You're conflating three different things: degrees, licensing (i.e. to be able to legally call yourself a Professional Engineer), and certification. The first two things are much more worthwhile than the third.
So are all other laws. You are not beaten up on the way home, nor is your daughter raped, because our morals consider such actions evil, and our laws ban them.
No. The reason those things don't happen is because people defend themselves by force. Paying guards to defend you is merely an abstraction of defending yourself, and having everyone pay police to defend each other is merely an abstraction of paying guards. Self-defense is a natural right; the moral justification came after-the-fact.
Which contract are you referring to? Who signed it and when?
I am referring to the contract that states "The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Thomas Jefferson wrote it (and expounded upon its rationale and purpose in the letter previously linked, just in case "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" wasn't clear enough), and these people signed it.
The Jefferson's letter you linked to talks about inventions, and his opinion, that there is no "natural right" to them. I am not sure I agree, but software is not an "invention" (and music even less so) anyway, so that's not the topic here.
It is, as you said earlier, a "distinction without difference."
More to the point, the Constitution as quoted above makes no mention that Writings and Discoveries should be treated differently from each other. If it is invalid to consider Jefferson's letter to apply to copyright then it's equally invalid to consider it to apply to patents, since he wrote the letter to explain the exact same damn clause!
Furthermore, it is abundantly clear -- to anyone who is intellectually honest, anyway -- that Jefferson was speaking generally of "ideas" and his arguments apply equally to copyrights and patents. In his usage, a work of art or literature could be "invented" just as well as a machine -- the word denotes the uniqueness of creation, not the category of it.
So, [works are] not entering Public Domain as fast as you'd like â" and you wish to confiscate [them]? [Ad-hominem omitted]
"Confiscate" is a disingenuous and loaded term, because it implies that the creators are being divested of their property, which is incorrect. On the contrary, ideas are inherently property of the Public Domain; they are merely "lended" to their creators and when copyright (or patent) expires they revert to the Public Domain (i.e., their natural state).
Imposing your own terms instead is evil and tyrannical â" it is not even the "slippery slope", it is the actual falling off the cliff.
On the contrary, stealing from the Public Domain is evil and tyrannical!
It may seem unreasonable to you, but you aren't the creator â" and so your opinion does not matter.
Of course my opinion (along with everybody else's) matters; it is only due to our collective consent that copyright law exists in the first place! Copyright law is a social contract whereby, in return for having the work eventually enter the Public Domain, the public grants special privileges to the creators. Creators only get the protection of copyright law because the public deigns them to have it.
The only legitimate recourse for you is to pretend the creation was never created
On the contrary, the legitimate recourse to a creator breaking the social contract is simply to revoke his privilege!
Yes, some uses are allowed by our very liberal reading of the First Amendment (I wish, we read the Second just as liberally, but I digress). Limiting everything else is fine â" as long as I am not legally bound to pay for/use the creation, of course...
You don't get to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution to agree with; all of it is the law of the land. It also must be understood in context, which is readily available from the writings of the Founding Fathers themselves (e.g. the Federalist Papers). In particular (relevant to this discussion):
The express purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts," not to bestow any sort of moral right or obligation to creators.
The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is clearly and obviously to affirm the right of the People to (violently) oppose tyanny (including that imposed by their own government), because that's what the Founding Fathers themselves had just finished doing! As such, it is wholly inappropriate for the People to require any sort of permission from the State to keep and bear arms.
C gives you a gun with which you can shoot yourself in the foot. C++ gives you the gun too, but at least it's got a safety on it that you have to disable.
No, no, no, you got the saying all wrong! Here's how it goes:
In C, you shoot yourself in the foot.
In C++, you accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical care is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me over there."
Or alternatively,
C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off. -- Bjarne Stroustrup
Actually, there' something called "moral rights" in copyright law
Not in US copyright law, there isn't! You're thinking of European (French) copyright, which has a completely different origin and philosophical basis than American (English) copyright.
You're thinking about that backwards: actual property rights exist not because it's impossible for other people to come in, but because it's possible to force them to stay out. Legal enforcement of property rights does not establish rights that did not exist before; it merely acts as a convenience so that people don't have to stand guard 24/7/365.
In contrast, it is fundamentally impossible to share an idea and prevent it from being shared at the same time. By establishing a mechanism to limit sharing, copyright creates a new concept out of thin air.
Why not? Why should the creator not be able to impose any restrictions they damn please?
Because the entire purpose of copyright is to enrich the commons, and compensating the creator is merely means to that end, that's why!
Expressions of ideas are not and fundamentally cannot be "owned." The nature of an idea is that it has no value until it is shared -- the value comes from the sharing. Therefore, to maximize the value of an idea, it should be shared as widely as possible. Allowing creators to control their ideas "for limited times" is nothing more or less than an attempt to optimize the balance between idea creation and sharing.
If copyright law restricts sharing too much (e.g. by allowing creators to "impose any restrictions they damn please") then it has failed in its purpose.
I record my bike rides with my GPS. Not once in the last 2 years have I had to remove data off the device because it ran out of space.
What if I want the device on my bike to act as a GPS and also record video of my ride? (Think more of commuting in traffic than recreational/trail rides.) Why should I have to upload that video to some third-party service instead of my own server? Why do easy-to-use apps exist only to do the former, but not the latter?
The trouble is that apps that work with local content don't exist, because every company wants your data. The choice has become either giving up your data, or giving up on using technology at all.
It seems silly to say that a modified program you use only on your own computer is any more a "derivative work" than clipping photos out of newspapers is, but the EULA typically specifies conditions you must agree to in order to use the software, and you don't really get a say. All the rights are with the creator.
The EULA is bunk, null and void. First, it is a contract of adhesion: by the time you are forced to "agree" to it you already own the software, so there is nothing for you to agree to. For the same reason, there is nothing you gain by agreeing (i.e., there is no "consideration"). Second, US copyright law explicitly says that installing software (e.g. copying it onto a hard drive) doesn't count as "making a copy" for the purpose of copyright. Since there is no action that could trigger the law to begin with, the EULA cannot apply.
In other words, every "right" an EULA "grants" you is something you already have the right to do, so there is no legally-defensible argument for enforcing the restrictions it imposes.
There's a HUGE difference that you're ignoring: those things you mention as not being allowed to do are already illegal. They're laws that were put in place according to the democratic process.
In contrast, what the DMCA says is effectively "anything the copyright holder unilaterally decides he doesn't like is also illegal, with no public debate or recourse whatsoever."
If you narrow it down a bit (e.g., "root your phone = legal but proceed at your own risk") I could get behind this guy, but when we're starting to talk about hacking automobile electronics that other drivers and pedestrians depend upon for their own safety...you can probably see where we're developing a slippery slope.
Absolutely not. People have always "hacked" their cars (ever hear of a thing called a "hot rod?!"); it is not magically different just because it's suddenly electronic! It is not and should never be illegal to modify your own property; the only thing the law could legitimately regulate is what the person does with it afterwards (e.g. car modification is legal; street racing is not).
Further, ships need to return so there would always be two-way traffic going through the Chicago canal.
Technically, the ships could return the long way: around Florida, up the east coast and through the St. Lawrence Seaway. (I'm not saying is a good idea, but it's possible.)
Whoops. I replied to the right person, but I incorrectly thought you replied to the post that said "People didn't die striking so you could work overtime," not the one that was apparently hidden by moderation.
You missed the second half of his sentence. He wasn't claiming that they didn't die striking; he was claiming that the reason they died striking was fighting for something other than to be allowed to work overtime.
You are looking at it the wrong way if it seems weird. A temperature difference is being used to do work, and the refridgeration cycle is a way of doing that even though it doesn't appear obvious that such a thing is happening.
I guess I am looking at it the wrong way, since I think of the refrigeration cycle as a way of using [mechanical] work to create a temperature differential!
It's being done that way in Glasgow but in that case they have vast quantities of flooded mine tunnels under almost the entire city with water constantly at 12C. It's listed on page 6 of this PDF (http://www.sust.org/pdf/glenalmond.pdf). No real detail but there's probably other stuff about it or similar elsewhere.
It sounds to me like they're using a normal (electrically driven) geothermal heat pump, along with solar thermal, to heat water in a 10,000 liter storage tank. That's different than what I was thinking of, where the geothermal heat pump would transfer heat to (or from) a forced air HVAC, and the pump (and maybe the fan, too) would be driven from solar thermal energy rather than electricity.
Of course, the more I think about it, the less sense it makes: in order to make it work at night, I'd have to have a big hot water tank, whereas with electric pumps I would be fine with a grid-tied PV system.
LOL, silicon valley is for chumps. In Atlanta, I work 40 hours a week as a programmer then get to go home to my 3-bedroom house that'll be paid off before you losers even manage to save up for a down payment.
I have to admit I'm a bit astonished at your reaction and one of an earlier poster since I thought the principle would be obvious to anyone with a rough idea of how a fridge works.
In the refrigeration cycle, the "goal" is to have a compressed and not hot working fluid so that it will absorb heat from whatever you're trying to refrigerate when it's allowed to expand again. Because the heat is an undesirable byproduct of the compression, it just seems weird or counter-intuitive to heat the fluid on purpose to get compression as a byproduct, instead of achieving the compression directly (mechanically). I guess I just didn't expect such a process to be efficient enough.
I had been thinking about getting a geothermal heat pump (central HVAC) and maybe powering it with photovoltaic (eventually); I never considered the possibility, but now I'm wondering if a combination geothermal and solar-thermal HVAC is feasible.
Less than 300 years ago the fastest method of transportation was horse and buggey and sail ships on the Ocean.
In 300 years we now can put ships in space that can travel at 87,000 mph (143kph)... Imagine if you can how fast we'll be able to travel in space another 300 years from now.
Your suggestion that sex should render the NPC invulnerable is... odd. Before the sex she's an NPC just like any other, after the sex she's an NPC just like any other.
If it's anything like previous GTAs, she's carrying more cash than normal NPCs afterward (because your character just paid her).
Slashdot Mirror
You're conflating three different things: degrees, licensing (i.e. to be able to legally call yourself a Professional Engineer), and certification. The first two things are much more worthwhile than the third.
No. The reason those things don't happen is because people defend themselves by force. Paying guards to defend you is merely an abstraction of defending yourself, and having everyone pay police to defend each other is merely an abstraction of paying guards. Self-defense is a natural right; the moral justification came after-the-fact.
I am referring to the contract that states "The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Thomas Jefferson wrote it (and expounded upon its rationale and purpose in the letter previously linked, just in case "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" wasn't clear enough), and these people signed it.
It is, as you said earlier, a "distinction without difference."
More to the point, the Constitution as quoted above makes no mention that Writings and Discoveries should be treated differently from each other. If it is invalid to consider Jefferson's letter to apply to copyright then it's equally invalid to consider it to apply to patents, since he wrote the letter to explain the exact same damn clause!
Furthermore, it is abundantly clear -- to anyone who is intellectually honest, anyway -- that Jefferson was speaking generally of "ideas" and his arguments apply equally to copyrights and patents. In his usage, a work of art or literature could be "invented" just as well as a machine -- the word denotes the uniqueness of creation, not the category of it.
"Confiscate" is a disingenuous and loaded term, because it implies that the creators are being divested of their property, which is incorrect. On the contrary, ideas are inherently property of the Public Domain; they are merely "lended" to their creators and when copyright (or patent) expires they revert to the Public Domain (i.e., their natural state).
On the contrary, stealing from the Public Domain is evil and tyrannical!
Of course my opinion (along with everybody else's) matters; it is only due to our collective consent that copyright law exists in the first place! Copyright law is a social contract whereby, in return for having the work eventually enter the Public Domain, the public grants special privileges to the creators. Creators only get the protection of copyright law because the public deigns them to have it.
On the contrary, the legitimate recourse to a creator breaking the social contract is simply to revoke his privilege!
You don't get to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution to agree with; all of it is the law of the land. It also must be understood in context, which is readily available from the writings of the Founding Fathers themselves (e.g. the Federalist Papers). In particular (relevant to this discussion):
No, no, no, you got the saying all wrong! Here's how it goes:
Or alternatively,
Not in US copyright law, there isn't! You're thinking of European (French) copyright, which has a completely different origin and philosophical basis than American (English) copyright.
WRONG!
As long as you're not creating copies or derivative works, the Doctrine of First Sale applies.
Examples where creators have attempted to exert control without copying having occurred, where it is unreasonable to give creators said control:
You're thinking about that backwards: actual property rights exist not because it's impossible for other people to come in, but because it's possible to force them to stay out. Legal enforcement of property rights does not establish rights that did not exist before; it merely acts as a convenience so that people don't have to stand guard 24/7/365.
In contrast, it is fundamentally impossible to share an idea and prevent it from being shared at the same time. By establishing a mechanism to limit sharing, copyright creates a new concept out of thin air.
Because the entire purpose of copyright is to enrich the commons, and compensating the creator is merely means to that end, that's why!
Expressions of ideas are not and fundamentally cannot be "owned." The nature of an idea is that it has no value until it is shared -- the value comes from the sharing. Therefore, to maximize the value of an idea, it should be shared as widely as possible. Allowing creators to control their ideas "for limited times" is nothing more or less than an attempt to optimize the balance between idea creation and sharing.
If copyright law restricts sharing too much (e.g. by allowing creators to "impose any restrictions they damn please") then it has failed in its purpose.
What if I want the device on my bike to act as a GPS and also record video of my ride? (Think more of commuting in traffic than recreational/trail rides.) Why should I have to upload that video to some third-party service instead of my own server? Why do easy-to-use apps exist only to do the former, but not the latter?
The trouble is that apps that work with local content don't exist, because every company wants your data. The choice has become either giving up your data, or giving up on using technology at all.
The EULA is bunk, null and void. First, it is a contract of adhesion: by the time you are forced to "agree" to it you already own the software, so there is nothing for you to agree to. For the same reason, there is nothing you gain by agreeing (i.e., there is no "consideration"). Second, US copyright law explicitly says that installing software (e.g. copying it onto a hard drive) doesn't count as "making a copy" for the purpose of copyright. Since there is no action that could trigger the law to begin with, the EULA cannot apply.
In other words, every "right" an EULA "grants" you is something you already have the right to do, so there is no legally-defensible argument for enforcing the restrictions it imposes.
There's a HUGE difference that you're ignoring: those things you mention as not being allowed to do are already illegal. They're laws that were put in place according to the democratic process.
In contrast, what the DMCA says is effectively "anything the copyright holder unilaterally decides he doesn't like is also illegal, with no public debate or recourse whatsoever."
Absolutely not. People have always "hacked" their cars (ever hear of a thing called a "hot rod?!"); it is not magically different just because it's suddenly electronic! It is not and should never be illegal to modify your own property; the only thing the law could legitimately regulate is what the person does with it afterwards (e.g. car modification is legal; street racing is not).
Technically, the ships could return the long way: around Florida, up the east coast and through the St. Lawrence Seaway. (I'm not saying is a good idea, but it's possible.)
Are there really that many companies in SF that would let you telecommute 100% of the time like that?
Whoops. I replied to the right person, but I incorrectly thought you replied to the post that said "People didn't die striking so you could work overtime," not the one that was apparently hidden by moderation.
Clearly, any business that's open 7 days a week should split their workforce into 7 groups and give each group a different day off.
You missed the second half of his sentence. He wasn't claiming that they didn't die striking; he was claiming that the reason they died striking was fighting for something other than to be allowed to work overtime.
I guess I am looking at it the wrong way, since I think of the refrigeration cycle as a way of using [mechanical] work to create a temperature differential!
It sounds to me like they're using a normal (electrically driven) geothermal heat pump, along with solar thermal, to heat water in a 10,000 liter storage tank. That's different than what I was thinking of, where the geothermal heat pump would transfer heat to (or from) a forced air HVAC, and the pump (and maybe the fan, too) would be driven from solar thermal energy rather than electricity.
Of course, the more I think about it, the less sense it makes: in order to make it work at night, I'd have to have a big hot water tank, whereas with electric pumps I would be fine with a grid-tied PV system.
LOL, silicon valley is for chumps. In Atlanta, I work 40 hours a week as a programmer then get to go home to my 3-bedroom house that'll be paid off before you losers even manage to save up for a down payment.
The artist can go play concerts. The music publisher can go get a real goddamn job instead of being a parasite.
In the refrigeration cycle, the "goal" is to have a compressed and not hot working fluid so that it will absorb heat from whatever you're trying to refrigerate when it's allowed to expand again. Because the heat is an undesirable byproduct of the compression, it just seems weird or counter-intuitive to heat the fluid on purpose to get compression as a byproduct, instead of achieving the compression directly (mechanically). I guess I just didn't expect such a process to be efficient enough.
I had been thinking about getting a geothermal heat pump (central HVAC) and maybe powering it with photovoltaic (eventually); I never considered the possibility, but now I'm wondering if a combination geothermal and solar-thermal HVAC is feasible.
Obligatory XKCD
If it's anything like previous GTAs, she's carrying more cash than normal NPCs afterward (because your character just paid her).
Grammar Nazis are like the dog from "Up": as soon as they see an error they forget to finish reading the com-- SQUIRREL!