A Republican? Being accused of Homophobia? Frankly, it's not surprising, given the history of the party, and the current practices of its presidential candidates. The fact is, you're a member of a group that *does* discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. That's your choice. No offense was intended by this post. I'm aware that not all Republicans are homophobes, but the party line is homophobic.
So it's guilt by association, now? The sins of the father weighing on the son, to put it into a different perspective? But that's still no different from the homophobia you claim to see in Republicans.
How many people here associate with a political party but don't really follow the party line perfectly? Probably not all that many. Most people don't fit party lines exactly. Party lines are too specific, whereas a group of people is still comprised of individuals (statistics are a real pain when your data subjects are sentient, you know?)
There was something that I did find interesting, though. Studies of past elections have shown that more Repiblican voters are willing to break their party line than Democrats are. What I'm wondering is, why? Does this mean Republicans tend to see something wrong with their party, so they vote for others? Does it mean Democrats just don't tend to think about issues and vote blindly with their party? Does it mean Democrats are somehow morally superior to Republicans, and Republicans voting for Democrats are really just having conscience attacks? Or is it something else? I don't know, though I very much doubt it's the third.
But now I'm getting completely offtopic, so I'll stop...
By saying that racism, sexism, etc. are all the same kind of proves the point.
What point? You don't seem to have put any points forth for that statement to prove.
So a black man's experience is the same as a white woman's? Huh? Have you gone and talked to any?
You have no idea how many I've talked to. And you're right about one thing; in the particulars they're different. But see my next statement; the specifics vary, but when all is said and done they're about the same basic thing.
But racism, sexism, and heterosexism are concepts built around the experience of not being white, male, or straight. Now it's pretty obvious to me that no amount of good intentions on your part is going to make your opinions on these matters a heck of a lot more insightful.
You speak of the effects of these things. I speak of the things themselves. And as I said, while the particulars of the effects vary (in some cases greatly), can you argue that you cannot find the things I describes in all cases: inequity, injustice, and suffering? I don't think you can.
If I got one thing from feminism, it was learning that it didn't help to have an opinion on everything, and knowing when to shut the fsck up and let somebody else have a say. Give it a try!
I'm not sure what to make of that. Frankly I've never seen a brand of feminism that ever said that, except perhaps the the very few which advocate the eradication of all males. All of the feminists I've ever spoken to have encouraged open discussion on all issues. So I'm trying to figure out if by that post you mean "sit back and let others do the talking for you sometimes" or "shut up; don't have opinions, someone else will tell you what to think." If it's the former, you have a point, but it's not one I've ever encountered and I've encountered many brands of feminism (but that's getting into my personal life, so if you want to discuss that more we're taking it off of Slashdot). If it's the latter, I pity you; you've apparently been shouted down by people who are either hypocrites or psychos, and in this case I'm not sure which is worse.
But either way, we're speaking on different wavelengths. I'm trying to talk about racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice. You speak of the more common targets thereof. We've both got some interesting ideas, but we're comparing apples and oranges (OK, probably more like oranges and lemons; they do have a relation but they're still different things).
The other aspects of your post are dealt with in other replies, so I'll leave them there. Besides, I tried responding and ended up with a five-page rant on the differences between a teacher who is simply hard and a teacher who is both hard and good, since you obviously don't understand that. Yes, a good teacher is demanding, but it takes much more than high standards to make a good teacher. Take it from someone who's known some of the best of the best, and some of the worst of the worst. But I'm ranting again...
No, I'm going to talk about the "homophobia" bit. Frankly, looking over the reviews, I don't see a shred of it. Not a single reviewer gave any indication of having a problem with the fact that the professor was gay. Plenty of them had problems with the fact that the professor was a jerk about being gay. I don't blame them; I also have problems with people who are jerks about being gay. Just as I have problems with people who are jerks about being straight, bi, celibate, or whatever. Does that make me homophobic? I don't particularly think so; just someone who doesn't like jerks.
For that matter, there's another thing I don't like. And it has some bearing on your post. Some people reading this might have seen this rant some time ago, but I think it applies again here. I'll put it to you straight: I'm white, male, Republican, straight, and Christian. Because of those factors, I find that every single thing I say and do is scrutinized quite intensely by people who don't even know me, looking for the slightest trace of racism, sexism, reactionism, homophobia, and lunatic zealotry. Why? Simply put, because of several coincidences involving my birth and subsequent upbringing, they assume I'm at least some combination of racist/misogynist/reactionary/homophobic/overzealo us, and probably all five. In other words, a total bastard. Blinded by their own prejudices, they can't possibly conceive of the possibility that I just might have a human heart. And while I do derive a bit of perverse pleasure from proving them wrong every single time, I still don't see why I or anyone else should have to do that.
You are no different from them. You took the words of people you don't even know. Not finding anything immediately offensive to support your own prejudice, you read something completely inappropriate from the posts with absolutely no evidence to support your claims. And then you waltzed into Slashdot accusing them of homophobia.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, hypersensitivity (be it racial, religious, political, or whatever in origin); they're all the same thing. They come from the same sources: paranoia and disrespect. They end in the same thing: hate. And they cause the same things: inequity, injustice, and suffering. The differences between them are trivial at best; they are basically all the same. And you exhibited one of these in your post. Think about that for a while.
Interesting thought: Though Apple's base stations are a bit pricey, similar solutions based on the same set of protocols (someone link the IEEE doc for me, will ya'? It's 802.11 Thank'ee) for lower prices and higher capacity.
Strange; the Apple solutions are actually the cheapest I've seen. A remarkably unusual move for Apple, I'll admit. But nonetheless, I have yet to find anything which runs at that speed and capacity which is cheaper.
Of course, part of that might have to do with the fact that the AirPort cards are proprietary (from what I've read on the subject, they've actually got it running on a modified IDE bus, of all things). The antennas are built into the cases, but an antenna can't possibly be that costly. Certainly the PCMCIA-based solutions are a hell of a lot more expensive ($150 is the lowest I've seen, vs. $99 for the AirPort card), and add in the cost of a PCI or Ethernet adapter and it gets prohibitive (another $150 for PCI, and $200-250 for Ethernet).
Speaking of which, anyone know of a good 802.11 PCI card with both MacOS and Linux drivers? A tall order to fill, I know, but I can't find any 802.11 PCI cards with even MacOS drivers. The best I can find is an obscenely expensive PCMCIA card/PCI adapter combo from Lucent, and I'd really rather not go that route if possible.
Paul McCartney is NOT suing MP3.com. Be careful; there's a very big difference between an artist and said artist's label.
You know what's interesting? Many record labels have taken up arms against MP3.com and the like. But I have yet to see a single actual artist take a stance against it. Every artist I've seen who's had anything to say about the matter has been in favor of the format.
Guess it goes to show you who really stands to lose here. The recording companies screwed up big time when it comes to digital music. If they'd gotten in on the ground floor, found real ways to market music online, they would have flown. But they didn't, and technology is simply passing them by as it evolves. I suppose it's kind of sad, to see companies fighting to stay alive, when the only people to blame for their problems are themselves.
People here on Slashdot are clamoring about "Colored plastic isn't new!" as if that's what the whole Apple/eMachines case were even about. Of course colored plastic isn't new, and that's now what Apple's complaining about.
Look, the iMac is certainly a unique design. It's basically impossible, having seen an iMac once, to think of anything else when you see it. And the eMachines clone looks exactly like an iMac. OK, so there's one more slot for a certain archaic, outdated storage device. But other than that they're identical, right down to the ventilation slots and handle; eMachines couldn't have been more brasen if they'd kept the Apple logo on the casing. This was clearly meant to confuse the consumer.
Look, there's nothing wrong with cool-looking cases. There's even nothing wrong with cool-looking cases made of translucent plastic. But for crying out loud, it's not that hard to come up with your own design. The iMac design is clearly identifiaed in the consumer's mind with one make and model of computer alone: the Apple iMac. Look at any popular-media depiction of a computer with that shape, and you'll find direct references to that machine (cases in point: UserFriendly's iWhack and FoxTrot's iFruity).
I'm not an Apple apologist; I don't defend them when they do stupid stuff. But I believe they're right to sue for this issue; this is even more blatant of a ripoff than Windows ever was. Microsoft at least made their stuff different enough that they weren't really stealing the Apple interface, but this is completely different.
Stop blaming everything on SUV's. Clearly, the driver of the SUV was at fault; he (she?) was drunk.
However, take a look at those pictures. Jason managed to do one hell of a lot of damage to the SUV (if I remember right, he was on a motorcycle; that gives you an idea of the difference in scale). All other things being equal, had the driver been using a Bug it would simply have been torn apart, and Jason would be just as hurt (plus the driver would have been hurt even worse than he (she?) may be now).
So please, don't blame the car for the accident. It was the driver who was at fault, not the vehicle. Jason was on a motorcycle, so thype of vehicle that hit him wouldn't have made any difference. SUV's are not "huge killing machines." They're just cars, like any other; it's the driver that matters.
Why those other two didn't catch that, I'll never know. But that's just what I was talking about; if they make the profit with the ISP service, then keep doing that. But let the hardware hackers mod it, because they will do it and moreover, they still have to pay Netpliance for that (since Netpliance sells the hardware). So people get their ultra-cheap Linux boxen, and Netpliance gets that many more sales.
Heck; if Netpliance really wanted to make a buck, they'd sell do-it-yourself mod kits too.You may be able to get the parts yourself, but people will pay for the convenience (particularly with the heatsink and modified IDE cable).
This is idiotic on their part. Someone comes out with something which I'm willing to bet at boosted their sales by an order of magnitude, and they cut that revenue source off? That's just stupid.
What you do is make clients that work with Linux, Win9X, and BeOS. Still make it clear that you have to use their ISP, but make it so the mods can do this also. You keep what's making you so much money, and you
Come to think of it, why did they even include an IDE port in the first place? The machines don't even have hard drives, so there's no need for one. So it makes little sense to me that they'd put that port on there; that only adds the cost of an IDE controller that's never even used.
But come to think of it, this proves that the i-opener is sold at a loss, with the profit made through the ISP. This makes the ISP a hidden cost of the i-opener, and frankly that's deceptive advertising. They should do something about that.
I'm willing to listen to what MS has to say. But it's all meaningless until I see the games. But MS won't even release shots of the console itself, much less anything that runs on it. As far as anyone knows, it's pure vaporware.
Besides which, I see no innovation here. All I see is an ultra-cheap (in both price and quality) computer, hobbled by lack of even a keyboard, though I'm sure someone will make one that'll cost extra. But then, when has MS ever innovated anything (with the possible single exception of the scroll wheel)?
And I love this bit about a "proprietary AV connector." There's Microsoft, Embracing and Extending again. Who's going to use that, anyway? If the X-Box is going to work with current TV's (and it has to), it'll have to have an adapter of some sort. Better to throw in a $10 adapter with a TV than make something you can only hook one thing up to; monitor manufacturers have done this for years with Mac monitor adapters.
Honestly, MS; you're getting sloppy (in tactics; you always were with coding but that's beside the point). WinCE failed to capture the PDA market. This isn't likely to capture the console market given your current apparent tactics. And then there's the DOJ to worry about. Keep this up and you might actually be where you belong in a few years: the bottom of the heap.
I'd buy one, but Circuit City's out of stock again. I have them set to e-mail me when they get them in, though; should I tell Slashdot when they're in?
I'd buy it even without the secret menu, though; it's the least expensive world-friendly DVD player I can find (always a plus for us College Anime Fans On a Tight Budget ^_^ ). Granted, you have to do a bit of a hack to get the world-friendly aspect going, but it's still a great thing.
As for why it's there, MPAA is going to have a hard time proving that it was put in there to promote piracy. Isn't it obvious? It was a debugging feature. That's why it was hidden in the first place, not unlike most video game codes; consumers were never meant to know about it. But it was a necessary feature to put in so that the player could be tested, and it made the player easier to service by facilitating diagnostics. The menu was meant to be kept secret forever, but some Big Bad Hacker Guy found it and spilled the beans.
It's just security through obscurity, folks. But this time there's a real benefit, and we also benefit from it by being able to thwart the unethical practices of the motion-picture industry (namely, regional encoding as a means of artificially raising prices in certain regions) without doing anything illegal.
Would whoever moderated my post as Flamebait kindly explain exactly what in that post qualifies as such? I see absolutely nothing which would provoke a sane person (or whatever passes for sane on Slashdot ^_^ ) to flame. Indeed, every last one of the responses to this message has been calm and to the point, with no hint of flaming (or even a spark, for that matter).
Or is this just another abuse of the moderation system? I have plenty of Karma to burn so I'm not worried about the one-point loss, but I fail to see how this post could be construed as flamebait. If you disagree, then I'd honestly be glad to hear what exactly was so inflammatory about my post. I honestly don't like flaming, even though I'm guilty of it from time to time (I very much doubt that anyone here on Slashdot can honestly say they haven't flamed, on this forum or elsewhere, at least once in their Net career). So please, and this is an honest invitation, tell me what it is that angered you so much.
You know, come to think of it, at some point the Slashdot heads ought to sit down and clearly define what each of these terms mean. While you certainly can't include everything (then again, the rarely-used Overrated and Underrated are, to my understanding, catch-alls for just that sort of situation) but it would make a useful tool for moderators and meta-moderators.
I'd assume that this was all gotten on the up and up, and there is one way to do that. Problem is, it's only one.
In Hoy's original complaint, he included the DeCSS source. This became a public court document, it and everything in it are in the public domain (the source itself is still GPL'd, but it is notable that DVD-CCA itself released the source). Furthermore, this record has not, to my knowledge, been sealed (DVD-CCA tried to get it sealed but failed).
So, any American citizen can get this document (others too? I'm not certain, though you probably have to be a citizen to get the docs straight from the court), and use it as they please since it's public domain. This includes giving it to others. Unless I'm mistaken cryptome.org has this document, actually; this cuts out the necessity to go to the court itself. So as long as the copies that people are using can be traced back to this document, you should be in the clear. Note, of course, that IANAL. But this seems to check; anyone here know why it wouldn't?
Somehow, I get the feeling you are. Assuming you're the same "Anonymous Coward" that started this thread, then if you're posting these in earnest then you've done nothing but reveal your own hypocrisy.
Not exactly. After all, they wouldn't be poor if they were responsible and independent, would they?
In most cases, you are probably right. But never forget that there are no hard and fast rules where humanity is concerned; the best you can do is find a tendency towards something or other.
No, the poor deserve to be poor, and they choose to be poor.
Whoa, hold on there. Read my above statement. I would agree that those who choose to be poor do deserve it. But again, there are those who do not choose it; what of them?
Mostly it's genetic. I think it would be safe to say that on a scale of 1 to 10, the poor are born at 2 and are driven down to 1 by the welfare state.
One moment. It would seem to me that you support a free state, where all have an equal opportunity but what they do with it is up to them (which is, more or less, what we have now). And I agree; that is the best way of doung things (indeed, the only way; people seem to have forgotten that we're all individuals, so equal opportunity doesn't necessarily mean equal results). However, this last statement of yours throws that out the window completely. You cannot believe both without being a hypocrite, since the genetics issue kills the idea of "all men are created equal." You speak derisively of several groups (notably the "Klintonistas") with implications that you would tie them to Nazism. Yet your last statement reeks of the very thing you despise.
The inevitable logic of the welfare state dictates that the poor will eventually be forced to download and read these books, to "improve" them (as if there were anything left to improve after they've been worked over by the Klintonistas).
Not that I've seen. Frankly, I've seen the exact opposite, which is even worse; little if any real attempt at getting people off of welfare and back into society as functioning, contributing members thereof.
The basic premise of Liberalism is to do exactly that: "Improve" others against their will, by means of armed force.
Show me evidence of that and I'll be impressed. I can name as many concervative groups that would do the same (and before you go calling me a liberal, I'm not, as anyone I know can tell you. But I do have a heart).
I also get the impression you might not be attacking the project, or the ideals of the project, but rather Hart's ideals.
The two are inextricable. Hart is certainly a deluded psychotic and a dangerous criminal, and his "project" is just what one would expect from such a source.
While I agree that it's hard to separate Hart's ideals from those of the project (seeing as he defined said ideals, and only has his own to work from), I don't see how he's deluded at all. And certainly not dangerous; name one person he's ever hurt.
I was trying (successfully) to say that Project Gutenberg is a criminal and subversive organization which must be destroyed at any cost.
Hasn't looked too successful to me. Of course, it would help if you produced any evidence to support your claims, but you seemingly refuse to do so. Instead you just spout like a volcano.
It is a statist attempt to upset the natural order established by free competition.
Hardly. These works are comparatively ancient. There is little if any profit in republishing them. Why, then, give that task to a group that doesn't seek profit anyway? Certainly better than to give it to a business that would lose money by doing so.
It is a statist attempt to propagandize in favor of an intellectual welfare state.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong here. The tone of your writings is somewhat reminiscent of Ayn Rand. This, plus the content of your posts, leads me to believe you're an Objectivist, seeing as I've never met an Objectivist who didn't have a style reminiscent of hers (which is understandable, given the Objectivist philosophy on aesthetics). Last I checked, Objectivism viewed the intellect as among the most important things out there, perhaps the only thing which could be called sacred (a word I know you'll flame me for using, but what word has more appropriate connotations?) So clearly, the spread of knowledge is a good thing by your beliefs. Since this knowledge can no longer be profited from, how is Gutenberg bad? You seem to say that money makes right, that a man should be judged by how much he is worth (this being from that line about people who don't want to pay for Shakespeare not being morally equipped to handle it). Even Rand herself didn't believe that.
Gecko rules. It is, hands down, the best browsing engine I've ever seen. It's fast, tiny, and standards-compliant like you wouldn't believe. I have little doubt that within a few years, most people will probably be using Gecko in some form or another.
But I doubt it will be because they're using Mozilla. Or Netscape Communicator/Navigator/whatever. Mozilla started out as a good idea. But they took the idea too far, and got way too much of a case of featureitis. The main culprit: the skinnable GUI.
Skins are Good Things, mind you. If they're used properly; that is, on simple GUI's. Take MP3 players, for example. What can you do with an MP3 player? Let's see... play, pause, fast-forward, rewind... maybe a couple sound-related options. But all in all, not a complex thing, and as long as you make the buttons identifiable pretty much any interface will work well.
But skins don't scale. Wrap a skin around something as complex as a Web browser and you start having some serious issues. Consider:
Consistency. MP3 players are one thing. But if start up something as big as a Web browser on MacOS, I want it to look like a Mac app. If I start it on Windows, I want it to look like Windows. And if I start it in Gnome, I want it to look like my other Gnome apps. While skins can provide a partial solution, there's no practical way to make it follow the changes I make (consider GTK themes to be a prime example; I can change my GTK theme to BlueSteel and get a BlueSteel Mozilla skin, but if I change the GTK theme my Mozilla skin won't change with it).
Performance. Gecko is blindingly fast, but the rest of Mozilla is slow. I can launch Netscape 3.0 faster on a P90 than I can launch Mozilla on a G3/300, and I've timed this before so I know what I'm talking about. This isn't as much of a problem with small GUI's, but again the problem is one of scale; stick it on a Web browser and the issues that were minor on a small GUI will come back to bite you hard.
Interface control. This one's actually unique to Mozilla, because of another nice little feature they added: Websites can change a user's skin. I'll pass. The possibilities of exploits notwithstanding, once I have a skin I like I'd rather keep it that way.
It's a pity. Mozilla could have been The Next Big Thing, even with the cross-platform GUI libs (which could still have gone down to OS-native widgets). But then they had to go and build in the ultimate fluff: a cross-platform skinning engine, and then they had to go and build it in before the rest of the product was even ready. That was their one mistake, and I believe it may well be a fatal one. I have nothing but respect for the Mozilla team; they've made a fine program given the specs. But ultimately, I think Mozilla will be treated only as a proof-of-concept. People will still use Gecko, of course. But it'll be embedded into OS-native browsers for that task. Gnome users will have it in Nautilus (and who knows? maybe the KDE folks will put it into the next Konqueror). NeoPlanet will take it on Windoze. And for MacOS? I don't know. NeoPlanet might do it again; there are rumors that they'll be porting and using the Mozilla engine. If not, there's always the WebThing project.
It's a shame, but it proves the old adage: a jack-of-all-trades is master of none. Nonetheless, I'll probably use Netscape until something better that uses Gecko comes along.
I've never even heard of any of these "experts" before. Only the Open-Source advocate actually gave any facts to back up his claim, I might add; the other three seem to be just spreading FUD.
Yeah; you can find an exploit more easily if you have the code in front of you. So what? You get maybe a full day to use it if you're lucky. The second you use it you'll be pounced on, and if you try "waiting for the right moment" someone else will find your precious exploit and see that it's fixed.
Contrast this with the "security-through-obscurity" of a closed-source system. OK, so it's harder to find an exploit. But you'll get at least a week, possibly even months if it's Windows, to play around with the exploit once you do find it, because it simply doesn't get fixed so quickly.
Does being Open-Source make something more secure? Nope. But it doesn't make things less secure, either. It all comes down to how good of an admin you are. But it should be moted that the bugfix time on an OSS system is a huge advantage; there will always be exploits lurking around in any operating system, but the fast turnaround time of Linux and its kin make it easier to keep a system secure even as those exploits are found.
RSA is nothing more than a mathematical equation. These have already been defined as unpatentable, anymore than e=mc^2 is.
And that's why software patents by definition abuse the system. In the end, they're nothing more than mathematical equations, all of them. Specific writings thereof do reflect work, which is protectable by copyright. But you cannot patent an equation, and there are very good reasons for that. Why, then, the double-standard as applies to software?
I'm not against all patents, mind you. But Sun claims a patent on assembling memory chips into modules? That's easily among the most bogus patents I've ever seen. Even worse than the one on the RSA algorithm. And it's not even software-related, surprisingly enough.
That's the thing about patent abuses: software patents by definition abuse the system, but they're not the only types of abuse out there. This is an example of a hardware-based patent that's abusive. One, I very much doubt that Sun was the first to come up with this. Two, it's an idea, not a product; patenting DRAM would be one thing but patenting the idea of assembling memory chips into modules? Lunacy.
The patent system is, in theory, a Good Thing. But it was set up in an age where the things we take for granted now were not even dreamed of, and the rules which worked then don't work as well now. The system needs perhaps not a total overhaul, but at the very least it needs to be updated to reflect the times.
I see the idea behind it...
on
Laptop Exams?
·
· Score: 2
The idea behind this and other open-boot tests is that you still have to come prepared, because if you have to look up every answer you won't have time to finish the test.
That's still not a great way of doing things. If you're good, you can still look up most of the answers, finish on time, and get a good grade (trust me, I've done this). People keep talking about tests being only about rote memorization here, and that's not strictly the case. They're also to see how well you prepared for the task, how well you can pick the important stuff out from the chaff, and the like. Believe it or not, these are also important skills.
All told, I wouldn't care if a test was open-laptop or not, seeing as I have no laptop anyway. Unless, of course, they let me bring in my PalmIII.
A patent applicant must show intent to actually use the patent. For utility patents, this means marketing and selling the device, other patents work as appropriate. No intent to use, no patent.
A patent expires if the patent is not "used" as defined above within one year of its filing. However, an applicant can get an extension on this by showing evidence that the device could not possibly have been marketed within that time. Research reports would suffice (showing that the product is still in the development stage). The patent can be extended as long as the applicant can continue to show that the patent cannot yet be marketed, up to a maximum of five years (two years for software-related patents).
A patent expires at a set amount of time after the patent is first "used" (as defined above). This time period is the same seventeen years for individuals, five years for corporations (three if the patent is software-related). If the patent transfers, the time period is adjusted accordingly (so if a person holds a patent for six years and sells it to a corporation, the patent immediately expires). This amount of time cannot be extended by any means.
No doubt the most controversial part of this will be the different time periods for individuals and corporations. The rationale behind it is that a corporation has significantly more resources than a person does. One person would be lucky to have more than one truly significant invention in his lifetime (truly major breakthroughs -as in, on a scale you very seldom see from individuals or even corporations- notwithstanding). A corporation which can't push out something new and patentable in five years needs a new R&D department.
Only when people want to cooperate. If they don't, they either won't do anything or worse, they'll sabotage you. How will you ensure that people cooperate in your utopia?
Competition is destructive, wasteful, and deadening. Competition generates products whose purpose is to be sold; cooperation generates artifacts whose purpose is to be used.
Is there much difference? In the end, not really. Consider that every product to be sold is still an artifact to be used. You're simply talking about the same object in two different ways.
Compare most modern products of factories to anything handmade and old. The difference in quality and durability is astonishing.
Yes, but the handmade object is not always the better one. I challenge you to build, say, a computer completely from scratch. Consider that any factory-made product would violate your previous statement, so you cannot use any currently existing parts. I'll bet what you make yourself won't go near the quality of anything I could buy today.
Sure, factories produce so much crap that the rotten quality of it all is not a short-term problem: We can throw it away and replace it, again and again. Is this a valid long-term strategy? Personally, I doubt it.
I say it depends on what "it" is. There are things for which this strategy is appropriate. Not as many things as there are to which this strategy is currently applied, but some nonetheless.
My belief is that we've only been trying this "oceans of trash" approach for a very short period of time, and we'll get over it. In 100 years, we'll be back to making things by hand, because factories are unpleasant to work in and live near, and they produce nothing that's of any lasting worth. A time will come when people wake up and smell the coffee.
I'd be impressed if you could come up with even a single shred of evidence to support that view. I do agree that factories are unpleasant to work in and live near, but I have yet to see anything that works better.
There are a few products of industrialization that can't be duplicated with handcrafts, and some of those are worth keeping: Computers, for example. Networks.
But you just said that there would be no more factories. Who, then, would make these?
Some of what the pharmaceutical industry is doing may be worth keeping, if they can learn to behave themselves and if the FDA starts doing their job right: Detect the poisonous shit (like they did with Thalidomide -- if you have two arms and ten fingers, thank the FDA), but stop there. Right now they spend 10% of their time and budget policing the drug companies, and the other 90% attacking anybody who dares compete with the drug companies.
I see absolutely no evidence to support that at all. By the way, you speak of the FDA "attacking those who dare compete with the drug companies" as though this were a Bad Thing (and I believe it is). But I thought you said competition was bad, therefore according to your own ethics you shouldn't care about the FDA attacking competition. Is this perhaps a double-standard? It sure looks like one. How, by the way, does the FDA do this "attacking"? I've seen nothing that would support that.
I don't expect that my great-grandchildren will have to breathe filthy air and eat petroleum byproducts (there's ample reason to suppose that the petroleum will all be gone by then anyway).
I don't think that will be the case either. By the way, you imply that we're doing these things now. Breathing filthy air I'll give you (well, actually that depends on where you live). And we probably will be out of petroleum in another few generations, at least given the commonly-accepted theories about where petroleum originates. But I'd like to know what petroleum by-products we're currently eating. Except, of course, for SPAM and staduim hot dogs:)
The bottom line with all of this is the undenyable fact that the "competitive" property based worldview has produced a river of shit and damned few goodies. I say we keep the good parts and to hell with the rest.
I'll agree with the "river of shit" part. But "damned few" goodies? That I can't agree with. I'd say there's been as much good produced by the system as bad. The older systems you propose returning didn't produce much bad, but that's because they didn't produce much good either.
You can spend two years fighting with a contractor and have a house that'll last for fifty years, or you can have a house-raising with your neighbors and have something that'll be around for two hundred years and be better to live in the whole time.
One: I doubt I'd be living in that house "the whole time." The oldest human of verifiable age didn't last nearly that long. Two: You really think a house built by means of a house-raising will last that long? In the past, perhaps. But no longer. Houses have gotten significantly more complex since house-raisings were common. Size has increased, as has the common number of floors and rooms. And let's not even talk about electrical wiring, plumbing, and insulation. Take it from someone with some experience in the field. It's also worth noting that when house-raisings were common, everyone knew how to build houses. This was partly because the design was simpler, but also because of necessity: people had to know this because
Anybody who prefers the former of those two options is missing the poing about life in general.
Unless you actually intended to have a Sluggy Freelance reference in your quote (which I doubt) I think you were talking about the "point" of life. What is the "point" of life? Nobody knows. I'd like to think that a large part of it has to do with enjoying life, wouldn't you? But the times you speak of going back to are, generally speaking, not going to enrich people's lives. You are right that "things" do not bring true happiness. I won't argue against that. But those "things," if used correctly (as tools, not as crutches) can be what enable you to go out and find just what true happiness is. In the past, people couldn't do this as a general rule; they were tied to the land by backbreaking labor day in and day out, all their lives. They could never seek real happiness; to even have one or two happy times in one's life was considered a true blessing. And a few people still managed to stumble into happiness, but these were very few people indeed.
Nowadays, we are no longer tied down as we once were. We are free to seek real happiness. The problem, perhaps the great tragedy of our society, is that people haven't done that. They've become too wrapped up in their things, thinking that possessions are the end, not the means. They forget that while things may let you seek happiness, they don't bring it themselves. In essence, they've become chained by exactly what makes them free.
It seems to me as though you've seen a lot of this. That's not surprising; I'd be more surprised to find someone who hasn't seen a lot of this. But you've made the inductivist error; you see a black swan and decide, having seen no other swans, that all swans must be black. You've oversimplified the problem, and in so doing you've oversimplified the solution.
Each time period has its own things going for it (and going against it for that matter), but all things considered this is still probably the best time to live in, at least so far. And as long as our governments don't screw things up too much more, things will only get better in general; there'll be ups and downs, sure, but looking over the long term things will only improve. Have a little faith in humanity. They'll come out all right if you let them.
It's not Apple's to open. You'll have to go to Sorenson the company, which made the Sorenson codec, if you want that.
What Apple can do is change its terms with Sorenson slightly. Unless I'm mistaken, Sorenson is currently not allowed to open their codec (which is a shame; all told I've found it to be better than even MPEG if the encoder is skilled enough).
So if you want this codec opened, it's going to take at least two actions: by Apple to loosen its terms with Sorenson, and then by Sorenson to actually open the codec.
1. Content-neutral: For instance, a ban on bulk unsolicited e-mailing in general would pass muster, a ban limited to porn spam would not.
But then you have to consider the definitions of all of those words, particularly "unsolicited" and "bulk." These definitions can be twisted quite a bit if you are creative enough.
If everybody on the Net is officially permitted "one bite of the apple", the flood of spam would be worse than it is now (with a tiny minority spamming as often as they can get away with it). There are (at a conservative estimate) 10^7 people on the Net with something to sell or a message to spread; if each of them sends their one spam over the course of the next year, that's one spam every three seconds.
Yes, after which you can never be spammed ever again. I'd gladly take a year's worth of crap in exchange for never having to put up with it for the rest of my life, wouldn't you?
The fact is, we can't go censoring speech just because we don't like it. I don't like spam any more than you do, in fact I probably like it even less. But I can't deny that they have the right to speak, just as I have the right to subsequently tell them to stop bothering me.
You can't try to block all MP3's, because if you do so then you block out the legal ones as well (and yes, there are many legal MP3's out there; too many for this sort of witch-hunt to start up and not raise a stink).
But if you block based on filenames, you're still sunk, because filenames are trivially easy to change. You block *.mp3? Fine. Excuse me while I send leet-music.empeethree to my friend in Germany. Or leet-music.nc3 (nc3 = mp3 rot13'd).
And you can't even block based on content either, because you would have to block based on specific bit patterns. All I have to do is change the quality, use a different encoder... heck, I can just decompress, change formats, and recompress; there are lots of ways to change the sequence. If they try coming up with sound-analysis software, then there's always steganography.
My point? Censorware never works. Apply it to mp3's and it's even less effective than for Websotes, which at least have to keep some attributes (such as address) constant. But I can think of literally hundreds of ways to circumvent these filters. So in the end, this "Rights Protection System" is a joke.
The whole business of domain-name squatting needs to be stopped. The question is how best to do it.
First, I think there needs to be a domain specifically for personal Websites. In past posts I've suggested ".sum" which is Latin for "I am," fits into three letters, and is gramatically correct ("Millennium.sum" translates to "I am Millennium" if I'm not mistaken).
Second, stricter enforcement of the domain name policy, based on what entity a registrant represents. A for-profit corporation can only register.com, a non-profit organization only gets.org, and most importantly an individual can only get.sum if they're using the site for non-commercial purposes.
Third, a simple rule to decide trademark disputes on domain names. If the trademark existed before the domain name was registered, the domain goes to the trademark owner. But if the domain name had been registered and in use before the trademark was ever filed with the applicable offices, then the domain name owner keeps it. The rationale behind that is that if the name had been in use before the trademark was ever applied for, then the trademark itself should be invalid; it is the real attempt at identity theft (case in point: the E-Toys vs. etoy fight; etoy had that name and domain long before E-Toys had ever been created, much less before the E-Toys trademark had been filed).
On a side note, it's scary to see the WIPO having the power to do this (then again, the WIPO itself is a scary thing). But if it's getting done, then at least it's getting done.
Slashdot Mirror
A Republican? Being accused of Homophobia? Frankly, it's not surprising, given the history of the party, and the current practices of its presidential candidates. The fact is, you're a member of a group that *does* discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. That's your choice. No offense was intended by this post. I'm aware that not all Republicans are homophobes, but the party line is homophobic.
So it's guilt by association, now? The sins of the father weighing on the son, to put it into a different perspective? But that's still no different from the homophobia you claim to see in Republicans.
How many people here associate with a political party but don't really follow the party line perfectly? Probably not all that many. Most people don't fit party lines exactly. Party lines are too specific, whereas a group of people is still comprised of individuals (statistics are a real pain when your data subjects are sentient, you know?)
There was something that I did find interesting, though. Studies of past elections have shown that more Repiblican voters are willing to break their party line than Democrats are. What I'm wondering is, why? Does this mean Republicans tend to see something wrong with their party, so they vote for others? Does it mean Democrats just don't tend to think about issues and vote blindly with their party? Does it mean Democrats are somehow morally superior to Republicans, and Republicans voting for Democrats are really just having conscience attacks? Or is it something else? I don't know, though I very much doubt it's the third.
But now I'm getting completely offtopic, so I'll stop...
By saying that racism, sexism, etc. are all the same kind of proves the point.
What point? You don't seem to have put any points forth for that statement to prove.
So a black man's experience is the same as a white woman's? Huh? Have you gone and talked to any?
You have no idea how many I've talked to. And you're right about one thing; in the particulars they're different. But see my next statement; the specifics vary, but when all is said and done they're about the same basic thing.
But racism, sexism, and heterosexism are concepts built around the experience of not being white, male, or straight. Now it's pretty obvious to me that no amount of good intentions on your part is going to make your opinions on these matters a heck of a lot more insightful.
You speak of the effects of these things. I speak of the things themselves. And as I said, while the particulars of the effects vary (in some cases greatly), can you argue that you cannot find the things I describes in all cases: inequity, injustice, and suffering? I don't think you can.
If I got one thing from feminism, it was learning that it didn't help to have an opinion on everything, and knowing when to shut the fsck up and let somebody else have a say. Give it a try!
I'm not sure what to make of that. Frankly I've never seen a brand of feminism that ever said that, except perhaps the the very few which advocate the eradication of all males. All of the feminists I've ever spoken to have encouraged open discussion on all issues. So I'm trying to figure out if by that post you mean "sit back and let others do the talking for you sometimes" or "shut up; don't have opinions, someone else will tell you what to think." If it's the former, you have a point, but it's not one I've ever encountered and I've encountered many brands of feminism (but that's getting into my personal life, so if you want to discuss that more we're taking it off of Slashdot). If it's the latter, I pity you; you've apparently been shouted down by people who are either hypocrites or psychos, and in this case I'm not sure which is worse.
But either way, we're speaking on different wavelengths. I'm trying to talk about racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice. You speak of the more common targets thereof. We've both got some interesting ideas, but we're comparing apples and oranges (OK, probably more like oranges and lemons; they do have a relation but they're still different things).
The other aspects of your post are dealt with in other replies, so I'll leave them there. Besides, I tried responding and ended up with a five-page rant on the differences between a teacher who is simply hard and a teacher who is both hard and good, since you obviously don't understand that. Yes, a good teacher is demanding, but it takes much more than high standards to make a good teacher. Take it from someone who's known some of the best of the best, and some of the worst of the worst. But I'm ranting again...
o us, and probably all five. In other words, a total bastard. Blinded by their own prejudices, they can't possibly conceive of the possibility that I just might have a human heart. And while I do derive a bit of perverse pleasure from proving them wrong every single time, I still don't see why I or anyone else should have to do that.
No, I'm going to talk about the "homophobia" bit. Frankly, looking over the reviews, I don't see a shred of it. Not a single reviewer gave any indication of having a problem with the fact that the professor was gay. Plenty of them had problems with the fact that the professor was a jerk about being gay. I don't blame them; I also have problems with people who are jerks about being gay. Just as I have problems with people who are jerks about being straight, bi, celibate, or whatever. Does that make me homophobic? I don't particularly think so; just someone who doesn't like jerks.
For that matter, there's another thing I don't like. And it has some bearing on your post. Some people reading this might have seen this rant some time ago, but I think it applies again here. I'll put it to you straight: I'm white, male, Republican, straight, and Christian. Because of those factors, I find that every single thing I say and do is scrutinized quite intensely by people who don't even know me, looking for the slightest trace of racism, sexism, reactionism, homophobia, and lunatic zealotry. Why? Simply put, because of several coincidences involving my birth and subsequent upbringing, they assume I'm at least some combination of racist/misogynist/reactionary/homophobic/overzeal
You are no different from them. You took the words of people you don't even know. Not finding anything immediately offensive to support your own prejudice, you read something completely inappropriate from the posts with absolutely no evidence to support your claims. And then you waltzed into Slashdot accusing them of homophobia.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, hypersensitivity (be it racial, religious, political, or whatever in origin); they're all the same thing. They come from the same sources: paranoia and disrespect. They end in the same thing: hate. And they cause the same things: inequity, injustice, and suffering. The differences between them are trivial at best; they are basically all the same. And you exhibited one of these in your post. Think about that for a while.
Interesting thought: Though Apple's base stations are a bit pricey, similar solutions based on the same set of protocols (someone link the IEEE doc for me, will ya'? It's 802.11 Thank'ee) for lower prices and higher capacity.
Strange; the Apple solutions are actually the cheapest I've seen. A remarkably unusual move for Apple, I'll admit. But nonetheless, I have yet to find anything which runs at that speed and capacity which is cheaper.
Of course, part of that might have to do with the fact that the AirPort cards are proprietary (from what I've read on the subject, they've actually got it running on a modified IDE bus, of all things). The antennas are built into the cases, but an antenna can't possibly be that costly. Certainly the PCMCIA-based solutions are a hell of a lot more expensive ($150 is the lowest I've seen, vs. $99 for the AirPort card), and add in the cost of a PCI or Ethernet adapter and it gets prohibitive (another $150 for PCI, and $200-250 for Ethernet).
Speaking of which, anyone know of a good 802.11 PCI card with both MacOS and Linux drivers? A tall order to fill, I know, but I can't find any 802.11 PCI cards with even MacOS drivers. The best I can find is an obscenely expensive PCMCIA card/PCI adapter combo from Lucent, and I'd really rather not go that route if possible.
Paul McCartney is NOT suing MP3.com. Be careful; there's a very big difference between an artist and said artist's label.
You know what's interesting? Many record labels have taken up arms against MP3.com and the like. But I have yet to see a single actual artist take a stance against it. Every artist I've seen who's had anything to say about the matter has been in favor of the format.
Guess it goes to show you who really stands to lose here. The recording companies screwed up big time when it comes to digital music. If they'd gotten in on the ground floor, found real ways to market music online, they would have flown. But they didn't, and technology is simply passing them by as it evolves. I suppose it's kind of sad, to see companies fighting to stay alive, when the only people to blame for their problems are themselves.
People here on Slashdot are clamoring about "Colored plastic isn't new!" as if that's what the whole Apple/eMachines case were even about. Of course colored plastic isn't new, and that's now what Apple's complaining about.
Look, the iMac is certainly a unique design. It's basically impossible, having seen an iMac once, to think of anything else when you see it. And the eMachines clone looks exactly like an iMac. OK, so there's one more slot for a certain archaic, outdated storage device. But other than that they're identical, right down to the ventilation slots and handle; eMachines couldn't have been more brasen if they'd kept the Apple logo on the casing. This was clearly meant to confuse the consumer.
Look, there's nothing wrong with cool-looking cases. There's even nothing wrong with cool-looking cases made of translucent plastic. But for crying out loud, it's not that hard to come up with your own design. The iMac design is clearly identifiaed in the consumer's mind with one make and model of computer alone: the Apple iMac. Look at any popular-media depiction of a computer with that shape, and you'll find direct references to that machine (cases in point: UserFriendly's iWhack and FoxTrot's iFruity).
I'm not an Apple apologist; I don't defend them when they do stupid stuff. But I believe they're right to sue for this issue; this is even more blatant of a ripoff than Windows ever was. Microsoft at least made their stuff different enough that they weren't really stealing the Apple interface, but this is completely different.
Stop blaming everything on SUV's. Clearly, the driver of the SUV was at fault; he (she?) was drunk.
However, take a look at those pictures. Jason managed to do one hell of a lot of damage to the SUV (if I remember right, he was on a motorcycle; that gives you an idea of the difference in scale). All other things being equal, had the driver been using a Bug it would simply have been torn apart, and Jason would be just as hurt (plus the driver would have been hurt even worse than he (she?) may be now).
So please, don't blame the car for the accident. It was the driver who was at fault, not the vehicle. Jason was on a motorcycle, so thype of vehicle that hit him wouldn't have made any difference. SUV's are not "huge killing machines." They're just cars, like any other; it's the driver that matters.
Why those other two didn't catch that, I'll never know. But that's just what I was talking about; if they make the profit with the ISP service, then keep doing that. But let the hardware hackers mod it, because they will do it and moreover, they still have to pay Netpliance for that (since Netpliance sells the hardware). So people get their ultra-cheap Linux boxen, and Netpliance gets that many more sales.
Heck; if Netpliance really wanted to make a buck, they'd sell do-it-yourself mod kits too.You may be able to get the parts yourself, but people will pay for the convenience (particularly with the heatsink and modified IDE cable).
This is idiotic on their part. Someone comes out with something which I'm willing to bet at boosted their sales by an order of magnitude, and they cut that revenue source off? That's just stupid.
What you do is make clients that work with Linux, Win9X, and BeOS. Still make it clear that you have to use their ISP, but make it so the mods can do this also. You keep what's making you so much money, and you
Come to think of it, why did they even include an IDE port in the first place? The machines don't even have hard drives, so there's no need for one. So it makes little sense to me that they'd put that port on there; that only adds the cost of an IDE controller that's never even used.
But come to think of it, this proves that the i-opener is sold at a loss, with the profit made through the ISP. This makes the ISP a hidden cost of the i-opener, and frankly that's deceptive advertising. They should do something about that.
I'm willing to listen to what MS has to say. But it's all meaningless until I see the games. But MS won't even release shots of the console itself, much less anything that runs on it. As far as anyone knows, it's pure vaporware.
Besides which, I see no innovation here. All I see is an ultra-cheap (in both price and quality) computer, hobbled by lack of even a keyboard, though I'm sure someone will make one that'll cost extra. But then, when has MS ever innovated anything (with the possible single exception of the scroll wheel)?
And I love this bit about a "proprietary AV connector." There's Microsoft, Embracing and Extending again. Who's going to use that, anyway? If the X-Box is going to work with current TV's (and it has to), it'll have to have an adapter of some sort. Better to throw in a $10 adapter with a TV than make something you can only hook one thing up to; monitor manufacturers have done this for years with Mac monitor adapters.
Honestly, MS; you're getting sloppy (in tactics; you always were with coding but that's beside the point). WinCE failed to capture the PDA market. This isn't likely to capture the console market given your current apparent tactics. And then there's the DOJ to worry about. Keep this up and you might actually be where you belong in a few years: the bottom of the heap.
I'd buy one, but Circuit City's out of stock again. I have them set to e-mail me when they get them in, though; should I tell Slashdot when they're in?
I'd buy it even without the secret menu, though; it's the least expensive world-friendly DVD player I can find (always a plus for us College Anime Fans On a Tight Budget ^_^ ). Granted, you have to do a bit of a hack to get the world-friendly aspect going, but it's still a great thing.
As for why it's there, MPAA is going to have a hard time proving that it was put in there to promote piracy. Isn't it obvious? It was a debugging feature. That's why it was hidden in the first place, not unlike most video game codes; consumers were never meant to know about it. But it was a necessary feature to put in so that the player could be tested, and it made the player easier to service by facilitating diagnostics. The menu was meant to be kept secret forever, but some Big Bad Hacker Guy found it and spilled the beans.
It's just security through obscurity, folks. But this time there's a real benefit, and we also benefit from it by being able to thwart the unethical practices of the motion-picture industry (namely, regional encoding as a means of artificially raising prices in certain regions) without doing anything illegal.
Would whoever moderated my post as Flamebait kindly explain exactly what in that post qualifies as such? I see absolutely nothing which would provoke a sane person (or whatever passes for sane on Slashdot ^_^ ) to flame. Indeed, every last one of the responses to this message has been calm and to the point, with no hint of flaming (or even a spark, for that matter).
Or is this just another abuse of the moderation system? I have plenty of Karma to burn so I'm not worried about the one-point loss, but I fail to see how this post could be construed as flamebait. If you disagree, then I'd honestly be glad to hear what exactly was so inflammatory about my post. I honestly don't like flaming, even though I'm guilty of it from time to time (I very much doubt that anyone here on Slashdot can honestly say they haven't flamed, on this forum or elsewhere, at least once in their Net career). So please, and this is an honest invitation, tell me what it is that angered you so much.
You know, come to think of it, at some point the Slashdot heads ought to sit down and clearly define what each of these terms mean. While you certainly can't include everything (then again, the rarely-used Overrated and Underrated are, to my understanding, catch-alls for just that sort of situation) but it would make a useful tool for moderators and meta-moderators.
I'd assume that this was all gotten on the up and up, and there is one way to do that. Problem is, it's only one.
In Hoy's original complaint, he included the DeCSS source. This became a public court document, it and everything in it are in the public domain (the source itself is still GPL'd, but it is notable that DVD-CCA itself released the source). Furthermore, this record has not, to my knowledge, been sealed (DVD-CCA tried to get it sealed but failed).
So, any American citizen can get this document (others too? I'm not certain, though you probably have to be a citizen to get the docs straight from the court), and use it as they please since it's public domain. This includes giving it to others. Unless I'm mistaken cryptome.org has this document, actually; this cuts out the necessity to go to the court itself. So as long as the copies that people are using can be traced back to this document, you should be in the clear. Note, of course, that IANAL. But this seems to check; anyone here know why it wouldn't?
Somehow, I get the feeling you are. Assuming you're the same "Anonymous Coward" that started this thread, then if you're posting these in earnest then you've done nothing but reveal your own hypocrisy.
Not exactly. After all, they wouldn't be poor if they were responsible and independent, would they?
In most cases, you are probably right. But never forget that there are no hard and fast rules where humanity is concerned; the best you can do is find a tendency towards something or other.
No, the poor deserve to be poor, and they choose to be poor.
Whoa, hold on there. Read my above statement. I would agree that those who choose to be poor do deserve it. But again, there are those who do not choose it; what of them?
Mostly it's genetic. I think it would be safe to say that on a scale of 1 to 10, the poor are born at 2 and are driven down to 1 by the welfare state.
One moment. It would seem to me that you support a free state, where all have an equal opportunity but what they do with it is up to them (which is, more or less, what we have now). And I agree; that is the best way of doung things (indeed, the only way; people seem to have forgotten that we're all individuals, so equal opportunity doesn't necessarily mean equal results). However, this last statement of yours throws that out the window completely. You cannot believe both without being a hypocrite, since the genetics issue kills the idea of "all men are created equal." You speak derisively of several groups (notably the "Klintonistas") with implications that you would tie them to Nazism. Yet your last statement reeks of the very thing you despise.
The inevitable logic of the welfare state dictates that the poor will eventually be forced to download and read these books, to "improve" them (as if there were anything left to improve after they've been worked over by the Klintonistas).
Not that I've seen. Frankly, I've seen the exact opposite, which is even worse; little if any real attempt at getting people off of welfare and back into society as functioning, contributing members thereof.
The basic premise of Liberalism is to do exactly that: "Improve" others against their will, by means of armed force.
Show me evidence of that and I'll be impressed. I can name as many concervative groups that would do the same (and before you go calling me a liberal, I'm not, as anyone I know can tell you. But I do have a heart).
I also get the impression you might not be attacking the project, or the ideals of the project, but rather Hart's ideals.
The two are inextricable. Hart is certainly a deluded psychotic and a dangerous criminal, and his "project" is just what one would expect from such a source.
While I agree that it's hard to separate Hart's ideals from those of the project (seeing as he defined said ideals, and only has his own to work from), I don't see how he's deluded at all. And certainly not dangerous; name one person he's ever hurt.
I was trying (successfully) to say that Project Gutenberg is a criminal and subversive organization which must be destroyed at any cost.
Hasn't looked too successful to me. Of course, it would help if you produced any evidence to support your claims, but you seemingly refuse to do so. Instead you just spout like a volcano.
It is a statist attempt to upset the natural order established by free competition.
Hardly. These works are comparatively ancient. There is little if any profit in republishing them. Why, then, give that task to a group that doesn't seek profit anyway? Certainly better than to give it to a business that would lose money by doing so.
It is a statist attempt to propagandize in favor of an intellectual welfare state.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong here. The tone of your writings is somewhat reminiscent of Ayn Rand. This, plus the content of your posts, leads me to believe you're an Objectivist, seeing as I've never met an Objectivist who didn't have a style reminiscent of hers (which is understandable, given the Objectivist philosophy on aesthetics). Last I checked, Objectivism viewed the intellect as among the most important things out there, perhaps the only thing which could be called sacred (a word I know you'll flame me for using, but what word has more appropriate connotations?) So clearly, the spread of knowledge is a good thing by your beliefs. Since this knowledge can no longer be profited from, how is Gutenberg bad? You seem to say that money makes right, that a man should be judged by how much he is worth (this being from that line about people who don't want to pay for Shakespeare not being morally equipped to handle it). Even Rand herself didn't believe that.
But I doubt it will be because they're using Mozilla. Or Netscape Communicator/Navigator/whatever. Mozilla started out as a good idea. But they took the idea too far, and got way too much of a case of featureitis. The main culprit: the skinnable GUI.
Skins are Good Things, mind you. If they're used properly; that is, on simple GUI's. Take MP3 players, for example. What can you do with an MP3 player? Let's see... play, pause, fast-forward, rewind... maybe a couple sound-related options. But all in all, not a complex thing, and as long as you make the buttons identifiable pretty much any interface will work well.
But skins don't scale. Wrap a skin around something as complex as a Web browser and you start having some serious issues. Consider:
- Consistency. MP3 players are one thing. But if start up something as big as a Web browser on MacOS, I want it to look like a Mac app. If I start it on Windows, I want it to look like Windows. And if I start it in Gnome, I want it to look like my other Gnome apps. While skins can provide a partial solution, there's no practical way to make it follow the changes I make (consider GTK themes to be a prime example; I can change my GTK theme to BlueSteel and get a BlueSteel Mozilla skin, but if I change the GTK theme my Mozilla skin won't change with it).
- Performance. Gecko is blindingly fast, but the rest of Mozilla is slow. I can launch Netscape 3.0 faster on a P90 than I can launch Mozilla on a G3/300, and I've timed this before so I know what I'm talking about. This isn't as much of a problem with small GUI's, but again the problem is one of scale; stick it on a Web browser and the issues that were minor on a small GUI will come back to bite you hard.
- Interface control. This one's actually unique to Mozilla, because of another nice little feature they added: Websites can change a user's skin. I'll pass. The possibilities of exploits notwithstanding, once I have a skin I like I'd rather keep it that way.
It's a pity. Mozilla could have been The Next Big Thing, even with the cross-platform GUI libs (which could still have gone down to OS-native widgets). But then they had to go and build in the ultimate fluff: a cross-platform skinning engine, and then they had to go and build it in before the rest of the product was even ready. That was their one mistake, and I believe it may well be a fatal one. I have nothing but respect for the Mozilla team; they've made a fine program given the specs. But ultimately, I think Mozilla will be treated only as a proof-of-concept. People will still use Gecko, of course. But it'll be embedded into OS-native browsers for that task. Gnome users will have it in Nautilus (and who knows? maybe the KDE folks will put it into the next Konqueror). NeoPlanet will take it on Windoze. And for MacOS? I don't know. NeoPlanet might do it again; there are rumors that they'll be porting and using the Mozilla engine. If not, there's always the WebThing project.It's a shame, but it proves the old adage: a jack-of-all-trades is master of none. Nonetheless, I'll probably use Netscape until something better that uses Gecko comes along.
I've never even heard of any of these "experts" before. Only the Open-Source advocate actually gave any facts to back up his claim, I might add; the other three seem to be just spreading FUD.
Yeah; you can find an exploit more easily if you have the code in front of you. So what? You get maybe a full day to use it if you're lucky. The second you use it you'll be pounced on, and if you try "waiting for the right moment" someone else will find your precious exploit and see that it's fixed.
Contrast this with the "security-through-obscurity" of a closed-source system. OK, so it's harder to find an exploit. But you'll get at least a week, possibly even months if it's Windows, to play around with the exploit once you do find it, because it simply doesn't get fixed so quickly.
Does being Open-Source make something more secure? Nope. But it doesn't make things less secure, either. It all comes down to how good of an admin you are. But it should be moted that the bugfix time on an OSS system is a huge advantage; there will always be exploits lurking around in any operating system, but the fast turnaround time of Linux and its kin make it easier to keep a system secure even as those exploits are found.
RSA is nothing more than a mathematical equation. These have already been defined as unpatentable, anymore than e=mc^2 is.
And that's why software patents by definition abuse the system. In the end, they're nothing more than mathematical equations, all of them. Specific writings thereof do reflect work, which is protectable by copyright. But you cannot patent an equation, and there are very good reasons for that. Why, then, the double-standard as applies to software?
I'm not against all patents, mind you. But Sun claims a patent on assembling memory chips into modules? That's easily among the most bogus patents I've ever seen. Even worse than the one on the RSA algorithm. And it's not even software-related, surprisingly enough.
That's the thing about patent abuses: software patents by definition abuse the system, but they're not the only types of abuse out there. This is an example of a hardware-based patent that's abusive. One, I very much doubt that Sun was the first to come up with this. Two, it's an idea, not a product; patenting DRAM would be one thing but patenting the idea of assembling memory chips into modules? Lunacy.
The patent system is, in theory, a Good Thing. But it was set up in an age where the things we take for granted now were not even dreamed of, and the rules which worked then don't work as well now. The system needs perhaps not a total overhaul, but at the very least it needs to be updated to reflect the times.
The idea behind this and other open-boot tests is that you still have to come prepared, because if you have to look up every answer you won't have time to finish the test.
That's still not a great way of doing things. If you're good, you can still look up most of the answers, finish on time, and get a good grade (trust me, I've done this). People keep talking about tests being only about rote memorization here, and that's not strictly the case. They're also to see how well you prepared for the task, how well you can pick the important stuff out from the chaff, and the like. Believe it or not, these are also important skills.
All told, I wouldn't care if a test was open-laptop or not, seeing as I have no laptop anyway. Unless, of course, they let me bring in my PalmIII.
- A patent applicant must show intent to actually use the patent. For utility patents, this means marketing and selling the device, other patents work as appropriate. No intent to use, no patent.
- A patent expires if the patent is not "used" as defined above within one year of its filing. However, an applicant can get an extension on this by showing evidence that the device could not possibly have been marketed within that time. Research reports would suffice (showing that the product is still in the development stage). The patent can be extended as long as the applicant can continue to show that the patent cannot yet be marketed, up to a maximum of five years (two years for software-related patents).
- A patent expires at a set amount of time after the patent is first "used" (as defined above). This time period is the same seventeen years for individuals, five years for corporations (three if the patent is software-related). If the patent transfers, the time period is adjusted accordingly (so if a person holds a patent for six years and sells it to a corporation, the patent immediately expires). This amount of time cannot be extended by any means.
No doubt the most controversial part of this will be the different time periods for individuals and corporations. The rationale behind it is that a corporation has significantly more resources than a person does. One person would be lucky to have more than one truly significant invention in his lifetime (truly major breakthroughs -as in, on a scale you very seldom see from individuals or even corporations- notwithstanding). A corporation which can't push out something new and patentable in five years needs a new R&D department.Cooperation works.
:)
Only when people want to cooperate. If they don't, they either won't do anything or worse, they'll sabotage you. How will you ensure that people cooperate in your utopia?
Competition is destructive, wasteful, and deadening. Competition generates products whose purpose is to be sold; cooperation generates artifacts whose purpose is to be used.
Is there much difference? In the end, not really. Consider that every product to be sold is still an artifact to be used. You're simply talking about the same object in two different ways.
Compare most modern products of factories to anything handmade and old. The difference in quality and durability is astonishing.
Yes, but the handmade object is not always the better one. I challenge you to build, say, a computer completely from scratch. Consider that any factory-made product would violate your previous statement, so you cannot use any currently existing parts. I'll bet what you make yourself won't go near the quality of anything I could buy today.
Sure, factories produce so much crap that the rotten quality of it all is not a short-term problem: We can throw it away and replace it, again and again. Is this a valid long-term strategy? Personally, I doubt it.
I say it depends on what "it" is. There are things for which this strategy is appropriate. Not as many things as there are to which this strategy is currently applied, but some nonetheless.
My belief is that we've only been trying this "oceans of trash" approach for a very short period of time, and we'll get over it. In 100 years, we'll be back to making things by hand, because factories are unpleasant to work in and live near, and they produce nothing that's of any lasting worth. A time will come when people wake up and smell the coffee.
I'd be impressed if you could come up with even a single shred of evidence to support that view. I do agree that factories are unpleasant to work in and live near, but I have yet to see anything that works better.
There are a few products of industrialization that can't be duplicated with handcrafts, and some of those are worth keeping: Computers, for example. Networks.
But you just said that there would be no more factories. Who, then, would make these?
Some of what the pharmaceutical industry is doing may be worth keeping, if they can learn to behave themselves and if the FDA starts doing their job right: Detect the poisonous shit (like they did with Thalidomide -- if you have two arms and ten fingers, thank the FDA), but stop there.
Right now they spend 10% of their time and budget policing the drug companies, and the other 90% attacking anybody who dares compete with the drug companies.
I see absolutely no evidence to support that at all. By the way, you speak of the FDA "attacking those who dare compete with the drug companies" as though this were a Bad Thing (and I believe it is). But I thought you said competition was bad, therefore according to your own ethics you shouldn't care about the FDA attacking competition. Is this perhaps a double-standard? It sure looks like one. How, by the way, does the FDA do this "attacking"? I've seen nothing that would support that.
I don't expect that my great-grandchildren will have to breathe filthy air and eat petroleum byproducts (there's ample reason to suppose that the petroleum will all be gone by then anyway).
I don't think that will be the case either. By the way, you imply that we're doing these things now. Breathing filthy air I'll give you (well, actually that depends on where you live). And we probably will be out of petroleum in another few generations, at least given the commonly-accepted theories about where petroleum originates. But I'd like to know what petroleum by-products we're currently eating. Except, of course, for SPAM and staduim hot dogs
The bottom line with all of this is the undenyable fact that the "competitive" property based worldview has produced a river of shit and damned few goodies. I say we keep the good parts and to hell with the rest.
I'll agree with the "river of shit" part. But "damned few" goodies? That I can't agree with. I'd say there's been as much good produced by the system as bad. The older systems you propose returning didn't produce much bad, but that's because they didn't produce much good either.
You can spend two years fighting with a contractor and have a house that'll last for fifty years, or you can have a house-raising with your neighbors and have something that'll be around for two hundred years and be better to live in the whole time.
One: I doubt I'd be living in that house "the whole time." The oldest human of verifiable age didn't last nearly that long.
Two: You really think a house built by means of a house-raising will last that long? In the past, perhaps. But no longer. Houses have gotten significantly more complex since house-raisings were common. Size has increased, as has the common number of floors and rooms. And let's not even talk about electrical wiring, plumbing, and insulation. Take it from someone with some experience in the field. It's also worth noting that when house-raisings were common, everyone knew how to build houses. This was partly because the design was simpler, but also because of necessity: people had to know this because
Anybody who prefers the former of those two options is missing the poing about life in general.
Unless you actually intended to have a Sluggy Freelance reference in your quote (which I doubt) I think you were talking about the "point" of life. What is the "point" of life? Nobody knows. I'd like to think that a large part of it has to do with enjoying life, wouldn't you? But the times you speak of going back to are, generally speaking, not going to enrich people's lives. You are right that "things" do not bring true happiness. I won't argue against that. But those "things," if used correctly (as tools, not as crutches) can be what enable you to go out and find just what true happiness is. In the past, people couldn't do this as a general rule; they were tied to the land by backbreaking labor day in and day out, all their lives. They could never seek real happiness; to even have one or two happy times in one's life was considered a true blessing. And a few people still managed to stumble into happiness, but these were very few people indeed.
Nowadays, we are no longer tied down as we once were. We are free to seek real happiness. The problem, perhaps the great tragedy of our society, is that people haven't done that. They've become too wrapped up in their things, thinking that possessions are the end, not the means. They forget that while things may let you seek happiness, they don't bring it themselves. In essence, they've become chained by exactly what makes them free.
It seems to me as though you've seen a lot of this. That's not surprising; I'd be more surprised to find someone who hasn't seen a lot of this. But you've made the inductivist error; you see a black swan and decide, having seen no other swans, that all swans must be black. You've oversimplified the problem, and in so doing you've oversimplified the solution.
Each time period has its own things going for it (and going against it for that matter), but all things considered this is still probably the best time to live in, at least so far. And as long as our governments don't screw things up too much more, things will only get better in general; there'll be ups and downs, sure, but looking over the long term things will only improve. Have a little faith in humanity. They'll come out all right if you let them.
It's not Apple's to open. You'll have to go to Sorenson the company, which made the Sorenson codec, if you want that.
What Apple can do is change its terms with Sorenson slightly. Unless I'm mistaken, Sorenson is currently not allowed to open their codec (which is a shame; all told I've found it to be better than even MPEG if the encoder is skilled enough).
So if you want this codec opened, it's going to take at least two actions: by Apple to loosen its terms with Sorenson, and then by Sorenson to actually open the codec.
1. Content-neutral: For instance, a ban on bulk unsolicited e-mailing in general would pass muster, a ban limited to porn spam would not.
But then you have to consider the definitions of all of those words, particularly "unsolicited" and "bulk." These definitions can be twisted quite a bit if you are creative enough.
If everybody on the Net is officially permitted "one bite of the apple", the flood of spam would be worse than it is now (with a tiny minority spamming as often as they can get away with it). There are (at a conservative estimate) 10^7 people on the Net with something to sell or a message to spread; if each of them sends their one spam over the course of the next year, that's one spam every three seconds.
Yes, after which you can never be spammed ever again. I'd gladly take a year's worth of crap in exchange for never having to put up with it for the rest of my life, wouldn't you?
The fact is, we can't go censoring speech just because we don't like it. I don't like spam any more than you do, in fact I probably like it even less. But I can't deny that they have the right to speak, just as I have the right to subsequently tell them to stop bothering me.
You simply cannot block any MP3's this way.
You can't try to block all MP3's, because if you do so then you block out the legal ones as well (and yes, there are many legal MP3's out there; too many for this sort of witch-hunt to start up and not raise a stink).
But if you block based on filenames, you're still sunk, because filenames are trivially easy to change. You block *.mp3? Fine. Excuse me while I send leet-music.empeethree to my friend in Germany. Or leet-music.nc3 (nc3 = mp3 rot13'd).
And you can't even block based on content either, because you would have to block based on specific bit patterns. All I have to do is change the quality, use a different encoder... heck, I can just decompress, change formats, and recompress; there are lots of ways to change the sequence. If they try coming up with sound-analysis software, then there's always steganography.
My point? Censorware never works. Apply it to mp3's and it's even less effective than for Websotes, which at least have to keep some attributes (such as address) constant. But I can think of literally hundreds of ways to circumvent these filters. So in the end, this "Rights Protection System" is a joke.
The whole business of domain-name squatting needs to be stopped. The question is how best to do it.
.com, a non-profit organization only gets .org, and most importantly an individual can only get .sum if they're using the site for non-commercial purposes.
First, I think there needs to be a domain specifically for personal Websites. In past posts I've suggested ".sum" which is Latin for "I am," fits into three letters, and is gramatically correct ("Millennium.sum" translates to "I am Millennium" if I'm not mistaken).
Second, stricter enforcement of the domain name policy, based on what entity a registrant represents. A for-profit corporation can only register
Third, a simple rule to decide trademark disputes on domain names. If the trademark existed before the domain name was registered, the domain goes to the trademark owner. But if the domain name had been registered and in use before the trademark was ever filed with the applicable offices, then the domain name owner keeps it. The rationale behind that is that if the name had been in use before the trademark was ever applied for, then the trademark itself should be invalid; it is the real attempt at identity theft (case in point: the E-Toys vs. etoy fight; etoy had that name and domain long before E-Toys had ever been created, much less before the E-Toys trademark had been filed).
On a side note, it's scary to see the WIPO having the power to do this (then again, the WIPO itself is a scary thing). But if it's getting done, then at least it's getting done.