'course, if the law really is unconstitutional, someone will challenge it and the courts will nullify it. *shrug* Annoying, certainly, but hardly a disaster, particularly since our "activist judges" have demonstrated they're very much interested in enforcing the Charter (hence why gay marriage is legal here).
I released an open source web browser called SupraBrowser a while back. It has very similar characteristics to Opera Unite, in that it's designed to act as both a client and server at the same time (we called it a "servant"):).
Actually, it's called a servent, and you hardly invented the term.:)
One minor point. In clinical trials, for ethical reasons you usually tell both groups of subjects that they could receive either the treatment or placebo, but they nor their physician will know which one until the end of the trial.
Actually, that has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with executing a proper study. What you describe is called a double-blind experiment, and it ensures that those executing the study can't manipulate the outcome, consciously or unconsciously (even an ethical researcher might inadvertently telegraph information to the subjects if they know who is receiving the drug and who is receiving the placebo).
In fact the official figures show the ratio of the vote between the top 2 candidates in Tehran as 53/47. So, quite close, actually.
Yeah, those numbers differ from the ones initially published, so it may be that much of my information is already old (it's certainly a rapidly evolving situation).
On what basis do you say it's odd? You think Mousavi should've done better for some reason? Because you saw his mass rallies in Tehran on TV? Did you not also see the mass rallies in favour of Ahmadinejad?
You mean the ones where it appears they brought in people from outside the city in order to attend? Ones staged at the same time Mousavi's demonstrations were expected to occur... in the very same spot Mousavi's supporters had previously demonstrated, thus forcing Mousavi's supporters to find another location? Yup, that doesn't scream of an artificial situation designed to create an image of populist support for Ahmadinejad (not that such support doesn't exist... just that that rally was *clearly* staged).
The only opinion poll results which I've seen showed Ahmadinejad with roughly a 2:1 lead over Mousavi, amongst decided voters. That poll is referenced on Wikipedia, by the way.
And as has been pointed out by others, that poll preceded the Iranian campaign period, at which point Mousavi was a relative unknown. Add in the fact that it was a telephone poll, and that people may not be willing to voice their true opinion, and I would contend the results of that poll are not particularly valid. Show me one at least done during the campaign period and then you might have a point.
He's not the fool that the Western media likes to make him out. Westerners who've been fed a diet of anti-Ahmadinejad propaganda have misunderestimated him, but if this is statistical evidence of anything, it's that the Western media is not an objective source of news on Iranian politics.
Well, a) Who said anything about Ahmadinejad being a fool? Hell, the very idea of election fraud suggests precisely the opposite. Honestly, anyone with a brain realizes the man is a superb politician, and incredibly wily. b) You do realize that it isn't just Western media that questions the election results, right? Real, actual Iranians who voted in the election are also suspicious.
Personally, I find it far more troubling that you seem to be willing to disregard evidence of fraud simply because the information was reported by a western source...
Ah, I see. So I point out a blatant hole in your paranoid theories (that you can't patent an already-published invention), and suddenly it's "just outright speculation",
Interesting.
Something tells me, no matter what MS did, you'd never be satisfied. If they published a waiver, you'd pick apart the text and come up with a wild theory about how MS could work around it.
Meanwhile, I don't see you fighting the good fight against the kernel, X, or any number of other pieces of software that almost certainly violate *someone's* patents. And real patents, too. Not fictitious, future patents. Why is that, exactly? I mean, it couldn't be that, deep down, you just have issues with MS as a corporation, could it?
For a start, you've quoted me out of context by cutting off the start of my sentence. I was talking about statistical evidence of vote-rigging, rather than anecdotal evidence. My point is: the statistics do not prove fraud.
And I would disagree. At minimum, you must admit it's odd that even in what one would call strongholds for Mousavi, Ahmadinejad still won with a landslide. Heck, Tehran apparently went better than 60/40 in favour of Ahmadinejad, despite there being a great deal of support for Mousavi there. I'd certainly call that odd... definitely not incontrovertible proof (no one has that proof because, without the ballots, there can be no proof), but it's certainly statistical evidence.
That said, who knows... maybe everyone over-estimated Mousavi's support across the board, throughout the country, across all demographics... *shrug*
Secondly, I can't see what's "highly suspicious" about a polling station running out of ballot papers (the turnout was after all surprisingly high),
Unless, of course, the problems were primarily in, say, urban areas where much of Mousavi's support was based. I'm not saying it's definitely corruption, and I'm not even saying there's evidence of this. All I'm saying is that, at minimum, there's evidence that ballots may not have been counted, and at best, that's anti-democratic.
It's a sign of inefficiency that the polling station wasn't resupplied with ballot papers until later in the day, but it's not what I'd call "highly suspicious at best".
Not later... *much* later. Like, into the evening.
So, is it evidence? No. Is the picture muddy? Definitely. Can we say for certain the election was fixed? Definitely not. Is there good reason for skepticism? I think so.
Running around shouting "Show me a patent!" isn't good enough.
Yes, it is. Unless MS has filed patents, they can't go and retroactively request patents on material they've already published. That's the way the system works. Go look up "defensive publication". In short: once something has been divulged, unless a patent has been filed, it's no longer patentable.
As such, anything described in the CLR that hasn't had a patent filed on it *can't be patented*. Otherwise, MS could just file patents on any random invention they come across in the wild. But they don't, because they can't.
You keep saying that, and yet you're still wrong, no matter how many times you repeat it.
That patent doesn't just apply to.NET. They use.NET as an example of an API as described in the claims section. But the claims apply to *any API* on *any application stack* that implements said claims. Why do I say that? Because:
a) the claims section makes no reference to.NET and it's the claims that outline the coverage of the patent... everything else is window dressing to clarify the intent of the claims, and b) every place where.NET is mentioned, it's a caveat to a more general statement. eg:
"[0029] This disclosure addresses an application program interface (API) for a network platform upon which developers can build Web applications and services. More particularly, an exemplary API is described for the.NET.TM. platform created by Microsoft Corporation. "
So the disclosure addresses an API. Period. Oh, and BTW, here's an example, it's described in.NET.
So, while you may not like that said patent applies to deploying certain types of web applications on.NET, it also applies to any other language that implements the "invention" described in those claims.
Meanwhile, you Mono/patent trolls have yet to cite single additional patent over and above this one... and this one doesn't cover just.NET. So if you're that concerned about this single, solitary patent, you better start opening up talks with the developers of all those other web development frameworks out there.
Actually, yeah. Just as a language, C# is nicer than Java (and I say this as someone who's written a fair share of Java) in a few ways, although admittedly a lot of it is syntactic sugar. That said, proper closures, alone, are with the switch to C#. Anonymous inner classes, you can go to hell.
But where Mono really wins is on the API front. Because Mono leverages a ton of existing OSS projects, one can use familiar, native libraries for doing GUI development (GTK), database access, sound and video, and so forth. Contrast this with Java, where JNI is the exception rather than the rule, and in general you're stuck with Java's "weird", Java-specific toolkits for various things.
So, you have two high-level languages. They're essentially the same (with C# offering some notable improvements), but on the platform side, Mono integrates extremely well with the system, while Java tries to stand separate and alone... personally, I'll take the former over the latter any day.
On the other hand, C# is a Microsoft Platform and you pretty much have to buy into their thing if you want to get serious.
Really? Funny... I've used Mono off and on for little toy projects, and I've never once had to using anything from the System.Windows or Microsoft namespaces. In fact, Mono provides a complete OSS-backed application stack, including GUI toolkit, database layer, XML processing, and a whole host of other APIs.
Why use Tomboy at all? I much prefer WikidPad. Portable Python, can be installed on a USB key, the wiki's can be easily revision controlled (mine is squirreled away in a Git repository)... works great for me!
It's also worth noting, as Hooman Hadj did on Charlie Rose on Monday night, that that poll was conducted *prior* to the Iranian campaign period, at which point few really knew anything about Mousavi. As such, I'd be highly skeptical of that poll and it's ability to predict the outcome of the election.
It doesn't matter where your email is becasue ti must move through the internet, so its all available when ever you send it...by design
That's what encryption is for. In additional, decentralized transmission and storage (particularly if the links are SSL encrypted) makes the job of organizations like the NSA that much harder.
And note, I said harder, not impossible. My objection is that the GP seems to think that Google is some kind of secure mail solution. It's not. In fact, it's inherently less secure than using a standard MUA and running your own MTA, as it is, once again, a single point of contact for any organization interested in reading your emails.
Oh, and if they want to they will just see who licks it up and get a court order for that person computer?
Yes, but that's not what we're talking about, here. The concern is large-scale dragnets. Using a centralized system like Google makes that far *far* easier.
So, ot a lot you can do and you might as well use Google for convience.
Sure. Use gmail for convenience. I know I do. That said, *don't* use gmail if you believe it's more secure. It's not. At best, it's no better... but my contention is that it is, in fact, much worse.
but I've yet to find any that actually show evidence of vote-rigging.
Well, on Charlie Rose, Hooman Majd indicated that his own relatives witnessed polling stations that ran out of ballots early on during the election, were only resupplied much later in the day, and then the results were announced just hours later. It is, at best, highly suspicious, and he questions whether large numbers of ballots were ever counted at all.
in my case all my friends have gmail accounts. It's not easily accessible to the government (assuming google's internal traffic is not tapped)
God, please don't tell me you're that naive. "It's not easily accessible to the government"?? It's one simple subpoena away, ffs! Assuming, of course, they don't just "convince" Google to give them real-time access to Google's systems.
Seriously, Google is one massive SPOF. That's the *last* thing you want if your goal is to circumvent government surveillance.
Helium 3. If it actually works well as a fuel for fusion
So... *if* it can be used... in a mythical device that has yet to be invented (no one is doing He3 fusion), *then* space travel will be economically feasible.
If it became popular may also get people asking difficult questions like why a $30 coin is really worth $1000, or more to the point why a $1 federal reserve note can only buy 1% of the value of a $30 dollar coin.
Back in the day, American Indian's used a form of currency called Wampum. So, what was it? Valuable metal? Nope. Useful stones? Nope. Anything functional or "intrinsically" valuable at all? Heck no. It was *seashells*, strung like beads and worn around the neck, valuable only because the manufacturer of these trinkets was limited to one small group of Indians, thus introducing artificial scarcity.
So, either those Indians understood something that those pesky "plebs" don't... or, maybe it's just you that's terribly confused. Believe it or not, currency is worth what people decide it's worth. That's it. After all, neither gold nor silver is terribly intrinsically valuable... we just think it is because, well, that's the tradition (not unlike, say, diamonds). I mean, sure, they make nice conductors, and have useful oxidation properties, but does that really make them worth what the market has priced them at (over $900 an ounce, in the case of gold)? I think not...
So, whether it's a piece of paper, a coin of some arbitrary metal, or a piece of seashell, it's meaningful as currency only because we, as a group, say it is.
Now, that said, some would claim that a currency based on some sort of limited resource (be it gold, silver, or <insert favorite thing here>) is a good idea, bringing up the ol' fiat currency boogeyman... 'course, those people don't understand the dangers of a fixed (or very slow growing) money supply in the world of expanding economies: deflation.
Just FYI... the only thing people may lose access to is the content produced by the big media conglomerates. But there's still *plenty* of content out there outside of those channels. So while this is certainly a violation of net neutrality, and, frankly, totally fucking ridiculous, it hardly signals the end of the internet.
I'm not familiar with the iTunes system, but if it's like other online music stores then what I've purchased is a license to play that music, under their term.
So you don't believe you have a right to back up the audio file you've apparently only licensed but not actually purchased, despite said file being in your possession? Interesting... weird, but interesting.:)
It's also wrong as far as copyright is concerned. What you paid for is a copy of the content. You had to pay because the rights holder required payment before distributing a copy to you. That's it. Copyright law then simply states that you do not have the right to distribute copies of the work.
Now, as part of the agreement you may have also agreed to a contract which further restricts your use of your copy of the work. But that's entirely outside the realm of copyright law.
If you broke your disk or it got scratched up, can you take it to the reseller and demand a new copy because what you own is the content, not the media?
Well, no and yes. No, in that part of the cost I paid initially was for the cost of the media itself, as well as for the copy of the content resident on that media. But my answer is also yes, in that I believe I should be able to pay for the replacement cost of the media and receive a new copy. Of course, the media cartels wouldn't want that, so of course the service isn't provided.
As such, I should be allowed to create a backup copy of the content in case something happens to the copy I purchased. Or do you not believe people should be allowed to backup their PCs, either?
I think we fundamentally disagree what it is you're purchasing. I say you're purchasing the media which is a delivery path for the content, and you say you're purchasing the content itself. I don't think we can agree with each other no matter how much we quibble over the details.
But... what's copyright about if it's not fundamentally about the content? Heck, copyright is specifically a right to copy a work and redistribute it. The medium doesn't play into it at all. It's simply, as you say, a delivery path for the content.
I mean, given your perspective, when you buy a song from iTunes, you receive *nothing at all*, as all you get is the content, which you apparently didn't buy. Or something.
Frankly, I don't understand what your position is.:)
Well there is no DRM on an oil painting. Suppose I want to format shift it to acrylics. Assuming a device that could do it, would it be ethical?
If you owned the painting, yes, why not?
Would I have the "right" to sell the oil painting and keep the acrylic version?
No, as that would be distributing a copy of the work, a right you do not have (legally and, IMHO, morally).
It feels like petulant children who have been told that they are not entitled to the cookie after all.
Read again. I'm far more concerned with the robbing of the public domain, and the attempt by the media cartels to lock away large portions of our collective culture simply to enrich themselves.
See, your mistake, I think, is that you believe the copyright issue is a small one, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and really just about people wanting to download things for free. But in that, you are wrong. What we're seeing the the progressive destruction of culture. I mean, imagine if Shakespeare's works had been protected under a DRM layer? The works would likely have been lost to us, and I think it's safe to say that that would've been disastrous.
It appears timeshifting and formatshifting for personal use does satisfy 1), although since we're discussing the "spirit of the law" in regards to copyright I'd say the spirit of fair use in this particular clause is for copyrighted works to be used in nonprofit educational settings, which private viewing at home isn't really. I'll leave a lawyer to work that one out.
They already did. That's why VCRs are legal.:)
So, I don't think fair use is a good argument against DRM, since it doesn't say anything about whether the content must be provided to be fair-usable.
Well, you are technically correct, in that fair use isn't an affirmative right, but rather a legal defense. That said, fair use, even just for education, research, commentary, or parody, is an extremely valuable activity, and making that activity difficult or impossible deprives society as a whole. As such, DRM actively *hurts us all*. All to enrich a few robber barons.
Again, copyright is a *privilege*, granted by the government, providing a limited monopoly to the rights holders in order to encourage creation. But it's a *compromise*. The rights holder gets a monopoly for a short period of time, and then the content is given over to the public domain, enriching everyone. Or, at least, that's how it was supposed to work.
I just wish other people did as well, and and don't act like they somehow deserve this kind of access straight from the manufacturer.
Umm... why don't they? If they've purchased a copy of the content, and that copy is now their property. Why *shouldn't* they have the right to use their property in whatever way they please? Again, it's about the work, not the media. When I buy a CD, I bought *the music on the CD*. Once I've paid for that music, I think it's completely reasonable, and in fact entirely rational, to believe that the copy of the music I purchased is now mine to do with as I please. That includes shifting the format, playing, manipulating, citing portions of it in scholarly works, creating parodies of it, and so forth.
Honestly, I find your attitude utterly baffling. You ascribe rights to the copyright holder that are entirely unreasonable... after all, if I buy an iPod, am I not free to open it up and modify it as I see fit? Heck, if I had the wherewithal, am I not within my rights to make a duplicate of it for my own use? Or do you believe that Apple has the right to dictate what I can and can't do with the item I've purchased? And if not, why on earth do you believe copyrighted materials should be treated any differently?
Slashdot Mirror
Figures.
'course, if the law really is unconstitutional, someone will challenge it and the courts will nullify it. *shrug* Annoying, certainly, but hardly a disaster, particularly since our "activist judges" have demonstrated they're very much interested in enforcing the Charter (hence why gay marriage is legal here).
I released an open source web browser called SupraBrowser a while back. It has very similar characteristics to Opera Unite, in that it's designed to act as both a client and server at the same time (we called it a "servant") :).
Actually, it's called a servent, and you hardly invented the term. :)
One minor point. In clinical trials, for ethical reasons you usually tell both groups of subjects that they could receive either the treatment or placebo, but they nor their physician will know which one until the end of the trial.
Actually, that has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with executing a proper study. What you describe is called a double-blind experiment, and it ensures that those executing the study can't manipulate the outcome, consciously or unconsciously (even an ethical researcher might inadvertently telegraph information to the subjects if they know who is receiving the drug and who is receiving the placebo).
And for contrast:
/mythtv
:)
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/mythvg-mythtv 658G 645G 14G 98%
Or: Pick the right tool for your job.
In fact the official figures show the ratio of the vote between the top 2 candidates in Tehran as 53/47. So, quite close, actually.
Yeah, those numbers differ from the ones initially published, so it may be that much of my information is already old (it's certainly a rapidly evolving situation).
On what basis do you say it's odd? You think Mousavi should've done better for some reason? Because you saw his mass rallies in Tehran on TV? Did you not also see the mass rallies in favour of Ahmadinejad?
You mean the ones where it appears they brought in people from outside the city in order to attend? Ones staged at the same time Mousavi's demonstrations were expected to occur... in the very same spot Mousavi's supporters had previously demonstrated, thus forcing Mousavi's supporters to find another location? Yup, that doesn't scream of an artificial situation designed to create an image of populist support for Ahmadinejad (not that such support doesn't exist... just that that rally was *clearly* staged).
The only opinion poll results which I've seen showed Ahmadinejad with roughly a 2:1 lead over Mousavi, amongst decided voters. That poll is referenced on Wikipedia, by the way.
And as has been pointed out by others, that poll preceded the Iranian campaign period, at which point Mousavi was a relative unknown. Add in the fact that it was a telephone poll, and that people may not be willing to voice their true opinion, and I would contend the results of that poll are not particularly valid. Show me one at least done during the campaign period and then you might have a point.
He's not the fool that the Western media likes to make him out. Westerners who've been fed a diet of anti-Ahmadinejad propaganda have misunderestimated him, but if this is statistical evidence of anything, it's that the Western media is not an objective source of news on Iranian politics.
Well, a) Who said anything about Ahmadinejad being a fool? Hell, the very idea of election fraud suggests precisely the opposite. Honestly, anyone with a brain realizes the man is a superb politician, and incredibly wily. b) You do realize that it isn't just Western media that questions the election results, right? Real, actual Iranians who voted in the election are also suspicious.
Personally, I find it far more troubling that you seem to be willing to disregard evidence of fraud simply because the information was reported by a western source...
Ah, I see. So I point out a blatant hole in your paranoid theories (that you can't patent an already-published invention), and suddenly it's "just outright speculation",
Interesting.
Something tells me, no matter what MS did, you'd never be satisfied. If they published a waiver, you'd pick apart the text and come up with a wild theory about how MS could work around it.
Meanwhile, I don't see you fighting the good fight against the kernel, X, or any number of other pieces of software that almost certainly violate *someone's* patents. And real patents, too. Not fictitious, future patents. Why is that, exactly? I mean, it couldn't be that, deep down, you just have issues with MS as a corporation, could it?
For a start, you've quoted me out of context by cutting off the start of my sentence. I was talking about statistical evidence of vote-rigging, rather than anecdotal evidence. My point is: the statistics do not prove fraud.
And I would disagree. At minimum, you must admit it's odd that even in what one would call strongholds for Mousavi, Ahmadinejad still won with a landslide. Heck, Tehran apparently went better than 60/40 in favour of Ahmadinejad, despite there being a great deal of support for Mousavi there. I'd certainly call that odd... definitely not incontrovertible proof (no one has that proof because, without the ballots, there can be no proof), but it's certainly statistical evidence.
That said, who knows... maybe everyone over-estimated Mousavi's support across the board, throughout the country, across all demographics... *shrug*
Secondly, I can't see what's "highly suspicious" about a polling station running out of ballot papers (the turnout was after all surprisingly high),
Unless, of course, the problems were primarily in, say, urban areas where much of Mousavi's support was based. I'm not saying it's definitely corruption, and I'm not even saying there's evidence of this. All I'm saying is that, at minimum, there's evidence that ballots may not have been counted, and at best, that's anti-democratic.
It's a sign of inefficiency that the polling station wasn't resupplied with ballot papers until later in the day, but it's not what I'd call "highly suspicious at best".
Not later... *much* later. Like, into the evening.
So, is it evidence? No. Is the picture muddy? Definitely. Can we say for certain the election was fixed? Definitely not. Is there good reason for skepticism? I think so.
Running around shouting "Show me a patent!" isn't good enough.
Yes, it is. Unless MS has filed patents, they can't go and retroactively request patents on material they've already published. That's the way the system works. Go look up "defensive publication". In short: once something has been divulged, unless a patent has been filed, it's no longer patentable.
As such, anything described in the CLR that hasn't had a patent filed on it *can't be patented*. Otherwise, MS could just file patents on any random invention they come across in the wild. But they don't, because they can't.
You keep saying that, and yet you're still wrong, no matter how many times you repeat it.
That patent doesn't just apply to .NET. They use .NET as an example of an API as described in the claims section. But the claims apply to *any API* on *any application stack* that implements said claims. Why do I say that? Because:
a) the claims section makes no reference to .NET and it's the claims that outline the coverage of the patent... everything else is window dressing to clarify the intent of the claims, and .NET is mentioned, it's a caveat to a more general statement. eg:
b) every place where
"[0029] This disclosure addresses an application program interface (API) for a network platform upon which developers can build Web applications and services. More particularly, an exemplary API is described for the .NET.TM. platform created by Microsoft Corporation. "
So the disclosure addresses an API. Period. Oh, and BTW, here's an example, it's described in .NET.
So, while you may not like that said patent applies to deploying certain types of web applications on .NET, it also applies to any other language that implements the "invention" described in those claims.
Meanwhile, you Mono/patent trolls have yet to cite single additional patent over and above this one... and this one doesn't cover just .NET. So if you're that concerned about this single, solitary patent, you better start opening up talks with the developers of all those other web development frameworks out there.
Does C# offer compelling features over Java?
Actually, yeah. Just as a language, C# is nicer than Java (and I say this as someone who's written a fair share of Java) in a few ways, although admittedly a lot of it is syntactic sugar. That said, proper closures, alone, are with the switch to C#. Anonymous inner classes, you can go to hell.
But where Mono really wins is on the API front. Because Mono leverages a ton of existing OSS projects, one can use familiar, native libraries for doing GUI development (GTK), database access, sound and video, and so forth. Contrast this with Java, where JNI is the exception rather than the rule, and in general you're stuck with Java's "weird", Java-specific toolkits for various things.
So, you have two high-level languages. They're essentially the same (with C# offering some notable improvements), but on the platform side, Mono integrates extremely well with the system, while Java tries to stand separate and alone... personally, I'll take the former over the latter any day.
On the other hand, C# is a Microsoft Platform and you pretty much have to buy into their thing if you want to get serious.
Really? Funny... I've used Mono off and on for little toy projects, and I've never once had to using anything from the System.Windows or Microsoft namespaces. In fact, Mono provides a complete OSS-backed application stack, including GUI toolkit, database layer, XML processing, and a whole host of other APIs.
So... what exactly are you talking about?
Why use Tomboy at all? I much prefer WikidPad. Portable Python, can be installed on a USB key, the wiki's can be easily revision controlled (mine is squirreled away in a Git repository)... works great for me!
It's also worth noting, as Hooman Hadj did on Charlie Rose on Monday night, that that poll was conducted *prior* to the Iranian campaign period, at which point few really knew anything about Mousavi. As such, I'd be highly skeptical of that poll and it's ability to predict the outcome of the election.
Canada's system works well because it is -extremely- transparent, and works through volunteers.
Well, volunteers and a world-class, neutral body that's responsible for organizing the elections, tracking campaign finance, and so forth.
It doesn't matter where your email is becasue ti must move through the internet, so its all available when ever you send it...by design
That's what encryption is for. In additional, decentralized transmission and storage (particularly if the links are SSL encrypted) makes the job of organizations like the NSA that much harder.
And note, I said harder, not impossible. My objection is that the GP seems to think that Google is some kind of secure mail solution. It's not. In fact, it's inherently less secure than using a standard MUA and running your own MTA, as it is, once again, a single point of contact for any organization interested in reading your emails.
Oh, and if they want to they will just see who licks it up and get a court order for that person computer?
Yes, but that's not what we're talking about, here. The concern is large-scale dragnets. Using a centralized system like Google makes that far *far* easier.
So, ot a lot you can do and you might as well use Google for convience.
Sure. Use gmail for convenience. I know I do. That said, *don't* use gmail if you believe it's more secure. It's not. At best, it's no better... but my contention is that it is, in fact, much worse.
but I've yet to find any that actually show evidence of vote-rigging.
Well, on Charlie Rose, Hooman Majd indicated that his own relatives witnessed polling stations that ran out of ballots early on during the election, were only resupplied much later in the day, and then the results were announced just hours later. It is, at best, highly suspicious, and he questions whether large numbers of ballots were ever counted at all.
in my case all my friends have gmail accounts. It's not easily accessible to the government (assuming google's internal traffic is not tapped)
God, please don't tell me you're that naive. "It's not easily accessible to the government"?? It's one simple subpoena away, ffs! Assuming, of course, they don't just "convince" Google to give them real-time access to Google's systems.
Seriously, Google is one massive SPOF. That's the *last* thing you want if your goal is to circumvent government surveillance.
Helium 3.
If it actually works well as a fuel for fusion
So... *if* it can be used... in a mythical device that has yet to be invented (no one is doing He3 fusion), *then* space travel will be economically feasible.
Uhuh.
Let's just say I won't be holding my breath.
If it became popular may also get people asking difficult questions like why a $30 coin is really worth $1000, or more to the point why a $1 federal reserve note can only buy 1% of the value of a $30 dollar coin.
Back in the day, American Indian's used a form of currency called Wampum. So, what was it? Valuable metal? Nope. Useful stones? Nope. Anything functional or "intrinsically" valuable at all? Heck no. It was *seashells*, strung like beads and worn around the neck, valuable only because the manufacturer of these trinkets was limited to one small group of Indians, thus introducing artificial scarcity.
So, either those Indians understood something that those pesky "plebs" don't... or, maybe it's just you that's terribly confused. Believe it or not, currency is worth what people decide it's worth. That's it. After all, neither gold nor silver is terribly intrinsically valuable... we just think it is because, well, that's the tradition (not unlike, say, diamonds). I mean, sure, they make nice conductors, and have useful oxidation properties, but does that really make them worth what the market has priced them at (over $900 an ounce, in the case of gold)? I think not...
So, whether it's a piece of paper, a coin of some arbitrary metal, or a piece of seashell, it's meaningful as currency only because we, as a group, say it is.
Now, that said, some would claim that a currency based on some sort of limited resource (be it gold, silver, or <insert favorite thing here>) is a good idea, bringing up the ol' fiat currency boogeyman... 'course, those people don't understand the dangers of a fixed (or very slow growing) money supply in the world of expanding economies: deflation.
Just FYI... the only thing people may lose access to is the content produced by the big media conglomerates. But there's still *plenty* of content out there outside of those channels. So while this is certainly a violation of net neutrality, and, frankly, totally fucking ridiculous, it hardly signals the end of the internet.
Actually, it's more basic than that. It's because, according to US law, money == speech.
I'm not familiar with the iTunes system, but if it's like other online music stores then what I've purchased is a license to play that music, under their term.
So you don't believe you have a right to back up the audio file you've apparently only licensed but not actually purchased, despite said file being in your possession? Interesting... weird, but interesting. :)
It's also wrong as far as copyright is concerned. What you paid for is a copy of the content. You had to pay because the rights holder required payment before distributing a copy to you. That's it. Copyright law then simply states that you do not have the right to distribute copies of the work.
Now, as part of the agreement you may have also agreed to a contract which further restricts your use of your copy of the work. But that's entirely outside the realm of copyright law.
If you broke your disk or it got scratched up, can you take it to the reseller and demand a new copy because what you own is the content, not the media?
Well, no and yes. No, in that part of the cost I paid initially was for the cost of the media itself, as well as for the copy of the content resident on that media. But my answer is also yes, in that I believe I should be able to pay for the replacement cost of the media and receive a new copy. Of course, the media cartels wouldn't want that, so of course the service isn't provided.
As such, I should be allowed to create a backup copy of the content in case something happens to the copy I purchased. Or do you not believe people should be allowed to backup their PCs, either?
I think we fundamentally disagree what it is you're purchasing. I say you're purchasing the media which is a delivery path for the content, and you say you're purchasing the content itself. I don't think we can agree with each other no matter how much we quibble over the details.
But... what's copyright about if it's not fundamentally about the content? Heck, copyright is specifically a right to copy a work and redistribute it. The medium doesn't play into it at all. It's simply, as you say, a delivery path for the content.
I mean, given your perspective, when you buy a song from iTunes, you receive *nothing at all*, as all you get is the content, which you apparently didn't buy. Or something.
Frankly, I don't understand what your position is. :)
Well there is no DRM on an oil painting. Suppose I want to format shift it to acrylics. Assuming a device that could do it, would it be ethical?
If you owned the painting, yes, why not?
Would I have the "right" to sell the oil painting and keep the acrylic version?
No, as that would be distributing a copy of the work, a right you do not have (legally and, IMHO, morally).
It feels like petulant children who have been told that they are not entitled to the cookie after all.
Read again. I'm far more concerned with the robbing of the public domain, and the attempt by the media cartels to lock away large portions of our collective culture simply to enrich themselves.
See, your mistake, I think, is that you believe the copyright issue is a small one, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and really just about people wanting to download things for free. But in that, you are wrong. What we're seeing the the progressive destruction of culture. I mean, imagine if Shakespeare's works had been protected under a DRM layer? The works would likely have been lost to us, and I think it's safe to say that that would've been disastrous.
It appears timeshifting and formatshifting for personal use does satisfy 1), although since we're discussing the "spirit of the law" in regards to copyright I'd say the spirit of fair use in this particular clause is for copyrighted works to be used in nonprofit educational settings, which private viewing at home isn't really. I'll leave a lawyer to work that one out.
They already did. That's why VCRs are legal. :)
So, I don't think fair use is a good argument against DRM, since it doesn't say anything about whether the content must be provided to be fair-usable.
Well, you are technically correct, in that fair use isn't an affirmative right, but rather a legal defense. That said, fair use, even just for education, research, commentary, or parody, is an extremely valuable activity, and making that activity difficult or impossible deprives society as a whole. As such, DRM actively *hurts us all*. All to enrich a few robber barons.
Again, copyright is a *privilege*, granted by the government, providing a limited monopoly to the rights holders in order to encourage creation. But it's a *compromise*. The rights holder gets a monopoly for a short period of time, and then the content is given over to the public domain, enriching everyone. Or, at least, that's how it was supposed to work.
I just wish other people did as well, and and don't act like they somehow deserve this kind of access straight from the manufacturer.
Umm... why don't they? If they've purchased a copy of the content, and that copy is now their property. Why *shouldn't* they have the right to use their property in whatever way they please? Again, it's about the work, not the media. When I buy a CD, I bought *the music on the CD*. Once I've paid for that music, I think it's completely reasonable, and in fact entirely rational, to believe that the copy of the music I purchased is now mine to do with as I please. That includes shifting the format, playing, manipulating, citing portions of it in scholarly works, creating parodies of it, and so forth.
Honestly, I find your attitude utterly baffling. You ascribe rights to the copyright holder that are entirely unreasonable... after all, if I buy an iPod, am I not free to open it up and modify it as I see fit? Heck, if I had the wherewithal, am I not within my rights to make a duplicate of it for my own use? Or do you believe that Apple has the right to dictate what I can and can't do with the item I've purchased? And if not, why on earth do you believe copyrighted materials should be treated any differently?