Darl is trying to create a mental association between supporters of the GPL and scofflaws like warez kiddies.
It's a little clever, actually. The DMCA is opposed by many who also support the GPL, the common ground being that both groups tend to be deeply concerned by the proper application of intellectual property rights. The DMCA is also opposed by scofflaw copyright infringers, those being the people it was nominally designed to fight. Therefore, people who support the GPL are copyright infringers and scofflaws.
It's not a tactic that works against people who habitually apply logical analysis to what they read, but that isn't the majority of people, is it? (If it were, many a war would never have taken place.)
he "knew people who had contracted bladder infections because choosing a gender bathroom bothered them so much that they did not go to the bathroom all day."
The astronomer Tycho Brahe actually died as the result of a burst bladder, because he was too embarrassed to step out for a whiz during a dinner party.
Actually, there's something perversely admirable in cultivating your neuroses to that level of dysfunctionality...
Thanks! I suspected the whole "time is pressing" argument for halting recounts was utter crap, because I just couldn't believe that the situation hadn't been anticipated.
Now I see that I was right; it had. I'm a little shamed that I didn't find it myself, but I console myself that you'd think the U.S. Supreme Court would have done it for me; to a person, they're supposed to be the best the legal profession has to offer, and they're expected to be particularly well read in Constitutional matters.
SCO, which has retained hired gun and Microsoft nemesis David Boies
IANAL, but doesn't this pose something of a conflict-of-interest?
No, it doesn't. Lawyers don't marry clients for life, and they don't swear blood oaths of undying enmity (not normally, anyway;).
Microsoft themselves could hire Boies to represent them in a case, if both parties were willing and if Boies were not currently representing anyone on the other side of that specific case.
As far as I can tell, it's probably still under the umbrella of "legality" for a corporation to censor incoming email content, since they can argue they own the network and the systems, and add the assertion that "your email at work is not private".
There's no doubt in my mind that they are legally entitled to restrict whether any given content travels over their internal networks.
That isn't quite what they've done though; they've altered, apparently without permission or acknowledgement, someone else's writing. I suspect that's a violation of copyright laws, particularly if they've materially changed someone's expression by stealth.
The particular case which brought it to the poster's attention probably wouldn't rise to the level of significant misrepresentation of the original writer's views, but it's a bad road to tread precisely because there is no bright line to point at and say 'we didn't overstep the line.'
Many (probably most, but I can't be bothered checking the exact proportions) of the copyrights pertaining to the Linux kernel have been given over to the Free Software Foundation.
The FSF therefore does indeed have standing to enforce the license.
According to their own particular definition of free. And that's fine, they have a right to that opinion. I just don't think they should be forcing it upon others who are merely using code on which they hold the copyright.
By that latter they do you mean Cisco or the FSF? Why shouldn't the FSF enforce the terms of their license on the people selling software to which the FSF holds copyright? The FSF didn't force Cisco to use GPL'd software, after all.
now show me someone living in a state with fluoridated water with excellent teeth despite no dental care.
That's exactly how they figured that fluoride was good for your teeth. Poor folk in rural Deaf Smith County, Texas had excellent teeth despite not having access to dental care, and they figured it was because the water was naturally fluoridated.
Of course, it apparently also made a passel o' Smiths lose their hearing, but they could still smile right nice...
NO, Twain didn't write this either...
on
Can You Raed Tihs?
·
· Score: 1
Ironic. I always found it funny when people would attribute Disraeli's damn statistics or Pascal's long letter to Twain... and now I'm one with that august company, I suppose!:)
I wrote it, in '76 I think, as a joke about the EEC, implying that it was going to become the Fifth Reich (the original ended by parodying a German accent). Immature, yeah, but I was too at the time; I was eleven. This, of all my writing since, lives on...
Then you saw it near its beginning; you must have been in Oxfordshire. I'm amazed, but very pleased, to see it still cropping up.:)
Unfortunately I've lost the original, but the original title was _EEC_Speling_Reform_ and ended (more or less) "Ze dremz uv ze guvirnmint vil finale hav cum tru."
It's muddy at best. I think installing deCSS on my computer, even if I clean-room reverse engineer it, is a DMCA no-no... and I consider that a violation of my consumer rights.
As you say, though, I can't even talk about my theoretical clean-room DeCSS, and that's a clear violation of my citizen's free speech to me too. I don't think it's even a valid trade-secrets case; if I didn't obtain the DeCSS equivalent through industrial espionage I should be able to sell it in a free market.
Either way I agree with your assessment that the DMCA and the RIAA can get stuffed. It's a sad day when a government by, of and for the people cares more for the rights of corporations than individuals.
I think a case could be made for both citizen and consumer rights being violated here. I'm less concerned about product labelling than about the right of a consumer to use a purchased product in any legal manner s/he sees fit.
I completely agree, however, that the more important right being diminished here is the citizen's right to free speech. (I wish it weren't restricted to the citizenry, even, but I'll take what I can get.)
I don't know about you but I'm a citizen not a consumer.
Boy am I sick of that pretentious and inaccurate phrase...
The two are not mutually exclusive. You're a citizen and a consumer, unless you already live in a cave, grow your own food, make your own clothes, etc. etc.
Citizens have certain rights even if they're not consumers. Consumers have other rights even if they're not citizens.
It's bad news when any of those rights are taken away or diminished, and I'm horrified that the California Supreme Court places so little value on a citizen's rights of free speech. However, it's a bad idea to muddy the waters with an argument which warrants non-citizens may be denied the rights they have as consumers.
Note also that the 'Unknown' category is rather high, and certainly contains at least some Linux systems, further increasing the percentage.
Nitpick: If the percentage of Linux boxen within the 'unknown' category is smaller than the 'known' percentage, then correctly identifying the unknowns would lower the overall percentage.
Not to mention Brits won't put up with frequent or long advert breaks because the BBC channels have none!
That's why I was so bitterly disappointed that the BBC-America cable channel is rife with advert breaks. I'd have been happy to pay for it as an advert-free premium channel, at least until I discovered the horribly limited menu. Endless reruns of talk shows and home/garden/self makover shows, and few sitcoms; not the Beeb I knew and loved (and paid for) back in England.
There is a free BBC-Am on-demand channel, which currently has a limited choice of Ground Force, Changing Rooms, AbFab, Keeping Up Appearances, and they just added some Monty Python episodes. I wonder if this selection is going to be increased? I can hope...:)
Nevertheless, I think the point remains valid; the number of ways you can interact with the game of chess are very limited, and yet mastering the game requires applying quite a lot of mental effort. Go would be an even better example, but I suspect that's a less well known game to most/. readers.
The point is that simplicity of interface and complexity of gameplay are not closely correlated, that's all. I suppose it's also possible to create a game with a complex interface but which is fairly brain-dead in terms of strategy, but I can't think of a good example offhand.
Correction: 1980s should read 1980s through 1990s.
Clarification: Given HMI's later statement that "My complaint is at a more elementary (meaning grades 1-8) level" I should also note that my own rough-and-ready data points referred to high school or equivalent education.
Moreover, I should probably point out that unlike my coworkers I was educated in England, and had to walk five miles in the July snow uphill both ways after a fifteen hour shift down the coal mines... so I'm probably skewing the profile a bit. (Just kidding!;)
I suppose my own personal experience would be far too unscientific for your purposes, but perhaps a full study will someday be conducted to validate this.
Only one of your data points was specific enough for me to test against my own experience:
-Trivial facts retained by those schooled in the 1960-75 period versus now - the word inertia comes to mind. Try that on a smattering of people schooled today and see how many correct responses you get.
Oddly enough, most (7/9) of the people who work for me now (in a metrology lab) were educated in the 1960-1975 time frame. Out of those, only one could correctly define the word inertia.
Out of the people in my department at my level (I didn't question their workers) most were educated in the 1980s (4/6). All of them, including me, were able to define inertia.
My personal experience may well be atypical for those (very wide) age groups. On the other hand, so might yours.
As someone else has pointed out, the interface consists of picking pieces up and moving them to another square. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
Even the rules aren't exactly complicated, though; you can literally count the number of rules in chess on your fingers and toes. Most modern computer games have more actions than that available to the first person shooter, and a different set available to each of the computer-controlled characters.
And yet, even given that, there are usually fewer ways to win a given game, at least for single-player games. Unless you follow exactly the correct sequence in Half-Life, for example, you will lose.
Slashdot Mirror
The correct answer is "The Rooster." :)
It's a little clever, actually. The DMCA is opposed by many who also support the GPL, the common ground being that both groups tend to be deeply concerned by the proper application of intellectual property rights. The DMCA is also opposed by scofflaw copyright infringers, those being the people it was nominally designed to fight. Therefore, people who support the GPL are copyright infringers and scofflaws.
It's not a tactic that works against people who habitually apply logical analysis to what they read, but that isn't the majority of people, is it? (If it were, many a war would never have taken place.)
Ah, too bad. I'd never heard it except in relation to Tycho Brahe before. It did seem a bit implausible.
The astronomer Tycho Brahe actually died as the result of a burst bladder, because he was too embarrassed to step out for a whiz during a dinner party.
Actually, there's something perversely admirable in cultivating your neuroses to that level of dysfunctionality...
Now I see that I was right; it had. I'm a little shamed that I didn't find it myself, but I console myself that you'd think the U.S. Supreme Court would have done it for me; to a person, they're supposed to be the best the legal profession has to offer, and they're expected to be particularly well read in Constitutional matters.
I think the oil's run out in Diogene's lamp.
IANAL, but doesn't this pose something of a conflict-of-interest?
No, it doesn't. Lawyers don't marry clients for life, and they don't swear blood oaths of undying enmity (not normally, anyway ;).
Microsoft themselves could hire Boies to represent them in a case, if both parties were willing and if Boies were not currently representing anyone on the other side of that specific case.
There's no doubt in my mind that they are legally entitled to restrict whether any given content travels over their internal networks.
That isn't quite what they've done though; they've altered, apparently without permission or acknowledgement, someone else's writing. I suspect that's a violation of copyright laws, particularly if they've materially changed someone's expression by stealth.
The particular case which brought it to the poster's attention probably wouldn't rise to the level of significant misrepresentation of the original writer's views, but it's a bad road to tread precisely because there is no bright line to point at and say 'we didn't overstep the line.'
Many (probably most, but I can't be bothered checking the exact proportions) of the copyrights pertaining to the Linux kernel have been given over to the Free Software Foundation.
The FSF therefore does indeed have standing to enforce the license.
By that latter they do you mean Cisco or the FSF? Why shouldn't the FSF enforce the terms of their license on the people selling software to which the FSF holds copyright? The FSF didn't force Cisco to use GPL'd software, after all.
I actually found the can of Relative Bearing Grease! Yes it exists... it's made by the Relative Bearing Company.
That's exactly how they figured that fluoride was good for your teeth. Poor folk in rural Deaf Smith County, Texas had excellent teeth despite not having access to dental care, and they figured it was because the water was naturally fluoridated.
Of course, it apparently also made a passel o' Smiths lose their hearing, but they could still smile right nice...
I wrote it, in '76 I think, as a joke about the EEC, implying that it was going to become the Fifth Reich (the original ended by parodying a German accent). Immature, yeah, but I was too at the time; I was eleven. This, of all my writing since, lives on...
Unfortunately I've lost the original, but the original title was _EEC_Speling_Reform_ and ended (more or less) "Ze dremz uv ze guvirnmint vil finale hav cum tru."
You can file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission even without receiving a mailed invoice. Use this form.
s/kernal/kernel
s/reguarding/regarding
s/distributer/distributor
s/sitsuation/situation
s/comunity/community
s/comercial/commercial
My favorite warning label : "Remove infant before folding and stowing stroller." I kid you not...
As you say, though, I can't even talk about my theoretical clean-room DeCSS, and that's a clear violation of my citizen's free speech to me too. I don't think it's even a valid trade-secrets case; if I didn't obtain the DeCSS equivalent through industrial espionage I should be able to sell it in a free market.
Either way I agree with your assessment that the DMCA and the RIAA can get stuffed. It's a sad day when a government by, of and for the people cares more for the rights of corporations than individuals.
I think a case could be made for both citizen and consumer rights being violated here. I'm less concerned about product labelling than about the right of a consumer to use a purchased product in any legal manner s/he sees fit.
I completely agree, however, that the more important right being diminished here is the citizen's right to free speech. (I wish it weren't restricted to the citizenry, even, but I'll take what I can get.)
Boy am I sick of that pretentious and inaccurate phrase...
The two are not mutually exclusive. You're a citizen and a consumer, unless you already live in a cave, grow your own food, make your own clothes, etc. etc.
Citizens have certain rights even if they're not consumers. Consumers have other rights even if they're not citizens.
It's bad news when any of those rights are taken away or diminished, and I'm horrified that the California Supreme Court places so little value on a citizen's rights of free speech. However, it's a bad idea to muddy the waters with an argument which warrants non-citizens may be denied the rights they have as consumers.
Nitpick: If the percentage of Linux boxen within the 'unknown' category is smaller than the 'known' percentage, then correctly identifying the unknowns would lower the overall percentage.
That's why I was so bitterly disappointed that the BBC-America cable channel is rife with advert breaks. I'd have been happy to pay for it as an advert-free premium channel, at least until I discovered the horribly limited menu. Endless reruns of talk shows and home/garden/self makover shows, and few sitcoms; not the Beeb I knew and loved (and paid for) back in England.
There is a free BBC-Am on-demand channel, which currently has a limited choice of Ground Force, Changing Rooms, AbFab, Keeping Up Appearances, and they just added some Monty Python episodes. I wonder if this selection is going to be increased? I can hope... :)
Nevertheless, I think the point remains valid; the number of ways you can interact with the game of chess are very limited, and yet mastering the game requires applying quite a lot of mental effort. Go would be an even better example, but I suspect that's a less well known game to most /. readers.
The point is that simplicity of interface and complexity of gameplay are not closely correlated, that's all. I suppose it's also possible to create a game with a complex interface but which is fairly brain-dead in terms of strategy, but I can't think of a good example offhand.
Clarification: Given HMI's later statement that "My complaint is at a more elementary (meaning grades 1-8) level" I should also note that my own rough-and-ready data points referred to high school or equivalent education.
Moreover, I should probably point out that unlike my coworkers I was educated in England, and had to walk five miles in the July snow uphill both ways after a fifteen hour shift down the coal mines... so I'm probably skewing the profile a bit. (Just kidding! ;)
Only one of your data points was specific enough for me to test against my own experience:
-Trivial facts retained by those schooled in the 1960-75 period versus now - the word inertia comes to mind. Try that on a smattering of people schooled today and see how many correct responses you get.
Oddly enough, most (7/9) of the people who work for me now (in a metrology lab) were educated in the 1960-1975 time frame. Out of those, only one could correctly define the word inertia.
Out of the people in my department at my level (I didn't question their workers) most were educated in the 1980s (4/6). All of them, including me, were able to define inertia.
My personal experience may well be atypical for those (very wide) age groups. On the other hand, so might yours.
Even the rules aren't exactly complicated, though; you can literally count the number of rules in chess on your fingers and toes. Most modern computer games have more actions than that available to the first person shooter, and a different set available to each of the computer-controlled characters.
And yet, even given that, there are usually fewer ways to win a given game, at least for single-player games. Unless you follow exactly the correct sequence in Half-Life, for example, you will lose.