The notion of community property is not something that originated in the hallowed halls of academia. The notion of proprietary intellectual property is a uniquely 21st century western idea. Copyleft, Creative Commons, OSS, "Free as in Beer", and other notions are simply reassertions of the long-time notion of common property being that which no one individual can reasonably control.
That basic economic principle that justifies FS is not the much-hinted notion of communist/socialist ideaologies (since everyone with an IQ higher than 80 knows they're both failures). It's instead known as "Spillover Benefits". Granted, an FS programmer did pay gobs for their education, and the expectation therein is to profit from their labor. However, there is no reason such a programmer can only write either proprietary commercial apps OR FS For years, software companies have released free software to gain recognition, marketshare, and increase visibility of theirselves and their other apps. To put it simply, it's the "Crack Dealer" method of marketing. You give them a taste for free, they get hooked and need the software, and they come back and pay you for it. Even Microsoft does this - a few years back they succeeded in crushing the competition by giving away the Internet Explorer browser for free. At the time, it was faster, more innovative, and more feature rich. Now there are people who don't even say "web browser", they say "explorer".
The flash presentation is very slick - except that none of the photos show the device in use. I get kind of suspicious when you see the same 10 views of a device, even if its a prototype, and they're all still photos.
IMHO, the quality of writing for Stargate SG-1 has declined over the years (although the first few eps of this season have been good). Make no mistake, however, that Sci Fi Channel will probably screw this up. I say this because Sci Fi under Bonnie Hammer has shown a distinctive lack of integrity with respect to supporting real science fiction. Instead, the channel has invested in low-budget B-movie creature features which have little to do with traditional science fiction. These movies are profitable because they pull in shares as high as 1.8 - the average rating for a Farscape episode.
Thus far, Sci Fi has missed the mark with shows like Tremors (creature feature != sci fi), Scare Tactics (candid camera with a hateful edge), and their upcoming reality show Mad Mad House (absolutely nothing to do with fiction, much less science fiction). They might have something with "Tripping the Rift", but don't count on it - looks like a cartoon ripoff of Farscape to me (rift...uncharted territories, hello?).
The closest this channel has come to being a true Sci Fi channel is the recent Battlestar Galactica miniseries, which was actually quite good (although an obvious pilot for a full series, which I would like to see). Their continued diarhea of Stargate SG-1 episodes has turned them into the Stargate channel. Meanwhile, they've buried Farscape, Invisible Man, and failed to capitalize on Lexx reruns. They have completely missed the Star Trek franchise, with SpikeTV holding equity in Star Trek:TNG reruns, nobody doing Voyager or DS9 episodes, and UPN/Fox holding the monopoly on Star Trek: Enterprise (which is facing cancellation because of low viewership - hello, they only play it late nights on Fox, and UPN is not widely distributed, but I digress - this was a rant about SciFi). Don't forget Andromaeda, which is one of Gene Roddenberry's other progeny, and not a bad show (though hardly of Farscape / Enterprise caliber).
Sci Fi has also failed to capitalize other areas. TechTV and Cartoon network have the Anime market cornered, and Sci Fi has yet to even attempt to get something like Akira or Neo Genesis Evangelion.
Anyway, its highly likely Sci Fi will screw this up. They've screwed everything else up.
It's no suprise that michael is posting this. Michael is to technoblogging what Jerry Springer is to reality. As other posters have pointed out, UCS is not a scientific group - they're a political activist group. This piece by the Centers for Policy Analysis (a group which is unabashed about its political aims) gives some examples of how UCS promotes junk science when necessary to promote idealogical ends.
No, I don't expect michael to know what he's talking about. He's not a nerd, he's just a political hack. I just wish Slashdot's Commanders in Cheif would fire his ass so we can get news that isn't tainted by his petty wingnut politics.
I did not intend to insult true leftist lunatic anti-American activists. And either way, my chief complain is his inability to keep his political-hack op-ed out of news based stories. If I wanted to listen to his crap, I'd still post at Kuro5hin.
Once again michael, slashdot's own resident leftist lunatic anti-american activist, slants and misrepresents the story. The executive summary here is that the writer realized that there were concerns that favoring free software over proprietary software would promote copyright infringement - that is oss developers would be encouraged to provide tools based on or derivative of non-OSS software.
Heres the context of the quoted passage:
But I was the one who didn't understand. I thought Traystmand had been saying that using free software to bridge the digital divide would violate the intellectual property rights of someone else, and I knew that was wrong. What he was actually saying was that using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit.
Shipman quickly realized I was in over my head. She walked me through the basics and gave me background information on the WSIS meetings in Geneva. She described the preparatory process the United States team went through in reaching its position. She told me how they solicited and received public input, including letters from the U.S. Chamber of International Business and the Business Software Alliance. She noted that "we had public meetings throughout the preparatory process for the summit, and those were submitted to the Federal Registry, so those were open to the public."
Shipman even pointed me to the United States' own WSIS site, which includes the public records of the preparatory process, including copies of comments received from the public.
The comments, and there are only a handful of them, came primarily from groups like the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC), which is "devoted solely to promoting improved standards for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights."
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) also weighed in, telling the US WSIS team that "We are deeply concerned that the current versions of the documents do not recognize the leadership of the private sector in the information society."
Shipman told me, "The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another."
America's Army - which is free, very nicely done, and available on Linux/Mac in addition to WinPC - has a system called "honor". honor is accrued through kills and goals achieved as both an individual and to a lesser extent as part of a team. The system does a fair job of separating noobs from ubergamers, so you can always get a good idea of the company you're with. it's not foolproof - or cheat proof, but with the addition of punkbuster software the cheater population in AA has dropped significantly, and is lower than just about any other game out there.
I don't care what anyone says about IBM supporting Linux, this is how to get it into the mainstream. If this is Dell's segway to officially supporting and offering linux on the desktop, then the next step is businesses leasing linux based PC's from Dell, and people who use Linux at work may begin using Linux at home.
I used to work for a company who services Dell. My number and codes got me to people who knew what they were talking about. The problem is that you can't hire enough qualified engineers to deal with clueless enduser morons - which is why dell outsourced to india.
"Ellow sur, how ken I be elping yu" "Yeah, my Dell PowerEdge is beeping and all I have on the screen is a bunch of sad faces" "...............ellow sur, how ken I be elping yu"
This time it's the "stealth" push pollster that is Slashdot's own political hack, michael. By citing an article which doesn't support his assertion, michael wants everyone to believe that the economy is not doing well, and things are actually getting worse. Of course, we went through this months ago with his ilk, claiming that the GDP increase was meaningless without job growth. Then there was job growth (today's report is 112,000 new jobs created). Now michael and all the other leftwits out there have latched onto this notion that salaries are in decline, not realizing that like jobs, salaries are a lagging economic indicator. When the job market picks up, then competition for workes picks up, and salaries pick up.
Now that I've poked my finger in michaels eye, exposing his fraudulent political muddying of the geek waters of slashot, watch my comment rating go down.
Maybe if we taught people how to drive instead of handing out licenses like candy, we wouldn't need all these idiot sensors which drive up the cost of a car. In my dads day, a kid could work all summer, save up, and buy a good car, pink slip and all. Nowadays an econobox car is 8 to 12 months salary at a full time job, in spite of cheaper manufacturing techniques.
Think about it - you're a developer working for "the man". SCO execs have already demonstrated that they don't know jack shit about source code, so their ability to review the mydoom virus is limited (thought, they'll definately claim it contains System V code they think they purchased). Anyway, you're slaving away one day when a sucker in a three piece comes in, closes the door, and says "write a virus that attacks our own web site, or you're fired". How would YOU CYA?
One of my instructors pointed this out. In 1970 when he first started teaching, the cost of a Chemistry text was $25. He used the same text for five years, without an edition change. Unfortunately, science changed, and the authors didn't update, so he had to use a new book. This preempted a policy which required books be reviewed and updated every two years (whether or not it was necessary). He's found increasing error rates ever since. My Chemistry book now contains at least 12 errors, and costs $135. The lab manual, a floppy paper manual that costs $65, contains experimental procedures which are specifically disallowed by lab safety (like pouring certain reactants into water, when you should pour water into certain reactants instead to prevent violent explosions). Likewise, my American Civilization text costs $85, and omits several important details which I learned in High School.
So the question is, why am I paying more money for less accurate and informative texts? Because the school profits from them. It's not merely the indirect profits - the actual margin on most books is sometimes as low as 10% - but the manufacturers often give direct rebates to the college book stores. These "back ends rebates" amount to thousands of dollars, and represent a large share of the books cost.
Then there are the book buy backs - where they give you sometimes as little as half the face value for books that are in pristine condition. My solution - I sell them to individuals instead of the book store, for the same half-price. If I don't profit from my books, nobody does.
Nazism and Fascism are not the same thing, you logic-bereft moron! If everyone on the left is as stupid as you, it'll be no problem keeping you behind the counter at mcdonalds where you belong.
The ultimate arrogance is that you pretend to know how I think. You, who patently spouts the propaganda you've been spoon fed.
For the record, if you knew half of what you think you know, you'd know that Nazism is an ideaology, fascism is a system of governance. Nazism relies of fascism. No wonder you can't use them correctly in a sentence. How do you actually expect anyone to take your mindless blathering seriously when you don't even know what you're talking about, troll-boy?
Hmm...maybe I should also point out he doesn't speak Russian. But, I digress - Russia piled corpses all over eastern european fronts for years, and didn't actually have any luck until the US hit the beaches. In short, you ungrateful pricks can thank the English speaking nations for your very existence (and a handful of french-canucks).
Typical disconnected troll. Even after demonstrating the psychological disconnect, you refuse to see how your anti-American bias taints your credibility. Then you call me a "fascist nazi" (can you spell redundant?) as your penultimate conviction of my character, which amounts to "you get your marching orders from Rush Limbaugh" I don't suppose you could get any more pathetic can you?
I'm waiting for some degree of factual information from you. I checked out your site - it's antiquated anti-American rhetoric and nothing else.
Remind me, how many volunteers did your country ante up for Hitlers Waffen SS? was it 700 or 800. Call me back when you've dismounted from your high-horse, you arrogant piece of eurotrash.
Slashdot Mirror
The notion of community property is not something that originated in the hallowed halls of academia. The notion of proprietary intellectual property is a uniquely 21st century western idea. Copyleft, Creative Commons, OSS, "Free as in Beer", and other notions are simply reassertions of the long-time notion of common property being that which no one individual can reasonably control.
That basic economic principle that justifies FS is not the much-hinted notion of communist/socialist ideaologies (since everyone with an IQ higher than 80 knows they're both failures). It's instead known as "Spillover Benefits". Granted, an FS programmer did pay gobs for their education, and the expectation therein is to profit from their labor. However, there is no reason such a programmer can only write either proprietary commercial apps OR FS For years, software companies have released free software to gain recognition, marketshare, and increase visibility of theirselves and their other apps. To put it simply, it's the "Crack Dealer" method of marketing. You give them a taste for free, they get hooked and need the software, and they come back and pay you for it. Even Microsoft does this - a few years back they succeeded in crushing the competition by giving away the Internet Explorer browser for free. At the time, it was faster, more innovative, and more feature rich. Now there are people who don't even say "web browser", they say "explorer".
Typical anti-American bullshit from michael- doesn't mention that America has less span production per capita than other countrieslike ru and cn.
The flash presentation is very slick - except that none of the photos show the device in use. I get kind of suspicious when you see the same 10 views of a device, even if its a prototype, and they're all still photos.
IMHO, the quality of writing for Stargate SG-1 has declined over the years (although the first few eps of this season have been good). Make no mistake, however, that Sci Fi Channel will probably screw this up. I say this because Sci Fi under Bonnie Hammer has shown a distinctive lack of integrity with respect to supporting real science fiction. Instead, the channel has invested in low-budget B-movie creature features which have little to do with traditional science fiction. These movies are profitable because they pull in shares as high as 1.8 - the average rating for a Farscape episode.
Thus far, Sci Fi has missed the mark with shows like Tremors (creature feature != sci fi), Scare Tactics (candid camera with a hateful edge), and their upcoming reality show Mad Mad House (absolutely nothing to do with fiction, much less science fiction). They might have something with "Tripping the Rift", but don't count on it - looks like a cartoon ripoff of Farscape to me (rift...uncharted territories, hello?).
The closest this channel has come to being a true Sci Fi channel is the recent Battlestar Galactica miniseries, which was actually quite good (although an obvious pilot for a full series, which I would like to see). Their continued diarhea of Stargate SG-1 episodes has turned them into the Stargate channel. Meanwhile, they've buried Farscape, Invisible Man, and failed to capitalize on Lexx reruns. They have completely missed the Star Trek franchise, with SpikeTV holding equity in Star Trek:TNG reruns, nobody doing Voyager or DS9 episodes, and UPN/Fox holding the monopoly on Star Trek: Enterprise (which is facing cancellation because of low viewership - hello, they only play it late nights on Fox, and UPN is not widely distributed, but I digress - this was a rant about SciFi). Don't forget Andromaeda, which is one of Gene Roddenberry's other progeny, and not a bad show (though hardly of Farscape / Enterprise caliber).
Sci Fi has also failed to capitalize other areas. TechTV and Cartoon network have the Anime market cornered, and Sci Fi has yet to even attempt to get something like Akira or Neo Genesis Evangelion.
Anyway, its highly likely Sci Fi will screw this up. They've screwed everything else up.
It's no suprise that michael is posting this. Michael is to technoblogging what Jerry Springer is to reality. As other posters have pointed out, UCS is not a scientific group - they're a political activist group. This piece by the Centers for Policy Analysis (a group which is unabashed about its political aims) gives some examples of how UCS promotes junk science when necessary to promote idealogical ends.
No, I don't expect michael to know what he's talking about. He's not a nerd, he's just a political hack. I just wish Slashdot's Commanders in Cheif would fire his ass so we can get news that isn't tainted by his petty wingnut politics.
I did not intend to insult true leftist lunatic anti-American activists. And either way, my chief complain is his inability to keep his political-hack op-ed out of news based stories. If I wanted to listen to his crap, I'd still post at Kuro5hin.
Heres the context of the quoted passage:
"Hi, Dell Tech Support? Yeah, I work at the Hoover Dam"
<BLEEEP> 'Transferring now'
America's Army - which is free, very nicely done, and available on Linux/Mac in addition to WinPC - has a system called "honor". honor is accrued through kills and goals achieved as both an individual and to a lesser extent as part of a team. The system does a fair job of separating noobs from ubergamers, so you can always get a good idea of the company you're with. it's not foolproof - or cheat proof, but with the addition of punkbuster software the cheater population in AA has dropped significantly, and is lower than just about any other game out there.
Alot of these pictures are in the National Archives, and are also part of the Library of Congresses American Memory collection. This site sucks.
I don't care what anyone says about IBM supporting Linux, this is how to get it into the mainstream. If this is Dell's segway to officially supporting and offering linux on the desktop, then the next step is businesses leasing linux based PC's from Dell, and people who use Linux at work may begin using Linux at home.
I used to work for a company who services Dell. My number and codes got me to people who knew what they were talking about. The problem is that you can't hire enough qualified engineers to deal with clueless enduser morons - which is why dell outsourced to india.
"Ellow sur, how ken I be elping yu"
"Yeah, my Dell PowerEdge is beeping and all I have on the screen is a bunch of sad faces"
"...............ellow sur, how ken I be elping yu"
This time it's the "stealth" push pollster that is Slashdot's own political hack, michael. By citing an article which doesn't support his assertion, michael wants everyone to believe that the economy is not doing well, and things are actually getting worse. Of course, we went through this months ago with his ilk, claiming that the GDP increase was meaningless without job growth. Then there was job growth (today's report is 112,000 new jobs created). Now michael and all the other leftwits out there have latched onto this notion that salaries are in decline, not realizing that like jobs, salaries are a lagging economic indicator. When the job market picks up, then competition for workes picks up, and salaries pick up.
Now that I've poked my finger in michaels eye, exposing his fraudulent political muddying of the geek waters of slashot, watch my comment rating go down.
Maybe if we taught people how to drive instead of handing out licenses like candy, we wouldn't need all these idiot sensors which drive up the cost of a car. In my dads day, a kid could work all summer, save up, and buy a good car, pink slip and all. Nowadays an econobox car is 8 to 12 months salary at a full time job, in spite of cheaper manufacturing techniques.
Think about it - you're a developer working for "the man". SCO execs have already demonstrated that they don't know jack shit about source code, so their ability to review the mydoom virus is limited (thought, they'll definately claim it contains System V code they think they purchased). Anyway, you're slaving away one day when a sucker in a three piece comes in, closes the door, and says "write a virus that attacks our own web site, or you're fired". How would YOU CYA?
One of my instructors pointed this out. In 1970 when he first started teaching, the cost of a Chemistry text was $25. He used the same text for five years, without an edition change. Unfortunately, science changed, and the authors didn't update, so he had to use a new book. This preempted a policy which required books be reviewed and updated every two years (whether or not it was necessary). He's found increasing error rates ever since. My Chemistry book now contains at least 12 errors, and costs $135. The lab manual, a floppy paper manual that costs $65, contains experimental procedures which are specifically disallowed by lab safety (like pouring certain reactants into water, when you should pour water into certain reactants instead to prevent violent explosions). Likewise, my American Civilization text costs $85, and omits several important details which I learned in High School.
So the question is, why am I paying more money for less accurate and informative texts? Because the school profits from them. It's not merely the indirect profits - the actual margin on most books is sometimes as low as 10% - but the manufacturers often give direct rebates to the college book stores. These "back ends rebates" amount to thousands of dollars, and represent a large share of the books cost.
Then there are the book buy backs - where they give you sometimes as little as half the face value for books that are in pristine condition. My solution - I sell them to individuals instead of the book store, for the same half-price. If I don't profit from my books, nobody does.
Are you really that clueless?
...why not, it worked in blazing saddles...
Nazism and Fascism are not the same thing, you logic-bereft moron! If everyone on the left is as stupid as you, it'll be no problem keeping you behind the counter at mcdonalds where you belong.
The ultimate arrogance is that you pretend to know how I think. You, who patently spouts the propaganda you've been spoon fed.
For the record, if you knew half of what you think you know, you'd know that Nazism is an ideaology, fascism is a system of governance. Nazism relies of fascism. No wonder you can't use them correctly in a sentence. How do you actually expect anyone to take your mindless blathering seriously when you don't even know what you're talking about, troll-boy?
Hmm...maybe I should also point out he doesn't speak Russian. But, I digress - Russia piled corpses all over eastern european fronts for years, and didn't actually have any luck until the US hit the beaches. In short, you ungrateful pricks can thank the English speaking nations for your very existence (and a handful of french-canucks).
Only four. But then, everybody speaks my native language, so why did I need to learn anyone elses? So...du kannst mein arsch lecken.
Typical disconnected troll. Even after demonstrating the psychological disconnect, you refuse to see how your anti-American bias taints your credibility. Then you call me a "fascist nazi" (can you spell redundant?) as your penultimate conviction of my character, which amounts to "you get your marching orders from Rush Limbaugh" I don't suppose you could get any more pathetic can you?
I'm waiting for some degree of factual information from you. I checked out your site - it's antiquated anti-American rhetoric and nothing else.
Remind me, how many volunteers did your country ante up for Hitlers Waffen SS? was it 700 or 800. Call me back when you've dismounted from your high-horse, you arrogant piece of eurotrash.