then we'll just be where we are right now. big deal. we can't argue that all human beings have the right to free speech and the right to privacy* (*except for terrorists)
no, we'll just have to figure out how to protect ourselves another way. maybe terrorism should just be viewed as a crime of opportunity. we can do lots of things to prevent the opportunity for terrorism from occurring without even infringing on people's rights. consider that proper pilot training and some secure cockpit doors could have prevented the attacks of 9/11/01 from occuring.
look at it this way- you want the terrorists to have privacy, because what's to keep you from being branded a terrorist?
...so how does puff daddy (p. diddy, puff the magic dragon, whatever- i'm making up an example) sampling beethoven make beethoven any less dead? or even alter his work? i can still go hear the orignal just as he wrote it. i would think that if one were truly concerned with the survival of their ideas, they would encourage people to build upon them.
the fact is, the second your work is published, it begins to change by the mere fact that the context in which the present day is viewing it is changing. you can still read mein kampf in its orignal form, yet it is somehow a vastly different work than it was when it first came out, is it not?
you make the mistake of thinking this is change for the sake of change, which it is not. it is just change, and attempts at stopping it are just foolish. when puff daddy hears beethoven for the first time, his perception of music is changed. perhaps he wants to directly illustrate this influence by using samples. who are you to tell him he can't?
who modded this insightful? funny, maybe... it cost us boatloads of money to get people on the moon, and we already knew there wasn't much of anything up there. after the first few times, the american public even got bored with it.
we went to the moon for a lot of reasons- it engaged the russians in a costly race, it gave lotsa defense contractors work, it served as a unifying experience for an extremely divided country- but it didn't do all that much USEFUL to make it worth continuing, and exploration beyond the moon gets exponentially more expensive and dangerous the farther you go.
it was a milestone and a great moment for all of humanity, but there are more interesting things to be explored and more pressing matters right here on earth that our dollars are presently better spent on. i'm sure that we'll continue going even farther when technology progresses to the point where it is economically feasible to do so, and that point is rapidly approaching.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me Windows XP?
My friends all use Linux, they get it for free
Work hard for my money, but I can't pay the fee
So oh Lord, won't you buy me Windows XP?
I was referring to "True AI". I know that's not the correct term, but effectively I'm referring to when we are able to develope machines that have free will Free will? Humans do not even have "free will"- it's an illusion we maintain to make our lives seem worthwhile and to give ourselves credit for our efforts. Read some of BF Skinner's work for more insight. Any "True AI" will be like humans, in that we do what seems most beneficial to ourselves in light of our previous experience. It will be what we condition it to be.
However, the ethical issues you bring up seem somewhat moot- why should a robot fear for its life, if it has a backup somewhere? Why should a robot dread work, if it doesn't have to feel pain or be tired? Why should a robot be envious of humans when it needs nothing? A robot that can make decisions, have analytical thought processes, etc, will likely realize that it is a disposable robot. Like a human without an ego. Sounds good to me...
anyone remember the old geoworks ensemble/geos windows clone way back in the day? their office suite had an interesting way of dealing with this problem- have multiple user interface levels. one could choose the beginner, intermediate, or advanced level interface, and it would vary the amount of options available accordingly.
i don't know about you, but I don't want any LESS options, just cuz some newbie can't find his way around. let's make the software easier for dumb people without making the software dumb, ok?
it seems to me that any time there is a significant terrorist attack the cell networks in the area will go down, regardless of when/where it happens. something big goes down, and everyone in the vicinity will either call people to tell them about it, or people will call them to see if they're ok. nothing would change that.
however, if the outage info were made public, consumers could use economic pressure to drive the cell comanies into making their service more crash-proof.
this can be seen with microsoft- how secure is a system where full knowledge is only granted those who would have to pay for improvements?
oh, don't be a wuss- he didn't say he'd be firing it around his home, or on a crowded street. Most nerds who know enough to engineer something complex are intelligent enough to understand the risks and use it safely. I suppose you're opposed to potato cannons as well?
I wouldn't say Best Buy has monopoly power here. Shop somewhere else!
but in some small towns, they do- they move in and sell electronics virtually at cost, or even at a loss subsidized by stores elsewhere, and run the locally owned shops out of business. when your only other option is wal-mart, who has similar business practices, if WM doesn't have it, they effectively have a monopoly, do they not? so unless you can wait to get it over the internet, yer screwed...
when I said somthing to the manager he was short with me and said "it's accurate". I almost argued with him, but instead paid him and told him I would avoid shoping where I get treated like shit for pointing out a miss-callibrated pump. I Implied it was deliberately off, and said it loud enough the people near me could hear it.
you go, you crusader for justice, you... i'm sure that gas station manager was really intimidated- he probably went and fixed it right after you left......yeah...
actually, most of the "news" in wired is usually posted on slashdot a month or two before it gets published- and it's often even already old by then...
This is a complete perversion of the concept of Intellectual Property. The US Consitution allows things like patents and other IP "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Recent patents granted by USPTO are just absurd, and do not fulfill the original intent of the Consitutional basis for IP in the US.
is design not a "useful art?" the positive response to a recent story would suggest otherwise. should i be allowed to make a complete rip-off of the iPod's design, just because "hey, buttons and dials have been around forever... prior art!" screw that- design is a lot of work, whether it's industrial design, typographic design, or interior design. if you've been into one of these banks, you'd immediately recognize that they have a unique setup that they obviously invested time and money to come up with. should that investment not be rewarded? would it not discourage similar investments if another national bank were to copy their store layout and remove any competitive advantage they may reap from their unique design?
So ask yourself - did this invention require a large investment to discover that can only be recouped by granting a monopoly on it's use? No. I'm sure discovering the invention itself did not require any substantial investment
uhh... you think those store designs just popped into someone's head for free? there's this thing called market research, and it's not usually cheap. i'm sure they spent a not-insignificant amount of money studying what people need to feel comfortable, what works, etc. have you been in one of these banks? they're significantly different from an ordinary bank. they put up the capital to research and come up with this design, perhaps they deserve to have exclusive use of it for a while
Do the benifits of having the plans to this invention out in the open, as opposed to it being kept as a trade secret, overweight the detriment of having to wait 20 years to use those plans? No - this is a concept whose details are obvious once implemented and thus there is no chance for the inventor to hoard this idea as trade secret. In other words, the plan will be in the open regardless of whether it is patented or not, so it does not benifit society to wait 20 years for what it could have now.
so do you suggest that any mechanical invention shouldn't be patentable, since one could easily disassemble it and see how it works? no- patents protect those things which the inventors specifically CAN'T hoard as a trade secret, because otherwise they would (see Coca-Cola).
The whole point is to encourage development of things which require significant capital to engineer but very little to reverse-engineer by prohibiting the reverse-engineering for a while so that the person who originally put up the capital will find that investment worthwhile.
i actually bank at WaMu, and their branch design is definitely unique, and i'd recognize if someone was trying to rip off their design. the "kiosks" are interesting- they're basically manually-operated ATMs (MTM's, if you will) it makes them pretty much robbery-proof, and allows the tellers to be in the middle of the store instead of up against a wall like most banks. it's a good design, and i'd say they deserve some credit for it, if it's theirs...
Slashdot Mirror
lol... damn i wish i had mod points...
then we'll just be where we are right now. big deal. we can't argue that all human beings have the right to free speech and the right to privacy* (*except for terrorists)
no, we'll just have to figure out how to protect ourselves another way. maybe terrorism should just be viewed as a crime of opportunity. we can do lots of things to prevent the opportunity for terrorism from occurring without even infringing on people's rights. consider that proper pilot training and some secure cockpit doors could have prevented the attacks of 9/11/01 from occuring.
look at it this way- you want the terrorists to have privacy, because what's to keep you from being branded a terrorist?
...so how does puff daddy (p. diddy, puff the magic dragon, whatever- i'm making up an example) sampling beethoven make beethoven any less dead? or even alter his work? i can still go hear the orignal just as he wrote it. i would think that if one were truly concerned with the survival of their ideas, they would encourage people to build upon them.
the fact is, the second your work is published, it begins to change by the mere fact that the context in which the present day is viewing it is changing. you can still read mein kampf in its orignal form, yet it is somehow a vastly different work than it was when it first came out, is it not?
you make the mistake of thinking this is change for the sake of change, which it is not. it is just change, and attempts at stopping it are just foolish. when puff daddy hears beethoven for the first time, his perception of music is changed. perhaps he wants to directly illustrate this influence by using samples. who are you to tell him he can't?
YES! Now I know where to point my cruise missiles! Thanks, Jonsey!
Really... what good is an aerial photo gonna do anyone?
isn't that spanish for michael jackson's baby?
who modded this insightful? funny, maybe... it cost us boatloads of money to get people on the moon, and we already knew there wasn't much of anything up there. after the first few times, the american public even got bored with it.
we went to the moon for a lot of reasons- it engaged the russians in a costly race, it gave lotsa defense contractors work, it served as a unifying experience for an extremely divided country- but it didn't do all that much USEFUL to make it worth continuing, and exploration beyond the moon gets exponentially more expensive and dangerous the farther you go.
it was a milestone and a great moment for all of humanity, but there are more interesting things to be explored and more pressing matters right here on earth that our dollars are presently better spent on. i'm sure that we'll continue going even farther when technology progresses to the point where it is economically feasible to do so, and that point is rapidly approaching.
just a thought...
well the CIA trained a lot of the muslim terrorists, too...
any car with OnStar basically has a cellphone built into it. how will you know it's not just OnStar?
The only reason I would not use one for every day use is the single button
here you go...
no, like this-
Oh Lord, won't you buy me Windows XP?
My friends all use Linux, they get it for free
Work hard for my money, but I can't pay the fee
So oh Lord, won't you buy me Windows XP?
I'm sure the jerks on this site will find every fault and then some. But that's Slashdot. ;-)
speaking of which, what the hell were you thinking with the god-awful music? it sounds like the crap one hears while on hold on the phone...
I was referring to "True AI". I know that's not the correct term, but effectively I'm referring to when we are able to develope machines that have free will
Free will? Humans do not even have "free will"- it's an illusion we maintain to make our lives seem worthwhile and to give ourselves credit for our efforts. Read some of BF Skinner's work for more insight. Any "True AI" will be like humans, in that we do what seems most beneficial to ourselves in light of our previous experience. It will be what we condition it to be.
However, the ethical issues you bring up seem somewhat moot- why should a robot fear for its life, if it has a backup somewhere? Why should a robot dread work, if it doesn't have to feel pain or be tired? Why should a robot be envious of humans when it needs nothing? A robot that can make decisions, have analytical thought processes, etc, will likely realize that it is a disposable robot. Like a human without an ego. Sounds good to me...
anyone remember the old geoworks ensemble/geos windows clone way back in the day? their office suite had an interesting way of dealing with this problem- have multiple user interface levels. one could choose the beginner, intermediate, or advanced level interface, and it would vary the amount of options available accordingly.
i don't know about you, but I don't want any LESS options, just cuz some newbie can't find his way around. let's make the software easier for dumb people without making the software dumb, ok?
it seems to me that any time there is a significant terrorist attack the cell networks in the area will go down, regardless of when/where it happens. something big goes down, and everyone in the vicinity will either call people to tell them about it, or people will call them to see if they're ok. nothing would change that.
however, if the outage info were made public, consumers could use economic pressure to drive the cell comanies into making their service more crash-proof.
this can be seen with microsoft- how secure is a system where full knowledge is only granted those who would have to pay for improvements?
oh, don't be a wuss- he didn't say he'd be firing it around his home, or on a crowded street. Most nerds who know enough to engineer something complex are intelligent enough to understand the risks and use it safely. I suppose you're opposed to potato cannons as well?
I wouldn't say Best Buy has monopoly power here. Shop somewhere else!
but in some small towns, they do- they move in and sell electronics virtually at cost, or even at a loss subsidized by stores elsewhere, and run the locally owned shops out of business. when your only other option is wal-mart, who has similar business practices, if WM doesn't have it, they effectively have a monopoly, do they not? so unless you can wait to get it over the internet, yer screwed...
indeed... it is diculous all over again... :)
when I said somthing to the manager he was short with me and said "it's accurate". I almost argued with him, but instead paid him and told him I would avoid shoping where I get treated like shit for pointing out a miss-callibrated pump. I Implied it was deliberately off, and said it loud enough the people near me could hear it.
...yeah...
you go, you crusader for justice, you... i'm sure that gas station manager was really intimidated- he probably went and fixed it right after you left...
actually, most of the "news" in wired is usually posted on slashdot a month or two before it gets published- and it's often even already old by then...
that's the space that is put in long bits of text to stop the page widening trolls
This is a complete perversion of the concept of Intellectual Property. The US Consitution allows things like patents and other IP "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Recent patents granted by USPTO are just absurd, and do not fulfill the original intent of the Consitutional basis for IP in the US.
is design not a "useful art?" the positive response to a recent story would suggest otherwise. should i be allowed to make a complete rip-off of the iPod's design, just because "hey, buttons and dials have been around forever... prior art!" screw that- design is a lot of work, whether it's industrial design, typographic design, or interior design. if you've been into one of these banks, you'd immediately recognize that they have a unique setup that they obviously invested time and money to come up with. should that investment not be rewarded? would it not discourage similar investments if another national bank were to copy their store layout and remove any competitive advantage they may reap from their unique design?
So ask yourself - did this invention require a large investment to discover that can only be recouped by granting a monopoly on it's use? No. I'm sure discovering the invention itself did not require any substantial investment
uhh... you think those store designs just popped into someone's head for free? there's this thing called market research, and it's not usually cheap. i'm sure they spent a not-insignificant amount of money studying what people need to feel comfortable, what works, etc. have you been in one of these banks? they're significantly different from an ordinary bank. they put up the capital to research and come up with this design, perhaps they deserve to have exclusive use of it for a while
Do the benifits of having the plans to this invention out in the open, as opposed to it being kept as a trade secret, overweight the detriment of having to wait 20 years to use those plans? No - this is a concept whose details are obvious once implemented and thus there is no chance for the inventor to hoard this idea as trade secret. In other words, the plan will be in the open regardless of whether it is patented or not, so it does not benifit society to wait 20 years for what it could have now.
so do you suggest that any mechanical invention shouldn't be patentable, since one could easily disassemble it and see how it works? no- patents protect those things which the inventors specifically CAN'T hoard as a trade secret, because otherwise they would (see Coca-Cola).
The whole point is to encourage development of things which require significant capital to engineer but very little to reverse-engineer by prohibiting the reverse-engineering for a while so that the person who originally put up the capital will find that investment worthwhile.
i actually bank at WaMu, and their branch design is definitely unique, and i'd recognize if someone was trying to rip off their design. the "kiosks" are interesting- they're basically manually-operated ATMs (MTM's, if you will) it makes them pretty much robbery-proof, and allows the tellers to be in the middle of the store instead of up against a wall like most banks. it's a good design, and i'd say they deserve some credit for it, if it's theirs...
uhhh... it's called packaging...