I don't know if you misunderstood, but he said it would be a minimum of 50 years (which is overly generous in my opinion). Even if you died tomorrow, perhaps your kids could consider earning some money of their own after that, like everyone else has to? I don't know many "kids" who need help from their parents to go to college when they are 50...
dead garbagemen don't clear up much rubbish, but dead musicians do sell a lot of records.
That's circular logic: the records sell because of the copyright laws - the musician isn't doing anything physical. I might as well say "dead musicians don't make music, but dead garbagemen do sell a lot of clean bins", if we lived in some weird society where you had to continually pay to make use of cleaned bins.
and in one of our neighboring countries (UK) it used to be 16, but for what I know its 18 now.
Curiously, the age of consent is still 16, but the age for child porn was raised to 18 in 2003. So take a picture of your legal girlfriend, and you get convicted for child porn...
It's not just places like China wanting to crack down on the "revolution" that has come with the Internet.
Here in the UK, the Government plans to criminalise possession of certain types of images it has labelled "extreme" (covered on Slashdot here) - even though the images feature consenting actors or are faked/simulated; this is about censoring "obscene" images because they are inherently seen as harmful to those who view them (more information at http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ ).
My understanding is that the US has been recently trying to crack down on online porn sites too, though thankfully Free Speech has restricted these attempts (e.g., see COPA ).
The article says "Currently an officer has to arrest a person and take them to a custody suite to fingerprint them." - if it's the case that this will only be used in cases where a police officer could currently arrest someone anyway, then that's not so bad. The danger would be if refusing to give fingerprints at the roadside itself becomes an offence (i.e., even if they arrest you and find you are who you said you were and have committed no other crime, you've still committed an offence).
Another possible problem is police may bluff someone into giving prints even if they wouldn't be able to arrest them, because the person who has been stopped fears he could be arrested if he doesn't.
We seem to be fine with calling anything orbiting a planet a "moon", even though that gives us large numbers of moons, but for some reason we have this idea that there can only be a limited number of planets.
We even use "moon" to refer to bodies orbiting things like asteroids, even though we don't refer to asteroids as planets.
I agree that something being a choice seems to make it more acceptable to discriminate against - but it's odd, because suggesting that religion should be banned or whatever seems to generate lots of controversy, even though being religious is just as much as choice.
He also misses the point in another way - if it's no different to stealing a passport, then why are we paying 50% more for these new passports that are no better?
As others have said, this applies to other countries too - but what is it so special about space travel that people always wheel out this "Won't somebody think of the poor!" argument? There are many things which Governments spend money on which don't help the poor, and in some cases the money spent is far greater than that spent on space exploration - why don't people use this criticism against spending on the military, for example?
And yeah, it's been done before. You think it's good to just send a few men out in space once and then say "Someone's already done that, let's not bother anymore"?
It's all to do with how much information you want to give away though - having a blog doesn't in itself mean giving up more privacy than posting on Slashdot for example, which you seem happy to do.
Less so in some ways, in fact, since places like LiveJournal allow some level of security to restrict access to certain people, where as here you have no choice but to make everything public.
or should I cite an encyclopaedia article written in English by one of the world's foremost experts
Of course, the encyclopaedia in this scenario couldn't be Wikipedia, as Wikipedia policy prohibits the kind of article I describe
Good point, but I think you've answered yourself here - yes, it would be fine I think to cite an article that's been written by one of the world's foremost experts, whether that article appears in an encyclopedia or elsewhere, but the reason one cannot cite Wikipedia is nothing to do with reliability, but because they do not allow such original research.
When it comes to encyclopedia articles that are comparable to what Wikipedia has (i.e., editors collecting from existing sources), then I'd disagree that the encyclopedias should be cited directly in either case.
The real difference between Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica is that EB stands behind its scholarship and if a mistake is discovered, they will fix it.
And this issue was fixed too. What are you on about? Where is the evidence that mistakes aren't fixed even when they are discovered?
The main reason why "proper" encyclopedias can be trusted to contain more accurate data isn't because they actually _do_, it's because encyclopedia companies can actually be held responsible if the information they publish is libelous. Wikipedia has no real legal accountability to be factual, in spite of best efforts by a vast majority of its contributors and editors, so Wikipedia's credentials are inherently dubious.
You really think you can get away with libel on Wikipedia?
It may be harder to successfully sue, but libel is libel.
As for inaccurate information, printing that is not a crime - otherwise most tabloid newspapers would be guilty...
Wikipedia insits that there never needs to be any evidence for or against any claim, that anything anybody can type is somehow valid and that truth is decided by who has the most time on their hands to change other people's writing.
Where does Wikipedia say this?
Wikipedia actually makes it clear that it is not a matter of deciding truth or not - the requirement for inclusion is verifiability
Minutes to hours is the figure most often bandied about.
Minutes to hours is the figure bandied about for vandalism of articles, not for non-notable / original research articles which need to be deleted. Indeed, that would be a silly claim, as the Articles for Deletion process takes a few days (unless it meets the criteria for Speedy Delete).
Don't believe everything you read full-stop. Ironic that many people will take this blog or Slashdot summary as 100% truth though...
It doesn't sound quite like vandalism in the sense of someone writing falsehoods on an otherwise valid subject, but rather a big problem with original research - it's unclear whether the original research was simply non-notable, or a complete fake (TFA is slashdotted). Part of the problem is that you can't please everyone - whilst I agree that this sort of article shouldn't be there, there are others who will still criticise Wikipedia because they deleted it (see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=204921&cid=167 32891 , for example)! We can't win!
Also I'm under the impression that this problem was fixed up by Wikipedia - "exposed" implies someone else has found an existing problem, but in this case it looks like the problem's already fixed. Wikipedia is on unfair ground here in that anyone can hunt through this history looking for mistakes which once existed - with any other media, those mistakes are brushed under a carpet and never found out, unless someone happens to see it at the time.
We have no such contract. You cannot simply declare a contract to exist without the providence of assent.
Right, and I have no such contract with the software.
If you need some magic words, then >>> Hit the "Reply to This" button to confirm that you agree to pay me $100 <<<
An arbitrary action - such as clicking a button - cannot be taken to indicate agreement when it is highly likely the person had a legitimate reason to do that (in this case, it was the only way he could use the software, which he had a legal right to use). Contracts are not about specific things like a signature or magic words like "I Agree" - it has to be clear that the person willingly entered into that agreement, and was not tricked or coerced in anyway (in this case, preventing use of his software unless he agreed - you cannot prevent someone's legal right to use software until they agree, anymore than I can prevent your right to post to Slashdot).
And the burden is upon you to show me a case where a contract was upheld just because it was in the "EULA" - do you seriously think I'd get away with "You owe me $1,000,000" if I stuck in at the bottom of an EULA that my software wrote?
And I never give assent to the contract when I install software, so that's fine.
The point isn't to do with whether I can read terms or not, the point is that installing software can't be taken to mean you agree with the contract. When I sign up for a job or insurance on the other hand, it's clear that that's what I intend to do.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if you misunderstood, but he said it would be a minimum of 50 years (which is overly generous in my opinion). Even if you died tomorrow, perhaps your kids could consider earning some money of their own after that, like everyone else has to? I don't know many "kids" who need help from their parents to go to college when they are 50...
How would they get the source?
dead garbagemen don't clear up much rubbish, but dead musicians do sell a lot of records.
That's circular logic: the records sell because of the copyright laws - the musician isn't doing anything physical. I might as well say "dead musicians don't make music, but dead garbagemen do sell a lot of clean bins", if we lived in some weird society where you had to continually pay to make use of cleaned bins.
but there's a real concern that some jerk ad firm will just start pitching cereal to kids with Mickey Mouse.
But if that is the worry, does copyright have to be extended indefinitely in order to prevent that?
(Also, that may be a trademark issue.)
and in one of our neighboring countries (UK) it used to be 16, but for what I know its 18 now.
Curiously, the age of consent is still 16, but the age for child porn was raised to 18 in 2003. So take a picture of your legal girlfriend, and you get convicted for child porn...
It's not just places like China wanting to crack down on the "revolution" that has come with the Internet.
Here in the UK, the Government plans to criminalise possession of certain types of images it has labelled "extreme" (covered on Slashdot here) - even though the images feature consenting actors or are faked/simulated; this is about censoring "obscene" images because they are inherently seen as harmful to those who view them (more information at http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ ).
My understanding is that the US has been recently trying to crack down on online porn sites too, though thankfully Free Speech has restricted these attempts (e.g., see COPA ).
The article says "Currently an officer has to arrest a person and take them to a custody suite to fingerprint them." - if it's the case that this will only be used in cases where a police officer could currently arrest someone anyway, then that's not so bad. The danger would be if refusing to give fingerprints at the roadside itself becomes an offence (i.e., even if they arrest you and find you are who you said you were and have committed no other crime, you've still committed an offence).
Another possible problem is police may bluff someone into giving prints even if they wouldn't be able to arrest them, because the person who has been stopped fears he could be arrested if he doesn't.
A moon orbits a planet, just set a size threshhold.
n s ).
Interestingly, there appears to be no such threshold (consider the 1km Jupiter moons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/2003_J_9 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/2003_J_12 , or all the smaller asteroid moons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_moo
We seem to be fine with calling anything orbiting a planet a "moon", even though that gives us large numbers of moons, but for some reason we have this idea that there can only be a limited number of planets.
We even use "moon" to refer to bodies orbiting things like asteroids, even though we don't refer to asteroids as planets.
I agree that something being a choice seems to make it more acceptable to discriminate against - but it's odd, because suggesting that religion should be banned or whatever seems to generate lots of controversy, even though being religious is just as much as choice.
The country name is not "America". The country name is the "United States of America".
Well my country name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but you never hear people say that mouthful...
He also misses the point in another way - if it's no different to stealing a passport, then why are we paying 50% more for these new passports that are no better?
As others have said, this applies to other countries too - but what is it so special about space travel that people always wheel out this "Won't somebody think of the poor!" argument? There are many things which Governments spend money on which don't help the poor, and in some cases the money spent is far greater than that spent on space exploration - why don't people use this criticism against spending on the military, for example?
And yeah, it's been done before. You think it's good to just send a few men out in space once and then say "Someone's already done that, let's not bother anymore"?
It's all to do with how much information you want to give away though - having a blog doesn't in itself mean giving up more privacy than posting on Slashdot for example, which you seem happy to do.
Less so in some ways, in fact, since places like LiveJournal allow some level of security to restrict access to certain people, where as here you have no choice but to make everything public.
or should I cite an encyclopaedia article written in English by one of the world's foremost experts
Of course, the encyclopaedia in this scenario couldn't be Wikipedia, as Wikipedia policy prohibits the kind of article I describe
Good point, but I think you've answered yourself here - yes, it would be fine I think to cite an article that's been written by one of the world's foremost experts, whether that article appears in an encyclopedia or elsewhere, but the reason one cannot cite Wikipedia is nothing to do with reliability, but because they do not allow such original research.
When it comes to encyclopedia articles that are comparable to what Wikipedia has (i.e., editors collecting from existing sources), then I'd disagree that the encyclopedias should be cited directly in either case.
The problem is that sometimes the crap is put there by administrators and woe betide anyone who tries to fix it.
Do you have an example, out of interest?
You might be able to actually cite it!
No, I hope you still wouldn't be citing an encyclopedia.
The real difference between Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica is that EB stands behind its scholarship and if a mistake is discovered, they will fix it.
And this issue was fixed too. What are you on about? Where is the evidence that mistakes aren't fixed even when they are discovered?
The main reason why "proper" encyclopedias can be trusted to contain more accurate data isn't because they actually _do_, it's because encyclopedia companies can actually be held responsible if the information they publish is libelous. Wikipedia has no real legal accountability to be factual, in spite of best efforts by a vast majority of its contributors and editors, so Wikipedia's credentials are inherently dubious.
You really think you can get away with libel on Wikipedia?
It may be harder to successfully sue, but libel is libel.
As for inaccurate information, printing that is not a crime - otherwise most tabloid newspapers would be guilty...
[random anecdote about what "apparentely" happened and what some "friend" did] I wouldn't trust anything on Wikipedia.
Yeah, let's all trust a random guy posting on Slashdot instead!
Wikipedia insits that there never needs to be any evidence for or against any claim, that anything anybody can type is somehow valid and that truth is decided by who has the most time on their hands to change other people's writing.
Where does Wikipedia say this?
Wikipedia actually makes it clear that it is not a matter of deciding truth or not - the requirement for inclusion is verifiability
Minutes to hours is the figure most often bandied about.
Minutes to hours is the figure bandied about for vandalism of articles, not for non-notable / original research articles which need to be deleted. Indeed, that would be a silly claim, as the Articles for Deletion process takes a few days (unless it meets the criteria for Speedy Delete).
Plagiarism has nothing to do with copyright violation. If I falsely claim something as my own writing it is plagiarism.
Agreed - in which case this article seems completely unfounded, in that no one is claiming credit for the Wikipedia articles.
But don't believe everything you read there.
7 32891 , for example)! We can't win!
Don't believe everything you read full-stop. Ironic that many people will take this blog or Slashdot summary as 100% truth though...
It doesn't sound quite like vandalism in the sense of someone writing falsehoods on an otherwise valid subject, but rather a big problem with original research - it's unclear whether the original research was simply non-notable, or a complete fake (TFA is slashdotted). Part of the problem is that you can't please everyone - whilst I agree that this sort of article shouldn't be there, there are others who will still criticise Wikipedia because they deleted it (see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=204921&cid=16
Also I'm under the impression that this problem was fixed up by Wikipedia - "exposed" implies someone else has found an existing problem, but in this case it looks like the problem's already fixed. Wikipedia is on unfair ground here in that anyone can hunt through this history looking for mistakes which once existed - with any other media, those mistakes are brushed under a carpet and never found out, unless someone happens to see it at the time.
We have no such contract. You cannot simply declare a contract to exist without the providence of assent.
Right, and I have no such contract with the software.
If you need some magic words, then >>> Hit the "Reply to This" button to confirm that you agree to pay me $100 <<<
An arbitrary action - such as clicking a button - cannot be taken to indicate agreement when it is highly likely the person had a legitimate reason to do that (in this case, it was the only way he could use the software, which he had a legal right to use). Contracts are not about specific things like a signature or magic words like "I Agree" - it has to be clear that the person willingly entered into that agreement, and was not tricked or coerced in anyway (in this case, preventing use of his software unless he agreed - you cannot prevent someone's legal right to use software until they agree, anymore than I can prevent your right to post to Slashdot).
And the burden is upon you to show me a case where a contract was upheld just because it was in the "EULA" - do you seriously think I'd get away with "You owe me $1,000,000" if I stuck in at the bottom of an EULA that my software wrote?
And I never give assent to the contract when I install software, so that's fine.
The point isn't to do with whether I can read terms or not, the point is that installing software can't be taken to mean you agree with the contract. When I sign up for a job or insurance on the other hand, it's clear that that's what I intend to do.