... where it would be really nice if I could trot out that nationalistic cliche only in America..., but I can't, can I? This brings to mind the belated Federal legislation last year to put the brakes on disproportionately loud commercials, something that was addressed in some Old World countries a long time ago. The United States isn't quite the leader it imagines itself to be.
... with those anti-sat missiles they tested last year. Or... the United States will trump up some DMCA or IP infringement claims and take them out with mega-lasers we didn't know we have.
This is Alexander Lukashenko we're talking about here... of course I'm right! And an incentive program designed to encourage localized network economic investment is a LOT different from what this law is going to do.
You actually think this is intended to legitimize national incentive programs? You apparently live in a cloud yourself.
This is about CONTROL, and not in a good way. If the domain and physical servers are IN Belarus, then the government can monitor, tap, censor, and otherwise control everything that resides on or passes through them. I expect the proximate goal is to stop dissidents from using the Internet to communicate, collaborate, and organize.
This reminds me of the Time Zone Database debacle of this year, when that astrology products company bought out the atlas/almanac from which much of the data was derived, and then immediately turned around and sued the two individual authors of the Database, even though they never made a dime from it and included a full attribution of the source in the Database. How did that turn out? It's been months with no further word here or anywhere else frequent.
These are two of the best anecdotes to highlight the surreptitiously greedy stupidity of current (and most historical) copyright law.
You mean something like the ones in ST: Hidden Frontier and all the other Rob Caves ST fanseries? Apparently homosexuality isn't cured by crossing the magnetosphere, go figure!
... it's possible we'd wind up spending an every year's disposable income on them. Isn't that the real reason someone might "agonize" over a one dollar app, the fact that cumulatively he's buying dozens or even hundreds of them?
I'm very fussy about everything I buy, software or otherwise: I look at what the item is expected to do and how complicated that is to implement and accomplish, whether that be design and coding or design and cost to manufacture. If I decide the price of the item doesn't reflect its actual value, then I simply won't buy it, even if I really want/need it. I was taught in business law that the ideal transaction is an equal exchange of value; if consumers aren't sufficiently guarding their half of that equation, then capitalism results in concentration of wealth (from the 99 percent to the 1 percent).
So it seems to me that people agonizing over one-dollar apps are probably consumers that are doing the right thing for the economy, doing their part to foster that transactional equality.
And they'll be doing that as much to satisfy their own dire need to confirm their chosen bias as much as to convince anyone else of its validity. Self-delusion is a costly process, for all of us.
Are you sure it's really BitCoin "striking back" and not a bunch of emotionally invested sycophants, disciples, apostles, and monetarily invested money launderers?
I don't know where you wind up thinking the only "normal" tyranny is perpetrated by small minorities. Didn't you go to school? Didn't you witness a small number of "weird" schoolmates being routinely tortured by a much larger number of their peers? I certainly did, and it was quite educational; it taught me a lot about human behavior. Perhaps you didn't take note of this tyrannical behavior by a majority because you were part of it? It doesn't stop with children: haven't you heard of "excommunication" or any of the other myriad ways in which groups exclude or exile individuals or minorities?
Tyranny of the majority is VERY much a real phenomenon, even if you don't hear about it so much in media or conspiracy-theory circles. Even the voting system in the United States is something of a tyrannical majority, and would be moreso were it not for the attempted moderation of the process with electoral colleges, etc.
Teenagers desperate to get drunk have had workarounds for this problem for decades. Need a Jello fix but you're too young? Find the nearest homeless person and offer them five bucks to stand in front of the machine at the right moment, and voila!
Welcome to sociopolitical science 101. This behavior is called tyranny of the majority, and it so worried Thomas Jefferson and others who founded the United States that they crafted a new variant of democracy intended to discourage it. At least in politics....
Not thinking of anyone specifically, rather the general behavior of corporate officers and Congressmen, the types who would aggressively shove ACTA and SOPA and Patriot Acts down our throats with as little public debate as possible. There's the likes of Kucinich and Paul and Wyden to oppose them at least. Haven't you seen the pattern in the last decade? These are people who would strip us of everything if they get the chance. Psychologically they're more cunning versions of Jong Il.
I seem to have recalled the wrong author: it was Robert Heinlein and it was his very first novella, 'If This Goes On ---'.
You really think there is some politician in the US who is as bad as Kim Jong Il?
Inside his head, in terms of what he would like to do if he believed he could get away with it... absolutely. We have a bunch of wannabe tyrants like that. They still get away with a lot - do you follow YRO here? - simply because they're far more skilled at manipulation than Jong Il was. They continually test their skills and our limits, trying to get away with more abuses without us noticing the knife. They WANT to behave like Jong Il, but fear of us keeps them vaguely in check. Why didn't Jong Il fear similarly his own people? I dunno... less personal gun ownership? It's a good thing that we have and can maintain their fear of us, scant as it is. If we stop engendering that fear we'll wind up with our own Kim Jong Il here. Many decades ago Ray Bradbury imagined a theocracy controlling the United States.
Slashdot Mirror
... it's a hive mothership!
Are you volunteering to lawyer that pitch for the next farmer Monsanto sues? Good luck!
'Cause, ya know, if they're not open source it'll make rooting 'em to turn 'em into Android monkeys just that much harder.
Freedom to do what, exactly, that is diametrically opposed? Thwart the Common Good for the sake of self, no doubt? How ethical of them!
Yep: libertarians like freedom and hate ethics. Ethics constrain their freedom, and we can't be havin' that, now can we?
... where it would be really nice if I could trot out that nationalistic cliche only in America..., but I can't, can I? This brings to mind the belated Federal legislation last year to put the brakes on disproportionately loud commercials, something that was addressed in some Old World countries a long time ago. The United States isn't quite the leader it imagines itself to be.
... with those anti-sat missiles they tested last year. Or... the United States will trump up some DMCA or IP infringement claims and take them out with mega-lasers we didn't know we have.
... but also as an economic socialist and a social conservative. Can I find libertarian in there somewhere?
This is Alexander Lukashenko we're talking about here... of course I'm right! And an incentive program designed to encourage localized network economic investment is a LOT different from what this law is going to do.
You actually think this is intended to legitimize national incentive programs? You apparently live in a cloud yourself.
This is about CONTROL, and not in a good way. If the domain and physical servers are IN Belarus, then the government can monitor, tap, censor, and otherwise control everything that resides on or passes through them. I expect the proximate goal is to stop dissidents from using the Internet to communicate, collaborate, and organize.
This reminds me of the Time Zone Database debacle of this year, when that astrology products company bought out the atlas/almanac from which much of the data was derived, and then immediately turned around and sued the two individual authors of the Database, even though they never made a dime from it and included a full attribution of the source in the Database. How did that turn out? It's been months with no further word here or anywhere else frequent.
These are two of the best anecdotes to highlight the surreptitiously greedy stupidity of current (and most historical) copyright law.
You mean something like the ones in ST: Hidden Frontier and all the other Rob Caves ST fanseries?
Apparently homosexuality isn't cured by crossing the magnetosphere, go figure!
... it's possible we'd wind up spending an every year's disposable income on them. Isn't that the real reason someone might "agonize" over a one dollar app, the fact that cumulatively he's buying dozens or even hundreds of them?
I'm very fussy about everything I buy, software or otherwise: I look at what the item is expected to do and how complicated that is to implement and accomplish, whether that be design and coding or design and cost to manufacture. If I decide the price of the item doesn't reflect its actual value, then I simply won't buy it, even if I really want/need it. I was taught in business law that the ideal transaction is an equal exchange of value; if consumers aren't sufficiently guarding their half of that equation, then capitalism results in concentration of wealth (from the 99 percent to the 1 percent).
So it seems to me that people agonizing over one-dollar apps are probably consumers that are doing the right thing for the economy, doing their part to foster that transactional equality.
And they'll be doing that as much to satisfy their own dire need to confirm their chosen bias as much as to convince anyone else of its validity. Self-delusion is a costly process, for all of us.
Rash of False Car Thefts Reported Late Evening of Christmas Eve
And the subheading reads: People heading home after pigging out at relatives' feasts trigger new derriere alarms in their vehicles
Are you sure it's really BitCoin "striking back" and not a bunch of emotionally invested sycophants, disciples, apostles, and monetarily invested money launderers?
I don't know where you wind up thinking the only "normal" tyranny is perpetrated by small minorities. Didn't you go to school? Didn't you witness a small number of "weird" schoolmates being routinely tortured by a much larger number of their peers? I certainly did, and it was quite educational; it taught me a lot about human behavior. Perhaps you didn't take note of this tyrannical behavior by a majority because you were part of it? It doesn't stop with children: haven't you heard of "excommunication" or any of the other myriad ways in which groups exclude or exile individuals or minorities?
Tyranny of the majority is VERY much a real phenomenon, even if you don't hear about it so much in media or conspiracy-theory circles. Even the voting system in the United States is something of a tyrannical majority, and would be moreso were it not for the attempted moderation of the process with electoral colleges, etc.
Nah, it's the same one we always had wearing new outfits.
Are you a Pinko or something?
Teenagers desperate to get drunk have had workarounds for this problem for decades. Need a Jello fix but you're too young? Find the nearest homeless person and offer them five bucks to stand in front of the machine at the right moment, and voila!
Welcome to sociopolitical science 101. This behavior is called tyranny of the majority, and it so worried Thomas Jefferson and others who founded the United States that they crafted a new variant of democracy intended to discourage it. At least in politics....
I see they've migrated from just shooting them to burning them at the stake now, huh?
... tea leaves.
Not thinking of anyone specifically, rather the general behavior of corporate officers and Congressmen, the types who would aggressively shove ACTA and SOPA and Patriot Acts down our throats with as little public debate as possible. There's the likes of Kucinich and Paul and Wyden to oppose them at least. Haven't you seen the pattern in the last decade? These are people who would strip us of everything if they get the chance. Psychologically they're more cunning versions of Jong Il.
I seem to have recalled the wrong author: it was Robert Heinlein and it was his very first novella, 'If This Goes On ---'.
Ouch... didn't see that one comin'.
You really think there is some politician in the US who is as bad as Kim Jong Il?
Inside his head, in terms of what he would like to do if he believed he could get away with it... absolutely. We have a bunch of wannabe tyrants like that. They still get away with a lot - do you follow YRO here? - simply because they're far more skilled at manipulation than Jong Il was. They continually test their skills and our limits, trying to get away with more abuses without us noticing the knife. They WANT to behave like Jong Il, but fear of us keeps them vaguely in check. Why didn't Jong Il fear similarly his own people? I dunno... less personal gun ownership? It's a good thing that we have and can maintain their fear of us, scant as it is. If we stop engendering that fear we'll wind up with our own Kim Jong Il here. Many decades ago Ray Bradbury imagined a theocracy controlling the United States.