In the end, it's why it's hard for me to understand how someone can be Libertarian and at the same time support copyright. While property rights are also an artificial construct, at least they cover a finite good where it can be claimed that some innate property of existance forces there to be no perfect substitutes for things like land.
Let me see if I can clarify the position of someone who can be considered Libertarian and also support copyright.
In the artificial market of copyright, the situation changes pretty drastically. For one, there is no longer a product Y. At best, there's product X', made by the same company possibly under different terms, but in the end still indirectly funds product X and those nefarious terms you're against. Further, you can't make a product Y. You can try your best to clone product X, but in the end, it will invariably not being a perfect substitute of product X; you will only be able to make a good substitute, and good might not be good enough (look at WINE for an example). So, you're really only left with two choices: buy product X with the nefarious terms or buy nothing at all. This is, by definition, a monopoly. Further, it's a monopoly created wholly by the government. This is what I mean by companies not existing to compete because they're illegal.
This isn't completely accurate. In the matter of writings, music, and visual art - the creater has a monopoly by the very virtue of creating a work. More specific, visual art peices, works of fiction, and complete songs. Non-fiction, diagrams, and various common musical constructs (notes, scales, bars, ect..) are treated as factual information that cannot be copyrighted.
While a reference work can be copyrighted, to prevent absolute plagerism, the factual information contained in the work is free for anyone to use. More than one person can write a book detailing the Civil War or how to split an atom. Quite often these works cite each other.
A song uses a combination of uncopyrightable elements to form something unique. The notes, scales, timing, and instruments used cannot be copyrighted.
A work of visual art uses elements that cannot be copyrighted. Colors, subject matter, and medium are not copyrightable. Artists often mimic or copy each others work as a matter of study. This is nothing new.
Copyright comes into play in books when the work is fiction. While the book itself is protected by copyright to prevent unauthorized reproduction - the characters and universe are protected by IP because they never would have existed in their exact state without being created by the author. This does not prevent people from writing stories set in similar fictional worlds. This does not prevent people from using similar story constructs or themes. What it does do is prevent me from writing a story set in a "star wars" like universe and labeling it a "Star Wars" story so I can cash in on the popularity of Star Wars. I am free to create fiction in this universe without the intent of generating a profit from it. Fan fiction is a big example of this.
Music only attempts to copyright the exact peice for purposes of sale. You can still play any work live without charge. You can also mimic or outright sample sections for your arangement. You cannot however, dupe a song by the virtue of its delivery vehicle and sell that copy.
Visual arts are by default a monopoly. Only one physical work exists at first. Copyright is extended to the reproduction of this work. Two people can paint the same building, fruit bowl, or person. They cannot set up a scanner and start selling the scanned artwork.
The unifying point across all three examples is creativity. When a person invokes their creative skills to manufacture the actual subject of a work, the creator is granted a larger set of rights. Essentially, they are granted the right to recognize or dismiss other works as being part of, or related to, their imaginary creation - within reason.
Man, I was beginning to think I was the only one who could see it.
Search isn't the product - it is the honeypot used to sell searchers to marketers. Many love to argue that you can't have a monopoly on search because the ease of changing search engines. Crock of shit, but ok. How about a monopoly on search engine advertising? When you advertise to A little over 50% of US searchers and almost 70% worldwide, you are approaching a monopoly. The trend just shows it going up and up.
In which profits of the shareholders are always to be put before any other "principles".
As far as I know, thats a Milton Friedman quote from the New Yorker, not a law. IANAL, but as I understand it - a corporation has a legal duty to behave in a manner dictated to it by the voting majority of shareholders. I will agree that in most corporations this is something along the lines of "make us a shit ton of cash!" In this case the voting majority would be the founders and the CEO. Google was set up with dual class shares. Class B (10 per 1 voting) are not available to the public. As long as these three don't feel like suing themselves, they can do whatever they damn well please.
Like I said before, IANAL - but I have yet to have anyone show me where a corporation is legally bound to maximize shareholder profits before all other considerations.
Google shares are dual class, with only three people owning B class shares. Those three just happen to be the founders and the CEO.
That means that only three of them get to dictate the direction of the company. So they are not part of the larger economic struggle to maintain and improve shareholder value in the manner you imply. This company isn't run by a bunch of shareholders dictating company policy to maximize short term gain. Three people make the decisions regarding policy, and should be held accountable for them. Learning how the whole machine works is a better course of action than spouting off an argument that was fed to you.
Also, before someone rehashes that Milton Friedman quote - please find a law that states the same.
You would have to be a fool to try to take "high road" tactics with the US administration and congress. That's not a anti-republican jab, that's true no matter whose asses are in those seats. The game isn't played nicely there.
If we have to play dirty to protect net neutrality and the last semblances of online privacy - then we should get the dirtiest fuckers out there.
I'm not so sure of that. OSS has many more eyes looking at it, and I think that would result in quicker responses to fixes. This may be an inaccurate perception, but I tend to hear about flaws in most Linux distros as pretty minor. I would assume that this hypothetical regulatory body would lessen the penalties for bugs that caused nothing but minor UI quirks as opposed to major security issues.
Another aspect to consider. While I certainly admire and appreciate the OSS movement, why should an open distro provider be less liable than a closed OS provider? Not trying to be a jerk, I really don't know the intracacies of the OSS business model.
Now, if this is a situation of FOSS vs. OSS, free = your problem in my book. That is unless the free software is found to have purposely malicious code. That opens up a whole new can of worms though.
Picking Nits, but the subtle difference is pretty important in this case.
Aside from the menu, ff/skip and reliable freeze have to do with the manner of consumption - not presentation. The same material is presented in the same way, all your doing is regulating how you consume it. This is true on websites too. You are controlling the consumption of pop ups and ads by thwarting them. The content is provided to you as it, it doesn't change depending on who you are. Your browsing agent does that for you.
Even the menu is dynamic. While the functionality is generally the same across DVD's, the layout and names for these functions are quite different. This is because DVD functionality is easy to comprehend. I want to Navigate scenes, change the sound options, view extras, or set language. Thats about it.
Since the concepts are widely understood, there is a greater degree of forgiveness when it comes to navigation intuitiveness.
First I would make the regulatory body dealing with the software development firms a Fed body. The reason why is that they can regulate entities that exist in multiple states and prevent smaller software houses that have nationwide clients from dying under the weight of numerous regulations.
The regulatory body would consist of reps from multiple software security firms, and a smaller body of reps from software development firms. True, this is a disproportionate amount of representation amongst the parties involved, but this group's intent is to exert pressure on the development companies, not create another layer of insulation. The dev house reps are there to advise on fair and just requirements for any software in question to be fixed.
Second, create a standardized "grading scale" for the severity of an exploit. There are a few floating around that are pretty accurate - just decide on one and stick with it. The severity determines the acceptable timeframe range the software company has until patch - beginning 24 hours after notice to the agency.
During this timeframe software companies are protected from civil suits resulting in the use of their software. Once the timeframe is over, mandatory fines are added per day and the company in question is open to civil suits. During the first 24 hours that the agency has been notified, they are able to refine this timeframe on a per case basis (certain circumstances may change the reality of meeting a timeframe or require an excelerated timeframe). If in this 24 hour period no refined timeframe is set, the longest allowable timeframe is used - with one exception. You are open to civil suits after 2/3rds of the timeframe has passed.
Third, I would require states to have a state level department that interfaced with the federal agency for the purpose of holding in state companies liable for not applying the patch. These agencies would be responsible for evaluating whether or not a company is crimanally negligent or is unable to apply the path because it will break their business. Penalties are determined on a state level for compliance.
In all reality, probably too bureaucratic to be effective.
when will web designers stop checking the damn user agent
A) When they get a firm grasp of the CSS box model and its quirks. This is a developer by developer evolution.
or
B) When the CSS support and compliance across browsers begins to share a larger commonality. Large enough so that browser quirks are moot points.
or
C) PHB's who come up with the site specs quit taking the lazy way out and telling their developers/designers to "just make it work in IE" so they can meet their deadline.
Both Spawn and Evil Prophecy sucked balls. Todd's games aren't all that great. Now, if they get a good game designer to back up his awesome art direction and Salvatore's writing, we have a winner.
When an environment exists where the moderate or the centrist is attacked by both sides for supporting the other side because they attempt honest and open discourse - you most certainly have enemies.
I have noticed that users generally fall into two distinct groups, those who understand the underlying concepts and those who don't. This difference seems to dictate how a user will actually respond to a change in interface.
Someone who doesn't understand the underlying concepts completes computer related tasks by mimicking a previous action that brought about the desired results. They couldn't answer a single question regarding what they were actually doing or how it worked. These are the type of people who cannot transition between OSes or even APP versions very well. This group is exemplary of your statement.
The second group has a firm grasp on the concepts they are working with. They can transition between OSes and APP versions much quicker because they understand WHAT it is they want to do, they don't rely on the HOW.
I do agree that if you had a constantly changing interface that it would be difficult to become an efficient operator. Yet I can also see how some people might function better with something like this. There is the opportunity to strike a nice balance between constantly changing interfaces and completely static ones. Your web browser is a perfect example of this. High level functions that have triggers in a static layout, but content navigation that changes drastically from site to site. While there are some best practices concerning site navigation, they are still extremely dynamic. Just look at how frequently the terminology changes from site to site concerning the navigation.
My wife and I have taken this one step further. We are looking into adopting an older child instead of an infant. The last thing I want to have happen is let some child grow up as a ward of the system. That is no way to grow up.
Hopefully I'll be more succesful in the future and we will be able to adopt more than older child.
If non-religious people (scientists or otherwise) were forced to go to church the way religious people are forced to go to school, what's taught at church absolutely would be at least as hot a topic as what's taught in schools.
You aren't forced to send your child to a school, you are forced to make sure they get an education. Not the same thing. If you can't manage to create a home school environment for them then you are left with pawning them off on what's left over - public school.
Home schooling and Private schooling exist for this very reason.
Slashdot Mirror
In the end, it's why it's hard for me to understand how someone can be Libertarian and at the same time support copyright. While property rights are also an artificial construct, at least they cover a finite good where it can be claimed that some innate property of existance forces there to be no perfect substitutes for things like land.
Let me see if I can clarify the position of someone who can be considered Libertarian and also support copyright.
In the artificial market of copyright, the situation changes pretty drastically. For one, there is no longer a product Y. At best, there's product X', made by the same company possibly under different terms, but in the end still indirectly funds product X and those nefarious terms you're against. Further, you can't make a product Y. You can try your best to clone product X, but in the end, it will invariably not being a perfect substitute of product X; you will only be able to make a good substitute, and good might not be good enough (look at WINE for an example). So, you're really only left with two choices: buy product X with the nefarious terms or buy nothing at all. This is, by definition, a monopoly. Further, it's a monopoly created wholly by the government. This is what I mean by companies not existing to compete because they're illegal.
This isn't completely accurate. In the matter of writings, music, and visual art - the creater has a monopoly by the very virtue of creating a work. More specific, visual art peices, works of fiction, and complete songs. Non-fiction, diagrams, and various common musical constructs (notes, scales, bars, ect..) are treated as factual information that cannot be copyrighted.
While a reference work can be copyrighted, to prevent absolute plagerism, the factual information contained in the work is free for anyone to use. More than one person can write a book detailing the Civil War or how to split an atom. Quite often these works cite each other.
A song uses a combination of uncopyrightable elements to form something unique. The notes, scales, timing, and instruments used cannot be copyrighted.
A work of visual art uses elements that cannot be copyrighted. Colors, subject matter, and medium are not copyrightable. Artists often mimic or copy each others work as a matter of study. This is nothing new.
Copyright comes into play in books when the work is fiction. While the book itself is protected by copyright to prevent unauthorized reproduction - the characters and universe are protected by IP because they never would have existed in their exact state without being created by the author. This does not prevent people from writing stories set in similar fictional worlds. This does not prevent people from using similar story constructs or themes. What it does do is prevent me from writing a story set in a "star wars" like universe and labeling it a "Star Wars" story so I can cash in on the popularity of Star Wars. I am free to create fiction in this universe without the intent of generating a profit from it. Fan fiction is a big example of this.
Music only attempts to copyright the exact peice for purposes of sale. You can still play any work live without charge. You can also mimic or outright sample sections for your arangement. You cannot however, dupe a song by the virtue of its delivery vehicle and sell that copy.
Visual arts are by default a monopoly. Only one physical work exists at first. Copyright is extended to the reproduction of this work. Two people can paint the same building, fruit bowl, or person. They cannot set up a scanner and start selling the scanned artwork.
The unifying point across all three examples is creativity. When a person invokes their creative skills to manufacture the actual subject of a work, the creator is granted a larger set of rights. Essentially, they are granted the right to recognize or dismiss other works as being part of, or related to, their imaginary creation - within reason.
George Lucas can stop, or allow, peopl
Man, I was beginning to think I was the only one who could see it.
Search isn't the product - it is the honeypot used to sell searchers to marketers. Many love to argue that you can't have a monopoly on search because the ease of changing search engines. Crock of shit, but ok. How about a monopoly on search engine advertising? When you advertise to A little over 50% of US searchers and almost 70% worldwide, you are approaching a monopoly. The trend just shows it going up and up.
Open your eyes people.
In which profits of the shareholders are always to be put before any other "principles".
As far as I know, thats a Milton Friedman quote from the New Yorker, not a law. IANAL, but as I understand it - a corporation has a legal duty to behave in a manner dictated to it by the voting majority of shareholders. I will agree that in most corporations this is something along the lines of "make us a shit ton of cash!" In this case the voting majority would be the founders and the CEO. Google was set up with dual class shares. Class B (10 per 1 voting) are not available to the public. As long as these three don't feel like suing themselves, they can do whatever they damn well please.
Like I said before, IANAL - but I have yet to have anyone show me where a corporation is legally bound to maximize shareholder profits before all other considerations.
Google shares are dual class, with only three people owning B class shares. Those three just happen to be the founders and the CEO.
That means that only three of them get to dictate the direction of the company. So they are not part of the larger economic struggle to maintain and improve shareholder value in the manner you imply. This company isn't run by a bunch of shareholders dictating company policy to maximize short term gain. Three people make the decisions regarding policy, and should be held accountable for them. Learning how the whole machine works is a better course of action than spouting off an argument that was fed to you.
Also, before someone rehashes that Milton Friedman quote - please find a law that states the same.
You would have to be a fool to try to take "high road" tactics with the US administration and congress. That's not a anti-republican jab, that's true no matter whose asses are in those seats. The game isn't played nicely there.
If we have to play dirty to protect net neutrality and the last semblances of online privacy - then we should get the dirtiest fuckers out there.
Sometimes the ends justify the means.
I'm not so sure of that. OSS has many more eyes looking at it, and I think that would result in quicker responses to fixes. This may be an inaccurate perception, but I tend to hear about flaws in most Linux distros as pretty minor. I would assume that this hypothetical regulatory body would lessen the penalties for bugs that caused nothing but minor UI quirks as opposed to major security issues.
Another aspect to consider. While I certainly admire and appreciate the OSS movement, why should an open distro provider be less liable than a closed OS provider? Not trying to be a jerk, I really don't know the intracacies of the OSS business model.
Now, if this is a situation of FOSS vs. OSS, free = your problem in my book. That is unless the free software is found to have purposely malicious code. That opens up a whole new can of worms though.
The guys who maintain the distro.
Picking Nits, but the subtle difference is pretty important in this case.
Aside from the menu, ff/skip and reliable freeze have to do with the manner of consumption - not presentation. The same material is presented in the same way, all your doing is regulating how you consume it. This is true on websites too. You are controlling the consumption of pop ups and ads by thwarting them. The content is provided to you as it, it doesn't change depending on who you are. Your browsing agent does that for you.
Even the menu is dynamic. While the functionality is generally the same across DVD's, the layout and names for these functions are quite different. This is because DVD functionality is easy to comprehend. I want to Navigate scenes, change the sound options, view extras, or set language. Thats about it.
Since the concepts are widely understood, there is a greater degree of forgiveness when it comes to navigation intuitiveness.
First I would make the regulatory body dealing with the software development firms a Fed body. The reason why is that they can regulate entities that exist in multiple states and prevent smaller software houses that have nationwide clients from dying under the weight of numerous regulations.
The regulatory body would consist of reps from multiple software security firms, and a smaller body of reps from software development firms. True, this is a disproportionate amount of representation amongst the parties involved, but this group's intent is to exert pressure on the development companies, not create another layer of insulation. The dev house reps are there to advise on fair and just requirements for any software in question to be fixed.
Second, create a standardized "grading scale" for the severity of an exploit. There are a few floating around that are pretty accurate - just decide on one and stick with it. The severity determines the acceptable timeframe range the software company has until patch - beginning 24 hours after notice to the agency.
During this timeframe software companies are protected from civil suits resulting in the use of their software. Once the timeframe is over, mandatory fines are added per day and the company in question is open to civil suits. During the first 24 hours that the agency has been notified, they are able to refine this timeframe on a per case basis (certain circumstances may change the reality of meeting a timeframe or require an excelerated timeframe). If in this 24 hour period no refined timeframe is set, the longest allowable timeframe is used - with one exception. You are open to civil suits after 2/3rds of the timeframe has passed.
Third, I would require states to have a state level department that interfaced with the federal agency for the purpose of holding in state companies liable for not applying the patch. These agencies would be responsible for evaluating whether or not a company is crimanally negligent or is unable to apply the path because it will break their business. Penalties are determined on a state level for compliance.
In all reality, probably too bureaucratic to be effective.
Insightful? Now that is even funnier than the post.
when will web designers stop checking the damn user agent
A) When they get a firm grasp of the CSS box model and its quirks. This is a developer by developer evolution.
or
B) When the CSS support and compliance across browsers begins to share a larger commonality. Large enough so that browser quirks are moot points.
or
C) PHB's who come up with the site specs quit taking the lazy way out and telling their developers/designers to "just make it work in IE" so they can meet their deadline.
Both Spawn and Evil Prophecy sucked balls. Todd's games aren't all that great. Now, if they get a good game designer to back up his awesome art direction and Salvatore's writing, we have a winner.
Shilling, just keep writing those checks.
So far I haven't found a suitable replacement for Dreamweaver or Photoshop. If it weren't for those 2 I could, and would, switch tomorrow.
You and me both man.
Vista has nothing I want. I have to save the money I would spend on Vista to afford the new Photoshop/Illustrator/Dreamweaver.
We aren't enemies.
When an environment exists where the moderate or the centrist is attacked by both sides for supporting the other side because they attempt honest and open discourse - you most certainly have enemies.
This is not exactly true.
I have noticed that users generally fall into two distinct groups, those who understand the underlying concepts and those who don't. This difference seems to dictate how a user will actually respond to a change in interface.
Someone who doesn't understand the underlying concepts completes computer related tasks by mimicking a previous action that brought about the desired results. They couldn't answer a single question regarding what they were actually doing or how it worked. These are the type of people who cannot transition between OSes or even APP versions very well. This group is exemplary of your statement.
The second group has a firm grasp on the concepts they are working with. They can transition between OSes and APP versions much quicker because they understand WHAT it is they want to do, they don't rely on the HOW.
I do agree that if you had a constantly changing interface that it would be difficult to become an efficient operator. Yet I can also see how some people might function better with something like this. There is the opportunity to strike a nice balance between constantly changing interfaces and completely static ones. Your web browser is a perfect example of this. High level functions that have triggers in a static layout, but content navigation that changes drastically from site to site. While there are some best practices concerning site navigation, they are still extremely dynamic. Just look at how frequently the terminology changes from site to site concerning the navigation.
Poseidon
I just couldn't help but to jump in on this. It's too good.
text here.
My wife and I have taken this one step further. We are looking into adopting an older child instead of an infant. The last thing I want to have happen is let some child grow up as a ward of the system. That is no way to grow up.
Hopefully I'll be more succesful in the future and we will be able to adopt more than older child.
Unfortunately I have to agree with you.
Said the man with the lame ass track and video link in his sig.
WOOT! You are teh awesome! STFU n00b!
Your eloquence is staggering.
Yeah, because a guy with a link to MySpace in their Sig has all the street cred in the world.
Divine Clockwinder theory.
If non-religious people (scientists or otherwise) were forced to go to church the way religious people are forced to go to school, what's taught at church absolutely would be at least as hot a topic as what's taught in schools.
You aren't forced to send your child to a school, you are forced to make sure they get an education. Not the same thing. If you can't manage to create a home school environment for them then you are left with pawning them off on what's left over - public school.
Home schooling and Private schooling exist for this very reason.
I blame that movie for my irrational fear of insects. Seriously, you're right when you say it is the best ant movie ever.