I think you've misunderstood my post. By home videos I was of course referring to the kind you make with a camcorder, not your copy of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast".
Read it again and if you're still struggling with it I'll try to use smaller words.:-)
Hmmm, interesting perspective. So by your logic, anything I receive via public airwaves has been given completely over to the public domain for people to do with as they please?
The consequences of this would be that I could record TV series and movies that have been broadcast, since according to you the public (and me as a part of the public) now own it. If this is the case why couldn't I sell these recordings? And if I can't sell them (because its been given to everyone), obviously I could GIVE away the tapes, right? wrong...
Radio uses public airwaves... Do I own Britney Spear's latest mega-pop hit the first time its on the radio? No, of course not...
If your argument is that we have ownership in the same sense as if I purchase a movie on DVD, of course I'd agree with you... but how is this different from cable? If you're talking about fair-use of consumer goods I really don't see how the delivery mechanism (airwaves or otherwise) is at all relevant.
With all due respect I think you may be mistaken here. It wasn't the "timeshifting" element that was at the core of the Betamax case. Recording from TV *WAS* (and I believe *IS*) infringement. Instead, the argument was concerning whether devices which COULD be used to commit such an infringement crime were illegal.
The core of the ruling (which is highly relevant) was that since VCRs *could* be used for legal purposes (such as making copies of home videos), they weren't illegal. Its possible for me to use a crowbar to break into a house, but that doesn't make ownership of a crowbar illegal.
Equally, P2P networks have many valid, legal uses. We can share Linux distros on them, if I made a short video clips I can pass it out to the world, if an independant band wants exposure they can release their songs to the wild, etc, etc, etc.
So, thanksfully, I think they are comparing apples and apples.
All you need is for the original seeder to be responsible for their torrents (keep seeding) and this is avoided. And that would certainly be the case if someone was distributing media through their blog/website. If they can't be bothered to keep seeding it, why are they trying to distribute it in the first place?
What I think would be useful would be a super easy way to seed a bunch of torrents at once, and throttle the bandwidth on them, so you could provide a tiny trickle to many different torrents and prevent exactly the starvation you're talking about. This is probably already available but I haven't seen a client that does it.
Looking back at my message you're absolutely right that the statement "technical people don't make good administrators" makes absolutely no sense.
I was going to move beyond the problems with volunteer work, tie it in to how often early adapters are drafted into administrative positions, then talk about how often the skills that make people good techies/early adopters can be a hinderance to running operations.
But I didn't, so I'll save the diatribe for another day. I probably figured that I'd have drawn enough ire for one day.
Nice to have a fellow Waterloo student calling me on it when I get out of line!
*WARNING* If you're the type of person that can't handle any critism of the open-source/technical community, even from within, you might want to skip to the next message.
There's a funny thing that's been going through my head for years now which these two closures seems to be a part of.
Technical people don't make good administrators.
Years ago when I was in high school I used to run a BBS (bulletin board service - pre popular internet networks of computers). Every few months a SysOp (System Operator, the people in charge) would have a meltdown, send out a message telling everyone how much he'd (there were no women;-) suffered, how ungrateful the users were and that he was shutting down to teach everyone a lesson.
Nobody ever learned a lesson, and I never felt the lesson they were trying to teach was particularly valuable.
I'm suspicious that this is a natural weakness of any system that relies on volunteer labour. If people don't have a strong (unfortunately usually economic) incentive to continue something, they're more ready to throw in the towel when the seas get rough.
We've all seen open-source projects die where the maintainer spits bile about no one contributing, no companies offering them cushy jobs where they can work on the project, etc, etc, etc. See the story about the Linux Router Project for an example of this.
As a non-technical example, a friend of mine was a volunteer firefighter and he got into the profession when just about every firefighter in his small town quit and they needed to replace the force. A baby had died at a fire they were fighting, and none of them had been able to deal with it, so they quit. Professional firefighters have all undoubtedly had the experience of someone dieing in a fire they were fighting, but you wouldn't expect their whole department to give up afterwards...
With both of these lists, sure denial of service sucks. Given. When you rovide a service for free you expect acolades, guys buying you beers and women offering you their virginity. Best case, sure. But sometimes things aren't going to go your way and it seems so easy to close up shop, which can really screw people there were relying on you.
If Slashdot started suffering sustained dos attacks, you can be sure that they'd figure out a way to get through it, or just button down the hatches until the attacks end. They're earning their livelihoods from this site, so they aren't going to give up on it easily.
Maybe this is something that we should be upfront about as a community. When a service/product is free (as in speech), future extension/maintenance/existance are never guaranteed, and the only thing you're actually getting of value is whatever is there right now. If the service is something necessary that becomes worthless the instant it stops being maintained (rare, but certainly the case in some instances, such as with these two lists or with things like BBSes), than maybe volunteer labour isn't the way to provide it.
I think many commercial search engines have learned that biasing themselves to sites who have paid them is a good way to errode consumer confidence, and damage their readership/userbase. Just as newspapers have to at least provide the image of objectivity, the same demands are on search engines.
I'm quite comfortable with how Google does this (present commercial links clearly marked to the side), and am not convinced a non-commercial (open source) alternative is needed.
My uncle bought a self-inflating bed. We all thought he was a big sucker, but everytime there's more people in the house than beds, we pull the sucker out, plug it in, and it auto-magically inflates. Comfortable, tough and durable, its well worth the price (~$200)... I'm planning on buying one myself.
Yup, stupid people like Scientific American, the New York Herald, and the US Army. You're being pedantic on this point and you know it.
I believe you are doing some conflating of your own. I made no assertion. YrWrstNtmr said: "As has been demonstrated by various countries, Communism cannot work properly."
Assertion: Communism cannot work properly. Proof: It never has in the past.
As you point out, he's making a negative assertion. I never claimed the opposite was true, I merely attempted to explain that saying "something has always been this way" doesn't mean it always will be, and certainly doesn't stand as proof.
E.g. "As has been demonstrated in every election, America will never have a female president".
Maybe they never will, but the fact that they never have certainly doesn't prove that to me. The fallacy I was pointing out was that of Limited Scope. I certainly wasn't struggling with the "Flying Saucer" fallacy. I never even asked him for additional proof.
Since you like fallacies, your example of monkeys in your ass (your wistful projection?) is an excellent example of Straw Man, your suggestions that I "Seriously, read Animal Farm by Orwell", "The logical fallacy you're struggling with here" and my assertion that you have fantasies about monkeys in your butt are Argumentum ad Hominem (you're implying, incorrectly, that I'm not well read and don't understand logical fallacies, whereas I'm implying you're into bestiality, which may or may not be true but certainly has no bearing on the discussion).
Your response was surprisingly mature, but I really think you've misunderstood my original post. Shall we consider the misunderstanding resolved or at least agree to disagree and part as gentlemen? I think we're both wasting more time on this than it deserves.
I've read Animal Farm, and I appreciate and believe that incentive is a huge part of the human experience and is a very good explaination for why communism hasn't done well historically.
That being said, in the past people could argue that heavier then air flight isn't possible, because it's never been done before. As soon as somebody demonstrated it was possible, this was shown to be rubbish. I wasn't commenting on your view of communism per se, just on your claim "it's never worked before" proves that its destine to fail.
If you want to prove to me that monkeys won't fly out of your butt, human anatomy and simian ecology will go a lot further to convincing me then saying "its never happened before".
An excellent example would be, you've never slept with a woman. It doesn't mean you never will, just that its pretty unlikely:-).
And how has it been shown that it cannot work properly? I agree with you that it hasn't in the past (although Mainland China could be an argueable exception), but that doesn't prove a country will never make it work in the future.
Is the fact that if subscribers post first, their postings will always be read first. If their postings are read first (or potentially the only comments read as I often get bored when reading tons of comments and stop half-way through), they will be moderated first. Assuming positive moderation, they will get the mod points and higher karma.
In a round-about way this is a bit like selling karma (something I think you've avoided).
Good show! Could I purchase 1.25 kg of enlightment please?
Slashdot Mirror
Turn your oven on and leave it on while you're away on the road... I hope these things come with mega safety features...
I don't even leave pots boiling when I'm in the shower. In my opinion cooking should be supervised.
http://swag.uwaterloo.ca/~jchampaign/goapplet.html
Wow, you're very easily frightened.
Read it again and if you're still struggling with it I'll try to use smaller words. :-)
The consequences of this would be that I could record TV series and movies that have been broadcast, since according to you the public (and me as a part of the public) now own it. If this is the case why couldn't I sell these recordings? And if I can't sell them (because its been given to everyone), obviously I could GIVE away the tapes, right? wrong...
Radio uses public airwaves... Do I own Britney Spear's latest mega-pop hit the first time its on the radio? No, of course not...
If your argument is that we have ownership in the same sense as if I purchase a movie on DVD, of course I'd agree with you... but how is this different from cable? If you're talking about fair-use of consumer goods I really don't see how the delivery mechanism (airwaves or otherwise) is at all relevant.
The core of the ruling (which is highly relevant) was that since VCRs *could* be used for legal purposes (such as making copies of home videos), they weren't illegal. Its possible for me to use a crowbar to break into a house, but that doesn't make ownership of a crowbar illegal.
Equally, P2P networks have many valid, legal uses. We can share Linux distros on them, if I made a short video clips I can pass it out to the world, if an independant band wants exposure they can release their songs to the wild, etc, etc, etc.
So, thanksfully, I think they are comparing apples and apples.
What I think would be useful would be a super easy way to seed a bunch of torrents at once, and throttle the bandwidth on them, so you could provide a tiny trickle to many different torrents and prevent exactly the starvation you're talking about. This is probably already available but I haven't seen a client that does it.
Plus it lets the blog owner use their home connection bandwidth instead of their blog/server bandwidth...
I think 200 hams is way too small. Keep sorting and it should improve.
is that still around?
Marry me Emma!
If there was, couldn't we just find the best price then keep invoking this "right" to get better and better prices?
The unfortunate side-effect of this is I have to move every few years as I run out of places to buy food, clothes and other necessities of life...
*BUT* at least I live a principled life! ;-)
I was going to move beyond the problems with volunteer work, tie it in to how often early adapters are drafted into administrative positions, then talk about how often the skills that make people good techies/early adopters can be a hinderance to running operations.
But I didn't, so I'll save the diatribe for another day. I probably figured that I'd have drawn enough ire for one day.
Nice to have a fellow Waterloo student calling me on it when I get out of line!
*WARNING* If you're the type of person that can't handle any critism of the open-source/technical community, even from within, you might want to skip to the next message.
There's a funny thing that's been going through my head for years now which these two closures seems to be a part of.
Technical people don't make good administrators.
Years ago when I was in high school I used to run a BBS (bulletin board service - pre popular internet networks of computers). Every few months a SysOp (System Operator, the people in charge) would have a meltdown, send out a message telling everyone how much he'd (there were no women ;-) suffered, how ungrateful the users were and that he was shutting down to teach everyone a lesson.
Nobody ever learned a lesson, and I never felt the lesson they were trying to teach was particularly valuable.
I'm suspicious that this is a natural weakness of any system that relies on volunteer labour. If people don't have a strong (unfortunately usually economic) incentive to continue something, they're more ready to throw in the towel when the seas get rough.
We've all seen open-source projects die where the maintainer spits bile about no one contributing, no companies offering them cushy jobs where they can work on the project, etc, etc, etc. See the story about the Linux Router Project for an example of this.
As a non-technical example, a friend of mine was a volunteer firefighter and he got into the profession when just about every firefighter in his small town quit and they needed to replace the force. A baby had died at a fire they were fighting, and none of them had been able to deal with it, so they quit. Professional firefighters have all undoubtedly had the experience of someone dieing in a fire they were fighting, but you wouldn't expect their whole department to give up afterwards...
With both of these lists, sure denial of service sucks. Given. When you rovide a service for free you expect acolades, guys buying you beers and women offering you their virginity. Best case, sure. But sometimes things aren't going to go your way and it seems so easy to close up shop, which can really screw people there were relying on you.
If Slashdot started suffering sustained dos attacks, you can be sure that they'd figure out a way to get through it, or just button down the hatches until the attacks end. They're earning their livelihoods from this site, so they aren't going to give up on it easily.
Maybe this is something that we should be upfront about as a community. When a service/product is free (as in speech), future extension/maintenance/existance are never guaranteed, and the only thing you're actually getting of value is whatever is there right now. If the service is something necessary that becomes worthless the instant it stops being maintained (rare, but certainly the case in some instances, such as with these two lists or with things like BBSes), than maybe volunteer labour isn't the way to provide it.
hmm... we made the same joke at the same time... I think you're my comedy twin...
Wow, the guys sends millions of e-mail messages, then he closes up shop after getting 20 unsolicited phone calls.
Guess that's what you call "can dish it out, can't take it"...
I'm quite comfortable with how Google does this (present commercial links clearly marked to the side), and am not convinced a non-commercial (open source) alternative is needed.
My uncle bought a self-inflating bed. We all thought he was a big sucker, but everytime there's more people in the house than beds, we pull the sucker out, plug it in, and it auto-magically inflates. Comfortable, tough and durable, its well worth the price (~$200)... I'm planning on buying one myself.
I believe you are doing some conflating of your own. I made no assertion. YrWrstNtmr said:
"As has been demonstrated by various countries, Communism cannot work properly."
Assertion: Communism cannot work properly.
Proof: It never has in the past.
As you point out, he's making a negative assertion. I never claimed the opposite was true, I merely attempted to explain that saying "something has always been this way" doesn't mean it always will be, and certainly doesn't stand as proof.
E.g. "As has been demonstrated in every election,
America will never have a female president".
Maybe they never will, but the fact that they never have certainly doesn't prove that to me. The fallacy I was pointing out was that of Limited Scope. I certainly wasn't struggling with the "Flying Saucer" fallacy. I never even asked him for additional proof.
Since you like fallacies, your example of monkeys in your ass (your wistful projection?) is an excellent example of Straw Man, your suggestions that I "Seriously, read Animal Farm by Orwell", "The logical fallacy you're struggling with here" and my assertion that you have fantasies about monkeys in your butt are Argumentum ad Hominem (you're implying, incorrectly, that I'm not well read and don't understand logical fallacies, whereas I'm implying you're into bestiality, which may or may not be true but certainly has no bearing on the discussion).
Your response was surprisingly mature, but I really think you've misunderstood my original post. Shall we consider the misunderstanding resolved or at least agree to disagree and part as gentlemen? I think we're both wasting more time on this than it deserves.
That being said, in the past people could argue that heavier then air flight isn't possible, because it's never been done before. As soon as somebody demonstrated it was possible, this was shown to be rubbish. I wasn't commenting on your view of communism per se, just on your claim "it's never worked before" proves that its destine to fail.
If you want to prove to me that monkeys won't fly out of your butt, human anatomy and simian ecology will go a lot further to convincing me then saying "its never happened before".
An excellent example would be, you've never slept with a woman. It doesn't mean you never will, just that its pretty unlikely :-).
And how has it been shown that it cannot work properly? I agree with you that it hasn't in the past (although Mainland China could be an argueable exception), but that doesn't prove a country will never make it work in the future.
What this, when you have a pair of pants and don't let any of your roommates borrow them?
In a round-about way this is a bit like selling karma (something I think you've avoided).
Good show! Could I purchase 1.25 kg of enlightment please?
Seems like the site you mentioned is pretty dead (no news updates since April 23, 2001, many of the important links on their site are dead).