> theres talk of sea rise within 100 years, if it dosn't happen within my life time, then it will within my kids (when i have some). if bits of the coast start getting submerged then some of you may not mind, but when its your entire country thats underwater (.tv) and you have to find a new home in a new country then you'd be concerened about the rate the levels are rising.
Okay, how high will the oceans rise in 100 years? How high is Tuvalu? And most importantly, who's doing the talking about sea rise being enough over the next century to swamp the bottom half of the world?
> and as for co2 encouraging plant growth, well bugger me if i'd prefer to continue breathing, than wait an see if any other plants can take up the slack when there's no more rain forest.
I'd consider this funny if I didn't think you were serious. If I could snap my fingers and vaporize the entire Amazon rain forest now, other plants would take up the slack before we were all in danger of CO2 poisoning. Don't forget, trees aren't the only plants out there, and algae and moss grows fast.
I'm very much concerned about deforestation, especially in South America, but let's try to keep things rational.
> 7. is easy to take care of though. Just have the bnetd server send a message to the central Blizzard server when a user logs off, and implement some time-out stuff in case a server crashes etc.
No dice. What if my hacked BnetD server authenticates, then tells Blizzard I logged off immediately? Then logged back on. Then off. Then on. And so on until all ten of my local users are on. Sweet, no? Also, add in a number 8, that Blizzard's authentication server would die a DDOS death when every punk who runs a random key generator bombards it until one of those keys comes back valid (and can then be used for 7 above). Since this makes keys fairly worthless, and allowing legitimate, legal servers is impossible without exposing the keys to this sort of tampering, the obvious solution is the one they've taken.
> Okay, so what's stopping Microsoft from doing the same?
Scale. I think it's safe to assume that I can use my computer without logging on to Battle.Net. Blizzard doesn't hold the vast majority of the PC market (or even the PC gaming market). If Microsoft said that Windows users must use MSN to access the Internet, end users wouldn't need to be the ones pressing the case, ISPs and access providers like AOL would (and they would win, because such coercion of the market is only legal if you don't hold a large enough portion of it, and Microsoft does).
> If I paid for software, I own it and they can't tell me what to do
> with it and the Adobe case IMHO proves that this is so in a court of law.
Apologies for being blunt, but your humble opinion is wrong. The Adobe case is about transfer rights, not use rights, and you very specifically don't own the software, only the physical medium. You paid for a license to use the software in accordance with their agreement, and that is all, like it or not. Whether you (or I) think that's fair is (in a legal sense) immaterial. The Adobe case specifies only that they are not allowed to forbid you to resell or otherwise transfer your single copy to another single entity as long as that sale/transfer does not specifically violate copyright law.
> If I buy a book and want to tear out pages and make paper airplanes, it's not illegal right?
You own the medium, not the content, in both the book and program cases. If you want to make jewelry out of your Starcraft CD, that's fine. However, you can't use the software with BnetD, just like you can't translate your book into Klingon and republish it without the original publisher's permission.
> 4. When the customer connects to an inofficial bnetd Server, the bnetd Server gets some random package of data from the Blizzard Server, and passes it on to the game client. The game client encrypts the data with the cd key and sends it back to the bnetd server, which sends it back to Blizzard. Blizzard then checks the result and either gives a valid or invalid signal to the bnetd server.
> 5. Customer either gets in (with a valid cd key) or not.
6. Hacked BnetD package starts and runs the game even if the invalid signal comes back.
But more importantly,
7. Because the user isn't logged into a Battle.Net server, Blizzard has no way of knowing whether CD key number 123456789XYZ is in use when a new request for that key comes in. Therefore, the one CD key that came off of a purchased CD and was ditributed on Usenet starts thousands of games at once, effectively nullifying the need for a CD key.
I don't normally reply to ACs, but in this case I have to raise a few points.
> It doesn't sound like Battlenet is free to me. It sounds like you're
> required to buy an official CD to use it. I also suspect that it requires
> an internet connection of some sort to play it. It also sounds like players
> may have limited control over opponents (I don't know, I've never played this game).
First, they advertise Battle.Net as "free for authorized users", not free in general. Second, adding in the connection to the 'Net is just dumb. You need a computer to play it as well, but you'd be a fool to consider that part of the cost of the game. Third, why should any player have control over opponents?
> If I and five friends have a LAN party and we want to play this game
> without connecting to the internet we cannot do so without bnetd (or can
> we? I assume that the game is not playable over raw ethernet without a server of some sort).
Bad assumption, at least for Diablo. You can play in local network mode, using one of the machines as the "server" for controlling the game.
> No one has proven that EULAs are binding contracts that can
> limit fair use (which most EULAs intend to do).
Um, yes, most EULAs are enforceable in court. There are parts of many of them that have been called into question, but the legal concept of an EULA is still enforceable.
> If my spouse and I both want to play this game on separate computers
> in the house, why should we have to buy two copies? We don't have to buy
> two copies of a book in order for us both to read it at the same time.
Bad analogy. You have to buy two copies to run it on two machines because that's what the license says. And you wouldn't have to buy two copies if you and your wife both wanted to use it at the same time, just if you wanted to use it independently at the same time. To extend the analogy, try reading that book sitting across the room from her, or try reading different pages at the same time, and I think you'll find it's more difficult.
> But there is already a law against this and if my friends and I are
> found we can be prosecuted or sued according to it. But the fact that this
> process is difficult or uncomfortable does not justify stifling freedom any
> more than someone expressing a negative opinion about me automatically
> entitles me to have my lawyer harrass them into shutting up by threatening
> them with libel and/or suing them for emotional distress.
Another bad analogy. By your reasoning, because there's already a law against burglary which I can enforce against you if you steal my computer, I'm not allowed to install locks on my door to make it easier to enforce my right to keep my machine. And actually, if someone says something negative about you, you do have the right to sue them for libel. The case will only proceed, however, if you can prove that what they said is untrue.
You aren't a lawyer for certain, since you're trying to argue logic 8). Now, as a disclaimer, I'm playing Diablo's advocate here, and I disagree with the stance Blizzard is taking, but the Adobe case means only that you have the right to take your CD and manual and give or sell them wholesale to someone else (presuming you don't keep a copy and you uninstall the game when you transfer it). It does not mean that you have the right to play it as you please while you own it, any more than you have the right to do with a book's contents while you own the book (excluding things that fall under fair use, and playing Blizzard games on a non-Battle.Net server doesn't count as fair use in the eyes of the law).
They're using the DMCA because it's the easiest path, but even without the DMCA they could reasonably press the case the their EULA forbids the use of non-licensed servers, so such use violates the license agreement and terminates your right to use the program at all.
> You're trying to compare "life" with "job". And it's not an equal comparison.
Well, not particularly, and you're right that it would be a bad comparison if it did. The point I'm contending is that your message states that all jobs suck, and they suck because they suck sometimes. I disagree with that; I feel that if a job doesn't suck to a greater degree than it sucks, or sucks for less time than it doesn't, that I can fairly say it doesn't suck.
As a secondary point, perhaps your job(s) suck(s) because you only have a job to make money. I work for money, but there are many jobs I could work that would suck more but pay better. I do what I do because I enjoy doing it, and the fact that they pay me money to do it is a plus. Yes, I have to do things sometimes that I find boring or mundane, but that's why they pay me. I figure if you're working a job that you dislike so much that you wouldn't consider keeping the job after you win the lottery, you should consider finding a different job. For my part, there are things I do here that I frankly couldn't do even if I had all the money and time I need, because I work with some awesomely intelligent people and I lack the talent to compete, but I can support them very well and learn much while doing it.
> My premise is that no job will be perfect forever.
I don't diagree with your premise. What I disagree with is the statement that all jobs suck because at some point, they won't be perfect.
> At the very best, your job will suck sometimes.
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but at the very best, your entire life will suck sometimes. To ascribe this only to work for money is more than a little foolish. To wit, if you were handed all the money you needed to pay for the things you want, and you quit your job and never worked for money again, do you truly think your life would be perfect from that point on? If you do, you need to think about it a little harder. Simply put, a life spent in pursuit of nothing will get boring in a hurry, which will suck. A life spent pursuing something, but not for money, will still put you in the situation of having to do something you don't like, or not do something when you want to do it.
In short, expecting to be happy all the time is unrealistic whether or not you do work for pay. Jobs do suck sometimes, but then, life sucks sometimes. Saying that this means all jobs suck is overarching pessimism.
> Our patriotic duty would be to support such actions as our contribution to the war.
This is perhaps what the instigators of this scenario would say, but they'd be wrong. In fact, it would be our patriotic duty to prevent such a plan from being implemented as it violates the Constitution. Besides, the one advantage of a money-controlled press is that they would never stand for such wholesale blocking of information flow.
Yet again, someone with little real-world experience reduces this to a simple moral issue. The comment of "If you don't send anything incriminating, you have nothing to fear" demonstrates only that the speaker has never been on the receiving end of a subpoena.
I'll say it once more, in simple language, for everyone who hasn't been in this situation, so pay attention.
A document retention policy (with document destruction schedules) is necessary even for a company that adheres strictly to the moral "up-and-up" to prevent lawsuits from inflicting huge cost and manpower burdens. For example, let's assume that you keep your records forever, so you have five year's worth of emails. Let's also assume that you don't have anything incriminating in these emails. Someone presses a sexual harassment lawsuit against you and subpoenas all of your email records relating to the lawsuit. Now, even though you didn't do or say anything wrong, you (not they) get to pay your IT person to dig through every email sent by every employee for five years (and an attorney to sit with him/her, fending off the plaintiff's attorney, who will also insist on sitting with him/her) just to prove that there's nothing there that relates to the lawsuit. Sounds expensive, doesn't it? With a retention policy that says email is to be destroyed after six months, you can answer the judge by saying, "our policy for email includes destruction after six months, so we have no records farther back than that" and thereby limit the scope of a subpoena (and the time and money spent fulfilling it). There are other reasons, including taking comments out of context and such, but as you can see, even companies with a perfectly sterling record benefit from such policies.
Two points: first, tanks have far more than a half-inch of armor. Second, reflective armor is tough to build, because anything that wouldn't vaporize under the level of laser power we're discussing would provide very little protection against more conventional weapons, and would be mighty heavy for missiles.
It's a nice theory, but it's unworkable. When hit with the kind of energy we're discussing here, the water would vaporize explosively, very possibly blowing a hole in the tank and parboiling the occupants. At the very least, the explosive rupture of the water tank would remove it from the target point. You'd get an effect, but nothing near the stopping power you'd need.
You're absolutely right in your assertion. I only want to mention that I'm trying to stay out of the IP debate, and the reason I brought it up here is that it's the delimiter for the original poster's comment. He comments that we shouldn't use the law to decide if we're doing wrong, but to avoid sin. My reply was to demonstrate that whether copying is a sin is the crux of the argument.
Still, thank you for adding your insight to my comment. Although it's a bit tangential to my post, it's still important that it gets said, and you said it well.
Which law notwithstanding, you've touched on the heart of the argument. On one side are the "intellectual property" people and on the other are the "no intellectual property" people, and the debate is whether sharing information is stealing or not in the first place. Since God hasn't yet publicised His stance on intellectual property, we are left to decide for ourselves.
> Copyright infringing' starts with the line:
"Actually I have it here on my compuyter, I could..."
Most fair use cases have allowed for copies distributed only to acquaintances without expectation of recompense, so this isn't literally where the infringement begins. Where it begins is...
"Well, I could put it on my webpage for you, then you can read it anytime"
...assuming that friend #1 didn't password-protect the page. At this point, he's made the work readily available to the world at large, which is outside the bounds of fair use.
Your analogy is interesting, because of all of the postings above it that address replication vs. transfer. Although I don't need to use the green paper and metal disks to transfer "money", I'm still transferring it (the value, that is), not replicating it. If instead I copy my "money" (even digitally) so that when I'm done both I and my beneficiary have it, I'll go to jail as a counterfeiter, or a fraud.
In response to your argument that privacy outside the home is meaningless, let me ask you a few questions that your "highly intelligent" discussion fails to touch upon.
Here's my first question. What happens when the police officer who's using the surveillance equipment doesn't have your best interests in mind? What happens if the person using the gear uses it for something less than the greater good of the public?
Your argument fails to consider corruption, which by my measure is a bit stupid.
Here's another question. What happens when the person using the system isn't authorized to use it? I know a fellow who works in a public office (I won't say which one to protect the guilty) who regularly looks up criminal records and DMV information on people he knows, even though it's illegal, because he can, not because he should. When the signals from these cameras is sent to police cars, what exactly guarantees that it can't be intercepted or otherwise compromised?
Your argument fails to consider invasion, which by my measure is a bit more stupid.
Here's a third question. How many terrorists would have been caught on September 11 if the systems that were already in place and in use were actually used correctly? The answer is turning out to be many of them. There are video pictures of two of the the terrorists walking through the metal detectors in the Maine airport en route to hijacking a plane with metal box cutters. How would more cameras have made any difference in how the terrorists that acted on 9/11 did their deeds?
Your argument fails to consider utilization, which by my measure is a lot more stupid.
Here's my last question. Since these systems are subject to corruption and error, and are underutilized in their present state, how exactly is adding to the system going to give me complete security? What is more likely is that it will make it easier for corruption and invasion to work against me, and under- and misutilization will prevent any effective increase in my security.
Your argument fails to consider escalation, which by my measure is truly stupid.
Politics is generally much more complex than this, and much more "old boy network" than you assume. This experiment hits closer when it's laid out like this:
Your friend, who works with you, introduces someone as one of his friends. Your friend asks you to do a favor for his friend, and his friend offers some form of compensation for your effort, be it money or something you want done or whatever. Normally it's not a problem, and over time this person needs occasional favors, always for return consideration. Soon you've got a big history for helping this person. Now, he approaches you and asks for a favor that's not exactly legal, but he can set it up so that you get your return, he gets his favor and nobody is the wiser. It's easy to say no, you'd think. Here's the catch. First off, if you say no, your original friend will be upset with you. Second, people in your industry start shying away from you since you're "not a team player" in their eyes. Third, if you sell out your friend's friend, your history for helping that person will come out, and most likely those who learn of it will take that out of context. Fourth, all of the considerations you've taken from this person will immediately fall under suspicion, even if at the time they were perfectly innocent. Fifth, and most important of all, you're suddenly not able to do your job very well, because nobody in your field will help you out or work with you. Soon, when your boss reviews your work, (s)he'll find that your performance is declining, and won't want to hear you say that it's because your coworkers are submarining you.
> Wrong. Where do you think that $50.00 goes? Your local cable company has to pay cable channels for the use of their programming.
Actually, I only pay $15.00 a month, and I don't get any premium channels, and most importantly, we were discussing commercial TV, not pay-for-access channels. Lastly, although it's a minor point of semantics, the local cable company pays for the right to broadcast, not for use of the programming. The end user pays for the use.
Slashdot Mirror
> theres talk of sea rise within 100 years, if it dosn't happen within my life time, then it will within my kids (when i have some). if bits of the coast start getting submerged then some of you may not mind, but when its your entire country thats underwater (.tv) and you have to find a new home in a new country then you'd be concerened about the rate the levels are rising.
Okay, how high will the oceans rise in 100 years? How high is Tuvalu? And most importantly, who's doing the talking about sea rise being enough over the next century to swamp the bottom half of the world?
> and as for co2 encouraging plant growth, well bugger me if i'd prefer to continue breathing, than wait an see if any other plants can take up the slack when there's no more rain forest.
I'd consider this funny if I didn't think you were serious. If I could snap my fingers and vaporize the entire Amazon rain forest now, other plants would take up the slack before we were all in danger of CO2 poisoning. Don't forget, trees aren't the only plants out there, and algae and moss grows fast.
I'm very much concerned about deforestation, especially in South America, but let's try to keep things rational.
Virg
> 7. is easy to take care of though. Just have the bnetd server send a message to the central Blizzard server when a user logs off, and implement some time-out stuff in case a server crashes etc.
No dice. What if my hacked BnetD server authenticates, then tells Blizzard I logged off immediately? Then logged back on. Then off. Then on. And so on until all ten of my local users are on. Sweet, no? Also, add in a number 8, that Blizzard's authentication server would die a DDOS death when every punk who runs a random key generator bombards it until one of those keys comes back valid (and can then be used for 7 above). Since this makes keys fairly worthless, and allowing legitimate, legal servers is impossible without exposing the keys to this sort of tampering, the obvious solution is the one they've taken.
Virg
...that's why I said the DMCA route is easier. It requires fewer PR hoops to get to the same conclusion.
Virg
> Okay, so what's stopping Microsoft from doing the same?
Scale. I think it's safe to assume that I can use my computer without logging on to Battle.Net. Blizzard doesn't hold the vast majority of the PC market (or even the PC gaming market). If Microsoft said that Windows users must use MSN to access the Internet, end users wouldn't need to be the ones pressing the case, ISPs and access providers like AOL would (and they would win, because such coercion of the market is only legal if you don't hold a large enough portion of it, and Microsoft does).
> If I paid for software, I own it and they can't tell me what to do
> with it and the Adobe case IMHO proves that this is so in a court of law.
Apologies for being blunt, but your humble opinion is wrong. The Adobe case is about transfer rights, not use rights, and you very specifically don't own the software, only the physical medium. You paid for a license to use the software in accordance with their agreement, and that is all, like it or not. Whether you (or I) think that's fair is (in a legal sense) immaterial. The Adobe case specifies only that they are not allowed to forbid you to resell or otherwise transfer your single copy to another single entity as long as that sale/transfer does not specifically violate copyright law.
> If I buy a book and want to tear out pages and make paper airplanes, it's not illegal right?
You own the medium, not the content, in both the book and program cases. If you want to make jewelry out of your Starcraft CD, that's fine. However, you can't use the software with BnetD, just like you can't translate your book into Klingon and republish it without the original publisher's permission.
Virg
> 4. When the customer connects to an inofficial bnetd Server, the bnetd Server gets some random package of data from the Blizzard Server, and passes it on to the game client. The game client encrypts the data with the cd key and sends it back to the bnetd server, which sends it back to Blizzard. Blizzard then checks the result and either gives a valid or invalid signal to the bnetd server.
> 5. Customer either gets in (with a valid cd key) or not.
6. Hacked BnetD package starts and runs the game even if the invalid signal comes back.
But more importantly,
7. Because the user isn't logged into a Battle.Net server, Blizzard has no way of knowing whether CD key number 123456789XYZ is in use when a new request for that key comes in. Therefore, the one CD key that came off of a purchased CD and was ditributed on Usenet starts thousands of games at once, effectively nullifying the need for a CD key.
Oops.
Virg
I don't normally reply to ACs, but in this case I have to raise a few points.
> It doesn't sound like Battlenet is free to me. It sounds like you're
> required to buy an official CD to use it. I also suspect that it requires
> an internet connection of some sort to play it. It also sounds like players
> may have limited control over opponents (I don't know, I've never played this game).
First, they advertise Battle.Net as "free for authorized users", not free in general. Second, adding in the connection to the 'Net is just dumb. You need a computer to play it as well, but you'd be a fool to consider that part of the cost of the game. Third, why should any player have control over opponents?
> If I and five friends have a LAN party and we want to play this game
> without connecting to the internet we cannot do so without bnetd (or can
> we? I assume that the game is not playable over raw ethernet without a server of some sort).
Bad assumption, at least for Diablo. You can play in local network mode, using one of the machines as the "server" for controlling the game.
> No one has proven that EULAs are binding contracts that can
> limit fair use (which most EULAs intend to do).
Um, yes, most EULAs are enforceable in court. There are parts of many of them that have been called into question, but the legal concept of an EULA is still enforceable.
> If my spouse and I both want to play this game on separate computers
> in the house, why should we have to buy two copies? We don't have to buy
> two copies of a book in order for us both to read it at the same time.
Bad analogy. You have to buy two copies to run it on two machines because that's what the license says. And you wouldn't have to buy two copies if you and your wife both wanted to use it at the same time, just if you wanted to use it independently at the same time. To extend the analogy, try reading that book sitting across the room from her, or try reading different pages at the same time, and I think you'll find it's more difficult.
> But there is already a law against this and if my friends and I are
> found we can be prosecuted or sued according to it. But the fact that this
> process is difficult or uncomfortable does not justify stifling freedom any
> more than someone expressing a negative opinion about me automatically
> entitles me to have my lawyer harrass them into shutting up by threatening
> them with libel and/or suing them for emotional distress.
Another bad analogy. By your reasoning, because there's already a law against burglary which I can enforce against you if you steal my computer, I'm not allowed to install locks on my door to make it easier to enforce my right to keep my machine. And actually, if someone says something negative about you, you do have the right to sue them for libel. The case will only proceed, however, if you can prove that what they said is untrue.
Virg
You aren't a lawyer for certain, since you're trying to argue logic 8). Now, as a disclaimer, I'm playing Diablo's advocate here, and I disagree with the stance Blizzard is taking, but the Adobe case means only that you have the right to take your CD and manual and give or sell them wholesale to someone else (presuming you don't keep a copy and you uninstall the game when you transfer it). It does not mean that you have the right to play it as you please while you own it, any more than you have the right to do with a book's contents while you own the book (excluding things that fall under fair use, and playing Blizzard games on a non-Battle.Net server doesn't count as fair use in the eyes of the law).
They're using the DMCA because it's the easiest path, but even without the DMCA they could reasonably press the case the their EULA forbids the use of non-licensed servers, so such use violates the license agreement and terminates your right to use the program at all.
Virg
> You're trying to compare "life" with "job". And it's not an equal comparison.
Well, not particularly, and you're right that it would be a bad comparison if it did. The point I'm contending is that your message states that all jobs suck, and they suck because they suck sometimes. I disagree with that; I feel that if a job doesn't suck to a greater degree than it sucks, or sucks for less time than it doesn't, that I can fairly say it doesn't suck.
As a secondary point, perhaps your job(s) suck(s) because you only have a job to make money. I work for money, but there are many jobs I could work that would suck more but pay better. I do what I do because I enjoy doing it, and the fact that they pay me money to do it is a plus. Yes, I have to do things sometimes that I find boring or mundane, but that's why they pay me. I figure if you're working a job that you dislike so much that you wouldn't consider keeping the job after you win the lottery, you should consider finding a different job. For my part, there are things I do here that I frankly couldn't do even if I had all the money and time I need, because I work with some awesomely intelligent people and I lack the talent to compete, but I can support them very well and learn much while doing it.
Virg
> My premise is that no job will be perfect forever.
I don't diagree with your premise. What I disagree with is the statement that all jobs suck because at some point, they won't be perfect.
> At the very best, your job will suck sometimes.
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but at the very best, your entire life will suck sometimes. To ascribe this only to work for money is more than a little foolish. To wit, if you were handed all the money you needed to pay for the things you want, and you quit your job and never worked for money again, do you truly think your life would be perfect from that point on? If you do, you need to think about it a little harder. Simply put, a life spent in pursuit of nothing will get boring in a hurry, which will suck. A life spent pursuing something, but not for money, will still put you in the situation of having to do something you don't like, or not do something when you want to do it.
In short, expecting to be happy all the time is unrealistic whether or not you do work for pay. Jobs do suck sometimes, but then, life sucks sometimes. Saying that this means all jobs suck is overarching pessimism.
Virg
No, it's hundredths. It's (ten) thousandths of a dollar.
Virg
> Our patriotic duty would be to support such actions as our contribution to the war.
This is perhaps what the instigators of this scenario would say, but they'd be wrong. In fact, it would be our patriotic duty to prevent such a plan from being implemented as it violates the Constitution. Besides, the one advantage of a money-controlled press is that they would never stand for such wholesale blocking of information flow.
Virg
> > Shredding paper always gives me this warm fuzzy feeling.
> The same feeling I get when I put body parts through the wood chipper.
Really? I'd think that would hurt a lot. And you can really only do that four times (or five, if you're a fellow) before you'd run out of parts.
Virg
Yet again, someone with little real-world experience reduces this to a simple moral issue. The comment of "If you don't send anything incriminating, you have nothing to fear" demonstrates only that the speaker has never been on the receiving end of a subpoena.
I'll say it once more, in simple language, for everyone who hasn't been in this situation, so pay attention.
A document retention policy (with document destruction schedules) is necessary even for a company that adheres strictly to the moral "up-and-up" to prevent lawsuits from inflicting huge cost and manpower burdens. For example, let's assume that you keep your records forever, so you have five year's worth of emails. Let's also assume that you don't have anything incriminating in these emails. Someone presses a sexual harassment lawsuit against you and subpoenas all of your email records relating to the lawsuit. Now, even though you didn't do or say anything wrong, you (not they) get to pay your IT person to dig through every email sent by every employee for five years (and an attorney to sit with him/her, fending off the plaintiff's attorney, who will also insist on sitting with him/her) just to prove that there's nothing there that relates to the lawsuit. Sounds expensive, doesn't it? With a retention policy that says email is to be destroyed after six months, you can answer the judge by saying, "our policy for email includes destruction after six months, so we have no records farther back than that" and thereby limit the scope of a subpoena (and the time and money spent fulfilling it). There are other reasons, including taking comments out of context and such, but as you can see, even companies with a perfectly sterling record benefit from such policies.
Virg
Two points: first, tanks have far more than a half-inch of armor. Second, reflective armor is tough to build, because anything that wouldn't vaporize under the level of laser power we're discussing would provide very little protection against more conventional weapons, and would be mighty heavy for missiles.
Virg
It's a nice theory, but it's unworkable. When hit with the kind of energy we're discussing here, the water would vaporize explosively, very possibly blowing a hole in the tank and parboiling the occupants. At the very least, the explosive rupture of the water tank would remove it from the target point. You'd get an effect, but nothing near the stopping power you'd need.
Virg
CGW beat the Hell out of Daikatana. I admit that it was an easy target, but at least it fits your criterion.
Virg
He didn't say you shouldn't eat glass, he just advised against chewing it.
Geez.
Virg
You're absolutely right in your assertion. I only want to mention that I'm trying to stay out of the IP debate, and the reason I brought it up here is that it's the delimiter for the original poster's comment. He comments that we shouldn't use the law to decide if we're doing wrong, but to avoid sin. My reply was to demonstrate that whether copying is a sin is the crux of the argument.
Still, thank you for adding your insight to my comment. Although it's a bit tangential to my post, it's still important that it gets said, and you said it well.
Virg
> The problem here is that the established media companies provide 1-3, and get paid at #4!
.sig: obviously that'd be the "Blue Skin of Death".
There's a strong case that they often skip #2.
Virg
P.S. about your
Which law notwithstanding, you've touched on the heart of the argument. On one side are the "intellectual property" people and on the other are the "no intellectual property" people, and the debate is whether sharing information is stealing or not in the first place. Since God hasn't yet publicised His stance on intellectual property, we are left to decide for ourselves.
Virg
> Copyright infringing' starts with the line: "Actually I have it here on my compuyter, I could ..."
...assuming that friend #1 didn't password-protect the page. At this point, he's made the work readily available to the world at large, which is outside the bounds of fair use.
Most fair use cases have allowed for copies distributed only to acquaintances without expectation of recompense, so this isn't literally where the infringement begins. Where it begins is...
"Well, I could put it on my webpage for you, then you can read it anytime"
Virg
Your analogy is interesting, because of all of the postings above it that address replication vs. transfer. Although I don't need to use the green paper and metal disks to transfer "money", I'm still transferring it (the value, that is), not replicating it. If instead I copy my "money" (even digitally) so that when I'm done both I and my beneficiary have it, I'll go to jail as a counterfeiter, or a fraud.
Virg
In response to your argument that privacy outside the home is meaningless, let me ask you a few questions that your "highly intelligent" discussion fails to touch upon.
Here's my first question. What happens when the police officer who's using the surveillance equipment doesn't have your best interests in mind? What happens if the person using the gear uses it for something less than the greater good of the public?
Your argument fails to consider corruption, which by my measure is a bit stupid.
Here's another question. What happens when the person using the system isn't authorized to use it? I know a fellow who works in a public office (I won't say which one to protect the guilty) who regularly looks up criminal records and DMV information on people he knows, even though it's illegal, because he can, not because he should. When the signals from these cameras is sent to police cars, what exactly guarantees that it can't be intercepted or otherwise compromised?
Your argument fails to consider invasion, which by my measure is a bit more stupid.
Here's a third question. How many terrorists would have been caught on September 11 if the systems that were already in place and in use were actually used correctly? The answer is turning out to be many of them. There are video pictures of two of the the terrorists walking through the metal detectors in the Maine airport en route to hijacking a plane with metal box cutters. How would more cameras have made any difference in how the terrorists that acted on 9/11 did their deeds?
Your argument fails to consider utilization, which by my measure is a lot more stupid.
Here's my last question. Since these systems are subject to corruption and error, and are underutilized in their present state, how exactly is adding to the system going to give me complete security? What is more likely is that it will make it easier for corruption and invasion to work against me, and under- and misutilization will prevent any effective increase in my security.
Your argument fails to consider escalation, which by my measure is truly stupid.
Virg
Politics is generally much more complex than this, and much more "old boy network" than you assume. This experiment hits closer when it's laid out like this:
Your friend, who works with you, introduces someone as one of his friends. Your friend asks you to do a favor for his friend, and his friend offers some form of compensation for your effort, be it money or something you want done or whatever. Normally it's not a problem, and over time this person needs occasional favors, always for return consideration. Soon you've got a big history for helping this person. Now, he approaches you and asks for a favor that's not exactly legal, but he can set it up so that you get your return, he gets his favor and nobody is the wiser. It's easy to say no, you'd think. Here's the catch. First off, if you say no, your original friend will be upset with you. Second, people in your industry start shying away from you since you're "not a team player" in their eyes. Third, if you sell out your friend's friend, your history for helping that person will come out, and most likely those who learn of it will take that out of context. Fourth, all of the considerations you've taken from this person will immediately fall under suspicion, even if at the time they were perfectly innocent. Fifth, and most important of all, you're suddenly not able to do your job very well, because nobody in your field will help you out or work with you. Soon, when your boss reviews your work, (s)he'll find that your performance is declining, and won't want to hear you say that it's because your coworkers are submarining you.
Not looking so simple any more, is it?
Virg
> Wrong. Where do you think that $50.00 goes? Your local cable company has to pay cable channels for the use of their programming.
Actually, I only pay $15.00 a month, and I don't get any premium channels, and most importantly, we were discussing commercial TV, not pay-for-access channels. Lastly, although it's a minor point of semantics, the local cable company pays for the right to broadcast, not for use of the programming. The end user pays for the use.
Virg