It seems that the way I read the question had more to do with whether you think that xeroxing sheet music is _wrong_. I'm not so sure that the person posing this question wanted the answer to turn on the fact that a church was doing the copying in this hypothetical. Rather:
Copying sheet music is illegal---copyright problems. But should it be illegal? Is there something moral about copyright law? Is there some constitutive evil involved in the copying of other people's copyrighted material? I can't say I can see any such moral evil or wrong, but maybe I'm not looking at the issue correctly.
I'm afraid that I really can't see the harm in downloading music at all. Although, I can rarely be bothered---I like full albums and I'm too much of a dope to properly use usenet.
Really? Perhaps my mistake was reading Breakfast of Champions as my first---and last---piece of Vonnegut. Actually, it's the only book that I've ever given away. Put it on a newspaper box outside of a busy downtown bookstore and, when I came out, it was gone. So either someone built a nice fire, or, perhaps someone got some more enjoyment out of it than I did. Oh well.
I was familiar with the fact that he'd written these characters in other books. I just didn't like the style, nor did I find the whole "I'm controlling this whole thing-Ha Ha Ha" very entertaining. Oh well. Different strokes. No one's recommended Lolita so far as I've seen. What good is a reading list without Lolita? Hohum.
Oh, OK. I recommended Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.
The amount of bandwidth at a given time is constant, and it is finite. Whether the shortage is artificial or necessitated by the state of the system is inconsequential. You pay for an amount of access to the system per unit time. To use more, regardless of whether the system could be expanded to include more at a later time, is wrong. It _is_ theft. It is properly construed as theft. Compare it to currency. There is a finite amount, and regardless of whether more could be created, that amount is finite at a given time. Taking currency which is not yours lessens the currency at that time available for someone else. It is currency for which you have not paid. There is nothing fascist about this.
I'm not sure that this is entirely appropriate. In Referring to RMS at Stallman or even RMS, I think we're neglecting the infrastructure that allowed him to spring forth.
Therefore, I recommend referring to him as Stallman/Stallman, or Stallman/RMS, in recognition of his parents' contribution to the world and Free Software in General.
Wherever you are, Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Stallman.
This is not a big issue. If you would let someone "buy a product that makes this [removing dirty material] easy for them," then there is no good reason as to why a service shouldn't be allowed to do the same. As stated before by someone else, do you hold that it ought to be illegal for me to purchase a book, hand it to someone, ask him to "please remove every page with a pronoun on it" and pay him five dollars for his effort? That ought to be illegal? Blah. There ought not be a difference between me doing it myself and someone else doing it for me. There also ought not be a difference between someone doing it a whole bunch of times in advance on the premise that others will want books without pronouns. This is about consumer rights.
I can't see why any artist would mind. All art is derivative. You've hardly had an original idea. Sure, you put your own spin on something you've seen or heard, but ultimately you're the sum of other people's actions. You're mutilating their reality. Please stop.
Tell me, do you dislike fan fiction? After all, those carefully constructed characters are being mutilated! Would Sabrina the Teenaged Witch _ever_ do that "in real life"? Buh.
You mutilate a work every time you watch it. You blink; you get distracted by a passing car; your phone rings. If you wanted, you could always alleviate those problems, just as you could purchase an uncensored version if you wished.
This is all about consumer rights. Now, I just need Buffy the Vampire Slayer without that horrible little blonde girl...
As with most problems, the solution is not simply a or simply b; rather, it is a combination of the two. The solution is to go to the movie in a theatre, but bring along a copy of the pirated movie on CD-R or whatever strikes your fancy. When said 2 year old begins screaming, pick an orifice and shove. Perhaps that would "learn him" some "manners."
I am not so sure that I agree. No matter what the film, if there are noisy children, people or cellphones inside, they are the ones in the wrong, not me. Incidentally (and not that it matters _at all_), I didn't pay anything to see the movie; I was given a free pass. Whether there are going to be noisy children should not be something that factors in to whether I watch a particular movie. The fact that it is makes for a sad commentary on how people behave these days.
Anyway, this behaviour is in no way specific to "Cats & Dogs." It is in no way specific to "G" rated movies. It is, however, a larger problem at G rated movies, because there is some sort of brain-dead idea that this behaviour is acceptable because the movie is about something intended "for children."
As for the doctor analogy, this is more like walking through a bad neighbourhood and getting beaten up. Sure, you could've avoided the neighbourhood, walked a few blocks out of your way (rented on DVD), but why should you have to? The poor element there is he who would beat you up, not yourself. The solution to the problem is not to acquiesce to him, but to take the appropriate steps to get rid of him. Is my pattern recognition supposed to kick in and cause me to avoid the neighbourhood? Probably it would, in a case like that. But in a movie theatre, the injury is far less damaging, so on I go.
And yes, I have every right to complain even though I am subjecting myself to this voluntarily.... I can hope, can't I?
I could not agree more. Of course, my sometimes violent griping about said babies sometimes leaves me with odd looks from friends, but seriously. What the fuck are those parents thinking?
I've seen replies to this talk about babies in R rated movies, and that's bad. There is, however, something even worse: it is a child at a children's movie. Apparently, a "G" rating and fuzzy, docile little critters on the screen give not only children but their parents license to forget all about how to view a motion picture.
Picture this. "Cats & Dogs," a boring little film with talking cats and dogs. Well, OK. So, here I am, sitting in the theatre and suddenly, the three year old five seats to my left decides that the film is "too scary." Well, this is fine! Of course, mommy has to carry on a loud conversation whose subject is whether the young'n should _really_ leave the theatre. Of course, this could be handled in no other manner.
Now, concealed carrying laws being what they are in Canada, I'm left with little redress, illegal or otherwise. Well, Christ. So, the very least I can do is ask them to leave. I'm not out of line, am I? Obviously, Mother thinks that i am. "She's only three. Get a life!" Now, this lady is obviously an example of those for whom procreation should not be a right. Christ, this is annoying. FInally, they leave and I can pretend to enjoy the movie while nursing my quiet outrage...
That being said, a law to govern this deplorab le behaviour is a waste of money and resources. This should be something that theatres enforce, not The Man. As nice as it would be to see a band of SWAT guys rapel from the ceiling down onto some colicy little diaperbag, they should probably be doing something more useful, like stopping teenaged drinking or the consumption of fast-foods by those with eating disorders...
What is the solution? Better fucking manners, that's what. If your child younger than six wants to watch a movie, there is a wonderful invention: the DVD player. If you insist on taking him to a movie, make him understand that the actors on the screen are not being projected from a giant reel of film via a high powered lamp. No, they are the disenfranchised flat people, unable to work in any other manner. Just as the very tiny are trapped inside the damned tele-vision box, so are these people trapped in a giant screen of the local movie house. Make your child understand that the slightest sound will set them off on a homicidal rampage. Make the child understand that it would be impolite to bring about the slaughter of many other innocent movie goers. Or just threaten to beat him within an inch of his life if he's not quiet. I don't fucking care.
I think you're missing the point. Though semi-oddly worded, after a second reading, I got the meaning. In the 'industry' in the movie, his hands are all that is shown. Obviously he's shown in the movie... In the 'industry', he is a hand model. Not that I've seen anything but previews. But that seems to make sense to me.
I would assert that it is the ISP's right to kick you off, completely arbitrarily. Well, not completely, assuming that the terms of service were laid out such that they specify exactly what the conditions for possible disconnection are. Unfortunately, I can't quite find the actual terms of service for this specific case, but I see nothing wrong with an ISP disconnecting a customer. Your connection is not a right, it's a privilige that you pay for. The day when a company providing a service loses control over said service other than the control it agrees to relinquish is a very unhappy day.
Whether the terms were violated is also an internal issue for the ISP, nothing the courts should be involved in. Their service, they can set the standard for what X is. If they're irrational, people will stop using the ISP. Isn't it grand?
Quite right. I don't see how the notion of a privately created monopoly can hold water, after all, the only entity with the actual coercive force to create a monopoly is the government. My dictionary uses te word exclusive to define monopoly. How, exactly is it that Microsoft could have exclusive control over anything without government intervention? They don't have exclusive control over the market. Nothing exists to stop me from trying to create a better OS and sell it. Oh well.
It won't. But I think he means something like, if you put in too much, then it will add more water, until the desired strength is achieved, and if you put in too little (barring really miniscule amounts, I guess) it'll add less water, as the 'strength' is preserved. You could express it as a ratio, or something, I guess, you want 'brown sludge', aka.5, so, if you add 200g of Coffee, it needs to chug in 400 mL of water. If you only add 175 g though, it only needs to add 250 mL. Or would that be litres? =]. I dunno. Anyways, that's my take on this amazing new technology... Of course now it needs to be interfaced to a computer, so that a small tray/dock app can be used to distribute the status of the coffee across an entire network...
So, while yeah, your law is valid, there are certain adjustments that can be made. Ofbiouvlsy, you can't get anything stronger than your grinds with no water, but you can get a strength closer to what you want with less water, if you put in less grounds, or more water if you put in more grounds. Sound kosher?
I'm sure they're moving on to more interesting shapes. A dodecahedral computer, that'd be neat. Or a sphere, floating in the air... Of course, if you lost power, crashing would take on a whole new meaning... I guess it's true every technological benefit introduces new problems!
This is a great day indeed. Armed with this knowledge, I do see many great things that can be done! For example, giant stadiums can be lit by giant fireflies, bred in special giant tubes! Everything will be giant. This is a truly monumental discovery. I hope to live to see the day where ALL light sources have been replaced with fireflies. Headlights, lamps, yes, even the sun. For the sun will run out eventually! But a giant firefly, bred just for the job, well, he'll obviously live forever if we care and nurture him properly. And then we can form a giant cult centered around the worship of the giant firefly... This is the start of a new renaissance. I can feel it in the air. A day is coming. A day where men no longer have to rely on reliable, efficient LED keychain lights, but genetically engineered fireflys, tempermental ones at that. Also, schoolchildren could be encouraged to play with them. Is there any facet of our lives that this discovery won't touch? I can't think of one...
Let's review:
Transportation: medium Firefly
Communcation: Miniscule Fibre-OpticFireFlys with tiny keyboards to tap in information
'She also says her kids have agreed to testify in court about the deprivation of missing television -- particularly this year's Survivor show -- and its effect on their lives.'
Yes, I can see it now
Please, tell the court how you were affected by Rogers's Actions...
I started reading. (through sobs) I got though an entire book! YOU BASTARDS!
That should still be my right. If I'm providing a service, I should be able to choose to provide it to any set of people I please. If I only want to rent to white people, that should be my right, though it might not be a profitable one, or smart one. It is _one thing_ for the government to say 'Only white people can rent your apartments'. It is quite another for me to say 'I only want to rent my apartments to white people'. In fact, I could get even more arbitrary. I could only rent to people with brown hair. At least, this is what I should be able to do. Not that I would.
If you want to trace what system calls are being made, have a look at strace, though if you want to make sure it doesn't actually modify anything, the idea of chrooting is probably a good one.
We need plug-compatible components and message-based communication between objects
When you get right down to it, at least as I see it, computers process instruction after instruction. Now, here's what dict.org's 'Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing' calls an algorithm, in part:
algorithm
A detailed sequence of actions to perform to accomplish some task. Named after an Iranian mathematician, Al-Khawarizmi.
So, even if we use these objects that communicate via message passing, it's just a facade over the real algorithmic execution that's occuring. But then, this isn't meant to be serious. Entertaining though. Exactly how, do you propose we would write software without languages? And message passing, how is that different from function calls? Oh yeah, it's not! Don't worry, you get a cookie...
Control of what? Bad People? Good lord, we wouldn't want to keep those Bad People in check! It is not a link in the chain, unless you can prove that it will fundamentally effect your freedom to do something. It's not as though they're gathering data that isn't publicly available, they're getting it from a public enterprise. Is it a waste of money? Maybe. But that's not the way the idea was presented. It was presented as a Really Bad Thing(tm), on its face. It's not. Sure, it could be abused. The government could abuse any number of things. They probably even do regularily.
Again, getting slightly off topic. Anyhoo, a government is all about control. When you pool your money and interests (pooling interests? OK) you essentially ask the government to control things you and your kind don't like. Don't like murder? Well, I'm going to pay to stop murder! That's a Good and Noble goal. Big Databases of publicly available information on citizens? That's Bad. Why? Control. And I don't like-- oh, wait, I do, that's why I like seeing murderers incarcerated. Oh well. Is it worth it if it can help stop one violent crime? How *do* you put a price on life? Frankly, I like my paranoia to be more outlandish, that way, you won't be able to play off of stupid people. Oh well.
Face facts: This data probably won't impact your life in any way shape or form. Complain about something worth complaining about, like children starving in your home town! Unless you're a criminal this data will help the FBI target... Oh my, I can see why you're so uptight now =]
Slashdot Mirror
It seems that the way I read the question had more to do with whether you think that xeroxing sheet music is _wrong_. I'm not so sure that the person posing this question wanted the answer to turn on the fact that a church was doing the copying in this hypothetical. Rather:
Copying sheet music is illegal---copyright problems. But should it be illegal? Is there something moral about copyright law? Is there some constitutive evil involved in the copying of other people's copyrighted material? I can't say I can see any such moral evil or wrong, but maybe I'm not looking at the issue correctly.
I'm afraid that I really can't see the harm in downloading music at all. Although, I can rarely be bothered---I like full albums and I'm too much of a dope to properly use usenet.
Really? Perhaps my mistake was reading Breakfast of Champions as my first---and last---piece of Vonnegut. Actually, it's the only book that I've ever given away. Put it on a newspaper box outside of a busy downtown bookstore and, when I came out, it was gone. So either someone built a nice fire, or, perhaps someone got some more enjoyment out of it than I did. Oh well.
I was familiar with the fact that he'd written these characters in other books. I just didn't like the style, nor did I find the whole "I'm controlling this whole thing-Ha Ha Ha" very entertaining. Oh well. Different strokes. No one's recommended Lolita so far as I've seen. What good is a reading list without Lolita? Hohum.
Oh, OK. I recommended Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.
The amount of bandwidth at a given time is constant, and it is finite. Whether the shortage is artificial or necessitated by the state of the system is inconsequential. You pay for an amount of access to the system per unit time. To use more, regardless of whether the system could be expanded to include more at a later time, is wrong. It _is_ theft. It is properly construed as theft. Compare it to currency. There is a finite amount, and regardless of whether more could be created, that amount is finite at a given time. Taking currency which is not yours lessens the currency at that time available for someone else. It is currency for which you have not paid. There is nothing fascist about this.
This is not a troll. I wonder what the moderation totals for A Modest Proposal would be...
Well, I'm glad they decided that the security certificate business was more profitable...
I'm not sure that this is entirely appropriate. In Referring to RMS at Stallman or even RMS, I think we're neglecting the infrastructure that allowed him to spring forth.
Therefore, I recommend referring to him as Stallman/Stallman, or Stallman/RMS, in recognition of his parents' contribution to the world and Free Software in General.
Wherever you are, Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Stallman.
This is not a big issue. If you would let someone "buy a product that makes this [removing dirty material] easy for them," then there is no good reason as to why a service shouldn't be allowed to do the same. As stated before by someone else, do you hold that it ought to be illegal for me to purchase a book, hand it to someone, ask him to "please remove every page with a pronoun on it" and pay him five dollars for his effort? That ought to be illegal? Blah. There ought not be a difference between me doing it myself and someone else doing it for me. There also ought not be a difference between someone doing it a whole bunch of times in advance on the premise that others will want books without pronouns. This is about consumer rights.
I can't see why any artist would mind. All art is derivative. You've hardly had an original idea. Sure, you put your own spin on something you've seen or heard, but ultimately you're the sum of other people's actions. You're mutilating their reality. Please stop.
Tell me, do you dislike fan fiction? After all, those carefully constructed characters are being mutilated! Would Sabrina the Teenaged Witch _ever_ do that "in real life"? Buh.
You mutilate a work every time you watch it. You blink; you get distracted by a passing car; your phone rings. If you wanted, you could always alleviate those problems, just as you could purchase an uncensored version if you wished.
This is all about consumer rights. Now, I just need Buffy the Vampire Slayer without that horrible little blonde girl...
What might you call your objective basis for belief in God? You can hardly build a sturdy building on a foundation of pudding...
Just for comparison, how many Coyboy Neals is that? 1? .2?
Oof, I can feel the skin peeling off my back. Or is that karma?
As with most problems, the solution is not simply a or simply b; rather, it is a combination of the two. The solution is to go to the movie in a theatre, but bring along a copy of the pirated movie on CD-R or whatever strikes your fancy. When said 2 year old begins screaming, pick an orifice and shove. Perhaps that would "learn him" some "manners."
I am not so sure that I agree. No matter what the film, if there are noisy children, people or cellphones inside, they are the ones in the wrong, not me. Incidentally (and not that it matters _at all_), I didn't pay anything to see the movie; I was given a free pass. Whether there are going to be noisy children should not be something that factors in to whether I watch a particular movie. The fact that it is makes for a sad commentary on how people behave these days.
... I can hope, can't I?
Anyway, this behaviour is in no way specific to "Cats & Dogs." It is in no way specific to "G" rated movies. It is, however, a larger problem at G rated movies, because there is some sort of brain-dead idea that this behaviour is acceptable because the movie is about something intended "for children."
As for the doctor analogy, this is more like walking through a bad neighbourhood and getting beaten up. Sure, you could've avoided the neighbourhood, walked a few blocks out of your way (rented on DVD), but why should you have to? The poor element there is he who would beat you up, not yourself. The solution to the problem is not to acquiesce to him, but to take the appropriate steps to get rid of him. Is my pattern recognition supposed to kick in and cause me to avoid the neighbourhood? Probably it would, in a case like that. But in a movie theatre, the injury is far less damaging, so on I go.
And yes, I have every right to complain even though I am subjecting myself to this voluntarily.
I could not agree more. Of course, my sometimes violent griping about said babies sometimes leaves me with odd looks from friends, but seriously. What the fuck are those parents thinking?
I've seen replies to this talk about babies in R rated movies, and that's bad. There is, however, something even worse: it is a child at a children's movie. Apparently, a "G" rating and fuzzy, docile little critters on the screen give not only children but their parents license to forget all about how to view a motion picture.
Picture this. "Cats & Dogs," a boring little film with talking cats and dogs. Well, OK. So, here I am, sitting in the theatre and suddenly, the three year old five seats to my left decides that the film is "too scary." Well, this is fine! Of course, mommy has to carry on a loud conversation whose subject is whether the young'n should _really_ leave the theatre. Of course, this could be handled in no other manner.
Now, concealed carrying laws being what they are in Canada, I'm left with little redress, illegal or otherwise. Well, Christ. So, the very least I can do is ask them to leave. I'm not out of line, am I? Obviously, Mother thinks that i am. "She's only three. Get a life!" Now, this lady is obviously an example of those for whom procreation should not be a right. Christ, this is annoying. FInally, they leave and I can pretend to enjoy the movie while nursing my quiet outrage...
That being said, a law to govern this deplorab le behaviour is a waste of money and resources. This should be something that theatres enforce, not The Man. As nice as it would be to see a band of SWAT guys rapel from the ceiling down onto some colicy little diaperbag, they should probably be doing something more useful, like stopping teenaged drinking or the consumption of fast-foods by those with eating disorders...
What is the solution? Better fucking manners, that's what. If your child younger than six wants to watch a movie, there is a wonderful invention: the DVD player. If you insist on taking him to a movie, make him understand that the actors on the screen are not being projected from a giant reel of film via a high powered lamp. No, they are the disenfranchised flat people, unable to work in any other manner. Just as the very tiny are trapped inside the damned tele-vision box, so are these people trapped in a giant screen of the local movie house. Make your child understand that the slightest sound will set them off on a homicidal rampage. Make the child understand that it would be impolite to bring about the slaughter of many other innocent movie goers. Or just threaten to beat him within an inch of his life if he's not quiet. I don't fucking care.
Just keep him out of my G rated movies....
I think you're missing the point. Though semi-oddly worded, after a second reading, I got the meaning. In the 'industry' in the movie, his hands are all that is shown. Obviously he's shown in the movie... In the 'industry', he is a hand model. Not that I've seen anything but previews. But that seems to make sense to me.
Whether the terms were violated is also an internal issue for the ISP, nothing the courts should be involved in. Their service, they can set the standard for what X is. If they're irrational, people will stop using the ISP. Isn't it grand?
Quite right. I don't see how the notion of a privately created monopoly can hold water, after all, the only entity with the actual coercive force to create a monopoly is the government. My dictionary uses te word exclusive to define monopoly. How, exactly is it that Microsoft could have exclusive control over anything without government intervention? They don't have exclusive control over the market. Nothing exists to stop me from trying to create a better OS and sell it. Oh well.
So, while yeah, your law is valid, there are certain adjustments that can be made. Ofbiouvlsy, you can't get anything stronger than your grinds with no water, but you can get a strength closer to what you want with less water, if you put in less grounds, or more water if you put in more grounds. Sound kosher?
I'm sure they're moving on to more interesting shapes. A dodecahedral computer, that'd be neat. Or a sphere, floating in the air... Of course, if you lost power, crashing would take on a whole new meaning... I guess it's true every technological benefit introduces new problems!
... let's not get silly.
Let's review:
Yes, this is a great day indeed!
... And Jellyfish hats.
'She also says her kids have agreed to testify in court about the deprivation of missing television -- particularly this year's Survivor show -- and its effect on their lives.'
Yes, I can see it now
Please, tell the court how you were affected by Rogers's Actions...
I started reading. (through sobs) I got though an entire book! YOU BASTARDS!
My property, my rules. Your property, your rules. Why should I be able to charge $5000 in rent instead of the $400 it really costs me?
That should still be my right. If I'm providing a service, I should be able to choose to provide it to any set of people I please. If I only want to rent to white people, that should be my right, though it might not be a profitable one, or smart one. It is _one thing_ for the government to say 'Only white people can rent your apartments'. It is quite another for me to say 'I only want to rent my apartments to white people'. In fact, I could get even more arbitrary. I could only rent to people with brown hair. At least, this is what I should be able to do. Not that I would.
If you want to trace what system calls are being made, have a look at strace, though if you want to make sure it doesn't actually modify anything, the idea of chrooting is probably a good one.
We need plug-compatible components and message-based communication between objects
When you get right down to it, at least as I see it, computers process instruction after instruction. Now, here's what dict.org's 'Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing' calls an algorithm, in part:
algorithm
A detailed sequence of actions to perform to accomplish some task. Named after an Iranian mathematician, Al-Khawarizmi.
So, even if we use these objects that communicate via message passing, it's just a facade over the real algorithmic execution that's occuring. But then, this isn't meant to be serious. Entertaining though. Exactly how, do you propose we would write software without languages? And message passing, how is that different from function calls? Oh yeah, it's not! Don't worry, you get a cookie...
Again, getting slightly off topic. Anyhoo, a government is all about control. When you pool your money and interests (pooling interests? OK) you essentially ask the government to control things you and your kind don't like. Don't like murder? Well, I'm going to pay to stop murder! That's a Good and Noble goal. Big Databases of publicly available information on citizens? That's Bad. Why? Control. And I don't like-- oh, wait, I do, that's why I like seeing murderers incarcerated. Oh well. Is it worth it if it can help stop one violent crime? How *do* you put a price on life? Frankly, I like my paranoia to be more outlandish, that way, you won't be able to play off of stupid people. Oh well.
Face facts: This data probably won't impact your life in any way shape or form. Complain about something worth complaining about, like children starving in your home town! Unless you're a criminal this data will help the FBI target... Oh my, I can see why you're so uptight now =]