IMHO,It's our fault. Years of better and better marketing has caused americans to just accept corporate ownership of everything. We gave in to marketting years ago, allowing companies to get away with almost anything and still buying their products in droves.
Now they have turned their amazingly large resources we gave them into political control and stronger and stronger ownership of their resources. Expect marketting to get so good in the future that when you see a McDonald's commercial on a "free" tv, you've agreed to purchase a Big Mac by watching "their" program. Just as soon as a child is born in this country, he learns how cool mattel or hasbro or fisher price is and how much he wants it. Soon they will have the same control on all age groups. And we won't own the commercials, the tv, or the government anymore. (not that we do now)
Sometimes I wish I could edit my own messages. It's true, it's true, corporations aren't mostly propped up by IP. And I apologize for posting such silliness. I might have said, had I been more level headed, that the companies we care most about here are IP companies, like AOL, Microsoft, and the RIAA & MPAA.
Sorry again. And you have a point about all controls of scarce resources being abusable.
Information, OTOH is actually artificially scarce. It's only scarce because people still need to make money off of it by charging for copies. And yes, there are probably free dissertations or papers or other things that are free, but not commonly used because there is no marketing. And that's why it's so interesting. It seems everything but air (mostly) is sold to us somehow somewhere. It would be nice to have some music and movies be free somehow, so you could use them when you don't want to bother paying someone.
In the end, though, we have the fundamental problem of the RIAA trying to own Music (tm) and the MPAA trying ot own Movies (tm). But I suppose that mankind will yet somehow survive.
That was my though exactly, but what if the system issued the credit card AFTER you made the payment, with the limit set to the payment amount and the expiration date set randomly?
Then you couldn't easily brute force it, and you wouldn't get more than a couple dollars if you did. Also, in case of an abuse by a small company, you could specifically tag the payment to only one payee. Then it works out well.
It's doing ok at wiping out species and human cultures at an astounding rate -- at going nowhere fast in figuring out what to do with itself. At mixmastering the entire ecosystem with trade and transport -- "playing god" -- while decrying as "playing god" attempts to understand and deal with the risks of such experimentation as reactionary if not the epitome of evil itself.
Well, then the solution is obvious. It's obvious that humans are responsible for all this pain and suffering and we should be smashed by god. And all those real rocketry advances could have saved us if we'd just listened.
So we should be replaced by conectionist AI. Yes, go do that. Go build a connectionist AI to replace humanity. Forget the corporate money-hungry bastards who tell you what you ought to do.
Almost all corporate power has been based on one of 4 things: a patent, a copywrite, a trademark, or a trade secret. If we weaken intellectual property by shortening these durations, people will get their power back. Also, the requirement that these intellectual property rights are granted by the people on the condition that those given these rights don't seek to monopolize their industries, should be strictly enforced. This is why the RIAA, Microsoft, and the MPAA should all have their intellectual property rights stripped by the public through the government. Our legislature is who should protect us, not strip us of our rights as the DMCA did. I believe there are good people in congress who simply didn't know that the DMCA would hurt consumers, and will bend to the public if the public demands it.
If, as unfortunately is the case, however, the government tries to take action itself without addressing the fundamental theft of public IP, then we will end up being ruled over by the government regulators again as well as incompetent (but not greedy) corporations. This is what Ralph Nader proposes, wrongheadedly. People have to set themselves free from this prison their complacency made. We must FORCE the government to enforce the non-monopolizing aspect of intelectual properties.
Well, I think most of the people at Slashdot are the ones charged with making science fiction reality, but come back to reality for a while.
Deal with the following:
1. We kept up with Moore's law, and we haven't reached talking intellegent computers yet. Oh well.
2. Steady and impressive advances have left rocketry still very hard and expensive. Oh well.
3. People just haven't been motivated to put stewardesses in velcro. In fact, velcro is out of style. Oh well.
Humankind is doing okay. The only reason it's called 2001 is because people can't see that far into the future. And aren't we happy another deadline year-named novel didn't come about?
I don't agree with the people in slashdot who would like to criticize K-mart for enforcing a pretty good standard.
The rating system is there for a reason, and reasonable people can support it. My 12 year old sister is currently begging me to get Diablo 2. But our parents, I know, just wouldn't want this for her. A control like this can stop the kids who want to go against their parents, and help kids who can convince their parents WHY they are responsible enough to enjoy the latest gore-filled game.
As a parent myself now, I feel that "parental control" is a good thing in and of itself. Yes, it can be overdone, but gosh when it's underdone the results can be disasterous!
I'm not going to say this isn't obvious, but some people love to have their music categorized, and this format is the ticket for them.
And I would love to see this done for me, to categorize music so that it plays in a nice, non-repeating loop for well, easy listening. No, it's just a during work or surfing thing, some of the time thing. But for background music that doesn't suck, this proposal kicks ass.
16 digits here. Assuming they are using 16 digits, of wich 14 are useful (probably closer to 13) they can have 1 billion people (9 digits) do one hundred thousand transaction each (5 digits)(on average). Assuming a person does one transaction every 2 days, that gets to 600 years.
I call it. Maybe, just maybe, sega hired these guys with a stock option policy. But as stated, no corporation on earth would give such a reward to bootleggers of their products.
I call it. Maybe, just maybe, sega hired these guys with a stock option policy. But as stated, no corporation on earth would give such a reward to bootleggers of their products.
Yeah, heh, you're right. And feudalism is my fearful vision of the future for America, too. With copyright and patent protections being used instead of land grants and landowning. Seriously, the entertainment industry is taking over so much else including the internet.
But, seriously, Russia is in serious trouble, and anyone can tell they've been lucky to stay in one piece (oh, no, wait... they didn't) or stay under stable leadership (oh, no, wait... they didn't) or, I mean, stay out of war (oh, no, wait... they didn't) keep an economy... avoid hyperinflation... keep out of heavy unremovable debt... At least their ENGINEERING seems good, and they've got less RACIAL TENSIONS than usual, although that may be disentigrating.
We should find out who the mpaa's service provider is and send them a letter detailing why the mpaa's website should be shut down. (CC the letter to slashdot, too, of course.) Once it is shut down, as it must be under the current ruling, the public may start to understand what this means.
Remember, information is in OUR hands now, and we can keep it this way with legal tactics like this.
I mean, just because we are no longer hunting some animals to extinction doesn't mean they will thrive in the wild anew. First, there's not nearly as much wild left, and the people probably aren't going to move away. Second, there will be no proper parents to teach proper tiger behavior to these pups. This is just a feel-good solution to a real problem - we're running out of space for humans and animals in general.
-Ben
It's too bad I don't have any mod points right now
on
Men of Zeal
·
· Score: 2
Once again, you've given arguments that are both clear and beautiful.
I think you are making an important point as to what free software can do if the revolution continues.
Solution: Paint it black, or put black solar panels on it.
This is a problem, as it will be more difficult in the future to block out these objects from telescopes. So why not do it for them? Same problem with the irridium satelites... is there any good reason for their color now? Sure, it will still pass in front of stars from time to time, but it will be better than the way it is now.
Wow that's cynical, and probably true. I love C++ as a language but the author's (Stroustrup) inability to influence the standardization and upgrading of the language really hurt!
Java has been able to add constantly to itself by being strictly, forcefully, and legally controlled by its authors. Could Servlets, EJBs, and Java 3d have been added as cross-platform open libraries if this wasn't the case? Alas for C++, which was just as good and had the potential to add all these things and be cross-platform. The big unices just didn't care enough about this.
Also, it's a much better theory then that the companies were trying to tap into the "Geek Factor" being higher with Gnome (It has a "gn" in the name!).
True, there are an infinite number of paths evolution can take that don't involve intellegence. But there are also an infinite number of paths that evolve toward intellegence.
For example, lions could have become more and more intellegent as their prey did and become intellegent communicating (if not building) animals. If you disagree with lions, perhaps dinosaurs, who had more than enough impetus to evolve intellegence could have, and so forth. Heck, it's possible (though unlikely) we'll find a creature in space that isn't intellegent, but emits radio signals for another reason than communication!
Still, as long as there's a possibility of something or someplace useful out there, we should think and explore. Especially in light of the new meteorite and extrasolar planet evidence.
This "you are a hypocrite and he is a hypocrite" logic is flawed at the root. What do we owe to our employers? To our contractees? To our Universities? To our government, or parents, or even to humanity?
What I see is two groups:
1.Corporations try to maximize profits by selling everything they can get their hands on, and trying to own (by forcing artists to contract to them) all works.
2.Slashdot people trying to maximize their freedoms by trying to make everything free, cheap, and easy to obtain.
Obviously, this is a cyber-punk world already. Where is the Government? Shouldn't it be trying to strike a balance between these obviously flawed sides? 1. Makes you broke, as you will pay to monopolies all your money and then some just to get what you need. 2. Is unstable, and makes darn certain artists and engineers alike won't be paid. If you got rid of society's engineers and artists, would you be left with a free internet, but a job at a factory or a farm? Not likely, a company will just step in over the powerless free-thinkers and take a big, monetary bite out of the whole thing and institute a #1 all over again.
Actually, you might already be able to use freenet or gnutella to do any of these actions.
As well as swapping
1. Government, Corporate, or Personal Secrets 2. Software of any kind (software piracy is pretty much what the ROMs are about) 3. distributed slander and libel campaigns
I'm not creative enough to think of more.
It's not truly anonymous, as someone has to give someone an IP number. But this may be fixed or improved in the future. Since there was no cost to the creator for these copyings, is this hurting anyone? Yes, if future merger plans get stolen, Cracked versions of Oracle software become more pervasive than registerred copies, or missile defense system information gets leaked. What if someone desired to slander a business competitor? Would the near anonymity of this system help? You bet.
I do web pages. Web pages advertising perscription drugs. Perscription Drugs which cost billions to design. Billions which were payed by a drug company hoping to make its money back. Drug Companies spend billions and will make the money back by having a monopoly on the drug for its useful lifetime. Web Pages which are copyrighted.
Goddamn! This puts me out of a job, dumbies!
Think about it: in the middle ages was there any copy protection other than that few could read or write and writing was so expensive that even Archemedis' drawings were written over to get paper? No. There were no copyrights then, and not much innovation, either.
Oh, and that GPL? It's a contract based on copyright. If you got rid of copyright, you would instantaneously be able to use ALL intelectual goods created UP TO THIS POINT. And yes, artists would still create. But they wouldn't have as much money to create with, as their creations wouldn't get them any money. So you may be killing the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs.
Slashdot Mirror
IMHO,It's our fault. Years of better and better marketing has caused americans to just accept corporate ownership of everything. We gave in to marketting years ago, allowing companies to get away with almost anything and still buying their products in droves.
Now they have turned their amazingly large resources we gave them into political control and stronger and stronger ownership of their resources. Expect marketting to get so good in the future that when you see a McDonald's commercial on a "free" tv, you've agreed to purchase a Big Mac by watching "their" program. Just as soon as a child is born in this country, he learns how cool mattel or hasbro or fisher price is and how much he wants it. Soon they will have the same control on all age groups. And we won't own the commercials, the tv, or the government anymore. (not that we do now)
-Ben
Call it the street protocol, and you've got something right out of Neil Stephenson's fiction.
Or maybe plenty of other authors. All you gotta do is hook it up to something like PayPal and people WILL live in this world.
-Ben
It seems that this may give the term "hacking" a legal definition.
This could be bad for those who would define hacking as simply playing with advanced settings and programs on their own software and hardware.
-Ben
Sometimes I wish I could edit my own messages. It's true, it's true, corporations aren't mostly propped up by IP. And I apologize for posting such silliness. I might have said, had I been more level headed, that the companies we care most about here are IP companies, like AOL, Microsoft, and the RIAA & MPAA.
Sorry again. And you have a point about all controls of scarce resources being abusable.
Information, OTOH is actually artificially scarce. It's only scarce because people still need to make money off of it by charging for copies. And yes, there are probably free dissertations or papers or other things that are free, but not commonly used because there is no marketing. And that's why it's so interesting. It seems everything but air (mostly) is sold to us somehow somewhere. It would be nice to have some music and movies be free somehow, so you could use them when you don't want to bother paying someone.
In the end, though, we have the fundamental problem of the RIAA trying to own Music (tm) and the MPAA trying ot own Movies (tm). But I suppose that mankind will yet somehow survive.
-Ben
That was my though exactly, but what if the system issued the credit card AFTER you made the payment, with the limit set to the payment amount and the expiration date set randomly?
Then you couldn't easily brute force it, and you wouldn't get more than a couple dollars if you did. Also, in case of an abuse by a small company, you could specifically tag the payment to only one payee. Then it works out well.
-Ben
Well, then the solution is obvious. It's obvious that humans are responsible for all this pain and suffering and we should be smashed by god. And all those real rocketry advances could have saved us if we'd just listened.
So we should be replaced by conectionist AI. Yes, go do that. Go build a connectionist AI to replace humanity. Forget the corporate money-hungry bastards who tell you what you ought to do.
-Ben
Almost all corporate power has been based on one of 4 things: a patent, a copywrite, a trademark, or a trade secret. If we weaken intellectual property by shortening these durations, people will get their power back. Also, the requirement that these intellectual property rights are granted by the people on the condition that those given these rights don't seek to monopolize their industries, should be strictly enforced. This is why the RIAA, Microsoft, and the MPAA should all have their intellectual property rights stripped by the public through the government. Our legislature is who should protect us, not strip us of our rights as the DMCA did. I believe there are good people in congress who simply didn't know that the DMCA would hurt consumers, and will bend to the public if the public demands it.
If, as unfortunately is the case, however, the government tries to take action itself without addressing the fundamental theft of public IP, then we will end up being ruled over by the government regulators again as well as incompetent (but not greedy) corporations. This is what Ralph Nader proposes, wrongheadedly. People have to set themselves free from this prison their complacency made. We must FORCE the government to enforce the non-monopolizing aspect of intelectual properties.
IANAL,
Ben
Well, I think most of the people at Slashdot are the ones charged with making science fiction reality, but come back to reality for a while.
Deal with the following:
1. We kept up with Moore's law, and we haven't reached talking intellegent computers yet. Oh well.
2. Steady and impressive advances have left rocketry still very hard and expensive. Oh well.
3. People just haven't been motivated to put stewardesses in velcro. In fact, velcro is out of style. Oh well.
Humankind is doing okay. The only reason it's called 2001 is because people can't see that far into the future. And aren't we happy another deadline year-named novel didn't come about?
-Ben
I don't agree with the people in slashdot who would like to criticize K-mart for enforcing a pretty good standard.
The rating system is there for a reason, and reasonable people can support it. My 12 year old sister is currently begging me to get Diablo 2. But our parents, I know, just wouldn't want this for her. A control like this can stop the kids who want to go against their parents, and help kids who can convince their parents WHY they are responsible enough to enjoy the latest gore-filled game.
As a parent myself now, I feel that "parental control" is a good thing in and of itself. Yes, it can be overdone, but gosh when it's underdone the results can be disasterous!
-Ben
I'm not going to say this isn't obvious, but some people love to have their music categorized, and this format is the ticket for them.
And I would love to see this done for me, to categorize music so that it plays in a nice, non-repeating loop for well, easy listening. No, it's just a during work or surfing thing, some of the time thing. But for background music that doesn't suck, this proposal kicks ass.
-Ben
16 digits here. Assuming they are using 16 digits, of wich 14 are useful (probably closer to 13) they can have 1 billion people (9 digits) do one hundred thousand transaction each (5 digits)(on average). Assuming a person does one transaction every 2 days, that gets to 600 years.
so 60 years if you have 13 useful digits.
-Ben
I call it. Maybe, just maybe, sega hired these guys with a stock option policy. But as stated, no corporation on earth would give such a reward to bootleggers of their products.
-Ben
I call it. Maybe, just maybe, sega hired these guys with a stock option policy. But as stated, no corporation on earth would give such a reward to bootleggers of their products.
-Be
Then you could be playing warcraft. Or Warcraft 3.
Too bad the games don't combine.
How's the Sims?
-Ben
Yeah, heh, you're right. And feudalism is my fearful vision of the future for America, too. With copyright and patent protections being used instead of land grants and landowning. Seriously, the entertainment industry is taking over so much else including the internet.
... they didn't) or stay under stable leadership (oh, no, wait ... they didn't) or, I mean, stay out of war (oh, no, wait ... they didn't) keep an economy... avoid hyperinflation... keep out of heavy unremovable debt... At least their ENGINEERING seems good, and they've got less RACIAL TENSIONS than usual, although that may be disentigrating.
But, seriously, Russia is in serious trouble, and anyone can tell they've been lucky to stay in one piece (oh, no, wait
Gee, wonder where we've seen this before?
-Ben
We should find out who the mpaa's service provider is and send them a letter detailing why the mpaa's website should be shut down. (CC the letter to slashdot, too, of course.) Once it is shut down, as it must be under the current ruling, the public may start to understand what this means.
Remember, information is in OUR hands now, and we can keep it this way with legal tactics like this.
-Ben
I was raised by the TV! Are you threatenning my daddy?
-Ben
P.S. Is it bad for my 8 month old baby to be watching sesame street?
-1 sad
I mean, just because we are no longer hunting some animals to extinction doesn't mean they will thrive in the wild anew. First, there's not nearly as much wild left, and the people probably aren't going to move away. Second, there will be no proper parents to teach proper tiger behavior to these pups. This is just a feel-good solution to a real problem - we're running out of space for humans and animals in general.
-Ben
Once again, you've given arguments that are both clear and beautiful.
:)
I think you are making an important point as to what free software can do if the revolution continues.
-Ben
P.S. Sorry about your stock portfolio
Solution: Paint it black, or put black solar panels on it.
This is a problem, as it will be more difficult in the future to block out these objects from telescopes. So why not do it for them? Same problem with the irridium satelites... is there any good reason for their color now? Sure, it will still pass in front of stars from time to time, but it will be better than the way it is now.
I don't see a good excuse NOT to black it out.
-Ben
Wow that's cynical, and probably true. I love C++ as a language but the author's (Stroustrup) inability to influence the standardization and upgrading of the language really hurt!
Java has been able to add constantly to itself by being strictly, forcefully, and legally controlled by its authors. Could Servlets, EJBs, and Java 3d have been added as cross-platform open libraries if this wasn't the case? Alas for C++, which was just as good and had the potential to add all these things and be cross-platform. The big unices just didn't care enough about this.
Also, it's a much better theory then that the companies were trying to tap into the "Geek Factor" being higher with Gnome (It has a "gn" in the name!).
-Ben
True, there are an infinite number of paths evolution can take that don't involve intellegence. But there are also an infinite number of paths that evolve toward intellegence.
For example, lions could have become more and more intellegent as their prey did and become intellegent communicating (if not building) animals. If you disagree with lions, perhaps dinosaurs, who had more than enough impetus to evolve intellegence could have, and so forth. Heck, it's possible (though unlikely) we'll find a creature in space that isn't intellegent, but emits radio signals for another reason than communication!
Still, as long as there's a possibility of something or someplace useful out there, we should think and explore. Especially in light of the new meteorite and extrasolar planet evidence.
-Ben
This "you are a hypocrite and he is a hypocrite" logic is flawed at the root. What do we owe to our employers? To our contractees? To our Universities? To our government, or parents, or even to humanity?
What I see is two groups:
1.Corporations try to maximize profits by selling everything they can get their hands on, and trying to own (by forcing artists to contract to them) all works.
2.Slashdot people trying to maximize their freedoms by trying to make everything free, cheap, and easy to obtain.
Obviously, this is a cyber-punk world already. Where is the Government? Shouldn't it be trying to strike a balance between these obviously flawed sides? 1. Makes you broke, as you will pay to monopolies all your money and then some just to get what you need. 2. Is unstable, and makes darn certain artists and engineers alike won't be paid. If you got rid of society's engineers and artists, would you be left with a free internet, but a job at a factory or a farm? Not likely, a company will just step in over the powerless free-thinkers and take a big, monetary bite out of the whole thing and institute a #1 all over again.
I own copyright on this statement.
-Ben
Actually, you might already be able to use freenet or gnutella to do any of these actions.
As well as swapping
1. Government, Corporate, or Personal Secrets
2. Software of any kind (software piracy is pretty much what the ROMs are about)
3. distributed slander and libel campaigns
I'm not creative enough to think of more.
It's not truly anonymous, as someone has to give someone an IP number. But this may be fixed or improved in the future. Since there was no cost to the creator for these copyings, is this hurting anyone? Yes, if future merger plans get stolen, Cracked versions of Oracle software become more pervasive than registerred copies, or missile defense system information gets leaked. What if someone desired to slander a business competitor? Would the near anonymity of this system help? You bet.
-Ben
I do web pages.
Web pages advertising perscription drugs.
Perscription Drugs which cost billions to design.
Billions which were payed by a drug company hoping to make its money back.
Drug Companies spend billions and will make the money back by having a monopoly on the drug for its useful lifetime.
Web Pages which are copyrighted.
Goddamn! This puts me out of a job, dumbies!
Think about it: in the middle ages was there any copy protection other than that few could read or write and writing was so expensive that even Archemedis' drawings were written over to get paper? No. There were no copyrights then, and not much innovation, either.
Oh, and that GPL? It's a contract based on copyright. If you got rid of copyright, you would instantaneously be able to use ALL intelectual goods created UP TO THIS POINT. And yes, artists would still create. But they wouldn't have as much money to create with, as their creations wouldn't get them any money. So you may be killing the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs.
-Ben