If she is the same Annalee Newitz I went to high school with (and I am pretty sure she is) then she writes to satisfy her own ego more than anything else.
Your interest in the subject is a lot less important than the fact that she is a "writer" and sees things published with her byline.
Of course, I am an asshole so what I write (especially on Slashdot) is not particularly relevant either.
I disagree a bit about this. I think it is wishful thinking to conclude that someone who follows a "normal" life and does not have homicidal tendencies could think of unpredictable ways to initiate terrorist acts.
For example, I believe it was a commission in 2000 (chaired by, I think, Paul Bremer) that warned of the use of airplanes as missiles to attack targets inside the USA.
Will Wright's point about granular details being too hard to model is only valid to a certain point and depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you are trying to model a world that predicts terrorist behavior, it seems we are far away from such abilities. If you are trying to model a world that gives a lot of freedom and capabilities to individuals, I think the real individuals will eventually demonstrate new and creative ways to do things.
I see a real danger here in that those individuals who can think in such creative ways would be branded as "high risk" individuals. There are a lot of people who assume you are dangerous merely based on your ability to think of violent behavior. The next step in this approach is that if you are willing to engage in such violent behavior in a virtual setting, you are more inclined to engage in the same behavior in the real world.
People have their own conclusions about whether any of that is true. Personally, the idea that virtual behavior or mind thoughts demonstrate a higher likelihood of such behavior is a little tough to accept. I can personally say that I have thoughts, fantasies and ideas that I would never initiate in the real world for a variety of reasons. I would never accept that I am a high risk individual because I think of such things. Of course some crimes are inevitably preceded by fanatasies about it. For example, rapists probably play out rape fantasies in their head before committing actual rapes. But going the other direction and establishing causation that all people who fanatasize about rape are potential rapists (or even inevitable rapists) is a bit ridiculous by most common sense measures.
The other risk is that such a modeled environment would also allow individuals who truly do have a propensity towards such behavior to practice their acts before engaging in them, even perfecting their plans. It is one thing to accept the benefits of pilot schools even when they are abused into training centers for terrorists. It is quite another to intentionally set up an environment where wannabe terrorists are given the tools for practicing terrorism, even if the goal is to prevent the behavior in real life.
Perhaps we could have a questionnaire at the beginning. Question 1: Are you a terrorist? Only those who answer no are allowed in the game.
And for the other customers, the FBI raid is a non-issue.
Basically, if they guarantee MY server's uptime, and MY server is confiscated due to them not providing the data on another customer (important point) in time, THEY pay ME. Their fault.
Wrong. There is a clear common law legal principle that is considered inherent in contracts. You cannot contract anything that is a violation of the law.
In this situation, the facts are rather murky. If the hosting company was the cause of the FBI seizure then you might have a contractual violation. But the hosting company cannot be held to have violated its ToS because the FBI made a unilateral decision to seize equipment. The alternative that you suggest is that the hosting company resist compliance with the search warrant and ultimately the seizure. You, as a customer, cannot insist on that...no matter what your contract says.
Why is it that every loser who has some esoteric interest in dead products uses Slashdot to lament the demise of said dead products?
If you want a goddamn 1977 Ford Pinto II, do you complain when the local Ford dealership doesn't have one available in mint condition?
If you wanna be a collector, fine. But there is a reason companies aren't making that shit anymore. There are like five of you who are interested in buying a NES cartridge in its original box in mint condition. Are you really surprised there isn't a factory somewhere pumping them out? Or that the local Best Buy doesn't have a dedicated aisle for it?
If you actually give DirecTV money, I suggest you get familiar with their 100,000 lawsuit/letter compaign against purchasers of completely legal ISO programmers.
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
-Martin Niemoller
Nobody is suggesting you do anything other than stop giving them your money. Especially as you can get DISH and have the same capabilities.
Another story of how the sky is falling. It's not. That stupid patent hasn't deterred any "would-be great games from making it into the gaming world."
Stupid patents will happen. Some people on Slashdot currently get bent out of shape when they hear about a stupid patent, usually connecting it with the out of control lawyers. Well, guess what? It wasn't a lawyer who decided to apply for such a stupid patent. It was some jackass who thought they could capitalize on something. And they won't capitalize on anything.
As for anyone sued for infringement, it's the cost of doing business overall in a complicated world.
You aren't going to solve it or stop it from happening, so just move along. There's nothing to see here.
First off, we have a Constitution which defines the election process for the Presidency is based on the electoral college. Don't like it? Get it changed.
That said, this is the most ridiculous spin on the popular vote argument I have yet to see about the 2000 elections. The fact is, Gore won the popular vote. No respectable person disputes that fact.
The idea of one person one vote doesn't apply in the US presidential elections. And that chart simply reinforces why no one really wants to change it. Even on a neutral level, to suggest a rural person's vote is more relevant than a metropolitan resident's vote is a bit silly to most people. And that is essentially what that graph suggests. That graphic matches largely to the population density of the USA. Try driving through one of those red areas on the map. Most of the time, you'll be lucky to see cows let alone people.
The statement above the graphic, however, goes even farther by implying that all people who live in cities or higher density areas are tenement living goverment aid recipients. That is a clear euphemism for trying to describe racial minorities. So the rascist subtext should be clear to everyone.
In the end, the graph is a stupid attempt at arguing against the point that Gore won the popular vote, despite the fact that the point is moot. Many people also legitimately disagree whether Gore really won the electoral vote if the Florida votes had been recounted. That point is now academic. It didn't happen and Florida certified the results. Bush won the electoral college and therefore the Presidency.
There is a legal concept called "fair use". Just as your can use a VCR to record your favorite tv show, you have the same right to do this with radio. The US Supreme Court has continually reinforced this right of individuals over copyright restrictions.
The problem is that the media companies want to 1) put barriers up to prevent this fair use and 2) create an atmosphere where people actually believe it is illegal and that there is no fair use right.
It looks like they are succeeding for the average user. For the rest of us, the media companies can go screw themselves. I will copy my DVDs for backup, strip the encryption off so I can watch them under non-authorized media players and refuse to purchase any medium where these things aren't possible.
I gave my sister a $200 gift certificate to the Discovery Store (after her request for nature television shows).
She "gave" me a donation to some African AIDS and Tuberculosis Prevention Society fund.
Now, I am 100% against both AIDS and Tuberculosis, especially in Africa. But is it really appropriate to make a donation in someone else's name and then offer it up to them as a gift?
Stay tuned. Next year, she will also be donating. I am thinking MBLA or one of those Nazi groups who deny that the Holocaust ever occurred. I am sure she would love to be on their mailing lists.
There was only really one good paragraph in the whole stupid lawyer-written thing.
SCO argues that the authority of Congress under the U.S. Constitution to "promote the Progress of Science and the useful arts..." inherently includes a profit motive, and that protection for this profit motive includes a Constitutional dimension. We believe that the "progress of science" is best advanced by vigorously protecting the right of authors and inventors to earn a profit from their work.
If that is not the BIGGEST stretch, I do not know what is. I mean, if SCO argues the GPL is unconstitional based on that argument, the judges all the way up the tree will be looking at them increduously.
My favorite term now is "inherently includes a profit motive". In fact, every time SCO makes an argument, you can just explain it away with that phrase.
Sorry, but that's not my experience with LAPD. Perhaps that was because I was a resident. A couple of years ago, someone broke into my house in LA and stole my computer. LAPD, surprisingly, even came out and dusted for fingerprints. My reaction at the time was a bit of shock, as I never expected such "service" for a $2000 theft in LA.
I think that police departments in big cities don't have an automatic reaction as to how they deal with such situations. It seems to be luck of the draw on who is willing to take the time.
I do not think this is a real problem. In the Harrison vs. Chiffons case, it was addressing a specific combination of musical notes. Copyright is limited to the expression and not the result.
SCO is not suing anyone for copyright infringement, despite the stupidity of Darl McBride's letter and his numerous other ramblings. The obfuscation and derivative arguments from SCO are not copyright arguments. They are arguments about potential contractual violations from IBM. It is the contract between IBM and AT&T (now SCO) that has the derivative works restriction.
The fact is, you can create duplications of software all day long and you won't violate any copyrights if you are creating your own source code. You may violate other things like trademarks or contractual restrictions you had from the original company, but you won't violate a copyright.
The Harrison case, therefore, is completely inapplicable to the original SCO vs. IBM case. As I understand it, IBM did counterclaim that SCO had violated IBM copyrights by taking copyrighted code and incorporating it into SCO's Unix distribution and/or Caldera's Linux distribution.
SCO's underlying problem is that they sued IBM for one thing and then have a PR program in place complaining about an entirely different thing. Now the two things have gotten jumbled together.
Sorry, but this is not a standard contingency arrangement. If it was only a percentage of any settlement with IBM, that would be a standard contingency fee arrangement.
The inclusion of a payment based on the value of any sale of the company is definitely interesting and goes directly to the heart of at least one of SCO's strategies.
I can only remember seeing Novell products in less than a handful of places-- and it was in the process of being removed in those places.
That's because most people only think of Netware (the server OS) when they hear Novell's name. Take a look at eDirectory (if you use Yahoo's portal, you use eDirectory), DirXML (an amazing XML based directory synchronization tool), ZENworks (client management) and many other products.
I almost dread every time I see an article on Slashdot about Novell because inevitably people talk about Novell as a dying company.
Your question about Novell's capital is easy. They are a cash positive company and have remained so during most of their existence. Last I heard about a year ago, they had about $600 million cash in the bank.
I recommend people who aren't familiar with Novell's product line just go take a look at it. Decide for yourself. I think you will be impressed with what they offer.
They aren't guilty of maintaining a monopoly. According to the appeals court ruling, they only were established as a monopoly. Monopolies aren't illegal. What is illegal is to either 1) create barriers of entry to competitors that might take away your monopoly or 2) leverage your monopoly to create monopolies in other areas.
Because MS settled with the DOJ after the case went back to the trial court level, the court never got to determine whether MS did anything illegal from their monopoly. Hopefully, the judge last week saw that MS is still up to the same old shit in putting a lot of conditions on the licensing of Windows source code. Probably not, though. History with MS has taught us they get away with a lot of crap.
I think this is a great point...for IBM. The fact that the defense is included at all shows that the attorneys for SCO do not understand the GPL at all. They really are under the impression that the FSF owns the copyrights on all GPL'd software. This is excellent. I can only guess that IBM's attorneys read the defenses, started laughing and yelled loudly "What a bunch of incompetent idiots."
The FSF is similar to the BSA in how it obtains any legal rights. They can only act on behalf of actual copyright holders if they are given permission by the copyright holders.
I really think it is funny that a software company is arguing AGAINST the legality of a licensing agreement. I would not be surprised to see a lot of big companies trying to file legal briefs against such a position.
Wow. What an interesting conspiracy theory. But wouldn't it have been more efficient to simply claim "I am unemployed because I am so damn good."
The fact is, there are a lot of unemployed people with great skills and there are a lot of employed people with bad skills. The economy is bad and that's just the way it goes. But you will pardon many of us if we don't accept your premise that only poorly skilled people are employed now because they are cheap.
I, for one, am poorly skilled and highly paid. Go figure. But, in the famous words of Ted Knight in Caddy Shack: The world needs ditch diggers, too.
Not only is Gator spyware, the executives at Gator who threaten to sue when they don't like people calling it spyware are a bunch of cocksucking weasels. Apologies to cocksuckers and weasels.
When MS Messenger was first released, it included the ability to send messages to AIM users. AOL kept blocking MS Messenger connections until Microsoft finally gave up. They complained loudly the whole time about this blocking.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. But this is typical MS behavior. Now that they have a stronger user base, they talk a different line.
Slashdot Mirror
If she is the same Annalee Newitz I went to high school with (and I am pretty sure she is) then she writes to satisfy her own ego more than anything else.
Your interest in the subject is a lot less important than the fact that she is a "writer" and sees things published with her byline.
Of course, I am an asshole so what I write (especially on Slashdot) is not particularly relevant either.
I disagree a bit about this. I think it is wishful thinking to conclude that someone who follows a "normal" life and does not have homicidal tendencies could think of unpredictable ways to initiate terrorist acts.
For example, I believe it was a commission in 2000 (chaired by, I think, Paul Bremer) that warned of the use of airplanes as missiles to attack targets inside the USA.
Will Wright's point about granular details being too hard to model is only valid to a certain point and depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you are trying to model a world that predicts terrorist behavior, it seems we are far away from such abilities. If you are trying to model a world that gives a lot of freedom and capabilities to individuals, I think the real individuals will eventually demonstrate new and creative ways to do things.
I see a real danger here in that those individuals who can think in such creative ways would be branded as "high risk" individuals. There are a lot of people who assume you are dangerous merely based on your ability to think of violent behavior. The next step in this approach is that if you are willing to engage in such violent behavior in a virtual setting, you are more inclined to engage in the same behavior in the real world.
People have their own conclusions about whether any of that is true. Personally, the idea that virtual behavior or mind thoughts demonstrate a higher likelihood of such behavior is a little tough to accept. I can personally say that I have thoughts, fantasies and ideas that I would never initiate in the real world for a variety of reasons. I would never accept that I am a high risk individual because I think of such things. Of course some crimes are inevitably preceded by fanatasies about it. For example, rapists probably play out rape fantasies in their head before committing actual rapes. But going the other direction and establishing causation that all people who fanatasize about rape are potential rapists (or even inevitable rapists) is a bit ridiculous by most common sense measures.
The other risk is that such a modeled environment would also allow individuals who truly do have a propensity towards such behavior to practice their acts before engaging in them, even perfecting their plans. It is one thing to accept the benefits of pilot schools even when they are abused into training centers for terrorists. It is quite another to intentionally set up an environment where wannabe terrorists are given the tools for practicing terrorism, even if the goal is to prevent the behavior in real life.
Perhaps we could have a questionnaire at the beginning. Question 1: Are you a terrorist? Only those who answer no are allowed in the game.
Basically, if they guarantee MY server's uptime, and MY server is confiscated due to them not providing the data on another customer (important point) in time, THEY pay ME. Their fault.
Wrong. There is a clear common law legal principle that is considered inherent in contracts. You cannot contract anything that is a violation of the law.
In this situation, the facts are rather murky. If the hosting company was the cause of the FBI seizure then you might have a contractual violation. But the hosting company cannot be held to have violated its ToS because the FBI made a unilateral decision to seize equipment. The alternative that you suggest is that the hosting company resist compliance with the search warrant and ultimately the seizure. You, as a customer, cannot insist on that...no matter what your contract says.
Why is it that every loser who has some esoteric interest in dead products uses Slashdot to lament the demise of said dead products?
If you want a goddamn 1977 Ford Pinto II, do you complain when the local Ford dealership doesn't have one available in mint condition?
If you wanna be a collector, fine. But there is a reason companies aren't making that shit anymore. There are like five of you who are interested in buying a NES cartridge in its original box in mint condition. Are you really surprised there isn't a factory somewhere pumping them out? Or that the local Best Buy doesn't have a dedicated aisle for it?
Someone should really mod this post up. If you don't know why, you're not a real Slashdot reader!
Terrorist!
If you actually give DirecTV money, I suggest you get familiar with their 100,000 lawsuit/letter compaign against purchasers of completely legal ISO programmers.
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up." -Martin Niemoller
Nobody is suggesting you do anything other than stop giving them your money. Especially as you can get DISH and have the same capabilities.
...when the patent is ruled invalid.
Another story of how the sky is falling. It's not. That stupid patent hasn't deterred any "would-be great games from making it into the gaming world."
Stupid patents will happen. Some people on Slashdot currently get bent out of shape when they hear about a stupid patent, usually connecting it with the out of control lawyers. Well, guess what? It wasn't a lawyer who decided to apply for such a stupid patent. It was some jackass who thought they could capitalize on something. And they won't capitalize on anything.
As for anyone sued for infringement, it's the cost of doing business overall in a complicated world.
You aren't going to solve it or stop it from happening, so just move along. There's nothing to see here.
First off, we have a Constitution which defines the election process for the Presidency is based on the electoral college. Don't like it? Get it changed.
That said, this is the most ridiculous spin on the popular vote argument I have yet to see about the 2000 elections. The fact is, Gore won the popular vote. No respectable person disputes that fact.
The idea of one person one vote doesn't apply in the US presidential elections. And that chart simply reinforces why no one really wants to change it. Even on a neutral level, to suggest a rural person's vote is more relevant than a metropolitan resident's vote is a bit silly to most people. And that is essentially what that graph suggests. That graphic matches largely to the population density of the USA. Try driving through one of those red areas on the map. Most of the time, you'll be lucky to see cows let alone people.
The statement above the graphic, however, goes even farther by implying that all people who live in cities or higher density areas are tenement living goverment aid recipients. That is a clear euphemism for trying to describe racial minorities. So the rascist subtext should be clear to everyone.
In the end, the graph is a stupid attempt at arguing against the point that Gore won the popular vote, despite the fact that the point is moot. Many people also legitimately disagree whether Gore really won the electoral vote if the Florida votes had been recounted. That point is now academic. It didn't happen and Florida certified the results. Bush won the electoral college and therefore the Presidency.
"We the People..." is the start of the Preamble to the US Constitition, not the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Indepedence begins with "When in the Course of human events..."
Just a clarification.
We have a winner!
There is a legal concept called "fair use". Just as your can use a VCR to record your favorite tv show, you have the same right to do this with radio. The US Supreme Court has continually reinforced this right of individuals over copyright restrictions.
The problem is that the media companies want to 1) put barriers up to prevent this fair use and 2) create an atmosphere where people actually believe it is illegal and that there is no fair use right.
It looks like they are succeeding for the average user. For the rest of us, the media companies can go screw themselves. I will copy my DVDs for backup, strip the encryption off so I can watch them under non-authorized media players and refuse to purchase any medium where these things aren't possible.
I gave my sister a $200 gift certificate to the Discovery Store (after her request for nature television shows).
She "gave" me a donation to some African AIDS and Tuberculosis Prevention Society fund.
Now, I am 100% against both AIDS and Tuberculosis, especially in Africa. But is it really appropriate to make a donation in someone else's name and then offer it up to them as a gift?
Stay tuned. Next year, she will also be donating. I am thinking MBLA or one of those Nazi groups who deny that the Holocaust ever occurred. I am sure she would love to be on their mailing lists.
SCO argues that the authority of Congress under the U.S. Constitution to "promote the Progress of Science and the useful arts..." inherently includes a profit motive, and that protection for this profit motive includes a Constitutional dimension. We believe that the "progress of science" is best advanced by vigorously protecting the right of authors and inventors to earn a profit from their work.
If that is not the BIGGEST stretch, I do not know what is. I mean, if SCO argues the GPL is unconstitional based on that argument, the judges all the way up the tree will be looking at them increduously.
My favorite term now is "inherently includes a profit motive". In fact, every time SCO makes an argument, you can just explain it away with that phrase.
Sorry, but that's not my experience with LAPD. Perhaps that was because I was a resident. A couple of years ago, someone broke into my house in LA and stole my computer. LAPD, surprisingly, even came out and dusted for fingerprints. My reaction at the time was a bit of shock, as I never expected such "service" for a $2000 theft in LA.
I think that police departments in big cities don't have an automatic reaction as to how they deal with such situations. It seems to be luck of the draw on who is willing to take the time.
I do not think this is a real problem. In the Harrison vs. Chiffons case, it was addressing a specific combination of musical notes. Copyright is limited to the expression and not the result.
SCO is not suing anyone for copyright infringement, despite the stupidity of Darl McBride's letter and his numerous other ramblings. The obfuscation and derivative arguments from SCO are not copyright arguments. They are arguments about potential contractual violations from IBM. It is the contract between IBM and AT&T (now SCO) that has the derivative works restriction.
The fact is, you can create duplications of software all day long and you won't violate any copyrights if you are creating your own source code. You may violate other things like trademarks or contractual restrictions you had from the original company, but you won't violate a copyright.
The Harrison case, therefore, is completely inapplicable to the original SCO vs. IBM case. As I understand it, IBM did counterclaim that SCO had violated IBM copyrights by taking copyrighted code and incorporating it into SCO's Unix distribution and/or Caldera's Linux distribution.
SCO's underlying problem is that they sued IBM for one thing and then have a PR program in place complaining about an entirely different thing. Now the two things have gotten jumbled together.
You forgot "Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line."
Sorry, but this is not a standard contingency arrangement. If it was only a percentage of any settlement with IBM, that would be a standard contingency fee arrangement.
The inclusion of a payment based on the value of any sale of the company is definitely interesting and goes directly to the heart of at least one of SCO's strategies.
That's because most people only think of Netware (the server OS) when they hear Novell's name. Take a look at eDirectory (if you use Yahoo's portal, you use eDirectory), DirXML (an amazing XML based directory synchronization tool), ZENworks (client management) and many other products.
I almost dread every time I see an article on Slashdot about Novell because inevitably people talk about Novell as a dying company.
Your question about Novell's capital is easy. They are a cash positive company and have remained so during most of their existence. Last I heard about a year ago, they had about $600 million cash in the bank.
I recommend people who aren't familiar with Novell's product line just go take a look at it. Decide for yourself. I think you will be impressed with what they offer.
They aren't guilty of maintaining a monopoly. According to the appeals court ruling, they only were established as a monopoly. Monopolies aren't illegal. What is illegal is to either 1) create barriers of entry to competitors that might take away your monopoly or 2) leverage your monopoly to create monopolies in other areas.
Because MS settled with the DOJ after the case went back to the trial court level, the court never got to determine whether MS did anything illegal from their monopoly. Hopefully, the judge last week saw that MS is still up to the same old shit in putting a lot of conditions on the licensing of Windows source code. Probably not, though. History with MS has taught us they get away with a lot of crap.
I think this is a great point...for IBM. The fact that the defense is included at all shows that the attorneys for SCO do not understand the GPL at all. They really are under the impression that the FSF owns the copyrights on all GPL'd software. This is excellent. I can only guess that IBM's attorneys read the defenses, started laughing and yelled loudly "What a bunch of incompetent idiots."
The FSF is similar to the BSA in how it obtains any legal rights. They can only act on behalf of actual copyright holders if they are given permission by the copyright holders.
I really think it is funny that a software company is arguing AGAINST the legality of a licensing agreement. I would not be surprised to see a lot of big companies trying to file legal briefs against such a position.
Wow. What an interesting conspiracy theory. But wouldn't it have been more efficient to simply claim "I am unemployed because I am so damn good."
The fact is, there are a lot of unemployed people with great skills and there are a lot of employed people with bad skills. The economy is bad and that's just the way it goes. But you will pardon many of us if we don't accept your premise that only poorly skilled people are employed now because they are cheap.
I, for one, am poorly skilled and highly paid. Go figure. But, in the famous words of Ted Knight in Caddy Shack: The world needs ditch diggers, too.
Not only is Gator spyware, the executives at Gator who threaten to sue when they don't like people calling it spyware are a bunch of cocksucking weasels. Apologies to cocksuckers and weasels.
Who was going to condemn them? I think they are fucking heroes.
When MS Messenger was first released, it included the ability to send messages to AIM users. AOL kept blocking MS Messenger connections until Microsoft finally gave up. They complained loudly the whole time about this blocking.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. But this is typical MS behavior. Now that they have a stronger user base, they talk a different line.