Did I hear that right? "Contract rights give us so much power over you you're better off dead" or words to that effect. Why have a contract with SCO? They will attack their customers first, because they are more likely to win.
They just handed us an argument *for* Linux. Thanks, SCO.
GPL'd software runs on proprietary layers (Intel). The GPL is great, but it only protects some freedoms, not all of them. The answer is easy: if you want source, don't rent.
Think of the internet as a big dump filled with potential, er, recycling materials. A lot of it is trash but there is some good stuff there. Anyone can go out and pick up stuff and build stuff with it. Only, digital copying and transmission technology means that if someone happens to throw away a split-level ranch house we can all live in nice houses.
So how do you keep this from happening if you are in the business of selling houses? (1) control the real estate market [hardware] so you can have a nice house but no place to put it; (2) cut off access to the dump; (3) make recycling illegal; (4) claim you own the stuff in the dump.
So SCO wants #4 today. What else is new. They'll all be tried. They're all a problem.
The real problem is not today's battle on thus-and-such a front. It's that there are a *lot* of people out there who have it out for recycling of *anything* that people can live in.
'A novel scheme for patenting software, together with an intended interpretation of its own patent number, such that the patent number can be interpreted in any court of law as "This is not a valid patent".'
This should result in an recursively infinite number of law suits (known to lawyers as the property of omega-illegality). Should bankrupt the PTO. The lawyers are happy; we're happy.
=googol= In a world where everyone is a slave, only hackers are free.
In mundo, omnibus servibus, soli concidentes liberi.
Fair enough. You've got it right that there are two points points here not one: (1) whether selling a book is per se immoral because "information wants to be free" and (2) whether we are participating in a corrupt system--and I haven't address (1) properly.
In my post, I'm not arguing that selling the book is per se immoral. I'm arguing that in the present context participating in buying and selling with a corrupt intermediary is unpatriotic. This leaves open the possibility that you could use an ecologically-sound publisher. Since (2) is an assertion about what we should do, I'll just let it stand. My main purpose was to point out that it is inconsistent to rail against the DMCA or whatever and then give the lobbiests for it money by buying their stuff. We need to learn to do without the stuff, find alternates, or whatever. I don't recommend a boycott, but a complete change in lifestyle for people who feel strongly about this. Just say "no" to pay-for-content.
A moderate version of this position is that we should do this only until the RIAA lays off the lobbying, because there is nothing wrong with selling content.
I go further: we need to reform our lifestyle to do without that kind of content in the first place. You've asked me to address this aspect of what I'm saying specifically.
Let me give an analogy. Suppose I am a toll collector in France in the days when "free trade" did not yet include the right to ship goods from one part of the country to another without crossing a hundred such toll booths and paying internal duties. Our toll collector might argue that he has a right to a living, that legally I should pay the toll and so forth.
Now here I come along and say free trade ("free information") is the wave of the future and how things should be and that he is a part of a corrupt system. We change the system and now he needs a new job.
This thread is getting stale, but if you want to continue the discussion, we can continue off line.
I am arguing that participation in a corrupt system is immoral. The fact that Good Germans ought to be paid fair wages doesn't concern me.
The tea sellers had a right to sell tea as well, but patriots decided not to drink it. I can decide not to read your books. Now you don't make money, same way.
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
--Alan Cox (quoted at http://www.cryptome.org)
George Orwell said something very similar in
_1984_
Just because it "won't work" doesn't mean we
can avoid doing it. Define what you mean
by "work". Repeal of DMCA as a direct result?
We could get that repealed if Linus would just
make salt: encode the next Linux distribution
with a public key. Let someone leak the private
key. Then we all become DMCA violators. Let
'em arrest us all.
It is clear that the "content" industry is the implacable enemy of civil liberties.
The only moral course of action is to boycott content that isn't open. Don't go to movies, buy
videos, or listen to music--unless it is produced
by those who support liberty and not those who
tread on it.
There comes a time when you can't drink tea
and be patriotic at the same time.
It is clear that the "content" industry is the implacable enemy of civil liberties.
The only moral course of action is to boycott content that isn't open. Don't go to movies, buy
videos, or listen to music--unless it is produced
by those who support liberty and not those who
tread on it.
There comes a time when you can't drink tea
and be patriotic at the same time.
This sort of ruling is precisely why we need a defensible perimeter for out-of-copyright works, similar to the GPL. It is clear that property rights in words will become absolute and indefinite, to the detriment of the progress of art and science.
...ever since 1066, when their superior feudal technology overcame our cultural purity, we've had to put up with tainted words like "pork" instead of eating good old "swineflesh".
It's time we purge our language of neologisms!
I meant to say, we must kill new words in our tounge.
Solution is simple: someone needs to write a browser with a "ROT13" switch. Then "alternate" encoded domains can be surfed normally. You just throw the ROT13 switch and surf away in the alternative domain. Sites that care can register the alternate name as an alias and exist in both domains.
Sure, it fractures the internet into a commercial, acceptable domain and an "anything goes" domain.
=googol=
Use Computers for Data Analysis Too!
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
Don't forget to analyze the data. That's the *real* way to use technology to help elections.
Here's a refresher:
Joe Hacker is analyzing a state election with 6,400,000 voters. The state has 64
counties with exactly 100,000 voters each, and the election candidates P and Q have
almost exactly the same number of supporters. Joe reasons that the distribution is
binomial, with p=q=0.5 and N=6,400,000. "Success" is defined as a vote for candidate P;
but by symmetry who is who doesn't matter.
Joe reasons that each county has an independent and identically distributed normal
distribution, so that taking 64 such samples will cause the distribution of summing the
county vote to have a mean 3,200,000 and a variance of 6,000,000*p*q/8=6,400,000/32.
Taking the square root and applying the central limit theorem, Joe believes the null
hypothesis should obey a distribution of 3,200,000 with one sigma equal to about 450
votes.
(a) Point out the obvious flaws in Joe's arguements.
(b) Correct and Generalize Joe's procedure for counties with different vote tallies
(c) Read _Cryptonomicon_ and discuss real world applications of this technique.
Back when he was just an Indiana politician, his statewide media image was of a smart, young, ambitious, yuppie. That was the stereotype of all neo-conservatives elected ca. 1980 and the media played it to the hilt. The young Turks (anti-Carter, post-Watergate conservatives) were more focused, more ambitious, sharper dressers, slicker hair, and were more intellegent than Liberals. It played well until about the mid-80s and the Iran-Contra hearings.
I strongly suspect most politicians are smarter than they affect or come across. It's very hard to both be intelligent and yet not to appear dumb on TV. I even gave Danny the benefit of the doubt until the overwhelming evidence of preponderance er, wasted a terrible thing. He has a mind--I mean had a happy place to keep his thoughts happy. Yes.
Of course, in national office, you couldn't hide the "real" Quayle any more than you could hide the real Clinton or will be able to hide the real Al/Dubya/Ralph/Harry. Most of the time you can, but little bits and pieces of the truth filter out. Kinda like the part in Jurassic Park about Chaos theory.
I'm voting for Nader because he managed to get 5 minutes air time to explain why the WTO protests are about constitutional sovereignty and not free trade.
The Dems need to understand that if they don't shape up, their own constituency is going to feed them to the dogs.
I don't care if the other party is worse and is going to win because I'm voting my conscience.
Geeks will not vote the way you want them to.
Geeks won't vote the way all those other constituencies do and stay in line for you!
(Freedom of Information Act request). It would be interesting to know if you, a typical and benign "real hackers", already had a file. In fact, it would be very interesting....
Slashdot Mirror
Just like the movie. Now who owns the property rights to the film? Is real life intellectual property? Can you patent a movie plot?
Did I hear that right? "Contract rights give us so much power over you you're better off dead" or words to that effect. Why have a contract with SCO? They will attack their customers first, because they are more likely to win.
They just handed us an argument *for* Linux. Thanks, SCO.
GPL'd software runs on proprietary layers (Intel).
The GPL is great, but it only protects some freedoms, not all of them. The answer is easy: if you want source, don't rent.
Look at the code.
here, [pdf,yahoo.com] with more information here[vt.edu].
Think of the internet as a big dump filled with potential, er, recycling materials. A lot of it is trash but there is some good stuff there. Anyone can go out and pick up stuff and build stuff with it. Only, digital copying and transmission technology means that if someone happens to throw away a split-level ranch house we can all live in nice houses.
So how do you keep this from happening if you are in the business of selling houses? (1) control the real estate market [hardware] so you can have a nice house but no place to put it; (2) cut off access to the dump; (3) make recycling illegal; (4) claim you own the stuff in the dump.
So SCO wants #4 today. What else is new. They'll all be tried. They're all a problem.
The real problem is not today's battle on thus-and-such a front. It's that there are a *lot* of people out there who have it out for recycling of *anything* that people can live in.
=googol=
Something more subtle could be amusing....
'A novel scheme for patenting software, together with an intended interpretation of its own patent number, such that the patent number can be interpreted in any court of law as "This is not a valid patent".'
This should result in an recursively infinite number of law suits (known to lawyers as the property of omega-illegality). Should bankrupt the PTO. The lawyers are happy; we're happy.
=googol=
In a world where everyone is a slave, only hackers are free.
In mundo, omnibus servibus, soli concidentes liberi.
Fair enough. You've got it right that there are two points points here not one: (1) whether selling a book is per se immoral because "information wants to be free" and (2) whether we are participating in a corrupt system--and I haven't address (1) properly.
In my post, I'm not arguing that selling the book is per se immoral. I'm arguing that in the present context participating in buying and selling with a corrupt intermediary is unpatriotic. This leaves open the possibility that you could use an ecologically-sound publisher. Since (2) is an assertion about what we should do, I'll just let it stand. My main purpose was to point out that it is inconsistent to rail against the DMCA or whatever and then give the lobbiests for it money by buying their stuff. We need to learn to do without the stuff, find alternates, or whatever. I don't recommend a boycott, but a complete change in lifestyle for people who feel strongly about this. Just say "no" to pay-for-content.
A moderate version of this position is that we should do this only until the RIAA lays off the lobbying, because there is nothing wrong with selling content.
I go further: we need to reform our lifestyle to do without that kind of content in the first place. You've asked me to address this aspect of what I'm saying specifically.
Let me give an analogy. Suppose I am a toll collector in France in the days when "free trade" did not yet include the right to ship goods from one part of the country to another without crossing a hundred such toll booths and paying internal duties. Our toll collector might argue that he has a right to a living, that legally I should pay the toll and so forth.
Now here I come along and say free trade ("free information") is the wave of the future and how things should be and that he is a part of a corrupt system. We change the system and now he needs a new job.
This thread is getting stale, but if you want to continue the discussion, we can continue off line.
=john= (Googol)
jegoodwin3@earthlink.net
I am arguing that participation in a corrupt system is immoral. The fact that Good Germans ought to be paid fair wages doesn't concern me.
The tea sellers had a right to sell tea as well, but patriots decided not to drink it. I can decide not to read your books. Now you don't make money, same way.
You're whistling in the dark.
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
--Alan Cox (quoted at http://www.cryptome.org)
George Orwell said something very similar in
_1984_
Just because it "won't work" doesn't mean we
can avoid doing it. Define what you mean
by "work". Repeal of DMCA as a direct result?
We could get that repealed if Linus would just
make salt: encode the next Linux distribution
with a public key. Let someone leak the private
key. Then we all become DMCA violators. Let
'em arrest us all.
It is clear that the "content" industry is the implacable enemy of civil liberties.
The only moral course of action is to boycott content that isn't open. Don't go to movies, buy
videos, or listen to music--unless it is produced
by those who support liberty and not those who
tread on it.
There comes a time when you can't drink tea
and be patriotic at the same time.
It is clear that the "content" industry is the implacable enemy of civil liberties.
The only moral course of action is to boycott content that isn't open. Don't go to movies, buy
videos, or listen to music--unless it is produced
by those who support liberty and not those who
tread on it.
There comes a time when you can't drink tea
and be patriotic at the same time.
This sort of ruling is precisely why we need a defensible perimeter for out-of-copyright works, similar to the GPL. It is clear that property rights in words will become absolute and indefinite, to the detriment of the progress of art and science.
=googol=
...ever since 1066, when their superior feudal technology overcame our cultural purity, we've had to put up with tainted words like "pork" instead of eating good old "swineflesh".
It's time we purge our language of neologisms!
I meant to say, we must kill new words in our tounge.
=googol=
Solution is simple: someone needs to write a browser with a "ROT13" switch. Then "alternate" encoded domains can be surfed normally. You just throw the ROT13 switch and surf away in the alternative domain. Sites that care can register the alternate name as an alias and exist in both domains.
Sure, it fractures the internet into a commercial, acceptable domain and an "anything goes" domain.
=googol=
Here's a refresher:
Joe Hacker is analyzing a state election with 6,400,000 voters. The state has 64 counties with exactly 100,000 voters each, and the election candidates P and Q have almost exactly the same number of supporters. Joe reasons that the distribution is binomial, with p=q=0.5 and N=6,400,000. "Success" is defined as a vote for candidate P; but by symmetry who is who doesn't matter.
Joe reasons that each county has an independent and identically distributed normal distribution, so that taking 64 such samples will cause the distribution of summing the county vote to have a mean 3,200,000 and a variance of 6,000,000*p*q/8=6,400,000/32.
Taking the square root and applying the central limit theorem, Joe believes the null hypothesis should obey a distribution of 3,200,000 with one sigma equal to about 450 votes.
(a) Point out the obvious flaws in Joe's arguements.
(b) Correct and Generalize Joe's procedure for counties with different vote tallies
(c) Read _Cryptonomicon_ and discuss real world applications of this technique.
You have 2 weeks. :)
Of course, it's not really over until the electoral college votes. 1 vote is a very slim margin. Bush needs Oregon and/or Wisconsin. =googol=
They used to run "omnibus" candidates (war heros, whatever). Worked fine until the Republicans ate their lunch.
=googol=
Back when he was just an Indiana politician, his statewide media image was of a smart, young, ambitious, yuppie. That was the stereotype of all neo-conservatives elected ca. 1980 and the media played it to the hilt. The young Turks (anti-Carter, post-Watergate conservatives) were more focused, more ambitious, sharper dressers, slicker hair, and were more intellegent than Liberals. It played well until about the mid-80s and the Iran-Contra hearings.
I strongly suspect most politicians are smarter than they affect or come across. It's very hard to both be intelligent and yet not to appear dumb on TV. I even gave Danny the benefit of the doubt until the overwhelming evidence of preponderance er, wasted a terrible thing. He has a mind--I mean had a happy place to keep his thoughts happy. Yes.
Of course, in national office, you couldn't hide the "real" Quayle any more than you could hide the real Clinton or will be able to hide the real Al/Dubya/Ralph/Harry. Most of the time you can, but little bits and pieces of the truth filter out. Kinda like the part in Jurassic Park about Chaos theory.
=googol=
I used to be a Democrat. My own party did:
1. DMCA
2. WTO (I live in Seattle)
Bye, Al.
I'm voting for Nader because he managed to get 5 minutes air time to explain why the WTO protests are about constitutional sovereignty and not free trade.
The Dems need to understand that if they don't shape up, their own constituency is going to feed them to the dogs.
I don't care if the other party is worse and is going to win because I'm voting my conscience.
Geeks will not vote the way you want them to.
Geeks won't vote the way all those other constituencies do and stay in line for you!
Listen to the Geeks, Dammit!
=googol=
...it side-swiped skylab but this was covered up by the mainstream media.
=googol=
and in one giant spasm, our civilization will announce its invententory of consumer goods, which will then be vaporized....
=googol=
(Freedom of Information Act request). It would be interesting to know if you, a typical and benign "real hackers", already had a file. In fact, it would be very interesting....
The websites at voteexchange2000 and voteswap2000 have ceased on-line operations. We need an update on this story!
...prefers to live away from the sun:
10. Whoops. I didn't know hyperdrives did that.
9. Low threshold radiation is a big problem when you live to 1000.
8. Too much static--we can't hear our MP256 players.
7. Ringworld didn't work out.
6. It's where all the good TV shows went.
5. Data Havens.
4. Jar-Jar doesn't live there.
3. We were sick of those damn auroras.
2. You just click on your planet browser to get there, so what's the problem?
1. It's more like Finland.
P.S. does anyone know how to make HTML list elements run backwards? This seems to be a serious oversight in the standards....