My guess would be the 75% of the users of the internet don't even know what Arpanet was (and that is was created as a weapon during the Cold War).
Probably way less than that. But ARPANET was primarily a way for researchers to share supercomputer power and research (and by no means was all of that used for military purposes) and as a part of the military's CCC structure. Really not a weapon per se, just an enhanced communications medium, and the benefits to the scientific community were legion long before it turned into the advertising medium now known as "The Internet".
Generally, when I can't find a good segue, I simply fall back on John Cleese's "And now for something completely different."
Can you explain how modern communications, transportation, efficient industrial processes, satellites, computers, medicines, vaccines and treatments, the whole litany of technological accomplishments borne directly from scientific research are not beneficial? Your argument seems to be that since the application of our newfound understanding is sometimes flawed that the scientific process itself is somehow deficient. Or should we simply suppress any research results that might have negative application? Many have suggested that, but the problem is that a. you can't always tell and b. it might go both ways. Usually it does, and usually any applications are far more positive than negative. Otherwise we'd have discarded the scientific method a long time ago and tried something else.
Put it this way: the scientific method is nothing more than a way to figure out how the Universe works. That's it, that's all it is, all it ever meant to be. Science is the only pattern of thought the human race has ever invented (and we've tried a bunch!) that reliably determines fact from fiction. Some people perceive that as a threat, for reasons that only make sense if you wish to promulgate ignorance. As a civilization, we need that ability or all of the problems we are facing will never be solved because we'll all be dead. That's enough benefit to convince me, anyway.
It sounds like you are concerned about the applications of such knowledge. And that's fine, because there are a number of legitimate complaints that can be lodged against corporate and government misuse of scientific research. That is not a problem with science, however... it is a problem with people. Science is a tool, nothing more, and it's people that use (or misuse) their tools.
From a purely scientific perspective, the creationists (or Intelligent Designers or whatever their current name-of-the-month-so-people-won't-know-we're-creat ionists) are not so much right or wrong as they are irrelevant. That's why scientists have a hard time understanding what they're fighting, or that they need to fight at all. I mean, it's just so hard to take Creationists seriously because you don't really believe that rational human being would believe what they're saying. I mean, they have to be joking, right? No, they're not, they're dead serious. Now, I'm not entirely sure that all of them do believe... there are other agendas at work here and that makes them even more dangerous.
Science is all about modeling reality, and refining such models to more closely reflect what is to an increasing degree of accuracy. Consequently, no scientific theory is ever considered perfectly correct, only correct to within a certain probability... but for many theories the margin of predictive error is so small that they are considered physical Law. Evolution and natural selection are in that category, regardless of what the creationists want you to believe. Is there a one hundred percent correspondence between current evolutionary theory and observable fact? No... but there is zero correspondence between creationist "theory" and those same observations. Evolution wins on points alone. It's the best we have to date, it explains so much of what we know about how life changes over time. Will something better come along? Sure... but like you said it will be a refinement of what we already know, and I guarantee that it won't involve a 10,000-year-old Earth or fossils placed here just to fool us. Creationists make the frequent mistake of assuming that what we know now is all that we will ever know.
Scientists will accommodate religion to the point where religious beliefs conflict with reality. Many religions have reached the point where they will alter their dogma to accommodate new knowledge, whereas the creationist movement insists upon making a simple value judgement: we are right and science is wrong. They leave no room for compromise, and when you get right down to it, neither should we. What is, is.
Contrary to what some would have us believe, ignorance is not bliss. It is downright dangerous, in fact, especially to the ignorant.
But it's okay to do behave in that manner when interacting with human beings, as human beings rarely have the courage to do anything about it, and the government won't care if you do so.
True, although I'd say it isn't necessarily courage that is lacking (most people get pretty riled up when dumped on by a bunch of jackasses) but a comparative lack of resources. The DMCA gave companies a really easy way to screw people over, but didn't give individuals any corresponding power to fight back, as you said. The DMCA is completely unbalanced, much like the folks that signed it into law.
Maybe not. But if you're going to take the significant step of switching to an alternate DNS system, you'd best be prepared to accept the consequences. Those could be severe, depending on how well the transfer is managed, and since this is a multinational issue odds are it won't get handled well at all. The British will want a camera in every server, the French won't let the term Domain Name System be used because it's "too American", and the Germans... well, the Germans would probably handle their end pretty well. Matter of fact, I think if I had to pick a country that I'd want to say, "here... we're tired of crap we're getting, you take over for a while" it would probably be Germany.
But you see my point, it will be a mess, with everyone seeing an opportunity promote their own agendas at the expense of everyone else. It's also why the recent European Union efforts to "control the Internet" have been about taking over the existing system, rather than trying to replace it with something else which might (or might not) prove practical at this point. Face it, the world has been damn fortunate that a single entity has run DNS all along, an entity that didn't try to keep anyone out or jack anyone around too much.
The nearest equivalent I can come up with is the breakup of old AT&T here in the United States. We had the most reliable phone system on the planet, bar none. It worked and worked damned well. Kinda like DNS does now.
However, it was a heavy-handed operation, one that owned the entire network right down to the subscriber equipment (the phones themselves.) You didn't have any choice in who you bought phone service from: there was one and only one: Ma Bell (okay, to satisfy the nitpickers out there there was AT&T and the 13 or so RBOCs but it was still the Bell System.) Kinda like the U.S. and DNS.
Along come the early 80's, and the government decides to break up old AT&T and the RBOCs into separate companies, ostensibly to encourage competition in what had been a total government-instituted and mandated monopoly. So, we got competition, yes sir. But it was a tradeoff, and there are a lot of problems with our phone system (or rather, multiple phone systems) that are directly related to that original decision, and the bloodsucking corporate leeches that took over in its wake. Let the U.N. or some other international organization take over the roots, and you'll see the same kind of situation. It won't be pretty, and a lot of effort will be expended trying to screw over the United States as much as possible. No real benefit for us or anyone else that I can see, and the possibility of a sustained DNS failure is very real. That would be bad.
So, the countries in which the roots are located are free to take them over by force any time they want to. That might constitute an act of war, I suppose, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. They're also free to build their own and not use ours. The reason that hasn't been done already is that no-one wants to take the risk of screwing with the system. The global economy is just too dependent upon it at this point. I suppose you could use that as an argument against a single nation running the Domain Name System, but again, if you're gonna change things you better know the risks.
If, as a foreign power, your security could be defeated by IP spoofing then, honestly, your security issues are not going to be solved by managing your own root. In fact, if your so inept, then you probably should leave DNS security in the hands of the Russian or Chinese governments because because, frankly, that DNS root of yours is going to be hacked by script kiddies and spammers in no time flat and trash your whole infrastructure impacting your economy. Honestly, having the Chinese or Russian governments spy on you is probably preferable, and their going to do it anyway, root or no root.
There... is that better now? All the parent was saying is that any nation whose security is dependent upon a computing resource that is owned and operated by an inimical foreign power is asking for trouble. Whether you consider the United States to be such a foreign power is a separate topic for discussion, and one in which I'm not particularly interested in pursuing.
In any event, I didn't perceive his remarks as being particularly U.S.-centric, although it's popular hereabouts to redirect any commentary about Internet infrastructure into criticisms of U.S. policies. Odd that, of all the various services and protocols that traverse the Internet, we get heat for one that has always been run rather well. We are the ones that have, like it or not, run the roots with more even-handedness than most countries around the world would have. Hell, we even let a bunch of hardline Communist states on board, although none of them seem particularly grateful.
Maybe that bothers you, that you don't really have any valid criticisms of our policies towards "Internet governance". Maybe you'd like to invent some reason to "wrest control of the Internet away from the United States" (whatever that means... we don't own or control the network hardware in your country... you do.) There are plenty of other things about United States foreign (and domestic!) policies that you could legitimately bitch about (I do, all the time) but our handling of DNS just isn't one of them at this point.
China's attitude towards the Internet is one that is, unfortunately, becoming more popular with governments of various stripes. They day will come the people of this planet will wish someone were still managing the global DNS infrastructure with something resembling the United States' largely hands-off approach. Don't count on that though.
God, it sounds like the exact same ideas that the USSR had running puppet governments in the other Soviet States.
I don't know what to do with this one. Comparing 13 or so server banks around the world with a nation that annexed multiple countries by main strength and created a true Empire... quite a stretch. Now, if Bush & Co. were to threaten to use our military against any country tried to set up its own Domain Name System or equivalent, you might have a point. You might. But you don't.
Will they have a choice? Would they do any better?
The problem with all this saber-rattling about "control of the Internet" is that there's just too much economic power involved to arbitrarily change anything. Yes, one can complain about U.S. management of DNS (although the system does work rather well), one can complain about what the U.S. might do with DNS (although we haven't done anything yet) but sometimes, change for the sake of change is dangerous. The impact on world economies if DNS were to suffer any significant or long-lasting disruption would be severe. If any major changes or transfer of control of the Domain Name System ever get made, they'd best be made in the light of technological reality and not the immediate political need to stand up to the U.S. Remember what happened with Verisign and SiteFinder? That was just a taste of what might happen to the network if people start squabbling over the roots and waving their dicks around.
No, it's why software engineers aren't just programmers. The problem is that large mechanical engineering is done to standards that are well-understood and don't change that much. Software is much more of a moving target. Eventually, though, computing will become more mature, more stable... and the job of engineer will take on more of its traditional meaning when applied to software development.
Of course, at about that time we'll have invented a true AI and people won't be programming anymore. Hopefully I'll be retired by then and can take up programming as a hobby.
Or maybe they got too many. Not all H-1B's are geniuses, nor are all Americans engineers are idiots, contrary to popular belief. Who knows. But this is going to be a finger-pointing session of Biblical proportions that will probably take years to shake out, and I expect it will spill over into the international politics / diplomatic scene and cause yet another U.S./European rift no matter who was actually at fault.
If the magnets were built to spec, and if proper engineering practices (such as design review) were performed, then it means that multiple minds on both continents missed something and both are responsible. Neither side will want to admit that of course.
Thank you. I stand corrected. I did notice a tiny tear in the outer foil layer... that must have been it. A small amount of mind-control radiation was getting inside. But I'm okay now.
True, somewhere in the 50 mA range for a 2 Gb model I saw. That's pretty remarkable, when you think about it. Of course, the cost-per-bit is substantially higher that for a 3.5" drive.
Lack of obligation for the content holders to check.
Obligation? Come on, with the rapid-fire way these suits have to be managed for sites like Youtube, you want them to be obligated to verify the complaint? No chance in Hell. Smaller companies would never have the resources to do this. Youtube would have failed long before the Google purchase.
I think you misunderstood him. "Content holder" probably refers to the person claiming to own the copyright (in this case, the London-based firm), not the company disseminating the information (YouTube.) And he's right... look at the collateral damage being done just from Viacom's efforts alone. Lots of stuff that isn't even owned by Viacom is being taken down because Viacom is incapable/unwilling to verify their takedown requests. They cheerfully admit that a significant percentage of their notices are in error, and when it turns out that somebody else gets hurt, so sad too bad. Viacom (and anyone else that decides to issue one of those things) should be required to be goddamn sure it's their content being misused: if not, then they are the ones misusing the law and there should be consequences. Should my rights under the law have to be violated so that someone else can protect theirs? I don't think that's right, but that is what is happening.
This is a case of the law giving way too much Power to the People... and Congress knew what it was doing when it did it. The only purpose being served by this section of the DMCA (well, of the DMCA in its entirety, really) is to line the pockets of IP attorneys. The rest of us aren't getting much from it.
The fact that there's a viable weapon if you want something taken down for a short time.
That's fair, but managing copyright is a difficult problem. I'd say this portion of the DMCA got a lot of things right, overall.
Yes, copyright is a thorny problem indeed. The problem comes in when you set up a law that is just sooooo easy to abuse, that can wreak havoc when it invariably is, and when there is zero penalty for abuse. Whenever you remove accountability from any system operated by human beings abuse will occur, with as much certainty as the Sun rising tomorrow. It's human nature and nothing will ever change that, so good law should be written to accommodate that fact. For that reason alone, the DMCA is not a good law.
Put it this way, what is the big complaint the copyright holders (some of them) have with information sharing, either peer-to-peer or a more centralized operation like YouTube? Well, I'll tell you: it's the fact that their legal rights are being infringed with no accountability for those who are doing it. So yes, the DMCA has given rightsholders a weapon, but like the Internet itself it is indiscriminate. Worse, because of the carelessness and irresponsibility of those wielding that weapon, it is having negative effects far beyond its stated purpose.
In reference to my previous message, I was talking about the Sequential Circuits Six-Trak, now that I think about it... the thing had buttons out the wazoo, and a numeric keypad to enter patch information. Gah.
A few pushbuttons and an LCD display are substantially cheaper than an array of pots and multiple position switches and all the associated circuitry. Although, to be fair, with an analog synthesizer the analog controls are simply part of the circuit, whereas with a digital synth you have to have additional electronics to determine control positions (ADC maybe, or perhaps shaft encoders, whatever) which adds expense. Still, you can't hardly sell a performance synthesizer that only has a couple of buttons and a bunch of menus.
One of the first synths I encountered that went that route was the hybrid Sequential Circuits Model 600. It was a real pain in the neck to use for the reasons you outlined, although as I remember it did have one actual knob for making adjustments. I think... it's been a couple of decades since I last played with one. And at that, it's an improvement over my old Kurzweil K1200 Pro, which had a lot of capacity for sound modification but I never used much of it because it was just so darn tedious. Sure was a change from the old Moog Modulars though, or even a mini, and neither that 600 or the Kurzweil were what you would call performance synths. There's a reason that an original Mini-Moog can still go for a couple grand on E-Bay.
The same trend occurred with video displays, which has always pissed me off. I shouldn't have make a couple dozen button presses just to change the brightness. Gimme a goddamn knob, at least for brightness and contrast.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess would be the 75% of the users of the internet don't even know what Arpanet was (and that is was created as a weapon during the Cold War).
Probably way less than that. But ARPANET was primarily a way for researchers to share supercomputer power and research (and by no means was all of that used for military purposes) and as a part of the military's CCC structure. Really not a weapon per se, just an enhanced communications medium, and the benefits to the scientific community were legion long before it turned into the advertising medium now known as "The Internet".
Generally, when I can't find a good segue, I simply fall back on John Cleese's "And now for something completely different."
Can you explain how modern communications, transportation, efficient industrial processes, satellites, computers, medicines, vaccines and treatments, the whole litany of technological accomplishments borne directly from scientific research are not beneficial? Your argument seems to be that since the application of our newfound understanding is sometimes flawed that the scientific process itself is somehow deficient. Or should we simply suppress any research results that might have negative application? Many have suggested that, but the problem is that a. you can't always tell and b. it might go both ways. Usually it does, and usually any applications are far more positive than negative. Otherwise we'd have discarded the scientific method a long time ago and tried something else.
... it is a problem with people. Science is a tool, nothing more, and it's people that use (or misuse) their tools.
Put it this way: the scientific method is nothing more than a way to figure out how the Universe works. That's it, that's all it is, all it ever meant to be. Science is the only pattern of thought the human race has ever invented (and we've tried a bunch!) that reliably determines fact from fiction. Some people perceive that as a threat, for reasons that only make sense if you wish to promulgate ignorance. As a civilization, we need that ability or all of the problems we are facing will never be solved because we'll all be dead. That's enough benefit to convince me, anyway.
It sounds like you are concerned about the applications of such knowledge. And that's fine, because there are a number of legitimate complaints that can be lodged against corporate and government misuse of scientific research. That is not a problem with science, however
Absolutely, so far as Viacom's lawyers are concerned. But like you said, I don't think that was ever meant to happen.
From a purely scientific perspective, the creationists (or Intelligent Designers or whatever their current name-of-the-month-so-people-won't-know-we're-creat ionists) are not so much right or wrong as they are irrelevant. That's why scientists have a hard time understanding what they're fighting, or that they need to fight at all. I mean, it's just so hard to take Creationists seriously because you don't really believe that rational human being would believe what they're saying. I mean, they have to be joking, right? No, they're not, they're dead serious. Now, I'm not entirely sure that all of them do believe ... there are other agendas at work here and that makes them even more dangerous.
... but for many theories the margin of predictive error is so small that they are considered physical Law. Evolution and natural selection are in that category, regardless of what the creationists want you to believe. Is there a one hundred percent correspondence between current evolutionary theory and observable fact? No ... but there is zero correspondence between creationist "theory" and those same observations. Evolution wins on points alone. It's the best we have to date, it explains so much of what we know about how life changes over time. Will something better come along? Sure ... but like you said it will be a refinement of what we already know, and I guarantee that it won't involve a 10,000-year-old Earth or fossils placed here just to fool us. Creationists make the frequent mistake of assuming that what we know now is all that we will ever know.
Science is all about modeling reality, and refining such models to more closely reflect what is to an increasing degree of accuracy. Consequently, no scientific theory is ever considered perfectly correct, only correct to within a certain probability
Scientists will accommodate religion to the point where religious beliefs conflict with reality. Many religions have reached the point where they will alter their dogma to accommodate new knowledge, whereas the creationist movement insists upon making a simple value judgement: we are right and science is wrong. They leave no room for compromise, and when you get right down to it, neither should we. What is, is.
Contrary to what some would have us believe, ignorance is not bliss. It is downright dangerous, in fact, especially to the ignorant.
The Big Lie.
This is why the DMCA rocks!
Hi Sonny. Back from the dead are we?
But it's okay to do behave in that manner when interacting with human beings, as human beings rarely have the courage to do anything about it, and the government won't care if you do so.
True, although I'd say it isn't necessarily courage that is lacking (most people get pretty riled up when dumped on by a bunch of jackasses) but a comparative lack of resources. The DMCA gave companies a really easy way to screw people over, but didn't give individuals any corresponding power to fight back, as you said. The DMCA is completely unbalanced, much like the folks that signed it into law.
but, oddly enough, no one actually seems to be filing charges.
So, in effect, they are not required to make sure. Doesn't matter what the law says, if it's not enforced then it is meaningless.
Big media has been showing so little regard for United States law that this doesn't surprise me one bit. Bush's Justice Department is anything but.
Maybe not. But if you're going to take the significant step of switching to an alternate DNS system, you'd best be prepared to accept the consequences. Those could be severe, depending on how well the transfer is managed, and since this is a multinational issue odds are it won't get handled well at all. The British will want a camera in every server, the French won't let the term Domain Name System be used because it's "too American", and the Germans ... well, the Germans would probably handle their end pretty well. Matter of fact, I think if I had to pick a country that I'd want to say, "here ... we're tired of crap we're getting, you take over for a while" it would probably be Germany.
But you see my point, it will be a mess, with everyone seeing an opportunity promote their own agendas at the expense of everyone else. It's also why the recent European Union efforts to "control the Internet" have been about taking over the existing system, rather than trying to replace it with something else which might (or might not) prove practical at this point. Face it, the world has been damn fortunate that a single entity has run DNS all along, an entity that didn't try to keep anyone out or jack anyone around too much.
The nearest equivalent I can come up with is the breakup of old AT&T here in the United States. We had the most reliable phone system on the planet, bar none. It worked and worked damned well. Kinda like DNS does now.
However, it was a heavy-handed operation, one that owned the entire network right down to the subscriber equipment (the phones themselves.) You didn't have any choice in who you bought phone service from: there was one and only one: Ma Bell (okay, to satisfy the nitpickers out there there was AT&T and the 13 or so RBOCs but it was still the Bell System.) Kinda like the U.S. and DNS.
Along come the early 80's, and the government decides to break up old AT&T and the RBOCs into separate companies, ostensibly to encourage competition in what had been a total government-instituted and mandated monopoly. So, we got competition, yes sir. But it was a tradeoff, and there are a lot of problems with our phone system (or rather, multiple phone systems) that are directly related to that original decision, and the bloodsucking corporate leeches that took over in its wake. Let the U.N. or some other international organization take over the roots, and you'll see the same kind of situation. It won't be pretty, and a lot of effort will be expended trying to screw over the United States as much as possible. No real benefit for us or anyone else that I can see, and the possibility of a sustained DNS failure is very real. That would be bad.
So, the countries in which the roots are located are free to take them over by force any time they want to. That might constitute an act of war, I suppose, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. They're also free to build their own and not use ours. The reason that hasn't been done already is that no-one wants to take the risk of screwing with the system. The global economy is just too dependent upon it at this point. I suppose you could use that as an argument against a single nation running the Domain Name System, but again, if you're gonna change things you better know the risks.
If, as a foreign power, your security could be defeated by IP spoofing then, honestly, your security issues are not going to be solved by managing your own root. In fact, if your so inept, then you probably should leave DNS security in the hands of the Russian or Chinese governments because because, frankly, that DNS root of yours is going to be hacked by script kiddies and spammers in no time flat and trash your whole infrastructure impacting your economy. Honestly, having the Chinese or Russian governments spy on you is probably preferable, and their going to do it anyway, root or no root.
... is that better now? All the parent was saying is that any nation whose security is dependent upon a computing resource that is owned and operated by an inimical foreign power is asking for trouble. Whether you consider the United States to be such a foreign power is a separate topic for discussion, and one in which I'm not particularly interested in pursuing.
... we don't own or control the network hardware in your country ... you do.) There are plenty of other things about United States foreign (and domestic!) policies that you could legitimately bitch about (I do, all the time) but our handling of DNS just isn't one of them at this point.
... quite a stretch. Now, if Bush & Co. were to threaten to use our military against any country tried to set up its own Domain Name System or equivalent, you might have a point. You might. But you don't.
There
In any event, I didn't perceive his remarks as being particularly U.S.-centric, although it's popular hereabouts to redirect any commentary about Internet infrastructure into criticisms of U.S. policies. Odd that, of all the various services and protocols that traverse the Internet, we get heat for one that has always been run rather well. We are the ones that have, like it or not, run the roots with more even-handedness than most countries around the world would have. Hell, we even let a bunch of hardline Communist states on board, although none of them seem particularly grateful.
Maybe that bothers you, that you don't really have any valid criticisms of our policies towards "Internet governance". Maybe you'd like to invent some reason to "wrest control of the Internet away from the United States" (whatever that means
China's attitude towards the Internet is one that is, unfortunately, becoming more popular with governments of various stripes. They day will come the people of this planet will wish someone were still managing the global DNS infrastructure with something resembling the United States' largely hands-off approach. Don't count on that though.
God, it sounds like the exact same ideas that the USSR had running puppet governments in the other Soviet States.
I don't know what to do with this one. Comparing 13 or so server banks around the world with a nation that annexed multiple countries by main strength and created a true Empire
Will they have a choice? Would they do any better?
The problem with all this saber-rattling about "control of the Internet" is that there's just too much economic power involved to arbitrarily change anything. Yes, one can complain about U.S. management of DNS (although the system does work rather well), one can complain about what the U.S. might do with DNS (although we haven't done anything yet) but sometimes, change for the sake of change is dangerous. The impact on world economies if DNS were to suffer any significant or long-lasting disruption would be severe. If any major changes or transfer of control of the Domain Name System ever get made, they'd best be made in the light of technological reality and not the immediate political need to stand up to the U.S. Remember what happened with Verisign and SiteFinder? That was just a taste of what might happen to the network if people start squabbling over the roots and waving their dicks around.
Be careful what you wish for.
And that Kool Aid has no trace of Kool (although it may contain other things.)
Well, what will they do when they run out of her? Go back to putting in vitamin C, I guess.
No, it's why software engineers aren't just programmers. The problem is that large mechanical engineering is done to standards that are well-understood and don't change that much. Software is much more of a moving target. Eventually, though, computing will become more mature, more stable ... and the job of engineer will take on more of its traditional meaning when applied to software development.
Of course, at about that time we'll have invented a true AI and people won't be programming anymore. Hopefully I'll be retired by then and can take up programming as a hobby.
Or maybe they got too many. Not all H-1B's are geniuses, nor are all Americans engineers are idiots, contrary to popular belief. Who knows. But this is going to be a finger-pointing session of Biblical proportions that will probably take years to shake out, and I expect it will spill over into the international politics / diplomatic scene and cause yet another U.S./European rift no matter who was actually at fault.
If the magnets were built to spec, and if proper engineering practices (such as design review) were performed, then it means that multiple minds on both continents missed something and both are responsible. Neither side will want to admit that of course.
More likely it will work just fine. God knows what will pour out of that hole, though.
"Back off, man! I'm a scientist."
Thank you. I stand corrected. I did notice a tiny tear in the outer foil layer ... that must have been it. A small amount of mind-control radiation was getting inside. But I'm okay now.
"upducted"? That's hilarious.
It's worse than that ... you're dead, Jim!
True, somewhere in the 50 mA range for a 2 Gb model I saw. That's pretty remarkable, when you think about it. Of course, the cost-per-bit is substantially higher that for a 3.5" drive.
Lack of obligation for the content holders to check.
... look at the collateral damage being done just from Viacom's efforts alone. Lots of stuff that isn't even owned by Viacom is being taken down because Viacom is incapable/unwilling to verify their takedown requests. They cheerfully admit that a significant percentage of their notices are in error, and when it turns out that somebody else gets hurt, so sad too bad. Viacom (and anyone else that decides to issue one of those things) should be required to be goddamn sure it's their content being misused: if not, then they are the ones misusing the law and there should be consequences. Should my rights under the law have to be violated so that someone else can protect theirs? I don't think that's right, but that is what is happening.
... and Congress knew what it was doing when it did it. The only purpose being served by this section of the DMCA (well, of the DMCA in its entirety, really) is to line the pockets of IP attorneys. The rest of us aren't getting much from it.
Obligation? Come on, with the rapid-fire way these suits have to be managed for sites like Youtube, you want them to be obligated to verify the complaint? No chance in Hell. Smaller companies would never have the resources to do this. Youtube would have failed long before the Google purchase.
I think you misunderstood him. "Content holder" probably refers to the person claiming to own the copyright (in this case, the London-based firm), not the company disseminating the information (YouTube.) And he's right
This is a case of the law giving way too much Power to the People
The fact that there's a viable weapon if you want something taken down for a short time.
That's fair, but managing copyright is a difficult problem. I'd say this portion of the DMCA got a lot of things right, overall.
Yes, copyright is a thorny problem indeed. The problem comes in when you set up a law that is just sooooo easy to abuse, that can wreak havoc when it invariably is, and when there is zero penalty for abuse. Whenever you remove accountability from any system operated by human beings abuse will occur, with as much certainty as the Sun rising tomorrow. It's human nature and nothing will ever change that, so good law should be written to accommodate that fact. For that reason alone, the DMCA is not a good law.
Put it this way, what is the big complaint the copyright holders (some of them) have with information sharing, either peer-to-peer or a more centralized operation like YouTube? Well, I'll tell you: it's the fact that their legal rights are being infringed with no accountability for those who are doing it. So yes, the DMCA has given rightsholders a weapon, but like the Internet itself it is indiscriminate. Worse, because of the carelessness and irresponsibility of those wielding that weapon, it is having negative effects far beyond its stated purpose.
Congress was far too trusting.
In reference to my previous message, I was talking about the Sequential Circuits Six-Trak, now that I think about it ... the thing had buttons out the wazoo, and a numeric keypad to enter patch information. Gah.
A few pushbuttons and an LCD display are substantially cheaper than an array of pots and multiple position switches and all the associated circuitry. Although, to be fair, with an analog synthesizer the analog controls are simply part of the circuit, whereas with a digital synth you have to have additional electronics to determine control positions (ADC maybe, or perhaps shaft encoders, whatever) which adds expense. Still, you can't hardly sell a performance synthesizer that only has a couple of buttons and a bunch of menus.
... it's been a couple of decades since I last played with one. And at that, it's an improvement over my old Kurzweil K1200 Pro, which had a lot of capacity for sound modification but I never used much of it because it was just so darn tedious. Sure was a change from the old Moog Modulars though, or even a mini, and neither that 600 or the Kurzweil were what you would call performance synths. There's a reason that an original Mini-Moog can still go for a couple grand on E-Bay.
One of the first synths I encountered that went that route was the hybrid Sequential Circuits Model 600. It was a real pain in the neck to use for the reasons you outlined, although as I remember it did have one actual knob for making adjustments. I think
The same trend occurred with video displays, which has always pissed me off. I shouldn't have make a couple dozen button presses just to change the brightness. Gimme a goddamn knob, at least for brightness and contrast.
Does the mean that sofware imitates art, or art imitates software?
No, it means that some programmers imitate buffoons.