If they are not paying, they are not contributing to the abuse of children, so what is the justification for imprisoning them? As I remember it, the reason we imprison people for possessing child pornography is that we assume they paid for it
You're assuming money is the only driver which would be quite stupid. For one they don't have to get paid by you directly, they can run ads and pop-ups and pop-unders and sell access for exploit scripts or whatever else sleazeball activity that won't care where the clicks come from and new content drives traffic. Secondly there's trade, obviously trade in itself is purely digital but somewhere, somehow that creates an incentive to "print your own money" by making it yourself.
Third there's simple popularity. Take for example all the people making videos for YouTube or RedTube, obviously they're doing it for the attention even though they don't get paid. Hit counters, comments, everything contributes to the impression that "wow, this is popular - people want it" which is enough for some. Particularly if you're on a site that sells it, a visitor that doesn't sign up is in the "interested, but not tempted enough" category - maybe they need something better to get a better conversion rate? Or simply as part of a normalization process, we're many that feel this way.
Maybe ideally if you could take it entirely without anyone knowing, nothing that feeds back into the system than maybe. But to me is seems pretty hard to not give away any interest at all, and an interested person is a potential.
Well, that's half of it but you missed the other half which is that it's not just human specialization, we're replacing them with machines and computers. We still need skilled, specialized people but it's increasingly harder to find work for the rest and it's not trivial to make them into skills and specialized workers. If I was to make a software application and I got 100 people randomly picked from the street to work with, I'd probably select considerably fewer because the rest would add zero or negative value to the team. The world is starting to run into that issue which is why there's so much unemployment now.
This would be about as effective as most workplace safety laws - sure you can refuse to do dangerous work, but when there are a hundred people lined up who are prepared to climb on a four story roof with no safety harness you'll find yourself unemployed very fast.
Usually what happens here in Norway is that someone takes a picture and report it, then the work site gets instantly closed down. Then you get to have a nice talk with the health & safety inspectors who'll make sure everything is up to code which usually costs more time and more money and then usually a solid fine on top. I've no idea how much shit they pull on the inside of buildings, but you don't see much of that shit in plain view anymore.
The founding fathers would have allowed the citizens to have Abrams tanks, F22 Raptors, or other modern weapons of war fully fueled and armed, parked at their farm or street if such technology had been available.
They had cannons in the 18th century, and no it's not really clear whether the amendment was meant to cover those or just arms you can bear. Apparently there's no writings about the amendment from that period that discusses private ownership of cannons, we know a few private merchant ships had them but that they were legal doesn't imply they're constitutionally guaranteed. What we do know is that they were afraid of the general disarmament of the population but there's nothing that clearly backs up your interpretation.
The old days were simpler, not better. When one has less choices it's often easier to choose.
And simpler to operate, simpler to repair, the simple life is all but gone. Just to take one example, cutting lumber. Today if you want to do it professionally you're probably operating some kind of advanced machinery, that's what they use in all but the most inaccessible places that'll chop it down and chop it up without you ever leaving the operator's chair. One step below that is what we've used, a chain saw and a gas operated cleaver, sure we're more manual but still heavily machine-assisted. But I've still seen the long saw they used before that rusting in the shed and back then they cleaved it with an axe.
I mean it's hard labor, but its not particularly complicated labor. Saw, saw, chop, chop and that was perfectly acceptable work. No education required, hell practically no training required either. Here's an axe, go chop. Same if it was making hay or collecting potatoes or vegetables or whatever else manual labor. Of course then you'd work forever to produce the same firewood we produce with a chainsaw and the pros are that much faster than us again. You can't compete the old way and we'd all be a lot poorer so obviously the current way is "better", objectively speaking.
All the same, everything that's simple has been mechanized, computerized, automated and in many cases miniaturized to the point where there's nothing a layman can do about it. Either it's only professional shops with tools or more and more frequently it's just to throw away when it breaks because there's a million of them coming off a production line rather than trying to fix one unit. Same with the home, you call in a plumber or electrician or whatever, the car needs an auto mechanic because everything is too complicated to do yourself.
I suppose it's inevitable that we'll all have to specialize to improve the productivity overall, but I feel people are increasingly narrow. This is the one complicated thing that I've learned to do, and for that I make money to hire people to do all the complicated things they do. And if you're not cut out to that, well then there's very few simple jobs left. And there's just going to be less and less places where you just need a warm body.
Freedom 3 only makes sense in a society where if one alters a product in a way that voids any warranty
They've tried this with cars, if you got unoriginal spark plugs we won't honor the warranty on the exhaust system and that didn't fly. It's not like you can break a CPU or GPU by sending it bad code, restore to the factory supplied software and it's still good. You'd have to work real hard to convince me a software change is any reason to void your hardware warranty.
Also, for a company that provides a box via a service provider whose services depend on the configuration of that box being locked, freedom 3 has to take a back seat, or like I said in the parent post, someone can buy a minimal package from one of the TV service providers, alter the firmware, and then start getting the channels that weren't paid for.
To take the last thing first, no. Through broadcast encryption each box can have a unique decryption key that only allows it to decrypt the subscribed channels. It's usually tamper-proof to prevent sharing of the key, but hacking the firmware would get you nothing. What would be very hard to prevent is the dumping of content to disk, unencumbered by any DRM.
In any case, yes sometimes the GPL isn't compatible with what you want to do. That's fine, then don't use it. You want the benefits, but don't want to pay the "costs" so you look for some kind of legal loophole, some kind of poor formulation, some indirect way of calling the code so you don't have to release your code or actually give the freedoms it's intended to give.
It's not like the Four Freedoms are the one true answer, for example Linus doesn't have a problem with the GPLv2 but some people never wanted their code used in that fashion. Going forward it's not a problem, if you pick the GPLv2 over GPLv3 today you know what you're doing but you can't stop people using old code even if you feel the old license is "broken" by loopholes.
The software side is so far just a customized install with developer tools preinstalled. Ars remains skeptical about Dell's strategy for GNU/Linux support, which may be warranted given their track record.
Call it a "developer laptop" and you've probably scared away 99% of the market, the 99% Dell doesn't want. The ones who think it'll be like Windows or run Windows software or work with all accessories they have on their old PC. The people interested in Linux will know hey it's just an Ubuntu install with a few preloads, the important thing is the hardware is supported under Linux. To me it sounds good, to make it profitable it's just as much about not selling to the wrong people as selling to the right people. Support and returns will very quickly kill your margins.
Regarding the FSF and Tivo, if you read the background and history the entire purpose of the license was that "the user can modify the code and run it himself". It was always intended as a personal right to modify your own equipment and the source was your means, that the hardware would run any code you put on it was implied but never explicitly stated. It's like realizing your license said "There must be a switch to turn function X off" and someone provided the switch glued stuck in epoxy to follow the letter but not the meaning of the license. I'd be pretty angry too.
I agree, but I'm rather surprised there isn't a software update infrastructure where applications register themselves so you can easily see the status of all your software. Each application would still provide their own updates, digitally signed with a key that was stored when you installed it of course. You install $foo 1.0, it registers the update URL http://foo.com/updates.xml and it'll be signed with $foo's key. The XML contains something like "Version: 1.1, installer: http://foo.com/$foo1.1-installer.exe" that is run provided the signature is good.
You'd probably want to work a little on the format of that XML since some software has multiple supported versions like 3.0.2 and 2.7.2 and you want to able to pull in a security update 2.7.3 without upgrading to the latest version. You probably want a support status like "Latest version", "Maintained version", "Extended support", "Unsupported version" etc. and if there's a new versions you have to pay for then a link to the store. To me this seems a natural extension to the add/remove software list in the control panel. The add/update/remove list...
I chose the third option, but if I really wanted to see the movie I'd sure as hell go with option 2. If it turned out to be too crappy quality, I'm only out a few minutes of my time and I can still go see it in the theater.
I wouldn't, if it turns out to be a good story I wouldn't want to put it down and once I've seen it to the end.... well, there's extremely few movies I could stomach to watch twice, knowing exactly what plot twists are going to come and exactly what they're going to say. Particularly if I went to the cinema shortly afterwards I'd be wanting a fast forward button for half the movie. Personally if I just want to see the movie, like there's not actually going to be a social event around it, then I'll wait for the BluRay release to watch on my own home cinema where I have a soft couch, pizza and beer. Hell, that kind of in-home cinema can get rather social too but then we pick the accepted noise level and if we need a bathroom break we can agree to pause it for a few minutes.
Oh, just so we're clear by BluRay I normally mean torrents. I generally buy it (unless the movie sucked ass) but that's entirely for the feelgood factor. The online offers don't come close to being the same level of quality as the pirate offerings, completely disregarding price. Just give me to me like DRM-free music and stop being such a pest, because the pirate offerings will be there anyway. You're just steering me towards using them instead of your crappy service.
Why are you focusing on the Greek neo-Nazis? I think that SYRIZA (a radical left coalition) getting within 2% of the leading New Democracy is far more significant, and better represents the trends for the future of Greece.
Probably because I don't really know how radical they are, I picked the neo-nazis because they seemed the most xenophobic and militant. But sure a socialist/communist revolution is also possible, the point is that you're approaching a level of desperation where these are starting to look like good ideas. Besides if Greece refuses the austerity measures and the rest of the world responds with harsh sanctions it can easily turn into national socialism instead of socialism.
There's a very dangerous disconnect between how the rest of the world looks at the Greeks and the Greek look at the Greeks. After WWI the rest of the world felt the treatment of Germany was fair, the Germans did not. The EU feel the treatment of Greece is fair or even lenient, the Greeks do not. It's not quite to dangerous levels yet but if this ends badly you can end up with a people deeply resentful towards the world. That does usually not end well.
This is one of those "I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you" type of situations. If you don't like surprise problems (neither do I), the way to do it is to match the hardware to the operating system. Not the other way around.
Or they've listened to one of the many, many people saying any old PC or laptop can be re-purposed as a Linux box. Or they got tricked by trying one of the "live cds" which seemed to work in a quick test but turns out later that for the most part doesn't work. Or it actually turns out the box is okay, but their printer or scanner or whatever is a paperweight. It's the most classic Linux situation, one group said that, another group said that and the result is not only that you're buttfucked but that you're being called an idiot too. Because most people don't say you need a special "Linux computer".
Sorry chickenhawks, but America and China won't go to war. Our economies are far too interdependent.
I'd never trust where the guns are going to point during a collapse. A good example now is Greece which is starting to fall apart, they voted in a neo-nazi party (according to everyone but themselves, they just call themselves nationalist and patriotic) with 7% of the votes that promises to expel all immigrants, put landmines on the border to Turkey to stop illegal crossings, they sell Mein Kampf at the party office and they do the Nazi salute (which they say is an ancient Roman and Greek salute). And while Greece has over 20% unemployment and a constant recession since 2008 they haven't even been thrown out of the euro or the EU yet so the situation could get a lot worse.
And behind Greece there's a whole lot of other dominos lined up that are also fighting a collapse, Spain and Italy being the prime concerns right now. I don't really think people see how bad the the worst case scenarios can get because these countries have been borrowing from each other just like the Lehman collapse, if one goes down the whole house of cards starts falling apart. And I'm sure the world economy doesn't need another kick in the balls from Europe, it seems down enough as it is. The whole of the 2000s after the dotcoms is starting to look like the world's biggest bubble, I don't mean any particular branch like housing but the whole world economy. That 2008 = 1929 and we're now early into the 1930s, I pray we don't get to the end of them...
Why would he be particularly immortalized? For example if you're looking for the first human to be killed by robots, you don't have to wait for "I, robot" to become reality as that happened already back in 1979. Doesn't mean that robots have went away, people are quite regularly maimed or killed for neglecting safety zones, getting caught in presses and grinders and such. My prediction is that the first person killed by a computer-controlled car will be a Darwin Award winner that would have been killed by a human driver too, had there been one. Don't get me wrong, a computer-controller car won't be better than the people who programmed it and it surely will have bugs, but that one can be refined and get better whereas today every year we let loose a new generation of unskilled teens on the road.
Perhaps the best analogy is healthcare, you know those life-and-death situations you'd think keep everyone on their toes constantly. Well, nurses and doctors are humans too and they make mistakes, not often but they do. Electronic systems that make sure people always get the right medication in the right dosage at the right time, that they don't get dangerous combinations or medicines they're allergic to has helped save lives. Start counting the times the system corrects the nurses versus the times the nurses corrects the system and you'll find out who is actually the more important part of the two.
And that's why I think computer driven cars will win out in the end, they will always stick to protocol. They'll obey all speed limits, keep distance to those in front, always change lanes cleanly, always signal, always yield, always drive defensively and eventually all the accidents that don't happen because a human was tired or angry or sloppy or fiddling with the radio or his phone or whatnot will outperform the "creative" thinking capability of humans. Our ability to make good split-second decisions in an emergency situation is overrated, not to mention the choices are rather limited to break, turn and possibly in a few situations give gas. Many people panic and actually make it worse than just slamming the brakes.
I expect these cars also will have the ability to record near-accidents which you can use for analysis, you don't actually have to have an accident. Here we just managed to perform an emergency brake for a pedestrian who suddenly walked out into the road, could we have done better? Was our response optimal given the data we had? I see a whole new level of preventive improvement possible here. There's no significant learning for me from having one incident every decade, but if you can collect thousands of situations from millions of drivers it can learn to handle the 0.01% situations that we never have any training for or guidelines for what to do.
It has never been capitalism. Capitalism requires a fully informed and equal-opportunity market. Copyright, by its very definition, has nothing to do with equal opportunity. As for fully informed, well, you need a functioning education system for that.
What? That's never been preconditions for capitalism. Fully informed for example means that every customers is always aware of every offer from any seller at any time and all alternatives with all their pros and cons and that doesn't happen. Every time I go down to the grocery store without a full survey of all the stores in the area including comparing all substitutes I'm operating on imperfect information. It's the kind of idealized condition you only find in textbooks. Same with equal opportunity, it's almost impossible that an incumbent won't have some sort of advantage over a new entrant. Of course neither are ideal for competition but I'd say 99.99% of all markets - even those most would say function really, really well - don't fully fulfill those conditions. It's not perfect competition but you don't find that anywhere but fantasy land.
I disagree -- it reflects the technological realities of the 21st century. Your statement is on the level of, "Printing presses may not be 100% right..."
Bad analogy, you're comparing a technology to unauthorized use of technology. Obviously digital distribution is the printing presses of the 21st century, but in "piracy" it's implied that the author didn't give permission. Maybe it's the practical reality that through technology the author is no longer able to control the copying of their book, but technology doesn't make morality. Either it's always been right to copy but we've lacked the capability or it's always been wrong and still is even if technology made it easy.
You don't see SWAT teams hunting down jay-walkers and litterbugs, but likewise you (hopefully) don't see a lot of folks flaunting those laws directly in front of an officer. In such a way does society declare a code of acceptable behavior
I think you confuse respect for the police with respect for the law. The police doesn't make the law, they're only asked to enforce it. They have to react to someone breaking the law right in front of them, even if they find it stupid too. You're just being a dick by taunting them and they have to be dicks back if they fine you for something they'd normally ignore. Particularly a lot of laws and regulation regarding public order are this way, unless you're actually bothering someone they'll not look very hard to see if you're breaking the letter of the law or let you go with a warning. For example here drinking a beer in the park is publicly accepted but legally you could be fined so don't flaunt it to the police.
But over the past few months they have gained much substance and have the potential to become more than an experiment. At the moment they have a couple of teething problems. But the next few years will show what becomes of them.
In 2009 when they got 2% in the national election they were an experiment, getting 8% of the votes is something that's already resonated with a large part of the population. Most parties go make-or-break on the minimum limit that is 5% in Germany I believe, either you get above it and become established or you fall below it and fizzle. Berlin, Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein and in a week Nordrhein-Westfalen they're now passing and not with 5.1% but way past. Unless they screw this up themselves, I think the Pirate Party is here to stay.
There's a middle ground here, realistically there's 7 parties in our parliament so my vote amounts to <3 bits of information every four years, maybe 5 bits on the outside if you include every party. Make that ~1 bit in the US. You're right I don't want to read the thousands of pages from every committee and proposal at work in the political system and manage every line item in the budget, but I don't have to be involved at every step of the way. If I got to vote on say 20-50 major changes each years for 80-200 bits of input instead of ~3 over a four year period that'd be great. Particularly when it comes to making things legal or illegal it's a simple binary question that is easy to answer.
This is how pretty much every modern version of direct democracy works, everyone can start an initiative but you need to collect signatures to get it on the agenda. It prevents the whole problem with flash mobs, sure a flash mob can get it put to a vote but you can't pull a fast one that's not in line with the general population. And I'd get to make a direct say in specific cases, I don't have to deal with misrepresenting parties because today I have little recourse when they abuse my vote. With so few choices they're still going to be on my shortlist next election and the other parties do it too. I'd love to see the possibility of their decisions getting overturned by a direct referendum, it'd make all politics more honest.
I've found that Qt wraps most for the craziness that is C++, it's a very nice toolkit for for "personal project" size. Don't know what the commercial market is and don't care, but for hobbyist work I find it great. Of course if you want to be part of the "cool kids" you'd probably go with Java so you can program for Android, mobile is all the rage these days but I don't feel I need it for my projects. And that's really the question, what kind of apps are you looking to make? Desktop apps? Mobile apps? Web apps? Scripting? Simulations? There's still no one language to rule them all because they all do better at certain things.
Well I've seen many logging frameworks where debug logging and application logging was simply a different severity level, particularly since you may want crash/debug logs from users. All it takes is one sloppy developer that needed a log output, copy-pasted an application log line instead of a debug log line, because it's only temporary and you're going to take it out right? Both works for him. And then suddenly you end up with debug info in your production logs. I don't see why this would have to be a problem with their build process.
2) Sell these "insights" to all the crazy people who'd do more for their dogs than their kids. What foods it likes, what play toys it likes, whatever else it wants... with kickbacks from the companies that make it, of course.
For years Slashdot complained about the Microsoft tax, that you couldn't get a PC without paying for Windows. When you buy Windows you pay a MPEG-LA tax, you can't get it without paying for codecs but now if they give you the choice not to pay that's wrong too. No, Microsoft can't win.
Surely if there is a single complainant then this should not be a class action suit?
As I've understood it, in class actions you sue for "me and everybody else like me", you don't actually need more than one direct victim if the suit passes muster. Not that I think this one will..
As for the scientific validity - in absence of evidence, the default assumption is non-existence. It is simple as that. Do we need that debate every single fucking time the weekly religion vs. atheism thread pops up?
Probably, because science in this case is a lot like a court of law - the only people that are guilty are those who have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but we know there's a lot more people that have actually committed crimes. In the same way many people think there's a lot more between heaven and earth than science has proven, that God makes a prod here and a pull there but never something you can pin down in a lab because he'd know and won't perform tricks on command like a trained dog. I guess they resist the assertion that all that science has found is all there is.
Imagine that the only measuring device you have can only measure visible light. Sure, you'd be able to do a lot of science with that but there'd be a whole world of infrared and ultraviolet, radio waves, microwaves, radiation and whatnot you'd not be able to see. In the same way people believe that you have the basic reality but also more beyond what science has been able to catch in their instruments and experiments and observations. To believe that science is "complete" and fully account for everything that happens is more faith than science.
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If they are not paying, they are not contributing to the abuse of children, so what is the justification for imprisoning them? As I remember it, the reason we imprison people for possessing child pornography is that we assume they paid for it
You're assuming money is the only driver which would be quite stupid. For one they don't have to get paid by you directly, they can run ads and pop-ups and pop-unders and sell access for exploit scripts or whatever else sleazeball activity that won't care where the clicks come from and new content drives traffic. Secondly there's trade, obviously trade in itself is purely digital but somewhere, somehow that creates an incentive to "print your own money" by making it yourself.
Third there's simple popularity. Take for example all the people making videos for YouTube or RedTube, obviously they're doing it for the attention even though they don't get paid. Hit counters, comments, everything contributes to the impression that "wow, this is popular - people want it" which is enough for some. Particularly if you're on a site that sells it, a visitor that doesn't sign up is in the "interested, but not tempted enough" category - maybe they need something better to get a better conversion rate? Or simply as part of a normalization process, we're many that feel this way.
Maybe ideally if you could take it entirely without anyone knowing, nothing that feeds back into the system than maybe. But to me is seems pretty hard to not give away any interest at all, and an interested person is a potential.
Well, that's half of it but you missed the other half which is that it's not just human specialization, we're replacing them with machines and computers. We still need skilled, specialized people but it's increasingly harder to find work for the rest and it's not trivial to make them into skills and specialized workers. If I was to make a software application and I got 100 people randomly picked from the street to work with, I'd probably select considerably fewer because the rest would add zero or negative value to the team. The world is starting to run into that issue which is why there's so much unemployment now.
This would be about as effective as most workplace safety laws - sure you can refuse to do dangerous work, but when there are a hundred people lined up who are prepared to climb on a four story roof with no safety harness you'll find yourself unemployed very fast.
Usually what happens here in Norway is that someone takes a picture and report it, then the work site gets instantly closed down. Then you get to have a nice talk with the health & safety inspectors who'll make sure everything is up to code which usually costs more time and more money and then usually a solid fine on top. I've no idea how much shit they pull on the inside of buildings, but you don't see much of that shit in plain view anymore.
The founding fathers would have allowed the citizens to have Abrams tanks, F22 Raptors, or other modern weapons of war fully fueled and armed, parked at their farm or street if such technology had been available.
They had cannons in the 18th century, and no it's not really clear whether the amendment was meant to cover those or just arms you can bear. Apparently there's no writings about the amendment from that period that discusses private ownership of cannons, we know a few private merchant ships had them but that they were legal doesn't imply they're constitutionally guaranteed. What we do know is that they were afraid of the general disarmament of the population but there's nothing that clearly backs up your interpretation.
The old days were simpler, not better. When one has less choices it's often easier to choose.
And simpler to operate, simpler to repair, the simple life is all but gone. Just to take one example, cutting lumber. Today if you want to do it professionally you're probably operating some kind of advanced machinery, that's what they use in all but the most inaccessible places that'll chop it down and chop it up without you ever leaving the operator's chair. One step below that is what we've used, a chain saw and a gas operated cleaver, sure we're more manual but still heavily machine-assisted. But I've still seen the long saw they used before that rusting in the shed and back then they cleaved it with an axe.
I mean it's hard labor, but its not particularly complicated labor. Saw, saw, chop, chop and that was perfectly acceptable work. No education required, hell practically no training required either. Here's an axe, go chop. Same if it was making hay or collecting potatoes or vegetables or whatever else manual labor. Of course then you'd work forever to produce the same firewood we produce with a chainsaw and the pros are that much faster than us again. You can't compete the old way and we'd all be a lot poorer so obviously the current way is "better", objectively speaking.
All the same, everything that's simple has been mechanized, computerized, automated and in many cases miniaturized to the point where there's nothing a layman can do about it. Either it's only professional shops with tools or more and more frequently it's just to throw away when it breaks because there's a million of them coming off a production line rather than trying to fix one unit. Same with the home, you call in a plumber or electrician or whatever, the car needs an auto mechanic because everything is too complicated to do yourself.
I suppose it's inevitable that we'll all have to specialize to improve the productivity overall, but I feel people are increasingly narrow. This is the one complicated thing that I've learned to do, and for that I make money to hire people to do all the complicated things they do. And if you're not cut out to that, well then there's very few simple jobs left. And there's just going to be less and less places where you just need a warm body.
Freedom 3 only makes sense in a society where if one alters a product in a way that voids any warranty
They've tried this with cars, if you got unoriginal spark plugs we won't honor the warranty on the exhaust system and that didn't fly. It's not like you can break a CPU or GPU by sending it bad code, restore to the factory supplied software and it's still good. You'd have to work real hard to convince me a software change is any reason to void your hardware warranty.
Also, for a company that provides a box via a service provider whose services depend on the configuration of that box being locked, freedom 3 has to take a back seat, or like I said in the parent post, someone can buy a minimal package from one of the TV service providers, alter the firmware, and then start getting the channels that weren't paid for.
To take the last thing first, no. Through broadcast encryption each box can have a unique decryption key that only allows it to decrypt the subscribed channels. It's usually tamper-proof to prevent sharing of the key, but hacking the firmware would get you nothing. What would be very hard to prevent is the dumping of content to disk, unencumbered by any DRM.
In any case, yes sometimes the GPL isn't compatible with what you want to do. That's fine, then don't use it. You want the benefits, but don't want to pay the "costs" so you look for some kind of legal loophole, some kind of poor formulation, some indirect way of calling the code so you don't have to release your code or actually give the freedoms it's intended to give.
It's not like the Four Freedoms are the one true answer, for example Linus doesn't have a problem with the GPLv2 but some people never wanted their code used in that fashion. Going forward it's not a problem, if you pick the GPLv2 over GPLv3 today you know what you're doing but you can't stop people using old code even if you feel the old license is "broken" by loopholes.
The software side is so far just a customized install with developer tools preinstalled. Ars remains skeptical about Dell's strategy for GNU/Linux support, which may be warranted given their track record.
Call it a "developer laptop" and you've probably scared away 99% of the market, the 99% Dell doesn't want. The ones who think it'll be like Windows or run Windows software or work with all accessories they have on their old PC. The people interested in Linux will know hey it's just an Ubuntu install with a few preloads, the important thing is the hardware is supported under Linux. To me it sounds good, to make it profitable it's just as much about not selling to the wrong people as selling to the right people. Support and returns will very quickly kill your margins.
Regarding the FSF and Tivo, if you read the background and history the entire purpose of the license was that "the user can modify the code and run it himself". It was always intended as a personal right to modify your own equipment and the source was your means, that the hardware would run any code you put on it was implied but never explicitly stated. It's like realizing your license said "There must be a switch to turn function X off" and someone provided the switch glued stuck in epoxy to follow the letter but not the meaning of the license. I'd be pretty angry too.
I agree, but I'm rather surprised there isn't a software update infrastructure where applications register themselves so you can easily see the status of all your software. Each application would still provide their own updates, digitally signed with a key that was stored when you installed it of course. You install $foo 1.0, it registers the update URL http://foo.com/updates.xml and it'll be signed with $foo's key. The XML contains something like "Version: 1.1, installer: http://foo.com/$foo1.1-installer.exe" that is run provided the signature is good.
You'd probably want to work a little on the format of that XML since some software has multiple supported versions like 3.0.2 and 2.7.2 and you want to able to pull in a security update 2.7.3 without upgrading to the latest version. You probably want a support status like "Latest version", "Maintained version", "Extended support", "Unsupported version" etc. and if there's a new versions you have to pay for then a link to the store. To me this seems a natural extension to the add/remove software list in the control panel. The add/update/remove list...
I chose the third option, but if I really wanted to see the movie I'd sure as hell go with option 2. If it turned out to be too crappy quality, I'm only out a few minutes of my time and I can still go see it in the theater.
I wouldn't, if it turns out to be a good story I wouldn't want to put it down and once I've seen it to the end.... well, there's extremely few movies I could stomach to watch twice, knowing exactly what plot twists are going to come and exactly what they're going to say. Particularly if I went to the cinema shortly afterwards I'd be wanting a fast forward button for half the movie. Personally if I just want to see the movie, like there's not actually going to be a social event around it, then I'll wait for the BluRay release to watch on my own home cinema where I have a soft couch, pizza and beer. Hell, that kind of in-home cinema can get rather social too but then we pick the accepted noise level and if we need a bathroom break we can agree to pause it for a few minutes.
Oh, just so we're clear by BluRay I normally mean torrents. I generally buy it (unless the movie sucked ass) but that's entirely for the feelgood factor. The online offers don't come close to being the same level of quality as the pirate offerings, completely disregarding price. Just give me to me like DRM-free music and stop being such a pest, because the pirate offerings will be there anyway. You're just steering me towards using them instead of your crappy service.
Why are you focusing on the Greek neo-Nazis? I think that SYRIZA (a radical left coalition) getting within 2% of the leading New Democracy is far more significant, and better represents the trends for the future of Greece.
Probably because I don't really know how radical they are, I picked the neo-nazis because they seemed the most xenophobic and militant. But sure a socialist/communist revolution is also possible, the point is that you're approaching a level of desperation where these are starting to look like good ideas. Besides if Greece refuses the austerity measures and the rest of the world responds with harsh sanctions it can easily turn into national socialism instead of socialism.
There's a very dangerous disconnect between how the rest of the world looks at the Greeks and the Greek look at the Greeks. After WWI the rest of the world felt the treatment of Germany was fair, the Germans did not. The EU feel the treatment of Greece is fair or even lenient, the Greeks do not. It's not quite to dangerous levels yet but if this ends badly you can end up with a people deeply resentful towards the world. That does usually not end well.
This is one of those "I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you" type of situations. If you don't like surprise problems (neither do I), the way to do it is to match the hardware to the operating system. Not the other way around.
Or they've listened to one of the many, many people saying any old PC or laptop can be re-purposed as a Linux box. Or they got tricked by trying one of the "live cds" which seemed to work in a quick test but turns out later that for the most part doesn't work. Or it actually turns out the box is okay, but their printer or scanner or whatever is a paperweight. It's the most classic Linux situation, one group said that, another group said that and the result is not only that you're buttfucked but that you're being called an idiot too. Because most people don't say you need a special "Linux computer".
Sorry chickenhawks, but America and China won't go to war. Our economies are far too interdependent.
I'd never trust where the guns are going to point during a collapse. A good example now is Greece which is starting to fall apart, they voted in a neo-nazi party (according to everyone but themselves, they just call themselves nationalist and patriotic) with 7% of the votes that promises to expel all immigrants, put landmines on the border to Turkey to stop illegal crossings, they sell Mein Kampf at the party office and they do the Nazi salute (which they say is an ancient Roman and Greek salute). And while Greece has over 20% unemployment and a constant recession since 2008 they haven't even been thrown out of the euro or the EU yet so the situation could get a lot worse.
And behind Greece there's a whole lot of other dominos lined up that are also fighting a collapse, Spain and Italy being the prime concerns right now. I don't really think people see how bad the the worst case scenarios can get because these countries have been borrowing from each other just like the Lehman collapse, if one goes down the whole house of cards starts falling apart. And I'm sure the world economy doesn't need another kick in the balls from Europe, it seems down enough as it is. The whole of the 2000s after the dotcoms is starting to look like the world's biggest bubble, I don't mean any particular branch like housing but the whole world economy. That 2008 = 1929 and we're now early into the 1930s, I pray we don't get to the end of them...
Why would he be particularly immortalized? For example if you're looking for the first human to be killed by robots, you don't have to wait for "I, robot" to become reality as that happened already back in 1979. Doesn't mean that robots have went away, people are quite regularly maimed or killed for neglecting safety zones, getting caught in presses and grinders and such. My prediction is that the first person killed by a computer-controlled car will be a Darwin Award winner that would have been killed by a human driver too, had there been one. Don't get me wrong, a computer-controller car won't be better than the people who programmed it and it surely will have bugs, but that one can be refined and get better whereas today every year we let loose a new generation of unskilled teens on the road.
Perhaps the best analogy is healthcare, you know those life-and-death situations you'd think keep everyone on their toes constantly. Well, nurses and doctors are humans too and they make mistakes, not often but they do. Electronic systems that make sure people always get the right medication in the right dosage at the right time, that they don't get dangerous combinations or medicines they're allergic to has helped save lives. Start counting the times the system corrects the nurses versus the times the nurses corrects the system and you'll find out who is actually the more important part of the two.
And that's why I think computer driven cars will win out in the end, they will always stick to protocol. They'll obey all speed limits, keep distance to those in front, always change lanes cleanly, always signal, always yield, always drive defensively and eventually all the accidents that don't happen because a human was tired or angry or sloppy or fiddling with the radio or his phone or whatnot will outperform the "creative" thinking capability of humans. Our ability to make good split-second decisions in an emergency situation is overrated, not to mention the choices are rather limited to break, turn and possibly in a few situations give gas. Many people panic and actually make it worse than just slamming the brakes.
I expect these cars also will have the ability to record near-accidents which you can use for analysis, you don't actually have to have an accident. Here we just managed to perform an emergency brake for a pedestrian who suddenly walked out into the road, could we have done better? Was our response optimal given the data we had? I see a whole new level of preventive improvement possible here. There's no significant learning for me from having one incident every decade, but if you can collect thousands of situations from millions of drivers it can learn to handle the 0.01% situations that we never have any training for or guidelines for what to do.
It has never been capitalism. Capitalism requires a fully informed and equal-opportunity market. Copyright, by its very definition, has nothing to do with equal opportunity. As for fully informed, well, you need a functioning education system for that.
What? That's never been preconditions for capitalism. Fully informed for example means that every customers is always aware of every offer from any seller at any time and all alternatives with all their pros and cons and that doesn't happen. Every time I go down to the grocery store without a full survey of all the stores in the area including comparing all substitutes I'm operating on imperfect information. It's the kind of idealized condition you only find in textbooks. Same with equal opportunity, it's almost impossible that an incumbent won't have some sort of advantage over a new entrant. Of course neither are ideal for competition but I'd say 99.99% of all markets - even those most would say function really, really well - don't fully fulfill those conditions. It's not perfect competition but you don't find that anywhere but fantasy land.
Piracy may not be 100% right
I disagree -- it reflects the technological realities of the 21st century. Your statement is on the level of, "Printing presses may not be 100% right..."
Bad analogy, you're comparing a technology to unauthorized use of technology. Obviously digital distribution is the printing presses of the 21st century, but in "piracy" it's implied that the author didn't give permission. Maybe it's the practical reality that through technology the author is no longer able to control the copying of their book, but technology doesn't make morality. Either it's always been right to copy but we've lacked the capability or it's always been wrong and still is even if technology made it easy.
You don't see SWAT teams hunting down jay-walkers and litterbugs, but likewise you (hopefully) don't see a lot of folks flaunting those laws directly in front of an officer. In such a way does society declare a code of acceptable behavior
I think you confuse respect for the police with respect for the law. The police doesn't make the law, they're only asked to enforce it. They have to react to someone breaking the law right in front of them, even if they find it stupid too. You're just being a dick by taunting them and they have to be dicks back if they fine you for something they'd normally ignore. Particularly a lot of laws and regulation regarding public order are this way, unless you're actually bothering someone they'll not look very hard to see if you're breaking the letter of the law or let you go with a warning. For example here drinking a beer in the park is publicly accepted but legally you could be fined so don't flaunt it to the police.
But over the past few months they have gained much substance and have the potential to become more than an experiment. At the moment they have a couple of teething problems. But the next few years will show what becomes of them.
In 2009 when they got 2% in the national election they were an experiment, getting 8% of the votes is something that's already resonated with a large part of the population. Most parties go make-or-break on the minimum limit that is 5% in Germany I believe, either you get above it and become established or you fall below it and fizzle. Berlin, Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein and in a week Nordrhein-Westfalen they're now passing and not with 5.1% but way past. Unless they screw this up themselves, I think the Pirate Party is here to stay.
There's a middle ground here, realistically there's 7 parties in our parliament so my vote amounts to <3 bits of information every four years, maybe 5 bits on the outside if you include every party. Make that ~1 bit in the US. You're right I don't want to read the thousands of pages from every committee and proposal at work in the political system and manage every line item in the budget, but I don't have to be involved at every step of the way. If I got to vote on say 20-50 major changes each years for 80-200 bits of input instead of ~3 over a four year period that'd be great. Particularly when it comes to making things legal or illegal it's a simple binary question that is easy to answer.
This is how pretty much every modern version of direct democracy works, everyone can start an initiative but you need to collect signatures to get it on the agenda. It prevents the whole problem with flash mobs, sure a flash mob can get it put to a vote but you can't pull a fast one that's not in line with the general population. And I'd get to make a direct say in specific cases, I don't have to deal with misrepresenting parties because today I have little recourse when they abuse my vote. With so few choices they're still going to be on my shortlist next election and the other parties do it too. I'd love to see the possibility of their decisions getting overturned by a direct referendum, it'd make all politics more honest.
I've found that Qt wraps most for the craziness that is C++, it's a very nice toolkit for for "personal project" size. Don't know what the commercial market is and don't care, but for hobbyist work I find it great. Of course if you want to be part of the "cool kids" you'd probably go with Java so you can program for Android, mobile is all the rage these days but I don't feel I need it for my projects. And that's really the question, what kind of apps are you looking to make? Desktop apps? Mobile apps? Web apps? Scripting? Simulations? There's still no one language to rule them all because they all do better at certain things.
Well I've seen many logging frameworks where debug logging and application logging was simply a different severity level, particularly since you may want crash/debug logs from users. All it takes is one sloppy developer that needed a log output, copy-pasted an application log line instead of a debug log line, because it's only temporary and you're going to take it out right? Both works for him. And then suddenly you end up with debug info in your production logs. I don't see why this would have to be a problem with their build process.
2) Sell these "insights" to all the crazy people who'd do more for their dogs than their kids. What foods it likes, what play toys it likes, whatever else it wants... with kickbacks from the companies that make it, of course.
For years Slashdot complained about the Microsoft tax, that you couldn't get a PC without paying for Windows. When you buy Windows you pay a MPEG-LA tax, you can't get it without paying for codecs but now if they give you the choice not to pay that's wrong too. No, Microsoft can't win.
Surely if there is a single complainant then this should not be a class action suit?
As I've understood it, in class actions you sue for "me and everybody else like me", you don't actually need more than one direct victim if the suit passes muster. Not that I think this one will..
As for the scientific validity - in absence of evidence, the default assumption is non-existence. It is simple as that. Do we need that debate every single fucking time the weekly religion vs. atheism thread pops up?
Probably, because science in this case is a lot like a court of law - the only people that are guilty are those who have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but we know there's a lot more people that have actually committed crimes. In the same way many people think there's a lot more between heaven and earth than science has proven, that God makes a prod here and a pull there but never something you can pin down in a lab because he'd know and won't perform tricks on command like a trained dog. I guess they resist the assertion that all that science has found is all there is.
Imagine that the only measuring device you have can only measure visible light. Sure, you'd be able to do a lot of science with that but there'd be a whole world of infrared and ultraviolet, radio waves, microwaves, radiation and whatnot you'd not be able to see. In the same way people believe that you have the basic reality but also more beyond what science has been able to catch in their instruments and experiments and observations. To believe that science is "complete" and fully account for everything that happens is more faith than science.