Huh? Did you even RTFA, or did your prejudices just spring like a trap? Nothing permanent was being suggested, but technological aids that would improve ones ability to perform in stressful circumstances. Things not too dissimilar to, oh, clothes, glasses, aspirin, tools etc. Let's face it, without these easily forgotten technological aids that were developed long before speech, we'd be just another primate. Oh, wait, you probably don't believe that either. These are external inanimate objects, they have nothing to do with the modification of the human body.
Does a puritanical ethic like yours create massive prejudice? No, not at all. I have no problem with people of other races. I have, and have had, many friends of various races.
Do you wish to poorly treat those who disagree with your ethic? Would you abuse any power you could gain to take away other people's ability to think or reason independently? Not at all.
When you "improve" the human body like that, there are ethical issues raised. Unlike modern medicine, which heals existing problems, "improving" the human body to "perfection" is just morally wrong. Plastic surgery for cosmetic purposes, sex change operations, tattoos, and all this sci-fi-gone-sci-fact stuff all falls under this category.
When you tamper with the structure of the human body itself, you become less human and more "superhuman." It is similar to having an abortion. If you have an abortion, or otherwise kill a human being for any reason other than self-defense, you become more decivilized, since you just killed a member of your own species.
I recently heard from someone about how it is now possible to "pick and choose" eye color, hair color, etc. in babies. (Planned Parenthood founder and eugenics supporter Margaret Sanger's dream come true.) This is also an attempt to create "superhumans."
Some ethical issues raised:
-Will this lead to massive prejudice (a new "master race")? -Will the poor, or those who oppose this technology, be treated badly by the "haves?" -Will this lead to abuses of power (using this technology to force ideology or religion on people and/or take away the human ability to reason and think independently)?
We need to take a serious look at our culture and the direction that it is going. This is just getting seriously out of hand.
No, seriously, parents should really supervise their kids more instead of fighting over stupidity, relying on censorship and ratings, and using "ritalin technology" like V-chips and filtering software so that they don't have to do the parenting themselves.
Watch every TV show/movie with your kids, watch every Web site your kids visit, make sure you watch your kids when they are outside, etc. All problems solved, no laws, software, or ratings needed.
When is the entertainment mafia going to wake up and realize that collusion and extortion is not a way to do business? They may make money in the short term, but they are only killing their own business. The entertainment industry causes their own "piracy" by alienating their customers through collusion, extortion, crap music/movies, and high prices.
Not unless someone grabs the work, makes a derivative, and then decides to release it under the fully compatible license B. This is exactly what I'm trying to avoid by not upgrading my works to CC BY-SA 3.0. You never know what CC will approve in the future, so the agreement is dangerous. The GPL is just as dangerous, but the GPL is run by the FSF, who is not likely to give up their extreme left-anarchist viewpoints anytime soon. I trust the FSF more than I trust CC, though automatic license updates of most GPL software and "compatible licenses" for derivatives are both dangerous.
I don't know why my initial comment was moderated -1 "flamebait," since I wasn't trying to flame anyone. Perhaps I was a little too angry this morning over the new licensing, but I was never trying to flame anyone.
The CC BY-SA 3.0 licenses will now include the ability for derivatives to be relicensed under a "Creative Commons Compatible License," which will be listed here. This structure realizes CC's long-held objective of ensuring that there are no legal barriers to people being able to remix creativity in the way that flexible licenses are intended to enable. More information about this is provided here. Why should I trust them? This sounds a lot like the FSF automatically updating the licenses of everyone's software. Except that CC is less zealot-like and therefore less trustworthy than the FSF. I'm not updating MY BY-SA licensed works.
Do you think there will be a recall of Vista? Either that or an anti-trust or class action suit within the next few years.
I sure as hell won't be using it, and when Windows XP Product Activation forces me to reactivate my product, and the activation Web site/phone number has shut down (due to Microsoft cutting support for what is probably the world's first vaporware OS), I'm going Linux or Mac. That is, unless Microsoft changes their ways, cutting the DRM out and making their products compatible again.
The problem with "free" and "copylefted" music is that it's usually pretty terrible, and most of the time it's just "make your own techno" which gets boring after a while.
I am a big fan of alternative, heavy metal, and melodic rock, and I never see anything like that out there as "copyleft." These people are either long gone, desperate for cash, or in the case of melodic rock, releasing only one or two songs for free.
My sister's "emo" bands are more download-friendly, she tells me, always telling people at the concerts to download their music. I guess they can get away with that, being more tour-based than studio-based. Many of them, she says, are not on major labels and don't get on the radio or MTV until much later in their careers. But to me, that style of music is just terrible.
I guess I'm just dated, being into the "whole album" concept rather than the rebirth of the "singles" concept. Even with my iPod, I'll organize it into albums and listen to the whole album in most cases.
I am shocked that Wikipedia is taken as seriously as it is, and made an integral part of Answers.com, Google, etc. The only thing Wikipedia is useful for is "pop culture." When I was in college, too many people used Wikipedia as sources and didn't even know what it was, or how inaccurate it was.
This is a terrible confirmation of America moving towards a totalitarian state. The sad thing is, due to mandatory education dominated by the socialist left-wing establishment, most people agree with these arguments. They don't know the truth, that is, that without the right to bear arms there are no rights.
The whole point of that right was to show that the people, not the government, were the ultimate masters. It does not matter that the militias were federalized - this is proof of ever-increasing socialist totalitarianism.
As American society "progresses" more and more towards socialism, liberty becomes more and more doomed.
For interesting reading, check out this Web site. It shows how all 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto are now a reality in America.
When will the music industry learn that producing the same trash while using Mafia-style business tactics against their customers just increases their problems of low sales?
What are they trying to do? Will they wind up becoming a government subsidized industry because they have alienated all but the true Hollywood-loving sheep and can't afford to pay their employees? Now I hate corporate welfare, but I'd be REALLY pissed off if I had to subsidize the Music Mafia.
All I know is I have not bought a CD (except from independent foreign labels) in ages. I have no reason to, anyway, everything here just sucks.
Here are my top 5 *most influential* PC games of all time:
1. Rogue (1979) This computer RPG, while not the first, set the standard for all other computer RPGs which came after it, from NetHack (1985) to the Diablo series (1996). 2. Adventure (1977) This was the first in the "text adventure" genre. While no longer common except among "interactive fiction" hobbyists, these games were very influential and hold a historical significance. 3. Wolfenstein 3D (1992) The first popular FPS, the first popular 3D game, and the first popular violent game, its WWII concentration camp setting sparked major controversy. It led to the also-influential Doom series (1994) 4. SimCity (1992) The original article mentioned this in their lists, I believe. The most influential simulation game for the same reason that Rogue was the most influential RPG, that it set the standard for simulation games. 5. ZZT (1989) The first text adventure slash RPG slash programming language, like other games in the genres it spans it has a cult following which continues to this day.
This is not an inconsistency. Republicans are against abortion because they feel that it harms society (i.e. that it involves killing of innocent children), but for the death penalty because they feel it helps protect society (i.e. protecting society from its criminals), and that is the definition of conservatism, that government should protect society. Democrats (and Libertarians too, for that matter) are pro-choice because either they feel that it interferes with civil liberties (i.e. the woman's "free choice" as to whether or not to have a child). That is the same reason why they are anti-death penalty, because they feel it interferes with the civil liberties (of the convicted criminal).
2. "Information wants to be free"
I don't think this is an entirely accurate statement with regards to how Slashdotters feel about information. There are the right-wing (libertarian) Slashdotters (such as myself) who feel that governments should be restricted so that our privacy may be protected, but fully agree with the right of a Slashdotter to form agreements with businesses (though they are against legal rights and subsidies being granted to corporations) and possibly lose privacy rights in exchange for a good or service. This is more due to the fact that governments hold power, and that is the reason why the power must be restricted. In the libertarian dream (anarcho-capitalism) government is by subscription or from self-defense, and this wouldn't be an issue.
The left-wing (liberal) Slashdotters go a step further and say that corporations must be controlled as well as governments. In the liberal dream (democracy, here meaning majority rule) the majority of the people would control the minority corporations with regards to issues such as privacy and copyrights.
Here is one example. Take Digital Rights Management. Right-wing (libertarian) Slashdotters would argue that laws such as the DMCA prevent DRM from being circumvented as it should be and that copy protection should be played out in the free market. Left-wing (liberal) Slashdotters would argue that not only should the DMCA be repealed, but that DRM should be outlawed.
5 year patent, 12 year copyright. Or abolish intellectual property law completely and replace it with a Creative Commons-style mandatory attribution to protect against fraud and plagiarism.
Once again, our business-worshipping government, while claiming to fight terrorism, act as terrorists themselves, colluding with corporate terrorists such as those in the entertainment industry to pass ridiculous intellectual "property" laws and arrest innocent college kids.
Our government should instead concentrate on real crimes which involve harm to person and actual, tangible property rather than wasting time protecting their big business buddies in an extortionistic manner while claiming to fight terrorism at the same time.
Besides, if these entertainment companies cannot compete with these so-called "pirates," they are inefficient, bad businesses and thus deserve to go out of business.
Intellectual "property." I can frigging claim photosynthesis as my property and demand "royalties" from every farmer and gardener if I had the force to back me up. So ridiculous. Now you can say the same thing about all forms of property, but in order to maintain a civil society we do need some forms of property, such as land and objects. But intellectual "property" is clearly unnecessary and does more harm than good.
CW (the mode used to transmit Morse Code) is not only easily propagated through the air, it's also the easiest to set up equipment-wise. One of ham radio's primary purposes is emergency communications, isn't it?
I'm sure the CW requirement does discourage people from coming into ham radio, but no more than it always has. The problem is just the human race which is evolving into different things all the time. Now the radio hobby has always existed with me side-by-side with computers, and I was interested in computers years before I became interested in the radio hobby. But I'd say since most people do not own a ham radio license, most people of this era just don't care. Perhaps it will come back as a fad. Who knows?
Don't pull the code. It will greatly harm emergency efforts in the future, and it won't make that much of a difference in the rate of new applicants.
"If you do not claim any property over ideas, then how could someone be stealing them?"
It wouldn't be stealing, it would be fraud. For example:
Joe writes and records Song A. Jane records a cover of Song A and states in the liner notes that she wrote it. Jane would (under my proposal) be punished for lying to the public.
Anyone can claim ownership over anything if they have the force to back them up. Hell, if I had the force to back me up, I could claim photosynthesis as my own and demand money from every farmer and gardener in the world. Or even better, royalties from every person for the use of gravity. Now you can say the same thing about land and objects, but it just isn't practical (or civil) for two people to claim ownership over the same bathroom at the same time. Therefore, property should be treated as a necessary evil for the purposes of maintaining a civil society. And intellectual property is clearly an *unnecessary* evil, since it reduces competition and drives up prices, including the prices of medicine which stifles the ability of the poor to get proper medical treatment.
I use Creative Commons rather than Public Domain as a practical measure due to the lack of laws against plagiarism and fraud. If copyright was an option but there were anti-deception laws applying to Public Domain works, I would use Public Domain for my works.
"Okay, then why are bloggers and do-gooders and various supporters making a point of tagging their material as being covered by Creative Commons? Is it just because it's cool and trendy--a code for being hip amongst a certain elite? There is no other answer."
Trendy? There are many of us who feel that intellectual property is morally wrong. I feel that the entire intellectual property system should be abolished and replaced with laws protecting against fraud and plagiarism. Creative Commons is for those people.
"First, Creative Commons is similar to a license. You sign up with the group and post a message saying that your material is protected or covered by Creative Commons. This means that others have certain rights to reuse the material under a variety of provisos, mostly as long as the reuse is not for commercial purposes. Why not commercial purposes? What difference does it make, if everyone is free and easy about this? In other words, a noncommercial site could distribute a million copies of something and that's okay, but a small commercial site cannot deliver two copies if it's for commercial purposes. What is this telling me?"
With Creative Commons, you are allowed to choose between a noncommercial and a commercial license. I choose the Attribution-ShareAlike because I really don't care if someone decides to sell my Web page or MODs (my software is GPL), so long as I can sell it, too, and my name is protected. Intellectual property is a "special favor" by a government and is thus incompatible with true capitalism. If someone can sell something at a lower price than I can (or for free), then I better compete with them. This applies to the RIAA, too. I remember when Napster was big and broadband was small, Tool decided to release their album in a special box set with artwork and a videotape. If the RIAA and MPAA cannot compete, they should be forced to play fair and go out of business.
"And I could always use excerpts for commercial or noncommercial purposes. It's called fair use. I can still do that, but Creative Commons seems to hint that with its license means that I cannot."
From the NonCommercial-NoDerivs license front page: "Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above."
"There's another thing that bugs me about Creative Commons. When you see its licenses the wording will say something like "Creative Commons License: Public domain." This means that the item is not covered by copyright but is in the public domain. So what's Creative Commons got to do with it? Public domain is public domain. It's not something granted by Creative Commons. Yet you see this over and over as if it were!"
That's just advocacy for an organization, and nothing else.
"There was always something about Creative Commons and its name that bugged me, too. The name sounds like a variation of the once-powerful Common Cause political-action committee. A ring of days gone by--nostalgia."
Hmmm, I seem to remember Common Cause recently working with the EFF to try and lobby for e-voting paper trails or something like that.
"Years ago, to gain a copyright, you had to fill out a form and send in the material to the Library of Congress. Now you just use the word "copyright," add your name and a date, and publish it. What could be easier? Apparently simplicity was more than some people could handle, so they invented Creative Commons to add some artificial paperwork and complexity to the mechanism. And it seems to actually weaken the copyrights you have coming to you without Creative Commons. Oh, brother!"
It's called "choice." Do you want to keep your copyright to yourself, or do you want to weaken it so that others may be more free?
--
Do us a favor, Slashdot, and stop giving this guy press.
"Even in a popular war game such as 'World of Warcraft,' if you have a strong character and a newbie comes into the game, you have to take care of him and help him out," he says. "The strong character gets stronger by taking care of the weaker."
There is a BIG difference between "being depressed" and clinical depression, which is what this device is for.
It is true that people are being overprescribed drugs like Paxil and Prozac for trivial problems that should be dealt with through therapy or even by themselves. It is also true that people are being given misleading information about themselves by watching too many advertisements for these types of drugs.
However, there is a clear difference between depression, e.g. unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, etc. which are inherited genetic disorders and sane people who want an easy pill fix for their day-to-day problems.
Now I was lucky that my bipolar disorder worked well with medication. However, some (very few) people are not so lucky and have to resort to shock therapy or I guess this device now.
I am also amazed and offended that Slashdot would compare something serious like this to Ren & Stimpy.
Slashdot Mirror
When you "improve" the human body like that, there are ethical issues raised. Unlike modern medicine, which heals existing problems, "improving" the human body to "perfection" is just morally wrong. Plastic surgery for cosmetic purposes, sex change operations, tattoos, and all this sci-fi-gone-sci-fact stuff all falls under this category.
When you tamper with the structure of the human body itself, you become less human and more "superhuman." It is similar to having an abortion. If you have an abortion, or otherwise kill a human being for any reason other than self-defense, you become more decivilized, since you just killed a member of your own species.
I recently heard from someone about how it is now possible to "pick and choose" eye color, hair color, etc. in babies. (Planned Parenthood founder and eugenics supporter Margaret Sanger's dream come true.) This is also an attempt to create "superhumans."
Some ethical issues raised:
-Will this lead to massive prejudice (a new "master race")?
-Will the poor, or those who oppose this technology, be treated badly by the "haves?"
-Will this lead to abuses of power (using this technology to force ideology or religion on people and/or take away the human ability to reason and think independently)?
We need to take a serious look at our culture and the direction that it is going. This is just getting seriously out of hand.
Where are our children?
No, seriously, parents should really supervise their kids more instead of fighting over stupidity, relying on censorship and ratings, and using "ritalin technology" like V-chips and filtering software so that they don't have to do the parenting themselves.
Watch every TV show/movie with your kids, watch every Web site your kids visit, make sure you watch your kids when they are outside, etc. All problems solved, no laws, software, or ratings needed.
1. Piss off your customers
2. Lose them to competitors
3. ?
4. Profit!
When is the entertainment mafia going to wake up and realize that collusion and extortion is not a way to do business? They may make money in the short term, but they are only killing their own business. The entertainment industry causes their own "piracy" by alienating their customers through collusion, extortion, crap music/movies, and high prices.
STOP: 0xlsdkfjsldf
This warship has performed an illegal operation and will now sink.
To send an error report to Microsoft before you die, please press "Send."
I don't know why my initial comment was moderated -1 "flamebait," since I wasn't trying to flame anyone. Perhaps I was a little too angry this morning over the new licensing, but I was never trying to flame anyone.
The CC BY-SA 3.0 licenses will now include the ability for derivatives to be relicensed under a "Creative Commons Compatible License," which will be listed here. This structure realizes CC's long-held objective of ensuring that there are no legal barriers to people being able to remix creativity in the way that flexible licenses are intended to enable. More information about this is provided here. Why should I trust them? This sounds a lot like the FSF automatically updating the licenses of everyone's software. Except that CC is less zealot-like and therefore less trustworthy than the FSF. I'm not updating MY BY-SA licensed works.
Do you think there will be a recall of Vista? Either that or an anti-trust or class action suit within the next few years.
I sure as hell won't be using it, and when Windows XP Product Activation forces me to reactivate my product, and the activation Web site/phone number has shut down (due to Microsoft cutting support for what is probably the world's first vaporware OS), I'm going Linux or Mac. That is, unless Microsoft changes their ways, cutting the DRM out and making their products compatible again.
The problem with "free" and "copylefted" music is that it's usually pretty terrible, and most of the time it's just "make your own techno" which gets boring after a while.
I am a big fan of alternative, heavy metal, and melodic rock, and I never see anything like that out there as "copyleft." These people are either long gone, desperate for cash, or in the case of melodic rock, releasing only one or two songs for free.
My sister's "emo" bands are more download-friendly, she tells me, always telling people at the concerts to download their music. I guess they can get away with that, being more tour-based than studio-based. Many of them, she says, are not on major labels and don't get on the radio or MTV until much later in their careers. But to me, that style of music is just terrible.
I guess I'm just dated, being into the "whole album" concept rather than the rebirth of the "singles" concept. Even with my iPod, I'll organize it into albums and listen to the whole album in most cases.
I am shocked that Wikipedia is taken as seriously as it is, and made an integral part of Answers.com, Google, etc. The only thing Wikipedia is useful for is "pop culture." When I was in college, too many people used Wikipedia as sources and didn't even know what it was, or how inaccurate it was.
This is a terrible confirmation of America moving towards a totalitarian state. The sad thing is, due to mandatory education dominated by the socialist left-wing establishment, most people agree with these arguments. They don't know the truth, that is, that without the right to bear arms there are no rights.
The whole point of that right was to show that the people, not the government, were the ultimate masters. It does not matter that the militias were federalized - this is proof of ever-increasing socialist totalitarianism.
As American society "progresses" more and more towards socialism, liberty becomes more and more doomed.
For interesting reading, check out this Web site. It shows how all 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto are now a reality in America.
When will the music industry learn that producing the same trash while using Mafia-style business tactics against their customers just increases their problems of low sales?
What are they trying to do? Will they wind up becoming a government subsidized industry because they have alienated all but the true Hollywood-loving sheep and can't afford to pay their employees? Now I hate corporate welfare, but I'd be REALLY pissed off if I had to subsidize the Music Mafia.
All I know is I have not bought a CD (except from independent foreign labels) in ages. I have no reason to, anyway, everything here just sucks.
Here are my top 5 *most influential* PC games of all time:
1. Rogue (1979)
This computer RPG, while not the first, set the standard for all other computer RPGs which came after it, from NetHack (1985) to the Diablo series (1996).
2. Adventure (1977)
This was the first in the "text adventure" genre. While no longer common except among "interactive fiction" hobbyists, these games were very influential and hold a historical significance.
3. Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
The first popular FPS, the first popular 3D game, and the first popular violent game, its WWII concentration camp setting sparked major controversy. It led to the also-influential Doom series (1994)
4. SimCity (1992)
The original article mentioned this in their lists, I believe. The most influential simulation game for the same reason that Rogue was the most influential RPG, that it set the standard for simulation games.
5. ZZT (1989)
The first text adventure slash RPG slash programming language, like other games in the genres it spans it has a cult following which continues to this day.
1. Abortion/Death Penalty Issue:
This is not an inconsistency. Republicans are against abortion because they feel that it harms society (i.e. that it involves killing of innocent children), but for the death penalty because they feel it helps protect society (i.e. protecting society from its criminals), and that is the definition of conservatism, that government should protect society.
Democrats (and Libertarians too, for that matter) are pro-choice because either they feel that it interferes with civil liberties (i.e. the woman's "free choice" as to whether or not to have a child). That is the same reason why they are anti-death penalty, because they feel it interferes with the civil liberties (of the convicted criminal).
2. "Information wants to be free"
I don't think this is an entirely accurate statement with regards to how Slashdotters feel about information. There are the right-wing (libertarian) Slashdotters (such as myself) who feel that governments should be restricted so that our privacy may be protected, but fully agree with the right of a Slashdotter to form agreements with businesses (though they are against legal rights and subsidies being granted to corporations) and possibly lose privacy rights in exchange for a good or service. This is more due to the fact that governments hold power, and that is the reason why the power must be restricted. In the libertarian dream (anarcho-capitalism) government is by subscription or from self-defense, and this wouldn't be an issue.
The left-wing (liberal) Slashdotters go a step further and say that corporations must be controlled as well as governments. In the liberal dream (democracy, here meaning majority rule) the majority of the people would control the minority corporations with regards to issues such as privacy and copyrights.
Here is one example. Take Digital Rights Management. Right-wing (libertarian) Slashdotters would argue that laws such as the DMCA prevent DRM from being circumvented as it should be and that copy protection should be played out in the free market. Left-wing (liberal) Slashdotters would argue that not only should the DMCA be repealed, but that DRM should be outlawed.
5 year patent, 12 year copyright. Or abolish intellectual property law completely and replace it with a Creative Commons-style mandatory attribution to protect against fraud and plagiarism.
Once again, our business-worshipping government, while claiming to fight terrorism, act as terrorists themselves, colluding with corporate terrorists such as those in the entertainment industry to pass ridiculous intellectual "property" laws and arrest innocent college kids.
Our government should instead concentrate on real crimes which involve harm to person and actual, tangible property rather than wasting time protecting their big business buddies in an extortionistic manner while claiming to fight terrorism at the same time.
Besides, if these entertainment companies cannot compete with these so-called "pirates," they are inefficient, bad businesses and thus deserve to go out of business.
Intellectual "property." I can frigging claim photosynthesis as my property and demand "royalties" from every farmer and gardener if I had the force to back me up. So ridiculous. Now you can say the same thing about all forms of property, but in order to maintain a civil society we do need some forms of property, such as land and objects. But intellectual "property" is clearly unnecessary and does more harm than good.
Just my 2-cent rant.
CW (the mode used to transmit Morse Code) is not only easily propagated through the air, it's also the easiest to set up equipment-wise. One of ham radio's primary purposes is emergency communications, isn't it?
I'm sure the CW requirement does discourage people from coming into ham radio, but no more than it always has. The problem is just the human race which is evolving into different things all the time. Now the radio hobby has always existed with me side-by-side with computers, and I was interested in computers years before I became interested in the radio hobby. But I'd say since most people do not own a ham radio license, most people of this era just don't care. Perhaps it will come back as a fad. Who knows?
Don't pull the code. It will greatly harm emergency efforts in the future, and it won't make that much of a difference in the rate of new applicants.
73 DE K3DRQ
"If you do not claim any property over ideas, then how could someone be stealing them?"
It wouldn't be stealing, it would be fraud.
For example:
Joe writes and records Song A.
Jane records a cover of Song A and states in the liner notes that she wrote it.
Jane would (under my proposal) be punished for lying to the public.
Anyone can claim ownership over anything if they have the force to back them up. Hell, if I had the force to back me up, I could claim photosynthesis as my own and demand money from every farmer and gardener in the world. Or even better, royalties from every person for the use of gravity. Now you can say the same thing about land and objects, but it just isn't practical (or civil) for two people to claim ownership over the same bathroom at the same time. Therefore, property should be treated as a necessary evil for the purposes of maintaining a civil society. And intellectual property is clearly an *unnecessary* evil, since it reduces competition and drives up prices, including the prices of medicine which stifles the ability of the poor to get proper medical treatment.
I use Creative Commons rather than Public Domain as a practical measure due to the lack of laws against plagiarism and fraud. If copyright was an option but there were anti-deception laws applying to Public Domain works, I would use Public Domain for my works.
"Okay, then why are bloggers and do-gooders and various supporters making a point of tagging their material as being covered by Creative Commons? Is it just because it's cool and trendy--a code for being hip amongst a certain elite? There is no other answer."
Trendy? There are many of us who feel that intellectual property is morally wrong. I feel that the entire intellectual property system should be abolished and replaced with laws protecting against fraud and plagiarism. Creative Commons is for those people.
"First, Creative Commons is similar to a license. You sign up with the group and post a message saying that your material is protected or covered by Creative Commons. This means that others have certain rights to reuse the material under a variety of provisos, mostly as long as the reuse is not for commercial purposes. Why not commercial purposes? What difference does it make, if everyone is free and easy about this? In other words, a noncommercial site could distribute a million copies of something and that's okay, but a small commercial site cannot deliver two copies if it's for commercial purposes. What is this telling me?"
With Creative Commons, you are allowed to choose between a noncommercial and a commercial license. I choose the Attribution-ShareAlike because I really don't care if someone decides to sell my Web page or MODs (my software is GPL), so long as I can sell it, too, and my name is protected. Intellectual property is a "special favor" by a government and is thus incompatible with true capitalism. If someone can sell something at a lower price than I can (or for free), then I better compete with them.
This applies to the RIAA, too. I remember when Napster was big and broadband was small, Tool decided to release their album in a special box set with artwork and a videotape. If the RIAA and MPAA cannot compete, they should be forced to play fair and go out of business.
"And I could always use excerpts for commercial or noncommercial purposes. It's called fair use. I can still do that, but Creative Commons seems to hint that with its license means that I cannot."
From the NonCommercial-NoDerivs license front page:
"Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above."
"There's another thing that bugs me about Creative Commons. When you see its licenses the wording will say something like "Creative Commons License: Public domain." This means that the item is not covered by copyright but is in the public domain. So what's Creative Commons got to do with it? Public domain is public domain. It's not something granted by Creative Commons. Yet you see this over and over as if it were!"
That's just advocacy for an organization, and nothing else.
"There was always something about Creative Commons and its name that bugged me, too. The name sounds like a variation of the once-powerful Common Cause political-action committee. A ring of days gone by--nostalgia."
Hmmm, I seem to remember Common Cause recently working with the EFF to try and lobby for e-voting paper trails or something like that.
"Years ago, to gain a copyright, you had to fill out a form and send in the material to the Library of Congress. Now you just use the word "copyright," add your name and a date, and publish it. What could be easier? Apparently simplicity was more than some people could handle, so they invented Creative Commons to add some artificial paperwork and complexity to the mechanism. And it seems to actually weaken the copyrights you have coming to you without Creative Commons. Oh, brother!"
It's called "choice." Do you want to keep your copyright to yourself, or do you want to weaken it so that others may be more free?
--
Do us a favor, Slashdot, and stop giving this guy press.
Anyone catch the "All Your Base" T-shirt the guy was wearing? I'm surprised nobody mentioned it here!
Anyway, awesome video!
"Even in a popular war game such as 'World of Warcraft,' if you have a strong character and a newbie comes into the game, you have to take care of him and help him out," he says. "The strong character gets stronger by taking care of the weaker."
Like that really happens in online games.
You are very ignorant.
There is a BIG difference between "being depressed" and clinical depression, which is what this device is for.
It is true that people are being overprescribed drugs like Paxil and Prozac for trivial problems that should be dealt with through therapy or even by themselves. It is also true that people are being given misleading information about themselves by watching too many advertisements for these types of drugs.
However, there is a clear difference between depression, e.g. unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, etc. which are inherited genetic disorders and sane people who want an easy pill fix for their day-to-day problems.
Now I was lucky that my bipolar disorder worked well with medication. However, some (very few) people are not so lucky and have to resort to shock therapy or I guess this device now.
I am also amazed and offended that Slashdot would compare something serious like this to Ren & Stimpy.
But that would make you a "manbian."
"What's a 'manbian?'"
Everybody knows that the Federal Reserve killed Kennedy! This game was released by the Federal Reserve to propagate Lies!