Experiments have shown that the big apes can actively memorize and plan ahead; in Oran Utangs planning ahead seems to be limited by something like 15 hours into the future, so we humans are better at it.
And you are right in saying that humans can use thought to manage their instincts and driver; unfortunately this happens too little.
Seems consistent with what I found happened to my body when I changed my eating habits. I now eat only fruit in the morning and after that I eat bread, but only when I feel a bit hungry. As soon as the hunger is over I stop eating. I do not get my 3 meals a day, it is more like 5 or 6 very small meals and one regular one for diner. I now fit the same jeans as 19 years ago (501, 31" / 34") and I feel better during the day; no more cravings.
I have got a hunch that eating small meals keeps one's insulin and glucose levels more constant than eating big meals.
While I fully agree with your reasoning and stance, I do have to make a small remark: "Switzerland doesn't spend anything close to what the U.S. does and I don't think its been invaded much either,(...)": Switzerland is for about 50% mountains and the Swiss have an interesting military structure and gun policy; the combination of these two will make any invading force think at least twice.
Comments like this coming from ppl like you (experienced) are for me a very strong reason to read comments on/.. And your "TFA is a joke." is once again an indication that most of the time only 10 to 25% of an article consists of actual truths.
My initial reaction to your post: "Ha, funny!". Then there was a 3 second period where my head seemed completely blank. After that the strong suspicion came up that you were dead-serious...
GP used the wrong words: the british had a civilized society _at home_ by the standards of that time. And a lot of western countries had colonies.
Please do not forget how different ppl were thinking in those days: "One milllion black people / non christians killed? They probably asked for it / did something wrong / are against our enlightened society / etc. And they are black, so they only know violence".
When pictures and stories of this small man appeared, sitting on a street, being beaten up by police and doing nothing to defend himself, that's what made the british home front think, and that is what created political pressure to change things.
The Khmer Rouge had no such stable home front that could change things by matter of public opinion.
No, I do not need record companies to make me aware of good music, I need DJs to do that job. As they are (or actually should be) impartial and focus on quality. And do not get me started on companies 'loaning' money in such a way that a new band with a successfull debut album still owes money to their corporate masters well into the sales of their second album.
And please tell me why we need recording studios when you only need 5000 euro now to get a better quality of recording than we had in the eighties? Face it: record companies have no added value whatsoever. They were the middleman, and they are not needed anymore.
I do not mind giving an artist two euro for a complete album, and I think loads of other ppl would not mind as well. I do mind paying 18 euro for an album, especially when I know the store gets 1 euro, the artist 0.5 euro and the rest goes to whatever. Unfortunately, I never get an offer from an artist I like to buy an album for 2 euros, let alone a record company. So please refrain from saying that I am things that I am not.
And stop talking about 'content creators'. It is so degrading to the creative process that should be behind creation of music, books, etc. It is an almost orwellian term made up by the music 'industry' to put layers of abstraction between what should be a direct connection between an artist and his audience.
Well, in a way: yes! It is not about the artists, it is about the bloody 'music industry'. The sooner it dies, the better.
Record companies have had their uses, but now they are only leeches; the sooner they disappear, the better. A slew of real creativity, not Brittney-crea, will probably follow, since artists will once again be selected on musicality and not on what the record companies tell ($$$) the radio stations what to play. That payola money will be gone like with the disappearance of the record companies.
And yes, we will probably see a difference in the way artists get paid. A lot of ppl will not pay, others a little and die hard fans will shell out big-bucks to get something like a special signed edition, which will make the artists (and not the bloody record company executives) money to live on.
There have always been musicians, there will always be musicians as long as there is creativity in human kind. Stop paying money for music (download illegally) and the whole current infrastructure will collapse, NOT the creativity. Musicians (Radiohead, NIN) will find a way to get paid.
Joe Sixpack would not recognize a privacy issue if it was dancing on a table, wearing a pink tutu and singing "Privacy issues are here again.". Most people would not even know where to start looking for companies' track records on data safety. Most people simply look at cost (and maybe direct value) of the products they want.
A fine just increases the cost of doing business - meaning you'll pay even more to have them lose your data.
Yes, it would lead to increased pricing, which would drive customers to other companies. Exactly what one wants.
DAISNAID is for instance when a tv minister tells people that it is wrong to commit adultery and that same happily married tv minister is caught between the sheets with his secretary. It would however not be DAISNAID if he totally abstained from any form of sex, even with his wife. Likewise RMS' main message is: do not write non-free software. And he does not write non-free software. One possible way to make money while writing free software is paid support, but there are other ways as well. I fail to see the logic that RMS should make his money in a certain way. RMS thinks its great that IBM employs linux kernel hackers, but that does not mean he should work for IBM because else it would be DAISNAID.
I would not dare to say that a professor of geology is guilty of DAISNAID if he encourages people to study filosophy or latin.
That totally unbalanced, agressive, uninformed, degrading, unrealistic, hate mongering and genocidal remark just made you the person with the lowest ID on my 'foe' list.
It is a bit sad that this is one of the only few movies we can freely share that can give us insight of how society has been looked at from the past and that may even have formed our society. I mean, is the money that goes to all the copyright holders (who had relatively little to do in the creative process of the film, and creativity is important in arts) in a lot of other films really so important that we should not be able to freely share films our parents saw so many years ago?
Why are 30 year old films still protected by copyright? Is there any reason to think that if one company did not make enough money of one single work in 30 years in this fast-pace global market, things will look different after those 30 years? IMHO, no. Great films like Langs Metropolis should, after a time a lot shorter than 70 years, be more freely shared throughout civilization, for the benefit of all, and not for the 2% extra revenue for a few companies.
I downloaded Metropolis from the Pirate Bay. It was a version that was made to be as close to the original as possible, even with markers where it was cut because else the story would be "to difficult" for the viewers. I wish a lot more films would be legally obtainable that way.
I could not agree with you more, except for one thing:
(For some reason they haven't managed this with the drugs trade - yet).
Actually, they have: coffee, tea, alcohol and tobacco are all taxed. And alcohol is one of the hardest drugs you can get your hands on, legally or illegally.
Afaik, all of RMS' work is GPL licensed. So your "do as I say, not as I do" is fruitless. Besides, if he wrote no software at all, it would still not be a case of DAISNAID, because RMS calls for developers to provide sources of their work. If you do not write any code yourself, you can still comply to those rules.
As a comparison: I am not a soldier and I would not participate in a war; still I call on every faction in any war to adhere to the Geneva Convention. That is also not a case of DAISNAID.
If I had no drivers license, I would still call upon those who have to follow laws that govern use of cars and roads.
I am really tired of hearing from a guy who's main means of making a living is talking (and for which he makes a good living), telling me to work for free
#1: Trolling. RMS _never_ stated that. Give me just one quote, just one, where he stated that. You cannot, because he never made such a claim.
He makes a good living telling people to give away their work so we can't pay our rent.
#2: Trolling variation on #1: he never said such a thing; in fact: he stated on several occasions that it is perfectly normal to sell your work; he thinks it is highly unethical NOT to ship the source code with the binaries, that's all.
In fact, I would bet he really doesn't have to work another day in his life.
#3: Ad hominem attack. The amount of money a person has in his bank account says nothing about the validity of his statements.
Yes, Stallman wrote some programs before, but I doubt if there is anything really new he has done lately and he doesn't even make his main living from that anyway.
#4: Ad hominem attack. Having writen code recently says nothing about the validity of his claims.
I understand the paradigm of selling support for the application you develop and give away for free.
Unfortunately you do not understand the paradigm of the GPL. Nothing whatsoever in it says you should work for free. It says however to give the source to your customers when they ask for it. Please cut the trolling and the uninformed babbling.
Today, the most successful programming languages are (...),.NET, (...) (does SQL fit in here?) (...) .NET is not a programming language but a platform. SQL is a query language and not a programming lanugage (Turing machine stuff etc). Java does thread-handling quite decently, it is just too difficult to grasp for most programmers.
What's taken is "esteem for creative, hard-working people". If superior people don't get anything extra, if they are held in the same esteem as regular people, this tends to make them leave and go someplace else where they are more appreciated.
I agree with your point, but the fact is that someone who could make fire would be kept in heigh esteem almost automatically. That is how more or less intelligent social groups work. And I would again like to stress that the human mind is keen to release dopamine and other feel-nice stuff when succesfully helping others; those two factors should not be easily forgotten.
And yes, some people are just plain better than others. Deal with it.
I do not like to be arrogant, but I think I can qualify as above average. But then I always keep in mind: noblesse oblige. I should use my intelligence for the benifit of mankind as well as my own.
Those who take from the creative without feeling even the simple need to ask, they are just bullies.
Humbug. You choose your wording to imply someone was robbed; that is not the case. Nothing was 'taken', something was copied. That is a huge difference. If you have something and I take it, you do not have it anymore. If you have something and I copy it, we both have it. In fact: you have more, because you also gained my respect and awe. There is no bullying involved.
A note about the food thing--I didn't mean to imply that anyone should starve. I'm assuming that in primitive societies vegetables and insects were available daily, and that a large game animal was a treat. AFAIK, everybody got a piece of a large kill, but I bet the more highly esteemed members got choice cuts. Don't you think the guy who makes it cook-able for the first time should get the steak and not the giblets?
Interesting analogy, since for coocking food you need both fire and the sense to put something raw onto that fire as well. In effect: you need cooperation. That is what social groups are good at: cooperation. Not egocentric this-is-mine-you-may-not-do-the-same bullcrap. And that is the problem with so-called intellectual property: it implies egocentrism instead of cooperation.
If I'm the first cave-man to discover fire after rubbing sticks together for months, and you light your fire from mine without rewarding me, you do indeed take something from me.
What do I take from you then? What is it you have before I light my fire and you do not have after I have done so?
What would I take if you went for a quick pee in the bushes and I light my fire without you knowing it?
What would I take if I watch you make a fire and do it myself? What do I take when I watch you month after month rubbing sticks together and eventually copy the end-result?
In all cases the answer is: nothing. Nothing at all. In fact, when you look at the whole system, it only got richer. Pre: you and me and 1 fire; post: you and me and 2 fires.
It saddens me to see that while human beings are in basis cooperative beings, this is somehow perverted by western society. I would even state that after I have lit my fire, you have something more: the knowledge (and warm and fuzzy feeling that usually comes along with that) that you helped a fellow man.
The fire-maker deservers to be fed from the next kill (...)
Indeed (if he is not able to do so himself) he deserves to be fed, but not because he made fire, but because he is a fellow man, a kinsman/clansman/tribesman/whatever.
Someone has to keep Google on its toes, and it sure isn't going to be Google.
I have been thinking about your argument, and for most companies this would certainly hold true. But doesn't the google system were you can work 1 day of the week on something you decide for yourself, a hobby project so to say, lead to healthy internal academic competition within google itself?
Say you work at google and you do not like google product X but you need / are interested in its functionality. You could start hobbying away on a new product Y. You could even find others to help you for 1 day in the week and surpass product X in quality.
The academic world knows competition but also a healthy dose of cooperation. I think that in Europe this follows from the fact that academia are not commercially driven like companies. Google cut the commercial drive for 20% of the time of its employees; this is bound to have an effect and I think it could actually be google keeping google on its toes.
Having recently visited San Francisco, I must say that I could not wrestle from the impression that the US is starting to look like a second world country. Prices for food, clothing and public transport were far cheaper than in Europe. Also, the number of people you can find (living) on the streets who have not changed their clothes the last year is staggering. Beggars and outcasts on almost every street corner. Labour seems very cheap.
And at the Moscone Center (JavaOne) they had at least 6 employees telling everybody in the lunchqueue (which was moving quite rapitly) to take out their lunch coupons. 6 empoyees. I would have thought that 1 big sign would do the trick...
And the only countries besides the US I know of that are in some sort of state of war are 2nd and third world countries.
The Bible, Koran, and Talmud aren't copyrighted, even though they could be,(...)
Since these books are hundreds and hundreds of years old and the current copyright term is 70 years after the death of the author (or less, depending on locaction), one can safely say that these books cannot be copyrighted. Don't know about newer translations, though.
Slashdot Mirror
* It's main color is no longer blue, it's brown
Hmmm... Is there a pattern here? Brown Zune, brown Windows, Bill G wiggling his butt in a commercial....
Experiments have shown that the big apes can actively memorize and plan ahead; in Oran Utangs planning ahead seems to be limited by something like 15 hours into the future, so we humans are better at it.
And you are right in saying that humans can use thought to manage their instincts and driver; unfortunately this happens too little.
Seems consistent with what I found happened to my body when I changed my eating habits. I now eat only fruit in the morning and after that I eat bread, but only when I feel a bit hungry. As soon as the hunger is over I stop eating. I do not get my 3 meals a day, it is more like 5 or 6 very small meals and one regular one for diner. I now fit the same jeans as 19 years ago (501, 31" / 34") and I feel better during the day; no more cravings.
I have got a hunch that eating small meals keeps one's insulin and glucose levels more constant than eating big meals.
While I fully agree with your reasoning and stance, I do have to make a small remark: "Switzerland doesn't spend anything close to what the U.S. does and I don't think its been invaded much either,(...)": Switzerland is for about 50% mountains and the Swiss have an interesting military structure and gun policy; the combination of these two will make any invading force think at least twice.
Comments like this coming from ppl like you (experienced) are for me a very strong reason to read comments on /.. And your "TFA is a joke." is once again an indication that most of the time only 10 to 25% of an article consists of actual truths.
Actually, I have seen a decent number of references to Streisand here on Slashdot that are in effect not very flattering for the woman.
My initial reaction to your post: "Ha, funny!". Then there was a 3 second period where my head seemed completely blank. After that the strong suspicion came up that you were dead-serious...
GP used the wrong words: the british had a civilized society _at home_ by the standards of that time. And a lot of western countries had colonies.
Please do not forget how different ppl were thinking in those days: "One milllion black people / non christians killed? They probably asked for it / did something wrong / are against our enlightened society / etc. And they are black, so they only know violence".
When pictures and stories of this small man appeared, sitting on a street, being beaten up by police and doing nothing to defend himself, that's what made the british home front think, and that is what created political pressure to change things.
The Khmer Rouge had no such stable home front that could change things by matter of public opinion.
No, I do not need record companies to make me aware of good music, I need DJs to do that job. As they are (or actually should be) impartial and focus on quality. And do not get me started on companies 'loaning' money in such a way that a new band with a successfull debut album still owes money to their corporate masters well into the sales of their second album.
And please tell me why we need recording studios when you only need 5000 euro now to get a better quality of recording than we had in the eighties? Face it: record companies have no added value whatsoever. They were the middleman, and they are not needed anymore.
I do not mind giving an artist two euro for a complete album, and I think loads of other ppl would not mind as well. I do mind paying 18 euro for an album, especially when I know the store gets 1 euro, the artist 0.5 euro and the rest goes to whatever. Unfortunately, I never get an offer from an artist I like to buy an album for 2 euros, let alone a record company. So please refrain from saying that I am things that I am not.
And stop talking about 'content creators'. It is so degrading to the creative process that should be behind creation of music, books, etc. It is an almost orwellian term made up by the music 'industry' to put layers of abstraction between what should be a direct connection between an artist and his audience.
Well, in a way: yes! It is not about the artists, it is about the bloody 'music industry'. The sooner it dies, the better.
Record companies have had their uses, but now they are only leeches; the sooner they disappear, the better. A slew of real creativity, not Brittney-crea, will probably follow, since artists will once again be selected on musicality and not on what the record companies tell ($$$) the radio stations what to play. That payola money will be gone like with the disappearance of the record companies.
And yes, we will probably see a difference in the way artists get paid. A lot of ppl will not pay, others a little and die hard fans will shell out big-bucks to get something like a special signed edition, which will make the artists (and not the bloody record company executives) money to live on.
There have always been musicians, there will always be musicians as long as there is creativity in human kind. Stop paying money for music (download illegally) and the whole current infrastructure will collapse, NOT the creativity. Musicians (Radiohead, NIN) will find a way to get paid.
Joe Sixpack would not recognize a privacy issue if it was dancing on a table, wearing a pink tutu and singing "Privacy issues are here again.". Most people would not even know where to start looking for companies' track records on data safety. Most people simply look at cost (and maybe direct value) of the products they want.
A fine just increases the cost of doing business - meaning you'll pay even more to have them lose your data.
Yes, it would lead to increased pricing, which would drive customers to other companies. Exactly what one wants.
DAISNAID is for instance when a tv minister tells people that it is wrong to commit adultery and that same happily married tv minister is caught between the sheets with his secretary. It would however not be DAISNAID if he totally abstained from any form of sex, even with his wife. Likewise RMS' main message is: do not write non-free software. And he does not write non-free software. One possible way to make money while writing free software is paid support, but there are other ways as well. I fail to see the logic that RMS should make his money in a certain way. RMS thinks its great that IBM employs linux kernel hackers, but that does not mean he should work for IBM because else it would be DAISNAID.
I would not dare to say that a professor of geology is guilty of DAISNAID if he encourages people to study filosophy or latin.
That totally unbalanced, agressive, uninformed, degrading, unrealistic, hate mongering and genocidal remark just made you the person with the lowest ID on my 'foe' list.
It is a bit sad that this is one of the only few movies we can freely share that can give us insight of how society has been looked at from the past and that may even have formed our society. I mean, is the money that goes to all the copyright holders (who had relatively little to do in the creative process of the film, and creativity is important in arts) in a lot of other films really so important that we should not be able to freely share films our parents saw so many years ago?
Why are 30 year old films still protected by copyright? Is there any reason to think that if one company did not make enough money of one single work in 30 years in this fast-pace global market, things will look different after those 30 years? IMHO, no. Great films like Langs Metropolis should, after a time a lot shorter than 70 years, be more freely shared throughout civilization, for the benefit of all, and not for the 2% extra revenue for a few companies.
I downloaded Metropolis from the Pirate Bay. It was a version that was made to be as close to the original as possible, even with markers where it was cut because else the story would be "to difficult" for the viewers. I wish a lot more films would be legally obtainable that way.
(For some reason they haven't managed this with the drugs trade - yet).
Actually, they have: coffee, tea, alcohol and tobacco are all taxed. And alcohol is one of the hardest drugs you can get your hands on, legally or illegally.
Afaik, all of RMS' work is GPL licensed. So your "do as I say, not as I do" is fruitless. Besides, if he wrote no software at all, it would still not be a case of DAISNAID, because RMS calls for developers to provide sources of their work. If you do not write any code yourself, you can still comply to those rules.
As a comparison: I am not a soldier and I would not participate in a war; still I call on every faction in any war to adhere to the Geneva Convention. That is also not a case of DAISNAID.
If I had no drivers license, I would still call upon those who have to follow laws that govern use of cars and roads.
I am really tired of hearing from a guy who's main means of making a living is talking (and for which he makes a good living), telling me to work for free
#1: Trolling. RMS _never_ stated that. Give me just one quote, just one, where he stated that. You cannot, because he never made such a claim.
He makes a good living telling people to give away their work so we can't pay our rent.
#2: Trolling variation on #1: he never said such a thing; in fact: he stated on several occasions that it is perfectly normal to sell your work; he thinks it is highly unethical NOT to ship the source code with the binaries, that's all.
In fact, I would bet he really doesn't have to work another day in his life.
#3: Ad hominem attack. The amount of money a person has in his bank account says nothing about the validity of his statements.
Yes, Stallman wrote some programs before, but I doubt if there is anything really new he has done lately and he doesn't even make his main living from that anyway.
#4: Ad hominem attack. Having writen code recently says nothing about the validity of his claims.
I understand the paradigm of selling support for the application you develop and give away for free.
Unfortunately you do not understand the paradigm of the GPL. Nothing whatsoever in it says you should work for free. It says however to give the source to your customers when they ask for it. Please cut the trolling and the uninformed babbling.
It would be a bit pathetic if it was modded 'Interesting'.
NPEs will become less widespread when JSR 308 becomes a reality, mostly because of @NonNull. You can read about the proposition here.
I agree with your point, but the fact is that someone who could make fire would be kept in heigh esteem almost automatically. That is how more or less intelligent social groups work. And I would again like to stress that the human mind is keen to release dopamine and other feel-nice stuff when succesfully helping others; those two factors should not be easily forgotten.
And yes, some people are just plain better than others. Deal with it.I do not like to be arrogant, but I think I can qualify as above average. But then I always keep in mind: noblesse oblige. I should use my intelligence for the benifit of mankind as well as my own.
Those who take from the creative without feeling even the simple need to ask, they are just bullies.Humbug. You choose your wording to imply someone was robbed; that is not the case. Nothing was 'taken', something was copied. That is a huge difference. If you have something and I take it, you do not have it anymore. If you have something and I copy it, we both have it. In fact: you have more, because you also gained my respect and awe. There is no bullying involved.
A note about the food thing--I didn't mean to imply that anyone should starve. I'm assuming that in primitive societies vegetables and insects were available daily, and that a large game animal was a treat. AFAIK, everybody got a piece of a large kill, but I bet the more highly esteemed members got choice cuts. Don't you think the guy who makes it cook-able for the first time should get the steak and not the giblets?Interesting analogy, since for coocking food you need both fire and the sense to put something raw onto that fire as well. In effect: you need cooperation. That is what social groups are good at: cooperation. Not egocentric this-is-mine-you-may-not-do-the-same bullcrap. And that is the problem with so-called intellectual property: it implies egocentrism instead of cooperation.
What do I take from you then? What is it you have before I light my fire and you do not have after I have done so?
What would I take if you went for a quick pee in the bushes and I light my fire without you knowing it?
What would I take if I watch you make a fire and do it myself? What do I take when I watch you month after month rubbing sticks together and eventually copy the end-result?
In all cases the answer is: nothing. Nothing at all. In fact, when you look at the whole system, it only got richer. Pre: you and me and 1 fire; post: you and me and 2 fires.
It saddens me to see that while human beings are in basis cooperative beings, this is somehow perverted by western society. I would even state that after I have lit my fire, you have something more: the knowledge (and warm and fuzzy feeling that usually comes along with that) that you helped a fellow man.
The fire-maker deservers to be fed from the next kill (...)Indeed (if he is not able to do so himself) he deserves to be fed, but not because he made fire, but because he is a fellow man, a kinsman/clansman/tribesman/whatever.
I have been thinking about your argument, and for most companies this would certainly hold true. But doesn't the google system were you can work 1 day of the week on something you decide for yourself, a hobby project so to say, lead to healthy internal academic competition within google itself?
Say you work at google and you do not like google product X but you need / are interested in its functionality. You could start hobbying away on a new product Y. You could even find others to help you for 1 day in the week and surpass product X in quality.
The academic world knows competition but also a healthy dose of cooperation. I think that in Europe this follows from the fact that academia are not commercially driven like companies. Google cut the commercial drive for 20% of the time of its employees; this is bound to have an effect and I think it could actually be google keeping google on its toes.
Having recently visited San Francisco, I must say that I could not wrestle from the impression that the US is starting to look like a second world country. Prices for food, clothing and public transport were far cheaper than in Europe. Also, the number of people you can find (living) on the streets who have not changed their clothes the last year is staggering. Beggars and outcasts on almost every street corner. Labour seems very cheap.
And at the Moscone Center (JavaOne) they had at least 6 employees telling everybody in the lunchqueue (which was moving quite rapitly) to take out their lunch coupons. 6 empoyees. I would have thought that 1 big sign would do the trick...
And the only countries besides the US I know of that are in some sort of state of war are 2nd and third world countries.
Since these books are hundreds and hundreds of years old and the current copyright term is 70 years after the death of the author (or less, depending on locaction), one can safely say that these books cannot be copyrighted. Don't know about newer translations, though.