I make a point of carefully listening to points of view and really trying to understand them. I try to kindly point out errors in their thinking, and apply their criticisms to my own improvement. That said, sometimes it really appropriate to express the following reaction, which applies to this article:
Shut up you sniviling greedy twit. Face up: you simply don't have a right to M$'s intellectual property.
Look: Microsoft, as evil as we like to portray it, is innovative. Sure they may not always come up with the best stuff first, but they sure do take an idea and carry it out well enough that the majority of users select them. They're innovative with software AND with marketing. Methinks they've got the best (though bloated) word processor and spreadsheet on the market (THE top apps), their OS works just fine for nearly all computer users (yes, I hate Windoze as much as you do but that doesn't mean it doesn't do the job for most people), and while M$ should be punished for going too far in pushing their product M$ does not deserve eternal damnation for it. Innovation does NOT require that company A give their IP to company B on request without a mutually satisfactory contract and compensation.
As for censorship, what the %$#@ makes you think that M$ must give away their confidential/copyrighted, adventageous intellectual property? Yes, M$ asked/. to remove copyrighted material - so what? remove it!/. is the only group that CAN remove that information! The copyrighted material is NOT free beer, and when the OWNER of the IMPROPERLY published materials asks/. to remove it,/. should cooperate and not fly into a righteous snit equating copyrighted material with free beer. Shall AC post Katz's book chapters on/. for the public to read without compensating Katz? doing so is no different than AC posting M$'s book chapters on/. for the public to read without compensating M$.
As for the theory that the postings are the property of the ACs that write them and therefore M$'s argument is with them, explain why/. hasn't tried to compensate those writers whose postings are making part of the profit from Katz's latest book?
Freedom of speech (and innovation) does NOT mean that you have the right to use someone else's without compensation.
Not long ago, a proposition to cheaply and profitably put people on the Moon was a rallying point for geeks. New uncharted lands! Life in space! Vast resources! Fascinating environments! Geeks would walpaper their cubes with pictures of rockets, Moon landings, and sketches of non-Earth colonies. Building and occupying a Moon colony used to be one of the holy grails of engineering.
But...nearly all responses to this news item today have been "aw gee, why would anyone want to go to the Moon? they might make it dirty! and jerks might go there." Come on people! What happened to the sense of adventure? of engineering challenges? of survival challenges? of profit motive? of any combination of these? What happened to all the geeks that would give their left nut in a heartbeat for a ticket on a Moon-bound rocket to build a colony?
Geekdom is dead - replaced by politically correct, green, TV-mesmerized lumps.
Most user interfaces are designed by people who really don't know squat about the subject, and have no clue that they don't know. Edward Tufte carefully examined the requirements and implementations of user interfaces. Read his books for a reality check and eye opener on what is really needed, examples of great UIs, and what people keep screwing up thinking it's the "right" way.
Hemos, the bottom of each discussion page says "Comments are owned by the Poster." That means (duh!) that Andover agrees that each comment is OWNED by the poster. That's what it says! Plainly stated in glowing pixels! Are you going to compensate the owners, or just take the comments and reuse them without permission from the owners? Free speech, not free beer.
Your analogies don't work, because of the large weight/volume aspects.
Try this: For $1000, you could put the entire contents of your local video store onto a credit card, with periodic updates. Watch what you want, where you want, in HDTV via a eyeglass-mounted display. Methinks most people would jump at that chance.
Compare: An uncompressed feature film at full resolution uses about 2TB.
Doesn't matter how much storage space you give me, I WILL fill it within 30 days.
Most user interfaces seem designed by people who don't actually know what the goals really are or how to achieve them in a way that actually works for real users. We've been so standardized on 3D widgets, drop shadows, stupid menu layouts, etc. that most developers can't even imagine a better way.
Edward Tufte wrote a series of books on visual portrayal of information. In them he analyzes how people actually perceive images & text, and examines high (and low) quality examples of doing the job right.
I made a distinct effort to follow these principles in my last UI project. Other developers fought aginst it, sticking to their pointless and distracting 3D buttons, poor word selections, etc...because that's all they knew and they wouldn't (couldn't?) even consider that there might be a better way. The resulting design, rejecting the de-facto "we've always done it this way" standards, was superior to previous designs.
When designing a UI, take the time to carefully review the actual requirements, and study the right way to do it. Pick up Tufte's books and open your eyes.
Even that information wants to be free. But what good is it?
It's a lot of good. By knowing it, I could offer him all kinds of goods & services that would make his life better and more profitable. With such info, I could make the world a slightly better place. If nothing else, I could giggle at how high or low his bank balance is (and giggles are good, right?).
I'll bet that if you wanted, you could go to that AC's house and discover all of that information, if your motivation was great enough... But it isn't.
Maybe my motivation isn't enough...but many other people do have that motivation (ok, they don't actually search his house, but they extract that data from lots of other sources). DoubleClick essentially does that. They were gathering lots of useful info about millions of people and turning that otherwise useless data into $$$...and/. readers threw a hissy fit when they found out.
The only reason information wants to be free is because people want it to want that.
What fascinates me is who gets to make that decision in your argument. Advertisers want your SSN, but you get snippy when they obtain it and sell/use it without YOUR permission. Similarly, movie studios get snippy when you use/distribute a DVD without THEIR permission. Somehow to nerds, the former is good while the latter is bad...but there's little difference. In both cases, A wants to do whatever he wants with B's information, but B objects. What I don't see (but I'm trying) is why the objection is valid when A = You, but is invalid when A = Sony.
Then - oh Anonymous Coward - kindly post your SSN, bank & account #, address, phone, DOB, driver's ID, and a copy of your last 1040 form submitted to the IRS. That information wants to be free too.
What's that? You balk and refuse in the name of "privacy" and your soveriegnty over your so-called-personal-yet-so-public information? What happened to "information wants to be free"?
Just how well can people express themselves using code?
Depends on who's listening.
I'm not kidding. That's the crux of the issue. Those who "get it" will appreciate the expression; those who don't won't. DeCSS speaks volumes about excessive control of speech...if you "get it".
Speech in any form is irrelevant until there is a consequence. People must be held accountable for the consequences of their speech; punishing speech because there might be consequences is absurd. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is fine if there's a fire or if the occupants understand that there is no need to panic (as Penn Jillette demonstrates when starting a fire on stage).
After following the Project Censored "Top Ten Censored Stories" (and similar lists) for many years, it's become clear that the lists are distinctly biased and censoring. Only politically correct, leftist-pet-peeve stories are included. The selected items are almost invariably anti-corporate, environmental-hysteria, third-world stories...while they may be valid news items, the invariably narrow selection of topics belies extreme bias and leftist agendas. The list never concerns itself with censored stories that would portray rightist concerns, such as: oppression of home-schooling, positive portrayal of guns as life-saving tools, "affirmative action" programs that oppress whites, murderous persecution of Christians, or any other news items that show consequences of leftist goals in a less-than-positive light.
Would someone kindly describe in reasonable detail what the heck Gnutella is?
Despite digging around its web site and reading numerous threads, all I can find is a vague sense that it's loosely a knock-off of Napster. Maybe. Kinda sorta. A product's home page isn't particularly useful if it doesn't tell newcomers what the product is and why they should care!
Should the money not be spent to try to make (at least small) improvements for the majority rather than putting a computer or 10 in a village somewhere. Give them clean water, basic healthcare, minimum foodstuffs, that would mean millions would live, instead of die. Internet? Computers?.... I dont think so.
How about the computer's ability to rapidly retrieve information on finding clean water, teaching basic health care, efficient means of raising/finding foodstuffs...wouldn't such information mean millions would live, instead of die? How about making contact with outsiders that can help? How about creating connections with other businesses? An internet connection brings a huge library to them, it provides connections with people who can inform, help or trade.
For the price of a computer, you can feed people. With a computer/internet, they can learn to feed themselves.
I don't know about you, but if I lived in a third world country, I would be much more concerned about feeding my family, finding work, and dealing with oppressive governments than with finding internet access.
Feeding your family? Internet access permits you to be an information worker from anywhere, and pull in extremely valuable American dollars, a commodity precious in a country where the local currency may be worth less than toilet paper. US$100 would buy a lot of food...and it's not hard to make $100 on-line.
Finding work? Instead of being limited to work available within walking distance, you can solicit the whole world. Design web sites ("African-Americans: Get your web site designed for Africans by Africans in Africa!"), play the US stock market ("just $8 a trade!"), write software ("Quake 3 mod: Streets Of Bahgdad"), attract people to banner ads ("Columbia Communiques; please click on our sponsor"), etc. etc.
Oppressive governments? Get more accurate news/information fast, encrypt your data, and coordinate with others scattered throughout your oppressed country.
Your concerns can, with work and creativity, be satisfied. Such places may actually be benificial: mundane costs of food and housing are low when your intellectual/internet work fetches a hard currency where such money is rare. A greater concern would be having your laptop and cell phone stolen and traded for a goat.
Oh yes, the "if you are not doing anything illegal then you have nothing to hide so why hide it" lamo argument.
Why? Because governments do harrass (or worse) people who are doing legal things that said government objects to. Because whistle-blowers are targets of powerful people. Because witnesses of major crimes fear that they may be killed if they speak, yet wish to do the right thing. Because people want to discuss painful & sensitive issues without being labeled or ridiculed. Because I don't have to submit my legal, moral acts to approval by a distrustful government. Because a government that won't trust me is in turn not worthy of my trust.
I find the combination of your comment and your.sig ironic.
What irony? There's a difference between being forced to not speak freely to others, and choosing to not listen. I don't want to read anything from Katz so I just filtered him out...and made a statement indicating my displeasure with his lame non-nerd, non-news articles. This in contrast with the SP rewrite issue, which involves one group forcing another to not say certain things to a willing third party...an act which will (I believe) result in the second party saying something even more offensive and embarrass the first party in the process (THAT's where the real irony is).
Freedom to speak includes the freedom to not listen.
Parker claims that he got the MPAA censors to change the South Park rating down to an R by adding more hysterically filthy material. Even the censor-approved title (South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut) is more crude/disgusting than the milder-yet-censored original title (South Park: All Hell Breaks Loose). With that history, have no fear: Parker surely will come up with an even more raunchy version of Blame Canada and get it aired before the censors realize they've been had.
A quick juggling of numbers indicates that a liter of of alge produces about 1/3 liter of H2 (room-temperature gaseous state) every 10 days. While not bad, we'll need a LOT of this alge slush to produce useable amounts of H2. How much H2 is needed just to drive a car to work? or run an all-electric fuel-cell-based house for a day?
Just went down to the local stop-and-rob and bought a few ($2.50 each - not bad for what you get). Tried the Mexican one...pretty good, albeit quite spicy. At last, a fast/frozen/junk food made of real food (corn, brocolli, beans, peppers, etc.), lowfat, convenient, good taste, and with all that other stuff we're supposed to eat. Far superior to the usual extra-grease, synthetic bread, grade-D mystery meat meal. Even compared it to a can of SlimFast diet meal-replacer drink...the Dilberito is clearly a superior diet/survival food. Bravo, Scott Adams!
Why did it take a cartoonist to come up with a healthy, geek-format meal?
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Shut up you sniviling greedy twit. Face up: you simply don't have a right to M$'s intellectual property.
Look: Microsoft, as evil as we like to portray it, is innovative. Sure they may not always come up with the best stuff first, but they sure do take an idea and carry it out well enough that the majority of users select them. They're innovative with software AND with marketing. Methinks they've got the best (though bloated) word processor and spreadsheet on the market (THE top apps), their OS works just fine for nearly all computer users (yes, I hate Windoze as much as you do but that doesn't mean it doesn't do the job for most people), and while M$ should be punished for going too far in pushing their product M$ does not deserve eternal damnation for it. Innovation does NOT require that company A give their IP to company B on request without a mutually satisfactory contract and compensation.
As for censorship, what the %$#@ makes you think that M$ must give away their confidential/copyrighted, adventageous intellectual property? Yes, M$ asked /. to remove copyrighted material - so what? remove it! /. is the only group that CAN remove that information! The copyrighted material is NOT free beer, and when the OWNER of the IMPROPERLY published materials asks /. to remove it, /. should cooperate and not fly into a righteous snit equating copyrighted material with free beer. Shall AC post Katz's book chapters on /. for the public to read without compensating Katz? doing so is no different than AC posting M$'s book chapters on /. for the public to read without compensating M$.
As for the theory that the postings are the property of the ACs that write them and therefore M$'s argument is with them, explain why /. hasn't tried to compensate those writers whose postings are making part of the profit from Katz's latest book?
Freedom of speech (and innovation) does NOT mean that you have the right to use someone else's without compensation.
But...nearly all responses to this news item today have been "aw gee, why would anyone want to go to the Moon? they might make it dirty! and jerks might go there." Come on people! What happened to the sense of adventure? of engineering challenges? of survival challenges? of profit motive? of any combination of these? What happened to all the geeks that would give their left nut in a heartbeat for a ticket on a Moon-bound rocket to build a colony?
Geekdom is dead - replaced by politically correct, green, TV-mesmerized lumps.
The Moon is a pile of rocks. What are you worried about?
Most user interfaces are designed by people who really don't know squat about the subject, and have no clue that they don't know. Edward Tufte carefully examined the requirements and implementations of user interfaces. Read his books for a reality check and eye opener on what is really needed, examples of great UIs, and what people keep screwing up thinking it's the "right" way.
Hemos, the bottom of each discussion page says "Comments are owned by the Poster." That means (duh!) that Andover agrees that each comment is OWNED by the poster. That's what it says! Plainly stated in glowing pixels! Are you going to compensate the owners, or just take the comments and reuse them without permission from the owners? Free speech, not free beer.
Try this:
For $1000, you could put the entire contents of your local video store onto a credit card, with periodic updates. Watch what you want, where you want, in HDTV via a eyeglass-mounted display. Methinks most people would jump at that chance.
Compare: An uncompressed feature film at full resolution uses about 2TB.
Doesn't matter how much storage space you give me, I WILL fill it within 30 days.
Edward Tufte wrote a series of books on visual portrayal of information. In them he analyzes how people actually perceive images & text, and examines high (and low) quality examples of doing the job right.
I made a distinct effort to follow these principles in my last UI project. Other developers fought aginst it, sticking to their pointless and distracting 3D buttons, poor word selections, etc...because that's all they knew and they wouldn't (couldn't?) even consider that there might be a better way. The resulting design, rejecting the de-facto "we've always done it this way" standards, was superior to previous designs.
When designing a UI, take the time to carefully review the actual requirements, and study the right way to do it. Pick up Tufte's books and open your eyes.
...and so the "Top Ten Censored Stories" goes, year after year after...
Why, thank you. I needed a complement.
Even that information wants to be free. But what good is it?
It's a lot of good. By knowing it, I could offer him all kinds of goods & services that would make his life better and more profitable. With such info, I could make the world a slightly better place. If nothing else, I could giggle at how high or low his bank balance is (and giggles are good, right?).
I'll bet that if you wanted, you could go to that AC's house and discover all of that information, if your motivation was great enough... But it isn't.
Maybe my motivation isn't enough...but many other people do have that motivation (ok, they don't actually search his house, but they extract that data from lots of other sources). DoubleClick essentially does that. They were gathering lots of useful info about millions of people and turning that otherwise useless data into $$$...and /. readers threw a hissy fit when they found out.
The only reason information wants to be free is because people want it to want that.
What fascinates me is who gets to make that decision in your argument. Advertisers want your SSN, but you get snippy when they obtain it and sell/use it without YOUR permission. Similarly, movie studios get snippy when you use/distribute a DVD without THEIR permission. Somehow to nerds, the former is good while the latter is bad...but there's little difference. In both cases, A wants to do whatever he wants with B's information, but B objects. What I don't see (but I'm trying) is why the objection is valid when A = You, but is invalid when A = Sony.
Then - oh Anonymous Coward - kindly post your SSN, bank & account #, address, phone, DOB, driver's ID, and a copy of your last 1040 form submitted to the IRS. That information wants to be free too.
What's that? You balk and refuse in the name of "privacy" and your soveriegnty over your so-called-personal-yet-so-public information? What happened to "information wants to be free"?
Depends on who's listening.
I'm not kidding. That's the crux of the issue. Those who "get it" will appreciate the expression; those who don't won't. DeCSS speaks volumes about excessive control of speech...if you "get it".
Speech in any form is irrelevant until there is a consequence. People must be held accountable for the consequences of their speech; punishing speech because there might be consequences is absurd. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is fine if there's a fire or if the occupants understand that there is no need to panic (as Penn Jillette demonstrates when starting a fire on stage).
Do not limit the rights themselves.
Make people responsible & liable for the consequences of exercising their rights.
Sure it can...if there is a fire.
Do not limit the rights themselves.
Make people responsible & liable for the consequences of exercising their rights.
Despite digging around its web site and reading numerous threads, all I can find is a vague sense that it's loosely a knock-off of Napster. Maybe. Kinda sorta. A product's home page isn't particularly useful if it doesn't tell newcomers what the product is and why they should care!
Oops, cancel that. You meant BYTES per second, not BITS. Still, 16x the rate of MP3 isn't bad considering the good video.
Very un-shabby as a good MP3 stream is only half that. Good sound AND good video with only twice the bit rate...can't ask for more!
Yowza! That's the best digital video I've seen - and I've seen a lot. Got more?
How about the computer's ability to rapidly retrieve information on finding clean water, teaching basic health care, efficient means of raising/finding foodstuffs...wouldn't such information mean millions would live, instead of die? How about making contact with outsiders that can help? How about creating connections with other businesses? An internet connection brings a huge library to them, it provides connections with people who can inform, help or trade.
For the price of a computer, you can feed people.
With a computer/internet, they can learn to feed themselves.
Feeding your family? Internet access permits you to be an information worker from anywhere, and pull in extremely valuable American dollars, a commodity precious in a country where the local currency may be worth less than toilet paper. US$100 would buy a lot of food...and it's not hard to make $100 on-line.
Finding work? Instead of being limited to work available within walking distance, you can solicit the whole world. Design web sites ("African-Americans: Get your web site designed for Africans by Africans in Africa!"), play the US stock market ("just $8 a trade!"), write software ("Quake 3 mod: Streets Of Bahgdad"), attract people to banner ads ("Columbia Communiques; please click on our sponsor"), etc. etc.
Oppressive governments? Get more accurate news/information fast, encrypt your data, and coordinate with others scattered throughout your oppressed country.
Your concerns can, with work and creativity, be satisfied. Such places may actually be benificial: mundane costs of food and housing are low when your intellectual/internet work fetches a hard currency where such money is rare. A greater concern would be having your laptop and cell phone stolen and traded for a goat.
Why?
Because governments do harrass (or worse) people who are doing legal things that said government objects to.
Because whistle-blowers are targets of powerful people.
Because witnesses of major crimes fear that they may be killed if they speak, yet wish to do the right thing.
Because people want to discuss painful & sensitive issues without being labeled or ridiculed.
Because I don't have to submit my legal, moral acts to approval by a distrustful government.
Because a government that won't trust me is in turn not worthy of my trust.
What irony? There's a difference between being forced to not speak freely to others, and choosing to not listen. I don't want to read anything from Katz so I just filtered him out...and made a statement indicating my displeasure with his lame non-nerd, non-news articles. This in contrast with the SP rewrite issue, which involves one group forcing another to not say certain things to a willing third party...an act which will (I believe) result in the second party saying something even more offensive and embarrass the first party in the process (THAT's where the real irony is).
Freedom to speak includes the freedom to not listen.
Parker claims that he got the MPAA censors to change the South Park rating down to an R by adding more hysterically filthy material. Even the censor-approved title (South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut) is more crude/disgusting than the milder-yet-censored original title (South Park: All Hell Breaks Loose). With that history, have no fear: Parker surely will come up with an even more raunchy version of Blame Canada and get it aired before the censors realize they've been had.
A quick juggling of numbers indicates that a liter of of alge produces about 1/3 liter of H2 (room-temperature gaseous state) every 10 days. While not bad, we'll need a LOT of this alge slush to produce useable amounts of H2. How much H2 is needed just to drive a car to work? or run an all-electric fuel-cell-based house for a day?
Why did it take a cartoonist to come up with a healthy, geek-format meal?