You are either ignorant or intentionally bending the truth. When prosecutors are beefing up charges in order to obtain a plea, they start stacking all charges that may relate to the same crime in order to get you for as much as possible.
The judge simply couldn't impose more than a year in this case, based on the damages involved and the charges the prosecutor actually brought. Swartz was not "facing a fairly significant fraction of 35 years", he was facing about a year at most, and realistically much less than that. No amount of hand waving on your part is going to change that.
The Apple II showed that Apple could cut corners on engineering and hardware, put it in a pretty box and market the hell out of it, and still charge more than everybody else. That's good for Apple, it's been bad for the industry and consumers, and the sooner people wise up to it, the better.
If he didn't cop a plea for the six months, he faced a fairly significant fraction of 35 years.
Stop lying. Maximum sentences are based on federal sentencing guidelines, and those are based on damages. He did not "face a fairly significant fraction of 35 years"; he didn't face much more than he would have received under the plea bargain.
What he did really didn't justify a prison sentence at all.
Physically breaking into a private computer network is a pretty serious offense, and Congress believes it justifies a prison sentence.
1985 was when the Apple//gs came out, so Apple's marketshare was already on the downward spiral. But IBM PCs were still pieces of shit compared to the Apple IIs.
Wow, the Jobs reality distortion field is apparently still in full effect. In 1985, you could get an Amiga 1000 with hardware accelerated graphics, a 68k processor, and a multitasking OS. The PC had EGA cards, with higher resolution than the Apple II. There were tons of other interesting personal computers in the market. The Apple II was still stuck with its half-assed late 70's graphics hack. My Apple II was long mothballed by then. Yeah, the PCs were pieces of sh*t in 1985, but so were the Apple IIs: the two crappiest computer lines from that era survived and took over the market, and the rest is history.
He has correctly identified things that are wrong, but he has always taken the wrong approach to fixing the problem. The fact that the results of taxpayer-funded research is behind a paywall is wrong. It should be open and accessible.
I completely agree. I strongly sympathize with his cause, but he just screwed up on the activism itself and wasn't prepared to deal with the obvious and likely legal consequences of his actions.
Reading the article helps. He was arrested for "downloading excessive material".
That's wrong. He was charged with computer fraud and abuse (CFAA), not "downloading excessive material" (or even copyright violation). Although he was not affiliated with MIT, he connected to its network, evaded attempts to kick him off the network, physically entered a wiring closet on campus to circumvent restrictions on the wireless network, and attempted to conceal a machine there. He tried to hide his face from security cameras, and he did all that even though he would have had access to the network at Harvard. And his charges and penalties were based on the work and disruption he caused to MIT users and staff.
Yes, physically and intentionally hooking up to a network you have no right to be on, on someone else's private property that you have no right to be on, is a crime, with the severity of the sentence determined by how much damage you cause.
they recommended this if he accepted a plea bargain declaring himself gulty of several felonies. Afterwards he would be a convicted felon with limited rights.
Swartz broke into a private computer network in order to commit copyright violation on a massive scale; that's a felony pretty much everywhere else in the world. Furthermore, Congress intended his conduct to be a felony. Why do you think he should not have been convicted of a felony?
And the judge would not be bound by the six month recommendation
But the judge would have been bound by federal sentencing guidelines, which would have limited the sentence to around 6-12 months no matter what.
The Apple II was really only one of three massively successful PC lines: the Commodore, the TRS-80 line, and the Apple line, all introduced in 1977. The Apple II and TRS-80 both received floppy drives in 1978. The Apple II did keep production costs down, but both the machines and its disk drives were pretty expensive, so Apple really didn't do anything to help the masses with its cost savings. In terms of market share, Apple II was always a smaller player relative to the others. So, like today, Apple was had a product with a smaller market share, a lot of proprietary technology, and a large profit margin. And like today, they probably received more credit for innovation than they deserve.
Look, I don't care what Udo and his sock puppet think. Anybody with an open mind can find and read up on the history of how Apple attempted to violate open source licenses. You obviously don't have an open mind, so you can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.
Sorry, but the Dippin' Dots patent was struck down in 2007 because the courts considered the process "obvious".
Re:neither should receive government support
on
Let Them Eat Teslas
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· Score: 1
Granted, the US is like in the top 5 of nations with college graduates, but there are many European nations with free or almost-free college programs
No, they are not "free". They don't have tuition, but people still need to live somehow, and they take on student loans for that.
I am working in a job in my field, still working on paying off student loans, so after paying my student loans every month, my income is similar to a non-college degree person. Granted, once I get those loans paid off, I will be significantly better off
Sounds to me like the student loan program is working as it should for you.
Many of my relatives and acquaintances that are just now or have recently guaduated high school are electing NOT to go to college, because they have seen how I struggle, and then how much tuition rates have gone up since I graduated.
Sounds like economics is working the way it should: you go to college if the money you pay for it is made up for by higher income later on.
One of two things need to happen:1) Colleges and universities need to dramatically cut the costs of tuition,
Why would they do that? They charge what the market will bear.
2) the government needs to start subsidizing education more,
More subsidies means that costs will go up even higher. Remember: they charge what the market will bear.
otherwise we are going to find ourselves as a nation of undereducated people
You don't need college degrees to be educated.
As a conservative,
Maybe you're socially conservative, but you're clearly economically left-wing.
after seeing how higher education works overseas, and with struggling myself, option two is looking pretty attractive.
Yeah, because what America needs is vast numbers of art history and social studies majors educated at the tax payer's expense!
If HTML5/JavaScript effectively replaces X11 as the display server on Linux, this could be an OK approach and one that doesn't need to mean the end of the desktop PC either.
"Share music" doesn't imply "share videos" or "share porn" to most people.
neither should receive government support
on
Let Them Eat Teslas
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· Score: 1
A larger fraction of the US population has college degrees than in most other industrialized nations. Encouraging more people to get college degrees will not raise the standard of living or incomes, it will simply mean that we end up with more waiters and cab drivers with college degrees. Subsidizing more college degrees with public funding or loans will mean that tuition rates will keep rising and more and more jobs will require college degrees even though they don't need it.
As for electric vehicles and subsidies for them, it's unclear what purpose these subsidies are supposed to serve. The Tesla is not a mass market car, and no amount of subsidies is going to help it develop the economies of scale to bring the price down. Either electric vehicles make economic sense, in which case subsidies aren't needed, or they don't, in which case subsidies are wasted.
This is part of a disturbing trend (or tidal wave) of legislation trying to protect the public from potential risk and danger: gun control, control of locksmith tools, control of network testing tools etc. are all designed to restrict activities and objects that are primarily used for legal purposes but might be used to create harm. The control and licensing measures being enacted have never been shown to work, but they make people feel good. Of course, they also take away individual freedoms more and more.
Right now, most of these laws come from law-and-order Republicans and a bunch of left wing causes. But make no mistake: if this goes far enough, it will come back and even eat away at recent progress in social liberalization. Much the same legal reasoning that can be applied to guns and violent crime can be applied to sex and reproduction.
3D printing of 3D printers (i.e. self-replicating printers) is the goal of a number of projects, including the Reprap project. Most of the structural parts are printable. People are working on open source printable electronics. Chips and actuators can't be easily printed yet.
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Yes, he was facing a maximum of up to a year under federal sentencing guidelines, in a minimum security prison.
You're a "fucking idiot" if you think that's "a fairly significant fraction of 35 years".
The judge simply couldn't impose more than a year in this case, based on the damages involved and the charges the prosecutor actually brought. Swartz was not "facing a fairly significant fraction of 35 years", he was facing about a year at most, and realistically much less than that. No amount of hand waving on your part is going to change that.
The Apple II showed that Apple could cut corners on engineering and hardware, put it in a pretty box and market the hell out of it, and still charge more than everybody else. That's good for Apple, it's been bad for the industry and consumers, and the sooner people wise up to it, the better.
Stop lying. Maximum sentences are based on federal sentencing guidelines, and those are based on damages. He did not "face a fairly significant fraction of 35 years"; he didn't face much more than he would have received under the plea bargain.
Physically breaking into a private computer network is a pretty serious offense, and Congress believes it justifies a prison sentence.
Wow, the Jobs reality distortion field is apparently still in full effect. In 1985, you could get an Amiga 1000 with hardware accelerated graphics, a 68k processor, and a multitasking OS. The PC had EGA cards, with higher resolution than the Apple II. There were tons of other interesting personal computers in the market. The Apple II was still stuck with its half-assed late 70's graphics hack. My Apple II was long mothballed by then. Yeah, the PCs were pieces of sh*t in 1985, but so were the Apple IIs: the two crappiest computer lines from that era survived and took over the market, and the rest is history.
Your numbers are wrong. Apple never had anywhere near 50% market share in the desktop computer market.
Technology that belongs to Apple and is incompatible with everything else. Many other machines used standard floppy disk controller chips.
You Apple fanboys and your ability to falsify history are really impressive.
I didn't say that there weren't other massively successful PC lines, I merely gave the three earliest (those introduced in 1977).
I completely agree. I strongly sympathize with his cause, but he just screwed up on the activism itself and wasn't prepared to deal with the obvious and likely legal consequences of his actions.
That's wrong. He was charged with computer fraud and abuse (CFAA), not "downloading excessive material" (or even copyright violation). Although he was not affiliated with MIT, he connected to its network, evaded attempts to kick him off the network, physically entered a wiring closet on campus to circumvent restrictions on the wireless network, and attempted to conceal a machine there. He tried to hide his face from security cameras, and he did all that even though he would have had access to the network at Harvard. And his charges and penalties were based on the work and disruption he caused to MIT users and staff.
Yes, physically and intentionally hooking up to a network you have no right to be on, on someone else's private property that you have no right to be on, is a crime, with the severity of the sentence determined by how much damage you cause.
Swartz broke into a private computer network in order to commit copyright violation on a massive scale; that's a felony pretty much everywhere else in the world. Furthermore, Congress intended his conduct to be a felony. Why do you think he should not have been convicted of a felony?
But the judge would have been bound by federal sentencing guidelines, which would have limited the sentence to around 6-12 months no matter what.
Stop repeating that lie. Swartz never was faced 35 years in prison.
The Apple II was really only one of three massively successful PC lines: the Commodore, the TRS-80 line, and the Apple line, all introduced in 1977. The Apple II and TRS-80 both received floppy drives in 1978. The Apple II did keep production costs down, but both the machines and its disk drives were pretty expensive, so Apple really didn't do anything to help the masses with its cost savings. In terms of market share, Apple II was always a smaller player relative to the others. So, like today, Apple was had a product with a smaller market share, a lot of proprietary technology, and a large profit margin. And like today, they probably received more credit for innovation than they deserve.
Look, I don't care what Udo and his sock puppet think. Anybody with an open mind can find and read up on the history of how Apple attempted to violate open source licenses. You obviously don't have an open mind, so you can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.
Bad analogy. You can't "opt out" of gun control limits, you can "opt out" of MIT's network policy.
Well, if you can't tell the difference between accurate and inaccurate information, then it wouldn't help if I gave you a "citation" either.
Sorry, but the Dippin' Dots patent was struck down in 2007 because the courts considered the process "obvious".
No, they are not "free". They don't have tuition, but people still need to live somehow, and they take on student loans for that.
Sounds to me like the student loan program is working as it should for you.
Sounds like economics is working the way it should: you go to college if the money you pay for it is made up for by higher income later on.
Why would they do that? They charge what the market will bear.
More subsidies means that costs will go up even higher. Remember: they charge what the market will bear.
You don't need college degrees to be educated.
Maybe you're socially conservative, but you're clearly economically left-wing.
Yeah, because what America needs is vast numbers of art history and social studies majors educated at the tax payer's expense!
If HTML5/JavaScript effectively replaces X11 as the display server on Linux, this could be an OK approach and one that doesn't need to mean the end of the desktop PC either.
"Share music" doesn't imply "share videos" or "share porn" to most people.
A larger fraction of the US population has college degrees than in most other industrialized nations. Encouraging more people to get college degrees will not raise the standard of living or incomes, it will simply mean that we end up with more waiters and cab drivers with college degrees. Subsidizing more college degrees with public funding or loans will mean that tuition rates will keep rising and more and more jobs will require college degrees even though they don't need it.
As for electric vehicles and subsidies for them, it's unclear what purpose these subsidies are supposed to serve. The Tesla is not a mass market car, and no amount of subsidies is going to help it develop the economies of scale to bring the price down. Either electric vehicles make economic sense, in which case subsidies aren't needed, or they don't, in which case subsidies are wasted.
Yes, it's a trend that's been going on for a while.
Since when is it illegal to own lots of cash?
This is part of a disturbing trend (or tidal wave) of legislation trying to protect the public from potential risk and danger: gun control, control of locksmith tools, control of network testing tools etc. are all designed to restrict activities and objects that are primarily used for legal purposes but might be used to create harm. The control and licensing measures being enacted have never been shown to work, but they make people feel good. Of course, they also take away individual freedoms more and more.
Right now, most of these laws come from law-and-order Republicans and a bunch of left wing causes. But make no mistake: if this goes far enough, it will come back and even eat away at recent progress in social liberalization. Much the same legal reasoning that can be applied to guns and violent crime can be applied to sex and reproduction.
Says who?
3D printing of 3D printers (i.e. self-replicating printers) is the goal of a number of projects, including the Reprap project. Most of the structural parts are printable. People are working on open source printable electronics. Chips and actuators can't be easily printed yet.