Yeah, but did you see that part where Legolas stabbed that orc with the arrow, and then nocked it and shot someone else with it?
LOL, Of course LOTR would be in the public domain so we would still get to see that. BUT, it wouldn't have the kind of "official" status that being authorised by Tolkiens estate gives it. The Tolkien estate treats old JRR quite well and there is no indication that he would have opposed the movie. I believe his thoughts on a movie of LOTR was that he wanted either artistic control or a boatload of money.
Unfortunately not all authors are so lucky. Take his friend C.S. Lewis - His publisher and estate want a new series of Narnia books purged of the chrisian alegory that was central to Lewis' works The have also attempted to influence (using their copyright protections) documentaries being done about Lewis to downplay his christianity. You can agree or disagree with the mans faith but ignoring it is like doing a documentary on Babe Ruth and downplaying or ignoring that he was a baseball player. It's a particularly outrageous irony since Lewis' works are filled with biting commentary and contempt for exactly the spirit that is motivating HarperCollins. I won't say that Lewis is turning over in his grave since he didn't believe that was his final destination. But unless emotions like exasperaation have been utterly purged in heaven I'm sure he has a few choice and characteristically biting and eloquent words he would like to share with his heirs.
Do you remember which part of the constitution allows that?
"...The second paragraph of Article 3, Section 2.
the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to
law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."
(emphasis added)
So the argument that the act protects heirs is simply wrong.
I know the current law is screwed up. I was responding to a post that thought copyrights should expire when the author does;) I'm simply pointing out that there is a good reason for the copyright to remain in effect for at least some time beyond the death of the author.
As I've posted elsewhere this is a practical concern for me since I make my living as an illustrator and graphic designer. I sell the reproduction rights to my work and would hate for my wife and kids to get screwed by a client if I died before getting paid.
The Supreme Court -- every court -- is free to consider policy arguments.
They can consider policy arguments about whether a policy or law in it's effect conforms to the law or constitution. Beyond that they are not supposed to consider whether a law or public policy is (in their opinion) "right".
Of course through vague laws and a very expansive view of their authority to interpret the law and consitution the courts often do go beyond ruling on the law and venture into the realm of making policy (which means WRITING the law). In such cases the court is overstepping it's bounds, just like the executive and the legislative on occasion over step their bounds.
And of course, they're perfectly accountable.
To whom? The congress can try to write a new law but if the court is exceeding it's authority they will simply overturn the new law as well. A constitutional amendment would do it but that is incredibly difficult and is a radical step to take when the problem is not the constitution but the excesses of one branch of government. They are supposed to be limited by the fact that they are NOT policy makers only the interpreters of policies written by others and bound to what those other wrote. When they use loopholes and sophistry to exceed their authority there is very little that can be done.
Actually, I am going too far in saying they have no accountablity. Theoretically like every other branch there are checks on the court. The supreme court is regulated by congress which can even go so far as to make exceptions to it's jurisdiction by simply writing a law to that effect - a simple majority is all they need. As far as I know this almost unlimited ability of congress to not only overturn but remove the supreme court as an appelate court on particular issues has never been excercised and it would certainly cause a major constitional crisis if it was ever tried.
In the Federalist papers Madison pointed out that another (rather more blunt and extraconstitional) check on the courts power was that it has no way without the executive of enforcing it's opinion. Madison was essentially advocating Andrew Jackson's approach to the court: "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can."
These two options I suppose hold the court accountable but the excesses of the court would have to be MASSIVE before either the executive or legislative branches would take to such extreme measures.
Even under socialist schemes these things are not "free" somebody must work to produce them.
Tell you what... draw me a pretty picture, and I'll cook you dinner. How's that?
OK, you can cook and I can draw. But I don't want dinner right now, I want firewood. Perhaps if we came up with some arbitrary thing (perhaps little bits of paper) that you could give me in return for the drawing, then I can give it to the wood guy. He can give it to you for the meal. Or we can get a big guy with a club to distibute everything (food, firewood, "pretty pictures") evenly. Of course history tells us the guy with the club can't be trusted.
Or are you scared of "Reds"?
Having a family member that spent time under their tender care being "re-educated". YES!
So correct me if I am wrong here but, if a copywrite gives a copywrite holder exclusive rights to their work then why does anyone even need 20 seconds much less 20 yeas of copyright after they are dead? The answer is no, if your dead then you also are not doing any business and have no need to make money,
I'm assuming you are both unmarried and childless. If I sell a work and die before recieving any royalty checks I'd rather my wife and children not get screwed by the publisher.
There is no problem in my mind that protections can survive the author - the problem is that it is SOO long. And it's not 20 years it's 70 - That isn't about protecting my financial interests anymore it's about my children and grandchildren and their lawywers sending their children and grandchildren to college. Not that I'm against my kids taking care of their own but I also want them to grow up and take care of themselves. God forbid they are still living off of my copyright 70 years past my death - probably authorising sequels and saying stupid things that will have me rolling over in my grave.
I don't have too much faith that the Supreme Court will come down on the side of the people and the constitution, but it's our best shot.
I agree with you about them not coming "down on the side the people" but that is NOT the Supreme courts job (congress is the one with the job to come down on the side of the people). The supreme courts job is to come down on the side of the constitution without regard to the policy merits of the law. And unfortunately the constitution is the stumbling block here - CONGRESS (which is SUPPOSED to be looking out for our interests) is responsible for copyright law. I think the law sucks (and speak and vote accordingly) and so may the judge but that is not his concern when it comes before him in the court. 70 years past the life of the author is WAY too long, counter-productive, bad policy, evil, no-good, very-bad etc. But it IS strictly speaking "a limited time" which is the only condition set in the constitution which otherwise leaves the details up to congress. The Supremes may decide that the time limit is so long that it is somehow "not limited" but to do so they are simply replacing a probably corrupt but elected and accountable opinion with their own unelected and unnaccountable policy opinion. I think such a result would be a better policy but the price is to abandon (in a small but vital way) a democratic system with an oligarchic system.
I am often in disagreement with the most zealous anti-intellectual property sentiments found on this board. Perhaps because my livelyhood depends on my ability to copyright and sell the reproduction rights of my work (graphic design and illustration). Copyright and patent protections are important to protect financial interests of the creators and inventors in society. Information may "want to be free" but until food, clothing, shelter and a college education for my kids is free too I want to get paid. If you make my information "free" you will get a letter from my lawyer (I've had one company attempt to "liberate" illustrations I did even before the net. They just photocopied product illustrations I had done for their competitor & put them in their own ads.)
But, the current length of copyright protection is obnoxious - and counter-productive. 70 years past the life of the author has nothing to do with encouraging or protecting creativity and invention. It has to do with protecting the interests of estates and corporations that do nothing creative at all but live off of the efforts of some long dead ancestor. Most of the time these buzzards, in their efforts to get the last scrap of meat off the carcass basterdize and demean great works of art. How many times have you heard of an estate or corporation (usually a publisher) doing something with a work of art that must surely have the artist rolling over in his grave.
Do I blame the Cisco salesguy who wants to pay off his wife's college debt and send his kid to school and pay those back taxes... No.
Why not? Why is his decision to help opress people above criticism. If he was ignorant, or they had a gun to his wife and kids heads maybe your argument would have some merit. But paying off college debt? Come one!
1) Do you really want to spend your energy opposing this?
Easy question. Yes.
2) What can you do that might be productive?
A much harder question. There is not much as an individual I can do. I can let these companies know that I think they are morally repugnant and refuse to do business with them. There was an age when even businessmen had a moral sense and sought to operate within (largely self-imposed) moral boundaries. In our free society those that didn't often faced only minor or even no legal penalties but the rest of the community felt free to make and to express a moral judgement that such businessment were beneath contempt. The weight of public opinion reinforcing the dictates of personal conscience can be a powerful motivator without involving the blunt coercive machinery of the state.
3) Is it really any of your business?
This ones easy. Yes.
I mean, heck, maybe we're mainly just venting. I know I am.
See my answer to question two. If "venting" is done not just on a board full of malcontents but expressed to the company concerned, if it rises to a level of universal scorn and moral repugnance, if it is accompanied by action, it is a valuable thing. We are all told in these days that moral judgements are "wrong" (ironically this is itself a moral judgement) Bullcrap, that salesman just trying to get along did so by helping to opress millions of people - and the curtailing of their freedoms of speech and communication is not done just for it's own sake - it is done because it facilitates much more concrete abuses. In any society with even the least commitment to human rights he and his corporation would be shunned and despised and rightly so.
Why are americans so hell-bent on imposing their value systems on everyone else?
Because it is BETTER. I realize such an unqualified "simplistic" culturaly arrogant view is politically incorrect but regardless it is true. I am unashamed to say that I think imprisoning and torturing dissidents, show trials, etc. are morally wrong no matter what culture you are in.
That being said I have to say I am not "hell-bent" on imposing (which implies force) our "value system" on the chinese, or anybody else. Not because I think their "value system" is equally valid, or that if they adopted some of our values they and their people wouldn't be better off. But because attempting to impose or force our values on them is A) impossible and B) the attempt would be counterproductive. We can't force them to respect human rights but there is still plenty we can do to attempt to persuade and encourage them to do so. And we can certainly refuse to participate ourselves in their abuse of human rights.
Now, I value my right to free speach as much as you...
Undoubtedly (everyone upholds their own rights.), What is sad is that you don't value other peoples right to free speech.
After all, China is the oldest state in the world -- they must have been doing something right.
Gee, And I thought Chinese revolution occured in 1949. I'm sure you meant culture rather than state, and you would be right that Chinese culture under any regime has never had the strong commitment to individual rights that we have developed in the west. Then again that concept was pretty weak in the West through most of our history as well. But we believe we have made "progress" that our culture is BETTER now than during slavery, the inquisition and the divine right of kings. Such value judgements if they have any validity at all can be made not only across history but across geography.
Actually in this case the rules were made by an international convention in Geneva which pretty clearly defines the status of fighters dressed as civilians...
It also clearly defines a due process for determining that status. Which is not being followed.
I'll give you that. A lot hinges on "shall any doubt arise" The status of Al Queada members is not in doubt as they manifestly fail to meet the requirments of Article 4. The closest they come is article 4.2 but fail to meet conditions b. (having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance) and c. (That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.) That being said I think the US should dot it's i's and cross it's t's and have a tribunal rule on the status of individual detainee's.
As for Taliban fighters they HAVE been legally granted POW status under the Geneva convention even though most of them also fail to meet the conditions in Article 4. And even the Al Queada prisoners are being accorded many of the rights granted to POW's - most importantly the right to be monitored by the IRC.
Nonsense. Not only is it questionable who's being better or worse treated,
Reports by Human Rights Watch, and the International Society for Human Rights sugget that it is not really all that questionable. The cells that the Al Queada prisoners are in are not as cramped as the reported 3x3 meters with 15 prisoners, they do have access to medical treatment, they are not being held in solitary indefinitely, they are not being held incommunicado, they are being monitored by the IRC and since they are being monitored I assume their guards aren't beating them.
We have several orders of magnitude less influence over how political prisoners are treated in Cuba.
I was responding to a Swede with about as much influence on either country who brought up Cuba as a nation we "don't like" just because they "successfully stood up to us." That statement and the coincidence of the detainees being held in Cuba caused me to muse on those critics of the US who's commitment to human rights goes out the window when the perpetrator of the abuses is fashionably left-wing. The hysterical tone from the left internationally about the prisoners of the US military in Guantanamo contrasts unflatteringly with the dead silence from the same quarter when the subject is political prisoners just over the fence.
From where I sit (.au) there are only a very small proportion of actual terrorists; the rest are genuine POWs.
From where you sit perhaps you might also notice that there are only a few hundred (if that) prisoners at gitmo out of many thousands taken. I suspect we only asked our allies on the ground to give us those that were either terrorists or fairly high up in the command structure which incorporated terrorists (a significant percentage of the Talibans armed forces was made up of foreign Al Queada fighters).
Most of the Taliban did not themselves wear uniforms and many did not carry their weapons openly - and so even in Afghanistan many were unlawful combatants. As it is we have in fact accorded Taliban fighters a different legal status than Al Queada fighters, though as a practical matter it is a distinction without a differnce.
Oh, I forgot. You're American and you make the rules. And you particularly dislike anyone who successfully stands up to you (Cuba, Vietnam...)
Actually in this case the rules were made by an international convention in Geneva which pretty clearly defines the status of fighters dressed as civilians ("unlawful combatants" and when captured "war criminals" and NOT "POW's").
I suppose you could say that unfairly the western powers made the rules and there is certainly some truth to that. But I somehow doubt the rules would have been any more humanitarian if we had deferred to non-western standards. There are reports that Al-Quada prisoners are desperate to go to gitmo and be "abused" by western standards than stay in Afghanistan and be "treated well" by central asian standards.
Speaking of those our dislike of those who "stand up" to America. It's ironic that all of this concern is being focussed on the Al-Queada prisoners who are among the best treated prisoners in Cuba. We should make a deal with Castro to have the Cuban authorities take over administration of our prisoners. The prisoners would probably object (being opposed to torture when they are the object of it) but liberals around the world wouldn't (being opposed to torture except when a socialist is perpetrating it).
where would science be today if Isaac Newton or Einstein failed to share their discoveries to other scientists?
This is a common anti-patent argument and unfortunately is based on a faulty premise. Scientific discoveries such as Newtons or Einsteins cannot be patented. An invention that uses a scientific principle CAN be. So Albert could not (then or now) patent the theory of relativity or E=MC2. He COULD however have patented an invention or machine such as an atom bomb or a nuclear power plant.
Einstien didn't patent his discoveries not because he was opposed to patents on principle but because his discoveries were not patentable. He DID have a few inventions that he DID patent (something having to do with refridgeration). And if they haven't expired you will have to pay his estate royalties if you use his invention.
Ironically patents were developed to encourage scientific openness. Prior to the development of patent law inventions (that could be) were kept secret by the inventor to protect himself from competion by others knocking it off. For an interesting example of how this worked look at a modern relic from that time - the Zildjian cymbal company. Avedis Zildjian invented a metelurgical process that made better cymbals in the early 1600's - he kept his invention secret so he would not have to compete with others imitating his method and it has been kept secret (and provided a living for the Zildjian family) ever since. But who knows what other uses the secret metelurgical process may have had? The peculiar metal that Zildjian invented may have been useful for things other than nice sounding cymbals. The world will never know - it is still a secret. That is how almost ALL inventions were prior to the development of patents - closely guarded secrets or if they became known afforded no way for their inventor to compete with his immitators who lacked his R&D costs and could undercut his prices. The inventor also had to restrict his own uses of the invention to insure that it remained secret. Patents were a means of avoiding these problems - The inventor publically discloses his invention and in return is granted a limited time a monopoly. The inventor benefits because he can get the full benefit of his work. He need not restrict his business plans or processes to protect the secret or live in fear that he will lose his livelyhood. Everyone else benefits because the invention is now public knowledge - Anyone who wants to use it or incorporate it into their own inventions can - IF they can come to an agreement with the patent holder. In the long run it enters the public domain freely usable by everyone. You may think that it takes too long for *everyone* to benefit. Then again, it has been 384 years and the Zildjian family's metalurgical process is STILL not "open".
I just finished reading "Endurance" and it is an incredible story. Any ONE of the many trials they went through would have been an amazing story of survival. It just kept going and going from one epic trial to the next
Here is Alfred Lansing's classic book - It does have a few of photos but there are only a few and they are printed rather small Endurance : Shackleton's Incredible Adventure (this is the one I just finished reading)
The ability to use a CLI says something about your intelligence... those who have no desire to learn even simple bash, probably aren't smart enough to need a cluster or use it wisely... I still say, "Hire a professional." (Plug:) Like me.
Congratulations: you have won the *NIX Bigot Arrogance Award for most asinine comment on slashdot. There was a lot of competition but the judges have selected your comment as the overall winner. The assertion that use of a CLI equates to intelligence was an impressive display of arrogance in itself but concluding with a plug for your own "professional" services was truly the piece d'resistance.
I wonder if they just had 76 G4s lying around, or else there must be some very upset department secretaries.
They were all the macs in the computer labs (and maybe a few on secretaries' desks) running as a cluster over christmas break.
Re:Manual length and Macs vs. PC
on
Macintosh Clustering
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The fact that a manual is shorter doesn't mean that it is a better or easier to install program.
I would agree that comparing manual lenght is not a reliable guide to judge the relative complexity of two programs. The one-page doc is even a "quick start guide" not a complete manual. But I still suspect that the writer is correct that Appleseed clusters are easier to set up and maintain than a Beowulf cluster. Reading over the directions myself it did looked pretty brain-dead simple - most of that one page didn't even have much to do with the actual installation of the program but with such complicated tasks as connecting your Mac to an ethernet hub: "For each Mac, plug one end of a cable to the Ethernet jack on the Mac and the other end to a port on the (ethernet) switch." and noting a few system requirments (CarbonLib 1.2 or OS X 10.1) The installation instructions consists of "Double-click the Pooch Installer and select a drive for installation." Instructions on how to use consist of dragging and dropping the program you want to run in parrallel onto the Pooch app and "click Select Nodes..., select the computers you want to run it on, and, in the Job Window, click on Launch Job."
Besides, if you are going to have a cluster, you want cheap, off the shelf machines such as PCs with
plenty of spare parts that can be customised to suit your needs : why pay for a good 3d graphics card in every pc if you are going to do number crunching !
This is only the case if the individual PC's are dedicated nodes and not being used for anything else. Most Appleseed clusters are made up of computers that are primarily being used for something else. School Mac computer lab by day; clustered "supercomputer" by night. The cluster of that did 233 gigflops (76 dual G4's mostly 533's with a few 450's) was simply all of the Macs at UMC working as a cluster over Christmas break. This is where the easy set up, maintenance and the ability to cobble together computers with different processors and even different OS's (some nodes may be running MacOS 9 and some nodes may be running OS X) is an advantage. The Appleseed clusters that are made up of dedicated machines are probably discarded computers they already had kicking around so cost is not an issue there either.
Am I the only one who is totaly disgusted by the headlines in the paper today annoucing that we are going to atack coutries who have showed no aggresion towords us?
I didn't see any headlines *announcing* that we were going to attack anybody. I certainly didn't see any even suggesting aggression to any degree towards nations that "have showed no aggression towards us". I did see a few mentioning Iraq, Iran and North Korea though these nations are openly hostile and the headlines fell far short of "announcing that we are going to attack". These three nations, if not engaged in outright aggression, have adopted distinctly hostile foreign policies. All three are supporters of terrorism and are pursuing the acquisition of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. While I agree that it would be wrong to simply "attack" these nations, it is perfectly reasonable to publicly denounce their support of terrorism and Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.
Wars are less likely to happen (though they still may) if we are unambiguous in our policy and intentions. Just look at what happened when our ambassador to Iraq was vague about the US response to an invasion of Kuwait - had she made it plain that we would be willing to go to war over the issue it would not have happened. There are actions that these three nations will take if they can that would inevitably lead to war with us. It is important (and only fair to their decision makers) that they know our policy of holding sponsor states responsible for the actions of their terrorist proxies applies to them. And it is important to at least suggest that our policy of non-proliferation has been stepped up a notch and may go beyond signing unenforcable treaties and occasional economic sanctions - particularly for nations so explicitly and vocally hostile to us.
Right. Apps still have to be at least written to thread themselves properly for the OS to be able to do anything to help them.
The original poster seems somewhat mistaken on WHY they will benefit BUT to a certain degree he is right that they will. Individually only programs that are threaded will benefit. But, multiple programs running concurrently WILL benefit even if they are not threaded. This was not the case with MacOS 9. The individual programs that are processor intensive (like Photoshop, FinalCut Pro etc.) will be more quickly rewritten to take advantage of the second processor. Smaller, less processor intensive applications that are unlikely to bother with the (probably unnecessary) second processor but are more likely to be running concurrently will benefit from the second processor in that way.
I could be wrong about this next point. But if I understand it right even otherwise unthreaded applications may also benefit from using system services that ARE threaded (Aqua, Quicktime, etc.) So some components of your application (and often the more processor intensive ones) will be automagically threaded simply by being written in Cocoa or Carbon.
I just don't quite understand who Apple is going after with this. One would think that they need to expand more into the desktop arena since they have no chance in the server or production world.
Um... I guess it depends on what you mean by the "production world" They absolutely dominate the graphic design, photography, and print production markets which are all reasonably processor intensive. And they also do very well in the video production market which is VERY processor intensive. Even in the high end shops the less processor intensive stuff is done on macs and then moved over to the SGI machines. Notice how many macs you see when watching a documentary on the "making of" the latest hot movie. From ILM to your local TV station or commercial video production company it is a reasonably big and very high margin market that Apple is moving to dominate (with fast machines, DVDStudio Pro, FinalCut Pro & some of the best 3rd party software) the same way they dominate desktop publishing.
Cocoa reflects OSX's NeXT heritage. It is the updated NeXTstep/OpenStep environment. To paraphrase Apple's site: "It is a set of object-oriented frameworks" designed for rapid development. Cocoa apps are written in Objective C or Java (I have also heard of Objective C++ but don't know anything about it) It is (according to Apple at least) the best choice if starting a new OSX application from scratch. But it is OSX only - you can't run Cocoa apps on MacOS 9
Carbon reflects OSX's Macintosh heritage. It was developed to smooth the transition from the MacOS to the completely new and very different OSX. They took the original Mac Toolbox and got rid of everything that was an obstacle, and added what was necessary, to being buzzword compliant (preemptive multitasking, protected memory etc.) In theory if you have an existing MacOS 9 app (and aren't doing anything in strange non-standard ways) you can port it to OSX pretty easily and it will still run on MacOS 9.
In addition to these two environments you can also use Java without using the Cocoa framworks.
Also, OSX is built on top of a BSD environment so you can do just about anything you could do on any other variant of BSD. Though most mac users won't be using the command line or X-windows (though they could if they wanted to and knew how) so it might make sense to write the GUI at least in cocoa. Actually this is exactly what alot of the useful little freeware/shareware apps are - Cocoa front ends to underlying Unix command line tools or configuration files.
How much Cocoa/Objective C/InterfaceBuilder development have you done?
This is not a wise-ass question. I want to know which is easier/better but want to hear the opinions of people that have used both - not just people that having used one *imagine* that it is easier than the other.
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!! I'm sorry but I just lost it here and feel a major rant coming on.
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO READ THE SAME IGNORANT COMMENT!!!
I know reading the article is tough but even if you read just a few of the preceding comments you would have noticed that this is about the development platform NOT the the Target platform which are NOT the same thing. In the case of this article it was Playstation 2 (which lacking a keyboard would be difficult to code on;) It could just as easily have been XBox, Nintendo, or Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but did you see that part where Legolas stabbed that orc with the arrow, and then nocked it and shot someone else with it?
LOL, Of course LOTR would be in the public domain so we would still get to see that. BUT, it wouldn't have the kind of "official" status that being authorised by Tolkiens estate gives it. The Tolkien estate treats old JRR quite well and there is no indication that he would have opposed the movie. I believe his thoughts on a movie of LOTR was that he wanted either artistic control or a boatload of money.
Unfortunately not all authors are so lucky. Take his friend C.S. Lewis - His publisher and estate want a new series of Narnia books purged of the chrisian alegory that was central to Lewis' works The have also attempted to influence (using their copyright protections) documentaries being done about Lewis to downplay his christianity. You can agree or disagree with the mans faith but ignoring it is like doing a documentary on Babe Ruth and downplaying or ignoring that he was a baseball player. It's a particularly outrageous irony since Lewis' works are filled with biting commentary and contempt for exactly the spirit that is motivating HarperCollins. I won't say that Lewis is turning over in his grave since he didn't believe that was his final destination. But unless emotions like exasperaation have been utterly purged in heaven I'm sure he has a few choice and characteristically biting and eloquent words he would like to share with his heirs.
Do you remember which part of the constitution allows that?
"...The second paragraph of Article 3, Section 2.
the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."
(emphasis added)
So the argument that the act protects heirs is simply wrong.
;) I'm simply pointing out that there is a good reason for the copyright to remain in effect for at least some time beyond the death of the author.
I know the current law is screwed up. I was responding to a post that thought copyrights should expire when the author does
As I've posted elsewhere this is a practical concern for me since I make my living as an illustrator and graphic designer. I sell the reproduction rights to my work and would hate for my wife and kids to get screwed by a client if I died before getting paid.
The Supreme Court -- every court -- is free to consider policy arguments.
They can consider policy arguments about whether a policy or law in it's effect conforms to the law or constitution. Beyond that they are not supposed to consider whether a law or public policy is (in their opinion) "right".
Of course through vague laws and a very expansive view of their authority to interpret the law and consitution the courts often do go beyond ruling on the law and venture into the realm of making policy (which means WRITING the law). In such cases the court is overstepping it's bounds, just like the executive and the legislative on occasion over step their bounds.
And of course, they're perfectly accountable.
To whom? The congress can try to write a new law but if the court is exceeding it's authority they will simply overturn the new law as well. A constitutional amendment would do it but that is incredibly difficult and is a radical step to take when the problem is not the constitution but the excesses of one branch of government. They are supposed to be limited by the fact that they are NOT policy makers only the interpreters of policies written by others and bound to what those other wrote. When they use loopholes and sophistry to exceed their authority there is very little that can be done.
Actually, I am going too far in saying they have no accountablity. Theoretically like every other branch there are checks on the court. The supreme court is regulated by congress which can even go so far as to make exceptions to it's jurisdiction by simply writing a law to that effect - a simple majority is all they need. As far as I know this almost unlimited ability of congress to not only overturn but remove the supreme court as an appelate court on particular issues has never been excercised and it would certainly cause a major constitional crisis if it was ever tried.
In the Federalist papers Madison pointed out that another (rather more blunt and extraconstitional) check on the courts power was that it has no way without the executive of enforcing it's opinion. Madison was essentially advocating Andrew Jackson's approach to the court: "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can."
These two options I suppose hold the court accountable but the excesses of the court would have to be MASSIVE before either the executive or legislative branches would take to such extreme measures.
Down with capitalism!
Even under socialist schemes these things are not "free" somebody must work to produce them.
Tell you what... draw me a pretty picture, and I'll cook you dinner. How's that?
OK, you can cook and I can draw. But I don't want dinner right now, I want firewood. Perhaps if we came up with some arbitrary thing (perhaps little bits of paper) that you could give me in return for the drawing, then I can give it to the wood guy. He can give it to you for the meal. Or we can get a big guy with a club to distibute everything (food, firewood, "pretty pictures") evenly. Of course history tells us the guy with the club can't be trusted.
Or are you scared of "Reds"?
Having a family member that spent time under their tender care being "re-educated". YES!
So correct me if I am wrong here but, if a copywrite gives a copywrite holder exclusive rights to their work then why does anyone even need 20 seconds much less 20 yeas of copyright after they are dead? The answer is no, if your dead then you also are not doing any business and have no need to make money,
I'm assuming you are both unmarried and childless. If I sell a work and die before recieving any royalty checks I'd rather my wife and children not get screwed by the publisher.
There is no problem in my mind that protections can survive the author - the problem is that it is SOO long. And it's not 20 years it's 70 - That isn't about protecting my financial interests anymore it's about my children and grandchildren and their lawywers sending their children and grandchildren to college. Not that I'm against my kids taking care of their own but I also want them to grow up and take care of themselves. God forbid they are still living off of my copyright 70 years past my death - probably authorising sequels and saying stupid things that will have me rolling over in my grave.
I don't have too much faith that the Supreme Court will come down on the side of the people and the constitution, but it's our best shot.
I agree with you about them not coming "down on the side the people" but that is NOT the Supreme courts job (congress is the one with the job to come down on the side of the people). The supreme courts job is to come down on the side of the constitution without regard to the policy merits of the law. And unfortunately the constitution is the stumbling block here - CONGRESS (which is SUPPOSED to be looking out for our interests) is responsible for copyright law. I think the law sucks (and speak and vote accordingly) and so may the judge but that is not his concern when it comes before him in the court. 70 years past the life of the author is WAY too long, counter-productive, bad policy, evil, no-good, very-bad etc. But it IS strictly speaking "a limited time" which is the only condition set in the constitution which otherwise leaves the details up to congress. The Supremes may decide that the time limit is so long that it is somehow "not limited" but to do so they are simply replacing a probably corrupt but elected and accountable opinion with their own unelected and unnaccountable policy opinion. I think such a result would be a better policy but the price is to abandon (in a small but vital way) a democratic system with an oligarchic system.
I am often in disagreement with the most zealous anti-intellectual property sentiments found on this board. Perhaps because my livelyhood depends on my ability to copyright and sell the reproduction rights of my work (graphic design and illustration). Copyright and patent protections are important to protect financial interests of the creators and inventors in society. Information may "want to be free" but until food, clothing, shelter and a college education for my kids is free too I want to get paid. If you make my information "free" you will get a letter from my lawyer (I've had one company attempt to "liberate" illustrations I did even before the net. They just photocopied product illustrations I had done for their competitor & put them in their own ads.)
But, the current length of copyright protection is obnoxious - and counter-productive. 70 years past the life of the author has nothing to do with encouraging or protecting creativity and invention. It has to do with protecting the interests of estates and corporations that do nothing creative at all but live off of the efforts of some long dead ancestor. Most of the time these buzzards, in their efforts to get the last scrap of meat off the carcass basterdize and demean great works of art. How many times have you heard of an estate or corporation (usually a publisher) doing something with a work of art that must surely have the artist rolling over in his grave.
Do I blame the Cisco salesguy who wants to pay off his wife's college debt and send his kid to school and pay those back taxes... No.
Why not? Why is his decision to help opress people above criticism. If he was ignorant, or they had a gun to his wife and kids heads maybe your argument would have some merit. But paying off college debt? Come one!
1) Do you really want to spend your energy opposing this?
Easy question. Yes.
2) What can you do that might be productive?
A much harder question. There is not much as an individual I can do. I can let these companies know that I think they are morally repugnant and refuse to do business with them. There was an age when even businessmen had a moral sense and sought to operate within (largely self-imposed) moral boundaries. In our free society those that didn't often faced only minor or even no legal penalties but the rest of the community felt free to make and to express a moral judgement that such businessment were beneath contempt. The weight of public opinion reinforcing the dictates of personal conscience can be a powerful motivator without involving the blunt coercive machinery of the state.
3) Is it really any of your business?
This ones easy. Yes.
I mean, heck, maybe we're mainly just venting. I know I am.
See my answer to question two. If "venting" is done not just on a board full of malcontents but expressed to the company concerned, if it rises to a level of universal scorn and moral repugnance, if it is accompanied by action, it is a valuable thing. We are all told in these days that moral judgements are "wrong" (ironically this is itself a moral judgement) Bullcrap, that salesman just trying to get along did so by helping to opress millions of people - and the curtailing of their freedoms of speech and communication is not done just for it's own sake - it is done because it facilitates much more concrete abuses. In any society with even the least commitment to human rights he and his corporation would be shunned and despised and rightly so.
Why are americans so hell-bent on imposing their value systems on everyone else?
Because it is BETTER. I realize such an unqualified "simplistic" culturaly arrogant view is politically incorrect but regardless it is true. I am unashamed to say that I think imprisoning and torturing dissidents, show trials, etc. are morally wrong no matter what culture you are in.
That being said I have to say I am not "hell-bent" on imposing (which implies force) our "value system" on the chinese, or anybody else. Not because I think their "value system" is equally valid, or that if they adopted some of our values they and their people wouldn't be better off. But because attempting to impose or force our values on them is A) impossible and B) the attempt would be counterproductive. We can't force them to respect human rights but there is still plenty we can do to attempt to persuade and encourage them to do so. And we can certainly refuse to participate ourselves in their abuse of human rights.
Now, I value my right to free speach as much as you...
Undoubtedly (everyone upholds their own rights.), What is sad is that you don't value other peoples right to free speech.
After all, China is the oldest state in the world -- they must have been doing something right.
Gee, And I thought Chinese revolution occured in 1949. I'm sure you meant culture rather than state, and you would be right that Chinese culture under any regime has never had the strong commitment to individual rights that we have developed in the west. Then again that concept was pretty weak in the West through most of our history as well. But we believe we have made "progress" that our culture is BETTER now than during slavery, the inquisition and the divine right of kings. Such value judgements if they have any validity at all can be made not only across history but across geography.
Actually in this case the rules were made by an international convention in Geneva which pretty clearly defines the status of fighters dressed as civilians...
It also clearly defines a due process for determining that status. Which is not being followed.
I'll give you that. A lot hinges on "shall any doubt arise" The status of Al Queada members is not in doubt as they manifestly fail to meet the requirments of Article 4. The closest they come is article 4.2 but fail to meet conditions b. (having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance) and c. (That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.) That being said I think the US should dot it's i's and cross it's t's and have a tribunal rule on the status of individual detainee's.
As for Taliban fighters they HAVE been legally granted POW status under the Geneva convention even though most of them also fail to meet the conditions in Article 4. And even the Al Queada prisoners are being accorded many of the rights granted to POW's - most importantly the right to be monitored by the IRC.
Nonsense. Not only is it questionable who's being better or worse treated,
Reports by Human Rights Watch, and the International Society for Human Rights sugget that it is not really all that questionable. The cells that the Al Queada prisoners are in are not as cramped as the reported 3x3 meters with 15 prisoners, they do have access to medical treatment, they are not being held in solitary indefinitely, they are not being held incommunicado, they are being monitored by the IRC and since they are being monitored I assume their guards aren't beating them.
We have several orders of magnitude less influence over how political prisoners are treated in Cuba.
I was responding to a Swede with about as much influence on either country who brought up Cuba as a nation we "don't like" just because they "successfully stood up to us." That statement and the coincidence of the detainees being held in Cuba caused me to muse on those critics of the US who's commitment to human rights goes out the window when the perpetrator of the abuses is fashionably left-wing. The hysterical tone from the left internationally about the prisoners of the US military in Guantanamo contrasts unflatteringly with the dead silence from the same quarter when the subject is political prisoners just over the fence.
From where I sit (.au) there are only a very small proportion of actual terrorists; the rest are genuine POWs.
From where you sit perhaps you might also notice that there are only a few hundred (if that) prisoners at gitmo out of many thousands taken. I suspect we only asked our allies on the ground to give us those that were either terrorists or fairly high up in the command structure which incorporated terrorists (a significant percentage of the Talibans armed forces was made up of foreign Al Queada fighters).
Most of the Taliban did not themselves wear uniforms and many did not carry their weapons openly - and so even in Afghanistan many were unlawful combatants. As it is we have in fact accorded Taliban fighters a different legal status than Al Queada fighters, though as a practical matter it is a distinction without a differnce.
Oh, I forgot. You're American and you make the rules. And you particularly dislike anyone who successfully stands up to you (Cuba, Vietnam...)
Actually in this case the rules were made by an international convention in Geneva which pretty clearly defines the status of fighters dressed as civilians ("unlawful combatants" and when captured "war criminals" and NOT "POW's").
I suppose you could say that unfairly the western powers made the rules and there is certainly some truth to that. But I somehow doubt the rules would have been any more humanitarian if we had deferred to non-western standards. There are reports that Al-Quada prisoners are desperate to go to gitmo and be "abused" by western standards than stay in Afghanistan and be "treated well" by central asian standards.
Speaking of those our dislike of those who "stand up" to America. It's ironic that all of this concern is being focussed on the Al-Queada prisoners who are among the best treated prisoners in Cuba. We should make a deal with Castro to have the Cuban authorities take over administration of our prisoners. The prisoners would probably object (being opposed to torture when they are the object of it) but liberals around the world wouldn't (being opposed to torture except when a socialist is perpetrating it).
With the recent actions of Bush (ignoring the Geneva conventions), I'm not sure this is a good thing..
I haven't seen or heard of any acts by the US which violate the Geneva Convention, could you cite some examples?
where would science be today if Isaac Newton or Einstein failed to share their discoveries to other scientists?
This is a common anti-patent argument and unfortunately is based on a faulty premise. Scientific discoveries such as Newtons or Einsteins cannot be patented. An invention that uses a scientific principle CAN be. So Albert could not (then or now) patent the theory of relativity or E=MC2. He COULD however have patented an invention or machine such as an atom bomb or a nuclear power plant.
Einstien didn't patent his discoveries not because he was opposed to patents on principle but because his discoveries were not patentable. He DID have a few inventions that he DID patent (something having to do with refridgeration). And if they haven't expired you will have to pay his estate royalties if you use his invention.
Ironically patents were developed to encourage scientific openness. Prior to the development of patent law inventions (that could be) were kept secret by the inventor to protect himself from competion by others knocking it off. For an interesting example of how this worked look at a modern relic from that time - the Zildjian cymbal company. Avedis Zildjian invented a metelurgical process that made better cymbals in the early 1600's - he kept his invention secret so he would not have to compete with others imitating his method and it has been kept secret (and provided a living for the Zildjian family) ever since. But who knows what other uses the secret metelurgical process may have had? The peculiar metal that Zildjian invented may have been useful for things other than nice sounding cymbals. The world will never know - it is still a secret. That is how almost ALL inventions were prior to the development of patents - closely guarded secrets or if they became known afforded no way for their inventor to compete with his immitators who lacked his R&D costs and could undercut his prices. The inventor also had to restrict his own uses of the invention to insure that it remained secret. Patents were a means of avoiding these problems - The inventor publically discloses his invention and in return is granted a limited time a monopoly. The inventor benefits because he can get the full benefit of his work. He need not restrict his business plans or processes to protect the secret or live in fear that he will lose his livelyhood. Everyone else benefits because the invention is now public knowledge - Anyone who wants to use it or incorporate it into their own inventions can - IF they can come to an agreement with the patent holder. In the long run it enters the public domain freely usable by everyone. You may think that it takes too long for *everyone* to benefit. Then again, it has been 384 years and the Zildjian family's metalurgical process is STILL not "open".
I thought the funniest thing BG ever said was when he said 640K of Ram was all anyone would ever need.
;)
Well if everyone wrote code as tight as him maybe it would be
I just finished reading "Endurance" and it is an incredible story. Any ONE of the many trials they went through would have been an amazing story of survival. It just kept going and going from one epic trial to the next
Oh hell, I might as well plug my own Amazon link too. Here is Shakletons own telling of the story South : A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
Here is Alfred Lansing's classic book - It does have a few of photos but there are only a few and they are printed rather small Endurance : Shackleton's Incredible Adventure (this is the one I just finished reading)
And here is Caroline Alexander's in hardcover with much better photography The Endurance : Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
The ability to use a CLI says something about your intelligence... those who have no desire to learn even simple bash, probably aren't smart enough to need a cluster or use it wisely... I still say, "Hire a professional." (Plug:) Like me.
Congratulations: you have won the *NIX Bigot Arrogance Award for most asinine comment on slashdot. There was a lot of competition but the judges have selected your comment as the overall winner. The assertion that use of a CLI equates to intelligence was an impressive display of arrogance in itself but concluding with a plug for your own "professional" services was truly the piece d'resistance.
I wonder if they just had 76 G4s lying around, or else there must be some very upset department secretaries.
They were all the macs in the computer labs (and maybe a few on secretaries' desks) running as a cluster over christmas break.
The fact that a manual is shorter doesn't mean that it is a better or easier to install program.
I would agree that comparing manual lenght is not a reliable guide to judge the relative complexity of two programs. The one-page doc is even a "quick start guide" not a complete manual. But I still suspect that the writer is correct that Appleseed clusters are easier to set up and maintain than a Beowulf cluster. Reading over the directions myself it did looked pretty brain-dead simple - most of that one page didn't even have much to do with the actual installation of the program but with such complicated tasks as connecting your Mac to an ethernet hub: "For each Mac, plug one end of a cable to the Ethernet jack on the Mac and the other end to a port on the (ethernet) switch." and noting a few system requirments (CarbonLib 1.2 or OS X 10.1) The installation instructions consists of "Double-click the Pooch Installer and select a drive for installation." Instructions on how to use consist of dragging and dropping the program you want to run in parrallel onto the Pooch app and "click Select Nodes..., select the computers you want to run it on, and, in the Job Window, click on Launch Job."
Besides, if you are going to have a cluster, you want cheap, off the shelf machines such as PCs with plenty of spare parts that can be customised to suit your needs : why pay for a good 3d graphics card in every pc if you are going to do number crunching !
This is only the case if the individual PC's are dedicated nodes and not being used for anything else. Most Appleseed clusters are made up of computers that are primarily being used for something else. School Mac computer lab by day; clustered "supercomputer" by night. The cluster of that did 233 gigflops (76 dual G4's mostly 533's with a few 450's) was simply all of the Macs at UMC working as a cluster over Christmas break. This is where the easy set up, maintenance and the ability to cobble together computers with different processors and even different OS's (some nodes may be running MacOS 9 and some nodes may be running OS X) is an advantage. The Appleseed clusters that are made up of dedicated machines are probably discarded computers they already had kicking around so cost is not an issue there either.
I do lots of drugs...
;)
That is apparent
Am I the only one who is totaly disgusted by the headlines in the paper today annoucing that we are going to atack coutries who have showed no aggresion towords us?
I didn't see any headlines *announcing* that we were going to attack anybody. I certainly didn't see any even suggesting aggression to any degree towards nations that "have showed no aggression towards us". I did see a few mentioning Iraq, Iran and North Korea though these nations are openly hostile and the headlines fell far short of "announcing that we are going to attack". These three nations, if not engaged in outright aggression, have adopted distinctly hostile foreign policies. All three are supporters of terrorism and are pursuing the acquisition of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. While I agree that it would be wrong to simply "attack" these nations, it is perfectly reasonable to publicly denounce their support of terrorism and Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.
Wars are less likely to happen (though they still may) if we are unambiguous in our policy and intentions. Just look at what happened when our ambassador to Iraq was vague about the US response to an invasion of Kuwait - had she made it plain that we would be willing to go to war over the issue it would not have happened. There are actions that these three nations will take if they can that would inevitably lead to war with us. It is important (and only fair to their decision makers) that they know our policy of holding sponsor states responsible for the actions of their terrorist proxies applies to them. And it is important to at least suggest that our policy of non-proliferation has been stepped up a notch and may go beyond signing unenforcable treaties and occasional economic sanctions - particularly for nations so explicitly and vocally hostile to us.
Right. Apps still have to be at least written to thread themselves properly for the OS to be able to do anything to help them.
The original poster seems somewhat mistaken on WHY they will benefit BUT to a certain degree he is right that they will. Individually only programs that are threaded will benefit. But, multiple programs running concurrently WILL benefit even if they are not threaded. This was not the case with MacOS 9. The individual programs that are processor intensive (like Photoshop, FinalCut Pro etc.) will be more quickly rewritten to take advantage of the second processor. Smaller, less processor intensive applications that are unlikely to bother with the (probably unnecessary) second processor but are more likely to be running concurrently will benefit from the second processor in that way.
I could be wrong about this next point. But if I understand it right even otherwise unthreaded applications may also benefit from using system services that ARE threaded (Aqua, Quicktime, etc.) So some components of your application (and often the more processor intensive ones) will be automagically threaded simply by being written in Cocoa or Carbon.
I just don't quite understand who Apple is going after with this. One would think that they need to expand more into the desktop arena since they have no chance in the server or production world.
Um... I guess it depends on what you mean by the "production world" They absolutely dominate the graphic design, photography, and print production markets which are all reasonably processor intensive. And they also do very well in the video production market which is VERY processor intensive. Even in the high end shops the less processor intensive stuff is done on macs and then moved over to the SGI machines. Notice how many macs you see when watching a documentary on the "making of" the latest hot movie. From ILM to your local TV station or commercial video production company it is a reasonably big and very high margin market that Apple is moving to dominate (with fast machines, DVDStudio Pro, FinalCut Pro & some of the best 3rd party software) the same way they dominate desktop publishing.
Cocoa reflects OSX's NeXT heritage. It is the updated NeXTstep/OpenStep environment. To paraphrase Apple's site: "It is a set of object-oriented frameworks" designed for rapid development. Cocoa apps are written in Objective C or Java (I have also heard of Objective C++ but don't know anything about it) It is (according to Apple at least) the best choice if starting a new OSX application from scratch. But it is OSX only - you can't run Cocoa apps on MacOS 9
Carbon reflects OSX's Macintosh heritage. It was developed to smooth the transition from the MacOS to the completely new and very different OSX. They took the original Mac Toolbox and got rid of everything that was an obstacle, and added what was necessary, to being buzzword compliant (preemptive multitasking, protected memory etc.) In theory if you have an existing MacOS 9 app (and aren't doing anything in strange non-standard ways) you can port it to OSX pretty easily and it will still run on MacOS 9.
In addition to these two environments you can also use Java without using the Cocoa framworks.
Also, OSX is built on top of a BSD environment so you can do just about anything you could do on any other variant of BSD. Though most mac users won't be using the command line or X-windows (though they could if they wanted to and knew how) so it might make sense to write the GUI at least in cocoa. Actually this is exactly what alot of the useful little freeware/shareware apps are - Cocoa front ends to underlying Unix command line tools or configuration files.
How much Cocoa/Objective C/InterfaceBuilder development have you done?
This is not a wise-ass question. I want to know which is easier/better but want to hear the opinions of people that have used both - not just people that having used one *imagine* that it is easier than the other.
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!! I'm sorry but I just lost it here and feel a major rant coming on.
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO READ THE SAME IGNORANT COMMENT!!!
I know reading the article is tough but even if you read just a few of the preceding comments you would have noticed that this is about the development platform NOT the the Target platform which are NOT the same thing. In the case of this article it was Playstation 2 (which lacking a keyboard would be difficult to code on;) It could just as easily have been XBox, Nintendo, or Windows.