Yeah, no kidding! Put another way, because it's really easy for a highly trained marksman to take out a lot of people with a non-automatic weapon, means we might as well let everyone have full automatics! Yup... that's solid logic, there. Real solid.
However it's not actually stealing. It's copyright infringement.
No. It's not. In Russia, the law allows allofmp3.com to operate by making use of a compulsory licensing scheme, not unlike what the copyright board wants to foist upon internet radio (though, in that case, the costs are absolutely outrageous, and intended to shut operators down). So, allofmp3.com pays some fee to the Russian copyright whozits, and thus they are allowed to operate legally. Calling this "stealing" or "copyright infringement" is plain and simply wrong, and author of the article is clearly showing their bias by reporting it as such.
Until the users start selecting random ports and turning on encryption (my ISP throttles BT traffic, and I quite neatly get around it using these two measures).
Actually, it's all economical. Batteries, incandescent light bulbs, heck gasoline, all represent products with negative externalities. In short, the use of the product has additional costs which are not born by the consumer. Typically, these costs are accounted for by, as you say, applying a tax. However, most governments are loathe to do such a thing, especially on commodities, as it's politically expensive and can result in inflation, as the cost of basic goods increases (this is especially true of things like gasoline).
Why the hell else was he in the crosswalk if he wasn't riding on the sidewalk? And if he wasn't going that fast, then he wasn't paying attention and should've been able to avoid the situation. It's not like cars suddenly come out of nowhere. If he was going slow and a vehicle was preparing to turn, he should've identified the situation and waited to ensure the vehicle was going to yield before proceeding. Either way, I have a hard time believing the cyclist was entirely blameless, based on the description of the incident.
Sorry buddy, but that accident was entirely your fault. You shouldn't have been on the sidewalk, nor riding through a crosswalk at high-speed. Drivers simply don't expect that. Any time I'm forced, for whatever reason, to cycle through a crosswalk, I do it with *extreme* caution, and make sure to slow down to pedestrian speeds before entering, to ensure all drivers see me.
Actually, as a cyclist, I couldn't agree more. It's those exact, dick moves that get cyclists into accidents. Fact is, if you're on the road, you follow the same rules a car does. That means stopping at red lights, not passing on the shoulder, etc. Unfortunately, you're also right, in that most cyclists have no fucking clue what it means to be polite and respectful of their fellow commuters.
Funny, I've been riding on the road for, oh... nearly ten years now, and I've never, repeat, *never* been hit by a car. Moreover, I've only had a single near-accident (in that I was almost hit, but spilled to avoid) that wasn't my own fault.
See, the problem is most cyclists are stupid. They forget that they're small and difficult to see. They assume that, being agile, they can get away with doing stupid things. They assume that the rules of the road don't apply to them. Problem is, eventually, it catches up to them. The key to safely riding on the road is this: be predictable, don't make sudden moves, keep your eyes open, follow the rules, and assume you're invisible.
Except, of course, that the developers are typically also the users, and thus the features they want often align well with what the users want (as opposed to what marketing wants, or what business development wants, etc, etc).
Sure, so for those few times you need it, all that is required is you being tied down to a multiyear contract, additional costs for overages, spotty reception, dropouts, the hassle of ensuring you keep the battery charged, the risk of losing the damn thing...
Yes, I understand, for some, it is worth it, and clearly you're among them. I'm just saying there is a not-insignificant demographic out there for whom the benefits don't outweight the costs.
Ah, I see. You possess the rather odd preconception that programming necessarily means hacking code, and therefore building applications visually isn't "programming". What you need to realize is that programming languages are merely a (often poor) representation of mathematics, logic, flow control, etc. So if you can express the same concepts visually, why not? Either way you reach the same destination, it's just a different vehicle.
Hell, many years ago, there was a great deal of research into high powered, industrial strength visual programming environments, work which continues to this day. I suspect they didn't succeed, in part, because narrowminded folks out there said "it ain't programming if you aren't hacking in a text editor!"
Oh, and BTW, DHTML is a terrible idea. Experienced developers are frustrated by the lack of a decent development environment, let alone a child. Meanwhile, Flash/ActionScript is irritatingly proprietary.
WTF are you talking about? It's based onSqueak, the most open, accessible programming environment you will ever find, far more rich and powerful than Ruby (which is just a poor reimplementation of Smalltalk). And by definition, it must come with source code.
No, it's called a frustrating barrier to entry. Having my creative process interrupted because I forgot a friggin' semicolon somewhere is very annoying, and I'm a fairly experienced programmer. Now imagine you're 7 years old, you're about to make your first program do something, and the computer says 'error: syntax error before "printf"'.
The idea, here, is to lower the barrier so kids won't get immediately frustrated and turn away. Remember, they're *kids*. Refusing to make things easier in a misguided attempt to encourage them to "tough it out" just means more kids will give up and try something that's more fun. After all, when we teach math, we start out with counting, not calculus. Why not do the same with programming?
Making you wish that your entire environment was as accessible and programmable as the Squeak environment, leaving you spoiled and disappointed when you're forced to return to your crappy operating system. *sigh*
Oh, there's no way the war in Iraq will be copied in Iran. In Iran, the people, who are relatively prosperous and well educated, will be united against the US.
ROFL. That's good. Tell me, how do you reconcile the fact that the US has the lowest life expectancy of most of the western world, despite blowing more money, per capita, on health care than any other nation, with your "capitalism-is-god" faith? Seems to me that the free market is, in that instance, remarkably *in*efficient at allocating resources.
OOC, what are the comparative costs? I can't imagine a cell phone bill being cheaper than a landline, around here, so your post surprised me. Are you locked into a long term contract? What about the cost of the handset?
But if you're going to do that anyway, why not just ditch the cell, pay less money, and not be tied down to a contract? It seems to me that, unless you really need to be available all the time, or you find yourself frequently in need of a phone where none is available, there's little benefit a cell provides which justifies it's cost.
Umm... no... the Earth's core will cool when the residual heat from it's formation bleeds away, and the various radioactive elements that are responsible for heating it finish breaking down into lighter elements. Period.
In fact the burden of proof for the effectiveness and legitimacy of such control should be on the people who advocate it,
Well that's easy. Canada has laws which limit campaign finance, governed by an independant, non-governmental body. And, surprise surprise, influence of industry on the government is greatly limit.
And anyone who refers to "allegedly excessive influence of some power bloc over politics" hasn't been paying attention, or is being deliberately obtuse.
I don't see those same dramatic effects from human activity.
Oh, I see. You need, dramatic, visible effects to believe in them. Okay, well how about I gradually poison your drinking water with mercury. You can't see it, and it's happening slowly, so there's no evidence, right? Perfectly safe!
I want technologies that pay me this quarter, this year.
Wow... that's incredibly assinine. So I take it you don't believe in any kind of long term investment? Sounds like you fit right into American corporate and consumer culture. "I need IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION!"
On the flipside, it is true that using economics to force change is a good thing (fuel efficient cars and CF bulbs are increasing in popularity for a reason). The problem is, such changes create inflation that disproportionately affects the lower and middle class, while the greatest consumers just keep on keeping on.
shit all over the US - the world's economic dynamo - for consuming so much energy.
Uhuh... well, they do consume a disproportionately large amount of energy, and produce a disproportionately large amount of CO2 as a consequence, all while downplaying the effects of such behaviour on climate. How can one *not* criticise?
Oh, and BTW, the economies of the EU and soon China are both comparable to the US... calling the states the "world's economic dynamo" is, I think, a bit of an overstatement.
Repeat after me: weather != climate. Weather != climate. Ignoring the fact that yearly variances will mask out overall trends, local average temperature could take a dive, even though global mean is rising. It's a shame more people don't understand this, though... it just fuels the bullsh!t "gee, it's cold here, so global warming must not exist" argument.
Yes, you do. Without evidence, all you are is a likely uneducated armchair quarterback telling us that all those highly educated astrophysicists out there just got it wrong (and in a, frankly, *incredibly* obvious way... I highly doubt your argument hasn't been put forth already, and subsequently dismissed), despite mountains of evidence, simulations, and experiments... none of which you seem to have.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, no kidding! Put another way, because it's really easy for a highly trained marksman to take out a lot of people with a non-automatic weapon, means we might as well let everyone have full automatics! Yup... that's solid logic, there. Real solid.
However it's not actually stealing. It's copyright infringement.
No. It's not. In Russia, the law allows allofmp3.com to operate by making use of a compulsory licensing scheme, not unlike what the copyright board wants to foist upon internet radio (though, in that case, the costs are absolutely outrageous, and intended to shut operators down). So, allofmp3.com pays some fee to the Russian copyright whozits, and thus they are allowed to operate legally. Calling this "stealing" or "copyright infringement" is plain and simply wrong, and author of the article is clearly showing their bias by reporting it as such.
Until the users start selecting random ports and turning on encryption (my ISP throttles BT traffic, and I quite neatly get around it using these two measures).
Actually, it's all economical. Batteries, incandescent light bulbs, heck gasoline, all represent products with negative externalities. In short, the use of the product has additional costs which are not born by the consumer. Typically, these costs are accounted for by, as you say, applying a tax. However, most governments are loathe to do such a thing, especially on commodities, as it's politically expensive and can result in inflation, as the cost of basic goods increases (this is especially true of things like gasoline).
Tell that to the subsaharan Africans.
Why the hell else was he in the crosswalk if he wasn't riding on the sidewalk? And if he wasn't going that fast, then he wasn't paying attention and should've been able to avoid the situation. It's not like cars suddenly come out of nowhere. If he was going slow and a vehicle was preparing to turn, he should've identified the situation and waited to ensure the vehicle was going to yield before proceeding. Either way, I have a hard time believing the cyclist was entirely blameless, based on the description of the incident.
Sorry buddy, but that accident was entirely your fault. You shouldn't have been on the sidewalk, nor riding through a crosswalk at high-speed. Drivers simply don't expect that. Any time I'm forced, for whatever reason, to cycle through a crosswalk, I do it with *extreme* caution, and make sure to slow down to pedestrian speeds before entering, to ensure all drivers see me.
Actually, as a cyclist, I couldn't agree more. It's those exact, dick moves that get cyclists into accidents. Fact is, if you're on the road, you follow the same rules a car does. That means stopping at red lights, not passing on the shoulder, etc. Unfortunately, you're also right, in that most cyclists have no fucking clue what it means to be polite and respectful of their fellow commuters.
I think you're a fool
Funny, I've been riding on the road for, oh... nearly ten years now, and I've never, repeat, *never* been hit by a car. Moreover, I've only had a single near-accident (in that I was almost hit, but spilled to avoid) that wasn't my own fault.
See, the problem is most cyclists are stupid. They forget that they're small and difficult to see. They assume that, being agile, they can get away with doing stupid things. They assume that the rules of the road don't apply to them. Problem is, eventually, it catches up to them. The key to safely riding on the road is this: be predictable, don't make sudden moves, keep your eyes open, follow the rules, and assume you're invisible.
Except, of course, that the developers are typically also the users, and thus the features they want often align well with what the users want (as opposed to what marketing wants, or what business development wants, etc, etc).
Sure, so for those few times you need it, all that is required is you being tied down to a multiyear contract, additional costs for overages, spotty reception, dropouts, the hassle of ensuring you keep the battery charged, the risk of losing the damn thing...
Yes, I understand, for some, it is worth it, and clearly you're among them. I'm just saying there is a not-insignificant demographic out there for whom the benefits don't outweight the costs.
At least counting is still real mathematics;
Ah, I see. You possess the rather odd preconception that programming necessarily means hacking code, and therefore building applications visually isn't "programming". What you need to realize is that programming languages are merely a (often poor) representation of mathematics, logic, flow control, etc. So if you can express the same concepts visually, why not? Either way you reach the same destination, it's just a different vehicle.
Hell, many years ago, there was a great deal of research into high powered, industrial strength visual programming environments, work which continues to this day. I suspect they didn't succeed, in part, because narrowminded folks out there said "it ain't programming if you aren't hacking in a text editor!"
Oh, and BTW, DHTML is a terrible idea. Experienced developers are frustrated by the lack of a decent development environment, let alone a child. Meanwhile, Flash/ActionScript is irritatingly proprietary.
WTF are you talking about? It's based on Squeak, the most open, accessible programming environment you will ever find, far more rich and powerful than Ruby (which is just a poor reimplementation of Smalltalk). And by definition, it must come with source code.
It's called learning
No, it's called a frustrating barrier to entry. Having my creative process interrupted because I forgot a friggin' semicolon somewhere is very annoying, and I'm a fairly experienced programmer. Now imagine you're 7 years old, you're about to make your first program do something, and the computer says 'error: syntax error before "printf"'.
The idea, here, is to lower the barrier so kids won't get immediately frustrated and turn away. Remember, they're *kids*. Refusing to make things easier in a misguided attempt to encourage them to "tough it out" just means more kids will give up and try something that's more fun. After all, when we teach math, we start out with counting, not calculus. Why not do the same with programming?
Making you wish that your entire environment was as accessible and programmable as the Squeak environment, leaving you spoiled and disappointed when you're forced to return to your crappy operating system. *sigh*
Oh, there's no way the war in Iraq will be copied in Iran. In Iran, the people, who are relatively prosperous and well educated, will be united against the US.
ROFL. That's good. Tell me, how do you reconcile the fact that the US has the lowest life expectancy of most of the western world, despite blowing more money, per capita, on health care than any other nation, with your "capitalism-is-god" faith? Seems to me that the free market is, in that instance, remarkably *in*efficient at allocating resources.
OOC, what are the comparative costs? I can't imagine a cell phone bill being cheaper than a landline, around here, so your post surprised me. Are you locked into a long term contract? What about the cost of the handset?
But if you're going to do that anyway, why not just ditch the cell, pay less money, and not be tied down to a contract? It seems to me that, unless you really need to be available all the time, or you find yourself frequently in need of a phone where none is available, there's little benefit a cell provides which justifies it's cost.
Umm... no... the Earth's core will cool when the residual heat from it's formation bleeds away, and the various radioactive elements that are responsible for heating it finish breaking down into lighter elements. Period.
In fact the burden of proof for the effectiveness and legitimacy of such control should be on the people who advocate it,
Well that's easy. Canada has laws which limit campaign finance, governed by an independant, non-governmental body. And, surprise surprise, influence of industry on the government is greatly limit.
And anyone who refers to "allegedly excessive influence of some power bloc over politics" hasn't been paying attention, or is being deliberately obtuse.
I don't see those same dramatic effects from human activity.
Oh, I see. You need, dramatic, visible effects to believe in them. Okay, well how about I gradually poison your drinking water with mercury. You can't see it, and it's happening slowly, so there's no evidence, right? Perfectly safe!
I want technologies that pay me this quarter, this year.
Wow... that's incredibly assinine. So I take it you don't believe in any kind of long term investment? Sounds like you fit right into American corporate and consumer culture. "I need IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION!"
On the flipside, it is true that using economics to force change is a good thing (fuel efficient cars and CF bulbs are increasing in popularity for a reason). The problem is, such changes create inflation that disproportionately affects the lower and middle class, while the greatest consumers just keep on keeping on.
shit all over the US - the world's economic dynamo - for consuming so much energy.
Uhuh... well, they do consume a disproportionately large amount of energy, and produce a disproportionately large amount of CO2 as a consequence, all while downplaying the effects of such behaviour on climate. How can one *not* criticise?
Oh, and BTW, the economies of the EU and soon China are both comparable to the US... calling the states the "world's economic dynamo" is, I think, a bit of an overstatement.
Repeat after me: weather != climate. Weather != climate. Ignoring the fact that yearly variances will mask out overall trends, local average temperature could take a dive, even though global mean is rising. It's a shame more people don't understand this, though... it just fuels the bullsh!t "gee, it's cold here, so global warming must not exist" argument.
Yes, you do. Without evidence, all you are is a likely uneducated armchair quarterback telling us that all those highly educated astrophysicists out there just got it wrong (and in a, frankly, *incredibly* obvious way... I highly doubt your argument hasn't been put forth already, and subsequently dismissed), despite mountains of evidence, simulations, and experiments... none of which you seem to have.
Incidentally, referring to campaign finance reform "mass censorship" is simply a way to reframe the debate using alarmist language.