Not to mention that this "robot" hardly compares with an Asimov robot. This thing just moved in a very specific sequence according to it's programming, it did not have AI or think or even react dynamically to it's environment.
For a robot to even have a chance to be programmed in the three laws, it has to have AI and be able to "think" because the three laws are such abstracts. There are not simple laws such as the law of gravity where you just plug in numbers.
What's so complicated about this issue.
on
Net Neutrality or Not?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
From the pro-NN article:
"Think of the pipes and wires that you use to go online as a sidewalk. The question is whether the sidewalk should get a cut of the value of the conversations that you have as you walk along? The traditional telephone model has been that the telephone company doesn't get paid more if you have a particularly meaningful call -- they're just providing a neutral pipe."
No, think of the pipes and wires that you use to go online as the car you pay for by renting. The question is, should the rental car actively resist the steering wheel when you pass by a burger king and instead redirect you to a McDonalds because McDonalds paid the rental car agency a bribe.
God, I hate stupid f*ing metaphors. The thing is easy enough to understand, I can't believe how the debate gets convoluted by the other side: You are already paying for net access. Now your telecoms aren't quite satisfied with your payment and want to double dip by collecting on the other side of the pipe. The problem is, that as a consumer, this isn't what I paid for. I paid for internet access, not Verizon's Paying Friends network. This is fraudulent behavior against the consumer, plain and simple.
In his anti-NN article, Mike McCurry, who obviously knows how the net should really work instead of how it current did for the last XX years wrote:
Under their self-proclaimed banner of "neutrality," Google, eBay and other big online companies are lobbying for what amounts to a federal exemption from paying. Unfortunately, their thinly disguised effort at self-interest would dramatically shift the financial burden of paying for these upgrades onto the backs of ordinary consumers.
Their thinly disguised self-interest happens to be my self-interest in this case too. Rather than your stance, which coincides as the thinly disguised self-interest of the bells.
Oh, and no matter what, the consumers will pay for the upgrades. Let's not pretend that the corps will pay for it and not pass it down.
No, you see, it's a pay as you go system. From the sentence you quoted, it should be obvious that for every cent you pay, they catch about 80 pieces of malware. Literally "80 per cent."
Of course, I'm wondering if this is a pre-pay system or if they'll just deduct it monthly from my bank account, but either way it doesn't matter to me since I trust these guys (hey, they are in the anti-spyware biz, it's unlike the company will fleece me just for step 3). This will go nicely with my new MS security subscription service and my PC with MS-pay-as-you-go-OS.
I was remarking more on the irony on metaltoad's (the great-grandfather's) quote:
Anyone who doesn't start their own business has no more right to complain about corporate culture than people who don't vote have to complain about politics.
because it was said in a Dilbert story/thread. If you look up Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, you see that Dilbert was specifically a form of him bitching and complaining about his own experiences with American corporate culture. It seems to me, he didn't intend to make Dilbert into a business from the beginning (he worked at a Bell till 96, Dilbert was started in 89). Thus he would have had no "right to complain about corporate culture."
I just intensely dislike that cliche because it's a sit-down-and-shut-up tactic and doesn't recognize that bitching and complaining can be a potentially powerful thing in politics - voices/positions always are and if viewpoint has no voice, it might as well be dead. Bitching and complaining also lead some to become more political. I basically mean it's a start.
Also, this thing about voting presupposes it's a be all and end all of all things. Some people act like it's the beginning and end of the democratic process. It's not. It's playing by the rules. I think some bitchers and complainers, if vocal enough, have done more than a single vote - and if they don't vote, I won't hold that against them because they sometimes did a lot more than that.
Apathy is what kills democracy, not bitching and complaining.
Anyone who doesn't start their own business has no more right to complain about corporate culture than people who don't vote have to complain about politics.
Pray tell, what a fascinating point of view. All this time, I thought my right to bitch and complain about things was enumerated under the constitution (first amendment.)
So you are also telling me that someone who is politically active, does things to promote their cause, but doesn't vote because he can't conscientously a hand in picking one of the two candidates running, because one is a douche and the other a turd, doesn't have a right to complain about politics?
And someone who slaves away at some corporation and has a wife with a baby along the way, can't complain about corporate culture because he doesn't think the risk is worth it because it's not just him affected by that life decision.
And by this line of logic, unless people jump in and program computers themselves, they have no right to complain about crappy user interfaces, program logic, shitty computer games, etcetera, ad infinitum.
What a wonderful idea. Where do I sign up to join this fascist society?
Can't be done the way you describe, the same basic result can be accomplished by having a reader at every doorway inside the house. Provided that the item is registered in a database, it'll tell you what room an item is in. Okay, it won't pinpoint the exact location, but is it that much of a bother to search in your bedroom if you knew it was there. It'll also tell you whether or not it's in the house period.
Plus, the doorway option is better for many places to get a definite read as well. My 802.11G broadband router can't penetrate the stone walls of my house and I actually get more signal vertically (up to 3 stories up) than I get horizontally (the next room seperated by a hallway doesn't get any signal). I can't see RFID readers trying to triangulate positions being any better in this case.
The tech for that is currently here, but having that many scanners is too expensive yet it is much cheaper than it was just a few years ago. It'll get much cheaper still.
All these do right now, is look like a weird marriage of 3d FPS and webbrowser screenshots used to texture billboards. So pretty. But that's about it. Navigation can be done much more efficiently with a 2d plug-in for firefox that would concentrate on such a thing.
I can imagine a 3D web. But it probably be more useful to have one when 3d holographic displays are the norm and I can reach in and manipulate objects.
I think all the reasoning against net neutrality doesn't recognize the fact that I, joe consumer, paid to surf the internet. The ISPs can say they'll favor certain corporations, but that's not what I paid for. They are trying to sell a resource, already paid for by me, at the other end. That's double dipping and should be illegal.
Besides, the article is illogical. The very entities like Google CAN pay corps the extortion fee to be in favored status. It's the smaller guys that get fucked. Tom Giovanetti can pretend that this will threaten Google's/Microsoft'sMSN/OtherGenericBigBadGuy business model. And then there is the real world.
Because this would render the government "Do Not Fly" lists unenforceable. Also, the challenge was to give the driver's license to John Gilmore (the challenger) who would have mailed the driver's license their house, not give it to a guy (reporter) accompanying you there. There's no way to verify if this single reporter is telling the truth in that matter (there have been a number of crooked reporters in the past years coming out).
At the meeting's close, Harper, a committee member, said he'd take the challenge so long as he could hand his envelope to a reporter who accompanied him to the airport. He also challenged the other members to join him.
...
...
...
At 6 a.m. the next morning, Harper handed this reporter a green, self-addressed stamped envelope and entered the checkpoint line, which even at that early hour was filled with travelers facing a 20-minute crawl to the magnetometers.
That seems to be a relatively small market. Why not open a clinic for internet "addiction." MMORG playing could fall under that. To me, at least, it seems this is a much bigger market to tap and one more readily seen. Or maybe even just generic computer "addiction."
If I wanted to make money selling quack medicine, that's what I would do. Not only would parents be sending me their kids who are doing crappy in school, but companies their low productivity workers (in some parts of Europe, where this clinic is at, it's very hard to fire workers for almost any reason) who tend to surf a lot.
I think donating organs after your death is a very morbid thought, but when you consider the potential benefits of doing so, you can't reasonably disagree with it.
I don't know if you mean just in general or if a single person can turn down doing so.
But I can think of plenty of reasons why people may choose not to do so - personal and religious belief for one (for instance, the ancient egyptians believed you had to have almost your organs, preserved in jars, to live an afterlife). I won't blame those people or call them unreasonable just for wanting to be whole when they go six feet under.
The problem is that once you get older, and start having more of a full life, you just don't have the time to play a game for several hours, trying to unlock certain things.
Have you ever heard of "cheat codes"?
Seriously, your post and the article miss the point: those unlockable items are there for the gamers who do have time to unlock them, to be rewarded. If they know there's a (non-cheating) shortcut to the unlockable stuff, it will get used, the game will be devoured within a few hours, and then not played again. If a company or game series earns a reputation for games like this, gamers either a) won't buy it or b) won't buy it but rent it. Which does no good to the game developers who have to earn money and eat.
No fair you say. I respond by saying, if the game isn't fun enough of soon off the bat, there's something wrong with the premise or design of the game itself, not that all the secrets aren't immediately unlockable.
I played hundreds of games growing up and I can count on one hand the games where I explored/did/got everything 100%. Were the rest not worth it? Hell no, I liked a ton of them even if I couldn't find every last thing.
The journey is better than the destination most of the time. The Final Fantasy series and the Metal Gear (and Metal Gear Solid) series are my shining examples of this.
I can see your point with some games (racing games where you only get lame ass cars in the beginning) but that's the price of admission.
After Nagisake and Hiroshima got atomic bombed, it provided a test bed for scientists on the effects of radiation poisoning and the aftereffects of the bomb.
Should they have closed their eyes and ignored it because the atomic bomb was reprehensible?
The scientist who study stemcells are much in the same position, they are not in the decision chain when a woman gets an abortion. I don't think stem cell research are the driving force why women do get abortions. But they happen.
Should we close our eyes and pretend that the benefits doesn't exist? The future baby has already died. Don't let it die completely in vain.
Face it, the industry is fucked up from the top down. Where the fuck is my $5 CD I was promised in the late 80s? I don't mean the bargain bin. How is it possible that 20 years later we still have the same prices as we did then? I smell bullshit.
The same prices as in the 80's. Isn't that a good thing? There's inflation, afterall (BTW, I'm not that old to remember if prices are truly the same)
At least Nintendo doesn't follow everything apple does. I've found a core duo laptop made by acer that has the exact same hardware under the hood as one of the new macbook pro laptops. I'd get the macbook pro, but I don't think OSX is worth the extra $1500 that the apple machine costs.
Extra $1500 that the Apple one costs? Interesting, that mean the Acer machine is $1500 cheaper.
Can you give me a link to this Acer Machine, I assume by your post that it is identical/similiar or maybe even better specs than the Apple machine as well.
Even prior to last 50 years, "piracy" still occurred (how many hand-painted copies of the Mona Lisa exist? I recall reading a number in the thousands recently). It just took much longer, and the resources necessary to pull it off on a large scale almost guaranteed detection.
Um, the reason so many handpainted Mona Lisas (or any famous painting) exist is that the Mona Lisa was public domain (I don't know if Da Vinci had "copyright in his time) and student artists often paint famous pictures to master their art - to understand shading, composition, and all that. It wasn't to "pirate" or pass off as the original.
In fact, this shows why copyright shouldn't be perpetual or tied to the original author's lifespan plus XX years. Our culture obviously suffers when the public domain is just their to be taken from (Grimm's Fairy Tales) but never given back to (Disney's adaption of Grimm's fairy tales).
Humans are born thieves then. We do the crime of copyright infringement everytime we listen to a song/movie for free without paying for it, since we store memories of it in our brain (and without permission!).
Intellectual property. Something is so wrong with that phrase.... BUT thanks for showing me the light on this rampant thievery. First, let's imprison all the people with eidetic memories...
Also, try moving even slightly out of the mainstream pap-for-the-masses creative work.
Why are you assuming I do any mainstream entertainment? The only stuff mainstream I have is gifted to me. I avoid RIAA bands which means generally I have to turn to small bands. I am more into offbeat manga than anything American. And I've been tortured enough by reality shows, movies of the last ten years to learn not to watch it anymore (okay, maybe 4-5 movies a year, no TV).
Most publishing houses, in the *current* world of very-very-long copyright, only publish literary fiction and niche-interest work to build up their reputation and hope for the occasional breakout.
The world of video games seem to survive. Only a small percentage are hits (and a slightly bigger percentage make money) but it's enough to subsidize the rest. The shelf life of games is extremely short, copyright or not, and the industry has variety and seems to survive.
Also, all the niche-authors I know (and very small niche) usually have to pay their own printing costs to get their book "published." By this, I mean authors in antique collectibles, since this is what I assume you mean by niche.
Otherwise, I believe publishing houses do make money, no? They cast out a net and catch fish, so to speak? I doubt they print up too much for charity (reputation).
They sell it at a loss, even over the long term. And don't forget that when they give "big" advances to authors... well, even a half million bucks in payment for a work that took, say 6 years, is only $83K/year before taxes, with no benefits or guarantee of future income. Not chump change, but no jackpot either (and again, that's way out of the realm of "normal" writers ).
I fail to see your point. Publishing houses aren't the future. In 15-30 years, the electronic book (electronic paper is out now) will be ubiquitous anyway.
Anyway, I don't see why a short copyright would be bad. Perhaps 5 years (Pirate bay) or my decade is too short. But 40-50 years is way too long. But then, I'm for the 8-12 year patent as well. Oh, and the 0 year software patent.
So why does Disney get to grab from the Public Domain (Grimm's collection of Fairytales) but never get to put some back in the pot? Oh wait, they are "authors." I see.
Perhaps they don't choose C++ for memory management is because by the time they realize they want that feature - they moved on to another (perhaps saner? and by sane I mean consistent) language that has it built in.
Personally, I agree that current copyright law is ridiculous, but 5 years seems way too short. I would argue for something like 40 or 50 years.
Way too long.
There are plenty of examples of creative work that was a dud on initial release, but became a cult favorite a decade later...
A minority of examples should not hold the majority of people hostage with overly long copyrights. I say a decade is good. Five years too short and 40-50 years way too long - works tend to become culturally irrevelent by then.
or creative work that was the product of decades of work, from a creator who would not be able to "just do more" to keep an income stream once copyright ended.
Yeah, where would we all be if George Lucas "couldn't" make Star Wars 4, 5, 6 (or ep 1, 2, 3 - whatever). What a cultural travesty! Or if Sylvester Stallone "couldn't" make Rocky 6 (currently in production). Perhaps they'd get off their ass and have another original idea.
Anyway, I call bullshit. People will always want a continuation of the story by whom they perceive as the original creator. It's called having authenticity - audiences don't care about copyrights - they care about the name attached. And since the Pirate Party allows trademarks - George Lucas can make his new Starwars. He just can't rake in the cash for the old ones forever. So there is actually incentive for him to produce new stuff lest a vacuum comes in the Star Wars universe that others will decide to fill over time.
And Rowling would still have economic incentive (actually, even more so) to make Harry Potter books. So I don't see your point.
We want to support these kinds of "master works" or "life's work" projects, not say, "sorry, but your 5 years is up -- if the word is still spreading, hey; sucks to be you".
I just said how it would be done under that system.
This argument drives me nuts. They're not selling you the paper on which the book was printed. They are selling you the entertainment/knowledge/whatever you derive from the content of the book.
What if the content isn't original. For instance, I can buy a book from Harry Lorayne & Jerry Lucas, called "The Memory Book." But they admit freely in that book, most techniques come from the past - some all the way back from Greek times (loci technique), and some more recent but not by them - it was a 19th century mnemonic guy whose name I forget.
So is that knowledge theirs to sell? I doubt it, it's public domain. Otherwise, all the new generation of memory books (which are just basic variations of these techniques) would be sued at some point in time for stealing the content and making it their own.
This would go for most how-to books, like math books (algebra, trig) where the content is public domain.
It might be better to argue that what you are paying for is presentation.
The beginning of the article has a makebelieve scenario where you get answers to question like "are brand X cameras better than brand y". But that is such a generic question - how do you answer that? What metric? It really depends on what you want, and being an informed consumer, hitting all the usual spots for tech specs and opinions (usenet, amazon with reviews, other places with reviews, etcetera) might be better.
I'm sure they are trying to develop something more commercial, perhaps to be used in large organizations, but the article begins badly to present it that way, and isn't really clear.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention that this "robot" hardly compares with an Asimov robot. This thing just moved in a very specific sequence according to it's programming, it did not have AI or think or even react dynamically to it's environment.
For a robot to even have a chance to be programmed in the three laws, it has to have AI and be able to "think" because the three laws are such abstracts. There are not simple laws such as the law of gravity where you just plug in numbers.
No, think of the pipes and wires that you use to go online as the car you pay for by renting. The question is, should the rental car actively resist the steering wheel when you pass by a burger king and instead redirect you to a McDonalds because McDonalds paid the rental car agency a bribe.
God, I hate stupid f*ing metaphors. The thing is easy enough to understand, I can't believe how the debate gets convoluted by the other side: You are already paying for net access. Now your telecoms aren't quite satisfied with your payment and want to double dip by collecting on the other side of the pipe. The problem is, that as a consumer, this isn't what I paid for. I paid for internet access, not Verizon's Paying Friends network. This is fraudulent behavior against the consumer, plain and simple.
In his anti-NN article, Mike McCurry, who obviously knows how the net should really work instead of how it current did for the last XX years wrote:
Their thinly disguised self-interest happens to be my self-interest in this case too. Rather than your stance, which coincides as the thinly disguised self-interest of the bells.
Oh, and no matter what, the consumers will pay for the upgrades. Let's not pretend that the corps will pay for it and not pass it down.
No, you see, it's a pay as you go system. From the sentence you quoted, it should be obvious that for every cent you pay, they catch about 80 pieces of malware. Literally "80 per cent."
Of course, I'm wondering if this is a pre-pay system or if they'll just deduct it monthly from my bank account, but either way it doesn't matter to me since I trust these guys (hey, they are in the anti-spyware biz, it's unlike the company will fleece me just for step 3). This will go nicely with my new MS security subscription service and my PC with MS-pay-as-you-go-OS.
I was remarking more on the irony on metaltoad's (the great-grandfather's) quote:
because it was said in a Dilbert story/thread. If you look up Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, you see that Dilbert was specifically a form of him bitching and complaining about his own experiences with American corporate culture. It seems to me, he didn't intend to make Dilbert into a business from the beginning (he worked at a Bell till 96, Dilbert was started in 89). Thus he would have had no "right to complain about corporate culture."
I just intensely dislike that cliche because it's a sit-down-and-shut-up tactic and doesn't recognize that bitching and complaining can be a potentially powerful thing in politics - voices/positions always are and if viewpoint has no voice, it might as well be dead. Bitching and complaining also lead some to become more political. I basically mean it's a start.
Also, this thing about voting presupposes it's a be all and end all of all things. Some people act like it's the beginning and end of the democratic process. It's not. It's playing by the rules. I think some bitchers and complainers, if vocal enough, have done more than a single vote - and if they don't vote, I won't hold that against them because they sometimes did a lot more than that.
Apathy is what kills democracy, not bitching and complaining.
Pray tell, what a fascinating point of view. All this time, I thought my right to bitch and complain about things was enumerated under the constitution (first amendment.)
So you are also telling me that someone who is politically active, does things to promote their cause, but doesn't vote because he can't conscientously a hand in picking one of the two candidates running, because one is a douche and the other a turd, doesn't have a right to complain about politics?
And someone who slaves away at some corporation and has a wife with a baby along the way, can't complain about corporate culture because he doesn't think the risk is worth it because it's not just him affected by that life decision.
And by this line of logic, unless people jump in and program computers themselves, they have no right to complain about crappy user interfaces, program logic, shitty computer games, etcetera, ad infinitum.
What a wonderful idea. Where do I sign up to join this fascist society?
Can't be done the way you describe, the same basic result can be accomplished by having a reader at every doorway inside the house. Provided that the item is registered in a database, it'll tell you what room an item is in. Okay, it won't pinpoint the exact location, but is it that much of a bother to search in your bedroom if you knew it was there. It'll also tell you whether or not it's in the house period.
Plus, the doorway option is better for many places to get a definite read as well. My 802.11G broadband router can't penetrate the stone walls of my house and I actually get more signal vertically (up to 3 stories up) than I get horizontally (the next room seperated by a hallway doesn't get any signal). I can't see RFID readers trying to triangulate positions being any better in this case.
The tech for that is currently here, but having that many scanners is too expensive yet it is much cheaper than it was just a few years ago. It'll get much cheaper still.
Yes, and it's not even news for nerds.
Now, if they did it the other way around and made "pussies" not allergic to the typical Slashdotter, that may qualify.....
This makes the http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/04/ 12112205d/4d rubik's cube seem useful for day to day life.
All these do right now, is look like a weird marriage of 3d FPS and webbrowser screenshots used to texture billboards. So pretty. But that's about it. Navigation can be done much more efficiently with a 2d plug-in for firefox that would concentrate on such a thing.
I can imagine a 3D web. But it probably be more useful to have one when 3d holographic displays are the norm and I can reach in and manipulate objects.
I think all the reasoning against net neutrality doesn't recognize the fact that I, joe consumer, paid to surf the internet. The ISPs can say they'll favor certain corporations, but that's not what I paid for. They are trying to sell a resource, already paid for by me, at the other end. That's double dipping and should be illegal.
Besides, the article is illogical. The very entities like Google CAN pay corps the extortion fee to be in favored status. It's the smaller guys that get fucked. Tom Giovanetti can pretend that this will threaten Google's/Microsoft'sMSN/OtherGenericBigBadGuy business model. And then there is the real world.
That seems to be a relatively small market. Why not open a clinic for internet "addiction." MMORG playing could fall under that. To me, at least, it seems this is a much bigger market to tap and one more readily seen. Or maybe even just generic computer "addiction."
If I wanted to make money selling quack medicine, that's what I would do. Not only would parents be sending me their kids who are doing crappy in school, but companies their low productivity workers (in some parts of Europe, where this clinic is at, it's very hard to fire workers for almost any reason) who tend to surf a lot.
I don't know if you mean just in general or if a single person can turn down doing so.
But I can think of plenty of reasons why people may choose not to do so - personal and religious belief for one (for instance, the ancient egyptians believed you had to have almost your organs, preserved in jars, to live an afterlife). I won't blame those people or call them unreasonable just for wanting to be whole when they go six feet under.
Have you ever heard of "cheat codes"?
Seriously, your post and the article miss the point: those unlockable items are there for the gamers who do have time to unlock them, to be rewarded. If they know there's a (non-cheating) shortcut to the unlockable stuff, it will get used, the game will be devoured within a few hours, and then not played again. If a company or game series earns a reputation for games like this, gamers either a) won't buy it or b) won't buy it but rent it. Which does no good to the game developers who have to earn money and eat.
No fair you say. I respond by saying, if the game isn't fun enough of soon off the bat, there's something wrong with the premise or design of the game itself, not that all the secrets aren't immediately unlockable.
I played hundreds of games growing up and I can count on one hand the games where I explored/did/got everything 100%. Were the rest not worth it? Hell no, I liked a ton of them even if I couldn't find every last thing.
The journey is better than the destination most of the time. The Final Fantasy series and the Metal Gear (and Metal Gear Solid) series are my shining examples of this.
I can see your point with some games (racing games where you only get lame ass cars in the beginning) but that's the price of admission.
After Nagisake and Hiroshima got atomic bombed, it provided a test bed for scientists on the effects of radiation poisoning and the aftereffects of the bomb.
Should they have closed their eyes and ignored it because the atomic bomb was reprehensible?
The scientist who study stemcells are much in the same position, they are not in the decision chain when a woman gets an abortion. I don't think stem cell research are the driving force why women do get abortions. But they happen.
Should we close our eyes and pretend that the benefits doesn't exist? The future baby has already died. Don't let it die completely in vain.
The same prices as in the 80's. Isn't that a good thing? There's inflation, afterall (BTW, I'm not that old to remember if prices are truly the same)
Extra $1500 that the Apple one costs? Interesting, that mean the Acer machine is $1500 cheaper.
Can you give me a link to this Acer Machine, I assume by your post that it is identical/similiar or maybe even better specs than the Apple machine as well.
Um, the reason so many handpainted Mona Lisas (or any famous painting) exist is that the Mona Lisa was public domain (I don't know if Da Vinci had "copyright in his time) and student artists often paint famous pictures to master their art - to understand shading, composition, and all that. It wasn't to "pirate" or pass off as the original.
In fact, this shows why copyright shouldn't be perpetual or tied to the original author's lifespan plus XX years. Our culture obviously suffers when the public domain is just their to be taken from (Grimm's Fairy Tales) but never given back to (Disney's adaption of Grimm's fairy tales).
Humans are born thieves then. We do the crime of copyright infringement everytime we listen to a song/movie for free without paying for it, since we store memories of it in our brain (and without permission!).
Intellectual property. Something is so wrong with that phrase.... BUT thanks for showing me the light on this rampant thievery. First, let's imprison all the people with eidetic memories...
That comment was so troll, er, I meant droll.
Why are you assuming I do any mainstream entertainment? The only stuff mainstream I have is gifted to me. I avoid RIAA bands which means generally I have to turn to small bands. I am more into offbeat manga than anything American. And I've been tortured enough by reality shows, movies of the last ten years to learn not to watch it anymore (okay, maybe 4-5 movies a year, no TV).
The world of video games seem to survive. Only a small percentage are hits (and a slightly bigger percentage make money) but it's enough to subsidize the rest. The shelf life of games is extremely short, copyright or not, and the industry has variety and seems to survive.
Also, all the niche-authors I know (and very small niche) usually have to pay their own printing costs to get their book "published." By this, I mean authors in antique collectibles, since this is what I assume you mean by niche.
Otherwise, I believe publishing houses do make money, no? They cast out a net and catch fish, so to speak? I doubt they print up too much for charity (reputation).
I fail to see your point. Publishing houses aren't the future. In 15-30 years, the electronic book (electronic paper is out now) will be ubiquitous anyway.
Anyway, I don't see why a short copyright would be bad. Perhaps 5 years (Pirate bay) or my decade is too short. But 40-50 years is way too long. But then, I'm for the 8-12 year patent as well. Oh, and the 0 year software patent.
So why does Disney get to grab from the Public Domain (Grimm's collection of Fairytales) but never get to put some back in the pot? Oh wait, they are "authors." I see.
Perhaps they don't choose C++ for memory management is because by the time they realize they want that feature - they moved on to another (perhaps saner? and by sane I mean consistent) language that has it built in.
I read Spolsky's piece, and between rolling my eyes, I could only think when he mentioned "memory management" - Lisp was doing that decades ago.
If the rest of his article are as self-congratulatory and obvious as this one was, I think I'll pass.
Way too long.
A minority of examples should not hold the majority of people hostage with overly long copyrights. I say a decade is good. Five years too short and 40-50 years way too long - works tend to become culturally irrevelent by then.
Yeah, where would we all be if George Lucas "couldn't" make Star Wars 4, 5, 6 (or ep 1, 2, 3 - whatever). What a cultural travesty! Or if Sylvester Stallone "couldn't" make Rocky 6 (currently in production). Perhaps they'd get off their ass and have another original idea.
Anyway, I call bullshit. People will always want a continuation of the story by whom they perceive as the original creator. It's called having authenticity - audiences don't care about copyrights - they care about the name attached. And since the Pirate Party allows trademarks - George Lucas can make his new Starwars. He just can't rake in the cash for the old ones forever. So there is actually incentive for him to produce new stuff lest a vacuum comes in the Star Wars universe that others will decide to fill over time.
And Rowling would still have economic incentive (actually, even more so) to make Harry Potter books. So I don't see your point.
I just said how it would be done under that system.
What if the content isn't original. For instance, I can buy a book from Harry Lorayne & Jerry Lucas, called "The Memory Book." But they admit freely in that book, most techniques come from the past - some all the way back from Greek times (loci technique), and some more recent but not by them - it was a 19th century mnemonic guy whose name I forget.
So is that knowledge theirs to sell? I doubt it, it's public domain. Otherwise, all the new generation of memory books (which are just basic variations of these techniques) would be sued at some point in time for stealing the content and making it their own.
This would go for most how-to books, like math books (algebra, trig) where the content is public domain.
It might be better to argue that what you are paying for is presentation.
The beginning of the article has a makebelieve scenario where you get answers to question like "are brand X cameras better than brand y". But that is such a generic question - how do you answer that? What metric? It really depends on what you want, and being an informed consumer, hitting all the usual spots for tech specs and opinions (usenet, amazon with reviews, other places with reviews, etcetera) might be better.
I'm sure they are trying to develop something more commercial, perhaps to be used in large organizations, but the article begins badly to present it that way, and isn't really clear.