It shouldn't be up to me to maintain and update an "allow" list based on email addresses, so that the tiny minority of email users who do want to receive spam, can do so.
I disagree with you there. You choose to accept the spam. No one is forcing it upon you. If you choose to accept mail from random email addresses, you're going to get spam. That's never going to change. Never.
E-mail only bounces (or costs money) if your mailbox fills, just like snail mail.
Same thing with bandwidth at the ISP level. At the end-user level, bandwidth is generally free.
A tangible metaphor would be someone dumping trash on property that you rent.
Dumping your McDonalds trash in the Burger King trash can, maybe. Computers don't accept incoming mail by default. You have to explicitly set them up to do so, and by doing so you are implicitly allowing people to send you mail.
As for temporal dilation, even if the junk mail didn't exist, the mass would be in the form of a tree somewhere, still dilating time...
But it wouldn't be in my mailbox, so its effect on me personally would be diminished by the square of the distance I am from it.
If I wanted, I could count the few seconds it takes to delete spam and add it to the junk senders list.
And I could count the few seconds it takes to throw the mail in the trash.
After the span of a year, it would probably add up to a few hundred dollars of my professional time.
Why are you getting spam at work? Is it because you're reading personal mail on company time, or because you posted your business email address on a web site? Maybe it's because your particular business requires you to accept unsolicited emails for work purposes, but that's rather rare.
I use pine, and I have DSL, so maybe your results are worse, but I can identify and delete at least 2 spams per second. Say I get 20 spams per day (I get much less). 5 days a week (this is only professional time we're talking about). 50 weeks a year. Even at $300/hour, that doesn't work out to "a few hundred dollars".
In any case, my point is that spam does not cost significantly more to the receiver than junk mail. Both take on the order of seconds of time for the most expensive part of the cost, the identifying and deleting/throwing away.
The Direct Marketing Association (The DMA) today voiced its support for the United States Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors' (BOG) request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to accelerate the payment of "revenue foregone" funds, authorized in the Revenue Foregone Reform Act of 1993, in the federal fiscal year 2003 budget.
So, unlike postal junk mail, where the sender pays for postage, *you* pay for spam.
Carrying postal junk mail takes energy. Therefore I have to eat more, and that costs me money. Also, the mass of the mail has a gravitational force which dilates time. And we all know that time is money.
And in most sexual assault, sexual harrasment and rape cases, the victim is scarred mentally and sometimes physically forever. Think about that next time you try to compare sending email with rape.
If you have a Yahoo account, they helpfully put a lot of spam into the `bulk mail` folder, but there is nothing in the email headers to identify it as such, so you have to manually click on `empty bulk mail` every time you log on. I dont think they`ll add a `empty trused spam` button, do you?
Of course they will, because if they don't, someone else will, and the masses will start switching.
Have you ever watched "The Insider"? I used to believe that legalizing marijuana would lead to safer drugs, but to tell you the truth if I were a smoker I'd feel safer buying a joint from "Captain Reefer" than from RJ Reynolds.
Does the idea of copyleft make sense for things other than software?
Certainly. Imagine if Slashdot was copylefted, and required all submissions to be copylefted. Then anyone could take the writeups, images, posts, moderation results, etc. and create his/her own Slashdot. Maybe they'll make Anonymous Cowards get an automatic +2 bonus. Maybe they'll let you moderate the stories. Maybe they'll have their own moderation system. The possibilities are endless.
I will give citations where necessary (as is required in scientific publishing), but my work is my own, and I want to be able to distribute it however I please.
A properly written copyleft will still allow you to distribute your derivitive work as you please. What it won't allow is for you to sue others for infringing copyright on that derivitive work.
Why? Because the US has enough military and economic power to compltely ignore international law whenever it sees fit.
That's a very naiive statement. Russia could destroy Washington DC right now if it wanted to. Just push a few buttons. Sure, it's not going to happen unless one of the governments goes crazy, but the execution of someone for simply creating a piece of mostly harmless software is the act of a government gone mad.
The only hope for the U.S. at that point would be civil war, and we'd most certainly have it.
Who, pray tell, would be doing this bombing exactly? The Russians? They're dependednt on US foriegn aid.
It's so hard to even fathom the ramifications of such a situation. By the time the law got passed we would probably already be on the brink of civil war. Had the law got passed Dmitry wouldn't have been stupid enough to come into the United States in the first place. Goverments all over the world would probably cut the U.S. off from the internet. Really, it's hard to say.
Just as nothing will happen if the US chooses to execute the thousands of "detainees" it's holding in the states and the "prisoners of war" at Guantanamo Bay.
There are people both inside and outside the U.S. who would not stand by and watch the government execute thousands of innocent detainees without justification. Detaining people for alleged immigration violations is one thing. Executing people, without due process, for alleged immigration violations, is quite another. Executing someone, without due process, for alleged DMCA violations, is yet another.
Did you think you were living in a "free world"?
There are many more choices than "free" and "not free".
I submitted this site to slashdot, complete with the bait "too bad the thing runs Windows CE". Unfortunately, it got through the wonderful fact checking of the slashdot crew.
Interesting. If the light travels perfectly straight without bouncing off the sides, why do we bother having the sides in the first place? Just send the laser beam straight through the air.
Certainly the light must bounce. Otherwise explain how it gets around curves in the fiber.
It's quite accurate, if the cable is long. (Assuming by "light" you mean "the signal".)
I was referring to fiber optics, in which light bounces from side to side. Because light bounces from side to side, the distance travelled by light is proportional to the length of the cable, but not equal to it.
So then I take it that Amazon can be sued for selling the "Satanic Verses" to Iranian customers?
Yes. So?
And if that were to happen, and say a vice president of Amazon was executed because of it, there would be no outcry about "jurisdiction," because obviously you are bound by all of the laws in the homelands of all of your customers -- and any attempts to question jurisdiction would be "ridiculous".
Right. There would be no outcry about "jurisdiction". There would be massive bombing in Iran, and most of the world would be behind it. Just like the U.S. would probably be bombed into a third world country if we executed Dmitry.
If the product is illegal in the US, then selling access to the product from the US is also illegal.
The product is not illegal in the US. Selling the product is illegal in the US. Importing the product into the US is illegal in the US. Using the product in certain ways is illegal in the US. But possessing the product is not illegal in the US.
That said, I agree with you that the product was imported into the US by elcomsoft. It was also sold in the US by elcomsoft.
I'd happily pay $20/month for this service, if it worked reliably and had no usage restrictions. Maybe even $30-40, if it worked really reliably (enough that I could throw out my cell phone and just use voice over IP to my home telephone).
Somehow I'm guessing there will be usage charges or $80+/month fees. I can already get unlimited 14.4 for $60/month through nextel's unlimited incoming call plan.
I've used their DSL, and it did suck, but it sucked intentionally.
First of all, they use PPP over ethernet. Conscious decision, but PPPoE sucks as far as client implementations.
Secondly, they would disconnect me whenever I received incomming HTTP (and certain other) connections. It took me a long time to figure out that that was what was causing the disconnections. Once I stopped accepting incomming connections, I had nearly flawless service.
Slashdot Mirror
It shouldn't be up to me to maintain and update an "allow" list based on email addresses, so that the tiny minority of email users who do want to receive spam, can do so.
I disagree with you there. You choose to accept the spam. No one is forcing it upon you. If you choose to accept mail from random email addresses, you're going to get spam. That's never going to change. Never.
The real cost is in server space and bandwith.
E-mail only bounces (or costs money) if your mailbox fills, just like snail mail.
Same thing with bandwidth at the ISP level. At the end-user level, bandwidth is generally free.
A tangible metaphor would be someone dumping trash on property that you rent.
Dumping your McDonalds trash in the Burger King trash can, maybe. Computers don't accept incoming mail by default. You have to explicitly set them up to do so, and by doing so you are implicitly allowing people to send you mail.
Small claims court costs what, $50? And if you win you're almost sure to get at least $500 in punitive damages.
I comprehend the analogy, I just don't think it's a very accurate one.
As for temporal dilation, even if the junk mail didn't exist, the mass would be in the form of a tree somewhere, still dilating time...
But it wouldn't be in my mailbox, so its effect on me personally would be diminished by the square of the distance I am from it.
If I wanted, I could count the few seconds it takes to delete spam and add it to the junk senders list.
And I could count the few seconds it takes to throw the mail in the trash.
After the span of a year, it would probably add up to a few hundred dollars of my professional time.
Why are you getting spam at work? Is it because you're reading personal mail on company time, or because you posted your business email address on a web site? Maybe it's because your particular business requires you to accept unsolicited emails for work purposes, but that's rather rare.
I use pine, and I have DSL, so maybe your results are worse, but I can identify and delete at least 2 spams per second. Say I get 20 spams per day (I get much less). 5 days a week (this is only professional time we're talking about). 50 weeks a year. Even at $300/hour, that doesn't work out to "a few hundred dollars".
In any case, my point is that spam does not cost significantly more to the receiver than junk mail. Both take on the order of seconds of time for the most expensive part of the cost, the identifying and deleting/throwing away.
The US postal service actualy makes a profit and does not recive any tax money.
That's not exactly true. See this for example.
So, unlike postal junk mail, where the sender pays for postage, *you* pay for spam.
Carrying postal junk mail takes energy. Therefore I have to eat more, and that costs me money. Also, the mass of the mail has a gravitational force which dilates time. And we all know that time is money.
If I didn't request it, it's spam.
So don't accept mail with a From: address that you haven't requested.
And in most sexual assault, sexual harrasment and rape cases, the victim is scarred mentally and sometimes physically forever. Think about that next time you try to compare sending email with rape.
If you have a Yahoo account, they helpfully put a lot of spam into the `bulk mail` folder, but there is nothing in the email headers to identify it as such, so you have to manually click on `empty bulk mail` every time you log on. I dont think they`ll add a `empty trused spam` button, do you?
Of course they will, because if they don't, someone else will, and the masses will start switching.
Ensured qualtity=safer drugs for users
Have you ever watched "The Insider"? I used to believe that legalizing marijuana would lead to safer drugs, but to tell you the truth if I were a smoker I'd feel safer buying a joint from "Captain Reefer" than from RJ Reynolds.
Does the idea of copyleft make sense for things other than software?
Certainly. Imagine if Slashdot was copylefted, and required all submissions to be copylefted. Then anyone could take the writeups, images, posts, moderation results, etc. and create his/her own Slashdot. Maybe they'll make Anonymous Cowards get an automatic +2 bonus. Maybe they'll let you moderate the stories. Maybe they'll have their own moderation system. The possibilities are endless.
This message is licensed under the Qing Public License.
I will give citations where necessary (as is required in scientific publishing), but my work is my own, and I want to be able to distribute it however I please.
A properly written copyleft will still allow you to distribute your derivitive work as you please. What it won't allow is for you to sue others for infringing copyright on that derivitive work.
Why? Because the US has enough military and economic power to compltely ignore international law whenever it sees fit.
That's a very naiive statement. Russia could destroy Washington DC right now if it wanted to. Just push a few buttons. Sure, it's not going to happen unless one of the governments goes crazy, but the execution of someone for simply creating a piece of mostly harmless software is the act of a government gone mad.
The only hope for the U.S. at that point would be civil war, and we'd most certainly have it.
Who, pray tell, would be doing this bombing exactly? The Russians? They're dependednt on US foriegn aid.
It's so hard to even fathom the ramifications of such a situation. By the time the law got passed we would probably already be on the brink of civil war. Had the law got passed Dmitry wouldn't have been stupid enough to come into the United States in the first place. Goverments all over the world would probably cut the U.S. off from the internet. Really, it's hard to say.
Just as nothing will happen if the US chooses to execute the thousands of "detainees" it's holding in the states and the "prisoners of war" at Guantanamo Bay.
There are people both inside and outside the U.S. who would not stand by and watch the government execute thousands of innocent detainees without justification. Detaining people for alleged immigration violations is one thing. Executing people, without due process, for alleged immigration violations, is quite another. Executing someone, without due process, for alleged DMCA violations, is yet another.
Did you think you were living in a "free world"?
There are many more choices than "free" and "not free".
I submitted this site to slashdot, complete with the bait "too bad the thing runs Windows CE". Unfortunately, it got through the wonderful fact checking of the slashdot crew.
OK. I'll buy it. :) Thanks for the info.
Interesting. If the light travels perfectly straight without bouncing off the sides, why do we bother having the sides in the first place? Just send the laser beam straight through the air. Certainly the light must bounce. Otherwise explain how it gets around curves in the fiber.
It's quite accurate, if the cable is long. (Assuming by "light" you mean "the signal".)
I was referring to fiber optics, in which light bounces from side to side. Because light bounces from side to side, the distance travelled by light is proportional to the length of the cable, but not equal to it.
Actually it may not by as great a risk as you suppose.
Exactly why it's good to be selling insurance, not buying insurance.
So then I take it that Amazon can be sued for selling the "Satanic Verses" to Iranian customers?
Yes. So?
And if that were to happen, and say a vice president of Amazon was executed because of it, there would be no outcry about "jurisdiction," because obviously you are bound by all of the laws in the homelands of all of your customers -- and any attempts to question jurisdiction would be "ridiculous".
Right. There would be no outcry about "jurisdiction". There would be massive bombing in Iran, and most of the world would be behind it. Just like the U.S. would probably be bombed into a third world country if we executed Dmitry.
If the product is illegal in the US, then selling access to the product from the US is also illegal.
The product is not illegal in the US. Selling the product is illegal in the US. Importing the product into the US is illegal in the US. Using the product in certain ways is illegal in the US. But possessing the product is not illegal in the US.
That said, I agree with you that the product was imported into the US by elcomsoft. It was also sold in the US by elcomsoft.
You get the latency by dividing the transmission distance by this speed.
You're presuming that the distance travelled by light is roughly equivalent to the distance of the cable. This is grossly inaccurate.
I'd happily pay $20/month for this service, if it worked reliably and had no usage restrictions. Maybe even $30-40, if it worked really reliably (enough that I could throw out my cell phone and just use voice over IP to my home telephone).
Somehow I'm guessing there will be usage charges or $80+/month fees. I can already get unlimited 14.4 for $60/month through nextel's unlimited incoming call plan.
I've used their DSL, and it did suck, but it sucked intentionally.
First of all, they use PPP over ethernet. Conscious decision, but PPPoE sucks as far as client implementations.
Secondly, they would disconnect me whenever I received incomming HTTP (and certain other) connections. It took me a long time to figure out that that was what was causing the disconnections. Once I stopped accepting incomming connections, I had nearly flawless service.
I was actually making a serious point, in addition to failing at being funny.