But surely you've answered it yourself here by saying For brands that are sufficiently strong, which as you say doesn't apply to BitTorrent. I'm not aware that the name being "arbitrary" gives a company protection in other markets?
Nobody has claimed that there is one "intellectual property law".
The OP clearly implied this, by claiming it was ironic. If they're different things, then there's no irony.
Re:A history of Opera would be more interesting.
on
A History of Firefox
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I'm pretty sure it was free with ads long before Firefox was around - I was using it in 2000, possibly 1999.
"Hitchhikers"? The few you speak of where able to use a free browser much better than IE, long before it became trendy to switch. I think that Firefox is great both in terms of being open source, and raising awareness - but it's ridiculous to categorise Opera as "broken down on the side of the road" when it made the journey long before Firefox came along.
But I don't think the concept of "Good guys" is related to charging money or not, since you have the freedom to choose whether or not to pay. Especially since all companies have to make money, and Opera don't have the advantage that Microsoft have of bundling it with an OS. By that logic we should be criticising Apple for daring to charge for their products.
"Good guys" is more to do with how a company acts, and providing products with new features.
Also, don't forget Opera Mini - a very useful browers for phones, which is entirely free, and I'm not aware of any open source equivalents.
Oh yeah they are similar, and I can say that IE has tabbed interface from Windows taskbar too!
Actually, this is the reason why I never considered there to be anything special about "tabs" in the sense of "tabs grouped together on the taskbar". To me, tabs was about having a parent window which remembered the child windows - in particular, they were remembered when I restarted the application, for example.
I was quite surprised when I first tried Firefox - here it was, shouting loudly about its "new" tabbed browsing, yet this fundamental feature didn't work. I never understood what was so useful about "tabs" without these sorts of features.
Please provide an example of Wired "redefining what they want vaporware to mean whenever it doesn't fit something they want to put on the list." Please provide an example of Wired using a different definition "for each item they consider."
From TFA:
Several wags nominated our vaporware story itself for an award. Yeah, we know it's late. Apologies for that. But we never promised it in 2005, so it wasn't eligible anyway.
Likewise, the PowerBook G5 is also ineligible. Apple may have occasionally hinted at it, but it never promised a ship date.
Did Google promise a non-beta version of their products in 2005? I don't recall that they did - in which case, they are inconsistent in their definitions.
Sure, millions of people use these [Google] services every day, but by our definition, they're vaporware: "Any program that's in a never-ending, pre-release, beta-testing stage is considered vaporware, even if it's widely available."
I wonder if this definition would include the many open source projects that take years to reach version 1.0, and whether people would consider it reasonable to count them as "vapourware"?
A Law which are quite rare in science is when something is proven without a doubt.
You're right about hypotheses versus theories, but a law is not something "higher up" in the ladder of proof, it is something else entirely - whilst a theory is a large model to explain something, a law is a simple observation (eg, in the form of an equation). Whilst laws are often considered absolutely correct, this is not always so - eg, there are doubts as to the strength of the force of gravity, and we know that the gas laws are certainly only an approximation.
now it may be splitting hairs here but this is a perfectly valid mathematical proof here, but 0.999999999999999999999.... is always going to be the smallest possible difference from 1 in reality. even though in math it can be proven to be in fact to be the same value.
Not this one again!
You've got it backwards - the proof you gave here isn't strictly valid, but it is true that 0.9recurring (if that's what you mean by "...") is equal to 1. And it can be proven rigourously.
What you say doesn't make sense. If it can be proven that they are the same, then (assuming the proof isn't flawed), they are the same.
In the real numbers, there is no such number that is "the smallest possible difference from 1". Can you tell me what that non-zero difference is?
no it won't, how do you think sex works? that a sperm just goes into the body and becomes a baby? how fucking stupid are you? a sperm inside a woman won't magically start absorbing nutrients and grow and divide. a zygote will, although not by magic but by pure fucking science. if a sperm doesn't join with an egg then it "dies"
But there's a possibility that conception will occur (obviously, else no one would ever get pregnant) - just as it's not a certainity that a zygote will implant itself, and not a certainty that it will grow into a baby. You can't have it both ways - people have already pointed out that going from zygote to giving birth is not a certainty, to which the replies have been that a possibility still counts - in which case, a possibility of conception from sperm and egg count also.
there are only two logical points where a non-human mass becomes human: "magically" when a sperm and egg COMBINE into a new cell with full dna, unique from the mother's cells, and the ability to undergo normal life processes of a cell, and when a mass "magically" gains sentience.
And I choose the latter. There is no magic point when life starts - life is a continual process, as sperm and egg are also living. The important issue is not life (we don't care about bacteria or plants, after all), but sentience.
you just try to pick the point so you can see embryos and fetuses as non-human but still see babies and retards as humans. you're trying to eat your cake and have it, too.
Well you're trying to say that zygotes are people, but not any other living cells.
what does 'reasonable level of brain activity' or pain have to do with declaring something sentient?
The definition - being able to perceive sensation, which includes pain.
a crow probably has a reasonable level of brain activity, it's not a person. a pig can feel pain, it's not a person.
I said that having attained sentience is necessary for considering something to be "a person" which we give human rights to. I never said it was sufficient. After all, I presume you don't consider a pig zygote to be a person?
NO they certainly do not have the potential to become human. if you put a sperm or egg in optimal living conditions, it will not grow and divide and become anything other than a dead sperm or egg
Of course it will, how do you think sex works? If the "optimal living conditions" are inside a woman, then they have the potential to do so. Just as a zygote also needs the "optimal living conditions" of being inside a woman.
that a mass of carbon, hydrogen, and etc passes through a vagina and magically it becomes human? does this non-human mass pick up magic "humanity dust"? how scientifically sound is that? sounds completely ridiculous.
Eh? You're the "retard" (as you like to resort to calling others) who thinks that living cells magically turn into "humans" upon conception. How does that happen, does God sprinkle some magic pixie soul dust? How is that different to any other point one might arbitrarily pick?
or a human is formed when an organism gains sentience(which leaves out retards and babies).
Babies (and late stage fetuses) have a reasonable level of brain activity, as do "retards". I'd have thought they were capable of feeling pain too.
Indeed, I would have more respect for someone's point of view if they were against contraception - although they'd also have to be against male masturbation, and in favour of forcing women to constantly be having babies.
As for "past matters", I agree that having a "past" is an additional consideration in favor of rights, but I find it neither necessary nor sufficient. The latter is more obvious. Terry Shaivo had a past, but no future. Most people agreed that she no longer had full rights.
You've missed the point - the past is important in the sense that there are things we don't want to lose. A person with memories, who has interacted with the world. A "past" alone is not sufficient, but a past that has the potential to recover is.
Terry Shaivo had no potential to recover that past. It was lost, so there was nothing we could do anyway.
An embryo has no past, so nothing is lost there, either.
As for the former, I would offer the following hypothetical: If chickens were extremely intelligent (a big if, I know), could we still eat eggs? I would say no, and would fully support the armed chicken insurrection.
And I would say that no harm is being caused to the unborn chicken.
However, the reason it would be wrong is because we would be taking eggs from living chickens without their consent. Last time I looked, people who were in favour of abortion and embryo research and so on were not also in favour of doing so without the consent of the mother! So your example here shows nothing.
Yes, we do have some sort of sliding scale for animal rights, which is based most irrationally on how cute and fuzzy they are. I am not particularly proud of these ethics. I do not believe animals have any rights, and we should use them as we see fit.
One could consider this an extension of human rights. Eg, I as a human think cats are cute and fuzzy, and I do not wish them to be harmed.
but i think my point is still clear on how a embryo is more human than sperm is, since sperm cannot grow into a fully developed person even given optimal living conditions.
But a sperm and egg cell together certainly have the potential to become a human - yet we don't give them any special rights before they actually combine. Should contraception be banned, for example, as it prevents a "potential human" from becoming a human?
That's the problem with opinions. Everyone's got one, and yours is no better than anyone else's. "Person" is a subjective term, and it would seem Bush believes that an embryo qualifies as a person and has rights.
My pot plant is a person, and therefore has rights. It's my opinion, and since "person" is a subjective term, my opinion is no less valid than anyone else's.
(Or, to make my point clear: Just because something is subjective doesn't make all opinions equally valid, especially when one side backs up their opinion with arguments, and the other side is unable to.)
True, but would you therefore also say that a similar thing applies to this case? That Apple shouldn't be shipping a product that they know can produce a volume which causes hearing loss?
Take a homeless guy. The videos of the homeless people engaging in dangerous stunts and beating each other bloody for a small amount of food have circulated on the internet for awhile. A homeless guy would love to join up for a pain test for a slice of pizza. He could be well-informed and willing. The morality of offering a test that would inflict pain on the vagrant is very questionable. Such desperate folk would probably be offered many opportunities for such dangerous experiments if such prohibition was not levied. They'd probably be the majority of the subjects of these tests.
Another example is prostitution. Let's take a developing country where there is little money to be had. Many teenaged boys and girls offer themselves up for prostitution to avoid starvation. If offered, of course they'd sign up for the tests, well-informed and willing. But many would argue that such tests on them would be exploitation, much like if they were offered prostitution instead of sex.
Surely the fundamental problem is that people are homeless or starving in the first place?
I can see what you're saying, but I've never been fully persuaded by this line of argument - how is offering someone a choice between two things less ethical than not offering them the choice and leaving them to starve? Even though we see the thing being offered as bad, to the person who chooses it, it is better than the alternative.
Of course, the most ethical answer is to give them the money without them having to do anything - but people who argue against experimentation or prostitution tend not to advocate giving them money instead.
If willing and unwilling were so easily judged, rape trials would be a lot shorter.
Rape trials would also be a lot shorter if it was common practice for partners to sign a contract before sex, as would presumably be the case in medical experiments.
(I agree with your general point - but I don't think the analogy to sex is valid.)
What does Chav mean to you? Who are Chavs? From reading your post it seems to mean 'people I hate, who I choose not to understand, and who make a convenient scapegoat for the problems in modern day Britain', with the implicit understanding that none of your audience are Chavs.
Yes, this pretty much sums it up, because the word is primarily used in a derogatory fashion - that is part of the definition.
It is not comparable to black, Jews, Irish, as those are words which have strict definitions independent of whether anyone criticises them. The word "chav" seems to have come about to criticise a particular type of disliked person, rather than being a word for an existing group of people that others started to hate.
The difference is that "chav" initially came about as being a derogatory term, and is still used primarily in that manner (although there are some who self-identify as "chav"). Although "punk" can be used more generally in a derogatory manner, when it refers to the subculture, it's primarily not a derogatory term.
So in that sense, saying chavs are bad in some way is pretty much part of the definition. In some ways, "chav" is just an evolution of words like "yob"; a way of criticising behaviour that many people dislike. No one would say there is a "yob movement" or a "yob subculture" comparable to other subcultures like punk.
Also, although there may be stereotypes about how chavs dress and what music they like, this isn't really part of a subculture, in the way that punk subculture is formed by punk music and fashion.
And as a corrective system it is pretty pathetic, not because it doesn't correct some pages (it does), but because we don't know which or even how many pages need or get corrected. We have absolutely no idea how many pages like this go unfound, unnoticed, and uncorrected. Again, that is the exact problem people have with wikipedia - one never knows what is biased, malicious, self-serving garbage and what is not.
That doesn't follow. The most crucial idea here is the idea that Wikipedia editors should be able to judge whether an edit is biased, false or whatever else without knowing who wrote it.
The point being made here is that there is an additional risk of punishment if someone wants to try biased editing in their own favour - that they may get exposed. But the point isn't that exposing them is the only way of preventing biased edits.
(E.g., consider the Penny Arcade He-man comic - the obvious flaw in the point it tries to make is that any editor would see what Skeletor wrote as not being appropriate; it doesn't matter who wrote it!)
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But surely you've answered it yourself here by saying For brands that are sufficiently strong, which as you say doesn't apply to BitTorrent. I'm not aware that the name being "arbitrary" gives a company protection in other markets?
Nobody has claimed that there is one "intellectual property law".
The OP clearly implied this, by claiming it was ironic. If they're different things, then there's no irony.
I'm pretty sure it was free with ads long before Firefox was around - I was using it in 2000, possibly 1999.
"Hitchhikers"? The few you speak of where able to use a free browser much better than IE, long before it became trendy to switch. I think that Firefox is great both in terms of being open source, and raising awareness - but it's ridiculous to categorise Opera as "broken down on the side of the road" when it made the journey long before Firefox came along.
But I don't think the concept of "Good guys" is related to charging money or not, since you have the freedom to choose whether or not to pay. Especially since all companies have to make money, and Opera don't have the advantage that Microsoft have of bundling it with an OS. By that logic we should be criticising Apple for daring to charge for their products.
"Good guys" is more to do with how a company acts, and providing products with new features.
Also, don't forget Opera Mini - a very useful browers for phones, which is entirely free, and I'm not aware of any open source equivalents.
Oh yeah they are similar, and I can say that IE has tabbed interface from Windows taskbar too!
Actually, this is the reason why I never considered there to be anything special about "tabs" in the sense of "tabs grouped together on the taskbar". To me, tabs was about having a parent window which remembered the child windows - in particular, they were remembered when I restarted the application, for example.
I was quite surprised when I first tried Firefox - here it was, shouting loudly about its "new" tabbed browsing, yet this fundamental feature didn't work. I never understood what was so useful about "tabs" without these sorts of features.
Please provide an example of Wired "redefining what they want vaporware to mean whenever it doesn't fit something they want to put on the list." Please provide an example of Wired using a different definition "for each item they consider."
From TFA:
Several wags nominated our vaporware story itself for an award. Yeah, we know it's late. Apologies for that. But we never promised it in 2005, so it wasn't eligible anyway.
Likewise, the PowerBook G5 is also ineligible. Apple may have occasionally hinted at it, but it never promised a ship date.
Did Google promise a non-beta version of their products in 2005? I don't recall that they did - in which case, they are inconsistent in their definitions.
Sure, millions of people use these [Google] services every day, but by our definition, they're vaporware: "Any program that's in a never-ending, pre-release, beta-testing stage is considered vaporware, even if it's widely available."
I wonder if this definition would include the many open source projects that take years to reach version 1.0, and whether people would consider it reasonable to count them as "vapourware"?
A Law which are quite rare in science is when something is proven without a doubt.
You're right about hypotheses versus theories, but a law is not something "higher up" in the ladder of proof, it is something else entirely - whilst a theory is a large model to explain something, a law is a simple observation (eg, in the form of an equation). Whilst laws are often considered absolutely correct, this is not always so - eg, there are doubts as to the strength of the force of gravity, and we know that the gas laws are certainly only an approximation.
now it may be splitting hairs here but this is a perfectly valid mathematical proof here, but 0.999999999999999999999.... is always going to be the smallest possible difference from 1 in reality. even though in math it can be proven to be in fact to be the same value.
Not this one again!
You've got it backwards - the proof you gave here isn't strictly valid, but it is true that 0.9recurring (if that's what you mean by "...") is equal to 1. And it can be proven rigourously.
What you say doesn't make sense. If it can be proven that they are the same, then (assuming the proof isn't flawed), they are the same.
In the real numbers, there is no such number that is "the smallest possible difference from 1". Can you tell me what that non-zero difference is?
Every cell in my body is "more human than a sperm", in that it has the complete set of DNA. I guess they all individually deserve human rights too!
if you seriously cannot see the difference between a sperm/egg you are completely insane.
I'd say you're insane if you can't see the difference between a zygote and a person.
a sperm is not a unique living organism capable of carrying out the functions defined as "life".
A sperm isn't alive? Wow. I have nothing to say to that.
nevermind i'm not wasting more of my time on such a complete fucking moron who believes in magic uteruses and vaginas.
Translation: I don't have any rational arguments, so I have to give up.
And you're the one who believes that life magically starts at conception...
no it won't, how do you think sex works? that a sperm just goes into the body and becomes a baby? how fucking stupid are you? a sperm inside a woman won't magically start absorbing nutrients and grow and divide. a zygote will, although not by magic but by pure fucking science. if a sperm doesn't join with an egg then it "dies"
But there's a possibility that conception will occur (obviously, else no one would ever get pregnant) - just as it's not a certainity that a zygote will implant itself, and not a certainty that it will grow into a baby. You can't have it both ways - people have already pointed out that going from zygote to giving birth is not a certainty, to which the replies have been that a possibility still counts - in which case, a possibility of conception from sperm and egg count also.
there are only two logical points where a non-human mass becomes human: "magically" when a sperm and egg COMBINE into a new cell with full dna, unique from the mother's cells, and the ability to undergo normal life processes of a cell, and when a mass "magically" gains sentience.
And I choose the latter. There is no magic point when life starts - life is a continual process, as sperm and egg are also living. The important issue is not life (we don't care about bacteria or plants, after all), but sentience.
you just try to pick the point so you can see embryos and fetuses as non-human but still see babies and retards as humans. you're trying to eat your cake and have it, too.
Well you're trying to say that zygotes are people, but not any other living cells.
what does 'reasonable level of brain activity' or pain have to do with declaring something sentient?
The definition - being able to perceive sensation, which includes pain.
a crow probably has a reasonable level of brain activity, it's not a person. a pig can feel pain, it's not a person.
I said that having attained sentience is necessary for considering something to be "a person" which we give human rights to. I never said it was sufficient. After all, I presume you don't consider a pig zygote to be a person?
NO they certainly do not have the potential to become human. if you put a sperm or egg in optimal living conditions, it will not grow and divide and become anything other than a dead sperm or egg
Of course it will, how do you think sex works? If the "optimal living conditions" are inside a woman, then they have the potential to do so. Just as a zygote also needs the "optimal living conditions" of being inside a woman.
that a mass of carbon, hydrogen, and etc passes through a vagina and magically it becomes human? does this non-human mass pick up magic "humanity dust"? how scientifically sound is that? sounds completely ridiculous.
Eh? You're the "retard" (as you like to resort to calling others) who thinks that living cells magically turn into "humans" upon conception. How does that happen, does God sprinkle some magic pixie soul dust? How is that different to any other point one might arbitrarily pick?
or a human is formed when an organism gains sentience(which leaves out retards and babies).
Babies (and late stage fetuses) have a reasonable level of brain activity, as do "retards". I'd have thought they were capable of feeling pain too.
Indeed, I would have more respect for someone's point of view if they were against contraception - although they'd also have to be against male masturbation, and in favour of forcing women to constantly be having babies.
As for "past matters", I agree that having a "past" is an additional consideration in favor of rights, but I find it neither necessary nor sufficient. The latter is more obvious. Terry Shaivo had a past, but no future. Most people agreed that she no longer had full rights.
You've missed the point - the past is important in the sense that there are things we don't want to lose. A person with memories, who has interacted with the world. A "past" alone is not sufficient, but a past that has the potential to recover is.
Terry Shaivo had no potential to recover that past. It was lost, so there was nothing we could do anyway.
An embryo has no past, so nothing is lost there, either.
As for the former, I would offer the following hypothetical: If chickens were extremely intelligent (a big if, I know), could we still eat eggs? I would say no, and would fully support the armed chicken insurrection.
And I would say that no harm is being caused to the unborn chicken.
However, the reason it would be wrong is because we would be taking eggs from living chickens without their consent. Last time I looked, people who were in favour of abortion and embryo research and so on were not also in favour of doing so without the consent of the mother! So your example here shows nothing.
Yes, we do have some sort of sliding scale for animal rights, which is based most irrationally on how cute and fuzzy they are. I am not particularly proud of these ethics. I do not believe animals have any rights, and we should use them as we see fit.
One could consider this an extension of human rights. Eg, I as a human think cats are cute and fuzzy, and I do not wish them to be harmed.
Because that fetus is going to become a person. It's not like a bacteria, or sperm
I think you'll find that sperm and egg have the possibility of developing into a person, just like a fetus does.
but i think my point is still clear on how a embryo is more human than sperm is, since sperm cannot grow into a fully developed person even given optimal living conditions.
But a sperm and egg cell together certainly have the potential to become a human - yet we don't give them any special rights before they actually combine. Should contraception be banned, for example, as it prevents a "potential human" from becoming a human?
That's the problem with opinions. Everyone's got one, and yours is no better than anyone else's. "Person" is a subjective term, and it would seem Bush believes that an embryo qualifies as a person and has rights.
My pot plant is a person, and therefore has rights. It's my opinion, and since "person" is a subjective term, my opinion is no less valid than anyone else's.
(Or, to make my point clear: Just because something is subjective doesn't make all opinions equally valid, especially when one side backs up their opinion with arguments, and the other side is unable to.)
True, but would you therefore also say that a similar thing applies to this case? That Apple shouldn't be shipping a product that they know can produce a volume which causes hearing loss?
Take a homeless guy. The videos of the homeless people engaging in dangerous stunts and beating each other bloody for a small amount of food have circulated on the internet for awhile. A homeless guy would love to join up for a pain test for a slice of pizza. He could be well-informed and willing. The morality of offering a test that would inflict pain on the vagrant is very questionable. Such desperate folk would probably be offered many opportunities for such dangerous experiments if such prohibition was not levied. They'd probably be the majority of the subjects of these tests.
Another example is prostitution. Let's take a developing country where there is little money to be had. Many teenaged boys and girls offer themselves up for prostitution to avoid starvation. If offered, of course they'd sign up for the tests, well-informed and willing. But many would argue that such tests on them would be exploitation, much like if they were offered prostitution instead of sex.
Surely the fundamental problem is that people are homeless or starving in the first place?
I can see what you're saying, but I've never been fully persuaded by this line of argument - how is offering someone a choice between two things less ethical than not offering them the choice and leaving them to starve? Even though we see the thing being offered as bad, to the person who chooses it, it is better than the alternative.
Of course, the most ethical answer is to give them the money without them having to do anything - but people who argue against experimentation or prostitution tend not to advocate giving them money instead.
If willing and unwilling were so easily judged, rape trials would be a lot shorter.
Rape trials would also be a lot shorter if it was common practice for partners to sign a contract before sex, as would presumably be the case in medical experiments.
(I agree with your general point - but I don't think the analogy to sex is valid.)
The time to click "History" is probably less than the time to go searching out a library for sources I can trust.
I mean, you say you use Wikipedia - why do you do this if you already have access to some "trustable" source?
What does Chav mean to you? Who are Chavs? From reading your post it seems to mean 'people I hate, who I choose not to understand, and who make a convenient scapegoat for the problems in modern day Britain', with the implicit understanding that none of your audience are Chavs.
Yes, this pretty much sums it up, because the word is primarily used in a derogatory fashion - that is part of the definition.
It is not comparable to black, Jews, Irish, as those are words which have strict definitions independent of whether anyone criticises them. The word "chav" seems to have come about to criticise a particular type of disliked person, rather than being a word for an existing group of people that others started to hate.
The difference is that "chav" initially came about as being a derogatory term, and is still used primarily in that manner (although there are some who self-identify as "chav"). Although "punk" can be used more generally in a derogatory manner, when it refers to the subculture, it's primarily not a derogatory term.
So in that sense, saying chavs are bad in some way is pretty much part of the definition. In some ways, "chav" is just an evolution of words like "yob"; a way of criticising behaviour that many people dislike. No one would say there is a "yob movement" or a "yob subculture" comparable to other subcultures like punk.
Also, although there may be stereotypes about how chavs dress and what music they like, this isn't really part of a subculture, in the way that punk subculture is formed by punk music and fashion.
And as a corrective system it is pretty pathetic, not because it doesn't correct some pages (it does), but because we don't know which or even how many pages need or get corrected. We have absolutely no idea how many pages like this go unfound, unnoticed, and uncorrected. Again, that is the exact problem people have with wikipedia - one never knows what is biased, malicious, self-serving garbage and what is not.
That doesn't follow. The most crucial idea here is the idea that Wikipedia editors should be able to judge whether an edit is biased, false or whatever else without knowing who wrote it.
The point being made here is that there is an additional risk of punishment if someone wants to try biased editing in their own favour - that they may get exposed. But the point isn't that exposing them is the only way of preventing biased edits.
(E.g., consider the Penny Arcade He-man comic - the obvious flaw in the point it tries to make is that any editor would see what Skeletor wrote as not being appropriate; it doesn't matter who wrote it!)