I see your point, but is it a good idea for people to analogize software to guns?
It's a good to use on pro-gun conservatives because the concept of criminalizing improper use rather than banning the tool entirely is the same. One can plausibly say that guns are more dangerous than software and should be more restricted, but I don't see how anyone can coherently both oppose gun bans and support the DMCA.
If on the other hand you told me that this obscure item is "like a safe" or "like a crowbar" or "like a microscope," I would instead see that the only people who would want to ban it are either unclear on the concept or authoritarian beyond the limits of sanity.
True. Valenti was unintentionally correct when he called DeCSS a "digital crowbar".
Of course it does. With the GPL, I can redistribute the software provided I fulfill certain conditions. Without the GPL, I can't redistribute the software at all. My rights with the GPL are a strict superset of my rights without it.
You think that once people can pick and choose only the channels they want, it'll be the good stuff that survives? No, no, no... It'll be the crap. A veritable tsunami of purest shite.
Not necessarily. Voting with dollars rather than eyeballs can be a good thing. A million enthusiastic Firefly fans could easily outbid 5 million reality show viewers who are mainly watching because there's nothing else on.
And you'd be wrong there too. Einstein's equations replaced Newton's because they were shown to be more accurate. Develop a theory that fits observed evidence better than evolution does, and scientists will listen. Ignore the mountains of evidence and stick your fingers in your ears while shouting "God did it", and they will rightly ignore or laugh at you.
who feels no particular inclination to extend his natural life?
No; I've heard similar sentiments from others. Makes no sense to me, but as long as neither of us forcibly imposes our preferences on others I have no problem with it.
How many new experiences are there to have after you've gotten married, had children, enjoyed grandchildren, traveled, educated yourself, worked, etc?
Education and working...in how many fields? There are at least a dozen areas I'd like to explore in detail, but without an increase in lifespan I'll never have the chance.
In the year 2050, we're all going to be bitter crotchety old people, set in our ideas
But will that be the case if we had the health of 25 year olds? How much of the resistance to new things is a result of being physically and mentally tired? I don't know the answer to that; I suspect it's some but not all. But even if that effect persists, there are ways to counter it. For starters, we'd definitely want term limits for politicians, and possibly CEOs; something like "once you've held any elective office for N years you can't run for any position for 2N years". More generally, we could encourage everyone to change careers every 40 years or so.
Be sure of one more thing. Someone's going to make a FORTUNE if effective anti-aging drugs can be mass produced. Like, hundreds of billions of dollars, hand over fist.
Good. That's the kind of incentive we need to make those drugs a reality.
Life-extension advocates, of course, point out that real breakthroughs will extend healthy, vigorous life rather than simply stretching senility - and might eventually eliminate the latter entirely.
Exactly. In the ideal scenario, Medicare and Social Security go away completely, along with their trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities. Even if we have to pay for universal access to anti-aging drugs and therapies, that has to be cheaper than the current system.
This means that stories like "McCain's black love child" or the "swift boat veterans" need to be held to some standard, or they will unfairly affect people's opinions and ultimately put the wrong people in power.
So you want the government to regulate speech so that the "wrong people" don't get elected, with the "wrong people" being determined by the current government? I'm seeing a minor flaw in that plan.
On election night for the 2000 US presidential election, John Ellis at the Fox News decision desk, first cousin of Jeb Bush, decided Fox would be the first network to call the state of Florida for the Republicans, a call that was so biased by wishful thinking it later had to be subsequently withdrawn. How's that?
Not terribly wise. But it pales in comparison to calling Florida for Gore while the polls were still open.
"yeah that was horrible... but that's the PAST!! It'll never happen again! It can't happen again! We're smarter now!!"
Um, yeah, pretty much. Sure, you can come up with some Clancy-esque plot where the terrorists sneak nerve gas aboard and kill or incapacitate everyone on board, but knives, boxcutters, and even handguns won't do it now that passengers and crew know they have to fight to the death.
I was unable to find the source for the 10-MPH restriction, but that is what they taught our class in Driver's Ed. It may have been only a recommendation; they didn't go to very much trouble to separate their suggestions from legal requirements.
I suspect that's the case. For drivers who are just starting out it's not bad advice.
Speed limits are there to keep people going at the same speed.
Then they are failing badly. Some drivers scrupulously obey the posted limits, while others drive at speeds reasonable for the conditions, usually at least 5-10mph above the limit. More realistic speed limits would reduce variations in speed, and allow traffic cops to focus on actually dangerous drivers rather than the reverse lottery we have today.
It might even turn out that the safety obsession kills more people than it is intended to save.
Yes; for example it's virtually certain that airline "safety" regulations have led to more deaths. As air travel becomes more inconvenient and expensive, marginal travelers will choose to drive instead, which is far more dangerous per mile.
In the U.S. (or at least in Indiana; I assume it's similar elsewhere), it's illegal to pass anyone not going at least ten miles per hour under the speed limit
Do you have a source? That sounds ludicrous even by the standards of "traffic laws we want everyone to violate for revenue generation".
Cost and pricing, according to economic theory, are supposed to represent actual real-world values of labor and resources consumed to produce something.
Absolutely false, unless you're Karl Marx.
The fact that economics cannot properly account, even remotely, the degradation of the environment
A great deal of economics is devoted to examining the problems of externalities.
The only route to redefining the costs and economic behaviors is government regulation
As if governments look out for the best interests of the common people. Look at the environmental conditions of the Soviet bloc during the cold war.
It's the right-wingers who try to censor television, radio, and even the Internet.
Heard of Tipper Gore, Joe Liberman, the CDA, campus speech codes, and campaign finance "reform"? The left likes censorship too; they just want to censor different things. Or sometimes the same thing for different reasons: conservatives censor boobies because they'll make you go to hell; liberals censor them because they "degrade" women.
I seem to recall hearing that NO EULAs have stood up in court.
Sadly, this is not true. ProCD v Zeidenberg and the recent bnetd case are two examples. It's astounding to me that they're not laughed out of court since they blatantly fail the "meeting of the minds" and consideration requirements of real contracts. (Obviously, IANAL).
How exactly does government spending "crowd out" private spending?
Um, because when government spends a dollar, it must take that dollar from a taxpayer, preventing him from spending the dollar himself. You can argue that the government will spend the dollar in a more beneficial manner than the taxpayer would have, but that government spending crowds out the private sector is practically a tautology.
I don't want to sound like I'm harping on this, but seriously, its OS X. No 10.0 afterwards. The version number is the X
Um, that's just wrong. "Mac OS X" is the product name. "10.x" is the version number. The first public release was "Mac OS X 10.0", and the current version is "Mac OS X 10.4".
Companies should not be able to enforce their business model at gunpoint. That's not to say Apple's actions should be illegal, just that "we depend on customers doing X in order to profit" is not a valid argument for forcing people to do X. By this logic, PVRs could be banned because TV stations depend on viewers watching commercials.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no need to insult prostitutes by comparing them to Claria. Prostitutes provide a valuable service to willing and informed customers.
I see your point, but is it a good idea for people to analogize software to guns?
It's a good to use on pro-gun conservatives because the concept of criminalizing improper use rather than banning the tool entirely is the same. One can plausibly say that guns are more dangerous than software and should be more restricted, but I don't see how anyone can coherently both oppose gun bans and support the DMCA.
If on the other hand you told me that this obscure item is "like a safe" or "like a crowbar" or "like a microscope," I would instead see that the only people who would want to ban it are either unclear on the concept or authoritarian beyond the limits of sanity.
True. Valenti was unintentionally correct when he called DeCSS a "digital crowbar".
The GPL does not create new rights, actually.
Of course it does. With the GPL, I can redistribute the software provided I fulfill certain conditions. Without the GPL, I can't redistribute the software at all. My rights with the GPL are a strict superset of my rights without it.
You think that once people can pick and choose only the channels they want, it'll be the good stuff that survives? No, no, no... It'll be the crap. A veritable tsunami of purest shite.
Not necessarily. Voting with dollars rather than eyeballs can be a good thing. A million enthusiastic Firefly fans could easily outbid 5 million reality show viewers who are mainly watching because there's nothing else on.
Quite seriously, one wonders what irritating DRM Apple will put in to avoid just those suits
Right. I suspect I won't be replacing my mini+EyeTV combo. Apple's solution will probably be more elegant, but much less flexible.
However, put an Intel chip into something that size and you've got a nuclear power plant.
Intel is moving away from the P4 toasters. Their roadmap is focused on Pentium-M derivatives, which have much better performance per watt than PPC.
this melanie wyne is the classical exemple of what anrchists and comunists like to call "capitalist pig"...
As a capitalist, I call her a rent-seeking shill.
I'll rally around F=MA
And you'd be wrong there too. Einstein's equations replaced Newton's because they were shown to be more accurate. Develop a theory that fits observed evidence better than evolution does, and scientists will listen. Ignore the mountains of evidence and stick your fingers in your ears while shouting "God did it", and they will rightly ignore or laugh at you.
Probably has something to do with resurrecting the dead in Ohio who then voted for him.
That may be evil and magical, but it's pretty clever.
who feels no particular inclination to extend his natural life?
No; I've heard similar sentiments from others. Makes no sense to me, but as long as neither of us forcibly imposes our preferences on others I have no problem with it.
How many new experiences are there to have after you've gotten married, had children, enjoyed grandchildren, traveled, educated yourself, worked, etc?
Education and working...in how many fields? There are at least a dozen areas I'd like to explore in detail, but without an increase in lifespan I'll never have the chance.
In the year 2050, we're all going to be bitter crotchety old people, set in our ideas
But will that be the case if we had the health of 25 year olds? How much of the resistance to new things is a result of being physically and mentally tired? I don't know the answer to that; I suspect it's some but not all. But even if that effect persists, there are ways to counter it. For starters, we'd definitely want term limits for politicians, and possibly CEOs; something like "once you've held any elective office for N years you can't run for any position for 2N years". More generally, we could encourage everyone to change careers every 40 years or so.
Be sure of one more thing. Someone's going to make a FORTUNE if effective anti-aging drugs can be mass produced. Like, hundreds of billions of dollars, hand over fist.
Good. That's the kind of incentive we need to make those drugs a reality.
Life-extension advocates, of course, point out that real breakthroughs will extend healthy, vigorous life rather than simply stretching senility - and might eventually eliminate the latter entirely.
Exactly. In the ideal scenario, Medicare and Social Security go away completely, along with their trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities. Even if we have to pay for universal access to anti-aging drugs and therapies, that has to be cheaper than the current system.
This means that stories like "McCain's black love child" or the "swift boat veterans" need to be held to some standard, or they will unfairly affect people's opinions and ultimately put the wrong people in power.
So you want the government to regulate speech so that the "wrong people" don't get elected, with the "wrong people" being determined by the current government? I'm seeing a minor flaw in that plan.
On election night for the 2000 US presidential election, John Ellis at the Fox News decision desk, first cousin of Jeb Bush, decided Fox would be the first network to call the state of Florida for the Republicans, a call that was so biased by wishful thinking it later had to be subsequently withdrawn. How's that?
Not terribly wise. But it pales in comparison to calling Florida for Gore while the polls were still open.
"yeah that was horrible... but that's the PAST!! It'll never happen again! It can't happen again! We're smarter now!!"
Um, yeah, pretty much. Sure, you can come up with some Clancy-esque plot where the terrorists sneak nerve gas aboard and kill or incapacitate everyone on board, but knives, boxcutters, and even handguns won't do it now that passengers and crew know they have to fight to the death.
I was unable to find the source for the 10-MPH restriction, but that is what they taught our class in Driver's Ed. It may have been only a recommendation; they didn't go to very much trouble to separate their suggestions from legal requirements.
I suspect that's the case. For drivers who are just starting out it's not bad advice.
Speed limits are there to keep people going at the same speed.
Then they are failing badly. Some drivers scrupulously obey the posted limits, while others drive at speeds reasonable for the conditions, usually at least 5-10mph above the limit. More realistic speed limits would reduce variations in speed, and allow traffic cops to focus on actually dangerous drivers rather than the reverse lottery we have today.
It might even turn out that the safety obsession kills more people than it is intended to save.
Yes; for example it's virtually certain that airline "safety" regulations have led to more deaths. As air travel becomes more inconvenient and expensive, marginal travelers will choose to drive instead, which is far more dangerous per mile.
In the U.S. (or at least in Indiana; I assume it's similar elsewhere), it's illegal to pass anyone not going at least ten miles per hour under the speed limit
Do you have a source? That sounds ludicrous even by the standards of "traffic laws we want everyone to violate for revenue generation".
Cost and pricing, according to economic theory, are supposed to represent actual real-world values of labor and resources consumed to produce something.
Absolutely false, unless you're Karl Marx.
The fact that economics cannot properly account, even remotely, the degradation of the environment
A great deal of economics is devoted to examining the problems of externalities.
The only route to redefining the costs and economic behaviors is government regulation
As if governments look out for the best interests of the common people. Look at the environmental conditions of the Soviet bloc during the cold war.
It's the right-wingers who try to censor television, radio, and even the Internet.
Heard of Tipper Gore, Joe Liberman, the CDA, campus speech codes, and campaign finance "reform"? The left likes censorship too; they just want to censor different things. Or sometimes the same thing for different reasons: conservatives censor boobies because they'll make you go to hell; liberals censor them because they "degrade" women.
I seem to recall hearing that NO EULAs have stood up in court.
Sadly, this is not true. ProCD v Zeidenberg and the recent bnetd case are two examples. It's astounding to me that they're not laughed out of court since they blatantly fail the "meeting of the minds" and consideration requirements of real contracts. (Obviously, IANAL).
How exactly does government spending "crowd out" private spending?
Um, because when government spends a dollar, it must take that dollar from a taxpayer, preventing him from spending the dollar himself. You can argue that the government will spend the dollar in a more beneficial manner than the taxpayer would have, but that government spending crowds out the private sector is practically a tautology.
I don't want to sound like I'm harping on this, but seriously, its OS X. No 10.0 afterwards. The version number is the X
Um, that's just wrong. "Mac OS X" is the product name. "10.x" is the version number. The first public release was "Mac OS X 10.0", and the current version is "Mac OS X 10.4".
because these companies depend on hardware sales
Companies should not be able to enforce their business model at gunpoint. That's not to say Apple's actions should be illegal, just that "we depend on customers doing X in order to profit" is not a valid argument for forcing people to do X. By this logic, PVRs could be banned because TV stations depend on viewers watching commercials.