Frankly I think a little overreaction would be good for this issue. Most people don't seem to care that the same people who shovel crap over TV are going to try to lock us in to the same crap through the internet. At least this will get media attention.
I wasn't aware that ISP's are required to provide unrestricted access. Is this legally mandatted, or simply a policy of the backbone providers? Policies can change, especially when there is bigger money at stake.
The problem with assuming that the market will force providers to allow the freedom we expect is that it assumes that unrestricted net access is the most profitable.
That is not guaranteed! Big media is already paid billions by advertisers because they have a captive audience. What do you think is more profitable, selling real net access, or selling locked, proprietary content, loaded with ads, under the guise of net access? It is not in their interest to allow individuals the ability to publish on the net, because that is in competition with their own services.
And don't think competition from DSL and other technologies will change this. I'm speaking generically, because the telecomm and media industries are already intertwined in this realm. ATT owns cable companies, and MediaOne is providing phone services. They'll all follow each other's lead, doing whatever makes the most money.
I forgot who said that originally (Barlow?), but it's something that needs repeating in cases like this.
HTTP and HTML were not designed to force people to view advertisements, they were designed to share and link information. If you don't like the limitations of a technology, don't use the technology.
The culture of the net says that the right to link is implicit. If you don't like the customs of a people, don't enter their territory.
Now, it is a bit dishonest to deep link into someone else's site without attribution, but it can't be illegal. For the courts to allow ownership of the address of a copyrighted work would make most periodical indexes, card catalogues, bibliographies, and footnotes illegal.
Does anyone on Slashdot buy the argument that we should all be on the same ISP in order to receive messages from each other?;)
No, but consider this: access/server providers, though having little incentive to disrupt current net standards, have very high incentive to create exclusive content and services only availabe on their own networks. And they have incentive to curtail or at least manipulate the formation of new standards. The browser wars have already demonstrated this behavior.
So, in effect, there may be a time when you must use a certain ISP to receive certain types of messages from some people.
Competition *should* keep this sort of thing to a minimum, but there are many places with only one option available for high speed access. And even where there are a handful of competing services available, there is still no guarantee that they won't collude to keep a strong grip on the options available, like say, not allowing servers even when bandwith is plentiful. They all have a shared interest in keeping people away from things that aren't "industry sanctioned" content, because they make more money from that than they do from customers who want to run servers.
Not that I think the old style regulation is a good idea, but the "you lay the wire, you control the access" approach could prove equally disasterous.
And you forgot the economic reason for state-sanctioned monopolies: the cost of building infrastructure is so high that a regulated monopoly is more efficient than competition. I don't remember all the details why, but I imagine that competition in the utilities market creates a lot of redundancy and reduces economies of scale.
Civics lesson: FCC != Justice Dept. != Congress != local government
I hate to burst your bubble, but the government is not one grand conspiracy. It is composed of many parts with competing agendas, both within and between those parts, and in most cases those agendas are set by people not employed by the government.
And the government is multi-tiered. The local government that grants one cable company a local monopoly is not the same as the one that forces another to open it's lines to ISPs.
The whole point of this article was to show that there is a battle going on by very powerful billion dollar industries, and government policy is as much their battleground as the market. There are no clear good guys, there are no clear bad guys, there are simply competing interests, and those interests may or may not jive with the interests of us, the consumers.
(And really, how effective do you think radio would be if people could broadcast on the same frequencies? Who wins in that situation, the independant station or the wealthy congolmerate?)
why is he hyping this as a kids movie?
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 1
GL's defense of JarJar is that it is a kids movie.. ok, so what's he going to do about him in the next two? I mean, cute little Anakin is going to betray his friends, betray the mother of his children, betray his "nation", and murder millions.
How are they going to put that on a lunchbox?
Lucas is full of shit. He has no artistic integrity. It could have been a real movie, but it's cartoon dealing with issues that make police dramas look cheery. JarJar is simply the biggest aspect of this flaw.
Yeah, and a bunch of religious wackos in high positions in government try to silence the truth about the consequences, because they actually want the apocalypse to occur.
Ya know, the year 2000 is approaching, and with the number of Bible-beaters in Congress, it wouldn't supprise me at all if a doomsday cult had worked its way into that many positions of power.
So, when Brookhaven announces a special experiment to be run on 12-31 at 23:59, to commemorate the new millenium, make your peace with Init(8), cause we're about to be rebooted.
I refered to "rabid" anti-GPL people, so was not in fact constructing a straw-man.:)
I know Stallman's definition "free" is dubious; I tried to make clear just how silly I think it is. But the rabid anti-GPL people get trapped by the same mangled rhetoric buy claiming tha BSD-style licenses are somehow more free than the GPL.
It has nothing to do with free speech, because the ability to share code is not the same as the right to express oneself. In the context of patents and export laws, the analogy is somewhat applicable, but not with general issues of intellectual property. Look at this way, I have the right to write a book/program criticizing the government, but I still own the words/source and can restrict its use within certain bounds.
So forget about vague rhetorical ideals, look at what the licenses accomplish. One license is simply more restrictive than the other, because they have different goals. One promotes a small community and guards against exploitment, the other promotes a larger community and doesn't care about exploitment.
There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be exploited; it is the very basis of intellectual property in the first place! This is my I get so irritated by anti-GPL people, because their most frequent objection is to the fact that they can't use GPL'ed code and still retain exclusive rights. They support this with talk about "freedom" only because they can't admit they want something without paying for it. TANSTAAFL
I'm not claiming that the GPL is better, nor am I criticizing BSD style licenses. Use the one that fits your goals. Personally I like the LGPL because it balances all these issues.
So it's whoever writes the most code get's to set the license, is that it? So if I steal your proprietary code and add twice the amount of my own, it's all mine then?
I don't think I'll ever understand the convoluted logic of these rabid anti-GPL people. First they claim that the GPL somehow coerces them into making their software free, then they claim that people who make GPL software don't really believe in free software anyway.
Let's break this down: anti-GPL person believes in property rights, but anti-GPL person chastises someone else for using them, as if he is somehow entitled to that code.
And it always seems to be the ultra-capitalist, Ayn Rand worshipping types (i.e. strong property rights, unconditionally) who push this view. I may be going out on a limb here, but I think this has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with a hatred of Stallman and his success.
So get over it already! Sure Stallman's a fanatic, but so are the people trumpeting the so-called BSD Linux. In Stallman's ideology, GPL is in fact free, because his ideology regects proprietary software altogether. In other words, it's free because it's free for the GPL community. Maybe you want to squabble over the definition of "free", but that still rhetorical hand-waving every bit is pointless as Stallman's.
You don't like the GPL not because it isn't "free", but because it doesn't jive with your interests. You see this huge body of available source code, but can't have it because of licensing restrictions. So you whine and compain about how "not free" the GPL really is.
Anti-GPL people, let me put this in terms you understand: Stallman's rhetoric aside, GPL software does have owners. It is the free software community. The "viral" restrictions exist because we do not wish to be exploited. We work for ourselves by working for the community; when the community creates wealth by making new software, we all get a bit richer.
Now, just because we share does not mean our time is valueless, so if want to use the products of our labor, you damn well better pay for them. The way you do so is to join the community by sharing your enhancements. If you don't like those terms, then you can take your business elsewhere. It's that simple. It you somehow feel "entitled" to the software, then you either a.) reject the notion of intellectual property on philosophical grounds, so the GPL doesn't really affect you, or b.) you are an opportunist who is every bit exploitive as some "collectivist" straw-man from a Rand novel.
So go ahead, write your own code, slap whatever license you want on it. Don't expect us to do it for you.
Sequals or prequals.. hrm.. prequals would be nice because there'd be no Keanu Reeves. But that would pretty much make the first movie pointless. Though he's some sort of messiah character, it's left open ended as to whether or not he can actually defeat the AIs.
What would be interesting as if they made the next movie into both a prequel and sequel, moving the prequel in flashbacks. It would certainly fit in with the sort of fractured view of reality the movie presents. While traveling to the underground city and defending it against the AIs, they could have flashbacks showing the human defeat and rereat underground in the first place.
There's just one thing they better get right, or these sequals will join Phantom Menace and Titanic as Movies I Refuse to See. The humans value to the AIs will not be as batteries!! It's a god damned closed system! If they can feed those millions of people, why can't they use that energy to power themselves? If Hollywood types can hire hundres of educated people to make special effects, you'd think they could at least hire one person to tell them when their science is bogus. Geez..
A somewhat more plausible scenario would be that they used the humans as hardware. Use parts of the human brain to run their own personalities, which could explain why Neo can manipulate the Matrix so easily; he taps into the part of his brain that the Matrix runs on. The whole battery thing could be a red herring to the keep the resistance confused. Anyone know the email address of the director?:)
It's not the pirates that will push this view, it will be the record companies! They're going to get their lobbiests to start whining about how it is possibly "legal" to pirate music, and use that to manipulate Congress into fixing it, i.e. passing more stupid laws like the Digital Recording Act that funnel money to the RIAA.
It really is strange, though, that copyright lawyers would draw that conclusion. When you inadvertantly buy stolen goods you're not allowed to keep them, so how could anyone claim you're entitled to stolen music, for free!? It makes me wonder if those two lawyers aren't shills for the RIAA, already putting the above scenario into effect.
Linux is becomming comercial. Deal with it. P.S. Welcome to the real world.
What is it with this attitude? Why is that so many people think the "real world" is an excuse to exploit and to expect it from others?
Let me tell you about the "real world". In the real world, Apple has little credibility with the Linux community. If they want us to take them seriously, they'll play by our rules.
like Linus Torvalds and Larry Wall, who aren't politicized and who are above this sort of petty bickering and posturing.
This article a troll, a cry for attention, every bit as pathetic as Stallman's insistance that people call the OS GNU/Linux. It's a playground dick war, and Tom just wown't shut up until he thinks he's won.
BTW, anyone have an archive of that rant on USENET that started this whole thing? Tom is awfully prolific on this subject, making finding it in Dejanews difficult.
You are overgeneralizing how political systems work, not Brin. You are making two bad assumptions:
1. That individual rights can exist under a non-democratic government, and are unrelated to democracy.
2. That history is changed only by elites.
A lot of other things that exist in American democracy and various other types of government in the Western world, such as human rights, international law, freedom of speech and expression etc. have little to do with democracy in itself.
This statement is bizarre. These things cannot exist but in a democracy. If there is no way to hold leaders accountable, then you can not stop them from silencing speech or making people "disappear".
And how do you suppose these rights become law? In the US, they were voted on by ratifing the Constitution. What do you think is more credible and more likely to endure: rights declared "inaliable" by those who choose them and with the power to ensure their protection through the process of democracy, law, and public criticism, or by rights granted abirtrarily by a dictator or ruling elite? Consider what happens when power is transfered to another elite. The most enlightened king can have a tyrant son.
We just switched from passing the crown down from father to son, and are now passing the mandate from politician to politician.
With a significantly reduced reign and less power. And they can be removed from power without bloodshed. And anyone can become a politician.
Putting the decision of one political party over another in the hands of the public does NOT mean you get good government.
But being able to criticize that government, and select that government from the most qualified canditates DOES mean you get good government, or at least the best available.
I'd like to see someone come up and disagree with me when I say that a handful of people have made an incredible impact on the history of human civilization while most people did indeed play the role of un-named spear-carriers.
That is circular reasoning. Any example of someone who has changed history is automatically had the "spear-carrier" status removed. But the fact is many people who had humble beginnings have gone on to change the world. Martin Luther King, Jonas Salk, and Albert Einstein are just a few examples.
Or look at this way. Of all the people born to be elites, how many have turned out to be mediocre? Certainly more than those who haven't!
HITLER AND THE NAZI PARTY HAD A DIRECT MANDATE FROM THE GERMAN PEOPLE, AND YET THEY ARE STILL THE CAUSE FOR SOME OF THE WORST ATROCITIES EVER COMMITTED.
And what did that party do as soon as it had power? It outlawed other political parties and silenced public criticism. There was no democracy when almost all of the atrocaties were committed. The German people and their rulers were at fault, not the democratic model of government.
Besides, this is a pathetic argument against democracy, considering the number of autocratic governments which have committed atrocities throughout history.
Offtopic sidenote: The fact that you prefix "supposed" in front of "ethnic cleansing" says about your bias. I assume you get news from the international wire services in Greece. Whatever you think of NATO's intentions, or the indepndance of the media, the fact is that thousands were murdered by the Serbian army. I've seen mass graves on TV, and heard survivors describe how the entire adult male population of villages were rounded up and shot. It happened. You can't fabricate stuff like that and get away with it, at least not in countries with competing news services and laws against censorship (ding ding, only in democracies!). The only part that people don't agree on is the accuracy of the estimates of the number killed. Some claim that the numbers are being inflated to help justify NATO's bombing, but that does not mean it didn't happen.
Consider the ideals that the the F/OS software heros represent. I think you'll find you're actually supporting Brin's agrument.
Are these coders supermen? Are they priveledged elites? No. They are just some guys with some good ideas, and the time and ambition to implement them. Ok, granted, they are pretty darn smart, but so are most people who read slashdot. There's no magic specialness that prevents us being like them.
And do these heroes claim leadership as their right? Do they demand the perks and and relaxed accountability typical of leaders? No. Their leadership rest purely on their credibility within the free software community. We'd drop them in a second if they ever compromised our trust in them. And we are free to do so, because the software has no owners.
Remember, Brin is not criticizing hero worship. He's asking people to carefully consider the heros you choose.
When someone begins selling a paper organizer that contains a scientific calculator, has a programmable alarm, can beam contact info to other organizers, contains a checkbook ledger that automatically tabulates totals and manages multiple accounts, and fits in my front pocket, then I might take this article seriously.
Re:Positive-sum games
on
RMS Responds
·
· Score: 1
A socialist economy is a positive sum game, on paper, because assuming it redistributes fairly, all members would benefit the increase in value that occurs when you turn resources into usable goods. All stable economies work on this principle. Capitalism simply does it much more efficiently.
I have a question for you: do you feel entitled to the air you breathe? What about the water you drink? What about the view you see from a tall building, or the right to walk from point A to point B? How do you qualify what is an entitlement and what is property? How do you determine who has ownership of property, when property is fixed, and the number of humans is increasing?
How many high volume web sites use static content? And how many lesser volume web sites actually require machines with that much horsepower?
In the real world, NT loses because 1. It's way more expensive, both in inital cost and in maintainence. 2. It's a crappy environment for doing any CGI work that isn't ASP. Hell, it's a crappy environment for doing programming period. 3. IIS doesn't conform to the HTTP standard. (I've personally been screwed by it's bug of not sending cookie headers on relocates) 4. Lots of security flaws, in NT and IIS.
I agree. It seemed more an act of reciprocal generosity on Carmack's part. Basically a sort of "hey kids, thanks for helping us sell DOOM with all those pwads and stuff, here, now you can play with all of it".
I doubt releasing the DOOM source brought id much additional revenue.
BUT...
I do think id's games are a very strong example of the power of the open source development model, but not one that is relevant to commercial enterprises, since id kept a lot of "secret bits" to themselves, and mods to Quake or DOOM had to be non-commercial. But by allowing mods to be made, and releasing the code and tools to help people make them, id allowed the formation of an entire community of developers who increased the value of the game well beyond what they paid for it. Of course it also benefitted id, since it made the games much more popular.
Re:HR people use Word - deal with it
on
Feature:Geek Jobs
·
· Score: 1
The way to deal with it is to send plain text. If the headhunter can't deal with with that, well, that's one commission they won't be getting.
OR
If you really want the job, go ahead and cave. Once/if you've got the job, let your employer know what you think of the agency, and let the agency know that you've expressed those feelings to your employer.
Nobody really trusts headhunters, and they know it. They may not care what that the meesly job-seeker thinks of them, but they certainly care what their big corporate clients think.
print "Libraries already don't carry $magazine_i_dont_read. Does any other than the most close-minded $group_i_done_agree_with types really feel that that's censorship? No. Everyone of legal age is still welcome to go down to the corner Quickie Mart and buy a copy, albeit without the assistance of a subsidy from my taxes."
Um.. don't you mean The Selfish Gene? The part on memes is a single chapter and the author wasn't nearly as serious about the idea as others have made it to be.
I don't know, this seems like one of the few instances where a comparison to Hitler is justified.
I mean, Darth Vadar is a ficticious symbol of evil incarnate, so who else do you compare to but the person who has become the real life symbol? Vadar murdered the population of an entire planet, yet we're expected to forgive him in the end. Making the comparison highlights the absurdity of the story in way that almost anybody can understand.
Of course, you're using similar straw-man techniques: characterizing Brin as a Stalinist, making the false assertion that he believes privacy is evil, and then invoking the image of a Marxist pomo reactionary.
Brin has a doctorate in astrophysics, is one of the most acclaimed of current science fiction authors, and has vaguely anarchist/libertarian political views (focused on pragmatism as opposed to ideology). Yet, because he questions your assumptions on privacy, and has the gall to criticize popular entertainment as propoganda, he's suddenly a homongenizing, hair-splitting postmodernist, Soviet-style communist?
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly I think a little overreaction would be good for this issue. Most people don't seem to care that the same people who shovel crap over TV are going to try to lock us in to the same crap through the internet. At least this will get media attention.
I wasn't aware that ISP's are required to provide unrestricted access. Is this legally mandatted, or simply a policy of the backbone providers? Policies can change, especially when there is bigger money at stake.
The problem with assuming that the market will force providers to allow the freedom we expect is that it assumes that unrestricted net access is the most profitable.
That is not guaranteed! Big media is already paid billions by advertisers because they have a captive audience. What do you think is more profitable, selling real net access, or selling locked, proprietary content, loaded with ads, under the guise of net access? It is not in their interest to allow individuals the ability to publish on the net, because that is in competition with their own services.
And don't think competition from DSL and other technologies will change this. I'm speaking generically, because the telecomm and media industries are already intertwined in this realm. ATT owns cable companies, and MediaOne is providing phone services. They'll all follow each other's lead, doing whatever makes the most money.
I forgot who said that originally (Barlow?), but it's something that needs repeating in cases like this.
HTTP and HTML were not designed to force people to view advertisements, they were designed to share and link information. If you don't like the limitations of a technology, don't use the technology.
The culture of the net says that the right to link is implicit. If you don't like the customs of a people, don't enter their territory.
Now, it is a bit dishonest to deep link into someone else's site without attribution, but it can't be illegal. For the courts to allow ownership of the address of a copyrighted work would make most periodical indexes, card catalogues, bibliographies, and footnotes illegal.
Yea, agriculture seemed like such a good idea until we found out how yucky soggy bread is.
:)
Nuts and berries forever!
No, but consider this: access/server providers, though having little incentive to disrupt current net standards, have very high incentive to create exclusive content and services only availabe on their own networks. And they have incentive to curtail or at least manipulate the formation of new standards. The browser wars have already demonstrated this behavior.
So, in effect, there may be a time when you must use a certain ISP to receive certain types of messages from some people.
Competition *should* keep this sort of thing to a minimum, but there are many places with only one option available for high speed access. And even where there are a handful of competing services available, there is still no guarantee that they won't collude to keep a strong grip on the options available, like say, not allowing servers even when bandwith is plentiful. They all have a shared interest in keeping people away from things that aren't "industry sanctioned" content, because they make more money from that than they do from customers who want to run servers.
Not that I think the old style regulation is a good idea, but the "you lay the wire, you control the access" approach could prove equally disasterous.
And you forgot the economic reason for state-sanctioned monopolies: the cost of building infrastructure is so high that a regulated monopoly is more efficient than competition. I don't remember all the details why, but I imagine that competition in the utilities market creates a lot of redundancy and reduces economies of scale.
Civics lesson:
FCC != Justice Dept. != Congress != local government
I hate to burst your bubble, but the government is not one grand conspiracy. It is composed of many parts with competing agendas, both within and between those parts, and in most cases those agendas are set by people not employed by the government.
And the government is multi-tiered. The local government that grants one cable company a local monopoly is not the same as the one that forces another to open it's lines to ISPs.
The whole point of this article was to show that there is a battle going on by very powerful billion dollar industries, and government policy is as much their battleground as the market. There are no clear good guys, there are no clear bad guys, there are simply competing interests, and those interests may or may not jive with the interests of us, the consumers.
(And really, how effective do you think radio would be if people could broadcast on the same frequencies? Who wins in that situation, the independant station or the wealthy congolmerate?)
GL's defense of JarJar is that it is a kids movie.. ok, so what's he going to do about him in the next two? I mean, cute little Anakin is going to betray his friends, betray the mother of his children, betray his "nation", and murder millions.
How are they going to put that on a lunchbox?
Lucas is full of shit. He has no artistic integrity. It could have been a real movie, but it's cartoon dealing with issues that make police dramas look cheery. JarJar is simply the biggest aspect of this flaw.
Yeah, and a bunch of religious wackos in high positions in government try to silence the truth about the consequences, because they actually want the apocalypse to occur.
Ya know, the year 2000 is approaching, and with the number of Bible-beaters in Congress, it wouldn't supprise me at all if a doomsday cult had worked its way into that many positions of power.
So, when Brookhaven announces a special experiment to be run on 12-31 at 23:59, to commemorate the new millenium, make your peace with Init(8), cause we're about to be rebooted.
I refered to "rabid" anti-GPL people, so was not in fact constructing a straw-man. :)
I know Stallman's definition "free" is dubious; I tried to make clear just how silly I think it is. But the rabid anti-GPL people get trapped by the same mangled rhetoric buy claiming tha BSD-style licenses are somehow more free than the GPL.
It has nothing to do with free speech, because the ability to share code is not the same as the right to express oneself. In the context of patents and export laws, the analogy is somewhat applicable, but not with general issues of intellectual property. Look at this way, I have the right to write a book/program criticizing the government, but I still own the words/source and can restrict its use within certain bounds.
So forget about vague rhetorical ideals, look at what the licenses accomplish. One license is simply more restrictive than the other, because they have different goals. One promotes a small community and guards against exploitment, the other promotes a larger community and doesn't care about exploitment.
There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be exploited; it is the very basis of intellectual property in the first place! This is my I get so irritated by anti-GPL people, because their most frequent objection is to the fact that they can't use GPL'ed code and still retain exclusive rights. They support this with talk about "freedom" only because they can't admit they want something without paying for it. TANSTAAFL
I'm not claiming that the GPL is better, nor am I criticizing BSD style licenses. Use the one that fits your goals. Personally I like the LGPL because it balances all these issues.
So it's whoever writes the most code get's to set the license, is that it? So if I steal your proprietary code and add twice the amount of my own, it's all mine then?
I don't think I'll ever understand the convoluted logic of these rabid anti-GPL people. First they claim that the GPL somehow coerces them into making their software free, then they claim that people who make GPL software don't really believe in free software anyway.
Let's break this down: anti-GPL person believes in property rights, but anti-GPL person chastises someone else for using them, as if he is somehow entitled to that code.
And it always seems to be the ultra-capitalist, Ayn Rand worshipping types (i.e. strong property rights, unconditionally) who push this view. I may be going out on a limb here, but I think this
has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with a hatred of Stallman and his success.
So get over it already! Sure Stallman's a fanatic, but so are the people trumpeting the so-called BSD Linux. In Stallman's ideology, GPL is in fact free, because his ideology regects proprietary software altogether. In other words, it's free because it's free for the GPL community. Maybe you want to squabble over the definition of "free", but that still rhetorical hand-waving every bit is pointless as Stallman's.
You don't like the GPL not because it isn't "free", but because it doesn't jive with your interests. You see this huge body of available source code, but can't have it because of licensing restrictions. So you whine and compain about how "not free" the GPL really is.
Anti-GPL people, let me put this in terms you understand: Stallman's rhetoric aside, GPL software does have owners. It is the free software community. The "viral" restrictions exist because we do not wish to be exploited. We work for ourselves by working for the community; when the community creates wealth by making new software, we all get a bit richer.
Now, just because we share does not mean our time is valueless, so if want to use the products of our labor, you damn well better pay for them. The way you do so is to join the community by sharing your enhancements. If you don't like those terms, then you can take your business elsewhere. It's that simple. It you somehow feel "entitled" to the software, then you either a.) reject the notion of intellectual property on philosophical grounds, so the GPL doesn't really affect you, or b.) you are an opportunist who is every bit exploitive as some "collectivist" straw-man from a Rand novel.
So go ahead, write your own code, slap whatever license you want on it. Don't expect us to do it for you.
Sequals or prequals.. hrm.. prequals would be nice because there'd be no Keanu Reeves. But that would pretty much make the first movie pointless. Though he's some sort of messiah character, it's left open ended as to whether or not he can actually defeat the AIs.
:)
What would be interesting as if they made the next movie into both a prequel and sequel, moving the prequel in flashbacks. It would certainly fit in with the sort of fractured view of reality the movie presents. While traveling to the underground city and defending it against the AIs, they could have flashbacks showing the human defeat and rereat underground in the first place.
There's just one thing they better get right, or these sequals will join Phantom Menace and Titanic as Movies I Refuse to See. The humans value to the AIs will not be as batteries!! It's a god damned closed system! If they can feed those millions of people, why can't they use that energy to power themselves? If Hollywood types can hire hundres of educated people to make special effects, you'd think they could at least hire one person to tell them when their science is bogus. Geez..
A somewhat more plausible scenario would be that they used the humans as hardware. Use parts of the human brain to run their own personalities, which could explain why Neo can manipulate the Matrix so easily; he taps into the part of his brain that the Matrix runs on. The whole battery thing could be a red herring to the keep the resistance confused. Anyone know the email address of the director?
It's not the pirates that will push this view, it will be the record companies! They're going to get their lobbiests to start whining about how it is possibly "legal" to pirate music, and use that to manipulate Congress into fixing it, i.e. passing more stupid laws like the Digital Recording Act that funnel money to the RIAA.
It really is strange, though, that copyright lawyers would draw that conclusion. When you inadvertantly buy stolen goods you're not allowed to keep them, so how could anyone claim you're entitled to stolen music, for free!? It makes me wonder if those two lawyers aren't shills for the RIAA, already putting the above scenario into effect.
Linux is becomming comercial. Deal with it. P.S. Welcome to the real world.
What is it with this attitude? Why is that so many people think the "real world" is an excuse to exploit and to expect it from others?
Let me tell you about the "real world". In the real world, Apple has little credibility with the Linux community. If they want us to take them seriously, they'll play by our rules.
I_wish_I_could_use_python_but_my_space_bar_is_brok en!
like Linus Torvalds and Larry Wall, who aren't politicized and who are above this sort of petty bickering and posturing.
This article a troll, a cry for attention, every bit as pathetic as Stallman's insistance that people call the OS GNU/Linux. It's a playground dick war, and Tom just wown't shut up until he thinks he's won.
BTW, anyone have an archive of that rant on USENET that started this whole thing? Tom is awfully prolific on this subject, making finding it in Dejanews difficult.
1. That individual rights can exist under a non-democratic government, and are unrelated to democracy.
2. That history is changed only by elites.
This statement is bizarre. These things cannot exist but in a democracy. If there is no way to hold leaders accountable, then you can not stop them from silencing speech or making people "disappear".
And how do you suppose these rights become law? In the US, they were voted on by ratifing the Constitution. What do you think is more credible and more likely to endure: rights declared "inaliable" by those who choose them and with the power to ensure their protection through the process of democracy, law, and public criticism, or by rights granted abirtrarily by a dictator or ruling elite? Consider what happens when power is transfered to another elite. The most enlightened king can have a tyrant son.
With a significantly reduced reign and less power. And they can be removed from power without bloodshed. And anyone can become a politician.
But being able to criticize that government, and select that government from the most qualified canditates DOES mean you get good government, or at least the best available.
That is circular reasoning. Any example of someone who has changed history is automatically had the "spear-carrier" status removed. But the fact is many people who had humble beginnings have gone on to change the world. Martin Luther King, Jonas Salk, and Albert Einstein are just a few examples.
Or look at this way. Of all the people born to be elites, how many have turned out to be mediocre? Certainly more than those who haven't!
And what did that party do as soon as it had power? It outlawed other political parties and silenced public criticism. There was no democracy when almost all of the atrocaties were committed. The German people and their rulers were at fault, not the democratic model of government.
Besides, this is a pathetic argument against democracy, considering the number of autocratic governments which have committed atrocities throughout history.
Offtopic sidenote: The fact that you prefix "supposed" in front of "ethnic cleansing" says about your bias. I assume you get news from the international wire services in Greece. Whatever you think of NATO's intentions, or the indepndance of the media, the fact is that thousands were murdered by the Serbian army. I've seen mass graves on TV, and heard survivors describe how the entire adult male population of villages were rounded up and shot. It happened. You can't fabricate stuff like that and get away with it, at least not in countries with competing news services and laws against censorship (ding ding, only in democracies!). The only part that people don't agree on is the accuracy of the estimates of the number killed. Some claim that the numbers are being inflated to help justify NATO's bombing, but that does not mean it didn't happen.
Consider the ideals that the the F/OS software heros represent. I think you'll find you're actually supporting Brin's agrument.
Are these coders supermen? Are they priveledged elites? No. They are just some guys with some good ideas, and the time and ambition to implement them. Ok, granted, they are pretty darn smart, but so are most people who read slashdot. There's no magic specialness that prevents us being like them.
And do these heroes claim leadership as their right? Do they demand the perks and and relaxed accountability typical of leaders? No. Their leadership rest purely on their credibility within the free software community. We'd drop them in a second if they ever compromised our trust in them. And we are free to do so, because the software has no owners.
Remember, Brin is not criticizing hero worship. He's asking people to carefully consider the heros you choose.
When someone begins selling a paper organizer that contains a scientific calculator, has a programmable alarm, can beam contact info to other organizers, contains a checkbook ledger that automatically tabulates totals and manages multiple accounts, and fits in my front pocket, then I might take this article seriously.
A socialist economy is a positive sum game, on paper, because assuming it redistributes fairly, all members would benefit the increase in value that occurs when you turn resources into usable goods. All stable economies work on this principle. Capitalism simply does it much more efficiently.
I have a question for you: do you feel entitled to the air you breathe? What about the water you drink? What about the view you see from a tall building, or the right to walk from point A to point B? How do you qualify what is an entitlement and what is property? How do you determine who has ownership of property, when property is fixed, and the number of humans is increasing?
Anyone who doesn't worship Ayn Rand.
How many high volume web sites use static content?
And how many lesser volume web sites actually require machines with that much horsepower?
In the real world, NT loses because
1. It's way more expensive, both in inital cost and in maintainence.
2. It's a crappy environment for doing any CGI work that isn't ASP. Hell, it's a crappy environment for doing programming period.
3. IIS doesn't conform to the HTTP standard. (I've personally been screwed by it's bug of not sending cookie headers on relocates)
4. Lots of security flaws, in NT and IIS.
I agree. It seemed more an act of reciprocal generosity on Carmack's part. Basically a sort of "hey kids, thanks for helping us sell DOOM with all those pwads and stuff, here, now you can play with all of it".
I doubt releasing the DOOM source brought id much additional revenue.
BUT...
I do think id's games are a very strong example of the power of the open source development model, but not one that is relevant to commercial enterprises, since id kept a lot of "secret bits" to themselves, and mods to Quake or DOOM had to be non-commercial. But by allowing mods to be made, and releasing the code and tools to help people make them, id allowed the formation of an entire community of developers who increased the value of the game well beyond what they paid for it. Of course it also benefitted id, since it made the games much more popular.
The way to deal with it is to send plain text. If the headhunter can't deal with with that, well, that's one commission they won't be getting.
OR
If you really want the job, go ahead and cave. Once/if you've got the job, let your employer know what you think of the agency, and let the agency know that you've expressed those feelings to your employer.
Nobody really trusts headhunters, and they know it.
They may not care what that the meesly job-seeker thinks of them, but they certainly care what their big corporate clients think.
print "Libraries already don't carry $magazine_i_dont_read. Does any other than the most close-minded $group_i_done_agree_with types really feel that that's censorship? No. Everyone of legal age is still welcome to go down to the corner Quickie Mart and buy a copy, albeit without the assistance of a subsidy from my taxes."
Um.. don't you mean The Selfish Gene ? The part on memes is a single chapter and the author wasn't nearly as serious about the idea as others have made it to be.
I don't know, this seems like one of the few instances where a comparison to Hitler is justified.
I mean, Darth Vadar is a ficticious symbol of evil incarnate, so who else do you compare to but the person who has become the real life symbol? Vadar murdered the population of an entire planet, yet we're expected to forgive him in the end. Making the comparison highlights the absurdity of the story in way that almost anybody can understand.
Of course, you're using similar straw-man techniques: characterizing Brin as a Stalinist, making the false assertion that he believes privacy is evil, and then invoking the image of a Marxist pomo reactionary.
Brin has a doctorate in astrophysics, is one of the most acclaimed of current science fiction authors, and has vaguely anarchist/libertarian political views (focused on pragmatism as opposed to ideology). Yet, because he questions your assumptions on privacy, and has the gall to criticize popular entertainment as propoganda, he's suddenly a homongenizing, hair-splitting postmodernist, Soviet-style communist?
Anyone else see the irony here?