A friend told me that CNN is sponsoring a debate for the 3rd party candidates this friday. Al Gore has recently agreed to participate and this will hopefully convince Bush to attend as well.
Of course, I wasn't able to find this on CNN.com, but I didn't have time for a thorough check. Can anyone verify?
He opposes nuclear power but he also supports further development of alternative energy sources like solar power, which are really clean. And nuclear waste wouldn't be a problem if we did dispose of it by tossing it into the sun, but usually we just bury it somewhere and hope it doesn't cause any problems big enough for the public to notice.
The whole point of affirmative action is that a lot of people in America have been exploited and abused through most of our history, and something should be done to repair that damage. Personally I think a better way to go about is up the minimum wage and fund public schools so people have a chance to help themselves, but affirmative action is what we have now. As a white male on his way to having a CS degree, I have it plenty good already, and it's not like affirmative action is going to ruin my life or something.
In most states the battle is already decided, and one candidate has pretty much given up. If you're in one of those states, a vote for either major candidate is a wasted vote.
On the other hand, voting for a third party can help them achieve a crucial 5% of the vote, which entitles them to federal matching funds next time around. It will also raise awareness of the issues people care about. Even if 3rd party candidates don't get elected, if they have significant support they can force the major candidates to address some of their issues.
www.votenader.org for more info on why you should vote what you really believe in.
You can bet that the first condition of this law is to have each and every user and piece of data registered
Have you even read the legislation? There is no mention of any sort of registration in the article (which of course must be a conspiracy by the government controlled media). Do you have any evidence of this at all, or are you just spouting conspiracy theories out of habit?
Why is it that someone posting totally unfounded paranoia is modded up as "insightful?" It looks to me like someone in Congress is finally getting a clue about technology issues (or at least this issue). We should be cheering them on, not inventing conspiracies where none exist.
Aside from the fact that those in power will never agree to this, politics is very much a specialized job. Sure, people picked at random would probably pass laws that were, in spirit, more representative of the interests of the American people as a whole. But then the big corporations would send out their lawyers to walk through the gaping loopholes and pervert the laws to their own ends.
In order to write laws that will hold up at all, you have to speak legalese and have a pretty good knowledge of how our legal system works. These or not qualifications that the average person has or really wants to have.
Of course, you could appoint legal advisors to these representatives to help them write the laws, but the opportunity for corruption there is immense. ("Oops, did that law accidentally allow corporation X to dump toxic chemicals into the ocean with impunity? I'll have to watch out for that loophole next time." And meanwhile mister advisor is pocketing a big check from corporation x)
A distributed OS is one that runs multiple computers in arbitrary locations as a single system. So, you could have 50 machines scattered across, say, a university campus, each with their own hd, cpu, etc. But, they are all sharing resources, so you have the illusion of 1 big HD and 1 big processor. Everything is location independent, so (ideally), the user can't see which physical device is actually being used, and it doesn't matter.
As to why you would want to do this, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe to run diskless machines? I don't think a distributed OS is really worthwhile given today's technology, but possibly in 5-10 years. AFAIK most work in this area is still in the province of research rather than immediate practical application.
it scares me to think of a world where my copyright means nothing. Stephen King just recently said it quite well, as I attempt to paraphrase him: "Please respect my copyright; as a writer, it's all I've got."
The thing is, all the arguments of this article rest on the big assumption that your copyright is not all you've got. The author seems to think that abolishing all political and economic inequality is just a step on the road the the real goal of getting rid of IP.
Personally, I think he's fighting his battles in the wrong order. I think the article makes a very convincing case for getting rid of IP, if you've already vanquished economic inequality. Yeah, right.
He's really talking about transforming our entire society and economic model, but that part is sort of snuck in, without any support or justification. While I agree with his basic premise that IP laws are currently screwed up and subject to a ton of abuse, until we abandon capitalism I don't think his arguments really hold water.
These services are important, and I don't think the need for them will go away. A good editor makes a huge difference in the quality of the final product, and marketing is going to be just as important for electronic distribution as it is for print.
But, this doesn't mean that big publishing will be able to survive. Right now they control the distribution channels -- they have the money to print 1M copies of a new book and get them in bookstores around the country. The move to a radically new distribution channel -- the internet -- is going to take away that monopoly.
I don't think this will mean the complete disappearance of the middleman. Although electronic distribution requires vastly fewer resources than print, you still need a web site, with the ability to handle payments online, as well as advertising and marketing. The average author wants to focus on writing, not distribution, and I don't think that will change.
There's also the value of a well-known, central point of distribution. Even if an author is willing to put up his own website, nobody is necessarily going to know about it or bother visiting it.
I think we will probably see the emergence of a new generation of publishing companies (possibly evolving from the current companies). These e-publishers will deal with setting up the websites and advertising, and of course take a cut of the sales. In some ways these publishers may work a lot like current publishers -- picking works they think will sell, and putting a lot of effort into editing and polishing them, then rolling out the marketing team to make sure they sell. But, I don't see any reason why they would only distribute big sellers. They don't have anything to lose by posting every single story that comes their way. The effort and resources involved are minimal, so there is no real risk.
I think these new publishing companies will be the ones making the celebrities, but there will also be much more room for the alternative press -- bare-bones publishing companies that provide minimal editing/marketing (or maybe the author pays for editing), but will put you on the web and give you a chance to sell.
There's no way that the corporate influence will entirely vanish from distribution of books/music/whatever until you remove the need for the artists to make money. Artists are good at art, corporations are good at making money, and artists need that corporate money to eat. Still, electronic distribution definitely cuts down the services of the middleman and (hopefully) will allow more of the money to go to the artist.
Slashdot Mirror
A friend told me that CNN is sponsoring a debate for the 3rd party candidates this friday. Al Gore has recently agreed to participate and this will hopefully convince Bush to attend as well.
Of course, I wasn't able to find this on CNN.com, but I didn't have time for a thorough check. Can anyone verify?
He opposes nuclear power but he also supports further development of alternative energy sources like solar power, which are really clean. And nuclear waste wouldn't be a problem if we did dispose of it by tossing it into the sun, but usually we just bury it somewhere and hope it doesn't cause any problems big enough for the public to notice.
The whole point of affirmative action is that a lot of people in America have been exploited and abused through most of our history, and something should be done to repair that damage. Personally I think a better way to go about is up the minimum wage and fund public schools so people have a chance to help themselves, but affirmative action is what we have now. As a white male on his way to having a CS degree, I have it plenty good already, and it's not like affirmative action is going to ruin my life or something.
In most states the battle is already decided, and one candidate has pretty much given up. If you're in one of those states, a vote for either major candidate is a wasted vote.
On the other hand, voting for a third party can help them achieve a crucial 5% of the vote, which entitles them to federal matching funds next time around. It will also raise awareness of the issues people care about. Even if 3rd party candidates don't get elected, if they have significant support they can force the major candidates to address some of their issues.
www.votenader.org for more info on why you should vote what you really believe in.
Have you even read the legislation? There is no mention of any sort of registration in the article (which of course must be a conspiracy by the government controlled media). Do you have any evidence of this at all, or are you just spouting conspiracy theories out of habit?
Why is it that someone posting totally unfounded paranoia is modded up as "insightful?" It looks to me like someone in Congress is finally getting a clue about technology issues (or at least this issue). We should be cheering them on, not inventing conspiracies where none exist.
Aside from the fact that those in power will never agree to this, politics is very much a specialized job. Sure, people picked at random would probably pass laws that were, in spirit, more representative of the interests of the American people as a whole. But then the big corporations would send out their lawyers to walk through the gaping loopholes and pervert the laws to their own ends.
In order to write laws that will hold up at all, you have to speak legalese and have a pretty good knowledge of how our legal system works. These or not qualifications that the average person has or really wants to have.
Of course, you could appoint legal advisors to these representatives to help them write the laws, but the opportunity for corruption there is immense. ("Oops, did that law accidentally allow corporation X to dump toxic chemicals into the ocean with impunity? I'll have to watch out for that loophole next time." And meanwhile mister advisor is pocketing a big check from corporation x)
A distributed OS is one that runs multiple computers in arbitrary locations as a single system. So, you could have 50 machines scattered across, say, a university campus, each with their own hd, cpu, etc. But, they are all sharing resources, so you have the illusion of 1 big HD and 1 big processor. Everything is location independent, so (ideally), the user can't see which physical device is actually being used, and it doesn't matter.
As to why you would want to do this, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe to run diskless machines? I don't think a distributed OS is really worthwhile given today's technology, but possibly in 5-10 years. AFAIK most work in this area is still in the province of research rather than immediate practical application.
Nathan
The thing is, all the arguments of this article rest on the big assumption that your copyright is not all you've got. The author seems to think that abolishing all political and economic inequality is just a step on the road the the real goal of getting rid of IP.
Personally, I think he's fighting his battles in the wrong order. I think the article makes a very convincing case for getting rid of IP, if you've already vanquished economic inequality. Yeah, right.
He's really talking about transforming our entire society and economic model, but that part is sort of snuck in, without any support or justification. While I agree with his basic premise that IP laws are currently screwed up and subject to a ton of abuse, until we abandon capitalism I don't think his arguments really hold water.
These services are important, and I don't think the need for them will go away. A good editor makes a huge difference in the quality of the final product, and marketing is going to be just as important for electronic distribution as it is for print.
But, this doesn't mean that big publishing will be able to survive. Right now they control the distribution channels -- they have the money to print 1M copies of a new book and get them in bookstores around the country. The move to a radically new distribution channel -- the internet -- is going to take away that monopoly.
I don't think this will mean the complete disappearance of the middleman. Although electronic distribution requires vastly fewer resources than print, you still need a web site, with the ability to handle payments online, as well as advertising and marketing. The average author wants to focus on writing, not distribution, and I don't think that will change.
There's also the value of a well-known, central point of distribution. Even if an author is willing to put up his own website, nobody is necessarily going to know about it or bother visiting it.
I think we will probably see the emergence of a new generation of publishing companies (possibly evolving from the current companies). These e-publishers will deal with setting up the websites and advertising, and of course take a cut of the sales. In some ways these publishers may work a lot like current publishers -- picking works they think will sell, and putting a lot of effort into editing and polishing them, then rolling out the marketing team to make sure they sell. But, I don't see any reason why they would only distribute big sellers. They don't have anything to lose by posting every single story that comes their way. The effort and resources involved are minimal, so there is no real risk.
I think these new publishing companies will be the ones making the celebrities, but there will also be much more room for the alternative press -- bare-bones publishing companies that provide minimal editing/marketing (or maybe the author pays for editing), but will put you on the web and give you a chance to sell.
There's no way that the corporate influence will entirely vanish from distribution of books/music/whatever until you remove the need for the artists to make money. Artists are good at art, corporations are good at making money, and artists need that corporate money to eat. Still, electronic distribution definitely cuts down the services of the middleman and (hopefully) will allow more of the money to go to the artist.
Nathan