Note that Iceland is not part of the EU. This is a very small island with an incredible amount of common sense : They have sane privacy laws, they refuse to bail banks out and they understand that wikileaks is regular journalism. All the geeks of the world should migrate to this 300 000 persons island...
They don't even manage to find the funds for a maglev line between Shanghai and Beijing. I don't see anyone building a vacuum maglev line anytime soon over a meaningful distance. There is a construction cost and a maintenance cost that is proportional to the line's length, and of course, a minimum distance is required for people to accept the price difference (you usually don't pay twice the price to go twice as fast on an otherwise 10 minutes trip). The direct competition for this is the construction of two airport and maintenance of airliners. In 2012, that is the cheapest option, even with fuel prices going up.
Yes, ad a non-American I feel this way too. Considering that Flame seems to be a governmental virus too, presumably from USA, it asks the question : On the 28 certificates, how many were handled from Microsoft to the Flame writers through a secret deal or through classic corruption ?
Nowadays, it sounds more and more reasonable to assume that Windows with any kind of auto updating is rootable by the CIA. I do not want that, and that will effectively force me to have a redundancy of computers. I doubt that dual-booting, even with encrypted partitions, is an effective protection.
In a modern democracy, the executive branch and the legislative branch are supposed to be separate. The regulations are not made by the people who enforces them. This is the basis of "how not to be a dictatoriship 101". It really is so twisted that you think that a profit motive is some kind of control...
I don't see any obvious conflict of interest. Here (France) the government decided that nuclear energy generation was a too serious business to let private companies do it with, IMHO, good arguments, and they stepped in. Areva is a very successful and efficient company.
The goal of the government is not to make money (well, it is not the primary goal) with it. The goal is to achieve energy independence, to control a strategic infrastructure, to finance research in nuclear processes and to prevent nuclear traffic.
I agree that private companies do some things better than governments, but it is precisely when it is not the case (as in this example : long term planning and prevention of low probability accidents) that the government needs to take the relay.
And why on earth would be employees of a government-owned company be less liable than a privately-owned one ? Public companies are attacked in courts as well. And corrupt political influence tend to protect (illegally) both public and private companies.
This argument has always fascinated me. Why is it so foreign, in US, that the government may own and operate a large public company with a legally enforced monopoly? Why is it that "governmental action" seem to always be understood as "let's pay a private company to do our job"?
Giving that for free is not a viable business model for media industries. I agree. Where can I go to have the same kind of exhaustiveness and pay the price ? Nowhere. That's my point.
Congratulation, media industries : you clearly made your point : innovation in media content distribution will not be tolerated, even if it is done according to the laws.
If you were not already boycotting the people behind this, I think you can begin now.
C is useful when you want a compiler that optimizes your code but not so much that you can't control what happens on the byte scale. Nowadays, it is mainly for drivers and embedded software. C is a bit harder to use, but fast, small, concise, and close to the hardware will still keeping a decent amount of portability.
There are 2 major operating systems (Windows and Macs. Linux/Unix isn't a big desktop OS in most companies), and 3 major web browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome). Both the OSes and browsers have multiple versions with different features sets/bugs. I really don't see a single advantage web apps have over desktop applications. Why do people develop enterprise web apps?
Actually, nowadays, you have 4 major operating systems : Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS. They are mainly incompatible between them for no good technical reason. This is all business. Technically it would be very easy for them to conform to some APIs, to publish specifications and make it easy to write cross-platform applications.
It is interesting that web development's big edge today is not in accessing remote content but in providing a compatibility layers on for platforms that do their best to avoid being compatible.
Once again, millions of man hours will be wasted solving a completely man-made problem...
As for "economic notions", in a truly free market no monopoly lasts forever because new competitors rise-up and take it away.
The thing is, because they can prevent exactly that, that's why monopolies are generally considered an undesirable side-effect of free market. A sufficiently big actor can actively prevent a new entrant inside a market. If it was not forbidden, Microsoft would be forbidding OpenOffice and LibreOffice to run under windows, would prevent any other browser than IE and any other web search engine than Bing. Things are even worse in fields where there is a huge initial investment to enter the market.
Subpoena ? That's sooo 2001 ! Just label me soft-terrorist, extradite me to US and send me directly to Guantanamo ! I always wanted to meet Assange anyway...
That is called "abuse of dominant position". I'm sorry these laws are inconvenient, but I thought it was fairly well admitted that monopolies are a bad thing for the economy, or is that another common sense economic notion that is now labelled "socialo-communist" ?
Why ? Why do you need Google to know your location to find the recipe of chop suey ? Why do you need to give all the phone numbers of your friends to install Skype. This is not a question of feature, do not believe this lie. this is a question of control and there are actually very few features that require you to hand control over anyone else.
The Tor project is designing ways to pass Tor in what looks like regular https traffic. It won't help North Koreans, but it does help (right now) Chinese people.
No one is asking, but I am answering it nonetheless because it seems quite important to me and used to be the first question Slashdotters would have on such a subject : Are the data public ? The answer is no. They are subjected to a license that is fairly permissive. Here is the core :
Any of your use of the data and tools (including creation of derivative works of the data and tools) must be for noncommercial use unless otherwise agreed to by the Allen Institute;
Your use must be in accordance with the Freedom to Innovate section below, which generally prohibits you from obtaining intellectual property rights that would limit the Allen Instituteâ(TM)s freedom to continue innovation; and
If you use the data and tools provided by the Allen Institute, you must follow the citation policy in these Terms or, if your use is not specifically described in the citation policy, provide proper attribution of the source.
A perfect hash suppose that the space of your hash's result is as big as the space of your possible input. In practice, we tend to want a much smaller hash space. If your hash function never makes collision, your hash table is probably very inefficient (or possibly very small)
I wish they would lose users because of their stupid practice, but I don't think that anyone left on facebook today would leave even if Facebook employees came to pee on their lawn and steal their dog.
While I agree that in an ideal world drug research would be publicly funded, I am proposing an arrangement to make it work with private funds. The question is not whether private or public entity are better suited, it is about how to make an efficient system emerge from just IP laws.
For movies, I agree that Hollywood accounting is in the realm of the absurd (IIRC Peter Jackson is in court because the producer says LOTR did not turn any profit, so that they don't have to pay him extras) but that doesn't change the fact that movie production has costs that movie copying has not. However, the period of exploitation of a movie is usually very short. 10 years is far enough for that.
We agreee that both industries have huge imperfections and need massive changes to become ideal. But if we can only change IP laws, what I propose seem the most sensible thing to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Note that Iceland is not part of the EU. This is a very small island with an incredible amount of common sense : They have sane privacy laws, they refuse to bail banks out and they understand that wikileaks is regular journalism. All the geeks of the world should migrate to this 300 000 persons island...
They don't even manage to find the funds for a maglev line between Shanghai and Beijing. I don't see anyone building a vacuum maglev line anytime soon over a meaningful distance. There is a construction cost and a maintenance cost that is proportional to the line's length, and of course, a minimum distance is required for people to accept the price difference (you usually don't pay twice the price to go twice as fast on an otherwise 10 minutes trip). The direct competition for this is the construction of two airport and maintenance of airliners. In 2012, that is the cheapest option, even with fuel prices going up.
As long as they will insist on negotiating without transparency, it will be fair to criticize the process and to base our opinion on leaks.
Countering it would be easy : be open ! Is it that hard to understand ?
Not all encryptions are key based.
Yes, ad a non-American I feel this way too. Considering that Flame seems to be a governmental virus too, presumably from USA, it asks the question : On the 28 certificates, how many were handled from Microsoft to the Flame writers through a secret deal or through classic corruption ?
Nowadays, it sounds more and more reasonable to assume that Windows with any kind of auto updating is rootable by the CIA. I do not want that, and that will effectively force me to have a redundancy of computers. I doubt that dual-booting, even with encrypted partitions, is an effective protection.
In a modern democracy, the executive branch and the legislative branch are supposed to be separate. The regulations are not made by the people who enforces them. This is the basis of "how not to be a dictatoriship 101". It really is so twisted that you think that a profit motive is some kind of control...
I don't see any obvious conflict of interest. Here (France) the government decided that nuclear energy generation was a too serious business to let private companies do it with, IMHO, good arguments, and they stepped in. Areva is a very successful and efficient company.
The goal of the government is not to make money (well, it is not the primary goal) with it. The goal is to achieve energy independence, to control a strategic infrastructure, to finance research in nuclear processes and to prevent nuclear traffic.
I agree that private companies do some things better than governments, but it is precisely when it is not the case (as in this example : long term planning and prevention of low probability accidents) that the government needs to take the relay.
And why on earth would be employees of a government-owned company be less liable than a privately-owned one ? Public companies are attacked in courts as well. And corrupt political influence tend to protect (illegally) both public and private companies.
This argument has always fascinated me. Why is it so foreign, in US, that the government may own and operate a large public company with a legally enforced monopoly? Why is it that "governmental action" seem to always be understood as "let's pay a private company to do our job"?
... but they began to hate it too : image
Giving that for free is not a viable business model for media industries. I agree. Where can I go to have the same kind of exhaustiveness and pay the price ? Nowhere. That's my point.
Congratulation, media industries : you clearly made your point : innovation in media content distribution will not be tolerated, even if it is done according to the laws.
If you were not already boycotting the people behind this, I think you can begin now.
C is useful when you want a compiler that optimizes your code but not so much that you can't control what happens on the byte scale. Nowadays, it is mainly for drivers and embedded software. C is a bit harder to use, but fast, small, concise, and close to the hardware will still keeping a decent amount of portability.
There are 2 major operating systems (Windows and Macs. Linux/Unix isn't a big desktop OS in most companies), and 3 major web browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome). Both the OSes and browsers have multiple versions with different features sets/bugs. I really don't see a single advantage web apps have over desktop applications. Why do people develop enterprise web apps?
Actually, nowadays, you have 4 major operating systems : Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS. They are mainly incompatible between them for no good technical reason. This is all business. Technically it would be very easy for them to conform to some APIs, to publish specifications and make it easy to write cross-platform applications.
It is really depressing.
It is interesting that web development's big edge today is not in accessing remote content but in providing a compatibility layers on for platforms that do their best to avoid being compatible.
Once again, millions of man hours will be wasted solving a completely man-made problem...
As for "economic notions", in a truly free market no monopoly lasts forever because new competitors rise-up and take it away.
The thing is, because they can prevent exactly that, that's why monopolies are generally considered an undesirable side-effect of free market. A sufficiently big actor can actively prevent a new entrant inside a market. If it was not forbidden, Microsoft would be forbidding OpenOffice and LibreOffice to run under windows, would prevent any other browser than IE and any other web search engine than Bing. Things are even worse in fields where there is a huge initial investment to enter the market.
Subpoena ? That's sooo 2001 ! Just label me soft-terrorist, extradite me to US and send me directly to Guantanamo ! I always wanted to meet Assange anyway...
I stay in France.
True story.
That is called "abuse of dominant position". I'm sorry these laws are inconvenient, but I thought it was fairly well admitted that monopolies are a bad thing for the economy, or is that another common sense economic notion that is now labelled "socialo-communist" ?
Why ? Why do you need Google to know your location to find the recipe of chop suey ? Why do you need to give all the phone numbers of your friends to install Skype. This is not a question of feature, do not believe this lie. this is a question of control and there are actually very few features that require you to hand control over anyone else.
The Tor project is designing ways to pass Tor in what looks like regular https traffic. It won't help North Koreans, but it does help (right now) Chinese people.
Any of your use of the data and tools (including creation of derivative works of the data and tools) must be for noncommercial use unless otherwise agreed to by the Allen Institute;
Your use must be in accordance with the Freedom to Innovate section below, which generally prohibits you from obtaining intellectual property rights that would limit the Allen Instituteâ(TM)s freedom to continue innovation; and
If you use the data and tools provided by the Allen Institute, you must follow the citation policy in these Terms or, if your use is not specifically described in the citation policy, provide proper attribution of the source.
A perfect hash suppose that the space of your hash's result is as big as the space of your possible input. In practice, we tend to want a much smaller hash space. If your hash function never makes collision, your hash table is probably very inefficient (or possibly very small)
I don't know if this is the case in US, but in France I have been told to use big-O for worst case costs and small-O for average cost.
I wish they would lose users because of their stupid practice, but I don't think that anyone left on facebook today would leave even if Facebook employees came to pee on their lawn and steal their dog.
While I agree that in an ideal world drug research would be publicly funded, I am proposing an arrangement to make it work with private funds. The question is not whether private or public entity are better suited, it is about how to make an efficient system emerge from just IP laws.
For movies, I agree that Hollywood accounting is in the realm of the absurd (IIRC Peter Jackson is in court because the producer says LOTR did not turn any profit, so that they don't have to pay him extras) but that doesn't change the fact that movie production has costs that movie copying has not. However, the period of exploitation of a movie is usually very short. 10 years is far enough for that.
We agreee that both industries have huge imperfections and need massive changes to become ideal. But if we can only change IP laws, what I propose seem the most sensible thing to do.