How can we honestly say that the use of roads, with cars, is really a priviledge rather than a right anymore? In some localized areas, it may be possible to function without a car, but not in the vast majority of the nation. Heck, I have to drive 40 miles to the next town just to buy shoes so I can walk to the university for class.
We have a right to travel, We have a right to be secure in our effects, How can we not have the right to be secure in our effects while we travel?
Most interesting seems to be the suggestion that the 1970's ruling, which required the application of community standards of decency, must consider the community into which the product was introduced. Here we see a product released over the internet. The producers say this is subject to the [average] standards of the community of the whole internet and not just the town where the order was sent. Of course these internet standards will be different than those of the folks in Pittsburgh. But this raises even more questions...
If a purvey of putrid porn is prosecuted under state law, but the standard of decency is that of the internet as a whole, do we expect a jury of local folks to be able to set aside their personal feelings and understand that the rest of the world feels differently? Or must we find a way to draw a jury from the whole of the internet? Certainly states cannot compell jurors from other jurisdictions... the problem goes on.
In the end, I suspect we'll endure the total federalisation of yet another aspect of the law.
TO apply laws from an individual or craft's point of origin would encourage folks to travel in space. If the laws that apply are one's own, then one need not fear unknowingly breaking one.
By Contrast, uniform laws would encourage commercial development in space. If all the rules are the same, investors can tell what they're getting into.
A balance is probably the best solution, but where do we draw such a line?
No International Law YET governs the deployment of arms in space. In the even that space tourism & travel catches on, I'm sure we'll see more regluation on where such devices may fly, much like warships on the seas now.
My question is, should such travel become common, do my State & Federal (SD, US) rights to carry arms permit me to carry my OWN arms into space on my own craft?
2,500 years of life in isolation is neat. We have a new little Australia to play with. Unfortunately a lake that is a couple of thousand years old really can't tell us whether life MIGHT exist on mars, only that it is capable... and given the multitude of environments where we find life here at home, I doubt many folks question the possibility of life being able to survive once it got to Mars.
Such a lake sadly tells us little about the real question, from where does life originate in the first place?
As for environmental concnerns, there are those who suggest that if Man is as much a natural organism as any other living thing and no more, then ALL of his actions must be natural, including the contamination of a 2,500 year old lake.
Two issues come to mind when one considers the wonders of AI in a chatroom:
1. How hard can it be to fool people into thinking you're actually a person in a chatroom, most of them consist of nothing but a repetition of:
Dude22 - whats up in here? Otherdude - nothing much... Othergal - bored. Dude22 - anyone wanna cyber?... silence...
with occasional "Free Palestine!!!!!!" spam.
2. OK, so you've got these bots that can chat just like people. Who do they belong to? Marketing agencies? Your government? Some other Government? The Illuminati? Its ALL a conspiracy!
Here in South Dakota, we are blessed with ONE member of the house of representatives and TWO elections for that seat this year. (Long story) Elections are a great time to bring national issues into public discussion. But do the masses really care?
I've though about bringing up the whole problem with perpetually extended copyrights and other IP debacles at one of the many public Q&A forums the candidates have, but I'm afraid I'd be the only one there who knows or cares what I'm talking about.
The courts in Eldred v. Ashcroft directed IP complaints to Congress, and I suspect our congressmen will direct our complaints to/dev/nul.
1. The Car
I have to agree with the open source folks on the subject of a car with the hood welded shut. The automotive industry has been looking for years to find ways to keep "outsiders" from working on their products... this is why we have proprietary diagnostic codes in car computers, and needed a Supreme Court decision to get them released to the public. And who do you think invented the tamper-resistant torx bolt? Now while I can barely discern C++ from Pascall, I have replaced a radiator by the side of a road 50 miles from the nearest town... I'll take the open hood thanks.
2. Women
Anyone who says women generally do not have different preferences from men has never met a woman. As enlightened as we all pretend to be, there will always be things which are feminine and things which are masculine. I see no problem in designing a car "For Women" any more than a company making clothing "For Women."
I'm not worried about being tracked with such a system here at home for two reasons. I usually use cash and I have PGP encryption for my emails. But then again, I live in South Dakota and everyone always knows where everyone else is anyway so the point is moot.
What worries me is what a foreign nation might do with this information. Say I own a piece of software that is legal at home, but illegal in the nation where I spend my spring break, am I going to get Skylarov'ed for something I do in a different nation with different rules?
1. The technological world moves fast, this is its nature. To slow any portion of it down is to kill it. If you force a technology to wait on slower social systems like justice the world moves on without it.
2. We saw this with Netscape. Sure they won the case, Mircrosoft was held to be in violation of the law, but by the time the issue was resolved the browser wars were old news.
3. Is this what we're seeing with SCO? Freeze up the linux community just long enough and the world will pass them by. Are the same actors involved? Does SCO get money from Microsoft? Bill's a smart man, why not loose a battle to win the war?
So the RIAA has a bunch of computer programs running, or perhaps pays contractors to run them. These programs sweep the Internet's popular P2P networks, scan files, and report the results. What prevents a lawyer with a computer and a chip on his shoulder from keeping a whole mess of juicy-looking but legal data on his machine, getting swamped by the automated little buggers... and then charging the contractor with a DOS attack?
(IAAL, but only have a vauge understanding of how a DOS works.)
This kind of system is great on paper, but terrible in practice. I've got 3 reasons why:
1. People don't like to be watched. This starts early in life. How many station-wagon's have resonated with the words, "MOM! Jeffy's lookin' at me!" Care and attention are nice, being watched is not.
2. This is not a positive effort. It is not set up to encourage kids to succeed. It is a system whereby they are monitored to try and predict when they will do something "bad."
3. This will accustom our young to being monitored by computer, all the time./. does not need this point explained, as much as I'd love to vent.
At the University of South Dakota (USD, not in San Diego!) School of Law, most classrooms are outfitted with electrical outlets and network jacks at each seat. This enables even folks with weak batteries to make use of our laptops for note taking et. al. The most amazing adaptation this has caused, however, is not among the students but rather the professors.
Our faculty has in recent years discovered how to pace lectures by listening to the sound of keystrokes in the audience. If it gets too quiet they can talk more quickly, too much keyboard noise and it's time to pause.
Two Words -- Mount Rushmore. Yes its in South Dakota.* You want to see technology? Take a look at what the Homeland Security folks get to play with up there.
*-30F in January, and still the best state in the Union!
The discussion thusfar seems to have identified two major issues (and one minor one) that must be overcome before such a program could exist in the United States.
1. Land - We've got a lot of it over here, but the bottleneck to starting something like this is probably not so much a question of whether or not its easier to make landfills. The question is one of transport. How can any recycling operation afford to ship 22 pounds (10 kg) of monitor from an office in Lemmon, SD, once every 6 months, and still hope to turn a profit? Japan has the "advantage" of being compact. We don't.
2. Law - Landfills are cheap & easy. Recycling is less profitable. Will we be trying to implement this state by state? Does the federal government have any authority to mandate such a disposal regime under the interstate commerce power?
3. Will the RIAA object to anyone recycling a DRM enabled device under the DMCA?
In South Dakota, folks start driving at 14, and don't need to be farmers. (Well actually its free driving from 6am to 8pm at 14 years and 6 months, or 14 years and 3 months if you take drivers' education class.)
Remember, to have a car accident, you need something to hit.
I come from a long line of farming folk. I've farmed with my folks, they farm, their folks farmed with other farming folks....
Modern farming folks, armed with this system will need fewer folks around the farm. Fewer folks in the area means a smaller demand for services, so more folks will leave. Finally, fewer and fewer folks will fill the rural landscape.
Will this technology be the nail in the coffin of rural life in the midwestern states, requiring only a few folks to farm for everyone?
What happens to the rest of the folks in more populated states when the system crashes and there are too few farmers to farm fields the hard way?
At USD, thats University of South Dakota for those who live outside the Mt. Rushmore State, the administration has completed the first year of a 3 year "pilot" program where all incomming students receive a PALM M500, assorted software, USB cradle (That I still cannot get to work with linux) and access to Infrared ports scattered through most of the buildings on campus. These provide access to the internet for email, news, upgrades, assignments, and anything else you might want.
After the first year, adoption or use by the student population runs around 50%. The other half either collect dust or sell them on E-bay. Professors like them, because it makes producing a handout or study guide easier, beaming to a few students who then "pass it on" and saving paper. The biggest problem has been classes where only 1/2 to 1/3 of students have either been issued a PALM (freshmen only) or have bothered to bring it. The next plan is to have certain sections of popular classes be listed "PALM Only" so professors and students so inclined actually CAN take advantage of the devicecs.
Students who use them most often take advantage of the handheld news options, email, and the like. My personal favorite was to transfer my notes to the PALM so I could study for finals while I'm out fishing.
My friend, I have the solution for you! In the past week along I've received a half dozen informative emails from people that can set you up with the degree you need using ONLY your life experience!
Thats RIGHT! A real degree from an eminent non-accredited university in just weeks! all based on your own life experience. I'd be happy to foreward these to you.
Many of the questions I've seen so far involve the question "Is code protected as speech?" My question is rather the opposite. If code is not protected as speech, can it still be copyrighted?
A quick note in defense of the Electoral College:
It serves to prevent the executive office from being dominated by the wills of a few heavily populated states, such that if over 50% of the nation's people lived in say California, that state alone could still NOT decide the outcome because each state has a minimum of 3 votes. Now before flaming about "The Will of the People" remember that the United States was created to ballance power between the States as much as it was to serve the popular will... Thats why we have the Senate.
Slashdot Mirror
How can we honestly say that the use of roads, with cars, is really a priviledge rather than a right anymore? In some localized areas, it may be possible to function without a car, but not in the vast majority of the nation. Heck, I have to drive 40 miles to the next town just to buy shoes so I can walk to the university for class.
We have a right to travel,
We have a right to be secure in our effects,
How can we not have the right to be secure in our effects while we travel?
Philosophers of the future may ask, how many unsupported assertions can dance on the head of a post? This post for example:
/. posts.
1. Asserts most people could never develop the talent to write a book.
2. Asserts that natural language is stable even though we don't all speak latin.
3. Asserts that language is natural, even though there are thousands of incompatible variations. (Sex is natural)
4. Assumes humanity evolved over millenia
5. Assumes language is less "important" than vision.
6. Assumes there are plenty of taglines with pretty ASCII pictures that cheat character limits on
Most interesting seems to be the suggestion that the 1970's ruling, which required the application of community standards of decency, must consider the community into which the product was introduced. Here we see a product released over the internet. The producers say this is subject to the [average] standards of the community of the whole internet and not just the town where the order was sent. Of course these internet standards will be different than those of the folks in Pittsburgh. But this raises even more questions...
If a purvey of putrid porn is prosecuted under state law, but the standard of decency is that of the internet as a whole, do we expect a jury of local folks to be able to set aside their personal feelings and understand that the rest of the world feels differently? Or must we find a way to draw a jury from the whole of the internet? Certainly states cannot compell jurors from other jurisdictions... the problem goes on.
In the end, I suspect we'll endure the total federalisation of yet another aspect of the law.
TO apply laws from an individual or craft's point of origin would encourage folks to travel in space. If the laws that apply are one's own, then one need not fear unknowingly breaking one.
By Contrast, uniform laws would encourage commercial development in space. If all the rules are the same, investors can tell what they're getting into.
A balance is probably the best solution, but where do we draw such a line?
No International Law YET governs the deployment of arms in space. In the even that space tourism & travel catches on, I'm sure we'll see more regluation on where such devices may fly, much like warships on the seas now.
My question is, should such travel become common, do my State & Federal (SD, US) rights to carry arms permit me to carry my OWN arms into space on my own craft?
2,500 years of life in isolation is neat. We have a new little Australia to play with. Unfortunately a lake that is a couple of thousand years old really can't tell us whether life MIGHT exist on mars, only that it is capable... and given the multitude of environments where we find life here at home, I doubt many folks question the possibility of life being able to survive once it got to Mars.
Such a lake sadly tells us little about the real question, from where does life originate in the first place?
As for environmental concnerns, there are those who suggest that if Man is as much a natural organism as any other living thing and no more, then ALL of his actions must be natural, including the contamination of a 2,500 year old lake.
Two issues come to mind when one considers the wonders of AI in a chatroom:
... silence...
1. How hard can it be to fool people into thinking you're actually a person in a chatroom, most of them consist of nothing but a repetition of:
Dude22 - whats up in here?
Otherdude - nothing much...
Othergal - bored.
Dude22 - anyone wanna cyber?
with occasional "Free Palestine!!!!!!" spam.
2. OK, so you've got these bots that can chat just like people. Who do they belong to? Marketing agencies? Your government? Some other Government? The Illuminati? Its ALL a conspiracy!
Here in South Dakota, we are blessed with ONE member of the house of representatives and TWO elections for that seat this year. (Long story) Elections are a great time to bring national issues into public discussion. But do the masses really care?
/dev/nul.
I've though about bringing up the whole problem with perpetually extended copyrights and other IP debacles at one of the many public Q&A forums the candidates have, but I'm afraid I'd be the only one there who knows or cares what I'm talking about.
The courts in Eldred v. Ashcroft directed IP complaints to Congress, and I suspect our congressmen will direct our complaints to
I will address two points, the car and the women.
1. The Car
I have to agree with the open source folks on the subject of a car with the hood welded shut. The automotive industry has been looking for years to find ways to keep "outsiders" from working on their products... this is why we have proprietary diagnostic codes in car computers, and needed a Supreme Court decision to get them released to the public. And who do you think invented the tamper-resistant torx bolt? Now while I can barely discern C++ from Pascall, I have replaced a radiator by the side of a road 50 miles from the nearest town... I'll take the open hood thanks.
2. Women
Anyone who says women generally do not have different preferences from men has never met a woman. As enlightened as we all pretend to be, there will always be things which are feminine and things which are masculine. I see no problem in designing a car "For Women" any more than a company making clothing "For Women."
Fear of Sexism is stiffling innovation.
I'm not worried about being tracked with such a system here at home for two reasons. I usually use cash and I have PGP encryption for my emails. But then again, I live in South Dakota and everyone always knows where everyone else is anyway so the point is moot.
What worries me is what a foreign nation might do with this information. Say I own a piece of software that is legal at home, but illegal in the nation where I spend my spring break, am I going to get Skylarov'ed for something I do in a different nation with different rules?
Lawyers on both sides! Thats how the world was meant to work!
Does anyone wonder...
1. The technological world moves fast, this is its nature. To slow any portion of it down is to kill it. If you force a technology to wait on slower social systems like justice the world moves on without it.
2. We saw this with Netscape. Sure they won the case, Mircrosoft was held to be in violation of the law, but by the time the issue was resolved the browser wars were old news.
3. Is this what we're seeing with SCO? Freeze up the linux community just long enough and the world will pass them by. Are the same actors involved? Does SCO get money from Microsoft? Bill's a smart man, why not loose a battle to win the war?
** Insert popular political comment here.**
So the RIAA has a bunch of computer programs running, or perhaps pays contractors to run them. These programs sweep the Internet's popular P2P networks, scan files, and report the results. What prevents a lawyer with a computer and a chip on his shoulder from keeping a whole mess of juicy-looking but legal data on his machine, getting swamped by the automated little buggers... and then charging the contractor with a DOS attack?
(IAAL, but only have a vauge understanding of how a DOS works.)
This kind of system is great on paper, but terrible in practice. I've got 3 reasons why:
/. does not need this point explained, as much as I'd love to vent.
1. People don't like to be watched. This starts early in life. How many station-wagon's have resonated with the words, "MOM! Jeffy's lookin' at me!" Care and attention are nice, being watched is not.
2. This is not a positive effort. It is not set up to encourage kids to succeed. It is a system whereby they are monitored to try and predict when they will do something "bad."
3. This will accustom our young to being monitored by computer, all the time.
"Wrong! do it again!" - P. Floyd
At the University of South Dakota (USD, not in San Diego!) School of Law, most classrooms are outfitted with electrical outlets and network jacks at each seat. This enables even folks with weak batteries to make use of our laptops for note taking et. al. The most amazing adaptation this has caused, however, is not among the students but rather the professors.
Our faculty has in recent years discovered how to pace lectures by listening to the sound of keystrokes in the audience. If it gets too quiet they can talk more quickly, too much keyboard noise and it's time to pause.
Two Words -- Mount Rushmore. Yes its in South Dakota.* You want to see technology? Take a look at what the Homeland Security folks get to play with up there.
*-30F in January, and still the best state in the Union!
The discussion thusfar seems to have identified two major issues (and one minor one) that must be overcome before such a program could exist in the United States.
1. Land - We've got a lot of it over here, but the bottleneck to starting something like this is probably not so much a question of whether or not its easier to make landfills. The question is one of transport. How can any recycling operation afford to ship 22 pounds (10 kg) of monitor from an office in Lemmon, SD, once every 6 months, and still hope to turn a profit? Japan has the "advantage" of being compact. We don't.
2. Law - Landfills are cheap & easy. Recycling is less profitable. Will we be trying to implement this state by state? Does the federal government have any authority to mandate such a disposal regime under the interstate commerce power?
3. Will the RIAA object to anyone recycling a DRM enabled device under the DMCA?
Say I use windows to manage my internet connection & run KaZaa... and I got this nasty letter in the mail from the RIAA. Will they defend me?
What happens when we convince all of these poor students not to settle?
Can they defend pro-se, loose the case, declare bankruptcy, and leave the RIAA to pay its own lawyers for thousands of suits nationwide?
In South Dakota, folks start driving at 14, and don't need to be farmers. (Well actually its free driving from 6am to 8pm at 14 years and 6 months, or 14 years and 3 months if you take drivers' education class.)
Remember, to have a car accident, you need something to hit.
I come from a long line of farming folk. I've farmed with my folks, they farm, their folks farmed with other farming folks....
Modern farming folks, armed with this system will need fewer folks around the farm. Fewer folks in the area means a smaller demand for services, so more folks will leave. Finally, fewer and fewer folks will fill the rural landscape.
Will this technology be the nail in the coffin of rural life in the midwestern states, requiring only a few folks to farm for everyone?
What happens to the rest of the folks in more populated states when the system crashes and there are too few farmers to farm fields the hard way?
At USD, thats University of South Dakota for those who live outside the Mt. Rushmore State, the administration has completed the first year of a 3 year "pilot" program where all incomming students receive a PALM M500, assorted software, USB cradle (That I still cannot get to work with linux) and access to Infrared ports scattered through most of the buildings on campus. These provide access to the internet for email, news, upgrades, assignments, and anything else you might want.
After the first year, adoption or use by the student population runs around 50%. The other half either collect dust or sell them on E-bay. Professors like them, because it makes producing a handout or study guide easier, beaming to a few students who then "pass it on" and saving paper. The biggest problem has been classes where only 1/2 to 1/3 of students have either been issued a PALM (freshmen only) or have bothered to bring it. The next plan is to have certain sections of popular classes be listed "PALM Only" so professors and students so inclined actually CAN take advantage of the devicecs.
Students who use them most often take advantage of the handheld news options, email, and the like. My personal favorite was to transfer my notes to the PALM so I could study for finals while I'm out fishing.
My friend, I have the solution for you! In the past week along I've received a half dozen informative emails from people that can set you up with the degree you need using ONLY your life experience!
Thats RIGHT! A real degree from an eminent non-accredited university in just weeks! all based on your own life experience. I'd be happy to foreward these to you.
Many of the questions I've seen so far involve the question "Is code protected as speech?" My question is rather the opposite. If code is not protected as speech, can it still be copyrighted?
A quick note in defense of the Electoral College: It serves to prevent the executive office from being dominated by the wills of a few heavily populated states, such that if over 50% of the nation's people lived in say California, that state alone could still NOT decide the outcome because each state has a minimum of 3 votes. Now before flaming about "The Will of the People" remember that the United States was created to ballance power between the States as much as it was to serve the popular will... Thats why we have the Senate.