The problem is, spam is protected by the First Amendment, as is every other kind of expression.
However, implicit in the right to say what you want is the right to hear what you (and, by extension, others) say. Implicit in that right is the right to not hear what others say, if you so desire.
I would propose a solution like this. All commercial e-mail, solicited or not, must include an opt-out function (opt-in would be better, of course, but we're talking about setting a bare minimum here). Now, let's say I opt out of e-mail lists from, say, l33tpr0n.com using this. If I ever get another e-mail from l33tpr0n.com again without first giving my permission, then it is considered harassment.
This protects l33tpr0n.com's right to free speech, while protecting my right not to be harassed by them. It's not an ideal solution, but I can't think of anything better that continues to protect people's Constitutional rights.
I'm not sure I like this as much as I like the Open Content License. The FDL seems a lot more restrictive than the GPL or LGPL ever was. Then again, documentation is very different from software, so these added restrictions might well be necessary.
It seems as though the FDL is geared specifically towards software documentation, whereas the OPL is more general-purpose. I wonder if this was intentional. Somehow I'm not certain that it was.
Thought, discovery, identity... they're all abstract things. You can't own things like that; no one can. That fact is why copyrights, trademarks, and patents were created in the first place. The US Constitution, for example, established offices for these "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 8).
This is the problem with the name "intellectual property." You may own a patent, copyright, or whatever, but you don't own the idea behind it. Nobody does. This is where software and media companies have gotten confused (or simply ignored?)
It only gets worse when people misappropriate things. Software, for example, when you come down to it, is thought (on a relatively primitive level, but thought nonetheless). The patent office was not established to handle thought; that's the job of copyrights. When you write a science-fiction novel, do you try to patent science-fiction? Of course not; you copyright your work without trying to patent the idea behind it. Why, then, should software vendors (who do essentially the same thing) be allowed to patent software, when copyrights fit the type of work being done better, are cheaper, and last more than four times as long (for corporations; for an individual it's at least three times as long as a patent and can theoretically go for far longer than a corporate copyright can)?
Joy does voice some legitimate concerns. However, if technology is guided in the right ways, there is little to fear.
Let's start with nanotech robots. Yes, if they surpassed humans in intelligence that could be a Bad Thing. But it's going to be a long time before that happens, if it ever does, simply because of space constraints inside a nanomachine. If you were to, say, link the machines by radio to a larger device which directs them, that would be another story.
The bit about robots surpassing humans in intelligence and replicating themselves is another interesting case. But again, it's one that I'm not sure will happen. The reason: humans are random creatures. Before a robot can attain, much less surpass, true human intelligence, it therefore needs to be able to generate truly random data. That's a long way off; so far the best we can do for generating even one truly random number is monitoring random events in the physical world, usually radioactive decay. I doubt it's going to be anytime soon that we start putting anything radioactive in robots (except those working in radioactive conditions, I suppose).
And then there's genetic engineering. This one, to be honest, frightens me too. It's got great potential to be used for good. But it has equal potential to be used for evil. I don't know of any good answers to this one; the best thing I can think of is legislation and that's not a good way to deal with this at all.
So Joy has some real concerns, and they're valid ones. The point is, we have the technology to destroy ourselves now. We have for decades. And that means we have to move more carefully now.
I congratulate you. I've seen flamers before. Heck, I've been flamed before. But in all that time, no flamer has ever managed to do what you have just done. You have really pissed me off. I once promised not to flame again, but your arrogance needs a chewing-out in the worst way, and since you were too much of a coward to supply an e-mail address so that this could be taken to a private conversation where it belongs, there is no recourse left but to post it here. I apologize in advance to the rest of the Slashdot community; I wish you didn't have to see this.
Before we start, I want it noted for the record that I am in fact a Christian, as this poster claims to be. I belong to no formal demonimation therein at this point in time, but nonetheless we share many of the same beliefs. My post may sound uncharacteristically preachy, but I am attempting to argue on this poster's own terms. I've found that to be more effective than simply screaming aimlessly.
You are scum. You are lazy, overzealous, bookburning scum. I'd nearly go so far as to call you an unfit parent, but that may be going slightly too far. So instead I'll explain my statemeent point-by-point.
I said you were lazy. This is because you obviously don't take the time to do your job as a parent right (and you can always make time; sometimes it isn't easy, and sometimes it involves making sacrifices, but your job as a parent is the single most important job you have and to shirk that responsibility, as you advocate doing, is among the most immoral things I've ever seen). It's not enough to teach a child "don't do this." You have to teach them why not to do it. Censorware, your artificial babysitter, cannot do that. Schools cannot do that. Live babysitters can't do that either. Only you can. And yes, that may mean that you have to take time out from watching the game to be with your child. You might have to momentarily take a break from whatever hobbies you have. You may even have to expose them to certain kinds of "filth," as you call it, to get the point across. But if you must, far better to do it in a controlled situation than letting the kids stumble into it on their own (and they will, eventually; no filtering software blocks everything).
You are a bookburner because you advocate such. "The Australian government is more concerned with the growth and morality of their nation's children..." That's wrong, and worse, you know it's wrong. A good, moral child grows up knowing not only what is right and wrong, but why things are right or wrong, and you propose that we all leave our children and ourselves in the hands of poorly-coded software that cannot teach these things. Because you're apparently too lazy to so this, you would instead kill the growth of knowledge, the very thing which makes us what we are.
And then, we get to your lunatic zealotry. We could start by your statement that you would impose your beliefs on the whole world, which is immoral even if the beliefs do happen to be correct. You have no right to force anything on anyone, not even your own religion (and if you ever read the Bible that you're so proudly thumping in this post, you'll see that). God gave humanity free will so they could choose Him freely (or even not choose Him if they wished), but certainly not so false Christians could force their will upon people. I assert that free will is the single most precious of God's giftts to humanity, as it is the only gift given to humans alone, and thus the one which defines our humanity. So there is no greater sacrilege than to deny this gift, or to attempt to crush it, as you advocate. Chew on that for a while.
While we're at it, let's look at your definition of "filth." I see pornography there, and I agree with you on that count. I cannot agree on the sexually-transmitted disease bit; that knowledge is simply too useful, and could quite possibly save your child's life someday. Then, there's the "gay rights" one. How is that filth, I ask? I've never seen any examples of pornography, gay or otherwise, on any gay-rights site. Nor have I ever seen any hate speech (which is conspicuously absent from your definition of "filth," by the way). All I see is people fighting for their civil rights. What's so bad about that? And let's go back to the absence of hate speech from your lists for a moment. Surely you consider that to be filth; is God not supposed to be a diety who loves all His children? I can point out numerous instances where just that is said. And if you're going to pull out the tired old "God hates fags" bit, I think we could get into quite an interesting theological discussion on why I don't believe this is, strictly speaking, the case. That's an honest invitation, by the way.
You say "I expect those few parents here on Slashdot to agree with me, even if they don't say so for fear of being labeled 'fascists' or 'nazis' by the younger members of Slashdot's readership." Several points here:
One, I think you underestimate the number of parents here on Slashdot. I am not one of them, but I'm willing to bet that I have more experience with children as an equal or as a teacher than you have as a parent. Either way, who are you to judge the demographics having never seen so much as one number backing your point? I'm not one to judge the demographics either, mind you, but you can no more say there are few parents on Slashdot then I could say that I'm the only one on Slashdot who isn't a parent.
You think they will all agree with you. That's arrogance again. You are not the only parent on the face of the Earth, and given the number of parents out there it's doubtful that you're even the best. For that matter, I know plenty of parents who will disagree with you. And yes, I know one set who does agree with you, but they have their own problems which I'd rather not go into (I've mentioned them here before).
You talk about fear of being labeled as Nazis or fascists. That's all well and good; no same person would want to be called those things. But do not forget that the real Nazis and fascists of World War II claimed to be Christian. A lot of bad things have been done in Christianity's name, by people who pervert its teachings to justify some of the most evil acts in all human history. I fear you are doing the same.
Finally, you say "Such things [free speech and equal rights] only get in the way of the happiness of society in the long-term." No. They are what keeps a society happy. What if I told you that because I found your words offensive, you would be permanently silenced? Certainly you would take offense, and you would be right to. But that's no different from what you are doing; because you don't like something you don't think anyone should have the right to say it. That's arrogance on an unbelieveable scale, that you think that you somehow have the right to rule the minds of the whole world. Funny, I seem to remember someone else saying that a very long time ago. If I remember correctly, he was called Satan. I'll leave you to figure out where I'm going with that statement.
Now, all we have to do is hope the government takes this report seriously.
Once they've stopped making bad new laws, they can work on fixing the bad old laws, so that they catch the bad guys without interfering unnecessarily with the good guys (which they do now).
It's not as much of a good step as, say, repealing UCITA and declaring all mandated filtering unconstitutional, but it's a good step nonetheless.
Yes. However, I'm not sure that's practical given the current system. Have you seen what this thing looks like? He has a large plastic panel on the side of his head, into which runs a large bundle of wires. Theae are, in turn, attached to large device that fits on a pair of glasses (making him look not unlike a Borg, actually, but that's not the point).
The problem is, it doesn't look like there's that much room left in either the panel or the device on his head. If you were to fit many more connections in using the current system, I'd guess you'd have to make the system into a large Vaderesque helmet, with connectors going into all sorts of other places in the head simply for there to be room for all of them. Far better to go for something more compact. You can certainly leverage the interface that's already in his head to start, but the external system's going to have to go if you want to fit many more connectors into his brain. It's a matter of physical size more than anything else.
Seriously, though, this has some seriously cool implications if it actually works. It reminds me of a story posted a while back on Slashdot, about a blind man who'd had prototype cranial vision implants back in the 70's. He's currently got some semblance of vision (truly achromatic, poor resolution, and about the size of a 3x5 card held at arm's length, but vision nonetheless). It's had some upgrades over the years, but it's still ancient technology by modern standards. What would happen if they could somehow retrofit that implant with one of these, assuming it worked? While I doubt it'd be anything near human vision, it'd certainly be better (both in terms of vision quality and, probably, physical bulk) as the system he has now.
The "fast patents" idea is good to start. I still don't believe software should be patentable at all, but this is good as a stepping-stone to that end. Unfortunately, the idea about making the patents retroactive isn't a good idea, simply because it cannot be done (any retroactive law is by definition unconstitutional).
The one-month review period is a great idea, though I'd extend it to two months at least. The only problem is that we need a forum for this sort of thing. Slashdot won't do for that purpose; the patent office needs to set it up and run it (they're the ones who'll be using it, anyway).
Frankly, barring the fast patent idea, I'd make patents a "use it or lose it" deal. The idea is that if you do not use anything containing a given patent for some period of time (3 years?), and at the end of those three years you have not announced a release date for something using that patent (which must be within one year), then the patent expires immediately. The idea behind this is to keep corporations from sitting on patents (that is, buying up patents for various processes and then never using them; the oil industry especially has done this for years with patents concerning alternative energy sources). This one would apply to patents in general, not simply software. The rationale behind it is that patents were designed so that a person or corporation could make money off of innovations. If they no longer make money from the innovations (or never did at all), they should not be allowed to hold the patent that they are not using.
The problem is, the idea I have does involve what some could consider a privacy violation. However, in the end this one might well be worth it. You decide...
Every time a piece of censorware blocks a site, it sends the URL (with no information which could identify the user) back to the company which makes it. The companies must keep these lists of blocked URL's public and up-to-date.
Why do I think this should be done? Because it makes you see the censorware companies for what they are; people who compile blacklists of banned information. Not unlike book-burning (I hate to use this comparison so often, but there's nothing more appropriate), only on a scale not seen in the West since Hitler's time. The idea here is to get people to see filters for what they really are. No law is going to directly change the current situation of censorship. It takes a cultural shift to do something like that, to make the people see that censoring knowledge -any knowledge- is far worse than the information itself could possibly be. But for that to happen, people have to see censorship for what it is. Censorware companies have been using sneaky marketing tricks to confuse people for several years now, and the sad fact is that it's worked pretty damn well. So before we can set out to change attitudes toward censorship, we have to undo that confusion. It's the only way it'll ever work.
True, OpenGL's share in the games market is pretty small. But all sorts of other apps use 3D, and GL's share in these is overwhelming. Which makes sense; not so much because DirectX sucks (it does but that's not the point), but because it was designed for gaming, where GL is more suited for general-purpose work.
You seem to have fallen victim to M$ FUD; as usual they took the truth but twisted it so it's presented with a slant.
Coca-Cola was the first company to ever do something like this. They patented the famous "Coke bottle". That was years ago, though, and I don't seem to remember hearing about any complaints.
Do I think this one's right? I'm not sure. This isn't "look and feel." It's also not a software thing. And it's certainly a blatant violation of something, anyway. It should probably be more of a trademark violation than a patent violation, though.
The intent for eMachines and FuturePower to rip off Apple's design and profit from it was quite clear; even more blatant than Windows. For that alone they deserve a smackdown; this was nothing more than outright plagiarism. It's also about more than translucent plastic, which many Slashdotters seem to be forgetting.
But as I said, is it right? I don't know this time. I think it just might be.
First of all, we need to get over this idea that power and ease of use are tradeoffs. They're not, if you have a good UI designer at the helm. Unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to convince the hard-liners of that. Why, I don't know; sometimes I wonder if it's nothing but simple fear.
Second, we all know that UI programming can be a dreary task. This is where graphical UI designers (like Glade for Gnome or Constructor on MacOS) come into play. Using these tools the UI design is far less boring (or time-consuming for that matter). It's even almost fun. Once we have programmers not dreading UI programming, they'll put more effort into it.
Third, UI guidelines for apps. It would do a lot of developers good to study the Mac, BeOS, and NeXT guidelines. These people spent a lot of money coming up with their UI's, and each has some very good points. From these, a coherent set of Linux UI guidelines could be created. There will always be anti-usability zealots who insist "no one's gonna tell me how to design my program!" but the fact remains, UI designs are there for a reason.
Finally, the metaphor. The more I think about it, the more I think the desktop metaphor needs to go. It's not appropriate on Unix-esque filesystems, because of the almost maddening complexity. It's not even appropriate on Windoze. MacOS only gets away with it anymore because so few people go near the System Folder. Unix also has the additional problem that filesystems are a lot more "fixed" in nature than MacOS; it's a lot easier to break something just by moving it. So basically, what we need is a new metaphor, one which is more appropriate given the filesystem. I don't know what a good one would be, though I've heard some intriguing stuff about using a tree before. I'm not sure I like it, but it's an idea, and those are what we need.
One last thing. People talk about just "helping people to get over the learning curve." They talk about a learning curve being a "one-time event." The fact is, programmers have a responsibility to the users to make that learning curve as small as possible. And learning curves are not one-time events, not if every UI you come across is different. That's why there are UI guidelines; if most programs look and feel pretty similar (given their purposes), then a very large chunk of the learning curve becomes a one-time event. Think about it this way: because of the Mac UI guidelines, I can pick up the fundamentals of almost any Mac program immediately, without ever so much as glancing at a manual (at the absolute least I'll be able to quit the program without looking at a manpage, which is more than I can say for vi or emacs). In about ten minutes, I'll probably have the basics down. And if I want to learn more about the program, I still can; people have this idea that the Mac UI is somehow limiting because of its guidelines. But the guidelines aren't what makes it limiting. It's the people who make the software.
Abandoniing an old business model doesn't necessarily mean killing profits. The trick is, you need a new model to replace the old. They're out there, waiting to be discovered. The only reason no one's thought of then is that there's never been a need for them; why worry about economies of abundance when this world is an economy of scarcity, no matter where you go?
But the times have changed. Now there is a place where an economy of abundance exists. And now, we need those business models that no one ever worried about before. And I can pretty much guarantee, whoever figures out how to make it work is going to die a very rich person indeed.
I think I'm finally beginning to understand why RIAA and DVD-CCA want so badly to control the Net as they do. It's a logical fallacy of theirs, one which has become common as of late (interesting how Enlightenment philosophers seem to have gotten it better than modern ones). The idea is, simply put, that of "intellectual property" which is at best a misnomer and at worst a total myth. Before the Objectivists here start flaming me, hear me out...
Let's use art as an example. You paint a picture. Do you own the painting? Yes; you bought the materials and made the painting. You build a sculpture; do you own it? Yes; again you bought the materials and used them. But let's say you record a CD. Certainly you own the CD. But how do you own sound, even a specific configuration thereof? Or let's say you write a book; you certainly own the book, but how do you own words? You write a piece of software; how do you own thought? You build something; you own what you have built, but how do you own the concept of whatever it is you have made?
The simple fact of the matter is, you don't. You can't, any more than you could own fire. So who owns it, then? Nobody does; nobody can. This is where the patent, copyright, and trademark offices come in. The idea is to promote the distribution of these non-ownable things by stating that for a certain period of time, no one but the first person to register these may use the idea, except by permission or fair use. Each handles a different thing; trademarks cover corporate identity, copyrights cover thoughts, and patents cover devices.
Now, before someone goes to claim that I'm saying that a person has no rights to his mind, that's not what I mean. It does mean you have to view the mind from a different perspective, but it ends, as with the "intellectual property" myth, with a person keeping rights to his own mind.
Certainly you own your own body. This means that among other things, you own your brain. Your brain (at least according to generally accepted theory) houses your mind, and you own that too because it's a part of you. What does the mind do? It produces thought. I don't think anyone here will argue against the assertion that the mind is (or at least should be) sacrosanct, not something that anyone else has the right to interfere with, if only because each person owns his own mind. Because of this, you have a right to your own thoughts, just as if you did own them. The difference is only that you have no intrinsic right to sell your thoughts (the concept doesn't work anyway; if you sell your idea to someone else you lose nothing except perhaps the time it took to explain it, so it's not a fair trade).
This is why I think we really need to come up with a better phrase than "intellectual property" for this sort of thing. No doubt it was started by the corporation, because it tips the balance in their favor. But it's also a misnomer.
The problem is, companies still trying to force the Net to fit into the old rules of economics. These rules work fine in the physical realm, because they rely on scarcity. There can only be X amount of stuff in the world/nation/whatever region at any one time. Furthermore, there is no way to increase this amount; to make one thing you must destroy something else.
The digital realm is different. While initially producing something may cost money, once that has been done it is present in the digital realm in basically infinite supply. As long as one instance of something exists, an infinite amount of instances can be created at zero cost. Because the digital realm is a zone of abundance rather than one of scarcity, new rules must be found to work with it.
The DMCA, and its silly restrictions on Net broadcasts/publishing/whatever, isn't really trying to impose a double standard. What it's trying to do is fit the old rules over a new realm. And in the end that doesn't work. The Net restrictions on broadcasting, for example, are there because RIAA sees Net radio not as a broadcast medium but as a distribution medium (in truth it is both and neither at the same time, but this isn't possible in the physical world so RIAA never realized that), and therefore lobbied for different standards.
The truth is, corporations are scared of the Net. They're afraid that it'll kill off their precious profits. The fact is it won't, but corporations have to adapt, to be willing to throw the old rules out the window for a new set which fits the digital realm.
What are those rules? I don't claim to know; I don't think the Net has yet been around long enough that one could form a set which works. The old economic laws certainly don't work; the Net itself violates even the most basic law of supply and demand (supply is essentially infinite, but demand is clearly nonzero). The Open-Source ethic might be an answer, but it also might not.
Companies don't have to worry as much as they do, not even RIAA. This is simply an economic evolution, one which they would be better off adapting to rather than resisting. If they want to pull out of the digital economy completely, the physical economy will always be there. At least, it will as long as there are physical beings, like people. But it's useless to map old economic laws onto a place which violates just about every one of them by its very nature.
Overheating I can understand. The cards are electronic, and the chips just plain run too hot for the cards.
But freezing? How did they manage that? Do the two memory card slots act like some sort of Peltier or something? And if so, when will we see the Web pages where someone hacks his PSX2 to cool his processor?
Yes, but you can't trademark a number. That's why Intel now calls their chips the Pentium line, instead of 586, 686, and so on. They didn't like cloners calling their chips 486's back in the days when that was popular. But when they went to trademark "486," the trademark office said no way (amazing; they did something intelligent). So they came up with a word instead.
Anyway, TPFKAF (The Project Formerly Known As FreeMWare) can use the x86 pun without fear for that very reason; anything Intel tried wouldbe groundless. The VMWare folks might actually have had a case with their product, so the name needed changing.
The terminology we're using is different, but your idea looks basically the same as mine.
And the problem is, sites will always overlap categories. The idea is to arrange domains in such a manner that at the highest level a site fits into at all, it only fits one of the TLD's. That one TLD becomes the one the site must use.
Let's take news sites. At the lowest level, a given news site might fit into.com,.org, or.sum. However, go up a level, and all news sites fit.log and only.log. So slashdot.org and cnnsi.com respectively become slashdot.log and cnnsi.log; they may have different backgrounds but they're both news sites on the second level.
Another way to reorganize the names is this. The current set of OLD's (minus the country codes) becomes a set of "catch-alls." They're grouped as follows:
.com - Commercial, for-profit organizations
.org - Not-for-profit organizations
.edu - Educational organizations
.gov - Governmental organizations
.sum - Personal Websites
Now, you're probably asking, "where did.net and.mil go?" The thing is, the five TLD's I mentioned are "catch-alls"; anything you can make a Website for has to fall into one of those five. Note that most ISP's are commercial, and most militaries are governmental; that's where.net and.mil went. The reason: the TLD's listed above are last-resort. More TLD's exist, but get more specific:
.net - Internet access providers (generally a subset of.com)
.act - Activist organizations (generally a subset of.org)
.k12 - K-12 (or, in other words, primary education) schools (a subset of.edu)
.mil - Military organizations (generally a subset of.gov)
.res - Resumes, portfolios, and the like, principally used by students, freelancers, models, and others looking for work (and generally a subset of.sum) It doesn't have to stop there, of course. Consider my original idea of.log as a news-site TLD. News sites could be a case of.com,.sum, or.org (depending on the nature of the site) but because the TLD exists, there's no overlap because another domain exists just for news sites. Let's say there's a porn domain,.xxx. Most porn sites are commercial (.com) but not always; some would fall better into.sum or.res. But again, a TLD eliminates the overlap.
The idea is that.com,.org,.gov, and the like (I'll call them "Low-level TLD's" or "LLT's") become TLD's of last resort. There's an array of "High-level TLD's" or "HLT's" which categorize a site further. The HLT's don't overlap with each other, tbough they certainly might (and probably do) overlap the Low-levels. The reverse is also true. The idea is that each site gets as high-level a TLD as possible (as an amendment to my previous system, a company can also register its name in any lower-level TLD into which it fits and redirect them up to the higher-level site, but only if those aren't taken and in use already). However, an entity which wishes to register a domain name has to buy into the highest-level TLD which fits the entity's nature, and can then also buy into the lower levels.
That's going to be an unpopular one on Slashdot, I know. But the whole DNS system needs a complete and total reorganization. Something which allows for the same flexibility as the current system, but suits the Net itself more...
Ditch the country codes. All of them. The whole point of the Net is that physical location isn't supposed to matter. It also makes little sense that a US site doesn't have to use the.us code, but all other countries have to use theirs.
Besides this, country codes only rarely give any indication of the site's purpose, which a domain name should be restricted to doing. Take, for example, my old high school's URL; I think it ran http://flinthill.ind.k12.va.us or something like that. This is a classic example of too much information in a name (Flint Hill, Independent school, K-12, Virginia, US), leading to something a lot longer than a domain name should be. A simple http://www.flinthill.edu would have been better (and isn't taken either).
Obviously, with the country codes gone, some new TLD's will have to be implemented. I'd propose the following, just as a start...
.com,.org,.net,.edu,.gov,.mil - same as before.
.sum - personal Web pages. Why "sum," you ask? It's Latin for "I am," and it fits nicely into three letters.
.art - Sites dedicated to some art or another. The official site for a music group is one example.
.log - Sites dedicated to news. Slashdot is one example.
.act - Activism sites. These differ from.org sites in several ways, not the least of which is that a.act site actively encourages people to take a stand on one issue or another (PFAW, for example), whereas a.org site does not (PBS).
.mun - Municipal sites. Differing from a.gov site because of the information they contain. A.gov site tends more towards legislative, historical, and similar information. A.mun site leans towards community events, tourism, etc.
Strict controls on domain name registry. As someone else here has pointed out, your choice of TLD is restricted by what sort of entity you represent when registering the domain name. If you represent a commercial interest, you may only buy a.com address, for example. An ISP may only but a.net address. If you represent yourself, you may only buy a.sum address. Note that the etoys/etoy problem would thus be avoided; Etoys gets etoys.com, whereas etoy gets the etoy.art address. There is one way to get multiple TLD's for one entity: if those sites represent different aspects of that entity. Take AT&T, for example. It's mainly a commercial business, so it should take att.com. However, it contains AT&T WorldNet, an ISP, so that aspect of it would take att.net. This also gets around trademark issues, because it makes it quite clear when a name is being used for commercial purposes.
Obviously, we need to do something about existing domain names. The only fair thing I can think of to do would be that an entity gets to keep all domain names which fit that entity (for example, an individual gets to keep all.sum addresses, but no others) and is reimbursed for the other domain names for whatever had been paid out that year.
How does this sound to people? The problem is that the current system is too fluid; flexibility has its place but this goes too far. Obviously, more TLD's than these are needed; feel free to contribute more. Just remember that any you add should be thought out such that an entity can obviously fit into only one of these TLD's, or obviously fits into one catecory far better than the rest.
The USPS going? Surely not. I think you're underestimating its importance.
Among other things, did you know that, for ordinary letters (and most other stuff too), the USPS is just about the cheapest major delivery service in the world? It's true. Yes, it's a bit slower than many other delivery services, and the utter lack of modern computerization doesn't help too much (there's a computer system in place, but it's ancient by today's standards). You certainly can't beat its price/performance; show me any other company that can deliver, say, a phone bill in three days for less than a buck, or even less than fifty cents. The last time I tried to send a letter via one of the private services, it cost me fifteen times what it would have cost via USPS, and it didn't even get there.
Private services do have their place. I use them regularly for larger packages. And I don't think snail-mail will be dying anytime soon...
When's the last time you successfully send a physical object via e-mail? Or the last time the credit-card company actually e-mailed your new card to you?
Echelon doesn't reach into the physical realm, for obvious reasons.
There are times when hand-written letters are far more appropriate than anything typed. And let's not forget things like wedding invitations; they're just not the same when e-mailed.
For all its problems, snail-mail is going to stick around for a very long time indeed. I do wish the USPS could get its computer systems modernized (there was some talk about them doing a WebObjecdts-based intranet a while back; what ever happened to that?) But I don't see them dying, and I'm glad about that.
Now you're not even getting your own spellings of the word consistent across postings. This little mini-flamewar has been fun (if one-sided; you're the one doing all the flaming), but playtime is over. Your little friends don't have it spelled right, I'm afraid. Or perhaps you want me to quote definitions from other dictionaries?
I'm bored of arguing over the spelling of my handle. You're not the first one I've had to explain this to. You're not even near the first. So if you'll kindly step aside, I'd like to get back to the "stuff that matters" bit.
I was hoping not to make things dull, but I see you've forced my hand.
Looking in Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, I get the following (pronunciation omitted):
mill*en*ni*um, n., pl. -ni*ums, -ni*a. 1. a period of 1000 years. 2. the millennium, the period of a thousand years doring which Christ will reign on earth. Rev. 20:1-7. 3. a period of general righteousness and happiness, esp. in the indefinite future. 4. a thousandth anniversary. [1630-40; < NL, equiv. to L mill(e) a thousand + ennium, extracted from BIENNIUM, TRIENNIUM, etc.]
Want other people who spell it that way? Let's see. George Lucas does (Millennium Falcon). Micron and Matrox both spell it that way, the former on computers and the latter on video cards. Chris Carter did (Millennium, the TV series; an X-Files-esque show best left forgotten). Satisfied? Trust me; I've used this handle on various Net places for six years, since long before I'd even heard of Slashdot. I think I'd know how to spell it.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is, spam is protected by the First Amendment, as is every other kind of expression.
However, implicit in the right to say what you want is the right to hear what you (and, by extension, others) say. Implicit in that right is the right to not hear what others say, if you so desire.
I would propose a solution like this. All commercial e-mail, solicited or not, must include an opt-out function (opt-in would be better, of course, but we're talking about setting a bare minimum here). Now, let's say I opt out of e-mail lists from, say, l33tpr0n.com using this. If I ever get another e-mail from l33tpr0n.com again without first giving my permission, then it is considered harassment.
This protects l33tpr0n.com's right to free speech, while protecting my right not to be harassed by them. It's not an ideal solution, but I can't think of anything better that continues to protect people's Constitutional rights.
I'm not sure I like this as much as I like the Open Content License. The FDL seems a lot more restrictive than the GPL or LGPL ever was. Then again, documentation is very different from software, so these added restrictions might well be necessary.
It seems as though the FDL is geared specifically towards software documentation, whereas the OPL is more general-purpose. I wonder if this was intentional. Somehow I'm not certain that it was.
Thought, discovery, identity... they're all abstract things. You can't own things like that; no one can. That fact is why copyrights, trademarks, and patents were created in the first place. The US Constitution, for example, established offices for these "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 8).
This is the problem with the name "intellectual property." You may own a patent, copyright, or whatever, but you don't own the idea behind it. Nobody does. This is where software and media companies have gotten confused (or simply ignored?)
It only gets worse when people misappropriate things. Software, for example, when you come down to it, is thought (on a relatively primitive level, but thought nonetheless). The patent office was not established to handle thought; that's the job of copyrights. When you write a science-fiction novel, do you try to patent science-fiction? Of course not; you copyright your work without trying to patent the idea behind it. Why, then, should software vendors (who do essentially the same thing) be allowed to patent software, when copyrights fit the type of work being done better, are cheaper, and last more than four times as long (for corporations; for an individual it's at least three times as long as a patent and can theoretically go for far longer than a corporate copyright can)?
It's how it evolves.
Joy does voice some legitimate concerns. However, if technology is guided in the right ways, there is little to fear.
Let's start with nanotech robots. Yes, if they surpassed humans in intelligence that could be a Bad Thing. But it's going to be a long time before that happens, if it ever does, simply because of space constraints inside a nanomachine. If you were to, say, link the machines by radio to a larger device which directs them, that would be another story.
The bit about robots surpassing humans in intelligence and replicating themselves is another interesting case. But again, it's one that I'm not sure will happen. The reason: humans are random creatures. Before a robot can attain, much less surpass, true human intelligence, it therefore needs to be able to generate truly random data. That's a long way off; so far the best we can do for generating even one truly random number is monitoring random events in the physical world, usually radioactive decay. I doubt it's going to be anytime soon that we start putting anything radioactive in robots (except those working in radioactive conditions, I suppose).
And then there's genetic engineering. This one, to be honest, frightens me too. It's got great potential to be used for good. But it has equal potential to be used for evil. I don't know of any good answers to this one; the best thing I can think of is legislation and that's not a good way to deal with this at all.
So Joy has some real concerns, and they're valid ones. The point is, we have the technology to destroy ourselves now. We have for decades. And that means we have to move more carefully now.
Before we start, I want it noted for the record that I am in fact a Christian, as this poster claims to be. I belong to no formal demonimation therein at this point in time, but nonetheless we share many of the same beliefs. My post may sound uncharacteristically preachy, but I am attempting to argue on this poster's own terms. I've found that to be more effective than simply screaming aimlessly.
You are scum. You are lazy, overzealous, bookburning scum. I'd nearly go so far as to call you an unfit parent, but that may be going slightly too far. So instead I'll explain my statemeent point-by-point.
I said you were lazy. This is because you obviously don't take the time to do your job as a parent right (and you can always make time; sometimes it isn't easy, and sometimes it involves making sacrifices, but your job as a parent is the single most important job you have and to shirk that responsibility, as you advocate doing, is among the most immoral things I've ever seen). It's not enough to teach a child "don't do this." You have to teach them why not to do it. Censorware, your artificial babysitter, cannot do that. Schools cannot do that. Live babysitters can't do that either. Only you can. And yes, that may mean that you have to take time out from watching the game to be with your child. You might have to momentarily take a break from whatever hobbies you have. You may even have to expose them to certain kinds of "filth," as you call it, to get the point across. But if you must, far better to do it in a controlled situation than letting the kids stumble into it on their own (and they will, eventually; no filtering software blocks everything).
You are a bookburner because you advocate such. "The Australian government is more concerned with the growth and morality of their nation's children..." That's wrong, and worse, you know it's wrong. A good, moral child grows up knowing not only what is right and wrong, but why things are right or wrong, and you propose that we all leave our children and ourselves in the hands of poorly-coded software that cannot teach these things. Because you're apparently too lazy to so this, you would instead kill the growth of knowledge, the very thing which makes us what we are.
And then, we get to your lunatic zealotry. We could start by your statement that you would impose your beliefs on the whole world, which is immoral even if the beliefs do happen to be correct. You have no right to force anything on anyone, not even your own religion (and if you ever read the Bible that you're so proudly thumping in this post, you'll see that). God gave humanity free will so they could choose Him freely (or even not choose Him if they wished), but certainly not so false Christians could force their will upon people. I assert that free will is the single most precious of God's giftts to humanity, as it is the only gift given to humans alone, and thus the one which defines our humanity. So there is no greater sacrilege than to deny this gift, or to attempt to crush it, as you advocate. Chew on that for a while.
While we're at it, let's look at your definition of "filth." I see pornography there, and I agree with you on that count. I cannot agree on the sexually-transmitted disease bit; that knowledge is simply too useful, and could quite possibly save your child's life someday. Then, there's the "gay rights" one. How is that filth, I ask? I've never seen any examples of pornography, gay or otherwise, on any gay-rights site. Nor have I ever seen any hate speech (which is conspicuously absent from your definition of "filth," by the way). All I see is people fighting for their civil rights. What's so bad about that? And let's go back to the absence of hate speech from your lists for a moment. Surely you consider that to be filth; is God not supposed to be a diety who loves all His children? I can point out numerous instances where just that is said. And if you're going to pull out the tired old "God hates fags" bit, I think we could get into quite an interesting theological discussion on why I don't believe this is, strictly speaking, the case. That's an honest invitation, by the way.
You say "I expect those few parents here on Slashdot to agree with me, even if they don't say so for fear of being labeled 'fascists' or 'nazis' by the younger members of Slashdot's readership." Several points here:
Finally, you say "Such things [free speech and equal rights] only get in the way of the happiness of society in the long-term." No. They are what keeps a society happy. What if I told you that because I found your words offensive, you would be permanently silenced? Certainly you would take offense, and you would be right to. But that's no different from what you are doing; because you don't like something you don't think anyone should have the right to say it. That's arrogance on an unbelieveable scale, that you think that you somehow have the right to rule the minds of the whole world. Funny, I seem to remember someone else saying that a very long time ago. If I remember correctly, he was called Satan. I'll leave you to figure out where I'm going with that statement.
Now, all we have to do is hope the government takes this report seriously.
Once they've stopped making bad new laws, they can work on fixing the bad old laws, so that they catch the bad guys without interfering unnecessarily with the good guys (which they do now).
It's not as much of a good step as, say, repealing UCITA and declaring all mandated filtering unconstitutional, but it's a good step nonetheless.
Yes. However, I'm not sure that's practical given the current system. Have you seen what this thing looks like? He has a large plastic panel on the side of his head, into which runs a large bundle of wires. Theae are, in turn, attached to large device that fits on a pair of glasses (making him look not unlike a Borg, actually, but that's not the point).
The problem is, it doesn't look like there's that much room left in either the panel or the device on his head. If you were to fit many more connections in using the current system, I'd guess you'd have to make the system into a large Vaderesque helmet, with connectors going into all sorts of other places in the head simply for there to be room for all of them. Far better to go for something more compact. You can certainly leverage the interface that's already in his head to start, but the external system's going to have to go if you want to fit many more connectors into his brain. It's a matter of physical size more than anything else.
...if you'll excuse the awful pun.
Seriously, though, this has some seriously cool implications if it actually works. It reminds me of a story posted a while back on Slashdot, about a blind man who'd had prototype cranial vision implants back in the 70's. He's currently got some semblance of vision (truly achromatic, poor resolution, and about the size of a 3x5 card held at arm's length, but vision nonetheless). It's had some upgrades over the years, but it's still ancient technology by modern standards. What would happen if they could somehow retrofit that implant with one of these, assuming it worked? While I doubt it'd be anything near human vision, it'd certainly be better (both in terms of vision quality and, probably, physical bulk) as the system he has now.
It'd certainly be an interesting one to try.
This guy gets it, and yet he doesn't get it.
The "fast patents" idea is good to start. I still don't believe software should be patentable at all, but this is good as a stepping-stone to that end. Unfortunately, the idea about making the patents retroactive isn't a good idea, simply because it cannot be done (any retroactive law is by definition unconstitutional).
The one-month review period is a great idea, though I'd extend it to two months at least. The only problem is that we need a forum for this sort of thing. Slashdot won't do for that purpose; the patent office needs to set it up and run it (they're the ones who'll be using it, anyway).
Frankly, barring the fast patent idea, I'd make patents a "use it or lose it" deal. The idea is that if you do not use anything containing a given patent for some period of time (3 years?), and at the end of those three years you have not announced a release date for something using that patent (which must be within one year), then the patent expires immediately. The idea behind this is to keep corporations from sitting on patents (that is, buying up patents for various processes and then never using them; the oil industry especially has done this for years with patents concerning alternative energy sources). This one would apply to patents in general, not simply software. The rationale behind it is that patents were designed so that a person or corporation could make money off of innovations. If they no longer make money from the innovations (or never did at all), they should not be allowed to hold the patent that they are not using.
Ideas? Opinions? Angry rants?
The problem is, the idea I have does involve what some could consider a privacy violation. However, in the end this one might well be worth it. You decide...
Every time a piece of censorware blocks a site, it sends the URL (with no information which could identify the user) back to the company which makes it. The companies must keep these lists of blocked URL's public and up-to-date.
Why do I think this should be done? Because it makes you see the censorware companies for what they are; people who compile blacklists of banned information. Not unlike book-burning (I hate to use this comparison so often, but there's nothing more appropriate), only on a scale not seen in the West since Hitler's time. The idea here is to get people to see filters for what they really are. No law is going to directly change the current situation of censorship. It takes a cultural shift to do something like that, to make the people see that censoring knowledge -any knowledge- is far worse than the information itself could possibly be. But for that to happen, people have to see censorship for what it is. Censorware companies have been using sneaky marketing tricks to confuse people for several years now, and the sad fact is that it's worked pretty damn well. So before we can set out to change attitudes toward censorship, we have to undo that confusion. It's the only way it'll ever work.
True, OpenGL's share in the games market is pretty small. But all sorts of other apps use 3D, and GL's share in these is overwhelming. Which makes sense; not so much because DirectX sucks (it does but that's not the point), but because it was designed for gaming, where GL is more suited for general-purpose work.
You seem to have fallen victim to M$ FUD; as usual they took the truth but twisted it so it's presented with a slant.
Coca-Cola was the first company to ever do something like this. They patented the famous "Coke bottle". That was years ago, though, and I don't seem to remember hearing about any complaints.
Do I think this one's right? I'm not sure. This isn't "look and feel." It's also not a software thing. And it's certainly a blatant violation of something, anyway. It should probably be more of a trademark violation than a patent violation, though.
The intent for eMachines and FuturePower to rip off Apple's design and profit from it was quite clear; even more blatant than Windows. For that alone they deserve a smackdown; this was nothing more than outright plagiarism. It's also about more than translucent plastic, which many Slashdotters seem to be forgetting.
But as I said, is it right? I don't know this time. I think it just might be.
First of all, we need to get over this idea that power and ease of use are tradeoffs. They're not, if you have a good UI designer at the helm. Unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to convince the hard-liners of that. Why, I don't know; sometimes I wonder if it's nothing but simple fear.
Second, we all know that UI programming can be a dreary task. This is where graphical UI designers (like Glade for Gnome or Constructor on MacOS) come into play. Using these tools the UI design is far less boring (or time-consuming for that matter). It's even almost fun. Once we have programmers not dreading UI programming, they'll put more effort into it.
Third, UI guidelines for apps. It would do a lot of developers good to study the Mac, BeOS, and NeXT guidelines. These people spent a lot of money coming up with their UI's, and each has some very good points. From these, a coherent set of Linux UI guidelines could be created. There will always be anti-usability zealots who insist "no one's gonna tell me how to design my program!" but the fact remains, UI designs are there for a reason.
Finally, the metaphor. The more I think about it, the more I think the desktop metaphor needs to go. It's not appropriate on Unix-esque filesystems, because of the almost maddening complexity. It's not even appropriate on Windoze. MacOS only gets away with it anymore because so few people go near the System Folder. Unix also has the additional problem that filesystems are a lot more "fixed" in nature than MacOS; it's a lot easier to break something just by moving it. So basically, what we need is a new metaphor, one which is more appropriate given the filesystem. I don't know what a good one would be, though I've heard some intriguing stuff about using a tree before. I'm not sure I like it, but it's an idea, and those are what we need.
One last thing. People talk about just "helping people to get over the learning curve." They talk about a learning curve being a "one-time event." The fact is, programmers have a responsibility to the users to make that learning curve as small as possible. And learning curves are not one-time events, not if every UI you come across is different. That's why there are UI guidelines; if most programs look and feel pretty similar (given their purposes), then a very large chunk of the learning curve becomes a one-time event. Think about it this way: because of the Mac UI guidelines, I can pick up the fundamentals of almost any Mac program immediately, without ever so much as glancing at a manual (at the absolute least I'll be able to quit the program without looking at a manpage, which is more than I can say for vi or emacs). In about ten minutes, I'll probably have the basics down. And if I want to learn more about the program, I still can; people have this idea that the Mac UI is somehow limiting because of its guidelines. But the guidelines aren't what makes it limiting. It's the people who make the software.
Abandoniing an old business model doesn't necessarily mean killing profits. The trick is, you need a new model to replace the old. They're out there, waiting to be discovered. The only reason no one's thought of then is that there's never been a need for them; why worry about economies of abundance when this world is an economy of scarcity, no matter where you go?
But the times have changed. Now there is a place where an economy of abundance exists. And now, we need those business models that no one ever worried about before. And I can pretty much guarantee, whoever figures out how to make it work is going to die a very rich person indeed.
I think I'm finally beginning to understand why RIAA and DVD-CCA want so badly to control the Net as they do. It's a logical fallacy of theirs, one which has become common as of late (interesting how Enlightenment philosophers seem to have gotten it better than modern ones). The idea is, simply put, that of "intellectual property" which is at best a misnomer and at worst a total myth. Before the Objectivists here start flaming me, hear me out...
Let's use art as an example. You paint a picture. Do you own the painting? Yes; you bought the materials and made the painting. You build a sculpture; do you own it? Yes; again you bought the materials and used them. But let's say you record a CD. Certainly you own the CD. But how do you own sound, even a specific configuration thereof? Or let's say you write a book; you certainly own the book, but how do you own words? You write a piece of software; how do you own thought? You build something; you own what you have built, but how do you own the concept of whatever it is you have made?
The simple fact of the matter is, you don't. You can't, any more than you could own fire. So who owns it, then? Nobody does; nobody can. This is where the patent, copyright, and trademark offices come in. The idea is to promote the distribution of these non-ownable things by stating that for a certain period of time, no one but the first person to register these may use the idea, except by permission or fair use. Each handles a different thing; trademarks cover corporate identity, copyrights cover thoughts, and patents cover devices.
Now, before someone goes to claim that I'm saying that a person has no rights to his mind, that's not what I mean. It does mean you have to view the mind from a different perspective, but it ends, as with the "intellectual property" myth, with a person keeping rights to his own mind.
Certainly you own your own body. This means that among other things, you own your brain. Your brain (at least according to generally accepted theory) houses your mind, and you own that too because it's a part of you. What does the mind do? It produces thought. I don't think anyone here will argue against the assertion that the mind is (or at least should be) sacrosanct, not something that anyone else has the right to interfere with, if only because each person owns his own mind. Because of this, you have a right to your own thoughts, just as if you did own them. The difference is only that you have no intrinsic right to sell your thoughts (the concept doesn't work anyway; if you sell your idea to someone else you lose nothing except perhaps the time it took to explain it, so it's not a fair trade).
This is why I think we really need to come up with a better phrase than "intellectual property" for this sort of thing. No doubt it was started by the corporation, because it tips the balance in their favor. But it's also a misnomer.
The problem is, companies still trying to force the Net to fit into the old rules of economics. These rules work fine in the physical realm, because they rely on scarcity. There can only be X amount of stuff in the world/nation/whatever region at any one time. Furthermore, there is no way to increase this amount; to make one thing you must destroy something else.
The digital realm is different. While initially producing something may cost money, once that has been done it is present in the digital realm in basically infinite supply. As long as one instance of something exists, an infinite amount of instances can be created at zero cost. Because the digital realm is a zone of abundance rather than one of scarcity, new rules must be found to work with it.
The DMCA, and its silly restrictions on Net broadcasts/publishing/whatever, isn't really trying to impose a double standard. What it's trying to do is fit the old rules over a new realm. And in the end that doesn't work. The Net restrictions on broadcasting, for example, are there because RIAA sees Net radio not as a broadcast medium but as a distribution medium (in truth it is both and neither at the same time, but this isn't possible in the physical world so RIAA never realized that), and therefore lobbied for different standards.
The truth is, corporations are scared of the Net. They're afraid that it'll kill off their precious profits. The fact is it won't, but corporations have to adapt, to be willing to throw the old rules out the window for a new set which fits the digital realm.
What are those rules? I don't claim to know; I don't think the Net has yet been around long enough that one could form a set which works. The old economic laws certainly don't work; the Net itself violates even the most basic law of supply and demand (supply is essentially infinite, but demand is clearly nonzero). The Open-Source ethic might be an answer, but it also might not.
Companies don't have to worry as much as they do, not even RIAA. This is simply an economic evolution, one which they would be better off adapting to rather than resisting. If they want to pull out of the digital economy completely, the physical economy will always be there. At least, it will as long as there are physical beings, like people. But it's useless to map old economic laws onto a place which violates just about every one of them by its very nature.
Overheating I can understand. The cards are electronic, and the chips just plain run too hot for the cards.
But freezing? How did they manage that? Do the two memory card slots act like some sort of Peltier or something? And if so, when will we see the Web pages where someone hacks his PSX2 to cool his processor?
Yes, but you can't trademark a number. That's why Intel now calls their chips the Pentium line, instead of 586, 686, and so on. They didn't like cloners calling their chips 486's back in the days when that was popular. But when they went to trademark "486," the trademark office said no way (amazing; they did something intelligent). So they came up with a word instead.
Anyway, TPFKAF (The Project Formerly Known As FreeMWare) can use the x86 pun without fear for that very reason; anything Intel tried wouldbe groundless. The VMWare folks might actually have had a case with their product, so the name needed changing.
Somehow, I figured that would be the case.
To give you an idea, under my system the three URL's you gave would instead be:
There's the difference. What do you think>
The terminology we're using is different, but your idea looks basically the same as mine.
.com, .org, or .sum. However, go up a level, and all news sites fit .log and only .log. So slashdot.org and cnnsi.com respectively become slashdot.log and cnnsi.log; they may have different backgrounds but they're both news sites on the second level.
And the problem is, sites will always overlap categories. The idea is to arrange domains in such a manner that at the highest level a site fits into at all, it only fits one of the TLD's. That one TLD becomes the one the site must use.
Let's take news sites. At the lowest level, a given news site might fit into
Now, you're probably asking, "where did
It doesn't have to stop there, of course. Consider my original idea of
The idea is that
Besides this, country codes only rarely give any indication of the site's purpose, which a domain name should be restricted to doing. Take, for example, my old high school's URL; I think it ran http://flinthill.ind.k12.va.us or something like that. This is a classic example of too much information in a name (Flint Hill, Independent school, K-12, Virginia, US), leading to something a lot longer than a domain name should be. A simple http://www.flinthill.edu would have been better (and isn't taken either).
This also gets around trademark issues, because it makes it quite clear when a name is being used for commercial purposes.
How does this sound to people? The problem is that the current system is too fluid; flexibility has its place but this goes too far. Obviously, more TLD's than these are needed; feel free to contribute more. Just remember that any you add should be thought out such that an entity can obviously fit into only one of these TLD's, or obviously fits into one catecory far better than the rest.
Among other things, did you know that, for ordinary letters (and most other stuff too), the USPS is just about the cheapest major delivery service in the world? It's true. Yes, it's a bit slower than many other delivery services, and the utter lack of modern computerization doesn't help too much (there's a computer system in place, but it's ancient by today's standards). You certainly can't beat its price/performance; show me any other company that can deliver, say, a phone bill in three days for less than a buck, or even less than fifty cents. The last time I tried to send a letter via one of the private services, it cost me fifteen times what it would have cost via USPS, and it didn't even get there.
Private services do have their place. I use them regularly for larger packages. And I don't think snail-mail will be dying anytime soon...
For all its problems, snail-mail is going to stick around for a very long time indeed. I do wish the USPS could get its computer systems modernized (there was some talk about them doing a WebObjecdts-based intranet a while back; what ever happened to that?) But I don't see them dying, and I'm glad about that.
Now you're not even getting your own spellings of the word consistent across postings. This little mini-flamewar has been fun (if one-sided; you're the one doing all the flaming), but playtime is over. Your little friends don't have it spelled right, I'm afraid. Or perhaps you want me to quote definitions from other dictionaries?
I'm bored of arguing over the spelling of my handle. You're not the first one I've had to explain this to. You're not even near the first. So if you'll kindly step aside, I'd like to get back to the "stuff that matters" bit.
Looking in Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, I get the following (pronunciation omitted):
Want other people who spell it that way? Let's see. George Lucas does (Millennium Falcon). Micron and Matrox both spell it that way, the former on computers and the latter on video cards. Chris Carter did (Millennium, the TV series; an X-Files-esque show best left forgotten). Satisfied? Trust me; I've used this handle on various Net places for six years, since long before I'd even heard of Slashdot. I think I'd know how to spell it.