Sorry, they already thought of that. Theologically speaking, the bread and wine are only transubstantiated as the body and blood of christ while they retain the appearance and form of bread and wine.
Thus larger crumbs of the bread (particles, in latin) are dropped into the wine to avoid the precious body being wasted, yet smaller detrius, such as dust or tiny little crumbs are considered to no longer have the appearance of bread, and thus can no longer be held to be valid material. They are not the true body of christ anymore even though they fell of bread which was considered to be so.
Human vomit or bile, in my theological opinion, is not valid transubstatiated matter, so you would not get a DNA match on Christ. Dexter would have to go after him instead I think....
Wow, I just spent the time and watched the video in the parent post. The video is a lecture titled. "Programming DNA", and it totally blew my mind even though I considered myself to be fairly up-to-date on these sorts of topics.
If you are a software engineer (or hacker) and have an interest in DNA hacking, its a must-see. For instance, about half way through the lecture you'll suddenly realise the true significance of the first man made gnome - and understand why it is important in a way that none of the news (even so called science-news) has reported so far.
We have strict gun control because having a large bore semi-auto isn't as useful as knowing that muggers and bank theives don't have them.
I love this sentiment, as if criminals actually pay attention to that one law and ignore the others. Why don't you also stop mugging and bank thievery by outlawing those activities too? I take it that you must live in the USA because when I lived over there this was the first thing that NRA nuts would say when I told them about Australia's gun laws. They always laughed out loud and immediately told me that the muggers would all be carrying guns and feeling safe in their knowledge that none of their victims could defend against them.
I'd then laugh at the odd look of disbelief that would come over their own face when I told them that this isn't the case at all, our criminals are so rarely armed I can't think of a recent armed robbery of any type in my local capital city. Additionally, I can't think of any friends who have ever been mugged anyway - except those of us who have lived in the USA for some time who of course were mugged over there by an armed man.
Could you do us all a favor, America, and keep your weapon fantasies far far away from your social policies please? If you think about it even for a second, you'll see it makes good sense.
For the record, I'm a libertairian by nature. I will happily vote to remove these laws because I believe that liberty should not be traded in for safety, however I will be feeling very sad on that day as I go down to the gun shop in order to arm and defend my family from the imminent rise in violent crime. Some aspects of being a libertairian in Austraia really suck, sigh.
In todays political climate, is it likely or even possible that 75% of politicians can agree on anything? Probably not. Umm, does War on Terror ring any bells for you? Do you recall the months following 911 when even to speak badly of the president (Hello Dixie Chicks!) was seen as unpatriotic?
You must be new here.
-M
(OK, OK, Ron Paul probably stood on the debris at ground zero, looked us all in the eye and spoke truth to the nation, all while saving a bus of orphans and satisfying an exotic woman who had never been conquered by a man before, but I'm talking about all the rest of the politicians so no need to post a reply pointing it out, thanks.)
No matter how many bags of grain and how many OLPCs we send to these nations, the vast majority will NEVER pull out of their poverty due to corrupt political and social systems. While sending grain certainly won't fix corruption and the political causes of starvation - is never has before - I can think of many ways that a widely deployed PC mesh network that is outside of the government's control would help.
When we give the third world citizens the ability to make direct uncensored contact with the outside world, learn about political alternatives and organise themselves for action, only then will the causes of starvation be addressed. Looks to me like the OLPC might wipe out starvation in a single generation if we give it enough support.
Yes, some people are still going to starve, or die in a flood, while clinging to their OLPC; but many others will not. These are literally the 'children of the revolution'. What's not to like?
It seems to me that everytime there is a wikipedia story here, we see the sort of astroturfing the parent is trying to do with their post. I don't think that this is any sort of wiki-cabal response though, nor a conspiracy.
Wikipedia's problems are _so_ deep that the admins will come here onto SLASHDOT (of all places) and argue that "if you've done nothing wrong, you don't have to fear our power. Only the bad guys are being hurt by these admin abuses."
Jeebus, save me. Go back and read your post and repent, or turn in your card my friend.
As a trained project manager,I have to take issue with this statement.
And as an engineer who is used to talking to project managers, my response to these requirements would be, "Cost, Time, Quality: Please select any two."
I have to agree. As much as I love the Woz, its time that he put down the crack pipe on this one. According to TFA, Woz is shopping around a few Californian locations such as Half Moon Bay to build the house...
Thus sayeth the Wiki about Half Moon Bay, California: Half Moon Bay usually has mild weather throughout the year. Hot weather is rare; the average annual days with highs of 90F (32C) or higher is only 0.2 days. Cold weather is also rare with an annual average of 2.5 days with lows of 32F (0C) or lower.
Of course the eco-house will remain at body temperature all year around, but so will a tent in that part of the world. This looks too much like cheating.
I actually did this once. Back in the day, I released an xbox modchip design and basically dared Microsoft to come after me for it in Australia. (Unlike the suckers who Sony took down here in Oz, I wasn't stupid enough to be selling pirate software on the side so I was never in real danger)
Ugh...please, stop misusing words. Seriously. I've known people who grew up in communist countries. Believe me, when I read your posts I see an uninformed, spoiled anarchist. Not a communist. You can take my word for that. And I know what the words actually mean.
Ahh, now I begin to see where our points of view diverge. We appear to have a disagreement at a much more fundamental level.
As for not having the rights in the first place, you are absolutely wrong. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that copyright isn't there or declaring that it shouldn't be there isn't going to make it go away. I DO have those rights - the law grants them to me. Just as the law grants you the right of free speech and freedom of travel. ALL rights are artificial. Unfortunately, you're living in a society that has had these rights and freedoms for long enough that you've forgotten that somebody had to fight and die for them. When was the last time you had to defend one of your rights?
You see, I do not believe that all of my rights are artificial. I believe that many are fundamental to my status as a human person. These rights I will fight and die for. Unlike yourself, I will not kill other humans to protect rights that are merely granted to me as a boon by my society.
You say that there is some level of comparison between my 'right' to have the police chase down and arrest people who make unlicensed copies of my fiddle playing, and my Right to Freedom and Self Determination as a person.
I see no link, and I will not fight and die over the fiddle playing. I also won't do it over my right to use oil in my SUV or any of the other 'rights' you believe that you have. Please don't shoot at my children if my country decides to tell your country where to shove it's copyright treaty, OK? Feel free to shoot at us if we hold your citizens without trial like the USA does to ours.
Indeed, I find it unfortunate that you would invoke the honor of my memories for those who have fallen in battle in defense of our _natural_ rights. If you think that they also believed that all rights are artificial, why do you think they died for them? I put it to you that these men and women overwhelmingly believed that the rights they were fighting for were given to them by God, and not by man. If your next post breaks Goodwin's law and calls me a Nazi, then I will not reply any further.
Well, frankly, your tone is very inflammatory. Your post suggests that you're the type of person who would have no difficulties with a tyranny of the masses (I don't know if this is the case or not, but you're talking about taking people's rights away, and however you spin it, you're still talking about taking people's rights away).
Oh dear, you're looking at a libertarian and seeing a communist. No my friend, I am not advocating taking away your right to societal protection of your intellectual property, simply because you have no such right to begin with.
Over the centuries, philosopher's saints and poets have contemplated the nature of our existence. Many have come to the view that the human person has a natural dignity that retains numerous rights that are deserving of protection. If you are an American, you would no doubt be familiar with one of the best formulations, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
During all that time not one of these philosophers, saints or poets has ever argued that there is a natural right to human intellectual property. Sorry. And don't think that it is because they ignored the notion of property all together either, because they didn't. Simply no-one until recent times has ever considered ideas to be commercially tradable property deserving of police protection.
The "shiny new thing" that you mock in the OP is, ironically, better attributed to the Berne convention itself! The world has been awash with copyrightable works through all of recorded human history, and only recently has anyone decided that ideas can be owned.
If you have decided that you will only perform creative acts in exchange for societal protection, then good riddance to you when we end that protection. I'm hoping that the fellows in charge of the hollywood popcorn factories go with you too.
1. It does not differentiate between copyright law and patent law. Copyright law is actually quite good at allowing for the promotion of knowledge, as you cannot copyright an idea - only the exact implementation of one. Patent law, on the other hand, has become very restrictive in regards to the promotion of knowledge, and you CAN patent an idea. (You can patent a tax strategy, for crying out loud.)
The statement was never intended to make such differentiation, because copyright law is indeed broken at a fundamental level. I'll expand on this point below.
2. I don't know enough about 19th century copyright law, but frankly, 20th century copyright law based on the Berne Convention is quite good at what it does, and doesn't really need to be fixed. At best, it needs minor modifications.
Copyright law's capability to identify infringing acts does not give any indication of the law's ability to perform the function that it was designed for, at a reasonable cost to benefit ratio for society.
Copyright is an artificial bounty that society has granted to some of its members, but the cost to society of enforcing that bounty has dramatically increased in recent years.
At some point, society is going to shrug its shoulders and say that the cost of protecting these social policies far outweighs the benefits they bring to us. Many of us are impatient for that time to arrive. We should be spending our time thinking about the future of intellectual property law, not trying to prop up the old regime.
If you are at a small company, then maybe you should simply seek work elsewhere. If they are small, then you will have to participate in pretty much most projects, and they have already shown that they will take work that is of dubious moral character (in relation to your personal standards).
If it is a large company, let them get to know you better. When you are sure that your manager knows you well enough to know that you are not a nutcase, simply tell them that you are sometimes uncomfortable with certain aspects of your work on particular types of projects, and that you'd appreciate it if they can use their awesome management power to help you out. Negotiate with managers in the same manner that police negotiate with bank robbers, "Yes, only you have the power to let the women and children go... Show us how powerful you are by letting a few go right now..."
I work in a medium sized company, and everyone knows I'm a Christian so on the very rare occasion that we work for a client from an industry that is legal but not particularly moral, some sort of magic portal opens and I'm transported in the opposite direction from that project team.
I find that people respect your beliefs if you give them the opportunity. Just avoid situations where it might be percieved as being demanding or intolerant.
I've looked at the bishops document and it contains nothing to do with the science of stem cell research.
And I, Sir, have looked at your response to their document and it contains nothing that addresses human dignity.
The Bishops's argument is summarised as follows;
Human dignity is a real and precious thing. A nation's integrity is in part reflected by the recognition and respect for the human dignity of the most vulnerable and powerless memebers of it's society.
Virtually all Australians would agree that a human becomes a person deserving of human dignity prior to birth. It is only the amount of time prior to birth that is at issue. No-one says it is moral to kill a baby the day before it is born but immoral the day after.
Therefore, given that society all agree that vulnerable humans need our protection before birth, and the grey area is simply one of scope, going ahead and deciding that we can arbitrarily draw the line of what is human or not at this early stage it too fast, too soon.
Catholic bishops are not, generally speaking, Luddites. I know the bishop who was the primary author of this paper and he actually holds academic degrees in the area. If you want to claim that at a particular point in our lives we deserve dignity and protection from people who have power over us, but at other points in our cellular lifetime we do not deserve this protection, then could you do all of us a favour and in your next reply, tell us where this dividing line is please?
And if your 'line in the sand' makes reference to technological solutions, (i.e, viability outside the womb), can you also let me know why you think that something as important as human dignity should be measured or determined by our technology and not our moral reason?
Unlike you, I belive that the bishop's submission is one of very few that actually do address the real issues at hand.
I'm an oz boy, Irish/catholic heritage. I lived (and raised my children) in the US for about four years and by coincidence my daughter is going to visit our friends in Texas in just a few days time. My family's links to the US are strong but we don't have a doubt about our choice to live here in Australia.
Every single thing the parent post said is correct. My only criticism is that the parent was not harsh enough on the topic of Vegemite. The American government seems hell bent on creating terrorists out of even the fun loving aussies. Give me vegemite, or give me death. You don't want to piss us off this way. Make nice with the Vegemite and we'll stop whinging so much about Iraq, OK? Keep the ban and we'll stop making our stupid fscking excuses for you on the world stage and start fingerprinting your citizens when they arrive in the country like you do to us instead.
You are forcing a generation of young Australians to have to smuggle vegemite illegally into your country in order to fulfill their cultural and culinary needs. You might as well ban musilm women from wearing a scarf or force the amish to use ipods. We will resist your government, and we'll be aided by your people who love freedom of breakfast spread as much as we do. This tyranny will end.
And you know the French will side with us too, right? You guys are screwed.
Until we have some reason to believe that life (in a morally meaningful sense of the word) begins at conception, we should ignore people who say so.
Oh dear, you seem to have fallen into your own fallacy. I'll give you something better than a "morally meaningful" reason to believe that life begins at conception, in fact, I'll give you a scientific demonstration that is so solidly based on first principle observable evidence that it would make Decartes blush.
Here we go, do this experiment (if legal in your country)
Take cell samples from a 1 day zygote and another from a living 75 year old human.
Conduct a full range of biometric & DNA testing on each sample.
Send results for peer review, asking the question "Are these cells both from living human beings?"
The only meaningful scientific answer has to be the one that is stripped of all emotion and subjectivism and reduced only to highly repeatable observations, a clearly stated prediction ("that zygotes and 75 year old men are both human and alive") and an evidence based answer ("yes"). It is even disprovable, so Popper would be happy.
Oh, BTW, you might also want to look to see what Descartes was doing when he invented the modern idea of scientific enquiry - he was doing theology, my friend. Not all religous thought is bad for your mind, you know.
Hydrazine is nasty stuff but it is just one of the dangerous checmicals aboard the shuttle.
When Columbia broke up, it was the possible presence of Hydrazine from the APUs that make the Texas Dept of Health issue warnings about approaching shuttle debris.
The problem with spaceflight is that everything is so close to the edge. Performance requirements that can still leave a good safety margin mean that simpler and safer methods are often inadequate. Consumers don't have the same risk/reward ratio as people who sit on top of rockets for a living.
Change the rules of the game so that click fraud doesn't matter.
I applaud google for trying out different systems in order to eliminate a weakness in their business model. This is the right way to do things.
More companies should take note of their approach. In particular, the recording and motion picture industry needs to pay attention to this. If you have a business model that just won't work anymore because of advances in technology, the ethical thing to do is to change your model rather than change the laws and using our society's police and courts to keep your profits flowing.
It is not just ethics either - it is good business sense. In the long term, business models that only continue to work through the suppression of new models that might one day replace it are doomed to failure.
Google will continue to be a major player precisely because they adopt this sort of approach, not despite it.
I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to use the IAAT tag:)
So here's the deal folks, I've got a B.Theology with majors in systematic theology and biblical studies, I read/write biblical greek and ecclesiastical latin and I'm a soon-to-be candidate for ordination. I have some Christian street-cred.
Also, look at my/. user ID number, and compare it to your own. I'm a professional software developer and I've worked with some of the biggest names in the industry.
Also, for the record, I love science and see no conflict between it and religion, just as long as they keep out of each others hair. If science tries to tell me the meaning of my existance or if religion tries to tell me the true value of Pi, I yell bullshit and bitch-slap 'em back where they came from.
So what I want to say, and hopefully my short intro is enough to make some of you pause for a moment to listen, is that many people here seem to have an innacurate idea of what Christianity is all about.
I come from the Catholic tradition, and about 1 in 5 people on this planet identify themselves as Catholic so I think I'm safe in saying that official Catholic doctrine would be a safe place to start if we are looking at 'what do Christians believe?' I'll let the smaller denominations speak for themselves rather than attempt to cover their views too, but here is the official Catholic view on whether we should take the bible literally.
The following quotes come from the document, Verbum Dei (Latin, "The Word of God") which has the status of being an 'Apostolic Constitution' of the Second Vatican Council. Basically, it doesn't come any more official than this folks - All Catholics are required to adhere to these guidelines or otherwise get out of dodge, so this is what a numerical majority of Christians on the planet believe.
Is the bible history?
However, since God speaks in sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.
To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to "literary norms." For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at the period in their everyday dealings with one another
Sorry if your neighbourhood or country is full of Christians who are sure that the true value of pi is 3.0 because that's the figure that the bible gives, but you can be rest assured that the vast majority of Christians do not hold anything like that view.
Noah's Ark is clearly a literary form (flood story) that is documented to have existed all over the ancient world. The official methodology that Catholics would use to understand this story involves looking at the ways in which the Jewish version is different from say, the Sumerian version, thereby gaining some insight into what the Old Testament authors thought was important about it. Also, we'd look at it to see if it can shed any light on our understanding of the New testament too, because, well shucks, we're Christians not Jews and we like to see eveything in terms of Christ - even the Old Testament.
But you won't find any Catholic theologians freezing their ass off on top of
Actually, my friend Merideth considers herself to be the feature-naming goddess for Spirit, so if/.ers will reply to this post with possible names, I'll put in one of the highest moderated ones for consideration.
Hi Justin,
How about we get the ball rolling by naming a rock 'Tux', after the Linux mascot penguin?
No, really, how many terrorist acts have been committed by Australians? We have like one dude at Gitmo bay (he was some arsehole who decided to leave his comfortable suburban family home in Adelaide to go get some adventure in Afghanistan) but other than that idiot, I can't think off-hand of any incident _ever_ where an Australian had even a remote connection to a terrorist act on foreign soil.
So you are going to fingerprint and mugshot us? Do you realise how much safer Australians are on any scale, violent crime through to terrorism, than US citizens rate?
Hell, we've never even had a civil war, and we got our independence when form 86B was lodged (in triplicate) at the appropriate parlimentary office in London.
I would think that you'd want _more_ of us over there because it would _lower_ the average amount of violence and terrorism that you'd see. Instead, you want to fingerprint us!
Go figure.
Unfortunately there is no "pseudo-legality" about it. Until we have a legal SDK for the Xbox, the modding community is going to have to stay underground.
The best news in the last few days was this story about open source modchips on the games.slashdot.org site, so perhaps we are slowly getting closer to Xbox modding becoming a legitimate hobby.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, they already thought of that. Theologically speaking, the bread and wine are only transubstantiated as the body and blood of christ while they retain the appearance and form of bread and wine.
Thus larger crumbs of the bread (particles, in latin) are dropped into the wine to avoid the precious body being wasted, yet smaller detrius, such as dust or tiny little crumbs are considered to no longer have the appearance of bread, and thus can no longer be held to be valid material. They are not the true body of christ anymore even though they fell of bread which was considered to be so.
Human vomit or bile, in my theological opinion, is not valid transubstatiated matter, so you would not get a DNA match on Christ. Dexter would have to go after him instead I think....
-M
Wow, I just spent the time and watched the video in the parent post. The video is a lecture titled. "Programming DNA", and it totally blew my mind even though I considered myself to be fairly up-to-date on these sorts of topics.
If you are a software engineer (or hacker) and have an interest in DNA hacking, its a must-see. For instance, about half way through the lecture you'll suddenly realise the true significance of the first man made gnome - and understand why it is important in a way that none of the news (even so called science-news) has reported so far.
Cheers, and thanks for the link!
-M
I love this sentiment, as if criminals actually pay attention to that one law and ignore the others. Why don't you also stop mugging and bank thievery by outlawing those activities too? I take it that you must live in the USA because when I lived over there this was the first thing that NRA nuts would say when I told them about Australia's gun laws. They always laughed out loud and immediately told me that the muggers would all be carrying guns and feeling safe in their knowledge that none of their victims could defend against them.
I'd then laugh at the odd look of disbelief that would come over their own face when I told them that this isn't the case at all, our criminals are so rarely armed I can't think of a recent armed robbery of any type in my local capital city. Additionally, I can't think of any friends who have ever been mugged anyway - except those of us who have lived in the USA for some time who of course were mugged over there by an armed man.
Could you do us all a favor, America, and keep your weapon fantasies far far away from your social policies please? If you think about it even for a second, you'll see it makes good sense.
For the record, I'm a libertairian by nature. I will happily vote to remove these laws because I believe that liberty should not be traded in for safety, however I will be feeling very sad on that day as I go down to the gun shop in order to arm and defend my family from the imminent rise in violent crime. Some aspects of being a libertairian in Austraia really suck, sigh.
-M
They hate our freedom (as in beer... no, wait...)
-M
You must be new here.
-M
(OK, OK, Ron Paul probably stood on the debris at ground zero, looked us all in the eye and spoke truth to the nation, all while saving a bus of orphans and satisfying an exotic woman who had never been conquered by a man before, but I'm talking about all the rest of the politicians so no need to post a reply pointing it out, thanks.)
Too complex dude. Redundancy doesn't mean what you think it means.
-M
When we give the third world citizens the ability to make direct uncensored contact with the outside world, learn about political alternatives and organise themselves for action, only then will the causes of starvation be addressed. Looks to me like the OLPC might wipe out starvation in a single generation if we give it enough support.
Yes, some people are still going to starve, or die in a flood, while clinging to their OLPC; but many others will not. These are literally the 'children of the revolution'. What's not to like?
-M
It seems to me that everytime there is a wikipedia story here, we see the sort of astroturfing the parent is trying to do with their post. I don't think that this is any sort of wiki-cabal response though, nor a conspiracy.
Wikipedia's problems are _so_ deep that the admins will come here onto SLASHDOT (of all places) and argue that "if you've done nothing wrong, you don't have to fear our power. Only the bad guys are being hurt by these admin abuses."
Jeebus, save me. Go back and read your post and repent, or turn in your card my friend.
-M
As a trained project manager,I have to take issue with this statement.
And as an engineer who is used to talking to project managers, my response to these requirements would be, "Cost, Time, Quality: Please select any two."
-M
I have to agree. As much as I love the Woz, its time that he put down the crack pipe on this one. According to TFA, Woz is shopping around a few Californian locations such as Half Moon Bay to build the house...
Thus sayeth the Wiki about Half Moon Bay, California: Half Moon Bay usually has mild weather throughout the year. Hot weather is rare; the average annual days with highs of 90F (32C) or higher is only 0.2 days. Cold weather is also rare with an annual average of 2.5 days with lows of 32F (0C) or lower.
Of course the eco-house will remain at body temperature all year around, but so will a tent in that part of the world. This looks too much like cheating.
-M
I actually did this once. Back in the day, I released an xbox modchip design and basically dared Microsoft to come after me for it in Australia. (Unlike the suckers who Sony took down here in Oz, I wasn't stupid enough to be selling pirate software on the side so I was never in real danger)
Good luck to them all.
-M
For fucks sake, you think she needs counselling or an ethics class over a picture of her in a pirate hat drinking a cup of drink?
-M
Ahh, now I begin to see where our points of view diverge. We appear to have a disagreement at a much more fundamental level.
You see, I do not believe that all of my rights are artificial. I believe that many are fundamental to my status as a human person. These rights I will fight and die for. Unlike yourself, I will not kill other humans to protect rights that are merely granted to me as a boon by my society.
You say that there is some level of comparison between my 'right' to have the police chase down and arrest people who make unlicensed copies of my fiddle playing, and my Right to Freedom and Self Determination as a person.
I see no link, and I will not fight and die over the fiddle playing. I also won't do it over my right to use oil in my SUV or any of the other 'rights' you believe that you have. Please don't shoot at my children if my country decides to tell your country where to shove it's copyright treaty, OK? Feel free to shoot at us if we hold your citizens without trial like the USA does to ours.
Indeed, I find it unfortunate that you would invoke the honor of my memories for those who have fallen in battle in defense of our _natural_ rights. If you think that they also believed that all rights are artificial, why do you think they died for them? I put it to you that these men and women overwhelmingly believed that the rights they were fighting for were given to them by God, and not by man. If your next post breaks Goodwin's law and calls me a Nazi, then I will not reply any further.
-M
Oh dear, you're looking at a libertarian and seeing a communist. No my friend, I am not advocating taking away your right to societal protection of your intellectual property, simply because you have no such right to begin with.
Over the centuries, philosopher's saints and poets have contemplated the nature of our existence. Many have come to the view that the human person has a natural dignity that retains numerous rights that are deserving of protection. If you are an American, you would no doubt be familiar with one of the best formulations, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
During all that time not one of these philosophers, saints or poets has ever argued that there is a natural right to human intellectual property. Sorry. And don't think that it is because they ignored the notion of property all together either, because they didn't. Simply no-one until recent times has ever considered ideas to be commercially tradable property deserving of police protection.
The "shiny new thing" that you mock in the OP is, ironically, better attributed to the Berne convention itself! The world has been awash with copyrightable works through all of recorded human history, and only recently has anyone decided that ideas can be owned.
If you have decided that you will only perform creative acts in exchange for societal protection, then good riddance to you when we end that protection. I'm hoping that the fellows in charge of the hollywood popcorn factories go with you too.
-M
The parent post has totally missed the point.
The statement was never intended to make such differentiation, because copyright law is indeed broken at a fundamental level. I'll expand on this point below.
Copyright law's capability to identify infringing acts does not give any indication of the law's ability to perform the function that it was designed for, at a reasonable cost to benefit ratio for society.
Copyright is an artificial bounty that society has granted to some of its members, but the cost to society of enforcing that bounty has dramatically increased in recent years.
At some point, society is going to shrug its shoulders and say that the cost of protecting these social policies far outweighs the benefits they bring to us. Many of us are impatient for that time to arrive. We should be spending our time thinking about the future of intellectual property law, not trying to prop up the old regime.
-M
If you are at a small company, then maybe you should simply seek work elsewhere. If they are small, then you will have to participate in pretty much most projects, and they have already shown that they will take work that is of dubious moral character (in relation to your personal standards).
If it is a large company, let them get to know you better. When you are sure that your manager knows you well enough to know that you are not a nutcase, simply tell them that you are sometimes uncomfortable with certain aspects of your work on particular types of projects, and that you'd appreciate it if they can use their awesome management power to help you out. Negotiate with managers in the same manner that police negotiate with bank robbers, "Yes, only you have the power to let the women and children go... Show us how powerful you are by letting a few go right now..."
I work in a medium sized company, and everyone knows I'm a Christian so on the very rare occasion that we work for a client from an industry that is legal but not particularly moral, some sort of magic portal opens and I'm transported in the opposite direction from that project team.
I find that people respect your beliefs if you give them the opportunity. Just avoid situations where it might be percieved as being demanding or intolerant.
-M
And I, Sir, have looked at your response to their document and it contains nothing that addresses human dignity.
The Bishops's argument is summarised as follows;
Catholic bishops are not, generally speaking, Luddites. I know the bishop who was the primary author of this paper and he actually holds academic degrees in the area. If you want to claim that at a particular point in our lives we deserve dignity and protection from people who have power over us, but at other points in our cellular lifetime we do not deserve this protection, then could you do all of us a favour and in your next reply, tell us where this dividing line is please?
And if your 'line in the sand' makes reference to technological solutions, (i.e, viability outside the womb), can you also let me know why you think that something as important as human dignity should be measured or determined by our technology and not our moral reason?
Unlike you, I belive that the bishop's submission is one of very few that actually do address the real issues at hand.
M
I'm an oz boy, Irish/catholic heritage. I lived (and raised my children) in the US for about four years and by coincidence my daughter is going to visit our friends in Texas in just a few days time. My family's links to the US are strong but we don't have a doubt about our choice to live here in Australia.
Every single thing the parent post said is correct. My only criticism is that the parent was not harsh enough on the topic of Vegemite. The American government seems hell bent on creating terrorists out of even the fun loving aussies. Give me vegemite, or give me death. You don't want to piss us off this way. Make nice with the Vegemite and we'll stop whinging so much about Iraq, OK? Keep the ban and we'll stop making our stupid fscking excuses for you on the world stage and start fingerprinting your citizens when they arrive in the country like you do to us instead.
You are forcing a generation of young Australians to have to smuggle vegemite illegally into your country in order to fulfill their cultural and culinary needs. You might as well ban musilm women from wearing a scarf or force the amish to use ipods. We will resist your government, and we'll be aided by your people who love freedom of breakfast spread as much as we do. This tyranny will end.
And you know the French will side with us too, right? You guys are screwed.
-M
Oh dear, you seem to have fallen into your own fallacy. I'll give you something better than a "morally meaningful" reason to believe that life begins at conception, in fact, I'll give you a scientific demonstration that is so solidly based on first principle observable evidence that it would make Decartes blush.
Here we go, do this experiment (if legal in your country)
The only meaningful scientific answer has to be the one that is stripped of all emotion and subjectivism and reduced only to highly repeatable observations, a clearly stated prediction ("that zygotes and 75 year old men are both human and alive") and an evidence based answer ("yes"). It is even disprovable, so Popper would be happy.
Oh, BTW, you might also want to look to see what Descartes was doing when he invented the modern idea of scientific enquiry - he was doing theology, my friend. Not all religous thought is bad for your mind, you know.
M
Hydrazine is nasty stuff but it is just one of the dangerous checmicals aboard the shuttle.
When Columbia broke up, it was the possible presence of Hydrazine from the APUs that make the Texas Dept of Health issue warnings about approaching shuttle debris.
The problem with spaceflight is that everything is so close to the edge. Performance requirements that can still leave a good safety margin mean that simpler and safer methods are often inadequate. Consumers don't have the same risk/reward ratio as people who sit on top of rockets for a living.
-M
I applaud google for trying out different systems in order to eliminate a weakness in their business model. This is the right way to do things.
More companies should take note of their approach. In particular, the recording and motion picture industry needs to pay attention to this. If you have a business model that just won't work anymore because of advances in technology, the ethical thing to do is to change your model rather than change the laws and using our society's police and courts to keep your profits flowing.
It is not just ethics either - it is good business sense. In the long term, business models that only continue to work through the suppression of new models that might one day replace it are doomed to failure.
Google will continue to be a major player precisely because they adopt this sort of approach, not despite it.
M
I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to use the IAAT tag :)
So here's the deal folks, I've got a B.Theology with majors in systematic theology and biblical studies, I read/write biblical greek and ecclesiastical latin and I'm a soon-to-be candidate for ordination. I have some Christian street-cred.
Also, look at my /. user ID number, and compare it to your own. I'm a professional software developer and I've worked with some of the biggest names in the industry.
Also, for the record, I love science and see no conflict between it and religion, just as long as they keep out of each others hair. If science tries to tell me the meaning of my existance or if religion tries to tell me the true value of Pi, I yell bullshit and bitch-slap 'em back where they came from.
So what I want to say, and hopefully my short intro is enough to make some of you pause for a moment to listen, is that many people here seem to have an innacurate idea of what Christianity is all about.
I come from the Catholic tradition, and about 1 in 5 people on this planet identify themselves as Catholic so I think I'm safe in saying that official Catholic doctrine would be a safe place to start if we are looking at 'what do Christians believe?' I'll let the smaller denominations speak for themselves rather than attempt to cover their views too, but here is the official Catholic view on whether we should take the bible literally.
The following quotes come from the document, Verbum Dei (Latin, "The Word of God") which has the status of being an 'Apostolic Constitution' of the Second Vatican Council. Basically, it doesn't come any more official than this folks - All Catholics are required to adhere to these guidelines or otherwise get out of dodge, so this is what a numerical majority of Christians on the planet believe.
Is the bible history?
Sorry if your neighbourhood or country is full of Christians who are sure that the true value of pi is 3.0 because that's the figure that the bible gives, but you can be rest assured that the vast majority of Christians do not hold anything like that view.
Noah's Ark is clearly a literary form (flood story) that is documented to have existed all over the ancient world. The official methodology that Catholics would use to understand this story involves looking at the ways in which the Jewish version is different from say, the Sumerian version, thereby gaining some insight into what the Old Testament authors thought was important about it. Also, we'd look at it to see if it can shed any light on our understanding of the New testament too, because, well shucks, we're Christians not Jews and we like to see eveything in terms of Christ - even the Old Testament.
But you won't find any Catholic theologians freezing their ass off on top of
Hi Justin,
How about we get the ball rolling by naming a rock 'Tux', after the Linux mascot penguin?
No, really, how many terrorist acts have been committed by Australians? We have like one dude at Gitmo bay (he was some arsehole who decided to leave his comfortable suburban family home in Adelaide to go get some adventure in Afghanistan) but other than that idiot, I can't think off-hand of any incident _ever_ where an Australian had even a remote connection to a terrorist act on foreign soil. So you are going to fingerprint and mugshot us? Do you realise how much safer Australians are on any scale, violent crime through to terrorism, than US citizens rate? Hell, we've never even had a civil war, and we got our independence when form 86B was lodged (in triplicate) at the appropriate parlimentary office in London. I would think that you'd want _more_ of us over there because it would _lower_ the average amount of violence and terrorism that you'd see. Instead, you want to fingerprint us! Go figure.
Unfortunately there is no "pseudo-legality" about it. Until we have a legal SDK for the Xbox, the modding community is going to have to stay underground.
The best news in the last few days was this story about open source modchips on the games.slashdot.org site, so perhaps we are slowly getting closer to Xbox modding becoming a legitimate hobby.