It is foolish to think that a law does not affect you simply because it has not yet been used against you. If it could be used against you, the threat is an effect in and of itself.
I sure hope you're a troll, but in case you're not, I feel compelled to point out that your arguments are absurd from a scientific and relegious standpoint.
First the scientific...
You suggest that the earth may be younger than the rocks that it is made of. Plate techtonics implies quite the opposite. Any rocks you find on the surface were probably part of the molten mess under the earth's crust at one point. It is possible, I suppose, that some of the earliest pieces of the earths crust may still be around. There could even be a few pieces of material from space that are older than the earth lying around, but most of the material in question has been melted in the earth's furnace before. So you're argument for a younger earth isn't very convincing.
Now for the religious absurdity...
You say you believe that God is bound by the same laws of physics that we are. I don't know of any religion that would agree. If God is bound by the laws of physics, there go all your miracles. Also, when religions claim that God created the universe, they usually claim that the laws of physics are part of that creation, not a set of rules that God had to follow.
If the tech support costs are paid to German IT workers, that's much better than paying a US company for software from a political standpoint even without any overall savings.
Your argument is rendered illogical by your use of the morally loaded term murder. The morally neutral term for the act in question is killing. The term murder implies an instance of killing that you judge to be morally wrong -- so your attempt to make a point is a tautology. The question of whether or not a killing was morally right or wrong is the same as the question of whether or not it was murder, and is open to debate in both cases.
*If* it turned out that PGP-encrypted communication was intercepted by the FBI or NSA, but could not be decrypted in time, would that be irrelevant ? Would wondering about cryptography and what we want to allow be so silly then ?
Yes, it would be the height of stupidity. To say that we should wonder what we should allow with respect to cryptography assumes that we have the power to deny anyone the use of encryption. We can always make it illegal, but that won't hinder anyone who is planning a terrorist action. Unless we can force everyone's brains to be incapable of doing math, we can't stop them from using encryption.
That poll is as worthless as it is vague. What sort of government involvement? Are we talking about computerized facial recognition programs in airports or random strip-seach checkpoints on our streets?
How, exactly, did eBay beat the DMCA? All they did was require the guy to follow the letter of the law. He didn't, so he lost. If he had given proper notice as required by the DMCA, eBay would have been required to remove the offending material.
The entertainment industry appears able to get copyright protection extended as long as they wish. While not as directly related to technology as patent law, copyright law is becomming more of a concern, especially with the recent mess with the DMCA. Is your organization making any efforts to convice congress to return copyright duration to a sane limit, and if so, is there much hope for success?
Your argument rests on the assumption that something you don't know how to do is simple. The reason software quality is low is not because it is more complex than building a bridge.
-- We've been building software for decades, but we've been building bridges for centuries.
-- There are natural structures that resemble bridges that we have learned from. For most software, this is not the case.
-- When a bridge fails, there is a good chance someone is going to die, so you'd better get it right. Software is rarely that critical, and when it is, it is usually better written.
-- Also, when building a bridge, if you are sloppy about it, you're going to have a lot of dead workers. For coders, caffine overdose and sleep deprivation are seldom fatal.
-- When building a bridge, it is difficult or impossible to correct mistakes after the fact. With software, just release a patch.
-- When building a bridge, you have the contract before you start construction. With software, there is always the worry that a competitor will get a product out before you.
-- If you build a bad bridge, you will get sued. Try and sue Microsoft.
Interestingly, though, I think that if this concept spreads to the legislative branch, our reps will not like it one bit. They will undoubtedly try to pass a law preventing government employees from being watched. So in the end maybe this'll turn out in favor of privacy.
It might turn out in favor of privacy for our reps, but that won't do us any good.
I have often conjectured that multi-threaded processors (ie: processors that can store multiple sets of internal states, and switch between them) could be useful, as the bottleneck moves from the processor core to communications and dragging stuff out of memory.
Actually, I think this is a great way for people to be brought to open source. If you try to explain the benefits of free (as in speech) software to most people, you get blank stares. When companies start threatening their own customers, people start to understand. Nothing speeds up the learning process like a good real-life example.
Your comparison neglects context. The co-mingling is not a problem in and of itself. It is only a problem when a company uses it as a means of maintaining their monoploy. So co-mingling of code in the case you mention may be annoying, but is not illegal. If RedHat replaced MS as the monopoly OS company, then it could be a problem. (Though the end of global warming due to hell freezing over would more than make up for it.)
You haven't seen these problems yet, so you assume they don't exist. I have. They do. I've experienced both bandwith and latency problems, but the latency problems have been the most irritating to me because I play a lot of quake (poorly...). Sometimes I can get sub-100 ping times for hundreds of different servers -- others, I can't find a single sub-800, and 999 lag spikes mid game are no fun.
If you want to put a large hole in his head, its much easier to get a sniper in range than it is to get someone close enough to tamper with his glasses.
The article does not claim that CTS is a hoax, the claim is that people have symptoms of CTS because they believe computer use causes CTS, not because they actually have CTS.
IANAL, but I would think you could get a _lot_ of mileage out of this argument. It brings up legal precidence for code being treated as speech, and it seems that courts always prefer to use existing decisions rather than make new ones. But the argument doesn't seem to be over whether code is speech. The argument seems to be over whether speech can be restricted in this situation.
It is easy to provide examples of code used as expressive speach. Just look at the bookshelf of an computer science professor or student. The most clear cut example is to take any instance where code is used to describe an algorithm -- you have code being used to express a mathmatical idea. In this case, code is not just a language that a machine understands, it is a technical language that a person understands. And in this case, the code explanation is usually more clear and precise for the reader than an english explanation would be.
Part of the problem is that a computer is a tool that is being sold as an appliance. When someone buys a tool, like a band-saw for example, the customer needs the tool to get a job done. They expect to learn how to use it properly or lose digits. If someone buys an appliance, like a toaster, they don't expect to have to learn much of anything to use it. This expectation gives us those wonderful warning labels like "don't touch glowing wires with tender bits", but I digress... A computer is a tool, and the people who realize that RTFM. The rest see the comercials, think they're buying a toaster, and get pissed off when its not that easy.
Slashdot Mirror
It is foolish to think that a law does not affect you simply because it has not yet been used against you. If it could be used against you, the threat is an effect in and of itself.
I sure hope you're a troll, but in case you're not, I feel compelled to point out that your arguments are absurd from a scientific and relegious standpoint.
First the scientific...
You suggest that the earth may be younger than the rocks that it is made of. Plate techtonics implies quite the opposite. Any rocks you find on the surface were probably part of the molten mess under the earth's crust at one point. It is possible, I suppose, that some of the earliest pieces of the earths crust may still be around. There could even be a few pieces of material from space that are older than the earth lying around, but most of the material in question has been melted in the earth's furnace before. So you're argument for a younger earth isn't very convincing.
Now for the religious absurdity...
You say you believe that God is bound by the same laws of physics that we are. I don't know of any religion that would agree. If God is bound by the laws of physics, there go all your miracles. Also, when religions claim that God created the universe, they usually claim that the laws of physics are part of that creation, not a set of rules that God had to follow.
If the tech support costs are paid to German IT workers, that's much better than paying a US company for software from a political standpoint even without any overall savings.
Your argument is rendered illogical by your use of the morally loaded term murder. The morally neutral term for the act in question is killing. The term murder implies an instance of killing that you judge to be morally wrong -- so your attempt to make a point is a tautology. The question of whether or not a killing was morally right or wrong is the same as the question of whether or not it was murder, and is open to debate in both cases.
Yes, it would be the height of stupidity. To say that we should wonder what we should allow with respect to cryptography assumes that we have the power to deny anyone the use of encryption. We can always make it illegal, but that won't hinder anyone who is planning a terrorist action. Unless we can force everyone's brains to be incapable of doing math, we can't stop them from using encryption.
That poll is as worthless as it is vague. What sort of government involvement? Are we talking about computerized facial recognition programs in airports or random strip-seach checkpoints on our streets?
How, exactly, did eBay beat the DMCA? All they did was require the guy to follow the letter of the law. He didn't, so he lost. If he had given proper notice as required by the DMCA, eBay would have been required to remove the offending material.
That beats the old fashioned method of seeing who passes out first.
So what if it costs nothing? If it doesn't help me get my work done, its worth nothing.
The entertainment industry appears able to get copyright protection extended as long as they wish. While not as directly related to technology as patent law, copyright law is becomming more of a concern, especially with the recent mess with the DMCA. Is your organization making any efforts to convice congress to return copyright duration to a sane limit, and if so, is there much hope for success?
Your argument rests on the assumption that something you don't know how to do is simple. The reason software quality is low is not because it is more complex than building a bridge.
-- We've been building software for decades, but we've been building bridges for centuries.
-- There are natural structures that resemble bridges that we have learned from. For most software, this is not the case.
-- When a bridge fails, there is a good chance someone is going to die, so you'd better get it right. Software is rarely that critical, and when it is, it is usually better written.
-- Also, when building a bridge, if you are sloppy about it, you're going to have a lot of dead workers. For coders, caffine overdose and sleep deprivation are seldom fatal.
-- When building a bridge, it is difficult or impossible to correct mistakes after the fact. With software, just release a patch.
-- When building a bridge, you have the contract before you start construction. With software, there is always the worry that a competitor will get a product out before you.
-- If you build a bad bridge, you will get sued. Try and sue Microsoft.
It might turn out in favor of privacy for our reps, but that won't do us any good.
...only land-owners will be allowed to vote.
I don't think so, since I still see DUI checkpoints.
Check out the Cray MTA... it does exactly that.
Actually, I think this is a great way for people to be brought to open source. If you try to explain the benefits of free (as in speech) software to most people, you get blank stares. When companies start threatening their own customers, people start to understand. Nothing speeds up the learning process like a good real-life example.
Your comparison neglects context. The co-mingling is not a problem in and of itself. It is only a problem when a company uses it as a means of maintaining their monoploy. So co-mingling of code in the case you mention may be annoying, but is not illegal. If RedHat replaced MS as the monopoly OS company, then it could be a problem. (Though the end of global warming due to hell freezing over would more than make up for it.)
You haven't seen these problems yet, so you assume they don't exist. I have. They do. I've experienced both bandwith and latency problems, but the latency problems have been the most irritating to me because I play a lot of quake (poorly...). Sometimes I can get sub-100 ping times for hundreds of different servers -- others, I can't find a single sub-800, and 999 lag spikes mid game are no fun.
Mr. Gates is not confusing a "company" with a "software company". He is hoping that his audience will.
If you want to put a large hole in his head, its much easier to get a sniper in range than it is to get someone close enough to tamper with his glasses.
The article does not claim that CTS is a hoax, the claim is that people have symptoms of CTS because they believe computer use causes CTS, not because they actually have CTS.
I wouldn't label it a troll so much as a good old fashioned flame, but either way it was a fun read.
IANAL, but I would think you could get a _lot_ of mileage out of this argument. It brings up legal precidence for code being treated as speech, and it seems that courts always prefer to use existing decisions rather than make new ones. But the argument doesn't seem to be over whether code is speech. The argument seems to be over whether speech can be restricted in this situation.
It is easy to provide examples of code used as expressive speach. Just look at the bookshelf of an computer science professor or student. The most clear cut example is to take any instance where code is used to describe an algorithm -- you have code being used to express a mathmatical idea. In this case, code is not just a language that a machine understands, it is a technical language that a person understands. And in this case, the code explanation is usually more clear and precise for the reader than an english explanation would be.
Part of the problem is that a computer is a tool that is being sold as an appliance. When someone buys a tool, like a band-saw for example, the customer needs the tool to get a job done. They expect to learn how to use it properly or lose digits. If someone buys an appliance, like a toaster, they don't expect to have to learn much of anything to use it. This expectation gives us those wonderful warning labels like "don't touch glowing wires with tender bits", but I digress... A computer is a tool, and the people who realize that RTFM. The rest see the comercials, think they're buying a toaster, and get pissed off when its not that easy.