Now let's get to work making copyright irrelevant.
The Days of Perky Pat
on
Virtual Simerica
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Is it just me, or does life increasingly seem to imitate a Philip K. Dick story?
For anyone who is not familiar with the reference, the subject refers to a short story which later evolved into a novel, "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch." In these hypothetical futures, people lived vicariously through simulations, often to the neglect of their actual lives. There's a lot more to it, but if you want to know the whole story, you should read it. Anyhow, once again, Dick's predictions bear a disturbing similarity to reality.
The article states: "South Africa has done nothing to treat AIDS. The biggest obstacle is President Thabo Mbeki, in other ways a sane and responsible leader, who has inexplicably decided that he is not convinced H.I.V. causes AIDS. Absurdly, it has become politically incorrect to talk about treating AIDS in South Africa - because it would acknowledge that H.I.V. is the cause."
What the article does not say is that thousands of people including Nobel Prizewinners and hundreds of Ph.D.'s and/or M.D.'s have called for a scientific reappraisal of the causes of AIDS. What President Mbeke dared to do was call for new studies to be done to confirm or deny the HIV hypothesis, and the effectiveness of "anti-AIDS" drugs like AZT (which, according to its manufacturers, creates side-effects largely indistinguishable from the symptoms of AIDS itself).
Contrary to the article's claim, that it has become politically incorrect to talk about treating AIDS in South Africa, President Mbeki has been one of the few leaders in the world advocating a full dialogue on the subject. Here in America, for instance, scientists aren't supposed to talk about this, or they lose their funding if they do.
One thing I never see discussed in regards to SETI is that searching for aliens by scanning for RADIO WAVES is kind of like the indigenous people of North America searching for aliens across the Atlantic Ocean by looking for SMOKE SIGNALS.
I mean, consider the practicality of using LIGHT SPEED TRANSMISSION to communicate at interstellar distances. Round-trip-times to our NEAREST star are over EIGHT YEARS and that's an awfully long time to wait for a ping.
But we're scanning star systems much further away than that, hundreds and thousands of times further, in hopes of finding some sign of life.
Pretty absurd if you ask me. Assuming we actually got a signal, and tried to send a reply, we would then have to wait longer than the time it's been since radio communication was invented!
Doesn't it seem self-evident that any spacefaring civilization (assuming their existence) would need a better means of communication than this? Granted, we don't have the technology to do this now, but it is entirely reasonable to imagine that quantum non-locality may be exploited for informational purposes.
Restrictions on copying, distribution and performance, if fully enforced, would effectively prevent all but the "Top 40" music, and blockbuster movies from being exposed to most people. Since it is these which generate the majority of profits for the recording and production companies anyhow, there should be a much more liberal policy regarding other works.
Consider, I have a few friends over, and I play an album from a little known artist, which they really enjoy. Then they go out and buy CDs, or attend concerts, etc., because they've been exposed to it. But this was an unauthorized performance. Had I not done so, they'd have never heard it at all, and would likely never have supported the artist at all.
More out on the edge, services like Napster, which undoubtedly contribute to copyright infringement on a large scale, help artists with smaller audiences gain greater exposure. Somebody might have heard good things about Beth Orton, but never actually heard any music by her -- downloading an MP3, one could actually listen to it and decide to go out and buy her album.
Indeed, Napster is a perfect example of what the industry should be SUPPORTING. With or without advertising revenue, this is a model which on the whole adds to their bottom line. And indie labels should be in the forefront of this.
> Next, it only takes an infinite amount of time > for a particle to cross the event horizon from > the outside perspective of an observer who is > not falling into the hole. To the particle or an > astronaut falling into the horizon, the trip is > quite short. Therefore, to say that black holes > only exist asymptotically is incorrect.
Two frames of reference:
From the perspective of the outside observer, what occurs is as described, the infalling object (albeit ripped apart tidally) slows and asymptotically approaches the event horizon, which over a very long but finite time shrinks until it vanishes.
From the perspective of the infalling observer, (which has been torn into subatomic particles and radiation by the tidal forces), it seems to cross the event horizon without delay -- except that there is no event horizon any more. During the short trip, the black hole has evaporated, and all the particles which had at one time or another been gravitationally captured outside the event horizon will be now "emitted" where the hole has just ceased to exist (but billions of years later from the perspective of outside observers).
It will be interesting to see whether they can actually create an "optical black hole", or just asymptotically approach one. Assuming that Hawking is correct, and that black holes emit a quantum radiation which reduces their mass as one-half of a particle/antiparticle pair escape, evaporating in a finite time, and considering the time dilation which requires an infinite time for a particle to actually cross the event horizon, then black holes only exist asymptotically. That is, trapped particles move inward as the event horizon shrinks, and cross it only as it evaporates.
Clueless legislators should not be making laws about subjects they do not understand. Of course, that has never stopped them before, but....
A signature is supposedly unique to the individual, therefore unambiguously identifying the signer as the person who has agreed to a contract. We know that signatures can be forged, but it is difficult to do well, and to be sure, one could also use a fingerprint as a seal.
But a "digital signature" is different -- it is not unique to the individual, but something more akin to a "corporate seal." That is, the signature is an external thing, a key stored on some medium, which is theoretically protected against unauthorized use by the party to whom it belongs.
It is worse than this, a corporate seal is registered with the state, there is no ambiguity as to who is authorized to use it. But is a digital signature similarly registered? Would you WANT your signature to be registered by the state?
But in the absence of this, anyone can create a signature purporting to belong to anyone else. I can create a key pair claiming to be owned by William Gates III, and you cannot know it is fake unless you confirm with him directly that the public key belongs to him (verifying the fingerprint, as well).
Now, you may already know all of this, and hopefully you do if you use public key authentication. But does Congress understand this? I doubt it sincerely -- and by making digital signature binding without requiring a non-digital confirmation of the signature, they open a real can of worms.
I didn't see these one mentioned yet, but I consider them essential SF/F reading (and very appropriate for 13-year olds):
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster Flatland, by Edwin Abbott
Also very good, but perhaps a little challenging for a young reader, is the Riverboat series by Philip Jose Farmer.
As for movies, it is harder, because many of the best ones (Bladerunner, Total Recall) have very adult situations that may not be appropriate for a young viewer (use your discretion).
Without endorsing your comments, it is clear that you mean to refer sometimes to Corel, other times Caldera. It is Corel that based their distribution on Debian, not Caldera. It is Corel that created the Netwinder (now spun-off to Rebel.com), not Caldera. It is Caldera that sued Microsoft over DR-DOS, not Corel.
And yes, Caldera has a product, which is closer to RedHat than Debian (at least, it uses RPM). They've been around a long time, and they are very well respected by many people. So, if you're going to be critical, you'd better get a clue what you're talking about first.
Property in produced goods is not the same as property in lands or property in ideas.
This must be evident to anyone who considers it, for only production gives rise to an absolute and perpetual claim of ownership. Could one man claim absolute dominion of the whole soil, all others would be his slave, for none could exist without his consent. Ideas, too, cannot be held out of general use indefinitely, or we might remain in caves while the descendents of the first discoverers of fire and the wheel would be the only ones permitted to use it.
Yet, there is an interest secured by intellectual property, limited in scope and duration. For it is an incentive, not to invention itself, but to disclosure. In the absence of IP, every idea would have to be independently discovered by each person who would employ it, for those desiring a competitive advantage would be strongly inclined to keep their ideas as secret as possible.
Okay, it has been shown that CSS does nothing to protect copying, per se, of DVD content. However, it does prevent format conversion, and arguably this is what the DVD CCA is most worried about.
If a DVD can be decoded with DeCSS and converted into mjpeg2 with mp3 audio, the result could possibly be stored on a single CD-R. This would make content copying considerably more convenient and less expensive than having to use DVD-R.
By no means does this justify any injunction against DeCSS, but it does prove RMS' maxim, "information wants to be free". Ultimately, it will be.
Copyright cannot be enforced by technical means, it has always relied upon good faith, combined with legal remedies against those who are caught in violation. Nothing prevents me from taking apart a copyrighted book, scanning it page by page, and reprinting it or transmitting it electronically, except my ethics and respect for law.
DVD should expect nothing more, nor less, than the same.
The problem with GM crops is the possibility of cross-contamination of similar, but non-GM crops. If this should occur, then two outcomes are likely:
1) The GM crop becomes dominant, and supplants the natural variant. Given its enhanced resistance to pests, blight and other "natural predators," the crop grows like a weed, and it becomes a problem to kill off the crop where it is unwanted.
2) A GM crop which has been modified to produce no fertile seeds causes the natural variant to become sterile as well. The crop dies out, apart from GM seeds created in the laboratory, and with patent protection ensuring that no one can create even a modified crop with the defect removed in order to restore fertility, the corp. effectively owns that entire crop.
I have no problem with the science of GM crops, and I think that outcome #1, while perhaps having unfortunate short-term effects, is nevertheless subject to the forces of natural evolution. Outcome #2 is far more concerning, and ought to be considered more carefully. In particular, we need to seriously reconsider patents in general, and on such things as genes in particular. Since genes are not an "invention" but a natural discovery, they should not be the subject of patent whatsoever.
When I was small I believed in Santa Claus Though I knew it was my dad And I would hang up my stocking at Christmas Open my presents and I'd be glad
But the last time I played Father Christmas I stood outside a department store A gang of kids came over and mugged me And knocked my reindeer to the floor
They said: Father Christmas, give us some money Don't mess around with those silly toys. We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over We want your bread so don't make us annoyed Give all the toys to the little rich boys ...
Stock price is an arbitrary measure of value. The market capitalization of a corporation is the price per share MULTIPLIED by the number of shares. Thus, VA LiNUX Systems, with a stock price of $199 has a market capitalization of $7.9 billion, wheras Compaq Computer, with a stock price of just $28 11/16, has a market capitalization of $48.57 billion.
The confusion comes from conflation of the Latin and Greek numerals.
In Latin, the numbers from 1 to 10 are: unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem.
In Greek, they are (approximately): heis, dyo, treis, tettares, pente, hex, hepta, okto, ennea, deka
Since Pentium derives from the Greek pente, the following generation should have been called the Hexium, and the next after that the Heptium.
Had the 5th gen (586) processor been called Quintium, from the Latin, your point would be correct. (Except that 686 should then be Sexium, not Sextium.)
Not to start a GNOME/KDE flamewar, but KDE is quite reasonable for most things without using a mouse. Alt-F2 can execute an arbitrary command, such as bring up an xterm (or kterminal) and Alt-Tab semantics work similarly to M$ Windows. You may have a little trouble negotiating with Netscape, however. Unfortunately, I think that no window manager can make all applications mouse-independent.
Kinesis Ergonomic Keyboards
on
Interface Zen
·
· Score: 1
Two points which are not taken into consideration by most people who favor Internet voting and other methods of expanding franchise and its convenience:
1. Many people who vote have no idea who or what they are voting for. One name sounds more familiar to them, or, knowing nothing about either candidate, they decide purely based on the party affiliation. Some could argue the validity of party line voting, but can anyone defend a vote of ignorance? At least by requiring *some* effort, there is a self-selection of voters which tends to exclude those who know or care less about the issues.
2. Many people who do not vote actively choose not to do so as a protest against what they feel is a fundamentally flawed system which effectively excludes real alternatives. What percentage of eligible citizens are registered to vote, and what percentage of registered voters turn out to do so. Perhaps low (and declining) numbers for these indicate an actual preference for "none of the above" and do not merely reflect an increase of apathy. Voting behavior closely conforms to public approval of the state itself, as opposed to individual candidates for office.
Slashdot Mirror
youvegot.mil
Now let's get to work making copyright irrelevant.
Is it just me, or does life increasingly seem to imitate a Philip K. Dick story?
For anyone who is not familiar with the reference, the subject refers to a short story which later evolved into a novel, "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch." In these hypothetical futures, people lived vicariously through simulations, often to the neglect of their actual lives. There's a lot more to it, but if you want to know the whole story, you should read it. Anyhow, once again, Dick's predictions bear a disturbing similarity to reality.
The article states: "South Africa has done nothing to treat AIDS. The biggest obstacle is President Thabo Mbeki, in other ways a sane and responsible leader, who has inexplicably decided that he is not convinced H.I.V. causes AIDS. Absurdly, it has become politically incorrect to talk about treating AIDS in South Africa - because it would acknowledge that H.I.V. is the cause."
What the article does not say is that thousands of people including Nobel Prizewinners and hundreds of Ph.D.'s and/or M.D.'s have called for a scientific reappraisal of the causes of AIDS. What President Mbeke dared to do was call for new studies to be done to confirm or deny the HIV hypothesis, and the effectiveness of "anti-AIDS" drugs like AZT (which, according to its manufacturers, creates side-effects largely indistinguishable from the symptoms of AIDS itself).
Contrary to the article's claim, that it has become politically incorrect to talk about treating AIDS in South Africa, President Mbeki has been one of the few leaders in the world advocating a full dialogue on the subject. Here in America, for instance, scientists aren't supposed to talk about this, or they lose their funding if they do.
One thing I never see discussed in regards to SETI is that searching for aliens by scanning for RADIO WAVES is kind of like the indigenous people of North America searching for aliens across the Atlantic Ocean by looking for SMOKE SIGNALS.
I mean, consider the practicality of using LIGHT SPEED TRANSMISSION to communicate at interstellar distances. Round-trip-times to our NEAREST star are over EIGHT YEARS and that's an awfully long time to wait for a ping.
But we're scanning star systems much further away than that, hundreds and thousands of times further, in hopes of finding some sign of life.
Pretty absurd if you ask me. Assuming we actually got a signal, and tried to send a reply, we would then have to wait longer than the time it's been since radio communication was invented!
Doesn't it seem self-evident that any spacefaring civilization (assuming their existence) would need a better means of communication than this? Granted, we don't have the technology to do this now, but it is entirely reasonable to imagine that quantum non-locality may be exploited for informational purposes.
Restrictions on copying, distribution and performance, if fully enforced, would effectively prevent all but the "Top 40" music, and blockbuster movies from being exposed to most people. Since it is these which generate the majority of profits for the recording and production companies anyhow, there should be a much more liberal policy regarding other works.
Consider, I have a few friends over, and I play an album from a little known artist, which they really enjoy. Then they go out and buy CDs, or attend concerts, etc., because they've been exposed to it. But this was an unauthorized performance. Had I not done so, they'd have never heard it at all, and would likely never have supported the artist at all.
More out on the edge, services like Napster, which undoubtedly contribute to copyright infringement on a large scale, help artists with smaller audiences gain greater exposure. Somebody might have heard good things about Beth Orton, but never actually heard any music by her -- downloading an MP3, one could actually listen to it and decide to go out and buy her album.
Indeed, Napster is a perfect example of what the industry should be SUPPORTING. With or without advertising revenue, this is a model which on the whole adds to their bottom line. And indie labels should be in the forefront of this.
> Next, it only takes an infinite amount of time
> for a particle to cross the event horizon from
> the outside perspective of an observer who is
> not falling into the hole. To the particle or an
> astronaut falling into the horizon, the trip is
> quite short. Therefore, to say that black holes
> only exist asymptotically is incorrect.
Two frames of reference:
From the perspective of the outside observer, what occurs is as described, the infalling object (albeit ripped apart tidally) slows and asymptotically approaches the event horizon, which over a very long but finite time shrinks until it vanishes.
From the perspective of the infalling observer, (which has been torn into subatomic particles and radiation by the tidal forces), it seems to cross the event horizon without delay -- except that there is no event horizon any more. During the short trip, the black hole has evaporated, and all the particles which had at one time or another been gravitationally captured outside the event horizon will be now "emitted" where the hole has just ceased to exist (but billions of years later from the perspective of outside observers).
It will be interesting to see whether they can actually create an "optical black hole", or just asymptotically approach one. Assuming that Hawking is correct, and that black holes emit a quantum radiation which reduces their mass as one-half of a particle/antiparticle pair escape, evaporating in a finite time, and considering the time dilation which requires an infinite time for a particle to actually cross the event horizon, then black holes only exist asymptotically. That is, trapped particles move inward as the event horizon shrinks, and cross it only as it evaporates.
Clueless legislators should not be making laws about subjects they do not understand. Of course, that has never stopped them before, but....
A signature is supposedly unique to the individual, therefore unambiguously identifying the signer as the person who has agreed to a contract. We know that signatures can be forged, but it is difficult to do well, and to be sure, one could also use a fingerprint as a seal.
But a "digital signature" is different -- it is not unique to the individual, but something more akin to a "corporate seal." That is, the signature is an external thing, a key stored on some medium, which is theoretically protected against unauthorized use by the party to whom it belongs.
It is worse than this, a corporate seal is registered with the state, there is no ambiguity as to who is authorized to use it. But is a digital signature similarly registered? Would you WANT your signature to be registered by the state?
But in the absence of this, anyone can create a signature purporting to belong to anyone else. I can create a key pair claiming to be owned by William Gates III, and you cannot know it is fake unless you confirm with him directly that the public key belongs to him (verifying the fingerprint, as well).
Now, you may already know all of this, and hopefully you do if you use public key authentication. But does Congress understand this? I doubt it sincerely -- and by making digital signature binding without requiring a non-digital confirmation of the signature, they open a real can of worms.
I didn't see these one mentioned yet, but I consider them essential SF/F reading (and very appropriate for 13-year olds):
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
Flatland, by Edwin Abbott
Also very good, but perhaps a little challenging for a young reader, is the Riverboat series by Philip Jose Farmer.
As for movies, it is harder, because many of the best ones (Bladerunner, Total Recall) have very adult situations that may not be appropriate for a young viewer (use your discretion).
For more on this subject, see:
http://geolib.pair.com/welcome.html
Without endorsing your comments, it is clear that you mean to refer sometimes to Corel, other times Caldera. It is Corel that based their distribution on Debian, not Caldera. It is Corel that created the Netwinder (now spun-off to Rebel.com), not Caldera. It is Caldera that sued Microsoft over DR-DOS, not Corel.
And yes, Caldera has a product, which is closer to RedHat than Debian (at least, it uses RPM). They've been around a long time, and they are very well respected by many people. So, if you're going to be critical, you'd better get a clue what you're talking about first.
Sorry about the incorrect subject.
Why doesn't Linus just disallow LinuxOne from using his mark?
This must be evident to anyone who considers it, for only production gives rise to an absolute and perpetual claim of ownership. Could one man claim absolute dominion of the whole soil, all others would be his slave, for none could exist without his consent. Ideas, too, cannot be held out of general use indefinitely, or we might remain in caves while the descendents of the first discoverers of fire and the wheel would be the only ones permitted to use it.
Yet, there is an interest secured by intellectual property, limited in scope and duration. For it is an incentive, not to invention itself, but to disclosure. In the absence of IP, every idea would have to be independently discovered by each person who would employ it, for those desiring a competitive advantage would be strongly inclined to keep their ideas as secret as possible.
Okay, it has been shown that CSS does nothing to protect copying, per se, of DVD content. However, it does prevent format conversion, and arguably this is what the DVD CCA is most worried about.
If a DVD can be decoded with DeCSS and converted into mjpeg2 with mp3 audio, the result could possibly be stored on a single CD-R. This would make content copying considerably more convenient and less expensive than having to use DVD-R.
By no means does this justify any injunction against DeCSS, but it does prove RMS' maxim, "information wants to be free". Ultimately, it will be.
Copyright cannot be enforced by technical means, it has always relied upon good faith, combined with legal remedies against those who are caught in violation. Nothing prevents me from taking apart a copyrighted book, scanning it page by page, and reprinting it or transmitting it electronically, except my ethics and respect for law.
DVD should expect nothing more, nor less, than the same.
1) The GM crop becomes dominant, and supplants the natural variant. Given its enhanced resistance to pests, blight and other "natural predators," the crop grows like a weed, and it becomes a problem to kill off the crop where it is unwanted.
2) A GM crop which has been modified to produce no fertile seeds causes the natural variant to become sterile as well. The crop dies out, apart from GM seeds created in the laboratory, and with patent protection ensuring that no one can create even a modified crop with the defect removed in order to restore fertility, the corp. effectively owns that entire crop.
I have no problem with the science of GM crops, and I think that outcome #1, while perhaps having unfortunate short-term effects, is nevertheless subject to the forces of natural evolution. Outcome #2 is far more concerning, and ought to be considered more carefully. In particular, we need to seriously reconsider patents in general, and on such things as genes in particular. Since genes are not an "invention" but a natural discovery, they should not be the subject of patent whatsoever.
When I was small I believed in Santa Claus
...
Though I knew it was my dad
And I would hang up my stocking at Christmas
Open my presents and I'd be glad
But the last time I played Father Christmas
I stood outside a department store
A gang of kids came over and mugged me
And knocked my reindeer to the floor
They said:
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don't mess around with those silly toys.
We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over
We want your bread so don't make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys
Stock price is an arbitrary measure of value. The market capitalization of a corporation is the price per share MULTIPLIED by the number of shares. Thus, VA LiNUX Systems, with a stock price of $199 has a market capitalization of $7.9 billion, wheras Compaq Computer, with a stock price of just $28 11/16, has a market capitalization of $48.57 billion.
Couldn't Linus Torvalds deny LinuxOne the right to use the name Linux in their corporate name?
Technically, this is not correct...
The confusion comes from conflation of the Latin and Greek numerals.
In Latin, the numbers from 1 to 10 are: unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem.
In Greek, they are (approximately): heis, dyo, treis, tettares, pente, hex, hepta, okto, ennea, deka
Since Pentium derives from the Greek pente, the following generation should have been called the Hexium, and the next after that the Heptium.
Had the 5th gen (586) processor been called Quintium, from the Latin, your point would be correct. (Except that 686 should then be Sexium, not Sextium.)
Not to start a GNOME/KDE flamewar, but KDE is quite reasonable for most things without using a mouse. Alt-F2 can execute an arbitrary command, such as bring up an xterm (or kterminal) and Alt-Tab semantics work similarly to M$ Windows. You may have a little trouble negotiating with Netscape, however. Unfortunately, I think that no window manager can make all applications mouse-independent.
Some very interesting keyboard designs here: http://www.dmb-ergonomics.com/
I am patenting the technique of licensing obvious or prior art, utilizing the mechanism of an attorney and a clueless patent examiner....
Two points which are not taken into consideration by most people who favor Internet voting and other methods of expanding franchise and its convenience:
1. Many people who vote have no idea who or what they are voting for. One name sounds more familiar to them, or, knowing nothing about either candidate, they decide purely based on the party affiliation. Some could argue the validity of party line voting, but can anyone defend a vote of ignorance? At least by requiring *some* effort, there is a self-selection of voters which tends to exclude those who know or care less about the issues.
2. Many people who do not vote actively choose not to do so as a protest against what they feel is a fundamentally flawed system which effectively excludes real alternatives. What percentage of eligible citizens are registered to vote, and what percentage of registered voters turn out to do so. Perhaps low (and declining) numbers for these indicate an actual preference for "none of the above" and do not merely reflect an increase of apathy. Voting behavior closely conforms to public approval of the state itself, as opposed to individual candidates for office.