-2 for a lack of understanding in social dynamics. Like a flock of birds, humans need to generally be aware that we all agree on something (JPEG is not worth using anymore) before they actually _DO_ something about it.
So no, whining isn't a bad thing, because, if one year down the road our social collective asserts that JPEGs time has come due to the groundword of people expressing dissatisfaction with it now, it will be much easier to move to something else in one fell swoop.
Being a martyr can be useful, but more often its useless. Education takes time, but our actions are far more effective once everybody is on the same page.
You make the assumption that when people see the ill-effects of a problem, they know where the problem is coming from (nevermind what a suitable solution is.)
Engineers around the globe will lose their sanity in exactly 2004 and will start engineering/programming their systems according to the guidelines of great cyberpunk novelists.
(Actually, given that marketing is really just the construction of fantasy-realities, I suppose marketing driven tech companies that engage in Real-Time-Sales-Driven-Development (tm) arn't too far off from that scenario. So, perhaps I shouldn't laugh.)
The true irony is how you like the very method that might be the _only_ way Hollywood gets to truely fuck you.
Bureaucracy might be slow, but thats the whole point - so those with power and no public accountability can't stick it up your ass with nary a second thought.
Democracy.. if you don't believe its working, thats pretty much the reason it ain't.
You can ask the same question about the drug war - why not change the laws, because if you arrested every person who'd ever committed a drug related crime, you'd arrest the population of Texas, Colerado, Arkansaws.
Really, the game of fighting drugs, or fighting piracy has become such a business and goal in its own right that it really isn't connected to the purpose (protecting communities, artists) it was meant to serve in the first place. What are all the businesses who's viability rests on the protection of IP going to do if you just go out and arrest all the guilty folks tommorow?
Is this to air in NA, or will it be import only for us westerners? Couldn't find it on the site.
Obligatory "me too" props to the movie. I hope is the show is good.
Now if only I could afford all the Cowboy Bebop episodes I might have to start collecting this stuff, but dam, between the computer parts, the games, the pron, and the consoles, who has money left over for anime imports?:P
Are you Robin? Wow, cool, in my books, thats not a subtle brush with fame.. thats pure awesomeness. I still miss Q1 physics.:) TF grens were the best grens of all time. I've never been able to make people catch impending explosions with sure pure raw precision ever since TF, although I did spend 4 years with it... ever seen the name Kraftboy around? I was a junkie, knew lots of folks..
Just what the subject says. When you think vapourware, think TF2.. they've probably had to swtich 3 or 4 generations of game engines underneath it throughout the ages, if they are indeed still working on it....
>I think an automatic system to locate probable suspects is a viable alternative to random wiretaps.
Automatic system? Jebus. (Pardon using Him in vain:).. really? Even if, say, Christianity, in the distant future, becomes seen as an evil and unacceptable lifestyle in the eye of the public, to turn the tables? I'm not trying to discredit your faith, but its important to use something you view as important and ultimately non-bad in order to get you to think about it from a personal standpoint? You'd feel okay having to take what I believe is an acceptable ideology off of the Internet?
Please don't counter that it's not possible. Take something you view as harmless, even personally neccessary, imagine the public wanting to lynch somebody for it, and then allow authorities to flag you via a computer?
I agree with the fact that the Internet definately started as something in which privacy was not inherent, but I attribute that more to the fact that the thought of a right to privacy on the phone probably didn't pop into the heads of the engineer that developed the telephone either - its only when something becomes a fairly widespread form of communication upon which sensitive information is sent, iare there any reasons to begin considering the implications of access to privacy.
Actually, that brings up an intresting point.. are financial documents by companies emailed across the Internet? If the law allows companies to keep this information private, are they waiving their right to privacy as outlined by law when they transmit that data across the internet? Wouldn't this anger companies? Or should companies be allowed to claim that their data should be illegal to sniff?
>Apple is largely a hardware company, and one with fat margins to boot.
See, I see it as a wierd (and unfortunate situation). I really dont believe Apple couldn't handle a wider hardware market. Drivers are up to the companies that make the hardware, so really, its the other hardware companies that would have to write the drivers. OSX, being built on *BSD, is still going to be inherently more stable than Windows, even if you factor out the hardware situation. My opinion, of course, and potentially groundless.
But I see Apple as a software company that has no choice but to pay for the software via the hardware.. OSX is the bomb (I'm surprised to see all the "I dont run macs, but damn I want OSX" posts, especially given the Aqua factor).. and the fact that Apple so vohemently protects their look and feel suggests that they put much value in the fact that people know, everytime, that they are running an Apple OS. (Plus, they plug it in movies alot more than MS although maybe thats cause MS refuses to let Windows go into movies?.. I think Apple wants people to see their software, not hardware.)
So anyhow, Apple knows that if they let their hardware monopoly go, they risk not being able to deliver their software at a competative price-functionality/performance ratio. Wasn't that one of the big reasons behind them clamming up on the clone front?
Can anyone give me some hard facts about whether or not its true that they rely on their hardware markups to drive the development of their kick-ass software?
And yes, if anyone wants to diss me for calling Apple a good software company, the end of the Apple OS9 line was crap, but then again, nobody bought Windows ME for exactly that same reason - no amount of money or brains could keep the codebase under control.
>Dave Barry did mention the fritos... quite frecuently...
Oh I believe that, I just call it an ad because it functions as an ad. (Especially the references to it being the food of choice for the jesus character.) There is a decreasing inventory of cultural references that are not related to commercial brands, and I find it fairly depressing considering the fragility of the brands - unlike non-commercial culture, they can disappear off the radar for reasons completely unrelated to social and cultural events.. private interests affecting what might be argued as the last bastion of public space.
I work in advertising too; only in programming capacity. I can understand why it would definately be useful for you. I'll check it out, I may have spoken too soon - perhaps they are not aiming their service towards the user that wants to see that funny ad 20 times. It can certainly be useful for the agencies...
More importantly, Mac engineers are still sane enough to remember that they became engineers in order to give Joe Q Public what Joe Q Public would want for other people had he spent a lot of time and money studying usability. Ie, expertise for a reason. MS engineers seem to be the whipping boys of the MS marketing and customer feedback teams.. they still do engineering, but they dont seem to have any concept that if Joe Q Public were designing cars (remember the car that Homer built?), we'd be better off using bicycles?
Look, I know I'll get a -1, Elitist for this, but in this day and age of specialization and depth of research, dont we think its time the public started making concessions for what they want and start listening to the folks that are genuinely interested in making really great usable software (even if its quite different than what you're used to), instead of assuming that even tho they need my help to find an ISP and to set up the internet they can't neccessarily ask for the right things that will make their tasks easier to accomplish?
Flame away, but just remember that desires are so cheap, you rarely spend any time or effort making sure they are good for you in the long run...
I know, some are really really really funny, but sometimes one has to make a stand for one's pricipals.
I know hollywood movies can and have been one huge ad before (Wizard comes to mind for Mario 3, Pokemon, Big Trouble was a massive dorito ad), but doesn't anybody take issue with the fact that music and movies for pay hasn't come about yet, but that advertising for pay might? Isn't that kind of twisted?
Whoa now, I'm not in any way condoning that private companies have any right to privacy.
Dunno where you picked that up from. I dont even think corperations should have the same rights as people due to their inherent size and weight on our pysical and social world, but thats another thread. I'm fairly anti-corperate, and I'm also not the staunchest advocate of privacy to be found here.
The internet, to me, seems like the phone lines, and for what it's worth, I think that privacy over the phone (without a warrant) should be something we all have. No, its not a god given right, but its still something I think we should have and that I'd vote for. The internet is just like the phone.. a way of communicating betwixt parties from the privacy of our own home.
My post was an attempt to point out how we generally dont mind seeing our priviledges (much better word than right, because it is surely something people should only have if, at large in a preagreed majority, we dont abuse it) eroded until it actually affects us. Privacy in itself is important because it prevents us from being persucuted by others for actions or opinions that may be subject to widespread public mob mentality.
The internet, as a poorly defined public utility, has the ability to facilitate private peer-to-peer communication not intended for the public's consumption. Just because my phone line goes over public property eventually doesn't mean somebody should be able to intercept it. While phones were primarily intended for private conversion, the Internet supports private conversation.. and as it ties in to how we've historically treated the phone system, I believe those types of communications should not be subject to groundless evesdropping.
So I'm interested in hearing what you think about this.. do you think the phone system should support a moderate amount of privacy in which wiretapping should only be conducted after authorities can provide grounds for the tap? (I understand that this is not the case anymore in the USA as of mildly recently?)
And if so, how is that conversation eventually travelling over what is effectively public property (a park, say, where I am free to look, listen, etc) different from an internet protocal designed strictly for private peer to peer use?
I think eventually this will become an issue, and some lines will be drawn in terms of low level technological conditions in which data is considered public or private. But thats just my guess once the social significance and nuances of the Internet become more familliar to the public just as the public has changed their opinion regarding other technologies (say, cell phones in cars, or cigarettes) once the neccessary education becomes embedded in the social conciousness?
I'm curious to hear under what terms and for what reasons you consider the entire Internet infrastructure to be, essentially, a public park where anything you do can be seen by those who enter...
> They only care when it wrongly happens to them (i.e., their nude spyware photos are slapped on the web), and that's the only time they should. (emphasis mine - ss).
I hope you never go into the field of project management. I can see it now:
"Well, gee, the best way to go about the problem is to agree that it will happen. Then, when it does, we'll figure out what we should have done before to ensure it doesn't happen!"
Whats the matter? Ripped out the page in your dictionary that carries the defintion of "proactivism"?
Fair nuff. I can see why that might be bad, but since its highly unlikely that there is any motivation to do this, I dont see that as a problem.
Who would want to change my music, and republish it under my name? For it to considerably damage my reputation, I'd have to assume they'd have lots of money, lots of time, and lots of effort to do such a thing maliciously or to dilute my public image. It doesn't make sense that anyone would try and do this. And if they did, I'd rather fight it through more normal channels than black-and-white licence that forbids people from doing so?
It's an interesting point, I'd actually really be curious if anyone could come up with a situation in which this would be significantly detrimental to me.
Yeah, same with Canada, Mexico. USA likes to pretend that everybody should be freemarket, except themselves. Its quite cute and endearing. Oh, and aggravating.
>I believe that most musicians would feel the same way, as their best works are often written out of heart and feeling, and I don't think they'd be too keen on someone else taking it (or parts of it) and changing it to meet their motives.
Holy shit. What do you think writers do? They read, they hear, they interpret, they remix, they write. Your writings are not original. Neither are my songs. Artists _inherently_ feed on each others' emotions. Thats practically the freaking definition of culture.
This "I made it, so I own it" thing makes sense in the physical world - fixed supply of building blocks. It simply does not hold up in art. Every artist/writer you love is not 10% as original as you probably think they are. Hell, Beethoven used to steal 2 or 3 bars, verbatim, from other musicians.
If everyone has food, shelter and water and the means to make music at the end of the day, any impliciation that you should be free to set all the terms in which your creative works are used is simple greed, and is counterproductive to the system which produced you, the writer. Its 100% hypocritical to suggest that others should not be able to take your work and modify it - I agree that plagerism can be taken too far, but for the most part, start thinking about where you are getting your ideas from... hopefully from other artists and people... sources you might not have if everyone took your stance on the supposed ownership of your creative works. Plagerism itself is not some plague that will spread - artsits always want to be creative and to add, so the danger of 'stealing' ideas spiralling out of control runs counter to the very values that makes one an artist. If you were simply taking others work, changing a few lines here and there, would _you_ call it yours and take all the credit? If you are a true artist, I highly doubt it.
my music is not GPL'd per se, but go ahead and steal a few bars here and there. So long as you give credit where credit is due (thats just a simple case of respect, a trend which is waning thanks to the fact that artists are looking more and more greedy by the moment with every 'I own the work' stake we drive into our own coffin, so people are less likely place any importance on simple noted credit), steal it, remix it, change it, have fun with it.
Thats what culture is. If you dont like it, make sure you lock your poems up in a drawer and never publish them. If you make the ideas available, you're killing art if you think nobody should be able to take something and reinterpret it or rework it. So long as they respectfully note the influece they got from your fine work.
And again, anyone is free to take, rework, use, retinterpret my music. Go ahead. If my music is good enough, there is no way that I won't be payed in some form for my contribution to the state of the art. I refuse to contribute to scarcity in culture - why do you think TV and movies blow so badly? Because artists are simply not allowed to create first or second generation remixes without going through 20 legal forms first. Artsits are being forced to create in a vacuum, and its our own damn faults. This is why, increasingly, people are not giving credit where credit is due - think about it, there may be a kind soul out there whos dying to rework your art in a form that will launch your writing career.. somebody to fill that 'last mile' in your work that connects it to the people. Many artists have gotten famous simply because other artists connected them to the last mile of accessibility to the public at large. Lets not kill the one sure thing in culture.
I am not afraid.... artists who are scared of greed or stealing are forgetting the very axioms that make something art. So long as we can eke out a living, why must we be holding our creations increasingly tigher against our chests? Why make our own state of the art harder to advance?
The real reason toys with replayability arnt as available anymore should be freakin obvious - they dont make as much money.
Gotta keep you comin back to the store for more. It's as simple as that. Overzealous litigation-happy parents have absolutely nothing to do with it. They are a drop in the bucket of the toy market.
And for the helmet, I wear one when biking/blading. I'll make my kids wear one. You'd probably have a different opinion had you ever been hit by a car. You'd also do well to consider that given the increase in car traffic over the last 10 years (nevermind the fact that while I might have been able to survive getting slammed by a pony, any SUV would take me out these days), the roads have become *considerably* more dangerous than they used to be.
But go on, blame parents for trying to *maintain* their kids' safe environment while the roads become more and more dangerous.
> What ever happened to natural selection? You know, the kid who swallows too many marbles doesn't grow up to have kids of his own?
It's still in full effect. For instance, with an attitude like that (with the condition that you make it public to your partner or partner-to-be), you'll probably find it hard to find a decent compassionate female to procreate with. (Although not impossible, so a reply of "I do have a woman" will be met with indifference.)
Do you actually have any concept of how many more kids would die if swallowing a marble was a surefire death sentence? You probably have a close friend or two who ingested something at an early age that *could* have killed them at some point. (Would you be up to the task of finishing them off yourself, seeing as they clearly are not deserving of their lives?)
Fortunately, there's probably alot more natural selection in the sense that guys who publicly think like you do dont often find themselves heading up a family than kids dying off and thus 'cleansing' (your word, I'm sure) the gene pool.
Icidentally, if your frist sentence had even a shred of truth to it (not that products havnt been taken off the market, but any toy store still sells easy-to-swallow-tough-to-breathe toys), Lego would have been off the market long ago. Ironically, the true folks that supplied or made available these small bitty pieces to little kids, ie, the parents, usually get to try again with the gene-grafting fun of parenthood if they so choose.
As a parting shot, if you do have a kid, try and come up with a more life affirming lullabye for him/her than "Caveat Emptor" or "Dont be a stupid kid while I'm not tending over you", please? Or would (are) your kids be so smart as to never do anything that endangers themselves?
>... commercials are more interested in pushing the latest licensed crap...
Which one is more profitable?
A license agnostic computer game where the value is in the interactivity.. high replay value, no need to go back to the store for a few years?
Or the uber-franchisable, horizontal-marketing-up-the-ying-yang licensed toy that does so little, you're practically forced into buying the next toy, which does a tiny bit more (now you can move his head! now you can move his foot! now he talks! buy this.. now he talks more!)
This is so obvious, its probably taught verbatim in business or marketing schools.
Fair enough. I find that much more gratifying to know that others experience the same thing. Thats really all I wanted - to hear if others considered the consumerist addiction to be something noteworthy.. to consider its effect on the transparency of markets. I'm generally pretty good (I havn't gone to the theatre in months, despite being desperate to see The Minority Report, for the most part.)
Cool man.. I just got my coffee - I usually go from cynical to ADD, but in order to spare my co-workers, I save it for the afternoon.;)
Slashdot Mirror
-2 for a lack of understanding in social dynamics. Like a flock of birds, humans need to generally be aware that we all agree on something (JPEG is not worth using anymore) before they actually _DO_ something about it.
So no, whining isn't a bad thing, because, if one year down the road our social collective asserts that JPEGs time has come due to the groundword of people expressing dissatisfaction with it now, it will be much easier to move to something else in one fell swoop.
Being a martyr can be useful, but more often its useless. Education takes time, but our actions are far more effective once everybody is on the same page.
>that will demonstrate the problem.
You make the assumption that when people see the ill-effects of a problem, they know where the problem is coming from (nevermind what a suitable solution is.)
Thats a big, and usually incorrect assumption.
Engineers around the globe will lose their sanity in exactly 2004 and will start engineering/programming their systems according to the guidelines of great cyberpunk novelists.
(Actually, given that marketing is really just the construction of fantasy-realities, I suppose marketing driven tech companies that engage in Real-Time-Sales-Driven-Development (tm) arn't too far off from that scenario. So, perhaps I shouldn't laugh.)
The true irony is how you like the very method that might be the _only_ way Hollywood gets to truely fuck you.
.. if you don't believe its working, thats pretty much the reason it ain't.
Bureaucracy might be slow, but thats the whole point - so those with power and no public accountability can't stick it up your ass with nary a second thought.
Democracy
You can ask the same question about the drug war - why not change the laws, because if you arrested every person who'd ever committed a drug related crime, you'd arrest the population of Texas, Colerado, Arkansaws.
Really, the game of fighting drugs, or fighting piracy has become such a business and goal in its own right that it really isn't connected to the purpose (protecting communities, artists) it was meant to serve in the first place. What are all the businesses who's viability rests on the protection of IP going to do if you just go out and arrest all the guilty folks tommorow?
Is this to air in NA, or will it be import only for us westerners? Couldn't find it on the site.
:P
Obligatory "me too" props to the movie. I hope is the show is good.
Now if only I could afford all the Cowboy Bebop episodes I might have to start collecting this stuff, but dam, between the computer parts, the games, the pron, and the consoles, who has money left over for anime imports?
Are you Robin? Wow, cool, in my books, thats not a subtle brush with fame .. thats pure awesomeness. I still miss Q1 physics. :) TF grens were the best grens of all time. I've never been able to make people catch impending explosions with sure pure raw precision ever since TF, although I did spend 4 years with it ... ever seen the name Kraftboy around? I was a junkie, knew lots of folks ..
Just what the subject says. When you think vapourware, think TF2 .. they've probably had to swtich 3 or 4 generations of game engines underneath it throughout the ages, if they are indeed still working on it ....
And for the record, TF is the greatest mod ever.
Or innocent. Honestly, I'm doing a poll, why AC?
I thought I paid for cable, and my bill was partially subsidized by advertising ..
:) Advertisers pay money to get their commercials aired, so why are they paying for it if I am?
Expound, please.
>I think an automatic system to locate probable suspects is a viable alternative to random wiretaps.
:) .. really? Even if, say, Christianity, in the distant future, becomes seen as an evil and unacceptable lifestyle in the eye of the public, to turn the tables? I'm not trying to discredit your faith, but its important to use something you view as important and ultimately non-bad in order to get you to think about it from a personal standpoint? You'd feel okay having to take what I believe is an acceptable ideology off of the Internet?
.. are financial documents by companies emailed across the Internet? If the law allows companies to keep this information private, are they waiving their right to privacy as outlined by law when they transmit that data across the internet? Wouldn't this anger companies? Or should companies be allowed to claim that their data should be illegal to sniff?
Automatic system? Jebus. (Pardon using Him in vain
Please don't counter that it's not possible. Take something you view as harmless, even personally neccessary, imagine the public wanting to lynch somebody for it, and then allow authorities to flag you via a computer?
I agree with the fact that the Internet definately started as something in which privacy was not inherent, but I attribute that more to the fact that the thought of a right to privacy on the phone probably didn't pop into the heads of the engineer that developed the telephone either - its only when something becomes a fairly widespread form of communication upon which sensitive information is sent, iare there any reasons to begin considering the implications of access to privacy.
Actually, that brings up an intresting point
>Apple is largely a hardware company, and one with fat margins to boot.
.. OSX is the bomb (I'm surprised to see all the "I dont run macs, but damn I want OSX" posts, especially given the Aqua factor) .. and the fact that Apple so vohemently protects their look and feel suggests that they put much value in the fact that people know, everytime, that they are running an Apple OS. (Plus, they plug it in movies alot more than MS although maybe thats cause MS refuses to let Windows go into movies? .. I think Apple wants people to see their software, not hardware.)
See, I see it as a wierd (and unfortunate situation). I really dont believe Apple couldn't handle a wider hardware market. Drivers are up to the companies that make the hardware, so really, its the other hardware companies that would have to write the drivers. OSX, being built on *BSD, is still going to be inherently more stable than Windows, even if you factor out the hardware situation. My opinion, of course, and potentially groundless.
But I see Apple as a software company that has no choice but to pay for the software via the hardware
So anyhow, Apple knows that if they let their hardware monopoly go, they risk not being able to deliver their software at a competative price-functionality/performance ratio. Wasn't that one of the big reasons behind them clamming up on the clone front?
Can anyone give me some hard facts about whether or not its true that they rely on their hardware markups to drive the development of their kick-ass software?
And yes, if anyone wants to diss me for calling Apple a good software company, the end of the Apple OS9 line was crap, but then again, nobody bought Windows ME for exactly that same reason - no amount of money or brains could keep the codebase under control.
Thoughts?
>Dave Barry did mention the fritos... quite frecuently...
.. private interests affecting what might be argued as the last bastion of public space.
...
Oh I believe that, I just call it an ad because it functions as an ad. (Especially the references to it being the food of choice for the jesus character.) There is a decreasing inventory of cultural references that are not related to commercial brands, and I find it fairly depressing considering the fragility of the brands - unlike non-commercial culture, they can disappear off the radar for reasons completely unrelated to social and cultural events
I work in advertising too; only in programming capacity. I can understand why it would definately be useful for you. I'll check it out, I may have spoken too soon - perhaps they are not aiming their service towards the user that wants to see that funny ad 20 times. It can certainly be useful for the agencies
I somewhat agree.
.. they still do engineering, but they dont seem to have any concept that if Joe Q Public were designing cars (remember the car that Homer built?), we'd be better off using bicycles?
...
More importantly, Mac engineers are still sane enough to remember that they became engineers in order to give Joe Q Public what Joe Q Public would want for other people had he spent a lot of time and money studying usability. Ie, expertise for a reason. MS engineers seem to be the whipping boys of the MS marketing and customer feedback teams
Look, I know I'll get a -1, Elitist for this, but in this day and age of specialization and depth of research, dont we think its time the public started making concessions for what they want and start listening to the folks that are genuinely interested in making really great usable software (even if its quite different than what you're used to), instead of assuming that even tho they need my help to find an ISP and to set up the internet they can't neccessarily ask for the right things that will make their tasks easier to accomplish?
Flame away, but just remember that desires are so cheap, you rarely spend any time or effort making sure they are good for you in the long run
.. is a sucker. Sorry, had to say it.
I know, some are really really really funny, but sometimes one has to make a stand for one's pricipals.
I know hollywood movies can and have been one huge ad before (Wizard comes to mind for Mario 3, Pokemon, Big Trouble was a massive dorito ad), but doesn't anybody take issue with the fact that music and movies for pay hasn't come about yet, but that advertising for pay might? Isn't that kind of twisted?
Whoa now, I'm not in any way condoning that private companies have any right to privacy.
.. a way of communicating betwixt parties from the privacy of our own home.
.. and as it ties in to how we've historically treated the phone system, I believe those types of communications should not be subject to groundless evesdropping.
.. do you think the phone system should support a moderate amount of privacy in which wiretapping should only be conducted after authorities can provide grounds for the tap? (I understand that this is not the case anymore in the USA as of mildly recently?)
...
Dunno where you picked that up from. I dont even think corperations should have the same rights as people due to their inherent size and weight on our pysical and social world, but thats another thread. I'm fairly anti-corperate, and I'm also not the staunchest advocate of privacy to be found here.
The internet, to me, seems like the phone lines, and for what it's worth, I think that privacy over the phone (without a warrant) should be something we all have. No, its not a god given right, but its still something I think we should have and that I'd vote for. The internet is just like the phone
My post was an attempt to point out how we generally dont mind seeing our priviledges (much better word than right, because it is surely something people should only have if, at large in a preagreed majority, we dont abuse it) eroded until it actually affects us. Privacy in itself is important because it prevents us from being persucuted by others for actions or opinions that may be subject to widespread public mob mentality.
The internet, as a poorly defined public utility, has the ability to facilitate private peer-to-peer communication not intended for the public's consumption. Just because my phone line goes over public property eventually doesn't mean somebody should be able to intercept it. While phones were primarily intended for private conversion, the Internet supports private conversation
So I'm interested in hearing what you think about this
And if so, how is that conversation eventually travelling over what is effectively public property (a park, say, where I am free to look, listen, etc) different from an internet protocal designed strictly for private peer to peer use?
I think eventually this will become an issue, and some lines will be drawn in terms of low level technological conditions in which data is considered public or private. But thats just my guess once the social significance and nuances of the Internet become more familliar to the public just as the public has changed their opinion regarding other technologies (say, cell phones in cars, or cigarettes) once the neccessary education becomes embedded in the social conciousness?
I'm curious to hear under what terms and for what reasons you consider the entire Internet infrastructure to be, essentially, a public park where anything you do can be seen by those who enter
> They only care when it wrongly happens to them (i.e., their nude spyware photos are slapped on the web), and that's the only time they should . (emphasis mine - ss).
I hope you never go into the field of project management. I can see it now:
"Well, gee, the best way to go about the problem is to agree that it will happen. Then, when it does, we'll figure out what we should have done before to ensure it doesn't happen!"
Whats the matter? Ripped out the page in your dictionary that carries the defintion of "proactivism"?
Fair nuff. I can see why that might be bad, but since its highly unlikely that there is any motivation to do this, I dont see that as a problem.
Who would want to change my music, and republish it under my name? For it to considerably damage my reputation, I'd have to assume they'd have lots of money, lots of time, and lots of effort to do such a thing maliciously or to dilute my public image. It doesn't make sense that anyone would try and do this. And if they did, I'd rather fight it through more normal channels than black-and-white licence that forbids people from doing so?
It's an interesting point, I'd actually really be curious if anyone could come up with a situation in which this would be significantly detrimental to me.
Yeah, same with Canada, Mexico. USA likes to pretend that everybody should be freemarket, except themselves. Its quite cute and endearing. Oh, and aggravating.
>I believe that most musicians would feel the same way, as their best works are often written out of heart and feeling, and I don't think they'd be too keen on someone else taking it (or parts of it) and changing it to meet their motives.
... hopefully from other artists and people ... sources you might not have if everyone took your stance on the supposed ownership of your creative works. Plagerism itself is not some plague that will spread - artsits always want to be creative and to add, so the danger of 'stealing' ideas spiralling out of control runs counter to the very values that makes one an artist. If you were simply taking others work, changing a few lines here and there, would _you_ call it yours and take all the credit? If you are a true artist, I highly doubt it.
.. somebody to fill that 'last mile' in your work that connects it to the people. Many artists have gotten famous simply because other artists connected them to the last mile of accessibility to the public at large. Lets not kill the one sure thing in culture.
.... artists who are scared of greed or stealing are forgetting the very axioms that make something art. So long as we can eke out a living, why must we be holding our creations increasingly tigher against our chests? Why make our own state of the art harder to advance?
Holy shit. What do you think writers do? They read, they hear, they interpret, they remix, they write. Your writings are not original. Neither are my songs. Artists _inherently_ feed on each others' emotions. Thats practically the freaking definition of culture.
This "I made it, so I own it" thing makes sense in the physical world - fixed supply of building blocks. It simply does not hold up in art. Every artist/writer you love is not 10% as original as you probably think they are. Hell, Beethoven used to steal 2 or 3 bars, verbatim, from other musicians.
If everyone has food, shelter and water and the means to make music at the end of the day, any impliciation that you should be free to set all the terms in which your creative works are used is simple greed, and is counterproductive to the system which produced you, the writer. Its 100% hypocritical to suggest that others should not be able to take your work and modify it - I agree that plagerism can be taken too far, but for the most part, start thinking about where you are getting your ideas from
my music is not GPL'd per se, but go ahead and steal a few bars here and there. So long as you give credit where credit is due (thats just a simple case of respect, a trend which is waning thanks to the fact that artists are looking more and more greedy by the moment with every 'I own the work' stake we drive into our own coffin, so people are less likely place any importance on simple noted credit), steal it, remix it, change it, have fun with it.
Thats what culture is. If you dont like it, make sure you lock your poems up in a drawer and never publish them. If you make the ideas available, you're killing art if you think nobody should be able to take something and reinterpret it or rework it. So long as they respectfully note the influece they got from your fine work.
And again, anyone is free to take, rework, use, retinterpret my music. Go ahead. If my music is good enough, there is no way that I won't be payed in some form for my contribution to the state of the art. I refuse to contribute to scarcity in culture - why do you think TV and movies blow so badly? Because artists are simply not allowed to create first or second generation remixes without going through 20 legal forms first. Artsits are being forced to create in a vacuum, and its our own damn faults. This is why, increasingly, people are not giving credit where credit is due - think about it, there may be a kind soul out there whos dying to rework your art in a form that will launch your writing career
I am not afraid
The real reason toys with replayability arnt as available anymore should be freakin obvious - they dont make as much money.
Gotta keep you comin back to the store for more. It's as simple as that. Overzealous litigation-happy parents have absolutely nothing to do with it. They are a drop in the bucket of the toy market.
And for the helmet, I wear one when biking/blading. I'll make my kids wear one. You'd probably have a different opinion had you ever been hit by a car. You'd also do well to consider that given the increase in car traffic over the last 10 years (nevermind the fact that while I might have been able to survive getting slammed by a pony, any SUV would take me out these days), the roads have become *considerably* more dangerous than they used to be.
But go on, blame parents for trying to *maintain* their kids' safe environment while the roads become more and more dangerous.
> What ever happened to natural selection? You know, the kid who swallows too many marbles doesn't grow up to have kids of his own?
It's still in full effect. For instance, with an attitude like that (with the condition that you make it public to your partner or partner-to-be), you'll probably find it hard to find a decent compassionate female to procreate with. (Although not impossible, so a reply of "I do have a woman" will be met with indifference.)
Do you actually have any concept of how many more kids would die if swallowing a marble was a surefire death sentence? You probably have a close friend or two who ingested something at an early age that *could* have killed them at some point. (Would you be up to the task of finishing them off yourself, seeing as they clearly are not deserving of their lives?)
Fortunately, there's probably alot more natural selection in the sense that guys who publicly think like you do dont often find themselves heading up a family than kids dying off and thus 'cleansing' (your word, I'm sure) the gene pool.
Icidentally, if your frist sentence had even a shred of truth to it (not that products havnt been taken off the market, but any toy store still sells easy-to-swallow-tough-to-breathe toys), Lego would have been off the market long ago. Ironically, the true folks that supplied or made available these small bitty pieces to little kids, ie, the parents, usually get to try again with the gene-grafting fun of parenthood if they so choose.
As a parting shot, if you do have a kid, try and come up with a more life affirming lullabye for him/her than "Caveat Emptor" or "Dont be a stupid kid while I'm not tending over you", please? Or would (are) your kids be so smart as to never do anything that endangers themselves?
> ... commercials are more interested in pushing the latest licensed crap ...
.. high replay value, no need to go back to the store for a few years?
.. now he talks more!)
Which one is more profitable?
A license agnostic computer game where the value is in the interactivity
Or the uber-franchisable, horizontal-marketing-up-the-ying-yang licensed toy that does so little, you're practically forced into buying the next toy, which does a tiny bit more (now you can move his head! now you can move his foot! now he talks! buy this
This is so obvious, its probably taught verbatim in business or marketing schools.
> Computer technology has pretty much advanced about as far as is necessary.
Its almost grammarically incorrect to say something like that without punctuating it by sticking your foot in your mouth in 3 years.
Fair enough. I find that much more gratifying to know that others experience the same thing. Thats really all I wanted - to hear if others considered the consumerist addiction to be something noteworthy .. to consider its effect on the transparency of markets. I'm generally pretty good (I havn't gone to the theatre in months, despite being desperate to see The Minority Report, for the most part.)
.. I just got my coffee - I usually go from cynical to ADD, but in order to spare my co-workers, I save it for the afternoon. ;)
Cool man