The 'technology community' in general has shown no interest in building systems and standards that contain provisions for reasonably safeguarding IP contentholders legal rights
I disagree. Posters on slashdot, as you yourself concede, is hardly the technological community. Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Real Networks, Adobe, Intel, and 90% of the commercial businesses in the digital content arena have put a great deal of money and effort into "reasonably safeguarding IP". There exists plenty of tools out there that reasonably safeguard IP contentholders' legal rights and Apple has sold over 2 billion songs including it. How much money has been spent developing TPM?
Instad, we see that
The 'technological community' in general has shown little to no interest in establishing a culture that encourages the safeguarding of IP contentholders legal rights
Not true. The 'technological community' in general are proponents of copyright (the GPL couldn't work without it, after all) and does not encourage disregarding anyone's legal rights. They have, on the other hand, encouraged the corporations bent on restricting users' legal rights be denied that power.
As a result, it is not unreasonable for lawmakers to address the problem by passing laws.
I would posit that it is not unreasonable for lawmakers to address the problems their political party, campaign contributors, power brokers, and other peddlers of influence bring before them...regardless of whether the "problem" is in the best interest of their constituency in particular or the country as a whole because *that* is how they get re-elected. And that is what this bill is really about.
Unfortunately, many of the laws they pass (including, at first glance, this one) are overbroad, over-reaching, ham-handed, unworkable, and/or completely ignorable. This is only partly because politicians and lawmakers are torpid and ignorant. The larger problem is because truly legislating such stuff is very very hard.
I'll agree with you 100% here. But not only would I say it's hard, I would go so far as to say it is impossible. The simple fact remains: if it can be read, it can be copied. Period. There is no getting around that basic tenet. And with digital distribution over the Internet, ONE copy is all that matters.
Are we ever, even once, going to see an article that says "hi - look - the RIAA and MPAA may be arseholes, but they do have a point. software / movie / music / whatever piracy is a serious issue. how would YOU solve it?"
Doubtful. Because the argument that it really IS a serious issue are specious at best.
Of course, we can expect the usual dumb answers, which are:
Saying someone's point is "dumb" hardly refutes it.
It's not really a problem (implied: since the 90% of technologically behind the curve people can continue to subsidize the 10% serious pirates in places like the USA and Europe, while the consumers of the western world can continue to subsidize mass-pirating countries like China and Russia)
I'm not sure how you quantify the difference between those "behind the curve", those who are "penny ante pirates", those who are more "mid-level pirates", and those who are "serious pirates". I have yet to see a study not bought and paid for by a content producer that really indicates a problem. Is piracy in China a problem? Well, it's certainly widespread, from all accounts. But is it an economic burden? Does it actually cost "Billions of dollars" every year? Again, the only studies I've ever seen are produced by the BSA, the MPAA, the RIAA, et. al., and include numbers for th
Almost everybody I know has copied something illegally at some point in their lives.
I want to say something about this comment; but, I can't quite put it into words. I've re-written this reply many times over and I just can't seem to get the right essence of what it was about the quoted bit that peaked my interest. It's something along the lines of laws being on the books that have no right being there, laws that society en masse ignores, selective enforcement, and repealing the 18th Amendment. Roll that all up, add a twist of lime, shake, and pour over ice. Then you'll be getting somewhere right about what's going on in my mind.
Geez, I wish I were more coherent. I should probably lay off the booze.
I'm not the OP to whom you replied...but I saw mention of flamethrowers and I felt I must add my two cents...
I, personally, wouldn't use my flamethrower anywhere near a cat...unless it was a zombie cat. I mean, zombies are the only reason I have a flamethrower in the first place.
It's different because people who tend to actually use baseball bats, tennis racquets, etc. are athletic people with a modicum of coordination...as opposed to video gamers who tend to be uncoordinated nerds (like myself) who suck at swinging baseball bats, tennis racquets, etc. in the real world too.
Even still, this uncoordinated person, his teenage uncoordinated son, nine year old uncoordinated daughter, and six year old uncoordinated son all have been playing Wii Sports since November 19th and none of us have managed to let go of a wiimote.
I still think alcohol is involved in more of these "woops, my wiimote just crashed into my TV!" moments than the people reporting such events are letting on.
It has always been my understanding that best practices dictate a server running at a constant 100% CPU utilization is underpowered and needs upgraded. Normal, every day, steady CPU utilization should hover no higher than around 50% (closer to 75%, if you like living on the edge) leaving enough CPU to handle peak loads. Very few functions require a system that maintains a constant CPU utilization and never peaks over it.
I did all that. I'm telling you: i've tried every variation on configuration I can come up with from switching channels to 1, 11, somewhere in the middle, 802.11b, 802.11g, mixed, yada yada yada, with TWO different access points. The results bear out in my case: reliable, consistent connections = NO ENCRYPTION. Nothing else made a difference.
...there aren't any online connection services outside of Wii Shop, which can only get you VC games, none of which I'm particularly interested in paying $5-$10 to play. Then there's the Wii Friends thing, the sending Miis to each other as well as messages back and forth. Even system updates amount to wireless internet connections. And, for whatever reason, I can't get any of those to work with my old Lucent AP1000 (802.11b) access point or my new Linksys WRT54GX (802.11g/b) without disabling encryption. To be fair, I must admit, I never tried WEP because... well, what's the point in WEP really?
I reserved and got a Wii on day 1. It is the first console I've ever bought at launch. I am thoroughly happy with it. Here are my thoughts:
Wii Sports is a blast. I like bowling. My daughter likes boxing. My six year old son likes baseball. My teenage son likes all of them...except golf. None of us are very good at golf.
Elebits, imho, will be a major seller and I am looking forward to it.
There is no fear of losing the remote and busting your TV. I still don't know how the people reporting this problem are making it happen. The only way I can imagine it is if, in your excitement, you just LET GO. Wear your wrist strap and don't flail your arms about like you're trying to throw your shoulder out of socket and you'll be fine.
Red Steel is fun. I know it's getting bad reviews but it's enjoyable just to play. I only have one real complaint with it: there are several parts where you are supposed to fight a guy with your sword. But why? If I am walking around with an Uzi in my hand, and round a corner where there's a man standing there brandishing a sword...why in the world would I put my Uzi away and get out a sword to fight the guy close combat like that? Why can't I just shoot him with the Uzi? That makes a whole lot more sense to me. But, no! You HAVE to fight the guy with the sword. And that's just lame.
Virtual Console sucks right now. There are no games worth buying, imho. And, at $5-$10 a pop, I am not seeing the value. Maybe after some better titles are available, it'll be worth it. Right now it's a waste.
Where is Opera? Where is the Forecast channel? The News channel? Bring on the extra online features NOW NOW NOW!!! I'm sick of waiting already and I've only had the Wii two weeks.
Wireless connection troubles...the only way I can get my Wii to connect consistently is to turn off WEP and WPA/WPA2. I have to make my WAP open (and I've tried two different access points/routers) for it to work consistently and reliably...again, that seems just wrong to me.
It's only been a few weeks. I am hopeful and optimistic that Nintendo will work this stuff out and this time next year, the Wii will just kick all kinds of ass.
So I'll say it again here:
I reserved a Wii and got one on launch day. For Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa are buying two DS lites (one each for my daughter and eldest son). Add in the games (4-5 Wii games + 4 [2 each] DS games) and accessories (2nd and 3rd Wiimotes and nunchuks, Wii points cards, personalized Wiimote gloves, etc.) and Nintendo is making a mint off my family alone. But, no, the Wii is not negatively affecting DS Lite sales. Frankly, I want a DS Lite more now that I have the Wii. Every indication is Nintendo will offer integrations that make it very compelling to have both.
I would count my blessings if I were you. Doesn't sound so bad.
Well, don't misunderstand me. I like to gripe. But I do count my blessings. I am quite thankful I am insured at all...and that I can live in the best country (imho) on the planet and benefit from so doing.
A corporation is a legal entity... a legal individual... who's sole purpose is to do what is best for that corporation (and in modern America, this is to make a dollar value profit). Its purpose is not to do what is best for any other individual (shareholders are by extension a part of the corporation). It is by nature a sociopathic entity.
How sad you actually believe that. A corporation is only an individual in the USofA because of a ridiculously bad Supreme Court decision in 1886. A corporation is only sociopathic if the people who run it are. Unfortunately, so many have bought the dogma that a corporation has no obligation to serve the public good that it is unlikely to ever reverse. Originally, there were to be NO corporations in the United States. Only because rich, sociopathic individuals lobbied hard at the time was it even allowed, with a limitation at the time that if a corporation no longer served the public good, its charter could be revoked and it would cease to exist. As Thomas Jefferson feared in the very beginning of the foundation of this country, corporations have taken control to such extent that people are now commonly of the firm belief that it is right and just that corporations should indeed be viewed as immortal persons who have no sense of morals and are beholden only to the almighty dollar and that real, actual, living, breathing people are perfectly within reason to behave sociopathically in the name of a corporation.
I know this sounds harsh, but it seems to me that as how you seem to prefer sociopathic medicine over social medicine, you probably wouldn't give a rat's ass about a decent society if you didn't have a crippled child and extra medical bills because of him/her.
Perhaps you read too much into my statements. I wouldn't mind "social medicine" (which, I assume, is what you mean as "government run medicine") if I didn't think the government was likely populated with as many sociopaths as private corporations. Okay, so when I say, "No, I don't want the government to socialize health care" that is perhaps too strong of a statement. It would be better to say, "I'm fearful the government would just screw it up in an attempt to appease corporate donors and we'll all be no better off than we are at present." I'm not against socialized medicine, per se. I'm just not sure the "government" can get anything right. I'm in a state of flux as to whether I believe "the government" should exist at all. Anarchy wouldn't work. But what does work? Has anything in the history of mankind actually worked? Now I'm rambling and my head is spinning and I'm lost in a stream of consciousness thing and making no sense at all. See what happens when I don't get enough sleep and/or coffee? (note: attempts at levity may not succeed)
And if you do want it, would you want it still if you didn't have the added cost of a disabled child (take a cold hard look).
It doesn't take having a child with a disability to see the health care system in the US is struggling. It needs fixing. I believed it before I had children. I just have more evidence that it's a mess now.
Don't get me wrong, I believe for the most part, the way our capitalistic western society operates seems to work quite well
Don't get me wrong either. I agree with you on this much at least. I am generally libertarian leaning, although not strictly libertarian, and tend to believe less government involvement and more free market = better for everybody. Which is why I am so befuddled by the health care mess.
I think we should look to parts of Europe and other places that have integrated public/private health care (this brings in more government control than in the United States) as they seem to be working better than either Canada's system (which has too much government control) or the United State's (which has too little).
But why argue with someone like you? You are essentially saying "I want to force other people to pay me money, let their children die, it's not my problem." And you are also saying "I am both too stupid to comprehend, and willfully ignorant of ethics to bother thinking who the money I steal comes from." Forgive me for wondering if your DNA is worth contributing to the gene pool.
I don't know what state you live in, but in Iowa once you get your child on SSDI (not too hard, at least for me). You can get on the waiver list and once you get to the front of the line you qualify for Title-19 (took around 6 mo for us). After that the state either covers everything or reimburses you for carrying insurance on the child.
Ohio. It's not that different here. The first time I tried to get my son's name on the list, they looked at my income and laughed at me. I had to keep going back to get them to understand the law allows him on the waiver list regardless of my income. He is now six years old. He's been on the waiting list since he was about six months old. We basically determined that he should be off of the waiting list and actually get the waiver coverage round about the time he turns 18. See what I mean about disgusting?
It's not disgusting? I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. My son is not so bad off that he needs constant care. He does need some services (physical therapy, etc.) which the county MRDD board actually helps cover (wow!) but he has heart issues and has had open heart surgery once. That was over a $100,000 expense (which is also ridiculous, imho) so we got our money's worth that year and frankly are just paying that expense back each month in our premiums and hoping he never needs another surgery.
That any individual should have to pay nearly $10,000/yr (in your case) or over $12,000/yr (in my case) just to be harrassed by an insurance company when you actually need services is disgusting to me. Again, I don't know what the proper solution is, but I think our US leaders, with the US being such a wealthy country, should be ashamed of themselves for not fixing things a long time ago. It could be done. But it's hard work. It's a lot easier to get re-elected by catering to your donors.
Not to be a completely insensitive asshole, but who exactly do you expect to pay for you child's care?
I expect a decent enough society to want to care for people who actually need health care. The sad situation in the United States is the health care system works worst for those who need it the most. Imagine a world where people are viewed as inherently valuable things to be cherished and protected instead of being looked at as profit or loss centers. But so long as the health care industry is being run as a profit/loss industry it won't happen.
Frankly, I'm lucky I could even get insurance. The government, through threat of force, has to make insurance companies cover us. Because the CEO and BoD for Anthem, et. al., look at (as you said) "large, probable expenses" and essentially say, "we choose not to insure your son, let him die, it's not our problem" except the laws of the land say, "no, that won't do" and require coverage...but only if you know the hoops you have to jump through to get accepted. Forgive me for seeing that as dispicable.
Do I trust the government to run socialized health care? NO. They screw up most things they put their grubby paws into. Frankly, I don't know WHAT the solution is. Thank God I'm not in charge because I'd probably royally screw it up for the entire nation.
Americans don't like having the government telling us what to do, and this includes how we take care of our body and our health.
Which is why we have seat belt laws, motorcycle helmet laws, non-smoking laws, anti-sodomy laws (yes, they're still on the books in lots of states), drug laws, and on and on and on...
The government loves telling us what to do and as long as most voters don't disagree vehemently, they will.
On topic, I run my own business, a two-member LLC (my wife and me) doing consulting (mostly Linux stuff) and we are screwed royally as far as insurance goes. We have a child with a disability so: (a) being w/o insurance is not an option, and (b) we get the highest rate they can legally charge us: over $1,000/month. (imagine goatse man here, that's how disgusting it is)
Oh, and good luck with Anthem. They're great! (That's sarcasm...two guesses who my insurance provider is...and the first one doesn't count.)
Actually, more choice isn't always better. Sheena S. Iyengar is a professor at Columbia University who studies choice and in particular, challenges the notion that more choice is always better. A list of her publications is available on her site. For those who believe more choice is always better, I recommend you read a few. In fact, I recommend you start here (pdf).
If I wanted to develop an e-voting system that I could secretly control to switch votes to my preferred candidate, what programming language should I write it with so as to maximize the obfuscation and minimize the ability of anybody who might audit the code to actually understand it and find me out?
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree. Posters on slashdot, as you yourself concede, is hardly the technological community. Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Real Networks, Adobe, Intel, and 90% of the commercial businesses in the digital content arena have put a great deal of money and effort into "reasonably safeguarding IP". There exists plenty of tools out there that reasonably safeguard IP contentholders' legal rights and Apple has sold over 2 billion songs including it. How much money has been spent developing TPM?
Not true. The 'technological community' in general are proponents of copyright (the GPL couldn't work without it, after all) and does not encourage disregarding anyone's legal rights. They have, on the other hand, encouraged the corporations bent on restricting users' legal rights be denied that power.
I would posit that it is not unreasonable for lawmakers to address the problems their political party, campaign contributors, power brokers, and other peddlers of influence bring before them...regardless of whether the "problem" is in the best interest of their constituency in particular or the country as a whole because *that* is how they get re-elected. And
that is what this bill is really about.
I'll agree with you 100% here. But not only would I say it's hard, I would go so far as to say it is impossible. The simple fact remains: if it can be read, it can be copied. Period. There is no getting around that basic tenet. And with digital distribution over the Internet, ONE copy is all that matters.
Doubtful. Because the argument that it really IS a serious issue are specious at best.
Saying someone's point is "dumb" hardly refutes it.
I'm not sure how you quantify the difference between those "behind the curve", those who are "penny ante pirates", those who are more "mid-level pirates", and those who are "serious pirates". I have yet to see a study not bought and paid for by a content producer that really indicates a problem. Is piracy in China a problem? Well, it's certainly widespread, from all accounts. But is it an economic burden? Does it actually cost "Billions of dollars" every year? Again, the only studies I've ever seen are produced by the BSA, the MPAA, the RIAA, et. al., and include numbers for th
Geez, I wish I were more coherent. I should probably lay off the booze.
I'm not the OP to whom you replied...but I saw mention of flamethrowers and I felt I must add my two cents...
I, personally, wouldn't use my flamethrower anywhere near a cat...unless it was a zombie cat. I mean, zombies are the only reason I have a flamethrower in the first place.
It's different because people who tend to actually use baseball bats, tennis racquets, etc. are athletic people with a modicum of coordination...as opposed to video gamers who tend to be uncoordinated nerds (like myself) who suck at swinging baseball bats, tennis racquets, etc. in the real world too.
Even still, this uncoordinated person, his teenage uncoordinated son, nine year old uncoordinated daughter, and six year old uncoordinated son all have been playing Wii Sports since November 19th and none of us have managed to let go of a wiimote.
I still think alcohol is involved in more of these "woops, my wiimote just crashed into my TV!" moments than the people reporting such events are letting on.
It has always been my understanding that best practices dictate a server running at a constant 100% CPU utilization is underpowered and needs upgraded. Normal, every day, steady CPU utilization should hover no higher than around 50% (closer to 75%, if you like living on the edge) leaving enough CPU to handle peak loads. Very few functions require a system that maintains a constant CPU utilization and never peaks over it.
I did all that. I'm telling you: i've tried every variation on configuration I can come up with from switching channels to 1, 11, somewhere in the middle, 802.11b, 802.11g, mixed, yada yada yada, with TWO different access points. The results bear out in my case: reliable, consistent connections = NO ENCRYPTION. Nothing else made a difference.
YMMV.
...there aren't any online connection services outside of Wii Shop, which can only get you VC games, none of which I'm particularly interested in paying $5-$10 to play. Then there's the Wii Friends thing, the sending Miis to each other as well as messages back and forth. Even system updates amount to wireless internet connections. And, for whatever reason, I can't get any of those to work with my old Lucent AP1000 (802.11b) access point or my new Linksys WRT54GX (802.11g/b) without disabling encryption. To be fair, I must admit, I never tried WEP because ... well, what's the point in WEP really?
So I'll say it again here: I reserved a Wii and got one on launch day. For Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa are buying two DS lites (one each for my daughter and eldest son). Add in the games (4-5 Wii games + 4 [2 each] DS games) and accessories (2nd and 3rd Wiimotes and nunchuks, Wii points cards, personalized Wiimote gloves, etc.) and Nintendo is making a mint off my family alone. But, no, the Wii is not negatively affecting DS Lite sales. Frankly, I want a DS Lite more now that I have the Wii. Every indication is Nintendo will offer integrations that make it very compelling to have both.
How sad you actually believe that. A corporation is only an individual in the USofA because of a ridiculously bad Supreme Court decision in 1886. A corporation is only sociopathic if the people who run it are. Unfortunately, so many have bought the dogma that a corporation has no obligation to serve the public good that it is unlikely to ever reverse. Originally, there were to be NO corporations in the United States. Only because rich, sociopathic individuals lobbied hard at the time was it even allowed, with a limitation at the time that if a corporation no longer served the public good, its charter could be revoked and it would cease to exist. As Thomas Jefferson feared in the very beginning of the foundation of this country, corporations have taken control to such extent that people are now commonly of the firm belief that it is right and just that corporations should indeed be viewed as immortal persons who have no sense of morals and are beholden only to the almighty dollar and that real, actual, living, breathing people are perfectly within reason to behave sociopathically in the name of a corporation.
Perhaps you read too much into my statements. I wouldn't mind "social medicine" (which, I assume, is what you mean as "government run medicine") if I didn't think the government was likely populated with as many sociopaths as private corporations. Okay, so when I say, "No, I don't want the government to socialize health care" that is perhaps too strong of a statement. It would be better to say, "I'm fearful the government would just screw it up in an attempt to appease corporate donors and we'll all be no better off than we are at present." I'm not against socialized medicine, per se. I'm just not sure the "government" can get anything right. I'm in a state of flux as to whether I believe "the government" should exist at all. Anarchy wouldn't work. But what does work? Has anything in the history of mankind actually worked? Now I'm rambling and my head is spinning and I'm lost in a stream of consciousness thing and making no sense at all. See what happens when I don't get enough sleep and/or coffee? (note: attempts at levity may not succeed)
It doesn't take having a child with a disability to see the health care system in the US is struggling. It needs fixing. I believed it before I had children. I just have more evidence that it's a mess now.
Don't get me wrong either. I agree with you on this much at least. I am generally libertarian leaning, although not strictly libertarian, and tend to believe less government involvement and more free market = better for everybody. Which is why I am so befuddled by the health care mess.
It's not disgusting? I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. My son is not so bad off that he needs constant care. He does need some services (physical therapy, etc.) which the county MRDD board actually helps cover (wow!) but he has heart issues and has had open heart surgery once. That was over a $100,000 expense (which is also ridiculous, imho) so we got our money's worth that year and frankly are just paying that expense back each month in our premiums and hoping he never needs another surgery.
That any individual should have to pay nearly $10,000/yr (in your case) or over $12,000/yr (in my case) just to be harrassed by an insurance company when you actually need services is disgusting to me. Again, I don't know what the proper solution is, but I think our US leaders, with the US being such a wealthy country, should be ashamed of themselves for not fixing things a long time ago. It could be done. But it's hard work. It's a lot easier to get re-elected by catering to your donors.
Frankly, I'm lucky I could even get insurance. The government, through threat of force, has to make insurance companies cover us. Because the CEO and BoD for Anthem, et. al., look at (as you said) "large, probable expenses" and essentially say, "we choose not to insure your son, let him die, it's not our problem" except the laws of the land say, "no, that won't do" and require coverage...but only if you know the hoops you have to jump through to get accepted. Forgive me for seeing that as dispicable.
Do I trust the government to run socialized health care? NO. They screw up most things they put their grubby paws into. Frankly, I don't know WHAT the solution is. Thank God I'm not in charge because I'd probably royally screw it up for the entire nation.
The government loves telling us what to do and as long as most voters don't disagree vehemently, they will.
On topic, I run my own business, a two-member LLC (my wife and me) doing consulting (mostly Linux stuff) and we are screwed royally as far as insurance goes. We have a child with a disability so: (a) being w/o insurance is not an option, and (b) we get the highest rate they can legally charge us: over $1,000/month. (imagine goatse man here, that's how disgusting it is)
Oh, and good luck with Anthem. They're great! (That's sarcasm...two guesses who my insurance provider is...and the first one doesn't count.)
Well said, Joshua, well said...
well played...
Actually, more choice isn't always better. Sheena S. Iyengar is a professor at Columbia University who studies choice and in particular, challenges the notion that more choice is always better. A list of her publications is available on her site. For those who believe more choice is always better, I recommend you read a few. In fact, I recommend you start here (pdf).
Same here. No problems updating at all. Sorry for those who are having issues. Serious bummer. But all's good here.
Parent post brought to you by Sony Employee #3193.
Why the hell wouldn't they just use VistA CPRS instead of jacking off to the tune of 4 BILLION DOLLARS?!?!?!?!?
If I wanted to develop an e-voting system that I could secretly control to switch votes to my preferred candidate, what programming language should I write it with so as to maximize the obfuscation and minimize the ability of anybody who might audit the code to actually understand it and find me out?
Perl? I knew it.