but the real absurdity runs in the opposite direction -- how did Vimeo's staff give an award to the film that they should have known was a knockoff?
Probably because it's so different, it doesn't feel like anything even semi-official. At it's core, the idea behind copyright is that if a consumer is faced with a choice between content from the creator, or some knock off content from somebody who's standing on the shoulders of the creator, and to consumer picks the knock off, it hurts the original creator. This 'movie' is short enough, and despairingly different enough from the original, anyone looking to spend money on Power Rangers style entertainment, is not going to choose consuming this short film.
So if Microsoft wasn't coming out with something, nobody would be creating a FOSS project to solve that problem? It does seem like many FOSS projects exist for the sole purpose for having an alternative to a Microsoft product.
I don't know what's Orwellian about it, but that's the general idea. A private company can only charge customers, a government can charge/tax everyone. So certain projects (ie ones that require infrastructure) may be to expensive for a private company to undertake if they get too few customers. But a group of citizens can get together and say "It would benefit the whole town if everyone/most had blah (water, electricity, sewage, postal service, internet, etc)". So once a certain majority agrees, a law is passed, and they can spread the cost out over everyone. So a well run government operation will be able to undercut a private business every time.
The issue is how well run the government can do things. With no competition there's room for pork, waste, etc. That why it's important to still allow private companies to compete in certain areas, and for there to be citizen oversight over others. For example, if your water bill gets too high you start throwing out the current bureaucrats to bring it back under control. My Dad's actually involved in doing that right now in his city.
the question that remains is whether Congress can delegate their lawmaking authority to some government bureaucracy. The correct answer to that question is probably no.
If that were true the Treasury (part of the Executive branch) wouldn't be able to issue debt. Up until WWI Congress decided how much debt to issue. During WWI a lot of expenses started adding up (tanks, planes, etc) and Congress found debating how sell bonds to be boring. So they gave that responsibility over to the Treasury and said "If we've made it part of a law and it requires money, issue as much debt as needed to pay for it". Later, they imposed a "debt limit", but it's odd to impose the debt limit on the Treasury given the fact that the Treasury is only finding ways to fill in the funding gaps laid out by Congresses budget.
It has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with unregulated corporate greed. They are NOT the same things. The same kind of greed was seen very prominently in countries that called themselves Socialist and even Communist. So don't blame "capitalism" for it. It's cronyism, plain and simple.
That's actually everything to do with capitalism.
Your ignorance of history and economic systems is... overwhelming.
If we're going to define capitalism as what was laid out by Adam Smith in On the Wealth of Nations (generally considered to be the founding document of capitalism), it certainly didn't praise corporate greed. Adam Smith takes a lot of time to bash on corporations, and how they need to be regulated. Not just that they need to be regulated, but exactly the manner in which they need to be.
They are the best. Old laws were written way before all of the 'politics' which happens today. New laws are complex, and complexity is fraud. Some old laws are wrong, and have been thrown out, but if the longer the law has survived the better it is.
Change just for the sake of it is stupid. Are the new icons in any way better (they let people do their job faster, for example) ?
Sadly, they learned that if they don't change some user visible items, many people won't consider upgrading because "Why would I upgrade, it looks exactly like the existing one, so it must be the same thing".
The way to block ads, is to black list certain third party sources for web pages. That way regardless of the technology used behind the ads, it's never requested for.
mostly to sign my emails to get other people used to seeing signed mails
And do you know what happens when you start using a client that doesn't have your digital signature? Nobody cares. At most they'll think "Oh good, that annoying icon (or whatever) isn't there". Not a single one of the people you communicate will get suspicious at all that the email from you isn't you, if it isn't signed.
If the client sends mail to the server over an encrypted connection, and the transport servers all communicate over TLS, and the receiving client connects to its server over an encrypted connection, the message will be pretty secure from prying eyes. The problem is that the big guns (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) aren't willing to pull the trigger and accept TLS only connections. The first step in getting better encrypted communications is to upgrade every system to be able to understand the latest TLS.
Really? The best phrase that exists for Russia and Eastern Europe is "parts of the former Soviet Union"? Might as well just say "part of the former Pangaea".
You just have to get creative. In my high school chemistry class (late 1990s), my teacher tried to requisition some lighters (for the gas), and the administration denied it. The next week he resubmitted the request, this time calling for 'butane dispensation units'. He was given the green light and away we went!
My shop teacher in the mid 90's mentioned how big a deal it was to get exacto knives. Whatever bureaucratic change that had recently happened denied his request to get a class set. He responded with the fact that those would be the least dangerous items we the students would use during the course of the semester. In the end he got the knives, but there had to be a big deal about checking them in/out every class. There certainly wasn't nearly as big a deal made about using the table saw, or other powered tools in the shop, since they were purchased before the latest regime.
I think that there can be better systems but, it would take someone much smarter than me to design one and have it work for a global economy. (We're talking Nobel prize territory here.)
And, basically, inflation did end, and the country's economy turned around. In the years that followed, Brazil became a major exporter, and 20 million people rose out of poverty.
Clearly you have not taught much programming. Yes you can teach most people to write simple programs, but there's a big difference between that and writing professional or even usable code.
But we're not talking about professional or usable code. If this was an article about teaching creative writing (or nearly any other subject taught in public school) the same argument will be applied. Most professional in whatever field need more skills than what's taught in public education. But teaching it in schools exposes some people to it, who would never be exposed to it otherwise. And it might help them exercise some mental skills which can be applicable in other aspects of life.
Saying we need more people to code is like saying we need more writers.
No, it is saying that we need more people to be able to write. I don't think that the argument is to have everyone people professional developers, but it sure will create a skill set that a large percentage of the population will be able to use in one form or another at some point later in their lives.
What about surgeons? Should they be forced to learn to code? What about basketball players? Landscapers? Chefs[1]? There is a huge set of people for whom coding is irrelevant. Learn critical thinking? Yes. Coding? Probably a waste of time.
Were these people taught Art or Music in their public education? Were they taught history, or calculus? Were they forced to learn physics and geography? While they may not use all of the lessons taught to them as part of their career (the reason why "Are you Smarter then a 5th Grader" is actually a feasible show), it's possible that it will help them become well rounded and productive members of society.
can we fit a meaningful coding class into the high school curriculum?
How about in middle school. I highly suspect that if we dropped algebra, and some intro to programming (don't be afraid kids, it's not math), that when they moved onto the next years course (algebra 2, or whatever), they'll already have their minds wrapped around what middle school algebra tries to teach.
If not many, then Arkansas may be exporting a lot of Computer Science literate young residents.
Possibly, but family ties can be pretty strong. If they get married before they graduate from college, it's not unimaginable to see a bunch having to stay in the general area to be around the spouses family, or the spouse has a job that they'd like to keep, and then the CS grad starts their own business to be able to stay in the area.
Slashdot Mirror
Characters can not be copyrighted.
But characters can be trademarked.
but the real absurdity runs in the opposite direction -- how did Vimeo's staff give an award to the film that they should have known was a knockoff?
Probably because it's so different, it doesn't feel like anything even semi-official. At it's core, the idea behind copyright is that if a consumer is faced with a choice between content from the creator, or some knock off content from somebody who's standing on the shoulders of the creator, and to consumer picks the knock off, it hurts the original creator. This 'movie' is short enough, and despairingly different enough from the original, anyone looking to spend money on Power Rangers style entertainment, is not going to choose consuming this short film.
So if Microsoft wasn't coming out with something, nobody would be creating a FOSS project to solve that problem? It does seem like many FOSS projects exist for the sole purpose for having an alternative to a Microsoft product.
I don't know what's Orwellian about it, but that's the general idea. A private company can only charge customers, a government can charge/tax everyone. So certain projects (ie ones that require infrastructure) may be to expensive for a private company to undertake if they get too few customers. But a group of citizens can get together and say "It would benefit the whole town if everyone/most had blah (water, electricity, sewage, postal service, internet, etc)". So once a certain majority agrees, a law is passed, and they can spread the cost out over everyone. So a well run government operation will be able to undercut a private business every time.
The issue is how well run the government can do things. With no competition there's room for pork, waste, etc. That why it's important to still allow private companies to compete in certain areas, and for there to be citizen oversight over others. For example, if your water bill gets too high you start throwing out the current bureaucrats to bring it back under control. My Dad's actually involved in doing that right now in his city.
the question that remains is whether Congress can delegate their lawmaking authority to some government bureaucracy. The correct answer to that question is probably no.
If that were true the Treasury (part of the Executive branch) wouldn't be able to issue debt. Up until WWI Congress decided how much debt to issue. During WWI a lot of expenses started adding up (tanks, planes, etc) and Congress found debating how sell bonds to be boring. So they gave that responsibility over to the Treasury and said "If we've made it part of a law and it requires money, issue as much debt as needed to pay for it". Later, they imposed a "debt limit", but it's odd to impose the debt limit on the Treasury given the fact that the Treasury is only finding ways to fill in the funding gaps laid out by Congresses budget.
I tell my kids there are 9 planets and Pluto is one. I wrong? It doesn't matter.
Just like how it wouldn't matter if you told your kids the evolution is a myth and that all species were created the way that they've always been?
As far as I'm concerned, if it's gravitation is enough to pull it into a sphere, it's a planet.
Then wouldn't our very own moon be a planet and not a moon by that definition?
The interest was designed to route around Nuclear bombs, but apparently not copper thieves.
It has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with unregulated corporate greed. They are NOT the same things. The same kind of greed was seen very prominently in countries that called themselves Socialist and even Communist. So don't blame "capitalism" for it. It's cronyism, plain and simple.
That's actually everything to do with capitalism.
Your ignorance of history and economic systems is ... overwhelming.
If we're going to define capitalism as what was laid out by Adam Smith in On the Wealth of Nations (generally considered to be the founding document of capitalism), it certainly didn't praise corporate greed. Adam Smith takes a lot of time to bash on corporations, and how they need to be regulated. Not just that they need to be regulated, but exactly the manner in which they need to be.
They are the best. Old laws were written way before all of the 'politics' which happens today. New laws are complex, and complexity is fraud. Some old laws are wrong, and have been thrown out, but if the longer the law has survived the better it is.
Web standards have been constantly evolving.
Change just for the sake of it is stupid. Are the new icons in any way better (they let people do their job faster, for example) ?
Sadly, they learned that if they don't change some user visible items, many people won't consider upgrading because "Why would I upgrade, it looks exactly like the existing one, so it must be the same thing".
The way to block ads, is to black list certain third party sources for web pages. That way regardless of the technology used behind the ads, it's never requested for.
mostly to sign my emails to get other people used to seeing signed mails
And do you know what happens when you start using a client that doesn't have your digital signature? Nobody cares. At most they'll think "Oh good, that annoying icon (or whatever) isn't there". Not a single one of the people you communicate will get suspicious at all that the email from you isn't you, if it isn't signed.
If the client sends mail to the server over an encrypted connection, and the transport servers all communicate over TLS, and the receiving client connects to its server over an encrypted connection, the message will be pretty secure from prying eyes. The problem is that the big guns (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) aren't willing to pull the trigger and accept TLS only connections. The first step in getting better encrypted communications is to upgrade every system to be able to understand the latest TLS.
Really? The best phrase that exists for Russia and Eastern Europe is "parts of the former Soviet Union"? Might as well just say "part of the former Pangaea".
T-Mobile Visual Voicemail used to work over the internets. But now you have to be on cellular data to use it.
It still works over Wi-Fi if you have Wi-Fi calling enabled.
You just have to get creative. In my high school chemistry class (late 1990s), my teacher tried to requisition some lighters (for the gas), and the administration denied it. The next week he resubmitted the request, this time calling for 'butane dispensation units'. He was given the green light and away we went!
My shop teacher in the mid 90's mentioned how big a deal it was to get exacto knives. Whatever bureaucratic change that had recently happened denied his request to get a class set. He responded with the fact that those would be the least dangerous items we the students would use during the course of the semester. In the end he got the knives, but there had to be a big deal about checking them in/out every class. There certainly wasn't nearly as big a deal made about using the table saw, or other powered tools in the shop, since they were purchased before the latest regime.
I think that there can be better systems but, it would take someone much smarter than me to design one and have it work for a global economy. (We're talking Nobel prize territory here.)
That sounds like what turned Brazil's economy around. How Fake Money Saved Brazil
And, basically, inflation did end, and the country's economy turned around. In the years that followed, Brazil became a major exporter, and 20 million people rose out of poverty.
Clearly you have not taught much programming. Yes you can teach most people to write simple programs, but there's a big difference between that and writing professional or even usable code.
But we're not talking about professional or usable code. If this was an article about teaching creative writing (or nearly any other subject taught in public school) the same argument will be applied. Most professional in whatever field need more skills than what's taught in public education. But teaching it in schools exposes some people to it, who would never be exposed to it otherwise. And it might help them exercise some mental skills which can be applicable in other aspects of life.
Saying we need more people to code is like saying we need more writers.
No, it is saying that we need more people to be able to write. I don't think that the argument is to have everyone people professional developers, but it sure will create a skill set that a large percentage of the population will be able to use in one form or another at some point later in their lives.
What about surgeons? Should they be forced to learn to code? What about basketball players? Landscapers? Chefs[1]? There is a huge set of people for whom coding is irrelevant. Learn critical thinking? Yes. Coding? Probably a waste of time.
Were these people taught Art or Music in their public education? Were they taught history, or calculus? Were they forced to learn physics and geography? While they may not use all of the lessons taught to them as part of their career (the reason why "Are you Smarter then a 5th Grader" is actually a feasible show), it's possible that it will help them become well rounded and productive members of society.
can we fit a meaningful coding class into the high school curriculum?
How about in middle school. I highly suspect that if we dropped algebra, and some intro to programming (don't be afraid kids, it's not math), that when they moved onto the next years course (algebra 2, or whatever), they'll already have their minds wrapped around what middle school algebra tries to teach.
That way I can have more topics of conversation with more people.
If not many, then Arkansas may be exporting a lot of Computer Science literate young residents.
Possibly, but family ties can be pretty strong. If they get married before they graduate from college, it's not unimaginable to see a bunch having to stay in the general area to be around the spouses family, or the spouse has a job that they'd like to keep, and then the CS grad starts their own business to be able to stay in the area.