It isn't political because the program is simply teaching people what the law is.
No. From the article: "Students learn to repeat the program's motto: 'If you don't pay for it, you've stolen it.'" That's just wrong for too many reasons to count.
No, you can pledge all you like. But government agents (i.e. teachers) can't lead children in a statement that asserts the existence of God. There are gray areas of the establishment clause, but this one isn't even close.
Re:Apple is taking a bad rap for this...
on
Update on Playfair
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· Score: 2, Insightful
With FairPlay there is a way to play it under Linux (though yes, there is a loss of quality)
Actually, there were already ways to play iTMS files under Linux with no loss of quality (burn a CD or convert to AIFF). Playfair just lets you retain the compression with no quality loss.
Re:Read the "Terms Of Service"
on
Update on Playfair
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· Score: 3, Interesting
But where I'm from a contract is a contract is a contract.
I agree. I also agree that the proper penalty for violating a contract should be actual damages suffered. In the case an iTunes customer using Playfair that would be $0.
People don't get bent out of shape when you carry on a converstion with a live person in a restaurant, or a plane. But when you put that other person on a phone, it becomes offensive. What up with that?
My theory, entirely unsupported by scientific evidence: Our brains are pretty good at filtering out uniform background noise (air conditioning, computer fans, etc). Two people having a conversation produce a more constant sound output than one person on a cell phone (who alternates between talking and silence), so the guy on the phone is harder to ignore and thus more annoying.
What he's saying is that capitalism, especially when combined with a stupid and/or short-sighted consumerism, results in situations that are bad for the group as a whole.
If lots of individuals are stupid and/or short-sighted, then *any* system is going to have problems, at least any system with any degree of freedom. And the more you move from capitalism to central planning, the greater damage the "stupid" bloc can do by voting for bad policies. You could try a Platonic benevolent dictatorship, but that wouldn't go over well with me and several million others.
Like a system of always turning the other guy in the Prisoner's Dilema game.
Which is foolish from a self-interest perspective. (Assuming indefinitely repeated games, which is a better model of economic interaction than a one-shot).
It is entirely possible that there are solutions and/or systems that would cost more, but that would result in a better quality of life for everyone down the road. Such a system might very well fail under capitalism
If consumers are rational, such a product would succeed. If they aren't, see above.
"Apply more Capitalism" is not an effective solution to "Capitalism causes these (generic) problems."
Well, I don't agree that capitalism is the source of the problems.
So, if a natural disaster strikes, and a bunch of jobs are created to clean up the mess, that's not a loss, it's considered a plus when measured by the GDP.
Perhaps in the short term. In the longer term it's a negative, because the resources spent to rebuild would otherwise have been spent on new investments that would have provided greater benefits.
Nowhere, not even in our tools for economic measurement, is there even a measurement for such things as wastage of natural resources
Yes there is; it's called "price". As a resource becomes scarce, demand exceeds supply and the price rises. This encourages both conservation and investigation of alternatives.
Why would you blame technology where blaming market economics makes more sense?
Actually, neither does.
Automakers are motivated by one thing, profits, and since it's more profitable to make disposable cars, that's the direction they will go.
It's only more profitable if consumers will actually buy them. If consumers buy them, that means they believe the benefits of "disposability" (most likely lower purchase prices) exceed the drawbacks. There may be externalities regarding pollution, but those can be handled with a proper tax structure.
It's a very short term kind of thinking, where somehow it makes sense to create a bunch of junk that only last 10 years.
Sometimes it does. You have to consider the opportunity cost of buying the expensive well made product versus the cheaper "piece of junk" which may meet your needs just fine.
in an insane society, technology is used to create extra work (extra jobs), products that fill land fills as quickly as possible, and in general, waste everyone's time. Yay capitalism.
If you have a better plan, start your own business, market the reliability of your products, and make a bunch of money while improving the world. *That's* capitalism.
I'm going to disagree with this, sort of. The goal of DRM is not necessarily evil. If it were possible to sell software that couldn't be used illegally but that didn't deprive users of their existing rights, that would be fine. And a perpetual motion machine would be great too; the problem is that neither is possible. In order for DRM to be effective, I can't be allowed to look under the hood and figure out what *my* computer is doing. Nor can I be permitted to make tools that *could* be used to circumvent DRM, regardless of their other uses. These are serious infringments of my property rights, as well as counter to the ideals of advancing our technology and understanding. So I would say that while DRM may not be inherently evil, strict enforcement of DRM is.
So until then, just like I activate my password, when I want to say "don't casually use my computer", and light weight DRM is appropriate for stopping misuse of music and other files.
That's not a valid analogy. Setting a password doesn't deprive me of my rights, since I have no right to use your computer in the first place. Setting a password causes your computer to act on your behalf; DRM causes it to act on the behalf of others.
It's just like any other EULA: you have the right to refuse the contract, but if there's no contract agreement, you have no legal license to use the software.
Regardless of the specifics of the iTMS "contract", this statement is not true. See 17 USC 117; if you have a software program, you do not need the copyright holder's permission to run it.
Re:Depends on your philosophy, doesn't it
on
Apple Revises eMac
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· Score: 1
Apple provides you with a flashy, very consistent, closed, minimal-options operating system that starts with the idea that choice is bad and will confuse the user.
Ugh, this again. For some reason there's a common meme that a computer platform can be user-friendly or powerful, but not both. Perhaps this just comes from looking at Unix and Windows, but it's not a law of nature. What choices do you lose when you run OS X? You can fire up a terminal and build Linux apps, run an X server, even dispense with Aqua completely.
To take the cliche example, one mouse button is not confusing, but when you do lots and lots of cut-and-paste, three buttons kick ass all over the place.
For the 1477th time: plug in any 3-button USB mouse, and it works automatically just like you'd expect. Right button gives you context menus (including cut and paste), scroll wheel scrolls, middle button opens browser links in new tabs, etc, etc. Note that Apple went to the trouble to specifically add support for multibutton mice, even though they don't ship them. Not exactly what they'd do if they were intent on denying you choice.
One single desktop is not confusing, but virtual desktops give you more room to move without having to invent flashy tricks like Expose.
So use a virtual desktop app for OS X. Personally, I find keyboard launchers like LaunchBar and Quicksilver superior to both virtual desktops and Expose.
A mail program without TLS support is one less option for the user, but if your provider happens to require that extra layer of security, you're screwed.
Um, so get another mail client that does what you need.
I just don't see any support for your assertion that OS X denies choice to the user. Sure, the defaults are set up in a way that Apple considers best for nonexpert users, but so what? Apple's philosophy is that you shouldn't have to open the hood if you don't want to, but it's not welded shut.
I just wonder if it should be our job to give them a free ride -- for any meaning of "free".
Of course not. Apple's goal is to make money, exactly like Microsoft, IBM, and RedHat. When I say "I like Apple", that's just shorthand for "Apple's interests are aligned with mine at this moment in time", and it's subject to constant reevaluation as events progress.
You also agreed to a contract before you bought the song. Contract binding.
I really can't get worked up about this. Violating a contract isn't a crime. Since using playfair doesn't hurt Apple in any way, I put it well below speeding on the scale of ethical infractions.
they wanted to protect the music they make avaliable
Not really.
they should have spent much more time creating a better DRM
They realized that would be pointless. Steve Jobs: "We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content." iTunes DRM isn't intended to be anything other than a speedbump. The only reason Apple has any protection at all is to keep the RIAA happy. Remember, the iTMS is just a loss leader for the iPod.
erm, no you cannot transcode a fairplay aac file to a mp3 file. You can burn it to a cd, and then rip it, but a direct transcode is not possible.
Although you can import the AAC into iMovie, then export as AIFF. It's pretty clear that Apple doesn't really care about people doing stuff like this, except to the extent that they have to keep the record labels mollified.
You would have the freedom of saying something to a friend on IRC without worrying that someone is going to use it against you.
If you don't trust your friend, why are you telling him your secrets in the first place? Even if it's somehow possible to prevent him from saving the transcript, there's no way you can stop him from "using it against you".
In a country where the laws keep on getting more crappy for joe american, we need protection.
On the other hand, I see great potential for abuse. I'm sure certain individuals in government would love to prevent all permanent records of their statements.
When you're in a modal window, you're running in a special event loop and things like timers, network events, etc, aren't delivered.
Timers still fire if you add them to the appropriate run loop mode (NSModalPanelRunLoopMode in the case of modal windows). I agree that this is inelegant and the default should be to continue processing events.
From the Article: Ashcroft, a religious man who does not drink alcohol or caffeine, smoke, gamble or dance
Right, but that's not conclusive. I don't smoke or drink, but I don't think it's a sin to do so. Although this seems to confirm it:
Ashcroft and his wife, Janet, declined to dance even at his inaugural gala as Missouri governor, upholding his church's stance on dancing.
On the night before he joined the U.S. Senate in early 1995, Ashcroft knelt in a Washington home and allowed family and close friends to anoint him in oil and lay their hands on him in prayer. The ritual dates to the anointing of ancient kings of Israel.
I have a great idea: Leave people the fuck alone. So long as all parties are adults and consenting let them be. Pray, fuck or smoke a joint, I really don't give a shit, it's your life not mine.
Well said.
Oh, I forgot, AG Ashcroft believes dancing is a sin (no shit, he really believes this)
Not that I have great difficulty believing this, but do you have a source?
The utilitarian approach would identify an optimum level of effort at repression, beyond which the cost would exceed the benefit.
Agreed. I just wanted to point out that "we'd be better off without porn" isn't a sufficient argument even if true.
The real issue is how we value freedom. A utilitarian could set the value of freedom somewhere between zero and comparable to the other elements in the equation. A libertarian sets the value very high.
Exactly. As a libertarian-leaning Republican, I would go with a high (though certainly not infinite) value. This is partially because I believe the potential harm from too much government power is much worse than the harm from inaction, so erring on the side of freedom in a specific case may actually be best in the long term.
I do not believe a completely unregulated free market is the right way; otherwise, we end up with corporations in control, as they wield all the power. (Kind of like we have now.)
Although much of the power that corporations have comes by buying favorable legislation from government (DMCA et al).
Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and the others in charge of our country do *not* practice republican ideals: small government, reduced spending, fiscal responsibility, and a respect for personal liberty and responsibility.
Ditto. I'm a libertarian-leaning Republican, and Bush has annoyed me on a number of issues, of which this is the latest. I won't be that upset if Kerry wins, as long as the GOP keeps Congress. Gridlock is often an effective way to keep government from screwing things up.
The Utilitarian argument: Availability of this material provides entertainment, which is good. It leads to more rapes which is bad. The badness of the rapes very heavily outweighs the goodness of the entertainment, so overall we are much better off to ban the pornography.
But porn can never be eliminated completely, and enforcement imposes costs both in dollars and in loss of freedom. The ban can only be justified in utilitarian terms if the decrease in harm is greater than the increase in costs. This is pretty clearly not true in the War on Drugs, and a ban on porn would likely fare even worse given that it can be distributed with near-zero marginal cost.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't political because the program is simply teaching people what the law is.
No. From the article: "Students learn to repeat the program's motto: 'If you don't pay for it, you've stolen it.'" That's just wrong for too many reasons to count.
No, the pledge is unconstitutional now.
No, you can pledge all you like. But government agents (i.e. teachers) can't lead children in a statement that asserts the existence of God. There are gray areas of the establishment clause, but this one isn't even close.
With FairPlay there is a way to play it under Linux (though yes, there is a loss of quality)
Actually, there were already ways to play iTMS files under Linux with no loss of quality (burn a CD or convert to AIFF). Playfair just lets you retain the compression with no quality loss.
But where I'm from a contract is a contract is a contract.
I agree. I also agree that the proper penalty for violating a contract should be actual damages suffered. In the case an iTunes customer using Playfair that would be $0.
Amendment 10 gets ignored selectively by everyone, unfortunately.
There's these guys, but they're too wacky even for me.
So what is wrong with building a business based on supplying music for the iPod only?
Absolutely nothing. But getting governments to enforce that business model is another matter.
Perhaps you are confusing this with "Aurora", which doesn't exist (yet)(maybe)
Well, common sense says they have *something* better than the SR-71...
People don't get bent out of shape when you carry on a converstion with a live person in a restaurant, or a plane. But when you put that other person on a phone, it becomes offensive. What up with that?
My theory, entirely unsupported by scientific evidence: Our brains are pretty good at filtering out uniform background noise (air conditioning, computer fans, etc). Two people having a conversation produce a more constant sound output than one person on a cell phone (who alternates between talking and silence), so the guy on the phone is harder to ignore and thus more annoying.
What he's saying is that capitalism, especially when combined with a stupid and/or short-sighted consumerism, results in situations that are bad for the group as a whole.
If lots of individuals are stupid and/or short-sighted, then *any* system is going to have problems, at least any system with any degree of freedom. And the more you move from capitalism to central planning, the greater damage the "stupid" bloc can do by voting for bad policies. You could try a Platonic benevolent dictatorship, but that wouldn't go over well with me and several million others.
Like a system of always turning the other guy in the Prisoner's Dilema game.
Which is foolish from a self-interest perspective. (Assuming indefinitely repeated games, which is a better model of economic interaction than a one-shot).
It is entirely possible that there are solutions and/or systems that would cost more, but that would result in a better quality of life for everyone down the road. Such a system might very well fail under capitalism
If consumers are rational, such a product would succeed. If they aren't, see above.
"Apply more Capitalism" is not an effective solution to "Capitalism causes these (generic) problems."
Well, I don't agree that capitalism is the source of the problems.
Then why is average fuel economy decreasing?
Because people like SUVs.
So, if a natural disaster strikes, and a bunch of jobs are created to clean up the mess, that's not a loss, it's considered a plus when measured by the GDP.
Perhaps in the short term. In the longer term it's a negative, because the resources spent to rebuild would otherwise have been spent on new investments that would have provided greater benefits.
Nowhere, not even in our tools for economic measurement, is there even a measurement for such things as wastage of natural resources
Yes there is; it's called "price". As a resource becomes scarce, demand exceeds supply and the price rises. This encourages both conservation and investigation of alternatives.
Why would you blame technology where blaming market economics makes more sense?
Actually, neither does.
Automakers are motivated by one thing, profits, and since it's more profitable to make disposable cars, that's the direction they will go.
It's only more profitable if consumers will actually buy them. If consumers buy them, that means they believe the benefits of "disposability" (most likely lower purchase prices) exceed the drawbacks. There may be externalities regarding pollution, but those can be handled with a proper tax structure.
It's a very short term kind of thinking, where somehow it makes sense to create a bunch of junk that only last 10 years.
Sometimes it does. You have to consider the opportunity cost of buying the expensive well made product versus the cheaper "piece of junk" which may meet your needs just fine.
in an insane society, technology is used to create extra work (extra jobs), products that fill land fills as quickly as possible, and in general, waste everyone's time. Yay capitalism.
If you have a better plan, start your own business, market the reliability of your products, and make a bunch of money while improving the world. *That's* capitalism.
DRM or even just RM is not inherently evil.
I'm going to disagree with this, sort of. The goal of DRM is not necessarily evil. If it were possible to sell software that couldn't be used illegally but that didn't deprive users of their existing rights, that would be fine. And a perpetual motion machine would be great too; the problem is that neither is possible. In order for DRM to be effective, I can't be allowed to look under the hood and figure out what *my* computer is doing. Nor can I be permitted to make tools that *could* be used to circumvent DRM, regardless of their other uses. These are serious infringments of my property rights, as well as counter to the ideals of advancing our technology and understanding. So I would say that while DRM may not be inherently evil, strict enforcement of DRM is.
So until then, just like I activate my password, when I want to say "don't casually use my computer", and light weight DRM is appropriate for stopping misuse of music and other files.
That's not a valid analogy. Setting a password doesn't deprive me of my rights, since I have no right to use your computer in the first place. Setting a password causes your computer to act on your behalf; DRM causes it to act on the behalf of others.
It's just like any other EULA: you have the right to refuse the contract, but if there's no contract agreement, you have no legal license to use the software.
Regardless of the specifics of the iTMS "contract", this statement is not true. See 17 USC 117; if you have a software program, you do not need the copyright holder's permission to run it.
Apple provides you with a flashy, very consistent, closed, minimal-options operating system that starts with the idea that choice is bad and will confuse the user.
Ugh, this again. For some reason there's a common meme that a computer platform can be user-friendly or powerful, but not both. Perhaps this just comes from looking at Unix and Windows, but it's not a law of nature. What choices do you lose when you run OS X? You can fire up a terminal and build Linux apps, run an X server, even dispense with Aqua completely.
To take the cliche example, one mouse button is not confusing, but when you do lots and lots of cut-and-paste, three buttons kick ass all over the place.
For the 1477th time: plug in any 3-button USB mouse, and it works automatically just like you'd expect. Right button gives you context menus (including cut and paste), scroll wheel scrolls, middle button opens browser links in new tabs, etc, etc. Note that Apple went to the trouble to specifically add support for multibutton mice, even though they don't ship them. Not exactly what they'd do if they were intent on denying you choice.
One single desktop is not confusing, but virtual desktops give you more room to move without having to invent flashy tricks like Expose.
So use a virtual desktop app for OS X. Personally, I find keyboard launchers like LaunchBar and Quicksilver superior to both virtual desktops and Expose.
A mail program without TLS support is one less option for the user, but if your provider happens to require that extra layer of security, you're screwed.
Um, so get another mail client that does what you need.
I just don't see any support for your assertion that OS X denies choice to the user. Sure, the defaults are set up in a way that Apple considers best for nonexpert users, but so what? Apple's philosophy is that you shouldn't have to open the hood if you don't want to, but it's not welded shut.
I just wonder if it should be our job to give them a free ride -- for any meaning of "free".
Of course not. Apple's goal is to make money, exactly like Microsoft, IBM, and RedHat. When I say "I like Apple", that's just shorthand for "Apple's interests are aligned with mine at this moment in time", and it's subject to constant reevaluation as events progress.
You also agreed to a contract before you bought the song. Contract binding.
I really can't get worked up about this. Violating a contract isn't a crime. Since using playfair doesn't hurt Apple in any way, I put it well below speeding on the scale of ethical infractions.
Apple should have known better
They did.
they wanted to protect the music they make avaliable
Not really.
they should have spent much more time creating a better DRM
They realized that would be pointless. Steve Jobs: "We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content." iTunes DRM isn't intended to be anything other than a speedbump. The only reason Apple has any protection at all is to keep the RIAA happy. Remember, the iTMS is just a loss leader for the iPod.
erm, no you cannot transcode a fairplay aac file to a mp3 file. You can burn it to a cd, and then rip it, but a direct transcode is not possible.
Although you can import the AAC into iMovie, then export as AIFF. It's pretty clear that Apple doesn't really care about people doing stuff like this, except to the extent that they have to keep the record labels mollified.
You would have the freedom of saying something to a friend on IRC without worrying that someone is going to use it against you.
If you don't trust your friend, why are you telling him your secrets in the first place? Even if it's somehow possible to prevent him from saving the transcript, there's no way you can stop him from "using it against you".
In a country where the laws keep on getting more crappy for joe american, we need protection.
On the other hand, I see great potential for abuse. I'm sure certain individuals in government would love to prevent all permanent records of their statements.
When you're in a modal window, you're running in a special event loop and things like timers, network events, etc, aren't delivered.
Timers still fire if you add them to the appropriate run loop mode (NSModalPanelRunLoopMode in the case of modal windows). I agree that this is inelegant and the default should be to continue processing events.
Right, but that's not conclusive. I don't smoke or drink, but I don't think it's a sin to do so. Although this seems to confirm it:
Um, great.
I have a great idea: Leave people the fuck alone. So long as all parties are adults and consenting let them be. Pray, fuck or smoke a joint, I really don't give a shit, it's your life not mine.
Well said.
Oh, I forgot, AG Ashcroft believes dancing is a sin (no shit, he really believes this)
Not that I have great difficulty believing this, but do you have a source?
The utilitarian approach would identify an optimum level of effort at repression, beyond which the cost would exceed the benefit.
Agreed. I just wanted to point out that "we'd be better off without porn" isn't a sufficient argument even if true.
The real issue is how we value freedom. A utilitarian could set the value of freedom somewhere between zero and comparable to the other elements in the equation. A libertarian sets the value very high.
Exactly. As a libertarian-leaning Republican, I would go with a high (though certainly not infinite) value. This is partially because I believe the potential harm from too much government power is much worse than the harm from inaction, so erring on the side of freedom in a specific case may actually be best in the long term.
I do not believe a completely unregulated free market is the right way; otherwise, we end up with corporations in control, as they wield all the power. (Kind of like we have now.)
Although much of the power that corporations have comes by buying favorable legislation from government (DMCA et al).
Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and the others in charge of our country do *not* practice republican ideals: small government, reduced spending, fiscal responsibility, and a respect for personal liberty and responsibility.
Ditto. I'm a libertarian-leaning Republican, and Bush has annoyed me on a number of issues, of which this is the latest. I won't be that upset if Kerry wins, as long as the GOP keeps Congress. Gridlock is often an effective way to keep government from screwing things up.
The Utilitarian argument: Availability of this material provides entertainment, which is good. It leads to more rapes which is bad. The badness of the rapes very heavily outweighs the goodness of the entertainment, so overall we are much better off to ban the pornography.
But porn can never be eliminated completely, and enforcement imposes costs both in dollars and in loss of freedom. The ban can only be justified in utilitarian terms if the decrease in harm is greater than the increase in costs. This is pretty clearly not true in the War on Drugs, and a ban on porn would likely fare even worse given that it can be distributed with near-zero marginal cost.