You misunderstand, still, I guess. I'm not wound up or anything of the sort, it's simply I haven't checked in at Slashdot in all these months, and was just picking up where I'd left off, with your reply. (I'm fine to drop it though!)
As far as thread bleed goes -- that's hardly a concern is it? For a sub-thread marked troll at the start and our exchange 5 levels deep, I imagine it's not. Your concern it noted.
So, I never noticed that you replied to me many months ago. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1737958&cid=33093686
You didn't take my point, so I must have been communicating badly, but I'm still interested in the question I posed, the one I asked you to address.
You said:
[...] I want to take notes on it with a stylus, [...] to be able stuff a USB stick in the side of it and put directories of data on it, not sync it to a [...] program running on an entirely separate computer [...]. The iPad is pricey [...] Bring on the rivals, I say.
And then I said:
Address the argument: Are you willing to pay more money than the cost of an iPad for a device that is bigger, has worse battery life, runs windows and lets you manage your own synchronization?[...] The truth is, those devices have existed since the ThinkPad and still exist [...]
See, what I was getting at is: your demands have already been met (and were met first 20 years ago, and HP and the like are still making Windows tablets, or were before better tablets gutted their segment), but you aren't complaining in the context of a device that you already own that meets those demands (they exist, you might have one, I've had several, but they could be improved), you are complaining about a device you don't own, appear to have no intention of buying, and doesn't prevent you from owning any other competitor's device. In fact, you go on to argue largely about quiche eating tone-troll bullshit and not the fact that Windows running, stylus using, expansion socketted tablet PCs have existed for ages and are still available right now. My point in asking "Are you willing to pay more money than the cost of an iPad for a device that is bigger, has worse battery life, runs windows and lets you manage your own synchronization?" is that you can have a Windows running, stylus using, expansion socketted tablet PC right now, but it might cost more than an iPad, it might be bigger than an iPad, and it might have worse battery life than an iPad. Those generally are 'trade-offs', but ones you might be willing to make. I asked because if you are willing to make those trade-offs then you don't need to complain about how it's "about fucking time" or any such nonsense (sorry when I said whinging, I wasn't trying to elicit more tone-trolling), the market is already providing your specifically requested features!
Or I guess you could have simply answered 'no' to my question and further said, "I want all the features of the iPad, the cost of the iPad, and I want these other ones, too!" In that case, I guess you're right; that device doesn't exist yet, but Microsoft isn't going to invent it and sell it (not while Ballmer is still there anyhow).
The Galaxy Tab can use a stylus, but I haven't used it personally. Maybe it takes USB, maybe it's cheap, maybe it's big enough (or small enough), maybe it lasts long enough.
All of which is a long way of asking, has the market not met your short list of needs, or has the market not met your needs at your price?
Complaining about tone is ad hominem. Address the argument:
Are you willing to pay more money than the cost of an iPad for a device that is bigger, has worse battery life, runs windows and lets you manage your own synchronization?
You can't just whinge that the market isn't serving you.
The truth is, those devices have existed since the ThinkPad and still exist -- and yet you aren't saying you use or still use yours (never mind that the Newton was better by every metric that doesn't include running PhotoShop 3.5).
Say I have developed a video game designed for multiple game controllers and a large monitor. The market for those on the PC doesn't look viable because I've read statistics that the home theater PC market is two orders of magnitude smaller than the video game console market. All major video game consoles are DRM-locked, and manufacturing and selling a device to install custom firmware to play my game would probably be an anti-circumvention violation in any developed market to which I can affordably move my operations, especially after ACTA becomes law, not to mention that it would likely disable playing major-label video games. What do you recommend that I do next?
You design or license a box of your own. You put video out on those boxes, and you pray your customers have a TV and your game demonstrates a great enough value to drive sales. Oh wait, you thought competing would be easy? You thought you could free-ride on your competitors hardware? They call the shots and you can agree to play by their rules or go it alone. Capitalism!
Bashing heads and grabbing loot is what governments do.
-jcr
In fact, it's exactly the reason that we (civilized people) form them. That way, I can spend my life doing something more useful than making sure that I'm the best at bashing heads and grabbing loot.
But let's look at what we get if we use Bing instead of Live... Re-writing that post a little bit we get:
Bing can never be successful as a competitor in search because verbing its product produces absolute nonsense. [...]
Evidence that Bing search will never dominate in mindshare: "I Binged for my old highschool classmates." "Just Bing my resume." "You guys just sit around in your mom's basement Binging for pr0n."
If people are using Bing to google shit, they've lost.
It sounds like they are going to make some progress this time, but I'm still mostly on the outs with this name. For my demographic Bing doesn't associate with anything other than funny sounds and Chandler complaining about the WENUS or Annual Net Usage Statistics.
>>>Did Gutenbergs' invention "steal" the scribes' labor?
No. It eliminated the need for scribes. Completely. It stole nothing from the scribes.
Actually, I'm surprised you don't argue it stole their vocation. Otherwise it seems you understand the argument, you just willfully ignore it. The labor pool for hand-copied books was destroyed by the printing press. Scriveners had to do what programmers will have to do, train for a new vocation or find a new way to contract our their services in exchange for compensation. I'm sure there is still some patron desperately seeking a calligraphed book.
Other forms of automation have similarly destroyed the labor pool for the cobbler and the blacksmith. However, one can still buy or commission hand-made boots and swords. Perhaps we'll see artisan software in the same way we see artisan chairs.
(Oh wait, maybe the buzzword for that is saas. Problem solved?!)
The end of scarcity is exactly what we need to be dealing with now, wrt virtual "property". 'Replication' of physical artifacts is coming whether it's Star Trek-style or The Diamond Age-style and/or some other variations in between, only time will tell. It's pretty far out there, but we're going to see more mundane forms of artifact printing very soon and this whole can of worms that we're fretting about with songs is about to happen with chairs or wallpaper and who-knows what else. For a comparison, look at the "underground" trading of sewing machine software for embroidery and cross-stitch piracy; that's already happening. I mean we have "IP infringement" entering the zeitgeist from all angles, from grannies and woodworkers to song-traders and warezers. The current system has to change, because you can't have a functioning society where everyone is a criminal under the law. That leads directly to the sort of draconian police-states that the so-called American Spirit directly opposes. And further, as I mention in the other comment, you can't enforce rights management when replication of all expression is ubiquitous without insanely invasive methods.
>>>What if the world has changed in such a way that intending to "sell" some easily-copied series of ones and zeros is no longer a viable business plan?
I can not imagine such a world. A computer without software is pretty worthless, so there will always be a need for programmers and they deserve to get paid for their labor. [...]
Of course if you know of an alternate way to get software for computers without having to pay the laborers, please share. I'm open to new ideas.
First, so there isn't any straw-man thrashing, of course a worker deserves to get paid for his labor. A programmer is like any other laborer. You agree to a contract, that contract is enforced by the state, you do the work you agree to do and you get paid as agreed to. If you are working without an agreement to get paid, that's a poor decision if payment is what you're seeking!
That said, we're on the cusp of a new era. We are very close to a world of ubiquitous robotic labor and a world without scarcity (robotic resource gathering, digital replication, robotic manufacturing/artifact printing). Advances in technology will reach both of these at some point (though probably not at the same time). As fantastic as it sounds, 'computer programming' is another form of labor that will eventually be automated with technology. Software that writes software only has to be written once, if you will. The process has already begun. The research is already happening. We already have replaced millions of jobs with robots and will surely replace many more. Artificial intelligence in general and genetic programming research specifically has marched on for years. Robots will manufacture other robots; Computers will program themselves or each other. I don't think this prediction is controversial.
Sure we'll get to keep wage slaving for a couple more decades until India and China completely corner the market on programming, but you really need to start coming to terms with the reality of technological advancement.
The current IP-regime simply cannot cope rationally with the changes that are just beginning. I mean, imagine it, how is copyright going to handle an age where kids have media devices in their heads and are vlogging straight from their eyes? Will there be some giant royalties agent monitoring all IP witnessed and licensing it or censoring it out? How far away is this future? (Surely we'll be there before the end of scarcity.) Will any relevant cultural artifacts have reached the public domain? Creation of protected works has skyrocketed and is accelerating, but expiration into the public domain has all but ceased -- if IP laws aren't restructured will we need tamper-proof Rights Management implants to protect the vast expanse of expression monopolies? (That's the reality of the current "copyright by default" 1976 Act. Every cocktail napkin scribble, every email, voicemail, lecture note, every action caught on every recorded cctv and security cam, etc. It's all 'rights managed' for the next 100 years or 1000, because no one really knows when Congress will stop extending terms. Those are your rights that are getting managed by the way -- your 1st Amendment right to expression ends where expression monopolies begin.)
I guess my point is, if technological advancement continues to accelerate 'the future' is going to be here a lot sooner than we realize. We need to start thinking about how our laws, businesses --really, relationships of all kinds-- have to change to accommodate the new reality. Essentially infinite copyright protection on essentially every expression since 1976 is not "promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
Right on. I don't disagree that MS can be come a "competitor" (as they know the term) in the online and software services space. But, imho, it's a forgone conclusion that they can't compete in (at the very least) search (and maybe webmail -- at least for now). People are not going to live for recipes online (because that would sound so obviously stupid, even worse than the verbs blog or google!). And they sure aren't going to say, "I (Live-search | msn | microsoft-live) for recipes online," unless there is some seismic shift away from, "googling for recipes." If people are using your competitor's name to describe the experience or activity of your service you are losing. Badly. "I use Microsoft Live Search to google!" is like a nail in the coffin.
All of Google's other 'betas', picasa, desktop search, 'google office' etc. those are all vulnerable to MS' modus operandi. They can leverage their existing lock-ins to keep people away from those services. Google doesn't have the traction there.
Live can never be successful as a competitor in search because verbing its product produces absolute nonsense. This is a case where Microsoft's rather unimaginative 'penchant' for naming its products after common words really bites them in the ass. Their products become generics from the start (vs. xeroxing, kleenex, bandaids, googling, etc.) "My GUI has windows. My office software works, but rarely excels."
Evidence that Live search will never dominate in mindshare: "I Lived for my old highschool classmates." Huh? "Just Live my resume." Ok. "You guys just sit around in your mom's basement Living for pr0n." And?
If people are using Live to google shit, they've lost.
American Heritage: appropriate: 2. To take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself, often without permission: Lee appropriated my unread newspaper and never returned it.
In no sense has take or make use of exclusively ever meant copy.
"Apparently, your ideas about [appropriation] are predicated on linguistic ignorance."
Really? Taking is the same as copying? That's your argument?
Again, why do we have all these extraneous words?
I guess once one has "gotten" a copy (completely ignoring the connotation of exclusivity) "into one's hands or into one's possession, power, or control" it's been "taken" -- but if that's the case -- why do we use the word take at all? Why don't we just say copy instead? I copied a photo of my sister with my camera; I copied my girlfriend to the prom; I just can't copy any more of this overtime; appropriate, to copy or make use of without authority or right: All ambiguous or nonsensical. Maybe it's because take and copy mean something different and that this definition for take makes no sense in context. Holy shit, that might be why there are many more than one definition!
We already have a word for infringement. We already have a word for copying. It is my opinion -- I've never said otherwise -- that you should use them. I even stated why -- to avoid confusing the meaning of the words involved, and thus the message.
Though, as usual, one could assume your agenda is exactly to confuse the message; perhaps as an appeal to emotion. Everyone hates a dirty thief (and a pirate! yohoho!), but a copier is a boring, relatively inoffensive office machine (with some exceptions noted, ha).
Jesus. Perhaps you should look up the definition for the words take and appropriate while you're at it. Neither of those words describes copying, fraud, or infringement.
You can argue semantics all you want, but basically P2P copyrighted music downloading is violating the law in order to get something without paying for it. The appropriate response if you don't like the price or licensing model is to ignore it, not steal it. It's not semantics to say that copyright/monopoly infringement is different from theft. Oh wait, maybe you need to check the definition for different, too. I'll wait.
Look, we've let "you people" call it piracy for ages, despite the fact that it doesn't involve raping, murdering, or stealing or even the high seas! Can't you just meet us halfway here? It's been happening for so long now that it's become a pretty standard definition. Can't you just stick with that instead of fucking up the meaning of words like steal, theft and thieve?
Call the downloaders pirates, I don't care, but stop calling copying stealing. Otherwise, what's the point of having all these extraneous words? Technology professionals do so much actual copying of bits to and fro that redefining the term is really going to make our lives confusing.
Sounds like I agree with you. That said...
Furthermore, I'm not calling the ridicule of unscientific beliefs evangelism; what I'm saying is, all of us hold philosophical and epistemological beliefs that are unscientific (not in the sense that they conflict with science, but in the sense that science cannot validate them). Many atheists in the popular press seem to conflate their positions on scientific matters, which are usually well-grounded, with their positions on philosophical and epistemological matters. Then, when someone disagrees with them on the latter (on questions where there's often room for disagreement), they call them an idiot. That's undeserved. I think the dispute here though is that "many atheists'" positions on philosophical and epistemological matters are usually founded in some form of rationalism (i.e., the matters that can't be tested scientifically). I mean rationalism in the sense of 'by reason'. It follows that they will just call a spade a spade and describe irrational positions as such. It's probably hard hear some one say, "well I prefer my irrational position to the rational one, because...," without ridiculing them.
Take any example of the 'first cause' argument as a rationale for God; once this argument is refuted and the opponent repeats it over and over again in similar ways, what then? Agree to disagree and not bother with discourse at all? I think this is the root of the problem with the "calling people idiots": "Believers" willingly come to fora for debate with an immutable position. That's incompatible with the whole purpose of debate. There will never be 'progress' as the scientific or rationalist debater is always open to new evidence, yet no new evidence will be presented, and the "believer" was never open to evidence in the first place. The process devolves. The insults happen.
However, I again agree that idiot is undeserved in honest discussions of philosophy.
Sorry for veering off from what you were saying regarding 'published atheists' and 'calling people idiots'.
I have to say that's an extremely simplistic and dogmatic view of morality. Had Ratzinger refused to have been drafted, there would be a dead Ratzinger and someone else would have taken his place. As a matter of fact, Ratzinger hardly even served due to illness, and defected as soon as he safely could. I do find it ironic that the current Pope chose not to sacrifice himself in a meaningless act of martyrdom, but I don't find it in any way blameworthy. Couldn't he just rise from the dead three days later? God knew He was going to be His voice on Earth in 60 years, so He could have hooked Ratzi up. But I agree, there's always a good argument for pragmatism and saving your own skin by doing crap you know you shouldn't. The good argument is: it's easy. Of course, there's always the repugnant chance that he didn't know he shouldn't.
I admit he was just a tiny cog in a giant atrocity-machine, so it's no big deal in his case. It's just that I would have thought that Catholics would hold their leaders to a higher standard (or that God would). So what's your take on "just following orders", moral?
This is an oxymoron - AppleCare isn't free. I addressed this witticism 10 hours before you posted here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=419084&cid=22057412 to the first person that skillfully misrepresented my point by saying "applecare isn't free". If you don't know anything about the process, the first year of AppleCare is "free". Its duration can be extended at any point during the first year by, gasp, buying more coverage.
Also since that time it's turned out I was right, out of warranty battery replacement is $129 with "free" shipping. (but, omg it's not really free because the cost of doing business is built into the cost of product lines or no company would be profitable omg!!)
Thanks for taking the time, and welcome to Slashdot. Cheers.
I said this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=419084&cid=22072294 in another thread, towards the end I say something like "when something is ruled fair use it's still infringing because it's an affirmative defense, but it's unpunishable". But, from one of your posts in this thread I think you said when something is judged fair use that it's actually found non infringing. Is this as in totally legit, not just infringing-but-ok? I'd appreciate if it you could set me straight on that post so I'm clearer on this issue in the future.
You are splitting hairs and you know it. It's borderline Troll like.
The point of his post is that as a "belief system", trying to force others to believe as you do is wrong. No matter what the method, soft or by violence. What about when "others" are your children?
That said, if you ask the average person to name a living scientist, I'm willing to bet Dawkins' name would come up quite often. I bet it would come up 'quite often' as in 'about 1%' of the time (no really). I bet most people would say Einstein, next Sagan (hey, he was at least on TV often enough for the average person to know the name). "But they're dead," you protest. So what? The average person is stupid.
If this is the first time you've heard someone call atheism a religion, you must have had your head in the sand for the past decade or so. It's quite common to hear that sort of response from conservative Christians who are trying to fight what they perceive as a state-sponsored religion of atheism from encroaching upon every aspect of public life. Maybe he (presumably) doesn't argue with conservative Christians (or listen to Mitt Romney speeches)? I'd not heard the 'you hate religion? well you hate yourself because atheism is a religion haw haw' argument until I started reading the comments on blogs like Pharyngula. I try to avoid these debates on Slashdot. As for Romney, it's not atheism that's the new religion it's "secularism" (his words) if you can believe it. Here he is giving a speech to be tolerant of religions, then names secularism a religion, then establishes that he's not tolerant of it. It's lost on him it seems. Sigh.
Oh, and let me touch lightly on the last bit while I'm here -- even though, I probably shouldn't.
many atheists [...] attempt to convert others to that view (evangelize), and label as an idiot anyone who disagrees (condemn). In that case, the analogy to religion isn't totally off the wall. I don't know much about this "evangelism", so "many" must not be the right word. That said... Ridiculing unscientific belief is not the same as 'condemning'. I'll admit that atheists often ridicule (even mock) unscientific beliefs because the basis of their atheism is often scientific. They are free to do so, but it's almost the exact opposite of evangelism (or is it like a Christian saying, "what you believe will send you to Hell," some form of evangelism? Maybe I'm confused). But, I guess if irreligion can be religion then criticism can be condemnation. Why do we even have all these extraneous words anyway?!
He was drafted into the army by a fascist state. Not something he had any choice over or should be blamed for. Men with convictions die for them. They aren't drafted. They aren't just following orders. Imprisonment or death was the proper course unless there's some direct evidence he committed effective acts of sabotage. E.g., give me liberty of give me death.
You don't need lots of ports and optical drives to IM your friends nor do you need a 13 inch screen and many gigs of storage. But you do to keep up the pretense of taking notes and doing homework. Oh wait. I said that. You can't write term papers or run Matlab on your Sidekick.
Do you have a substantive argument against the airbook's use as a satellite machine at university (other than the old standards, 'get something heavier', 'get something cheaper and heavier' , 'get something smaller and less productive but lighter', those are all tradeoffs) or was this just a drive-by? If not, thanks for the commentary.
Grrrl makes a good point, too. How could I forget Facebook?!
Slashdot Mirror
You misunderstand, still, I guess. I'm not wound up or anything of the sort, it's simply I haven't checked in at Slashdot in all these months, and was just picking up where I'd left off, with your reply. (I'm fine to drop it though!)
As far as thread bleed goes -- that's hardly a concern is it? For a sub-thread marked troll at the start and our exchange 5 levels deep, I imagine it's not. Your concern it noted.
Cheers!
And then I said:
See, what I was getting at is: your demands have already been met (and were met first 20 years ago, and HP and the like are still making Windows tablets, or were before better tablets gutted their segment), but you aren't complaining in the context of a device that you already own that meets those demands (they exist, you might have one, I've had several, but they could be improved), you are complaining about a device you don't own, appear to have no intention of buying, and doesn't prevent you from owning any other competitor's device. In fact, you go on to argue largely about quiche eating tone-troll bullshit and not the fact that Windows running, stylus using, expansion socketted tablet PCs have existed for ages and are still available right now. My point in asking "Are you willing to pay more money than the cost of an iPad for a device that is bigger, has worse battery life, runs windows and lets you manage your own synchronization?" is that you can have a Windows running, stylus using, expansion socketted tablet PC right now, but it might cost more than an iPad, it might be bigger than an iPad, and it might have worse battery life than an iPad. Those generally are 'trade-offs', but ones you might be willing to make. I asked because if you are willing to make those trade-offs then you don't need to complain about how it's "about fucking time" or any such nonsense (sorry when I said whinging, I wasn't trying to elicit more tone-trolling), the market is already providing your specifically requested features! Or I guess you could have simply answered 'no' to my question and further said, "I want all the features of the iPad, the cost of the iPad, and I want these other ones, too!" In that case, I guess you're right; that device doesn't exist yet, but Microsoft isn't going to invent it and sell it (not while Ballmer is still there anyhow).
The Galaxy Tab can use a stylus, but I haven't used it personally. Maybe it takes USB, maybe it's cheap, maybe it's big enough (or small enough), maybe it lasts long enough.
All of which is a long way of asking, has the market not met your short list of needs, or has the market not met your needs at your price?
Complaining about tone is ad hominem. Address the argument:
Are you willing to pay more money than the cost of an iPad for a device that is bigger, has worse battery life, runs windows and lets you manage your own synchronization?
You can't just whinge that the market isn't serving you.
The truth is, those devices have existed since the ThinkPad and still exist -- and yet you aren't saying you use or still use yours (never mind that the Newton was better by every metric that doesn't include running PhotoShop 3.5).
E.g., I've had one of these for almost 20 years: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:710T
Say I have developed a video game designed for multiple game controllers and a large monitor. The market for those on the PC doesn't look viable because I've read statistics that the home theater PC market is two orders of magnitude smaller than the video game console market. All major video game consoles are DRM-locked, and manufacturing and selling a device to install custom firmware to play my game would probably be an anti-circumvention violation in any developed market to which I can affordably move my operations, especially after ACTA becomes law, not to mention that it would likely disable playing major-label video games. What do you recommend that I do next?
You design or license a box of your own. You put video out on those boxes, and you pray your customers have a TV and your game demonstrates a great enough value to drive sales. Oh wait, you thought competing would be easy? You thought you could free-ride on your competitors hardware? They call the shots and you can agree to play by their rules or go it alone. Capitalism!
Sibling post is mine, but I may as well log in so maybe someone will see it:
This is why I propose an artificial government enforced monopoly on intended meaning rather than just expression.
Expression monopolies are so 19th century. We need to get on with monetizing the roots of expression: intent.
Just imagine how great that world will be!
(No really, the implications are awesome.)
Bashing heads and grabbing loot is what governments do.
-jcr
In fact, it's exactly the reason that we (civilized people) form them. That way, I can spend my life doing something more useful than making sure that I'm the best at bashing heads and grabbing loot.
I had a similar sentiment the last time MS was spinning its wheels looking for traction in Internet search.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=439888&cid=22278050
But let's look at what we get if we use Bing instead of Live... Re-writing that post a little bit we get:
Bing can never be successful as a competitor in search because verbing its product produces absolute nonsense. [...]
Evidence that Bing search will never dominate in mindshare:
"I Binged for my old highschool classmates."
"Just Bing my resume."
"You guys just sit around in your mom's basement Binging for pr0n."
If people are using Bing to google shit, they've lost.
It sounds like they are going to make some progress this time, but I'm still mostly on the outs with this name. For my demographic Bing doesn't associate with anything other than funny sounds and Chandler complaining about the WENUS or Annual Net Usage Statistics.
>>>Did Gutenbergs' invention "steal" the scribes' labor?
No. It eliminated the need for scribes. Completely. It stole nothing from the scribes.
Actually, I'm surprised you don't argue it stole their vocation. Otherwise it seems you understand the argument, you just willfully ignore it. The labor pool for hand-copied books was destroyed by the printing press. Scriveners had to do what programmers will have to do, train for a new vocation or find a new way to contract our their services in exchange for compensation. I'm sure there is still some patron desperately seeking a calligraphed book.
Other forms of automation have similarly destroyed the labor pool for the cobbler and the blacksmith. However, one can still buy or commission hand-made boots and swords. Perhaps we'll see artisan software in the same way we see artisan chairs.
(Oh wait, maybe the buzzword for that is saas. Problem solved?!)
You might be interested in a similar reply I made to Commodore64_love at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1160895&cid=27196657.
The end of scarcity is exactly what we need to be dealing with now, wrt virtual "property". 'Replication' of physical artifacts is coming whether it's Star Trek-style or The Diamond Age-style and/or some other variations in between, only time will tell. It's pretty far out there, but we're going to see more mundane forms of artifact printing very soon and this whole can of worms that we're fretting about with songs is about to happen with chairs or wallpaper and who-knows what else. For a comparison, look at the "underground" trading of sewing machine software for embroidery and cross-stitch piracy; that's already happening. I mean we have "IP infringement" entering the zeitgeist from all angles, from grannies and woodworkers to song-traders and warezers. The current system has to change, because you can't have a functioning society where everyone is a criminal under the law. That leads directly to the sort of draconian police-states that the so-called American Spirit directly opposes. And further, as I mention in the other comment, you can't enforce rights management when replication of all expression is ubiquitous without insanely invasive methods.
>>>What if the world has changed in such a way that intending to "sell" some easily-copied series of ones and zeros is no longer a viable business plan?
I can not imagine such a world. A computer without software is pretty worthless, so there will always be a need for programmers and they deserve to get paid for their labor. [...]
Of course if you know of an alternate way to get software for computers without having to pay the laborers, please share. I'm open to new ideas.
First, so there isn't any straw-man thrashing, of course a worker deserves to get paid for his labor. A programmer is like any other laborer. You agree to a contract, that contract is enforced by the state, you do the work you agree to do and you get paid as agreed to. If you are working without an agreement to get paid, that's a poor decision if payment is what you're seeking!
That said, we're on the cusp of a new era. We are very close to a world of ubiquitous robotic labor and a world without scarcity (robotic resource gathering, digital replication, robotic manufacturing/artifact printing). Advances in technology will reach both of these at some point (though probably not at the same time). As fantastic as it sounds, 'computer programming' is another form of labor that will eventually be automated with technology. Software that writes software only has to be written once, if you will. The process has already begun. The research is already happening. We already have replaced millions of jobs with robots and will surely replace many more. Artificial intelligence in general and genetic programming research specifically has marched on for years. Robots will manufacture other robots; Computers will program themselves or each other. I don't think this prediction is controversial.
Sure we'll get to keep wage slaving for a couple more decades until India and China completely corner the market on programming, but you really need to start coming to terms with the reality of technological advancement.
The current IP-regime simply cannot cope rationally with the changes that are just beginning. I mean, imagine it, how is copyright going to handle an age where kids have media devices in their heads and are vlogging straight from their eyes? Will there be some giant royalties agent monitoring all IP witnessed and licensing it or censoring it out? How far away is this future? (Surely we'll be there before the end of scarcity.) Will any relevant cultural artifacts have reached the public domain? Creation of protected works has skyrocketed and is accelerating, but expiration into the public domain has all but ceased -- if IP laws aren't restructured will we need tamper-proof Rights Management implants to protect the vast expanse of expression monopolies? (That's the reality of the current "copyright by default" 1976 Act. Every cocktail napkin scribble, every email, voicemail, lecture note, every action caught on every recorded cctv and security cam, etc. It's all 'rights managed' for the next 100 years or 1000, because no one really knows when Congress will stop extending terms. Those are your rights that are getting managed by the way -- your 1st Amendment right to expression ends where expression monopolies begin.)
I guess my point is, if technological advancement continues to accelerate 'the future' is going to be here a lot sooner than we realize. We need to start thinking about how our laws, businesses --really, relationships of all kinds-- have to change to accommodate the new reality. Essentially infinite copyright protection on essentially every expression since 1976 is not "promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
Sibling posts make good points too.
You're lucky to have coffee! Back in my day we built great monuments to Sun-gods at the business end of a whip. Good times.
Right on. I don't disagree that MS can be come a "competitor" (as they know the term) in the online and software services space. But, imho, it's a forgone conclusion that they can't compete in (at the very least) search (and maybe webmail -- at least for now). People are not going to live for recipes online (because that would sound so obviously stupid, even worse than the verbs blog or google!). And they sure aren't going to say, "I (Live-search | msn | microsoft-live) for recipes online," unless there is some seismic shift away from, "googling for recipes." If people are using your competitor's name to describe the experience or activity of your service you are losing. Badly. "I use Microsoft Live Search to google!" is like a nail in the coffin.
All of Google's other 'betas', picasa, desktop search, 'google office' etc. those are all vulnerable to MS' modus operandi. They can leverage their existing lock-ins to keep people away from those services. Google doesn't have the traction there.
Live can never be successful as a competitor in search because verbing its product produces absolute nonsense. This is a case where Microsoft's rather unimaginative 'penchant' for naming its products after common words really bites them in the ass. Their products become generics from the start (vs. xeroxing, kleenex, bandaids, googling, etc.) "My GUI has windows. My office software works, but rarely excels."
Evidence that Live search will never dominate in mindshare:
"I Lived for my old highschool classmates." Huh?
"Just Live my resume." Ok.
"You guys just sit around in your mom's basement Living for pr0n." And?
If people are using Live to google shit, they've lost.
(Captcha is 'hopeless'.)
Wow, and as I said in another thread, to another poster, you need to look up appropriate. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=434204&cid=22226148
American Heritage:
appropriate:
2. To take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself, often without permission: Lee appropriated my unread newspaper and never returned it.
In no sense has take or make use of exclusively ever meant copy.
"Apparently, your ideas about [appropriation] are predicated on linguistic ignorance."
Really? Taking is the same as copying? That's your argument?
Again, why do we have all these extraneous words?
I guess once one has "gotten" a copy (completely ignoring the connotation of exclusivity) "into one's hands or into one's possession, power, or control" it's been "taken" -- but if that's the case -- why do we use the word take at all? Why don't we just say copy instead? I copied a photo of my sister with my camera; I copied my girlfriend to the prom; I just can't copy any more of this overtime; appropriate, to copy or make use of without authority or right: All ambiguous or nonsensical. Maybe it's because take and copy mean something different and that this definition for take makes no sense in context. Holy shit, that might be why there are many more than one definition!
We already have a word for infringement. We already have a word for copying. It is my opinion -- I've never said otherwise -- that you should use them. I even stated why -- to avoid confusing the meaning of the words involved, and thus the message.
Though, as usual, one could assume your agenda is exactly to confuse the message; perhaps as an appeal to emotion. Everyone hates a dirty thief (and a pirate! yohoho!), but a copier is a boring, relatively inoffensive office machine (with some exceptions noted, ha).
Thanks for taking the time to reply, though.
Look, we've let "you people" call it piracy for ages, despite the fact that it doesn't involve raping, murdering, or stealing or even the high seas! Can't you just meet us halfway here? It's been happening for so long now that it's become a pretty standard definition. Can't you just stick with that instead of fucking up the meaning of words like steal, theft and thieve?
Call the downloaders pirates, I don't care, but stop calling copying stealing. Otherwise, what's the point of having all these extraneous words? Technology professionals do so much actual copying of bits to and fro that redefining the term is really going to make our lives confusing.
Take any example of the 'first cause' argument as a rationale for God; once this argument is refuted and the opponent repeats it over and over again in similar ways, what then? Agree to disagree and not bother with discourse at all? I think this is the root of the problem with the "calling people idiots": "Believers" willingly come to fora for debate with an immutable position. That's incompatible with the whole purpose of debate. There will never be 'progress' as the scientific or rationalist debater is always open to new evidence, yet no new evidence will be presented, and the "believer" was never open to evidence in the first place. The process devolves. The insults happen.
However, I again agree that idiot is undeserved in honest discussions of philosophy.
Sorry for veering off from what you were saying regarding 'published atheists' and 'calling people idiots'.
I admit he was just a tiny cog in a giant atrocity-machine, so it's no big deal in his case. It's just that I would have thought that Catholics would hold their leaders to a higher standard (or that God would). So what's your take on "just following orders", moral?
This is an oxymoron - AppleCare isn't free. I addressed this witticism 10 hours before you posted here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=419084&cid=22057412 to the first person that skillfully misrepresented my point by saying "applecare isn't free". If you don't know anything about the process, the first year of AppleCare is "free". Its duration can be extended at any point during the first year by, gasp, buying more coverage.
Also since that time it's turned out I was right, out of warranty battery replacement is $129 with "free" shipping. (but, omg it's not really free because the cost of doing business is built into the cost of product lines or no company would be profitable omg!!)
Thanks for taking the time, and welcome to Slashdot. Cheers.
Thanks for the clarification!
Hi there,
I said this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=419084&cid=22072294 in another thread, towards the end I say something like "when something is ruled fair use it's still infringing because it's an affirmative defense, but it's unpunishable". But, from one of your posts in this thread I think you said when something is judged fair use that it's actually found non infringing. Is this as in totally legit, not just infringing-but-ok? I'd appreciate if it you could set me straight on that post so I'm clearer on this issue in the future.
Always a pleasure. Cheers!
The point of his post is that as a "belief system", trying to force others to believe as you do is wrong. No matter what the method, soft or by violence. What about when "others" are your children?
Oh, and let me touch lightly on the last bit while I'm here -- even though, I probably shouldn't. many atheists [...] attempt to convert others to that view (evangelize), and label as an idiot anyone who disagrees (condemn). In that case, the analogy to religion isn't totally off the wall. I don't know much about this "evangelism", so "many" must not be the right word. That said... Ridiculing unscientific belief is not the same as 'condemning'. I'll admit that atheists often ridicule (even mock) unscientific beliefs because the basis of their atheism is often scientific. They are free to do so, but it's almost the exact opposite of evangelism (or is it like a Christian saying, "what you believe will send you to Hell," some form of evangelism? Maybe I'm confused). But, I guess if irreligion can be religion then criticism can be condemnation. Why do we even have all these extraneous words anyway?!
nor do you need a 13 inch screen and many gigs of storage. But you do to keep up the pretense of taking notes and doing homework. Oh wait. I said that. You can't write term papers or run Matlab on your Sidekick.
Do you have a substantive argument against the airbook's use as a satellite machine at university (other than the old standards, 'get something heavier', 'get something cheaper and heavier' , 'get something smaller and less productive but lighter', those are all tradeoffs) or was this just a drive-by? If not, thanks for the commentary.
Grrrl makes a good point, too. How could I forget Facebook?!
Cheers!