Attacking Ralph Reed or the Christian Coalition has nothing to do with "Christian bashing". If the Ask Jesus jargonizer were a bit more sophisticated, references to either would come out of it as "the Pharisee(s)". /.
If RIAA wants to fight piracy, they start Napster, use it to find some pirates, and prosecute them.
I am reminded of the pissing contest over Wayne LaPierre's accusation that Bill Clinton needs a certain level of violence, since it provides Clinton with opportunities for political ambulance-chasing. That, LaPierre implied, is behind the administration's failure to enforce existing laws.
Similarly, it seems to me that the RIAA needs a certain level of bootlegging, since it provides opportunities to demonize up-and-coming competitive business models. The ideal result for us would be to suppress bootlegging and support artist-authorized Net music distribution; the ideal result for the RIAA would be to strangle both. Whether this is behind the RIAA's non-efforts to track down illegal use of Napster (which reminds people that there is another kind) is left as an excersize for the student. /.
Everyone thinks of breaking the speed barrier... but imagine the implications on security. With such a speed jump, would bumping up the encryption key size from in the thousands to something higher, be suffice? A more complex algorithm may be needed.
Barring some fundamental breakthrough in mathematics or in quantum-parallel computing, the difficulty of cracking a key increases exponentially with the key size (i.e. it doubles for each N additional bits) while the difficulty of using the key increases only as a polynomial function (i.e. it increases in proportion to the percentage increase in key size). Thus, adding a few dozen bits to routine key sizes each time calculation speed doubles keeps you ahead of the curve without bogging down your communications.
Fundamental mathematical breakthroughs are unpredictable -- and in this case, the fundamental breakthrough may turn out to be a proof that there is no easy solution to certain problems on which public-key cryptosystems have been built. As for quantum computing, I'll believe it when I see it; my hunch is that setting up a system of a few dozen qbits so that it will collapse into the solution to a given problem (rather than something else) is going to be as intractable as the original problem was in the first place. /.
People, stop kidding yourself: Napster is a tool that is used exclusively to steal from legitimate artists. Don't give me this crap about how you know "this guy who is a friend of a friend who has a garage band that uses Napster to distribute his music."
Any universal claim falls if a single exception is shown. Your "Don't give me this crap..." line is what is known in logic as "invincible ignorance" (i.e. a deliberate decision to remain ignorant by refusal to listen to the truth). /.
It is the judgement call of every individual based on their experiences and logic to decide how much loss of privacy balances how much gain of security.
Certainly, and the government has no business overruling my chosen balance in the matter (absent a specific reason to suspect me of a particular crime, supported by warrant or affirmation). I'm glad that we're in complete agreement. /.
The FBI says that the choice is between getting raped and murdered and losing "a little privacy"
This is a variant on the "Washington Monument Scam".
The term refers to the hardball tactic of making budget cuts calculated to cause the maximum possible PITA (e.g. closing the Washington Monument to tourists) when the politicians deadlock or when the citizens refuse to vote for all the taxes/loans the politicians want to spend. Effectively, the most visible and desired services are held hostage to protect the pork and fat.
Similarly, some elements of law enforcement (typically the upper bureaucrats, not the street cops or field agents) want to hold basic citizen security hostage to protect the ability to snoop on political dissidents. /.
The brick and mortar business are paying for roads, police and fire departments, local city improvements, etc with their taxes. Yet an internet business in the same area uses all of these things, yet doesn't have to pay for any of it?
Internet businesses pay real estate taxes to the jurisdiction where the use the police, fire, etc services, unless they've figured out how to store their physical inventory in cyberspace. /.
It's not fair that they are taxed and out-of-state businesses are not taxed.
Sure it is. The taxes pay for a police, fire, sewer, etc services which are used by the local Wal-Mart, Target, and Circuit City, but are not used by an out-of-state business. /.
the problem here is that the only ones really being hurt by the moratorium are the small retailers w/ web stores
Nonsense; the ones who would be hurt most by imposing local taxes on Web commerce are small merchants who can't afford to hire a staff to check 57,491 different state and local rules and can't risk being held responsible for software bugs if they let the computer do it for them.
That's why big business is often pro-regulation -- it hurts them a bit but outright kills any up-and-coming competition. /.
Yes, however, corporations and government don't have opposing views here.
Neither did the kings and the popes, really. As Holy Roman Emperor Charles V put it, "My cousin Francis [I of France] and I are in complete agreement: he wants Vienna, and so do I."
The power struggles between the two still had a lot of useful fallout. Similarly, the power struggles between (for example) government trying to collect more taxes and megacorps moving offshore to keep the money themselves have great useful-fallout potential for people trying to keep their taxes low and their financial dealings private. /.
While both governments and megacorps have their faults, the best result IMO would be a balance of power between them. That could do for economic liberty what the balance of power between crown and church did for intellectual liberty in the High Middle Ages-Renaissance period.
In each case, both sides would be pretty obnoxious if allowed their way, but the compromises they were forced to accept in battling each other opened cracks for less powerful people not particularly aligned with either. /.
I know that it's bad form to comment on spelling errors, but I had to chuckle at the incongruity of this one.
Getting back to the issue, the storage requirements you describe are for the firearms issued to Swiss citizens by the government as part of their militia/military service, not for firearms generally. See this article from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, not known as a font of Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy thought. /.
A large number of us are not US citizens. Many of us live in countries with strict gun control laws. This does not mean that the socities that we live in are crime free. In many (actually the majority) cases however, we have a far lower number of deaths per capita of population than the USA. Because of this we take it for granted that there is a definate link between gun ownership in the USA and the high mortality rate, not only from violent crime but also from accidents.
Odd; I'd always assumed that post hoc, ergo propter hoc was universally recognized to be a fallacy, and now you tell me that this is a uniquely American understanding. Perhaps out government should slap export controls on logic textbooks before the damfurriners find out. /.
Cars come with a drivers licence. Let me trot out my Honesty Check for people who advocate "licensing guns like cars": I can possess and drive a car on my own property without any license, so long as I don't take it onto a public street. Would this be the case with your proposed gun license? I can drive a car through downtown DC if I have a license issued in Idaho. Would this be the case with your proposed gun license? Just about anyone with sufficient motor coordination, eyesight, and sanity to be able to function without assistance can routinely expect pass a driver's license test. Would this be the case with your proposed gun license? The same license covers the driving of cars ranging from a Yugo to an Alfa Romeo (special licenses kicking in for full-sized trucks). Would this be the case with your proposed gun license (anything from.22 pistols to semi-auto rifles covered by a standard license, special licenses kicking in for machine guns)? /.
The big difference is that guns are designed for wounding/killing. Yes, indeed. If I am seriously attacked, I am going to wound/kill the attacker if I can. This is perfectly right and proper; hence, a tool which facilitates this is also right and proper. /.
BUT guns make it _much easier_ to kill ppl (detachment, physical distance, etc.)
Most of the rage killings AFAIK _are_ from ppl getting in a "rage" over their wife cheating, etc
These points are mutually contradictory. Once someone is in a "rage" over adultery, etc, the detachment and physical distance issues become quite irrelevant -- somone in that state who doesn't have a gun handly will simply use whatever happens to be handy, and in fact is likely to get more satisfaction out of stabbing or bludgeoning the object of their rage.
You are _far_ more likely to be severely injured or killed in a burglary, etc., attempt _if_ you own a gun in your house.
To illustrate the statistical fallacy at work here, let us start with the known fact that buildings with security alarms are far more likely to be robbed than buildings without security alarms. Which of the following is the more reasonable inference?
1. Security alarms increase the risk of robbery.
2. Security alarms are disproportionately installed in buildings at increased risk of robbery.
you have a gun, I need a gun to protect myself
Even if all criminals could be disarmed, this would not remove the size and strength advantages hooligans typically have over their potential victims. /.
I think changing your country's gun laws would do some good
Indeed. A number of states have changed their gun laws to make concealed carry generally available, followed by statistically significant drops in crime rates. The rest should certainly make similar changes to their own laws.
it also has a large part to do with how children are brought up, which relates back to point one - if daddy does hunting then the child will learn how to shoot too
That has been the way of things in America since long before anybody thought of telling the King of England to get lost. Obviously, it cannot be the cause of the recent flurry of violent incidents. /.
they needed a lot of things to go postal; motivation, training and weapons
Primarily, they need evil intent. There are millions of people with the motivation, training, and weapons to kill; 99.99999% of them do not do so.
Accept that those good old blood and guts games have a price and accept the price you pay for freedom.
So, what was Billy the Kid's high score at Doom? Which TV shows did Leopold and Loeb's watch? What was playing at the movies during Jack the Ripper's prowl?
Violence is part of our flawed human condition, and blaming it on media is either a cop-out or a cynical rationalization for censorship. /.
I was only pointing out that the previous comment failed to make his case for less protection for IP.
Er, not exactly -- you were arguing that the previous comment did not make a case for treating IP differently from other forms of property. ("What does the public get from enforcing any other contract, that they do not get from enforcing license contracts on intellectual property? So where is your case for making a distinction?")
When you make the case for treating IP like other forms property, then blow off a corrolary of this principle which happens not to be to your advantage, people will naturally decide that you want to play a game of "Heads I Win, Tails Don't Count". /.
And of course their is such a thing as the "Right to make a profit".
No, there isn't.
If you fail to make a profit then it sucks to be you, but your rights have not been violated in any way.
This point was made very neatly in Robert Heinlein's first published story, "Life-Line". The protagonist builds a machine that accurately predicts when someone will die. Naturally, the insurance companies are upset, and respond by filing a frivolous lawsuit (just like Mattel). I wish I had the story handy to quote the judge's decision blasting the plaintiff for trying to sell the notion that he has a "right" to make a profit despite the fact that changing circumstances have made his product obsolete. /.
Or even Mattel - you so zealously defend those who steal their list of blocked websites - Mattel's OWN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Putting sugar pills dyed blue in a bottle and sticking a label on the bottle that says "VIAGRA" is not a form of intellectual property. It is a form of fraud (even if the placebo effect does stiffen the resolve of the user). I have no legitimate case against someone who analyzed my pills and announces their actual content.
Putting a powder that will make a cat's hair fall out in a bag and printing "FLEA-B-GONE" on the bag is not a form of intellectual property. It is a form of fraud (even if it does kill some or all of the fleas along with its depiliatory effects). I have no legitimate case against someone who warns the public that my product will aggrivate their cat's shedding problem (at least in the short term).
Writing software that blocks an eclectic mix of sites for containing sex, violence, left-wing politics, criticism of my product, etc. and sticking a label on the box that says "PORN/VIOLENCE BLOCKER" is -- well, what part of this progression eludes you? /.
I don't think that the populace of slashdot, or anywhere else, has the right to throw out all the rights to control IP just because they want to copy them freely.
Your straw man is aggrivating my sinus congestion; please drag it away and burn it.
To equate the various/. criticisms of specific abuses with a desire to "throw out all the rights to control IP" is intellectual dishonesty of Clintonian proportions.
To drag the discussion back to the actual issues:
1. If you believe that the current pattern of routine copyright extensions is legitimate, then your only honest recourse is to advocate a Constitutional amendment to repeal the "limited terms" clause of Article I, Section 8 -- not to support Congress' habit of doing end-runs around it.
2. If you consider the use of access controls to effectively hold data hostage legitimate, how do you square this with the intellectual property rights of the data creators?
Why should the state enforce any contract? What does the public get from enforcing any other contract, that they do not get from enforcing license contracts on intellectual property?
If you're arguing that the government should impose a tax on the worth of intellectual property the same way it does on the worth of physical property, you may have something. If there were no law enforcement, more thieves would be attracted to Bill Gates' mansion than to Joe Sixpack's 2BR brownstone, so it is only reasonable to charge the former more for recieving a greater service -- perhaps the same principle should be applied here (perhaps the exponentially-increasing renewal fee idea somebody suggested). /.
Slashdot Mirror
Attacking Ralph Reed or the Christian Coalition has nothing to do with "Christian bashing". If the Ask Jesus jargonizer were a bit more sophisticated, references to either would come out of it as "the Pharisee(s)".
/.
I am reminded of the pissing contest over Wayne LaPierre's accusation that Bill Clinton needs a certain level of violence, since it provides Clinton with opportunities for political ambulance-chasing. That, LaPierre implied, is behind the administration's failure to enforce existing laws.
Similarly, it seems to me that the RIAA needs a certain level of bootlegging, since it provides opportunities to demonize up-and-coming competitive business models. The ideal result for us would be to suppress bootlegging and support artist-authorized Net music distribution; the ideal result for the RIAA would be to strangle both. Whether this is behind the RIAA's non-efforts to track down illegal use of Napster (which reminds people that there is another kind) is left as an excersize for the student.
/.
Barring some fundamental breakthrough in mathematics or in quantum-parallel computing, the difficulty of cracking a key increases exponentially with the key size (i.e. it doubles for each N additional bits) while the difficulty of using the key increases only as a polynomial function (i.e. it increases in proportion to the percentage increase in key size). Thus, adding a few dozen bits to routine key sizes each time calculation speed doubles keeps you ahead of the curve without bogging down your communications.
Fundamental mathematical breakthroughs are unpredictable -- and in this case, the fundamental breakthrough may turn out to be a proof that there is no easy solution to certain problems on which public-key cryptosystems have been built. As for quantum computing, I'll believe it when I see it; my hunch is that setting up a system of a few dozen qbits so that it will collapse into the solution to a given problem (rather than something else) is going to be as intractable as the original problem was in the first place.
/.
By the way, I only hope that I get chosen to be a member of the government squad that is responsible for rounding up all of the guns.
Geez, why can't you download yourself some pr0n and jerk off to those images, like a normal person?
/.
Any universal claim falls if a single exception is shown. Your "Don't give me this crap..." line is what is known in logic as "invincible ignorance" (i.e. a deliberate decision to remain ignorant by refusal to listen to the truth).
/.
Certainly, and the government has no business overruling my chosen balance in the matter (absent a specific reason to suspect me of a particular crime, supported by warrant or affirmation). I'm glad that we're in complete agreement.
/.
This is a variant on the "Washington Monument Scam".
The term refers to the hardball tactic of making budget cuts calculated to cause the maximum possible PITA (e.g. closing the Washington Monument to tourists) when the politicians deadlock or when the citizens refuse to vote for all the taxes/loans the politicians want to spend. Effectively, the most visible and desired services are held hostage to protect the pork and fat.
Similarly, some elements of law enforcement (typically the upper bureaucrats, not the street cops or field agents) want to hold basic citizen security hostage to protect the ability to snoop on political dissidents.
/.
Internet businesses pay real estate taxes to the jurisdiction where the use the police, fire, etc services, unless they've figured out how to store their physical inventory in cyberspace.
/.
Sure it is. The taxes pay for a police, fire, sewer, etc services which are used by the local Wal-Mart, Target, and Circuit City, but are not used by an out-of-state business.
/.
Nonsense; the ones who would be hurt most by imposing local taxes on Web commerce are small merchants who can't afford to hire a staff to check 57,491 different state and local rules and can't risk being held responsible for software bugs if they let the computer do it for them.
That's why big business is often pro-regulation -- it hurts them a bit but outright kills any up-and-coming competition.
/.
Neither did the kings and the popes, really. As Holy Roman Emperor Charles V put it, "My cousin Francis [I of France] and I are in complete agreement: he wants Vienna, and so do I."
The power struggles between the two still had a lot of useful fallout. Similarly, the power struggles between (for example) government trying to collect more taxes and megacorps moving offshore to keep the money themselves have great useful-fallout potential for people trying to keep their taxes low and their financial dealings private.
/.
In each case, both sides would be pretty obnoxious if allowed their way, but the compromises they were forced to accept in battling each other opened cracks for less powerful people not particularly aligned with either.
/.
I know that it's bad form to comment on spelling errors, but I had to chuckle at the incongruity of this one.
Getting back to the issue, the storage requirements you describe are for the firearms issued to Swiss citizens by the government as part of their militia/military service, not for firearms generally. See this article from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, not known as a font of Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy thought.
/.
Odd; I'd always assumed that post hoc, ergo propter hoc was universally recognized to be a fallacy, and now you tell me that this is a uniquely American understanding. Perhaps out government should slap export controls on logic textbooks before the damfurriners find out.
/.
Is it just me, or is /. losing HTML tags?
/.
Cars come with a drivers licence. Let me trot out my Honesty Check for people who advocate "licensing guns like cars": I can possess and drive a car on my own property without any license, so long as I don't take it onto a public street. Would this be the case with your proposed gun license? I can drive a car through downtown DC if I have a license issued in Idaho. Would this be the case with your proposed gun license? Just about anyone with sufficient motor coordination, eyesight, and sanity to be able to function without assistance can routinely expect pass a driver's license test. Would this be the case with your proposed gun license? The same license covers the driving of cars ranging from a Yugo to an Alfa Romeo (special licenses kicking in for full-sized trucks). Would this be the case with your proposed gun license (anything from .22 pistols to semi-auto rifles covered by a standard license, special licenses kicking in for machine guns)?
/.
The big difference is that guns are designed for wounding/killing. Yes, indeed. If I am seriously attacked, I am going to wound/kill the attacker if I can. This is perfectly right and proper; hence, a tool which facilitates this is also right and proper.
/.
Most of the rage killings AFAIK _are_ from ppl getting in a "rage" over their wife cheating, etc
These points are mutually contradictory. Once someone is in a "rage" over adultery, etc, the detachment and physical distance issues become quite irrelevant -- somone in that state who doesn't have a gun handly will simply use whatever happens to be handy, and in fact is likely to get more satisfaction out of stabbing or bludgeoning the object of their rage.
You are _far_ more likely to be severely injured or killed in a burglary, etc., attempt _if_ you own a gun in your house.
To illustrate the statistical fallacy at work here, let us start with the known fact that buildings with security alarms are far more likely to be robbed than buildings without security alarms. Which of the following is the more reasonable inference?
you have a gun, I need a gun to protect myself
Even if all criminals could be disarmed, this would not remove the size and strength advantages hooligans typically have over their potential victims.
/.
Indeed. A number of states have changed their gun laws to make concealed carry generally available, followed by statistically significant drops in crime rates. The rest should certainly make similar changes to their own laws.
it also has a large part to do with how children are brought up, which relates back to point one - if daddy does hunting then the child will learn how to shoot too
That has been the way of things in America since long before anybody thought of telling the King of England to get lost. Obviously, it cannot be the cause of the recent flurry of violent incidents.
/.
Primarily, they need evil intent. There are millions of people with the motivation, training, and weapons to kill; 99.99999% of them do not do so.
Accept that those good old blood and guts games have a price and accept the price you pay for freedom.
So, what was Billy the Kid's high score at Doom? Which TV shows did Leopold and Loeb's watch? What was playing at the movies during Jack the Ripper's prowl?
Violence is part of our flawed human condition, and blaming it on media is either a cop-out or a cynical rationalization for censorship.
/.
Er, not exactly -- you were arguing that the previous comment did not make a case for treating IP differently from other forms of property. ("What does the public get from enforcing any other contract, that they do not get from enforcing license contracts on intellectual property? So where is your case for making a distinction?")
When you make the case for treating IP like other forms property, then blow off a corrolary of this principle which happens not to be to your advantage, people will naturally decide that you want to play a game of "Heads I Win, Tails Don't Count".
/.
No, there isn't.
If you fail to make a profit then it sucks to be you, but your rights have not been violated in any way.
This point was made very neatly in Robert Heinlein's first published story, "Life-Line". The protagonist builds a machine that accurately predicts when someone will die. Naturally, the insurance companies are upset, and respond by filing a frivolous lawsuit (just like Mattel). I wish I had the story handy to quote the judge's decision blasting the plaintiff for trying to sell the notion that he has a "right" to make a profit despite the fact that changing circumstances have made his product obsolete.
/.
Putting sugar pills dyed blue in a bottle and sticking a label on the bottle that says "VIAGRA" is not a form of intellectual property. It is a form of fraud (even if the placebo effect does stiffen the resolve of the user). I have no legitimate case against someone who analyzed my pills and announces their actual content.
Putting a powder that will make a cat's hair fall out in a bag and printing "FLEA-B-GONE" on the bag is not a form of intellectual property. It is a form of fraud (even if it does kill some or all of the fleas along with its depiliatory effects). I have no legitimate case against someone who warns the public that my product will aggrivate their cat's shedding problem (at least in the short term).
Writing software that blocks an eclectic mix of sites for containing sex, violence, left-wing politics, criticism of my product, etc. and sticking a label on the box that says "PORN/VIOLENCE BLOCKER" is -- well, what part of this progression eludes you?
/.
Your straw man is aggrivating my sinus congestion; please drag it away and burn it.
To equate the various /. criticisms of specific abuses with a desire to "throw out all the rights to control IP" is intellectual dishonesty of Clintonian proportions.
To drag the discussion back to the actual issues:
/.
If you're arguing that the government should impose a tax on the worth of intellectual property the same way it does on the worth of physical property, you may have something. If there were no law enforcement, more thieves would be attracted to Bill Gates' mansion than to Joe Sixpack's 2BR brownstone, so it is only reasonable to charge the former more for recieving a greater service -- perhaps the same principle should be applied here (perhaps the exponentially-increasing renewal fee idea somebody suggested).
/.