I did the same, telling them I disagreed with this particular patent and that this kind of business practice would influence me to avoid using them over their competitors. Here was their reply:
Thank you for writing to Amazon.com.
The patent system is designed to encourage innovation, and we spent thousands of hours developing our 1-Click® shopping feature. This feature securely stores billing and shipping information so that returning customers need only click their mouse once, without re-entering or re-confirming that information, to purchase selected items conveniently.
In recognition of the innovative and unique nature of the 1-Click® technology, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Patent No. 5,960,411 to Amazon.com on September 28, 1999.
We're pleased that the court recognized the innovation underlying our 1-Click® feature by granting a preliminary injunction barring barnesandnoble.com from using it while our suit is pending.
I hope you'll understand that we are unable to discuss this case any further as we are currently in litigation. Thank you for taking the time to share your views with us.
I would quibble with their claims of innovation in this case, and I also care little how many hours it took them to implement it -- patents aren't for protected implementation effort. --
To write a book on how to crack safes (so long as you believe in the idea of private property) is unethical, but I for one would not want to see it made illegal.
It is not unethical, given your premises, if you believe that, by writing such a book, it will motivate safe manufacturers to build better, less-crackable safes. --
I think your basic premise is wrong. We haven't elevated premeditated murder to a more severe class of crime than other forms of murder. Rather, we have lessened the charges to a certain degree in cases of murder that are not premeditated. We are not criminalizing the thinking and plotting to commit a murder. We are criminalizing murder committed by people who were in their thinking, rational mind at the time of the act. This implies that they knew and understood the law and, nevertheless, deliberately chose to violate it.
OTOH, we also recognize cases where people might commit murder who were not in their thinking, rational mind at the time. Or who were incapable of being in such a frame of mind. Thus, we are reluctant to bring severe murder charges to a 5 year old boy who found his father's gun, points it at his mother and squeezes the trigger. The result, the act, is murder. Likewise, we give some degree of leniency to a profoundly retarded person who might have done something similar. We admit we cannot reasonably expect them to understand the law and the consequences of violating it. So, in essense, it is not even really murder, but a killing of another kind. Our law also provides for a certain lessening of the charges when murders are committed "out of passion." The classic case is the husband coming home unexpectedly early, finding another man in bed with his wife and, in a sudden rage, grabs his shotgun and kills the man (and/or wife). In many folk's eyes, this is not premeditated, but an act committed by a person temporarily "out of his mind." Regardless, the point is, some provision is occassionally given for lessening the charges in cases where a person is actually not thinking -- cases where the person's emotions took control and obscured their otherwise rational mind. Presumably this leniency is given because it is judged that a person may not be able to prevent their emotions from taking control under extreme circumstances. I am not passing judgement on this line of thought, per se.
The point, once again, is that the example you cite is not an example of criminalizing thought. It is actually an example of forgiving (to some degree) the inability to think. And it is true that this principle of leniency is not applied uniformly throughout our code of laws.
So, back to hate crime. Classifying certain crimes as hate crimes is clearly an attempt to criminalize thinking. It is an attempt to elevate the severity of the charges based not on whether a person was or was not thinking, but on what they were thinking. It is only to be applied (thus far) when a criminal act occurs, but when the act occurs, the thinking is to be part of the crime.
Don't be naive. The death penalty is only to satiate the victim's family's thirst for revenge and to punish black people who have the nerve to kill white people (90% of people receiving death penalty fit that profile so please don't point me to the Byrd murderers.)
Don't be so utterly cynical. Another reason why some people might seek the death penalty is the desire to permanently remove a known lethal threat to society, one they either can not or will not rehabilitate. As to your 90% statistic, I admit I don't know the statistical breakdown on how the death penalty is administered. I am interested to learn more, however, so if you can, would you please point me to a reputable source that can substantiate your claim? It would be nice, too, if it would include information on what percent of murder convictions result in a death penalty sentence, broken out by minority group status. --
I think your basic premise is wrong. We haven't elevated premeditated murder to a more severe class of crime than other forms of murder. Rather, we have lessened the charges to a certain degree in cases of murder that are not premeditated. We are not criminalizing the thinking and plotting to commit a murder. We are criminalizing murder committed by people who were in their thinking, rational mind at the time of the act. This implies that they knew and understood the law and, nevertheless, chose to violate it.
OTOH, we also recognize cases where people might commit murder who were not in their thinking, rational mind at the time. Or who were incapable of being in such a frame of mind. Thus, we are reluctant to bring severe murder charges to a 5 year old boy who found his father's gun, points it at his mother and squeezes the trigger. The result, the act, is murder. Likewise, we give some degree of leniency to a profoundly retarded person who might have done something similar. We admit we cannot reasonably expect them to understand the law and the consequences of violating it. So, in essense, it is not even really murder, but a killing of another kind. Our law also provides for a certain lessening of the charges when murders are committed "out of passion." The classic case is the husband coming home unexpectedly early, finding another man in bed with his wife and, in a sudden rage, grabs his shotgun and kills the man (and/or wife). In many folk's eyes, this is not premeditated, but an act committed by a person temporarily "out of his mind." Regardless, the point is, some provision is occassionally given for lessening the charges in cases where a person is actually not thinking -- cases where the person's emotions took control and obscured their otherwise rational mind. Presumably this leniency is given because it is judged that a person may not be able to prevent their emotions from taking control under extreme circumstances. I am not passing judgement on this line of thought, per se.
The point, once again, is that the example you cite is not an example of criminalizing thought. It is actually an example of forgiving (to some degree) the absenceof thought. And it is true that this principle of leniency is not applied uniformly throughout our code of laws.
So, back to hate crime. Classifying certain crimes as hate crimes is clearly an attempt to criminalize thinking. It is an attempt to elevate the severity of the charges based not on whether a person was or was not thinking, but on what they were thinking. It is only to be applied (thus far) when a criminal act occurs, but when the act occurs, the thinking is to be part of the crime. --
The DOJ was investigating IBM for many years. During those years the IBM management became very wary of doing anything that could be considered as anticompetitive. This gave other companies a real chance in the marketplace.
Consider this - the only reason that IBM allowed MicroSoft to get rich on their behalf was that they didn't dare to kill off MS while the DOJ was watching.
So, you're premise is that, except for the ever-watchful eye of the DOJ, IBM would have crushed MS out of existence? At what point in history do you say IBM was motivated and able to do this?
Here's a partial history, to the best of my recollection: IBM had built up a wildly successful business selling "big-iron" to Fortune 500 companies through the 60's, 70's, and 80's. But, they usually under-valued the software side of things. They wanted to be a hardware company first. In fact, this attitude led directly to the birth of EDS, which went on the become the premier provider of large-scale software solutions for those same customers. Along the way, Apple sprung into existence and established a profitable home and personal computer business. IBM wasn't about to sit back and let Apple (or anyone else for that matter) just have this potentially lucrative market. So, they introduced the IBM PC. Further, they made its architecture an open architecture, to help differentiate it from Apple's offerings and because they rightly concluded it would make their offerings more affordable and more popular. Well, they needed an OS for this new PC, and as we all know, they ultimately struck a deal with Gates. At this point, IBM was partnering with MS. And this continued for some time, until around the introduction of Windows 3.0. Win3.0 was wildly popular, but it still needed some refinement before businesses would adopt it. With the advent of WfW3.1, MS finally had a product that businesses were really willing to live with and we started to see large scale deployments of it in corporate America. MS' coffers at this point were starting to grow quite substantial. In addition to the success of their OS, they were raking in the cash with MS Word, Excel and, later, Office. IBM and MS were still partnering at this point in time. Both companies saw the limitations of the 16-bit, cooperatively multitasking Windows and the DOS legacy throughout it, so they sought to co-develop a 32-bit heir. But, at this point, tensions were becoming increasingly more apparent between the two as MS grew larger and gained tremendously in clout. IBM could not afford to smash them out of existence because they had nothing to offer in place of MS offerings at the time. They didn't even have shrinkwrap offerings you could buy in the stores (for the most part). IBM's forte was still hardware and big-iron.
I'll stop here. My point is that at the point when IBM and MS starting having a real feud and their partnership was falling apart, it was too late for IBM to wield whatever monopoly status they still had to crush MS. MS had gained too firm a foothold in the desktop market. Further, IBM was pretty inept at the time in dealing with the desktop market. MS was faster and more nimble than the IBM behemoth. IBM was too bureaucratic and business-oriented to compete was such a fast changing, dynamic market.
You can speculate that MS' success at the expense of IBM was significantly impacted by the ever-present threat of DOJ action against IBM. I think MS' own actions and IBM's inaction and poor decision making are the real explanation.
Did you even bother to read the document? It contains many examples that shows that MS have excerted monopoly-like pressures on OEMs and ISVs. To be a monopoly, or near-monopoly is not illegal. There are however restrictions to what you can legaly do with that monopoly power.
How about reading a book about economics. Especially one that explains which safeguards are necessary in a free marketplace to make sure that there is healthy competition.
Did you even bother to read my comments? In context? I was replying specifically to comments made by the original poster of this thread that we cannot "vote with our dollars" because MS has obtained a monopoly in desktop OS's. He is wrong. We can and we do.
The points you are saying here don't contradict at all what I was saying. In fact, I tend to agree with them! I lean toward conservative, restrained action to correct monopolistic wrongs. I'd prefer where possible to give the market a chance to correct them itself. But, obviously, one of the roles of government is to ensure a fair "playing field" for a market to exist. At a minimum you would want the government to enforce contracts, for instance. But there is not widespread agreement on what government's role shoud be in economic affairs. And reading a book on economics isn't going to settle that debate either.:) --
You're looking for equity in a system where there is none. We have already acknowledged gradations of criminility with proportional punishment.
So, because the system has no equity, we should not attempt to rectify this in the hopes of actually achieving equity?
To answer your question: Premeditated murder vs. other murders acknowledges the dual, competing natures of man -- his reason vs. his emotion. A murder out of passion is considered an act committed by a person given over to their emotions -- one who essentially stopped thinking at that point in time. A premeditated murder, OTOH, means the accused was acting with their faculties fully intact. They knew the difference between right and wrong (or more precisely, they knew what is and is not considered a criminal act). Given this information and the presumption that they are able to reason, they nevertheless chose to commit the act, thus deliberately flaunting society's mores. So, why should this be worse than any other murder? Because we can control our reasoning, but we sometimes cannot control our emotions.
As to your other question, I don't agree that cop murderers should be more likely to face the death penalty than someone who drives a cab. I think this is another example of an error in our justice system. The act is murder. Murder is the crime. The punishment should be for the crime, not for who it was committed against. --
I don't see how categorizing certain crimes as "hate crimes" is intellectually defensible in the U.S., given the principles this country is founded on. To elevate a criminal charge based on whether there was an element of hate involved is absurd, even if we restrict the kinds of hate that are applicable in this situation to a narrow set.
Basically, this is an effort to criminalize certain kinds of thinking. We haven't progressed yet to the point where people are being arrested and charged soley for their thoughts. But if a person commits a crime, we are at the point where if he had certain thoughts (identified as unacceptable) that may have motivated the crime, the charges can be elevated. Thus, the thoughts themselves are criminalized to the degree that the criminal charges have been elevated beyond what they would have been for just committing the act itself. This is a direct violation of every U.S. citizen's right to freedom of speech (and possibly even freedom of religion).
We assess motivation in criminal cases to help determine whether an accused person is guilty or innocent of committing a criminal act. The motivation itself is not criminal, but the act is. What we have really done is politicized crimes committed against certain groups of people. Mixing politics into the criminal code is a bad idea. --
I read the article and am left wondering why this is newsworthy? Basically, we have Gore making an appearence on an Internet forum, but saying little of substance. This is the Internet equivalent of a photo-op. The impression I get is Gore's campaign staff saw this as an oportunity to make him seem more 'hip', more Internet-saavy. On that, he kind of blows it (it's Ctrl-Alt-Delete, or is this another pronunciating war?). Also, emailing his article to Slate should not surprise someone so intimately familiar with the Internet!:)
Anyhow, I'm not a Gore fan, but neither am I an attack dog. Gore fans will generally like the piece, his detractors won't care for it. My main point stands: There's just not much significant or new that he says in his article. Kind of a non-event, IMHO. --
This is a bunch of claptrap. You say unchecked capitalism leads to monopoly situations and that I should be able to look at any industry and be able to see this. Sorry, but I just don't see this. You need to provide specific examples to make your point. Otherwise, it is just so much pontificating.
Also, your comments about what the average CEO makes vs. the average factory worker mean nothing. You seem to find it offensive, but provide no clue how you would decide the worth of those two job categories. The fact is, our economy has moved to a knowledge-based, service economy. Factory work is increasingly becoming a commodity skill. Therefore, the wages for factory workers are not going to climb appreciably if there is an abundance of people willing to do that work as compared to the demand for that kind of labor.
No matter what the judge says, Microsoft does not have a pure monopoly in the desktop OS. Obviously there are people using OS's other than Windows on their desktops. This is "voting with your dollars". And this means my dollars do not go to "just one place".
Your example of ATT and MCI seems especially apropo: ATT was deemed an illegal monopoly at one point and was broken up. Now we have a wider variety of long distance providers and MCI is one of them. They stepped in and took on ATT and have made a successful business doing it. We have greater choice now than we did. But, did the breakup of ATT make this possible? I don't think that is completely clear. Remember that at one point IBM was considered by most to be a monopoly but was not broken up. And now we have Microsoft, Apple, Sun, and Linux! unseating them -- all through the marketplace.
You assert that capitalism never reaches a competitive equilibrium. But of course it never reaches an equilibrium! It is a constantly changing, dynamic system driven by the best ideas from our minds. It does not stagnate. It evolves constantly.
You are right that corporations care about only money. So do partnerships and sole proprietorships. Money is just the currency we use for exchanging value. So all these businesses care only about value. Their own value. And they compete against one another to increase their value. And in that marketplace, we "vote with our dollars" for ideas that bring us the most value. We are better able to judge for ourselves what gives us the most value than any government or other centralized agency could do. Until our government becomes omniscient, I will not be satisfied to be led by them in place of allowing the market place to sort out the best ideas.
Finally, you claim corporations never do a thing for our country. I wish you would elaborate on that one, because otherwise I say your statement is patently false. Consider where you would get your food, clothes, means of transportation, housing, computers, etc., etc. etc., at the prices you can get them at today if we did not have corporations? Who built the airplanes, tanks, rifles, uniforms, and all the rest that we used during WWII? During WWI? Like I said, whatever point you were trying to make here, I must have completely missed, so please elaborate and make a more complete case. Otherwise, I feel no compelling reason to agree to unsubstantiated platitudes. --
While reading in the Salon article about how the orignal series lasted only 3 seasons, as compared to the subsequent, modern shows which have logged vastly more episodes than the first, it occurred to me that the original series competed in a vastly tighter television market than did/does the newer shows. When the original show aired, there were only 3 major networks and there was no cable. Most folks were doing well to get good reception on three stations. Also, it was not uncommon for the T.V. stations you did get to "sign-off" at some point late at night (i.e. they were not necessarily 24-hour).
The point is, there just weren't that many available time slots for shows like there are today. If a show today can't get a time slot on one of the major networks, it is frequently an option to look to an alternative outlet -- cable channels -- to still get the show on the air.
So, in that sense, it seems to me it is a worthy achievment that the original series was able to occupy one of those limited time slots for 3 years. I wonder how long any of the other Trek shows would have lasted under the same circumstances. Or how long would the original have gone if cable had been available then?
Exactly. This article does not contain the entire Gartner Group report, only certain quotes from it. It is Ellen Cresswell who is characterizing it as a "slam", a "hostile review", and a "kiss of death" to Linux. The quotes she provides from the report don't support those characterizations, IMHO.
According to the article, the report says Linux will not overtake MS's OS's on the desktop, due to "lack of standards", "lack of key productivity" apps, and "Unix complexity". I would like to have seen further elaboration on what standards they think are lacking and on what key productivity apps they feel are missing.
But one thing the article does not provide is any commentary from Gartner as to Linux's suitability as a server OS. And, in case anyone were interested, there is no information on what Gartner thinks the future of NT as a desktop OS will be. In fact, as an article about what Gartner Group thinks, it is surprisingly brief about what they say and instead is quite full of what other vendors/competitors have to say. The huge majority is quotes from IDC, Emusys, Microsoft, Sun, and HP.
The first 10% of the article contains naked pronouncements from Gartner Group regarding Linux's suitablility as a desktop OS. The remainder contains a variety of opinions on where Linux is heading in the server arena. Bizarre composition really.
> Singer starts with the premise that life qua human being is tied to conscious existenece.... The entire USA and the courts have no problem with proclaiming a body that's still metablolizing just fine, but can never be conscious again due to brain death, to be legally dead.
Perhaps this premise needs some refinement. Life as a human being is tied to the likelihood of attaining consciousness. Yes, and that certainly means there would be a judgement call involved in making that assessment. But, given a normal, healthy newborn baby, almost anyone you care to ask would agree that the child is human. On the other hand, a child born with no brain, or that brain dead body on life support are often referred to as "vegetables". Crass as that may be, it does tend to indicate acknowledgement that the person in question is really no longer human, per se.
The point is, while a newborn probably has no self-awareness initially, that does not automatically make him non-human until he attains it. --
It was precisely my point that the law sucks here.
Yes, I can pick an iMac out of a lineup with six other consumer level desktop computers. But, how different do those other computers have to be before they are acceptable? You'll just know it when you see it? Not good enough, sorry.
If a desktop PC maker made a computer that was shaped identical to an iMac, but was in an obviously different color from any offered for the iMac, would it infringe? After all, it would be distinctively NOT an iMac, since Apple never offered an iMac in that color before. What if the colored plastic was not translucent? So, unique color and opaque plastic -- does it infringe then?
What does Apple have rights to here? Colored computers? Translucent plastic? The retro-50's look? One-button mice? Combo CPU-Monitor packaging?
The law, and the mindset that argues for it, is what bothers me here, because the law is too vague. A person cannot be sure when they are in violation of it and this creates anti-competitive pressure in the market -- bad for consumers. ---
But the intellectual roadblock to this line of thinking is that it is a subjective assessment whether one thing looks like another. The line has to be drawn somewhere to distinquish between things that look alike and things that do not look alike. And drawing that line is the problem. Because that line will always be fuzzy, no one can be certain when they cross it and intrude into someone else's claimed protected turf.
Product clones have been around for years. It happened in apparel, thus we have high-profile designers actually putting their names on their products and stumbling into the popular designer apparel industry. Golf clubs are cloned. And, to my eyes at least, most late model 4 door coupes look pretty much the same.
The market can decide whether the cloned product is as desirable as the original. Typically, cloned products are of inferior quality and many buyers won't buy them because of this. The best asset a manufacturer has is their own name and the price/quality they put in their products. Apple would be better off trying to make the best damn iMacs they can and let the public decide whether the clones are a better buy. And, of course, they should proudly place their name across the front of their product. Consumers aren't dummies. They will know if they are dealing with an Apple product or not.
So, I think Apple is doing something wrong here. They are wasting stockholder's money trying to establish a legal monopoly on a particlar, vaguely-defined product look. ---
Well, you're not exactly on the mark either. I agree you may not have to rewrite your code when you port, but the fact is you very often do have do a rewrite.
Where I work, we develop Win32 apps to run on Windows 95/98 machines. The same code base typically will work for these platforms. However, in our experience, it is rare that the same code base will produce a properly functioning application on any variant of NT, or on Win 3.x. In fact, one of the developers on our staff is a big NT proponent and develops exclusively on that platform -- developing components whose target platform is Win95/98. It is far and away the norm that the stuff he writes will work under NT but not on the target platform. He is always surprised at this. Likewise, apps the rest of us are developing under Win98 typically misbehave/break under NT.
Maybe we're morons, but I don't think so. Sure MS is "tearing their ass up" to maintain backward compatibility. That doesn't mean they are accomplishing their goal. And, in fact, it is well known that apps often don't work on one platform that do run on the other. Hell, they seem to have enough trouble keeping apps running under different iterations of Windows 9x!
I do think the article stretches its point a bit when defining 7 variations of Windows. It's a bit unfair to call separate distribution methods different variants. Sure, based on the distribution method you choose, you may wind up with a different set of code than what someone else got, but the same point could easily be made for other OS's. How many different ways can you aquire Redhat Linux, for instance (source CD, RPM CD, download source, download RPMs, download tarballs, just to name a few)?
His broader point is valid, however. We have at least Windows 3.x, WfW 3.x, Win 95, Win 95 OSR2, Win 98, Win 98 SE, Win NT 4, W2k, and Win CE. These platforms could be fairly judged to be at least as fragmented as some are claiming exists with Linux. I think the level of fragmentation on the Windows side is actually higher.
Didn't the standoff in Waco last something like 51 days? And the bloody, firey conclusion happened at the end? You say Reno was appointed during the standoff. Well, unless she was appointed while the flames were blazing, she was in charge when the final assault was initiated.
Further, I believe she was appointed by Clinton, right? So, he was in office at the time, right? Then how does it follow that what happened in Waco is Bush's or the GOP's fault?
Also, Reno has spent copious amounts of time defending the actions of the government at both Ruby Ridge and at Waco. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, I think she said at one time that the responsibility for what happened at Waco was hers. The impression I got at that time was she wanted to make it clear that the buck stopped at her -- implying that it did not go all the way to her boss, Clinton.
Republican/Democrat -- these distinctions really don't matter anyway. The problem is that the government is highly inclined to empower itself, even if this sometimes means watering-down or outright trampling on the supposed rights guaranteed to its citizens. And, it may do these things while claiming it is acting in our own best interests.
We should always guard all our rights jealously or they will disappear. ----
I am a relative newbie to Linux, having started using it just last fall. As such, there are many personalities and things about it I still do not know. Raster to me was a non-entity until the recent postings started by him over his little fall-out with Redhat and his moving on to greener pastures.
Having read these postings, here's my impression of Raster: a very valuable member of the Linux community, the developer of enlightenment, a passionate person, a remarkably immature person, a really crappy speller:), a person lacking somewhat in good judgement.
Now I admit I have never met the guy and impressions can always change, but the negative impressions I (and others?) have of him are his own doing and do need mending. Such is the problem with spouting off in a public forum without first calming down and attempting to establish some perspective.
I am not "against" Raster. But I do have a fairly negative impression of him. So, I tend to agree with the sentiment: who cares? I'm kinda tired of hearing about him too.
I post these thoughts for two reasons: 1. To inform Raster, in case he cares, how his public actions impact others' perceptions of him, and 2. To highlight the need for everyone to be rational and fair-minded when participating in a public forum.
This is not a major issue. But the recent posting by Mindcraft of the venemous hate mail they received from some members of the Linux community is an embarrasment. Everyone should take a reality check before firing off some irrational, profane, hate-filled message for all to read.
Good grief! I think maybe it is YOUR reading that begs for more breadth. America has won its most recent wars because of her industrial might -- a thing built by a market economy in a land rich with natural resources.
Capitalism is effective because it gives everyone an incentive to do something useful for society. People tend to be rewarded for thinking of thngs or services that other people want. Folks with useless ideas fiind those ideas bring no rewards. So, they apply themselves towards finding a way to be useful in some way. Over time, the better ideas succeed and everyone is better off for it. It's basically social darwinism. No one has demonstrated a better system for motivating people to be productive. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good.
And some computers have two or more. And ethernet cards are much more likely to move from one machine to another. They would not be an effective way to identify a given machine, or user.
Slashdot Mirror
I did the same, telling them I disagreed with this particular patent and that this kind of business practice would influence me to avoid using them over their competitors. Here was their reply:
Thank you for writing to Amazon.com.
The patent system is designed to encourage innovation, and we spent
thousands of hours developing our 1-Click® shopping feature. This
feature securely stores billing and shipping information so that
returning customers need only click their mouse once, without
re-entering or re-confirming that information, to purchase selected
items conveniently.
In recognition of the innovative and unique nature of the 1-Click®
technology, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Patent No. 5,960,411 to
Amazon.com on September 28, 1999.
We're pleased that the court recognized the innovation underlying our
1-Click® feature by granting a preliminary injunction barring
barnesandnoble.com from using it while our suit is pending.
I hope you'll understand that we are unable to discuss this case any
further as we are currently in litigation. Thank you for taking the
time to share your views with us.
I would quibble with their claims of innovation in this case, and I also care little how many hours it took them to implement it -- patents aren't for protected implementation effort.
--
To write a book on how to crack safes (so long as you believe in the idea of private property) is unethical, but I for one would not want to see it made illegal.
It is not unethical, given your premises, if you believe that, by writing such a book, it will motivate safe manufacturers to build better, less-crackable safes.
--
I think your basic premise is wrong. We haven't elevated premeditated murder to a more severe class of crime than other forms of murder. Rather, we have lessened the charges to a certain degree in cases of murder that are not premeditated. We are not criminalizing the thinking and plotting to commit a murder. We are criminalizing murder committed by people who were in their thinking, rational mind at the time of the act. This implies that they knew and understood the law and, nevertheless, deliberately chose to violate it.
OTOH, we also recognize cases where people might commit murder who were not in their thinking, rational mind at the time. Or who were incapable of being in such a frame of mind. Thus, we are reluctant to bring severe murder charges to a 5 year old boy who found his father's gun, points it at his mother and squeezes the trigger. The result, the act, is murder. Likewise, we give some degree of leniency to a profoundly retarded person who might have done something similar. We admit we cannot reasonably expect them to understand the law and the consequences of violating it. So, in essense, it is not even really murder, but a killing of another kind. Our law also provides for a certain lessening of the charges when murders are committed "out of passion." The classic case is the husband coming home unexpectedly early, finding another man in bed with his wife and, in a sudden rage, grabs his shotgun and kills the man (and/or wife). In many folk's eyes, this is not premeditated, but an act committed by a person temporarily "out of his mind." Regardless, the point is, some provision is occassionally given for lessening the charges in cases where a person is actually not thinking -- cases where the person's emotions took control and obscured their otherwise rational mind. Presumably this leniency is given because it is judged that a person may not be able to prevent their emotions from taking control under extreme circumstances. I am not passing judgement on this line of thought, per se.
The point, once again, is that the example you cite is not an example of criminalizing thought. It is actually an example of forgiving (to some degree) the inability to think. And it is true that this principle of leniency is not applied uniformly throughout our code of laws.
So, back to hate crime. Classifying certain crimes as hate crimes is clearly an attempt to criminalize thinking. It is an attempt to elevate the severity of the charges based not on whether a person was or was not thinking, but on what they were thinking. It is only to be applied (thus far) when a criminal act occurs, but when the act occurs, the thinking is to be part of the crime.
Don't be naive. The death penalty is only to satiate the victim's family's thirst for revenge and to punish black people who have the nerve to kill white people (90% of people receiving death penalty fit that profile so please don't point me to the Byrd murderers.)
Don't be so utterly cynical. Another reason why some people might seek the death penalty is the desire to permanently remove a known lethal threat to society, one they either can not or will not rehabilitate. As to your 90% statistic, I admit I don't know the statistical breakdown on how the death penalty is administered. I am interested to learn more, however, so if you can, would you please point me to a reputable source that can substantiate your claim? It would be nice, too, if it would include information on what percent of murder convictions result in a death penalty sentence, broken out by minority group status.
--
I think your basic premise is wrong. We haven't elevated premeditated murder to a more severe class of crime than other forms of murder. Rather, we have lessened the charges to a certain degree in cases of murder that are not premeditated. We are not criminalizing the thinking and plotting to commit a murder. We are criminalizing murder committed by people who were in their thinking, rational mind at the time of the act. This implies that they knew and understood the law and, nevertheless, chose to violate it.
OTOH, we also recognize cases where people might commit murder who were not in their thinking, rational mind at the time. Or who were incapable of being in such a frame of mind. Thus, we are reluctant to bring severe murder charges to a 5 year old boy who found his father's gun, points it at his mother and squeezes the trigger. The result, the act, is murder. Likewise, we give some degree of leniency to a profoundly retarded person who might have done something similar. We admit we cannot reasonably expect them to understand the law and the consequences of violating it. So, in essense, it is not even really murder, but a killing of another kind. Our law also provides for a certain lessening of the charges when murders are committed "out of passion." The classic case is the husband coming home unexpectedly early, finding another man in bed with his wife and, in a sudden rage, grabs his shotgun and kills the man (and/or wife). In many folk's eyes, this is not premeditated, but an act committed by a person temporarily "out of his mind." Regardless, the point is, some provision is occassionally given for lessening the charges in cases where a person is actually not thinking -- cases where the person's
emotions took control and obscured their otherwise rational mind. Presumably this leniency is given because it is judged that a person may not be able to prevent their emotions from taking control under extreme circumstances. I am not passing judgement on this line of thought, per se.
The point, once again, is that the example you cite is not an example of criminalizing thought. It is actually an example of forgiving (to some degree) the absenceof thought. And it is true that this principle of leniency is not applied uniformly throughout our code of laws.
So, back to hate crime. Classifying certain crimes as hate crimes is clearly an attempt to criminalize thinking. It is an attempt to elevate the severity of the charges based not
on whether a person was or was not thinking, but on what they were thinking. It is only to be applied (thus far) when a criminal act occurs, but when the act occurs, the thinking is to be part of the crime.
--
The DOJ was investigating IBM for many years. During those years the IBM management became very wary of doing anything that could be considered
:)
as anticompetitive. This gave other companies a real chance in the marketplace.
Consider this - the only reason that IBM allowed MicroSoft to get rich on their behalf was that they didn't dare to kill off MS while the DOJ was watching.
So, you're premise is that, except for the ever-watchful eye of the DOJ, IBM would have crushed MS out of existence? At what point in history do you say IBM was motivated and able to do this?
Here's a partial history, to the best of my recollection: IBM had built up a wildly successful business selling "big-iron" to Fortune 500 companies through the 60's, 70's, and 80's. But, they usually under-valued the software side of things. They wanted to be a hardware company first. In fact, this attitude led directly to the birth of EDS, which went on the become the premier provider of large-scale software solutions for those same customers. Along the way, Apple sprung into existence and established a profitable home and personal computer business. IBM wasn't about to sit back and let Apple (or anyone else for that matter) just have this potentially lucrative market. So, they introduced the IBM PC. Further, they made its architecture an open architecture, to help differentiate it from Apple's offerings and because they rightly concluded it would make their offerings more affordable and more popular. Well, they needed an OS for this new PC, and as we all know, they ultimately struck a deal with Gates. At this point, IBM was partnering with MS. And this continued for some time, until around the introduction of Windows 3.0. Win3.0 was wildly popular, but it still needed some refinement before businesses would adopt it. With the advent of WfW3.1, MS finally had a product that businesses were really willing to live with and we started to see large scale deployments of it in corporate America. MS' coffers at this point were starting to grow quite substantial. In addition to the success of their OS, they were raking in the cash with MS Word, Excel and, later, Office. IBM and MS were still partnering at this point in time. Both companies saw the limitations of the 16-bit, cooperatively multitasking Windows and the DOS legacy throughout it, so they sought to co-develop a 32-bit heir. But, at this point, tensions were becoming increasingly more apparent between the two as MS grew larger and gained tremendously in clout. IBM could not afford to smash them out of existence because they had nothing to offer in place of MS offerings at the time. They didn't even have shrinkwrap offerings you could buy in the stores (for the most part). IBM's forte was still hardware and big-iron.
I'll stop here. My point is that at the point when IBM and MS starting having a real feud and their partnership was falling apart, it was too late for IBM to wield whatever monopoly status they still had to crush MS. MS had gained too firm a foothold in the desktop market. Further, IBM was pretty inept at the time in dealing with the desktop market. MS was faster and more nimble than the IBM behemoth. IBM was too bureaucratic and business-oriented to compete was such a fast changing, dynamic market.
You can speculate that MS' success at the expense of IBM was significantly impacted by the ever-present threat of DOJ action against IBM. I think MS' own actions and IBM's inaction and poor decision making are the real explanation.
Did you even bother to read the document? It contains many examples that shows that MS have excerted monopoly-like pressures on OEMs and ISVs. To be a monopoly, or near-monopoly is not illegal. There are however restrictions to what you can legaly do with that monopoly power.
How about reading a book about economics. Especially one that explains which safeguards are necessary in a free marketplace to make sure that there is healthy competition.
Did you even bother to read my comments? In context? I was replying specifically to comments made by the original poster of this thread that we cannot "vote with our dollars" because MS has obtained a monopoly in desktop OS's. He is wrong. We can and we do.
The points you are saying here don't contradict at all what I was saying. In fact, I tend to agree with them! I lean toward conservative, restrained action to correct monopolistic wrongs. I'd prefer where possible to give the market a chance to correct them itself. But, obviously, one of the roles of government is to ensure a fair "playing field" for a market to exist. At a minimum you would want the government to enforce contracts, for instance. But there is not widespread agreement on what government's role shoud be in economic affairs. And reading a book on economics isn't going to settle that debate either.
--
You're looking for equity in a system where there is none. We have already acknowledged gradations of criminility with proportional punishment.
So, because the system has no equity, we should not attempt to rectify this in the hopes of actually achieving equity?
To answer your question: Premeditated murder vs. other murders acknowledges the dual, competing natures of man -- his reason vs. his emotion. A murder out of passion is considered an act committed by a person given over to their emotions -- one who essentially stopped thinking at that point in time. A premeditated murder, OTOH, means the accused was acting with their faculties fully intact. They knew the difference between right and wrong (or more precisely, they knew what is and is not considered a criminal act). Given this information and the presumption that they are able to reason, they nevertheless chose to commit the act, thus deliberately flaunting society's mores. So, why should this be worse than any other murder? Because we can control our reasoning, but we sometimes cannot control our emotions.
As to your other question, I don't agree that cop murderers should be more likely to face the death penalty than someone who drives a cab. I think this is another example of an error in our justice system. The act is murder. Murder is the crime. The punishment should be for the crime, not for who it was committed against.
--
I don't see how categorizing certain crimes as "hate crimes" is intellectually defensible in the U.S., given the principles this country is founded on. To elevate a criminal charge based on whether there was an element of hate involved is absurd, even if we restrict the kinds of hate that are applicable in this situation to a narrow set.
Basically, this is an effort to criminalize certain kinds of thinking. We haven't progressed yet to the point where people are being arrested and charged soley for their thoughts. But if a person commits a crime, we are at the point where if he had certain thoughts (identified as unacceptable) that may have motivated the crime, the charges can be elevated. Thus, the thoughts themselves are criminalized to the degree that the criminal charges have been elevated beyond what they would have been for just committing the act itself. This is a direct violation of every U.S. citizen's right to freedom of speech (and possibly even freedom of religion).
We assess motivation in criminal cases to help determine whether an accused person is guilty or innocent of committing a criminal act. The motivation itself is not criminal, but the act is. What we have really done is politicized crimes committed against certain groups of people. Mixing politics into the criminal code is a bad idea.
--
I read the article and am left wondering why this is newsworthy? Basically, we have Gore making an appearence on an Internet forum, but saying little of substance. This is the Internet equivalent of a photo-op. The impression I get is Gore's campaign staff saw this as an oportunity to make him seem more 'hip', more Internet-saavy. On that, he kind of blows it (it's Ctrl-Alt-Delete, or is this another pronunciating war?). Also, emailing his article to Slate should not surprise someone so intimately familiar with the Internet! :)
Anyhow, I'm not a Gore fan, but neither am I an attack dog. Gore fans will generally like the piece, his detractors won't care for it. My main point stands: There's just not much significant or new that he says in his article. Kind of a non-event, IMHO.
--
As far as I'm concerned, the person who gave the OS its name gets to pick how it's correctly pronounced. But let's not get into a holy war over this.
:)
Why certainly, now that you've gotten your 2 bits in...
This is a bunch of claptrap. You say unchecked capitalism leads to monopoly situations and that I should be able to look at any industry and be able to see this. Sorry, but I just don't see this. You need to provide specific examples to make your point. Otherwise, it is just so much pontificating.
Also, your comments about what the average CEO makes vs. the average factory worker mean nothing. You seem to find it offensive, but provide no clue how you would decide the worth of those two job categories. The fact is, our economy has moved to a knowledge-based, service economy. Factory work is increasingly becoming a commodity skill. Therefore, the wages for factory workers are not going to climb appreciably if there is an abundance of people willing to do that work as compared to the demand for that kind of labor.
No matter what the judge says, Microsoft does not have a pure monopoly in the desktop OS. Obviously there are people using OS's other than Windows on their desktops. This is "voting with your dollars". And this means my dollars do not go to "just one place".
Your example of ATT and MCI seems especially apropo: ATT was deemed an illegal monopoly at one point and was broken up. Now we have a wider variety of long distance providers and MCI is one of them. They stepped in and took on ATT and have made a successful business doing it. We have greater choice now than we did. But, did the breakup of ATT make this possible? I don't think that is completely clear. Remember that at one point IBM was considered by most to be a monopoly but was not broken up. And now we have Microsoft, Apple, Sun, and Linux! unseating them -- all through the marketplace.
You assert that capitalism never reaches a competitive equilibrium. But of course it never reaches an equilibrium! It is a constantly changing, dynamic system driven by the best ideas from our minds. It does not stagnate. It evolves constantly.
You are right that corporations care about only money. So do partnerships and sole proprietorships. Money is just the currency we use for exchanging value. So all these businesses care only about value. Their own value. And they compete against one another to increase their value. And in that marketplace, we "vote with our dollars" for ideas that bring us the most value. We are better able to judge for ourselves what gives us the most value than any government or other centralized agency could do. Until our government becomes omniscient, I will not be satisfied to be led by them in place of allowing the market place to sort out the best ideas.
Finally, you claim corporations never do a thing for our country. I wish you would elaborate on that one, because otherwise I say your statement is patently false. Consider where you would get your food, clothes, means of transportation, housing, computers, etc., etc. etc., at the prices you can get them at today if we did not have corporations? Who built the airplanes, tanks, rifles, uniforms, and all the rest that we used during WWII? During WWI? Like I said, whatever point you were trying to make here, I must have completely missed, so please elaborate and make a more complete case. Otherwise, I feel no compelling reason to agree to unsubstantiated platitudes.
--
While reading in the Salon article about how the orignal series lasted only 3 seasons, as compared to the subsequent, modern shows which have logged vastly more episodes than the first, it occurred to me that the original series competed in a vastly tighter television market than did/does the newer shows. When the original show aired, there were only 3 major networks and there was no cable. Most folks were doing well to get good reception on three stations. Also, it was not uncommon for the T.V. stations you did get to "sign-off" at some point late at night (i.e. they were not necessarily 24-hour).
The point is, there just weren't that many available time slots for shows like there are today. If a show today can't get a time slot on one of the major networks, it is frequently an option to look to an alternative outlet -- cable channels -- to still get the show on the air.
So, in that sense, it seems to me it is a worthy achievment that the original series was able to occupy one of those limited time slots for 3 years. I wonder how long any of the other Trek shows would have lasted under the same circumstances. Or how long would the original have gone if cable had been available then?
Exactly. This article does not contain the entire Gartner Group report, only certain quotes from it. It is Ellen Cresswell who is characterizing it as a "slam", a "hostile review", and a "kiss of death" to Linux. The quotes she provides from the report don't support those characterizations, IMHO.
According to the article, the report says Linux will not overtake MS's OS's on the desktop, due to "lack of standards", "lack of key productivity" apps, and "Unix complexity". I would like to have seen further elaboration on what standards they think are lacking and on what key productivity apps they feel are missing.
But one thing the article does not provide is any commentary from Gartner as to Linux's suitability as a server OS. And, in case anyone were interested, there is no information on what Gartner thinks the future of NT as a desktop OS will be. In fact, as an article about what Gartner Group thinks, it is surprisingly brief about what they say and instead is quite full of what other vendors/competitors have to say. The huge majority is quotes from IDC, Emusys, Microsoft, Sun, and HP.
The first 10% of the article contains naked pronouncements from Gartner Group regarding Linux's suitablility as a desktop OS. The remainder contains a variety of opinions on where Linux is heading in the server arena. Bizarre composition really.
> Singer starts with the premise that life qua human being is tied to conscious existenece. ... The entire USA and the courts have no problem with proclaiming a body that's still metablolizing just fine, but can never be conscious again due to brain death, to be legally dead.
Perhaps this premise needs some refinement. Life as a human being is tied to the likelihood of attaining consciousness. Yes, and that certainly means there would be a judgement call involved in making that assessment. But, given a normal, healthy newborn baby, almost anyone you care to ask would agree that the child is human. On the other hand, a child born with no brain, or that brain dead body on life support are often referred to as "vegetables". Crass as that may be, it does tend to indicate acknowledgement that the person in question is really no longer human, per se.
The point is, while a newborn probably has no self-awareness initially, that does not automatically make him non-human until he attains it.
--
It was precisely my point that the law sucks here.
Yes, I can pick an iMac out of a lineup with six other consumer level desktop computers. But, how different do those other computers have to be before they are acceptable? You'll just know it when you see it? Not good enough, sorry.
If a desktop PC maker made a computer that was shaped identical to an iMac, but was in an obviously different color from any offered for the iMac, would it infringe? After all, it would be distinctively NOT an iMac, since Apple never offered an iMac in that color before. What if the colored plastic was not translucent? So, unique color and opaque plastic -- does it infringe then?
What does Apple have rights to here? Colored computers? Translucent plastic? The retro-50's look? One-button mice? Combo CPU-Monitor packaging?
The law, and the mindset that argues for it, is what bothers me here, because the law is too vague. A person cannot be sure when they are in violation of it and this creates anti-competitive pressure in the market -- bad for consumers.
---
But the intellectual roadblock to this line of thinking is that it is a subjective assessment whether one thing looks like another. The line has to be drawn somewhere to distinquish between things that look alike and things that do not look alike. And drawing that line is the problem. Because that line will always be fuzzy, no one can be certain when they cross it and intrude into someone else's claimed protected turf.
Product clones have been around for years. It happened in apparel, thus we have high-profile designers actually putting their names on their products and stumbling into the popular designer apparel industry. Golf clubs are cloned. And, to my eyes at least, most late model 4 door coupes look pretty much the same.
The market can decide whether the cloned product is as desirable as the original. Typically, cloned products are of inferior quality and many buyers won't buy them because of this. The best asset a manufacturer has is their own name and the price/quality they put in their products. Apple would be better off trying to make the best damn iMacs they can and let the public decide whether the clones are a better buy. And, of course, they should proudly place their name across the front of their product. Consumers aren't dummies. They will know if they are dealing with an Apple product or not.
So, I think Apple is doing something wrong here. They are wasting stockholder's money trying to establish a legal monopoly on a particlar, vaguely-defined product look.
---
afdaffdas
Well, you're not exactly on the mark either. I agree you may not have to rewrite your code when you port, but the fact is you very often do have do a rewrite.
Where I work, we develop Win32 apps to run on Windows 95/98 machines. The same code base typically will work for these platforms. However, in our experience, it is rare that the same code base will produce a properly functioning application on any variant of NT, or on Win 3.x. In fact, one of the developers on our staff is a big NT proponent and develops exclusively on that platform -- developing components whose target platform is Win95/98. It is far and away the norm that the stuff he writes will work under NT but not on the target platform. He is always surprised at this. Likewise, apps the rest of us are developing under Win98 typically misbehave/break under NT.
Maybe we're morons, but I don't think so. Sure MS is "tearing their ass up" to maintain backward compatibility. That doesn't mean they are accomplishing their goal. And, in fact, it is well known that apps often don't work on one platform that do run on the other. Hell, they seem to have enough trouble keeping apps running under different iterations of Windows 9x!
I do think the article stretches its point a bit when defining 7 variations of Windows. It's a bit unfair to call separate distribution methods different variants. Sure, based on the distribution method you choose, you may wind up with a different set of code than what someone else got, but the same point could easily be made for other OS's. How many different ways can you aquire Redhat Linux, for instance (source CD, RPM CD, download source, download RPMs, download tarballs, just to name a few)?
His broader point is valid, however. We have at least Windows 3.x, WfW 3.x, Win 95, Win 95 OSR2, Win 98, Win 98 SE, Win NT 4, W2k, and Win CE. These platforms could be fairly judged to be at least as fragmented as some are claiming exists with Linux. I think the level of fragmentation on the Windows side is actually higher.
Didn't the standoff in Waco last something like 51 days? And the bloody, firey conclusion happened at the end? You say Reno was appointed during the standoff. Well, unless she was appointed while the flames were blazing, she was in charge when the final assault was initiated.
Further, I believe she was appointed by Clinton, right? So, he was in office at the time, right? Then how does it follow that what happened in Waco is Bush's or the GOP's fault?
Also, Reno has spent copious amounts of time defending the actions of the government at both Ruby Ridge and at Waco. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, I think she said at one time that the responsibility for what happened at Waco was hers. The impression I got at that time was she wanted to make it clear that the buck stopped at her -- implying that it did not go all the way to her boss, Clinton.
Republican/Democrat -- these distinctions really don't matter anyway. The problem is that the government is highly inclined to empower itself, even if this sometimes means watering-down or outright trampling on the supposed rights guaranteed to its citizens. And, it may do these things while claiming it is acting in our own best interests.
We should always guard all our rights jealously or they will disappear.
----
I knew that would happen, but I figured it would make good sport for the rest.
The caveat I should have added was: Of course, I certainly do not claim to be perfect.
Say la vee -- life sux -- bee kool.
I am a relative newbie to Linux, having started using it just last fall. As such, there are many personalities and things about it I still do not know. Raster to me was a non-entity until the recent postings started by him over his little fall-out with Redhat and his moving on to greener pastures.
:), a person lacking somewhat in good judgement.
Having read these postings, here's my impression of Raster: a very valuable member of the Linux community, the developer of enlightenment, a passionate person, a remarkably immature person, a really crappy speller
Now I admit I have never met the guy and impressions can always change, but the negative impressions I (and others?) have of him are his own doing and do need mending. Such is the problem with spouting off in a public forum without first calming down and attempting to establish some perspective.
I am not "against" Raster. But I do have a fairly negative impression of him. So, I tend to agree with the sentiment: who cares? I'm kinda tired of hearing about him too.
I post these thoughts for two reasons:
1. To inform Raster, in case he cares, how his public actions impact others' perceptions of him, and
2. To highlight the need for everyone to be rational and fair-minded when participating in a public forum.
This is not a major issue. But the recent posting by Mindcraft of the venemous hate mail they received from some members of the Linux community is an embarrasment. Everyone should take a reality check before firing off some irrational, profane, hate-filled message for all to read.
My humble $.02 anyhow...
Good grief! I think maybe it is YOUR reading that begs for more breadth. America has won its most recent wars because of her industrial might -- a thing built by a market economy in a land rich with natural resources.
Capitalism is effective because it gives everyone an incentive to do something useful for society. People tend to be rewarded for thinking of thngs or services that other people want. Folks with useless ideas fiind those ideas bring no rewards. So, they apply themselves towards finding a way to be useful in some way. Over time, the better ideas succeed and everyone is better off for it. It's basically social darwinism. No one has demonstrated a better system for motivating people to be productive. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good.
And some computers have two or more. And ethernet cards are much more likely to move from one machine to another. They would not be an effective way to identify a given machine, or user.