You forgot to add something into your equation:
Quick and dirty solution:
$1000 to make
$100000 to support $1000000 in profit (for getting there first)
or
Proper solution:
$10000 to make
$10000 to support $10000 in profit ('cause someone else got there first)
The nice thing about "Quick and Dirty" is that it can get you there first... That is a fairly important factor.
In situations where Time to Market is crucial, it's often better to do "Quick and Dirty", then start from scratch and do "Correct and Proper" for version 2
I can't figure this out... are you trolling? Mod me flamebait, but I would think that anyone tech-savvy enough to be reading slashdot would realize how ignorant that statement is. You're using clock speed as a processing speed comparison tool?!?!?
I hope you're just trolling. It's too embarrassing to think that you aren't.
Remember, I set the moral issues aside when I wrote that post. Regardless of what you think of the moralities of the situation, theft deprives a person of the object that was stolen. Copying does not. That does not mean that, simply because they still have the original, no law was broken, or that nothing immoral was done.
When that copyright violator takes those pictures and walks out of the store, he does not remove anything from that shop. The shopkeeper is out the potential sale, but that is not the illegal part. The illegal part is making copies of the magazine that he does not own. Even if he took the pictures, then also bought the magazine, he would still be breaking the law, as a copyright violator.
Copyright law is not based on the morality of a situation. it is based on the economics of the situation. Copyright law is not based on natural law, like laws against thievery are. As has been mentioned before, copyright law was designed to provide an incentive to content producers by giving them a temporary monopoly over the content they produce.
Therefore, when a person makes copies of work that is under copyright, they are breaking the law by working around a government created monopoly. They are also (very likely) committing an immoral act, of not compensating an individual for work that they are benefitting from. They will not be prosecuted for the immoral act, just the illegal one.
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.
As you can see, theft deprives the owner of the property of their property. It states that it is a requirement for classification as theft. I'm not trying to argue that it's okay to make copies of a magazine like that, just that it is plainly not theft, simply being a copyright violation. You claim that theft is more of a moral term, but I think it's simply an emotionally charged way for copyable content producers to get people upset about copyright violations. "Copyright Violator" just doesn't have the ring to it that "Thief" does.
You need to think your argument through a little better. Arguments regarding levels of wrongdoingness aside, this "Digital Shoplifting" definitely is not stealing. When something is stolen, the theif ends up with it, and the product leaves the provider's shelf. When you steal electricity, you cause a drain on the power grid, and there is less available power for everyone else.
When you copy content, OTOH, the content provider isn't really out any money, excepting the ephemeral "possible sale" that he lost to you, since you might have purchased the content rather than copying it. Then again, perhaps you couldn't afford that magazine anyway, so there would have been no sale after all! And regardless, they still have possession of the magazine, and can sell it to another customer.
To reiterate:
When something is stolen, it is no longer in the seller's possession
When something is copied, the seller still has possession of the original, in an unsullied, sellable form.
Loss of possible profits from a sale that may or may not have happened are not to be equated with theft.
hmmm. busty and beautiful? An Amazon warrior? I suppose you don't realize that they lopped off their right breasts when they become warriors. Presumably to make archery easier...
Well, I suppose some guys might think that's sexy.
huh? I don't know what you mean by "Raw HTML"... Are you talking about standards compliant HTML, or are you talking about the old HTML from early web days?
If you are talking about the recent standards that have been passed, then you are dead wrong. It would be rather simple to format this very page using standards compliant XHTML and CSS so that anyone using a recent browser wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Throw out the tables, bring in the divs and blockquotes! Add a stylesheet, remove the font tags. This would also likely have the effect of shrinking the size of pages, and make it easier to maintain and upgrade. The pages would view better in text based browsers, would be more accessible to the handicapped, etc...
I can't imagine that you would be thinking of the old HTML, the crappy stuff with font tags and all... good riddance to that. I'd rather start a new career digging ditches than go back to the old, unmaintainable way.
XHTML and CSS are the best things the web has seen in years. If people would bother to learn the new stuff (it's really not that hard) they would realize how much more they could do, in a simpler way.
I know all this because I have a project that I created for a local organization, which I did before I learned XHTML and CSS. I recently went back and converted it over, using stylesheets to replace the archaic layout and formatting methods. The end result: pages were from 2/3 to 1/2 their original size, the layout looked better and more consistent, and it actually passed accesibility tests. To me, that made it all worthwhile.
Re:Ill get it out of the way
on
Mac OS X Hints
·
· Score: 1
Scroll wheels and right clicks on mice automagically get mapped to scrolling (duh) and contextual-click in MacOSX. No developer action needed. The contextual menu functions are built into the os, not programmed in fresh each time.
Also, in Safari (apple's browser) clicking the scroll wheel maps to "Open link in a new tab", the same as command clicking.
It really isn't that hard, when doing the programming, to allow, say, either a command click or a middle click for a particular function. This will make it work for users who have the default mac mouse, and those who prefer a nicer, multi button mouse.
First off, I should state: I am not against nuclear power generation. In fact, I am very much for it, as long as it's done right.
What I have a problem with is having the waste sitting around in cooling pools far beyond the period of time they were designed for. Additionally, we need to come up safe storage and containment methods, not just politically expedient ones. I haven't heard of the vitrification process you are talking about, but it sounds good. Are we currently using it?
I'm just saying that until we at least decide on a good plan for what do do with the extra waste that's just sitting around, we should hold off on plans to build a whole bunch of more plants. Of course, I would still prefer a nuclear plant being built in my area to a coal or oil burning plant. But better yet, why not spend the extra money on some solar and wind power? or invest in building one of those new hydro-electric plants that don't use dams?
And just because there is a lot of misinformation, and just because most of the people upset about it don't understand it, doesn't mean that itis a good idea. Many of your detractors being stupid does not make you smart.
As a side note, I don't think that comparing nuclear power to slavery is very realistic. That could just as easily have read: "And just bcos ppl are fighting it, it doesn't mean it's not a bad idea. For a US example, 150 years ago half a nation fought to get rid of slavery!" And thank goodness they did! Ending slavery was, after all, not a very popular cause. Many (most?) people in the north just went along because slavery gave the south an economic benefit.
Some people, especially in the western united states, may remember another extinct volcano, which erupted. When it did, only the immediate surrounding area was severly damaged...(50 some miles? can't remember for sure) but volcanic ash fell around several hundred miles away, making for some beautiful sunsets.
Since that was just plain old ash, noone cared so much. The gorgeous sunsets were enough compensation for the small amount of ash.:) But I think everyone would be a little more concerned if the ash were radioactive.
radioactive waste, buried deep in underground... Contaminating the drinking water, cannisters splitting open during earthquakes, causing birth defects. No, there is no "safe" place to put this stuff. It's dangerously radioactive for the next couple hundred thousand years, remember?
Remember where they are planning on making the next big nuclear waste storage facility? Yeah, inside an 'extinct' volcano. Yucca Mountain. and everyone in the area is fighting it for all they're worth.
If we had some way of safely launching the waste into the sun, I would be all for nuclear power generation. But the way it is, we have literally thousands of tons of hot waste sitting around in pools of water, waiting for a place to put it. And noone wants to take care of it. It's the "hot" potato that noone wants to end up with.
I think you are having problems, either in understanding these concepts, or in relating your thoughts on them.
Digital, literally (technically), means "represented by digits". What this means to the average person, however, is that an EXACT copy can be made, which will not degrade over time. Some of the actual data may be lost (ie., through disc errors, material degradation), but the data that remains will still be exactly the same data as was there in the beginning. This keeps the signal separated from the noise as much as possible.
In analog formats, any degradation, or noise, becomes part of the original signal. Signal degradation WILL happen during the copying process. the best example this is photocopies, where just a few generations down the line, they become harder to read. This happens because analog, by definition, has MORE static.
Your insistence that words are (by definition) digital, utterly confounds me. You claim that words are digital because they use simple symbols to represent specific concepts. That is ludicrous! Nearly all words in the english language are subject to interpretation, and will different definitions depending on who is defining it.
IMHO, the most interesting application of this is that it could make quantum computing feasible (according to the article). The sheer computational power of a quantum computer with a decent number of qbits... that's what makes my head spin.
On the other hand, the US can do "whatever it wants". And we've seen the results of that, too.
The ability of a sovereign nation to do "whatever it wants" is directly proportional to the size of it's arsenal.
Of course, we're really talking economics here, since the RIAA can only really leverage economic weight on India. Unless it can convince the US administration that "those terrorists are pirating songs again"...
Preamble to the United Nations Charter
on
Strike on Iraq
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· Score: 1
PREAMBLE
TO THE
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS
Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.
If you have to go in for surgery, that's bio-sculpture...
But if you go get a genetic therepy injection and two little knobs start growing out of your forehead, that's genetic modification.
actually, I think it'll lead to more variety... I can just see the kid begging their parents:
"Jack's mom let him grow horns! Why won't you just let me get tusks?"
I mean really, you get an injection of this stuff, just sit around for couple weeks, and you get buffed up?
I predict masses of musclebound geeks by 2005...
Centripetal force is the 'force' that tries to throw you off the merry-go-round, and yeah, it's not really a force.
The Coriolis effect is more along the lines of a vortex, I belive... It's what makes water spin down the drain in the opposite direction in Australia. It's also what makes record player needles skate.
Slashdot Mirror
Quick and dirty solution:
$1000 to make
$100000 to support
$1000000 in profit (for getting there first)
or
Proper solution:
$10000 to make
$10000 to support
$10000 in profit ('cause someone else got there first)
The nice thing about "Quick and Dirty" is that it can get you there first... That is a fairly important factor.
In situations where Time to Market is crucial, it's often better to do "Quick and Dirty", then start from scratch and do "Correct and Proper" for version 2
I hope you're just trolling. It's too embarrassing to think that you aren't.
When that copyright violator takes those pictures and walks out of the store, he does not remove anything from that shop. The shopkeeper is out the potential sale, but that is not the illegal part. The illegal part is making copies of the magazine that he does not own. Even if he took the pictures, then also bought the magazine, he would still be breaking the law, as a copyright violator.
Copyright law is not based on the morality of a situation. it is based on the economics of the situation. Copyright law is not based on natural law, like laws against thievery are. As has been mentioned before, copyright law was designed to provide an incentive to content producers by giving them a temporary monopoly over the content they produce.
Therefore, when a person makes copies of work that is under copyright, they are breaking the law by working around a government created monopoly. They are also (very likely) committing an immoral act, of not compensating an individual for work that they are benefitting from. They will not be prosecuted for the immoral act, just the illegal one.
As you can see, theft deprives the owner of the property of their property. It states that it is a requirement for classification as theft. I'm not trying to argue that it's okay to make copies of a magazine like that, just that it is plainly not theft, simply being a copyright violation. You claim that theft is more of a moral term, but I think it's simply an emotionally charged way for copyable content producers to get people upset about copyright violations. "Copyright Violator" just doesn't have the ring to it that "Thief" does.
When you copy content, OTOH, the content provider isn't really out any money, excepting the ephemeral "possible sale" that he lost to you, since you might have purchased the content rather than copying it. Then again, perhaps you couldn't afford that magazine anyway, so there would have been no sale after all! And regardless, they still have possession of the magazine, and can sell it to another customer.
To reiterate:
hmmmmm.... this sounds like the beginning of a bad gay porno. Next thing you know, the army guys are only wearing their dog tags.
Well, I suppose some guys might think that's sexy.
If you are talking about the recent standards that have been passed, then you are dead wrong. It would be rather simple to format this very page using standards compliant XHTML and CSS so that anyone using a recent browser wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Throw out the tables, bring in the divs and blockquotes! Add a stylesheet, remove the font tags. This would also likely have the effect of shrinking the size of pages, and make it easier to maintain and upgrade. The pages would view better in text based browsers, would be more accessible to the handicapped, etc...
I can't imagine that you would be thinking of the old HTML, the crappy stuff with font tags and all... good riddance to that. I'd rather start a new career digging ditches than go back to the old, unmaintainable way.
XHTML and CSS are the best things the web has seen in years. If people would bother to learn the new stuff (it's really not that hard) they would realize how much more they could do, in a simpler way.
I know all this because I have a project that I created for a local organization, which I did before I learned XHTML and CSS. I recently went back and converted it over, using stylesheets to replace the archaic layout and formatting methods. The end result: pages were from 2/3 to 1/2 their original size, the layout looked better and more consistent, and it actually passed accesibility tests. To me, that made it all worthwhile.
Also, in Safari (apple's browser) clicking the scroll wheel maps to "Open link in a new tab", the same as command clicking.
It really isn't that hard, when doing the programming, to allow, say, either a command click or a middle click for a particular function. This will make it work for users who have the default mac mouse, and those who prefer a nicer, multi button mouse.
What I have a problem with is having the waste sitting around in cooling pools far beyond the period of time they were designed for. Additionally, we need to come up safe storage and containment methods, not just politically expedient ones. I haven't heard of the vitrification process you are talking about, but it sounds good. Are we currently using it?
I'm just saying that until we at least decide on a good plan for what do do with the extra waste that's just sitting around, we should hold off on plans to build a whole bunch of more plants. Of course, I would still prefer a nuclear plant being built in my area to a coal or oil burning plant. But better yet, why not spend the extra money on some solar and wind power? or invest in building one of those new hydro-electric plants that don't use dams?
And just because there is a lot of misinformation, and just because most of the people upset about it don't understand it, doesn't mean that itis a good idea. Many of your detractors being stupid does not make you smart.
As a side note, I don't think that comparing nuclear power to slavery is very realistic. That could just as easily have read: "And just bcos ppl are fighting it, it doesn't mean it's not a bad idea. For a US example, 150 years ago half a nation fought to get rid of slavery!" And thank goodness they did! Ending slavery was, after all, not a very popular cause. Many (most?) people in the north just went along because slavery gave the south an economic benefit.
Since that was just plain old ash, noone cared so much. The gorgeous sunsets were enough compensation for the small amount of ash. :) But I think everyone would be a little more concerned if the ash were radioactive.
Remember where they are planning on making the next big nuclear waste storage facility? Yeah, inside an 'extinct' volcano. Yucca Mountain. and everyone in the area is fighting it for all they're worth.
If we had some way of safely launching the waste into the sun, I would be all for nuclear power generation. But the way it is, we have literally thousands of tons of hot waste sitting around in pools of water, waiting for a place to put it. And noone wants to take care of it. It's the "hot" potato that noone wants to end up with.
I think you are having problems, either in understanding these concepts, or in relating your thoughts on them.
Digital, literally (technically), means "represented by digits". What this means to the average person, however, is that an EXACT copy can be made, which will not degrade over time. Some of the actual data may be lost (ie., through disc errors, material degradation), but the data that remains will still be exactly the same data as was there in the beginning. This keeps the signal separated from the noise as much as possible.
In analog formats, any degradation, or noise, becomes part of the original signal. Signal degradation WILL happen during the copying process. the best example this is photocopies, where just a few generations down the line, they become harder to read. This happens because analog, by definition, has MORE static.
Your insistence that words are (by definition) digital, utterly confounds me. You claim that words are digital because they use simple symbols to represent specific concepts. That is ludicrous! Nearly all words in the english language are subject to interpretation, and will different definitions depending on who is defining it.
IMHO, the most interesting application of this is that it could make quantum computing feasible (according to the article). The sheer computational power of a quantum computer with a decent number of qbits... that's what makes my head spin.
heh. You can kiss your gpg goodbye.
On the other hand, the US can do "whatever it wants". And we've seen the results of that, too.
The ability of a sovereign nation to do "whatever it wants" is directly proportional to the size of it's arsenal.
Of course, we're really talking economics here, since the RIAA can only really leverage economic weight on India. Unless it can convince the US administration that "those terrorists are pirating songs again"...
PREAMBLE
TO THE
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS
Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.
If you have to go in for surgery, that's bio-sculpture...
But if you go get a genetic therepy injection and two little knobs start growing out of your forehead, that's genetic modification.
actually, I think it'll lead to more variety... I can just see the kid begging their parents:
"Jack's mom let him grow horns! Why won't you just let me get tusks?"
I mean really, you get an injection of this stuff, just sit around for couple weeks, and you get buffed up?
I predict masses of musclebound geeks by 2005...
Okay, you're right, and I'm wrong. I blame my teacher for that one.
But it does affect hurricane spin.
Centripetal force is the 'force' that tries to throw you off the merry-go-round, and yeah, it's not really a force.
The Coriolis effect is more along the lines of a vortex, I belive... It's what makes water spin down the drain in the opposite direction in Australia. It's also what makes record player needles skate.
It's easy to get a couple thousand of them in order - just start somewhere in the middle...