Certainly by 1750 there was an inoculation available for small pox. In fact in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography he mentions being sad that he did not get his son inoculated. He son died of the small pox at the age of 4 or 5, which would have been in the early 1700s. Still the Chinese had a method of inoculation that I believe was around during the Ming dynasty, something like 1300- 1644. I'm not so sure about the first date and I feel a bit too lazy to look it up. Still the inoculation would have exited by 1644. On a side note Voltaire wrote about the smallpox inoculation in his "Letters On England".
My point is the human life span is about say 75 years. A creator gets his life + 70 years thus in terms of my life it is infinite, regardless if it really is or not. This fact is entirely against the spirit of the Constitution.
It would be fine it the length of copyright was also reduced to say 7 years instead of the infinite lifespan copyrights have now. Not really infinite, but anything copyrighted right now will remain so long after I die.
I will definitely agree with you there. Whoever this is we are talking about, you are not special. You will never know/be good at everything. There will always be someone who can teach you something, truely EVERYONE can teach you something. Time limits us like nothing else can.
In ways I am like you. I consider myself of above average intelligence, though I have met people that many would consider less intelligent who have taught me important lessons. I've met people and have had the pleasure to work with people who in certain areas completely outshine me. I've done my best to learn from them.
I like to do many different things, almost to a fault. I'm a martial artist, a muscian, a pretty good hacker, and a student of politics and history. What I've learned is that you have to learn how to focus on the things that you love the most, which sometimes includes fostering good relationships with people (your wife/girlfriend for example). If I induldged my every whim I'd get nothing done and in the end you have to complete things to be considered successful, no matter what kinds of raw ideas you have. If you can stick to things long enough to become very good at them you will soon find that time is your worst enemy. Don't waste it. To quote a favorite philosopher of mine Miyamoto Musahi: "Do nothing which is of no use."
Like the parent post said: you MUST work hard to achieve anything, even if you are smart. Knowing people helps too, which is as good a reason as any to go to college. My solution to college, because I loved so many things, was to study computer science and history, rather than computer science and math as many of my peers did. If you really love to delve into many things find ways to become well-rounded. Instill yourself with virtue. Emulate Jesus, but don't necessarily worship him. You can spend a lifetime at this and still fall a great deal short.
I would also sugguest reading about Benjamin Franklin, perhaps his autobiography. The man was undoubtedly a genius, dabbled in many things and was successful at many of them though he also knew the value of hard work.
Freedom is not license. It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? - George Washington
I just bought a USB FM transmitter today before work. It will plug into my Mac (maybe Linux?) and will broadcast to every stereo in my home and I got it on Ebay for $40. It has a 150ft range which is more than sufficient for my needs.
Yes, but haven't video game systems been doing this with their controllers for years now? Let's see tap once, shoot one bullet. Tap and hold while tapping another button jump spinning kick. Push and hold two buttons at once for super fireball attack. Oooo let's see maybe we could patent pressing buttons in a sequence to launch applications. Still I could swear Street Fight II, Mortal Kombat, etc... were accepting input like this, although not for "launching applications" many many years ago.
Perhaps we could word it so as to win a patent for a generic interpreter of computer programs or some such garbage. The world would grovel at our doorsteps! Mui haha hahaha!
I tried to get WEP going with Linux and flat out failed. My network at work and at home neither use WEP. I use my DSL Modem(s) to provide a somewhat firewall. Basically they block all incoming ports, forward a few etc... Just like you I use ssh/https for sensitive stuff. What I have done to create some sembelance of security is to turn on MAC address filtering at the wireless router. Both my LinkSYS and the Netgear at work support this. In this way only computers that I specifically allow on the network can get on. If your not doing WEP I would suggest at least going this route. It's painless to set up and depending on how many people connect to the network easy to maintain as well.
Besides, why should this guy's niece (whose contribution to society has probably been nil) be able to ride on his coattails. That is where copyright and patent is really screwed up. The heirs of great people should not have a free ride in life. Can you hear me King family, Orwell family? Anyone? You know who you are. Losers.
They are making money because by packaging many open source products they add value. Still much of their revenues (at least Redhat's) are based upon providing services. That's not a bad thing, it's just that the service model does not scale like the closed source proprietary software model.
I mean, take any closed source package, say Windows XP. It takes time to write code, but there is virtually no production cost. After you've paid for your programmers there is a huge profit to be made. The service model just does not scale like this (it tends to scale linearly). But like I said that's not a bad thing, actually I think it's beneficial for society in general that companies will find it harder to have like 10,000% profit margins on software.
Yeah this is going to be really cool for us New Mexicans. There is finally something super neat happening in my backyard! Other than the Ballon Fiesta, which is totally worth seeing at least once in your life. Anway, I'm stoked about this. I hope I'll be able to go in 2006.
First, governments don't have rights, people do. Government has power. Secondly, the Federal Government may not exercise any power that is not specifically granted to it. Those powers are granted under art. 1, sec. 8. I'm not making this stuff up.
To quote Federalist #45, written by James Madison during the period of ratification:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
Furthermore, to quote the Constitution itself:
Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Thus, art 1. sec 8. defines the entire scope of powers the Federal Government may exercise.
I have not yet RTFA, but it seems to me this is a government program that should have 100% of its funding cut. Our government has no business spending money on this kind of thing no matter for safety issues or for tracking us. For those in doubt please refer to your Constitution Article I Section 8.
What about China? They seem to be doing extremely well.
And their rise has come in conjuction with an opening of their markets and the allowance for some private businesses. Think of China before Nixon's vist in the 70s...
Still we know if you control markets too much it is as much of a disaster as not controlling them at all.
Some companies are not entirely or at all subsidized by the tax payer. These companies do have to recoup their investments, and I believe drug companies are a pretty good example of this. I do not know that we subsize them at all.
On the surface it seems that the profit motive thing may run counter to the open-source philosophy, but that is simply not the case. Open-source does not mean you can not make money it just implies a different business model and the inability to make a ton of money because things won't scale the same way as they do with closed-source software. They will scale linearly, more like a body shop.
Still, if someone didn't think money could be made from open-source software tell me, why would IBM, Novell or Redhat be paying for its development? Certainly these companies are not charities.
Science, philosophy, or anything else that revolves essentially around ideas is entirely compatible with free markets, but not necessarily monetary ones. Here we have to talk about the market of ideas, where if my theory of everything gains acceptance it supplants old ones. Because of its objectivity science is perhaps one of the freest markets of all. However, that is not to say that poltics and clinging to the status quo are not prevalant in the field. Thus it's not an entirely free marketplace of ideas.
Back to open source, markets certainly play a role... what ever happened to Enlightenment or FVWM? I believe the market supplanted them. Hrmmm....
It's called communism and although not pure in form, it was used in the USSR between about 1910 and 1989. The USSR, as you may know, dissolved in 1989 due to its inability to keep pace with a (mostly) free market economy, that of the United States.
You can never have a pure system.... anything that people are involved in can not be. So no "pure" economic model has ever existed, only mixtures of them. Though you could argue that "pure" capitalism existed in the late 1800s in America. It didn't work out very well either.
I think you are right though an economic model based mostly on market idioms with some (and I'm sure we could argue about how many and what kind) socialist constructs is probably the best.
Drugs are not marketed after they loose their patent, but certainly doctors learn about them and they are available. Let me list a few:
1. Oxycodone/APAP - don't know any brand names of this (a class II pain medication) 2. Furosemide - brand name Lasix (a popular diurectic) 3. Diazepam - Valium
Examples of generic drugs still in use after the brand name patent run out abound. I could easily list another 10 if I could remember how to spell the names of them properly. Moreover, I haven't worked in a pharmacy in 5 years! Yes you are right though, they are not marketed, but that certainly does not mean they are not used.
First, it is true that many pepole would not do a thing unless they perceived some pecuniary reward for their efforts. I can't believe you would challange that. If you are not one of these kinds of people I applaud you, you are certainly in the minority. Let me ask you, do you have a job? Do you work for free? Can I hire you?;-)
Second, free as in money which is the usage of free I was using when saying "things can not, will not and should not be free" is different than the meaning of free in Free Market, which is more akin to freedom. In that case things can be, should be, but still often are not free.:)
How long do you think patents and copyright have existed? Copyright in fact has been with us since shortly after the advent of the printing press...
Some people labor for the love of it, while many more of us are not apt to do a thing unless we can foresee some kind of reward for our efforts. In so far that copyright has harnessed one of humanity's most base characteristics, namely greed, it has been wondrous, yet for a society to tolerate any kind of monopoly there must be an overwhelming reason to do so.
Perhaps copyright's best effect has been to allow artists the ability to make a living pursing their passions. Without copyright it is plain to see that an artist's works would be taken and reproduced or distributed by the unscrupulous. The artist could at worst be left with nothing but the memory of his creation. An artist whose works make money for someone should not himself be poor unless by his own choosing.
Copyright recognizes that the creator of a particular work has, for a limited amount of time, the exclusive right to it. Surely this is the antithesis of capitalism, which abhors a monopoly. Yet, most of us believe, and rightly so, that capitalism is the best economic system available. So what is the justification for this anomalous thing called copyright?
People who create things of value will likely create other things which are also valuable. Therefore, if we want them to create more things it behooves us to ensure that they are rewarded for their original creations. Copyright has at least ensured that artists have a right to their works, and for a great many of them this has been enough to become quite rich. Without a doubt society benefits when a great artistic achievement is made. What would the world be like without the likes of Shakespeare?
Artistic achievement enriches our entire society and it is useful to encourage it. Even the framers of the Constitution, although they did not invent copyright, realized that protecting intellectual property was important. This was so clearly recognized that one of the enumerated powers of Congress is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". 1 However, copyright, which is so contrary to one of our most fundamental economic principles, that of granting a monopoly, should be approached with great caution.
In 1790 the First Congress passed legislation that allowed authors the rights to a particular work for fourteen years. In addition, the copyright could be renewed for another fourteen years. Since then the term of a copyright has been increasing. Currently, a copyright lasts for the life of the creator plus seventy years.
It is hard to see how current copyright law adheres to the spirit of the Constitution. Certainly seventy plus years is a "limited" time in the most strict sense of the word, but in terms of human life it is nearly forever. For example, a work published right now will be protected for a minimum of seventy years, assuming also that the creator dies now as well. This can not be construed as limited in any practical sense. A seventy year copyright seems unconstitutional.
It is also terribly immoral. Encouraging people to create is necessary, but allowing the heirs of the creative to live at the expense of society for no particular achievement of their own is despicable, and instances of this abound. There is no reason whatsoever that the heirs of Martin Luther King Jr., Ernest Hemingway, J.R.R. Tolkien, or George Orwell should profit from their ancestor's works. By now the works of these great men should belong to society at large.
Obviously we want people to create, and I do not dispute the need for copyright, but there is a point where these monopolies cease to serve anyone except the heirs of great men and corporations. Society in no way benefits from granting these copyrights. It is actually damaged because anyone who might wish to create a derivative work is prohibited from doing so. For a monopoly to even be tolerated it must be of some critical imp
What benefits can the US expect to see from outsourcing? Will any potential benefits be contingent upon us keeping our status as the technological pioneer of the world? How can we best do this?
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Certainly by 1750 there was an inoculation available for small pox. In fact in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography he mentions being sad that he did not get his son inoculated. He son died of the small pox at the age of 4 or 5, which would have been in the early 1700s. Still the Chinese had a method of inoculation that I believe was around during the Ming dynasty, something like 1300- 1644. I'm not so sure about the first date and I feel a bit too lazy to look it up. Still the inoculation would have exited by 1644. On a side note Voltaire wrote about the smallpox inoculation in his "Letters On England".
My point is the human life span is about say 75 years. A creator gets his life + 70 years thus in terms of my life it is infinite, regardless if it really is or not. This fact is entirely against the spirit of the Constitution.
It would be fine it the length of copyright was also reduced to say 7 years instead of the infinite lifespan copyrights have now. Not really infinite, but anything copyrighted right now will remain so long after I die.
I will definitely agree with you there. Whoever this is we are talking about, you are not special. You will never know/be good at everything. There will always be someone who can teach you something, truely EVERYONE can teach you something. Time limits us like nothing else can.
In ways I am like you. I consider myself of above average intelligence, though I have met people that many would consider less intelligent who have taught me important lessons. I've met people and have had the pleasure to work with people who in certain areas completely outshine me. I've done my best to learn from them.
I like to do many different things, almost to a fault. I'm a martial artist, a muscian, a pretty good hacker, and a student of politics and history. What I've learned is that you have to learn how to focus on the things that you love the most, which sometimes includes fostering good relationships with people (your wife/girlfriend for example). If I induldged my every whim I'd get nothing done and in the end you have to complete things to be considered successful, no matter what kinds of raw ideas you have. If you can stick to things long enough to become very good at them you will soon find that time is your worst enemy. Don't waste it. To quote a favorite philosopher of mine Miyamoto Musahi: "Do nothing which is of no use."
Like the parent post said: you MUST work hard to achieve anything, even if you are smart. Knowing people helps too, which is as good a reason as any to go to college. My solution to college, because I loved so many things, was to study computer science and history, rather than computer science and math as many of my peers did. If you really love to delve into many things find ways to become well-rounded. Instill yourself with virtue. Emulate Jesus, but don't necessarily worship him. You can spend a lifetime at this and still fall a great deal short.
I would also sugguest reading about Benjamin Franklin, perhaps his autobiography. The man was undoubtedly a genius, dabbled in many things and was successful at many of them though he also knew the value of hard work.
Learn humility.
Freedom is not license.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? - George Washington
Which one did you have pray tell? I ordered the LineX transmitter.
I just bought a USB FM transmitter today before work. It will plug into my Mac (maybe Linux?) and will broadcast to every stereo in my home and I got it on Ebay for $40. It has a 150ft range which is more than sufficient for my needs.
Yes, but haven't video game systems been doing this with their controllers for years now? Let's see tap once, shoot one bullet. Tap and hold while tapping another button jump spinning kick. Push and hold two buttons at once for super fireball attack. Oooo let's see maybe we could patent pressing buttons in a sequence to launch applications. Still I could swear Street Fight II, Mortal Kombat, etc... were accepting input like this, although not for "launching applications" many many years ago.
Perhaps we could word it so as to win a patent for a generic interpreter of computer programs or some such garbage. The world would grovel at our doorsteps! Mui haha hahaha!
I tried to get WEP going with Linux and flat out failed. My network at work and at home neither use WEP. I use my DSL Modem(s) to provide a somewhat firewall. Basically they block all incoming ports, forward a few etc... Just like you I use ssh/https for sensitive stuff. What I have done to create some sembelance of security is to turn on MAC address filtering at the wireless router. Both my LinkSYS and the Netgear at work support this. In this way only computers that I specifically allow on the network can get on. If your not doing WEP I would suggest at least going this route. It's painless to set up and depending on how many people connect to the network easy to maintain as well.
-Craig.
Never know. Perhaps New Mexico? California is becoming less and less business friendly everyday.
I recorded one of my band's shows on my laptop by plugging into the sound board and made it available on our website.... Does that count?
Besides, why should this guy's niece (whose contribution to society has probably been nil) be able to ride on his coattails. That is where copyright and patent is really screwed up. The heirs of great people should not have a free ride in life. Can you hear me King family, Orwell family? Anyone? You know who you are. Losers.
They are making money because by packaging many open source products they add value. Still much of their revenues (at least Redhat's) are based upon providing services. That's not a bad thing, it's just that the service model does not scale like the closed source proprietary software model.
I mean, take any closed source package, say Windows XP. It takes time to write code, but there is virtually no production cost. After you've paid for your programmers there is a huge profit to be made. The service model just does not scale like this (it tends to scale linearly). But like I said that's not a bad thing, actually I think it's beneficial for society in general that companies will find it harder to have like 10,000% profit margins on software.
-craig.
Yeah this is going to be really cool for us New Mexicans. There is finally something super neat happening in my backyard! Other than the Ballon Fiesta, which is totally worth seeing at least once in your life. Anway, I'm stoked about this. I hope I'll be able to go in 2006.
As long as you don't play games.
First, governments don't have rights, people do. Government has power. Secondly, the Federal Government may not exercise any power that is not specifically granted to it. Those powers are granted under art. 1, sec. 8. I'm not making this stuff up.
To quote Federalist #45, written by James Madison during the period of ratification:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal
government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State
governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised
principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign
commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part,
be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to
all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the
lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order,
improvement, and prosperity of the State.
Furthermore, to quote the Constitution itself:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Thus, art 1. sec 8. defines the entire scope of powers the Federal Government may exercise.
I have not yet RTFA, but it seems to me this is a government program that should have 100% of its funding cut. Our government has no business spending money on this kind of thing no matter for safety issues or for tracking us. For those in doubt please refer to your Constitution Article I Section 8.
What about China? They seem to be doing extremely well.
And their rise has come in conjuction with an opening of their markets and the allowance for some private businesses. Think of China before Nixon's vist in the 70s...
Still we know if you control markets too much it is as much of a disaster as not controlling them at all.
Some companies are not entirely or at all subsidized by the tax payer. These companies do have to recoup their investments, and I believe drug companies are a pretty good example of this. I do not know that we subsize them at all.
On the surface it seems that the profit motive thing may run counter to the open-source philosophy, but that is simply not the case. Open-source does not mean you can not make money it just implies a different business model and the inability to make a ton of money because things won't scale the same way as they do with closed-source software. They will scale linearly, more like a body shop.
Still, if someone didn't think money could be made from open-source software tell me, why would IBM, Novell or Redhat be paying for its development? Certainly these companies are not charities.
Science, philosophy, or anything else that revolves essentially around ideas is entirely compatible with free markets, but not necessarily monetary ones. Here we have to talk about the market of ideas, where if my theory of everything gains acceptance it supplants old ones. Because of its objectivity science is perhaps one of the freest markets of all. However, that is not to say that poltics and clinging to the status quo are not prevalant in the field. Thus it's not an entirely free marketplace of ideas.
Back to open source, markets certainly play a role... what ever happened to Enlightenment or FVWM? I believe the market supplanted them. Hrmmm....
Where was pure socialism used?
It's called communism and although not pure in form, it was used in the USSR between about 1910 and 1989. The USSR, as you may know, dissolved in 1989 due to its inability to keep pace with a (mostly) free market economy, that of the United States.
You can never have a pure system.... anything that people are involved in can not be. So no "pure" economic model has ever existed, only mixtures of them. Though you could argue that "pure" capitalism existed in the late 1800s in America. It didn't work out very well either.
I think you are right though an economic model based mostly on market idioms with some (and I'm sure we could argue about how many and what kind) socialist constructs is probably the best.
Drugs are not marketed after they loose their patent, but certainly doctors learn about them and they are available. Let me list a few:
1. Oxycodone/APAP - don't know any brand names of this (a class II pain medication)
2. Furosemide - brand name Lasix (a popular diurectic)
3. Diazepam - Valium
Examples of generic drugs still in use after the brand name patent run out abound. I could easily list another 10 if I could remember how to spell the names of them properly. Moreover, I haven't worked in a pharmacy in 5 years! Yes you are right though, they are not marketed, but that certainly does not mean they are not used.
First, it is true that many pepole would not do a thing unless they perceived some pecuniary reward for their efforts. I can't believe you would challange that. If you are not one of these kinds of people I applaud you, you are certainly in the minority. Let me ask you, do you have a job? Do you work for free? Can I hire you? ;-)
:)
Second, free as in money which is the usage of free I was using when saying "things can not, will not and should not be free" is different than the meaning of free in Free Market, which is more akin to freedom. In that case things can be, should be, but still often are not free.
How long do you think patents and copyright have existed? Copyright in fact has been with us since shortly after the advent of the printing press...
-Craig.
Here's a little piece I wrote a while back:
Some people labor for the love of it, while many more of us are not apt to do a thing unless we can foresee some kind of reward for our efforts. In so far that copyright has harnessed one of humanity's most base characteristics, namely greed, it has been wondrous, yet for a society to tolerate any kind of monopoly there must be an overwhelming reason to do so.
Perhaps copyright's best effect has been to allow artists the ability to make a living pursing their passions. Without copyright it is plain to see that an artist's works would be taken and reproduced or distributed by the unscrupulous. The artist could at worst be left with nothing but the memory of his creation. An artist whose works make money for someone should not himself be poor unless by his own choosing.
Copyright recognizes that the creator of a particular work has, for a limited amount of time, the exclusive right to it. Surely this is the antithesis of capitalism, which abhors a monopoly. Yet, most of us believe, and rightly so, that capitalism is the best economic system available. So what is the justification for this anomalous thing called copyright?
People who create things of value will likely create other things which are also valuable. Therefore, if we want them to create more things it behooves us to ensure that they are rewarded for their original creations. Copyright has at least ensured that artists have a right to their works, and for a great many of them this has been enough to become quite rich. Without a doubt society benefits when a great artistic achievement is made. What would the world be like without the likes of Shakespeare?
Artistic achievement enriches our entire society and it is useful to encourage it. Even the framers of the Constitution, although they did not invent copyright, realized that protecting intellectual property was important. This was so clearly recognized that one of the enumerated powers of Congress is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". 1 However, copyright, which is so contrary to one of our most fundamental economic principles, that of granting a monopoly, should be approached with great caution.
In 1790 the First Congress passed legislation that allowed authors the rights to a particular work for fourteen years. In addition, the copyright could be renewed for another fourteen years. Since then the term of a copyright has been increasing. Currently, a copyright lasts for the life of the creator plus seventy years.
It is hard to see how current copyright law adheres to the spirit of the Constitution. Certainly seventy plus years is a "limited" time in the most strict sense of the word, but in terms of human life it is nearly forever. For example, a work published right now will be protected for a minimum of seventy years, assuming also that the creator dies now as well. This can not be construed as limited in any practical sense. A seventy year copyright seems unconstitutional.
It is also terribly immoral. Encouraging people to create is necessary, but allowing the heirs of the creative to live at the expense of society for no particular achievement of their own is despicable, and instances of this abound. There is no reason whatsoever that the heirs of Martin Luther King Jr., Ernest Hemingway, J.R.R. Tolkien, or George Orwell should profit from their ancestor's works. By now the works of these great men should belong to society at large.
Obviously we want people to create, and I do not dispute the need for copyright, but there is a point where these monopolies cease to serve anyone except the heirs of great men and corporations. Society in no way benefits from granting these copyrights. It is actually damaged because anyone who might wish to create a derivative work is prohibited from doing so. For a monopoly to even be tolerated it must be of some critical imp
What benefits can the US expect to see from outsourcing? Will any potential benefits be contingent upon us keeping our status as the technological pioneer of the world? How can we best do this?