It was not a big deal, just a little wrong but almost to the level of nitpicking. Still good that it got spotted and reverted. It is ok to photoshop ads picture but pictures from news reports are another thing entirely.
I have been spending time helping the French PP and now I see "details" that make the political game very different:
- to get a representative in the national assembly, you have to get 50% in one local region, no proportionality is used.
- we have to print all the ballots and posters by yourself and will only get reimbursed by the government if you get 5% of voices (as opposed to 0.7% in Germany for instance)
- in Sweden you are a young population, you indeed have a lot of broadband, and you are home of the pirate bay. Plus, I believe that the two main parties in Sweden are equally dumb regarding IT laws. Here the Green party (3rd one in the latest elections) has integrated most of our important propositions and the Parti Socialiste (2nd one) has a somehow friendly position toward us (even though I do not believe them to have fully grasped the situation).
- to finance the party, we have to get a financial experts that costs a lot every year. That is a big spending for a small party.
Political conditions doesn't explain everything. The typical French tendency to endlessly transform every practical discussion into a political debate doesn't help. The fact that several associations defending the same goals exist and do not stand each other is also a (very stupid and very important) factor. And also the fact that we ended up with a "leftist" label despite fighting it made our position counter-productive : we are talking votes from competitors of the most dangerous party (Sarkozy's). If we become a bit bigger, it would even be in their interest to make a new stupid law in order to grow our ranks at the expense of the parti socialiste and the green party.
And IP address proof of identity. When I heard that, I felt SO tempted to find out what IP Adresses are used at the Elysee Palace and write a little tool that spoofs said IP adresses in an attempt to download copyrighted material. Here, look, Monsigneur petit Napoleon left his calling card, could we please arrest him for copyright infringement?
Do you think that a single French hacker did not think about it ? We told them this would happen when they discussed the laws and now this is happening thanks to scripts which seed erroneous addresses into bittorrent. Actually, the Elysée has been doing piracy of the worst kind : they took a news report, added the Elysee logo, burnt it on about 500 DVDs and handled it to guests without any sort of authorization.
Well it depends on you for a big part : http://www.pp-international.net/
Sweden has exceptional political conditions. Germany is coming up to speed. But tentative national pirate parties exist in many countries.
I live in France so software patents, in theory, do not exist. But I have American and Japanese clients. What happens then ?
I offer (freely) some web services like IRC or forums. If someone infringes a silly law from a silly country by saying something illegal in either the country I live in, the country where the server is located or the country where the user is, how are the responsibilities split ?
Some of the code I develop at my work is open source (BSD). But BSD has no French translations and no transcription for French law. Cecil-B can work, but French copyright laws are subtly different from Americans', and the legality of viral open source licenses is an open debate here (no one cared about making a simple and quick law to clearly state they are legal).
We have a silly law named HADOPI that create an offense of "non-securization of an internet terminal" with very vague terms that don't really explain how to comply.
My biggest problem, in definitive, is that the law of my country is unadapted, inapplicable, written by persons who dismissed experts' advices. As a result, and being a law-abiding person, I tried to write to representatives and journalists, I joined the local pirate party that was mainly made from people with a technical background that understood the law were silly. But I quit as this was taking more time than coding. So now it is a matter of choice between being up-to-date with the latest sillinesses or coding interesting and useful stuff. I chose the latter, knowing that the clown-hammer of law is suspended over my head and that I am probably in a gray zone. Being legally safe is a luxury I can not afford but I do not wish to surrender to the Legalausaurus Rex. I put the little faith I still have in humanity in the hope that when the silliness of the current laws will be obvious (it is forbidden to be infected by virus ! An IP address is a proof of identity ! Linux is illegal !) they will be corrected.
Well, it should hurt Windows when the consumer wants Word and realize it doesn't come with Windows. And it should really hurt windows when a grand-dad like mine wants to install something, must download it, retrieve it, install it by clicking on randome buttons guessing answers. With Ubuntu, you have to learn once how to install a software, and then it is all the same.
Take a respected science publication. Take "Nature" if you wish. From 2008. Count how many of the reputable, scientific publications there have been contradicted since then. 3000 pages of science without mistakes, without errors are not 3000 pages of up-to-date science. Having just two mistakes in the report is actually incredible. I am sure we will find more, this is an ongoing work. Misquotes, honest but dumb errors, happen to very good scientists. Being a top scientist doesn't mean you don't make mistake, but that you correct them when they are pointed out, even if it means questioning your basic premises.
Does the errors about glaciers ice loss question the existence of climate change ? No. Was this ever considered ? Hell yes. Actually, when one reads the actual IPCC report, you would see that it is far from alarming. I used to be a "soft denier" when I discovered that much of my claims were already there. The rise is small and slow, the link to human activity is credible but a lot of uncertainty factors are underlined, the rise being a long term natural cycle is not ruled out, etc...
The warming is not an invention. First measures apparently were a bit too high and over-estimated the rise. They have been corrected since and a rise is still present. I pity climatologists. They are trying to do good science in a very heavy political context. That must be very hard.
Well, when it was worth trying to do that with a reputable newspaper like the Times. Here in France, the most popular newspaper (Le Monde) did the opposite : they gave their article for free on their website and while the website is popular, the newspaper is bankrupt and is being sold.
I like Murdoch as much as the next geek, but news reporting is still in search for a business model on the web.
Malaria causes about 250 million cases of fever and approximately one million deaths annually. The vast majority of cases occur in children under 5 years old.
Why should I buy a device that has a time bomb built in that may trip if the official software gets corrupted due to a bug?
You shouldn't
Why do hardware companies think they should have the right to own the device forever?
Because you still bought it.
Note : 'you' is a figure of style of course, apparently Coopjust has enough sense not to fall for this but seriously, most people complaining today about not having the benefits of openness and transparency now are the same who were mocking them a few years ago.
Ok, that's it. I'll stop pretend I'm a programmer, instead I'll become an IT lawyer:
Boss : can you make the computer do that ?
IT lawyer : Ok, I'll plead your case but I can't guarantee anything.
Boss : Uh ?
IT lawyer ; and maybe you'll have to pay for some court expenses.
Boss : Can't we talk about that ?
IT lawyer : at a rate of 100$/hour we can do all the meetings you want.
I like the XKCD foras. People have insightful discussion about interesting topics. This subject is long and complicated and a lot of things need consideration. Here are two links for people wanting to go a bit more in depth (be warned : the first is a 20 pages discussion, the second one is a 2 pages discussion forking from the first): Let's talk about energy production ICE, Hybrid, and EV: A discussion of the merits
And if I made elaborate, I would add "you have computr,s internet, cheap storage, web servers. We like crunchy data. Give us to them. Use "share-alike" licences and you will see the community helping you !"
I have been working enough with video acquisition hardware to be able to telle the difference between 30 Hz and 60 Hz. It isn't that easy to tell but it is possible. Some colleagues had more difficulties though. It is easy to debunk with a double-blind experience though : buy a PS3 eye webcam. It can do real 60 fps and 30 fps. Make a software start a video at random in one mode or the other, and see if people claiming to see a difference can spot it.
People may have a hard time seeing something occuring in less than 1/30th of second, but an animation that goes at 30 or 60 Hz, especially a fast moving object (wave your arm in front of the camera) results in a different kind of motion blur in the eye. One looks more discontinued than the other.
Oh yeah, and you capitalist pigs don't have your own paid citizens that break havocs in our internet ? So tell me, what is this 4chan thing ? Why would people behave in such a way if they were not paid ? heh ?
Well I have heard of a jewerely that failed because of robbery.
I write music for a living...I should only get paid for the first copy sold?
Should or should not is not the question. The question is whether or not you can control the copies of your work that is made. The technical answer being no, it sounds logical to try find a system where, indeed, your revenue stream does not depend on the number of copies in circulation.
Because, obviously, the average user who apparently is not able to read a warning on his computer screen is likely to go look for information on security blogs...
Actually, I use the following workaround : when making a buying decision, all things being equal, consider the brand, and consider that the brand you have the less heard about is the one to pick. My advice in this situation is to avoid any product or brand you know the slogan of (worse : you know the way to *sing* their slogan). If you can't neutralize the effect of advertisements, negate it...
In France, like 20 years ago, a big scandal erupted because of this kind of issue : contaminated blood was being used in transfusion with the knowledge of a lot of people. They tried to shut down leaks but in the end, many people had to resign on some had to go to jail.
The title and most of the commentaries so far are humorous but I think it fails to acknowledge how much a good idea this is. Obviously, anyone with basic marketing commonsense will not call it a "meat house" but something like "organic house". I don't see the interest of using meat cells, but I would love to GM trees growing to become rooms, hallways, stairs...
That would be far more easy to sell and make accept.
Slashdot Mirror
It was not a big deal, just a little wrong but almost to the level of nitpicking. Still good that it got spotted and reverted. It is ok to photoshop ads picture but pictures from news reports are another thing entirely.
I have been spending time helping the French PP and now I see "details" that make the political game very different :
- to get a representative in the national assembly, you have to get 50% in one local region, no proportionality is used.
- we have to print all the ballots and posters by yourself and will only get reimbursed by the government if you get 5% of voices (as opposed to 0.7% in Germany for instance)
- in Sweden you are a young population, you indeed have a lot of broadband, and you are home of the pirate bay. Plus, I believe that the two main parties in Sweden are equally dumb regarding IT laws. Here the Green party (3rd one in the latest elections) has integrated most of our important propositions and the Parti Socialiste (2nd one) has a somehow friendly position toward us (even though I do not believe them to have fully grasped the situation).
- to finance the party, we have to get a financial experts that costs a lot every year. That is a big spending for a small party.
Political conditions doesn't explain everything. The typical French tendency to endlessly transform every practical discussion into a political debate doesn't help. The fact that several associations defending the same goals exist and do not stand each other is also a (very stupid and very important) factor. And also the fact that we ended up with a "leftist" label despite fighting it made our position counter-productive : we are talking votes from competitors of the most dangerous party (Sarkozy's). If we become a bit bigger, it would even be in their interest to make a new stupid law in order to grow our ranks at the expense of the parti socialiste and the green party.
And IP address proof of identity. When I heard that, I felt SO tempted to find out what IP Adresses are used at the Elysee Palace and write a little tool that spoofs said IP adresses in an attempt to download copyrighted material. Here, look, Monsigneur petit Napoleon left his calling card, could we please arrest him for copyright infringement?
Do you think that a single French hacker did not think about it ? We told them this would happen when they discussed the laws and now this is happening thanks to scripts which seed erroneous addresses into bittorrent. Actually, the Elysée has been doing piracy of the worst kind : they took a news report, added the Elysee logo, burnt it on about 500 DVDs and handled it to guests without any sort of authorization.
Well it depends on you for a big part : http://www.pp-international.net/
Sweden has exceptional political conditions. Germany is coming up to speed. But tentative national pirate parties exist in many countries.
I live in France so software patents, in theory, do not exist. But I have American and Japanese clients. What happens then ?
I offer (freely) some web services like IRC or forums. If someone infringes a silly law from a silly country by saying something illegal in either the country I live in, the country where the server is located or the country where the user is, how are the responsibilities split ?
Some of the code I develop at my work is open source (BSD). But BSD has no French translations and no transcription for French law. Cecil-B can work, but French copyright laws are subtly different from Americans', and the legality of viral open source licenses is an open debate here (no one cared about making a simple and quick law to clearly state they are legal).
We have a silly law named HADOPI that create an offense of "non-securization of an internet terminal" with very vague terms that don't really explain how to comply.
My biggest problem, in definitive, is that the law of my country is unadapted, inapplicable, written by persons who dismissed experts' advices. As a result, and being a law-abiding person, I tried to write to representatives and journalists, I joined the local pirate party that was mainly made from people with a technical background that understood the law were silly. But I quit as this was taking more time than coding. So now it is a matter of choice between being up-to-date with the latest sillinesses or coding interesting and useful stuff. I chose the latter, knowing that the clown-hammer of law is suspended over my head and that I am probably in a gray zone. Being legally safe is a luxury I can not afford but I do not wish to surrender to the Legalausaurus Rex. I put the little faith I still have in humanity in the hope that when the silliness of the current laws will be obvious (it is forbidden to be infected by virus ! An IP address is a proof of identity ! Linux is illegal !) they will be corrected.
Well, it should hurt Windows when the consumer wants Word and realize it doesn't come with Windows. And it should really hurt windows when a grand-dad like mine wants to install something, must download it, retrieve it, install it by clicking on randome buttons guessing answers. With Ubuntu, you have to learn once how to install a software, and then it is all the same.
Take a respected science publication. Take "Nature" if you wish. From 2008. Count how many of the reputable, scientific publications there have been contradicted since then. 3000 pages of science without mistakes, without errors are not 3000 pages of up-to-date science. Having just two mistakes in the report is actually incredible. I am sure we will find more, this is an ongoing work. Misquotes, honest but dumb errors, happen to very good scientists. Being a top scientist doesn't mean you don't make mistake, but that you correct them when they are pointed out, even if it means questioning your basic premises.
Does the errors about glaciers ice loss question the existence of climate change ? No. Was this ever considered ? Hell yes. Actually, when one reads the actual IPCC report, you would see that it is far from alarming. I used to be a "soft denier" when I discovered that much of my claims were already there. The rise is small and slow, the link to human activity is credible but a lot of uncertainty factors are underlined, the rise being a long term natural cycle is not ruled out, etc...
The warming is not an invention. First measures apparently were a bit too high and over-estimated the rise. They have been corrected since and a rise is still present. I pity climatologists. They are trying to do good science in a very heavy political context. That must be very hard.
And that damn sentence is too long for slashdot's sigs system !
Well, she was dating a rapist, for a start...
Well, when it was worth trying to do that with a reputable newspaper like the Times. Here in France, the most popular newspaper (Le Monde) did the opposite : they gave their article for free on their website and while the website is popular, the newspaper is bankrupt and is being sold.
I like Murdoch as much as the next geek, but news reporting is still in search for a business model on the web.
Malaria causes about 250 million cases of fever and approximately one million deaths annually. The vast majority of cases occur in children under 5 years old.
Hehe, LOL, what can I say ?
Why should I buy a device that has a time bomb built in that may trip if the official software gets corrupted due to a bug?
You shouldn't
Why do hardware companies think they should have the right to own the device forever?
Because you still bought it.
Note : 'you' is a figure of style of course, apparently Coopjust has enough sense not to fall for this but seriously, most people complaining today about not having the benefits of openness and transparency now are the same who were mocking them a few years ago.
I suppose it means to be a US citizen and to not have smoked pot in the past 6 months ? (Which probably leaves only about 25% of slashdotters left)
Ok, that's it. I'll stop pretend I'm a programmer, instead I'll become an IT lawyer :
Boss : can you make the computer do that ?
IT lawyer : Ok, I'll plead your case but I can't guarantee anything.
Boss : Uh ?
IT lawyer ; and maybe you'll have to pay for some court expenses.
Boss : Can't we talk about that ?
IT lawyer : at a rate of 100$/hour we can do all the meetings you want.
I like the XKCD foras. People have insightful discussion about interesting topics. This subject is long and complicated and a lot of things need consideration. Here are two links for people wanting to go a bit more in depth (be warned : the first is a 20 pages discussion, the second one is a 2 pages discussion forking from the first) :
Let's talk about energy production
ICE, Hybrid, and EV: A discussion of the merits
Chicks dig deep divers ?
...sorry. BTW, in the mountainous city where I used to live (Grenoble, France) a lot of the speleologists I saw were female.
And if I made elaborate, I would add "you have computr,s internet, cheap storage, web servers. We like crunchy data. Give us to them. Use "share-alike" licences and you will see the community helping you !"
I have been working enough with video acquisition hardware to be able to telle the difference between 30 Hz and 60 Hz. It isn't that easy to tell but it is possible. Some colleagues had more difficulties though. It is easy to debunk with a double-blind experience though : buy a PS3 eye webcam. It can do real 60 fps and 30 fps. Make a software start a video at random in one mode or the other, and see if people claiming to see a difference can spot it.
People may have a hard time seeing something occuring in less than 1/30th of second, but an animation that goes at 30 or 60 Hz, especially a fast moving object (wave your arm in front of the camera) results in a different kind of motion blur in the eye. One looks more discontinued than the other.
Oh yeah, and you capitalist pigs don't have your own paid citizens that break havocs in our internet ? So tell me, what is this 4chan thing ? Why would people behave in such a way if they were not paid ? heh ?
I write music for a living...I should only get paid for the first copy sold?
Should or should not is not the question. The question is whether or not you can control the copies of your work that is made. The technical answer being no, it sounds logical to try find a system where, indeed, your revenue stream does not depend on the number of copies in circulation.
Because, obviously, the average user who apparently is not able to read a warning on his computer screen is likely to go look for information on security blogs...
If you know the slogan of the product/brand, don't buy it. This is a fairly simple algorithm.
Actually, I use the following workaround : when making a buying decision, all things being equal, consider the brand, and consider that the brand you have the less heard about is the one to pick. My advice in this situation is to avoid any product or brand you know the slogan of (worse : you know the way to *sing* their slogan). If you can't neutralize the effect of advertisements, negate it...
In France, like 20 years ago, a big scandal erupted because of this kind of issue : contaminated blood was being used in transfusion with the knowledge of a lot of people. They tried to shut down leaks but in the end, many people had to resign on some had to go to jail.
The title and most of the commentaries so far are humorous but I think it fails to acknowledge how much a good idea this is. Obviously, anyone with basic marketing commonsense will not call it a "meat house" but something like "organic house". I don't see the interest of using meat cells, but I would love to GM trees growing to become rooms, hallways, stairs...
That would be far more easy to sell and make accept.