So saying that there is a problem at WP is the same as destroying the whole? No. That would be reasoned. Read the f-ing article, which is titled:
Wikipedia black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain
The imagery of the linked article is a deliberate and polemic assault designed to take Wiki down, and rob it of all credibility. He is trying to make a bunch of milquetoast intellectuals sound like "Dr. Evil." If you didn't read the article, you won't understand why I'm upset with this crap.
The article is not a reasoned complaint, it's a hit job.
Hey, whoa pardner. I'm not the one with the "all or nothing" attitude. There are plenty of people saying that this "scandal" somehow affects every article on Wikipedia, even the ones on the boiling point of water, and that is mostly because they have an agenda to take it all down.
They don't like the idea of Wikipedia, or they are natural conspiracy theorists who think all power and centralized control is evil, and are willing to take Wiki down in their cause to reform it on an idealistic model of total anarchy, which anyone with a lick of sense knows wouldn't work, as evidenced by the vandalism problems Wikipedia has had.
I don't want to see that agenda served. I think Wikipedia is a good idea, but it was inchoate, as all good ideas are, and they need time and balance to sort out the problems with that idea, without someone screeching "totalitarian" at what is little more than a bunch of snotty intellectuals with little to no PR experience and/or tact.
Though they failed to mention Nazis, I am calling "Godwin" on the whole bit. I agree with you. It needs to be worked with, and praised for what it is, not assaulted.
Yes, but is this relevant to 85% of the body of work? Do we really need to throw the word "totalitarian" around, or "black helicopters?" Jeez.
News flash! The Register has less credibility than Wiki, if only for this idiotic smear job.
In defense of Wikipedia: Sure, Wikipedia has its corruptions and its problems, but so does any other human endeavor.
Point is, it is a useful source of information. If you don't have the critical skills to determine where it is not useful, you should ask your Mom for help in using it.
I'd hate for Wikipedia to be taken down over some scandal. These shrill articles about "corruption" are really rather childish. Wikipedia has made no claims to be a superior source of information. There's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater here.
I find it to be an excellent source for non-politicized information, and this will continue to be the case, regardless of administrative difficulties, so long as Wikipedia is given the chance to survive this tabloid "scandal sheet" coverage of its staff.
Let's not fan the flames, and that is what the linked article is: a flame. Don't do this to the staff of Wikipedia just because you may think they are "a bit snotty."
In a security situation, despite how obvious this was, it's important not to spill the beans on exactly how it was done.
It's the difference between, "can be hacked with a few lines of Perl," and listing the script out so that any script kiddie can do it.
There may be states with laws and certifications processes not as stringent as California still using these devices. Best not to tell everyone precisely how to break into them. I hope other states will insist that their machines be retooled, but that might drive this company out of business, and then they have to repurchase all of their machines without a likelihood of getting their money back.
Best to keep it vague. You'd probably look at the lock and say, "Gee, I bet I could get in with a paper clip." They're not concerned about you. They're worried about giving a 15-year-old explicit instructions on how to hard hack some other state's machines.
I am aware that false confessions are frequently solicited, that prosecutors bury such things, and that strong rights are the only defense against corrupt authority figures. All people in authority must be held accountable by the people who grant them that authority. I am not claiming that we have "too much" freedom, just that an unqualified, "I can say whatever the fuck I want" (your words) is a bit more than the law allows.;^)
Yes. And you would then be subject to what is known as a "reasonable person" litmus test, and if the jury decided that your assessment was "unreasonable," you would still go down for incitement, and whatever consequences occurred, up to, and including manslaughter.
Similarly, you could go around beating the crap out of people after yelling "Oh my god, he's got a gun!" but if one of them pressed charges, chances are you'd go down for battery.
But it's still your best defense. That was hilarious. No one in their right mind would mount a first amendment defense against incitement charges in such a situation. There is no Constitutional crisis, just an illustration that not all speech is protected.
Bullshit. The first and fifth amendments to the United states constitution both apply here. 1. I can say whatever the fuck I want, without worrying about the consequences of doing so, because, damnit, it's absolutely necessary to preserve my other rights. Bullshit.
Fire. Crowded theatre. No fire. People get trampled.
You order a hit. You go down for murder, even though all you did was speak.
Your right to free speech is always weighed against other intrinsic rights ("life" being a legal trump), and if you stomp all over the essential liberties of others ("I think we should BURN THIS TOWN DOWN!") you will be held accountable, as a point of fact, and a point of Con law.
5. My words cannot be used against me in any court of law. Bullshit. Have you never heard of a confession? What if you get recorded ordering that hit? You can not be compelled to testify. If you do so voluntarily, or unwittingly through a legal recording, it can absolutely be used against you.
That's why the man in blue says: "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
IANAL. I learned this in high school civics. Your grasp of U.S. law is appalling.
I'm not sure what you mean here - are you saying, like your earlier point, that short of a violent revolution we couldn't ban the corporations from politics, or that for some philosophical reason not pointed out you think we need them involved? Corporations peddle influence through dollars. There's no way to keep the dollars out without shutting down or redefining the basis of our economy, and all the extant options go from bad to worse, IMHO. McCain/Feingold, for instance, merely diverted the flow of dollars, which ran around the blockage and back into political coffers in a matter of years.
Personally, I think it would be simple, stop the legal fiction that corporations are people. You hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, that mistake was made over a century ago and is now firmly embedded in precedent. Short of violent revolution, there's no way to erase the mistake. It may yet result in violent revolution, but probably not in our lifetimes. It's a bad precedent that needs to be amended.
But unless you or I can figure out a pithy summary that could inflame the citizenry to demand a reversal of this subtle point of law, and it is so subtle that many people miss it (if they even care), there's no way to gain traction. Maybe you or I will run for office some day, but if we win, it is hard to amend a broken system when you are part of it.
The only other option would be to create a public foundation called, for illustration, "People First" demanding that the status quo be that individuals' rights always be greater than entity rights. Populism is currently being dismantled, if you haven't noticed.
Good luck finding anyone to fund such an organization, because anyone with money enough is part of the status quo. It doesn't look good. There are four or five consecutive "catch 22's" in effectively reversing such an ingrained precedent.
1. Several new amendments for things like explicit privacy, no gerrymandering, new voting process, a President not being part of a political party (for stricter separation between Executive and Legislative branches), no lobbying (or very very strict rules) Hoo boy, good luck on the "gerrymandering." That's a fine old tradition. I think the district drawings should be public, transparent and multipartisan (note: not bipartisan). That means that any party which takes an interest should be at the meeting, with public and ample notice.
At this point, 85% of the House of Representatives is by virtual appointment. I've taken to calling them the "House of Rabble." You should see the mouth-breather from my district, and the district next door, permanent fixtures of the Democratic machine here. You couldn't get anyone else elected if you tried. Guess who writes the rules?
So much for sweeping most of them out of power. That sort of thing always takes guns. It isn't worth it.
2. More processes for voicing your concerns to your representatives (I have yet to flesh this one out) Right. That's what PACs are supposed to do, but they frequently don't. You have to put the common citizenry on a level playing field with corporations if you want a government that is anything other than a thinly veiled plutocracy.
The problem is, poorer folk need to work, they need to eat. They don't have time to take up full time pro bono lobbying work to compete with corporate interests. I don't think it's practical to ban the corporations, so we need a system which levels the playing field for the common man.
Groups like EFF, featured in this article, are a nice start. I donate to them. I vote with my money, as well as at the booths.
3. Find a way to reign in the media companies so they are not such big propagandist entities (i.e. remove the profit motive in journalism). Well, others have tried to remove capitalism, but I don't think socializing journalism will help. Why? Back on topic. Look at what happened here. This person (daTruthSquad) blogged, the government immediately wants his I.D. because they don't like what he said. In fact, they're acting as if they're entitled to it.
So what happens when the government controls the incentives and therefore owns the press? Pravda and/or Fox News. Take your pick. This guy would have been quietly identified and blackballed in his neighborhood, if he even had access to publication. Information control always leads to totalitarianism. Whenever anyone says, "I need all the information," in the grave manner that our government has, I wonder if someone doesn't have a "God complex."
You have to an incentive system independent of the government, but backed by it (U.S. treasury), or government becomes "Big Brother." As soon as the treasury becomes the source of the power, instead of a guarantee of stability for all, its all over. It's been a long time since anyone in the U.S. government seemed like they wanted to do anything other than make a splash or pick a fight. The media circus is affecting the way politicians behave. They're supposed to be setting policy for stability, or to correct serious problems. Stability and the status quo are different animals, of course, as are a gentle walk and a funeral.
The "profit motive" is the best independent system we've got, and it's getting pretty well inbred with the government at this point. People don't understand well enough how to vote with their dollars.
I support the EFF. They aren't perfect, but they're better than no defense at all.
This apathy and ignorance is probably the biggest slap to the face to the founders of this country, even moreso than the current administrations' abuses of the constitution. Yup. And any time we "refuse to discuss politics because it's stupid or biased or subjective," or claim that "all politicians are crooks," "nothing is done right in Washington" we add to that apathy, and turn more fully towards a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Everyone telling you that any whole party in Washington is a cadre of crooks is, in fact, a crook trying to get you to surrender your political power. There are a few crooks, quite a few, but on the whole, many more of them do just as we ask them to, and their best despite that. We have the government that meets our superficial apathetic attitudes towards all things political.
(*gets on soapbox*)
My fellow Americans, do what you do best. Follow the money. There's several trillion dollars per annum tied up in politics, and all that money equals vast power. If we want our country back, we need to put politics back on the table, and drop this 1960's attitude that politics are for weenies and crooks. Politics are important and it is our civic duty to discuss the "State of the Union." All the corporations with lobbyists at Washington know this. We don't bother, because discussions about politics are "unsavory" and politicians are "worthless."
The hippies were wrong. All the governments they formed have faded, or been incorporated. This huge government is still getting larger, and it is critical that its people demand its service.
Sure, we might get into fist fights over it at a party, but everyone needs to put politics back on the table. Now. Fist fights be damned.
Actually, he may be right. A lot of stuff gets lost in a format conversion, for instance. Things like ODF (for example) may be the worst thing that could possibly happen to us!
Proprietary formats and planned obsolescence for privacy. Run that data into ribbons on a triannual basis. A stable, uniform protocol is the enemy of the free. Join the movement!
All this is is a cheap and easy pretext to collect a set of records, and key them to a field (like SSN or passport), of people who "might have been influenced by foreigners."
Combined with the databases our government surely receives from corporate commerce and communications companies, they could have a Nixon-era "dissident" file at their fingertips for any of these people. Just for leaving the country. All they need is the pretext. This is that pretext.
There are no limitations on the data mining that could take place afterward. We need legal limitations on data mining. We need to stop taking names down for no reason.
Are you making international calls? Are you *leaving* the country? If this is put in place, you are affected.
Those who would implement such a program are building an invisible prison of data. It's as bad as the "iron curtain." Anyone who cares to broaden their mind, or look to the horizon will be tracked. This must not be allowed to continue. It is not paranoia to demand stringent privacy legislation and limitations on database merging, with severe penalties to discourage malfeasance, to protect our essential liberties.
...was a thought experiment, meant to ironically show what kind of BS this sort of thing is.
If you pump the box full of poison gas, the cat is f-ing dead, whether you've observed it or not. Schrodinger got a chuckle out of it.
Quantum mechanics says that the cat is not necessarily dead until it is observed, but that doesn't make it fact. It means that's a useful way to think about it under certain circumstances.
In absence of a natural phenomenon, like a clogged gas hose, that cat is dead. If we checked the relatively simple delivery system, the "experiment" merely points out a fundamental flaw in quantum mechanics.
In quantum physics, where the systems are difficult to observe, or unexplained, we can't "check the hose for blockage," and so we must assume that we don't know.
So this isn't a science report, it's a psychology workup.
There's a difference between saying a method is successful or useful, and saying that it explains everything down to the point that we are little gods affecting the universe.
The universe was going to poop out whether they detected "dark energy" or not. Their seeing it doesn't make the outcome more likely. It does, however, make the math work so that the predictions are now much more dire. All they're reporting is their own awareness.
Interesting. I wonder what would have happened had Bob Dylan gone after Jimi Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower?" Would Jimi have had to pull his far superior interpretation off the shelves? Would Dylan have had to have Jimi's permission to perform it the way Jimi did it?
BTW, I think you're mistaken in your concept of derivative works as pertains to music. I don't believe that covers things like tempo and style. You have to be significantly different to produce a derivative work. What is significant is determined in a court. A sample often doesn't even count unless it is determined to be the full basis of the song.
If you were correct, then every cover song ever made would be a lockstep with previous versions, and that clearly isn't the case.
Point is, if you want to make music that way, you had better retain a lawyer and have the money to defend yourself, however. The current status quo can change, in the same way it changed for casual copies of music amongst fans. If it does change, it will have a chilling effect.
If that's really a repeating issue on his box, and folks aren't reporting similar experiences because you "can't return video games," then establishing a class is the way to make sure anyone with problems can jump on the bandwagon. It lowers the barrier to file suit, in the same way that corporations have had that barrier lowered, vis-a-vis bulk subpoena provisions in the DMCA.
The result of lowering the barrier to file is always that more people file.
This could turn grave for MS and Bungie very quickly, even if the problem is strictly Xbox360 hardware. If Halo 3 taxes that hardware to it's limits, and the CPU/GPU has cooling problems, it would cause exactly what the plaintiff describes.
Class action is every service provider's worst nightmare. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
Bingo. If there's money to be made, it's in providing a premium product to the wealthy connoisseur for money they are willing to spend. The new market for such riches is more like Mozart's time, where you had a court composer.
Honestly, I like this scenario, but the folks in L.A. are sweating bullets. Thanks for sticking with me. You were right on about the money and value of the equipment. I've added you to my "friends" list.
This is starting to sound a little like medieval astronomers arguing about a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicycle"]epicycles[/a]. We've got a lot more knowledge, but the folks in our future may look at these debates the same way.
I wonder what new breakthrough will render these discussions unnecessary. This isn't bad science, but it's very possible we've got a bad theory somewhere in need of tweaking.
Leopard's first-release flaws were caught by early-adopter users and fixed right away by Apple, they are already history. That kind of platform management is completely missing from Microsoft's releases. That is probably due to the fact that Apple tightly controls the potential hardware platforms that will run Leopard. It's considerable harder when you have to run on anything from a Xeon server to a commodity parts homebrew.
I'm not apologizing for Vista. It sounds awful, near as I can tell. It's just obvious that the variety of hardware it runs on will make "fixing" it several orders of magnitude more difficult. In fact, the biggest problem with Vista right now seems to be that if you have a "bad" combination of hardware, it runs like a disaster, while it's at least adequate (and pretty! don't forget the "Wow!" Ugh. OS makeovers) on many newer hardware configurations.
I don't know who dropped the ball at Microsoft, but it is considerably harder to pick up because of its size. That's a lot of hardware people expect to "just work."
Absolutely. I'm a musician. Most of the pop that sells big these days is not really all that musically interesting. You can't produce really meaningful music on that $500 dollar box, but you can produce a lot of the stuff that sells (currently), and so it is inherently cheapened as a "business opportunity."
As you said. I could make a fair buck with it.
But if someone wants to produce something that I, personally, would ever want to listen to, the producer will frequently need the million dollar studio, with an acoustically engineered space and quality recording equipment. Techno's about the only exception to that rule.
Hope you see this, because I fundamentally agree with you. We're just making different points.
I can basically do Decca Records circa 1934, or Motown circa 1965, on a $500 machine, right now. Not the masters, of course, but the end product that everyone listened to and loved. That's what I meant.
Nobody cares about the lost fidelity. Damn few can hear it. I happen to be one of those who can, but that doesn't mean that I'm blind to the realities of the popular music market. They're compressing most of the fidelity out of modern pop recordings now, precisely because people can't hear the difference.
Didn't the word "pressing" tip you off? Or perhaps you skipped over the words used to be. Re-read it. I was thinking of a studio and record pressing run circa 1965, played back on the technology of the age or through a transistor radio.
I can absolutely produce that sound on $500 worth of equipment.
A testament that not even megacorps can always buy/use laws against the people. Oh, they proved they can buy the laws (the Congress), and they even bought the DOJ, but you can't buy every judge.
Score one for the Judiciary, and the concept of checks and balances amongst three branches of government, that are organized in different ways and are not monolithic.
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain
The imagery of the linked article is a deliberate and polemic assault designed to take Wiki down, and rob it of all credibility. He is trying to make a bunch of milquetoast intellectuals sound like "Dr. Evil." If you didn't read the article, you won't understand why I'm upset with this crap.
The article is not a reasoned complaint, it's a hit job.
--
Toro
Hey, whoa pardner. I'm not the one with the "all or nothing" attitude. There are plenty of people saying that this "scandal" somehow affects every article on Wikipedia, even the ones on the boiling point of water, and that is mostly because they have an agenda to take it all down.
They don't like the idea of Wikipedia, or they are natural conspiracy theorists who think all power and centralized control is evil, and are willing to take Wiki down in their cause to reform it on an idealistic model of total anarchy, which anyone with a lick of sense knows wouldn't work, as evidenced by the vandalism problems Wikipedia has had.
I don't want to see that agenda served. I think Wikipedia is a good idea, but it was inchoate, as all good ideas are, and they need time and balance to sort out the problems with that idea, without someone screeching "totalitarian" at what is little more than a bunch of snotty intellectuals with little to no PR experience and/or tact.
Though they failed to mention Nazis, I am calling "Godwin" on the whole bit. I agree with you. It needs to be worked with, and praised for what it is, not assaulted.
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Toro
Yes, but is this relevant to 85% of the body of work? Do we really need to throw the word "totalitarian" around, or "black helicopters?" Jeez.
News flash! The Register has less credibility than Wiki, if only for this idiotic smear job.
In defense of Wikipedia: Sure, Wikipedia has its corruptions and its problems, but so does any other human endeavor.
Point is, it is a useful source of information. If you don't have the critical skills to determine where it is not useful, you should ask your Mom for help in using it.
I'd hate for Wikipedia to be taken down over some scandal. These shrill articles about "corruption" are really rather childish. Wikipedia has made no claims to be a superior source of information. There's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater here.
I find it to be an excellent source for non-politicized information, and this will continue to be the case, regardless of administrative difficulties, so long as Wikipedia is given the chance to survive this tabloid "scandal sheet" coverage of its staff.
Let's not fan the flames, and that is what the linked article is: a flame. Don't do this to the staff of Wikipedia just because you may think they are "a bit snotty."
--
Toro
In a security situation, despite how obvious this was, it's important not to spill the beans on exactly how it was done.
It's the difference between, "can be hacked with a few lines of Perl," and listing the script out so that any script kiddie can do it.
There may be states with laws and certifications processes not as stringent as California still using these devices. Best not to tell everyone precisely how to break into them. I hope other states will insist that their machines be retooled, but that might drive this company out of business, and then they have to repurchase all of their machines without a likelihood of getting their money back.
Best to keep it vague. You'd probably look at the lock and say, "Gee, I bet I could get in with a paper clip." They're not concerned about you. They're worried about giving a 15-year-old explicit instructions on how to hard hack some other state's machines.
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Toro
I am aware that false confessions are frequently solicited, that prosecutors bury such things, and that strong rights are the only defense against corrupt authority figures. All people in authority must be held accountable by the people who grant them that authority. I am not claiming that we have "too much" freedom, just that an unqualified, "I can say whatever the fuck I want" (your words) is a bit more than the law allows. ;^)
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Toro
Yes. And you would then be subject to what is known as a "reasonable person" litmus test, and if the jury decided that your assessment was "unreasonable," you would still go down for incitement, and whatever consequences occurred, up to, and including manslaughter.
Similarly, you could go around beating the crap out of people after yelling "Oh my god, he's got a gun!" but if one of them pressed charges, chances are you'd go down for battery.
But it's still your best defense. That was hilarious. No one in their right mind would mount a first amendment defense against incitement charges in such a situation. There is no Constitutional crisis, just an illustration that not all speech is protected.
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Toro
The first and fifth amendments to the United states constitution both apply here.
1. I can say whatever the fuck I want, without worrying about the consequences of doing so, because, damnit, it's absolutely necessary to preserve my other rights. Bullshit.
Fire. Crowded theatre. No fire. People get trampled.
You order a hit. You go down for murder, even though all you did was speak.
Your right to free speech is always weighed against other intrinsic rights ("life" being a legal trump), and if you stomp all over the essential liberties of others ("I think we should BURN THIS TOWN DOWN!") you will be held accountable, as a point of fact, and a point of Con law. 5. My words cannot be used against me in any court of law. Bullshit. Have you never heard of a confession? What if you get recorded ordering that hit? You can not be compelled to testify. If you do so voluntarily, or unwittingly through a legal recording, it can absolutely be used against you.
That's why the man in blue says: "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
IANAL. I learned this in high school civics. Your grasp of U.S. law is appalling.
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Toro
Awesome. It's about time data mining served the people.
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Toro
But unless you or I can figure out a pithy summary that could inflame the citizenry to demand a reversal of this subtle point of law, and it is so subtle that many people miss it (if they even care), there's no way to gain traction. Maybe you or I will run for office some day, but if we win, it is hard to amend a broken system when you are part of it.
The only other option would be to create a public foundation called, for illustration, "People First" demanding that the status quo be that individuals' rights always be greater than entity rights. Populism is currently being dismantled, if you haven't noticed.
Good luck finding anyone to fund such an organization, because anyone with money enough is part of the status quo. It doesn't look good. There are four or five consecutive "catch 22's" in effectively reversing such an ingrained precedent.
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Toro
At this point, 85% of the House of Representatives is by virtual appointment. I've taken to calling them the "House of Rabble." You should see the mouth-breather from my district, and the district next door, permanent fixtures of the Democratic machine here. You couldn't get anyone else elected if you tried. Guess who writes the rules?
So much for sweeping most of them out of power. That sort of thing always takes guns. It isn't worth it. 2. More processes for voicing your concerns to your representatives (I have yet to flesh this one out) Right. That's what PACs are supposed to do, but they frequently don't. You have to put the common citizenry on a level playing field with corporations if you want a government that is anything other than a thinly veiled plutocracy.
The problem is, poorer folk need to work, they need to eat. They don't have time to take up full time pro bono lobbying work to compete with corporate interests. I don't think it's practical to ban the corporations, so we need a system which levels the playing field for the common man.
Groups like EFF, featured in this article, are a nice start. I donate to them. I vote with my money, as well as at the booths. 3. Find a way to reign in the media companies so they are not such big propagandist entities (i.e. remove the profit motive in journalism). Well, others have tried to remove capitalism, but I don't think socializing journalism will help. Why? Back on topic. Look at what happened here. This person (daTruthSquad) blogged, the government immediately wants his I.D. because they don't like what he said. In fact, they're acting as if they're entitled to it.
So what happens when the government controls the incentives and therefore owns the press? Pravda and/or Fox News. Take your pick. This guy would have been quietly identified and blackballed in his neighborhood, if he even had access to publication. Information control always leads to totalitarianism. Whenever anyone says, "I need all the information," in the grave manner that our government has, I wonder if someone doesn't have a "God complex."
You have to an incentive system independent of the government, but backed by it (U.S. treasury), or government becomes "Big Brother." As soon as the treasury becomes the source of the power, instead of a guarantee of stability for all, its all over. It's been a long time since anyone in the U.S. government seemed like they wanted to do anything other than make a splash or pick a fight. The media circus is affecting the way politicians behave. They're supposed to be setting policy for stability, or to correct serious problems. Stability and the status quo are different animals, of course, as are a gentle walk and a funeral.
The "profit motive" is the best independent system we've got, and it's getting pretty well inbred with the government at this point. People don't understand well enough how to vote with their dollars.
I support the EFF. They aren't perfect, but they're better than no defense at all.
--
Toro
Everyone telling you that any whole party in Washington is a cadre of crooks is, in fact, a crook trying to get you to surrender your political power. There are a few crooks, quite a few, but on the whole, many more of them do just as we ask them to, and their best despite that. We have the government that meets our superficial apathetic attitudes towards all things political.
(*gets on soapbox*)
My fellow Americans, do what you do best. Follow the money. There's several trillion dollars per annum tied up in politics, and all that money equals vast power. If we want our country back, we need to put politics back on the table, and drop this 1960's attitude that politics are for weenies and crooks. Politics are important and it is our civic duty to discuss the "State of the Union." All the corporations with lobbyists at Washington know this. We don't bother, because discussions about politics are "unsavory" and politicians are "worthless."
The hippies were wrong. All the governments they formed have faded, or been incorporated. This huge government is still getting larger, and it is critical that its people demand its service.
Sure, we might get into fist fights over it at a party, but everyone needs to put politics back on the table. Now. Fist fights be damned.
--
Toro
Actually, he may be right. A lot of stuff gets lost in a format conversion, for instance. Things like ODF (for example) may be the worst thing that could possibly happen to us!
Proprietary formats and planned obsolescence for privacy. Run that data into ribbons on a triannual basis. A stable, uniform protocol is the enemy of the free. Join the movement!
(*tongue planted firmly in cheek*)
--
Toro
All this is is a cheap and easy pretext to collect a set of records, and key them to a field (like SSN or passport), of people who "might have been influenced by foreigners."
Combined with the databases our government surely receives from corporate commerce and communications companies, they could have a Nixon-era "dissident" file at their fingertips for any of these people. Just for leaving the country. All they need is the pretext. This is that pretext.
There are no limitations on the data mining that could take place afterward. We need legal limitations on data mining. We need to stop taking names down for no reason.
Are you making international calls? Are you *leaving* the country? If this is put in place, you are affected.
Those who would implement such a program are building an invisible prison of data. It's as bad as the "iron curtain." Anyone who cares to broaden their mind, or look to the horizon will be tracked. This must not be allowed to continue. It is not paranoia to demand stringent privacy legislation and limitations on database merging, with severe penalties to discourage malfeasance, to protect our essential liberties.
--
Toro
...was a thought experiment, meant to ironically show what kind of BS this sort of thing is.
If you pump the box full of poison gas, the cat is f-ing dead, whether you've observed it or not. Schrodinger got a chuckle out of it.
Quantum mechanics says that the cat is not necessarily dead until it is observed, but that doesn't make it fact. It means that's a useful way to think about it under certain circumstances.
In absence of a natural phenomenon, like a clogged gas hose, that cat is dead. If we checked the relatively simple delivery system, the "experiment" merely points out a fundamental flaw in quantum mechanics.
In quantum physics, where the systems are difficult to observe, or unexplained, we can't "check the hose for blockage," and so we must assume that we don't know.
So this isn't a science report, it's a psychology workup.
There's a difference between saying a method is successful or useful, and saying that it explains everything down to the point that we are little gods affecting the universe.
The universe was going to poop out whether they detected "dark energy" or not. Their seeing it doesn't make the outcome more likely. It does, however, make the math work so that the predictions are now much more dire. All they're reporting is their own awareness.
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Toro
I'm with you. TPM was the best of the new crop, and was better than Jedi by an order of magnitude. I liked it.
Dead horses had it much better before the Internet.
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Toro
Interesting. I wonder what would have happened had Bob Dylan gone after Jimi Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower?" Would Jimi have had to pull his far superior interpretation off the shelves? Would Dylan have had to have Jimi's permission to perform it the way Jimi did it?
BTW, I think you're mistaken in your concept of derivative works as pertains to music. I don't believe that covers things like tempo and style. You have to be significantly different to produce a derivative work. What is significant is determined in a court. A sample often doesn't even count unless it is determined to be the full basis of the song.
If you were correct, then every cover song ever made would be a lockstep with previous versions, and that clearly isn't the case.
Point is, if you want to make music that way, you had better retain a lawyer and have the money to defend yourself, however. The current status quo can change, in the same way it changed for casual copies of music amongst fans. If it does change, it will have a chilling effect.
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Toro
If that's really a repeating issue on his box, and folks aren't reporting similar experiences because you "can't return video games," then establishing a class is the way to make sure anyone with problems can jump on the bandwagon. It lowers the barrier to file suit, in the same way that corporations have had that barrier lowered, vis-a-vis bulk subpoena provisions in the DMCA.
The result of lowering the barrier to file is always that more people file.
This could turn grave for MS and Bungie very quickly, even if the problem is strictly Xbox360 hardware. If Halo 3 taxes that hardware to it's limits, and the CPU/GPU has cooling problems, it would cause exactly what the plaintiff describes.
Class action is every service provider's worst nightmare. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
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Toro
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Toro
Bingo. If there's money to be made, it's in providing a premium product to the wealthy connoisseur for money they are willing to spend. The new market for such riches is more like Mozart's time, where you had a court composer.
Honestly, I like this scenario, but the folks in L.A. are sweating bullets. Thanks for sticking with me. You were right on about the money and value of the equipment. I've added you to my "friends" list.
This is starting to sound a little like medieval astronomers arguing about a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicycle"]epicycles[/a]. We've got a lot more knowledge, but the folks in our future may look at these debates the same way.
I wonder what new breakthrough will render these discussions unnecessary. This isn't bad science, but it's very possible we've got a bad theory somewhere in need of tweaking.
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Toro
For my 5-year-old, Sesame Street is a "sometimes show" because of the politically correct dopes who run the CTW.
Jim Henson is spinning in his grave.
Bitterly Yours,
Oscar the Grouch and Slimy
I'm not apologizing for Vista. It sounds awful, near as I can tell. It's just obvious that the variety of hardware it runs on will make "fixing" it several orders of magnitude more difficult. In fact, the biggest problem with Vista right now seems to be that if you have a "bad" combination of hardware, it runs like a disaster, while it's at least adequate (and pretty! don't forget the "Wow!" Ugh. OS makeovers) on many newer hardware configurations.
I don't know who dropped the ball at Microsoft, but it is considerably harder to pick up because of its size. That's a lot of hardware people expect to "just work."
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Toro
Absolutely. I'm a musician. Most of the pop that sells big these days is not really all that musically interesting. You can't produce really meaningful music on that $500 dollar box, but you can produce a lot of the stuff that sells (currently), and so it is inherently cheapened as a "business opportunity."
As you said. I could make a fair buck with it.
But if someone wants to produce something that I, personally, would ever want to listen to, the producer will frequently need the million dollar studio, with an acoustically engineered space and quality recording equipment. Techno's about the only exception to that rule.
Hope you see this, because I fundamentally agree with you. We're just making different points.
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Toro
I can basically do Decca Records circa 1934, or Motown circa 1965, on a $500 machine, right now. Not the masters, of course, but the end product that everyone listened to and loved. That's what I meant.
Nobody cares about the lost fidelity. Damn few can hear it. I happen to be one of those who can, but that doesn't mean that I'm blind to the realities of the popular music market. They're compressing most of the fidelity out of modern pop recordings now, precisely because people can't hear the difference.
Didn't the word "pressing" tip you off? Or perhaps you skipped over the words used to be. Re-read it. I was thinking of a studio and record pressing run circa 1965, played back on the technology of the age or through a transistor radio.
I can absolutely produce that sound on $500 worth of equipment.
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Toro
Score one for the Judiciary, and the concept of checks and balances amongst three branches of government, that are organized in different ways and are not monolithic.
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Toro