It's true of course that Star Wars borrows heavily from its predecessors. But like most things there's always 2 sides to the phenomenon of "borrowing" ideas.
Steven Spielberg is considered by many to be one of the greatest directors of all time. Jaws, Close Encounters, Poltergeist...these all won him respect and acclaim, but it was the Indiana Jones series that boosted him to his present status. Raiders was a mercurial moment for him; he even says so in many of his interviews. But what does this have to do with George Lucas? Lucas wrote the Indiana Jones story and gave it to Spielburg.
Nobody remembers that...when they hear Raiders they automatically think Spielburg. The fact is that we owe a great debt to George Lucas for creating some incredibly rich fantasies for us. He wrote the Star Wars series, and the concept of Indiana Jones. The point is, for a few years there Lucas was an absolute genius at fusing together the very best of a story genre...and he deserves a great deal of respect for that.
I'll be the first to agree that the ghost has left him however, and that his best days are long gone. Some people only get 15 minutes, George had at least 5 good years. Not too shabby.
Of course Dune ripped off Lawrence of Arabia, right?:)
Exactly.
If this thread doesn't demonstrate the absurdity of copyrighting, I don't know what does. These stories have been passed down for thousands of years...only the names have changed.
I was really disappointed when I read the article. I thought it was going to be about fans of Star Treg TNG
It's true! The editors are playing games with us! Just a few days ago there was an article entitled "Geek chic power housees" and it was about a bunch of rich assholes and thier homes!?!? That made me cry =(.
Now they make an article called "Next Generation Fans", and it's about CPU cooling?!? ARGH!
*rifles through silver-ware drawer for a rusty spoon*
the FCC has just approved the first upgrade in broadcast radio technology in decades. It allows "CD quality" digital signals to be simulcast by stations along with their traditional analog feed.
How much "bandwidth" does this new digital radio take up? Will it be something we have to contend for 10 years down the road when 802.11X takes off?
Does anyone have a link to a good tutorial on how things are looking? Is there still a lot of "premium" airwave space for wireless internet to grow into, or are we heading towards another battle with corporate america?
How is this possible without in effect telling every router "You don't know where it's going, but get it there." or having some 'trusted' router where the 'public' IP is recast into the private - with the obvious problems there.
You're right of course, it's a very difficult problem. But when people like Vint Cerf say stuff like this:
In addition to that, I wish there had been some opportunity to develop end/end cryptographic methods such as IPSEC to increase the confidentiality of information passing through the net. Ironically, beginning in 1975 I began work on a secured version of Internet with the National Security Agency. Because the details of this design were classified, none of this design could be shared with the uncleared developers at universities and industry engaged in the unfolding design of the Internet.
It means that it's not impossible. And if ever we needed a "secured version of the internet", it's now.
Look how Jpeg, Lzw compression and some other patents destroy progress and support the birth of free formats like Png.
Of course, well all know that. But the difficulty doesn't lie in convicing us. We use these tools every day, it's what we do. We see how the "system" is practically crumbling before our very eyes...but most people don't live in our world.
The question in how can you convey our understanding to a group of justices who are probably even less technologically inclined than your grandmother?
If you read the trascript, the jusitices questioned why there was never any objection raised before? There have been 11 consecutive extensions of the copyright duration, and very little dissent was voiced until recently. Eldred's response was "the internet changes everything". Now, we all know exactly what he means, but do you think there's a prayer in hell that these justices know?
This is a very complex system of interdependancies that does not easily lend itself to precedence or analogy. I just hope Eldred can come up with more than "the internet changes everything". Because there will be no internet if he's wrong.
Actually there's a very urgent need for standard end-to-end encryption in IP. A few stories back there's a Q/A session with Vint Cerf who very interstingly mentions the following:
4) TCP/IP by sdjunky
considering your work with TCP/IP protocols what would you change now that you can look back retrospectively to how it has been used/misused. What would you incorporate into designs now that weren't even thought of at the time that TCP/IP was created?
Vint:
I suppose I wish I had decided on a larger address space than 32 bits! (that decision was made in 1977 after a year of argument about it). Moreover, I now believe that it would have been wise for us to incorporate into the design principles the notion that every end unit ("thing with an IP address") has a way to "authenticate" itself to any other end unit. As it stands now, these end devices have to declare their own IP addresses and that leads to an architectural opportunity for deception and spoofing. In addition to that, I wish there had been some opportunity to develop end/end cryptographic methods such as IPSEC to increase the confidentiality of information passing through the net. Ironically, beginning in 1975 I began work on a secured version of Internet with the National Security Agency. Because the details of this design were classified, none of this design could be shared with the uncleared developers at universities and industry engaged in the unfolding design of the Internet.
-----
As it stands now, these end devices have to declare their own IP addresses and that leads to an architectural opportunity for deception and spoofing
Unfortunately it also leads to finding your ass in jail. Remember this guy?. That could be any of us if the RIAA gets its way in court, and many of us don't want it that way. Right now there are about 4,000,000 users running Kazaa. And if the courts decide that ISPs are obligated to tell the RIAA what users are doing, this could become a very unpleasant reality for each and every one of us. What we need is an end-to-end encryption standard that provides true anonymity. I.e. something that ensures that a 3rd party can't "sniff" packets and link IP addresses to thier source.
My favourite quote: "in the Gunbarrel area...". Americans! You're so damn steeped in gun culture you name neighbourhoods after weapons' parts.
True true, but as a previous resident of Colorado I can tell you that these names are at least 120 years old. They were so-named during the frontier era when the only thing that kept you alive was your gun. Mountain men relied on thier weapon for food and for protection. That's just the way it was in the West during the 1800s, and that's why they named stuff the way they did.
It just makes a canajen boy shake his head and celebrate the difference.
Maybe you should study your countries' history a bit more.
Articles that end up getting linked are usually written by experts on the subject. It's unrealistic to think that in the 5 mins you've dedicated to link the story that you can come up with a more compelling, more descriptive few sentences than the introduction of the article itself.
In my opinion this is a lot like trying to re-invent the wheel. If someone has already spent two days working out catchy slogans, and good tight compressed language to describe a particular story, then it's probably the best set of 80 words to describe the story.
If you want to pour the holy water of "though shalt not plagerize because it makes you look like a telegraph repeater" on the ground and roll in it, then knock yourself out.
But to those of us who aren't interested in distributing credit like a bunch of girl-scout merit badges, and are just interested in the story, please keep on copy-pasting. Yes your high school teacher taught you that copying was wrong, but you're all grown up now...and it's time to throw away childish ideas.
This is probably the most profound statement about OSS I've seen in this discussion.
OSS projects are not better because the coders are more talented or devoted than closed source projects. They are better because they actually have QA resources that cannot be matched by close source projects.
Yes, but on the flipside OS software is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.
Without reliability, business won't endorse open source software. So what ends up happening is you have hundreds of so-called "advanced users" who are basically hobbiests with a sense of adventure spending thier time using faulty software...so that eventually the rest of us will get a useful product. Sure it's thorough, and the bugs do get found...but there are side-effects to this.
For a lot of us who were using Mozilla in the beta stages, it was a complete mess. I remember one bug that was just so rediculous it rendered the entire browswer unusable. As I recall the only way to type a URL into the browser address window was to doubleclick on the text, and hold down the mouse while typing the URL. It was maddening and I stopped using it after a few days. The bug was addressed, and fixed in the next version. But it wasn't for another 8 months(long after the 1.0 release) that I picked up and tried mozilla again.
The point is, I wanted a web browser, not an adventure. Most users want things they can trust. They want working e-mail, office applications, web browsers, etc. Businesses are even more fickle about this. In a business environment software has to be reliable or it could end up costing millions, there is just no room for "software speculation".
OSS projects like Apache and the Linux kernel are stable because they have enjoyed years of meticulous care. I say care because in those cases the user and the developer were the same person. But where are you going to find daring OSS beta-testers for office applications and enterprise level software? These are products that need to work now. 5 years of screw-ups may produce a good product in the end...but most companies can't afford those 5 years.
Actually, my experience with OSS support has been tons better than commercial software. I can email the developers, who often respond in minutes with an answer.
No no, I think you're missing the point. You're already "inside" the Linux community, he's talking about the other 99.99% of the human population. The issue here is useability.
He's not asking how to tweak the source code to get something to compile...he's asking what your mother would ask, what your father would ask, what your brother or sister would ask, and probably what almost everyone living on your street would ask. How can I get my soundcard to work in Linux?
OSS devs are the worst people to ask for help. When you say computers or Linux they start visualizing C code, and talking editors and compilers...they are someplace else entirely. I'm no fan of Microsoft, or AOL...but the main reason why they are successful is not because they sell a better product, but because they sell a product that people can actually use.
Mmm yeah, except the Libertarian party is economically conservative....meaning screw you as long as I've got mine, a.k.a. what poor people?
16% of the US population is living below the poverty line, that's the highest that number has been since 1970. And you want to vote Libertarian so we can elevate that number?
Nope, as far as the poor are concerned Libertarian and Republican are the same thing.
There is an almost hemmoraging debate occuring right now regarding the DMCA, and DRM in general. On the one side of the debate, there are programmers and designers who understand the importance of IP and how it maintains thier salaries. On the other side, many technologists believe that DRM threatens the future of technology by disallowing free experimentation. Both sides of the issue appear to be absolutely correct. Turning every general purpose computer into a "protected appliance" will mean the end of an era for all of us, but abandoning DRM will effectively nullify the ability to make "content for profit". How can we save the "future" of technology, and at the same time ensure that we can continue to make a living? Has there been any murmuring in SV about this problem? Is there a light at the end of this tunnel?
If you're close enough to TOUCH the person... why not just give a business card or TALK to the person???
Why not do both? Besides, now you can focus on talking about stuff you want to...because you can take the details for granted.
From the article:
The technology could allow data communications through door knobs, switches, desks and chairs, the paper said.
It could pave the way to one day being able to pass through railway ticket gates or entering secure buildings with a simple touch.
This is really really really great stuff. 10Mbs is more than fast enough to handle thousands of different applications. Hell, you wouldn't even need to remember what you did that day...it's all recorded on your PDA. Where you were, who you spoke with, the names of the people you met, thier jobs, thier contact info...just sitting on a bench at the bus terminal could give you detailed information about routing schedules, etc.
Stephenson would be proud of this kind of stuff, and rightly so...he was right about most of the cool stuff still coming from Japan. Something like this is way too progressive to be taken seriously in the US, and probably even in europe...the Japanese people have such a great attitude towards technology, I wish I could say that same about the average american.
Then again, with AOL and MS being "so easy to use no wonder they're #1"...something like this might just catch on...what's easier than a handshake?
Slashdot Mirror
It's true of course that Star Wars borrows heavily from its predecessors. But like most things there's always 2 sides to the phenomenon of "borrowing" ideas.
Steven Spielberg is considered by many to be one of the greatest directors of all time. Jaws, Close Encounters, Poltergeist...these all won him respect and acclaim, but it was the Indiana Jones series that boosted him to his present status. Raiders was a mercurial moment for him; he even says so in many of his interviews. But what does this have to do with George Lucas? Lucas wrote the Indiana Jones story and gave it to Spielburg.
Nobody remembers that...when they hear Raiders they automatically think Spielburg. The fact is that we owe a great debt to George Lucas for creating some incredibly rich fantasies for us. He wrote the Star Wars series, and the concept of Indiana Jones. The point is, for a few years there Lucas was an absolute genius at fusing together the very best of a story genre...and he deserves a great deal of respect for that.
I'll be the first to agree that the ghost has left him however, and that his best days are long gone. Some people only get 15 minutes, George had at least 5 good years. Not too shabby.
Of course Dune ripped off Lawrence of Arabia, right? :)
Exactly.
If this thread doesn't demonstrate the absurdity of copyrighting, I don't know what does. These stories have been passed down for thousands of years...only the names have changed.
I was really disappointed when I read the article. I thought it was going to be about fans of Star Treg TNG
It's true! The editors are playing games with us! Just a few days ago there was an article entitled "Geek chic power housees" and it was about a bunch of rich assholes and thier homes!?!? That made me cry =(.
Now they make an article called "Next Generation Fans", and it's about CPU cooling?!? ARGH!
*rifles through silver-ware drawer for a rusty spoon*
I thought it said Geek Chicks.
For real, talk about a let-down.
Well, at least it assures a 3/4 majority. Simple majority can be dangerous; just look at the last presidential election.
the FCC has just approved the first upgrade in broadcast radio technology in decades. It allows "CD quality" digital signals to be simulcast by stations along with their traditional analog feed.
How much "bandwidth" does this new digital radio take up? Will it be something we have to contend for 10 years down the road when 802.11X takes off?
Does anyone have a link to a good tutorial on how things are looking? Is there still a lot of "premium" airwave space for wireless internet to grow into, or are we heading towards another battle with corporate america?
How is this possible without in effect telling every router "You don't know where it's going, but get it there." or having some 'trusted' router where the 'public' IP is recast into the private - with the obvious problems there.
You're right of course, it's a very difficult problem. But when people like Vint Cerf say stuff like this:
In addition to that, I wish there had been some opportunity to develop end/end cryptographic methods such as IPSEC to increase the confidentiality of information passing through the net. Ironically, beginning in 1975 I began work on a secured version of Internet with the National Security Agency. Because the details of this design were classified, none of this design could be shared with the uncleared developers at universities and industry engaged in the unfolding design of the Internet.
It means that it's not impossible. And if ever we needed a "secured version of the internet", it's now.
Look how Jpeg, Lzw compression and some other patents destroy progress and support the birth of free formats like Png.
Of course, well all know that. But the difficulty doesn't lie in convicing us. We use these tools every day, it's what we do. We see how the "system" is practically crumbling before our very eyes...but most people don't live in our world.
The question in how can you convey our understanding to a group of justices who are probably even less technologically inclined than your grandmother?
If you read the trascript, the jusitices questioned why there was never any objection raised before? There have been 11 consecutive extensions of the copyright duration, and very little dissent was voiced until recently. Eldred's response was "the internet changes everything". Now, we all know exactly what he means, but do you think there's a prayer in hell that these justices know?
This is a very complex system of interdependancies that does not easily lend itself to precedence or analogy. I just hope Eldred can come up with more than "the internet changes everything". Because there will be no internet if he's wrong.
Um...Isn't looking to Jefferson for the definitive answer in effect having one generation control the next?
Um, no because Jefferson's generation was the only generation to be the first generation in the US.
Actually there's a very urgent need for standard end-to-end encryption in IP. A few stories back there's a Q/A session with Vint Cerf who very interstingly mentions the following:
4) TCP/IP
by sdjunky
considering your work with TCP/IP protocols what would you change now that you can look back retrospectively to how it has been used/misused. What would you incorporate into designs now that weren't even thought of at the time that TCP/IP was created?
Vint:
I suppose I wish I had decided on a larger address space than 32 bits! (that decision was made in 1977 after a year of argument about it). Moreover, I now believe that it would have been wise for us to incorporate into the design principles the notion that every end unit ("thing with an IP address") has a way to "authenticate" itself to any other end unit. As it stands now, these end devices have to declare their own IP addresses and that leads to an architectural opportunity for deception and spoofing. In addition to that, I wish there had been some opportunity to develop end/end cryptographic methods such as IPSEC to increase the confidentiality of information passing through the net. Ironically, beginning in 1975 I began work on a secured version of Internet with the National Security Agency. Because the details of this design were classified, none of this design could be shared with the uncleared developers at universities and industry engaged in the unfolding design of the Internet.
-----
As it stands now, these end devices have to declare their own IP addresses and that leads to an architectural opportunity for deception and spoofing
Unfortunately it also leads to finding your ass in jail. Remember this guy?. That could be any of us if the RIAA gets its way in court, and many of us don't want it that way. Right now there are about 4,000,000 users running Kazaa. And if the courts decide that ISPs are obligated to tell the RIAA what users are doing, this could become a very unpleasant reality for each and every one of us. What we need is an end-to-end encryption standard that provides true anonymity. I.e. something that ensures that a 3rd party can't "sniff" packets and link IP addresses to thier source.
My favourite quote: "in the Gunbarrel area...". Americans! You're so damn steeped in gun culture you name neighbourhoods after weapons' parts.
True true, but as a previous resident of Colorado I can tell you that these names are at least 120 years old. They were so-named during the frontier era when the only thing that kept you alive was your gun. Mountain men relied on thier weapon for food and for protection. That's just the way it was in the West during the 1800s, and that's why they named stuff the way they did.
It just makes a canajen boy shake his head and celebrate the difference.
Maybe you should study your countries' history a bit more.
Go see 'Spirited Away', you've earned it.
This is not a sane system! What can be done?
P2P...but it's gonna be one hell of a paradigm quake.
For the curious, the melting point of NaCl is 804 degrees centigrade. Here's a link describing the process of procuring sodium from table salt.
Articles that end up getting linked are usually written by experts on the subject. It's unrealistic to think that in the 5 mins you've dedicated to link the story that you can come up with a more compelling, more descriptive few sentences than the introduction of the article itself.
In my opinion this is a lot like trying to re-invent the wheel. If someone has already spent two days working out catchy slogans, and good tight compressed language to describe a particular story, then it's probably the best set of 80 words to describe the story.
If you want to pour the holy water of "though shalt not plagerize because it makes you look like a telegraph repeater" on the ground and roll in it, then knock yourself out.
But to those of us who aren't interested in distributing credit like a bunch of girl-scout merit badges, and are just interested in the story, please keep on copy-pasting. Yes your high school teacher taught you that copying was wrong, but you're all grown up now...and it's time to throw away childish ideas.
This is probably the most profound statement about OSS I've seen in this discussion.
OSS projects are not better because the coders are more talented or devoted than closed source projects. They are better because they actually have QA resources that cannot be matched by close source projects.
Yes, but on the flipside OS software is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.
Without reliability, business won't endorse open source software. So what ends up happening is you have hundreds of so-called "advanced users" who are basically hobbiests with a sense of adventure spending thier time using faulty software...so that eventually the rest of us will get a useful product. Sure it's thorough, and the bugs do get found...but there are side-effects to this.
For a lot of us who were using Mozilla in the beta stages, it was a complete mess. I remember one bug that was just so rediculous it rendered the entire browswer unusable. As I recall the only way to type a URL into the browser address window was to doubleclick on the text, and hold down the mouse while typing the URL. It was maddening and I stopped using it after a few days. The bug was addressed, and fixed in the next version. But it wasn't for another 8 months(long after the 1.0 release) that I picked up and tried mozilla again.
The point is, I wanted a web browser, not an adventure. Most users want things they can trust. They want working e-mail, office applications, web browsers, etc. Businesses are even more fickle about this. In a business environment software has to be reliable or it could end up costing millions, there is just no room for "software speculation".
OSS projects like Apache and the Linux kernel are stable because they have enjoyed years of meticulous care. I say care because in those cases the user and the developer were the same person. But where are you going to find daring OSS beta-testers for office applications and enterprise level software? These are products that need to work now. 5 years of screw-ups may produce a good product in the end...but most companies can't afford those 5 years.
Actually, my experience with OSS support has been tons better than commercial software. I can email the developers, who often respond in minutes with an answer.
No no, I think you're missing the point. You're already "inside" the Linux community, he's talking about the other 99.99% of the human population. The issue here is useability.
He's not asking how to tweak the source code to get something to compile...he's asking what your mother would ask, what your father would ask, what your brother or sister would ask, and probably what almost everyone living on your street would ask. How can I get my soundcard to work in Linux?
OSS devs are the worst people to ask for help. When you say computers or Linux they start visualizing C code, and talking editors and compilers...they are someplace else entirely. I'm no fan of Microsoft, or AOL...but the main reason why they are successful is not because they sell a better product, but because they sell a product that people can actually use.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Troll=3, Insightful=4, Funny=1, Overrated=1, Underrated=3, Total=13
Bwhahaaha
That's nice Terry, but being able to write C code doesn't disqualify you from being a son of a bitch.
Mmm yeah, except the Libertarian party is economically conservative....meaning screw you as long as I've got mine, a.k.a. what poor people?
16% of the US population is living below the poverty line, that's the highest that number has been since 1970. And you want to vote Libertarian so we can elevate that number?
Nope, as far as the poor are concerned Libertarian and Republican are the same thing.
I wish you Europeans would gird up your loins and tell our president to go fuck himself.
There is an almost hemmoraging debate occuring right now regarding the DMCA, and DRM in general. On the one side of the debate, there are programmers and designers who understand the importance of IP and how it maintains thier salaries. On the other side, many technologists believe that DRM threatens the future of technology by disallowing free experimentation. Both sides of the issue appear to be absolutely correct. Turning every general purpose computer into a "protected appliance" will mean the end of an era for all of us, but abandoning DRM will effectively nullify the ability to make "content for profit". How can we save the "future" of technology, and at the same time ensure that we can continue to make a living? Has there been any murmuring in SV about this problem? Is there a light at the end of this tunnel?
Actually, you'd be amazed at the sheer number of people in the middle class in India
Yes, the middle class in India is booming almost as quickly as it's diminishing in the US. I wonder if there's a correlation?
If you're close enough to TOUCH the person... why not just give a business card or TALK to the person???
Why not do both? Besides, now you can focus on talking about stuff you want to...because you can take the details for granted.
From the article:
The technology could allow data communications through door knobs, switches, desks and chairs, the paper said.
It could pave the way to one day being able to pass through railway ticket gates or entering secure buildings with a simple touch.
This is really really really great stuff. 10Mbs is more than fast enough to handle thousands of different applications. Hell, you wouldn't even need to remember what you did that day...it's all recorded on your PDA. Where you were, who you spoke with, the names of the people you met, thier jobs, thier contact info...just sitting on a bench at the bus terminal could give you detailed information about routing schedules, etc.
Stephenson would be proud of this kind of stuff, and rightly so...he was right about most of the cool stuff still coming from Japan. Something like this is way too progressive to be taken seriously in the US, and probably even in europe...the Japanese people have such a great attitude towards technology, I wish I could say that same about the average american.
Then again, with AOL and MS being "so easy to use no wonder they're #1"...something like this might just catch on...what's easier than a handshake?
"Ask Slashdot How To Break the Law"
It is all in mp3 or ogg format and it is all from CDs that I personally own or have borrowed from friends (emphasis added)
Ummm...this is illegal, dude.
When did the RIAA partner up with Dell?