We are all sensate creature, but the modern sensibility regards the senses as distinct. Children are taught they have five senses, and that the senses all have no bearing on each other, and do not interact.
This is hogwash. Everybody has synesthesia to some degree, it is just something that must be developed by hard work. When a child goes outside to play, he is immersed into a world of many senses, and each sense mingles with the other.
When we invented our various entertainment technologies, each treated the senses as distinct. Music is a field, painting is a field, but where is the field of Art that combines vision, sound, touch and taste and smell? There isn't one, and untill we develop such artforms that combine everything, we are lost.
This is why the ipod is a small step towards artistic nirvana for all of us. With its small mobility and combined visio-audio technologies, it integrates itself into other activities, becoming a background to our lives. The ipod is the mark of a new type of artistic technology, and I for one welcome it and praise apple, of whom I have been a fan for many years, to the skies for this triumph in UI intersensory design.
While the Soviet Union may have industrialized to a point from 1918 to 1928, Imperial Russia was not a "feudal economy". It was a curious fusion of Industrial Europe and feudalism. All the Soviet system did is change the type of feudalism. And by no means was the post-Czarist system anymore efficent than the system before the revolt. During that communist regime, the transition was just more bloodthirsty than it had been under the Czars. 20-35 million dead from starvation? Even into the 1990s during the summer the Russians have to set aside large parts of the Army to assist in harvest collection because in the last 70s years they've not figured out how to do it efficently.
Well, in 1918 75% of the workers in Russia were agricultural workers, and 25% were industrial. You are correct to say it wasn't strictly feudal in a medieval sense, but it was based on a system of 'serfdom' of a sort (tho not under the law) and was overhwlmingly backwards. Also, the period I mention is before the rise of Stalin, and the deformation of the worker's state. And Russia was devastated by WWI, and the young soviet state had to contend with the 21 armies of foriegn occupation trying to bring back the old regime. It is hardly surprising it all went awry.
Much of the power in the United States remains de-centralized in the hands of the local state governments.
This is certainly true, however it is also true that the US is centralised to a degree never intended. And the most important branches, such as military, taxation, law enforcement, etc etc, are very much centralised or in a centralised framework.
I would rather have a Democratic Government at the local and state level and a Republic at the Federal level simply because, a person is smart, but people are stupid. A direct democracy would turn into an anarchy or a theocracy quickly.
Then, why not educate people? Besides, I disagree that a direct democracy couldn't work, but I can't be bothered going into it in a big way just now.
I used to have a girlfriend who was fond of creating 'combined art-utility vehicles' - she created a car called that looked like a Gothic castle on the move, and sedan with a huge, 0.8 ton, covering which had a small room with a bed in it. It was very heavy, very moving (literally!).
Conceptual Art like this is a fine way of improving the drudgery of the commute, where millions in their identikit Fords and Fiestas wander soulessly to and fro' employment in cubicles, some of us are free, free to make our wild imaginations reality.
Is playing with an in car computer really the same tho? I'm all a-quiver at the talents of these techy types, but what actual difference does this in car computer make? None, really, it won't inflame the mind or create beauty, and this is the problem with modern tinkering. 1950's mobiles had flaming jet burners on the back, and we are adding little bits of silicon? Yuk.
Thankfully, when I moved to America I noticed that there is an even bigger car scene, and I would go to my local car improvement rally were it not for all the guns held by the police and contestants at such events, quite barbarous, in many respects.
I urge the modifiers of the utilitarian not to invent even more utility, but to improve and create an original aesthetic. Art is what is missing from our lives, in the modern age, not linux computers.
Why are the same people who moan about the conformist nature of US society (Columbine etc), now turning around and trying to make MS confirm to US ideals?
I know that America isn't very fond of free speech and democracy (ok, they say they are, but frankly it is one of the single most homogenous and confirmist countries in the world), but attacking MS because they 'don't confirm to American ideals' is frankly absurd.
The article also says:
If history has shown us anything, it's that the best protection lies in decentralizing power and promoting competition.
Eh? Why were all the most successful Empires centrally controlled? Was the Roman Empire decentralised? Sure, they had some degree of devolution, but Rome was still the boss. The best economies have always been centrally and state controlled. For example, the USSR's economy increased 900% from a feudal economy in 1918 to a modern industrial state by 1928, under a communist regime. The US itself has put the economy under state control in wartime - the biggest growth period being WWII, which dragged america out of the depression.
Also:
For more than two centuries Americans have prided themselves on protecting their freedom by limiting the concentration of power.
This is completely fallacious. The history of the US is a hostory of power centralisation in the hands of federal government. The states have been emasculated, and now the same is happening in the EU wrt the nation states of Europe. America isn't about independant thought, democracy or devolved power at all - it is about centralised government control, confirmist attitudes (what other country would invent phrases like 'Anti-American' and 'The American Way' in the first place? I mean WTF?) and a lack of democracy thanks to having no real options in the democratic process.
Lies like this article should be combatted by radical politics, IMHO. Agitate!
Many may think that the Hammer is a quantum leap in microprocessor technology. Indeed, prima facie, it seems that this is the case.
But, in actual fact, this technology would have been with us many years ago were it not for corporate domination of high technology. I have been around for many years, and I remember in the late 50's and the 1960's, when computing technologies were dominated by the Universities and the public ethos was uppermost. Freedom of information reigned, and thousands of little computing groups competed to bring the new era. Unix, Multics, CP/M, Hard Drives, the Mouse, CRT displays, all these and more were made during this time.
As soon as computing became dominated by corporate interests though, a money making formula was cracked - Computer, simplistic OS, mouse, CRT, keyboard, box and sell and improve and refine. The days of real paradigm shifts stopped. The Corps controlled all, and were not interested in innovation except in as much as it forces a new upgrade cycle.
if we want computing to have a new dawn, a new time of real change, then we need to ensure that the computing industry is overthrown and controlled instead by the people. The socialist control of the means of production of hardware will allow for innovation in that realm, just as the socialist control of the means of production in software has i thanks to the GNU liscence.
I urge everyone to think of these issues, and ask themselves, do I want the same as now, but twice faster, or a genuine revolution? Constant revolution, not improvement, is the way forward.
I think the Open Source model is not revolutionary enough to prevent the problems of proprietry ownership of code and domination by multinationals such as MS.
The reason for this is that capitalism is capitalism, and although some take the Fabien position that it can be reformed to cater for the needs of the majority, it seems pretty clear to me that only a radical overthrow of the entire system can improve our lot and stop the evils.
What does this mean in an Open Source context? Well, there is nothing in the OSS liscence preventing corporate PLC's from using software code. It merely addresses the symptoms, and not the cause. A more restrictive liscence for the people denying access to selfish concerns would be a great boost and a bigger threat to MS than anything.
At present there is nothing stopping MS from using OSS software and still dominating, despite the left reformist nature of OSS. Frankly, a new liscence is needed if we really want to see the back of such companies and corporate practises for all time.
Red Bull isn't the only thing that is controversial.
Opensource propogandist ESR has also entered the world of dangerous consumables.
Controversial discussion website adequacy.org had an interesting article talking about ESR's penchant for the endangered bird, the Puffin.
Now an endangered species, ESR tasted its flesh and said:
My entree was a "wild game feast" -- medallions of reindeer, wild goose (Cathy had a wild-goose entree), and puffin. The puffin was the interesting bit; strong-flavored, not unpleasant, but oily.
The puffin is very closely related to the penguin. Could this Open Source advocate one day be seen chowing down on roast penguin in the wastes of Antarctica? With ESR, you never know.
The problem with todays astronauts is that they are professionals. Of course they aren't exciting. It is their jobs. Being uniformly white, middle class and male doesn't help either.
The extremely controversial discussion website adequacy.org has a very interesting and controversial remedy for this. An interesting article, available here, goes into depth on the subject of how we select NASA astronauts and what we can do to make it better (NOTE:Article is controversial)
I think that NASA depends very much on public image; we must select not only in terms of professionalism, but character too. Michael Foales had it; people like John Blaha and other nameless astro's do not. In this age of instant democracy and bread and circuses, charisma of your main representatives is very important. --
Okay, I know it is a big issue just now, how to make space travel and exploration cheaper and more available to the masses.
This is why I was interested to read an article at the somewhat notorious discussion site adequacy.org detailing how to make space travel and exploration less elitist and more widespread.
This article shows and provides backing for widening the franchise of people we send to space. Meanwhile, this one shows the possible threats we the human race may face from embarking on our seeming destiny among the stars (NB: Both these articles are controversial in nature)
My own opinion is that space needs a public-private partnership in order to best take advantage of the best the state and the private sector has to offer. All nations realise this to some extent just now, but the Japanese and Europeans much more so than the americans. We need to do similar here in the USA. --
People round here might demonise Microsoft, but at the end of the day education is education and it doesn't matter how it is provided or who by, as long as it is impartial and rounded.
I read an interesting article on this topic at adequacy.org, the controversial discussion site, regarding the education of children.
The article considered the sort of education that children get from unlikely sources, such as games, and the dangerous relations of this to commercial companies and some of the adverse effects.
Seems to me that we should not be overzealous and deny education and educational equipment, nomatter the provider.
The field of human entertainment depends on things going out of date. Almost all possible storylines have been thought of an implemented already at some point in human history, at least at a symbolic level. For new stories to be worthwhile then, they need to be new in a facile sense, not fundamentally new. They need to reflect and be of our times.
However, the rate of technological advance is no longer affecting our culture as much as it did. Sure, technology is moving forward, but it does not affect society. Our quality of life is no different from someone in the 1950's. The law of diminishing returns is coming into play. If you have a job, car, health insurance and go on holiday twice a year, what more improvements can your lifestyle get? Very few.
Combined with this, there is the effect of globalisation and multiculturalism, which should really be called monoculturalism. This means that society is becoming less varied, and people are becoming more and more similar. Therefore stories have a more global appeal - the latest hollywood blockbuster or remake appeals to someone in Shanghai just as much as someone in LA.
So, before long every type of film will have been made, and all films will be derivatives (derivation being a very postmodern concept, and beloved of recent films). But extensive archiving will allow people to see this, and watch cheap archive footage just as fresh and relevant in 2020 as it is today.
We have to make sure we don't kill the active film industry by suffocating it and overshadowing it with the better films of yesteryear. --
There is an assumption at the root of any time capsule style museum, that there is something worth preserving in our wasteful civilisation.
The entirety of Western civilisation is based on the need to build new technologies and exploit the rest of the world for resources, both mineral and intellectual, to make this as rapid as possible. Since the 15th century, when Europe first cast its greedy eye outwards towards far away lands beyond its borders, we have seen this process of exploitation in action. Western civilisation isn't really a civilisation at all - it is a production base for the development of new and incredible technologies.
Culturally, we have produced very little. The Stone Age people of the Andaman islands are far more advanced spiritually and philosophically than we are, in our material lust for hamburgers. Every time we visit Walmart we are raping the third world a little more, and yet we think ourselves so advanced. We are a virus, feeding of off those greater than we are, and our time will surely pass.
Why this desire for immortality? A civilisation at peace with itself is not afraid of death, and does not try to extend its legacy beyond the normal span. Are we really so facile that we must seek immortality for our pauperish contribution to world culture?
I fear we are. I think that we should attend to the here and now, and start to right the wrongs we have wrought, rather than embarking on an exercise of vanity, and patting ourselves on the back. --
Information wants to be free - for the children.
on
The Value Of Privacy
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· Score: 2
Why is slashdot falling for the old 'its for the children' line? Can't anyone see that punishing companies like this is an act of heavy handed government?
The children are underage - they do not have much money. But marjeters have a legitimate interest in them - it has been shown that children under the age of ten make most major purchasing decisions in family homes. If you are selling a car, or a house, or a bedspread, or an Operating System, getting to the children is the thing to do.
But why punish them for this? It is the fault of the parents for listening to their children. If parents had a more Victorian attitude to bringing up youngsters, these problems would not exist.
I think that it is not the children that should be punished, but rather the parents.
In a free market, information should not be a commodity. With this much I agree. Information should be free - by illegalising information, in this case information describing children, we are making it a more valuable commodity than ever.
It is time to let the companies off the leash, and have parents be responsible, not children. --
One thing that seems to bemuse foreigners about Britain is the fact that the Kingdom punches above its weight in international affairs.
One of the main reasons for this is the historical tradition in Britain to rule over peoples and waves, since the days of William the Conqueror. The British have always had a caste system based on gearing the country to wage war, and to rule other countries. The British upper classes are bred to lead over others, even genetically speaking this can be seen - every president of America has been of stout Anglo Saxon extraction.
The result of all this is that the British can exert huge influence abroad, and even today the pax Britannica continues, through our proxies, the Americans, who inherited their ideals from us.
The shining light of Celtic inventiveness and Anglo Saxon ruling and liberty has meant that every corner of the globe has had the values of liberty and democracy enforced upon it. America would not exist were it not for the Mother country.
The secret services are trusted by the British people, as they are composed of boarding school, cricket playing chaps who have been steeped in playing 'the game' since childhood. This tradition is why Britain was aware of the Soviet threat before america, and managed to convince america to join us against the Soviets. Same with Hitler - the Americans were to scared, and thought he was no threat. But Britain nobly stood alone.
In this laptop, we see the traditions of Old England and Empire distilled to a pure essence : Trust noone, treat all fairly and always some first - tho' 'tis no shame to come second, something that our American children have perhaps forgotten. --
AOL was the first great internet startup: they went ipo even before it was fashionable, and unlike other ipos, theirs has returned a profit -- the sort of profit only kings dream of.
They're successful. We should be happy for them. But instead, we're moaning about how we want a piece of the pie. Well it's their pie!
I have seen the face of tyranny. Tyranny is when a man cannot sleep at night for fear that ruffians will set fire to his cottage and loot his stables. That's what's happening to AOL as we speak: freeloaders are claiming that they get to use AOL's servers for free just because they want to! Imagine the nerve!
In Sicily, they call it a mafia. In Ireland, it's parliament. But in the United States of America, it's free software? Free software is supposed to be about giving away your property as you see fit, not stealing others' property on your own behalf.
Jabber cannot be allowed to discredit free software. We must cut the cancer out at its roots, lest it poison the entire apple tree. If it's freedom that people want, then it's freedom they shall get in all its righteous fury.
Not freedom from want.
Not freedom from need.
but Freedom from the rule of the mob!
Make no mistake about it: if this can happen to AOL, then it can happen to you. No one is safe in a world where the blackguards run free through the countryside raping and pillaging. Today it's Virginia. Tomorrow, it could be your backyard.
I have worked in this industry for a long time, and have been in the Internet and Open Source trade since the very beginning. If there is one thing that irritates and annoys me, it is the endless puffing by non-business computer scientists about how the internet and Open Source business methods are radically new, and shall change society.
They will not. They are just another business model.
First off, the internet. The only companies that can make money online are companies that can also make money offline. There is nothing fundamentally new about the internet, and by the law of diminishing returns it is a lot less revolutionary than the telegraph and telephone were in their day. It eases communication and remote business, sure, but it does not provide some new paradigm. The people, usually the High Priests of Wired magazine and denizens of this site, who claim that the internet is radically new are completely wrong.
Open Source, too, does not change business plans. Microsoft is moving to.NET and distributed application hiring models anyway. Redhat, Sun and the like are doing the best they can to keep up with this. Because in 10 years most businesses will be running dumb terminals and applications will be actually running inside the software giants houses, whether something is open source or not is largely irrelevent. This is the new reality we are moving too - what matters is not Linux, Windows and other OS's, what matters is applications and the ability to keep them up stably. MS can do this, as can Red Hat and Sun and IBM. We will see the return of an effective closed source business policy, as Red Hat will be leveraging its.NET equivalent, and customers will not be able to access the source code as said source code will be running on Red Hat's machines.
My view is that all the twaddle talked of new paradigms and so on is just rot. Business models haven't changed since the 1850's in any significant way. The law of declining returns is showing that new technologies effect our profit making capabilities less and less.
The British East India Company, the largest company the world has ever seen (who said multinationals were a new phenomenon? They have benefitted us for a couple of centuries, and are smaller now than they were last century), had a business model no different from Microsofts. While people may despise MS, I must say that as a libertarian I cannot in all conscience say that I would like them to be punished. Libertarianism is about allowing companies like MS to do what they want, as the market is always right. I agree. --
This shows that Amateurism has a place in space exploration. Back in the 30's, people were driven by pure ideals. Robert Goddard created a marvellous milestone in our century off his own back.
Later came the power politics of the 60's and 70's. The great achievements of that era, like Armstrong walking on the moon in '69, were soured by the terrible emotions and motives that underlay them. If only space exploration had remained an amateur effort, we may have got much farther, in a spiritual sense as well in a technical one.
The problem with the power politics, and the death struggles of Nations that lay beneath, is that it has made us impotent. We no longer believe that amateur space exploration is possible.
Well, the simple fact is that it can be done. Spirited men, untainted by cruel ideaologies, can go forth and challenge our conceptual ideas with needing taxpayers money or approval from Senatorial commissions. Right now, as we speak, people in England, France America and Japan are planning this very thing.
Later shall come the commercial interests, and they will up the scale and challenge even more fronteirs, but in the cold hearted interests of profit and influence.
All these different interests, the amateur, the Government and the corporation, are driven by prestige. But nationalism has no place in space exploration, and nor does profit seeking. The status seeking and curiosity of the private individual is what we want to encourage.
Do we, as a race, have the guts and imagination to pull this through? I hope so, but sometimes it seems that we just don't have the balls:/ --
The paper clearly states that in order for Napster to be sued, the following clause had to be proved:
Right and Ability to Control: Napster has the ability to control the infringing activity of its users because it retains the right to block a user
Nothe that Napster retained the right to tamper with what its users were doing, and to block them. Furthermore:
In order to prove a contributory infringement claim, a copyright owner must establish the following elements: (1) some act of direct infringement (by end-users, for example); (2) that the defendant knew or should have known of the defendant of the direct infringement; and (3) that the defendant materially contributed to the direct infringement.
1&2 are fair enough, but 3? I don't think so.Also:
In order to prove a vicarious infringement claim, a copyright owner must establish the following elements: (1) some act of direct infringement (by end-users, for example); (2) that the defendant had the right or ability to control the direct infringer; and (3) that the defendant derived a direct financial benefit from the direct infringement.
The crucial point is number 2, Slashdot is perfectly free to sign off any 'rights' over what the posters here say
The paper makes one thing shiningly clear: P2P Systems have 2 choices. They van choose between total anarchy, and total control. The problem for Napster is that it did not choose either, and retained some control, and more importantly the right to such control. If slashdot went down the anarchy route, and from reading the posts one would think it had, then it would have nothing to fear. This is about retaining the right, and also exercising it, to tamper with users posts.
--
My problem is that they have set a precedent. As soon as they delete posts, they are open for all time to any corporation that wishes to sue them. To keep common carrier status, you must *never* tamper with posts on your site.
By hueing closely to this ideal, you cannot be touched in the law. It is a basic principle. --
Kuro5hin is only sponsored by VALinux. VALinux have no say over what happens there. As to the ownership, ambitious plans have been mooted to make it community owned, which would make it even more entitled to common carrier status. The fact that all the articles are written by the readers helps it in this regard also. --
I find this very worrying for Slashdot. They should have resisted *all* impulses to tamper with the site.
Common Carrier status is given to organisations that are not responsible for the data that they carry, such as telephone companies and postal companies. We have had good reason to believe that Slashdot falls into this categorie.
However, as sson as editors tamper with posts, the site no longer has common carrier status, and is therefore vulnerable to being sued by any organisation that does not like what we, the readers, post here.
They may already have done this by allowing Michael to tamper with posts, something he has done many times in the past, but even then they should have held sway and not deleted, IMO.
Now that they have deleted a post, how can they be said to have common carrier status? IMO, they cannot - editorial control has been exerted, for all to see. It is called a slippery slope.
I think that this is because the commercial bigwigs at VALinux care not for principles. I think Taco was leaned on by those above him.
Suppose this had happened at kuro5hin. Would the posts have been deleted? I don't think so.
This is just a symptom of slashdot having become a commercial institution. It no longer cares, when it comes down to the bottom line, about the principles upon which it was founded. --
I am amzed that the concept corporative control of the Internet lives on in this day and age. Sure, the Internet was founded my insanely controlling defense agencies in the military, but nowadays we have entered a new era - the world of Open Source, with ESR and RMS as our modern day MESSIAHS!
I demand that these incorporated fascistic companies be disbanded, so that the internet can throw off the shackles of fascism and enter the new age of Free Software. Free software and free love and free speech are the principles on which the Internet has been founded - look at RMS's multiple girlfriends and strip club fun.
Only when the internet is truly free will we, as a people and as a nation, be free too.
If necessary, we must FIGHT. Fight the establishment, and wheel out our pensioned wheelchair warriors to destroy the controlling influences that make every little detail of our lives a living hell.
thewre may be some difficulties. Although I am sure that this laser will make it a lot cheaper for big corporations, multinationals and oil companies and so forth to find fossil fuels and material resources. I must consider some of the potential difficulties.
Put simply, a laser works by evaporating rock, or Silicon. This forms SO2 and SO and SO3, the Silicon Oxides, as well as many other noxious gases. The simple fact is that the SOX's have been shown to be hundreds of times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and they also destroy Ozone, O3, much more effectively than common or garden chlorofluerocarbons ever did. Vapourised rock is a dangerous thing indeed.
I am sure that this system could be effective though, and make things cheaper and faster for the multinationals, which is a good thing for all of us. I just hope that they take into account the potential pitfalls, perhaps by planting 100 trees every time they use the laser drill, a proven way of renewing the environment.
Corporations are usually quite amenable to this sort of idea. --
Slashdot Mirror
This is hogwash. Everybody has synesthesia to some degree, it is just something that must be developed by hard work. When a child goes outside to play, he is immersed into a world of many senses, and each sense mingles with the other.
When we invented our various entertainment technologies, each treated the senses as distinct. Music is a field, painting is a field, but where is the field of Art that combines vision, sound, touch and taste and smell? There isn't one, and untill we develop such artforms that combine everything, we are lost.
This is why the ipod is a small step towards artistic nirvana for all of us. With its small mobility and combined visio-audio technologies, it integrates itself into other activities, becoming a background to our lives. The ipod is the mark of a new type of artistic technology, and I for one welcome it and praise apple, of whom I have been a fan for many years, to the skies for this triumph in UI intersensory design.
That is correct, she was my girlfriend back then. Although we are still friends, we split up over a disagreement about Dadaism.
Well, in 1918 75% of the workers in Russia were agricultural workers, and 25% were industrial. You are correct to say it wasn't strictly feudal in a medieval sense, but it was based on a system of 'serfdom' of a sort (tho not under the law) and was overhwlmingly backwards. Also, the period I mention is before the rise of Stalin, and the deformation of the worker's state. And Russia was devastated by WWI, and the young soviet state had to contend with the 21 armies of foriegn occupation trying to bring back the old regime. It is hardly surprising it all went awry.
Much of the power in the United States remains de-centralized in the hands of the local state governments.
This is certainly true, however it is also true that the US is centralised to a degree never intended. And the most important branches, such as military, taxation, law enforcement, etc etc, are very much centralised or in a centralised framework.
I would rather have a Democratic Government at the local and state level and a Republic at the Federal level simply because, a person is smart, but people are stupid. A direct democracy would turn into an anarchy or a theocracy quickly.
Then, why not educate people? Besides, I disagree that a direct democracy couldn't work, but I can't be bothered going into it in a big way just now.
Salut!
Conceptual Art like this is a fine way of improving the drudgery of the commute, where millions in their identikit Fords and Fiestas wander soulessly to and fro' employment in cubicles, some of us are free, free to make our wild imaginations reality.
Is playing with an in car computer really the same tho? I'm all a-quiver at the talents of these techy types, but what actual difference does this in car computer make? None, really, it won't inflame the mind or create beauty, and this is the problem with modern tinkering. 1950's mobiles had flaming jet burners on the back, and we are adding little bits of silicon? Yuk.
Thankfully, when I moved to America I noticed that there is an even bigger car scene, and I would go to my local car improvement rally were it not for all the guns held by the police and contestants at such events, quite barbarous, in many respects.
I urge the modifiers of the utilitarian not to invent even more utility, but to improve and create an original aesthetic. Art is what is missing from our lives, in the modern age, not linux computers.
I know that America isn't very fond of free speech and democracy (ok, they say they are, but frankly it is one of the single most homogenous and confirmist countries in the world), but attacking MS because they 'don't confirm to American ideals' is frankly absurd.
The article also says:
If history has shown us anything, it's that the best protection lies in decentralizing power and promoting competition.
Eh? Why were all the most successful Empires centrally controlled? Was the Roman Empire decentralised? Sure, they had some degree of devolution, but Rome was still the boss. The best economies have always been centrally and state controlled. For example, the USSR's economy increased 900% from a feudal economy in 1918 to a modern industrial state by 1928, under a communist regime. The US itself has put the economy under state control in wartime - the biggest growth period being WWII, which dragged america out of the depression.
Also:
For more than two centuries Americans have prided themselves on protecting their freedom by limiting the concentration of power.
This is completely fallacious. The history of the US is a hostory of power centralisation in the hands of federal government. The states have been emasculated, and now the same is happening in the EU wrt the nation states of Europe. America isn't about independant thought, democracy or devolved power at all - it is about centralised government control, confirmist attitudes (what other country would invent phrases like 'Anti-American' and 'The American Way' in the first place? I mean WTF?) and a lack of democracy thanks to having no real options in the democratic process.
Lies like this article should be combatted by radical politics, IMHO. Agitate!
But, in actual fact, this technology would have been with us many years ago were it not for corporate domination of high technology. I have been around for many years, and I remember in the late 50's and the 1960's, when computing technologies were dominated by the Universities and the public ethos was uppermost. Freedom of information reigned, and thousands of little computing groups competed to bring the new era. Unix, Multics, CP/M, Hard Drives, the Mouse, CRT displays, all these and more were made during this time.
As soon as computing became dominated by corporate interests though, a money making formula was cracked - Computer, simplistic OS, mouse, CRT, keyboard, box and sell and improve and refine. The days of real paradigm shifts stopped. The Corps controlled all, and were not interested in innovation except in as much as it forces a new upgrade cycle.
if we want computing to have a new dawn, a new time of real change, then we need to ensure that the computing industry is overthrown and controlled instead by the people. The socialist control of the means of production of hardware will allow for innovation in that realm, just as the socialist control of the means of production in software has i thanks to the GNU liscence.
I urge everyone to think of these issues, and ask themselves, do I want the same as now, but twice faster, or a genuine revolution? Constant revolution, not improvement, is the way forward.
The reason for this is that capitalism is capitalism, and although some take the Fabien position that it can be reformed to cater for the needs of the majority, it seems pretty clear to me that only a radical overthrow of the entire system can improve our lot and stop the evils.
What does this mean in an Open Source context? Well, there is nothing in the OSS liscence preventing corporate PLC's from using software code. It merely addresses the symptoms, and not the cause. A more restrictive liscence for the people denying access to selfish concerns would be a great boost and a bigger threat to MS than anything.
At present there is nothing stopping MS from using OSS software and still dominating, despite the left reformist nature of OSS. Frankly, a new liscence is needed if we really want to see the back of such companies and corporate practises for all time.
Opensource propogandist ESR has also entered the world of dangerous consumables.
Controversial discussion website adequacy.org had an interesting article talking about ESR's penchant for the endangered bird, the Puffin.
Now an endangered species, ESR tasted its flesh and said:
My entree was a "wild game feast" -- medallions of reindeer, wild goose (Cathy had a wild-goose entree), and puffin. The puffin was the interesting bit; strong-flavored, not unpleasant, but oily.
The puffin is very closely related to the penguin. Could this Open Source advocate one day be seen chowing down on roast penguin in the wastes of Antarctica? With ESR, you never know.
I bet he would even drink 'Red Bull'.
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The extremely controversial discussion website adequacy.org has a very interesting and controversial remedy for this. An interesting article, available here, goes into depth on the subject of how we select NASA astronauts and what we can do to make it better (NOTE:Article is controversial)
I think that NASA depends very much on public image; we must select not only in terms of professionalism, but character too. Michael Foales had it; people like John Blaha and other nameless astro's do not. In this age of instant democracy and bread and circuses, charisma of your main representatives is very important.
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This is why I was interested to read an article at the somewhat notorious discussion site adequacy.org detailing how to make space travel and exploration less elitist and more widespread.
This article shows and provides backing for widening the franchise of people we send to space. Meanwhile, this one shows the possible threats we the human race may face from embarking on our seeming destiny among the stars (NB: Both these articles are controversial in nature)
My own opinion is that space needs a public-private partnership in order to best take advantage of the best the state and the private sector has to offer. All nations realise this to some extent just now, but the Japanese and Europeans much more so than the americans. We need to do similar here in the USA.
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I read an interesting article on this topic at adequacy.org, the controversial discussion site, regarding the education of children.
The article considered the sort of education that children get from unlikely sources, such as games, and the dangerous relations of this to commercial companies and some of the adverse effects.
Seems to me that we should not be overzealous and deny education and educational equipment, nomatter the provider.
That would be taking zealoutry too far.
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However, the rate of technological advance is no longer affecting our culture as much as it did. Sure, technology is moving forward, but it does not affect society. Our quality of life is no different from someone in the 1950's. The law of diminishing returns is coming into play. If you have a job, car, health insurance and go on holiday twice a year, what more improvements can your lifestyle get? Very few.
Combined with this, there is the effect of globalisation and multiculturalism, which should really be called monoculturalism. This means that society is becoming less varied, and people are becoming more and more similar. Therefore stories have a more global appeal - the latest hollywood blockbuster or remake appeals to someone in Shanghai just as much as someone in LA.
So, before long every type of film will have been made, and all films will be derivatives (derivation being a very postmodern concept, and beloved of recent films). But extensive archiving will allow people to see this, and watch cheap archive footage just as fresh and relevant in 2020 as it is today.
We have to make sure we don't kill the active film industry by suffocating it and overshadowing it with the better films of yesteryear.
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The entirety of Western civilisation is based on the need to build new technologies and exploit the rest of the world for resources, both mineral and intellectual, to make this as rapid as possible. Since the 15th century, when Europe first cast its greedy eye outwards towards far away lands beyond its borders, we have seen this process of exploitation in action. Western civilisation isn't really a civilisation at all - it is a production base for the development of new and incredible technologies.
Culturally, we have produced very little. The Stone Age people of the Andaman islands are far more advanced spiritually and philosophically than we are, in our material lust for hamburgers. Every time we visit Walmart we are raping the third world a little more, and yet we think ourselves so advanced. We are a virus, feeding of off those greater than we are, and our time will surely pass.
Why this desire for immortality? A civilisation at peace with itself is not afraid of death, and does not try to extend its legacy beyond the normal span. Are we really so facile that we must seek immortality for our pauperish contribution to world culture?
I fear we are. I think that we should attend to the here and now, and start to right the wrongs we have wrought, rather than embarking on an exercise of vanity, and patting ourselves on the back.
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The children are underage - they do not have much money. But marjeters have a legitimate interest in them - it has been shown that children under the age of ten make most major purchasing decisions in family homes. If you are selling a car, or a house, or a bedspread, or an Operating System, getting to the children is the thing to do.
But why punish them for this? It is the fault of the parents for listening to their children. If parents had a more Victorian attitude to bringing up youngsters, these problems would not exist.
I think that it is not the children that should be punished, but rather the parents.
In a free market, information should not be a commodity. With this much I agree. Information should be free - by illegalising information, in this case information describing children, we are making it a more valuable commodity than ever.
It is time to let the companies off the leash, and have parents be responsible, not children.
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One of the main reasons for this is the historical tradition in Britain to rule over peoples and waves, since the days of William the Conqueror. The British have always had a caste system based on gearing the country to wage war, and to rule other countries. The British upper classes are bred to lead over others, even genetically speaking this can be seen - every president of America has been of stout Anglo Saxon extraction.
The result of all this is that the British can exert huge influence abroad, and even today the pax Britannica continues, through our proxies, the Americans, who inherited their ideals from us.
The shining light of Celtic inventiveness and Anglo Saxon ruling and liberty has meant that every corner of the globe has had the values of liberty and democracy enforced upon it. America would not exist were it not for the Mother country.
The secret services are trusted by the British people, as they are composed of boarding school, cricket playing chaps who have been steeped in playing 'the game' since childhood. This tradition is why Britain was aware of the Soviet threat before america, and managed to convince america to join us against the Soviets. Same with Hitler - the Americans were to scared, and thought he was no threat. But Britain nobly stood alone.
In this laptop, we see the traditions of Old England and Empire distilled to a pure essence : Trust noone, treat all fairly and always some first - tho' 'tis no shame to come second, something that our American children have perhaps forgotten.
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They're successful. We should be happy for them. But instead, we're moaning about how we want a piece of the pie. Well it's their pie!
I have seen the face of tyranny. Tyranny is when a man cannot sleep at night for fear that ruffians will set fire to his cottage and loot his stables. That's what's happening to AOL as we speak: freeloaders are claiming that they get to use AOL's servers for free just because they want to! Imagine the nerve!
In Sicily, they call it a mafia. In Ireland, it's parliament. But in the United States of America, it's free software? Free software is supposed to be about giving away your property as you see fit, not stealing others' property on your own behalf.
Jabber cannot be allowed to discredit free software. We must cut the cancer out at its roots, lest it poison the entire apple tree. If it's freedom that people want, then it's freedom they shall get in all its righteous fury.
Make no mistake about it: if this can happen to AOL, then it can happen to you. No one is safe in a world where the blackguards run free through the countryside raping and pillaging. Today it's Virginia. Tomorrow, it could be your backyard.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
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They will not. They are just another business model.
First off, the internet. The only companies that can make money online are companies that can also make money offline. There is nothing fundamentally new about the internet, and by the law of diminishing returns it is a lot less revolutionary than the telegraph and telephone were in their day. It eases communication and remote business, sure, but it does not provide some new paradigm. The people, usually the High Priests of Wired magazine and denizens of this site, who claim that the internet is radically new are completely wrong.
Open Source, too, does not change business plans. Microsoft is moving to .NET and distributed application hiring models anyway. Redhat, Sun and the like are doing the best they can to keep up with this. Because in 10 years most businesses will be running dumb terminals and applications will be actually running inside the software giants houses, whether something is open source or not is largely irrelevent. This is the new reality we are moving too - what matters is not Linux, Windows and other OS's, what matters is applications and the ability to keep them up stably. MS can do this, as can Red Hat and Sun and IBM. We will see the return of an effective closed source business policy, as Red Hat will be leveraging its .NET equivalent, and customers will not be able to access the source code as said source code will be running on Red Hat's machines.
My view is that all the twaddle talked of new paradigms and so on is just rot. Business models haven't changed since the 1850's in any significant way. The law of declining returns is showing that new technologies effect our profit making capabilities less and less.
The British East India Company, the largest company the world has ever seen (who said multinationals were a new phenomenon? They have benefitted us for a couple of centuries, and are smaller now than they were last century), had a business model no different from Microsofts. While people may despise MS, I must say that as a libertarian I cannot in all conscience say that I would like them to be punished. Libertarianism is about allowing companies like MS to do what they want, as the market is always right. I agree.
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Well, you could try the X-Prize team listings. Quite a few amateurish efforts listed there.
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Later came the power politics of the 60's and 70's. The great achievements of that era, like Armstrong walking on the moon in '69, were soured by the terrible emotions and motives that underlay them. If only space exploration had remained an amateur effort, we may have got much farther, in a spiritual sense as well in a technical one.
The problem with the power politics, and the death struggles of Nations that lay beneath, is that it has made us impotent. We no longer believe that amateur space exploration is possible.
Well, the simple fact is that it can be done. Spirited men, untainted by cruel ideaologies, can go forth and challenge our conceptual ideas with needing taxpayers money or approval from Senatorial commissions. Right now, as we speak, people in England, France America and Japan are planning this very thing.
Later shall come the commercial interests, and they will up the scale and challenge even more fronteirs, but in the cold hearted interests of profit and influence.
All these different interests, the amateur, the Government and the corporation, are driven by prestige. But nationalism has no place in space exploration, and nor does profit seeking. The status seeking and curiosity of the private individual is what we want to encourage.
Do we, as a race, have the guts and imagination to pull this through? I hope so, but sometimes it seems that we just don't have the balls :/
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Right and Ability to Control: Napster has the ability to control the infringing activity of its users because it retains the right to block a user
Nothe that Napster retained the right to tamper with what its users were doing, and to block them. Furthermore:
In order to prove a contributory infringement claim, a copyright owner must establish the following elements: (1) some act of direct infringement (by end-users, for example); (2) that the defendant knew or should have known of the defendant of the direct infringement; and (3) that the defendant materially contributed to the direct infringement.
1&2 are fair enough, but 3? I don't think so.Also:
In order to prove a vicarious infringement claim, a copyright owner must establish the following elements: (1) some act of direct infringement (by end-users, for example); (2) that the defendant had the right or ability to control the direct infringer; and (3) that the defendant derived a direct financial benefit from the direct infringement.
The crucial point is number 2, Slashdot is perfectly free to sign off any 'rights' over what the posters here say
The paper makes one thing shiningly clear: P2P Systems have 2 choices. They van choose between total anarchy, and total control. The problem for Napster is that it did not choose either, and retained some control, and more importantly the right to such control. If slashdot went down the anarchy route, and from reading the posts one would think it had, then it would have nothing to fear. This is about retaining the right, and also exercising it, to tamper with users posts.
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By hueing closely to this ideal, you cannot be touched in the law. It is a basic principle.
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Kuro5hin is only sponsored by VALinux. VALinux have no say over what happens there. As to the ownership, ambitious plans have been mooted to make it community owned, which would make it even more entitled to common carrier status. The fact that all the articles are written by the readers helps it in this regard also.
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Common Carrier status is given to organisations that are not responsible for the data that they carry, such as telephone companies and postal companies. We have had good reason to believe that Slashdot falls into this categorie.
However, as sson as editors tamper with posts, the site no longer has common carrier status, and is therefore vulnerable to being sued by any organisation that does not like what we, the readers, post here.
They may already have done this by allowing Michael to tamper with posts, something he has done many times in the past, but even then they should have held sway and not deleted, IMO.
Now that they have deleted a post, how can they be said to have common carrier status? IMO, they cannot - editorial control has been exerted, for all to see. It is called a slippery slope.
I think that this is because the commercial bigwigs at VALinux care not for principles. I think Taco was leaned on by those above him.
Suppose this had happened at kuro5hin. Would the posts have been deleted? I don't think so.
This is just a symptom of slashdot having become a commercial institution. It no longer cares, when it comes down to the bottom line, about the principles upon which it was founded.
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I demand that these incorporated fascistic companies be disbanded, so that the internet can throw off the shackles of fascism and enter the new age of Free Software. Free software and free love and free speech are the principles on which the Internet has been founded - look at RMS's multiple girlfriends and strip club fun.
Only when the internet is truly free will we, as a people and as a nation, be free too.
If necessary, we must FIGHT. Fight the establishment, and wheel out our pensioned wheelchair warriors to destroy the controlling influences that make every little detail of our lives a living hell.
We must fight for FREEDOM!
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Put simply, a laser works by evaporating rock, or Silicon. This forms SO2 and SO and SO3, the Silicon Oxides, as well as many other noxious gases. The simple fact is that the SOX's have been shown to be hundreds of times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and they also destroy Ozone, O3, much more effectively than common or garden chlorofluerocarbons ever did. Vapourised rock is a dangerous thing indeed.
I am sure that this system could be effective though, and make things cheaper and faster for the multinationals, which is a good thing for all of us. I just hope that they take into account the potential pitfalls, perhaps by planting 100 trees every time they use the laser drill, a proven way of renewing the environment.
Corporations are usually quite amenable to this sort of idea.
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