Interracial marriages were not new 50 years ago. Same sex "marriages" do not fit the definition of marriage, unless somebody made up a new one recently.
I agree with you that there are such things as good new laws, but your response is not fitting to the arguement, nor is it factually correct.
Armed with details of billions of telephone calls, the National Security Agency used phone records linked to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to create a template of how phone activity among terrorists looks, say current and former intelligence officials who were briefed about the program. (from the USA Today article)
Are they admitting to collecting details on domestic phone calls _before_ 9/11?
Fixing bugs that customers find in software is much cheaper than A. Fixing bugs that customers find in physical products is much more expensive than A.
From a customer point of view: Software product breaks. Software bugfix is free. Your bug goes away. Happy. Physical product breaks. A new physical product is the full cost of the original. Not happy. Buy from a different company.
Yes they will. Mr. Suit knows he has.com and.biz. He wants.mobi so nobody else can take it, and so he can tell customers that his comnpany is "dot-mobi enabled". He cannot understand any advantage to allowing his employees to spend time making wap.mrsuit.com, and definitely will not allow them to spend 2 weeks making CSS templates that will work on a cell phone.
You really want to be safe? Don't allow the regular users write access to WINNT and Program Files. WINNT proved not to be a problem. But when you block write access to Program Files, about half of the programs I use simply do not work. Another handful work, but don't retain settings. Its not really the fault of Windows, but the fault of the application creators. For all of the inconsistencies in Unicies, you know that you store user data in dot files in ~, and temporary files in/tmp. Windows has Documents and Settings and/WINNT/temp, but application developers just don't use them. You could probably write a book on the paradigm differences between Windows and UNIX that results in this symptom.
"This kind of government is one that will either start a civil war or a revolt by the people."
Once upon a time, the US government tried to excert to much control over the people. So roughly one third of the states seceded. They fought for four years at a disadvantage before losing. Today, the disadvantage would be even greater.
Watch out for the new ones with the 1400x1050 displays.
I got a T43 with the aformetioned display. It does not come with Windows install media. You can create a restore DVD. This DVD is only capabale of wiping the hard drive and making 1 partition with Windows on it. Numerous calls to IBM have gotten me only "That is the only supported configuration, you must buy a retail copy of Windows if you want any other configuration." The retail copy DOES NOT WORK. I don't know if its just the SXGA+ T43 or all SXGA+ Thinkpads. I called Microsoft to tell them that the Windows XP Professional install CD does not work on a new laptop with a "Designed for Windows XP" sticker. They told me that they don't care, I'll have to take it up with IBM.
Linux on laptops sucks. Linux on desktops sucks. Actually, thats not true. X-Windows on anything sucks. Avoid it at all costs. Well, avoid it at all costs except that of using Windows. So get a MacBook and use OSX.
Sorry, I've been fighting with X for weeks on my new IBM (Lenovo) ThinkPad T43, which works great otherwise. (Don't buy a laptop from IBM/Lenovo if you ever want to use Windows. You don't get a Windows install CD. You have to make a system restore CD. The only option is to have 1 partition with Windows on it. And retail Windows versions don't work. The installer fails to boot. Sure, you can install Windows and resize the partition, but then you've got to ghost it or re-install Linux every time Windows craps out. IBM's tech support told me that I have to buy a retail copy, and its not their problem that the retail copy doesn't work. Microsoft tech support told me that its IBM's problem that the retail CD doesn't work.)
After working on a project with various modules with various levels of bits of business logic and application logic in the content rendering areas, my coworker and I have decided on a new approach: the application will output XML, to be transformed with XSLT (server side or client side) to HTML, linking CSS. There are several advantages:
1) You have a simply defined interface between the application and display. Bonus points for making DTDs. 2) Most UI changes can be made in the CSS by somebody completely ignorant of the code. 3) The rest of the UI changes can be made in the XSLT by somebody completely ignorant of the code. 4) There is little temptation to put business logic in the display component. It is easy in PHP/Perl/JSP. To do it in the XSLT is almost always going to be harder than doing it right. 5) Add a set of XSLTs that output XSL:FO, add a XSL:FO processor, and you can output PDF or RTF with no application code changes. 6) XML is still a good buzzword. Managers love to say "Our product is XML enabled." 7) Its easier for other programs to interact with your program.
The disadvantages I believe are outweighed: 1) XSLTs are harder to write than JSP/PHP/Perl. 2) If you don't want your program to be slow, you have to generate your XML serially. This is harder than dumping data into variables and maps and referencing them from the content renderer.
1) Wireless support. You have to do by-hand configuration for a vast majority of cards. 2) There is a problem with init. If I have a java process running when I try to halt the system, it hangs. Manual power off. On reboot it says I have to run/sbin/depscan.sh. I had to read through depscan.sh to find out that I really have to run "/sbin/depscan.sh --update". 3) module autoloading is not documented. 4) emerge --update world gets a compile error halfway through. Whats a newbie to do? 5) The X Window System Disaster. I have a fairly common card. The ATI drivers crash the kernel sometimes when I ctrl+alt+F1. The ATI drivers crash the kernel always if I try to use xdm and log out. The ATI drivers crash the kernel if I try to run X on:0 and:1 simultaneously. It took me 3 days to come up with a combination of kernel configurations and xorg.conf that would let me playback DVDs without being jumpy, and I had to disable DRI to do it. Oh, and don't you dare try to compile the RadeonFB with the kernel and then use the ATI drivers. 6) Fonts. Ugly by default. 7) Linux apps are generally very buggy. KDE's Konqueror gets very slow when I have the navigation panel open. It stumped everybody in #kde. Enlightenment forgets what size my gVim windows should be if I have more than 4 of them open. Nobody can explain it. Java crashes Firefox. Gaim dumps core at random intervals. Screen one day forgot how to kill windows. Xorg occassionally stops drawing the left 1" of the top row of pixels. XMMS occasionally can't open CD drives. 8) Printing with a non-postscript printer.
And on my internet bill. And airline reservations. And electricity (nothing produced, just electrons moving back and forth.) When I buy software for download.
Even if Google were a monopoly, it wouldn't matter. Getting Firefox to default to them does not help them get a monopoly in another market. Now if Google owned Firefox, and made it so only Firefox could have a Google search box, you might be on to something. The issue here is that Microsoft used their monopoly in the desktop operating system market to get a monopoly in the web browser market, and may try to use those two monopolies to get a monopoly in the search engine market.
[College I went to], or rather, its administrators:
Chose Pepsi over Coke without consulting Food Services; their increase in cost far outweighed the "benefits" that Pepsi gave to the campus: vending machines, advertisements thinly veiled as programs and concerts.
Chose [Expensive Email System] without consulting the network people, the computer lab people, or the students. They replaced the 11 year old VAX/VMS system that nobody had any problems with. The thing was rock solid and had years of uptime. The switch was, to say the least, disasterous and expensive.
All it takes is a slick sell to some admistrators that don't know whats going on.
I would not be surprised to see this 15,000 student technically oriented school go with Windows Live.
I bought an Thinkpad R43, still IBM branded. Big mistake. Customer service is still handled by IBM, but they don't care one bit about the customers, because they're not really their customers.
I had a simple problem: you get one install option: Windows XP Pro on one partition, taking the entire drive. I wanted multiple partitions for Linux and Windows XP. I called and asked for XP install media. They are completely disinterested in helping me. They told me to go buy a copy of Windows XP Pro. (Even though a license comes with the machine.) The boxed versions do not work on the laptop though. The installer silently fails to get past "inspecting your computer's setup". Customer support didn't care. "So you're telling me that if I want anything other than your default install, I shouldn't buy an IBM?" "Uh. ..yes." "Okay. We have a lot of IBM servers too. I guess if this is the kind of support we can expect, we'll start buying Suns. "Uh. ..Okay. Buy". They just don't care.
COMPUTERS Is Just that COMPUTERS. And they are all stressed to hell. I had a client of mine attempt to hook two computers together with a phone line. Wtf.. I asked him if he would put glue on a brick and stick it to another brick... and quite didnt understand. Computers should be left to its "algorithms"- dont start adding layers to something that was never meant to be.
I spent 8 days in India. I wanted to get a prepaid cell phone so I could call a couple friends who lived there if I ran into any problems. A friend of a friend provided a phone. Guess what? You can't get a sim card without proof of residence.
Can you sill walk into WalMart in the US and get a prepaid with minutes? Or have they blocked that to stop terrorism too?
"natural rights". Rights are only rights because a bunch of people decided they should be. Just because we call them "natural" doesn't change that fact.
"the buyer can look at it, figure out how it works, make an imitation" This is the problem that our patent system was designed to fix. It doesn't matter if you say I took away your right by getting a patent, or that I granted you one by not getting a patent (or when the patent expires) - its the same thing. You only have the rights because we decided you do.
"This is why so few people ever sell anything but their labor." What? Look around you. Everybody is selling everything. I am not only selling my labor to my employer, I am selling my knowledge and my ideas.
"But you weigh the pros and cons of sharing the idea, and come to a deal/EULA where the 'buyer' cannot share the idea. You jot down the idea, the buyer takes it home, heshe dies, and the paper with the idea on it blows out the window. My brother, Tom, finds the paper. Now what?" Tom did not come to a deal with me. Tom does not have any of the rights I extended to the buyer because he has this piece of paper. Tom has the same rights to the idea that every other person does.
"The advantage of selling it is that you get paid. Weigh the pros and cons yourself." Pro: I get to eat. Con: Other people don't get a free ride. I'll sell it.
There is nothing wrong with giving stuff away. Its is a very noble thing. However, selling product, in and of itself, is not wrong.
I compensated those who have asked for compensation. I bought their books. I paid to attend their seminars. I paid to take their classes. I saw the advertisements on their web sites. I bought their software products. As for those who those who asked for no compensation, nobody can complain that I have not compensated them.
"I invent a machine that can produce food in infinite quantities at no cost. I am free to make food available at whatever price I can finagle. People who agree to the price are not free to take the food and refuse to pay."
Say I set the price for food at a reasonable rate to compensate my investment, and provide my family with a modest income. The price will be cheap. I'll feed the world. You have the right to buy my apples, and then give them away. You have the right to buy my apples, plant the seeds, grow apple trees, and give the apples away. Say I agree to sell you one of my machines. You have the right to use that machine, and sell food at any price you want. You have the right to modify my machine to make tastier food, and sell that food at any price. You do NOT have the right, unless I explicitly give it to you, to reverse engineer my machine, start producing copies, and sell those.
Research, engineering, and development take time and capital. Some people are willing to give it away. Others are not. The copyright system and patent system, as broken as they may be, are designed to make it financially worthwhile for people to invest their time and capital to make new products.
I did not intend to say that I think it is religious fanatacism, but that it is similar to (like) religious fanatacism.
As to the premise "one should not abridge people's freedom":
I think people should have many freedoms. The freedom to freely distribute the product of my hard work is not one of them. I am a big believer in fair use. I believe that if I sell you a product, you should have the freedom to reverse engineer it, modify any code that I gave you and recompile it, and generally do whatever you want to make it fit your needs. But if I worked hard creating that product, and it is my livelihood, I don't want you to have the freedom to give it away with no compensation to me. I may give you that freedom in some cases. But you should not have it inherently.
Slashdot Mirror
Interracial marriages were not new 50 years ago.
Same sex "marriages" do not fit the definition of marriage, unless somebody made up a new one recently.
I agree with you that there are such things as good new laws, but your response is not fitting to the arguement, nor is it factually correct.
Armed with details of billions of telephone calls, the National Security Agency used phone records linked to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to create a template of how phone activity among terrorists looks, say current and former intelligence officials who were briefed about the program. (from the USA Today article)
Are they admitting to collecting details on domestic phone calls _before_ 9/11?
Yeah, I really hate that stupid google box that comes with Firefox.
A = testing and development
A is expensive.
Fixing bugs that customers find in software is much cheaper than A.
Fixing bugs that customers find in physical products is much more expensive than A.
From a customer point of view:
Software product breaks. Software bugfix is free. Your bug goes away. Happy.
Physical product breaks. A new physical product is the full cost of the original. Not happy. Buy from a different company.
Yes they will. Mr. Suit knows he has .com and .biz. He wants .mobi so nobody else can take it, and so he can tell customers that his comnpany is "dot-mobi enabled". He cannot understand any advantage to allowing his employees to spend time making wap.mrsuit.com, and definitely will not allow them to spend 2 weeks making CSS templates that will work on a cell phone.
You really want to be safe? Don't allow the regular users write access to WINNT and Program Files. WINNT proved not to be a problem. But when you block write access to Program Files, about half of the programs I use simply do not work. Another handful work, but don't retain settings. Its not really the fault of Windows, but the fault of the application creators. For all of the inconsistencies in Unicies, you know that you store user data in dot files in ~, and temporary files in /tmp. Windows has Documents and Settings and /WINNT/temp, but application developers just don't use them. You could probably write a book on the paradigm differences between Windows and UNIX that results in this symptom.
"This kind of government is one that will either start a civil war or a revolt by the people."
Once upon a time, the US government tried to excert to much control over the people. So roughly one third of the states seceded. They fought for four years at a disadvantage before losing. Today, the disadvantage would be even greater.
Put Window CD in. Boot. "Windows is inspecting your hardware configuration..." Thats it. Will stay like that for 12 hours.
I mean building the XML in the first place. If you've got a 20,000 line document, DOM can get pretty slow.
Watch out for the new ones with the 1400x1050 displays.
I got a T43 with the aformetioned display. It does not come with Windows install media. You can create a restore DVD. This DVD is only capabale of wiping the hard drive and making 1 partition with Windows on it. Numerous calls to IBM have gotten me only "That is the only supported configuration, you must buy a retail copy of Windows if you want any other configuration." The retail copy DOES NOT WORK. I don't know if its just the SXGA+ T43 or all SXGA+ Thinkpads. I called Microsoft to tell them that the Windows XP Professional install CD does not work on a new laptop with a "Designed for Windows XP" sticker. They told me that they don't care, I'll have to take it up with IBM.
No more IBM products for me.
Linux on laptops sucks. Linux on desktops sucks. Actually, thats not true. X-Windows on anything sucks. Avoid it at all costs. Well, avoid it at all costs except that of using Windows. So get a MacBook and use OSX.
Sorry, I've been fighting with X for weeks on my new IBM (Lenovo) ThinkPad T43, which works great otherwise. (Don't buy a laptop from IBM/Lenovo if you ever want to use Windows. You don't get a Windows install CD. You have to make a system restore CD. The only option is to have 1 partition with Windows on it. And retail Windows versions don't work. The installer fails to boot. Sure, you can install Windows and resize the partition, but then you've got to ghost it or re-install Linux every time Windows craps out. IBM's tech support told me that I have to buy a retail copy, and its not their problem that the retail copy doesn't work. Microsoft tech support told me that its IBM's problem that the retail CD doesn't work.)
After working on a project with various modules with various levels of bits of business logic and application logic in the content rendering areas, my coworker and I have decided on a new approach: the application will output XML, to be transformed with XSLT (server side or client side) to HTML, linking CSS. There are several advantages:
1) You have a simply defined interface between the application and display. Bonus points for making DTDs.
2) Most UI changes can be made in the CSS by somebody completely ignorant of the code.
3) The rest of the UI changes can be made in the XSLT by somebody completely ignorant of the code.
4) There is little temptation to put business logic in the display component. It is easy in PHP/Perl/JSP. To do it in the XSLT is almost always going to be harder than doing it right.
5) Add a set of XSLTs that output XSL:FO, add a XSL:FO processor, and you can output PDF or RTF with no application code changes.
6) XML is still a good buzzword. Managers love to say "Our product is XML enabled."
7) Its easier for other programs to interact with your program.
The disadvantages I believe are outweighed:
1) XSLTs are harder to write than JSP/PHP/Perl.
2) If you don't want your program to be slow, you have to generate your XML serially. This is harder than dumping data into variables and maps and referencing them from the content renderer.
I use Gentoo. It won't work for newbies:
/sbin/depscan.sh. I had to read through depscan.sh to find out that I really have to run "/sbin/depscan.sh --update". :0 and :1 simultaneously. It took me 3 days to come up with a combination of kernel configurations and xorg.conf that would let me playback DVDs without being jumpy, and I had to disable DRI to do it. Oh, and don't you dare try to compile the RadeonFB with the kernel and then use the ATI drivers.
1) Wireless support. You have to do by-hand configuration for a vast majority of cards.
2) There is a problem with init. If I have a java process running when I try to halt the system, it hangs. Manual power off. On reboot it says I have to run
3) module autoloading is not documented.
4) emerge --update world gets a compile error halfway through. Whats a newbie to do?
5) The X Window System Disaster. I have a fairly common card. The ATI drivers crash the kernel sometimes when I ctrl+alt+F1. The ATI drivers crash the kernel always if I try to use xdm and log out. The ATI drivers crash the kernel if I try to run X on
6) Fonts. Ugly by default.
7) Linux apps are generally very buggy. KDE's Konqueror gets very slow when I have the navigation panel open. It stumped everybody in #kde. Enlightenment forgets what size my gVim windows should be if I have more than 4 of them open. Nobody can explain it. Java crashes Firefox. Gaim dumps core at random intervals. Screen one day forgot how to kill windows. Xorg occassionally stops drawing the left 1" of the top row of pixels. XMMS occasionally can't open CD drives.
8) Printing with a non-postscript printer.
Nothing produced physically.
And on my internet bill. And airline reservations. And electricity (nothing produced, just electrons moving back and forth.) When I buy software for download.
Even if Google were a monopoly, it wouldn't matter. Getting Firefox to default to them does not help them get a monopoly in another market. Now if Google owned Firefox, and made it so only Firefox could have a Google search box, you might be on to something. The issue here is that Microsoft used their monopoly in the desktop operating system market to get a monopoly in the web browser market, and may try to use those two monopolies to get a monopoly in the search engine market.
[College I went to], or rather, its administrators:
Chose Pepsi over Coke without consulting Food Services; their increase in cost far outweighed the "benefits" that Pepsi gave to the campus: vending machines, advertisements thinly veiled as programs and concerts.
Chose [Expensive Email System] without consulting the network people, the computer lab people, or the students. They replaced the 11 year old VAX/VMS system that nobody had any problems with. The thing was rock solid and had years of uptime. The switch was, to say the least, disasterous and expensive.
All it takes is a slick sell to some admistrators that don't know whats going on.
I would not be surprised to see this 15,000 student technically oriented school go with Windows Live.
As long as we're still using x11, we're not going to have stable and usable graphics on Linux.
I bought an Thinkpad R43, still IBM branded. Big mistake. Customer service is still handled by IBM, but they don't care one bit about the customers, because they're not really their customers.
.yes." "Okay. We have a lot of IBM servers too. I guess if this is the kind of support we can expect, we'll start buying Suns. "Uh. . .Okay. Buy". They just don't care.
I had a simple problem: you get one install option: Windows XP Pro on one partition, taking the entire drive. I wanted multiple partitions for Linux and Windows XP. I called and asked for XP install media. They are completely disinterested in helping me. They told me to go buy a copy of Windows XP Pro. (Even though a license comes with the machine.) The boxed versions do not work on the laptop though. The installer silently fails to get past "inspecting your computer's setup". Customer support didn't care. "So you're telling me that if I want anything other than your default install, I shouldn't buy an IBM?" "Uh. .
COMPUTERS Is Just that COMPUTERS. And they are all stressed to hell. I had a client of mine attempt to hook two computers together with a phone line. Wtf.. I asked him if he would put glue on a brick and stick it to another brick... and quite didnt understand. Computers should be left to its "algorithms"- dont start adding layers to something that was never meant to be.
weblogistan?! Who comes up with this crap? And why is it perpetuated?
The company we went through (airtel) wouldn't activate it without proof. Maybe its a regional thing (Tamil Nadu), or that company's policy?
I spent 8 days in India. I wanted to get a prepaid cell phone so I could call a couple friends who lived there if I ran into any problems. A friend of a friend provided a phone. Guess what? You can't get a sim card without proof of residence.
Can you sill walk into WalMart in the US and get a prepaid with minutes? Or have they blocked that to stop terrorism too?
"natural rights". Rights are only rights because a bunch of people decided they should be. Just because we call them "natural" doesn't change that fact.
"the buyer can look at it, figure out how it works, make an imitation"
This is the problem that our patent system was designed to fix. It doesn't matter if you say I took away your right by getting a patent, or that I granted you one by not getting a patent (or when the patent expires) - its the same thing. You only have the rights because we decided you do.
"This is why so few people ever sell anything but their labor."
What? Look around you. Everybody is selling everything. I am not only selling my labor to my employer, I am selling my knowledge and my ideas.
"But you weigh the pros and cons of sharing the idea, and come to a deal/EULA where the 'buyer' cannot share the idea. You jot down the idea, the buyer takes it home, heshe dies, and the paper with the idea on it blows out the window. My brother, Tom, finds the paper. Now what?"
Tom did not come to a deal with me. Tom does not have any of the rights I extended to the buyer because he has this piece of paper. Tom has the same rights to the idea that every other person does.
"The advantage of selling it is that you get paid. Weigh the pros and cons yourself."
Pro: I get to eat.
Con: Other people don't get a free ride.
I'll sell it.
There is nothing wrong with giving stuff away. Its is a very noble thing. However, selling product, in and of itself, is not wrong.
"Do you compensate all of them?"
I compensated those who have asked for compensation. I bought their books. I paid to attend their seminars. I paid to take their classes. I saw the advertisements on their web sites. I bought their software products. As for those who those who asked for no compensation, nobody can complain that I have not compensated them.
"I invent a machine that can produce food in infinite quantities at no cost. I am free to make food available at whatever price I can finagle. People who agree to the price are not free to take the food and refuse to pay."
Say I set the price for food at a reasonable rate to compensate my investment, and provide my family with a modest income. The price will be cheap. I'll feed the world. You have the right to buy my apples, and then give them away. You have the right to buy my apples, plant the seeds, grow apple trees, and give the apples away. Say I agree to sell you one of my machines. You have the right to use that machine, and sell food at any price you want. You have the right to modify my machine to make tastier food, and sell that food at any price. You do NOT have the right, unless I explicitly give it to you, to reverse engineer my machine, start producing copies, and sell those.
Research, engineering, and development take time and capital. Some people are willing to give it away. Others are not. The copyright system and patent system, as broken as they may be, are designed to make it financially worthwhile for people to invest their time and capital to make new products.
I did not intend to say that I think it is religious fanatacism, but that it is similar to (like) religious fanatacism.
As to the premise "one should not abridge people's freedom":
I think people should have many freedoms. The freedom to freely distribute the product of my hard work is not one of them. I am a big believer in fair use. I believe that if I sell you a product, you should have the freedom to reverse engineer it, modify any code that I gave you and recompile it, and generally do whatever you want to make it fit your needs. But if I worked hard creating that product, and it is my livelihood, I don't want you to have the freedom to give it away with no compensation to me. I may give you that freedom in some cases. But you should not have it inherently.