Speaking broadly, what do you feel is an appropriate role for government in regulating a trans-national and somewhat anarchic medium like the Internet? What steps would be prudent protection of citizens and consumers, and what would represent legislative overreach?
Neat ideas, but you're missing a couple of things.
First, edible and nutritious crops that can be grown in salty soil and water are nothing new. Experiments with these sorts of crops date back to the 18th century, if memory serves.
Of course, it wasn't until recently that cultivation of such crops became feasible using modern methodology and technology. The problem now is that large agribusinesses (such as Archer Daniels Midland) will lobby to kill or retard these technologies in the same way that oil businesses moved to kill or retard research into renewable energy resources: They will buy as many dirty politicians as they have to.
Since the vast majority of politicians are dirty, and since agribusiness is rich, we'll probably never see these technologies make it out of the lab.
What the DMCA really needs is a "fraudulent scumbag" provision, that disallows psuedo-religious organizations that exist merely to fleece believers from hiding their actions behind copyright law.
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that this happened, but I, for one, understand. Kudos to Taco for being so forthright about it, spelling errors and all.;-)
Perhaps, to avoid this in the future, someone should look at archiving/. to an eternity service - one that would distribute, encrypt, and hide portions of all posts on many servers, disallowing deletion or even location of a specific post, but allowing free retrieval, if such a thing is possible. Anyone have links or specific knowledge regarding the existence or possiblity of such a thing?
I'd like to take this opportunity to urge all the U.S.-ian readers of/. to write their legislators about privacy legislation. Since it's now been made clear that the big players in the industry are actively against it (no matter how much lip service they give to the idea of privacy), we can bet they'll be spending plenty of money for either our legslators' silence, or (more likely) some legislative fig leaf that they can point to as an example of how tightly they're "regulated".
You know, there's a legal doctrine (the name of which I forget, IANAL) that those engaged in illegal activities are not entitled to the full protection of the law. I don't know how this applies specifically to copyright, but I think the general principle, however the law is applied, is clear here: They're a pack of fraudulent scumbags who shouldn't be able to hide their actions behind (otherwise useful and worthwhile) copyright laws.
I don't think anyone sane is arguing that copyright be abolished (which, of course, doesn't stop a lot of that talk from being tossed around Slashdot). But we should fight for anonymity and sane limitations on copyright because of this - they're the tools that are needed to allow a whistleblower like Panoussis to expose wrongdoing without being punished by a wealthy and vicious adversary.
This is easily the most horrifying idea for a command-line filesystem interface I've seen... I thought the problem of taking metaphors too far was sufficiently demonstrated by the overuse of "folders" in GUI's, but this takes the cake. "You are not strong enough to kill/dev/fd0"? "Go south" - what directory does that even get you, anyway? And experience points for running around looking at the filesystem?
I wouldn't even use this as a learning tool for a child - it hides too much, and leaves the user with no clue what he's actually doing. And the purpose of a shell, after all, is to actually get something done, not to get experience points.
On the bright side, maybe it will keep mudders from clogging bandwidth or your LAN - let 'em get their fix without even leaving the local machine. But that's about the only benefit I can see to it.
It does look like a good plan. Unfortunately, it crashed my browser. Twice. I also (during the little time that I was actually able to surf the site) didn't see any binding guarantee that they would actually send my money to the artists in question, or that they even knew where to send the check.
It's a good start, but it'll have to be a bit more professional before I'll touch it.
Seeing as a C$0.21 tax isn't going to keep anyone from pirating music, and since it applies even to legitimate usage of the media being taxed, this doesn't represent copyright or royalty protection at all: This is a simple transfer of wealth from the Canadian taxpayers to content-control corporations, facilitated by a pseudo-democratic government that has apparently sold itself out just as thoroughly as the one in the U.S.
This brazen pickpocketing is nothing short of obscene, and it's part of a pattern of behavior I can't support anymore; until I'm given a way to pay the artists directly, all of my new music will be pirated. It may be illegal, but when the law is crafted by people who wish to steal from me, why would it make sense for me to follow it?
Would you pay for content if the infrastructure was secure, inexpensive, and allowed the content to prosper?
If it meant that I got to choose who the money went to - that is, that it went to the content creator and not an agent, distributor, middleman, or some other breed of fuckwit five-percenter - then yes, yes, a thousand times YES!
I don't think the problem is that - as one poster put it - that the 'Net will become one giant pay site - content creators should get paid for good work. The problem will be keeping scumbag content-control freaks (Sony, RIAA, MPAA, the U.S. Congress) from mucking it up and taking a cut.
I think it would be the ideal way, though, to pay for good independent content like Penny Arcade, Sinfest, and even Jennicam - and all the other content-based sites I like, but for whom I'm not willing to enter into an expensive revolving subscription agreement.
I don't know about liquor laws specifically, but I've heard that nightlife in general is pretty dead in SLC, and that has kept me from pursuing software development gigs there.
Of course, that's just what I've heard, I don't claim personal experience. YMMV.
Like so many companies with broken products and aimless business plans, they're trying to get on the patent-abuse gravy train.
I mean, come on. *ANY* web-based mail isn't going to be secure unless it's already encrypted with a real security product like PGP - in which case, who needs their sorry asses anyway? I mean, SSL? Come on. And what, exactly, do they do that's better than some combination of PGP, a good VPN, and good firewalls?
I wouldn't expect this company to be around all that much longer...
Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true.
Don't get your hopes up that the "scientific" creationists will have the sense to close up shop - theirs is not a desire to find the truth, but to believe that they have it already. These data will not be some kind of silver bullet to cure willful ignorance.
Ignoring the creationsists for a minute, data from the genome map will require rethinking of some of our earlier conclusions, not least of all those about the basic functioning of genes - with only 30,000, synergy and emergent properties are will become radically more important, and related branches of mathematics will probably see new interest.
I think your metaphor is interesting, but it ulitmately breaks down, because unlike cooking and kernel hacking, science and religion do attempt to address similar knowledge domains (such as the creation and fate of the universe, for example). It's just that one of them has no mechanism for handling the introduction of new physical evidence.
...that we'll be detecting amino acids somewhere outside our own solar system in the next 10 years. In the meantime, it'll be fun to watch religious zealots and other anti-science nuts scramble to (yet again) "refute" the assertion that life could be elsewhere.
One thought came to mind: I wonder about the possibility of life (defined loosely as collections of molecules that reproduce) is possible in the stellar medium, without having to have a planet as a substrate? Admittedly, there are problems (such as not having sufficient local gravity to pack the interesting molecules together under correct pressure/temperature conditions to react), but if you have a mix of water and organic molecules, it does beg the question.
there is no reason why we should allow this kind of left-wing free distribution of property
I just think it's a hoot that someone is calling anything Orrin Hatch does "left-wing". It amuses me to picture the Senator's reaction.
the result will be that there is no art/music at all,
Bollocks. Distribution and payment will surely change, and perhaps scale down, but the idea that there will be no more art or music is such obvious paranoid raving that I'm convinced this post was a troll...
Actually, I've seen the site long before it got slashdotted today. My post was a joke.
Well, kind of a joke, anyway. I really don't think this thing will see wide use, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that it provides no real security, and requires the user to give them the plaintext of every message.
Regardless, I think you've hit on the point - it's not so much the hiding of information, but more like a denial of service attack, raising the resource threshold for effective large-scale eavesdropping. If they have to watch everything, including the spam, it gets that much harder.
I don't think this will ever make it into general use. Am I really going to send my mother this email:
WORK AT HOME! FREE RED HOT AMATEUR PUSSY! LOSE 50 LBS IN 10 MINUTES! FREE WEB HOSTING! ACNE CURE! HOT STOCK TIPS! EXTREME FISTING HOUSEWIVES! MAKE MONEY FAST! BISEXUAL COED BITCHES! ACHEIVE (sic) FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE!
...and tell her to go to some website to decode it?
Removing the sucking from the Usenet would be like playing techno on a banjo. I mean, come on...
More seriously: Maybe they can make Deja suck less (or at least make it as good as it was in the beginning, even if that was only so-so), but Deja's archive apparently goes back to only 1995, and that's about when the Usenet became essentially useless due to spam and poor s/n ratio.
I think you've figured it out, friend: Slashdot is not "news for nerds, stuff that matters" - it's one great digital undergraduate dorm bull session.
And me without my bong...
On-topic: Does anyone know how much pull this PROSA group has? Are they a long-standing part of the Danish software community, or are they some group that came together just for the purpose of issuing this statement?
What do people think about putting together a similar collective statement from the Slashdot community?
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for your time,
- Brad Heintz
--
First, edible and nutritious crops that can be grown in salty soil and water are nothing new. Experiments with these sorts of crops date back to the 18th century, if memory serves.
Of course, it wasn't until recently that cultivation of such crops became feasible using modern methodology and technology. The problem now is that large agribusinesses (such as Archer Daniels Midland) will lobby to kill or retard these technologies in the same way that oil businesses moved to kill or retard research into renewable energy resources: They will buy as many dirty politicians as they have to.
Since the vast majority of politicians are dirty, and since agribusiness is rich, we'll probably never see these technologies make it out of the lab.
OK,
- B
--
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that this happened, but I, for one, understand. Kudos to Taco for being so forthright about it, spelling errors and all. ;-)
Perhaps, to avoid this in the future, someone should look at archiving /. to an eternity service - one that would distribute, encrypt, and hide portions of all posts on many servers, disallowing deletion or even location of a specific post, but allowing free retrieval, if such a thing is possible. Anyone have links or specific knowledge regarding the existence or possiblity of such a thing?
OK,
- B
--
Am I sharing too much?
FP?
OK,
- B
--
Keep it up, y'all.
OK,
- B
--
I don't think anyone sane is arguing that copyright be abolished (which, of course, doesn't stop a lot of that talk from being tossed around Slashdot). But we should fight for anonymity and sane limitations on copyright because of this - they're the tools that are needed to allow a whistleblower like Panoussis to expose wrongdoing without being punished by a wealthy and vicious adversary.
Is it clear now?
OK,
- B
--
OK,
- B
--
Peril: When was the last time you got laid?
OK,
- B
--
OK,
- B
--
--
I wouldn't even use this as a learning tool for a child - it hides too much, and leaves the user with no clue what he's actually doing. And the purpose of a shell, after all, is to actually get something done, not to get experience points.
On the bright side, maybe it will keep mudders from clogging bandwidth or your LAN - let 'em get their fix without even leaving the local machine. But that's about the only benefit I can see to it.
OK,
- B
--
It's a good start, but it'll have to be a bit more professional before I'll touch it.
OK,
- B
--
This brazen pickpocketing is nothing short of obscene, and it's part of a pattern of behavior I can't support anymore; until I'm given a way to pay the artists directly, all of my new music will be pirated. It may be illegal, but when the law is crafted by people who wish to steal from me, why would it make sense for me to follow it?
OK,
- B
--
If it meant that I got to choose who the money went to - that is, that it went to the content creator and not an agent, distributor, middleman, or some other breed of fuckwit five-percenter - then yes, yes, a thousand times YES!
I don't think the problem is that - as one poster put it - that the 'Net will become one giant pay site - content creators should get paid for good work. The problem will be keeping scumbag content-control freaks (Sony, RIAA, MPAA, the U.S. Congress) from mucking it up and taking a cut.
I think it would be the ideal way, though, to pay for good independent content like Penny Arcade, Sinfest, and even Jennicam - and all the other content-based sites I like, but for whom I'm not willing to enter into an expensive revolving subscription agreement.
We'll see if it actually happens...
OK,
- B
--
Of course, that's just what I've heard, I don't claim personal experience. YMMV.
OK,
- B
--
I mean, come on. *ANY* web-based mail isn't going to be secure unless it's already encrypted with a real security product like PGP - in which case, who needs their sorry asses anyway? I mean, SSL? Come on. And what, exactly, do they do that's better than some combination of PGP, a good VPN, and good firewalls?
I wouldn't expect this company to be around all that much longer...
OK,
- B
--
Don't get your hopes up that the "scientific" creationists will have the sense to close up shop - theirs is not a desire to find the truth, but to believe that they have it already. These data will not be some kind of silver bullet to cure willful ignorance.
Ignoring the creationsists for a minute, data from the genome map will require rethinking of some of our earlier conclusions, not least of all those about the basic functioning of genes - with only 30,000, synergy and emergent properties are will become radically more important, and related branches of mathematics will probably see new interest.
Where's Buckminster Fuller when you need him?
OK,
- B
--
--
One thought came to mind: I wonder about the possibility of life (defined loosely as collections of molecules that reproduce) is possible in the stellar medium, without having to have a planet as a substrate? Admittedly, there are problems (such as not having sufficient local gravity to pack the interesting molecules together under correct pressure/temperature conditions to react), but if you have a mix of water and organic molecules, it does beg the question.
Any thoughts?
Insert obligatory Andromeda Strain reference here.
OK,
- B
--
I just think it's a hoot that someone is calling anything Orrin Hatch does "left-wing". It amuses me to picture the Senator's reaction.
the result will be that there is no art/music at all,
Bollocks. Distribution and payment will surely change, and perhaps scale down, but the idea that there will be no more art or music is such obvious paranoid raving that I'm convinced this post was a troll...
OK,
- B
--
Well, kind of a joke, anyway. I really don't think this thing will see wide use, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that it provides no real security, and requires the user to give them the plaintext of every message.
OK,
- B
--
Regardless, I think you've hit on the point - it's not so much the hiding of information, but more like a denial of service attack, raising the resource threshold for effective large-scale eavesdropping. If they have to watch everything, including the spam, it gets that much harder.
OK,
- B
--
WORK AT HOME! FREE RED HOT AMATEUR PUSSY! LOSE 50 LBS IN 10 MINUTES! FREE WEB HOSTING! ACNE CURE! HOT STOCK TIPS! EXTREME FISTING HOUSEWIVES! MAKE MONEY FAST! BISEXUAL COED BITCHES! ACHEIVE (sic) FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE!
OK,
- B
--
Removing the sucking from the Usenet would be like playing techno on a banjo. I mean, come on...
More seriously: Maybe they can make Deja suck less (or at least make it as good as it was in the beginning, even if that was only so-so), but Deja's archive apparently goes back to only 1995, and that's about when the Usenet became essentially useless due to spam and poor s/n ratio.
Not that the s/n was ever so great...
OK,
- B
--
And me without my bong...
On-topic: Does anyone know how much pull this PROSA group has? Are they a long-standing part of the Danish software community, or are they some group that came together just for the purpose of issuing this statement?
What do people think about putting together a similar collective statement from the Slashdot community?
OK,
- B
--