Ok, outside the copyright debate, am I the only one that is extremely skeptical when someone is the "czar" of something? What the hell does that actually mean, and what can they actually do?
Establish a secret police to rout all revolutionaries and anti-royalists. Establish a serfdom and enforce it with an iron fist. Confiscate the property of radicals and starve them and their families. Get lined up against a wall and shot when the revolution comes.
{sigh} unfortunately, we're talking about an unelected bureaucrat, not a real Czar.
So, this guy won't get shot, much as he'll probably deserve to be. He'll be in office until the next President fires his happy little ass and installs a new model.
The people responsible for this travesty won't suffer at all. That's the downside of being a civilized nation. How does the joke go? "Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."
Does that mean copyrights will now be available on every street corner?
Whaddaya mean the wasn't the goal?
Those who forget history and all that. Prohibition doesn't work, no matter what country you happen to find yourself. Well, it doesn't work in terms of forbidding access to products or services that the people really want. It may work when it comes to illegitimately extending government authority.
What this debacle should teach us (as if we didn't already know) is that the levels of corruption, malfeasance in office, and influence peddling in Congress are much higher than was previously thought. "Elected" leaders of banana republics whore themselves out in similar fashion, and really, not for much less money.
They are successful. So long as you remember that the goal is to make the police force so big that a dictator can rely on them to keep the population in check.
BTW, if we weren't all criminals yesterday, and we're aren't all criminals now, you can be sure we will all be criminals soon.
We've all been criminals for a long, long time. It's just that nobody has bothered to prosecute us yet.
So attaching the "transformation plant" to a carbon fueled power plant means you have a process turning hydrocarbons into hydrocarbons, and spending energy doing it.)
Okay, so here's the business plan:
1. Sell "transformation plant" to existing fossil-fueled power production facility.
2. Profit!
3. Retire to country with no extradition treaty before the Grand Jury can be convened.
I'll compile it, contributions are welcome. Here are mine.
Here are a few more:
[ ] sounds too good to be true.
[ ] actually is too good to be true.
[ ] no supporting studies or other peer-reviewed research
[ ] marketing materials use the word "proprietary" and/or "patent pending" way too often.
[ ] company founders^H^H^H^H^H^Hperpetrators previously convicted of fraud and/or embezzlement
[ ] investors must have the ability to suspend disbelief at will
What is it that makes it possible for these kind of people to have investors fawn at their feet whilst the rest of us have problems getting investors to believe in the basic laws of physics?
I remember that one of her first assignments was to write down every detail of their trip home from school that day, just to get a feel for their capabilities. A typical result would be something on the order of: "Left school. Side door. Went to car. Got in. Went home."
The student communicated all of the requested information in a clear and concise fashion. Sounds like the problem is with your ex, not the students.
Dude, if you consider that an example of proper college-level English, you're part of the problem. She had some serious faults as a human being, but I had to admit she was a damn good teacher.
On another note, you make a good point on/. not having a -1 disagree moderation because I certainly disagree.
Mainly because disagreement is not only expected and accepted, but is the driving force behind Slashdot. If everyone agreed with everyone else, there'd be no need to post anything (preaching to the choir is boring.) We all derive considerable satisfaction by winning someone over to our side, of making them really think about things they take for granted. Goes both ways, of course... I'm intellectually honest enough to admit when someone else has a more accurate perception than I do. That also is part of the appeal, if you're a person who is willing to learn.
You have to wonder, if Software Patents existed in the US from the beginning, if the US Software Industry would have grown into what it is today?
Of course not. The modern patent system would have significantly repressed such developments in this country, and it would have been left for some other, more-enlightened country to have forged the Personal Computer revolution.
The fact that outfits like, oh, I don't know... IBM, and Microsoft, have built gigantic patent portfolios for largely defensive purposes should tell us something. Microsoft, in particular, has never shown much interest in patent litigation, yet applies for a vast number of patents every year (many of them trivial.) In the current legal climate, such activity is necessary so it won't find itself in an indefensible position with regards to its own products.
The Judge in this case didn't grasp the difference between complicated and sophisticated. He certainly should have: the law is no different in that respect.
Complexity is relatively easy to achieve: just implement your code in a substandard, inefficient manner and voila!, you have complexity. That should not, in and of itself, be worth a government-sanctioned monopoly.
Indeed we should. The concept of thought as property is a problem in and of itself. The granting of temporary monopolies on specific implementations of ideas is one thing: holding that mere ideas can be property is something else again. I don't care what country you live in, the entire premise of "intellectual property" is amoral and fundamentally flawed.
America has forgotten that it built its success on the back of the geniuses that migrated there.
Not really. The real problem is that certain people are blurring the distinction between legal and illegal immigration.
Correct. I would further note that when anyone tries to point this out, they're immediately hit with the "racist" label. It's not racist to speak out about trends and policies that have a negative impact on you and yours. However, in the U.S. a powerful method of attacking an opponent's credibility is to cry "racist", whether they are or not (or whether it's germane to the discussion or not.)
It's happened to me here on Slashdot on several occasions, even though I'm a white guy who's getting married to an African woman. She earned her citizenship the right way, followed the rules... and honestly finds any talk of amnesty or granting citizenship to illegal immigrants offensive. She had to prove herself to us... why should millions of others get a free pass?
The answer to that question is easy: they should not. Period, end-of-statement. But a lot of people have a very confused idea about what immigration truly means to any country: it does not mean that you open your borders to anyone who wants in.
Many people from other countries (yes, Mexico, I'm talking about you) perceive America as a candy store. It's not though: it's a sovereign nation. What I want to know is, when did we lose that sovereignty? When did we, as a society, lose the right to determine who lives among us? All other nations on this Earth reserve that right. Why is America an exception, and if it is... what do we out of it?
That entire HUGE HOST of others that are speaking about would be dwarfed in terms of numbers by a single year's worth of H1B's. Your argument is specious: all the guest workers are not Einsteins. The whole point of this article is that many of them are not only not Einsteins, but nowhere near as educated and useful as they say they are.
Get a grip. This is about corporations wanting cheaper labor, and about corrupt politicians aiding and abetting them. It's not about immigration, not about improving our society by bringing in worthy people from other cultures and assimilating them into our own. Not by a long shot.
Furthermore, if it were about immigration, we'd be perfectly justified (by your own logic) in being selective as hell and only allowing the best and brightest of those people to work and live in our country. But we don't: we just want them cheap. Period. If they happen to be good, fine. If not... why, that's fine too, so long as they work cheap enough to justify firing the domestic workforce. What, you think quality is an issue here? Are you blind?
You can't put a price on an Einstein, or a Tesla, or any of the other great men who came to this great nation and more than repaid our generosity. You can, however, put a price on yet another Unix server admin, database consultant or Web developer.
And that is what this is about. Don't try to make it any grander or more poetic than it is. It's down and dirty politics and money-grubbing, and none of your references to intellectually accomplished immigrants will ever change that.
To be honest, had I been aware of this place back then, I'd have wasted just as much time. Oh well. Better than watching Fox News, I suppose. At least here I occasionally learn something interesting.
Well, in a way it's just yet another offloading of personal responsibility onto the government. People just don't want to be bothered having to monitor their children properly (or risk being bothered by words or images that they personally find offensive.) So, lazy asses that they are, they figure it's just easier to let the government reduce the broadcast medium to something as inoffensive (and, often, as uninformative and unentertaining) as necessary.
So does this mean we are allowed to write "Wire Less" now?
No, because truth-in-advertising requires you to be honest about it. It's just "Less Wire", because while it doesn't send data over wires, you still have to plug the damn thing in.
True, but then the FCC is not entirely rational on the subject of "decency" in the first place. I like watching TV shows produced in Canada and not edited to comply with American broadcast "standards". I was watching episodes of "Dead Like Me" a while ago: the originals were hilarious because the language wasn't cut out (like when the Ellen Muth's character says, "I could hear the Universe cocking the fuck-with-me gun.") You'd never hear that on American broadcast TV. Stargate as well... the very first episode contained some full-frontal nudity that never made it down here.
Apparently, the mere sight of woman's body, when combined with certain words, immediately corrodes a child's virgin mind into uselessness or permanent insanity. I'd like to know what bizarre thought processes lead to that conclusion on the part of our lawmakers.
Now, maybe that's just me... I had an ex-Marine for an uncle when I was growing up. Fuck if I know.
Here's a relevant quote from Heinlein's Starship Troopers. This story takes place in the far future (I don't much care for the rather prophetic bit about the "tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century", seeing as I live in one) and Mr Dubois gives a very Heinlein-esque definition of value:
He had been droning along about "value," comparing the Marxist theory with the orthodox "use" theory. Mr. Dubois had said, "Of course, the Marxian definition of value is ridiculous. All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart; it remains a mud pie, value zero. By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green apples, valuable already, into an inedible mess, value zero. Conversely, a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of greater value than a commonplace apple tart, with no more effort than an ordinary cook uses to prepare an ordinary sweet.
"These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value -- the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives -- and to illustrate the truth of the common-sense definition as measured in terms of use."
Dubois had waved his stump at us. "Nevertheless -- wake up, back there! -- nevertheless the disheveled old mystic of Das Kapital, turgid, tortured, confused, and neurotic, unscientific, illogical, this pompous fraud Karl Marx, nevertheless had a glimmering of a very important truth. If he had possessed an analytical mind, he might have formulated the first adequate definition of value . . . and this planet might have been saved endless grief.
" 'Value' has no meaning other than in relation to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal and different in quantity for each living human -- 'market value' is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible."
"This very personal relationship, 'value,' has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him . . . and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts that 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.
"Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain."
Slashdot Mirror
Establish a secret police to rout all revolutionaries and anti-royalists. Establish a serfdom and enforce it with an iron fist. Confiscate the property of radicals and starve them and their families. Get lined up against a wall and shot when the revolution comes.
{sigh} unfortunately, we're talking about an unelected bureaucrat, not a real Czar.
So, this guy won't get shot, much as he'll probably deserve to be. He'll be in office until the next President fires his happy little ass and installs a new model.
The people responsible for this travesty won't suffer at all. That's the downside of being a civilized nation. How does the joke go? "Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."
Does that mean copyrights will now be available on every street corner?
Whaddaya mean the wasn't the goal?
Those who forget history and all that. Prohibition doesn't work, no matter what country you happen to find yourself. Well, it doesn't work in terms of forbidding access to products or services that the people really want. It may work when it comes to illegitimately extending government authority.
What this debacle should teach us (as if we didn't already know) is that the levels of corruption, malfeasance in office, and influence peddling in Congress are much higher than was previously thought. "Elected" leaders of banana republics whore themselves out in similar fashion, and really, not for much less money.
Depressing, really.
... DMCA, pro-IP and others american bullshits laws means nothing on my country
Yes! And fortunately for us, none of your country's "bullshits laws" mean squat over here.
So there.
They are successful. So long as you remember that the goal is to make the police force so big that a dictator can rely on them to keep the population in check.
BTW, if we weren't all criminals yesterday, and we're aren't all criminals now, you can be sure we will all be criminals soon.
We've all been criminals for a long, long time. It's just that nobody has bothered to prosecute us yet.
So attaching the "transformation plant" to a carbon fueled power plant means you have a process turning hydrocarbons into hydrocarbons, and spending energy doing it.)
Okay, so here's the business plan:
1. Sell "transformation plant" to existing fossil-fueled power production facility.
2. Profit!
3. Retire to country with no extradition treaty before the Grand Jury can be convened.
Photosynthasis, furmentation, distilation?
What the fuck are those?
I'll compile it, contributions are welcome. Here are mine.
Here are a few more:
[ ] sounds too good to be true.
[ ] actually is too good to be true.
[ ] no supporting studies or other peer-reviewed research
[ ] marketing materials use the word "proprietary" and/or "patent pending" way too often.
[ ] company founders^H^H^H^H^H^Hperpetrators previously convicted of fraud and/or embezzlement
[ ] investors must have the ability to suspend disbelief at will
What is it that makes it possible for these kind of people to have investors fawn at their feet whilst the rest of us have problems getting investors to believe in the basic laws of physics?
See: Critical Thinking (lack of)
*sigh* Why admit a mistake, when you could have just cleverly defined "porcess?"
A "porcess" is a female pig, I thought everyone knew that.
I remember that one of her first assignments was to write down every detail of their trip home from school that day, just to get a feel for their capabilities. A typical result would be something on the order of: "Left school. Side door. Went to car. Got in. Went home."
The student communicated all of the requested information in a clear and concise fashion. Sounds like the problem is with your ex, not the students.
Dude, if you consider that an example of proper college-level English, you're part of the problem. She had some serious faults as a human being, but I had to admit she was a damn good teacher.
Confusion or not, I think we're saying the same thing.
On another note, you make a good point on /. not having a -1 disagree moderation because I certainly disagree.
Mainly because disagreement is not only expected and accepted, but is the driving force behind Slashdot. If everyone agreed with everyone else, there'd be no need to post anything (preaching to the choir is boring.) We all derive considerable satisfaction by winning someone over to our side, of making them really think about things they take for granted. Goes both ways, of course ... I'm intellectually honest enough to admit when someone else has a more accurate perception than I do. That also is part of the appeal, if you're a person who is willing to learn.
You have to wonder, if Software Patents existed in the US from the beginning, if the US Software Industry would have grown into what it is today?
... IBM, and Microsoft, have built gigantic patent portfolios for largely defensive purposes should tell us something. Microsoft, in particular, has never shown much interest in patent litigation, yet applies for a vast number of patents every year (many of them trivial.) In the current legal climate, such activity is necessary so it won't find itself in an indefensible position with regards to its own products.
Of course not. The modern patent system would have significantly repressed such developments in this country, and it would have been left for some other, more-enlightened country to have forged the Personal Computer revolution.
The fact that outfits like, oh, I don't know
The Judge in this case didn't grasp the difference between complicated and sophisticated. He certainly should have: the law is no different in that respect.
Complexity is relatively easy to achieve: just implement your code in a substandard, inefficient manner and voila!, you have complexity. That should not, in and of itself, be worth a government-sanctioned monopoly.
We should just get rid of the concept of IP
Indeed we should. The concept of thought as property is a problem in and of itself. The granting of temporary monopolies on specific implementations of ideas is one thing: holding that mere ideas can be property is something else again. I don't care what country you live in, the entire premise of "intellectual property" is amoral and fundamentally flawed.
America has forgotten that it built its success on the back of the geniuses that migrated there.
Not really. The real problem is that certain people are blurring the distinction between legal and illegal immigration.
Correct. I would further note that when anyone tries to point this out, they're immediately hit with the "racist" label. It's not racist to speak out about trends and policies that have a negative impact on you and yours. However, in the U.S. a powerful method of attacking an opponent's credibility is to cry "racist", whether they are or not (or whether it's germane to the discussion or not.)
... and honestly finds any talk of amnesty or granting citizenship to illegal immigrants offensive. She had to prove herself to us ... why should millions of others get a free pass?
... what do we out of it?
It's happened to me here on Slashdot on several occasions, even though I'm a white guy who's getting married to an African woman. She earned her citizenship the right way, followed the rules
The answer to that question is easy: they should not. Period, end-of-statement. But a lot of people have a very confused idea about what immigration truly means to any country: it does not mean that you open your borders to anyone who wants in.
Many people from other countries (yes, Mexico, I'm talking about you) perceive America as a candy store. It's not though: it's a sovereign nation. What I want to know is, when did we lose that sovereignty? When did we, as a society, lose the right to determine who lives among us? All other nations on this Earth reserve that right. Why is America an exception, and if it is
That entire HUGE HOST of others that are speaking about would be dwarfed in terms of numbers by a single year's worth of H1B's. Your argument is specious: all the guest workers are not Einsteins. The whole point of this article is that many of them are not only not Einsteins, but nowhere near as educated and useful as they say they are.
... why, that's fine too, so long as they work cheap enough to justify firing the domestic workforce. What, you think quality is an issue here? Are you blind?
Get a grip. This is about corporations wanting cheaper labor, and about corrupt politicians aiding and abetting them. It's not about immigration, not about improving our society by bringing in worthy people from other cultures and assimilating them into our own. Not by a long shot.
Furthermore, if it were about immigration, we'd be perfectly justified (by your own logic) in being selective as hell and only allowing the best and brightest of those people to work and live in our country. But we don't: we just want them cheap. Period. If they happen to be good, fine. If not
You can't put a price on an Einstein, or a Tesla, or any of the other great men who came to this great nation and more than repaid our generosity. You can, however, put a price on yet another Unix server admin, database consultant or Web developer.
And that is what this is about. Don't try to make it any grander or more poetic than it is. It's down and dirty politics and money-grubbing, and none of your references to intellectually accomplished immigrants will ever change that.
To be honest, had I been aware of this place back then, I'd have wasted just as much time. Oh well. Better than watching Fox News, I suppose. At least here I occasionally learn something interesting.
Well, in a way it's just yet another offloading of personal responsibility onto the government. People just don't want to be bothered having to monitor their children properly (or risk being bothered by words or images that they personally find offensive.) So, lazy asses that they are, they figure it's just easier to let the government reduce the broadcast medium to something as inoffensive (and, often, as uninformative and unentertaining) as necessary.
Boy, you people sure love your exaggerations.
So does this mean we are allowed to write "Wire Less" now?
No, because truth-in-advertising requires you to be honest about it. It's just "Less Wire", because while it doesn't send data over wires, you still have to plug the damn thing in.
True, but then the FCC is not entirely rational on the subject of "decency" in the first place. I like watching TV shows produced in Canada and not edited to comply with American broadcast "standards". I was watching episodes of "Dead Like Me" a while ago: the originals were hilarious because the language wasn't cut out (like when the Ellen Muth's character says, "I could hear the Universe cocking the fuck-with-me gun.") You'd never hear that on American broadcast TV. Stargate as well ... the very first episode contained some full-frontal nudity that never made it down here.
... I had an ex-Marine for an uncle when I was growing up. Fuck if I know.
Apparently, the mere sight of woman's body, when combined with certain words, immediately corrodes a child's virgin mind into uselessness or permanent insanity. I'd like to know what bizarre thought processes lead to that conclusion on the part of our lawmakers.
Now, maybe that's just me
which would have content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children.
Considered by whom?
Farmers vs. cars?
Wake me when we can grow cars.
Here's a relevant quote from Heinlein's Starship Troopers. This story takes place in the far future (I don't much care for the rather prophetic bit about the "tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century", seeing as I live in one) and Mr Dubois gives a very Heinlein-esque definition of value:
He had been droning along about "value," comparing the Marxist theory with the orthodox "use" theory. Mr. Dubois had said, "Of course, the Marxian definition of value is ridiculous. All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart; it remains a mud pie, value zero. By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green apples, valuable already, into an inedible mess, value zero. Conversely, a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of greater value than a commonplace apple tart, with no more effort than an ordinary cook uses to prepare an ordinary sweet.
"These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value -- the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives -- and to illustrate the truth of the common-sense definition as measured in terms of use."
Dubois had waved his stump at us. "Nevertheless -- wake up, back there! -- nevertheless the disheveled old mystic of Das Kapital, turgid, tortured, confused, and neurotic, unscientific, illogical, this pompous fraud Karl Marx, nevertheless had a glimmering of a very important truth. If he had possessed an analytical mind, he might have formulated the first adequate definition of value . . . and this planet might have been saved endless grief.
" 'Value' has no meaning other than in relation to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal and different in quantity for each living human -- 'market value' is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible."
"This very personal relationship, 'value,' has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him . . . and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts that 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.
"Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain."