Since autism has been shown to be a genetic disease
It hasn't. It just hasn't. There is no chromosome or location for an "autism gene", there has been no definitive identification of an autism gene, etc, etc. There is some evidence that there is a degree of heredity in autism and four chromosomal regions where abnormalities seem more common in autistic children, but that's about a million miles from "it has been shown to be a genetic disease". The stomach bacteria and vaccination theories are alive and well.
How did I know that the words "widely recognised" above would be a link from Slashdot to Slashdot. Linking to yourself saying the same thing is not a citation. It's the classic sign of a kook.
Warning to consumers: Although it sounds like a good thing, "Standards-compliant", when used in the context of Mozilla, is a euphemism for "Fails to render a significant proportion of popular websites".
Um, I dunno, I guess people just make generators, irrigate fields, etc.
Point me to this farmer who sits down and invents a generator from scratch and then tell me who's running his farm while he carries out the research involved, fool. The patents have long since expired on generators and most modern irrigation systems, but these things would not have reached their current level of development if they had depended on the work of amateurs rather than companies with lawyers and bankers.
Imagine that nobody could build roads or water systems or electric plants unless they paid royalties to some American company for the idea
Congratulations, you're imagining the USA in the period of Edison and Westinghouse. For electricity distribution, that is (the major patents on which have long since expired). If on the other hand, you think that "water systems" were invented by American companies, you're either too much of an idiot to warrant further conversation or rudely refusing to think seriously about history.
Just one question that's bugged me for years about this book, and seeing the trailers only reminded me of it.
If this ring was so incredibly important, why did they give the job of getting rid of it to a small person with no military experience, who had never been outside his home village before in his life? Why didn't they at least give him a frekaing map?
Copyright was a meaningless concept before the widespread adoption of mechanical reproduction, so your first question is pointless except as a poor debating point. Early water systems were certainly established as local monopolies; this was mainly because early water systems were developed in pre-capitalist economies. In the early capitalist era, new goods of this sort were developed by "corporations", who were also given monopolies (occasionally known as "letters patent") on their development.
I am suggesting that things of value cannot be created with anything like the same degree of efficiency if the creators do not have some method of ensuring that they will be able to retain enough of the value created to make it worth their while making the initial investment. In evidence for this, I submit the pace of economic development before and since the Statute of Anne in 1710.
However, this merely practical point is secondary to my main point, which is that creators have a moral right to decide what happens to their creation, and that this right is basically independent of any economic fact.
Since the majority of "economies" which have ever existed, existed before the invention of mass reproduction technology, this is trivially true. All developed economies, however, have had intellectual property laws since the beginning of their development, starting with the Statute of Anne in 1710.
How do you think the plans for electricity, running water, etc, etc get financed in a world where they can be copied by freeloaders? Do the words "To promote the useful arts" mean anything to you?
Copyright and patents emerged late in the last milennium
Bzzzt, thanks for playing. "Copyright", according to the OED, comes from a Saxon term and was in use by monasteries who would let strangers copy one of their manuscripts for a fee. It thus predates the invention of mass reproduction.
The more general point of an author's right to control over his work appears in Revelations and was certainly a preoccupation of the Greeks.
Note that your argument, if it works at all, is also an argument in favour of there being no rules against plagiarism, and no right to privacy. After all, it doesn't harm you if Johnny copies your essay, or Bill takes a peek at your medical records, does it? You still have that information.
Intellectual property is entirely about the rights of creators to decide what is done with the product of their creation/labour, and without this fundamental human right, it is impossible to have any sort of market system. Your economics is as muddled as your legal philosophy is reprehensible.
Never act like a salesman. Grudgingly tell your customers you might, possibly, deign to design the project that they want. Always make them feel like idiots for even asking whether something might be possible if you don't feel like implementing it.
Don't listen to the customer ever again. Tell them that the spec agreed is frozen, and that their changing business needs are their problem, not yours. If they accidentally get through to you on the phone, remind them how much more important your carefully designed project architecture is than they are.
Let your developers take as much time as they feel they need. Never put them under any pressure, because hey, that would be unfriendly. Tolerate sloppiness and lack of delivery, because otherwise your employees will all probably resign and go play Quake somewhere else. Never fire anyone, and never, ever even think about judging someone by results. After all, it's the programmers who run your company, not you.
Go bust. Hey, there's no shame in bankruptcy these days!
Now people are recognising some of the benefits of available source code, they're not seeing the important difference between open source and free software
Or possibly, they're seeing it, and they don't think it's important.
In general, never assume that the reason people don't think things are important is because they don't understand them. Years of evolution has given us a sense of proportion which means that the mass of people is almost never wrong about what's worth bothering with. That's why turnout is so low in Presidential elections.
Yes I have, as a matter of fact (BlackBox), and the fact is, nine times out of ten, the major effect is to leave you typing text into the wrong window.
The user can easily raise a window by clicking on the title bar or the resize border, or using alt+tab
You are clearly working on a personal, ludicrously intellectually non-rigourous concept of "easily", which means it is no longer worth discussing the matter with you.
If I were you, I'd bookmark this post, so if you ever find yourself idly wondering why Bill Gates is a billionaire while you're a ramen-eating graduate student, you'll be able to find it easily and remember why.
It is the brain-dead operation of the GUI in Windows (active window has to be on top) that necessitates such nasty hacks as this. A desktop that allows the active window to be behind another window removes this necessity altogether (for when you are e.g., copying text from one window into another).
I'm guessing that Microsoft has more time and money to spend on UI research than you do, which is the context for your off-the-cuff judgement that they are "brain-dead". The desktop tricks that you describe are all very nice, but they disrupt the continuity of the desktop metaphor. In other words, they stop it from being the case that what you see on the screen is an accurate representation of your workspace. And it turns out that preserving the metaphor is more important for usability than occasionally requiring a few annoying switches between windows.
The principle is called "designing for the common case". Sure, it can be useful to have active windows not on top when you're copying text from one window to another, but what about when you're not? Usually, when you want to activate a window, you want to bring it to the front at the same time, and you want to be able to do so with a single click anywhere in the window. Microsoft sets itself up this way because they've done actual work to find out whether it's better or not, rather than ad hoc theorising.
Go on then, is it quicker to use keyboard shortcuts or the mouse?
I wasn't aware of it being the government's job to help business cut corners and increase profits.
Don't worry, numerous universities offer courses in "Law & Economics" which can cure you of this deficiency.
Re:Cash registers, not fireproof safes
on
HDCP Break Proven
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Fair use, my ass. Any legitimate fair use of these signals could be satisfied by a simple VCR. The idea that there is some "first sale" doctrine for television signals is ludicrous, as is the idea that the fair use doctrine requires every copyright holder to do as much as possible to help you carry out whatever work you wish to produce using their content. Creators of material have more rights and consumers fewer than you think.
Cash registers, not fireproof safes
on
HDCP Break Proven
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I don't understand what the big deal is. This standard is not being used to encrypt medical records or nuclear missile codes. It's being used to encrypt digital television signals so that it is possible to charge for them. It's been designed for that purpose and to meet certain standards of simplicity which make it possible to use widely without making devices prohibitively expensive.
For this purpose, it doesn't need to be mathematically valid, any more than a cash register needs to be fireproof and have a 28-digit combination lock. All that a cash register needs is to have a door that closes and stays closed. This means that you can't have things move from the cash register into your pocket by accident.
If there was a vulnerability in the standard which meant that you could access the signals without trying to, that would be bad news. As it is, the signals are only accessible by those who want to consciously make equipment designed for the purpose of veiwing them, which has no legitimate alternative use. In other words, the "crack" of this standard only refers to an attack which is against the laws relating to theft (in this case the DMCA).
This is not a "bad" or "stupid" encryption system; it's just an example of a company using the laws which protect them to cut a cost corner. After all, if one could trust people to pay for what they watched, they wouldn't need to encrypt the signal at all.
For a bunch of self-styled "engineers", slashdot has a really hard time understanding the basic concept of "fit for purpose".
why would anyone in the marketing business choose to do things the hard way, by promoting things that people don't like, when there are things which people do like, which would presumably be cheaper and easier to sell.
For extra credit, if marketing people are so stupid, why do they earn more than you?
For extra extra credit, if marketing is so easy and lucrative, why don't you go and do it, and write free software in your copious spare time?
for extra extra extra credit, if you lack the "social skills" to be a marketeer because you're "an engineer who only cares about the right way to do things", what makes you so sure that your intutions about what the public likes are accurate?
Triple points if you know more than two people who don't share your personal taste in music.
I ought to resist this ...
on
God's Debris
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Never let it be said I am not a slack-jawed, mouth breathing troll biter, but...
I'm sure nobody will be fooled by this, but I really must point out that child pornography is not legal in Thailand, and that the Thais are actually doing their level best to stamp out the child sex trade, with next to no help from the legions of fat American and German tourists who agree with Slashdot that domestic laws can't be enforced overseas.
Once you sell something, you no longer own it. That's actually not a problem with our legal system. It's what your mom was on about when she gave you that lecture on "having your cake and eating it".
How much sympathy do you have for someone who runs unsigned email attachments? That's how much sympathy you should have for Eric Weisstein.
Slashdot Mirror
It hasn't. It just hasn't. There is no chromosome or location for an "autism gene", there has been no definitive identification of an autism gene, etc, etc. There is some evidence that there is a degree of heredity in autism and four chromosomal regions where abnormalities seem more common in autistic children, but that's about a million miles from "it has been shown to be a genetic disease". The stomach bacteria and vaccination theories are alive and well.
How did I know that the words "widely recognised" above would be a link from Slashdot to Slashdot. Linking to yourself saying the same thing is not a citation. It's the classic sign of a kook.
Warning to consumers: Although it sounds like a good thing, "Standards-compliant", when used in the context of Mozilla, is a euphemism for "Fails to render a significant proportion of popular websites".
Point me to this farmer who sits down and invents a generator from scratch and then tell me who's running his farm while he carries out the research involved, fool. The patents have long since expired on generators and most modern irrigation systems, but these things would not have reached their current level of development if they had depended on the work of amateurs rather than companies with lawyers and bankers.
Imagine that nobody could build roads or water systems or electric plants unless they paid royalties to some American company for the idea
Congratulations, you're imagining the USA in the period of Edison and Westinghouse. For electricity distribution, that is (the major patents on which have long since expired). If on the other hand, you think that "water systems" were invented by American companies, you're either too much of an idiot to warrant further conversation or rudely refusing to think seriously about history.
If this ring was so incredibly important, why did they give the job of getting rid of it to a small person with no military experience, who had never been outside his home village before in his life? Why didn't they at least give him a frekaing map?
I am suggesting that things of value cannot be created with anything like the same degree of efficiency if the creators do not have some method of ensuring that they will be able to retain enough of the value created to make it worth their while making the initial investment. In evidence for this, I submit the pace of economic development before and since the Statute of Anne in 1710.
However, this merely practical point is secondary to my main point, which is that creators have a moral right to decide what happens to their creation, and that this right is basically independent of any economic fact.
How do you think the plans for electricity, running water, etc, etc get financed in a world where they can be copied by freeloaders? Do the words "To promote the useful arts" mean anything to you?
The main use for this is to demonstrate to the youngsters the greatest troll of all time
Bzzzt, thanks for playing. "Copyright", according to the OED, comes from a Saxon term and was in use by monasteries who would let strangers copy one of their manuscripts for a fee. It thus predates the invention of mass reproduction.
The more general point of an author's right to control over his work appears in Revelations and was certainly a preoccupation of the Greeks.
Note that your argument, if it works at all, is also an argument in favour of there being no rules against plagiarism, and no right to privacy. After all, it doesn't harm you if Johnny copies your essay, or Bill takes a peek at your medical records, does it? You still have that information.
Intellectual property is entirely about the rights of creators to decide what is done with the product of their creation/labour, and without this fundamental human right, it is impossible to have any sort of market system. Your economics is as muddled as your legal philosophy is reprehensible.
Since the Turner Prize is for a British artist, I'm assuming you mean that we should finish the job we started in 1945.
Or possibly, they're seeing it, and they don't think it's important.
In general, never assume that the reason people don't think things are important is because they don't understand them. Years of evolution has given us a sense of proportion which means that the mass of people is almost never wrong about what's worth bothering with. That's why turnout is so low in Presidential elections.
The user can easily raise a window by clicking on the title bar or the resize border, or using alt+tab
You are clearly working on a personal, ludicrously intellectually non-rigourous concept of "easily", which means it is no longer worth discussing the matter with you.
If I were you, I'd bookmark this post, so if you ever find yourself idly wondering why Bill Gates is a billionaire while you're a ramen-eating graduate student, you'll be able to find it easily and remember why.
I'm guessing that Microsoft has more time and money to spend on UI research than you do, which is the context for your off-the-cuff judgement that they are "brain-dead". The desktop tricks that you describe are all very nice, but they disrupt the continuity of the desktop metaphor. In other words, they stop it from being the case that what you see on the screen is an accurate representation of your workspace. And it turns out that preserving the metaphor is more important for usability than occasionally requiring a few annoying switches between windows.
The principle is called "designing for the common case". Sure, it can be useful to have active windows not on top when you're copying text from one window to another, but what about when you're not? Usually, when you want to activate a window, you want to bring it to the front at the same time, and you want to be able to do so with a single click anywhere in the window. Microsoft sets itself up this way because they've done actual work to find out whether it's better or not, rather than ad hoc theorising.
Go on then, is it quicker to use keyboard shortcuts or the mouse?
Don't worry, numerous universities offer courses in "Law & Economics" which can cure you of this deficiency.
Fair use, my ass. Any legitimate fair use of these signals could be satisfied by a simple VCR. The idea that there is some "first sale" doctrine for television signals is ludicrous, as is the idea that the fair use doctrine requires every copyright holder to do as much as possible to help you carry out whatever work you wish to produce using their content. Creators of material have more rights and consumers fewer than you think.
For this purpose, it doesn't need to be mathematically valid, any more than a cash register needs to be fireproof and have a 28-digit combination lock. All that a cash register needs is to have a door that closes and stays closed. This means that you can't have things move from the cash register into your pocket by accident.
If there was a vulnerability in the standard which meant that you could access the signals without trying to, that would be bad news. As it is, the signals are only accessible by those who want to consciously make equipment designed for the purpose of veiwing them, which has no legitimate alternative use. In other words, the "crack" of this standard only refers to an attack which is against the laws relating to theft (in this case the DMCA).
This is not a "bad" or "stupid" encryption system; it's just an example of a company using the laws which protect them to cut a cost corner. After all, if one could trust people to pay for what they watched, they wouldn't need to encrypt the signal at all.
For a bunch of self-styled "engineers", slashdot has a really hard time understanding the basic concept of "fit for purpose".
For extra credit, if marketing people are so stupid, why do they earn more than you?
For extra extra credit, if marketing is so easy and lucrative, why don't you go and do it, and write free software in your copious spare time?
for extra extra extra credit, if you lack the "social skills" to be a marketeer because you're "an engineer who only cares about the right way to do things", what makes you so sure that your intutions about what the public likes are accurate?
Triple points if you know more than two people who don't share your personal taste in music.
The above post is completely wrong.
that's very interesting, thanks. Interestingly, the only SouthEast Asian country without a serious child prostitution problem is Vietnam.
I'm sure nobody will be fooled by this, but I really must point out that child pornography is not legal in Thailand, and that the Thais are actually doing their level best to stamp out the child sex trade, with next to no help from the legions of fat American and German tourists who agree with Slashdot that domestic laws can't be enforced overseas.
On the other hand, given that MySQL is shit, he did have a point.
How much sympathy do you have for someone who runs unsigned email attachments? That's how much sympathy you should have for Eric Weisstein.
And when you've done that, you can take both your engineering degree, and your attitude, and shove them up your ass.