? If you'd ever run a gel, you'd know that this is ridiculously low. It implies that there are only about 20 possible 'positions for a band. the actual number of values on a full-size gel is in the 100's
>2: That means that ONE DNA-sample compared to >ONE other DNA-sample has the chance to in 1 of >37000000.
No, it means (as stated in the article) that the chances of a mismatch OVERALL (under the condition listed for the database) were estimated a 1:37M. I have serious issues with the underlying assumptions of the model used in DNA ID calculations, but they are based on the fact that we lack critical data for the assumption of "independent assortment (a basic concept in first year genetics) but I DON'T doubt the ability oif the statisticians to do basic math. I just think that they made assumptions (required by the limit of current data) that are not justified.
That may be okay for a research paper, but not for a person's life -- no matter how much law enforcement may want answers! [note: the polygraph, inadmissible in most courts and widely discredited as a 'truth tool', is often used in investigations because police want answers, and are willing to accept the "risk" (minimal, to them) of a wrong answer]
>4: Any other circumstances have no impact on this >if THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DNA-CODE !
Jesu christu, tu mater est stertocarari! I can name a few dozen things unrelated to the genatic code, from start (AUG) to finish (3 codons) that impact the calculation -- lab criteria for artifacts, choice of primer, ethnic dependencies, underlying population composition, inbreeding and genetic relationships with the suspect pool... and if I hadn't been up for days, I'd have a much longer and more varied list
>5: In this case we have 660000 OTHER DNA-samples >to match against ! The rest is obvious...
Yes, obvious. So obvious that (as I have shown in another post) the number of independent permutations may well be over 10^17 -- and the 3.7x10^7 figure cited in the article obviously is reduced to take account of this crude pairwise database comparison (and other factors)
The "1 in 37,000,000" figure is presented as a final probablility of a match. Where did you see *anything* about there only being 37,000,000 possible permutations (1 person in 37 million)?
If there were only 37M permutations of 6 loci, that would imply roughly 20 discrete possible values at each loci. Is that how you envisioned the underlying data?
I don't know what test they use in the UK, but I'm assuming that it's the RFLP [Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism]-- basically they use a highly specific enzyme to chop up the DNA, and place it on a polyacrylamide gel under an electric field to measure the size of the fragments. (Actually, nowadays, they probably use pre-synthesized n-nucleoside primers and PCR [polymerase chain reaction] to chop and selectively amplify the fragments, but the principle is the same)
A single gel can easily measure fragments ranging from a few hundred base pairs to 10-400+ kbp with good resolution. The exact range varies according to current/field, gel composition, and other factors, but the bottom line is: it's easy to see bands that are a millimeter apart, so if you use a foot long gel, the range of possible values is close to 300. that creates:
300^6= 7.29 x 10^14 possible permutations
Actually, 0.5mm is a more realistic resolution limit, so the actual number of resolvable values is at least 600.
(600 values) ^ (6 loci) =4.6x10^16 permutations
These are just crude estimates, for the benefit of those who've never read a electrophoresis gel. In actuality, the range of allowable values might be limited by other factors (values that are too extreme may be eliminated as artifacts) But it does give a sense of the TRUE numbers involved.
(with modern gels and automated readers, the resolution may be even higher, but my experience was with UV lamps, eyeballs and Polaroid prints way back in the 1900's... 1991 or so)
Please run your analysis again using this range of possible permutations, and you'll see that 1:37M could well be a FINAL probability of a false match.
I'm sorry you felt a need to take such a strong tone in your title
The "1 in 37,000,000" figure is presented as a final probablility of a match. Where did you see *anything* about there only being 37,000,000 possible permutations?
If there were only 37M permutations of 6 loci, that would imply roughly 20 discrete possible values at each loci. Is that how you envisioned the underlying data?
I don't know what test they use in the UK, but I'm assuming that it's the RFLP -- basically they use a highly specific enzyme to chop up the DNA, and place it on a polyacrylamide gel under an electric current/field to measure the size of the fragments. (Actually, nowadays, they probably use pre-synthesized n-nucleoside primers and PCR [polymerase chain reaction] to chop and selectively amplify the fragments, but the principle is the same)
A single gel can easily measure fragments ranging from a few hundred base pairs to 10-400+ kbp with good resolution. The exact range varies according to current/field, gel composition, and other factors, but the bottom line is: it's easy to see bands that are a millimeter apart, so if you use a foot long gel, the range of possible values is close to 300. that creates:
300^6= 7.29 x 10^14 possible permutations
Actually, 0.5mm is a more realistic resolution limit, so the actual number of resolvable values is at least 600.
(600 values) ^ (6 loci) =4.6x10^16 permutations
These are just crude estimates, for the benefit of those who've never read a electrophoresis gel. In actuality, the range of allowable values might be limited by other factors (values that are too extreme may be eliminated as artifacts) But it does give a sense of the TRUE numbers involved.
(with modern gels and automated readers, the resolution may be even higher, but my experience was with UV lamps, eyeballs and Polaroid prints way back in the 1900's... 1991 or so)
Please run your analysis again using this range of possible permutations, and you'll see that 1:37M could well be a FINAL probability.
Actual experience counts for something. (And as someone who still likes to consider himself a Young Turk, I hate myself for saying that!)
First off... IANAMB (I am not a molecular Biologist) -- well, I suppose that technically I am... at least judging by degrees and coursework. However, I never took a job in that field, and I haven't run a gel since the early 90's so a lot f what I think I know may be outdated (this field moves even faster than computing -- largely because we knew so little to begin with)
I love PCR and the million ways it can be used, and I am very happy that it's being increasingly used in criminal investigations. The former 'gold' standard (eye witnesses) have been demonstrated in study after study to be frequently unreliable.
However, when I see a number like 1:3.7x10^7, I really fume. It's based on far too many assumptions that we simply do not have the knowledge to verify. The specifics vary with the loci and methods used, but I think I can illustrate a few major points with general principles.
1) DNA matching is *NOT* done by sequencing the entire sample of DNA available. Instead, a few quick measurements are performed. The principle is that no one individual is likely to match all of them ["Gee, how many green convertibles with a Z on the license plate could have been driving in this part of town at three a.m. last night? One, buster -- you!"] DNA evidence assumes a reasonable degree of randomness and statistical independence, but those qualities are poorly charaterized in the real world.
2) DNA is far from random. In fact (despite the inevitable mutations we all have) it's just a mix-n-match of the DNA of existing humans (who are similarly non-random, breed non-randomly, etc.).
3) Even after we sequence the Human genome, we won't have the information about genomic variance to make such estimates accurate -- until we characterize hundreds of thousands of people in a deliberately random fashion to even come close. [It *must* be random -- not based on criminals or even volunteers. Many 'classic' post WWII medical studies were heavily biased towards the "70-kg white male medical student" (who will volunteer for almost any test).]
Think about it: how can any statistical analysis claim an accurate probability of 1 in 37 million, from a database of 660,000 individuals? or even 6.6 million? The number was created by assuming the individual measurements were independent -- even 'partial independence' would require a quantification of the degree of dependence for any real calculation. That data does not exist -- and would require millions of test subjects.
3) Variance information would be tricky to interpret, even if we had the data. "A rare mediterannean genetic trait" isn't quite as significant if the crime took place in Italy -- or 'Little Italy' of your favorite town. If a witness sends the police on a round up of "short blond female caucasians with freckles", then the probative value of the DNA analysis depends on the likelihood of a match for a random "short blond female caucasians with freckles", not "tall, dark hispanics" or "short-haired male tabbys with spots"
[Want to start a fight? Ask ten forensic geneticists how the overall odds change if the suspect turns out to have a known identical twin. Even this seemingly simple question has never been completely resolved mathematically. Many investigators will mumble 'No change', but in fact, there clearly is a difference. we just can't quantify it. The same applies, crudely, to an only child vs a child in a large family]
Sadly, characteristics cluster in precisely the way we wish they wouldn't. Relatives share genetic similarities, have a tendency to be in the same general area, and often enough situational factors to predispose to similar motives. The same applies (much less strongly) for ethnicity.
It's important to note that deviations from perfectly independent assortment will ALWAYS reduce the 'odds' of an incorrect match, making any DNA match less conclusive
4) Generally, these corrections tend to have larger effects when the base (uncorrected) likelihood is small (i.e. it's easy for a correction to reduce one in 37 million to one in 10 million, but very hard to reduce 1:4 to 1:1.1)
The article says that the error reflects the rapid increase in the database size (470K to 660K in the past year). However, I think that it is more likely that the error reflects the flaws in the assumptions behind the estimates. As the database size groews (and DNA is nore widely used), we will see more errors -- not because of "all that nasty data" but because "all that data" will highlight (as data is supposed to do) the error of our assumptions.
Do we have free will? Consciousness? {Fill in your favorite concept here]
The answer is: YES Because those terms were invented to describe elements of the human experience.
The problem arises when people start assigning (they call it 'deducing', but it ain't) all sorts of imaginary properties to those terms -- e.g. "If my will is truly free, then I should be able to fly by exercise of my free will alone. Otherwise I am a slave to the determinism of physics."
This is *exactly* what most debates on free will or consciousness boil down to -- debating traits that have been assigned (and seem reasonable on cursory examination) to the definitions post facto on th4e basis of imagination. But the term Free Will (consciousness) was coined to describe an experience we have -- and I presume that none of us have had the experience of *sustained* flight (skydivers, hang-gliders and 7-year-old jumping off roofs with towels tied into Superman capes, etc. excluded) by will alone.
True, mankind has turned his will, through conventional means, to tackle the problem of flight, and licked it fairly nicely. But too many new age mystic mistake 'free will' with wishful thinking come to life -- and that's a honored tradition: monotheistic "gods" are often proposed to be able to do whatever they want (omnipotence) which ignores the point that such gods, being the infinitely wise beings they are purported to be, can only *want* to do one thing: "the best thing" (whatever that is)
Hardly satisfying (if you're the type inclined to play these reindeer games) but if anyone doesn't have free will, it's god (nor should S/He, since free will was coined to describe a human experience)
Slashdot Mirror
The port was relatively painfree...
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note "relatively"
but the simultaneous crash/noncrash superpositions of states. And the blue flash of Cerenkov radiation... Omigawd! it's running a Win OS!
My new
When the public sees an iMac-esque computer, what do they think of? Apple's iMacs, that's what. It's not that I feel Apple should be able to control who uses what cases, I just think that companies like eMachines that are blatently stealing Apple's designs... well, I think they're theives. Am I wrong?
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I knew a girl in Metz, France about ten years ago. Whenever I (or any of the Americans I knew) saw her, we thought of Kim Basinger. Thief!
Of course we knew she wasn't Kim Basinger. And no member of the public could get past the first boot-up or amy demo screen without seeing the Win95 logo and Start Button.
There's a big difference between being "reminiscent of" and being "confusing". Any person who confuses a Win machine with a Mac doesn't have any idea what "mac" even means. E-machines didn't confuse them. They walked in confused on such a fundamantal level that they wouldn' recognize a non-iMac as a legitimate Mac (I've seen it happen with Quadra's and PPCs -- "That's not a Mac!")
Now if you want to argue that E-machines deliberately confuse users about their integrated video (onboard chips charing main memory and system bus, rather than separate video RAM on a separate card with its own on-card RAMDAC bus) I'd be on your side
My new
what about the fact that this has NOTHING TO DO WHATSOEVER with linux?
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Oh. I'm sorry.
Without my glasses, the banner looks like "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Not "All Linux, all the time -- and nothing but."
Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
My new
I'm pleased you replied. You confirm my initial impression that you are a reasonable person
;-> I believe the Supreme court ruled on GA's blanket prohibition on sodomy even within the bounds of marriage) However, I do not see that defending a specific right is the same as defending every act or belief of the defendant. just because I'd prosecute a murder or assault on a KKK member, doesn't mean I support all other opinions he might hold.
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Do I feel that the ACLU behaved in a manner that I would have? Hell no. The KKK can go bugger themselves, and I don't think that there's anything and I don't think that there's anything wrong with plowing a church's parking lot,if that's where 1/2 the town goes the morning that it snows. \
I actually like to think the ACLU *did* behave in the manner I would have, though I am by no means a flaming liberal.
For clarification: I was born in Georgia, and while I am not black, I am of an asian ethnicity that was uncommin in Georgia in the 60's and 70's and don't pass the 'paper bag' test in GA or Boston (where there were race riots when I moved here in 1975.)
I, too, think the KK can go bugger itself (but not necessarily in Georgia
However, if 1/2 the town went to the cockfights or brothel on Sunday morning, I wouldn't necessarily agree that they are entitled to full town services (as opposed to prosecution)
I do not agree with their positions on a moral level. But I aboslutely support their right to do this, and I think that the ACLU has single-handledly reshaped the manner in which our country applies our Constitution to every day life.
I treat the ACLU's right to take a stand on the same level as the KKK's right to take a stand. But the right to expression is independent of the view or whether I happen to hold it -- e.g. I'm dead straight heterosexual, but I support treating homosexuals as humans, and respecting their choices that don't impose on others (and they rarely do)
Incidentally, just because they dramatically shaped our interpretation of the constituion doesn't suggest I should support them. There was a flip side to each of those debates, and that side had an equal effect: the ACLU doesn't always win.
But if I don't support a specific view, especially on moral grounds, then whether KKK or ACLU, I don't support it. Period. With no 'halo effect' judgement of whether they are usually 'good guys' or 'bad guys'
I believe that Aristotle pointed out that even the world'd greatest fool isn't always wrong, nor the world's wisest man always right. (Some days I'm not sure which side Aristotle fell on)
My new
I do believe that the issue is addressed in the MGLA (Massachusetts General Laws Annotated) which would have significant (but not comprehensive) application in this case.
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Among the many (scattered) relevant passages are:
Chapter 223: Section 31. Summons; leaving at last known address, etc.
Section 31. In an action brought in the district court, if service is made at the last and usual place of abode, the officer making service shall forthwith mail first class a copy of the summons to such last and usual place of abode. The date of mailing and the address to which the summons was sent shall be set forth as required by section thirty-five in the officer's return.
Chapter 223: Section 34. Further notice to absent defendant.
Section 34. If the defendant is out of the commonwealth, or if his residence is not known to the officer, and no personal service is made on him or on his agent appointed under section five of chapter two hundred and twenty-seven, he shall, in addition to the service herein prescribed, be entitled to further notice of the action as provided in said chapter.
Though, in my experience, arguing improper service doesn't always get too far, since judges tend to feel 'you know you did something wrong" unless your lawyer is very diligent about arguing that this is a far cry from knowing you were actually required to appear in a certain place at a certain tim. [that asssumption makes a judges life much easier - though I'd blame the court clerk for not at least trying to confirm proper service)
BTW, Ch 227 sect 5, cited above. seems to apply only to those doing business in Massachusetts, but even entities doing business in Mass are entitled to more than e-service. To wit:
Chapter 227: Section 5. Agents for service of process; duty to appoint by certain individuals; penalty.
Section 5. Every individual not an inhabitant of the commonwealth and every partnership composed of persons not such inhabitants, having a usual place of business in the commonwealth, temporarily or permanently, or engaged here, temporarily or permanently, and with or without a usual place of business here, in the construction, erection, alteration or repair of a building, bridge, railroad, railway, or structure of any kind, shall, before doing business in the commonwealth, appoint in writing a person who is a citizen and resident thereof to be his or its true and lawful attorney upon whom all lawful processes against such individual or partnership may be served with like effect as if served on such person or partnership; and said writing or power of attorney shall contain an agreement on the part of the maker that the service of any lawful process on said attorney shall be of the same force and validity as service on such individual or partnership. The power of attorney shall be filed in the office of the state secretary, and copies certified by him shall be taken as sufficient evidence thereof. Such agency shall be continued so long as such individual or partnership does business as aforesaid in the commonwealth, and the power of attorney shall not be revoked until a similar power is given to another citizen and resident of the commonwealth and filed as aforesaid. If such individual or partnership fails to appoint an agent and does business in this commonwealth, service of process, in duplicate, may be made upon the state secretary. The secretary shall, upon a payment of a fee of five dollars by the plaintiff, give notice to the defendant of said action by mailing by registered mail, return receipt requested, a copy of the legal process to the defendant's last known address which shall be furnished to the secretary by the plaintiff or his attorney.
My new
I'm sure you're a great guy, and I certainly support you and the ACLU you in this, but your statement makes me cringe:
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"The way I figure it, either you're a supporter of the ACLU, or you're opposed to portions of the US constitution. "
Is it possible that you really believe that you are privy to the One True Interpretation of the Constitution, and that anyone who disagrees with you is Anti-Constitution?
If that's true (and I'm sure you simply made an unintended overstatement), then I can guarantee that you don't have a good grip on what the Founding Fathers intended. Too much of the Constitution was deliberately (and skillfully) crafted with the understanding that honorable, educated men of good will would disagree on how it could and should be interpreted.
Of course, they didn't have to be too insightful to see that. It was happening on every streetcorner during the Constitutional Convention (with enough blindly greedy, self-interested, bad will to throw all the good will into stark relief)
I don't understand how any reasonable American that supports constitutional rights could ever be opposed to the ACLU.
Please, please! They are idealistic people who put in hard hours in support of their ideals, but they aren't deities. I would oppose this characterization of anyone -- Linus and RMS (who I knew back in the 70's, when it was an interesting experience and often a privilege, but not some sort of twisted honor) included.
Do you ever disagree with your sig. other? Heroes? Self? I do. It's called life. It's messy. That's why I like Ideals. They're tidier. I like to think the ACLU would defend my right to disagree.
They support constitutional rights, fairly, every time. Even when they do something that I don't like, which is a good chunk of the time, I'm entirely in favour of it.
Now that's downright silly. I understand you're going through a lot, and you probably tired. Lord knows that there have been times when I've been under life-altering attack for no other reason than that I was painfully clearly right; and I'd probably have built an altar and performed human sacrifices (well almost) to the ACLU if they'd rescued me (they might have, if I'd brought it to their attention. My issues had that kind of scope)
But I am never in favor of people doing anything I don't like. (I try to keep my definition of 'like' in line with that -- to do otherwise is to risk hypocracy and other self-deceptive evils) At best, I am glad that I live in a world where they can and do oppose me on a relatively level playing field -- because I know I'm not always right, and because I know what it's like to play on an uneven playing field.
To tell me that you are always in favor of them when they oppose you is a total abdication and abnegation of your own reason.
They're welcome to convince me (and they sometimes have) but as long as I disagree, I disagree. I hope that's what they stand for,
I am grateful to this organization (and others like it) for existing. I have also been grateful, on a few occasions, that they were opposed. i can take this position because we monkey-descendants and our self-concocted ideals are not even close to being a complete and comprehensive description of a reality that exceeds our grasp, existed before we did, and will exist after we are either gone or hopelessly mocked by descendants who have come to implicitly see the errors we never could.
But I can't blindly support anyone even when they oppose me. that would be intellectualy dishonest. Or so I grok -- and I've studied the subject seriously for over 20 years.
My apologies for correcting the "Subject:" spelling. i just couldn't look at it anymore.
My new
While I sometimes find the positions of the ACLU to be a bit extreme, I agree with them 102% on issues such as this.
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Yup. 102% is pretty much the definition of 'a bit extreme'. I guess if you find them 'a bit extreme' you'd have to agree 102%
Sorry. Couldn't resist
My new
Thanks for the reminder!
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I was thinking that, but I guess I thought it was a given.
But I too, have had experiences that indicate that it isn't, not when an admin has so many other things to do in a day. Once again, many eyes makes bugs shallow.
My new
I've spent many hours discussing this with my sister (a JD herself, who spent many years (after getting her JD) as a computer consultant and trainer in law firms.
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(as an aside: you would not believe how primitive the systems at many big firms are! Even firms that brag about how up to date they are.)
We've concluded that it's because the outlook best suited to legal training is one where argument and subjectivity rule. As Joseph Weizacker (the MIT prof who invented the term 'hacker') pointed out, one of the reasons many techie types find computers so addictively appealing is that it is so strictly rational -- unlike the largely arbitrary human world around them.
Admittedly his argument that "if the CPU doesn't run your instructions, you know you are wrong, not the machine" is a bit naive now, when computers and operating systems are so complex that errors may indeed be CPU errata or reside in flawed code elsewhere in the system. Still, I doubt few of us could tolerate 0.01% indeterminacy, much less 10%
I've had some interesting arguments with my lawyer friends over who was more 'logical': a doctor or a lawyer. (I went to med school) The best argument I have ever heard was: "Scientists have the luxury of repeating their experiments. A criminal lawyer can never repeat the crime. We have to use pure logic, and available data."
"Yes," I said, "but isn't it true that most legal cases would turn out differently with a different judge, argument, or other detail that had nothing to do with actual guilt or innocence?"
"Of course," she said, as if scientific reproducibility was irrelevant, "So what?" Her definition of 'logic' was directly descended from the Greek 'rhetoric' (In ancient Greek courts, evidence was largely irrelevant -- it was a matter of swaying the masses who showed up)
I've given her 'lawyers are more logical' argument to many lawyers in our debates (they think it's as clever as I did) but none has ever done as good a job of defending it as she did -- or been impressed with the need for reproducibility. I guess they can't be -- it would drive them crazy in their work. Most cases are reproducible, given the arguments used, but if even 1% aren't, it would eat at their souls. [no jokes]
A doctor has to live with a lot of uncertainty, but at least there isn't anoth er team of doctors on the other side, trying to kill the patient.
BTW, because law recognizes the indeterminacy of court cases, a legal appeal usually is NOT PERMITTED to use a better argument. You have to argue an error in the original proceedings, given the original arguments.
Atty. Einstein, your appeal is rejected, as were the previous appeals by Newton et alia, on the grounds that they were not raised in the original Aristotle v. Observable Universe
My new
A lot of work, but easily automated:
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1) If the law becomes effective, yank your server HDD's and place them in off-line machines
2) post a new '404' on your server that says all
accounts need to be re-registered
3) as accounts are re-registered, copy each user directory back on the server (automate this to be a customer service one-click function)
4) (optional) since the real concern of the original french article seemed to be datamining, add a watermarking routine to your server that stamps each page with the user info (as Geocities once did with their logo) It should be hard for OCR to read the watermarked data against a variety of user backgrounds. Concerned users would use 'privacy enhancing backgrounds' until the European parliament has a chance to point out that French laws (more the Jan 19 law (which madated release of user info to all third parties) than the current one) are illegal under European data privacy.
My new
The Admin is only liable if he doesn't exercise the equivalent of 'due diligence' in requiring the users to identify themselves when they first register for webspace.
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What is due diligence in France? I don't know. Would e-mail address verification count? I certainly recall that requirement (though not government mandated) on many US sites going back to the 70's (E.g. Denver U. FreeNet public shell access account had a variety of methods including a nominal $1 personal check; or all the school and work accounts I've ever had)
My new
CmdrTaco says: "The immediate consequence for this is that free Web hosting services in France, like altern.org or multimania.com, won't be able to continue. "
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Hardly. It merely requires that they make a creditable attempt to ensure users identify themselves when they register.
However, on Jan. 19, the French passed a law that said hosts had to provide this ID info to any third party. The original French article seemed quite emphatic that they were afraid of 'data harvesting' by commercial interests (in violation of European data privacy laws) not freedom of speech issues.
The January law was objectionable, and probably illegal in Europe. In its absence, the current law would simply force the hosts to have something to turn over (under court order), or take liability for the things that are said (if there was criminal or civil liability: libel, etc.). But combine the two laws, and it's mandatory publishing of private info.
(incidentally, a stopgap might be to automark watermark the info onto the page with a graphic, as Geocities does (did) with their logo. Human readable, and automated (hence cheaper than responding to individual requests), yet hard or impossible to harvest (I don't think current OCR would be up to it, given the highly variable page backgrounds) Clearly what the spammers want is a datadisk of 'all users'
BTW, will someone fill us in on what the French definition of 'due diligence' ('diligences appropriées') is?
I certainly find it interesting that the original French article doesn't express any real outrage at: "Les auteurs de sites web doivent donner leur identité à leur hébergeur préalablement à toute communication publique sous peine prison."
[My translation: "Web authors must identify themselves to their hostsite before publicly publishing, under pain of prison" -- up to six months, I believe. In other words: don't lie on your registration form.]
My new
At first I thought Big Brother (okay, Frere Grand) was just petulant at the prospect of not having someone to slap around, if something embarrassing gets posted -- but I think we should be looking for deeper implications (aside from the obvious potential spread of this precedent to other jurisidictions)
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Thus far, I have only been able to come up with one: civil liability in libel cases, the release of commercially privileged info, hoax sites (with possible criminal intent) etc. It would at least give the injured party someone to sue. While not innocuous, I think this may be justifiable. What nation defines "free speech" as including the right to lie? Or a protected right to hide one's malicious wrongdoing? (Note: I specified civil liability here, which narrows the issue to damages to a 'innocent' party)
On its face, this law is futile, since there is no shortage of anonymous and free (as beer) hosting on the internet. Unless they close the e-borders, any French person can simply set up shop in the US and any french person can see such a page. (Note: the law holds French sys admins liable vs. forcing French end users to identify themselves in all web pages they own)
It could readily be represented as a 'principled stand' against 'anonymous (written) terrorism'. I'm not sure I'd buy it, but it's not outrageous.
Orpheus "yelling 'Liar' in a crowded public forum"
My new
Before chasing the unfeasible, look into AMSAT These guys have a real amateur satellite system (over 30 satellites, 20 currently operational) going back 30+ years.
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If the S.O.S people excite you, consider contributing your efforts here. They have a strong volunteer/hacker base of regulatory and technical know-how and experience that most of us obviously never believed could exist! If they don't want Iridium, it's not workable; and if they do... they are 501(3)(c) certified, so Iridium could conceivably be donated. AZny way you look at it, they're a lot more qualified to run the network than the SOS guys.
(from the web page http://amsat.org/amsat/amsat-na/amhist.html)
The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (as AMSAT is officially known) was formed in 1969 as a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered in the District of Columbia. Its aim is to foster Amateur Radio's participation in space research and communication. Since that time, other like-minded groups throughout the world have formed to pursue the same goals. Many of these groups share the "AMSAT" name. While the affiliations between the various groups are not formal, they do cooperate very closely with one another. For example, international teams of AMSAT volunteers are often formed to help build each other's space hardware, or to help launch and control each other's satellites.
Since the very first OSCAR satellites (OSCAR stands for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) were launched in the early 1960s, AMSAT's international volunteers, often working quite literally in their basements and garages, have pioneered a wide variety of new communications technologies that are now taken for granted in the world's satellite marketplace. These breakthroughs have included some of the very first satellite voice transponders as well as highly advanced digital "store-and-forward" messaging transponder techniques. All of these accomplishments have been achieved through close cooperation with international space agencies which often have provided launch opportunities at significantly reduced costs in return for AMSAT's technical assistance in developing new ways to launch paying customers. Spacecraft design, development and construction has also occurred in a fiscal environment of individual AMSAT member donations, thousands of hours of volunteer effort, and the creative use of leftover materials donated from aerospace industries worldwide.
My new
If you want original solutions, you have to re-examine your precepts. E.g. "What is music?" [if you're impatient for solutions, click 'read more' to see the end of this article]
Music has been around longer than man himself. I don't mean birdsong. Primate-style music-for-entertainment probably antedates homo sapiens, since modern primates, even in the wild, respond to it much as we do. It fills a host of psychological desires and has many physiological effects. If we dismiss the "true root" of music as merely primitive, or a bygone 'style' we risk a music culture that grows less satisfying and more faddish as it fails to fulfill needs it has long forgotten.
Recording is NOT intrinsic to music. Until (roughly) this past century, recording music was impossible. I've been studying how 'recorded music' has been changing music itself (as have other technologies:the first widespread [vs. local] notation systems; printed and published sheet music; broadcast radio; etc.) It's almost horrifying to consider the options and modes that all but died out in the last 1500 years for purely techno-social reasons in Europe alone.
In my study, I've seen history repeat itself through each successive technology and if I may be flip, the first step is always to brainwash the musicians into thinking "this is the only way". After all... without control of the musicians, you have nothing.
Before recording, musicians made ALL their money (if any) by performing -- meeting the true needs of the audience. "Performance art" wasn't conceived in the 70's by the likes of Kristos and Laurie Anderson (to pick two famous, but not necessarily significant, names). In fact, what we call 'avant garde' performance art actually echoes many lost traditions of music. It only seems otherwise because we're using a narrow, commercially promulgated view.
The fact that I even have to say this shows how good a job the 'music industry' has done, at making 'music' synonymous with 'recorded music'. But if it isn't a 'piece' or 'song', you've probably never heard it, so I can't even cite meaningful examples of what humans were doing all those thousands of years
The 'music industry' read: 'recording/distribution industry') is a 20th century artifact of a developing technology. It basically didn't exist in the 19th century, and once hopes that (with the help of the current easier to use, musician empowering technologies) it will basically not exist in the 21st, unless we fossilize it in our thinking, laws, and commercial structures. I don't know when another 'fossil smasher' as big as the internet will come along
Royalties were never the primary income for musicians (except for a tiny handful). Even headliners made most of their money on performances. It was originally as much a publicity mechanism as an income stream (early performers were wild for Demo Tapes of their best work and/or sold their records at a table after a gig for fans to take home) It was a potent tool in accessing and broadening the appreciative audience most musicians crave.
This is the first role that was filled by each of the emerging technologies, from sheet music to record to radio to internet, because it is the one that most readily enlists the cooperation of musicians.
Later, each technology grew to dinosaur proportions, and dictated to the musician by becoming a tastemaker. The radio station and music label chose what songs you heard or had much chance of hearing. This is an incredible power -- but it's the same 'access to the audience' that the musician originally wanted, now grown into a monster. Why? because he wanted it for himself but it had always been in the hands of others.
If we are not careful, our new technologies will result in the same fate. We must take our understanding of how technology changes cultures create tools that empower the musician to reach the audience directly [he can have his own webmaster -- but if he's forced to become a client at "MusicianAccess.com", such sites will become a new corrupted industry interlinked with the rest.]
Isn't it interesting that the standard 'fair use' doctrine is reversed in music? The individual
private user is actively pursued and charge full price, while the commercial user (e.g. radio
station) pays only a nominal fee? That's because of interlocking commercial interests
We need artists (musicians, composers, lyricists) and artists need an audience. If we return to 'performance', instead of 'property' of as the basis for our model of payment, then we can eliminate the middleman. Instead of paying for audio track as "property" we'd pay for the 'perfomance' of making the CD,concert, whatever. The recording could een be free for private use, because the musician would already have been paid. (and unlike today, the commercial radio stations might have to truly pay for using the music their business is based on!]
This does not cheat the artist. It just changes what he's paid for. Right now, the industry cheats him with the illusion that he can watch the royalties roll in if he hits the jackpot. In real life, he sweats out concerts and gigs for his real income (though a hit significantly raises his fee) while the label 'hits the jackpot' on the records.
In the schemes below, the fees would be much less than the corresponding CD now costs. they would be on the order of the less than $2 of a current CD's price goes to royalties and studio production costs.
of people subscribe to it, assuring production costs and reasonable income are met. Subscriptions are not charged to the subscriber credit card until the threshold is met.
city, when sufficient subscriptions are made. In this case there are several options:
very popular headliners, I'd say we could readily fund FREE public concerts by major groups,
using a very attainable number of subscribers. (Music wants to be free?)
the 'live in concert' MP3 will be circulating, free and legal, in the morning. The musician's
commodity cannot be 'stolen'. He's already been paid. You can't pirate 'LIVE'!
Clearly, these are just a very few of the possibilities. Imagine what a mob of talented Web entrepreneurs and Open-sourcers could do with this.
It's terrifyingly simple. No one pays a painter or sculptor 'by the eyeball' (They just sell the piece, no strings attached), but the record labels claim a right to charge 'per ear' -- while simultaneously giving away the right to broadcast to millions for almost free.
My new
1) GPL covers DISTRIBUTION not modification. You are free to modify your own copy AT WILL
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2) You are not free to distribute the MODIFIED FORM of a GPL'ed work, except under GPL.
3) The question of whether you use DIFF or PATCH to generate changes is irrelevant. A GPL'ed program may be used to generate non-GPL'ed works, like The Great American Novel (or Great Asian OS). In the case of DIFF, the 'source code' is just data, just another textfile.
4) Unlike GPL, many licenses contain language to forbid the processes (e.g. reverse engineering) required to create your own patches, or forbid unauthorized alteration. (This is a gray area. The interpretation and enforceability of such language is subject to the time, place, laws, and other details.)
5) IF you have the right to modify your own copy, you may use a program to automate the process. It can even ship on the same CD. (There is no code apartheid! GPL and non-GPL'ed source/binary often exist on the same media.)
6) A court may look askew at "mix your own" boot CD's that say "Do you agree to our license?" and then automatically install/modify in one apparent step. Then again, it may not. That's for a judge to decide. Whether something legal is 'effectively' something illegal is one of the slipperiest issues in law. Often judges allow obvious circumventions (going around a one-way street to get to the other end is allowed; while training your parrot to shoot your wife isn't)
7) "clean room" code writing *does* exist, whether you can 'imagine' it or not. Given that, the actual code that is patched into the original may owe nothing to GPL code, outside of the general art of programming. If diligent 'clean room' can be documented, even identical code can be deemed to be 'coincidence' not infringement. So don't rely on commonality of code (or your imaginings) to protect your license.
8) Most users don't care. They don't read licenses. They certainly don't base their purchase decisions on that stuff.
9) It's awfully easy for a lot of people to insist on their right to do something, and fume at others for doing it, in the same sentence. Being a hacker doesn't entitle you to drawback-free solutions. In fact, hackers need to understand the need and ubiquity of compromises. If you don't get that, I hope I never see your code, much less install it on my machine.
10) AFAIK, GPL has not been proofed in the courts. Even if it was, licenses get broken (it happens), and when they are provebly broken, the result is usually a settlement, not eternal damnation. After all, licenses exist for commercial purposes, not theological ones.
My new
I think there's lot to be said for intellectual property, but I think that in todays world 70 years may be too long for a *model* of intellectual property to stand unexamined, much less a specific grant of license! The questions simply change with time and (ever accelerating) technology. But given half a chance people get lazy about assumptions.
For example: "Who's going to pay the composer/musician/etc?" ... gee, I guess we didn't have any of those before the invention of the phonograph! [We have millenia of history to indicate that countless other payment models exist, and that yes, artists will produce art -and well!- for the sheer love of it!]
The following is an EXTREME summary of a very long article I've been researching (out of personal interest) on the effects of society, values, and technology on the very fundamental conception of music itself through history. I hope it makes sense with all the supporting data removed.
Music probably evolved when we were primates (modern primates respond positively to it, and have distinct tastes), but music has not been, and was generally never intended to be, an isolated "hi-fi" audio-only experience -- from the days of the campfire to the modern rock concert. Moreover, until *extremely* recently, music was never almost experienced except in the culture of its origin. recording was impossible, and imported musicians were considered a pale substitute for hearing it in its intended polysensory setting.
Music was also intimately intertwined with the oral tradition that defined the vast majority of human experience prior to Gutenberg. We fixate on the scroll and hieroglyphs now, but that has litle to do with how 99.9% of human lived. They learned their history, culture, values, and understanding of nature from bards, troubadours, etc.
A 'piece' had to be copied and re-played by others or it died out. The authors were acknowledged (though borrowing was at least as common as it is today), but modern notions of intellectual property would have killed most music at almost any time in history.
When sheet music became widely used, music changed dramatically (prior to Gutenberg, written systems were largely local, but the following applies to these, too):
- it became quantized in notes, specific scale systems, timing, etc.
- forms that did not fit into these sytems faded;
- it was now possible to play a song without ever having heard it, so...
- it became divorced from its context, and became firmly sound-only
- it became divorced from the musician's interpretation
- reading music required training; music became a less participatory form
- music began to fall under the intellectual property notions of written works. (please note that through most of history, we didn't even speak of "writing" music, but rather of creating it -- an act that was barely analogous.
- music was codified as distinct "pieces" of specified length (per fashion) and content. (which such works existed earlier, they were hardly universal. Hours of atonal chanting, jam sessions or courtly 'background music', etc. were far more common)
- despite attempts to annotate music to include untranscribable factors, it became seen as a particular series of sounds *only*. (in the past, a musician might play improvisations on a theme to fit a mood)
- distinct styles became even more rigidly codified
- and far too many other changes to list here; some far more profound than those listed, but difficult to describe in bullet summary
These changes proceeded over the centuries, reaching (IMHO) a pinnacle in a little ditty called "Good Morning to all" in 1893. This trivial ditty, published with the same type of slap-together attitude as the cheap newspaper 'broadsides' of the era, became one of the best-known, most played, songs of all time, when the words were changed to "Happy Birthday to You", and was the object of some ludicrous copyright enforcement crack-downs a few years back (it was in all the papers) forcing most organizations to adopt their own self-composed birthday songs, from restaturants to Boy Scouts (the Girl Scouts settled and paid a fee to continue using it, and many other 'traditional' songs).Around 1890, two other major technological changes supplanted writing: recording (Edison 1877, et alia) and broadcast (Marconi 1901, et alia).
The Phonograph changed music forever by crystalizing a performance. Until then, performers were paid for perform, not for having performed, and songs were considered performance art (in keeping with their polysensory roots) not crystalized set-pieces.
Broadcast has experiemented repeated with schemes for paying artists, but the predominant function it has served over the past century was twofold
Now comes the CONTROVERSIAL part.
After many experiments (and new ones pop up all the time), the standard music business arrangement goes like this:
A performer's take-home pay is still primarily derived from performaces (gigs and concerts) and they earn very little from album sales [source: numerous lawsuits against recording companies] whatever profits derive from albums/CDs are quickly swallowed by the legendary creative accounting practices common in the industry. The composer's interests are scarcely better protected -- royalties are few and far between.
The marketing/distribution conglomerates make all the money on recordings. To do this, in an era when the clamoring of marketing voices has always sat precisely at the individual's saturation tolerance (which rose over the decades), the tastemakers of radio (later Tv, later ... well, we'll get to that) were accorded a free ride. Charging the highly profitable broadcast industry for the use of the musician's work would be equitable, and pay the artist more, but it wouldn't provide free publicity for the RECORD sales, where the RECORDING company makes its bucks. Any recording company that chraged more than its competitors would be at a competitive disadvantage, so the fee is a nominal blanket fee, barely enough to preserve the musician's trademark/etc. rights (ownership myst be defended against lapsing into public domain)
But worst of all, marketing has ruled the format of music with an iron hand. At one time the 3-6 minute song was no more important to music than the short story was to literature before Poe. Now it is almost all that is published aside from classical (which has a similar stereotyping of its own). This is a crime against music!
But the performers need the recording companies, because without albums (and the publicity machine) it's hard to generate the public interest that fuels concert attendance -- where the performers do what they always did (and got paid for): performing.
The market/distribution companies -- an incidental function -- however, are what Congress and most of us consider the "music business".
If it seems odd that marketing/distribution should accidentally fall into the catbird seat, let me point out that an entire multi-billion MTV-industry bloomed in a few years from 'music videos', which are *clearly* incidental promotional activities (Incidentally, iin the early 80's many major musicians protested bitterly against the music videos they were forced to do -- videos that offered frightening opportunities for more "creative accounting" and largely generated increased sales for the record labels -- win-win for the record labels)
The Digital Era
---------------
Some odd possibilities:
- digital "home/private studio" production could potentially weaken the recording labels -- but they have been distribution/marketing not 'recording' companies for decades now.
- digital distribution could weaken the existing structure by being an alternative broadcast media -- only user-selected, not driven by DJ/station manager/business interests THIS IS WHAT RECORD COMPANIES FEAR. Their arguments of artistic theft are interesting, considering the many times they have prevented artists from voluntarily giving away work (RUN-DMC MP3s were one example) and even deliberately squashed artists by refusing to publish/distribute works while holding exclusive rights on future works (many cases). it's not about marketing/distribution anymore, it's about owning the public ear. If you hear it, they want it a cut of it.
- an established artist could actually produce albums funded by his fans, releasing albums when they sold enough subscriptions to fund it (I talked to Nils Loftgren -- for you 70's fans -- 2-3 years back, and he said he'd do exactly that. I don't have his website URL handy, but I believe the album is already out. I don't know if its MP3 or CD)
- MBONE (multimedia broadcast via internet) and similar new media are widely used for events of many types now -- including business conferences. True, I'd rather atttend an old-fashioned rock concert, but if downloading a rock star's MP3's and attending his "Live from Shea Stadium" MBONE broadcast at Foxboro Stadium (Boston) puts more money in his pocket (and more time in his musicimaking schedule) than buying his CD and forcing him to tour for six months... well, which better serves the music? Don't ask the record label! For those musicians who don't fill stadiums, small nightclubs can do much the same
- More importantly, with the focus back on musicians, we could see musicians selling their skills in new ways -- how about Santana's "101 Tasty Licks for Your Home Studio"? Or any of a thousand other schemes? If "Five Angry Guitarists" are looking for new material, could they accept (digitally signed) material via their website instead of relying on their old record-studio-party contacts?
- No matter what format is chosen, I suspect that "stars" will largely remain a record label phenomenon, since "the star-making machinery" was always a recording industry invention to maximize their sales. However, tastes ill diversify, and subniches will multiply. In DaVinci's one could see an astonishing divcersity of talent across Europe from Spain to Turkey to Finland and back, as each village had it's own musicians and styles (travel was rare, and culture was less homogenized), I think that more diversity beats the heck out of America's Top 40 (How can America even have a single Top 40?)
- While many will complain about the 'balkanization of tastes', I think that there does remain a distinction between good music and bad. The MP3.com of the future will have mechanisms that help distinguish the good, and allow the public to find what suits their personal tastes. Whatever happened tothe FireFly.com model of a few years back? (A joint electronic agent and "community" system: you rated 30 or so works (movies, music etc.) on a scale of 1-10, and were were informed of similar works enjoyed by others of similar tastes. You could also find others (by username) with similar tastes to chat, review their ratings (and other user-provided personal data). Meanwhile, the more works you rated, the better its recommendations became, and more data it collected for making recommendations to others
- My own MP3 Jukebox has taught me that often merely hearing pre-selected favorites is vastly inferior to hearing a mix, especially a semi-random one. There are unexpected justapositions, pacing, flow -- I call it "breathing": the inhale and exhale are equally important. Many songs that wouldn't make it into my list play an important role in my 'random mix' -- even though I've been listening to oldies I know well lately. In fact, I just bought a dozen CDs of artists I earlier never thought twice about!
- Incidentally, let's not forget the epitome of the 'recorded set-piece' (vs. performance) theory of music: the one hit wonder (Somebody cue "Number three" by they might be giants) How man budding musicians might have "two good songs" in them? Wouldn't music benefit, if we could all hear thise songs, instead of only hearing the geniuses who can turn out a full career's worth?
There's much more to say. is it possible that we're THIS blind to the options. Once, there was no such thing as a bookstore, and the Gutenberg press was a clearly dangerous invention. We adapted. How many fixtures of medieval life fell by the wayside? The barber now merely cuts hair, andn the record-company may soon just be a mix-provider, an ancillary to our primary collections"Dum vivimus, vivamus": While I live, let me live
"Dum spiro, spero": While I breathe, let me hope
>The environmental factors are acting all through
>out the identical twins life time to make their
>DNA different. They're know as viruses. Other
>mutagens will also cause even more differences
>over time.
I'm afraid not. Generally mutagenic changes to each cell will be idiosyncratic -- that is they don't change every cell and the cells that are changed are altered differently, so they get washed out as 'noise' in a PCR RFLP.
You are very correct in citing viruses as one of the few agents (mutagens are not at all uncommon) that could cause a highly consistent change in the genome, but they are rarely (never, so far as I know) so consistent that they approach total alteration.
On a PCR-PAGE gel (with an adequate sample, this could result in abberant or extra bands, it should not erase bands that already exist (beecause some unaltered cells remain. therefore twins would definitely register as positives for each other -- though perhaps with some abberrant bands
>Then there is the testing method. The
>electrophersis gel tests used have rather poor
>repeatability.
Maybe they aren't perfect, but they are pretty darn good. I certainly would never call their reproducibility "poor".
The things that produce bad results are well known, and avoidable. But I don't doubt that technician error or carelessness could create real problems
>Sure some things can be done to help make them
>better. I wouldn't accept a match when the
>samples are done on two different machines in
>different labs. Having two different gel
>suppliers also makes a huge difference. The test
>is really only telling you the length of strands
>between markers where the chemicals split the
>strands into segments.
I, too, would want both samples run on adjoining lanes on the same gel (though irreproducibility would be *far, far* more likely to produce false negatives than false positives)
I don't think they still do RFLP on DNA IDs -- but I could be wrong. PCR RFLP would seem the way to go -- a stronger signal with a tiny sample, and many other advantages.
MY NIGHTMARE:
The tired/careless/whatever technician who double-dips (placing/contminating) my DNA in both the "evidence" and "suspect" lane, and creating a match (especially with PCR RFLP
>This is ignoring the probability of a false
>negative; this is very low since only one person
>can commit a crime!
Your logic is extremely weak here.
Are you saying that if I have lots of co-conspirators, I decrease my chances of getting caught?
Gee-- no wonder white collar crime is so rarely prosecuted
>The most important thing to understand is that
>this anomalous case does not invalidate DNA
>evidence... (assuming the methodology of the
>tests is good) is exactly as useful now as it
>was before
I DON'T hate statistics. I hate what is often done with it.
As a result I can see that the assumption of independent assortment is severly flawed. This makes DNA IDs very useful for its negative predictive value (if it says you're not guilty, you almost certainly are not) but it's positive predictive value is much weaker.
That's why blood tests are far more accurate at disproving paternity than proving it: it may be impossible to prove a negative ["I have never fathered a child"] but it may be easy to disprove a positive assertion ["You fathered this child"]
Orpheus, father of the finest children, bar none
>1: The chance of a DNA match (in this 6-loci
...
>case) is 1 to 37000000.
Where does it say that? If you'd ever run a gel, you'd know that this is ridiculously low. It implies that there are only about 20 possible 'positions for a band. the actual number of values on a full-size gel is in the 100's
>2: That means that ONE DNA-sample compared to
>ONE other DNA-sample has the chance to in 1 of >37000000.
No, it means (as stated in the article) that the chances of a mismatch OVERALL (under the condition listed for the database) were estimated a 1:37M. I have serious issues with the underlying assumptions of the model used in DNA ID calculations, but they are based on the fact that we lack critical data for the assumption of "independent assortment (a basic concept in first year genetics) but I DON'T doubt the ability oif the statisticians to do basic math. I just think that they made assumptions (required by the limit of current data) that are not justified.
That may be okay for a research paper, but not for a person's life -- no matter how much law enforcement may want answers! [note: the polygraph, inadmissible in most courts and widely discredited as a 'truth tool', is often used in investigations because police want answers, and are willing to accept the "risk" (minimal, to them) of a wrong answer]
>4: Any other circumstances have no impact on this >if THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DNA-CODE !
Jesu christu, tu mater est stertocarari! I can name a few dozen things unrelated to the genatic code, from start (AUG) to finish (3 codons) that impact the calculation -- lab criteria for artifacts, choice of primer, ethnic dependencies, underlying population composition, inbreeding and genetic relationships with the suspect pool... and if I hadn't been up for days, I'd have a much longer and more varied list
>5: In this case we have 660000 OTHER DNA-samples
>to match against ! The rest is obvious
Yes, obvious. So obvious that (as I have shown in another post) the number of independent permutations may well be over 10^17 -- and the 3.7x10^7 figure cited in the article obviously is reduced to take account of this crude pairwise database comparison (and other factors)
The "1 in 37,000,000" figure is presented as a final probablility of a match. Where did you see *anything* about there only being 37,000,000 possible permutations (1 person in 37 million)?
If there were only 37M permutations of 6 loci, that would imply roughly 20 discrete possible values at each loci. Is that how you envisioned the underlying data?
I don't know what test they use in the UK, but I'm assuming that it's the RFLP [Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism]-- basically they use a highly specific enzyme to chop up the DNA, and place it on a polyacrylamide gel under an electric field to measure the size of the fragments. (Actually, nowadays, they probably use pre-synthesized n-nucleoside primers and PCR [polymerase chain reaction] to chop and selectively amplify the fragments, but the principle is the same)
A single gel can easily measure fragments ranging from a few hundred base pairs to 10-400+ kbp with good resolution. The exact range varies according to current/field, gel composition, and other factors, but the bottom line is: it's easy to see bands that are a millimeter apart, so if you use a foot long gel, the range of possible values is close to 300. that creates:
300^6= 7.29 x 10^14 possible permutations
Actually, 0.5mm is a more realistic resolution limit, so the actual number of resolvable values is at least 600.
(600 values) ^ (6 loci) =4.6x10^16 permutations
These are just crude estimates, for the benefit of those who've never read a electrophoresis gel. In actuality, the range of allowable values might be limited by other factors (values that are too extreme may be eliminated as artifacts) But it does give a sense of the TRUE numbers involved.
(with modern gels and automated readers, the resolution may be even higher, but my experience was with UV lamps, eyeballs and Polaroid prints way back in the 1900's... 1991 or so)
Please run your analysis again using this range of possible permutations, and you'll see that 1:37M could well be a FINAL probability of a false match.
I'm sorry you felt a need to take such a strong tone in your title
The "1 in 37,000,000" figure is presented as a final probablility of a match. Where did you see *anything* about there only being 37,000,000 possible permutations?
If there were only 37M permutations of 6 loci, that would imply roughly 20 discrete possible values at each loci. Is that how you envisioned the underlying data?
I don't know what test they use in the UK, but I'm assuming that it's the RFLP -- basically they use a highly specific enzyme to chop up the DNA, and place it on a polyacrylamide gel under an electric current/field to measure the size of the fragments. (Actually, nowadays, they probably use pre-synthesized n-nucleoside primers and PCR [polymerase chain reaction] to chop and selectively amplify the fragments, but the principle is the same)
A single gel can easily measure fragments ranging from a few hundred base pairs to 10-400+ kbp with good resolution. The exact range varies according to current/field, gel composition, and other factors, but the bottom line is: it's easy to see bands that are a millimeter apart, so if you use a foot long gel, the range of possible values is close to 300. that creates:
300^6= 7.29 x 10^14 possible permutations
Actually, 0.5mm is a more realistic resolution limit, so the actual number of resolvable values is at least 600.
(600 values) ^ (6 loci) =4.6x10^16 permutations
These are just crude estimates, for the benefit of those who've never read a electrophoresis gel. In actuality, the range of allowable values might be limited by other factors (values that are too extreme may be eliminated as artifacts) But it does give a sense of the TRUE numbers involved.
(with modern gels and automated readers, the resolution may be even higher, but my experience was with UV lamps, eyeballs and Polaroid prints way back in the 1900's... 1991 or so)
Please run your analysis again using this range of possible permutations, and you'll see that 1:37M could well be a FINAL probability.
Actual experience counts for something. (And as someone who still likes to consider himself a Young Turk, I hate myself for saying that!)
First off... IANAMB (I am not a molecular Biologist) -- well, I suppose that technically I am... at least judging by degrees and coursework. However, I never took a job in that field, and I haven't run a gel since the early 90's so a lot f what I think I know may be outdated (this field moves even faster than computing -- largely because we knew so little to begin with)
I love PCR and the million ways it can be used, and I am very happy that it's being increasingly used in criminal investigations. The former 'gold' standard (eye witnesses) have been demonstrated in study after study to be frequently unreliable.
However, when I see a number like 1:3.7x10^7, I really fume. It's based on far too many assumptions that we simply do not have the knowledge to verify. The specifics vary with the loci and methods used, but I think I can illustrate a few major points with general principles.
1) DNA matching is *NOT* done by sequencing the entire sample of DNA available. Instead, a few quick measurements are performed. The principle is that no one individual is likely to match all of them ["Gee, how many green convertibles with a Z on the license plate could have been driving in this part of town at three a.m. last night? One, buster -- you!"] DNA evidence assumes a reasonable degree of randomness and statistical independence, but those qualities are poorly charaterized in the real world.
2) DNA is far from random. In fact (despite the inevitable mutations we all have) it's just a mix-n-match of the DNA of existing humans (who are similarly non-random, breed non-randomly, etc.).
3) Even after we sequence the Human genome, we won't have the information about genomic variance to make such estimates accurate -- until we characterize hundreds of thousands of people in a deliberately random fashion to even come close.
[It *must* be random -- not based on criminals or even volunteers. Many 'classic' post WWII medical studies were heavily biased towards the "70-kg white male medical student" (who will volunteer for almost any test).]
Think about it: how can any statistical analysis claim an accurate probability of 1 in 37 million, from a database of 660,000 individuals? or even 6.6 million? The number was created by assuming the individual measurements were independent -- even 'partial independence' would require a quantification of the degree of dependence for any real calculation. That data does not exist -- and would require millions of test subjects.
3) Variance information would be tricky to interpret, even if we had the data.
"A rare mediterannean genetic trait" isn't quite as significant if the crime took place in Italy -- or 'Little Italy' of your favorite town.
If a witness sends the police on a round up of "short blond female caucasians with freckles", then the probative value of the DNA analysis depends on the likelihood of a match for a random
"short blond female caucasians with freckles", not "tall, dark hispanics" or "short-haired male tabbys with spots"
[Want to start a fight? Ask ten forensic geneticists how the overall odds change if the suspect turns out to have a known identical twin. Even this seemingly simple question has never been completely resolved mathematically. Many investigators will mumble 'No change', but in fact, there clearly is a difference. we just can't quantify it. The same applies, crudely, to an only child vs a child in a large family]
Sadly, characteristics cluster in precisely the way we wish they wouldn't. Relatives share genetic similarities, have a tendency to be in the same general area, and often enough situational factors to predispose to similar motives. The same applies (much less strongly) for ethnicity.
It's important to note that deviations from perfectly independent assortment will ALWAYS reduce the 'odds' of an incorrect match, making any DNA match less conclusive
4) Generally, these corrections tend to have larger effects when the base (uncorrected) likelihood is small (i.e. it's easy for a correction to reduce one in 37 million to one in 10 million, but very hard to reduce 1:4 to 1:1.1)
The article says that the error reflects the rapid increase in the database size (470K to 660K in the past year). However, I think that it is more likely that the error reflects the flaws in the assumptions behind the estimates. As the database size groews (and DNA is nore widely used), we will see more errors -- not because of "all that nasty data" but because "all that data" will highlight (as data is supposed to do) the error of our assumptions.
Do we have free will? Consciousness? {Fill in your favorite concept here]
The answer is: YES
Because those terms were invented to describe elements of the human experience.
The problem arises when people start assigning (they call it 'deducing', but it ain't) all sorts of imaginary properties to those terms -- e.g. "If my will is truly free, then I should be able to fly by exercise of my free will alone. Otherwise I am a slave to the determinism of physics."
This is *exactly* what most debates on free will or consciousness boil down to -- debating traits that have been assigned (and seem reasonable on cursory examination) to the definitions post facto on th4e basis of imagination. But the term Free Will (consciousness) was coined to describe an experience we have -- and I presume that none of us have had the experience of *sustained* flight (skydivers, hang-gliders and 7-year-old jumping off roofs with towels tied into Superman capes, etc. excluded) by will alone.
True, mankind has turned his will, through conventional means, to tackle the problem of flight, and licked it fairly nicely. But too many new age mystic mistake 'free will' with wishful thinking come to life -- and that's a honored tradition: monotheistic "gods" are often proposed to be able to do whatever they want (omnipotence) which ignores the point that such gods, being the infinitely wise beings they are purported to be, can only *want* to do one thing: "the best thing" (whatever that is)
Hardly satisfying (if you're the type inclined to play these reindeer games) but if anyone doesn't have free will, it's god (nor should S/He, since free will was coined to describe a human experience)