..more likely the grandparent wrote what he/she did because he/she actually subscribes to the views expressed.
If the original poster subscribed to the views they expressed, then that would make them of the opinion that those of us who signed up to this pledge are hypocritical, since we've just listed our names on a server.
In order for we who signed the pledge to be hypocritical then, we would have to be wanting not to have ourselves identified in such a list.
However, I don't think this is the major reason that we oppose this ID card scheme. It is within anyone's rights to write down names and information about anyone they happen to meet. If someone kept a list, that would be an identification database, of sorts.
No, we're not opposing that. We just don't like: * Many of the government's motives (whether it's the official propaganda, or the ulterior motives) for this scheme. * Being forced to identify ourselves to complete our every-day tasks. * Paying a helluva lot of money to the government for this lack of freedom.
However, it was presumptuous of me to assume the original poster was trolling/karma whoring, and for that I apologise; they could, after all, simply be misinformed.
The grand-parent clearly just threw out his/her post to get some reactions and some karma.
We are against the idea of being forced to identify ourselves, being forced to carry id cards, and more commonly against the idea of spending vast amounts of public money for a system that clearly won't live up to expectations.
We are against a system that will be fragile and prone to abuse by having a single point of failure, and we are against the fact that it will not solve *ANY* of the problems that the Labour government claim it will:
* Fighting terrorism. Oh dear, it's the 'T' word. Compulsory id cards in Spain didn't stop the Madrid massacre. Those flying the planes on September the 11th entered the US with valid documents. It won't stop any sufficiently determined terrorist attack here either.
* Cracking down on illegal immigrants. Since most illegal immigrants tend to find work at the very edge of the law to begin with, ID cards won't make any difference. In fact, what happens if you suddenly deny everything to those who are already in the country? They'll probably turn to crime to survive.
* Identity theft. Won't be stopped by this scheme, for sure - anyone sufficiently determined will be able to get around this. Biometrics is not a mature technology, and has never been implemented on this kind of scale. Besides, most 'identity theft' is just credit card fraud anyway, which is a whole different matter.
* If you're innocent, you have nothing to fear. Well yes, we've heard this one before, and we know why it's a terrible argument. The best way to enslave the people is to do it slowly, etc.
The letters coming from the Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative politicians are often stock replies..
Indeed, that was the impression I got with my reply from Sarah Ludford (LD).
However, the letters from Theresa Villiers and Robert Evans definitely did not seem like stock letters, which I appreciate. Although neither one said in those exact words that they would vote, they both did say that they would fight against the pro-swpat group. That's still a plus to me.
It's amazing how politicians can write 2-3 pages of dense text without actually saying anything, isn't it?
I wrote a letter to my local MP, and a few London MEPs. With the exception of one conservative MEP, all the responses I got were actually quite positive!
My local MP (conservative) commented: "After.. dealing with EU directives and regulations, a high proportion like this are actually damaging to business. As you observe, the Commission has scant respect from democracy."
He took the issue up with the secretary of state for trade and industry, but no reply. After the general election, he's no longer my MP, and I have yet to contact the new one.
To summarise the reponses from the London MEPs I made contact with:
Sarah Ludford (Lib Dem) - Echoed the official Lib Dem stance of "support[ing] continued widespread innovation in software by resisting the wider application of patents in this area".
Robert Evans (Labour) - Oppose software patents, and powerfully stated, "Patents and the threat of litigation must not be used as an anti-competitive weapon to squeeze out small companies", and "Open source software must be allowed to flourish and the Commission must ensure that this Directive does not have any adverse effect on OSS and small software developers".
Theresa Villiers (Conservative) - Received a particularly personal response indicating that she shared my worries on the issue, and assured me that she would continue to oppose software patents.
Charles Tannock (Conservative) - Oh dear, there's always one. Dr. Tannock claimed that the Directive would clarify the existing situation and not allow pure software patents. He also challenged my statements of the harmful effects on OSS and small businesses, and asked me for my evidence. He had clearly not read the Directive text itself.
I wrote back a rather scathing letter, quoting the Directive text itself, and providing numerous references of the negative effects. I presented it all very clearly in a way that he couldn't ignore. After that, I got back a half-amusing reply, saying that the points I raised were beyond his technical expertise. He supposedly forwarded my letter to another MEP, but I haven't heard anything since.
It seems that, on the whole, the British Politicians aren't clueless. The suspicious progress that this Directive has made has got to be due to corporate lobbying efforts.
It really is down to the EP to make sure this Directive doesn't get made law, otherwise I might be forced to start voting UKIP (heaven forbid).
Re:and everyone is still using floppies : )
on
Blu-Ray DVDs Hit 100 GB
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
TFA says that Blu-Ray discs are still more prone to scratching than DVDs.
How about one of these four-layer discs with built-in redundancy to improve that?
i.e. a 50GB disc with four layers, two of which are redundant?
Pure Software seems to be a very very strict definition.
The actual text of the directive said it best. This is what the pro-patent unelected heavily-lobbied EC was pushing:
"computer-implemented invention" means any invention the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus, the invention having one or more features which are realised wholly or partly by means of a computer program or computer programs
.. whereas this is what the democratic EP wanted to amend it to, to expressly disallow pure software patents:
'computer-implemented invention' means any invention within the meaning of the European Patent Convention the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus and having in its implementations one or more non-technical features which are realised wholly or partly by a computer program or computer programs, besides the technical features that any invention must contribute
The important part is "and having in its implementations one or more non-technical features". It's a non-computing process running under computer control.
As for your example about JPG compression.. Almost any hardware process can be implemented in software (that's the beauty of it, after all), so I imagine that you could patent the design of a machine which does JPG compression, but not actual JPG compression itself.
That is, you would be free to implement JPG compression in your own way, without being at risk of litigation, provided that it doesn't conflict with any real-world patented hardware design. If you implemented it in software, then nothing could stop you. At least, that's the way I hope it is.
How can they expect people to choose buying the DVDs over downloading the content for free when they charge ridiculous amounts like £50 for nine episodes of Doctor Who?!
That's not even considering the £70 retail price..
So if I have an idea, never share it with anyone and never act on it or put it into any real tangible form and someone else has the same idea and acts on it, they're a thief and I'm a victim?
This really plays to the immature mentality of young children, who tend to be very selfish. Imagine a child finds a marble (or something children like) on the floor, and a friend asks if they can look at it; a young child's response would typically be "No! Mine mine mine!", wouldn't it?
I suppose that's because kids are all born like that, and through education do they become less selfish, and fit into what we call 'sophisticated society'.
By encouraging them to protect to the extremes what they think is theirs, even if it's an idea, they'll just stunt a kid's ability to open up and share.
A great sign of selflessness is being willing to share, and do things for other people if it doesn't necessarily benefit you.
At one end of the spectrum, we have those selfish bastards, who want nothing but personal embellishment (and usually tons of money just for themself). These people, we see as greedy and immature. At the other end, we have those people who are entirely selfless and don't care too much about themselves, and are willing to go out of their way to help other people. We see these people as idealistic, and prone to being walked all over by others.
We should teach kids the balance between these ends of the spectrum, not shifting them towards the selfish bastard end with corporate mentality. Corporate mentality and propaganda SHOULD NOT be used to against children in schools. Absolutely disgusting.
Speaking of alternatives, here's a few positive words about my ISP, Blueyonder (which I think is Telewest in disguise).
We've had our cable modem for almost 4 years now, and in that entire time, we have only ever lost the connection twice. Twice, in four years. Once was from network problems about 2 years ago, and the most recent was last month when heavy rain caused the street amplifier to blow a fuse.
Each time, the phone line support was excellent, was charged at the local rate, and the technician came out exactly when they said. There wasn't too much of a waiting list either - I'm just a home user, and we got appointments for the next day.
I think that we're also a bit lucky in that there is only one other person in our road connected, but it really has been good service.
I thought I was chancing it when choosing cable a few years ago, but it's turned out alright.
But I do agree about BT being shite - we're not going anywhere near ADSL unless we have to.
laughing so hard I had to put down the book for a second
The moment in the book that made me put it down from laughing was certainly when Arthur was running down the side of the mountain, away from Agrajag, tripping over and noticing a navy-blue holdall that he had lost in the baggage-retrieval system at Athens airport some 10 years ago.
Do you think that perhaps "HD-DVD software technology" includes this ghastly mechanism of rendering chosen player models/brands useless? I hope they haven't teamed up to ensure that such a disgraceful system isn't pushed onto us.
Then again, perhaps this collaboration will present some of the companies coming up with the decision that it isn't such a good idea.
We can only hope not. If a DRM system like that gets pushed onto us, I'm not going to be happy.
Re:Home Theater Recommendation? Heard of Prof. Aud
on
Home Theatre PC Guide
·
· Score: 1
.. install a in-ceiling or in-wall surround sound system
You mean building speakers into the walls/ceilings? I would have thought that might be a bit of overkill. Remember that you don't have to have monstrously-sized speakers to have a good sound, so you could quite easily have a perfectly good not-built-in speaker set that doesn't take up much space.
I would, however, recommend taking this opportunity to have speaker cable wired into the walls/ceiling, leading to where you think you'll want to place your speakers, with banana plug sockets at the end, all ending up at where you want to have your amplifier. After this, just pick out your own better value 5.1 or 7.1 system and connect it up. If you have wires for a 7.1 setup, you can buy a flexible 5.1 speaker package initially, and upgrade later if you feel the need (your connections are already there!).
Unless you really trust your contractor, I'd recommend you pick out your own speakers.
Slashdot Mirror
..more likely the grandparent wrote what he/she did because he/she actually subscribes to the views expressed.
If the original poster subscribed to the views they expressed, then that would make them of the opinion that those of us who signed up to this pledge are hypocritical, since we've just listed our names on a server.
In order for we who signed the pledge to be hypocritical then, we would have to be wanting not to have ourselves identified in such a list.
However, I don't think this is the major reason that we oppose this ID card scheme. It is within anyone's rights to write down names and information about anyone they happen to meet. If someone kept a list, that would be an identification database, of sorts.
No, we're not opposing that. We just don't like:
* Many of the government's motives (whether it's the official propaganda, or the ulterior motives) for this scheme.
* Being forced to identify ourselves to complete our every-day tasks.
* Paying a helluva lot of money to the government for this lack of freedom.
However, it was presumptuous of me to assume the original poster was trolling/karma whoring, and for that I apologise; they could, after all, simply be misinformed.
Out of interest, how much do you guys pay for your ID cards in Sweden?
The fact that it only appeared after the election pissed me off too.
Had we any idea that it would fly right back on the Labour agenda the moment they returned to office, things may have been very different.
Of course, politicians don't do such honest things as actually tell us what they're planning at voter-critical moments!
You cannot do anything in Sweden without one
Yes, that's the problem. I quite like being able to go into the pub and get a drink without being forced to identify myself.
You're used to it - we are not. We like being able to get on a train anonymously.
I also imagine that your id cards don't cost you upwards of £100 (149 EUR, 181 USD) per annum!
It was front page news on the BBC website, shortly after the general election:
m m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4554827.st
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4551121.st
I think the common people in the UK do know about it, but perhaps not about all the consequences that we worry so much about here on slashdot.
The grand-parent clearly just threw out his/her post to get some reactions and some karma.
We are against the idea of being forced to identify ourselves, being forced to carry id cards, and more commonly against the idea of spending vast amounts of public money for a system that clearly won't live up to expectations.
We are against a system that will be fragile and prone to abuse by having a single point of failure, and we are against the fact that it will not solve *ANY* of the problems that the Labour government claim it will:
* Fighting terrorism. Oh dear, it's the 'T' word. Compulsory id cards in Spain didn't stop the Madrid massacre. Those flying the planes on September the 11th entered the US with valid documents. It won't stop any sufficiently determined terrorist attack here either.
* Cracking down on illegal immigrants. Since most illegal immigrants tend to find work at the very edge of the law to begin with, ID cards won't make any difference. In fact, what happens if you suddenly deny everything to those who are already in the country? They'll probably turn to crime to survive.
* Identity theft. Won't be stopped by this scheme, for sure - anyone sufficiently determined will be able to get around this. Biometrics is not a mature technology, and has never been implemented on this kind of scale. Besides, most 'identity theft' is just credit card fraud anyway, which is a whole different matter.
* If you're innocent, you have nothing to fear. Well yes, we've heard this one before, and we know why it's a terrible argument. The best way to enslave the people is to do it slowly, etc.
They are letting only ONE free software project, the Linux kernel, use these patents.
They've said NOTHING about the thousands of other free software projects - all other projects are still vulnerable to patent litigation from Nokia.
This 'gesture' is almost as empty as Sun's. They are doing this just for publicity, my friend.
The letters coming from the Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative politicians are often stock replies ..
Indeed, that was the impression I got with my reply from Sarah Ludford (LD).
However, the letters from Theresa Villiers and Robert Evans definitely did not seem like stock letters, which I appreciate. Although neither one said in those exact words that they would vote, they both did say that they would fight against the pro-swpat group. That's still a plus to me.
It's amazing how politicians can write 2-3 pages of dense text without actually saying anything, isn't it?
I wrote a letter to my local MP, and a few London MEPs. With the exception of one conservative MEP, all the responses I got were actually quite positive!
.. dealing with EU directives and regulations, a high proportion like this are actually damaging to business. As you observe, the Commission has scant respect from democracy."
My local MP (conservative) commented:
"After
He took the issue up with the secretary of state for trade and industry, but no reply. After the general election, he's no longer my MP, and I have yet to contact the new one.
To summarise the reponses from the London MEPs I made contact with:
Sarah Ludford (Lib Dem) - Echoed the official Lib Dem stance of "support[ing] continued widespread innovation in software by resisting the wider application of patents in this area".
Robert Evans (Labour) - Oppose software patents, and powerfully stated, "Patents and the threat of litigation must not be used as an anti-competitive weapon to squeeze out small companies", and "Open source software must be allowed to flourish and the Commission must ensure that this Directive does not have any adverse effect on OSS and small software developers".
Theresa Villiers (Conservative) - Received a particularly personal response indicating that she shared my worries on the issue, and assured me that she would continue to oppose software patents.
Charles Tannock (Conservative) - Oh dear, there's always one. Dr. Tannock claimed that the Directive would clarify the existing situation and not allow pure software patents. He also challenged my statements of the harmful effects on OSS and small businesses, and asked me for my evidence. He had clearly not read the Directive text itself.
I wrote back a rather scathing letter, quoting the Directive text itself, and providing numerous references of the negative effects. I presented it all very clearly in a way that he couldn't ignore. After that, I got back a half-amusing reply, saying that the points I raised were beyond his technical expertise. He supposedly forwarded my letter to another MEP, but I haven't heard anything since.
It seems that, on the whole, the British Politicians aren't clueless. The suspicious progress that this Directive has made has got to be due to corporate lobbying efforts.
It really is down to the EP to make sure this Directive doesn't get made law, otherwise I might be forced to start voting UKIP (heaven forbid).
TFA says that Blu-Ray discs are still more prone to scratching than DVDs.
How about one of these four-layer discs with built-in redundancy to improve that?
i.e. a 50GB disc with four layers, two of which are redundant?
For archival purposes, I'd buy it.
Personally, HD-DVD's disgraceful AACS is enough to make me cheer for Blu-Ray, but I really think that BD-ROMs will win the battle.
Go Blu-Ray!
Pure Software seems to be a very very strict definition.
.. whereas this is what the democratic EP wanted to amend it to, to expressly disallow pure software patents:
The actual text of the directive said it best. This is what the pro-patent unelected heavily-lobbied EC was pushing:
"computer-implemented invention" means any invention the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus, the invention having one or more features which are realised wholly or partly by means of a computer program or computer programs
'computer-implemented invention' means any invention within the meaning of the European Patent Convention the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus and having in its implementations one or more non-technical features which are realised wholly or partly by a computer program or computer programs, besides the technical features that any invention must contribute
The important part is "and having in its implementations one or more non-technical features". It's a non-computing process running under computer control.
As for your example about JPG compression.. Almost any hardware process can be implemented in software (that's the beauty of it, after all), so I imagine that you could patent the design of a machine which does JPG compression, but not actual JPG compression itself.
That is, you would be free to implement JPG compression in your own way, without being at risk of litigation, provided that it doesn't conflict with any real-world patented hardware design. If you implemented it in software, then nothing could stop you. At least, that's the way I hope it is.
Some free applications include spyware in their main installs, to provide ad revenue or whatever.
Kazaa used to be one of those, is that right?
Can this make any impact on those programs who refuse to install unless you also allow numerous pieces of malware to go with it?
How can they expect people to choose buying the DVDs over downloading the content for free when they charge ridiculous amounts like £50 for nine episodes of Doctor Who?!
That's not even considering the £70 retail price..
So if I have an idea, never share it with anyone and never act on it or put it into any real tangible form and someone else has the same idea and acts on it, they're a thief and I'm a victim?
This really plays to the immature mentality of young children, who tend to be very selfish. Imagine a child finds a marble (or something children like) on the floor, and a friend asks if they can look at it; a young child's response would typically be "No! Mine mine mine!", wouldn't it?
I suppose that's because kids are all born like that, and through education do they become less selfish, and fit into what we call 'sophisticated society'.
By encouraging them to protect to the extremes what they think is theirs, even if it's an idea, they'll just stunt a kid's ability to open up and share.
A great sign of selflessness is being willing to share, and do things for other people if it doesn't necessarily benefit you.
At one end of the spectrum, we have those selfish bastards, who want nothing but personal embellishment (and usually tons of money just for themself). These people, we see as greedy and immature. At the other end, we have those people who are entirely selfless and don't care too much about themselves, and are willing to go out of their way to help other people. We see these people as idealistic, and prone to being walked all over by others.
We should teach kids the balance between these ends of the spectrum, not shifting them towards the selfish bastard end with corporate mentality. Corporate mentality and propaganda SHOULD NOT be used to against children in schools. Absolutely disgusting.
Well, the article says theft, so we better believe it!
I feel so sorry for all the Cisco employees having to write out all that code again because it was stolen.
Personally, I hope the one with the least restrictive DRM becomes the standard.
HD-DVD's AACS is just disgusting.
I'd like to see some online music shops that sell music in unencumbered AAC format, and MP3. A great big "works on the iPod" sticker would help too.
Speaking of selling MP3s, if anybody likes electronica then Audiojelly is amazing.
.. whereas Apple cares about making a good product.
Apple are a business too. A more balanced statement might go like this:
Because Microsoft cares about control and winning at all costs, whereas Apple also cares about making a good product.
Speaking of alternatives, here's a few positive words about my ISP, Blueyonder (which I think is Telewest in disguise).
We've had our cable modem for almost 4 years now, and in that entire time, we have only ever lost the connection twice. Twice, in four years. Once was from network problems about 2 years ago, and the most recent was last month when heavy rain caused the street amplifier to blow a fuse.
Each time, the phone line support was excellent, was charged at the local rate, and the technician came out exactly when they said. There wasn't too much of a waiting list either - I'm just a home user, and we got appointments for the next day.
I think that we're also a bit lucky in that there is only one other person in our road connected, but it really has been good service.
I thought I was chancing it when choosing cable a few years ago, but it's turned out alright.
But I do agree about BT being shite - we're not going anywhere near ADSL unless we have to.
laughing so hard I had to put down the book for a second
:-(.
The moment in the book that made me put it down from laughing was certainly when Arthur was running down the side of the mountain, away from Agrajag, tripping over and noticing a navy-blue holdall that he had lost in the baggage-retrieval system at Athens airport some 10 years ago.
Amazing book. Shame about the film
Just to clarify, the HD-DVD DRM key management system I was talking about is AACS, which /. already had an article about:
4 48205
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/15/0
The BBC also has an article about this.
Do you think that perhaps "HD-DVD software technology" includes this ghastly mechanism of rendering chosen player models/brands useless? I hope they haven't teamed up to ensure that such a disgraceful system isn't pushed onto us.
Then again, perhaps this collaboration will present some of the companies coming up with the decision that it isn't such a good idea.
We can only hope not. If a DRM system like that gets pushed onto us, I'm not going to be happy.
.. install a in-ceiling or in-wall surround sound system
You mean building speakers into the walls/ceilings? I would have thought that might be a bit of overkill. Remember that you don't have to have monstrously-sized speakers to have a good sound, so you could quite easily have a perfectly good not-built-in speaker set that doesn't take up much space.
I would, however, recommend taking this opportunity to have speaker cable wired into the walls/ceiling, leading to where you think you'll want to place your speakers, with banana plug sockets at the end, all ending up at where you want to have your amplifier. After this, just pick out your own better value 5.1 or 7.1 system and connect it up. If you have wires for a 7.1 setup, you can buy a flexible 5.1 speaker package initially, and upgrade later if you feel the need (your connections are already there!).
Unless you really trust your contractor, I'd recommend you pick out your own speakers.
Hope that helps.
Not quite what I'd call 'full'.. It doesn't appear to mirror anything beyond page 9 of the article.