Imagine if GM said
you could open the hood of a car? Would the american public stand for that? (emphasis added)
Yep, it'd be terrible if people could examine the inside of their car's engine. We'd have all these underworked overinquisitive teenagers poking around, figuring out how things work, modifying and maybe even improving the engine... it'd be chaos!
OK, OK, I shouldn't make fun of someone just because they pressed "Submit" too fast. But the slip opens up an interesting thought in my mind: It is a fact of history that in World War II, American infantry units were the only ones to get progressively more mechanized as a campaign went on. For most armies, continuing action meant trucks and tanks broke down (bad maintenance, lack of supplies, etc.). But for the US, the infantry units would gain mechanized capacity. It was not unheard of that a unit not have to march anywhere, having scrounged enough vehicles to ride. This made the infantry many times more effective and enhanced the efficiency of armor, too (since the infantry could keep up with the tanks).
It doesn't seem that, with the wear-and-tear of battle, you should get more capacity. What was the secret? Well, just about every man in a US unit had some experience with motor vehicles. Most owned their own; many if not all repaired their own. So on the battlefield, they were able to scrabble spare parts together and keep the trucks rolling. In fact, they were often able to scavenge from damaged enemy machines! When a truck or car broke down, most armies had to call in a specialist repair team. But the US infantry could fix it themselves and keep moving. (Source: Dirty Little Secrets of World War II, Dunnigan and Nofi)
What's the point? Well, consider that everyone thinks sooner or later we're going to get into a "cyberwar" -- assaults upon information infrastructure. Maybe our only chance of winning such a conflict is to have legions of people familiar with computers and security, with securing a system or attacking it, with picking apart a program and then putting it back together better. In other words, maybe we need a culture of "hackers" (in both sense) as an insurance policy.
In which case, the DMCA is not just intrusive and unbalanced. It's actually a threat to national security. How do you like them apples?
The threat was made by one part of HP...it is still quite a large company, the threat probably did not speak for all of HP, as is obvious by its retraction.
But the threat was made by the part of HP that logically would speak for the company in this matter. Ir's not like the head of janitorial services was the one saying, "Let's sue the SOBs under the DMCA." You can't let corporations get away with blaming the administrative poltergeist (the unnamed "they...") whenever a bad decision generates bad PR. The company is legally a single entity and is obligated to police itself.
so when a corperation takes action, don't be lulled into thinking that it represents some wing minority in the company
The real danger of a "well, corporations are multifaceted" philosophy is this: It allows the corp to take some heinous action and then, when the backlash begins, say, "Oops. That was someone lower in the totem pole. Of course we'd never have authorized this..." And then they blame the administrative poltergeist, everyone is happy, and they can go back to abusing the people and the planet.
If a corporation is legally a single entity, then it must be judged as a single entity. This is the essence of that old concept, "responsibility"; and it's why the CEOs get paid the big bucks (despite what they seem to think).
Just because I hear different voices in my head, it doesn't make me legally many separate people...
... the good guys win. I'm pretty sure it was my strongly-worded email to the CEO that turned the tide.:) Seriously, I think the outcry in the tech community made them beat this retreat. Whenever you're feeling overwhelmed by the latest corporate attrocity, remember: numbers can still make a different. Write, call, or scream, but don't let your outrage dribble away.
Not the Constitution, try the Decleration of Independence:
Leaving aside the fact that the Declaration of Independence was a propaganda piece with no force of law (as opposed to the Constitution, the supreme law of the law), one needs to bear in mind that "these ends" were the legitimate purpose of government ("That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men"), and that the rights were
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
and that a government designed explicitly to preserve human slavery has -- at the least -- a credibility gap wrapping itself in the mantle of Liberty.
Well, a politician is supposed to serve the public and if the public agrees with his/her policies, then he should be elected.
Of course, there's nothing to stop someone from running on a popular platform, then doing the exact opposite upon being elected. Re-election can serve as a safety device, too, since it allows the voters to decide directly on the performance and trustowrthiness of a candidate.
Re:How to take care of the situation you describe
on
Copyright as Cudgel
·
· Score: 2
Blockquoth the poster:
If only the framers saw that the whole thing would slowly become a big mess
I don't think the current state of affairs would surprise the Founders all that much. They'd probably be more surprised the system works at all after two-and-a-quarter centuries across an entire continent. Things are bad with the government of the US, but they aren't (IMHO) past the point of no return. I think the throw-up-your-hands apocalyptic credo is actually just a more sophisticated justification for basic voter laziness.
Re:How to take care of the situation you describe
on
Copyright as Cudgel
·
· Score: 2
Blockquoth the poster:
Lack of gov. regulation does not always equal screwed consumers.
The purpose of the government is not to serve consumers. It's to serve citizens. Of course the citizens are each consumers too, but the choice of word reveals a lot of one's starting point.
Lack of regulation does not always equal screwed consumers. Fair enough. But lack of regulation does not always equal served consumers, either. And regulations does not always lead to screwed consumers, as well. Hmmm. Seems there might be a balance to be struck in there...
Re:Technology is part of the reason for the change
on
Copyright as Cudgel
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· Score: 2
Blockquoth the poster:
I believe the easiest way to get us to do what they want us to do, is give us what we want, at a price we're willing to pay (see: capitalism).
What "they want us to do" is surrender time-honored and crucial concepts of fair use, non-commerciality, and the public domain... not to mention free speech itself. There is no price they can offer that makes it a good bargain to "do what they want us to do".
Re:Let's Get Back Our Access to the Courts
on
Copyright as Cudgel
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Blockquoth the poster:
US political elections are really nothing more than the powers-that-be, (Big Business(TM)), putting a donkey puppet on the left hand and an elephant puppet on the right hand
This reminds me of one of my favorite editorial cartoons, from round about 1988. First panel: Old-style Soviet elections (one vaugely-Breznev-looking guy). "Check one." Second panel: New-style Soviet elections (two identical copies of vaugely-Breznev-looking guy). "Check one.".
Doesn't do so well for the view of the Northerners as the heroes in white, fighting to save the oppressed minority, but then neither side's motives could be called entirely pure.
Well, I guess I'm just a dyed-in-the-wool Northerner, but I happen to think "the preservation of the Union" is a pure motive.
Second, on the Civil War remark, check out Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South [powells.com], which is based on just that premise: how could the South win the Civil War, and what would happen afterwords? Very nicely done
I'm not sure I accept as a serious "What if?" solution a premise that, well, time travelers drop off a carton of AK-47s. Yes, he did a nice job after the deus ex machina but it was unsatisfying, IMHO. How Few Remain, on the other hand, was truly excellent and much more believable.
But about as likely, as say, The Confederacy? winning the US Civil War?
Blockquoth the poster:
Yeah, that would have been awful. If it'd happened, slavery and racism would have continued to exist until well into the 1900s,
NB: The editor didn't say a Confederate victory would have been awful, just that it was unlikely. You can argue with that assessment, though I think the evidence -- by its nature inconclusive -- is that the South had no realistic chance, except through demoralization of the North (which could conceivably happened if a less iron man than Lincoln had been President). But anyhow, the editor wasn't talking desirability.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
BS about how "Market Forces" and other blah-blah crud would simply be much better than government regulations regarding communications, would have left us with a wasteland of commmunications devices that simply wouldn't be able to communicate.
For all you neo-libertarians out there, this isn't speculation. It's historical fact -- look into the history of radio, especially between 1905 and 1933. (For example, Building the Broadcast Band, saying,
"In the United States the use of wireless initially was unregulated -- anyone could operate a radio transmitter anywhere, at any time, on any wavelength. And most utilized the longwave signals that traveled so well across land and sea. Naturally severe interference occurred with everyone trying to use the same wavelengths."
people who tend to use these new PDA technologies are seriously missing out on the more traditional forms of human contact.
A priori, this is not necessarily a bad thing... Things aren't good just because they're new. They aren't good just because they're old. And sometimes, "time honored" is just another way of saying "previously the only option".
www.unix.com would (to most people anyway) indicate a company, and where one company has the trademark to unix, you'd expect to find them there. On the other hand, unix.org or unix.net would indicate non- commercial companies discussing unix.
Is this really true anymore? I think since around 1996 and the dotcom explosion, people associate ".com" as a moniker meaning "on that Internet thing". How many really consider the root in "commercial"?
I just wish people would stop believing that any company exists for any reason other than to increase the wealth of its shareholders.
I just wish people would stop believing that any company exists for the sole reason of increasing the wealth of its shareholders. It used to be that people believed in ethics -- that there are societal responsibilities that compete with shareholder equity. Of course it used to be that the primary purpose of a company was to produce something, which something would hopefully allow a profit.
You know it is possible -- and ethical! -- to not do something because it goes too far. Or is HP obligated to murder someone if it increases shareholder profit? And before you say, "Well, the law imposes too high a cost", answer me this: What if you could prove the legal sanction was less than the profit realized? Should HP kill the person? Must they?
I believe that they had a transportation system that was essentially a wide moving sidewalk; the closer to the middle you moved, the faster it went.
I haven't read enough Clarke to be sure, but you're definitely describing something like Asimov's "strips" in the novel The Caves of Steel -- set, appropriately enough, in New York City (albiet a NYC that had expanded to consume north Jersey and Connecticut).
That's why many of us threw out hundreds of dollars of records and diamond needles the day CD's came out.
I'm all for the points the guy raises, but this is a bad example. The adoption of CDs was actually quite slow -- the technology was introduced in 1980, but didn't outsell vinyl until 1988. Indeed, universal adoption of CDs awaited two things: the CD-ROM (turning every computer into a CD player) and the decision not to release on vinyl anymore.
The lesson? The surest way to enforce adoption of a new technology is to disallow other technologies...
Slashdot Mirror
OK, OK, I shouldn't make fun of someone just because they pressed "Submit" too fast. But the slip opens up an interesting thought in my mind: It is a fact of history that in World War II, American infantry units were the only ones to get progressively more mechanized as a campaign went on. For most armies, continuing action meant trucks and tanks broke down (bad maintenance, lack of supplies, etc.). But for the US, the infantry units would gain mechanized capacity. It was not unheard of that a unit not have to march anywhere, having scrounged enough vehicles to ride. This made the infantry many times more effective and enhanced the efficiency of armor, too (since the infantry could keep up with the tanks).
It doesn't seem that, with the wear-and-tear of battle, you should get more capacity. What was the secret? Well, just about every man in a US unit had some experience with motor vehicles. Most owned their own; many if not all repaired their own. So on the battlefield, they were able to scrabble spare parts together and keep the trucks rolling. In fact, they were often able to scavenge from damaged enemy machines! When a truck or car broke down, most armies had to call in a specialist repair team. But the US infantry could fix it themselves and keep moving. (Source: Dirty Little Secrets of World War II , Dunnigan and Nofi)
What's the point? Well, consider that everyone thinks sooner or later we're going to get into a "cyberwar" -- assaults upon information infrastructure. Maybe our only chance of winning such a conflict is to have legions of people familiar with computers and security, with securing a system or attacking it, with picking apart a program and then putting it back together better. In other words, maybe we need a culture of "hackers" (in both sense) as an insurance policy.
In which case, the DMCA is not just intrusive and unbalanced. It's actually a threat to national security. How do you like them apples?
If a corporation is legally a single entity, then it must be judged as a single entity. This is the essence of that old concept, "responsibility"; and it's why the CEOs get paid the big bucks (despite what they seem to think).
Just because I hear different voices in my head, it doesn't make me legally many separate people...
... the good guys win. I'm pretty sure it was my strongly-worded email to the CEO that turned the tide. :) Seriously, I think the outcry in the tech community made them beat this retreat. Whenever you're feeling overwhelmed by the latest corporate attrocity, remember: numbers can still make a different. Write, call, or scream, but don't let your outrage dribble away.
Lack of regulation does not always equal screwed consumers. Fair enough. But lack of regulation does not always equal served consumers, either. And regulations does not always lead to screwed consumers, as well. Hmmm. Seems there might be a balance to be struck in there...
OK, it's off topic, but I think it's funny.
10 No-Prize points for catching the reference. Double that for naming the episode.
You know it is possible -- and ethical! -- to not do something because it goes too far. Or is HP obligated to murder someone if it increases shareholder profit? And before you say, "Well, the law imposes too high a cost", answer me this: What if you could prove the legal sanction was less than the profit realized? Should HP kill the person? Must they?
The lesson? The surest way to enforce adoption of a new technology is to disallow other technologies...