You seem to assume that anyone who's subversive and radical is neccesarily an anarchist. I'll grant he's an excellent romantic ideal, but not for anarchists alone - for any revolutionary.
As for anarchistic coporations... I don't know what you think corporations are, but every one I've ever heard of has a strict hierarchy.p?
As for the Spain one... well, there's my point. You didn't have a self-sustaining anarchy. It went away. You can whine about how it all would have been perfect except for the rich land-owners, but then you're just ignoring the realities of the world and not really trying to create a viable social structure.
This is the core of the argument. Myself, and many reasonable people believe that your are very wrong, but then, we don't have huge teams of very skilled lawyers to convince people of our point of view.
For what it's worth, it has NEVER been legally upheld that there is ANY sort of license on a DVD. Saying that there is one is total bullshit. The argument against DeCSS is that it's primary use is circumvention. This was mainly pushed through with FUD and by smearing the defense.
Playing a DVD on Linux is 100% non-infringing - the MPAA has no authority to tell you otherwise, and this is not disputed. The problem is that the tool you need to do so (DeCSS) is being painted as a device primarily used for infringment, and thus falls under the DMCA.
No, it's really not - the intended purpose of the encryption is to restrict PLAYING. The content industry has said more than once that it really wants to move to a subscription model, where it has total or near-total control over when and where you can play the content they provide. This is a profit thing.
This is why copyright is supposed to be limited to a short period. If if still were, the system would work as intended. Much the same with patents (which originally had a longer term, because of they're supposed to represent a physical device, with the additional associated costs). The flaw is not in the basic concept, but in it's perversion by our government.
I'll give you the best possible argument against anarchy: we don't have one. Anarchy is a default state, human society started as an anarchy. It rapidly collapsed into a society of small groups, which became larger groups, etc, etc. An anarchist principle can ONLY work where EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL is 100% attached to anarchist principles, and everyones interpertation of those principles are the same. This can't happen with any group size greater than 1. Look at the fair amount of 60's communes that read to much and tried to create anarchist communes - they quickly bogged down and collapsed. Humans are social pack animals, don't forget. We aren't wired to live in a non-hierarchal state, and we aren't comfortable with it. In fact, I suspect that you yourself would be very uncomforable without a hierachy to define yourself. You have "the man" to orient yourself against - thats part of your definition of self. Without that, you need to define yourself in totally individual terms, which defies any form of social interaction.
Side note: a radical is not neccesarily an Anarchist. While Jesus arguably preached an anarchist principle (I don't believe this is supportable, btw), he certainly didn't act as one, nor did his followers. In fact, a true anarchist wouldn't have permitted people to follow him the way he did.
They also ignore the fact that a signifigant fraction will punish just because they can, even if it costs them - DDoS attacks and goatse.cx trolls are an excellent example of this.
Now, if it cost MORE to punish than the punished lost, that might be a bit more interesting.
Experiments in large-group psychology (like advertising) have shown that you can say "people are stupid", while excluding any arbitrary individual and not be a hypocrite - in any group with a size greater than a certain criticla mass (I forget what this mass is), the group (read, people) will be stupid. Any given individual may or may not be stupid, but a group always will be.
For what it's worth, I don't have an answer to this problem - obviously, 100% democracy doesn't work. Not just because of the "unwashed masses" thing, but also because strict majority rule is often tyrannical, being by nature unrespecting of the rights of minorities. But rule by an elite isn't good either, because the elite (at least if there are more than n elites) can be trusted to act, as a group, in the interests of themselves and not in the interests of the masses.
The only logical form of government would be the benevolent dicatatorship, which even then only works when the group is small enough that one or < n dictators can perform all of the neccesary duties of ruling.
It only applies if you are in direct competition with the other group. Even then, it's not neccesarily so. If your prime motive is to get as much money as you can, you choose 3/4, because you get more money that way. Assuming that the other side has they same motive, they will also choose 3/4, thus both of you will have 7. If your prime motive is to screw the other guy, you'll choose 2/2. If they have the same motive, they will also choose 2/2, so you're at equity again, except that you have fewer resouces. Therefore, your best choice is always 3/4.
I would LOVE an IP driver for windows (or some sort of firewall, I guess), that let me throttle bandwidth by application - much the way that GetRight and Morpehus will do for themselves. Then I can tell Opera that it gets 15k/sec of bandwidth, FTP that it can have 150k/sec, telnet that it gets 10k/sec... etc.
It's my understanding that you actually can. I don't believe you could use the distinctive Coca-Cola logo, or an image of a Coke can to distribute your product, however. On the other hand, IANAL, and Coke has lots of them.
For what it's worth, EA doesn't seem to use SafeDisc anymore - probably for exactly that reason. I have 3(4?) games that I really enjoy that use SafeDisc, and it's an amazing pain to have to crack them each time I re-install them.
Wow. So much disinformation. I don't feel qualified to make moral judgments about what we should and shouldn't have done, but here's whats wrong with your post.
1: Germany DIDN'T get the bomb. We defeated Germany without the use of atomic weapons. The bomb was totally irrelevant, in the end, to the course of the Eurpoean war.
2: Japan was in negotiation to surrender when we dropped the bomb. We were holding out for the removal of the Emperor. In the end, we decided to let them keep the Emperor, so they would surrender to us and not the USSR.
3: The projected casualties number for a land invasion of Japan was created after the fact. See previous posts. We dropped the bomb to get a one-up over the USSR, not to defeat Japan.
Some actors and other celebs do this (or more often , it's done by thier agency). This was a key factor in the whole artist formerly known as Prince thing - his label (WB) owned the trademark rights to his name.
Point being: The majority of XP users will be running as admins, therefore any code they execute will have admin privledges, making them much more vulnerable to trojans and email viruses. Even if you compromise a process or get the user to execute a trojan, you won't neccesarily have root access, whereas it's much more likely on a windows system. And, as for XP security, lets not forget that little uPnP bug, eh?
Depending on how you look at it, this is either wrong or misleading. On any win95/98/ME, ANY compromise is a "r00t", because theres no concept of user level access control. If you get access, you've got root. Less on win2k and XP, but on both of these systems, critical and potentially compromised processess (like a web server) run as System by default. Also, many home users of 2k and XP (especially XP) login as admin because SO many normal tasks require it - for example, you have to be Admin to play diablo 2. In XP, when you create a new user, it defaults to an Admin user with no password!
This is essentially the same concept as OS X - use a proven, stable kernel, then overlay our own OS achitecure over it. However, as several other people have said, I find it hard to believe that it was done properly within the time frame it was done, without MS aid.
I used to get nearly 100:1 (about 94:1, as I recall) on database files we used to use at work. Would have gone down if they'd ever been redesigned so they were relational, but hey:P
I suspect that when they say "random" data, they are using marketing-speak random, not math-speak random. Therefore, by 'random', they mean "data with lots of repetition like music or video files, which we'll CALL random because none of you copyright-infringing IP thieving pirates will know the difference"
Well, I was referring less to the realities of his situation than his attitude, where he says that he gladly pays extra money to gain rights that are already his.
Obligatory couterpoint: Them damn upptiy niggers got what they deserved!! If it was just a couple of them, they wouldn't have gotten in trouble, but there were hundreds of them, all going to our schools!!
I'm trying to avoid making assumptions about the case in light of how little hard info there is in the article, but the volume of the posts has nothing whatsoever to do with it being libel or slander. Which of these would most apply to the Internet, anyway? Email sounds more like slander, message board like libel....
Nitpick: Spam ain't illegal. Sounds to me like this guy was convicted mainly on gut instinct rather than any specific legal clause, although the article is really sparse with the detail. Legally, the volume of the messages is irrelevent with regard to whether or not it's libel, although I imagine it can be used as evidence of malice. On the plus side, depending on exactly how the ruling worked, this may be a useful precedent in stopping real spam.
One of the key elements is that it must be harmful to be libel or slander (at least for a public figure, I'm less sure about the law for "normal" citizens), as well as false. That said, I'm still on your side - The more I think about, the less I'm sure that there should be ANY restraint on speech, except, and this I'm still not convinced of, in cases where the speech directly causes actual harm. Shouting fire in a theatre might fall under that, but only if you actually did cause a panic, and people actually were harmed.
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As for anarchistic coporations... I don't know what you think corporations are, but every one I've ever heard of has a strict hierarchy.p? As for the Spain one... well, there's my point. You didn't have a self-sustaining anarchy. It went away. You can whine about how it all would have been perfect except for the rich land-owners, but then you're just ignoring the realities of the world and not really trying to create a viable social structure.
For what it's worth, it has NEVER been legally upheld that there is ANY sort of license on a DVD. Saying that there is one is total bullshit. The argument against DeCSS is that it's primary use is circumvention. This was mainly pushed through with FUD and by smearing the defense.
Playing a DVD on Linux is 100% non-infringing - the MPAA has no authority to tell you otherwise, and this is not disputed. The problem is that the tool you need to do so (DeCSS) is being painted as a device primarily used for infringment, and thus falls under the DMCA.
No, it's really not - the intended purpose of the encryption is to restrict PLAYING. The content industry has said more than once that it really wants to move to a subscription model, where it has total or near-total control over when and where you can play the content they provide. This is a profit thing.
This is why copyright is supposed to be limited to a short period. If if still were, the system would work as intended. Much the same with patents (which originally had a longer term, because of they're supposed to represent a physical device, with the additional associated costs). The flaw is not in the basic concept, but in it's perversion by our government.
Side note: a radical is not neccesarily an Anarchist. While Jesus arguably preached an anarchist principle (I don't believe this is supportable, btw), he certainly didn't act as one, nor did his followers. In fact, a true anarchist wouldn't have permitted people to follow him the way he did.
They also ignore the fact that a signifigant fraction will punish just because they can, even if it costs them - DDoS attacks and goatse.cx trolls are an excellent example of this.
Now, if it cost MORE to punish than the punished lost, that might be a bit more interesting.
For what it's worth, I don't have an answer to this problem - obviously, 100% democracy doesn't work. Not just because of the "unwashed masses" thing, but also because strict majority rule is often tyrannical, being by nature unrespecting of the rights of minorities. But rule by an elite isn't good either, because the elite (at least if there are more than n elites) can be trusted to act, as a group, in the interests of themselves and not in the interests of the masses.
The only logical form of government would be the benevolent dicatatorship, which even then only works when the group is small enough that one or < n dictators can perform all of the neccesary duties of ruling.
It only applies if you are in direct competition with the other group. Even then, it's not neccesarily so. If your prime motive is to get as much money as you can, you choose 3/4, because you get more money that way. Assuming that the other side has they same motive, they will also choose 3/4, thus both of you will have 7. If your prime motive is to screw the other guy, you'll choose 2/2. If they have the same motive, they will also choose 2/2, so you're at equity again, except that you have fewer resouces. Therefore, your best choice is always 3/4.
I would LOVE an IP driver for windows (or some sort of firewall, I guess), that let me throttle bandwidth by application - much the way that GetRight and Morpehus will do for themselves. Then I can tell Opera that it gets 15k/sec of bandwidth, FTP that it can have 150k/sec, telnet that it gets 10k/sec... etc.
It's my understanding that you actually can. I don't believe you could use the distinctive Coca-Cola logo, or an image of a Coke can to distribute your product, however. On the other hand, IANAL, and Coke has lots of them.
For what it's worth, EA doesn't seem to use SafeDisc anymore - probably for exactly that reason. I have 3(4?) games that I really enjoy that use SafeDisc, and it's an amazing pain to have to crack them each time I re-install them.
I don't believe in 6am. I mean, _I_ certainly have never seen it.
1: Germany DIDN'T get the bomb. We defeated Germany without the use of atomic weapons. The bomb was totally irrelevant, in the end, to the course of the Eurpoean war.
2: Japan was in negotiation to surrender when we dropped the bomb. We were holding out for the removal of the Emperor. In the end, we decided to let them keep the Emperor, so they would surrender to us and not the USSR.
3: The projected casualties number for a land invasion of Japan was created after the fact. See previous posts. We dropped the bomb to get a one-up over the USSR, not to defeat Japan.
Some actors and other celebs do this (or more often , it's done by thier agency). This was a key factor in the whole artist formerly known as Prince thing - his label (WB) owned the trademark rights to his name.
I'm 23 and only get carded just after I shave. Seems a day or two growth of beard is enough to make me look grownup.
Point being: The majority of XP users will be running as admins, therefore any code they execute will have admin privledges, making them much more vulnerable to trojans and email viruses. Even if you compromise a process or get the user to execute a trojan, you won't neccesarily have root access, whereas it's much more likely on a windows system. And, as for XP security, lets not forget that little uPnP bug, eh?
Depending on how you look at it, this is either wrong or misleading. On any win95/98/ME, ANY compromise is a "r00t", because theres no concept of user level access control. If you get access, you've got root. Less on win2k and XP, but on both of these systems, critical and potentially compromised processess (like a web server) run as System by default. Also, many home users of 2k and XP (especially XP) login as admin because SO many normal tasks require it - for example, you have to be Admin to play diablo 2. In XP, when you create a new user, it defaults to an Admin user with no password!
This is essentially the same concept as OS X - use a proven, stable kernel, then overlay our own OS achitecure over it. However, as several other people have said, I find it hard to believe that it was done properly within the time frame it was done, without MS aid.
I used to get nearly 100:1 (about 94:1, as I recall) on database files we used to use at work. Would have gone down if they'd ever been redesigned so they were relational, but hey :P
I suspect that when they say "random" data, they are using marketing-speak random, not math-speak random. Therefore, by 'random', they mean "data with lots of repetition like music or video files, which we'll CALL random because none of you copyright-infringing IP thieving pirates will know the difference"
Well, I was referring less to the realities of his situation than his attitude, where he says that he gladly pays extra money to gain rights that are already his.
I'm trying to avoid making assumptions about the case in light of how little hard info there is in the article, but the volume of the posts has nothing whatsoever to do with it being libel or slander. Which of these would most apply to the Internet, anyway? Email sounds more like slander, message board like libel....
Nitpick: Spam ain't illegal. Sounds to me like this guy was convicted mainly on gut instinct rather than any specific legal clause, although the article is really sparse with the detail. Legally, the volume of the messages is irrelevent with regard to whether or not it's libel, although I imagine it can be used as evidence of malice. On the plus side, depending on exactly how the ruling worked, this may be a useful precedent in stopping real spam.
One of the key elements is that it must be harmful to be libel or slander (at least for a public figure, I'm less sure about the law for "normal" citizens), as well as false. That said, I'm still on your side - The more I think about, the less I'm sure that there should be ANY restraint on speech, except, and this I'm still not convinced of, in cases where the speech directly causes actual harm. Shouting fire in a theatre might fall under that, but only if you actually did cause a panic, and people actually were harmed.
Not to nitpick, but you can't have a "differently shaped cube". If it's a different shape, it's not a cube :P