Re:Great illustration of their stupidity!
on
Fritz's Hit List
·
· Score: 1
Never mind digital storage scopes - you can use an analogue, no-storage one to display a digital signal; that's all it takes. Though maybe a lawyer could argue it would only count if it could accepted a Z axis input.
of the Young's double slit experiment with single electrons. This showed that a single electron interacted with both slits as a wave (i.e. it passed through both slits at once), then interfered with itself before interacting with the detector as a particle at a point. A truly stunning demonstration of the reality of wave-particle duality, and the reason this one got the top slot.
should one person DIE simply because he can't afford to live?... who is willing to actually step up to the plate and actually give to mankind rather than profit from its needs?
You perhaps? Try the Cancer Research Campaign for example. However, I doubt you personally can "afford" the R&D to save even one person from dying from a currently-incurable disease.
First of all, when the IBM PC debuted it was the technologically the best personal computer available
Not true. If anything, it was just about the worst. There were other 8088 based machines about at the same time, most of them better in all respects. 1.2MB floppies were available on some machines years before IBM got them going (and they
used compatible diskettes that could be formatted
as either 360K or 1.2M, as well). Everyone except IBM had built in serial ports; on the PC they were expensive extras. Some firms (Apricot
as I remember, also probably others) were starting to bring out system manager software that gave you
menu selection of applications about 5 years before Windows 2 started to appear on IBM compatibles.
The only thing the PC had going for it was that it came from a big company and was therefore "the standard" before it started. But that was enough - a sad example of human nature in action.
Too many people in this discussion are using words like "immoral" without thinking through the morality of the issue.
The Moral Issues
IMO the author of a creative work should have the right to decide how it is to be used. If he wants to sell it, then so be it. If he wants to keep aspects of it secret, he can do that. If he wants to make it freely available to the world, he can do that too.
Probably more people agree with this idea, when it comes down to it, than one would expect from reading this discussion. Certainly nearly everyone who actually creates things does - how many times have you seen statements like "This software is hereby placed in the public domain"? Probably sometimes, but not often. Note that even free software types almost always keep control to some extent, with the GPL or BSD licence or similar.
Of course, one of the things an author can do is sell the rights to the work; indeed this is what nearly always happens, one way or another. This gives the purchaser the same moral right as the original author; yes, even if the author was stupid enough to make an unfavourable deal (that's his decision, certainly not yours).
This isn't absolute, though; it is possible to go too far. When someone else tries to force me to use their choice of operating system when watching a DVD movie of theirs (that I have purchased legitimately), that's well beyond fair control of the use of their work. When someone tells a hardware supplier they can pre-install an OS only if they do so on all the systems they produce, that's too much as well.
Such practices can themselves be considered immoral, but that does not confer any moral right on others to behave immorally towards perpetrators.
The Consequences
If Microsoft wishes to charge a lot of money, or even a lot per year, for its operating systems, that's their privilege. If you don't like it, don't steal from Microsoft; install one of the (excellent) freeware OSs. Incidentally, this has the added benefit of reducing the installed base of Windows and increasing that of freeware.
If you want to download free music, download something that the author has licensed for that. If you can't find what you like with such a licence, sorry but taking it anyway is stealing.
Incidentally, do you really want to listen to someone of whose principles you disapprove?
For myself, I don't like Microsoft's licences or their lock-in tactics, so I avoid their products whenever I can. I don't use Napster; I do have a turntable connected to my sound card, and have made some MP3s from old vinyl records, for my own use only. I have a DVD-ROM drive, but won't watch movie DVDs on it until I get round to setting up a Linux based player.
The difference is that in the case of mobile phones the citizens are customers of a company which needs to keep them happy and which has competitors. The only time my cellphone company tried giving my number to advertisers they got furious complaints from me and from my wife. They promised to take us off the relevant list. If it happens again, bye bye.
The Government on the other hand has no competitors, at least in these days of "consensus politics" in the UK. Opposition parties may go on about freedom, but only until they win an election.
I've been to Germany... on the autobahns... on a German bike. It was interesting to note how much better everyone behaved there. Seemed to me that drivers, seeing a Merc hammering up behind, tended to pull in. They knew he was entitled to go that fast.
Here (UK), when that happens, there's a strong inclination not to do so: "I'm already at the speed limit so it's his job to slow down." Result tailgating, road rage etc.
There was the headmaster of the rural school (about 60 pupils) who taught me (aged 10-11) woodwork and all the other subjects as well. The highlight of the course was making and sailing model boats, chiselled out of solid wood and with a moulded piece of lead to weight the keel. I (aged 43) still use those skills occasionally.
There was the ex-naval pilot who taught maths, a few years later. His examples of vectors were from personal experience, e.g. getting back to his carrier from 200 miles away in a given wind. Far more appealing to a bunch of teenage boys than the textbook stuff about birds flying across the road in front of a car.
Neither would happen these days. Let 10 year olds loose with sharp tools? Let someone teach who hadn't been through teacher training? Not a chance.
An even better idea would be to have one TLD fewer. The real problem isn't a shortage of domain names, it's conflict between similar company names.
The whole idea of DNS is to resolve this kind of conflict using a hierarchical structure.
So what the Internet needs is to get rid of the TLD that has become generic, i.e..com, and to become very sticky about giving out.net and.org. The main TLDs for businesses would then become the country codes (.us,.uk et al.). If a business operates in multiple countries, it can have multiple country codes (as is common practice anyway). This would resolve some of the conflicts. The rest would IMO be beyond the reach of DNS changes, and would need to be sorted out between the parties concerned, possibly in court under national trademark legislation.
Of course this would upset a lot of people who have dug deep in their pockets to pay off.com domain name squatters, would give severe feelings of inadequacy to the types whose self-image relies on the equation "short domain name = big dick" and would lose ICANN nearly all its income...
I'd think about shipping a few container loads of PCs and/or components across some quiet border crossing from Syria, Jordan or possibly Turkey. Then -if I were Saddam and in that situation - I'd think about having the head of Iraqi intelligence shot for not doing this sooner.
IIRC there was a large scale import operation running into Iraq from Jordan during the Gulf War; it's not likely to be much harder now.
There are bigger problems than ISPs twiddling with QoS. For example, my local cable operator (the only broadband provider around here) is nearly 30% owned by Microsoft. Now M$ claim not to be trying to control them (sort of - see this article), but nevertheless according to their Ts & Cs you have to use Win95 or 98.
Given the sort of control these organisational linkups can have, it seems to me that providing a "slow lane" for other people's traffic is pretty minor.
A shame the beta wasn't better publicised - I first heard about it when I saw this announcement on slashdot. Mind you, I'd now presumably be suffering frame withdrawal (again)...
Also it's a pity FrameMaker is perceived, by Adobe as well as others, as a high-priced DTP product. IMO it's about the best general word processor there is. We used it as such where I used to work, for single page memos, faxes, software specifications and everything else. The main reason was that it was available for Sun. Oddly, IIRC the tech pubs people used Word because the customers required it...
Slashdot Mirror
Never mind digital storage scopes - you can use an analogue, no-storage one to display a digital signal; that's all it takes. Though maybe a lawyer could argue it would only count if it could accepted a Z axis input.
of the Young's double slit experiment with single electrons. This showed that a single electron interacted with both slits as a wave (i.e. it passed through both slits at once), then interfered with itself before interacting with the detector as a particle at a point. A truly stunning demonstration of the reality of wave-particle duality, and the reason this one got the top slot.
Duh.
You perhaps? Try the Cancer Research Campaign for example. However, I doubt you personally can "afford" the R&D to save even one person from dying from a currently-incurable disease.
Not true. If anything, it was just about the worst. There were other 8088 based machines about at the same time, most of them better in all respects. 1.2MB floppies were available on some machines years before IBM got them going (and they used compatible diskettes that could be formatted as either 360K or 1.2M, as well). Everyone except IBM had built in serial ports; on the PC they were expensive extras. Some firms (Apricot as I remember, also probably others) were starting to bring out system manager software that gave you menu selection of applications about 5 years before Windows 2 started to appear on IBM compatibles.
The only thing the PC had going for it was that it came from a big company and was therefore "the standard" before it started. But that was enough - a sad example of human nature in action.
Might be worth getting some advice from Michael of Sealand. But it can be quite exciting,as reported here.
The Moral Issues
IMO the author of a creative work should have the right to decide how it is to be used. If he wants to sell it, then so be it. If he wants to keep aspects of it secret, he can do that. If he wants to make it freely available to the world, he can do that too.
Probably more people agree with this idea, when it comes down to it, than one would expect from reading this discussion. Certainly nearly everyone who actually creates things does - how many times have you seen statements like "This software is hereby placed in the public domain"? Probably sometimes, but not often. Note that even free software types almost always keep control to some extent, with the GPL or BSD licence or similar.
Of course, one of the things an author can do is sell the rights to the work; indeed this is what nearly always happens, one way or another. This gives the purchaser the same moral right as the original author; yes, even if the author was stupid enough to make an unfavourable deal (that's his decision, certainly not yours).
This isn't absolute, though; it is possible to go too far. When someone else tries to force me to use their choice of operating system when watching a DVD movie of theirs (that I have purchased legitimately), that's well beyond fair control of the use of their work. When someone tells a hardware supplier they can pre-install an OS only if they do so on all the systems they produce, that's too much as well.
Such practices can themselves be considered immoral, but that does not confer any moral right on others to behave immorally towards perpetrators.
The Consequences
If Microsoft wishes to charge a lot of money, or even a lot per year, for its operating systems, that's their privilege. If you don't like it, don't steal from Microsoft; install one of the (excellent) freeware OSs. Incidentally, this has the added benefit of reducing the installed base of Windows and increasing that of freeware.
If you want to download free music, download something that the author has licensed for that. If you can't find what you like with such a licence, sorry but taking it anyway is stealing. Incidentally, do you really want to listen to someone of whose principles you disapprove?
For myself, I don't like Microsoft's licences or their lock-in tactics, so I avoid their products whenever I can. I don't use Napster; I do have a turntable connected to my sound card, and have made some MP3s from old vinyl records, for my own use only. I have a DVD-ROM drive, but won't watch movie DVDs on it until I get round to setting up a Linux based player.
among German leaders, that if no-one is allowed access to information about Nazi times, they might miss new attempts to do the same kind of thing?
The Government on the other hand has no competitors, at least in these days of "consensus politics" in the UK. Opposition parties may go on about freedom, but only until they win an election.
Here (UK), when that happens, there's a strong inclination not to do so: "I'm already at the speed limit so it's his job to slow down." Result tailgating, road rage etc.
There was the ex-naval pilot who taught maths, a few years later. His examples of vectors were from personal experience, e.g. getting back to his carrier from 200 miles away in a given wind. Far more appealing to a bunch of teenage boys than the textbook stuff about birds flying across the road in front of a car.
Neither would happen these days. Let 10 year olds loose with sharp tools? Let someone teach who hadn't been through teacher training? Not a chance.
So what the Internet needs is to get rid of the TLD that has become generic, i.e. .com, and to become very sticky about giving out .net and .org. The main TLDs for businesses would then become the country codes (.us, .uk et al.). If a business operates in multiple countries, it can have multiple country codes (as is common practice anyway). This would resolve some of the conflicts. The rest would IMO be beyond the reach of DNS changes, and would need to be sorted out between the parties concerned, possibly in court under national trademark legislation.
Of course this would upset a lot of people who have dug deep in their pockets to pay off .com domain name squatters, would give severe feelings of inadequacy to the types whose self-image relies on the equation "short domain name = big dick" and would lose ICANN nearly all its income ...
IIRC there was a large scale import operation running into Iraq from Jordan during the Gulf War; it's not likely to be much harder now.
Given the sort of control these organisational linkups can have, it seems to me that providing a "slow lane" for other people's traffic is pretty minor.
A shame the beta wasn't better publicised - I first heard about it when I saw this announcement on slashdot. Mind you, I'd now presumably be suffering frame withdrawal (again) ...
Also it's a pity FrameMaker is perceived, by Adobe as well as others, as a high-priced DTP product. IMO it's about the best general word processor there is. We used it as such where I used to work, for single page memos, faxes, software specifications and everything else. The main reason was that it was available for Sun. Oddly, IIRC the tech pubs people used Word because the customers required it ...