Most singers have imperfect pitch. I'd go so far as to say *every* singer does. Your brain corrects pitch generally to a Pythagorean scale (perfect intervals at fifths and octaves, with the third exactly one-half way between the fundamental and fifth). If you listen to an accappella choir, they will nearly always gravitate toward this scale. The unfortunate side effect of a Pythagorean scale is that if the tune changes to another key, it sounds simply awful. Choirs can get away with this because they adjust their tuning on-the-fly to still sound good with one another when doing key changes.
Pianos, guitars, and many other instruments have a great deal of trouble with this. You'd have to rearrange the fretboard on a guitar to avoid (nearly) even-temperament, and the piano requires a skilled tuner at least 10 minutes or so to adjust. Thus most people are accustomed to hearing something as "in-tune" only when it is performed to an even-tempered scale.
This fights the vocalists natural ability to judge tune based on harmonic interaction with the rest of the song.
As a recording artist, I make regular use of pitch correction. You'll find that virtually every major artist commercial artist does, as well. The "effect" you refer to is often called the "Cher Effect" from the song, "Life After Love", where they intentionally used pitch correction to the extreme. Most uses are quite subtle, and are most often used to smooth out the rough edges in a once-in-a-lifetime recording.
It's possible to pitch-correct large variations in performance (bringing, say, a C to a G) but they sound increasingly unnatural the further you move the note from reality. The human ear is very closely attuned to variations from normal speech and singing patterns. That's why a sped-up playback of a tenor doesn't sound like a soprano -- it sounds like a sped-up tenor.
Anyway, get used to pitch correction. It's been in common use for over fifteen years on commercial recordings, but only recently has the technology become cheap enough that it's accessible to live performance and lower-end home recording artists. It's no more "BS" than a motion picture studio rigging cameras up for "bullet time", trapeze artists using a net, or stuntmen playing body doubles for stars in a motion picture. It's the ultimate quality of the performance that matters, and whatever you can do to bring the quality up a notch is probably a good thing.
Some artists thrive due to their "natural" sound. That's great for them. The rest of us enjoy technology's ability to make our lives more fun, interesting, and better-sounding.
If you're needing a gaming fix with scalable difficulty levels from the get-go, allow me to suggest Unreal Tournament 2003. If you crank the difficulty to the point where the very first match is close, you can expect pretty routine butt-whooping throughout the first couple of times in a level, and a big sigh of relief when you do win.
I can play it through on Masterful, losing the first few (well, OK, in the case of the final deathmatch, the first 20 or so) matches before finally winning one and moving up the ladder. I've tried turning it up to Inhuman difficulty, but after the first three matches it's down to sheer good luck if I win or not, so at least I know where I rate on the "can't-beat-the-bot" scale:) Of course, online is a totally different story. The folks still playing UT2003 tend to be pretty amazing, and what some of them lack in "twitch factor" compared to bots at Godlike skill, they make up for in cunning and good timing.
There are plenty of modern games with scalable difficulty levels -- you just have to find them, and be willing to crank up the challenge from the start. A kid over whom we had guardianship for a while insisted on playing through UT2003 in "Easy" mode so that he could win every time. Well, duh, within about an hour of play he complained how "boring" the game was and never played it again. Yet I can revisit it every few months and have a ton of fun for quite a while...
That's a key thing many people ignore. Proper machine administration is a balance of: * reliability * availability * fault-tolerance
Reliability generally refers to the components of a piece of hardware not breaking very often. In our Compaq DL360 and DL380 rackmount units, reliability is a critical factor in their power supplies. The power supplies are simply crap. The fans die, the supplies blow up. It's terrible.
Availability, on the other hand, even if you have components or a system that is not highly reliable, it can still be highly available. For instance, 1U chassis systems with dual power supplies, although the power supply reliability tends to be low, nevertheless tend to be available despite the low reliability.
Fault-Tolerance is how well the system handles unusual circumstances. A system may be highly available and reliable, but if it does not handle system faults well, you may have a problem. Fault-Tolerance really refers to how well the system handles unusual conditions.
Now, I realize the distinctions seem rather vague. That is intentionally so! But separating the question into three parts helps grant admins a better look at what the weak points are of a system.
I generally prefer 1U or 2U units to have a single, reliable power supply, rather than dual power supplies with lower reliability. Because of the higher reliability of their PS, they tend to also be available more. However, you have very poor fault tolerance in the power area with just a single power supply, so you'll normally need redundant systems in order to have a fault-tolerant environment. If that is the case, availability may suffer, for when the first machine goes down in that rare situation that the highly reliable power supply dies, you have some cutover time to the secondary system.
Really, you have to evaluate what's most important for you. In the bank where I work, reliability is critical; fault-tolerance, somewhat less so. Availability is not so much of an issue. We close at 5:30, and really don't do any business after that, so from 5:30 PM through 5:30 AM, our availability can be nonexistent for certain types of maintenance, and we're just fine.
Like I said, the designations there are pretty arbitrary. But if you can come to an approach covering at least three angles on your machines and evaluate by those criteria, your overall uptime goals can be met in a way that suits your organization.
Me, I'm just sick of cheap hardware. I enjoy 1U rackmount systems, but I'd much rather have two higly reliable 2U boxes than four inherently less-reliable 1U units. Of course, vendors come into play there... Sun makes some killer 1U's that never seem to die, while Compaq and Dell's 1U (in my subjective experience) have horrible failure rates, particularly in power supplies.
Actually, life insurance can and does include a clause against suicide. However, it must be for a limited time, and I believe the limit is two years.
We just bought a policy that has exactly this clause in it. So, the rule of thumb is, if you're buying life insurance to cover your family after you knock yourself off, make sure to buy it at least 24 months in advance of your planned farm-buying. At the very least, that gives you a nice, long time to figure out how you're going to accomplish the job.
Unfortunately, "out" has multiple meaning in this context.
I assumed from his usage that it was "out" as in "coming out of the closet". "Out" is a pretty common word to describe something about someone/something that used to be concealed, but now is no longer.
Then again, maybe it is actually "out" as in "not cool anymore"...
That's the rub, really. If someone chooses to sue you, you're subject to "preponderance of evidence", a much easier standard to meet than "beyond a reasonable doubt".
Witness the OJ Simpson trial. The man was acquitted of murder in criminal court. The prosecution was unable to prove, "beyond a reasonable doubt" in the minds of the jury, that he was guilty. Regardless of your feelings about the case, he was not found guilty.
Yet a year later, he was successfully sued to the tune of several million dollars by the victims' families for "wrongful death". The were able to provide a preponderance of evidence that he murdered his wife and her lover, therefore they won massive amounts of money.
Same thing's happening here. Except most of the people defending file trading are pretty much provably guilty, and there's just not enough space in the prisons to house them all. There is, however, enough room in the RI/MPAA's coffers for all the money from their successful judgements.
Copyright infringement is not theft unless it's on a large scale. If I recall correctly, "large" is defined as $6,000 or more.
It is a tort, and it is copyright infringement -- not theft, and not going to result in jail time or anything other than civil penalties. Of course, if you're sharing a file to the whole world, they could easily claim >$6,000 in damages.
Unfortunately, the RI/MPAA intentionally wish to blur the lines, because fear of prosecution helps prevent copyright infringement. But making copies of copyrighted works doesn't make you a thief or a criminal -- it makes you an infringer.
This is similar to how speeding doesn't make you a federal fugitive, or taking a piss in the bushes doesn't make you an arsonist.
There are already stiff laws against "public performance" of videos without permission of the copyright holder.
I'd say playing a vid for 100 friends probably qualifies as "public performance".
I'm not siding with the RI/MPAA here, just noting that this large-scale distribution/viewership is already covered under existing copyright law, and playing a video for a large group of people is generally considered public performance. With varying definitions of "large":)
HanzoSan, you are the most prolific and highest-moderated troll I've ever read posting to a single topic.
Copyright infringement is not theft. It is copyright infringement. Here are some more comparisons:
Breaking and Entering is not Public Urination
Arson is not Digital Manipulation (the manipulation of sexual organs by the fingers, or digits)
Battery is not Indecent Exposure
Get your facts straight. Copyright Infringement is not Theft. Moreso, unless the amount involved is greater than $6,000, it is a tort and not a crime, and definitely not a felony. The police will refuse to get involved, and the person who claims damages must pay for his/her own representation.
Now, if the claimed damages exceed $6,000 we've plunged into misdemeanor copyright infringement territory. At some point it can become a felony (I'm not certain exactly where -- I'd have to look it up), but nevertheless, copyright infringement IS NOT THEFT! It's not stealing. It is infringing copyright, or depriving someone else of their exclusive right to reproduce a certain work. It has no good allegories to other laws that are not also in the "ideas" category.
That said, I defend copyright. I have made money from my copyrights. Copyrights do serve the intended purpose on a small scale, that of encouraging artists to produce works that will eventually fall into the public domain. But if someone copies one of my tapes or CDs, they have not stolen anything from me -- they are not thieves. They are copyright infringers. And I will pursue them as such.
Labelling copyright infringers as thieves is disingenuous. It's a lie to promote the interests of copyright cartels. That you attempt to defend their position says more about their successful brainwashing through advertising and media than the merits of their claim.
As much as I want to agree with you, I find myself disagreeing strongly.
who would be foolish enough to accept the veracity of such information because it was tagged with a consistent screen name?
You are ignoring the influence of reputation and consistency. If a poster has a reputation as a poster of valid, insightful information, further posts tend to enhance that opinion. If the opposite is true, that screen name buys them nothing.
It feels like you've intentionally missed the point. It's not the consistency of the pseudonym that's important. It's the consistency of the quality of the information behind that pseudonym, which you allude to later in your post. I know people online only by their handles that I trust and respect, but only because I've been given trust and respect in return. Is that any less valid because I'm unaware of their real-life identity?
The value of posting as non-AC is important. I've established friend relationships with certain Slashdot users due to their consistently high-quality postings. If they post information, I am far more inclined to regard it with credulity than a posting by Anonymous Coward. The value of a given piece of writing does not rest on the identity of the writer, but the potential impact of that writing is directly related to the audience(s) who are receptive to that writing based on the author's established credibility.
Kind of the old tree/forest thing. If a Slashdot user posts anonymously at -1, does it make a sound? (probably not, unless you're using a voice reader and moderating)
would my refutation of your opinion be any less effective if I posted it anonymously?
Poorly chosen wording there. If you would have used "valid" rather than "effective", I'd have agreed to the point you were getting across. Your refutation is no less valid due to anonymous or non-anon status, but it is far less effective (as in, having any effect on readers) because people generally discount the opinions of ACs.
Because apples and oranges are actually so similar, whenever I would have said "you're comparing apples and oranges" I've begun saying "you're comparing apples and I-beams". At the very least, it tends to get their attention as people say "huh?".
However, even apples and I-beams share some similar characteristics. Maybe I should start saying apples and quantum particles. Or "comparing those two things is like putting psychedelic mushrooms on a pizza."
I know this has diverged massively off-topic, but I feel the need to respond.
I use my real name on Slashdot. See my sig. I use a real email address that, with the exception of checking a few spam blacklists, is completely unprotected from abuse and dumps right into my Inbox. If someone abuses it, I will deal with that case. I prefer to do this because it keeps me painfully aware that the Internet is not anonymous. Posting as an AC on Slashdot would only protect me from the casual and the clueless, not from any monied or government-invested entity that was interested in my true identity.
Of course, someone may choose to take me to task for posting this, or sign my Slashdot email up for 10,000 mailing lists. That's their (stupid) choice. Hell, it might make me implement TMDA on slashdot@barnson.org. But safety in anonymity in a public online forum is an illusion that can be easily broken by those with the will and resources to pursue it.
What you say on these boards are still your words, and as the Internet continues to play a growing role in society, those words may come back to haunt you later if you pursue public life. Use your real name and make yourself easily accessible, and you may find that good things come to you. It also helps to remind you to keep yourself focussed when doing public writing, so that you avoid accidentally writing stupid things because you forgot you were "in public".
Hell, I got a contract job once because of a Slashdot posting. As well, I also got an interview featured in a Linux Journal once. I'm not a fame-monger by any means, but it's still kind of fun to see your name in a print publication.
To bring this back on-topic, I think it's vital that we bring to light the names of those politicians who oppose open-source in government. You can draw several conclusions from the opposition:
He probably does not have great technical acumen. This can be safely assumed for most politicians, but him taking this position cements it.
He most likely has monied, closed-source interests financing him. Check the donors. Although officially money does not buy influence, what it does buy is face time for the donor with the politician, and a little face time is all you need to get your point across.
He probably has not been properly educated about the virtues of open-source, and most likely does not have the time to remedy this situation unless forced. If this representative or senator is yours, write to him/her and remind him/her of his/her civic duties, along with a brief outline of why open source is good and why closed source is bad.
It cannot be stressed enough that, as good as posting on Slashdot makes you feel, taking the same amount of time to write a shorter letter to your Congressman does a lot more good. It helps if the letter is hand-addressed. Good luck!
I've implanted at least one grammatical error and one typo in this post for precisely that reason!
j00 are pwned!
"that server good purposes"
Nice job. Made me go back and re-read your post:)
Part of the reason I get so fired up about illicit filesharing and feel compelled to defend copyright is that I see abuses of the system being used to crack down on the technology rather than the offender. Creating a perception that the Internet is a haven for lawbreakers does a great disservice to its potential. Here I have to note the difference between lawbreakers in the sense of "P2P Pirates" and lawbreakers as say, dissidents in repressive countries. I do not buy the argument that ripping and sharing the latest Brittney Spears is an act of civil disobedience.
The difference is critical. I think the problem so many of us have (including me!) is our predeliction toward labelling something as "right" and "wrong". We want the good guys to defeat the villains. We want to know who the heroes are, and for them to always be virtuous. But the sad reality is that we've had to create laws covering abuses of children because people like to exploit them. It sickens me that my favorite free-speech technology project, Freenet, is now known to the U.S. congress as "that place where child pornographers swap pictures anonymously". But the only choice I seem to have is to decide to either only host my own, private authored content on my Freenet node, not participate in the network at all, or allow my resources to be used for trafficking in someting I find repugnant.
For the time being, until I've settled the moral (and legal!) questions for myself, I've simply shut off my half-dozen Freenet nodes entirely. And I'm really uncomfortable with that decision. I support the concept. I really enjoy writing. I like being able to publish some of my writings pseudonymously. But now I don't dare run a Freenet node because of the massive volume of child porn being distributed via that medium. It makes me wish there were a "parallel freenet" that could only host text-only content, or something. In case you can't tell, I'm rather conflicted about the whole thing at the moment!
Seems to be a common theme here that people who have actually worked in the creative sphere have a little more toleration for the existence of copyright, no?;-)
Absolutely. It's nice to recognize that about yourself. Those who've never created an artistic work (I consider programming an art, as well, as much as writing editorials) sometimes fail to recognize the sense of ownership one gains over one's work. Yet the only purpose of authoring a work, other than mental self-approval, is distribution. The art does not exist without the audience, so to speak. Short-lived copyright is a fair, if not perfect, method of addressing this. With the release of my next album which I hope to have finished by December, I intend to place it under a short-lived copyright, significantly shorter than that currently in place in U.S. law. Then again, it's a hobby for me, and not a living.
Umm, so yeah, it sure looks like we're agreeing again, even when I thought I disagreed with you. We're agreeing with intensity. Or something:)
Well, by THAT logic, then everything is a legal fiction, because there's really only one natural law: The Survival of the Fittest.
So glad you agree with me! I wouldn't agree that everything is a legal fiction, but ultimately, "peace by force" is the only way humanity gets along with one another. However, the nice thing is that we set up governments to help divorce our personal lives from law enforcement, generally resulting in fairer justice. It's not nearly perfect, but it seems to be better than pure anarchy. Humanity has developed these social mores and traditions over time that have become important to honor and follow in their own right because most of us have evolved culturally and biologically to recognize their worth in preserving a sane society. I'm glad for a government where I have a voice in deciding our cultural evolution, however small that voice might be. It's one reason I post here, participate in community service, and write my congressmen.
But there are shades of black and white in here, limitless colors that flavor our perception of laws. A law or tradition that seemed practical a few decades ago now becomes anachronistic and counterproductive. Lawmakers throughout history often pass laws of convenience, creating permanent solutions to termporary problems. Some of these laws are even expressly worded to be temporary, but gain the force of tradition over time as lawmakers begin passing extensions to the law as a matter of routine.
Laws against certain types of consensual sexual behavior often fall into this realm. Although they are on the books, they are not enforced except in conjunction with another crime when they need to "throw the book" at a sex offender in hopes that one or more charges can stick through all the legal wrangling. For instance, in the state of Maryland, it is illegal to engage in oral or "digital" (involving use of the fingers) sexual intercourse. Although universally illegal in the state, this law is not enforced in consensual relationships -- only in criminal abuse or assault cases.
U.S. Copyright law is at that same point with file sharing. The thought of imprisoning or fining millions of file sharers is as ludicrous as imprisoning or fining a substantial fraction of Maryland's 7+ million inhabitants for engaging in normal foreplay. The "legal fiction" of copyright is beginning to lose its veneer and relevance in light of commonplace violation. When a law reaches this point, it should be changed to accomodate common practice, or else remain selectively enforced and forever easily challenged and defeated.
And I find myself agreeing/disagreeing with aborchers again:) I think we'll find we end up agreeing forcefully...
Unlike physical property, "intellectual" property is a total fiction of law. If technology makes that fiction untenable, perhaps it should be rethought.
To this you responded:
No, it's not. It's an unfortunate and political renomenclature for what is collectively known as copyrights and patents
I think that no matter what you call them, patents, copyrights, and trademarks still remain a fiction of law, an invention the only purpose of which is to promote creativity and the expansion of the public domain. I can hum a few bars of a pop tune, and a good musician could reproduce what I hummed shortly afterwards. I can make moving pictures using the corner of a paperback book, and someone else could make very similar pictures drawing on their own in a few minutes.
Similarly, corporations are also a legal fiction. They exist as an entity only for the purpose of collectively gaining money. They are also supposed to collectively share responsibility for failures of that charter. Yet, in a very real sense, corporations don't exist in the "real world". They exist only as an agreement between the citizens of a state and other citizens, granting them the ability to act collectively. A legal fiction, but one that greases the skids of commerce so that business can be done.
So in a sense I agree with you both. While coprights, patents, and trademarks as "intellectual property" and "corporations" are both legal fictions, they are convenient in giving us a flawed metaphor to use in dealing with them in some way that's familiar to us.
People, as you said, are entitled to a limited monopoly on creative works as provided by the constitution, but can't it also be argued that because technology has moved duplication technology so far from the expensive printing press or manual reproduction methods with which the Founding Fathers might be familiar, that perhaps the fundamental assumptions of copyright itself might need reworking in some way? Perhaps it could, while granting an author the exclusive right to profit from his invention, nevertheless not prohibit this sharing of ideas amongst individuals?
To extend your metaphor while recognizing that file-sharing is rampant and will only grow:
Machine guns make it easier to kill people, does that mean the law against murder is obsolete?
Assume technology is moving us to a point where eventually vehicles will be able to prevent accidents on their own. When the time comes that it will be virtually impossible to get into a vehicular accident, will we still need a speed limits on the freeways? Or, to bring it closer to the Constitution, with technology bringing us to the point that soon police will be able to search your home without entering it, will we outlaw technologies that allow a common citizen be able to defend himself from warrantless searches conducted without attempting to enter his home?
Yeah, maybe we're talking apples and I-beams here. But just to make my position clear:
I'm in favor of technology and peer-to-peer networks, particularly Freenet.
I think that the Internet, and ubiquitous communication, and with it ubiquitous self-education as this technology flows into the hands of the Third World, will do more to improve the general lot of mankind than most social programs of the 20th century.
I'm opposed to breaking laws, including those protecting copyrights. I've sold my music before for profit, and would like to do so again. However, I'm not opposed to changing laws.
I think it's high time for us to re-evaluate copyright laws to make them more citizen-friendly, acknowledging the reality that making hundreds of millions of file-sharers into felons is not the correct approach.
I think it's a matter of scale, that is largely dependent on how flat your organization is. My opinion is, if you're more than 2 levels away from upper management, the "chicken salad" comment does apply to those people in upper management laying off those people more than 2 levels below them. They don't know you, and they don't really know your boss either.
A boss will hate seeing one of their people go. I've been there, and when management hands down the edict that 2 people from the dep't have to be let go in order to keep the budget balanced, one agonizes over those two people. But the boss's boss doesn't, although he has a sense of regret for the skills going out the door. The ones they do care about are those people who are highly-skilled, well-known in the company, and are leaving the company because of the massive layoffs. And those they try to buy back.
If there are fewer than 50 people in your company, chances are good any layoffs will be an incredibly painful decision for management. If you have more than 500, it becomes more of a numbers game and far less of a "we rely on so-and-so so she can't go" issue.
But corporate management culture is its own thing. The guy you're laying off today is going to be your boss or co-worker tomorrow. It's crazy how incestuous a culture corporate management is in many states. Most of them (I say "them" as a former manager who defected back to "pure tech" and intends to stay there) have a very "live and let live, don't hold grudges" attitude. Pragmatic and helpful for them, but the average Joe Worker generally isn't so aloof about his job.
Of course, this is stereotyping and every person is different. But as a rule, I don't believe that, in general, upper management at large (>500 workers) corporations really care about the plight of their workers -- they care only about how the plight of their workers affects their bottom line.
Re:but it's more humane!
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Chicken Run
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· Score: 5, Funny
The worst job I've ever heard of is a friend of mine who works at a pig farm. His job is to "plug in" the male pigs to the female pigs because the male pigs are too lazy to do it themselves.
True story, not kidding. And the guy lives, curiously enough, in "Beaver, Utah". Gross job, man.
I own "shares" in a timeshare-like service (WorldMark the Club). I paid $6000 for enough shares to cover one really nice, week-long vacation every year, plus we have the advantage of staying at any club on short notice if we use a thing called "Bonus Time", at an extremely reasonable per-night rate. I also pay another $80 or so every quearter to as my share for them to maintain the facilities we enjoy.
Now, do I own anything? Well, I own shares in Worldmark. They aren't stock shares, but I can sell them, trade them, give them away, or default on them and not be able to use the benefits they convey if I fail to pay my quarterly fees. Assuredly, this is an asset. When we pay our taxes, we list the interest as interest on our second home.
Now, I don't have anything I can point to and say "I own that", except in the larger sense like I can point to a government building and say "I own that". I own a slice of time, at a location of my choosing.
If Worldmark went out of business, I could probably lose the benefits of membership as their assets are raffled off. I vote for management that I hope will not bring this to pass.
How is this so different from The Sims online, DAoC, Everquest, or Ultima Online? Really, the only difference is that I have some voting control over this service, where I have none in those games. Otherwise, yeah, the rug can be pulled out from under you at any time, but real life is like that too. I pay Worldmark so that I can spend time at the facilities I partly-own, and I pay other companies to maintain my characters in virtual worlds. I think eventually some smart company willwise up to this scenario and run online gaming more like time-share condos; set up a non-profit, owner-run maintenance company (like WorldMark), and a for-profit sales company (like TrendWest, their marketer) that drives further growth of the service through new sales. That could be both extremely profitable, and safely stable for the gamers since even if the marketer goes away, the non-profit maintenance corporation doesn't.
My 2 cents.
Re:Don't forget Harry Turtledove's Darkness series
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A Good Summer Read?
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· Score: 1
And you have Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule" as your signature line.
For me, that's the most redeeming part of the "Sword of Truth" series -- those Wizard's Rules. They just feel true. Not that they are great absolute maxims to live by, but the introduction of a new rule in each book gives some interesting flavor as you try to figure out what the rule's going to be (in some cases), or where the rule introduced earlier in the book is going to be used.
Re:Ads are easily blocked
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Gator Examined
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· Score: 2, Informative
GNU Keyring on my Palm Pilot does a pretty good job, too. I know that it's as secure as the password I use on it, and I like carrying around my password database rather than having it live on my PC.
Yes, I'll never forget Philo T. Farnsworth. His nephew taught my English 101 class, and Farnsworth's biography was that semester's reading material. This amazingly overweight English teacher had an ego to match his tremendous bulk, mostly based on his relationship to his "famous" uncle. I dropped out of the class halfway through because I absolutely detested him, then tested out English 101 the next semester.
The biography, written by Farnsworth's wife, is one of the most boring books in existence. Imagine a technical manual, mixed with a romance novel, all written by an octegenarian, prudish widow who detests the subject matter, and you'll get the picture. However, it does mean I'll go to my grave thinking Philo T. Farnsworth was a miserable wretch and a good example of what happens to your life when you let obsession take over your every waking moment and finances.
Wow, that sounds really bitter. It actually wasn't all that terrible, but I finished the book in four hours one night and spent half a semester writing about it. Left a bitter taste in my mouth:)
Anyway, to put this back on-topic, without old Philo, you'd have a spinning wheel in the back of that screen you're staring at reading Slashdot on the far right-hand of the Internet timeline...
"Do you think that they photographers would say "oh, nobody is viewing my work, I'll stop doing it", or what exactly?"
That's a really good question that I have no good answer to. I'll have to chew on it a lot longer to come up with a satisfactory answer; probably longer than this thread will stay editable on Slashdot.
My gut instinct is that child porn producers won't cease their trade unless caught, scared, or harassed out of the industry. The same goes for those who consume it.
Wow, I just suddenly realized that my non-answer in the second paragraph has more application than just this question. Which probably means it's too general to be of any use. Substitute the words "spam" or "illegal drug" or for "child porn", and we've hit on a question that nobody's found the definitive answer for yet. It seems that legalizing this kind of behavior doesn't solve the problem, and neither does declaring "war" on it.
I stand by my statement that trafficking in child pornography is tacit support of the photographers. However, evidence from the U.S. drug war suggests that cracking down on the behavior simply worsens the consequences of being caught. Rather than alleviating the problem, it appears to aggravate it.
Hmm, If I download mp3's for free, I'm destroying the music industry. But If I download child pornography pictures for free, I'm supporting the child pornography industry.
Despite the RIAA's claims to the contrary, I don't believe free redistribution of copyrighted tunes destroys the music industry.
As an example:
I'm heading to the store first thing Monday to pick up Evanescence's album, "Fallen". I heard it first on a Shoutcast Internet radio station, Club977.com. We had the station playing in the background, while we chatted in our front room, and the song "Bring Me To Life" was so good that I and another person in the room who'd never heard it before rushed over to the PC to see who the band was. I was that impressed. Yeah, some people think it's regular Top-40 dreck, and that's fine, but I love it.
I haven't bought a single new CD from a major label in 6 years. The only new CDs I have were ones bought at concerts and classical music from smaller distributors. I have a pretty routine problem with CDDB not knowing what my albums are:) Yet, I have money in my pocket to go buy a "mainstream" album from a band who's publisher, though small, is a paying member of the RIAA. And I have no qualms about it. Once I've purchased the album, though, I intend to mail the label and let the know that, as a paying customer, I love the music but abhor the current practices of the association of which they are a paying member. The RIAA is not a power unto itself. Its policies are shaped by the guidance of the board of directors, if I recall, who are voted in by the voice of the labels who are members of the association. They can always be voted out if enough RIAA members get sick of what they are doing. Witness Hilary Rosen's departure. She wasn't doing the job the way the labels wanted, so she's history, despite the cover story to the contrary.
To push it back on topic, though I realize you were jesting with your comment, in fact I think online MP3 trading helps the music industry far more than it hurts it. The same with kiddie porn -- download and share the porn, and you are supporting those who took the photographs.
I've often wondered about the "ethicality" (is that a word?) of turning in people you know are offenders.
For instance, my former neighbor grew some weed in his basement for his personal supply. It didn't hurt anybody, and he was a very pleasant, nice person. I liked him, and counted him as a friend. Do I turn him into the police for this known illegal action? Do I let him know that I don't condone his conducting illegal activities, but otherwise leave him alone? Do I not say anything?
Similarly, I run into this on a daily basis at work, but on a smaller scale. We run daily reports on email usage, and report any overage to HR. The HR director decided that if any user received or sent more than 25 messages in a day, I would need to submit a detailed report to her of whom they mailed or received mail from, and the timing. She would, in turn, report this information to supervisors on a regular basis, who were free to act or not act on this information. Given that the bank I work for is in the middle of closing down, supervisors have strong incentives for weeding out any "unproductive" workers.
Am I unethical for making that daily report? I mean, I give names, dates, and numbers, and I've become a cog in the wheel that has gotten people fired or encouraged to resign where I work.
There have been studies about how people simply accept authority, even if it results in horrific personal consequences for some poor schmuck down the line. I don't want to be part of that chain.
However, context is important. In the case of my hash-smoking neighbor, he hurt nobody but himself, and after purchasing the initial seeds, maintained his own crop of weed that did not support people getting hurt. Someone collecting child pornography supports the distributors of that child pornography. Thus they are indirectly victimizing children themselves.
The ethical question of whether to report or not seems very cut-and-dried, but I think people have to weigh the decision to report this stuff very heavily. In the case of "victimless" crimes, it seems it would be ridiculous to turn someone in. Where there is a victim within one or two generations of the person, though, the responsible person probably should be prosecuted.
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Most singers have imperfect pitch. I'd go so far as to say *every* singer does. Your brain corrects pitch generally to a Pythagorean scale (perfect intervals at fifths and octaves, with the third exactly one-half way between the fundamental and fifth). If you listen to an accappella choir, they will nearly always gravitate toward this scale. The unfortunate side effect of a Pythagorean scale is that if the tune changes to another key, it sounds simply awful. Choirs can get away with this because they adjust their tuning on-the-fly to still sound good with one another when doing key changes.
Pianos, guitars, and many other instruments have a great deal of trouble with this. You'd have to rearrange the fretboard on a guitar to avoid (nearly) even-temperament, and the piano requires a skilled tuner at least 10 minutes or so to adjust. Thus most people are accustomed to hearing something as "in-tune" only when it is performed to an even-tempered scale.
This fights the vocalists natural ability to judge tune based on harmonic interaction with the rest of the song.
As a recording artist, I make regular use of pitch correction. You'll find that virtually every major artist commercial artist does, as well. The "effect" you refer to is often called the "Cher Effect" from the song, "Life After Love", where they intentionally used pitch correction to the extreme. Most uses are quite subtle, and are most often used to smooth out the rough edges in a once-in-a-lifetime recording.
It's possible to pitch-correct large variations in performance (bringing, say, a C to a G) but they sound increasingly unnatural the further you move the note from reality. The human ear is very closely attuned to variations from normal speech and singing patterns. That's why a sped-up playback of a tenor doesn't sound like a soprano -- it sounds like a sped-up tenor.
Anyway, get used to pitch correction. It's been in common use for over fifteen years on commercial recordings, but only recently has the technology become cheap enough that it's accessible to live performance and lower-end home recording artists. It's no more "BS" than a motion picture studio rigging cameras up for "bullet time", trapeze artists using a net, or stuntmen playing body doubles for stars in a motion picture. It's the ultimate quality of the performance that matters, and whatever you can do to bring the quality up a notch is probably a good thing.
Some artists thrive due to their "natural" sound. That's great for them. The rest of us enjoy technology's ability to make our lives more fun, interesting, and better-sounding.
If you're needing a gaming fix with scalable difficulty levels from the get-go, allow me to suggest Unreal Tournament 2003. If you crank the difficulty to the point where the very first match is close, you can expect pretty routine butt-whooping throughout the first couple of times in a level, and a big sigh of relief when you do win.
:) Of course, online is a totally different story. The folks still playing UT2003 tend to be pretty amazing, and what some of them lack in "twitch factor" compared to bots at Godlike skill, they make up for in cunning and good timing.
I can play it through on Masterful, losing the first few (well, OK, in the case of the final deathmatch, the first 20 or so) matches before finally winning one and moving up the ladder. I've tried turning it up to Inhuman difficulty, but after the first three matches it's down to sheer good luck if I win or not, so at least I know where I rate on the "can't-beat-the-bot" scale
There are plenty of modern games with scalable difficulty levels -- you just have to find them, and be willing to crank up the challenge from the start. A kid over whom we had guardianship for a while insisted on playing through UT2003 in "Easy" mode so that he could win every time. Well, duh, within about an hour of play he complained how "boring" the game was and never played it again. Yet I can revisit it every few months and have a ton of fun for quite a while...
That's a key thing many people ignore. Proper machine administration is a balance of:
* reliability
* availability
* fault-tolerance
Reliability generally refers to the components of a piece of hardware not breaking very often. In our Compaq DL360 and DL380 rackmount units, reliability is a critical factor in their power supplies. The power supplies are simply crap. The fans die, the supplies blow up. It's terrible.
Availability, on the other hand, even if you have components or a system that is not highly reliable, it can still be highly available. For instance, 1U chassis systems with dual power supplies, although the power supply reliability tends to be low, nevertheless tend to be available despite the low reliability.
Fault-Tolerance is how well the system handles unusual circumstances. A system may be highly available and reliable, but if it does not handle system faults well, you may have a problem. Fault-Tolerance really refers to how well the system handles unusual conditions.
Now, I realize the distinctions seem rather vague. That is intentionally so! But separating the question into three parts helps grant admins a better look at what the weak points are of a system.
I generally prefer 1U or 2U units to have a single, reliable power supply, rather than dual power supplies with lower reliability. Because of the higher reliability of their PS, they tend to also be available more. However, you have very poor fault tolerance in the power area with just a single power supply, so you'll normally need redundant systems in order to have a fault-tolerant environment. If that is the case, availability may suffer, for when the first machine goes down in that rare situation that the highly reliable power supply dies, you have some cutover time to the secondary system.
Really, you have to evaluate what's most important for you. In the bank where I work, reliability is critical; fault-tolerance, somewhat less so. Availability is not so much of an issue. We close at 5:30, and really don't do any business after that, so from 5:30 PM through 5:30 AM, our availability can be nonexistent for certain types of maintenance, and we're just fine.
Like I said, the designations there are pretty arbitrary. But if you can come to an approach covering at least three angles on your machines and evaluate by those criteria, your overall uptime goals can be met in a way that suits your organization.
Me, I'm just sick of cheap hardware. I enjoy 1U rackmount systems, but I'd much rather have two higly reliable 2U boxes than four inherently less-reliable 1U units. Of course, vendors come into play there... Sun makes some killer 1U's that never seem to die, while Compaq and Dell's 1U (in my subjective experience) have horrible failure rates, particularly in power supplies.
Actually, life insurance can and does include a clause against suicide. However, it must be for a limited time, and I believe the limit is two years.
We just bought a policy that has exactly this clause in it. So, the rule of thumb is, if you're buying life insurance to cover your family after you knock yourself off, make sure to buy it at least 24 months in advance of your planned farm-buying. At the very least, that gives you a nice, long time to figure out how you're going to accomplish the job.
Unfortunately, "out" has multiple meaning in this context.
I assumed from his usage that it was "out" as in "coming out of the closet". "Out" is a pretty common word to describe something about someone/something that used to be concealed, but now is no longer.
Then again, maybe it is actually "out" as in "not cool anymore"...
That's the rub, really. If someone chooses to sue you, you're subject to "preponderance of evidence", a much easier standard to meet than "beyond a reasonable doubt".
Witness the OJ Simpson trial. The man was acquitted of murder in criminal court. The prosecution was unable to prove, "beyond a reasonable doubt" in the minds of the jury, that he was guilty. Regardless of your feelings about the case, he was not found guilty.
Yet a year later, he was successfully sued to the tune of several million dollars by the victims' families for "wrongful death". The were able to provide a preponderance of evidence that he murdered his wife and her lover, therefore they won massive amounts of money.
Same thing's happening here. Except most of the people defending file trading are pretty much provably guilty, and there's just not enough space in the prisons to house them all. There is, however, enough room in the RI/MPAA's coffers for all the money from their successful judgements.
Copyright infringement is not theft unless it's on a large scale. If I recall correctly, "large" is defined as $6,000 or more.
It is a tort, and it is copyright infringement -- not theft, and not going to result in jail time or anything other than civil penalties. Of course, if you're sharing a file to the whole world, they could easily claim >$6,000 in damages.
Unfortunately, the RI/MPAA intentionally wish to blur the lines, because fear of prosecution helps prevent copyright infringement. But making copies of copyrighted works doesn't make you a thief or a criminal -- it makes you an infringer.
This is similar to how speeding doesn't make you a federal fugitive, or taking a piss in the bushes doesn't make you an arsonist.
There are already stiff laws against "public performance" of videos without permission of the copyright holder.
:)
I'd say playing a vid for 100 friends probably qualifies as "public performance".
I'm not siding with the RI/MPAA here, just noting that this large-scale distribution/viewership is already covered under existing copyright law, and playing a video for a large group of people is generally considered public performance. With varying definitions of "large"
And I think I may be guilty of labelling the wrong person at the start of my prior post :) Forgive me if I did so!
Copyright infringement is not theft. It is copyright infringement. Here are some more comparisons:
Get your facts straight. Copyright Infringement is not Theft. Moreso, unless the amount involved is greater than $6,000, it is a tort and not a crime, and definitely not a felony. The police will refuse to get involved, and the person who claims damages must pay for his/her own representation.
Now, if the claimed damages exceed $6,000 we've plunged into misdemeanor copyright infringement territory. At some point it can become a felony (I'm not certain exactly where -- I'd have to look it up), but nevertheless, copyright infringement IS NOT THEFT! It's not stealing. It is infringing copyright, or depriving someone else of their exclusive right to reproduce a certain work. It has no good allegories to other laws that are not also in the "ideas" category.
That said, I defend copyright. I have made money from my copyrights. Copyrights do serve the intended purpose on a small scale, that of encouraging artists to produce works that will eventually fall into the public domain. But if someone copies one of my tapes or CDs, they have not stolen anything from me -- they are not thieves. They are copyright infringers. And I will pursue them as such.
Labelling copyright infringers as thieves is disingenuous. It's a lie to promote the interests of copyright cartels. That you attempt to defend their position says more about their successful brainwashing through advertising and media than the merits of their claim.
You are ignoring the influence of reputation and consistency. If a poster has a reputation as a poster of valid, insightful information, further posts tend to enhance that opinion. If the opposite is true, that screen name buys them nothing.
It feels like you've intentionally missed the point. It's not the consistency of the pseudonym that's important. It's the consistency of the quality of the information behind that pseudonym, which you allude to later in your post. I know people online only by their handles that I trust and respect, but only because I've been given trust and respect in return. Is that any less valid because I'm unaware of their real-life identity?
The value of posting as non-AC is important. I've established friend relationships with certain Slashdot users due to their consistently high-quality postings. If they post information, I am far more inclined to regard it with credulity than a posting by Anonymous Coward. The value of a given piece of writing does not rest on the identity of the writer, but the potential impact of that writing is directly related to the audience(s) who are receptive to that writing based on the author's established credibility.
Kind of the old tree/forest thing. If a Slashdot user posts anonymously at -1, does it make a sound? (probably not, unless you're using a voice reader and moderating)
Poorly chosen wording there. If you would have used "valid" rather than "effective", I'd have agreed to the point you were getting across. Your refutation is no less valid due to anonymous or non-anon status, but it is far less effective (as in, having any effect on readers) because people generally discount the opinions of ACs.
My two cents.
Because apples and oranges are actually so similar, whenever I would have said "you're comparing apples and oranges" I've begun saying "you're comparing apples and I-beams". At the very least, it tends to get their attention as people say "huh?".
However, even apples and I-beams share some similar characteristics. Maybe I should start saying apples and quantum particles. Or "comparing those two things is like putting psychedelic mushrooms on a pizza."
I use my real name on Slashdot. See my sig. I use a real email address that, with the exception of checking a few spam blacklists, is completely unprotected from abuse and dumps right into my Inbox. If someone abuses it, I will deal with that case. I prefer to do this because it keeps me painfully aware that the Internet is not anonymous. Posting as an AC on Slashdot would only protect me from the casual and the clueless, not from any monied or government-invested entity that was interested in my true identity.
Of course, someone may choose to take me to task for posting this, or sign my Slashdot email up for 10,000 mailing lists. That's their (stupid) choice. Hell, it might make me implement TMDA on slashdot@barnson.org. But safety in anonymity in a public online forum is an illusion that can be easily broken by those with the will and resources to pursue it.
What you say on these boards are still your words, and as the Internet continues to play a growing role in society, those words may come back to haunt you later if you pursue public life. Use your real name and make yourself easily accessible, and you may find that good things come to you. It also helps to remind you to keep yourself focussed when doing public writing, so that you avoid accidentally writing stupid things because you forgot you were "in public".
Hell, I got a contract job once because of a Slashdot posting. As well, I also got an interview featured in a Linux Journal once. I'm not a fame-monger by any means, but it's still kind of fun to see your name in a print publication.
To bring this back on-topic, I think it's vital that we bring to light the names of those politicians who oppose open-source in government. You can draw several conclusions from the opposition:
It cannot be stressed enough that, as good as posting on Slashdot makes you feel, taking the same amount of time to write a shorter letter to your Congressman does a lot more good. It helps if the letter is hand-addressed. Good luck!
j00 are pwned!
Nice job. Made me go back and re-read your post
The difference is critical. I think the problem so many of us have (including me!) is our predeliction toward labelling something as "right" and "wrong". We want the good guys to defeat the villains. We want to know who the heroes are, and for them to always be virtuous. But the sad reality is that we've had to create laws covering abuses of children because people like to exploit them. It sickens me that my favorite free-speech technology project, Freenet, is now known to the U.S. congress as "that place where child pornographers swap pictures anonymously". But the only choice I seem to have is to decide to either only host my own, private authored content on my Freenet node, not participate in the network at all, or allow my resources to be used for trafficking in someting I find repugnant.
For the time being, until I've settled the moral (and legal!) questions for myself, I've simply shut off my half-dozen Freenet nodes entirely. And I'm really uncomfortable with that decision. I support the concept. I really enjoy writing. I like being able to publish some of my writings pseudonymously. But now I don't dare run a Freenet node because of the massive volume of child porn being distributed via that medium. It makes me wish there were a "parallel freenet" that could only host text-only content, or something. In case you can't tell, I'm rather conflicted about the whole thing at the moment!
Absolutely. It's nice to recognize that about yourself. Those who've never created an artistic work (I consider programming an art, as well, as much as writing editorials) sometimes fail to recognize the sense of ownership one gains over one's work. Yet the only purpose of authoring a work, other than mental self-approval, is distribution. The art does not exist without the audience, so to speak. Short-lived copyright is a fair, if not perfect, method of addressing this. With the release of my next album which I hope to have finished by December, I intend to place it under a short-lived copyright, significantly shorter than that currently in place in U.S. law. Then again, it's a hobby for me, and not a living.
Umm, so yeah, it sure looks like we're agreeing again, even when I thought I disagreed with you. We're agreeing with intensity. Or something
So glad you agree with me! I wouldn't agree that everything is a legal fiction, but ultimately, "peace by force" is the only way humanity gets along with one another. However, the nice thing is that we set up governments to help divorce our personal lives from law enforcement, generally resulting in fairer justice. It's not nearly perfect, but it seems to be better than pure anarchy. Humanity has developed these social mores and traditions over time that have become important to honor and follow in their own right because most of us have evolved culturally and biologically to recognize their worth in preserving a sane society. I'm glad for a government where I have a voice in deciding our cultural evolution, however small that voice might be. It's one reason I post here, participate in community service, and write my congressmen.
But there are shades of black and white in here, limitless colors that flavor our perception of laws. A law or tradition that seemed practical a few decades ago now becomes anachronistic and counterproductive. Lawmakers throughout history often pass laws of convenience, creating permanent solutions to termporary problems. Some of these laws are even expressly worded to be temporary, but gain the force of tradition over time as lawmakers begin passing extensions to the law as a matter of routine.
Laws against certain types of consensual sexual behavior often fall into this realm. Although they are on the books, they are not enforced except in conjunction with another crime when they need to "throw the book" at a sex offender in hopes that one or more charges can stick through all the legal wrangling. For instance, in the state of Maryland, it is illegal to engage in oral or "digital" (involving use of the fingers) sexual intercourse. Although universally illegal in the state, this law is not enforced in consensual relationships -- only in criminal abuse or assault cases.
U.S. Copyright law is at that same point with file sharing. The thought of imprisoning or fining millions of file sharers is as ludicrous as imprisoning or fining a substantial fraction of Maryland's 7+ million inhabitants for engaging in normal foreplay. The "legal fiction" of copyright is beginning to lose its veneer and relevance in light of commonplace violation. When a law reaches this point, it should be changed to accomodate common practice, or else remain selectively enforced and forever easily challenged and defeated.
To this you responded:
I think that no matter what you call them, patents, copyrights, and trademarks still remain a fiction of law, an invention the only purpose of which is to promote creativity and the expansion of the public domain. I can hum a few bars of a pop tune, and a good musician could reproduce what I hummed shortly afterwards. I can make moving pictures using the corner of a paperback book, and someone else could make very similar pictures drawing on their own in a few minutes.
Similarly, corporations are also a legal fiction. They exist as an entity only for the purpose of collectively gaining money. They are also supposed to collectively share responsibility for failures of that charter. Yet, in a very real sense, corporations don't exist in the "real world". They exist only as an agreement between the citizens of a state and other citizens, granting them the ability to act collectively. A legal fiction, but one that greases the skids of commerce so that business can be done.
So in a sense I agree with you both. While coprights, patents, and trademarks as "intellectual property" and "corporations" are both legal fictions, they are convenient in giving us a flawed metaphor to use in dealing with them in some way that's familiar to us.
People, as you said, are entitled to a limited monopoly on creative works as provided by the constitution, but can't it also be argued that because technology has moved duplication technology so far from the expensive printing press or manual reproduction methods with which the Founding Fathers might be familiar, that perhaps the fundamental assumptions of copyright itself might need reworking in some way? Perhaps it could, while granting an author the exclusive right to profit from his invention, nevertheless not prohibit this sharing of ideas amongst individuals?
To extend your metaphor while recognizing that file-sharing is rampant and will only grow:
Assume technology is moving us to a point where eventually vehicles will be able to prevent accidents on their own. When the time comes that it will be virtually impossible to get into a vehicular accident, will we still need a speed limits on the freeways? Or, to bring it closer to the Constitution, with technology bringing us to the point that soon police will be able to search your home without entering it, will we outlaw technologies that allow a common citizen be able to defend himself from warrantless searches conducted without attempting to enter his home?
Yeah, maybe we're talking apples and I-beams here. But just to make my position clear:
I think it's a matter of scale, that is largely dependent on how flat your organization is. My opinion is, if you're more than 2 levels away from upper management, the "chicken salad" comment does apply to those people in upper management laying off those people more than 2 levels below them. They don't know you, and they don't really know your boss either.
A boss will hate seeing one of their people go. I've been there, and when management hands down the edict that 2 people from the dep't have to be let go in order to keep the budget balanced, one agonizes over those two people. But the boss's boss doesn't, although he has a sense of regret for the skills going out the door. The ones they do care about are those people who are highly-skilled, well-known in the company, and are leaving the company because of the massive layoffs. And those they try to buy back.
If there are fewer than 50 people in your company, chances are good any layoffs will be an incredibly painful decision for management. If you have more than 500, it becomes more of a numbers game and far less of a "we rely on so-and-so so she can't go" issue.
But corporate management culture is its own thing. The guy you're laying off today is going to be your boss or co-worker tomorrow. It's crazy how incestuous a culture corporate management is in many states. Most of them (I say "them" as a former manager who defected back to "pure tech" and intends to stay there) have a very "live and let live, don't hold grudges" attitude. Pragmatic and helpful for them, but the average Joe Worker generally isn't so aloof about his job.
Of course, this is stereotyping and every person is different. But as a rule, I don't believe that, in general, upper management at large (>500 workers) corporations really care about the plight of their workers -- they care only about how the plight of their workers affects their bottom line.
The worst job I've ever heard of is a friend of mine who works at a pig farm. His job is to "plug in" the male pigs to the female pigs because the male pigs are too lazy to do it themselves.
True story, not kidding. And the guy lives, curiously enough, in "Beaver, Utah". Gross job, man.
I own "shares" in a timeshare-like service (WorldMark the Club). I paid $6000 for enough shares to cover one really nice, week-long vacation every year, plus we have the advantage of staying at any club on short notice if we use a thing called "Bonus Time", at an extremely reasonable per-night rate. I also pay another $80 or so every quearter to as my share for them to maintain the facilities we enjoy.
Now, do I own anything? Well, I own shares in Worldmark. They aren't stock shares, but I can sell them, trade them, give them away, or default on them and not be able to use the benefits they convey if I fail to pay my quarterly fees. Assuredly, this is an asset. When we pay our taxes, we list the interest as interest on our second home.
Now, I don't have anything I can point to and say "I own that", except in the larger sense like I can point to a government building and say "I own that". I own a slice of time, at a location of my choosing.
If Worldmark went out of business, I could probably lose the benefits of membership as their assets are raffled off. I vote for management that I hope will not bring this to pass.
How is this so different from The Sims online, DAoC, Everquest, or Ultima Online? Really, the only difference is that I have some voting control over this service, where I have none in those games. Otherwise, yeah, the rug can be pulled out from under you at any time, but real life is like that too. I pay Worldmark so that I can spend time at the facilities I partly-own, and I pay other companies to maintain my characters in virtual worlds. I think eventually some smart company willwise up to this scenario and run online gaming more like time-share condos; set up a non-profit, owner-run maintenance company (like WorldMark), and a for-profit sales company (like TrendWest, their marketer) that drives further growth of the service through new sales. That could be both extremely profitable, and safely stable for the gamers since even if the marketer goes away, the non-profit maintenance corporation doesn't.
My 2 cents.
And you have Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule" as your signature line.
For me, that's the most redeeming part of the "Sword of Truth" series -- those Wizard's Rules. They just feel true. Not that they are great absolute maxims to live by, but the introduction of a new rule in each book gives some interesting flavor as you try to figure out what the rule's going to be (in some cases), or where the rule introduced earlier in the book is going to be used.
GNU Keyring on my Palm Pilot does a pretty good job, too. I know that it's as secure as the password I use on it, and I like carrying around my password database rather than having it live on my PC.
Yes, I'll never forget Philo T. Farnsworth. His nephew taught my English 101 class, and Farnsworth's biography was that semester's reading material. This amazingly overweight English teacher had an ego to match his tremendous bulk, mostly based on his relationship to his "famous" uncle. I dropped out of the class halfway through because I absolutely detested him, then tested out English 101 the next semester.
:)
The biography, written by Farnsworth's wife, is one of the most boring books in existence. Imagine a technical manual, mixed with a romance novel, all written by an octegenarian, prudish widow who detests the subject matter, and you'll get the picture. However, it does mean I'll go to my grave thinking Philo T. Farnsworth was a miserable wretch and a good example of what happens to your life when you let obsession take over your every waking moment and finances.
Wow, that sounds really bitter. It actually wasn't all that terrible, but I finished the book in four hours one night and spent half a semester writing about it. Left a bitter taste in my mouth
Anyway, to put this back on-topic, without old Philo, you'd have a spinning wheel in the back of that screen you're staring at reading Slashdot on the far right-hand of the Internet timeline...
My gut instinct is that child porn producers won't cease their trade unless caught, scared, or harassed out of the industry. The same goes for those who consume it.
Wow, I just suddenly realized that my non-answer in the second paragraph has more application than just this question. Which probably means it's too general to be of any use. Substitute the words "spam" or "illegal drug" or for "child porn", and we've hit on a question that nobody's found the definitive answer for yet. It seems that legalizing this kind of behavior doesn't solve the problem, and neither does declaring "war" on it.
I stand by my statement that trafficking in child pornography is tacit support of the photographers. However, evidence from the U.S. drug war suggests that cracking down on the behavior simply worsens the consequences of being caught. Rather than alleviating the problem, it appears to aggravate it.
Despite the RIAA's claims to the contrary, I don't believe free redistribution of copyrighted tunes destroys the music industry.
As an example:
I'm heading to the store first thing Monday to pick up Evanescence's album, "Fallen". I heard it first on a Shoutcast Internet radio station, Club977.com. We had the station playing in the background, while we chatted in our front room, and the song "Bring Me To Life" was so good that I and another person in the room who'd never heard it before rushed over to the PC to see who the band was. I was that impressed. Yeah, some people think it's regular Top-40 dreck, and that's fine, but I love it.
I haven't bought a single new CD from a major label in 6 years. The only new CDs I have were ones bought at concerts and classical music from smaller distributors. I have a pretty routine problem with CDDB not knowing what my albums are
To push it back on topic, though I realize you were jesting with your comment, in fact I think online MP3 trading helps the music industry far more than it hurts it. The same with kiddie porn -- download and share the porn, and you are supporting those who took the photographs.
I've often wondered about the "ethicality" (is that a word?) of turning in people you know are offenders.
For instance, my former neighbor grew some weed in his basement for his personal supply. It didn't hurt anybody, and he was a very pleasant, nice person. I liked him, and counted him as a friend. Do I turn him into the police for this known illegal action? Do I let him know that I don't condone his conducting illegal activities, but otherwise leave him alone? Do I not say anything?
Similarly, I run into this on a daily basis at work, but on a smaller scale. We run daily reports on email usage, and report any overage to HR. The HR director decided that if any user received or sent more than 25 messages in a day, I would need to submit a detailed report to her of whom they mailed or received mail from, and the timing. She would, in turn, report this information to supervisors on a regular basis, who were free to act or not act on this information. Given that the bank I work for is in the middle of closing down, supervisors have strong incentives for weeding out any "unproductive" workers.
Am I unethical for making that daily report? I mean, I give names, dates, and numbers, and I've become a cog in the wheel that has gotten people fired or encouraged to resign where I work.
There have been studies about how people simply accept authority, even if it results in horrific personal consequences for some poor schmuck down the line. I don't want to be part of that chain.
However, context is important. In the case of my hash-smoking neighbor, he hurt nobody but himself, and after purchasing the initial seeds, maintained his own crop of weed that did not support people getting hurt. Someone collecting child pornography supports the distributors of that child pornography. Thus they are indirectly victimizing children themselves.
The ethical question of whether to report or not seems very cut-and-dried, but I think people have to weigh the decision to report this stuff very heavily. In the case of "victimless" crimes, it seems it would be ridiculous to turn someone in. Where there is a victim within one or two generations of the person, though, the responsible person probably should be prosecuted.