Basically, that sounds like Slashdot tags, but with a little more information about how many people actually tagged a candidate that. I figure that something like that would really confuse some people.
I mean, what would the media think if someone like Hillary Clinton got tagged "mafiaa"?:]
The HDCP DRM functions by way of a system called the image constraint token. You can plug an HD-DVD or blu-ray player into a tv via analog component (RGB), but the manufacturers of those discs have the ability to activate the image constraint system on the disc if they wish. Unless the player reports that it's connected via HDMI (and thus has the ability to encrypt the signal), the output resolution on the video is reduced to 1/4th the original (960x540 vs. 1920x1080). As far as I know, no disc currently shipping implements the constraint token, and the studios stated that they planned to hold off on activating it until 2009.
This is the important part, IMHO. They intend to wait until people have "upgraded" to HDMI before they spring the DRM trap on them. Then again, I'm sure that the pirate copies won't contain any image constraint tokens.
Just what the hell kind of business are they running when "thieves" treat their customers better?
So now that it's non-HTML, I won't be able to Google Microsoft's site to actually find anything any more? Talk about worthless.
And yes, sometimes you do need to browse Microsoft's website from a non-Windows PC. Usually because you're repairing that Windows PC and the non-Windows one is the one that is still working...
> This is a way to make up for the deficiencies of Japan's legal system. Under the present system, people can post anonymously online, often through the "2ch" bulletin board, to make up false accusations about others, post their financial and medical records online, their bank account numbers, spew racist rhetoric, make death threats, etc.
I agree that that's a problem, but why is this the best solution? Don't you think they can do better?
Anonymous posts can be traced if they're bad. Financial and medical records should be protected with privacy laws. Racist rhetoric, well, I think it should be countered by people standing up to them and telling them they're wrong. Death threats should be investigated if there's any reason to believe someone will act on them.
> Japanese courts have shown no interest in enforcing the egregious violations of other people's rights.
I thought the police would do that? And even if it's the court's job in Japan, how will more laws help if they won't enforce the ones you have? Why are these laws the best way to solve the problem?
> At present, there is a whole subculture of professional losers, the "NEETs" in their 20s and 30s who live at home with their parents and don't work, who spend their lives posting this stuff on the web.
I thought you said the people were anonymous. How can you so quickly assign collective blame to one group? What are they, Edo era peasants? What next? Goningumi?
For those wondering, gonigumi were five-family groups. If any group member did something bad, all were punished.
> I know that's moded funny, but that might actually be a very good argument for "open sourcing" movies.
I wouldn't call it "open sourcing" exactly, but let's just say that films won't soon go extinct, at least as long as there are people willing to copy them.
Actually, that's how books survived. The only ancient books we have now are the ones people thought were important enough to copy regularly, plus a few random things that survived for a ridiculously long time.
Protected audio and video paths to prevent things like screenshots and audio capture from the sound card spring to mind first. I imagine there are other things I can't think of right now.
> I agree with you. I get the impression you think i'm a MS apologist. I'm not. This is the main reason I prefer my MacBook.
I started to think that at first, then I read what you wrote a bit more carefully and it became clear that you weren't, you just may not have known all the back room deals Microsoft has done to screw people over. Yeah, it does make me a little biased against them, but it's not without reason.
> Media Center is still fucking slick though. I primarily just use my Vista Ultimate box as a media server for my 360, for Visual Studio, and for games. If I didn't make use of those 4GB RAM, I'd probably consider dropping Vista for XP (there is no XP x64 with Media Center).
I just watch everything on my computer directly *shrug* Never had much reason for media servers and whatnot. Running XP, plotting an eventual migration to Ubuntu right now. Most of my Vista experience comes from repairing it for other people who have been driven insane by it. I found that it was really a PITA to work with and I mostly helped them get "downgrades" to XP, so that probably colors my perception of Vista as well. Then again, I honestly want it to fail horribly, because that should loosen Microsoft's stranglehold on the industry a little bit and I think that can only be a good thing.
> This DRM complaint thing - what's the deal? Vista doesn't prevent you from doing anything XP will let you do. They added the ability to play restricted formats, which simply isn't included at all in XP. If you don't like HD-DVD playback, then don't use it! It's not like MS could have offered it without DRM (and not been sued to high hell). I can still rip DVDs and CDs with aplomb.
And they added extra protections for those formats that impact any ordinary things you're doing in the mean time. It sounds like you're defending it because it's only got "a little" spam in it, but I don't want any spam at all.
Also, I think they went above and beyond here. They eventually want to control the restricted formats, after all, not just play them.
> Its true, but as an IT professional I need to stay current on MS technology, or risk unemployment. At home I use Linux and OSX primarily, though I do play the occasional game on Vista. Hardware though? I don't think Windows restricts your hardware options too much... most stuff works on other OSes too.
Do you not remember winmodems at all? Have you never seen the memo on ACPI where Bill Gates himself wrote that they should define a "standard" that's as hard for Linux to implement as possible? As for "staying current or risking unemployment", well, I admin a line of MS-DOS 6 machines. Yes, you read that correctly. Somehow, this reminds me of the planet ruled by lizards, where it "honestly doesn't occur to them" that they could vote for (support) something else. And while winmodems are all but dead, ACPI troubles (crash on suspend) still plague Linux. Those are by no means the only examples. And when they can do things like this, they will. That's what I hold against them.
> Yeah Windows is pricey at retail, but OEM copies aren't that bad (similar to OSX pricing). I agree, though. I got my copy through our MSDN subscription of course so it doesn't apply to me.
"Not so bad" is hardly a ringing endorsement:]
> Their standards (un-) support is extremely frustrating, probably my #1 complaint. Also why I have to keep a Windows machine around - to find out how to get everything else to work with it. Did you know they broke CIFS again in Vista/Server 2008? Yup.
It's deliberate. That's what's so galling.
> I use Linux because it's so functional, OSX because its enjoyable, and Windows because I have to.
Just take a look at this recent opinion piece to MIT's newspaper. Here's a student who believes that "the free flow of information" (as he says twice) is the ultimate good. Lots of students still don't understand why copyright exists.
Oh, some of us understand just fine. It's the part where people don't agree with how the law is written or enforced that get you into problem territory.
In fact, some will even try to explain that physical property is the only kind that should have value. It's totally mind-boggling, even when these students are the ones who will be going out and making the next generation of intellectual works.
No, they usually say that IP isn't really property because it's not truly rivalrous. Sure, the law creates rights that are in rivalrous in an artificial way, but you can have two people listen to the same tune whereas two people can't eat the same grape. You may have heard people refer to IP as "imaginary property" recently. It's not because they don't know what IP is supposed to stand for, but because they don't agree with it.
It's totally mind-boggling, even when these students are the ones who will be going out and making the next generation of intellectual works.
Mind-boggling? That sounds more like a statement of ignorance to me. I don't have any trouble understanding why they'd think that, nor do I have trouble understanding those with views like yours. When I hear that something is "mind-boggling" I usually find out that people are trying to ascribe intelligence to something (or someone) that lacks it, or that they haven't thought something through. In this case, it would appear to be the latter.
Even the GPL and all copyleft mechanisms rely on copyright laws. If people want their wishes as content creators to be respected (whether that is to allow some forms of redistribution, like CC-NC, or not, like "All rights reserved"), they need to respect copyright law and not subvert it.
The GPL IS a subversion of copyright law after a fashion. RMS wrote against that notion that we need copyright because it's used to enforce the GPL quite specifically in one of his essays (yes, you can't enforce the GPL without copyright law, but you don't really need it, either). You might want to talk to the man who wrote it before you make claims like that. I did. [1]
Anyhow, to get back on topic, I don't see how you can say that not supporting copyright law makes them an infringer. I also don't think that that essay you linked to was written out of ignorance. It's written because people are fed up with this crap.
Perhaps you haven't yet realized this, but the more laws we make, the more criminals there are. Obviously, the more we criminalize the things people are already doing, the more people who are going to break them. And you can't have fewer than zero people breaking a law, so adding to the laws will certainly never create fewer criminals. The point isn't the ridiculous notion that we could just abolish all laws and have "zero" criminals. Some things, after all, are worth the cost of criminalizing them. But it's a mistake to think that laws are without cost. And here, a reasonable person can make the case that we're simply better off if we don't criminalize something, whether or not we like or agree with it.
Of course, you seem to find that "mind-boggling":] I suggest you think it through a little more. The notion was not formed without the use of rational thought, so an intelligent person like you should be able to understand it... right?
[1] To prove it, I'll point out that I also read the confusing words manifesto. Whereas RMS would like us all to stop using the word, I have chosen to subvert it with the term "Imaginary Property" not unlike how RMS chose to subvert copyright with the GPL rather than hoping to abolish it. RMS disagrees with me about that term, BTW, in that it still lumps together at least three disparate areas of law, but you'd have a hard time finding someone with whom he agrees about everything:]
> Nobody voted thinking ISO would control it. If they did, then they have no business voting in the first place.
I thought blaming victims went out of vogue a long time ago, but insofar as that can be read to say that trusting Microsoft is naive, I can agree.
> Whether or not MS made comments that could be interpreted as "promises" is irrelevant. Rob knew all along that ISO would not control a Fast Tracked standard, and if he had problems with MS statements, he should have called them on those statements at the time they were made, not waiting until he could pull a strawman out of his ass.
One generally calls someone out for breaking a promise AFTER they break it. Although I will admit that you make a good point that it would be more efficient to call Microsoft out for breaking them beforehand, given the previous line.
> I don't interpret any of the statements that Rob (taken out of context, of course) offers as promises of an ISO control, but rather that ISO "locks in" a given set of documentation as a standard. ISO can then control whether changes that are submitted later continue to be part of the standard or not.
That level of control can hardly be considered meaningful. But meaningless token gestures are par for the course, I suppose.
> What Rob wants to FUD by insinuation (knowing full well that this isn't the case) is that Microsoft will somehow, miraculously be able to change the standard at their whim after it's been ratified. That's simply not the case.
Actually, I'm much more worried that they'll leave it as-is. If I thought they were going to rush out a fixed version that dropped all application-defined behaviors, used or at least supported existing standards, killed all legacy bugs and was truly open, I would support that.
> Even though Microsoft will be responsible for any maintenance or evolution of the format, ISO still controls what is called an ISO standard or not. If ISO says "no" to a change, it doesn't make it into a later version of the standard. That's all there is to it.
I have a hard time seeing why it would be meaningful to promise that ISO gets to control what's called an ISO standard. One might think that that was their purpose. But I suppose I already addressed meaningless token gestures.
> Anti-women supporters? What are you talking about?
They're supporters that look exactly like normal women, but explode in a burst of gamma radiation when they come into contact with a woman. Probably a lot like your typical Digg user:]
> Nobody should be surprised by this, much less Rob Weir. He feigns surprise and acts like this is a shocking development.
He does? I didn't see any "surprise" in there. I saw him saying that Microsoft promised that the ISO would get this control and then went back on its promise. You'll forgive me if I don't find that surprising.
From what Rob Weir wrote, as quoted on Groklaw (which, BTW, is what the Slashdot submission actually links to, just so you know):
So much for the promises. What makes this story worthy of a blog post is that we now know that, as these promises were be made to NB's, at that same time Ecma was planning something that contradicted their public assurances.
> Here's news for you, and Rob, and everyone else. *NO FAST TRACK ISO STANDARD IS OWNED BY ISO*. Fast tracking, by it's very design, puts the onus on standards maintenance and evolution on the standards body that submits it.
So... Microsoft promised something it knew it wouldn't deliver? Nope. Still not surprised. That doesn't make this any better, and I'm kinda disappointed in anyone who voted for OOXML because of that empty promise, but I'm definitely not surprised. How many people have been burned for trusting Microsoft? Or maybe I should ask, can anyone name a Microsoft "partner" that wasn't left out to dry when things became inconvenient or unprofitable for Microsoft? Yes, yes, even "partners" should expect that. I know that I sure as hell would. But that's why I try to avoid having anything to do with them if possible. I know they'll shaft me for a nickel.
> Rob knows this, but he's being deliberately disingenuous.
More or less disingenuous than someone with a track record of defending Microsoft claiming that Rob shouldn't be "surprised" by this when he's not, but merely calling on Microsoft to fulfill its promise? Disappointed, maybe, but I just don't see the "surprise" because this isn't the first time Microsoft has done something like this by any means.
> By the way, the same is true for ODF. OASIS is the steward for current ODF maintenance and improvement.
Can you point to anywhere where OASIS promised the ISO this control? No? Then then the two issues aren't really comparable, are then? I mean, OASIS can't break a promise they never made. I mean, even if Rob had been surprised by this, do you really think that complaining that someone was surprised that Microsoft lied because they should've somehow expected this is a good thing?
I mean, honestly, what the hell kind of supporters does Microsoft have these days?:]
I'm not a soldier, but I arrived at essentially the same conclusions on my own, right down to writing passwords on a card in your wallet. In fact, I used to teach people that in a local basic computer security awareness class a local library held.
One important thing to note is that you have to be careful about password reuse. Oh, and email, no matter what, should NOT be considered "low security" no matter how boring your private life is because it can often be used as leverage to get more sensitive data. Look at this leak if you want to see the harm losing a simple Gmail account via password reuse can do.
As for the military issues, you have my sympathy. I sincerely wish we had leaders who would tell us "the only thing you have to fear is fear itself" and who would try to calm the public instead of using fear mongering tactics to consolidate political power. Unfortunately, from the responses we've seen over in Boston, I think that the public has been so irrationally terrified at this point that they won't listen any more. Not that I've heard many voices of reason speaking out to begin with, at least on TV.
What really sickens me is that this unrealistic threat evaluation is likely to get nice guys like you killed. I don't envy you:/
Not to respond to myself, but I did forget one thing. Wasn't the Linux kernel recently appraised as being worth $1 billion? How would that look in a headline if we did things their way? "MPAA Infringes Upon $1 Billion in Imaginary Property"?
No, that makes it sound like they photocopied Monopoly money. Hard to make it sound menacing unless you distort language the way they do. "MPAA Steals Property Worth $1 Billion" has more punch to it, but it's just not right. It's filled with the same sort of ridiculous hyperbole I dislike them for propagating.
Well, I'll go with you in saying that, if the allegations are true, they appear to have violated copyright law by breeching their license to distribute (i.e. the GPL), but I don't like distorting my speech to say that they "stole" anything, even if they do have that coming. Though you did say by "their own definition," it's still not a definition I can accept.
That said, I think that'd make the blaggards filthy copyright infringers who deserve to walk the plank. I also think they are hypocrites who obviously don't respect the Imaginary Property rights of others the way they want their own to be respected.
But that's about the best I can do without stooping to their level.
The voice acting in dubs sucks, as a rule, unless they have the budget to hire voice actors. If you watch enough of these things, you learn to appreciate subtitles, because dubs get painful to listen to.
I guess some people can't read quickly enough to pay attention to the action, but I can and I can't stand dubs with the exception of a few that were professionally done. But some people I know really can't manage dubs, and in that person's case, it's pretty much because they're not able to both read and pay attention.
As for me, I don't like dubs at all. And one of these days, I hope to be able to turn the subtitles off, but I'm not quite there just yet.
You've failed to distinguish between attracting attention and attracting attention to something that looks like a bomb.
The former is a perfectly evil way to draw a crowd which does not anticipate danger and hurt them. The latter is a really, really stupid tactic. Even if, for some reason, they were convinced that it would work as a means of reverse psychology, it obviously doesn't. I should also mention that the size and placement of the "devices" guaranteed that they would be useless as weapons. They were far too small to make a dent in the bridges and such they were placed on and they were to high up to be any kind of anti-personnel weapon.
The terrorists may be stupid in their own way, but alas they usually do manage to blow people up when they try to. You don't accomplish that with poor tactics and badly placed bombs. Given how prone people are to panicking these days, I'm just glad the terrorists are apparently too stupid to know how to use that to hurt lots of people. I'm sure as hell not going to tell them.
As we can see from this case and others, alarming the public is a pretty poor standard. Thanks to media fearmongering, they can apparently be alarmed by almost anything.
TFA mentioned something about a project of his where he took news clips to show how the nightly news is constantly doing it. I wish that would get more attention than ATHF which is, as that comment under TFA put it, "the intellectual equivalent of TV static."
I don't know about anyone else, but these days, I'm more worried by media panics than actual terrorists.
Frankly, unless something unlikely happens between now and the election, I think I will be voting for Colbert, even if I have to write in his name. Like you say, it's partly out of protest, but also because through his humor, he's been more honest than any politician will probably ever be.
Besides, the government we have now is such a joke that only a professional comedian could hope to do anything with it.
I don't think they like being called criminals. I think they prefer the title "CEO." Oh, and you don't even have to buy the laws ahead of time any more. These days, they offer retroactive immunity, though it seems to be a little more expensive.
Personally, I always figured that their collapse would come whenever enough disgruntled geeks figure out how to build powerful EMP weapons and where to aim them.
Anyone know where to get really beefy capacitors?:]
Why is it that businesses with poor customer service now seek ways to turn it into a revenue center instead of a cost center?
What sort of greedy bastard do you have to be to look at your "service" and think: "Everybody hates our service... I know! Let's make the service even worse, then charge people if they want us to make even the slightest effort to serve them!"
Here's one of the more interesting quotes from the juror:
Hegg, a married father of two who said he formerly raced snowmobiles, said he has never been on the internet. He said his wife is an administrator at a local hospital and an "internet guru."
I think we can all see the problem here. Anyone in the US who hasn't been on the internet by 2008, well, they have no clue what the hell they're talking about. Also this guy calls her a "liar", while she was off by a year in terms of when she had the HD replaced, she had it replaced *before* the RIAA notified her and the guy who replaced it testified that it was really, honestly broken.
Apparently, there was only one juror who held out for reasonable damages (the $750 minimum) and the $9,250 per song was a compromise.
"I think she thought a jury from Duluth would be naïve. We're not that stupid up here," he said. "I don't know what the fuck she was thinking, to tell you the truth."
Slashdot Mirror
Basically, that sounds like Slashdot tags, but with a little more information about how many people actually tagged a candidate that. I figure that something like that would really confuse some people.
:]
I mean, what would the media think if someone like Hillary Clinton got tagged "mafiaa"?
This is the important part, IMHO. They intend to wait until people have "upgraded" to HDMI before they spring the DRM trap on them. Then again, I'm sure that the pirate copies won't contain any image constraint tokens.
Just what the hell kind of business are they running when "thieves" treat their customers better?
So now that it's non-HTML, I won't be able to Google Microsoft's site to actually find anything any more? Talk about worthless.
And yes, sometimes you do need to browse Microsoft's website from a non-Windows PC. Usually because you're repairing that Windows PC and the non-Windows one is the one that is still working...
> This is a way to make up for the deficiencies of Japan's legal system. Under the present system, people can post anonymously online, often through the "2ch" bulletin board, to make up false accusations about others, post their financial and medical records online, their bank account numbers, spew racist rhetoric, make death threats, etc.
I agree that that's a problem, but why is this the best solution? Don't you think they can do better?
Anonymous posts can be traced if they're bad. Financial and medical records should be protected with privacy laws. Racist rhetoric, well, I think it should be countered by people standing up to them and telling them they're wrong. Death threats should be investigated if there's any reason to believe someone will act on them.
> Japanese courts have shown no interest in enforcing the egregious violations of other people's rights.
I thought the police would do that? And even if it's the court's job in Japan, how will more laws help if they won't enforce the ones you have? Why are these laws the best way to solve the problem?
> At present, there is a whole subculture of professional losers, the "NEETs" in their 20s and 30s who live at home with their parents and don't work, who spend their lives posting this stuff on the web.
I thought you said the people were anonymous. How can you so quickly assign collective blame to one group? What are they, Edo era peasants? What next? Goningumi?
For those wondering, gonigumi were five-family groups. If any group member did something bad, all were punished.
> Yes, and those who do study history are doomed to watch in frustration as it is unwittingly repeated by those who do not :-)
I've also seen it said that "Those who foresee misfortune suffer it twice."
> I know that's moded funny, but that might actually be a very good argument for "open sourcing" movies.
I wouldn't call it "open sourcing" exactly, but let's just say that films won't soon go extinct, at least as long as there are people willing to copy them.
Actually, that's how books survived. The only ancient books we have now are the ones people thought were important enough to copy regularly, plus a few random things that survived for a ridiculously long time.
> specific example?
Protected audio and video paths to prevent things like screenshots and audio capture from the sound card spring to mind first. I imagine there are other things I can't think of right now.
> I agree with you. I get the impression you think i'm a MS apologist. I'm not. This is the main reason I prefer my MacBook.
I started to think that at first, then I read what you wrote a bit more carefully and it became clear that you weren't, you just may not have known all the back room deals Microsoft has done to screw people over. Yeah, it does make me a little biased against them, but it's not without reason.
> Media Center is still fucking slick though. I primarily just use my Vista Ultimate box as a media server for my 360, for Visual Studio, and for games. If I didn't make use of those 4GB RAM, I'd probably consider dropping Vista for XP (there is no XP x64 with Media Center).
I just watch everything on my computer directly *shrug* Never had much reason for media servers and whatnot. Running XP, plotting an eventual migration to Ubuntu right now. Most of my Vista experience comes from repairing it for other people who have been driven insane by it. I found that it was really a PITA to work with and I mostly helped them get "downgrades" to XP, so that probably colors my perception of Vista as well. Then again, I honestly want it to fail horribly, because that should loosen Microsoft's stranglehold on the industry a little bit and I think that can only be a good thing.
> This DRM complaint thing - what's the deal? Vista doesn't prevent you from doing anything XP will let you do. They added the ability to play restricted formats, which simply isn't included at all in XP. If you don't like HD-DVD playback, then don't use it! It's not like MS could have offered it without DRM (and not been sued to high hell). I can still rip DVDs and CDs with aplomb.
:]
And they added extra protections for those formats that impact any ordinary things you're doing in the mean time. It sounds like you're defending it because it's only got "a little" spam in it, but I don't want any spam at all.
Also, I think they went above and beyond here. They eventually want to control the restricted formats, after all, not just play them.
> Its true, but as an IT professional I need to stay current on MS technology, or risk unemployment. At home I use Linux and OSX primarily, though I do play the occasional game on Vista. Hardware though? I don't think Windows restricts your hardware options too much... most stuff works on other OSes too.
Do you not remember winmodems at all? Have you never seen the memo on ACPI where Bill Gates himself wrote that they should define a "standard" that's as hard for Linux to implement as possible? As for "staying current or risking unemployment", well, I admin a line of MS-DOS 6 machines. Yes, you read that correctly. Somehow, this reminds me of the planet ruled by lizards, where it "honestly doesn't occur to them" that they could vote for (support) something else. And while winmodems are all but dead, ACPI troubles (crash on suspend) still plague Linux. Those are by no means the only examples. And when they can do things like this, they will. That's what I hold against them.
> Yeah Windows is pricey at retail, but OEM copies aren't that bad (similar to OSX pricing). I agree, though. I got my copy through our MSDN subscription of course so it doesn't apply to me.
"Not so bad" is hardly a ringing endorsement
> Their standards (un-) support is extremely frustrating, probably my #1 complaint. Also why I have to keep a Windows machine around - to find out how to get everything else to work with it. Did you know they broke CIFS again in Vista/Server 2008? Yup.
It's deliberate. That's what's so galling.
> I use Linux because it's so functional, OSX because its enjoyable, and Windows because I have to.
Now this sounds about right.
Just take a look at this recent opinion piece to MIT's newspaper. Here's a student who believes that "the free flow of information" (as he says twice) is the ultimate good. Lots of students still don't understand why copyright exists.
:] I suggest you think it through a little more. The notion was not formed without the use of rational thought, so an intelligent person like you should be able to understand it... right?
:]
Oh, some of us understand just fine. It's the part where people don't agree with how the law is written or enforced that get you into problem territory.
In fact, some will even try to explain that physical property is the only kind that should have value. It's totally mind-boggling, even when these students are the ones who will be going out and making the next generation of intellectual works.
No, they usually say that IP isn't really property because it's not truly rivalrous. Sure, the law creates rights that are in rivalrous in an artificial way, but you can have two people listen to the same tune whereas two people can't eat the same grape. You may have heard people refer to IP as "imaginary property" recently. It's not because they don't know what IP is supposed to stand for, but because they don't agree with it.
It's totally mind-boggling, even when these students are the ones who will be going out and making the next generation of intellectual works.
Mind-boggling? That sounds more like a statement of ignorance to me. I don't have any trouble understanding why they'd think that, nor do I have trouble understanding those with views like yours. When I hear that something is "mind-boggling" I usually find out that people are trying to ascribe intelligence to something (or someone) that lacks it, or that they haven't thought something through. In this case, it would appear to be the latter.
Even the GPL and all copyleft mechanisms rely on copyright laws. If people want their wishes as content creators to be respected (whether that is to allow some forms of redistribution, like CC-NC, or not, like "All rights reserved"), they need to respect copyright law and not subvert it.
The GPL IS a subversion of copyright law after a fashion. RMS wrote against that notion that we need copyright because it's used to enforce the GPL quite specifically in one of his essays (yes, you can't enforce the GPL without copyright law, but you don't really need it, either). You might want to talk to the man who wrote it before you make claims like that. I did. [1]
Anyhow, to get back on topic, I don't see how you can say that not supporting copyright law makes them an infringer. I also don't think that that essay you linked to was written out of ignorance. It's written because people are fed up with this crap.
Perhaps you haven't yet realized this, but the more laws we make, the more criminals there are. Obviously, the more we criminalize the things people are already doing, the more people who are going to break them. And you can't have fewer than zero people breaking a law, so adding to the laws will certainly never create fewer criminals. The point isn't the ridiculous notion that we could just abolish all laws and have "zero" criminals. Some things, after all, are worth the cost of criminalizing them. But it's a mistake to think that laws are without cost. And here, a reasonable person can make the case that we're simply better off if we don't criminalize something, whether or not we like or agree with it.
Of course, you seem to find that "mind-boggling"
[1] To prove it, I'll point out that I also read the confusing words manifesto. Whereas RMS would like us all to stop using the word, I have chosen to subvert it with the term "Imaginary Property" not unlike how RMS chose to subvert copyright with the GPL rather than hoping to abolish it. RMS disagrees with me about that term, BTW, in that it still lumps together at least three disparate areas of law, but you'd have a hard time finding someone with whom he agrees about everything
> Nobody voted thinking ISO would control it. If they did, then they have no business voting in the first place.
I thought blaming victims went out of vogue a long time ago, but insofar as that can be read to say that trusting Microsoft is naive, I can agree.
> Whether or not MS made comments that could be interpreted as "promises" is irrelevant. Rob knew all along that ISO would not control a Fast Tracked standard, and if he had problems with MS statements, he should have called them on those statements at the time they were made, not waiting until he could pull a strawman out of his ass.
One generally calls someone out for breaking a promise AFTER they break it. Although I will admit that you make a good point that it would be more efficient to call Microsoft out for breaking them beforehand, given the previous line.
> I don't interpret any of the statements that Rob (taken out of context, of course) offers as promises of an ISO control, but rather that ISO "locks in" a given set of documentation as a standard. ISO can then control whether changes that are submitted later continue to be part of the standard or not.
That level of control can hardly be considered meaningful. But meaningless token gestures are par for the course, I suppose.
> What Rob wants to FUD by insinuation (knowing full well that this isn't the case) is that Microsoft will somehow, miraculously be able to change the standard at their whim after it's been ratified. That's simply not the case.
Actually, I'm much more worried that they'll leave it as-is. If I thought they were going to rush out a fixed version that dropped all application-defined behaviors, used or at least supported existing standards, killed all legacy bugs and was truly open, I would support that.
> Even though Microsoft will be responsible for any maintenance or evolution of the format, ISO still controls what is called an ISO standard or not. If ISO says "no" to a change, it doesn't make it into a later version of the standard. That's all there is to it.
I have a hard time seeing why it would be meaningful to promise that ISO gets to control what's called an ISO standard. One might think that that was their purpose. But I suppose I already addressed meaningless token gestures.
> Anti-women supporters? What are you talking about?
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They're supporters that look exactly like normal women, but explode in a burst of gamma radiation when they come into contact with a woman. Probably a lot like your typical Digg user
> Nobody should be surprised by this, much less Rob Weir. He feigns surprise and acts like this is a shocking development.
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He does? I didn't see any "surprise" in there. I saw him saying that Microsoft promised that the ISO would get this control and then went back on its promise. You'll forgive me if I don't find that surprising.
From what Rob Weir wrote, as quoted on Groklaw (which, BTW, is what the Slashdot submission actually links to, just so you know):
So much for the promises. What makes this story worthy of a blog post is that we now know that, as these promises were be made to NB's, at that same time Ecma was planning something that contradicted their public assurances.
> Here's news for you, and Rob, and everyone else. *NO FAST TRACK ISO STANDARD IS OWNED BY ISO*. Fast tracking, by it's very design, puts the onus on standards maintenance and evolution on the standards body that submits it.
So... Microsoft promised something it knew it wouldn't deliver? Nope. Still not surprised. That doesn't make this any better, and I'm kinda disappointed in anyone who voted for OOXML because of that empty promise, but I'm definitely not surprised. How many people have been burned for trusting Microsoft? Or maybe I should ask, can anyone name a Microsoft "partner" that wasn't left out to dry when things became inconvenient or unprofitable for Microsoft? Yes, yes, even "partners" should expect that. I know that I sure as hell would. But that's why I try to avoid having anything to do with them if possible. I know they'll shaft me for a nickel.
> Rob knows this, but he's being deliberately disingenuous.
More or less disingenuous than someone with a track record of defending Microsoft claiming that Rob shouldn't be "surprised" by this when he's not, but merely calling on Microsoft to fulfill its promise? Disappointed, maybe, but I just don't see the "surprise" because this isn't the first time Microsoft has done something like this by any means.
> By the way, the same is true for ODF. OASIS is the steward for current ODF maintenance and improvement.
Can you point to anywhere where OASIS promised the ISO this control? No? Then then the two issues aren't really comparable, are then? I mean, OASIS can't break a promise they never made. I mean, even if Rob had been surprised by this, do you really think that complaining that someone was surprised that Microsoft lied because they should've somehow expected this is a good thing?
I mean, honestly, what the hell kind of supporters does Microsoft have these days?
I'm not a soldier, but I arrived at essentially the same conclusions on my own, right down to writing passwords on a card in your wallet. In fact, I used to teach people that in a local basic computer security awareness class a local library held.
:/
One important thing to note is that you have to be careful about password reuse. Oh, and email, no matter what, should NOT be considered "low security" no matter how boring your private life is because it can often be used as leverage to get more sensitive data. Look at this leak if you want to see the harm losing a simple Gmail account via password reuse can do.
As for the military issues, you have my sympathy. I sincerely wish we had leaders who would tell us "the only thing you have to fear is fear itself" and who would try to calm the public instead of using fear mongering tactics to consolidate political power. Unfortunately, from the responses we've seen over in Boston, I think that the public has been so irrationally terrified at this point that they won't listen any more. Not that I've heard many voices of reason speaking out to begin with, at least on TV.
What really sickens me is that this unrealistic threat evaluation is likely to get nice guys like you killed. I don't envy you
Not to respond to myself, but I did forget one thing. Wasn't the Linux kernel recently appraised as being worth $1 billion? How would that look in a headline if we did things their way? "MPAA Infringes Upon $1 Billion in Imaginary Property"?
No, that makes it sound like they photocopied Monopoly money. Hard to make it sound menacing unless you distort language the way they do. "MPAA Steals Property Worth $1 Billion" has more punch to it, but it's just not right. It's filled with the same sort of ridiculous hyperbole I dislike them for propagating.
Well, I'll go with you in saying that, if the allegations are true, they appear to have violated copyright law by breeching their license to distribute (i.e. the GPL), but I don't like distorting my speech to say that they "stole" anything, even if they do have that coming. Though you did say by "their own definition," it's still not a definition I can accept.
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That said, I think that'd make the blaggards filthy copyright infringers who deserve to walk the plank. I also think they are hypocrites who obviously don't respect the Imaginary Property rights of others the way they want their own to be respected.
But that's about the best I can do without stooping to their level.
I just can't go that low, sorry
The voice acting in dubs sucks, as a rule, unless they have the budget to hire voice actors. If you watch enough of these things, you learn to appreciate subtitles, because dubs get painful to listen to.
I guess some people can't read quickly enough to pay attention to the action, but I can and I can't stand dubs with the exception of a few that were professionally done. But some people I know really can't manage dubs, and in that person's case, it's pretty much because they're not able to both read and pay attention.
As for me, I don't like dubs at all. And one of these days, I hope to be able to turn the subtitles off, but I'm not quite there just yet.
You've failed to distinguish between attracting attention and attracting attention to something that looks like a bomb.
The former is a perfectly evil way to draw a crowd which does not anticipate danger and hurt them. The latter is a really, really stupid tactic. Even if, for some reason, they were convinced that it would work as a means of reverse psychology, it obviously doesn't. I should also mention that the size and placement of the "devices" guaranteed that they would be useless as weapons. They were far too small to make a dent in the bridges and such they were placed on and they were to high up to be any kind of anti-personnel weapon.
The terrorists may be stupid in their own way, but alas they usually do manage to blow people up when they try to. You don't accomplish that with poor tactics and badly placed bombs. Given how prone people are to panicking these days, I'm just glad the terrorists are apparently too stupid to know how to use that to hurt lots of people. I'm sure as hell not going to tell them.
As we can see from this case and others, alarming the public is a pretty poor standard. Thanks to media fearmongering, they can apparently be alarmed by almost anything.
TFA mentioned something about a project of his where he took news clips to show how the nightly news is constantly doing it. I wish that would get more attention than ATHF which is, as that comment under TFA put it, "the intellectual equivalent of TV static."
I don't know about anyone else, but these days, I'm more worried by media panics than actual terrorists.
Frankly, unless something unlikely happens between now and the election, I think I will be voting for Colbert, even if I have to write in his name. Like you say, it's partly out of protest, but also because through his humor, he's been more honest than any politician will probably ever be.
Besides, the government we have now is such a joke that only a professional comedian could hope to do anything with it.
I don't think they like being called criminals. I think they prefer the title "CEO." Oh, and you don't even have to buy the laws ahead of time any more. These days, they offer retroactive immunity, though it seems to be a little more expensive.
Personally, I always figured that their collapse would come whenever enough disgruntled geeks figure out how to build powerful EMP weapons and where to aim them.
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Anyone know where to get really beefy capacitors?
Dammit! Where was Stallman's katana? People even sent him a katana for situations EXACTLY like this one!
It just goes to show you what happens when you go around unprepared for ninjas. What next? Will he be caught flat-footed during a raptor attack?
Why is it that businesses with poor customer service now seek ways to turn it into a revenue center instead of a cost center?
What sort of greedy bastard do you have to be to look at your "service" and think: "Everybody hates our service... I know! Let's make the service even worse, then charge people if they want us to make even the slightest effort to serve them!"
I think we can all see the problem here. Anyone in the US who hasn't been on the internet by 2008, well, they have no clue what the hell they're talking about. Also this guy calls her a "liar", while she was off by a year in terms of when she had the HD replaced, she had it replaced *before* the RIAA notified her and the guy who replaced it testified that it was really, honestly broken.
Apparently, there was only one juror who held out for reasonable damages (the $750 minimum) and the $9,250 per song was a compromise.
Naïve? No. Ignorant? Yes.
At least she plans to appeal.
NewYorkCountryLawyer (912032) - New York City, NY, US
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It's the one I wish I could go to