The nature of the internet is different than, say, books or tape recorders or any other information distribution system, and you fail to understand the distinctions at your peril.
The fact is, the internet makes copyrights either:
1) unenforceable, as so many have violated the law (e.g., Napster) that we can't lock them all up, or;
2) unendurable, as the only way to make sure copyrights aren't being violated is to invade our privacy and violate our civil rights.
This wasn't a problem before the internet, as the average information distributor couldn't do as much damage, and could be caught once he did become large enough to be a problem. For instance, the RIAA wouldn't prosecute you for taping an album off the radio in the past, they would get laughed out of court. Then they (not the RIAA this time, but the MPAA) got a little smarter and encoded VHS tapes and put the FBI WARNING! notice on the front of all movies. Okay, so far no invasion of privacy, but it did work a little better, although you can (legally?) tape a movie off of Showtime and give it to your friend.
But now copyright violaters can copy a four minute song down to an mp3 and distribute it to thousands of people in minutes, who can then forward it to a million in an hour.
That's a million criminals in an hour, or, if you want, 95 million criminals on Napster right now.
Which should we do? Arrest everyone on Napster (I imagine its a misdemeanor), stop them by monitoring their machine via Carnivore, or write new legislation that is cognizant of the new problems brought about by the new technology? I opt for the latter.
Many points I would make here, hoping they fall on open ears. I think Tiemann would agree with you off the record that Allchin is a lunatic. He fairly called MS evil, but there are things I don't think you understand.
First the premise that MS is dead in the water (waitaminute, is this flamebait?? oh well...). It's hard to believe that a katrillion dollar company is dead in the water, but if they are dying, then let's make sure they don't take too many of us down with them. I don't know if you noticed, but they are starting to lobby legislators A Lot - check out today's Wired News . If they succeed in gaining credence with legislators who then make laws stifling Open Source (what kind of laws? Someone mentioned the licensing of programmers yesterday...), we may indeed suffer as 'we' become outlaws.
Linux and the open source replace MS? Not likely. Not until the Linux OS matures at least enough so it becomes a viable alternative to Windows. Before you consider this point flamebait, you must admit: our Moms would have a terrible time getting Linux to run, but they are comfortable with MS. I can't say much more, as I am only a reluctant Windows user (but some day...).
Your line, "The truth will out, as it has been shown throughout history" makes me wonder if you 'read' the piece. Tiemann actually addresses the arrogance of MS in believing that it can control the truth much in the same way that the Church sought to control the Truth a thousand years ago. This brought on the Dark Ages until people realized that the Truth exists independently of peoples wishes. We could actually experience a Dark Ages in computers, you know... what would it be like? I don't know, but it's got a crappy OS running the show and every click you make can be heard clear up to Redmond and D.C. I think it would involve loss of privacy And innovation as open source programmers become dispirited and disjoint. We would then live in a kind of 1984 where life is crappy as hell but we are told things are getting better every day. And I damn sure would not be allowed to type this stuff. Or maybe I could, but I would find out that my OS liked me less and less and I get the BSOD every three minutes instead of twice a day...
Is MS evil? Would they do anything to keep themselves on top, including lowering the entire world so they are relatively superior. I don't know, why don't we ask them?
This 'rebuttal' is absolutely essential so that the snide remarks of a very very powerful lunatic don't go by unchallenged. I salute Tiemann for stepping up to the plate and calling a spade a spade, standing before the Great Evil like David to Goliath...
I would like to believe that M$ is on the run, but I can't. However it may be true that they don't have a clue as to how to deal with open source.
In reading the article one cannot find a single logical argument that is supported by any facts. To wit:
- freely distributed code can stifle innovation
- this will result in the demise of IP
- also the demise of incentive to R&D
and that's it. Those are the only 3 points he makes. But he never backs up his assertions with any facts or even anecdotes. But he does say - more than once - that he's worried and that legislators need to made aware - oh no! Important choice of words! - legislators need to Understand the Threat!
The only threat Linux, and Napster, for that matter, poses (it's true) is the threat to unreasonable IP protections. I say unreasonable because many of the recent copyright / patent rulings seems unreasonable in this day and age.
What is really happening is that the existence of the internet has, through its ability to promote the free exchange of ideas, created a sea-change in the business world, relegating ideas that were truly once protected by 'security through obscurity'- type barriers (inasmuch as you used to not be able to get near-real-time updates on developing products) to a truly unprotected and unprotectable status. That is, unless the government takes draconian measures, ultimately monitoring our each and every movement on the computer through an active oversight system, it will never be able to supress the free exchange of ideas once they surface, no matter who owns them.
But MS is well-poised (if I read some of their.NET concepts correctly) to assist the government in just such monitoring of our daily clicking.
This is ultimately the only way to secure IP and MS's predominant role in um, society.
Kinda frightening, if you ask me. We are not safe until the government 'gives up the ghost' on IP rights.
I got a job as a census taker in 1980. We had a list of Each and Every house that failed to fill in a form, and it was our job to return three times to try to get the info (knock knock... knock knock...), and then on the third try we were instructed to ask neighbors and, failing that, try to guess how many lived there (toys in yard, clothes on line, cars in driveway). We only had to resort to that in a very few cases. This was in rural Florida.
Man, the government isn't really being the bad guy, here... fight Carnivore, fight Echelon, fight RIAA. Don't fight the stupid Census, for chrissakes...
Couldn't the FBI concievably get much much more information about you than could be revealed on a Census form, through, say, Carnivore, illegal wiretapping, and other agencies through Echelon?
The Short Form asks only about number of people living in the house, their names, ages, relationship to head of house, and for some bizarre reason, if they are Hispanic or not. Not to be too politically incorrect, but when I was a Census taker in 1980, minorities constituted the overwhelming bulk of my 'mop-up' efforts, and like as not they would not reveal a thing to me when I asked them those simple questions. Some kicked me off of their property, refusing even the most basic questions ('do you live here?'). I think they trust their government less than white folk, at least in this instance.
But now, in part thanks to the internet, what the US Census can collect on an Individual is much less than what a corp can get simply by asking.
The Long Form is fillied with innocuous questions like how long it takes to get to work and if you can speak a different language. Even though they ask how much you make and how much your property is worth, that's not a whole lot different than the questionnaires you routinely get from, say, Yahoo! or Amazon.
What the government Does do better than the corps is survey Each and Every household in the country, creating a valuable aggregated dataset that shows demographics and such. But they publish this information and make it available as a govt service.
So I really don't see any need to panic here. In fact, the article is not about what it says its about. If you read the whole article you discover that the intro is just a hook: it's not about them giving your data to a corp, its about them blurring individual stats to Preserve the integrity of individuals.
The govt is very concerned that citizens will not perform their constitutional duty to be enumerated. They are scared enough to blur their own stats. Isn't this good news for the paranoid?
Hell, the paranoid didn't fill out their form anyway...
I'm personally hoping that governments become lazy enough that they refuse to continue prosecuting and upholding these antiquated and outdated copyright laws because violation of them is so ubiquitous and the costs and time are clogging up the courts and de-focussing the executive branches of government with what amounts to frivolous and harrassing actions on the part of the RIAA, et al.
Imagine if, for example, the RIAA went around to every juke joint and honky-tonk and subpoenaed every musician they found for playing Willie Nelson / Rolling Stones / Oasis songs without permission? I think they are within their rights to do so. Why don't they? They know they'd get thrown out on their asses if they tried, if not by the patrons of the bar, then by the judge who had to hear their stupid claim.
We need to nip this in the bud by continuing to ignore the law in this case. It is clearly bad law because it is ultimately unenforceable. Kind of like 55 mph speed limits...
...it leads to loss of public morale and disrespect for authority.
I've decided that/. is an activist forum among its many other hats; that being the case I welcome any articles that go along the lines of what the open source intelligentsia thinks "matters", even if it is posted again and again as new information or even similar news stories come up.
Think of it: if you stop posting these articles just because most people already spoke their mind once or twice on the subject, then you are silencing the voice that is (IMHO) most important, the voice of the 'loyal' opposition. Can you imagine if abortion foes (pro-lifers except for doctors' lives) ever shut-up for even a day? One would assume that they were accepting the status quo. Same for gun advocates. Same for libertarians. Even though sometimes it feels like we are becoming a broken record, it is still important to maintain pulic discourse on these issues.
The one thing I would add is that We (yes, that's Us) find some way to bring this discourse to the forefront of public opinion more forcefully, more immediately. But in the meantime we would do well to sharpen our tongues on the whetstone that is this forum.
Sorry if this is ot, I will accept down mods, but my opinion is vitally important, ya know?:/
It's good to see that the concept of what is happening to our once-inalienable rights is becoming publicly, um, if not understood, at least promulgated. Artists can merge emotion and understanding and use their creativity to get a point across. I wonder how many people will actually 'get' the point? In San Francisco, maybe a majority, but how will (would) this play in Peoria?
Oh, in his list of people who participated in this performance piece, there was this entry:
B BLOCKBUSTER VIACOM
(had to pull out the -'s for the junk filter)
Can you put just any card through the reader, I wonder? I don't know card readers, but it looks like someone used his video rental card...
An interesting point. I looked up (yahoo search "Cascade space junk orbit") and found this article that says basically, govt regs are in their infancy, the probability of an impact is about 20% a year for the Space Station, and this interesting anecdote:
Engineers took a new look at the shuttle and the International Space Station. Designed in the 1970s, when debris was not considered a factor, the shuttle was determined to be clearly vulnerable. After almost every mission windows on the shuttle are so badly pitted by microscopic debris that they need to be replaced. Soon NASA was flying the shuttle upside down and backward, so that its rockets, rather than the more sensitive crew compartments, would absorb the worst impacts.
Yah, its a problem alright, and not one this company seems to be concerned about.
Not sure if space will be all that wonderful with 50,000 little 1-kg cubes flying around...
...but, hey, that's 50,000 less SUVs I gotta contend with in traffic on the way to work! heh!
Okay, I'll bite on this obvious Flamebait. You seem to be pro-insurance companies, I don't know why, but I can only assume that a family member is in the business.
But then again, you compare insurance with gambling, so you really are unclear on the concept.
Insurance is based on the concept of shared risk. The companies have the right to refuse service to you if you take on risk voluntarily: e.g., smoke, drink, live a gay lifestyle (yes! It's true! er, I think...), but they don't have the right to discriminate against you genetically.
I suppose that it would be okay for insurance companies to screen prospects based on their genetics, but then again, that would lead to different rates for different races, and segregation would triumph. One might even argue that it is racist, inasmuch as predisposition to, say, sickle cell anemia is a condition only of Blacks.
An insurance company that can dial in the level of risk they want to assume? I bet that's an agent's wet dream, but it should not happen. The level of income should be proportionate to the level of risk. If a company wants to insure white people against sickle cell anemia, they should charge exactly what the premium is worth: $0.00. But that isn't how it works; they make their profit based on the Law of Large Numbers.
If the insurance companies don't want to offer basic coverage to Everyone, then I think they should not be in business. I think it is the Government's Job (with your tagline, I Know you are going to wrongfully disagree with this one) to Regulate the Insurance industry and eliminate those who would skew the concept of shared risk.
I swear to you, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Genetics and the implications of genetic advances are going to be the biggest story of the next year if not the next decade. And not all the stories are going to be good.
I simply cannot believe that the FBI has subpoenaed this site.
But, to them, this may look a lot like that old 'Date Rape' site that gave tips and helpful hints on how to get your girl down (should be illiegal? ask your judge). Or perhaps they could put it in the same category as virtual kiddie porn (I think this should be illegal, but thats my opinion).
You know, 'we're not judges, we can't tell if its illegal or not, let's just appease the meowies of the world by doing what we do best: harrassing the crap out of people we don't like.'
People need to lighten up, and the FBI needs to stop supporting such tight-sphincter behavior. If I was the site owner, I wouldn't worry, but if this man is prosecuted for Anything, we all should protest.
On a side note, troll technology was developed right here in/. laboratories, so we can all feel proud of ourselves. In my opinion, flames, trolls, bonsai kittens, and natalieportmanhotgritsdinnerplatesizedgoat pics are
Here is an answer: Bill Joy's article in Wired last year on GNR. It seems that most readers here are familiar with the 'grey goo' and self-replicating robots. Well, here is the first time I saw them referenced, and it is alarming.
People have had their general sense of anxiety pumped up by Madison Avenue who know that a person in that state is more susceptible to suggestion. You get it all the time: "Next, is your soft, fluffy pillow REALLY SAFE??? Or is it a silent pink KILLER!!?!?!? Eyewitness News at 7."
That's why I say anxiety is the drug of choice for millions of TV viewers... National Enquirer readers... Dr. Laura fans...
Now we walk around in this generalized high-anxiety state, all softened up and susceptible to suggestion, and all we want to do is relieve our feelings that its all coming down. Along comes the media, or possibly the State in the guise of the media, and just like any electronic huckster, promising the nervous nellies some sort of relief from all this mild panic, and we latch on to it! I think its called hysteria. The mob allows fear to grow and in its zeal to eradicate it, tramples (stampedes?) over common sense and reasonableness.
School, being a microcosm of Society is merely reflecting Social trends. And they are not good trends...
There is an element in society that will give itself over willingly to the State, interpret the wishes of the State and carry them out willingly. It is just my impression that the Stalinist regime was more overt, and the only necessary active participant. They (State politicos)controlled the media through propaganda: they Wrote the text.
Here we have a media providing the de facto propaganda. What oppressive regimes don't provide here seems to be provided by um, evil corporations, I guess... ?
Once again, its the evil corps! Or is it Evil Cops? what's in a letter...
The difference in the psychology between Stalin and America regarding this phenomenon is that the belief and therefore the motivation that this is the way a citizen improves his lot in life has been transferred from a motivation to help the State (Stalin) to one that helps - what? - I'm grasping at straws here, because it doesn't feel like the motivation to turn in a fellow student is to, um, 'please' (for lack of a better word) the Institution, played in this case by the school.
Here is what I am saying: in Stalinist Russia comrades were explicitly directed to turn over their peers to the State in order to protect the State. In modern America we turn people over to the cops to protect what we believe is our own interests - our freedom from terrorists, if you will.
I believe that this connection is artificially created by an hysterical media. And the behavioral reinforcement comes from within by officials who are swept up in this hysteria. Hotter heads are prevailing because good citizens are compelled to "do something" about this "big problem".
Of course, media attention only fans the flames, creating more copycat kids who shoot up their classmates; it only increases our paranoia, anxiety, and alienation from our (their) peers; it only adds to the stress of getting through the day. It does not help the situation in the least, because there is no problem that can be 'fixed' in a rational manner. So, I guess I have answered my own question: children turn in their peers in response to, and to serve, ultimately, the media!
The Media plays the role of the Stalinist State in this instance. But the media appears soo innocent!
On a lighter note: This clearly points out the need for School Vouchers and reduced Gun Control. Hey, if the rolling blackout problem can point out the need to rape the pristine Arctic Wilderness, then any logic goes...
{I like Jon Katz, too, man, but not that much...:) }
This is one of the two obvious dilemmas of decoding the Genome, the other is whether a doctor has a right to screen you for, say, Huntington's Disease and then tell you you are going to go incurably mad by the time you hit 40.
The person who opined that it destroys the concept of shared risk is right on. Premiums today are based on not knowing the probability of Alzheimer's or Huntington's or even heart disease. This knowledge skews the statistics in favor of - guess who! - the insurance companies because current rates are based on zero knowledge of a person's prediliction toward these diseases. I don't see them reducing premiums.
Gattaca has been mentioned in half of the posts so far, but that movie comes close to identifying the dangers inherent in detailed knowledge of a person's makeup.
As they say in the article, the insurers are not to be trusted to police themselves, and it is now up to the government to regulate the industry here. But they already screen and presumably deny coverage to Huntington's candidates! So why shouldn't they continue to discriminate against clients?
The net result of all this may be nationalization of health care in England, America, and everywhere. This might be a good thing, as it will free up genetic research without having at least this particular ethical question.
The alternative is to have certain races pay more or less depending on their susceptibility toward a given illness. This, as has been pointed out, is discrimination on a grand scale. Whereas in the past an insurance company couldn't legally say "we can't insure you because you are a Black man", now they can say "we won't insure you because you have the gene for sickle cell anaemia."
By the way, very very soon (according to the book "Genome" - read it!) many of the capabilities revealed in Gattaca will be available. It will prove to be a revelation of "Future Shock" proportions. Bigger than the internet? Hard to say from here. But pretty damn big.
In my youth, I thought I deserved more respect, but the lessons taught by time have impressed me that there are many many things that youth doesn't yet understand. Wisdom, worldliness, experience come only with time. And you can't see yourself as other, more experienced older farts can. It is not to discount the value that younger workers have; they have new knowledge, but they don't have any old knowledge, i.e., wisdom/experience.
It takes years of discipline and training to acquire this, and nothing else will substitute, so rather than bemoaning what you perceive as a lack of respect... wait, strike that... being pissed at the elders because they don't respect you as much as you think you deserve is exactly what you are supposed to be going through right now...
CNN tried to get it right back in 1999 when they interviewed Emmanuel Goldstein of 2600, but then they interviewed this guy from IBM and forever got it wrong...
Anyway, I had written up a whole history of the term 'hacking' on CNN, but then Netscape crashed and I am Not a Hacker so I can't really retrieve it all that easily. I WAS a Hacker, but that was Fortran on the DEC... *sigh* I can't keep up with hacking anymore... which may not be a bad thing if hacking is so evil...:/
There are many different types of electronic privacy:
- Credit card numbers
- Where you visit on the Web
- What you bought on the Web
- Your emails and other things you've typed in forums like slashdot and say, deja vu
- other stuff that I can't think of right now.
- coming soon: genetic data on you (a la GATTACA)
So which are they dealing with in this article? Maybe it's me, but the argument is too abstract for me. But let me address the above list.
It is already illegal to give out credit card numbers, but it is apparently legal for companies to keep your number on file. Recall Egghead recently got cracked and numbers may have been compromised. In the discussion here, it was pointed out that some companies have a policy to delete numbers after the sale, but many don't. Because of the accessibility of these numbers to crackers, a valuable adjunct to the current law might be a stipulation that CC numbers be discarded after, oh, thirty days or a year or something that makes sense. Certainly, if a company asked me if I wanted a discount for not making them 'forget' my CC number it would seem absurd.
Where you visit on the Web and what you purchase and what you say need to have protection from our governments, IMO. The author argues that these could be negotiable: I don't mind you knowing that I bought a TiVO from Buy.com, but the teen who needs help about his homosexual urges might never get help if (s)he thought it would be revealed. If someone could produce all my postings to even this place it might prove embarrassing in a certain context, which is why I appreciate/. providing for a level of privacy that I can be comfortable with. That and the opportunity to post AC. Now if this all became negotiable - it would take legislation, and I am not sure the current regime in the US would do it because they feel pressure from companies and not people who they have managed to insulate themselves from - I might be more free in my associations on the Web, but I doubt it. I have determined not to change my behavior regardless of who knows about it, but not everyone is that way. Many people regard online transactions as foolish: "you gave out your Credit Card on the web?" That sort of thing. "You admitted that you killed someone in a chat room?" Clearly that would be foolish, but if we protect privacies it cannot be case-specific, it would have to be like in that movie where Mickey Rourke confesses a murder to the priest who happens to be the only witness and the priest couldn't then testify against Mickey.
The fact that email can be used against someone in a court of law seems to me to be an invasion of privacy, but there ya have it, folks. Careful what you say in emails, in chat rooms, in/.
But when I get spammed with emails telling me how to lose weight fast (I am not by any stretch of the imagination fat), I have to wonder who sent that out, how they got my email addy, and when did I make the mistake of allowing that company to get information on me. This should not be allowed, IMO. Not without my permission. Jeez, everyone posting here has a fake email addy so that some moronic company (or maybe 50 mc's) don't grab 'em all, make up a list and spam the crap out of us with "Win a free Linux t-shirt!" offers.
One last point on privacy: it used to be that it was Illegal for a company to ask for your Social Security Number (please correct me if I am wrong). Now it seems that everyone feels entitled to ask you for the "Number of the Beast". I used to try to protest, but they tell me that it is required. The centralization of all this data (or its mere potential) should give us all pause. I think that the dangers inherent in the massive compilation capabilities offered to evil corps should give us all pause...
I am not sure that it has to be an improvement or even have something to offer to sell. There simply might not be any choice for the consumer because the market is so tied up that, say, oh, I don't know, vinyl records are no longer being made and CDs are your only alternative. At the time, I didn't have the money to make the transition, and I had a Lot of records.
Yah, when it all comes down, I'll be able to listen to Chickenshack until my phono needle gets worn to a nib.
The root problem is that the market is not free because the entry threshold for consumer electronic devices is too high. If it wasn't all sewn up like it is, an enterprising young engineer such as yourself could just build a CD Recorder and it would sell like hotcakes on the market. But entertainment is big business, so the big businessmen have it all locked up, from conception to creation to recording to marketing to selling and now even to playing. BTW, they also have their congressmen on a short leash, and the principles of Liberty and Freedom have to ride in the back of the bus because there is no profit in them.
I'm not sure, but wasn't it at least implied that one must commit the act first to establish the electrochemical connection, and Then seeing it will trigger that same pathway?
In any case, how could they have performed the experiment without first observing the subject 'do' the thing and then 'see' the thing? They would have no way of knowing that that synapse is the, say, stabbing synapse.
So it can't be argued that this will incite stabbings by seeing them, but for people who have already stabbed to more easily re-live their moment of glory, so to speak.
You, sir, are an apologist for spammers, a troll, or worse, somewhat daffy.
Do you really think that spam is necessary, a benefit, one of the 'costs of doing business'? I certainly don't. Spam can be generated by any sixth-grade kid with a TRS-80. It is not the equivalent of advertising, and it is not a 'necessary evil'.
It's time that people either learn to accept reality, or get off the Internet.
Well, that settles it: Flamebait. I'm giving up the chance to mod you down because I want to respond to this, even though I know I am being goaded. It's fun to take this a point at a time.
Spam is not a derogatory term, or you have never heard of a derogatory term. The reference to Monty Python is actually an attempt to disarm the agony of spam with humor. Hubris, if you will. The term "junk mail" is derogatory, however.
Spam is not commercials of the internet. Banner Ads are. Spam is an abuse of the system, taking advantage of a service that has no limits, until people are forced to put limits on the system, making everyone else suffer due to the actions of a few (it's been that way ever since 4th grade gym class).
The basic principles of the free market are not anarchy. There is a code, and spammers violate it.
You talk like the government should not tell businesses how to conduct themselves. The line about the govt being offensive indicates that your relationship with reality is tenuous at best. Hell, I gotta quote it:
The notion that the government should step in and place restrictions on how business should be run is offensive.
That is the governments job. It may be offensive to spammers, but its not nearly as offensive as some internet practices.
Banning Spam != Repealing the First Amendment.
heh, now its my duty to participate in the 'advertising process". I'm sorry, can you contain your spittle as you type this stuff? It is just too too funny....I'm supposed to click on banner ads and read all commercial email... 'cuz I might get a hell of a deal... ever get suckered into a time-share pitch?
...anti-spammers are anti-business
...spam is the lifeblood of America
...spam is one of the capitalist principles of a free market
...spam-hating was a fad
...a tiny minority of Americans want to ban spam
...anti-spammers are communists
Thanks. Even though I have been had, I feel like I have been had by one of the best, guy. You really take the cake. What a brilliant exercise in sarcasm!
Thanks for the laugh. It may be on me, but hopefully you have pre-empted any posters who even remotely believe any of the nonsense You posted.
I think the reason this (and similar - Napster/copyright issues come to mind) issue generates 'more heat than light' is that it does touch a nerve with most people, and the reaction is gut-level and slightly emotional. We get upset when our Government gets not only stupid, but stupid and dangerous. In fact, you can just feel the frustration in Taco's original post.
So, even though we theoretically should have gotten it out of our system, we feel a need to vent, and the patent jokes are an easy way to articulate our frustrations.
But, to me the Real Frustrations among us include the fact that we post and post and post, and it doesn't seem to change things. That is the burden of the intellectual, I suppose. The ability to see things that others can't. Anyway, I think even more than "Stupid Patents are bad", a very unified/. voice would cry out into the wilderness:
"Why the hell hasn't Stupid Patent crap been reformed two years ago? We've been telling you about it for the entire time! Don't you listen to Us?"
The problem is, it isn't only Us they don't listen to. It's also the New York Times, USA Today, hell, the entire press; many other discussion forums, small businessmen... In short, it appears that they (they being the government, your congressman, you know, They...) are unwilling to even give credence to the thought that our (slashdot) community pulls any weight with Them. Because, I can only assume, that would mean that we would pester Them a whole lot more if we thought someone was actually listening.
I learned the trick with my kids. Ignore them when they whine and they might stop whining. Not that it works, but...
So the way our/. community gains clout is by actually having political power. How do we gain political power? By actually seeking it. And the first step toward that would be to actually proclaim that we are seeking political power. But we don't seem willing to do that. I guess the status quo is really good enough for most of us.
My only complaint about this category - cuz I think it is an important subject, and very germaine to/. - is the number of posts trying to illustrate the absurdity of the patents by saying they have a patent for water or whatever.
We already had the rediculous patent contest months ago. Didn't we all get it out of our systems then? I recall the feeling I got when I posted something common and lame when I was a newbie. It was like: 'Oh, this place is a little more sophisticated and informed than I thought.' So, not that this adds any to the conversation, but posters might be well-advised to remember that most of us have seen the 'I want to patent water' posts many many times. What we are looking for is something new, like perhaps "I know a guy at the Patent Office and he needs a helmet and a bib 24/7." Something like that, f'rinstance...
Well, apparently companies haven't gotten the concept of an absurd patent application, and they won't as long as the Patent Office continues to grant Stupid Patent Tricks to these companies. I think Taco's implication was: "Slashdot / Slashcode is responsible for so many innovations that I should throw in the towel, give myself over to the Dark Side, and just file patents for each and every little feature we added over the years. It seems to be the l33t thing to do..."
or something like that. So, how about it, Cap'n? Are there any patents generated / owned by slashdot.org? Please, say it ain't so, bro!
Slashdot Mirror
I have to respectfully disagree.
The nature of the internet is different than, say, books or tape recorders or any other information distribution system, and you fail to understand the distinctions at your peril.
The fact is, the internet makes copyrights either:
1) unenforceable, as so many have violated the law (e.g., Napster) that we can't lock them all up, or;
2) unendurable, as the only way to make sure copyrights aren't being violated is to invade our privacy and violate our civil rights.
This wasn't a problem before the internet, as the average information distributor couldn't do as much damage, and could be caught once he did become large enough to be a problem. For instance, the RIAA wouldn't prosecute you for taping an album off the radio in the past, they would get laughed out of court. Then they (not the RIAA this time, but the MPAA) got a little smarter and encoded VHS tapes and put the FBI WARNING! notice on the front of all movies. Okay, so far no invasion of privacy, but it did work a little better, although you can (legally?) tape a movie off of Showtime and give it to your friend.
But now copyright violaters can copy a four minute song down to an mp3 and distribute it to thousands of people in minutes, who can then forward it to a million in an hour.
That's a million criminals in an hour, or, if you want, 95 million criminals on Napster right now.
Which should we do? Arrest everyone on Napster (I imagine its a misdemeanor), stop them by monitoring their machine via Carnivore, or write new legislation that is cognizant of the new problems brought about by the new technology? I opt for the latter.
Whoa, soldier!
Many points I would make here, hoping they fall on open ears. I think Tiemann would agree with you off the record that Allchin is a lunatic. He fairly called MS evil, but there are things I don't think you understand.
First the premise that MS is dead in the water (waitaminute, is this flamebait?? oh well...). It's hard to believe that a katrillion dollar company is dead in the water, but if they are dying, then let's make sure they don't take too many of us down with them. I don't know if you noticed, but they are starting to lobby legislators A Lot - check out today's Wired News . If they succeed in gaining credence with legislators who then make laws stifling Open Source (what kind of laws? Someone mentioned the licensing of programmers yesterday...), we may indeed suffer as 'we' become outlaws.
Linux and the open source replace MS? Not likely. Not until the Linux OS matures at least enough so it becomes a viable alternative to Windows. Before you consider this point flamebait, you must admit: our Moms would have a terrible time getting Linux to run, but they are comfortable with MS. I can't say much more, as I am only a reluctant Windows user (but some day...).
Your line, "The truth will out, as it has been shown throughout history" makes me wonder if you 'read' the piece. Tiemann actually addresses the arrogance of MS in believing that it can control the truth much in the same way that the Church sought to control the Truth a thousand years ago. This brought on the Dark Ages until people realized that the Truth exists independently of peoples wishes. We could actually experience a Dark Ages in computers, you know... what would it be like? I don't know, but it's got a crappy OS running the show and every click you make can be heard clear up to Redmond and D.C. I think it would involve loss of privacy And innovation as open source programmers become dispirited and disjoint. We would then live in a kind of 1984 where life is crappy as hell but we are told things are getting better every day. And I damn sure would not be allowed to type this stuff. Or maybe I could, but I would find out that my OS liked me less and less and I get the BSOD every three minutes instead of twice a day...
Is MS evil? Would they do anything to keep themselves on top, including lowering the entire world so they are relatively superior. I don't know, why don't we ask them?
This 'rebuttal' is absolutely essential so that the snide remarks of a very very powerful lunatic don't go by unchallenged. I salute Tiemann for stepping up to the plate and calling a spade a spade, standing before the Great Evil like David to Goliath...
...or maybe Galileo to Pope Urban VIII...
I would like to believe that M$ is on the run, but I can't. However it may be true that they don't have a clue as to how to deal with open source.
.NET concepts correctly) to assist the government in just such monitoring of our daily clicking.
In reading the article one cannot find a single logical argument that is supported by any facts. To wit:
- freely distributed code can stifle innovation
- this will result in the demise of IP
- also the demise of incentive to R&D
and that's it. Those are the only 3 points he makes. But he never backs up his assertions with any facts or even anecdotes. But he does say - more than once - that he's worried and that legislators need to made aware - oh no! Important choice of words! - legislators need to Understand the Threat!
The only threat Linux, and Napster, for that matter, poses (it's true) is the threat to unreasonable IP protections. I say unreasonable because many of the recent copyright / patent rulings seems unreasonable in this day and age.
What is really happening is that the existence of the internet has, through its ability to promote the free exchange of ideas, created a sea-change in the business world, relegating ideas that were truly once protected by 'security through obscurity'- type barriers (inasmuch as you used to not be able to get near-real-time updates on developing products) to a truly unprotected and unprotectable status. That is, unless the government takes draconian measures, ultimately monitoring our each and every movement on the computer through an active oversight system, it will never be able to supress the free exchange of ideas once they surface, no matter who owns them.
But MS is well-poised (if I read some of their
This is ultimately the only way to secure IP and MS's predominant role in um, society.
Kinda frightening, if you ask me. We are not safe until the government 'gives up the ghost' on IP rights.
I got a job as a census taker in 1980. We had a list of Each and Every house that failed to fill in a form, and it was our job to return three times to try to get the info (knock knock... knock knock...), and then on the third try we were instructed to ask neighbors and, failing that, try to guess how many lived there (toys in yard, clothes on line, cars in driveway). We only had to resort to that in a very few cases. This was in rural Florida.
Man, the government isn't really being the bad guy, here... fight Carnivore, fight Echelon, fight RIAA. Don't fight the stupid Census, for chrissakes...
Couldn't the FBI concievably get much much more information about you than could be revealed on a Census form, through, say, Carnivore, illegal wiretapping, and other agencies through Echelon?
The Short Form asks only about number of people living in the house, their names, ages, relationship to head of house, and for some bizarre reason, if they are Hispanic or not. Not to be too politically incorrect, but when I was a Census taker in 1980, minorities constituted the overwhelming bulk of my 'mop-up' efforts, and like as not they would not reveal a thing to me when I asked them those simple questions. Some kicked me off of their property, refusing even the most basic questions ('do you live here?'). I think they trust their government less than white folk, at least in this instance.
But now, in part thanks to the internet, what the US Census can collect on an Individual is much less than what a corp can get simply by asking.
The Long Form is fillied with innocuous questions like how long it takes to get to work and if you can speak a different language. Even though they ask how much you make and how much your property is worth, that's not a whole lot different than the questionnaires you routinely get from, say, Yahoo! or Amazon.
What the government Does do better than the corps is survey Each and Every household in the country, creating a valuable aggregated dataset that shows demographics and such. But they publish this information and make it available as a govt service.
So I really don't see any need to panic here. In fact, the article is not about what it says its about. If you read the whole article you discover that the intro is just a hook: it's not about them giving your data to a corp, its about them blurring individual stats to Preserve the integrity of individuals.
The govt is very concerned that citizens will not perform their constitutional duty to be enumerated. They are scared enough to blur their own stats. Isn't this good news for the paranoid?
Hell, the paranoid didn't fill out their form anyway...
But we are talking about the long form, here
I'm personally hoping that governments become lazy enough that they refuse to continue prosecuting and upholding these antiquated and outdated copyright laws because violation of them is so ubiquitous and the costs and time are clogging up the courts and de-focussing the executive branches of government with what amounts to frivolous and harrassing actions on the part of the RIAA, et al.
Imagine if, for example, the RIAA went around to every juke joint and honky-tonk and subpoenaed every musician they found for playing Willie Nelson / Rolling Stones / Oasis songs without permission? I think they are within their rights to do so. Why don't they? They know they'd get thrown out on their asses if they tried, if not by the patrons of the bar, then by the judge who had to hear their stupid claim.
We need to nip this in the bud by continuing to ignore the law in this case. It is clearly bad law because it is ultimately unenforceable. Kind of like 55 mph speed limits...
...it leads to loss of public morale and disrespect for authority.
I've decided that /. is an activist forum among its many other hats; that being the case I welcome any articles that go along the lines of what the open source intelligentsia thinks "matters", even if it is posted again and again as new information or even similar news stories come up.
:/
Think of it: if you stop posting these articles just because most people already spoke their mind once or twice on the subject, then you are silencing the voice that is (IMHO) most important, the voice of the 'loyal' opposition. Can you imagine if abortion foes (pro-lifers except for doctors' lives) ever shut-up for even a day? One would assume that they were accepting the status quo. Same for gun advocates. Same for libertarians. Even though sometimes it feels like we are becoming a broken record, it is still important to maintain pulic discourse on these issues.
The one thing I would add is that We (yes, that's Us) find some way to bring this discourse to the forefront of public opinion more forcefully, more immediately. But in the meantime we would do well to sharpen our tongues on the whetstone that is this forum.
Sorry if this is ot, I will accept down mods, but my opinion is vitally important, ya know?
It's good to see that the concept of what is happening to our once-inalienable rights is becoming publicly, um, if not understood, at least promulgated. Artists can merge emotion and understanding and use their creativity to get a point across. I wonder how many people will actually 'get' the point? In San Francisco, maybe a majority, but how will (would) this play in Peoria?
Oh, in his list of people who participated in this performance piece, there was this entry:
B BLOCKBUSTER VIACOM
(had to pull out the -'s for the junk filter)
Can you put just any card through the reader, I wonder? I don't know card readers, but it looks like someone used his video rental card...
An interesting point. I looked up (yahoo search "Cascade space junk orbit") and found this article that says basically, govt regs are in their infancy, the probability of an impact is about 20% a year for the Space Station, and this interesting anecdote:
Engineers took a new look at the shuttle and the International Space Station. Designed in the 1970s, when debris was not considered a factor, the shuttle was determined to be clearly vulnerable. After almost every mission windows on the shuttle are so badly pitted by microscopic debris that they need to be replaced. Soon NASA was flying the shuttle upside down and backward, so that its rockets, rather than the more sensitive crew compartments, would absorb the worst impacts.
Yah, its a problem alright, and not one this company seems to be concerned about.
Not sure if space will be all that wonderful with 50,000 little 1-kg cubes flying around...
...but, hey, that's 50,000 less SUVs I gotta contend with in traffic on the way to work! heh!
Okay, I'll bite on this obvious Flamebait. You seem to be pro-insurance companies, I don't know why, but I can only assume that a family member is in the business.
But then again, you compare insurance with gambling, so you really are unclear on the concept.
Insurance is based on the concept of shared risk. The companies have the right to refuse service to you if you take on risk voluntarily: e.g., smoke, drink, live a gay lifestyle (yes! It's true! er, I think...), but they don't have the right to discriminate against you genetically.
I suppose that it would be okay for insurance companies to screen prospects based on their genetics, but then again, that would lead to different rates for different races, and segregation would triumph. One might even argue that it is racist, inasmuch as predisposition to, say, sickle cell anemia is a condition only of Blacks.
An insurance company that can dial in the level of risk they want to assume? I bet that's an agent's wet dream, but it should not happen. The level of income should be proportionate to the level of risk. If a company wants to insure white people against sickle cell anemia, they should charge exactly what the premium is worth: $0.00. But that isn't how it works; they make their profit based on the Law of Large Numbers.
If the insurance companies don't want to offer basic coverage to Everyone, then I think they should not be in business. I think it is the Government's Job (with your tagline, I Know you are going to wrongfully disagree with this one) to Regulate the Insurance industry and eliminate those who would skew the concept of shared risk.
I swear to you, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Genetics and the implications of genetic advances are going to be the biggest story of the next year if not the next decade. And not all the stories are going to be good.
I simply cannot believe that the FBI has subpoenaed this site.
/. laboratories, so we can all feel proud of ourselves. In my opinion, flames, trolls, bonsai kittens, and natalieportmanhotgritsdinnerplatesizedgoat pics are
But, to them, this may look a lot like that old 'Date Rape' site that gave tips and helpful hints on how to get your girl down (should be illiegal? ask your judge). Or perhaps they could put it in the same category as virtual kiddie porn (I think this should be illegal, but thats my opinion).
You know, 'we're not judges, we can't tell if its illegal or not, let's just appease the meowies of the world by doing what we do best: harrassing the crap out of people we don't like.'
People need to lighten up, and the FBI needs to stop supporting such tight-sphincter behavior. If I was the site owner, I wouldn't worry, but if this man is prosecuted for Anything, we all should protest.
On a side note, troll technology was developed right here in
"The Cost of Doing Business in a Free America"
but Carnivore and Echelon shouldn't be.
OMG, sorry. Seems I got work and er, 'pleasure' mixed up. Good space dynamic glossary up there though!
:/
Plz do a google search on "Bill Joy GNR Wired" or something like that... you get the idea...
Here is an answer: Bill Joy's article in Wired last year on GNR. It seems that most readers here are familiar with the 'grey goo' and self-replicating robots. Well, here is the first time I saw them referenced, and it is alarming.
Why the Future Doesn't Need Us
Here's my theory:
People have had their general sense of anxiety pumped up by Madison Avenue who know that a person in that state is more susceptible to suggestion. You get it all the time: "Next, is your soft, fluffy pillow REALLY SAFE??? Or is it a silent pink KILLER!!?!?!? Eyewitness News at 7."
That's why I say anxiety is the drug of choice for millions of TV viewers... National Enquirer readers... Dr. Laura fans...
Now we walk around in this generalized high-anxiety state, all softened up and susceptible to suggestion, and all we want to do is relieve our feelings that its all coming down. Along comes the media, or possibly the State in the guise of the media, and just like any electronic huckster, promising the nervous nellies some sort of relief from all this mild panic, and we latch on to it! I think its called hysteria. The mob allows fear to grow and in its zeal to eradicate it, tramples (stampedes?) over common sense and reasonableness.
School, being a microcosm of Society is merely reflecting Social trends. And they are not good trends...
Okay, I'll bite:
There is an element in society that will give itself over willingly to the State, interpret the wishes of the State and carry them out willingly. It is just my impression that the Stalinist regime was more overt, and the only necessary active participant. They (State politicos)controlled the media through propaganda: they Wrote the text.
Here we have a media providing the de facto propaganda. What oppressive regimes don't provide here seems to be provided by um, evil corporations, I guess... ?
Once again, its the evil corps! Or is it Evil Cops? what's in a letter...
The difference in the psychology between Stalin and America regarding this phenomenon is that the belief and therefore the motivation that this is the way a citizen improves his lot in life has been transferred from a motivation to help the State (Stalin) to one that helps - what? - I'm grasping at straws here, because it doesn't feel like the motivation to turn in a fellow student is to, um, 'please' (for lack of a better word) the Institution, played in this case by the school.
:) }
Here is what I am saying: in Stalinist Russia comrades were explicitly directed to turn over their peers to the State in order to protect the State. In modern America we turn people over to the cops to protect what we believe is our own interests - our freedom from terrorists, if you will.
I believe that this connection is artificially created by an hysterical media. And the behavioral reinforcement comes from within by officials who are swept up in this hysteria. Hotter heads are prevailing because good citizens are compelled to "do something" about this "big problem".
Of course, media attention only fans the flames, creating more copycat kids who shoot up their classmates; it only increases our paranoia, anxiety, and alienation from our (their) peers; it only adds to the stress of getting through the day. It does not help the situation in the least, because there is no problem that can be 'fixed' in a rational manner. So, I guess I have answered my own question: children turn in their peers in response to, and to serve, ultimately, the media!
The Media plays the role of the Stalinist State in this instance. But the media appears soo innocent!
On a lighter note: This clearly points out the need for School Vouchers and reduced Gun Control. Hey, if the rolling blackout problem can point out the need to rape the pristine Arctic Wilderness, then any logic goes...
{I like Jon Katz, too, man, but not that much...
This is one of the two obvious dilemmas of decoding the Genome, the other is whether a doctor has a right to screen you for, say, Huntington's Disease and then tell you you are going to go incurably mad by the time you hit 40.
The person who opined that it destroys the concept of shared risk is right on. Premiums today are based on not knowing the probability of Alzheimer's or Huntington's or even heart disease. This knowledge skews the statistics in favor of - guess who! - the insurance companies because current rates are based on zero knowledge of a person's prediliction toward these diseases. I don't see them reducing premiums.
Gattaca has been mentioned in half of the posts so far, but that movie comes close to identifying the dangers inherent in detailed knowledge of a person's makeup.
As they say in the article, the insurers are not to be trusted to police themselves, and it is now up to the government to regulate the industry here. But they already screen and presumably deny coverage to Huntington's candidates! So why shouldn't they continue to discriminate against clients?
The net result of all this may be nationalization of health care in England, America, and everywhere. This might be a good thing, as it will free up genetic research without having at least this particular ethical question.
The alternative is to have certain races pay more or less depending on their susceptibility toward a given illness. This, as has been pointed out, is discrimination on a grand scale. Whereas in the past an insurance company couldn't legally say "we can't insure you because you are a Black man", now they can say "we won't insure you because you have the gene for sickle cell anaemia."
By the way, very very soon (according to the book "Genome" - read it!) many of the capabilities revealed in Gattaca will be available. It will prove to be a revelation of "Future Shock" proportions. Bigger than the internet? Hard to say from here. But pretty damn big.
In my youth, I thought I deserved more respect, but the lessons taught by time have impressed me that there are many many things that youth doesn't yet understand. Wisdom, worldliness, experience come only with time. And you can't see yourself as other, more experienced older farts can. It is not to discount the value that younger workers have; they have new knowledge, but they don't have any old knowledge, i.e., wisdom/experience.
It takes years of discipline and training to acquire this, and nothing else will substitute, so rather than bemoaning what you perceive as a lack of respect... wait, strike that... being pissed at the elders because they don't respect you as much as you think you deserve is exactly what you are supposed to be going through right now...
CNN tried to get it right back in 1999 when they interviewed Emmanuel Goldstein of 2600, but then they interviewed this guy from IBM and forever got it wrong...
:/
Anyway, I had written up a whole history of the term 'hacking' on CNN, but then Netscape crashed and I am Not a Hacker so I can't really retrieve it all that easily. I WAS a Hacker, but that was Fortran on the DEC... *sigh* I can't keep up with hacking anymore... which may not be a bad thing if hacking is so evil...
Here's the links:
The Palmer Guy
Goldstein
There are many different types of electronic privacy:
/. providing for a level of privacy that I can be comfortable with. That and the opportunity to post AC. Now if this all became negotiable - it would take legislation, and I am not sure the current regime in the US would do it because they feel pressure from companies and not people who they have managed to insulate themselves from - I might be more free in my associations on the Web, but I doubt it. I have determined not to change my behavior regardless of who knows about it, but not everyone is that way. Many people regard online transactions as foolish: "you gave out your Credit Card on the web?" That sort of thing. "You admitted that you killed someone in a chat room?" Clearly that would be foolish, but if we protect privacies it cannot be case-specific, it would have to be like in that movie where Mickey Rourke confesses a murder to the priest who happens to be the only witness and the priest couldn't then testify against Mickey.
/.
- Credit card numbers
- Where you visit on the Web
- What you bought on the Web
- Your emails and other things you've typed in forums like slashdot and say, deja vu
- other stuff that I can't think of right now.
- coming soon: genetic data on you (a la GATTACA)
So which are they dealing with in this article? Maybe it's me, but the argument is too abstract for me. But let me address the above list.
It is already illegal to give out credit card numbers, but it is apparently legal for companies to keep your number on file. Recall Egghead recently got cracked and numbers may have been compromised. In the discussion here, it was pointed out that some companies have a policy to delete numbers after the sale, but many don't. Because of the accessibility of these numbers to crackers, a valuable adjunct to the current law might be a stipulation that CC numbers be discarded after, oh, thirty days or a year or something that makes sense. Certainly, if a company asked me if I wanted a discount for not making them 'forget' my CC number it would seem absurd.
Where you visit on the Web and what you purchase and what you say need to have protection from our governments, IMO. The author argues that these could be negotiable: I don't mind you knowing that I bought a TiVO from Buy.com, but the teen who needs help about his homosexual urges might never get help if (s)he thought it would be revealed. If someone could produce all my postings to even this place it might prove embarrassing in a certain context, which is why I appreciate
The fact that email can be used against someone in a court of law seems to me to be an invasion of privacy, but there ya have it, folks. Careful what you say in emails, in chat rooms, in
But when I get spammed with emails telling me how to lose weight fast (I am not by any stretch of the imagination fat), I have to wonder who sent that out, how they got my email addy, and when did I make the mistake of allowing that company to get information on me. This should not be allowed, IMO. Not without my permission. Jeez, everyone posting here has a fake email addy so that some moronic company (or maybe 50 mc's) don't grab 'em all, make up a list and spam the crap out of us with "Win a free Linux t-shirt!" offers.
One last point on privacy: it used to be that it was Illegal for a company to ask for your Social Security Number (please correct me if I am wrong). Now it seems that everyone feels entitled to ask you for the "Number of the Beast". I used to try to protest, but they tell me that it is required. The centralization of all this data (or its mere potential) should give us all pause. I think that the dangers inherent in the massive compilation capabilities offered to evil corps should give us all pause...
I am not sure that it has to be an improvement or even have something to offer to sell. There simply might not be any choice for the consumer because the market is so tied up that, say, oh, I don't know, vinyl records are no longer being made and CDs are your only alternative. At the time, I didn't have the money to make the transition, and I had a Lot of records.
Yah, when it all comes down, I'll be able to listen to Chickenshack until my phono needle gets worn to a nib.
The root problem is that the market is not free because the entry threshold for consumer electronic devices is too high. If it wasn't all sewn up like it is, an enterprising young engineer such as yourself could just build a CD Recorder and it would sell like hotcakes on the market. But entertainment is big business, so the big businessmen have it all locked up, from conception to creation to recording to marketing to selling and now even to playing. BTW, they also have their congressmen on a short leash, and the principles of Liberty and Freedom have to ride in the back of the bus because there is no profit in them.
I'm not sure, but wasn't it at least implied that one must commit the act first to establish the electrochemical connection, and Then seeing it will trigger that same pathway?
:)
In any case, how could they have performed the experiment without first observing the subject 'do' the thing and then 'see' the thing? They would have no way of knowing that that synapse is the, say, stabbing synapse.
So it can't be argued that this will incite stabbings by seeing them, but for people who have already stabbed to more easily re-live their moment of glory, so to speak.
If my logic meme is installed correctly...
You, sir, are an apologist for spammers, a troll, or worse, somewhat daffy.
...I'm supposed to click on banner ads and read all commercial email... 'cuz I might get a hell of a deal... ever get suckered into a time-share pitch?
Do you really think that spam is necessary, a benefit, one of the 'costs of doing business'? I certainly don't. Spam can be generated by any sixth-grade kid with a TRS-80. It is not the equivalent of advertising, and it is not a 'necessary evil'.
It's time that people either learn to accept reality, or get off the Internet.
Well, that settles it: Flamebait. I'm giving up the chance to mod you down because I want to respond to this, even though I know I am being goaded. It's fun to take this a point at a time.
Spam is not a derogatory term, or you have never heard of a derogatory term. The reference to Monty Python is actually an attempt to disarm the agony of spam with humor. Hubris, if you will. The term "junk mail" is derogatory, however.
Spam is not commercials of the internet. Banner Ads are. Spam is an abuse of the system, taking advantage of a service that has no limits, until people are forced to put limits on the system, making everyone else suffer due to the actions of a few (it's been that way ever since 4th grade gym class).
The basic principles of the free market are not anarchy. There is a code, and spammers violate it.
You talk like the government should not tell businesses how to conduct themselves. The line about the govt being offensive indicates that your relationship with reality is tenuous at best. Hell, I gotta quote it:
The notion that the government should step in and place restrictions on how business should be run is offensive.
That is the governments job. It may be offensive to spammers, but its not nearly as offensive as some internet practices.
Banning Spam != Repealing the First Amendment.
heh, now its my duty to participate in the 'advertising process". I'm sorry, can you contain your spittle as you type this stuff? It is just too too funny.
...anti-spammers are anti-business
...spam is the lifeblood of America
...spam is one of the capitalist principles of a free market
...spam-hating was a fad
...a tiny minority of Americans want to ban spam
...anti-spammers are communists
Thanks. Even though I have been had, I feel like I have been had by one of the best, guy. You really take the cake. What a brilliant exercise in sarcasm!
Thanks for the laugh. It may be on me, but hopefully you have pre-empted any posters who even remotely believe any of the nonsense You posted.
I think the reason this (and similar - Napster/copyright issues come to mind) issue generates 'more heat than light' is that it does touch a nerve with most people, and the reaction is gut-level and slightly emotional. We get upset when our Government gets not only stupid, but stupid and dangerous. In fact, you can just feel the frustration in Taco's original post.
/. voice would cry out into the wilderness:
/. community gains clout is by actually having political power. How do we gain political power? By actually seeking it. And the first step toward that would be to actually proclaim that we are seeking political power. But we don't seem willing to do that. I guess the status quo is really good enough for most of us.
So, even though we theoretically should have gotten it out of our system, we feel a need to vent, and the patent jokes are an easy way to articulate our frustrations.
But, to me the Real Frustrations among us include the fact that we post and post and post, and it doesn't seem to change things. That is the burden of the intellectual, I suppose. The ability to see things that others can't. Anyway, I think even more than "Stupid Patents are bad", a very unified
"Why the hell hasn't Stupid Patent crap been reformed two years ago? We've been telling you about it for the entire time! Don't you listen to Us?"
The problem is, it isn't only Us they don't listen to. It's also the New York Times, USA Today, hell, the entire press; many other discussion forums, small businessmen... In short, it appears that they (they being the government, your congressman, you know, They...) are unwilling to even give credence to the thought that our (slashdot) community pulls any weight with Them. Because, I can only assume, that would mean that we would pester Them a whole lot more if we thought someone was actually listening.
I learned the trick with my kids. Ignore them when they whine and they might stop whining. Not that it works, but...
So the way our
My only complaint about this category - cuz I think it is an important subject, and very germaine to /. - is the number of posts trying to illustrate the absurdity of the patents by saying they have a patent for water or whatever.
We already had the rediculous patent contest months ago. Didn't we all get it out of our systems then? I recall the feeling I got when I posted something common and lame when I was a newbie. It was like: 'Oh, this place is a little more sophisticated and informed than I thought.' So, not that this adds any to the conversation, but posters might be well-advised to remember that most of us have seen the 'I want to patent water' posts many many times. What we are looking for is something new, like perhaps "I know a guy at the Patent Office and he needs a helmet and a bib 24/7." Something like that, f'rinstance...
Well, apparently companies haven't gotten the concept of an absurd patent application, and they won't as long as the Patent Office continues to grant Stupid Patent Tricks to these companies. I think Taco's implication was: "Slashdot / Slashcode is responsible for so many innovations that I should throw in the towel, give myself over to the Dark Side, and just file patents for each and every little feature we added over the years. It seems to be the l33t thing to do..."
or something like that. So, how about it, Cap'n? Are there any patents generated / owned by slashdot.org? Please, say it ain't so, bro!