In a word: incrementalism. Boil the frog slowly... it's worked extremely well for the Federal Government in the post-WWII era, and it appears to be working just fine for Microsoft.
Jurors are struck just for being educated, or at least for having the appearance of it. I spent a couple of days about ten years ago serving (or trying to serve, at any rate) on a jury. Several different juries, in fact. I faced a peremptory challenge every damn time, once it came out during initial questioning that I was an engineer. That's all it took, and all the other technical/scientific/degreed individuals suffered the same fate. I also noticed that the people actually selected tended to be of the welfare-mother category. Basically, anyone presumed to have sufficient critical-thinking skills to tell a prosecutor or defense attorney to stuff it was most definitely not wanted. I got asked all kinds of things, such as what kind of bumper stickers do I have on my car (none), do I have anything against black people (sorry, dude, my girlfriend is from North Africa), anything that could be used to disqualify me as a juror. When that failed, they simply resorted to a peremptory challenge, and that was that.
What that experience taught me was that I'd best never find myself on trial for anything serious because there's no way I'd ever get a jury of my peers. Not that I'd necessarily want my peers sitting in judgment of me either, but don't expect the system to select for intelligent, educated people capable of making rational decisions because it doesn't.
That would be funny, but too many demagogues throughout history have felt the same way, and believed in the absolute rightness of what they were doing for just that reason. And it's the scariest reason of all, for it leaves no room for doubt or self-evaluation.
The large PC manufacturers get Windows for very cheap, and then load it up with "value added" software, links, demos and other such great stuff.
That may be... but what about people like me that prefer to exercise choice in what applications they install? I don't want my machine adulterated with a ton of useless applications and twenty or thirty megs of RAM gone just because HP or whoever wants to make the machine more appealing to people who think "free" is always a good thing. If you want to have an entertaining (not to mention enlightening) few minutes just run Sysinternals AUTORUNS on a brand-new HP-Compaq or Dell.
If you're gonna pre-install the damn OS just give me the OS and not a load of unstable freebies.
The teacher of the science class had apparently even taken the step of stating at the start of the school year that there were other theories on the origin of life.
I'm sure the instructor was only trying to stave off possible litigation and other problems, but that kind of statement opens the door for creationist claptrap, and only serves to embolden anyone that is thinking of making trouble. I think the teacher should have said something more along the lines of, "this is a science class. It will involve the study of Darwin's Theory of Evolution. There are other 'theories', but none of them have any scientific backing whatsoever and are best discussed in theology class."
Personally, I believe in the right to worship your God in your own way, here in the United States or anywhere else. It's a good idea, and it has worked well for the U.S. Our Constitution enshrines that right for all citizens of this nation, and perhaps someone more knowledgeable can enlighten me as to how Russia fares in this regard. Regardless, the right to believe as you wish, to worship as you wish, does have limits and our Creationist friends have definitely crossed the line.
Here's the catch: religious freedom does not include the right to interfere with the educational process in a matter which is clearly outside the purview of that freedom, by attempting to superpose a dogma that is a work of pure fiction. If you're one of those people just be honest with yourself, if not with the rest of us: the facts are not on your side. If you don't want your kids to believe in evolution (or any other well-established scientific theories or laws with which you happen to disagree... I suggest you start with Newton's Laws of Motion and work up from there) just take them out of the public system, and home-school the little tykes. That's preferable to subjecting other parent's children to your own ignorance/intolerance. Or, if you have more "faith" in your persuasive powers, simply use your own voice to provide the alternative viewpoints you're bellyaching about so publicly. Otherwise, you can all just butt out. School is not a platform for your quasi-religious political agenda, so just leave the kids alone.
The world cannot afford to step back to the days when the Church (pick one) persecuted the open-minded and ran progress into the ground, and it is becoming more and more obvious every day that that is exactly where the proponents of Creationism and "Intelligent Design" want to take us.
For my part, I want none of it. Let me point out, to all of the faithful out there, that I am not denigrating anyone's belief system or trying to say that there is no God or any of the other things of which I am no doubt about to be accused. Nor am I (in this missive at least) making any effort to defend the theory of Evolution. But keep this firmly in mind: when you subvert science and repurpose the public school system as tool for religious proselytization, you're offending my worldview, mine and that of others like me.
They may be "underground", as you say... but everyone seems to know about the RIAA Lawsuit Engine (TM) in spite of that fact. Worse, they've often had their "facts" twisted in such a way as to make the situation seem far worse than it is. And that's no accident.
Furthermore, mere knowledge of the L.E. juggernaut has deterred some people I know from downloading anything at all, legitimate or otherwise. One of the most valuable consumer-level technologies to come about in the history of the world has been permanently tainted by a group of sociopathic lawyers with an agenda. That particular tragedy should never have been allowed to happen.
Now, that's just a side effect of this anti-consumer charade, I mean, crusade... but since the RIAA believes that all technology without a UL (Undead Laboratories) Listed sticker on it is to be destroyed, that's probably acceptable collateral damage to them.
Well, Department of Justice employees are appointed or hired, not elected, and if caught taking bribes are in deep doo-doo... but the DOJ is not as independent an entity as one might desire. There are a lot of political favors that have to be accepted in order to reach a high rank in such an organization, and those favors are often owed (Mr. Gonzales, this means you) to people (are you listening, Mr. Hatch? Mr. Berman?) who don't mind a few extra contributions.
The Oprah demographic seems to have the ability to make or break products.
And that's pretty remarkable, when you think about it. I was thinking about going on and telling them my experiences with defective Intel Floating Point Units. That'll teach 'em.
Dollars to doughnuts the Cobol in uTorrent isn't pure: to do what he's doing in that amount of space there's going to be a Texas shitload of Win32 calls and probably some inline assembler. But still... Cobol. Oh well. No accounting for taste.
But you know, once word of this gets out bank programmers are going to be insufferable.
I didn't say it would live without it, just that it should. I know what you're saying, and it's true. On the other hand, if we are to wean ourselves from Microsoft products (should we, collectively, decide that we need to do so) it would be in our best interests not to have too large an investment in Microsoft glue code. Looks like your outfit would be in trouble in that case though.
Does anyone still think that the appeals court was right in reversing Judge Jackson's decision? Did anyone expect that Microsoft would behave any differently? I would hope the oversight committee is paying attention, but they're probably they're too busy enjoying a new Ferrari or two. Seriously, it's been said for years that had there been no Apple, Microsoft would have found it necessary to invent one... but that assumed Apple's market share stayed insignificant. If Apple starts to erode Microsoft's customer base in any substantial way, Microsoft will take steps. This is probably just the first salvo.
But yeah, VBA is something the world should be able to live without.
That isn't even the issue. The real problem (and this applies to any organization, company or "industry trade group" that lobbies successfully for bad law) is the amount of damage they will do the to the economic and legal systems of our country while they're on the way down. The DMCA alone, passed at the behest of the MPAA for the most part, has to be one of the worst pieces of legislation to pass out of Congress in decades, given the bloody trail of frivolous lawsuits left in its wake. I submit that America can no longer afford to have these billion-dollar parasites exerting undue influence upon our elected representatives.
The music studios are capitalist to a degree but they are most certainly unenlightened capitalists. They don't acknowledge, under any conditions, that any other entity, private or corporate, should be permitted to compete with them. And when they can't use their anticompetitive market practices to guarantee control of product distribution, they start whining and lying, and then they head for Washington and get some more protectionlist laws passed without regard for any collateral damage. I'm really getting sick of these people... they aren't some national treasure that must be protected at all costs. They're a bunch of self-serving corporate assholes who don't care who they hurt and yes, that includes the oh-so-important "artists": you know, the creative types whom the labels claim to "represent." Frankly, that kind of representation I could certainly live without.
I think that much of the (ahem) value the labels offer is in production facilities. No matter how good a musician you are, if your tracks aren't well-engineered your music will still suck from the listener's perspective. To a starving artist, the cost of studio and engineering time can be prohibitive, so the labels provide that in exchange for a usurious contract. Maybe it's time for that to change: it's just a service, after all. And since we're now in a "service economy" someone should step up to the plate and provide it.
What's wrong is that it isn't what the copyright system was designed to do. The artist is given time to profit by his work: even before the recent copyright extensions it was a substantial amount of time. If he wants to provide for his descendants, said musician should invest that money or set up a trust fund, rather than spending it all on expensive cars, homes and women, and then expecting society to provide for his family once he's finished running through his profits. I do not understand why some people (like you, apparently) do not understand that copyright was never meant to provide an unlimited monopoly to the originator of a work. It simply was not. Copyright's sole function was to encourage the creation of works, with the ultimate goal of enriching the public domain. That purpose is diametrically opposed to the idea of unlimited copyright, which is already having the opposite effect, that of depleting the public domain. Matter of fact, Thomas Jefferson considered the granting of a copyright to be a loan from the public domain, not the other way around.
If there's anything else with which I can help you, just let me know.
Well, sort of. What you have to understand is that all sciences advance in relation to each other. That is because techniques or discoveries made in one field frequently find application in other, often unrelated fields. The money our military alone expended on basic research in the past century advanced technology on numerous fronts (physics, materials technology, electronics and computers, microwaves and optics to name but a few.) The availability of this knowledge has pushed medical science forward at an unparalleled rate, and that's not even counting the investment the military has made in medicine directly! So it simply is not fair to say that "civilized society" (by which I think you mean "the private sector") is solely responsible for the current state of medical technology. It is simply not true. Had it not been for the two World Wars, the Cold War, and all the hot conflicts since then, you can bet your boots medical science would be far inferior to what we have today. Matter of fact, all of our technology would be inferior.
Spinoffs from military research are all around us and, more to the point, would not exist at this point in time had the world been a safe, comfy place all these years. Conversely, the threat of war with an enemy at or near technological parity is usually sufficient justification to divert vast sums into improving military capability. The truth is that militaries throughout history have always been able to command enormous resources, and since the industrial revolution and scientific development began in earnest, military leaders have realized the benefits of research, directed or otherwise.
Well, I wasn't trying to characterize the entire community, just those that (from some of the comments I read) feel somehow entitled to a developer's source code.
The more terrible they seem the more ground they loose in the PR realm and the more likely they are to protect their IP in a manner more condusive to everyone's long term benefit (e.g. a new business model not so hampered by DRM).
It's the other way around. The more terrible they seem the more ground they gain in the PR realm (actually, fear campaign) thereby making it less likely that they will ever protect their IP in anything resembling a reasonable manner. This isn't about justice, it's not about protecting any goddamn artists (who, frankly need protection from that hideous collection of oligopolistic blood-sucking corporations known as "the music studios" much more than they need to be saved from the horrors of copyright infringement via P2P.) To the contrary, it is all about scaring people into a pattern of behavior (i.e., fear-stricken regarding P2P) more conducive to the RIAA's ultimate goal of world domination, er, I mean, regaining total control of media distribution.
uTorrent was written by one guy by the name of Ludvig Strigeus, not some random dudes. He's Swedish, I think. One of the sharper coders on the planet, I'd say. Anyway, he never wanted to release the source because... he didn't want to release the source. No particular reason why he should have, really. This idea that every programmer that does something way cool somehow owes the community his source code is just silly. He gave away a hot product for free, that's good enough for me.
Not that I wouldn't mind taking a look at that codebase. You know, just for curiosity's sake.
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In a word: incrementalism. Boil the frog slowly ... it's worked extremely well for the Federal Government in the post-WWII era, and it appears to be working just fine for Microsoft.
It can also be bypassed.
For now. You have to look futureward in these cases.
Jurors are struck just for being educated, or at least for having the appearance of it. I spent a couple of days about ten years ago serving (or trying to serve, at any rate) on a jury. Several different juries, in fact. I faced a peremptory challenge every damn time, once it came out during initial questioning that I was an engineer. That's all it took, and all the other technical/scientific/degreed individuals suffered the same fate. I also noticed that the people actually selected tended to be of the welfare-mother category. Basically, anyone presumed to have sufficient critical-thinking skills to tell a prosecutor or defense attorney to stuff it was most definitely not wanted. I got asked all kinds of things, such as what kind of bumper stickers do I have on my car (none), do I have anything against black people (sorry, dude, my girlfriend is from North Africa), anything that could be used to disqualify me as a juror. When that failed, they simply resorted to a peremptory challenge, and that was that.
What that experience taught me was that I'd best never find myself on trial for anything serious because there's no way I'd ever get a jury of my peers. Not that I'd necessarily want my peers sitting in judgment of me either, but don't expect the system to select for intelligent, educated people capable of making rational decisions because it doesn't.
That would be funny, but too many demagogues throughout history have felt the same way, and believed in the absolute rightness of what they were doing for just that reason. And it's the scariest reason of all, for it leaves no room for doubt or self-evaluation.
The large PC manufacturers get Windows for very cheap, and then load it up with "value added" software, links, demos and other such great stuff.
... but what about people like me that prefer to exercise choice in what applications they install? I don't want my machine adulterated with a ton of useless applications and twenty or thirty megs of RAM gone just because HP or whoever wants to make the machine more appealing to people who think "free" is always a good thing. If you want to have an entertaining (not to mention enlightening) few minutes just run Sysinternals AUTORUNS on a brand-new HP-Compaq or Dell.
That may be
If you're gonna pre-install the damn OS just give me the OS and not a load of unstable freebies.
The teacher of the science class had apparently even taken the step of stating at the start of the school year that there were other theories on the origin of life.
... I suggest you start with Newton's Laws of Motion and work up from there) just take them out of the public system, and home-school the little tykes. That's preferable to subjecting other parent's children to your own ignorance/intolerance. Or, if you have more "faith" in your persuasive powers, simply use your own voice to provide the alternative viewpoints you're bellyaching about so publicly. Otherwise, you can all just butt out. School is not a platform for your quasi-religious political agenda, so just leave the kids alone.
I'm sure the instructor was only trying to stave off possible litigation and other problems, but that kind of statement opens the door for creationist claptrap, and only serves to embolden anyone that is thinking of making trouble. I think the teacher should have said something more along the lines of, "this is a science class. It will involve the study of Darwin's Theory of Evolution. There are other 'theories', but none of them have any scientific backing whatsoever and are best discussed in theology class."
Personally, I believe in the right to worship your God in your own way, here in the United States or anywhere else. It's a good idea, and it has worked well for the U.S. Our Constitution enshrines that right for all citizens of this nation, and perhaps someone more knowledgeable can enlighten me as to how Russia fares in this regard. Regardless, the right to believe as you wish, to worship as you wish, does have limits and our Creationist friends have definitely crossed the line.
Here's the catch: religious freedom does not include the right to interfere with the educational process in a matter which is clearly outside the purview of that freedom, by attempting to superpose a dogma that is a work of pure fiction. If you're one of those people just be honest with yourself, if not with the rest of us: the facts are not on your side. If you don't want your kids to believe in evolution (or any other well-established scientific theories or laws with which you happen to disagree
The world cannot afford to step back to the days when the Church (pick one) persecuted the open-minded and ran progress into the ground, and it is becoming more and more obvious every day that that is exactly where the proponents of Creationism and "Intelligent Design" want to take us.
For my part, I want none of it. Let me point out, to all of the faithful out there, that I am not denigrating anyone's belief system or trying to say that there is no God or any of the other things of which I am no doubt about to be accused. Nor am I (in this missive at least) making any effort to defend the theory of Evolution. But keep this firmly in mind: when you subvert science and repurpose the public school system as tool for religious proselytization, you're offending my worldview, mine and that of others like me.
Yes, I should have said, "reversed Judge Jackson's breakup order."
Republicans/Christians? What kind of trolling idiot are you?
I'd say a Democratic/Atheist one, you know, so long as we're making snap judgments about people.
I mean, I'm an uneasy sleeper too ... but at least I don't crash when someone pushes my buttons.
They may be "underground", as you say ... but everyone seems to know about the RIAA Lawsuit Engine (TM) in spite of that fact. Worse, they've often had their "facts" twisted in such a way as to make the situation seem far worse than it is. And that's no accident.
... but since the RIAA believes that all technology without a UL (Undead Laboratories) Listed sticker on it is to be destroyed, that's probably acceptable collateral damage to them.
Furthermore, mere knowledge of the L.E. juggernaut has deterred some people I know from downloading anything at all, legitimate or otherwise. One of the most valuable consumer-level technologies to come about in the history of the world has been permanently tainted by a group of sociopathic lawyers with an agenda. That particular tragedy should never have been allowed to happen.
Now, that's just a side effect of this anti-consumer charade, I mean, crusade
Well, Department of Justice employees are appointed or hired, not elected, and if caught taking bribes are in deep doo-doo ... but the DOJ is not as independent an entity as one might desire. There are a lot of political favors that have to be accepted in order to reach a high rank in such an organization, and those favors are often owed (Mr. Gonzales, this means you) to people (are you listening, Mr. Hatch? Mr. Berman?) who don't mind a few extra contributions.
The Oprah demographic seems to have the ability to make or break products.
And that's pretty remarkable, when you think about it. I was thinking about going on and telling them my experiences with defective Intel Floating Point Units. That'll teach 'em.
Dollars to doughnuts the Cobol in uTorrent isn't pure: to do what he's doing in that amount of space there's going to be a Texas shitload of Win32 calls and probably some inline assembler. But still ... Cobol. Oh well. No accounting for taste.
But you know, once word of this gets out bank programmers are going to be insufferable.
I didn't say it would live without it, just that it should. I know what you're saying, and it's true. On the other hand, if we are to wean ourselves from Microsoft products (should we, collectively, decide that we need to do so) it would be in our best interests not to have too large an investment in Microsoft glue code. Looks like your outfit would be in trouble in that case though.
Does anyone still think that the appeals court was right in reversing Judge Jackson's decision? Did anyone expect that Microsoft would behave any differently? I would hope the oversight committee is paying attention, but they're probably they're too busy enjoying a new Ferrari or two. Seriously, it's been said for years that had there been no Apple, Microsoft would have found it necessary to invent one ... but that assumed Apple's market share stayed insignificant. If Apple starts to erode Microsoft's customer base in any substantial way, Microsoft will take steps. This is probably just the first salvo.
But yeah, VBA is something the world should be able to live without.
... doze, slumber, nap, snooze, relax, take a rest, nod off, or crash.
I'm pretty sure I know what the "crash" option does.
That isn't even the issue. The real problem (and this applies to any organization, company or "industry trade group" that lobbies successfully for bad law) is the amount of damage they will do the to the economic and legal systems of our country while they're on the way down. The DMCA alone, passed at the behest of the MPAA for the most part, has to be one of the worst pieces of legislation to pass out of Congress in decades, given the bloody trail of frivolous lawsuits left in its wake. I submit that America can no longer afford to have these billion-dollar parasites exerting undue influence upon our elected representatives.
... they aren't some national treasure that must be protected at all costs. They're a bunch of self-serving corporate assholes who don't care who they hurt and yes, that includes the oh-so-important "artists": you know, the creative types whom the labels claim to "represent." Frankly, that kind of representation I could certainly live without.
The music studios are capitalist to a degree but they are most certainly unenlightened capitalists. They don't acknowledge, under any conditions, that any other entity, private or corporate, should be permitted to compete with them. And when they can't use their anticompetitive market practices to guarantee control of product distribution, they start whining and lying, and then they head for Washington and get some more protectionlist laws passed without regard for any collateral damage. I'm really getting sick of these people
I think that much of the (ahem) value the labels offer is in production facilities. No matter how good a musician you are, if your tracks aren't well-engineered your music will still suck from the listener's perspective. To a starving artist, the cost of studio and engineering time can be prohibitive, so the labels provide that in exchange for a usurious contract. Maybe it's time for that to change: it's just a service, after all. And since we're now in a "service economy" someone should step up to the plate and provide it.
The Newcomen Engine people are still pissed at the Watt people for breaking their monopoly on manually-operated steam engines.
What's wrong is that it isn't what the copyright system was designed to do. The artist is given time to profit by his work: even before the recent copyright extensions it was a substantial amount of time. If he wants to provide for his descendants, said musician should invest that money or set up a trust fund, rather than spending it all on expensive cars, homes and women, and then expecting society to provide for his family once he's finished running through his profits. I do not understand why some people (like you, apparently) do not understand that copyright was never meant to provide an unlimited monopoly to the originator of a work. It simply was not. Copyright's sole function was to encourage the creation of works, with the ultimate goal of enriching the public domain. That purpose is diametrically opposed to the idea of unlimited copyright, which is already having the opposite effect, that of depleting the public domain. Matter of fact, Thomas Jefferson considered the granting of a copyright to be a loan from the public domain, not the other way around.
If there's anything else with which I can help you, just let me know.
Very true ... but imposing a reasonable restriction on the use of a firearm is a far cry from criminalizing ownership of it.
Well, sort of. What you have to understand is that all sciences advance in relation to each other. That is because techniques or discoveries made in one field frequently find application in other, often unrelated fields. The money our military alone expended on basic research in the past century advanced technology on numerous fronts (physics, materials technology, electronics and computers, microwaves and optics to name but a few.) The availability of this knowledge has pushed medical science forward at an unparalleled rate, and that's not even counting the investment the military has made in medicine directly! So it simply is not fair to say that "civilized society" (by which I think you mean "the private sector") is solely responsible for the current state of medical technology. It is simply not true. Had it not been for the two World Wars, the Cold War, and all the hot conflicts since then, you can bet your boots medical science would be far inferior to what we have today. Matter of fact, all of our technology would be inferior.
Spinoffs from military research are all around us and, more to the point, would not exist at this point in time had the world been a safe, comfy place all these years. Conversely, the threat of war with an enemy at or near technological parity is usually sufficient justification to divert vast sums into improving military capability. The truth is that militaries throughout history have always been able to command enormous resources, and since the industrial revolution and scientific development began in earnest, military leaders have realized the benefits of research, directed or otherwise.
Well, I wasn't trying to characterize the entire community, just those that (from some of the comments I read) feel somehow entitled to a developer's source code.
The more terrible they seem the more ground they loose in the PR realm and the more likely they are to protect their IP in a manner more condusive to everyone's long term benefit (e.g. a new business model not so hampered by DRM).
It's the other way around. The more terrible they seem the more ground they gain in the PR realm (actually, fear campaign) thereby making it less likely that they will ever protect their IP in anything resembling a reasonable manner. This isn't about justice, it's not about protecting any goddamn artists (who, frankly need protection from that hideous collection of oligopolistic blood-sucking corporations known as "the music studios" much more than they need to be saved from the horrors of copyright infringement via P2P.) To the contrary, it is all about scaring people into a pattern of behavior (i.e., fear-stricken regarding P2P) more conducive to the RIAA's ultimate goal of world domination, er, I mean, regaining total control of media distribution.
uTorrent was written by one guy by the name of Ludvig Strigeus, not some random dudes. He's Swedish, I think. One of the sharper coders on the planet, I'd say. Anyway, he never wanted to release the source because ... he didn't want to release the source. No particular reason why he should have, really. This idea that every programmer that does something way cool somehow owes the community his source code is just silly. He gave away a hot product for free, that's good enough for me.
Not that I wouldn't mind taking a look at that codebase. You know, just for curiosity's sake.