People see a distinction between having cameras in a public and private place?
Shoot me, I don't mind CCTV. In fact I frequently welcome it since it makes places considerably safer. I really don't see the problem with CCTV as it's currently implemented in the UK - it's used in public places and you can see the cameras; 1984 comparisons simply don't work.
Whatever slashdot thinks, CCTV is generally put up due to public pressure for it, not by some shadowy government group executing a long range plan to overthrow democracy.
While Google certainly has the right to control their own results, they have a moral obligation not to abuse this power.
While I kind of agree with you about a moral obligation, I think it is important that this is not misconstrued to be any sort of legal obligation.
I depend on organic google traffic for a sizable proportion of my income, but I can't see how opening the door to making the search engine responsible for the business model of websites can be a good thing. If it's opened even a crack there will be a thousand law suits at every algo change; it needs to be clear and definite in law that search engines' right to list, delist and rank as they see fit is absolute, since this is the only stable foundation on which a search engine can exist. Changing this would in effect create a massive barrier to entry for competing search engines, since they would have to take into account the potential for massive legal costs.
Dominant search engines have attempted to push their power to far before, and have been destroyed by market forces (anyone remember Pay For Inclusion). For all Google's market share, the same thing would happen to them if they started to deliver a noticeably inferior product to their searchers. As long as this situation remains the same, there is no need for this sort of regulation of search engines IMO.
At the end of the day it's about file formats. People need to be able to read MS Word and Excel documents accurately; you argue against it as much as you like, but this is the requirement.
Yes Word and Excel can be used to create some abominations (happily I have no experience of powerpoint), but if you're a small company you need to be compatible, it's as simple as that.
I actually followed your link and skimmed through the begining. Gave up when I saw the graph on page 4.
If the author really believes global warming is just part of a natural cycle, WHY DOES HE CUT THE TEMPERATURE GRAPH OFF AT 1900?
The only reason I can think of is that he's trying to fool the ignorant about the significance of the temperature variation over the last 1000 years, and he knows damn well that even they won't fall for it if he shows them the last 100 years.
Just another dishonest crackpot, possibly with his own agenda. There are plenty to go around on both sides of this issue.
A thing I like about the written arguments is that you get a real idea of IBM's lawyers style. I really get the nazgul reference after reading IBM's latest reply on the summary judgement motion on it's Linux activites; IBM truly can blacken the sky with it's legal arguments.
"Don't sue IBM" probably ranks somewhere close to "don't start a land war in Asia," as advice for a happy and successful life.
Er right.. the second (and apparently illegal) take down notice, which is what this story is about. From the summary:
But Ms. Seltzer knows her rights, so she filed a DMCA Counter Notice. This is when the NFL violated the DMCA, by filing another Take Down notice instead of taking the issue to court -- their only legitimate option, according to the DMCA.
No, you're taking a dictionary definition of the word irony that involves the word "incongruity," and assuming incongruity in this context simply means disparity. This usage note may help you understand, and may prevent you from insulting people who actually do understand the concept of irony:
Usage Note: The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply "coincidental" or "improbable," in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence In 1969 Susie moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York. Some Panelists noted that this particular usage might be acceptable if Susie had in fact moved to California in order to find a husband, in which case the story could be taken as exemplifying the folly of supposing that we can know what fate has in store for us. By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.
I have always been amazed that swearing, nudity and sex is heavily regulated on TV and violence is not. Surely showing someone killing or whatever is much worse than a bit a boob being shown.
We all know the reason why this is so. The Christian religion has serious issues with sex: that's pretty much the long and the short of it.
The association of sex with sin is embedded much deeper, and has far fewer accepted exceptions, than the prohibition against violence.
But this viacom thing is the same thing all over again except this time it's intellectual rather than physical property.
The difference is that the DMCA makes it crystal clear that YouTube is meeting it's obligations as long as it takes down infringing content when the copyright owner points it out.
This was a deliberate decision made by congress, aimed at allowing businesses like YouTube to have a sane set of rules to follow. If Viacom don't like it they should convince congress to change it's mind. They don't think they can so they're asking the courts to "interprate" the law until it says what they want.
Your reasoning is perfectly valid, but it isn't for the courts to decide since the legislature have passed a law on exactly this issue.
Fair comment, although IMO it is valid to criticise socialism specifically since it was once, and is still really, an actual political force (which lets face it Libertarianism isn't).
If they want to play in the big time and wield real power - as socialist parties have done in (western as well as eastern) Europe for most of the previous century - they have to accept the criticism that comes with political power. Saying "we're no worse than these guys" is not really a respectable argument for parties that actually expect to win enough votes to form a government.
Politicians looking for power, actors trying to look "caring", socialists making another attempt to weaken the United States.
While I agree with reasons 1 and 2, socialists making another attempt to weaken the United States is a myth.
You can accuse socialists of many things: naivety, idiocy, overweening bureaucracy, completely failing to understand how the world works, and being too incompetent to even be allowed to organise domestic rubbish collection. All of these are valid arguments to use against socialism and socialists.
That there is any sort of significant number of socialists (or any other group) out there who champion global warming out of a cynical desire to hurt the United States is simply incorrect. It's a myth that has been spread by the shills on the other side, it sounds convincing, apparently, to a lot of Americans, but it is simply not the case.
I'm not saying that all advocates of the global warming hypothesis are worth listening too. Far from it, many are crackpots who hurt their own side simply by their support (as TFA seems to be saying). And yes the current position of the US on this issue gives many of these people a happy overlap with their anti-Americanism. Maybe there are some who intellectually dishonest enough to allow their dislike of the US to persuade them on this issue, but there is no conspiracy. It's a meme that has been spread by those with a vested interest in global warming not being acted upon.
Sure you can. Cheap to register one domain, progressively more expensive to register additional ones.
But you have to make a definition of an entity in order to assess that, and lets face it, there are plenty of ways around that. Any solution to that is going to be such a hassle to implement I doubt it's worth doing.
Better IMO to have a reasonably large fee to register a decent tld (eg.com) - enough to discourage squatters but no more, and have cheap tlds that people can use for other purposes.
sheesh, next your going to say that there should be some point in the different tlds, with.com used by commercial entities etc. Maybe you'd actually like these rules to be enforced!
Where would the internet be today if we allowed it to be based on sensible, commonly agreed, standards?
No-one is going to invade the US. As you say, nukes would rule that out, even if nothing else did.
But the US has interests beyond its own borders. Europe for example. Imagine a fascist Russia thirty years from now migrating its borders westwards. Maybe the American people wouldn't care, or at least not care enough to want to intervene. But ruling out (or at least deprioritising) their ability to do so will leave the next generation of Americans unable to make that choice at the time.
Nuclear weapons do not give a nation the ability to dictate outside clearly defined limits. Those limits are what that nation is willing to endure without precipitating a holocaust (as perceived by others). Conventional military superiority is far more versatile. IMO the US, as current global superpower, would be well advised to keep up its capability in this area. Just as a precaution.
Modern war isnt about tanks and pitch battles between rival fleets of helicopter gunships. Modern warfare is fought in a city, in amongst a civilian population, who may or may not be hostile to US troops.
Maybe not, but these are long-range plans. Are you really certain that the next few decades won't see the US needing to fight a high-intensity war?
The US military does seem to be paying the price in Iraq for focusing almost exclusively on fighting large-scale battles for the last fifty years (non-US and non-military opinion, that's just how it seems to me). I don't think making the opposite mistake is a good idea. Worse if anything - we haven't suddenly become a species that disdains to kill each other in large quantities on the battlefield, it's just that the current political and military reality makes challenging the US in that way a bad idea. Peace is most likely to be preserved by keeping it that way.
You remember it better than I do anyway.. I shall enjoy checking the accuracy when my amazon order arrives (I did go and place the order as soon as finished my reply), although I think I'll have to reread Shogun first - that one is a truly riveting book.
Possibly you mean "Tai Pan", since "The Noble House" is set in the 1960s IIRC.
Both are great books - in fact you've just made Amazon about £20 since I'm going to get those two and "Shogun" now that I remember them.
Anyway, I'm just curious where the relation to HSBC (or any banking) comes in. It's been years since I read James Clavell, but as I remember it Strauns (The Noble House) is a trading concern. The only banking element from the plot that I remember is an English bank collapsing and leaving one of the protagonists in a desperate situation.
Here we have living proof that "you can fool some of the people all of the time."
Come on, it's lock in, lock in, lock in. It may conveniently tie in with some of the labels own ends, but this is all about making sure that iPod owners stay iPod owners.
I don't disagree with much of your reasoning, just the conclusions that you draw from it.
To be clear I'm not advocating crippling the economies of the developed and developing world - I agree there is a level of economic damage that it is simply not worth taking, especially given that (if you accept the global warming hypothesis), we are already at the point where we will have significent changes to overcome.
I do think that there are measures that can be taken now that will have a significant impact on human CO2 production over the next few decades, primarily carbon trading couple with increasing carbon efficiency and carbon sequestration - I'd point you at the Stern review for more details (obviously this takes anthropomorphic global warming as a starting assumption).
The problem that carbon trading fixes in my understanding is the "market failure" [Stern review] inherent in the current system. It creates a market for technologies, business practices and lifestyle changes which reduce human carbon emissions. Without such a system there is unlikely to be a reason for these to be adopted, even if they are possible - market forces reward carbon emmiters in other words, and this does need to be counterbalanced.
I concede that this system will increase costs, and therefore hurt the economy. But properly implemented such damage can be absorbed. Maybe it's unnecessary. Maybe it's too little too late. But there is enough hope IMO for it to be worthwhile.
I simply can't accept the "wait for more evidence" argument. We are not likely to have a major breakthrough in our understanding any time soon, and if the problem is real we need to act asap.
There is no requirement that you have an opinion on things you do not understand. There is no shame in not understanding it without further research.
From a scientific point of view I'd agree entirely, but global warming is not merely an academic question.
This viewpoint makes disbelief of global warming the default choice. From a purely intellectual standpoint fine. But we live in the real world, and we have to make choices based on what we know, can deduce, and can guess now. Waiting for proof simply means missing the point where a meaningful decision can actually be made.
This is one of those decisions where a failure to make a choice really is a choice. And it is a choice that is supported by much less scientific evidence than the alternative. When you couple this with the relative downsides of over reaction and under reaction, I believe the only sensible cause is to act on the assumption that anthropomorphic global warming is a real issue, and to act decisively.
If ten years down the line it turns out to be alarmism, we can tear up our carbon trading schemes and carry on with little damage. I like this as a worst case scenario.
I don't know about you, but I'm not a climatologist. Therefore I have to form my opinions on global warming based on my assessment of the supporters of each argument, rather than the arguments themselves.
As I see it you have the large majority of climatologists on one side, and a small minority on the other. On both sides you have non-expert opinions, paid shills and the clinically insane as you'd expect.
Of course scientists are often wrong, but the level of certainty that has been around for decades in that field deserves respect, and at the end of the day the consequences of over reaction are much less than those of under reaction.
While it is obviously sensible to fund research from both sides of the question, I am glad that the political decision has been made (in Europe if not the US) to act upon the current information. This isn't a scientific judgment, it's a practical one. It may turn out to be wrong, but that isn't an excuse for not implementing it.
A customer goes to Dell and looks over the selection. No Linux desktops are available. The customer asks if Linux desktops are available and is told, "No", along with complicated excuses as to why not. The customer goes elsewhere.
And Dell avoids making a sale that it believes it will make a loss on.
Except that if I obtained someone's key by whatever means, I could easily deprive a legitimate purchaser of the ability to use the product.
That would be more an effect of overzealous Microsoft protection mechanisms IMO, and I seriously doubt Microsoft would allow a situation like that to occur.
I'm not attacking Microsoft's right to charge for their software, but I've been forced to listen to "Copying is Theft!" too many times to believe the fact that it isn't is irrelevant. "Copying is sometimes morally equivalent to theft, but not always!" would be more reasonable I think.
I agree it is no justification for piracy, but I also believe the distinction is important: copyright is civil law designed to achieve certain beneficial ends - ie incentivising creators. Theft is a criminal offense because it is considered always harmful and morally wrong. Copyright infringement is sometimes morally equivalent to theft, but by no means always. By accepting the meme that copying is theft, we forget that the purpose of copyright law is to strike a balance, rather than eliminate copying.
Using this distinction to justify pirating Vista doesn't work, but it doesn't mean the distinction isn't important.
Slashdot Mirror
People see a distinction between having cameras in a public and private place?
Shoot me, I don't mind CCTV. In fact I frequently welcome it since it makes places considerably safer. I really don't see the problem with CCTV as it's currently implemented in the UK - it's used in public places and you can see the cameras; 1984 comparisons simply don't work.
Whatever slashdot thinks, CCTV is generally put up due to public pressure for it, not by some shadowy government group executing a long range plan to overthrow democracy.
While I kind of agree with you about a moral obligation, I think it is important that this is not misconstrued to be any sort of legal obligation.
I depend on organic google traffic for a sizable proportion of my income, but I can't see how opening the door to making the search engine responsible for the business model of websites can be a good thing. If it's opened even a crack there will be a thousand law suits at every algo change; it needs to be clear and definite in law that search engines' right to list, delist and rank as they see fit is absolute, since this is the only stable foundation on which a search engine can exist. Changing this would in effect create a massive barrier to entry for competing search engines, since they would have to take into account the potential for massive legal costs.
Dominant search engines have attempted to push their power to far before, and have been destroyed by market forces (anyone remember Pay For Inclusion). For all Google's market share, the same thing would happen to them if they started to deliver a noticeably inferior product to their searchers. As long as this situation remains the same, there is no need for this sort of regulation of search engines IMO.
At the end of the day it's about file formats. People need to be able to read MS Word and Excel documents accurately; you argue against it as much as you like, but this is the requirement.
Yes Word and Excel can be used to create some abominations (happily I have no experience of powerpoint), but if you're a small company you need to be compatible, it's as simple as that.
Yes they should. If that's what they want to do then the software should be flexible enough to accommodate them.
Now you're just being silly.
I actually followed your link and skimmed through the begining. Gave up when I saw the graph on page 4.
If the author really believes global warming is just part of a natural cycle, WHY DOES HE CUT THE TEMPERATURE GRAPH OFF AT 1900?
The only reason I can think of is that he's trying to fool the ignorant about the significance of the temperature variation over the last 1000 years, and he knows damn well that even they won't fall for it if he shows them the last 100 years.
Just another dishonest crackpot, possibly with his own agenda. There are plenty to go around on both sides of this issue.
A thing I like about the written arguments is that you get a real idea of IBM's lawyers style. I really get the nazgul reference after reading IBM's latest reply on the summary judgement motion on it's Linux activites; IBM truly can blacken the sky with it's legal arguments.
"Don't sue IBM" probably ranks somewhere close to "don't start a land war in Asia," as advice for a happy and successful life.
heh, nice to see someone still has a sense of humour..
We all know the reason why this is so. The Christian religion has serious issues with sex: that's pretty much the long and the short of it.
The association of sex with sin is embedded much deeper, and has far fewer accepted exceptions, than the prohibition against violence.
The difference is that the DMCA makes it crystal clear that YouTube is meeting it's obligations as long as it takes down infringing content when the copyright owner points it out.
This was a deliberate decision made by congress, aimed at allowing businesses like YouTube to have a sane set of rules to follow. If Viacom don't like it they should convince congress to change it's mind. They don't think they can so they're asking the courts to "interprate" the law until it says what they want.
Your reasoning is perfectly valid, but it isn't for the courts to decide since the legislature have passed a law on exactly this issue.
Fair comment, although IMO it is valid to criticise socialism specifically since it was once, and is still really, an actual political force (which lets face it Libertarianism isn't).
If they want to play in the big time and wield real power - as socialist parties have done in (western as well as eastern) Europe for most of the previous century - they have to accept the criticism that comes with political power. Saying "we're no worse than these guys" is not really a respectable argument for parties that actually expect to win enough votes to form a government.
While I agree with reasons 1 and 2, socialists making another attempt to weaken the United States is a myth.
You can accuse socialists of many things: naivety, idiocy, overweening bureaucracy, completely failing to understand how the world works, and being too incompetent to even be allowed to organise domestic rubbish collection. All of these are valid arguments to use against socialism and socialists.
That there is any sort of significant number of socialists (or any other group) out there who champion global warming out of a cynical desire to hurt the United States is simply incorrect. It's a myth that has been spread by the shills on the other side, it sounds convincing, apparently, to a lot of Americans, but it is simply not the case.
I'm not saying that all advocates of the global warming hypothesis are worth listening too. Far from it, many are crackpots who hurt their own side simply by their support (as TFA seems to be saying). And yes the current position of the US on this issue gives many of these people a happy overlap with their anti-Americanism. Maybe there are some who intellectually dishonest enough to allow their dislike of the US to persuade them on this issue, but there is no conspiracy. It's a meme that has been spread by those with a vested interest in global warming not being acted upon.
But you have to make a definition of an entity in order to assess that, and lets face it, there are plenty of ways around that. Any solution to that is going to be such a hassle to implement I doubt it's worth doing.
Better IMO to have a reasonably large fee to register a decent tld (eg .com) - enough to discourage squatters but no more, and have cheap tlds that people can use for other purposes.
sheesh, next your going to say that there should be some point in the different tlds, with .com used by commercial entities etc. Maybe you'd actually like these rules to be enforced!
Where would the internet be today if we allowed it to be based on sensible, commonly agreed, standards?
No-one is going to invade the US. As you say, nukes would rule that out, even if nothing else did.
But the US has interests beyond its own borders. Europe for example. Imagine a fascist Russia thirty years from now migrating its borders westwards. Maybe the American people wouldn't care, or at least not care enough to want to intervene. But ruling out (or at least deprioritising) their ability to do so will leave the next generation of Americans unable to make that choice at the time.
Nuclear weapons do not give a nation the ability to dictate outside clearly defined limits. Those limits are what that nation is willing to endure without precipitating a holocaust (as perceived by others). Conventional military superiority is far more versatile. IMO the US, as current global superpower, would be well advised to keep up its capability in this area. Just as a precaution.
Maybe not, but these are long-range plans. Are you really certain that the next few decades won't see the US needing to fight a high-intensity war?
The US military does seem to be paying the price in Iraq for focusing almost exclusively on fighting large-scale battles for the last fifty years (non-US and non-military opinion, that's just how it seems to me). I don't think making the opposite mistake is a good idea. Worse if anything - we haven't suddenly become a species that disdains to kill each other in large quantities on the battlefield, it's just that the current political and military reality makes challenging the US in that way a bad idea. Peace is most likely to be preserved by keeping it that way.
You remember it better than I do anyway.. I shall enjoy checking the accuracy when my amazon order arrives (I did go and place the order as soon as finished my reply), although I think I'll have to reread Shogun first - that one is a truly riveting book.
Possibly you mean "Tai Pan", since "The Noble House" is set in the 1960s IIRC.
Both are great books - in fact you've just made Amazon about £20 since I'm going to get those two and "Shogun" now that I remember them.
Anyway, I'm just curious where the relation to HSBC (or any banking) comes in. It's been years since I read James Clavell, but as I remember it Strauns (The Noble House) is a trading concern. The only banking element from the plot that I remember is an English bank collapsing and leaving one of the protagonists in a desperate situation.
Here we have living proof that "you can fool some of the people all of the time."
Come on, it's lock in, lock in, lock in. It may conveniently tie in with some of the labels own ends, but this is all about making sure that iPod owners stay iPod owners.
A bit late but I'm going to reply anyway
I don't disagree with much of your reasoning, just the conclusions that you draw from it.
To be clear I'm not advocating crippling the economies of the developed and developing world - I agree there is a level of economic damage that it is simply not worth taking, especially given that (if you accept the global warming hypothesis), we are already at the point where we will have significent changes to overcome.
I do think that there are measures that can be taken now that will have a significant impact on human CO2 production over the next few decades, primarily carbon trading couple with increasing carbon efficiency and carbon sequestration - I'd point you at the Stern review for more details (obviously this takes anthropomorphic global warming as a starting assumption).
The problem that carbon trading fixes in my understanding is the "market failure" [Stern review] inherent in the current system. It creates a market for technologies, business practices and lifestyle changes which reduce human carbon emissions. Without such a system there is unlikely to be a reason for these to be adopted, even if they are possible - market forces reward carbon emmiters in other words, and this does need to be counterbalanced.
I concede that this system will increase costs, and therefore hurt the economy. But properly implemented such damage can be absorbed. Maybe it's unnecessary. Maybe it's too little too late. But there is enough hope IMO for it to be worthwhile.
I simply can't accept the "wait for more evidence" argument. We are not likely to have a major breakthrough in our understanding any time soon, and if the problem is real we need to act asap.
From a scientific point of view I'd agree entirely, but global warming is not merely an academic question.
This viewpoint makes disbelief of global warming the default choice. From a purely intellectual standpoint fine. But we live in the real world, and we have to make choices based on what we know, can deduce, and can guess now. Waiting for proof simply means missing the point where a meaningful decision can actually be made.
This is one of those decisions where a failure to make a choice really is a choice. And it is a choice that is supported by much less scientific evidence than the alternative. When you couple this with the relative downsides of over reaction and under reaction, I believe the only sensible cause is to act on the assumption that anthropomorphic global warming is a real issue, and to act decisively.
If ten years down the line it turns out to be alarmism, we can tear up our carbon trading schemes and carry on with little damage. I like this as a worst case scenario.
I don't know about you, but I'm not a climatologist. Therefore I have to form my opinions on global warming based on my assessment of the supporters of each argument, rather than the arguments themselves.
As I see it you have the large majority of climatologists on one side, and a small minority on the other. On both sides you have non-expert opinions, paid shills and the clinically insane as you'd expect.
Of course scientists are often wrong, but the level of certainty that has been around for decades in that field deserves respect, and at the end of the day the consequences of over reaction are much less than those of under reaction.
While it is obviously sensible to fund research from both sides of the question, I am glad that the political decision has been made (in Europe if not the US) to act upon the current information. This isn't a scientific judgment, it's a practical one. It may turn out to be wrong, but that isn't an excuse for not implementing it.
And Dell avoids making a sale that it believes it will make a loss on.
That would be more an effect of overzealous Microsoft protection mechanisms IMO, and I seriously doubt Microsoft would allow a situation like that to occur.
I'm not attacking Microsoft's right to charge for their software, but I've been forced to listen to "Copying is Theft!" too many times to believe the fact that it isn't is irrelevant. "Copying is sometimes morally equivalent to theft, but not always!" would be more reasonable I think.
I agree it is no justification for piracy, but I also believe the distinction is important: copyright is civil law designed to achieve certain beneficial ends - ie incentivising creators. Theft is a criminal offense because it is considered always harmful and morally wrong. Copyright infringement is sometimes morally equivalent to theft, but by no means always. By accepting the meme that copying is theft, we forget that the purpose of copyright law is to strike a balance, rather than eliminate copying.
Using this distinction to justify pirating Vista doesn't work, but it doesn't mean the distinction isn't important.