I never advocated using the information fraudulently. Just post the information. Are you afraid that someone will use it fraudulently? You would be right in believing that.
So.. If I have some information and I never want that information released, it is alright for me to enter into legal, binding agreements to have that information protected. As a matter of fact, that is my right. The issue is what then? How long is it protected? Most information relating to finance, you will agree with me, should be protected for the life of the entity. Even if you have the information, you cannot disburse it (I never said use it). For example, a corporate credit card number. It is issued to the corporation and has people who are authorized to use it. Why don't people just post corporate credit card information then? Because people will abuse it and defraud--a totally different crime. I am just raising the point that no one will willingly post credit card information because people will use it fraudulently.
As for how long it lasts, the inventor's remaining life plus x years. This can ensure the livelihood of mom and pop operations beyond the life of mom and pop. Otherwise, they would be shut down, no doubt about it.
Now, what is the difference between a piece of paper with credit card billing information and a piece of paper with a poem on it? Nothing really, they are just pieces of paper with information on it. Using the information on one with out consent constitutes fraud, the other constitutes copyright violation (supposing the poem was copyrighted).
If I copy the peom and sign my name to it, there are consequences to the action. If I sell it, I go to court. If I academically publish it, I will no longer work in academe. You will agree with me so far.
Next comes fair use of the information. The poem, for me to get it, would have to be published in some manner. I would like to "fairly use" this published material. Fair use is a (semi)strict legal definition that more or less means not-for-profit use in very special circumstances and quoting.
If I work and toil on a novel/poem/program/concept, I would expect to be rewarded for my effort. If the idea is remarkable enough, I pick the reward, not someone else. Further, the reward should go to me, not someone else. Fraud laws prevent this in the case of money/property/service/etc transactions. Is it unreasonable to think I should have this right for my idea?
Is there such a thing as too important information? What is a definition of too important information? Any information that is that important could no make an impact as large as Bill Gate's American Express card information. That is an important piece of information that would end hunger in several small third world nations. I do not advocate taking it or using it, but that all information is important for a length of (arbitrary) time and should be protected with stronger teeth than civil proceedings.
While I agree that it is free speech to say whatever you want, it is not free speech to use whatever you want. The fact that information is so easy to use, it needs strong protection from the misuse/abuse/theft of the original owner. And if you do not like restrictions on the information, don't use it. You do NOT have a right to it. (Try smoking crack in front of a police station. You don't have the right to use crack) Both crack and information are commodities.
In general, I am leery of anything coming from a Harvard Law professors mouth. Or for that matter, any lawyers mouth concerning laws.
Remove IP protection, then one can be coerced to say (do) something--like turn over intellectual property. Kinda like being force to say the pledge of allegiance in school. Can't do it anymore since (1) violates establishment of religion and (2) violates free-speech. At no point in time are you forced to pledge allegiance. IP protection ensures free speech. You are not required to disperse your information and further it is your prerogative to enforce how you wish the information disseminated. It is counter-intuitive, but are you going to be on the side that:
One can be forced to share intellectual property and information--(like social security numbers)
One can keep certain information private and sue if the privacy is violated--(like social security numbers)
By all reasoning I have seen to having light/no IP laws on slashdot, I should have the right to break into CDnow.com, steal all the information on billing and post it so that it can be viewed for a price. Hey, its free speech, right? Or does that not count because that is personal information for which you make money and should be kept secret? I would like someone to just stand up and address this double standard. What the hell is the difference between a bunch of 1s and 0s representing a piece of music and a bunch of 1s and 0s representing a bank/credit card/line of credit account?
For those who believe that information should be free, free your information. Give me your credit card number. Give me your mother's maiden name. For those who believe it is right to traffic in intellectual property, don't sue when someone breaks into someplace (say a bank) and steals your digital identity. Hell, its only information. Free it all!
Artificial satelites - first conceived of by Jules Verne. First tele-communication satelite conceived of by Arthur C. Clarke. Sputnik (first working prototype of artificial satelite) put in orbit by USSR. First working prototype of telecommunications satelite put in orbit by US. I use telecommunications satelites everyday.
Movable Type - pretty generally attributed to Guettenburg (sp?) since typesetting doen't make sense in a pictographic language (too many symbols). Mimeo-graph, photocopy, laser-document production, ink-jet document production, all pretty much were developed by Xerox and IBM. I haven't used a hand typeset printing press in--gosh I don't know how long. Most of my info comes from a CRT (invented by--you guessed it, an American in the 1930s)
Banking - Let's start with currency. Currency was written on private banks and not widely accepted until the turn of the 18th century (at least in the Occident, don't know about the Orient) when nations started making private currency illegal. So currency (which now uses microtype, lustrous fibers, special water-marking, etc. developed right here in the good ole' US of A to prevent counterfeiting) I do use. Maybe once a week. I know use credit card and atm card transactions almost exclusively. (Back to the idea of currency written on a bank). Now, the concept of the IOU was used in Banking then and that's what made it work. But now using systems developed here in the US, there is (practically) no IOU involved. So as Singer made typewriters with the qwerty layout and I use computers--thus owing my computer all to Singer, Italians invented banking with (near)instantaneous balance checking. Half a point here.
Concrete My fiancee is a concrete engineer. You'll be happy to know that all concrete used in the United States conforms to specifications invented, patented, and perfected by a society located in Cincinnati, Ohio. The aggregate used in modern concrete is much different than the aggregate used in Roman times. Further, curing methods (initially developed in England, but refined to be strong enough to build the Hoover damn in the US) and reinforcement are also modern inventions of the US. Romans:Concrete::Ancient Egyptions:Skyscraper office buildings (the Pyramids).
Glass. I believe you are on to something here. The first time glass was massed produced in a form similar to what it looks like today was for Louis XIV for the Palace at Versailles. It is still considered good glasswork. But, I do believe glass manufacturing is a natural process (ie, stumbled onto after an eruption of a volacno near a beach--like Mt. Etna in Sicily). I'll give you this one. Don't know too much about the history of glass.
Coffee. Gee, this is a food stuff. The process of perculating coffee or of dripping coffe, or of pressure steaming coffee, or are you referring to the discovery of the coffee bean? If that's the case, I eat many foods not native to the US. If you are referring to the process, I use an automatic drip every other day or so. If you refer to having an intentionally caffeinated beverage, American idea in the mid to late 1800s (Coca-cola at the time was a caffeinated wine. It wasn't the first to add caffeine, but it was the first to add caffeine as a stimulant--once it was found that coca leaves got bad press).
So, while you are correct that I do use many things derived from these ideas, I don't use the direct idea. In much the same way I owe my way of life to Charles Babbage (for inventing the computer), I never worked on Charles Babbage's machine. I work on computers developed in the US by rivals that somehow (maybe by IP protection--perhaps?) all use the same ISA (I use the IBM-Cyrex, AMD, and Intel chips). See argument n my reply above for how that works.
good points, but what have they done for me lately? Pythagoras (whatever branch of philosophy he believed in, anyway) was also known for executing people who believed in irrational numbers.
Railways and steam engines (concept known to have existed in 100 AD in Rome).. concept shrugged off because (according to Michael Palin's TV show) it would unemploy slaves and Rome couldn't have that. Good idea, poor system, no innovation.
Progress will continue. At what pace? It took close to 2000 years for Euclid's ideas to be overthrown without strong IP. There was no intellectual property protection. No protection, then individuals have no recourse to those who would stifle it. My way or the highway. He who had the gold (the Catholic church in the occident for close to 1000 years) simply made the person without strong IP rights (ie Galileo) toss out his work and have them burned. And if you think this sort of facism would not arise in our "enlightened" world.. check out Idi Amin, Camir (sp?) Rouge, Chairman Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Kansas State Board of Education (the evolution not in schools policy decreed last year) and other book burners.
Without protection of intellectual property, it will be stiffled. Since everyone can know it, those who oppose it--if they are more powerful--will be able to stifle it by extortion, racketereering, and muscle. Are you pissed of a MS for whatever reason? They didn't stifle Linus. They didn't stifle Lucent (inferno). They certainly didn't stifle AOL. Rather, they inspired the three individuals (legally corps are individuals) mentioned above.
If property is protected under the law, then RICO does apply and stifling technology and advancement is more difficult.
Corporations are given every right of the individual with the exception of voting. They are a taxing paying citizen without voting rights. They have a right to an opinion, the right to lobby, the right to succeed and (most often) the right to fail. They pay massive taxes (as a matter of fact shoulder the brunt of the tax burden--even with loopholes), just like you and I. The reason why they do pay those taxes is because they are damn good at providing a "good" (tangible) or a "service" (intangible). The medium we are posting on is entirely the work of these corporations from providing the "good" of a computer (thank you IBM, Motorola, Apple, Intel, etc.), the "good" of infrastructure (thank you AT&T, Sprint, Cisco, MCI, etc.), and the "service" of providing internet (thank you, again, MCI, Sprint, BBNPlanet, Erols, etc.). There is the further "service" (not "good" in almost all cases) of providing an operating system and browsing software (thank you Microsoft, AT&T (again), IBM, HP, UCB, Linus, Netscape, UIUC, contributors to wustl in the eighties/early nineties). Most of all, thank you Xerox and everyone that ever worked at XeroxPARC
Now, with the exception of Linus, UCB, UIUC, and contributors to wustl, these are all Fortune 500 companies. If you as an individual think there is a better way to do things--do it. Otherwise, remember that the R&D, implementation, prototypes, and other such requires capital. There is risk in providing capital so the payoff must be big. Otherwise, no capital.
If you think that unorganized units without legal protection work, check out liability insurance for a sole proprietorship or joint venture. If you think that capitalism is to blame for the current mess we're in. You are exactly right. Notice that everything I mentioned are American entities protected by American laws. This forum is a product of (more than 95%) American blood sweat and tears. The bottom lines are big because they are risky.
Now, if you think we are coddling the companies mentioned above remember this:
UIUC CS Dept is in the Digital Computer Lab
Berkeley, Carnegie Melon, MIT, etc. all receive their largest funding from corps and gov't grants (mostly paid for by corps)
I hate all this innovation. Let's correspond by carrier pigeon. Or better yet, smoke signals. If you want individuals to take a more prominent role, we can easily return to the 16th century (or worse) before the industrial revolution. But, until someone shows me an innovation I use everyday that came from a society without strong protection for corporations and without protection of any kind on intellectual property (just one--that's all I want), I say we got a pretty good system. Not the best but certainly not as extreme as having the ACLU run the country.
Bravo! Well put! Not only does your argument apply to art but science and technology as well. Until food stops costing money, any development will have to be funded or the developer have to take a job manufacturing and develop on the side.
Only a fool puts in his/her money for something that will not show a benefit (money/fame/pat on the back/etc.) And since (with the exception of the savant in the deposition) "a fool and his money are soon parted," the wise will be the only ones capable of funding.
Clothes, like many other products, are purchased for at least 4 reasons.
Status - Tokens of status are an integral part of society, every culture has them. A natural "pecking-order" come from status symbols. Because the status afforded by certain brands is immediately apparent, the pecking-order can still be maintained by visual (or some other sensory) cues as it has for every species of every animal that exists in a social paradigm. As any animal behaviorist will tell you status = offspring. Now, who doesn't want more sex? (Those who believe there is no nature in the nature v. nurture argument, can argue this point with me. All others must cede this argument)
Utility - The difference between us and (virtually all) animals is that we find utility in our environment. Those of us who find our status in computers (ie, I run Linux on a Pentium XXII 3000THz with 44 exabytes, etc.-- knowing that we have no real use for so much power except to drive games) will purchase other things for utility. Choosing where you wish to show your status (bank account, portfolio, BMW, Open Source Movement, community activism, Gap jeans, etc.), the others will be, more or less, be sought in terms of utility. Further, we believe that our cause (or statement of status) is just and right. Otherwise, why would we do it? Therefore, everything else is not as good. (otherwise we would be showing our status there)
Necessity - somethings are subjective in this category (ie email, car, house, phone, radio) whereas others are objective (food, water, air, exercise). These things we purchase what works--not what works best. This is not to say some people do not show status here. It just means that people like me who excercise poorly, have a two-bit radio, and drink soda Do not do so for utility, but out of necessity. I eat for utility--sometimes for status (ie Duck at Thanksgiving, swordfish steak, Chocolate Charlotte) since I enjoy cooking.
Enjoyment - Going to movies, renting movies, listening to music, watching TV, playing ball, etc.
The purpose of advertisement is to:
Point out the necessity of the object (I gotta have the product)
Point out the utility of the object (I gotta have this particular product because it is the best of its knid)
Point out the status of the object (I gotta have this product because look at all the half naked women) (Even women's ads feeature half naked or attractive women)
Point out how much fun the object is (Self explanatory)
The problem exists in "puffery." This is a legal term meaning that hyperbole can be used in advertisement and pitching. No puffery can exist in legal offers.
Unfortunately, people on this website tend to be more educated (in at least computers, et al.). That means we tend to have a more logical thought process (as opposed to imaginative). Further, posters here tend to be more motivated. More motivation equals more research and, perhaps, a conscious. So we research more, apply logic more and are not easily duped by puffery. We, as slashdotters, are an extreme minority (
I love the nature of this forum... You can only make broad sweeping generalizations to make a point.
Network Virtual Memory: I am pretty sure those pages are just pages and they are just stored somewhere else. No systems work to be done, just a driver to fool the system to flush to NIC as oppossed to HDC.
Skip lists: fast if you know how big the list is going to be. Otherwise, planning for a list of size N can cause major overhead nightmares and bog things down where BTrees are well equipped for this. And, unless you index every node from the first node, you still get about the same theoretical performance out of a skip list as you do with a BTree.
And yes, the Internet is a burgeoning example of doing things differently. But, no systems (operating systems, relational database management systems, etc.) work fundamentally different because you can surf the web. The fact is, surfing the web is a wonderful user interface for a system that already exists.
And yes, the Apple compression routines, MS-DOS doublespace, Stacker, etc. were wonderful experiments to give (cough) vast amounts of space on limited resources. They all were slower than not using compression. The fact they were in the OS was a limit of hardware performance not hardware inadequacy.
As pointed out later in this thread, new, radical types of hardware are emerging that may (I stress may) make us rethink OS from the ground up. The fact is, nowadays, you can get generally less than linear performance where not NP. There is little theoretical ground to cover with the current idea of a computer and systems engineering. It has moved into the realm of algorithms and away from system design (ie what data structure shall I use to model x attribute of a system, rather than implementing a novel approach).
In other words, cars are not being developed to manuever in three independant dimensions. The engine of a car (cpu of a computer) is continually being refined. The console and driving instruments (UI of an OS) are continually being refined. The fact that the car travels on land is not being altered (the fact that an OS coordinates the hardware) is not being changed.
Real innovations in computing are not coming at a systems level, but at the hardware and UI level. Case in point: POSIX.1. There have been no drastic changes in the "standard" no OS adheres to in almost 10 years. The reason? no real research into what a system must do more of to work better.
Look at databases: there are 4 critical components to a database (ACID properties). The real research in databases today are not in implementing these properties, but in OODBMS or in RDBMS multi-dimensional queries, speed optimizations, etc. No real systems work.
Most of these properties of systems can only be improved on trivially and any new innovation will be found to be damn close to the POSIX.1 spec for OSes, have ACID properties of a DB, etc.
I'll give you something to ponder: is there a better way to implement virtual memory other than spilling over into hard drive? You have to be able to index them and swap them in and out--on things called pages.
Give me a faster general purpose index (or for that matter, OS-specific purpose) than a B-tree.
Until there is a new and radical type of hardware (other than storage, input, and output) there is little need to change what and OS does or how it does it radically. Rather, as mentioned way above, the techniques used now are optimized for a particular piece of hardware and/or software.
To prevent this sort of spin from happening, and from the Gov't from screwing up something, some sort of self-policing must be established. For example, though persons are anonymous, what they do is not. Rather than offering anonymity as a service that caters to the surreptitious, ban the brigands (ie source and/or destination of the offensive matter). Oh, wait, can't do that-- what, afterall, is offensive. Or offensive versus objectionable. Or objectionable versus bad-taste. This is a slippery slope.
Either we do it or the Congress will-- using such spin as put forth above. Our quasi-utopia will crumble because of a handful (comparatively) of miscreants who choose to wreck everything for their lust (of illicit materials). We have to suck it up and put a stop to it or someone else, with less sense, will.
If you like violence, large demons, obtuse plots, and La Blue Girl:
Urutsokidoji I: Legend of the Overfiend
2 versions out-- editted and uncut. The editted could be played late night on cable, the uncut is NC-17.
La Blue Girl on PCP is the best way to describe this feature in the uncut version. Not a family flick
Considered a classic-- one of the first full-length Japanimation movies to explore the ramifications of sex with demons.
Animation: Superb
Urutsokidoji ][:
This is an exploration into perversion unlike anything else.
The real reason why Adolf Hitler was the way he was.
Nothing at all to do with the Overfiend. Only watch this iff you think you can handle perversion. Definitely not family oriented and you will probably want to take a shower afterwards.
La Blue Girl meets Richard Speck
Animation: Superb
Urutsokidoji ]|[: The Return of the Overfiend
Picks up sometime after the first. Turns out the Overfiend has only just started destroying the Universe.
3 videos, 6 episodes (?). It doesn't really end and leaves lots of gaps.
Much more violent than the first, less perverse than the second. More like La Blue Girl on crank and PCP.
Animation: Pretty good
These will bend your mind.. recommend watching with something that kinda takes the edge off of reality.
Given the fact that I have time to read only a small percentage of what is interesting and--as I admitted--rely on moderation, it does become censorship. I read what the moderators tell me to read.
My position is not against moderation just against the notion that there can be an absence of censorship (self-applied in the case of moderation and law-applied in the case of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater). I personally agree with the censoring that occurs on slashdot and do not feel slighted. I personally thing F451 deserves the review it got. I just want to point out a meta-problem with reviewing. I have x amount of time to read (as do everyone else). I have to rely on others to choose what I read (I won't read a book with poor reviews if I have the opportunity to read on with good reviews). Therefore, I censor myself as to the reviewer I choose. If everyone chooses the same reviewer, then that is gross censorship.
so what you say is 'good' is just that--good. In every possible case? I don't like tomatoes. Do you? If I were to "moderate" an extensive menu such that all tomatoe-based recipies were low and eveything with, say, head cheese were high, would you still feel the same way? These hypotheticals tend not to be so hypothetical in political discourse--the absolute realm in which censorship lies.
By calling one practice better than another, leads to conflict, discourse, solutions. To assume one practice is better than another and act upon it is fascism.
By judging this book, have you not reduced the value of other books? Would you like for me to be influenced by this review? Would you like for me to choose this book over another to read? Is that not self-censorship in the truest spirit--I determine what I read?
In the limit of ab absurdum, given the choice between reading the Turner Diaries and F451, I would probably read F451. Would you prefer that everyone read F451 over the Turner Diaries? (Most people would) Does that mean that the book Turner Diaries should be censored? Albeit, this is a ridiculuous scenario, but you should see where I am going.
Self-censorship is a (paraphrasing TJ) God (creator, etc.) given right (pursuit of happiness). Now, if the majority of people prefer one book (idea, ethic, etc.) to another, does that mean the other is bad? Of course not. But, by touting one book (idea, ethic, etc.) over another, no matter what the subject matter, does just that (cf Cold War). By rating a book (a purely subjective pursuit), you are trying to impose your will on my reading habits--in effect attempting to censor what I read since I can only read so much.
The melieu depicted in F451 is a scenario (much like 1984 and Brave New World) achieved by incrementalism. Censorship is a slippery slope because power corrupts. It starts of with good intentions (ie removing curse words from elementary libraries) and ends up in hell (ie removing Mark Twain classics from an entire public school system).
Your moderation scheme here at/. is a form of censorship. I can filter out lower moderated comments. Someone else read them and deemed them inappropriate and I may never see these comments because of someone else's decision to censor (I knowingly keep my filter at >=1). While they are technically not censored, it would require a great deal of work if one were to find a jem in the trolls.
There can be no equal rights for all and everything as long as people have preferences (biases, prejudices, etc.) Of course, if people have no bias, then sound judgement cannot prevail (what is good judgement without a relative definition of good?). I will leave it to you to draw the obvious conclusion.
Proof of working high level language isn't even enough on a single processor machine. Optimizations in compilation use techniques that must be accounted for in some very special cases (like some uses of shared memory, function calling conventions, and row-major v. column major problems).
The only way to know for certain is to either code directly in bits or be (extremely) intimate with the compiler and linker. At that point, a proof will be correct.
The way the shuttle seems to work is you better have a damn good reason to write/alter/delete/modify/worship a line of code. This will catch the majority (~99.95% by their reports of errors v. standard commercial software) of reasonable errors.
They identified the weakest link in the chain of software engineering and have fortified it quite well.
The army of ms lawyers will have a response to every point the length of their average EULA--all saying about the same thing: the answer to this point is inconsequential to the publishing of our trade secret, you have x hours to remove offending posts, and, in case you didn't know, we have a new product called BackslashDot where you can post messages about articles concerning what we think trends in computing are, and that you have flagrantly ripped this off and we will take you to court over it, as well (cf Java).
Good luck in the world of the courts Andover.
Re:Just got back from the Atlanta rollout thingie
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New Mega Alphas
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Sounds like just the thing my company needs for our proactive adaptive pardigm. This enterprise solution will easily transform our data warehouse to a scalable, multi-platform model. This sort of growth-oriented toolset is just the sort of responsive logistical concept expected from an industry innovator like Compaq. Thanks to the integrated solutions provider
1) amen. Though if the corporate pockets are deep enough, such lawsuits will be ruled invalid on their face because of legislation lobbied by corporations (cf HMOs, guns, etc). 2) seatbelts are/were patented (not sure of the status now). (ie Patents used wisely can be quite beneficial--whole list other examples) 3) rocketfuel is hydrogen and oxygen. The exhaust is water.
US$500,000 to US$2,000,000 is just not that much money. This money will do any one (but no more) of the following (assuming $500,000 x4 for 2M):
employee around 10-12 people for one year
purchase around 200 cutting edge Intels workstations
purchase around 50 cutting edge Intel servers
purchase around 20 Sun workstations
advertise for 5 seconds during the Super Bowl So, 1 person = 18 Intels = 1.8 Suns =.45 secs of the Super Bowl.
Company A has 3 employees, each with a desktop. Further, they have a dev box and prod box. Next, they need an office to put it in. Given one year, they would then be spending around $250,000, before marketing.
$2M would be alright for first round VC money for one company with a handful of employees. Second and (sometimes third) help with production crunches--when money coming in is less than what will be, but more employees are necessary to keep up with demand. This is typically at least $5M, so you can hire people to hire people, get an accounting dept., lawyers, etc.
Seems to me that they are looking to absorb new technologies rather than generate companies. These prices seem more like purchasing prices than VC. In other words, they may be buying first refusal from companies that already exist and will never go gangbusters (like Visicalc).
Didn't think of that.. Of course, it's one of those hypotheticals that will never exist (you know of anyone willing to a) donate the hardware, b) donate the bandwidth, c) donate the administration time, and/or d) donate gobs of dough, then there would be a question worth haggling about.)
Just looking at what happens to the music obscurs the difference.
The ruling said it was repackaged and distributed again. How does mp3.com make money? Hits to their website. So, if you do use their copy of your CD, while you have the right to listen to it (note: this was not covered in the suit), they do not have the right to distribute it. They are making money off of distributing these things. That is what is illegal.
Or at least, how I explain the repackage and distribution verbiage in the ruling. Not that they have the copies, but distribute them.
That is a funny point. But seriously, extrapolating this with the UCITA and-- whammo! system no longer works. For instance, install IE, overwrite some key dlls, lose license for IE, lost dlls, lost system. Remedy: put CC# in registry key:
\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\EXTORTION\CONVENIENT_PAY_OFF_ METHOD (Of course this will be stored plain text with all billing information) And if the credit card doesn't work, the local "UCITA Enforcement Task-force, a subsidiary of Gambino Enterprises, LTD" will just pluck the necessary info from the registry key.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems only the FSF attorneys can change the GPL (which--according to the copyright--hasn't been changed in almost 10 years).
So.. If I have some information and I never want that information released, it is alright for me to enter into legal, binding agreements to have that information protected. As a matter of fact, that is my right. The issue is what then? How long is it protected? Most information relating to finance, you will agree with me, should be protected for the life of the entity. Even if you have the information, you cannot disburse it (I never said use it). For example, a corporate credit card number. It is issued to the corporation and has people who are authorized to use it. Why don't people just post corporate credit card information then? Because people will abuse it and defraud--a totally different crime. I am just raising the point that no one will willingly post credit card information because people will use it fraudulently.
As for how long it lasts, the inventor's remaining life plus x years. This can ensure the livelihood of mom and pop operations beyond the life of mom and pop. Otherwise, they would be shut down, no doubt about it.
Now, what is the difference between a piece of paper with credit card billing information and a piece of paper with a poem on it? Nothing really, they are just pieces of paper with information on it. Using the information on one with out consent constitutes fraud, the other constitutes copyright violation (supposing the poem was copyrighted).
If I copy the peom and sign my name to it, there are consequences to the action. If I sell it, I go to court. If I academically publish it, I will no longer work in academe. You will agree with me so far.
Next comes fair use of the information. The poem, for me to get it, would have to be published in some manner. I would like to "fairly use" this published material. Fair use is a (semi)strict legal definition that more or less means not-for-profit use in very special circumstances and quoting.
If I work and toil on a novel/poem/program/concept, I would expect to be rewarded for my effort. If the idea is remarkable enough, I pick the reward, not someone else. Further, the reward should go to me, not someone else. Fraud laws prevent this in the case of money/property/service/etc transactions. Is it unreasonable to think I should have this right for my idea?
Is there such a thing as too important information? What is a definition of too important information? Any information that is that important could no make an impact as large as Bill Gate's American Express card information. That is an important piece of information that would end hunger in several small third world nations. I do not advocate taking it or using it, but that all information is important for a length of (arbitrary) time and should be protected with stronger teeth than civil proceedings.
While I agree that it is free speech to say whatever you want, it is not free speech to use whatever you want. The fact that information is so easy to use, it needs strong protection from the misuse/abuse/theft of the original owner. And if you do not like restrictions on the information, don't use it. You do NOT have a right to it. (Try smoking crack in front of a police station. You don't have the right to use crack) Both crack and information are commodities.
In general, I am leery of anything coming from a Harvard Law professors mouth. Or for that matter, any lawyers mouth concerning laws.
One can be forced to share intellectual property and information--(like social security numbers)
One can keep certain information private and sue if the privacy is violated--(like social security numbers)
By all reasoning I have seen to having light/no IP laws on slashdot, I should have the right to break into CDnow.com, steal all the information on billing and post it so that it can be viewed for a price. Hey, its free speech, right? Or does that not count because that is personal information for which you make money and should be kept secret? I would like someone to just stand up and address this double standard. What the hell is the difference between a bunch of 1s and 0s representing a piece of music and a bunch of 1s and 0s representing a bank/credit card/line of credit account?
For those who believe that information should be free, free your information. Give me your credit card number. Give me your mother's maiden name. For those who believe it is right to traffic in intellectual property, don't sue when someone breaks into someplace (say a bank) and steals your digital identity. Hell, its only information. Free it all!
Artificial satelites - first conceived of by Jules Verne. First tele-communication satelite conceived of by Arthur C. Clarke. Sputnik (first working prototype of artificial satelite) put in orbit by USSR. First working prototype of telecommunications satelite put in orbit by US. I use telecommunications satelites everyday.
Movable Type - pretty generally attributed to Guettenburg (sp?) since typesetting doen't make sense in a pictographic language (too many symbols). Mimeo-graph, photocopy, laser-document production, ink-jet document production, all pretty much were developed by Xerox and IBM. I haven't used a hand typeset printing press in--gosh I don't know how long. Most of my info comes from a CRT (invented by--you guessed it, an American in the 1930s)
Banking - Let's start with currency. Currency was written on private banks and not widely accepted until the turn of the 18th century (at least in the Occident, don't know about the Orient) when nations started making private currency illegal. So currency (which now uses microtype, lustrous fibers, special water-marking, etc. developed right here in the good ole' US of A to prevent counterfeiting) I do use. Maybe once a week. I know use credit card and atm card transactions almost exclusively. (Back to the idea of currency written on a bank). Now, the concept of the IOU was used in Banking then and that's what made it work. But now using systems developed here in the US, there is (practically) no IOU involved. So as Singer made typewriters with the qwerty layout and I use computers--thus owing my computer all to Singer, Italians invented banking with (near)instantaneous balance checking. Half a point here.
Concrete My fiancee is a concrete engineer. You'll be happy to know that all concrete used in the United States conforms to specifications invented, patented, and perfected by a society located in Cincinnati, Ohio. The aggregate used in modern concrete is much different than the aggregate used in Roman times. Further, curing methods (initially developed in England, but refined to be strong enough to build the Hoover damn in the US) and reinforcement are also modern inventions of the US. Romans:Concrete::Ancient Egyptions:Skyscraper office buildings (the Pyramids).
Glass. I believe you are on to something here. The first time glass was massed produced in a form similar to what it looks like today was for Louis XIV for the Palace at Versailles. It is still considered good glasswork. But, I do believe glass manufacturing is a natural process (ie, stumbled onto after an eruption of a volacno near a beach--like Mt. Etna in Sicily). I'll give you this one. Don't know too much about the history of glass.
Coffee. Gee, this is a food stuff. The process of perculating coffee or of dripping coffe, or of pressure steaming coffee, or are you referring to the discovery of the coffee bean? If that's the case, I eat many foods not native to the US. If you are referring to the process, I use an automatic drip every other day or so. If you refer to having an intentionally caffeinated beverage, American idea in the mid to late 1800s (Coca-cola at the time was a caffeinated wine. It wasn't the first to add caffeine, but it was the first to add caffeine as a stimulant--once it was found that coca leaves got bad press).
So, while you are correct that I do use many things derived from these ideas, I don't use the direct idea. In much the same way I owe my way of life to Charles Babbage (for inventing the computer), I never worked on Charles Babbage's machine. I work on computers developed in the US by rivals that somehow (maybe by IP protection--perhaps?) all use the same ISA (I use the IBM-Cyrex, AMD, and Intel chips). See argument n my reply above for how that works.
Railways and steam engines (concept known to have existed in 100 AD in Rome).. concept shrugged off because (according to Michael Palin's TV show) it would unemploy slaves and Rome couldn't have that. Good idea, poor system, no innovation.
Progress will continue. At what pace? It took close to 2000 years for Euclid's ideas to be overthrown without strong IP. There was no intellectual property protection. No protection, then individuals have no recourse to those who would stifle it. My way or the highway. He who had the gold (the Catholic church in the occident for close to 1000 years) simply made the person without strong IP rights (ie Galileo) toss out his work and have them burned. And if you think this sort of facism would not arise in our "enlightened" world.. check out Idi Amin, Camir (sp?) Rouge, Chairman Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Kansas State Board of Education (the evolution not in schools policy decreed last year) and other book burners.
Without protection of intellectual property, it will be stiffled. Since everyone can know it, those who oppose it--if they are more powerful--will be able to stifle it by extortion, racketereering, and muscle. Are you pissed of a MS for whatever reason? They didn't stifle Linus. They didn't stifle Lucent (inferno). They certainly didn't stifle AOL. Rather, they inspired the three individuals (legally corps are individuals) mentioned above.
If property is protected under the law, then RICO does apply and stifling technology and advancement is more difficult.
Now, with the exception of Linus, UCB, UIUC, and contributors to wustl, these are all Fortune 500 companies. If you as an individual think there is a better way to do things--do it. Otherwise, remember that the R&D, implementation, prototypes, and other such requires capital. There is risk in providing capital so the payoff must be big. Otherwise, no capital.
If you think that unorganized units without legal protection work, check out liability insurance for a sole proprietorship or joint venture. If you think that capitalism is to blame for the current mess we're in. You are exactly right. Notice that everything I mentioned are American entities protected by American laws. This forum is a product of (more than 95%) American blood sweat and tears. The bottom lines are big because they are risky.
Now, if you think we are coddling the companies mentioned above remember this:
UIUC CS Dept is in the Digital Computer Lab
Berkeley, Carnegie Melon, MIT, etc. all receive their largest funding from corps and gov't grants (mostly paid for by corps)
I hate all this innovation. Let's correspond by carrier pigeon. Or better yet, smoke signals. If you want individuals to take a more prominent role, we can easily return to the 16th century (or worse) before the industrial revolution. But, until someone shows me an innovation I use everyday that came from a society without strong protection for corporations and without protection of any kind on intellectual property (just one--that's all I want), I say we got a pretty good system. Not the best but certainly not as extreme as having the ACLU run the country.
Only a fool puts in his/her money for something that will not show a benefit (money/fame/pat on the back/etc.) And since (with the exception of the savant in the deposition) "a fool and his money are soon parted," the wise will be the only ones capable of funding.
Status - Tokens of status are an integral part of society, every culture has them. A natural "pecking-order" come from status symbols. Because the status afforded by certain brands is immediately apparent, the pecking-order can still be maintained by visual (or some other sensory) cues as it has for every species of every animal that exists in a social paradigm. As any animal behaviorist will tell you status = offspring. Now, who doesn't want more sex? (Those who believe there is no nature in the nature v. nurture argument, can argue this point with me. All others must cede this argument)
Utility - The difference between us and (virtually all) animals is that we find utility in our environment. Those of us who find our status in computers (ie, I run Linux on a Pentium XXII 3000THz with 44 exabytes, etc.-- knowing that we have no real use for so much power except to drive games) will purchase other things for utility. Choosing where you wish to show your status (bank account, portfolio, BMW, Open Source Movement, community activism, Gap jeans, etc.), the others will be, more or less, be sought in terms of utility. Further, we believe that our cause (or statement of status) is just and right. Otherwise, why would we do it? Therefore, everything else is not as good. (otherwise we would be showing our status there)
Necessity - somethings are subjective in this category (ie email, car, house, phone, radio) whereas others are objective (food, water, air, exercise). These things we purchase what works--not what works best. This is not to say some people do not show status here. It just means that people like me who excercise poorly, have a two-bit radio, and drink soda Do not do so for utility, but out of necessity. I eat for utility--sometimes for status (ie Duck at Thanksgiving, swordfish steak, Chocolate Charlotte) since I enjoy cooking.
Enjoyment - Going to movies, renting movies, listening to music, watching TV, playing ball, etc.
The purpose of advertisement is to:
Point out the necessity of the object (I gotta have the product)
Point out the utility of the object (I gotta have this particular product because it is the best of its knid)
Point out the status of the object (I gotta have this product because look at all the half naked women) (Even women's ads feeature half naked or attractive women)
Point out how much fun the object is (Self explanatory)
The problem exists in "puffery." This is a legal term meaning that hyperbole can be used in advertisement and pitching. No puffery can exist in legal offers.
Unfortunately, people on this website tend to be more educated (in at least computers, et al.). That means we tend to have a more logical thought process (as opposed to imaginative). Further, posters here tend to be more motivated. More motivation equals more research and, perhaps, a conscious. So we research more, apply logic more and are not easily duped by puffery. We, as slashdotters, are an extreme minority (
Network Virtual Memory: I am pretty sure those pages are just pages and they are just stored somewhere else. No systems work to be done, just a driver to fool the system to flush to NIC as oppossed to HDC.
Skip lists: fast if you know how big the list is going to be. Otherwise, planning for a list of size N can cause major overhead nightmares and bog things down where BTrees are well equipped for this. And, unless you index every node from the first node, you still get about the same theoretical performance out of a skip list as you do with a BTree.
And yes, the Internet is a burgeoning example of doing things differently. But, no systems (operating systems, relational database management systems, etc.) work fundamentally different because you can surf the web. The fact is, surfing the web is a wonderful user interface for a system that already exists.
And yes, the Apple compression routines, MS-DOS doublespace, Stacker, etc. were wonderful experiments to give (cough) vast amounts of space on limited resources. They all were slower than not using compression. The fact they were in the OS was a limit of hardware performance not hardware inadequacy.
As pointed out later in this thread, new, radical types of hardware are emerging that may (I stress may) make us rethink OS from the ground up. The fact is, nowadays, you can get generally less than linear performance where not NP. There is little theoretical ground to cover with the current idea of a computer and systems engineering. It has moved into the realm of algorithms and away from system design (ie what data structure shall I use to model x attribute of a system, rather than implementing a novel approach).
In other words, cars are not being developed to manuever in three independant dimensions. The engine of a car (cpu of a computer) is continually being refined. The console and driving instruments (UI of an OS) are continually being refined. The fact that the car travels on land is not being altered (the fact that an OS coordinates the hardware) is not being changed.
Real innovations in computing are not coming at a systems level, but at the hardware and UI level. Case in point: POSIX.1. There have been no drastic changes in the "standard" no OS adheres to in almost 10 years. The reason? no real research into what a system must do more of to work better.
Look at databases: there are 4 critical components to a database (ACID properties). The real research in databases today are not in implementing these properties, but in OODBMS or in RDBMS multi-dimensional queries, speed optimizations, etc. No real systems work.
Most of these properties of systems can only be improved on trivially and any new innovation will be found to be damn close to the POSIX.1 spec for OSes, have ACID properties of a DB, etc.
I'll give you something to ponder: is there a better way to implement virtual memory other than spilling over into hard drive? You have to be able to index them and swap them in and out--on things called pages.
Give me a faster general purpose index (or for that matter, OS-specific purpose) than a B-tree.
Until there is a new and radical type of hardware (other than storage, input, and output) there is little need to change what and OS does or how it does it radically. Rather, as mentioned way above, the techniques used now are optimized for a particular piece of hardware and/or software.
I never said they had value and prefaced it with the fact that they are perverse. You seem to have seen them, which are you? The sicko pervert?
To prevent this sort of spin from happening, and from the Gov't from screwing up something, some sort of self-policing must be established. For example, though persons are anonymous, what they do is not. Rather than offering anonymity as a service that caters to the surreptitious, ban the brigands (ie source and/or destination of the offensive matter). Oh, wait, can't do that-- what, afterall, is offensive. Or offensive versus objectionable. Or objectionable versus bad-taste. This is a slippery slope.
Either we do it or the Congress will-- using such spin as put forth above. Our quasi-utopia will crumble because of a handful (comparatively) of miscreants who choose to wreck everything for their lust (of illicit materials). We have to suck it up and put a stop to it or someone else, with less sense, will.
Urutsokidoji I: Legend of the Overfiend
Urutsokidoji ][:
Urutsokidoji ]|[: The Return of the Overfiend
These will bend your mind.. recommend watching with something that kinda takes the edge off of reality.
My position is not against moderation just against the notion that there can be an absence of censorship (self-applied in the case of moderation and law-applied in the case of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater). I personally agree with the censoring that occurs on slashdot and do not feel slighted. I personally thing F451 deserves the review it got. I just want to point out a meta-problem with reviewing. I have x amount of time to read (as do everyone else). I have to rely on others to choose what I read (I won't read a book with poor reviews if I have the opportunity to read on with good reviews). Therefore, I censor myself as to the reviewer I choose. If everyone chooses the same reviewer, then that is gross censorship.
Just a point and a meta-problem to free speech.
By calling one practice better than another, leads to conflict, discourse, solutions. To assume one practice is better than another and act upon it is fascism.
In the limit of ab absurdum, given the choice between reading the Turner Diaries and F451, I would probably read F451. Would you prefer that everyone read F451 over the Turner Diaries? (Most people would) Does that mean that the book Turner Diaries should be censored? Albeit, this is a ridiculuous scenario, but you should see where I am going.
Self-censorship is a (paraphrasing TJ) God (creator, etc.) given right (pursuit of happiness). Now, if the majority of people prefer one book (idea, ethic, etc.) to another, does that mean the other is bad? Of course not. But, by touting one book (idea, ethic, etc.) over another, no matter what the subject matter, does just that (cf Cold War). By rating a book (a purely subjective pursuit), you are trying to impose your will on my reading habits--in effect attempting to censor what I read since I can only read so much.
The melieu depicted in F451 is a scenario (much like 1984 and Brave New World) achieved by incrementalism. Censorship is a slippery slope because power corrupts. It starts of with good intentions (ie removing curse words from elementary libraries) and ends up in hell (ie removing Mark Twain classics from an entire public school system).
Your moderation scheme here at /. is a form of censorship. I can filter out lower moderated comments. Someone else read them and deemed them inappropriate and I may never see these comments because of someone else's decision to censor (I knowingly keep my filter at >=1). While they are technically not censored, it would require a great deal of work if one were to find a jem in the trolls.
There can be no equal rights for all and everything as long as people have preferences (biases, prejudices, etc.) Of course, if people have no bias, then sound judgement cannot prevail (what is good judgement without a relative definition of good?). I will leave it to you to draw the obvious conclusion.
The only way to know for certain is to either code directly in bits or be (extremely) intimate with the compiler and linker. At that point, a proof will be correct.
The way the shuttle seems to work is you better have a damn good reason to write/alter/delete/modify/worship a line of code. This will catch the majority (~99.95% by their reports of errors v. standard commercial software) of reasonable errors.
They identified the weakest link in the chain of software engineering and have fortified it quite well.
Good luck in the world of the courts Andover.
2) seatbelts are/were patented (not sure of the status now). (ie Patents used wisely can be quite beneficial--whole list other examples)
3) rocketfuel is hydrogen and oxygen. The exhaust is water.
employee around 10-12 people for one year
purchase around 200 cutting edge Intels workstations
purchase around 50 cutting edge Intel servers
purchase around 20 Sun workstations
advertise for 5 seconds during the Super Bowl .45 secs of the Super Bowl.
So, 1 person = 18 Intels = 1.8 Suns =
Company A has 3 employees, each with a desktop. Further, they have a dev box and prod box. Next, they need an office to put it in. Given one year, they would then be spending around $250,000, before marketing.
$2M would be alright for first round VC money for one company with a handful of employees. Second and (sometimes third) help with production crunches--when money coming in is less than what will be, but more employees are necessary to keep up with demand. This is typically at least $5M, so you can hire people to hire people, get an accounting dept., lawyers, etc.
Seems to me that they are looking to absorb new technologies rather than generate companies. These prices seem more like purchasing prices than VC. In other words, they may be buying first refusal from companies that already exist and will never go gangbusters (like Visicalc).
The ruling said it was repackaged and distributed again. How does mp3.com make money? Hits to their website. So, if you do use their copy of your CD, while you have the right to listen to it (note: this was not covered in the suit), they do not have the right to distribute it. They are making money off of distributing these things. That is what is illegal.
Or at least, how I explain the repackage and distribution verbiage in the ruling. Not that they have the copies, but distribute them.
\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\EXTORTION\CONVENIENT_PAY_OFF_ METHOD
(Of course this will be stored plain text with all billing information)
And if the credit card doesn't work, the local "UCITA Enforcement Task-force, a subsidiary of Gambino Enterprises, LTD" will just pluck the necessary info from the registry key.
\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\EXTORTION\HIRED_GOONS\PREFERR ED_JOINT_TO_BREAK
Oh wait, this assumes the registry won't get corrupted from the removal of IE (or, for that matter, system boot).. nevermind.
Thank you for summing my point up so eloquently.