I disagree that patent and copyright laws are anachronistic. It would be true to say, however, that the current form of them is not what their creators meant them to be.
There are actually two issues here. The first is how much patent and copyright laws represent what the inventors of them intended. e.g. the original intent of copyright was state control of what could be published. (Probably with lots of lobbying by clerics who had, prior to the printing press, a monopoly on producing copies of books.) The second issue is what purposes such things could reasonably serve now.
Certainly doesn't seem that way on a map - but most map projections are incredibly deceiving.
Especially near the poles. With the exception of the "Peter's Projection" which is specifically intended to maintain relative areas. Though the only accurate form of map is a globe.
What happens if they release it unlocked but with French language update files only?
That does not sound too wrong - after all its a version specifically for the French, why would they need to cater for other languages?
For one thing the distribution of native french speakers, in Europe, does not correspond to the borders of France...
There are dozens of countries in Europe and the iPhone has been announced in three (including France). So I'm not sure what you mean by the French getting the phone last?
But rather less than that when you figure in either the EU (which has multiple treaties forbidding the sort of thing Apple is doing) or the Euro-Zone (one common currency). It's very unlikely that Apple won't get badly burned for what they are doing.
It isn't. But guessing at random stuff out of ignorance and then blacklisting anyone who fits your completely stupid profile, and then claiming it is statistical data modeling IS wrong.
Wrong in the sense that it is bad/pointless/counter productive. It probably actually is "statistical data modeling", just that the GIGO principle applies. However good your model in a statistical or algorithmic sense it dosn't matter if it is based on nonsense, bigotry or half baked conspiracy theories.
it means REAL terrorists are more likely to be successful because you've just wasted finite resources on pursuing stupidity.
If they have half a brain they can actually turn most forms of profiling to their advantage. No doubt the majority of potential terrorists welcome the current "war on terror" with it's associated obsession with Islam. For the simple reason that the majority of terrorists arn't Muslims. Thus with the police all busy watching the nearest Mosque they have more time to attack abortion clinics, beat up gays, let dangerous animals loose or whatever else they feel like inflicting if their political demands arn't met.
Why is it wrong to use statistics and data modeling to predict how to protect yourself?
It helps if the statistics used are sound and rational. e.g. for law enforcement to attempt to identify criminals based on what foods they buy you first need to identify if there are food buying patterns which are unique to criminals. AFAIK no research has been done to find out if such patterns even exist. Thus the whole thing is pointless and it would be a far better idea to concentrate on law enforcement techniques which are actually proven to be of some use.
Well, if you're not eating good Christian foods of good Texas beef and pork and Idaho potatoes, then you obviously support terrorism. Eating kebabs and lebni shows that you support the murder of 20,000 2,000 Jewish-American businessmen at ground zero on Nine-Eleven, Oh-One.
Things don't look too good for the American Lamb Boar...
The situation is different for Chinese and Middle Eastern food: communists don't have any clearly identifiable food preferences, but religiously conservative Muslims do.
AFAIK this preference is only by omission. If someone dosn't buy X at shop Y that could just as easily mean that they don't like it or they buy it somewhere else. (Things get even more complicated where you have more than one person in a household buying food.) Even if you find out that someone is a religiously conservative Muslim is there actually any reason for assuming that they are more likely to be a criminal than anyone else? If law enforcement is going to target a specific group of people first it needs to be demonstrated that the group in question has a higher proportion of criminals than the general population. It would probably make more sense for the FBI to routinely investigate members of Congress. Given that Mark Twain's quip appears to have some basis in fact.
The Irish nationalists, en masse, embraced "Irish Culture". The Irish language, folk music, old celtic art, stories, etc, etc. Things that most people in the republic wouldn't be caught dead at anymore.
Possibly some of it wasn't even authenic in the first place, it is fairly common for people embracing a "tradition" to invent a a fair few things. No doubt Irish-Americans in the US also have "Irish" traditions which never happened anywhere in Europe.
I encounter an awful lot of products that are labeled in English and French. That is not because of unprecedented levels of illegal immigration from France. The vendor wanted one product that could be stocked on store shelves anywhere in North America, and in Quebec, they speak French.
You'd expect them also to be labled in Spanish. English, French and Spanish would cover virtually all of North America, indeed all of the Americas with the exception of Brazil...
Of course, the FBI should probably be used to such rebukes as they've collected a countless number of them over the past forty years.
Incompetent law enforcement may well be worst than none at all.
Don't forget, those clowns at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (what a misnomer that is!) sat on the major tipoff to the (alleged) anthrax assassin for over eight months - and this was after 9/11/01!!!!
Probably because the best actual suspect in no way fitted the "mad muslim" stereotype. A common problem with the FBI appears to be political interference with any actual investigation.
The whole FBI story sounds like they are trying to generate a boogey man where there is none (gotta keep that budget fat!).
Maybe someone needs to patent the business model of making up daft conspiracy theories to get public money....
Iran and Hezbollah's focus isn't global but regional. If they have agents in the US it would most likely be for political or for fund raising reasons, not terrorism.
Or spys to find out when weapons shipments are being made, considering where a large proportion of the munitions dropped on Lebanon came from.
Why not just say anyone of middle-eastern descent is automatically a threat?
Because that would include Israelis, which just wouldn't be on. Especially as "middle-eastern" is the code word used in the US media for an Israeli caught doing something illegal/terrorist related. As opposed to "arab" which is the equivalent code word for someone from that part of the word who is not an Israeli. To add to any possible confusion (especially to US "journalists") this was a conspiracy theory about Persians.
Where in the article was the word "bribe" used? Microsoft claims they're operating under US and international law, and they have pretty fucking good lawyers, so I'd be extremely surprised if they're actually violating any known bribery laws.
But possibly poor geographers. Otherwise they'd have realised that Nigerian applied here.
There is more than just law enforcement that is interested in the contents. BSA, RIAA and MPAA are the ones I was not mentioning by name. The US post office can open your mail.. But there is a huge red tape procedure to follow. X-ray is one thing to look for explosives. Opening every letter to see if it has the lyrics of a popular song by the RIAA is not permitted by the post office.
This kind of "red tape" has the advantage that it tends to keep investigators focussed. If they have get a warrent (and preferably have it renewed every X days by a different judge/magistate than whoever originally issued it/last renewed it) then such searching will only happen when there real cause. If it's unnecessary to get a warrent (or one will be granted trivially) then investigators will only persue "small fry" in order to "make their quota" (be it of investigations, "busts", arrests, etc).
Inspecting every letter by the DHS for bomb plans is also not permitted, except electronic mail.
Unless the email is encrypted... The thing is that criminals looking for ways to commit fraud/blackmail/etc (including those who work for law enforcement) are much more common than any kind of terrorist (let alone the subset who do things like bombings/shootings in public places; releasing dangerous animals or other things likely to endanger the public).
Anyway, a good part of the cost of a product is related to development. Creating new technologies is expensive. Several other costs don't scale directly with the number of items. So the greater the production, the smaller the cost per unit.
Also building a plant of manufacture something together getting it up and running can be a high initial expense.
In any case, those people who obtained pirate copies often have a superior experience to legit buyers.
DRM more or less ensures that this is the case (if the "pirate copy" is free then that is a bonus). The pirate version would have to be very poor for the DRMed version to even get a look in.
All this does is encourage more piracy.
Which is something the advocates of DRM just don't get...
Unless one specifically indicates to -one- firm at a time that they don't mind and might even like to be called about their latest news/offers (ala email/newsletters)?
Probably by something a little more explicit than ticking/not ticking a tiny box. It also needs to be made clear that giving a business a telephone number so that they can respond to a specific query does not give them any cause to call that number for something completely unrelated.
You might also note: companies are no allowed to drive around at 1am with a giant bullhorn aimed at homes, selling their products. CENSORSHIP!?!? No.
More likely they couldn't find anyone prepared to do the job. Especially after the first few angry (and sleep deprived) mobs. Whereas with someone doing the same by telephone you can't do much to retaliate.
A company like Dell probably doesn't write device drivers. They just ship whatever drivers their suppliers ship, possibly with some customizations. However, those device manufacturers don't care about anything but the UX of their particular device. When the device manufacturer doesn't care that the user can only use the device's UI as admin or it doesn't always sleep, they won't test for those things, and the device is likely to have a UI that only works as admin and sometimes make the computer fail to sleep.
Under Windows you can also find "drivers" which arn't purely drivers. e.g. graphics and sound card drivers installing applets which are often, but not always, pointless.
That's how patents are supposed to work: in return for the temporary protection of a patent, you have to reveal exactly how your invention works in the patent application, so that everyone can copy it once the patent has run out.
Maybe patent applications should be examined by qualified people to see if they can be implimented using only the information supplied in the application together with that already in the public domain.
The problem is that the politicians (and the public) have gotten "hard on crime" confused with "hard on criminals".
Actually both appear to have been confused with "pass more laws".
What should be a serious effort to do things that reduce crime have been turned into throwing away tons of cash and resources on what amounts to little more than revenge, with just about as much to show for it.
Could it be that either these people don't actually know how to reduce crime. Together with things such as allowing honest people to carry concealed weapons, elimination prohibition as a method of "drug control", etc just not being politically correct.
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I disagree that patent and copyright laws are anachronistic. It would be true to say, however, that the current form of them is not what their creators meant them to be.
There are actually two issues here. The first is how much patent and copyright laws represent what the inventors of them intended. e.g. the original intent of copyright was state control of what could be published. (Probably with lots of lobbying by clerics who had, prior to the printing press, a monopoly on producing copies of books.)
The second issue is what purposes such things could reasonably serve now.
Certainly doesn't seem that way on a map - but most map projections are incredibly deceiving.
Especially near the poles. With the exception of the "Peter's Projection" which is specifically intended to maintain relative areas. Though the only accurate form of map is a globe.
What happens if they release it unlocked but with French language update files only? That does not sound too wrong - after all its a version specifically for the French, why would they need to cater for other languages?
For one thing the distribution of native french speakers, in Europe, does not correspond to the borders of France...
There are dozens of countries in Europe and the iPhone has been announced in three (including France). So I'm not sure what you mean by the French getting the phone last?
But rather less than that when you figure in either the EU (which has multiple treaties forbidding the sort of thing Apple is doing) or the Euro-Zone (one common currency).
It's very unlikely that Apple won't get badly burned for what they are doing.
It isn't. But guessing at random stuff out of ignorance and then blacklisting anyone who fits your completely stupid profile, and then claiming it is statistical data modeling IS wrong.
Wrong in the sense that it is bad/pointless/counter productive. It probably actually is "statistical data modeling", just that the GIGO principle applies. However good your model in a statistical or algorithmic sense it dosn't matter if it is based on nonsense, bigotry or half baked conspiracy theories.
it means REAL terrorists are more likely to be successful because you've just wasted finite resources on pursuing stupidity.
If they have half a brain they can actually turn most forms of profiling to their advantage.
No doubt the majority of potential terrorists welcome the current "war on terror" with it's associated obsession with Islam. For the simple reason that the majority of terrorists arn't Muslims. Thus with the police all busy watching the nearest Mosque they have more time to attack abortion clinics, beat up gays, let dangerous animals loose or whatever else they feel like inflicting if their political demands arn't met.
Why is it wrong to use statistics and data modeling to predict how to protect yourself?
It helps if the statistics used are sound and rational. e.g. for law enforcement to attempt to identify criminals based on what foods they buy you first need to identify if there are food buying patterns which are unique to criminals. AFAIK no research has been done to find out if such patterns even exist. Thus the whole thing is pointless and it would be a far better idea to concentrate on law enforcement techniques which are actually proven to be of some use.
Well, if you're not eating good Christian foods of good Texas beef and pork and Idaho potatoes, then you obviously support terrorism. Eating kebabs and lebni shows that you support the murder of 20,000 2,000 Jewish-American businessmen at ground zero on Nine-Eleven, Oh-One.
Things don't look too good for the American Lamb Boar...
The situation is different for Chinese and Middle Eastern food: communists don't have any clearly identifiable food preferences, but religiously conservative Muslims do.
AFAIK this preference is only by omission. If someone dosn't buy X at shop Y that could just as easily mean that they don't like it or they buy it somewhere else. (Things get even more complicated where you have more than one person in a household buying food.)
Even if you find out that someone is a religiously conservative Muslim is there actually any reason for assuming that they are more likely to be a criminal than anyone else? If law enforcement is going to target a specific group of people first it needs to be demonstrated that the group in question has a higher proportion of criminals than the general population.
It would probably make more sense for the FBI to routinely investigate members of Congress. Given that Mark Twain's quip appears to have some basis in fact.
The Irish nationalists, en masse, embraced "Irish Culture". The Irish language, folk music, old celtic art, stories, etc, etc. Things that most people in the republic wouldn't be caught dead at anymore.
Possibly some of it wasn't even authenic in the first place, it is fairly common for people embracing a "tradition" to invent a a fair few things. No doubt Irish-Americans in the US also have "Irish" traditions which never happened anywhere in Europe.
I encounter an awful lot of products that are labeled in English and French. That is not because of unprecedented levels of illegal immigration from France. The vendor wanted one product that could be stocked on store shelves anywhere in North America, and in Quebec, they speak French.
You'd expect them also to be labled in Spanish. English, French and Spanish would cover virtually all of North America, indeed all of the Americas with the exception of Brazil...
Of course, the FBI should probably be used to such rebukes as they've collected a countless number of them over the past forty years.
Incompetent law enforcement may well be worst than none at all.
Don't forget, those clowns at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (what a misnomer that is!) sat on the major tipoff to the (alleged) anthrax assassin for over eight months - and this was after 9/11/01!!!!
Probably because the best actual suspect in no way fitted the "mad muslim" stereotype. A common problem with the FBI appears to be political interference with any actual investigation.
The whole FBI story sounds like they are trying to generate a boogey man where there is none (gotta keep that budget fat!).
Maybe someone needs to patent the business model of making up daft conspiracy theories to get public money....
Iran and Hezbollah's focus isn't global but regional. If they have agents in the US it would most likely be for political or for fund raising reasons, not terrorism.
Or spys to find out when weapons shipments are being made, considering where a large proportion of the munitions dropped on Lebanon came from.
Why not just say anyone of middle-eastern descent is automatically a threat?
Because that would include Israelis, which just wouldn't be on. Especially as "middle-eastern" is the code word used in the US media for an Israeli caught doing something illegal/terrorist related. As opposed to "arab" which is the equivalent code word for someone from that part of the word who is not an Israeli.
To add to any possible confusion (especially to US "journalists") this was a conspiracy theory about Persians.
Where in the article was the word "bribe" used? Microsoft claims they're operating under US and international law, and they have pretty fucking good lawyers, so I'd be extremely surprised if they're actually violating any known bribery laws.
But possibly poor geographers. Otherwise they'd have realised that Nigerian applied here.
There is more than just law enforcement that is interested in the contents. BSA, RIAA and MPAA are the ones I was not mentioning by name. The US post office can open your mail.. But there is a huge red tape procedure to follow. X-ray is one thing to look for explosives. Opening every letter to see if it has the lyrics of a popular song by the RIAA is not permitted by the post office.
This kind of "red tape" has the advantage that it tends to keep investigators focussed. If they have get a warrent (and preferably have it renewed every X days by a different judge/magistate than whoever originally issued it/last renewed it) then such searching will only happen when there real cause. If it's unnecessary to get a warrent (or one will be granted trivially) then investigators will only persue "small fry" in order to "make their quota" (be it of investigations, "busts", arrests, etc).
Inspecting every letter by the DHS for bomb plans is also not permitted, except electronic mail.
Unless the email is encrypted... The thing is that criminals looking for ways to commit fraud/blackmail/etc (including those who work for law enforcement) are much more common than any kind of terrorist (let alone the subset who do things like bombings/shootings in public places; releasing dangerous animals or other things likely to endanger the public).
Anyway, a good part of the cost of a product is related to development. Creating new technologies is expensive. Several other costs don't scale directly with the number of items. So the greater the production, the smaller the cost per unit.
Also building a plant of manufacture something together getting it up and running can be a high initial expense.
In any case, those people who obtained pirate copies often have a superior experience to legit buyers.
DRM more or less ensures that this is the case (if the "pirate copy" is free then that is a bonus). The pirate version would have to be very poor for the DRMed version to even get a look in.
All this does is encourage more piracy.
Which is something the advocates of DRM just don't get...
Just out of curiosity, how are you planning to prove that the EULA you have is the one they made you agree to you?
Possibly more important is what parts (if any) of the EULA does the judge think are actually binding...
In the iTunes EULA it forbids you from using it in the manufacture of nuclear or biological weapons.
But you are OK if you want use it for chemical weapons. e.g. turning an Ipod into a bomb and getting an ememy to use it...
Unless one specifically indicates to -one- firm at a time that they don't mind and might even like to be called about their latest news/offers (ala email/newsletters)?
Probably by something a little more explicit than ticking/not ticking a tiny box. It also needs to be made clear that giving a business a telephone number so that they can respond to a specific query does not give them any cause to call that number for something completely unrelated.
You might also note: companies are no allowed to drive around at 1am with a giant bullhorn aimed at homes, selling their products. CENSORSHIP!?!? No.
More likely they couldn't find anyone prepared to do the job. Especially after the first few angry (and sleep deprived) mobs.
Whereas with someone doing the same by telephone you can't do much to retaliate.
Music publishing, you see, has very little to do with most other forms of publishing.
Movie publishing often appears to use similar accounting methods.
A company like Dell probably doesn't write device drivers. They just ship whatever drivers their suppliers ship, possibly with some customizations. However, those device manufacturers don't care about anything but the UX of their particular device. When the device manufacturer doesn't care that the user can only use the device's UI as admin or it doesn't always sleep, they won't test for those things, and the device is likely to have a UI that only works as admin and sometimes make the computer fail to sleep.
Under Windows you can also find "drivers" which arn't purely drivers. e.g. graphics and sound card drivers installing applets which are often, but not always, pointless.
That's how patents are supposed to work: in return for the temporary protection of a patent, you have to reveal exactly how your invention works in the patent application, so that everyone can copy it once the patent has run out.
Maybe patent applications should be examined by qualified people to see if they can be implimented using only the information supplied in the application together with that already in the public domain.
The problem is that the politicians (and the public) have gotten "hard on crime" confused with "hard on criminals".
Actually both appear to have been confused with "pass more laws".
What should be a serious effort to do things that reduce crime have been turned into throwing away tons of cash and resources on what amounts to little more than revenge, with just about as much to show for it.
Could it be that either these people don't actually know how to reduce crime. Together with things such as allowing honest people to carry concealed weapons, elimination prohibition as a method of "drug control", etc just not being politically correct.