there are many times more pattents applied for than are granted, as a large number patents are silly, prior art, or just wrong.
Of course, just stick an "i", or an "e", or an "internet" on the front of such patents and being "silly, prior art, or just wrong" no longer suffices to deny a patent.:)
Second,/. is seen by many people as a reliable news source.
No one is responsible for the way in which others mis-understand him/her. The slashdot folks have never pretended to be other than an editorial site. "Stuff that Matters" betrays an intrinsically opinioned stand. If people read slashdot and mistake it for the New York Times, then either (a) said people aren't reading slashdot carefully or (b) said people are beyond rational help.
IMHO, slashdot is a good source of relatively informed opinion, but it's still opinion.
Do you think CNN or ABC or any professional news network would EVER allow such a comment to be aired?
Under the terms of an expressly labelled editorial, sure. Most stations don't run editorials, but it's hardly for reasons of professionalism. It's because they're afraid to tick off potential ad buyers. Note that newspapers have a long and honored tradition of editorial/opinion pages -- heck, it's the main reason I even read the New York Times anymore -- and no one seems to think less of them.
Complete objectivity is impossible. Better that a news source understand and note its biases and opinions, than to pretend there are none. I don't know about others, but I feel relatively confident in my ability to balance different sources and weigh them according to their interests in a story. If you can't do that, then there's really little hope of ever making an intelligent decision.
I know that slashdot-snipers are now in the ascendancy on this site, but face it: this is a non-issue.
Amen to that. The question is, should the culture of the real world determine the culture of the online world. Given that the economic facts are different, should the same models apply?
Just like certain types of guns exist purely for their ability to kill humans, and those tables you can flip over to hide the gambling markings on the top exist purely to facilitate illegal gambling.
Or, to hit rather closer to home, just like car-borne radar detectors exist solely to facilitate braking speed laws... yet even the use of such is allowed.
(And if you are a detector-user, please don't "educate" me about the use of a detector "in case the police radar is miscalibrated" [as my brother-in-law argued]. If you're traveling at legal speed, you won't slow down if your detector goes off... since you've no reason to. Only if you know you're over the limit would you react to an incoming signal.)
We are now attempting to get the same ruling for the public malls in our area.
I can't imagine that the poster meant to do this, but he/she certainly just convinced me that a T-shirt is free speech. People who push an agenda and try to ban anything are essentially admitting that the "something" advocates a belief -- whatever belief they are hoping to stamp out.
I can see why the judge had to reconsider his First Amendment position...
Just not necessarily a well thought-out or defined one, particularly when you consider how it scales to other pointing devices, especially a tappable absolute one like a stylus - where's the right click on WinCE?
You make a very reasonable point, but I have to disagree with a basic assumption: why the heck should someone designing a desktop OS worry about "what works" for a handheld OS? I'll grant you that it would have been nice if pointing devices had been designed with laptops in mind from the beginning. But that's only because -- functionally -- a desktop and a laptop are the same type of computer, used for the same type of tasks. A handheld is not meant to replace a desktop; it's for scheduling, messaging, etc.
I would argue strongly that constraining it to look, feel, and act like a mini-desktop hampers its functionality and even impedes learnability. What others offer as a prime selling point for Mac -- the enforced standard interface -- I see as a straitjacket. Perhaps it's just a difference in design philosophy.
On the other hand, my students say I'm not all that easy on new learners anyway:) so maybe it's just a fundamental part of me.
The contextual menu violates a basic element of interface design; it hides basic commands... By keeping contextual menus as a complement to the interface, rather than the primary method of control, the MacOS prevents most of these violations.
I've never run across a contextual menu that offers something unavailable in the regular drop-down menus. Yes, sometimes those options are found in some hierarchical layer as opposed to at the first click, but I see that as an advantage.
It always amazes me how many people are willing to learn awk or master the Windows registry, but suddenly balk at the idea of learning command-key shortcuts and AppleScript features
OK, let me see if I get this: The justification for one button (as opposed to two or three) is "ease of learning" -- that is, it's apparently too much to ask new users to learn to use a second button. Indeed, some are saying the second button is "just a kludge" for a failed UI. But now, apparently, it's OK that users have to learn to use a different key, in a different location (the keyboard instead of the mouse)... somehow, that combines learnability with usability.
You can't have it both ways: If the second button is a kludge, a CTRL hotkey is a kludge-squared.
And no, I don't have a particular problem with hotkeys. I don't categorize them as kludges... but neither is the right-click -- and, IMHO, the right click is a much more natural way to access secondary functions.
Lots of legislators throw up 'trial balloons', partly to impress the home electorate and partly to see what will fly. Many of the more odious things we here about early on are shot down as part of the normal process of making law
This is why it's important to be vocal early in the process... though lots of people seem to think it's "overreacting", it's part of the system. When an odious proposal is met with silence, it is taken as assent. It's that liberty-and-vigilance thing again.
because Apple seems to understand the difference between a pointer and a keyboard, unlike the PC world who keeps slapping more buttons and gadgets on the mouse to make up for UI kludges
That's right. I just love spending five minutes aligning the cursor with the part of the digital image I'm interested in, then moving the fratszen mouse (oh, and incidentally, dragging the cursor) to access the menu. I don't like a lot of things Microsoft, but having been forced to use Macs for a weeklong course, I'll say this: context-sensitive right-clicking menus were a true advance in UI.
That's why Apple has 1 mouse button--to make it easier for a user. In fact, the OS is designed so that novice users only ever need 1 button.
That's like saying cars shouldn't have a gas pedal AND a brakes pedal, because, hey, how do you know which one to press?
I always read this Apple propoganda that one button is easier. Um, no. I just helped my technophobic mom set up her system. Double clicking was a much harder concept (esp. as to when you double and when you single click) than left-click. It's time for Apple to face facts: Their choice of single-button mice was a design mistake which sacrificed functionality for alleged gains in usability, but which in truth forced people into contorted responses to restore the functionality.
The interceptors are giving themselves progressively greater powers to ensure that encrypted mail can either be decrypted by them or used as incriminating evidence in its own right by being encrypted in the first place.
IANAL by far but I worry about erosion of Fifth Amendment rights. If my mail is used as evidence against me, I believe that violates the prohibition on self-incrimination. If I am jailed for not surrenderng encryption keys, that violates the same. What does it mean to have such a protection if invoking is allowed to viewed as pleading guilty?
I for one am going to start encrypting everything just to piss of the government...
I am a teacher, and one day a student emailed me joking about my using PGP to sign email. He wanted to know if I was a terrorist. I responded that I feel it's our civic duty to use PGP (or other encryption), to encrypt EVERYTHING we can, and to integrate it fully into our online experience. Then, too many legitimate interests will be using PGP for the government to legislate it away. As long as encryption is considered fringe, scare tactics will be enough to shut it down...
but I'm not sure it will ever happen. I haven't seen the code, but it could be some of the programs are useing protocols which are mutually exclusive
Heck, I'm not even a hacker; I'm just riding the wave. But it seems to me that Windows, MacOS, Linux, and all the flavors of Unix use core codes that are, to varying extent, mutually exclusive. Yet they manage to communicate over the Net. Why? Because people create transfer protocols that control how they interact.
Now, since Gnutella, etc., are already transfer protocols, perhaps this would be redundant and/or unworkable. But I think it could be done.
never mind all the songs I download because it's easire for me to download songs I have the CD for than for me to rip them myself
Astoundingly, a judge has ruled that this is illegal (in the my.mp3.com beam-it case). That's right -- the MP3 you rip from your CD, and the MP3 I rip from my copy of the identical CD, would be identical and indistinguishable... but you can't use my MP3, even though you own the work in question. Apparently, swapping tapes has been illegal all this time and no one noticed...
It's just more of the madness in the whole situation.
Wouldn't it be better to move to a single (or at least as few as possible) communites - possibly something which would have a harder time being shut down?
It seems that those two options are mutually exclusive. The real solution is to encourage interoperability and data-sharing between the different alternatives... My in-a-jiffy model is the Internet itself. We didn't shut down all the competing networks; we just made sure they could talk to one another.
To draw a riff from Pink Floyd, "The only thing we need to do, is keep talking.":)
Wow, how fickle Slashdot it[sic]. So now, because of one instance of standing up for the little guy, we say yay for WIPO
Ya gotta love this. If a big bad entity is doing a Bad Thing and then does something smacking of reversal, either:
slashdot can praise them for doing this little Good Thing, and thus get flamed for supporting a big bad entity (and also for being "inconsistent"); or
slashdot can note the good thing but remind people that in general the big bad entity does Bad Things, and get flamed for being fanatical and rigid.
What can't happen, apparently, is that slashdot can side with whomeever is doing a Good Thing when they do it, thus being consistent in view as opposed to target. Apparently, that is just a shade too complicated for some of the readers...
I have no doubt that they would also be willing to make a deal with Napster as long as they still reeived a decent return on signing the bands, recording, and advertising.
A few points:
It's not clear to me at all that the RIAA would accept any deal with Napster that wasn't out-and-out surrender.
The "decent returns" as defined by the RIAA's current practices are from the realm of economic fantasy, possible only because the RIAA has a state-enforced monopoly.
This "solution" simply shores up an outdated and inefficient distribution method. The high prices and ludicrous contracts forced on consumers and artists have been justifiable only insofar as the RIAA and its ilk have been necessary for the widespread distribution of music. That is no longer true. I'm tired of paying for advertising, especially since the things I listen to never seem to merit the attention. And I am doubly tired of "market research" (underwritten by high prices) that produce sugary-sweet pop pap.
I don't see why we should allow the RIAA's current possession of a state-enforced monopoly -- whose economic justification is waning -- to allow them to enshrine and cement their control.
I'm stirring a little, but I get tired of people pouring their bleeding hearts over rights in the internet arena that they lost in other arenas years ago.
Fair enough. Some of us get a little tired of the sheep who decide that a loss of freedom anywhere justifies a loss of freedom everywhere, or who think that the fact that things have gone wrong somehow makes it right that they go wrong. I find it one part funny, two parts sad when I see people scoff at the notion of a "slippery slope"... then make arguments like the above to justify giving up.
Sorry, but this distinction -- often made -- seems silly to me:
Digital-quality duplicates of engineered studio masters is not an "idea" existing in someone's head. It is a tangible substance which must exist on a piece of physical media.
Hate to disillusion you, but the ideas you hold exist in a physical medium, too: your brain. Remove the matter of your brain, and the ideas go, too. We need not settle whether some part of you is nonmaterial; the fact is, your ideas need a physical medium to be expressed, even to yourself.
It bothers me that people are confusing the world-changing nature of digital copying. It is not that digital copies are somehow new and fundamentally different from older methods of copying. The "perfection" of the copy is irrelevant. Digital copying is significant because it has reduced the cost of copying (which has always been determined not by the idea but by the physical medium in which it is expressed) to essentially zero, thereby exposing the grotesque flaws of the IP system.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, couldn't resist. :)
IMHO, slashdot is a good source of relatively informed opinion, but it's still opinion.
Complete objectivity is impossible. Better that a news source understand and note its biases and opinions, than to pretend there are none. I don't know about others, but I feel relatively confident in my ability to balance different sources and weigh them according to their interests in a story. If you can't do that, then there's really little hope of ever making an intelligent decision.
I know that slashdot-snipers are now in the ascendancy on this site, but face it: this is a non-issue.
Amen to that. The question is, should the culture of the real world determine the culture of the online world. Given that the economic facts are different, should the same models apply?
(And if you are a detector-user, please don't "educate" me about the use of a detector "in case the police radar is miscalibrated" [as my brother-in-law argued]. If you're traveling at legal speed, you won't slow down if your detector goes off ... since you've no reason to. Only if you know you're over the limit would you react to an incoming signal.)
I can see why the judge had to reconsider his First Amendment position...
I would argue strongly that constraining it to look, feel, and act like a mini-desktop hampers its functionality and even impedes learnability. What others offer as a prime selling point for Mac -- the enforced standard interface -- I see as a straitjacket. Perhaps it's just a difference in design philosophy.
On the other hand, my students say I'm not all that easy on new learners anyway :) so maybe it's just a fundamental part of me.
You can't have it both ways: If the second button is a kludge, a CTRL hotkey is a kludge-squared.
And no, I don't have a particular problem with hotkeys. I don't categorize them as kludges ... but neither is the right-click -- and, IMHO, the right click is a much more natural way to access secondary functions.
I always read this Apple propoganda that one button is easier. Um, no. I just helped my technophobic mom set up her system. Double clicking was a much harder concept (esp. as to when you double and when you single click) than left-click. It's time for Apple to face facts: Their choice of single-button mice was a design mistake which sacrificed functionality for alleged gains in usability, but which in truth forced people into contorted responses to restore the functionality.
Single Buttons: it's just a bad idea.
Now, since Gnutella, etc., are already transfer protocols, perhaps this would be redundant and/or unworkable. But I think it could be done.
It's just more of the madness in the whole situation.
To draw a riff from Pink Floyd, "The only thing we need to do, is keep talking." :)
- slashdot can praise them for doing this little Good Thing, and thus get flamed for supporting a big bad entity (and also for being "inconsistent"); or
- slashdot can note the good thing but remind people that in general the big bad entity does Bad Things, and get flamed for being fanatical and rigid.
What can't happen, apparently, is that slashdot can side with whomeever is doing a Good Thing when they do it, thus being consistent in view as opposed to target. Apparently, that is just a shade too complicated for some of the readers...It bothers me that people are confusing the world-changing nature of digital copying. It is not that digital copies are somehow new and fundamentally different from older methods of copying. The "perfection" of the copy is irrelevant. Digital copying is significant because it has reduced the cost of copying (which has always been determined not by the idea but by the physical medium in which it is expressed) to essentially zero, thereby exposing the grotesque flaws of the IP system.