I'm fully convinced that few people here know what "evil" even is...
Hitler was evil. Killing, that's pretty much on the evil side of things. But advertising? Avoding paying some taxes through a completely legal, often used scheme? This is your new definition of evil? Get back to me when they start exploiting third-world countries or natural resources to the point of destruction. Or when they start sending their competitors to bankruptcy through lawsuits and lock-in. Nothing they have done has been close enough to evil to require such an outcry.
I'm on my high school's FIRST Robotics team. Then again, in a school of 3000 people it's easy enough to surround myself with fellow geeks and ignore the fact that the rest of the world exists.
Is Apple going to sue slashdot now for telling us what the lawsuits were about?
No, they're not suing the websites. They're suing the person who leaked the information, they're just trying to force the sites to tell them who that person is. Yes, they're validating the rumor, but they're probably more concerned with making sure that this person does not have the chance to leak more information at a later date.
The first thing you need to do is focus your target audience a bit more.
Want the real hardcore, shy away from the sun geeks? Go for the programming contest, and they will come. The audience is going to be fairly small however.
Want a bit larger geek crowd?
Go with robotics, there are more science and tech topics involved so you will get a bigger crowd. If you feel like giving up several months of your life, mentor a local FIRST team. The kids will appreciate it. You can even get a taste for it first by helping out at a local competition.
Want to do something that will interest every teenager with a passing knowledge of computers?
Do something with HTML and some basic web design. Emphasize ways to pretty up their Xangas and LiveJournals.
Looking for more science than tech?
Sponsor a science fair. Offer prizes, maybe pose a problem and have the entries focus on a solution.
I have to disagree with you in regard to the robotics competition. At my high school, we have a very active FIRST team and the other students seem impressed by the robot, though half of them want us to mount weapons of some sort on it. I think it would be a lot harder to hook someone with programming than it would be with robots. Sure, they're impressed by what YOU can do, but that doesn't mean they necessarily want to spend their time learning C.
Robotics, on the other hand, is multifaceted. They can program if they want to, but maybe they would prefer to do the wiring or just put the chassis together. Hell, they can even put stickers on it if they want. You're much more likely to keep a bunch of hormone-filled ADD-afflicted teenagers interested if they're doing something more than stare at a screen.
Really, should they even be worrying about seed licenses at all? That seems like it should be amazingly low on the list of things to do in a country that desperately needs improvements in electricity, health care, and general safety for the population. The finer points of agricultural IP law should wait until the Iraqis don't have to worry about being blown up when they walk outside.
According to this article, there was more to it than just the fact that he installed software on his boss's computer. It says the free version of the software was not approved to be installed on the department's computers. They're blaming a department firewall crash on the software as well. I don't know if any of this is true or just bullshit spin, but it does add another side to the story.
The architect is Frank Gehry. He's probably best known for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. You can see some of his other work at www.frank-gehry.com
It hurts Apple because iTunes isn't meant to make money by itself, it is meant to sell iPods. The music bought off iTunes can only be played by the iPod, so if you want to put it on an MP3 player, you have to get an iPod. By stripping the DRM, the audio can be played on anything that uses AAC, or converted to a different format.
I think they would prefer crappy visuals to no game whatsoever or a game that so bogs down their system its unplayable. If they care so much about the pretty pictures they can upgrade their computers, otherwise they'll still get most of the same gameplay without the need to be constantly shelling out money for the latest upgrades.
I'm really not surprised. I mean, Apple has no stake in the videogame market, so why not help out someone (even Microsoft) and get a little bit of extra money? Microsoft would find a way to do it eventually, so its not like if Apple didn't help it would be any sort of blow against MS.
The problem is that in modern times we have a global economy. You're not going to find many "modern conveniences" that are made in Kenya, and by modern conveniences I mean things like water pumps and filters. Since they have to interface with the outside world to get things like that, one dollar still goes practically nowhere.
The IP system was originally designed as a way to promote innovation (and I quote the Constitution of the United States "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") but has been outrageously abused. I think that we should still have an intellectual property system, it should just be cut down considerably.
In this world, there are people who give to give, and there are people who give to receive. The OSS community is a perfect example of people who give to give, doing something just because they enjoy it. However, for every person who gives to give, there are at least 5 (probably more like 10...or 50) who give to receive. These people are important to society as well, but they require a reason to work. By allowing limited IP rights, they are given a motive to develop and innovate.
My suggestion is to shorten patent rights from their current ungodly limit to something more manageable, maybe 5 years. This way, people who make new products are given a period of time to create a strong, viable business entity and, most importantly, are given a long enough period of time to develop new technologies off the profits of previous inventions. However, the 5 year period ensures the technology is still a viable base for innovation after entering the public domain. (Ok, so a lot of stuff goes from cutting-edge to WalMart bargain bin in 5 years, but patents are worthless if they only last 6 months.) Patents should be limited to truly useful ideas, not total crap like "how to make red colored water without food coloring". Credit is given where credit is due, and instead of allowing corporations to stifle world changing ideas, they are forced to do something with them.
Here in Jersey, we use RateMyTeachers.com . Halfway through the last semester, a teacher of mine actually told us to rate him on there. Its anonymous, so he could find out what people really thought about him and adjust accordingly.
Nobody did it. I think that says something about how much people respect him.
NPD uses two tools to monitor peer-to-peer activity. MusicWatch Digital is a tool that continuously examines PCs of roughly 40,000 participating individuals, recording which sites they have gone to and what they have downloaded on their hard drives.
The second tool, called MusicLab, is a traditional paper survey mailed to 5,000 individuals asking them to report their usage and Web surfing. The results represent the U.S. population."
Neither of those would be changed by PeerGuardian or anything else that would block IP's.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm fully convinced that few people here know what "evil" even is...
Hitler was evil. Killing, that's pretty much on the evil side of things. But advertising? Avoding paying some taxes through a completely legal, often used scheme? This is your new definition of evil? Get back to me when they start exploiting third-world countries or natural resources to the point of destruction. Or when they start sending their competitors to bankruptcy through lawsuits and lock-in. Nothing they have done has been close enough to evil to require such an outcry.
Yes I can.
I'm on my high school's FIRST Robotics team. Then again, in a school of 3000 people it's easy enough to surround myself with fellow geeks and ignore the fact that the rest of the world exists.
That's what they really want to give us. .no copying, .no sharing, .no moving, .no ripping, .no burning...
Is Apple going to sue slashdot now for telling us what the lawsuits were about?
No, they're not suing the websites. They're suing the person who leaked the information, they're just trying to force the sites to tell them who that person is. Yes, they're validating the rumor, but they're probably more concerned with making sure that this person does not have the chance to leak more information at a later date.
The first thing you need to do is focus your target audience a bit more.
Want the real hardcore, shy away from the sun geeks?
Go for the programming contest, and they will come. The audience is going to be fairly small however.
Want a bit larger geek crowd?
Go with robotics, there are more science and tech topics involved so you will get a bigger crowd. If you feel like giving up several months of your life, mentor a local FIRST team. The kids will appreciate it. You can even get a taste for it first by helping out at a local competition.
Want to do something that will interest every teenager with a passing knowledge of computers?
Do something with HTML and some basic web design. Emphasize ways to pretty up their Xangas and LiveJournals.
Looking for more science than tech?
Sponsor a science fair. Offer prizes, maybe pose a problem and have the entries focus on a solution.
I have to disagree with you in regard to the robotics competition. At my high school, we have a very active FIRST team and the other students seem impressed by the robot, though half of them want us to mount weapons of some sort on it. I think it would be a lot harder to hook someone with programming than it would be with robots. Sure, they're impressed by what YOU can do, but that doesn't mean they necessarily want to spend their time learning C.
Robotics, on the other hand, is multifaceted. They can program if they want to, but maybe they would prefer to do the wiring or just put the chassis together. Hell, they can even put stickers on it if they want. You're much more likely to keep a bunch of hormone-filled ADD-afflicted teenagers interested if they're doing something more than stare at a screen.
5,000,000,000 per average human head.
Really, should they even be worrying about seed licenses at all? That seems like it should be amazingly low on the list of things to do in a country that desperately needs improvements in electricity, health care, and general safety for the population. The finer points of agricultural IP law should wait until the Iraqis don't have to worry about being blown up when they walk outside.
According to this article, there was more to it than just the fact that he installed software on his boss's computer. It says the free version of the software was not approved to be installed on the department's computers. They're blaming a department firewall crash on the software as well. I don't know if any of this is true or just bullshit spin, but it does add another side to the story.
The architect is Frank Gehry. He's probably best known for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. You can see some of his other work at www.frank-gehry.com
It hurts Apple because iTunes isn't meant to make money by itself, it is meant to sell iPods. The music bought off iTunes can only be played by the iPod, so if you want to put it on an MP3 player, you have to get an iPod. By stripping the DRM, the audio can be played on anything that uses AAC, or converted to a different format.
I think they would prefer crappy visuals to no game whatsoever or a game that so bogs down their system its unplayable. If they care so much about the pretty pictures they can upgrade their computers, otherwise they'll still get most of the same gameplay without the need to be constantly shelling out money for the latest upgrades.
I'm really not surprised. I mean, Apple has no stake in the videogame market, so why not help out someone (even Microsoft) and get a little bit of extra money? Microsoft would find a way to do it eventually, so its not like if Apple didn't help it would be any sort of blow against MS.
The problem is that in modern times we have a global economy. You're not going to find many "modern conveniences" that are made in Kenya, and by modern conveniences I mean things like water pumps and filters. Since they have to interface with the outside world to get things like that, one dollar still goes practically nowhere.
The IP system was originally designed as a way to promote innovation (and I quote the Constitution of the United States "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") but has been outrageously abused. I think that we should still have an intellectual property system, it should just be cut down considerably.
In this world, there are people who give to give, and there are people who give to receive. The OSS community is a perfect example of people who give to give, doing something just because they enjoy it. However, for every person who gives to give, there are at least 5 (probably more like 10...or 50) who give to receive. These people are important to society as well, but they require a reason to work. By allowing limited IP rights, they are given a motive to develop and innovate.
My suggestion is to shorten patent rights from their current ungodly limit to something more manageable, maybe 5 years. This way, people who make new products are given a period of time to create a strong, viable business entity and, most importantly, are given a long enough period of time to develop new technologies off the profits of previous inventions. However, the 5 year period ensures the technology is still a viable base for innovation after entering the public domain. (Ok, so a lot of stuff goes from cutting-edge to WalMart bargain bin in 5 years, but patents are worthless if they only last 6 months.) Patents should be limited to truly useful ideas, not total crap like "how to make red colored water without food coloring". Credit is given where credit is due, and instead of allowing corporations to stifle world changing ideas, they are forced to do something with them.
Here in Jersey, we use RateMyTeachers.com . Halfway through the last semester, a teacher of mine actually told us to rate him on there. Its anonymous, so he could find out what people really thought about him and adjust accordingly.
Nobody did it. I think that says something about how much people respect him.
NPD uses two tools to monitor peer-to-peer activity. MusicWatch Digital is a tool that continuously examines PCs of roughly 40,000 participating individuals, recording which sites they have gone to and what they have downloaded on their hard drives. The second tool, called MusicLab, is a traditional paper survey mailed to 5,000 individuals asking them to report their usage and Web surfing. The results represent the U.S. population."
Neither of those would be changed by PeerGuardian or anything else that would block IP's.
Except the RIAA isn't the one looking for traffic, its being done by an independant research group using a combination of software and random surveys.