Bah... we're still trying to invent the electron. I'm told that if we can invent the electron, we can bypass all the primordial soup and sticks and stone tablets and snailmail, and go right to ignoring email!!
Badlands very cool too, and smells better than the Lake:)
Yeah, WTF has happened with Minnesota in recent years? Seems every time I hear anything from MN, it's something like that. How'd a state settled mostly by practical Norwegians (I'm related to half the state:) get so afraid of doing the practical thing -- ie. punish the deed, not the thought!!
One has to wonder if the legal profession and prison system having both become such big business is itself funnelling laws toward Thought Crime (even if not intentionally so), just from sheer complexity.
An AC makes some insightful side points, which I'll quote for the +2 masses:
====== We're the Cut'n'paste generation. We don't really think about what we write before putting 'pen to paper' anymore for the following reasons:
1. You can cut'n'paste you sentances to make some resemblance of ordered thought. 2. You can get a quick response, so if you're imprecise, you'll know about it quicker.
So basically latency has plummeted, but we're probably less efficient at doing things than we used to be before all this 'new fangled technology'.
Am I going to read this comment through? Do a spellcheck? nope, I'm going to spin in out, with it's imprecision, flaws and ambiguity, for I know that someone else will pick up on those point very rapidly and therefore I do not need to bother... ======
Unfortunately, this is very accurate. The digital age has made the hurried, poorly-thought-out, flung-to-the-winds reply that much easier to commit, as any flamewar veteran can attest.
The nearest pen-and-paper equivalent would be to read only the first line of each snailmail letter received, then reply by scribbling on postcards, right three at the post office, and immediately throwing them into the Outgoing Mail slot.
But if they can't look at violent porn, that doesn't negate their *need* to look at it -- so they're that much more likely to go out and "roll their own" by exactly such an assault/rape/murder.
Admittedly, this produces an actual crime, where real people get hurt. Hmm... if legislation keeps going this way, all crimes will be real rather than virtual, and there'll be no more NEED for the Thought Police...
Yeah, but that's North Dakota, where they haven't yuppified all their brains yet. You can't expect such common sense of people who no longer have independent thoughts, their local Thought Police having restricted any neurons that got out of line:/
Not only all the behaviours from TFA, but also those noted in your post, are exactly as they were back in the snailmail era. Only the medium has changed.
Back when I was a lad, we had actually write with pen on paper, address envelopes, lick our own stamps, and trudge to the post office uphill both ways in a snowstorm! you kids have it easy, what with email to do all the dirty work. Think of the galoshes makers!!
Yep, it's a fine distinction... sortof like "I hate broccoli and wish everyone would stop growing it, and here are all my reasons why, which you should endorse too" vs. "Everyone will now stop growing broccoli, by executive fiat."
So... RMS would like all the broccoli in the world gone, but doesn't go so far as to demolish other folks' broccoli fields.
And while following RMS's rules would indeed restrict choice (you couldn't eat broccoli even if you want to) he's done nothing to *enforce* that restricted choice. (Would he if he *could*?? I don't know, but I suspect he might.)
So, yeah... calling him a fascist is overburdening the word "fascist", tho "control freak" would not be out of line.
When I saw your new sig, my first thought was, "What backup medium did he use?":)
Re "I don't like cabbage" vs "I think the government should ban cabbage" (good analogy!)... I've always gotten the *impression* that RMS would like to ban closed software, because I've come to believe (partly from corresponding with RMS) that what he *really* wants, at the gut level, is total control over ALL source code everywhere, lest someone do something without his knowledge (a classic paranoid schizo behaviour). But I can't point at something specific he's *said* to back up that impression.... rather, it's based on observation and experience (not unique to me; others have made similar observations).
Mind you, I strongly support the idea of opensource, but not the notion that that opensource is universally desirable or that it should be required for everything. But I sometime think RMS is opensource's own worst enemy.
I first heard "could care less" from Brits, probably 20 years ago. So don't blame US:)
Since then, "could care less" has become more common (at least among younger folk) than the more meaningful "couldn't care less".
Might have started as a mishearing by the younger generation (who often drop half-heard words from such phrases), or maybe as misinterpreted sarcasm ("I *could* care less" meaning "but in fact I don't care at all.")
To my ear, "could care less" implies that the speaker doesn't really think about what they're saying.
As to the nominal topic, I suspect Dell "couldn't care less" so long as they can sell overpriced Alienware products to rich kids who think owning one turns them into a 1337 g@/\/\3r.
"...by the time we are 100% certain it'll be too late to do anything."
And what if we "do something" and that proves to screw up the longterm cycle, so a thousand years from now we plunge into an ice age?
Re:the most important
on
30 Days of DRM
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I agree absolutely that DRM on public domain material is inherently an oxymoron, but that doesn't make the law see it that way. IANAL, but I think it would depend on whether there is a sunset provision in the DRM law itself. As it stands now in the US, something could be out of copyright, yet it is (AFAIK) still illegal to crack the DRM. The two facets are, unfortunately, separate legal issues.
Beyond that, one would have to trust to the fairness and common sense of the courts, not always the best bet.:(
Also, it would be best if such a case went to conclusion and set a precedent (hopefully of "Death to DRM"), rather than being dismissed to be tried another day, possibly with disastrous results.
And I was thinking similarly... keep your nefarious activities confined to a removeable HD, that the rest of the system will not miss if it is removed and shoveled into a hole in the back yard, or pitched into the river.
Wasn't that a cool post to read? Carriageways and lorries... gives the language a sense of character that is lacking in much of American English.
[tagline] "I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate".... in Real Life, my dentist is my mom's sister's husband's sister's husband's shirttail cousin, from 4 states away.:)
I swear today's highway engineers never drive on their creations... here in California, a common mistake is that the passing lane on hills is at the TOP of the hill -- after you've already spent the past nn-miles crawling uphill behind stuff. And of course whatever was previously going too slow then accelerates at the crest so you can't get around 'em... rinse and repeat for the next hill. Which in turn encourages unsafe passing on uphill slopes.
Everywhere else in the sane world, they put the passing lanes along the uphill slope, where they'll let you actually maintain your speed as you go uphill. But not here!!
Oh, and they bank curves the wrong way here too. I've seen that so consistently in California (but never elsewhere) that I began wondering if it's done on purpose, as some sort of "speed control". Of course all that really happens is that when the road is wet, people slip more on curves than is needful/safe.
In my observation, most dogs that have been around mirrors in daily life (ie. house dogs) get the concept, and will even correctly respond to stuff seen in the mirror (thus behind the dog). A dog presented with a mirror for the first time will often investigate, decide it's not a real dog, and after that ignore it -- pretty much the same thing a human toddler does. A few very dumb dogs think the image is another dog. (Behaviour wrt television is similar, and a few dogs will actually watch TV. I once had a pup who liked only football, and Max Headroom!)
I've only seen one cat that got the concept, tho he was a freak -- he would even look over the correct shoulder when the mirror showed him a person or another cat approaching him from behind. No training involved.
I've seen the same behaviour from fish, especially those bulgy-eyed goldfish. But it goes even lower down the ladder:
Last summer I caught a tarantula and kept it in a big jar (the ones we get here are small, no more than an inch across), and fed it on live grasshoppers, which it really liked (munch-munch-munch-gone!)
After a few feedings, it got so when it saw me coming with a grasshopper (and it evidently could see this well to a distance of about 3-4 feet), it would run round and round its jar, obviously all excited about dinner.
When I didn't have a grasshopper, it would just sit there staring at me.
Yeah, but some insects (frex, ants) also have complex social hierarchies and exhibit group hunting behaviour. So that in itself isn't such a great indicator of intelligence.
Especially if you consider that geeks consider themselves the pinnacle of intelligence, yet often exhibit neither cooperative social behaviours nor great communication skills;)
While I agree that such a scheme is more likely to be used against P2P networks, I also had the thought that this is exactly what's needed to implement a micropayment system where P2P users could get paid for legally distributing content. And that could be a step toward "legitimizing" P2P in the eyes of the big content holders.
That aside, software patents are by definition bogus, and they were right to deny it no matter *what* its motivation was.
Slashdot Mirror
"I prefer to use the term Gnods."
[struggles manfully to find meaning in acronymity]
Gods Not Odiferous Dweebs ??
Bah... we're still trying to invent the electron. I'm told that if we can invent the electron, we can bypass all the primordial soup and sticks and stone tablets and snailmail, and go right to ignoring email!!
[looks at previous post] Shit, how'd that rate a +5? not that I'm complaining :)
Badlands very cool too, and smells better than the Lake :)
:) get so afraid of doing the practical thing -- ie. punish the deed, not the thought!!
Yeah, WTF has happened with Minnesota in recent years? Seems every time I hear anything from MN, it's something like that. How'd a state settled mostly by practical Norwegians (I'm related to half the state
One has to wonder if the legal profession and prison system having both become such big business is itself funnelling laws toward Thought Crime (even if not intentionally so), just from sheer complexity.
This has the makings of a chain letter :)
Sounds just like my inbox :)
An AC makes some insightful side points, which I'll quote for the +2 masses:
======
We're the Cut'n'paste generation. We don't really think about what we write before putting 'pen to paper' anymore for the following reasons:
1. You can cut'n'paste you sentances to make some resemblance of ordered thought.
2. You can get a quick response, so if you're imprecise, you'll know about it quicker.
So basically latency has plummeted, but we're probably less efficient at doing things than we used to be before all this 'new fangled technology'.
Am I going to read this comment through? Do a spellcheck? nope, I'm going to spin in out, with it's imprecision, flaws and ambiguity, for I know that someone else will pick up on those point very rapidly and therefore I do not need to bother...
======
Unfortunately, this is very accurate. The digital age has made the hurried, poorly-thought-out, flung-to-the-winds reply that much easier to commit, as any flamewar veteran can attest.
The nearest pen-and-paper equivalent would be to read only the first line of each snailmail letter received, then reply by scribbling on postcards, right three at the post office, and immediately throwing them into the Outgoing Mail slot.
Damn, that's rough... did you have a problem with the dinosaurs chewing up your stone tablets? I've heard they're subject to breakage.
But if they can't look at violent porn, that doesn't negate their *need* to look at it -- so they're that much more likely to go out and "roll their own" by exactly such an assault/rape/murder.
Admittedly, this produces an actual crime, where real people get hurt. Hmm... if legislation keeps going this way, all crimes will be real rather than virtual, and there'll be no more NEED for the Thought Police...
Yeah, but that's North Dakota, where they haven't yuppified all their brains yet. You can't expect such common sense of people who no longer have independent thoughts, their local Thought Police having restricted any neurons that got out of line :/
:)
(side note: I was born in Devil's Lake ND
Not only all the behaviours from TFA, but also those noted in your post, are exactly as they were back in the snailmail era. Only the medium has changed.
Back when I was a lad, we had actually write with pen on paper, address envelopes, lick our own stamps, and trudge to the post office uphill both ways in a snowstorm! you kids have it easy, what with email to do all the dirty work. Think of the galoshes makers!!
Yep, it's a fine distinction ... sortof like "I hate broccoli and wish everyone would stop growing it, and here are all my reasons why, which you should endorse too" vs. "Everyone will now stop growing broccoli, by executive fiat."
So... RMS would like all the broccoli in the world gone, but doesn't go so far as to demolish other folks' broccoli fields.
And while following RMS's rules would indeed restrict choice (you couldn't eat broccoli even if you want to) he's done nothing to *enforce* that restricted choice. (Would he if he *could*?? I don't know, but I suspect he might.)
So, yeah... calling him a fascist is overburdening the word "fascist", tho "control freak" would not be out of line.
When I saw your new sig, my first thought was, "What backup medium did he use?" :)
... I've always gotten the *impression* that RMS would like to ban closed software, because I've come to believe (partly from corresponding with RMS) that what he *really* wants, at the gut level, is total control over ALL source code everywhere, lest someone do something without his knowledge (a classic paranoid schizo behaviour). But I can't point at something specific he's *said* to back up that impression.... rather, it's based on observation and experience (not unique to me; others have made similar observations).
Re "I don't like cabbage" vs "I think the government should ban cabbage" (good analogy!)
Mind you, I strongly support the idea of opensource, but not the notion that that opensource is universally desirable or that it should be required for everything. But I sometime think RMS is opensource's own worst enemy.
I first heard "could care less" from Brits, probably 20 years ago. So don't blame US :)
Since then, "could care less" has become more common (at least among younger folk) than the more meaningful "couldn't care less".
Might have started as a mishearing by the younger generation (who often drop half-heard words from such phrases), or maybe as misinterpreted sarcasm ("I *could* care less" meaning "but in fact I don't care at all.")
To my ear, "could care less" implies that the speaker doesn't really think about what they're saying.
As to the nominal topic, I suspect Dell "couldn't care less" so long as they can sell overpriced Alienware products to rich kids who think owning one turns them into a 1337 g@/\/\3r.
"...by the time we are 100% certain it'll be too late to do anything."
And what if we "do something" and that proves to screw up the longterm cycle, so a thousand years from now we plunge into an ice age?
I agree absolutely that DRM on public domain material is inherently an oxymoron, but that doesn't make the law see it that way. IANAL, but I think it would depend on whether there is a sunset provision in the DRM law itself. As it stands now in the US, something could be out of copyright, yet it is (AFAIK) still illegal to crack the DRM. The two facets are, unfortunately, separate legal issues.
:(
Beyond that, one would have to trust to the fairness and common sense of the courts, not always the best bet.
Also, it would be best if such a case went to conclusion and set a precedent (hopefully of "Death to DRM"), rather than being dismissed to be tried another day, possibly with disastrous results.
And I was thinking similarly... keep your nefarious activities confined to a removeable HD, that the rest of the system will not miss if it is removed and shoveled into a hole in the back yard, or pitched into the river.
[car goes BLAT!! and jumps backward like it's touched an electric fence]
Using small words appropriate for the electronically-challenged, what does that do?
Wasn't that a cool post to read? Carriageways and lorries... gives the language a sense of character that is lacking in much of American English.
:)
[tagline] "I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate".... in Real Life, my dentist is my mom's sister's husband's sister's husband's shirttail cousin, from 4 states away.
I swear today's highway engineers never drive on their creations... here in California, a common mistake is that the passing lane on hills is at the TOP of the hill -- after you've already spent the past nn-miles crawling uphill behind stuff. And of course whatever was previously going too slow then accelerates at the crest so you can't get around 'em... rinse and repeat for the next hill. Which in turn encourages unsafe passing on uphill slopes.
Everywhere else in the sane world, they put the passing lanes along the uphill slope, where they'll let you actually maintain your speed as you go uphill. But not here!!
Oh, and they bank curves the wrong way here too. I've seen that so consistently in California (but never elsewhere) that I began wondering if it's done on purpose, as some sort of "speed control". Of course all that really happens is that when the road is wet, people slip more on curves than is needful/safe.
[puts on professional dog trainer hat]
In my observation, most dogs that have been around mirrors in daily life (ie. house dogs) get the concept, and will even correctly respond to stuff seen in the mirror (thus behind the dog). A dog presented with a mirror for the first time will often investigate, decide it's not a real dog, and after that ignore it -- pretty much the same thing a human toddler does. A few very dumb dogs think the image is another dog. (Behaviour wrt television is similar, and a few dogs will actually watch TV. I once had a pup who liked only football, and Max Headroom!)
I've only seen one cat that got the concept, tho he was a freak -- he would even look over the correct shoulder when the mirror showed him a person or another cat approaching him from behind. No training involved.
I've seen the same behaviour from fish, especially those bulgy-eyed goldfish. But it goes even lower down the ladder:
Last summer I caught a tarantula and kept it in a big jar (the ones we get here are small, no more than an inch across), and fed it on live grasshoppers, which it really liked (munch-munch-munch-gone!)
After a few feedings, it got so when it saw me coming with a grasshopper (and it evidently could see this well to a distance of about 3-4 feet), it would run round and round its jar, obviously all excited about dinner.
When I didn't have a grasshopper, it would just sit there staring at me.
Yeah, but some insects (frex, ants) also have complex social hierarchies and exhibit group hunting behaviour. So that in itself isn't such a great indicator of intelligence.
;)
Especially if you consider that geeks consider themselves the pinnacle of intelligence, yet often exhibit neither cooperative social behaviours nor great communication skills
While I agree that such a scheme is more likely to be used against P2P networks, I also had the thought that this is exactly what's needed to implement a micropayment system where P2P users could get paid for legally distributing content. And that could be a step toward "legitimizing" P2P in the eyes of the big content holders.
That aside, software patents are by definition bogus, and they were right to deny it no matter *what* its motivation was.