Intellectual "property" is not true property because the use of it by one person does not preclude its use by another. If I take your car you can't drive it while I have it. But if I "take" your idea you can still use it yourself.
I would be happy if we went back to the original intent of copyright and patent law, which was to encourage innovation and encourage innovators to make their innovations public. Those should remain the touchstones by which all changes to IP law are judged.
If an inventor only has a monopoly on his invention for 10 years instead of 20, is he likely to decide that it isn't worth it? I don't think so. He can rack up more than enough money in those 10 years to justify any effort and risk he put into it.
And extending copyright beyond an author/artist's death is ridiculous. A corpse cannot innovate!
Remember, the purpose of these laws is to maximize the public good, not guarantee an income for artists and innovators.
So I say knock all the terms back to their original limits and be a lot stricter when deciding if a new innovation is "obvious".
This suggests that banks could make some money on the side by creating thousands of dummy accounts and selling them to phishers. Whenever someone tries to access one of the accounts, trace 'em.
It looks like The Register has pulled the Ravicher article as the second link above now gives a 404. I wonder why. You can still read it in the the Google archive though.
Let's rename Celsius as "Freedom Degrees", kilometers as "Patriot Miles" and liters as "Star Spangled Gallons". That oughta get the American public behind metric.
I for one applaud U Florida's decision to move ahead with this. After all, it is their network which is being used to commit these crimes.
However I must admit to being disappointed at the limited scope of their action. U Florida still allows students to use its phone system to plan criminal activities. Students can freely board the campus shuttle, using it to transport contraband. And the privacy provided by the University's bathroom stalls is an open invitation for illegal drug use.
Until UF begins monitoring all phone conversations, strip searches anyone boarding a bus, and mounts surveillence cameras in all of the toilets, their facilities will continue to be used for criminal activities and the university, by association, will be responsible for all that occurs.
You must be an American, because otherwise you might have had a clue about the rest of the world and would not have made such a statement.
Wow, did I really write that? My apologies. I must have taken too many snarky pills that day.
DrSkwid wrote:
The two party state is a mature democracy and almost inevitable
By that definition Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, etc, don't have mature democracies as they all have more than two parties which regularly get representatives elected and, with the possible exception of Japan, from time to time end up in government. Aside from the US, what other mature, two-party states are there?
The rise of extremism is a consequence but the middle ground is an attractor.
I agree, but that still doesn't make the two-party system inevitable.
Though moderate policies may grow in popular appeal as a democracy matures, there can still be significant disagreements over how to implement those policies. And indeed, there can even be multiple policies competing for the middle ground.
Furthermore, contrary to popular simplification, there is no single axis on which one can mark "left", "right" and "middle". There are many axes of public policy: economics, business, health, privacy, welfare, religion, sexuality, language, regional interests, and so on. While the population en masse may be centrist along all such axes, individuals rarely are. So if all parties try to position themselves in the centre, those which lean out a bit to either side on different axes of policy can differentiate themselves enough to pick up significant support. Thus the gravitational effect of the centre is counterbalanced by the centripetal force of special interests,
Finally, there are certain issues in which there is no middle ground (e.g. allow or disallow abortion) or for which there is not even a binary choice (e.g. which military bases to close).
As I said before, the US's strong two-party tradition is more an anomaly than the wave of the future. One look at the 350-odd contenders to replace Gray Davis as governor of California should be enough to convince anyone of the fervour Americans show when given the chance to escape the stranglehold that the two main parties have on that country's political process.
The true sign of a mature democracy is voter apathy, since most parties can be counted upon not to screw things up so badly that the next government can't fix it. To my mind, that apathy is the main reason that the US's system hasn't yet fragmented. However, apathy is a force which favours the status quo, be that a two-party or multi-party system.
the South Koreans plan to appeal to the World Trade Organisation.
What's the point? Canada has won numerous rulings against the US on the softwood lumber issue, and others, but the American regime simply shrugs them off. They know that if they delay long enough their competitors will go out of business.
The current American regime believes that international rules should only bind non-Americans (NPT, landmines, ICC, Kyoto Protocol, ABM treaty, NAFTA, nuclear test ban treaty, and so on, and on, and on).
From what I've seen lately, the EU is starting to behave that way, too.
When it comes to international policy, big is apparently still beautiful.
Sure, I'd use the service, if I happened to be in the area.
I also think that it would be relatively easy to sell to local advertisers since they'd know that their ads were reaching people within a few blocks of their premises.
However, given the low eye count that you'd have at any given time, I doubt that you could charge very much for the ads. If you're running the system from your own premises, then you could still make a profit after expenses, but if you have to rent the location, likely not.
As usual, the drop in sales is quoted for CDs and
cassettes combined. The recording industry really
hates to quote them separately because in most
categories CD sales are rising.
The total is being dragged down by the headlong decline in cassette sales, which began long before Napster came along.
They claim to have studied the gekko when designing their device, but if so then they did a poor job of it.
Gekkos are unique in that they can cling to smooth surfaces even in a vacuum. This is because they don't use suction. Instead they have hairs on the pads of their feet which branch multiple times until they are fine enough for the Van der Waal's forces in the surface's molecules to attract them.
Although the attraction of any one hair is miniscule, they add up to enough to hold the gekko in place, even when upside-down.
If you're concerned about continuous uptime, forget the Unix vs. Windows argument. Clearly the secret to long server uptime is to put the damned thing where no one can mess with it.
I'm not, really, I'm just using it as a shorthand here for "someone who has been programming for several decades". It's easier to say "middle-aged programmer". If I were actually interviewing it would be years and variety of experience that I'd be looking at and questioning, not age.
The chronological bias does apply to the issue of ego, though. Not that there aren't self-effacing newbies and prima-donna oldbies out there, but the tendency is toward the reverse: developers who have been in the business for 10 or 20 years generally seem less inclined to want to rewrite libc on each new project than those who have only been coding for 4-5 years.
30 - 50 is not middle-aged. 40 - 55 is more middle-aged
I'd meant to put 'middle-aged' in quotes and forgot. Since I haven't seen a lot of 60- and 70-year-old programmers out there, I figure that 30-50 pretty much covers the middle range in this profession.
You might try looking for middle-aged (i.e. 30-50) programmers who have a background in math, engineering or sciences.
Why go with an older hacker? A couple of reasons.
First, if someone in their fourties is still programming, rather than managing projects, then it's either because they are incompetent (which you will obviously have to filter for) or because they really like programming for its own sake.
Second, RMS notwithstanding, it's been my experience that programmers with a lot of years under their belts generally have their egos under better control than than those fresh out of school. As a result, they don't have to be on the bleeding edge to be happy, they just need interesting, challenging work.
How do you attract these aging gems?
Emphasize the constantly changing variety of work and be prepared to offer flexible working conditions, such as full or partial telecommuting, compressed work hours, sabbaticals, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Intellectual "property" is not true property because the use of it by one person does not preclude its use by another. If I take your car you can't drive it while I have it. But if I "take" your idea you can still use it yourself.
I would be happy if we went back to the original intent of copyright and patent law, which was to encourage innovation and encourage innovators to make their innovations public. Those should remain the touchstones by which all changes to IP law are judged.
If an inventor only has a monopoly on his invention for 10 years instead of 20, is he likely to decide that it isn't worth it? I don't think so. He can rack up more than enough money in those 10 years to justify any effort and risk he put into it.
And extending copyright beyond an author/artist's death is ridiculous. A corpse cannot innovate!
Remember, the purpose of these laws is to maximize the public good, not guarantee an income for artists and innovators.
So I say knock all the terms back to their original limits and be a lot stricter when deciding if a new innovation is "obvious".
This suggests that banks could make some money on the side by creating thousands of dummy accounts and selling them to phishers. Whenever someone tries to access one of the accounts, trace 'em.
...how religious belief is a positive force in society?
A RepRap machine costs less than $500 in parts, though it does require a lot more assembly work.
It looks like The Register has pulled the Ravicher article as the second link above now gives a 404. I wonder why. You can still read it in the the Google archive though.
Let's rename Celsius as "Freedom Degrees", kilometers as "Patriot Miles" and liters as "Star Spangled Gallons". That oughta get the American public behind metric.
If the stock went from 2.30 to 20.50, that's a little under a ninefold increase, not ten.
They don't say that these innovations were created in the last 25 years, just that they "have become widely used since 1980".
The net most certainly falls into that category.
Without even leaving its launcher, the interceptor was able to cause the ICBM to fall harmlessly into the sea.
I'm impressed.
Anti-missile technology sure has come a long way since the Patriot's near-perfect record in the first Gulf War.
This got modded "insightful"?
He was *joking* people.
Sheesh!
Alias's revenue in 2003 was more than in the previous two years combined. And profits in 2003 were equal to the previous two years combined.
So in spite of their revenue stream being "just about tapped out", they seem to be raking in more money than ever.
I for one applaud U Florida's decision to move
ahead with this. After all, it is their
network which is being used to commit these crimes.
However I must admit to being disappointed at
the limited scope of their action. U Florida
still allows students to use its phone
system to plan criminal activities. Students can
freely board the campus shuttle, using it to
transport contraband. And the privacy provided
by the University's bathroom stalls is an open
invitation for illegal drug use.
Until UF begins monitoring all phone conversations,
strip searches anyone boarding a bus, and mounts
surveillence cameras in all of the toilets, their
facilities will continue to be used for criminal
activities and the university, by association,
will be responsible for all that occurs.
I wrote:
You must be an American, because otherwise you might have had a clue about the rest of the world and would not have made such a statement.
Wow, did I really write that? My apologies. I must have taken too many snarky pills that day.
DrSkwid wrote:
The two party state is a mature democracy and almost inevitable
By that definition Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, etc, don't have mature democracies as they all have more than two parties which regularly get representatives elected and, with the possible exception of Japan, from time to time end up in government. Aside from the US, what other mature, two-party states are there?
The rise of extremism is a consequence but the middle ground is an attractor.
I agree, but that still doesn't make the two-party system inevitable.
Though moderate policies may grow in popular appeal as a democracy matures, there can still be significant disagreements over how to implement those policies. And indeed, there can even be multiple policies competing for the middle ground.
Furthermore, contrary to popular simplification, there is no single axis on which one can mark "left", "right" and "middle". There are many axes of public policy: economics, business, health, privacy, welfare, religion, sexuality, language, regional interests, and so on. While the population en masse may be centrist along all such axes, individuals rarely are. So if all parties try to position themselves in the centre, those which lean out a bit to either side on different axes of policy can differentiate themselves enough to pick up significant support. Thus the gravitational effect of the centre is counterbalanced by the centripetal force of special interests,
Finally, there are certain issues in which there is no middle ground (e.g. allow or disallow abortion) or for which there is not even a binary choice (e.g. which military bases to close).
As I said before, the US's strong two-party tradition is more an anomaly than the wave of the future. One look at the 350-odd contenders to replace Gray Davis as governor of California should be enough to convince anyone of the fervour Americans show when given the chance to escape the stranglehold that the two main parties have on that country's political process.
The true sign of a mature democracy is voter apathy, since most parties can be counted upon not to screw things up so badly that the next government can't fix it. To my mind, that apathy is the main reason that the US's system hasn't yet fragmented. However, apathy is a force which favours the status quo, be that a two-party or multi-party system.
The stagnant two party system that has gripped the major democracies is anti-freedom.
You must be an American, because otherwise you might have had a clue about the rest of the world and would not have made such a statement.
The majority of the world's democracies, and almost all which anyone might consider "major", are multi-party.
The United States' bizarre two-party tradition is the exception, not the rule.
"thousands" of feet? He says that he gets up to 600 feet and talks about the possibility of getting to 900 feet.
It's amazing just how small Europe really is, when you get right down to it.
2400 miles would barely get me from Vancouver back to my parent's place in Toronto, let alone a round trip.
the South Koreans plan to appeal to the World Trade Organisation.
What's the point? Canada has won numerous rulings against the US on the softwood lumber issue, and others, but the American regime simply shrugs them off. They know that if they delay long enough their competitors will go out of business.
The current American regime believes that international rules should only bind non-Americans (NPT, landmines, ICC, Kyoto Protocol, ABM treaty, NAFTA, nuclear test ban treaty, and so on, and on, and on).
From what I've seen lately, the EU is starting to behave that way, too.
When it comes to international policy, big is apparently still beautiful.
Sure, I'd use the service, if I happened to be in the area.
I also think that it would be relatively easy to sell to local advertisers since they'd know that their ads were reaching people within a few blocks of their premises.
However, given the low eye count that you'd have at any given time, I doubt that you could charge very much for the ads. If you're running the system from your own premises, then you could still make a profit after expenses, but if you have to rent the location, likely not.
The total is being dragged down by the headlong decline in cassette sales, which began long before Napster came along.
-deane
Gooroos Software: plugging you in to Maya
Gekkos are unique in that they can cling to smooth surfaces even in a vacuum. This is because they don't use suction. Instead they have hairs on the pads of their feet which branch multiple times until they are fine enough for the Van der Waal's forces in the surface's molecules to attract them.
Although the attraction of any one hair is miniscule, they add up to enough to hold the gekko in place, even when upside-down.
-deane
Gooroos Software: plugging you in to Maya
-deane
Gooroos Software: plugging you in to Maya
I'm not, really, I'm just using it as a shorthand here for "someone who has been programming for several decades". It's easier to say "middle-aged programmer". If I were actually interviewing it would be years and variety of experience that I'd be looking at and questioning, not age.
The chronological bias does apply to the issue of ego, though. Not that there aren't self-effacing newbies and prima-donna oldbies out there, but the tendency is toward the reverse: developers who have been in the business for 10 or 20 years generally seem less inclined to want to rewrite libc on each new project than those who have only been coding for 4-5 years.
-deane
Gooroos Software: plugging you in to Maya
I'd meant to put 'middle-aged' in quotes and forgot. Since I haven't seen a lot of 60- and 70-year-old programmers out there, I figure that 30-50 pretty much covers the middle range in this profession.
-deane
Gooroos Software: plugging you in to Maya
Why go with an older hacker? A couple of reasons.
First, if someone in their fourties is still programming, rather than managing projects, then it's either because they are incompetent (which you will obviously have to filter for) or because they really like programming for its own sake.
Second, RMS notwithstanding, it's been my experience that programmers with a lot of years under their belts generally have their egos under better control than than those fresh out of school. As a result, they don't have to be on the bleeding edge to be happy, they just need interesting, challenging work.
How do you attract these aging gems?
Emphasize the constantly changing variety of work and be prepared to offer flexible working conditions, such as full or partial telecommuting, compressed work hours, sabbaticals, etc.
-deane
Gooroos Software: plugging you in to Maya