Actually, if you read his book ("Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace") or any of a number of his writings, you'll see that you've taken him badly out of context. Lessig is very strongly anti-certs and pro-anonymity on the web. He's just very pessimistic; he feels that because certs and identifiability are strongly supported by business they will triumph.
In addition, if you'd actually bothered (again) to read his stuff, you'd see that he has a very reasonable position on government and the net. If government doesn't do it, business will. And if there is anything we can trust less than big government, it is big business. If you think that the mystical powers of the "internet" can somehow protect our rights against the DoubleClicks of the world without government intervention, you have another thing coming.
So... in short, you've deliberately trolled by misquoting Lessig, and you've done it in ways that aren't even plausible to anyone who has read substantial amounts of Lessig's work. He isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination- but please make more plausible critiques than these two.
Not to be an arrogant ass or anything, but "what has slashdot come to" from someone with a > 300K user ID is pretty damn funny, since you clearly have no idea what/. once was. So, a little history lesson: Once upon a time/. actually used to be about Malda having fun and posting whatever shit he thought was cool. This article falls pretty damn squarely into the "I think this is cool" category (which, if you ask me, is probably the best category on/.) If you don't think that this is interesting, take your "serious and important news" and go write for CNet. I mean- every other news source on Earth has something about the Human Genome Project this weekend... go read about it there. I'll stay here and continue to read things like this that I wouldn't have noticed anywhere else. In short: you go Rob, michael, etc. keep posting whatever the fuck you want to. Some of us still appreciate the weird and the different, and don't want to see this place become CNN.
~luge
Oh, of course. I certainly wouldn't try to stop you from doing something bass-ackwards:) I was just honestly curious as to why. Obviously, very low-level control is great. I guess I just feel that Debian's QA is pretty high quality, and I don't really feel like I need all that much control over the exact options being passed to my build process. Whatever- to each their own. Enjoy;)
~luge
That's too bad. I mean, we have, what? 4,000 packages available? And in up-to-date binaries.
So, since you answered an honest question last time: I really don't understand the insistence on compiling from source when that takes so much time, especially for big packages like X. I mean, there was a guy in another thread talking about how once a month he'd find time to do a "make world." I mean, that's great, but if I had to wait a month to get the latest gnome packages I'd scream. So... pre-compiled apt-get-able binaries for me. Why do you insist on building from source? Why do most of the BSD folks? Is it just because there isn't a better way yet? Or what?
~luge
let me ask you this, how do you plan on getting the source to sed on a debian,redhat,slack,etc system? Much easier on FreeBSD system. Umm... apt-get source sed? The level of ignorance in both these camps is ridiculous...
~luge
P.S. Honest question: How good is/stand/sysinstall? Can it do specific packages? Are all packages available via/ports available with/stand/sysinstall?
Umm... but... MS (in maybe the only thing that they've only done right) sued Apple and won over nearly exactly this same type of thing. Oh, and BTW, "pioneering" transparent plastic is not exactly the kind of thing that I consider terribly innovative. In 10 years, we'll look back at all this iMac stuff and say "gee, that was tacky" just like we say for most of the 70s. Some designs are original and timeless and deserve protection. This stuff just ain't it.
~luge
This is a good point. However, the Post specifically notes (in one of the later articles- #6 or 7, IIRC) that this is an active choice on the part of the pharmaceutical companies- a choice driven by the marketing and sales people, not the engineers. And besides- manufacturing companies in 2nd/3rd world countries (India and Brazil) are doing just fine. If they can produce the necessary equipment and supplies, I'm sure that we can manage to find a way too.
If you have a lot of time to sink into the issue of AIDS in Africa, and you want it presented in a less judgemental tone, check out the soon-to-be-Pulitzer winning series from the Washington Post called AIDS in Africa. This series goes into a lot of detail (a lot of detail- read only if you have lots of time) about the history of the epidemic, the complicating factors (lack of education, communication, Christianity + tribal taboos, etc.) and about the role of the drug companies. Like I said, a lot less judgmental than this particular article- I highly recommend it to everyone.
That said, even though the Post tries very hard not to have an anti-drug-company agenda, if you can walk away from reading all those articles without feeling that the drug companies are not culpable for the deaths of tens of millions of people... well, you are more of a cynic than I can imagine. What is happening in Africa is a terrifying combination of the Black Plague and the Holocaust, and after reading the Post series, there can be little doubt that our government and our medical industry is at the very least willing to stand by and watch millions die, and at worst directly responsible for those deaths. Yes, they need to do R&D, and yes, they should have the right to profit for their work. But when their stated policy is to profit via low-volume sales at high prices, instead of having the same ridiculous profits via high-volume sales at low prices, it is hard not to believe that the hands of their CEOs are not drenched in blood to an extent that makes tobacco CEOs look like saints.
Anyway, enough of that rant- go read the Post articles, and make the judgement for yourself.
~luge
Oh, no- didn't mean to imply that. If anything, it would be great if we were forced to listen to the criticism more often. It's just that the original poster implied that the UN never criticized us, which is quite wrong.
~luge
P.S. Of course, I'm speaking mainly of the assembly and lower functionaries- the higher ups only criticize the US obliquely. But they probably want to and wouldn't have any impact if they did...
I'd really like to agree with the "break up ICANN" sentiment. The problem with that, of course, is that one of the few bodies that is more heavily influenced by $$$ than ICANN is Congress. So, they might look into ICANN and break it up or "fix it", but the fix won't help those of us who aren't AOL. Damn frustrating, really...
Actually, with the exception of the Security Council (which is next to useless anyway) the UN is strongly anti-US, frequently voting in overwhelming numbers to criticize the US and US policies. The military and economic stuff doesn't give us control- it just means that we can ignore them when they criticize us, which is basically all the time.
~luge
IIRC (and this is just gathered tenth-hand, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong) but Apple didn't invent and doesn't own the Sorensen codec- they license it too. So, they don't have a choice as far as being able to open it or not- that's up to the owners, who understandably don't want to do that as long as Apple is still paying them large fistfuls of cash for it. What Apple (should|could|won't until the cold day in hell) do is move away from Sorensen to a codec that is open, or that they could open.
Just a suggestion, but if a helix employee says Miguel is in it then they probably know what they are talking about;) Seriously- from what I understand, he has a very, very small cameo. Additionally, you'll note that the IMDB notes suggest that only 12 people are in the movie. That's because IMDB notes are almost always very, very incomplete until the movie is released. So, while I love IMDB and your instinct to go there was a good one, it isn't the end all and be all, especially when the movie has not yet been released.
~luge
Re:Oh, so we are still announcing software on /. ?
on
XFree86 4.0.2 Released
·
· Score: 2
Though I'm the first to bitch about/., it is fair to note that they used to get slammed very, very regularly for posting things too early and destroying servers before things could mirror. Whether or not they should have given you credit is one thing, but they should be commended for waiting up (one of the few things about/. that truly has improved over the years.)
I think the point was not "being GPL will give it some kind of special legal protection" but "if they were competent, and they thought it was infringing, they'd just download the source and figure it out themselves." Clearly, being GPL doesn't mean much- the license itself has not even been significantly tested in court. But it does lend a layer of transparency to the project that makes these types of threats both more irritating in their bluster and arrogance and more pathetic in their ignorance.
~luge
:) McC-
I totally didn't mean that as a flame of you, but just as a note to moderators (who are already moderating this down, even though it should stay up) and as a complaint to Hemos and Taco. If I'd woken up 15 minutes later, someone else would have written my screed and I'd be the one who posted what you did:) So... no harm, no foul, eh?
~luge
Hemos-
This is really, really just embarassing. Unlike coding, journalism really should be gotten right the first time. Or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. To change and keep changing the story, without indicating it as such, is irresponsible and reflects poorly on you and on/.. Try to be a little consistent, eh?
~luge(was I naive to last this long thinking/. really could be better?)
Just to bitch a little more... retroactively changing things so as not to look like a moron, without noting that they are corrections... well, that's even worse than the original transgression. It gets very, very difficult to trust the press when they can retroactively change things to make it appear as if they were more accurate. Again, this whole "new journalism" thing. I really do think that once upon a time,/. had the potential to define a new way of doing things- but they've blown it by being sloppy. And this article (and the revision) are a prime example.
~luge
I'll note for the record that when I wrote my post the text wasn't accurate- hemos has since corrected it, without noting it as a correction. I don't have this in cache, so no way to prove it, but both the headline and the text were incorrect.
~luge
Heh. Try to complain, and you get flamed for it:) That should be Of curse[sic] the vulnerabilities and their information will continue to be announced. My point still stands- it seems like more and more, despite the increasing number of now-paid staff, slashdot cannot be bothered to read their own links, or to be bothered to do even the slightest amount of fact checking. It seems like even when it was just Rob working out of his dormroom there was much better QA than this, and even if there hadn't been, there would have been an excuse (like, he was volunteering for it.) To not do something so basic as to read a three paragraph (and what, five sentence?) piece... that's inexcusable. If you guys truly are the new journalism,as Katz claims, then we are in for a long bumpy road.
~luge
Really, it is only three paragraphs long, and the second one very, very clearly states: Of curse the vulnerabilities and their information will continue to be announced.
~luge(slowly but faithfully losing his faith in/.)
Yeah, but the problem isn't in the main page (which renders fine, on either version.) It is in the new sub-pages, most notably the college football page. They do some very funky style-sheet stuff that is placed within scripts, and subsequently (when used according to the w3 spec) don't work quite right.
~luge
There is a bug filed on the ESPN stuff- it looks like it is slightly bad code on ESPN's part (which of course ESPN should fix) that is dealt with in a particularly ugly way by Mozilla (which of course Mozilla should fix.) So, it is a known problem, and Top Minds Are Working On It.
~luge(who goes to ESPN about 10,000 times a day with mozilla and gets irritated too)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if you read his book ("Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace") or any of a number of his writings, you'll see that you've taken him badly out of context. Lessig is very strongly anti-certs and pro-anonymity on the web. He's just very pessimistic; he feels that because certs and identifiability are strongly supported by business they will triumph.
In addition, if you'd actually bothered (again) to read his stuff, you'd see that he has a very reasonable position on government and the net. If government doesn't do it, business will. And if there is anything we can trust less than big government, it is big business. If you think that the mystical powers of the "internet" can somehow protect our rights against the DoubleClicks of the world without government intervention, you have another thing coming.
So... in short, you've deliberately trolled by misquoting Lessig, and you've done it in ways that aren't even plausible to anyone who has read substantial amounts of Lessig's work. He isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination- but please make more plausible critiques than these two.
Not to be an arrogant ass or anything, but "what has slashdot come to" from someone with a > 300K user ID is pretty damn funny, since you clearly have no idea what /. once was. So, a little history lesson: Once upon a time /. actually used to be about Malda having fun and posting whatever shit he thought was cool. This article falls pretty damn squarely into the "I think this is cool" category (which, if you ask me, is probably the best category on /.) If you don't think that this is interesting, take your "serious and important news" and go write for CNet. I mean- every other news source on Earth has something about the Human Genome Project this weekend... go read about it there. I'll stay here and continue to read things like this that I wouldn't have noticed anywhere else. In short: you go Rob, michael, etc. keep posting whatever the fuck you want to. Some of us still appreciate the weird and the different, and don't want to see this place become CNN.
~luge
Oh, of course. I certainly wouldn't try to stop you from doing something bass-ackwards :) I was just honestly curious as to why. Obviously, very low-level control is great. I guess I just feel that Debian's QA is pretty high quality, and I don't really feel like I need all that much control over the exact options being passed to my build process. Whatever- to each their own. Enjoy ;)
~luge
That's too bad. I mean, we have, what? 4,000 packages available? And in up-to-date binaries.
So, since you answered an honest question last time: I really don't understand the insistence on compiling from source when that takes so much time, especially for big packages like X. I mean, there was a guy in another thread talking about how once a month he'd find time to do a "make world." I mean, that's great, but if I had to wait a month to get the latest gnome packages I'd scream. So... pre-compiled apt-get-able binaries for me. Why do you insist on building from source? Why do most of the BSD folks? Is it just because there isn't a better way yet? Or what?
~luge
let me ask you this, how do you plan on getting the source to sed on a debian,redhat,slack,etc system? Much easier on FreeBSD system. /stand/sysinstall? Can it do specific packages? Are all packages available via /ports available with /stand/sysinstall?
Umm... apt-get source sed? The level of ignorance in both these camps is ridiculous...
~luge
P.S. Honest question: How good is
Umm... but... MS (in maybe the only thing that they've only done right) sued Apple and won over nearly exactly this same type of thing. Oh, and BTW, "pioneering" transparent plastic is not exactly the kind of thing that I consider terribly innovative. In 10 years, we'll look back at all this iMac stuff and say "gee, that was tacky" just like we say for most of the 70s. Some designs are original and timeless and deserve protection. This stuff just ain't it.
~luge
Oh, definitely. :)
~luge
This is a good point. However, the Post specifically notes (in one of the later articles- #6 or 7, IIRC) that this is an active choice on the part of the pharmaceutical companies- a choice driven by the marketing and sales people, not the engineers. And besides- manufacturing companies in 2nd/3rd world countries (India and Brazil) are doing just fine. If they can produce the necessary equipment and supplies, I'm sure that we can manage to find a way too.
If you have a lot of time to sink into the issue of AIDS in Africa, and you want it presented in a less judgemental tone, check out the soon-to-be-Pulitzer winning series from the Washington Post called AIDS in Africa. This series goes into a lot of detail (a lot of detail- read only if you have lots of time) about the history of the epidemic, the complicating factors (lack of education, communication, Christianity + tribal taboos, etc.) and about the role of the drug companies. Like I said, a lot less judgmental than this particular article- I highly recommend it to everyone.
That said, even though the Post tries very hard not to have an anti-drug-company agenda, if you can walk away from reading all those articles without feeling that the drug companies are not culpable for the deaths of tens of millions of people... well, you are more of a cynic than I can imagine. What is happening in Africa is a terrifying combination of the Black Plague and the Holocaust, and after reading the Post series, there can be little doubt that our government and our medical industry is at the very least willing to stand by and watch millions die, and at worst directly responsible for those deaths. Yes, they need to do R&D, and yes, they should have the right to profit for their work. But when their stated policy is to profit via low-volume sales at high prices, instead of having the same ridiculous profits via high-volume sales at low prices, it is hard not to believe that the hands of their CEOs are not drenched in blood to an extent that makes tobacco CEOs look like saints.
Anyway, enough of that rant- go read the Post articles, and make the judgement for yourself.
~luge
Oh, no- didn't mean to imply that. If anything, it would be great if we were forced to listen to the criticism more often. It's just that the original poster implied that the UN never criticized us, which is quite wrong.
~luge
P.S. Of course, I'm speaking mainly of the assembly and lower functionaries- the higher ups only criticize the US obliquely. But they probably want to and wouldn't have any impact if they did...
I'd really like to agree with the "break up ICANN" sentiment. The problem with that, of course, is that one of the few bodies that is more heavily influenced by $$$ than ICANN is Congress. So, they might look into ICANN and break it up or "fix it", but the fix won't help those of us who aren't AOL. Damn frustrating, really...
Actually, with the exception of the Security Council (which is next to useless anyway) the UN is strongly anti-US, frequently voting in overwhelming numbers to criticize the US and US policies. The military and economic stuff doesn't give us control- it just means that we can ignore them when they criticize us, which is basically all the time.
~luge
IIRC (and this is just gathered tenth-hand, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong) but Apple didn't invent and doesn't own the Sorensen codec- they license it too. So, they don't have a choice as far as being able to open it or not- that's up to the owners, who understandably don't want to do that as long as Apple is still paying them large fistfuls of cash for it. What Apple (should|could|won't until the cold day in hell) do is move away from Sorensen to a codec that is open, or that they could open.
Just a suggestion, but if a helix employee says Miguel is in it then they probably know what they are talking about ;) Seriously- from what I understand, he has a very, very small cameo. Additionally, you'll note that the IMDB notes suggest that only 12 people are in the movie. That's because IMDB notes are almost always very, very incomplete until the movie is released. So, while I love IMDB and your instinct to go there was a good one, it isn't the end all and be all, especially when the movie has not yet been released.
~luge
Though I'm the first to bitch about /., it is fair to note that they used to get slammed very, very regularly for posting things too early and destroying servers before things could mirror. Whether or not they should have given you credit is one thing, but they should be commended for waiting up (one of the few things about /. that truly has improved over the years.)
I think the point was not "being GPL will give it some kind of special legal protection" but "if they were competent, and they thought it was infringing, they'd just download the source and figure it out themselves." Clearly, being GPL doesn't mean much- the license itself has not even been significantly tested in court. But it does lend a layer of transparency to the project that makes these types of threats both more irritating in their bluster and arrogance and more pathetic in their ignorance.
~luge
:) McC- :) So... no harm, no foul, eh?
I totally didn't mean that as a flame of you, but just as a note to moderators (who are already moderating this down, even though it should stay up) and as a complaint to Hemos and Taco. If I'd woken up 15 minutes later, someone else would have written my screed and I'd be the one who posted what you did
~luge
Hemos- /.. Try to be a little consistent, eh?
/. really could be better?)
This is really, really just embarassing. Unlike coding, journalism really should be gotten right the first time. Or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. To change and keep changing the story, without indicating it as such, is irresponsible and reflects poorly on you and on
~luge(was I naive to last this long thinking
Just to bitch a little more... retroactively changing things so as not to look like a moron, without noting that they are corrections... well, that's even worse than the original transgression. It gets very, very difficult to trust the press when they can retroactively change things to make it appear as if they were more accurate. Again, this whole "new journalism" thing. I really do think that once upon a time, /. had the potential to define a new way of doing things- but they've blown it by being sloppy. And this article (and the revision) are a prime example.
~luge
I'll note for the record that when I wrote my post the text wasn't accurate- hemos has since corrected it, without noting it as a correction. I don't have this in cache, so no way to prove it, but both the headline and the text were incorrect.
~luge
Heh. Try to complain, and you get flamed for it :) That should be Of curse[sic] the vulnerabilities and their information will continue to be announced. My point still stands- it seems like more and more, despite the increasing number of now-paid staff, slashdot cannot be bothered to read their own links, or to be bothered to do even the slightest amount of fact checking. It seems like even when it was just Rob working out of his dormroom there was much better QA than this, and even if there hadn't been, there would have been an excuse (like, he was volunteering for it.) To not do something so basic as to read a three paragraph (and what, five sentence?) piece... that's inexcusable. If you guys truly are the new journalism,as Katz claims, then we are in for a long bumpy road.
~luge
Really, it is only three paragraphs long, and the second one very, very clearly states: Of curse the vulnerabilities and their information will continue to be announced. ~luge(slowly but faithfully losing his faith in /.)
Yeah, but the problem isn't in the main page (which renders fine, on either version.) It is in the new sub-pages, most notably the college football page. They do some very funky style-sheet stuff that is placed within scripts, and subsequently (when used according to the w3 spec) don't work quite right.
~luge
There is a bug filed on the ESPN stuff- it looks like it is slightly bad code on ESPN's part (which of course ESPN should fix) that is dealt with in a particularly ugly way by Mozilla (which of course Mozilla should fix.) So, it is a known problem, and Top Minds Are Working On It.
~luge(who goes to ESPN about 10,000 times a day with mozilla and gets irritated too)
Yargh. fricking /. HTML parsing :| I can't seem to get it to link correctly, but the bug is here:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60115