1.Information can be copied at virtually no cost.
2.The benefit of an intellectual work is multiplied by the number of people who use it.
3.Creating intellectual works has a cost.
The current system tries to satisfy 3 by limiting 1 in order to make the work behave more like a physical object, so that people will have to pay to get the work. Limiting 1 greatly reduces 2, and has all sorts of collateral damage.
If we leave 1 intact, intellectual works have a far greater benefit to everyone. The challenge is to come up with a way to satisfy 3, without harming 1 and 2. The free-market solution to problems like this is to allow market participants to come up with innovative solutions. Those that solve the problem best stand to make the most profit, so there is incentive.
With the current sub-optimal system in place, there is no incentive to come up with a free-market solution, since the current system is effectively subsidized by taxes, and it even makes it dangerous not to play, due to the possibility of frivolous lawsuit. There is no justification for the current system, because it's been created almost entirely to benefit a small group of people, and it's been done at a cost of everyone's property rights. And no, ideas aren't property. Property is a way of dealing with conflict over scarce resources; if a resource isn't scarce, then everyone can use it without conflict. So it's not that "I have to come up with an alternate", it's that "you have to justify your continued infringement of my property rights".
If I trespass on your property and build something from your materials, I don't own the result, even though it's "my" creation. Buf if I design something, then I can legally prevent you from building that thing out of your own property; in effect, I usurp some of your (and everyone else on the planet's) property rights.
Your main argument seems to be that because someone put a lot of work into something, he is entitled to get money for it. Why did he put a lot of work into something in the first place? Perhaps because he knew he had this artificial scarcity and taxpayer-funded policing of people. OK, but that doesn't give us a reason for having it in the first place, before anyone was expecting such policing.
It seems the only justification is "because we haven't come up with another model to fund the large initial investment in creating a design". I think initially people accepted this, because the monopoly was of a fairly short duration, short enough that it was worth the benefit of this new funding model. But that's long gone, and the public domain has been shafted.
"With the open-source culture on the Internet, the idea of taxpayer-funded artificial scarcity - of artistic monopoly -- goes away. It terrifies me."
There, fixed that for you, Mr. Alexie.
Drennan also promised to make sure the administration resolved issues that Frischling has been having with his laptop ever since the agents seized it to image the hard drive.
Frischling says the laptop was returned to him with "tons and tons of bad sectors" and a corrupt operating system. The audio on his computer has also stopped working, and a red light glows from the audio jack.
Damn, I bet his machine is full of spying devices, including one where the audio card used to be.
they don't have the 30 second boot time that was one of the most desirable featues - turn it on, check the cloud, turn it off before the first windows splash screen
Who waits for booting when you can just put the machine to sleep/hibernate when you're not using it?!? Shutting down a machine is so last-decade.
No matter how much people hate Microsoft, comments like this may me despise the free software movement. Somehow, i have this idea that MS providing 50,000 jobs
Agreed! OSS is pathetic in this regard, providing almost no jobs in malware authoring, virus removal program writing, independent PC technicians removing said malware, and books helping users understand the problem. The OSS people prefer to let some kernel code wipe out all those opportunities. They don't understand how valuable these jobs are in an economic situation like this.
So blind people will be able to use this MUI (since their muscles work)? How does it relay things back via muscles? Oh wait, you mean it's still a GUI? After all, even a keyboard-controlled graphical UI is still a GUI, not a KUI. FFS.
Some replicators generate more copies of themselves than others, and these copies are more successful at doing the same, so you end up with more of one than the other. So by better you simply mean "better at becoming more numerous".
As for "more evolved", I'd say it means that an organism is more suited for its environment. We're more evolved than giraffes at living in houses in cities, for example.
If evolution only favored big complex beings like ourselves, all the millions of other life forms which inhabit the earth, totaling a far greater mass than us, wouldn't be around. The bacteria and viruses of today are more evolved than us, having been doing it for far longer.
Indeed. Otherwise a library wouldn't be very valuable to anyone, since you merely borrow the books. Having to own things is really a downside in many ways, because you've got to devote space and time to it, take care of it, and sell it when you don't want it (you would feel stupid just throwing it away).
BTW, the most important part of your subject... was left out of the subject (for dramatic emphasis, no doubt). Anything wrong with just writing "Most important is reading book, not owning" in the subject?
The decade that runs from Jan 1, 2000 through Dec 31 2009 is ending in less than a day.
But I've already celebrated the end of the decade... the one that ran from Dec 31, 1999 through Dec 30 2009. It was one heck of a new-decade party last night, let me tell you!
Spraying it down with Pam prevents the radio waves from sticking; worth at least 10 extra Mbps.
That's only a problem if you have an uneven distribution of ones and zeroes. If you use encryption, which evens them out, you don't need to spray it with anything.
I think I've seen a system like this in use before (can't remember which website), the only problem is when it posts a dupe article a week or so later.
I read the book Natural Causes a while back and it opened my eyes to the sham that the supplement industry is. Note I said industry, not supplements. I'm sure some of these things have useful effects, and would love to see more experiments performed to determine what they are. Until then, I won't ever touch them again, including even multivitamins.
That's what I was thinking. You could look at how much light is being reflected back into the lamp housing. Maybe something conductive or capacitave would work as well. Temperature isn't the best guide since I imagine in some places it's below freezing for weeks, even though there is no snow. Maybe it could also do it based on weight, or perhaps even something acoustic. The point is something simple which works reliably, though probably nothing beats good old incandescent bulbs in terms of that.
I love the bullshit reply from the supplements industry group:
A supplements industry group, Council for Responsible Nutrition, said other studies suggest the herbal supplement can be effective in improving cognitive function.
"In an area where there are few other safe, affordable options, I would hate to see this study send the wrong message to consumers," Douglas MacKay, CRN vice president said in an email. "I would continue to recommend Ginkgo biloba to older adults as a safe, effective option for supporting cognitive health."
Actually, I'd just say it's a property rights issue. It'd be first amendment if the government were trying to silence them, but it seems this is in response to a private company trying to silence them through the courts. Note any less important, just a different issue. Criticism is on private property, isn't false, thus forcing them to take it down is violating their property rights.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's start with the facts:
1.Information can be copied at virtually no cost.
2.The benefit of an intellectual work is multiplied by the number of people who use it.
3.Creating intellectual works has a cost.
The current system tries to satisfy 3 by limiting 1 in order to make the work behave more like a physical object, so that people will have to pay to get the work. Limiting 1 greatly reduces 2, and has all sorts of collateral damage.
If we leave 1 intact, intellectual works have a far greater benefit to everyone. The challenge is to come up with a way to satisfy 3, without harming 1 and 2. The free-market solution to problems like this is to allow market participants to come up with innovative solutions. Those that solve the problem best stand to make the most profit, so there is incentive.
With the current sub-optimal system in place, there is no incentive to come up with a free-market solution, since the current system is effectively subsidized by taxes, and it even makes it dangerous not to play, due to the possibility of frivolous lawsuit. There is no justification for the current system, because it's been created almost entirely to benefit a small group of people, and it's been done at a cost of everyone's property rights. And no, ideas aren't property. Property is a way of dealing with conflict over scarce resources; if a resource isn't scarce, then everyone can use it without conflict. So it's not that "I have to come up with an alternate", it's that "you have to justify your continued infringement of my property rights".
If I trespass on your property and build something from your materials, I don't own the result, even though it's "my" creation. Buf if I design something, then I can legally prevent you from building that thing out of your own property; in effect, I usurp some of your (and everyone else on the planet's) property rights.
Your main argument seems to be that because someone put a lot of work into something, he is entitled to get money for it. Why did he put a lot of work into something in the first place? Perhaps because he knew he had this artificial scarcity and taxpayer-funded policing of people. OK, but that doesn't give us a reason for having it in the first place, before anyone was expecting such policing.
It seems the only justification is "because we haven't come up with another model to fund the large initial investment in creating a design". I think initially people accepted this, because the monopoly was of a fairly short duration, short enough that it was worth the benefit of this new funding model. But that's long gone, and the public domain has been shafted.
"With the open-source culture on the Internet, the idea of taxpayer-funded artificial scarcity - of artistic monopoly -- goes away. It terrifies me." There, fixed that for you, Mr. Alexie.
"merely spinning its wheels"
No problem, just add some comments to explain the details.
3. Watch James Duane's presentation yearly, and share it with anyone you care about.
Damn, I bet his machine is full of spying devices, including one where the audio card used to be.
Will they also refrain from doing this kind of thing next time, or do so only if the victim doesn't keep quiet?
In any case, this blogger's refusal to keep quiet is inspiring.
Who waits for booting when you can just put the machine to sleep/hibernate when you're not using it?!? Shutting down a machine is so last-decade.
Agreed! OSS is pathetic in this regard, providing almost no jobs in malware authoring, virus removal program writing, independent PC technicians removing said malware, and books helping users understand the problem. The OSS people prefer to let some kernel code wipe out all those opportunities. They don't understand how valuable these jobs are in an economic situation like this.
So blind people will be able to use this MUI (since their muscles work)? How does it relay things back via muscles? Oh wait, you mean it's still a GUI? After all, even a keyboard-controlled graphical UI is still a GUI, not a KUI. FFS.
As for "more evolved", I'd say it means that an organism is more suited for its environment. We're more evolved than giraffes at living in houses in cities, for example.
Touche! Yep, if you go back far enough, we and them are one.
If evolution only favored big complex beings like ourselves, all the millions of other life forms which inhabit the earth, totaling a far greater mass than us, wouldn't be around. The bacteria and viruses of today are more evolved than us, having been doing it for far longer.
BTW, the most important part of your subject... was left out of the subject (for dramatic emphasis, no doubt). Anything wrong with just writing "Most important is reading book, not owning" in the subject?
Xenu, is that you?
The decade that runs from Jan 1, 2000 through Dec 31 2009 is ending in less than a day.
But I've already celebrated the end of the decade... the one that ran from Dec 31, 1999 through Dec 30 2009. It was one heck of a new-decade party last night, let me tell you!
That's only a problem if you have an uneven distribution of ones and zeroes. If you use encryption, which evens them out, you don't need to spray it with anything.
I think I've seen a system like this in use before (can't remember which website), the only problem is when it posts a dupe article a week or so later.
I read the book Natural Causes a while back and it opened my eyes to the sham that the supplement industry is. Note I said industry, not supplements. I'm sure some of these things have useful effects, and would love to see more experiments performed to determine what they are. Until then, I won't ever touch them again, including even multivitamins.
Oh come on, he was talking about real activity, like going to the kitchen for food and soda. Sheesh.
That's what I was thinking. You could look at how much light is being reflected back into the lamp housing. Maybe something conductive or capacitave would work as well. Temperature isn't the best guide since I imagine in some places it's below freezing for weeks, even though there is no snow. Maybe it could also do it based on weight, or perhaps even something acoustic. The point is something simple which works reliably, though probably nothing beats good old incandescent bulbs in terms of that.
Cue the "but it worked in my case" replies...
Does literacy cause terrorism? If so, the solution is simple.
Also, this was discussed here on Slashdot twice last year:
Engineers Have a Terrorist Mindset? (Jan 2008)
Engineers Make Good Terrorists? (Apr 2008)
Actually, I'd just say it's a property rights issue. It'd be first amendment if the government were trying to silence them, but it seems this is in response to a private company trying to silence them through the courts. Note any less important, just a different issue. Criticism is on private property, isn't false, thus forcing them to take it down is violating their property rights.