Intent is necessary but not sufficient for attempted murder. You have to do the action with the intent to kill. And, at least technically, the state needs to prove both. Remember that the guy that bashed Reginald Denny upside the head got off on attempted murder because he claimed he did not intend to kill Denny. So, I guess even the "straight faced" test doesn't apply. Hmmmm. So, by that precedent, you could leave the cd's in the food court with a sign saying, "copies, please have" and still be ok as long as you claim that wasn't your intent.
Call it what you will. It was all I thought about. I left work, and I would rush home to play. I rearranged everything in my life to be able to raid with my guild. At work, I have to fight the urge to fire up WoW for just a few minutes. I quit cold turkey, but I had no other choice. If it isn't addiction, I don't know what it is---I couldn't have just played 8 hours a week if I wanted to. It was all or nothing.
And, I had and am having withdrawal symptoms, but they do get better. I'm not bored all the time anymore, and I go whole days barely thinking about starting again. It helps knowing that my guild has no doubt dropped me for missing almost 3 full weeks of raiding.
One major consideration is that I do have better things to do with my time---I'm just not sure I want to do them.:)
I had to quit playing WoW because that's all I did with my free time. I was in a serious raiding guild, and filling out my tier 2 set and getting ready for Naxx was all I seemed to care about. One morning, I woke up from a dream about killing Onyxia, and I decided that was too much. I got out of bed, deleted the WoW from my hard drive, and canceled my account. My wife was pleased as punch. But now, everything in my life seems so much duller now. I have taken to playing ATITD since it is too boring to become an obsession. Perhaps I should take up heroin? *shrugs* But, I do have to say that unlike many addictions, WoW was fun until the end. But, I no longer think WoW == RL.
I read another article on this company the other day, and it said the amount they sell you is so small that it isn't visible to the naked eye. Um... Anyone wanna buy some? I'll sell you a vial of the same size for 75% of the price charged by United Nuclear.
As far as I can tell, this allows them to sell you a product while reducing the load on their servers and thus reducing the cost. In the meantime, it pushes the load onto the consumers' system because of the P2P nature of the distribution. Ok, great, where does it benefit the consumer? Will lower expenses result in lower costs?
I like that they are being creative, but if they use consumer bandwidth to reduce their expenses, they need to give the consumer something in return. Karma for sharing that gives a discount on future content, perhaps?
Ironically enough, when I read the article, and advertisement for www.cruise.com, the spammer in question, appeared at the bottom of the page. I wonder how many people will read this article and then feel inspired to shop for a cruise from them?
I work for others. And, I don't want to outlaw sharing ideas. I want to protect my right to make money for ideas I develop.
a) A mechanical engineer develops a better widget for a manufacturing process, and his ideas have a monetary value. b) A song writer writes a song, and his ideas have a monetary value. c) A mathematician develop a new algorithm for doing data mining, and his idea has be given away freely to everyone else?
Why is this a fair setup? I'm surprised y'all aren't advocating your rights to go to the local Porsche dealership and claim any car you want. Do any of you make a living developing information technology of any kind? Are any of you professional researchers or programmers or anything of the ilk?
No, writing software to do 2 + 2 shouldn't let me deny you the right to use addition. However, if they only known way to add to numbers larger than one digit in a given base was to count, and I devised a method involving adding the right most column and carrying a one to the next column to the left if the result was greater than or equal to the base, I should be able to get compensated if others adopt my algorithm. Note that I said using my method that did not previously exist.
So, after sleeping on it, yes, Hoare should have the right to get money if you use quicksort if he had chosen to patent it. He developed a method that was significantly faster than other methods. It was his invention. If others use it, why shouldn't he get paid? Many years ago, a guy named McCoy developed a method of lubricating engines using slowly dripping oil. If you didn't want to pay him, you could stand there and drip oil for yourself. If the quicksort algorithm is patented, and it isn't worth it to you to pay, sort in slower than n ln(n) or develop your own algorithm (think for yourself). Arguments to the contrary are purely emotional and boil down to people not wanting to pay for using other peoples ideas.
No one wants to forbid you to think for yourself. But, what people seem to be advocating is letting other people do the thinking and then stealing their ideas.
The patent system is horribly broken. Patents are given for things that are obvious or that already exist. The role of money and lawyers in deciding patent issues is very unfair and abusive. But, there is a need for a system that works.
That's a good point. I have moderator points right now, and if I wasn't participating in this thread, I'd probably moderate it. I guess the counter argument is that they (as well as Hoare, inventor of quicksort) were academics and to some degree or another supported by public money. To the degree they were not always academics, their employer chose to put their work into the public domain.
My guess is that this is a discussion that deserves its own top level topic (and more). I find many counterpoints interesting though I suppose some is connected to a desire of not wanting to pay for information. My confession is that I use a LOT of open source software, and I salute those who develop it, but Mastercard/Visa, my landlord, and my credit union all demand that I make money for my work. If there wasn't a way of commercializing my work in a protected manner, no one would pay me---they would wait for someone else to develop algorithms and then have them implemented by someone who is presumably less educated/experienced/cheaper. That's my point---without the ability to protect the innovations of individuals and small businesses, the world would be old money making more money off the backs of those doing the work. We certainly have plenty of that in this world, but it is nice to know that we can make money for our good ideas.
And, in part, patents are to serve the public good by encouraging disclosure. But, they also protect the rights of individuals innovate, encouraging innovation. Innovation is in the public interest.
Fun doesn't pay the rent. I enjoy what I do, but I also need to eat. I'm rather fond of eating.
I don't want to work for a big company. And, if I did, I would only enrich the wealthy few who own most of the stock. Patents can and are abused, but they also serve to protect the 'little people'.
> > and we need a patent system that covers algorithms.
> Bullshit. It's a bad mistake.
Then, why do we bother to develop algorithms? I don't know about you, but I work very, very hard developing algorithms, and I deserve every penny of the compensation. If it weren't for patents and other forms of ip law, the only one who would profit from my work would be large companies who stole my ideas.
> And these organizations exist and work so hard at keeping information unfree.
Actually, the purpose of these organizations is generally to acquire information. Most of the secrecy comes to protecting their methods for acquiring information. And, it isn't the information that wants to be free. People want the information because it is valuable.
Ok, I understand the desire to hate bad patents and bad patent law, and I hate large corporations as much as the next guy---I made enough 'free' phone calls in my youth to prove that. But, seriously, the small guy needs patent law more than the big guy. I work creating ip as I am sure many of you do, and I have extensive experience working for startups including some without VC funding. The fact is that if I, as an individual or a very small business, come up with an idea, a patent may be my only line of protection. I don't have the money to develop it as fast as IBM or Microsoft or Google. I couldn't seek funding for an idea without ip law because the investors might just steal my idea. Patents and ip law are the ONLY protection I have from being completely screwed over.
When I was younger, I screamed 'information wants to be free' as loud as any of you. However, that was probably the dumbest idea ever to be voiced. Information is the most valuable asset in the world, and it always has been. People die for information all the time. The CIA, NSA, DIA, NRO, and all the other agencies we love to hate are solely about information. Wars are won and lost because of information. Societies succeed or disappear because of information. Information wants to cost you everything.
We may think the patent system is broken, but we do need a patent system, and we need a patent system that covers algorithms. An algorithm one of us invents is just as valuable as a widget some mechanical engineer invents.
I broke my addiction. I woke up from a dream about WoW in the middle of the night last week, and I decided it had gone too far. You end up spending every moment not at work playing. I got out of bed, canceled my account, and deleted WoW off all my computers. My wife was very happy. I did have withdrawal though. I was in a game store over the weekend, shivering, trying to find some methadone (a new game) to replace my my heroin (WoW). I settled on ATITD (which has a Linux client). I'll never get addicted to that---it is too boring.
We are unraveling history using models of mitochondrial dna genetic drift using data collected across the planet, and archivist as concerned about future generations not having Office 2003 compatible software? Ok, so the making it broadly available and searchable to current generations may be a challenge, but they can't seriously be concerned about future researchers not being able to read our data formats. I suppose we should be concerned as to whether the physical media will survive, but I doubt we need to worry about our computer illiterate progeny being able to figure these things out.
> But this is to miss the point. When you get two groups that don't interbreed then they can genetically drift apart to the point where they can't.
And that, my friend, is the part that is controversial! It is a theory that you and I may strongly believe it, but there are lots of people who do NOT believe it since it isn't word for word in the Bible.
> his is a false division, as can be easily demonstrated. Enough adaptation == speciation. Suppose the short legged lizards grew so short legged that they could not physically mate with the longer legged lizards. Then you have two groups unable to interbreed - two species.
Still the same species if they are genetically capable of producing viable offspring. Donkey and horse can have sex and they produce a mule. A mule cannot reproduce (is not viable) and hence donkeys and horses are not the same species---I would argue the fact that a donkey and a horse can mate is pretty strong evidence of speciation, btw. A human and a dog can physically have sex (a quick search on Google would probably show images to confirm this), but they cannot mate and hence are not the same species. My understanding is that domestic camels cannot have sex without a human guiding the process, but they can mate to produce a viable offspring and hence two domestic camels are the same species even though physical adaption has made them in pretty poor sexual shape---this is equivalent to the argument you make.
Pity the panda. Virtually incapable of sex. Don't want to have sex. Likely to roll over on top of any baby they produce. Yet, they are still a species.
Evolution can be divided into two parts, adaption and speciation. Adaption is merely the process of physical changes to adjust to the environment. It isn't a theory as it has been observed many times (note the original article), and it should only be controversial to people who believe OJ is innocent. Speciation is when a new species arises from a different one. This is a theory, and I suppose it is highly controversial to some (many). *shrugs* But, the mere concept of adaption can't possibly be controversial.
As to the main point of the article, I don't quite get it. Behavior didn't cause the evolution, suitability to a behavior caused evolution. That doesn't seem so difficult to grasp to me. The ability to do this wasn't so important before, but then a pressure was introduced, and this ability turned out to aid in survival. Seems like a pretty straightforward application of the concept.
Water distribution costs money. I guess that was my point. People in most of the developing water have much more pressing needs than notebook computers. Water is often chief among these needs.
I just came back from living for a year in Mozambique. The poor there do not need a computer in each home. They don't have electricity in their homes, and quite frankly, they do not need electricity. Water is much more important than electricity. I saw communities where women have to walk 5km each way for water. They need better access to water. They need treatment for malaria. They need food. And, as far as children go, they need better access to basic education and teachers---a much better use of $100 than a computer. Oh, and they need textbooks. The university students didn't have access to textbooks so I'm pretty sure the elementary students don't have textbooks. And, while we are at it, they need to be able to go to school, but, unfortunately, most of the poorest kids have to work to help feed their families.
They do have needs that can be met by software and hardware developers. They need access to banking services. They need a property registration system so that they can have their land claims registered---that would let them use their land as collateral for micro-financing since they need capital to buy seeds, chickens, and other means of production so they can produce more and sell more.
I recently spent a year in northern Mozambique, and US dollars were very desired and heavily sought after by anyone middle class and above. Indeed, transactions were often stated in dollars, even if they were conducted in Metacais. My landlord insisted on me paying my rent in dollars. Pounds, Euros, Yen, none of these were of any value. Rand were of value in the south of the country but not the north. This is a place where the US Gov't has little influence (despite a desire to the contrary). I'm sure that if you went to Somalia, people would insist on being paid in dollars in a place with no gov't and no US influence to speak of. Dollars go almost anywhere in the world. This is will no doubt change one day, but for now, the dollar is the new gold around the world. It goes way beyond simply the US Gov't.
Slashdot Mirror
Intent is necessary but not sufficient for attempted murder. You have to do the action with the intent to kill. And, at least technically, the state needs to prove both. Remember that the guy that bashed Reginald Denny upside the head got off on attempted murder because he claimed he did not intend to kill Denny. So, I guess even the "straight faced" test doesn't apply. Hmmmm. So, by that precedent, you could leave the cd's in the food court with a sign saying, "copies, please have" and still be ok as long as you claim that wasn't your intent.
Call it what you will. It was all I thought about. I left work, and I would rush home to play. I rearranged everything in my life to be able to raid with my guild. At work, I have to fight the urge to fire up WoW for just a few minutes. I quit cold turkey, but I had no other choice. If it isn't addiction, I don't know what it is---I couldn't have just played 8 hours a week if I wanted to. It was all or nothing.
:)
And, I had and am having withdrawal symptoms, but they do get better. I'm not bored all the time anymore, and I go whole days barely thinking about starting again. It helps knowing that my guild has no doubt dropped me for missing almost 3 full weeks of raiding.
One major consideration is that I do have better things to do with my time---I'm just not sure I want to do them.
I had to quit playing WoW because that's all I did with my free time. I was in a serious raiding guild, and filling out my tier 2 set and getting ready for Naxx was all I seemed to care about. One morning, I woke up from a dream about killing Onyxia, and I decided that was too much. I got out of bed, deleted the WoW from my hard drive, and canceled my account. My wife was pleased as punch. But now, everything in my life seems so much duller now. I have taken to playing ATITD since it is too boring to become an obsession. Perhaps I should take up heroin? *shrugs* But, I do have to say that unlike many addictions, WoW was fun until the end. But, I no longer think WoW == RL.
I read another article on this company the other day, and it said the amount they sell you is so small that it isn't visible to the naked eye. Um... Anyone wanna buy some? I'll sell you a vial of the same size for 75% of the price charged by United Nuclear.
As far as I can tell, this allows them to sell you a product while reducing the load on their servers and thus reducing the cost. In the meantime, it pushes the load onto the consumers' system because of the P2P nature of the distribution. Ok, great, where does it benefit the consumer? Will lower expenses result in lower costs?
I like that they are being creative, but if they use consumer bandwidth to reduce their expenses, they need to give the consumer something in return. Karma for sharing that gives a discount on future content, perhaps?
Ironically enough, when I read the article, and advertisement for www.cruise.com, the spammer in question, appeared at the bottom of the page. I wonder how many people will read this article and then feel inspired to shop for a cruise from them?
As long as Jack Bauer is on our side, we can't possibly lose. Oh, it might look tight, but Jack will wrap it up in a day.
I work for others. And, I don't want to outlaw sharing ideas. I want to protect my right to make money for ideas I develop.
a) A mechanical engineer develops a better widget for a manufacturing process, and his ideas have a monetary value.
b) A song writer writes a song, and his ideas have a monetary value.
c) A mathematician develop a new algorithm for doing data mining, and his idea has be given away freely to everyone else?
Why is this a fair setup? I'm surprised y'all aren't advocating your rights to go to the local Porsche dealership and claim any car you want. Do any of you make a living developing information technology of any kind? Are any of you professional researchers or programmers or anything of the ilk?
No, writing software to do 2 + 2 shouldn't let me deny you the right to use addition. However, if they only known way to add to numbers larger than one digit in a given base was to count, and I devised a method involving adding the right most column and carrying a one to the next column to the left if the result was greater than or equal to the base, I should be able to get compensated if others adopt my algorithm. Note that I said using my method that did not previously exist.
So, after sleeping on it, yes, Hoare should have the right to get money if you use quicksort if he had chosen to patent it. He developed a method that was significantly faster than other methods. It was his invention. If others use it, why shouldn't he get paid? Many years ago, a guy named McCoy developed a method of lubricating engines using slowly dripping oil. If you didn't want to pay him, you could stand there and drip oil for yourself. If the quicksort algorithm is patented, and it isn't worth it to you to pay, sort in slower than n ln(n) or develop your own algorithm (think for yourself). Arguments to the contrary are purely emotional and boil down to people not wanting to pay for using other peoples ideas.
No one wants to forbid you to think for yourself. But, what people seem to be advocating is letting other people do the thinking and then stealing their ideas.
The patent system is horribly broken. Patents are given for things that are obvious or that already exist. The role of money and lawyers in deciding patent issues is very unfair and abusive. But, there is a need for a system that works.
That's a good point. I have moderator points right now, and if I wasn't participating in this thread, I'd probably moderate it. I guess the counter argument is that they (as well as Hoare, inventor of quicksort) were academics and to some degree or another supported by public money. To the degree they were not always academics, their employer chose to put their work into the public domain.
My guess is that this is a discussion that deserves its own top level topic (and more). I find many counterpoints interesting though I suppose some is connected to a desire of not wanting to pay for information. My confession is that I use a LOT of open source software, and I salute those who develop it, but Mastercard/Visa, my landlord, and my credit union all demand that I make money for my work. If there wasn't a way of commercializing my work in a protected manner, no one would pay me---they would wait for someone else to develop algorithms and then have them implemented by someone who is presumably less educated/experienced/cheaper. That's my point---without the ability to protect the innovations of individuals and small businesses, the world would be old money making more money off the backs of those doing the work. We certainly have plenty of that in this world, but it is nice to know that we can make money for our good ideas.
And, in part, patents are to serve the public good by encouraging disclosure. But, they also protect the rights of individuals innovate, encouraging innovation. Innovation is in the public interest.
Fun doesn't pay the rent. I enjoy what I do, but I also need to eat. I'm rather fond of eating.
I don't want to work for a big company. And, if I did, I would only enrich the wealthy few who own most of the stock. Patents can and are abused, but they also serve to protect the 'little people'.
As I said, the system is broken, and it needs to be fixed. I'm not sure how to fix it, but it should be fixed.
> > and we need a patent system that covers algorithms.
> Bullshit. It's a bad mistake.
Then, why do we bother to develop algorithms? I don't know about you, but I work very, very hard developing algorithms, and I deserve every penny of the compensation. If it weren't for patents and other forms of ip law, the only one who would profit from my work would be large companies who stole my ideas.
> And these organizations exist and work so hard at keeping information unfree.
Actually, the purpose of these organizations is generally to acquire information. Most of the secrecy comes to protecting their methods for acquiring information. And, it isn't the information that wants to be free. People want the information because it is valuable.
Ok, I understand the desire to hate bad patents and bad patent law, and I hate large corporations as much as the next guy---I made enough 'free' phone calls in my youth to prove that. But, seriously, the small guy needs patent law more than the big guy. I work creating ip as I am sure many of you do, and I have extensive experience working for startups including some without VC funding. The fact is that if I, as an individual or a very small business, come up with an idea, a patent may be my only line of protection. I don't have the money to develop it as fast as IBM or Microsoft or Google. I couldn't seek funding for an idea without ip law because the investors might just steal my idea. Patents and ip law are the ONLY protection I have from being completely screwed over.
When I was younger, I screamed 'information wants to be free' as loud as any of you. However, that was probably the dumbest idea ever to be voiced. Information is the most valuable asset in the world, and it always has been. People die for information all the time. The CIA, NSA, DIA, NRO, and all the other agencies we love to hate are solely about information. Wars are won and lost because of information. Societies succeed or disappear because of information. Information wants to cost you everything.
We may think the patent system is broken, but we do need a patent system, and we need a patent system that covers algorithms. An algorithm one of us invents is just as valuable as a widget some mechanical engineer invents.
I broke my addiction. I woke up from a dream about WoW in the middle of the night last week, and I decided it had gone too far. You end up spending every moment not at work playing. I got out of bed, canceled my account, and deleted WoW off all my computers. My wife was very happy. I did have withdrawal though. I was in a game store over the weekend, shivering, trying to find some methadone (a new game) to replace my my heroin (WoW). I settled on ATITD (which has a Linux client). I'll never get addicted to that---it is too boring.
We are unraveling history using models of mitochondrial dna genetic drift using data collected across the planet, and archivist as concerned about future generations not having Office 2003 compatible software? Ok, so the making it broadly available and searchable to current generations may be a challenge, but they can't seriously be concerned about future researchers not being able to read our data formats. I suppose we should be concerned as to whether the physical media will survive, but I doubt we need to worry about our computer illiterate progeny being able to figure these things out.
> But this is to miss the point. When you get two groups that don't interbreed then they can genetically drift apart to the point where they can't.
And that, my friend, is the part that is controversial! It is a theory that you and I may strongly believe it, but there are lots of people who do NOT believe it since it isn't word for word in the Bible.
> his is a false division, as can be easily demonstrated. Enough adaptation == speciation. Suppose the short legged lizards grew so short legged that they could not physically mate with the longer legged lizards. Then you have two groups unable to interbreed - two species.
Still the same species if they are genetically capable of producing viable offspring. Donkey and horse can have sex and they produce a mule. A mule cannot reproduce (is not viable) and hence donkeys and horses are not the same species---I would argue the fact that a donkey and a horse can mate is pretty strong evidence of speciation, btw. A human and a dog can physically have sex (a quick search on Google would probably show images to confirm this), but they cannot mate and hence are not the same species. My understanding is that domestic camels cannot have sex without a human guiding the process, but they can mate to produce a viable offspring and hence two domestic camels are the same species even though physical adaption has made them in pretty poor sexual shape---this is equivalent to the argument you make.
Pity the panda. Virtually incapable of sex. Don't want to have sex. Likely to roll over on top of any baby they produce. Yet, they are still a species.
Evolution can be divided into two parts, adaption and speciation. Adaption is merely the process of physical changes to adjust to the environment. It isn't a theory as it has been observed many times (note the original article), and it should only be controversial to people who believe OJ is innocent. Speciation is when a new species arises from a different one. This is a theory, and I suppose it is highly controversial to some (many). *shrugs* But, the mere concept of adaption can't possibly be controversial.
As to the main point of the article, I don't quite get it. Behavior didn't cause the evolution, suitability to a behavior caused evolution. That doesn't seem so difficult to grasp to me. The ability to do this wasn't so important before, but then a pressure was introduced, and this ability turned out to aid in survival. Seems like a pretty straightforward application of the concept.
Water distribution costs money. I guess that was my point. People in most of the developing water have much more pressing needs than notebook computers. Water is often chief among these needs.
I just came back from living for a year in Mozambique. The poor there do not need a computer in each home. They don't have electricity in their homes, and quite frankly, they do not need electricity. Water is much more important than electricity. I saw communities where women have to walk 5km each way for water. They need better access to water. They need treatment for malaria. They need food. And, as far as children go, they need better access to basic education and teachers---a much better use of $100 than a computer. Oh, and they need textbooks. The university students didn't have access to textbooks so I'm pretty sure the elementary students don't have textbooks. And, while we are at it, they need to be able to go to school, but, unfortunately, most of the poorest kids have to work to help feed their families.
They do have needs that can be met by software and hardware developers. They need access to banking services. They need a property registration system so that they can have their land claims registered---that would let them use their land as collateral for micro-financing since they need capital to buy seeds, chickens, and other means of production so they can produce more and sell more.
Oops. c should be thank you Bill and Paul. *sighs*
a) Ringo Starr (thank you John, Paul, and George)
b) Dr Phil (thank you Oprah)
c) Steve Balmer (thank you Bill and Steve)
d) All of the above
I recently spent a year in northern Mozambique, and US dollars were very desired and heavily sought after by anyone middle class and above. Indeed, transactions were often stated in dollars, even if they were conducted in Metacais. My landlord insisted on me paying my rent in dollars. Pounds, Euros, Yen, none of these were of any value. Rand were of value in the south of the country but not the north. This is a place where the US Gov't has little influence (despite a desire to the contrary). I'm sure that if you went to Somalia, people would insist on being paid in dollars in a place with no gov't and no US influence to speak of. Dollars go almost anywhere in the world. This is will no doubt change one day, but for now, the dollar is the new gold around the world. It goes way beyond simply the US Gov't.