I agree it's a problem. I don't necasarily agree it's an illness. But thats an uninteresting semantic discussion. It has to do with how you define illness more than anything else.
More interesting are the causes. Which, in my humble opinion, are for the most part are thaught, trained, "programmed". And not (just, it can play an important role as well) genetically defined.
Well I'd personally argue that extremism is also a mental defect. When you become so narcissistic, so full of hate, so convinced you live the One True Way(tm) that everyone else are just flies to be swatted, well I'd call you insane. You need treatment, or at the very least to be locked away where you can't hurt people. It's not an ideological viewpoint that I should accept as rational and respect, it's a symptom of a deep mental problem.
That statement is very close to labeling all ideological viewpoint you don't accept as insane...
And what is you definition of sane then?
Is insane a physical defect in the brain, you are born with or aquire through a virus or something? Or can you get it by "indoctrination" by other people? If so, I believe that what you believe has been "indoctrinated" into you by you enviroment, and you are insane. In fact you're so insane you can't tell you're insane.
The human mind is a programmable device. Don't just label software misbehaviour as hardware error.
You never drank water before did you? There IS taste.
Tap, preferably
See, you don't have taste (or perhaps good tap water). Tap water, here is so chlorated it's like drinking from a swimming pool. Off course it's not like this everywhere. I was on holiday in the Volvic water (some brand of bottled water) region in France once, and I swear that what comes out of the tap there is EXACTLY the same as what they put in the Volvic bottles. I don't really like Volvic mineral water that much, but it's better than the tap water they have here:)
Just try some bottled mineral waters. They all taste different, depending on the minerals. I think for me personally, it's the ammount of calcium that gives a good taste (the more the better!). You can really get addicted to the taste as well! I like drinking water. And it's healthy too, even if you drink large ammounts:)
In fact I can't really enjoy sweet drinks these days, they just taste too "cheap". Adding sugar and CO2 makes it so easy to make a good drink (or so they think). It's a lot harder to make low or sugarfree drinks without gas that are quite good.
> Please always vote.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I decide.
Where I live (Belgium), we HAVE to vote. Well, we don't have to vote (you can vote blank), but we have to show up, and pretend we vote at the least;)
I wonder what effect that would have on the outcome of, for example, American elections...
The fact alone that you are linking to a site with 'laws' that dictate how people can post audio or video files on their sites should prove to non-dutch speaking people that the Belgium government tries to get control over speech on the new media. Thanks for the link, BTW.
I also think the law goes too far here. It tries to keep the media neutral but overshoots it's target. You see it with many laws. Most are too broad or too narrow. It's often impossible to get it right.
Anyway, you said a politician couldn't broadcast because he needed to obtain a license from his opponents.
That is not true at all. A politician just can't broadcast, whatever party he's from.
So you have a point here, but lying to make it look bigger does not help your argument.
Anyway, on topic, I don't agree with the form of the law, it goes to far, but it's not an undemocratic idea to try to keep the mass media neutral. Think of Italy where most mass media belongs to the prime minister personally.
Free speech does conflict with democracy on some points. It's also a danger to itself. Alas, free speech is not a magical right that makes the world into an irreversible utopia.
As an aside if Mr. Verstrepen hadn't broken it on so many points, and hadn't claimed he didn't do anything wrong, it could have been a nice symbolic action and he might get some of my sympathy. But he just completely screwed up, and trying to use his mess as party propaganda at that point is just sad.
I you protest to a law by breaking it, you have to do it right. With a clean symbolic action that ridicules the law. That's not what he did, he even denies the broadcast has party ties.
Okay, so once you have the 'power' in Belgium, it is allowed to communicate with the people... because in that case it's an 'official statement' and not a 'radio broadcast', even though both are mp3's on a politicians website. This doesn't sound very democratic to me. I think you really don't understand what free speech is all about.
I was simply answering your question as to why the prime minister isn't breaking the current law by putting that mp3 on the website. Though I have to admit that since the law is a bit broad, I can't be certain since IANAL. But I would be surprised if an official press statement is considered the same as a political radio show.
And I can't stress enough that I'm certainly not saying free speech should be limited by disallowing certain podcasts.
If Verstrepen would have send a letter, he would never have had permission to have a podcast!
You are right, but it would have been much cleaner if he did that. If he then also didn't transmit over analog shortwave, the conviction would be based only on "political ties". That would have been a much clearer protest to the law as you claim below.
Sometimes, the only way to bring ridiculous regulation under attention is breaking it.
If you read Verstrepens letter to the VMC, you see that he claims there are no political ties, so how exactly is this a protest to the law?
If you're breaking the law out of protest, then at least say so. Otherwise, you're just breaking the law.
That's exactly what 'censorship' and 'limitation of free speech' is about: you have to ask permission before you can speak. If he requested a 'license to speak', he wouldn't have received one anyway. This is problematic in a democracy, when a politician has to ask permission from his opponents.
As I replied above to another post, there is no licence needed to podcast. Read the law yourself before talking. He only needed to inform the governement of his internet broadcast, that's all.
Analog radio broadcasts do indeed require a licence. But that's nothing new.
There is no danger to free speech on the internet here. You can say what you want on the internet, but if you do it in the form of a radio broadcast, you need to inform the VMC (needless bureaucracy perhaps, but no real danger to freedom of speech in my eyes).
"there's a law against political parties broadcasting radio in Belgium"
Why then, has the prime minister a podcast on his site?
http://www.guyverhofstadt.be/nl/
This is the weekly official statement to the press by the prime minister. It's a press briefing about what the governement has done this week.
It is not an official statementof the prime ministers party, it's an official stement of the prime minister. I hope you see the difference here. When for example Bush adresses the nation, or holds a press conference, that is not an official republican party radio broadcast.
So, what you're saying is completely wrong
Prove me wrong then. I linked you the law, showing you are wrong. Now you do something better, surprise me, make me see my error...
and I wouldn't be surprised if you were hired by the Belgian government to posts such bull**** on this forum.
Do you believe that yourself? Do you truly believe no one in the right mind has different opinions than you, and comes out for them?
According to Flemish law a podcast is a radiostation. That means you need a license to have a podcast and podcasts are not allowed to have ties with political parties. That's what his story is about: a government trying to get control over the internet.
This is NOT TRUE.
Read the law. See article 31 paragraph 4 and Article 54 paragraph 4. All he needed to do was send a letter. That's it, it would have been completely legal, and nobody could do anything about it. No licence is needed.
The government only requests to know you are broadcasting radio over the internet, they don't need to give you permission. This is not at all a violation of the freedom of speech.
You have the freedom to broadcast whatever you want on an internet radio. They only want to know.
Your post contains big lies. Remember the story about the chinese government hiring people to posts in forums that critisize the government. It's the same here.
Hah, that's a good one. So if you use your freedom of speech, it's ok, but if he does, he's being hired by the belgian governement?
The reasons why this polititian has been fined are not because he abused the internet with this podcast, but because he broke Belgian law by creating a podcast for a political extremist party.
Actually, it is because:
- He broke a law with the podcast (he only had to announce it to the VMC, but didn't)
- He broke a law that forbids EVERY political party from broadcasting radio.
- He broadcasted analog shortwave radio, without license, which is probably the biggest problem the VMC saw.
This all happens in Flanders, where the nationalist "Vlaams Blok" has for many years, been the target of what is commonly called the "cordonne sanitaire". A common cause of all non exreme right or left parties. To stop the growth of the extremist parties, a law was created to keep them out of the publics eye.
It's not a law! That's a lie, my friend.
The "Cordonne Sanitaire" is simply the observation that the views of the Vlaams Blok's are much too incompatible with those of every other partie, so cooperation with them is impossible.
but when over 10 parties need to agree on something, the final result is almost always a compromise without to much of a effect on reality.
Did you just argue that a dictatorship is better than a democracy???
This story is actually another win of the "Vlaams blok^W belang", Flanders extreme right sesessionist party.
Yes, there's a law against political parties broadcasting radio in Belgium.
Yes, there are some laws about podcasting in Belgium.
Yes, you need a licence to broadcasted radio over analog short wave in Belgium.
They broke all of these laws.
So did they expect to get away with breaking all those laws at once? No, they knew this couldn't be ignored. They wanted to be fined.
Since obviously, getting fined for breaking the law, is political oppression. It is their strategy, they've been doing it for years.
They are the innocent victim, the freedom loving democratic party that is censored by an oppressive dictatorial governement.
It's an easy role, and it earns them lot's of votes.
The site slashdot links isn't an unbiased news source by far (read some of the other articles). If you wanna hear the other side of the story, read the official reasons for the fine (in dutch I'm affraid).
I prefer to make up my own opinion about them. I read their official party programs. I saw their leaders in debates. I saw the methods they use to gain support. And I saw/read/heard a lot more about them.
And I feel even more convinced to vote for another party.
why is it greedy to want to be the one who determines how what you created should be used, and perhaps why it shouldn't be used to generate revenue for someone else?
Perhaps greedy is not completely the correct word in this case. Being a non-native english speaker, I looked it up and it's worded a bit stronger in the dictionary than I thought it was. Anyway what I meant was: "the will to completely posses/control what you created, going as far as dening others use of your work if it doesn't harm you if they do so". Any precise word for that?
In my opinion/view/moral, every man has an obligation against society as well as to himself. I think an author has the right to make money from his work, but I don't think he is entitled absolute control.
If someone can make money of your work, and that doesn't negativly influence you making money of your work, In my opinion he has a right to do so. Even more so if he renders a service to society by doing so. Do you disagree with that?
Google appears to be falling in that case. (though that is debatable, I don't know enough details)
Copyright law, and IP law in general, exists for the sole purpose of disseminating creations for the benefit of everyone to use and develop.
That's the theory, the author (or inventor in patent law) gets some legal control over an untangible thing, and that way being an author/inventor is rewarded, and thus stimulated.
But as always, when money (and thus good old greed) is involved, things get perverted. If the law isn't strong enough, the authors/inventors get ripped of. If it is too strong (as it is now in my opinion), the public gets ripped of.
Balancing laws ain't easy.
The protections offered in IP law are merely the incentives for the creators to make their works public so that other people can't sell their works directly (without their permission) or provide copies to subvert their sales, for a limited time. Google isn't doing either.
Legally, I wouldn't be so sure. But IANAL.
The point of IP law isn't to stop others from making money in other ways from your work, so the whole argument of Google making money off copies of the work completely misunderstands the purpose of such laws.
I agree that they are most lickely doing a "Good Thing". I don't understand completely why some authors are against it (good old greed again I guess), but they might have the letter of the law with them.
They have an entire copy of my book sitting on their servers. (It may in fact be an index and hence a derivative work from which the complete original can be constructed, but that is still subject to copyright.)
This is a very interesting point. It might be technically possible to process/store the data in such a fashion that it ISN'T legally considered a derivative work. I'm guessing that's what google is trying to do, they won't just knowingly be breaking copyright, that's too risky.
They are using their complete copy of X to make profit. I don't see a penny of this except maybe occasionally someone will buy my book X because Google mentioned it. And there's certain no law that compels me to accept free advertising in recompense for abuse of my copyright.
But there is also no law that forbids them to make money from your work, as long as they don't break your copyright.
To solve this problem legally (not morally that's another issue), you'll need to be a copyright lawyer with computer science skills and precise knowlegde of how google is indexing the books.
I started and own a successful small business that is successfully competing against, and beating the big guys. I probably know more about real business than 99% of the people that post here
- Intel's strategy is extra useful because they are in a monopoly position. This strategy helps their monopoly grow.
- Monopolies are bad.
Whoops, I seem to have made a wrong calculation.
But I DID mean a/48.
Check the "IAB/IESG Recommendations on IPv6 Address Allocations to Sites" at ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3177.txt
Read this part:
"Home network subscribers, connecting through on-demand or always-on connections should receive a/48."
That's 65535 subnets per subscriber. You can call it insane now, but who knows what the future brings? We might end up calling it visionary;)
Using IPv6 and providing end users with as many public IP's as they want
A simple end user only recieves 1.84e+19 IP adresses (/48 prefix), not unlimited;)
will encourage them to hook their systems directly to the net without a hardware level of seperation.
Yes, but your average ISP will not want this, exactly for these security reasons, and will somehow provide protection for you. It's in their own interest, as compromised systems are a needless balast on their system.
Now true, a router would have to exist at the demarc in order to route a full subnet to the home rather than a single IP address
So what is now a NAT box, becomes a simple router. Just add a statefull firewall to it and you have the same (better actually) protection.
And yes, you could have some basic rules to filter out some of that nasty traffic, maybe even a centralized infrastructure to manage those rules, but at the end of the day, you're still allowing the 'world' to come to your ethernet interface.
A simple 2 rule statefull firewall will offer you just as much protection as NAT does.
As things are right now, no one comes to my ethernet interface unless I explicitly allow it. I port forward ssh, and happenstance 80 to my machine (not for much longer though), otherwise it all gets blocked at my firewall.
So? Who says you have to dump your firewall to use IPv6????
Actually the current definition of 1 meter is the distance light travels in one xxxxxxxxxxx th of a second. A second being the time it takes for some crystal to pulse yyyyyyyy times.
Still, I can show you a meter between my hands, and I won't be off more than 10 cm...
Yes, you don't want people deliberately 'open sourcing' patented technology (5% of nothing is still nothing). We could have a statutary minimum sum per implementation of a patent, to avoid this issue.
Now that's NOT what i meant. On the contrary, I was afraid it would still (like current system) block free software out! I'm sure your system would indeed find a way to block free software out, as you want... (but I don't want that)
I don't really agree with patents on most software- but I guess this will sort itself out in the long run when most of the obvious things are patented
Huh? I don't see how that's going to happen...
Your idea doesn't do anything to solve patenting the most obvious things, which IMHO is the biggest problem of software patents...
I personally would advocate removal of monopoly rights on IP and go towards a percentage idea. Something like, the orginal inventor gets 5% of turnover or some such; and if there are more than one inventors then they split the 5% between them according to some scheme.
If you do this with software, I've got a few remarks:
- What if the program you wrote has 21 features that are protected by different patents?
- Even more troubling: What about free software?
(I believe those are also some of the arguments used by Stallman in "The Danger of Software Patents")
Slashdot Mirror
More interesting are the causes. Which, in my humble opinion, are for the most part are thaught, trained, "programmed". And not (just, it can play an important role as well) genetically defined.
And what is you definition of sane then? Is insane a physical defect in the brain, you are born with or aquire through a virus or something? Or can you get it by "indoctrination" by other people?
If so, I believe that what you believe has been "indoctrinated" into you by you enviroment, and you are insane. In fact you're so insane you can't tell you're insane.
The human mind is a programmable device. Don't just label software misbehaviour as hardware error.
Just try some bottled mineral waters. They all taste different, depending on the minerals. I think for me personally, it's the ammount of calcium that gives a good taste (the more the better!). You can really get addicted to the taste as well! I like drinking water. And it's healthy too, even if you drink large ammounts
In fact I can't really enjoy sweet drinks these days, they just taste too "cheap". Adding sugar and CO2 makes it so easy to make a good drink (or so they think). It's a lot harder to make low or sugarfree drinks without gas that are quite good.
Anyway, you said a politician couldn't broadcast because he needed to obtain a license from his opponents.
That is not true at all. A politician just can't broadcast, whatever party he's from.
So you have a point here, but lying to make it look bigger does not help your argument.
Anyway, on topic, I don't agree with the form of the law, it goes to far, but it's not an undemocratic idea to try to keep the mass media neutral. Think of Italy where most mass media belongs to the prime minister personally.
Free speech does conflict with democracy on some points. It's also a danger to itself. Alas, free speech is not a magical right that makes the world into an irreversible utopia.
As an aside if Mr. Verstrepen hadn't broken it on so many points, and hadn't claimed he didn't do anything wrong, it could have been a nice symbolic action and he might get some of my sympathy. But he just completely screwed up, and trying to use his mess as party propaganda at that point is just sad.
I you protest to a law by breaking it, you have to do it right. With a clean symbolic action that ridicules the law. That's not what he did, he even denies the broadcast has party ties. I was simply answering your question as to why the prime minister isn't breaking the current law by putting that mp3 on the website. Though I have to admit that since the law is a bit broad, I can't be certain since IANAL. But I would be surprised if an official press statement is considered the same as a political radio show.
And I can't stress enough that I'm certainly not saying free speech should be limited by disallowing certain podcasts.
If you're breaking the law out of protest, then at least say so. Otherwise, you're just breaking the law.
Analog radio broadcasts do indeed require a licence. But that's nothing new.
There is no danger to free speech on the internet here. You can say what you want on the internet, but if you do it in the form of a radio broadcast, you need to inform the VMC (needless bureaucracy perhaps, but no real danger to freedom of speech in my eyes).
This is the weekly official statement to the press by the prime minister. It's a press briefing about what the governement has done this week.
It is not an official statementof the prime ministers party, it's an official stement of the prime minister. I hope you see the difference here.
When for example Bush adresses the nation, or holds a press conference, that is not an official republican party radio broadcast.
Prove me wrong then. I linked you the law, showing you are wrong. Now you do something better, surprise me, make me see my error... Do you believe that yourself? Do you truly believe no one in the right mind has different opinions than you, and comes out for them?
Read the law. See article 31 paragraph 4 and Article 54 paragraph 4. All he needed to do was send a letter. That's it, it would have been completely legal, and nobody could do anything about it. No licence is needed.
The government only requests to know you are broadcasting radio over the internet, they don't need to give you permission. This is not at all a violation of the freedom of speech.
You have the freedom to broadcast whatever you want on an internet radio. They only want to know.
Mr Verstrepen broke that law.
- He broke a law with the podcast (he only had to announce it to the VMC, but didn't)
- He broke a law that forbids EVERY political party from broadcasting radio.
- He broadcasted analog shortwave radio, without license, which is probably the biggest problem the VMC saw.
It's not a law! That's a lie, my friend.
The "Cordonne Sanitaire" is simply the observation that the views of the Vlaams Blok's are much too incompatible with those of every other partie, so cooperation with them is impossible.
Did you just argue that a dictatorship is better than a democracy???
This story is actually another win of the "Vlaams blok^W belang", Flanders extreme right sesessionist party.
Yes, there's a law against political parties broadcasting radio in Belgium.
Yes, there are some laws about podcasting in Belgium.
Yes, you need a licence to broadcasted radio over analog short wave in Belgium.
They broke all of these laws.
So did they expect to get away with breaking all those laws at once? No, they knew this couldn't be ignored. They wanted to be fined.
Since obviously, getting fined for breaking the law, is political oppression. It is their strategy, they've been doing it for years. They are the innocent victim, the freedom loving democratic party that is censored by an oppressive dictatorial governement. It's an easy role, and it earns them lot's of votes.
The site slashdot links isn't an unbiased news source by far (read some of the other articles). If you wanna hear the other side of the story, read the official reasons for the fine (in dutch I'm affraid).
I prefer to make up my own opinion about them. I read their official party programs. I saw their leaders in debates. I saw the methods they use to gain support. And I saw/read/heard a lot more about them.
And I feel even more convinced to vote for another party.
In my opinion/view/moral, every man has an obligation against society as well as to himself. I think an author has the right to make money from his work, but I don't think he is entitled absolute control.
If someone can make money of your work, and that doesn't negativly influence you making money of your work, In my opinion he has a right to do so. Even more so if he renders a service to society by doing so. Do you disagree with that?
Google appears to be falling in that case. (though that is debatable, I don't know enough details)
But as always, when money (and thus good old greed) is involved, things get perverted. If the law isn't strong enough, the authors/inventors get ripped of. If it is too strong (as it is now in my opinion), the public gets ripped of.
Balancing laws ain't easy.
Legally, I wouldn't be so sure. But IANAL.
I agree that they are most lickely doing a "Good Thing". I don't understand completely why some authors are against it (good old greed again I guess), but they might have the letter of the law with them.
But there is also no law that forbids them to make money from your work, as long as they don't break your copyright.
To solve this problem legally (not morally that's another issue), you'll need to be a copyright lawyer with computer science skills and precise knowlegde of how google is indexing the books.
- Monopolies are bad.
Which of these 2 exactly do you not agree with?
Check the "IAB/IESG Recommendations on IPv6 Address Allocations to Sites" at ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3177.txt
Read this part:
"Home network subscribers, connecting through on-demand or always-on connections should receive a
That's 65535 subnets per subscriber. You can call it insane now, but who knows what the future brings? We might end up calling it visionary
Actually the current definition of 1 meter is the distance light travels in one xxxxxxxxxxx th of a second. A second being the time it takes for some crystal to pulse yyyyyyyy times. Still, I can show you a meter between my hands, and I won't be off more than 10 cm...
Huh? I don't see how that's going to happen... Your idea doesn't do anything to solve patenting the most obvious things, which IMHO is the biggest problem of software patents...
- What if the program you wrote has 21 features that are protected by different patents?
- Even more troubling: What about free software?
(I believe those are also some of the arguments used by Stallman in "The Danger of Software Patents")