So Reagan was not fiscally conservative? What about municipal, county, and state elections? Only Democrats were fiscally conservative there too?
What is bullshit? Our war-related expenditures account for a large amount of our current deficit. Iraq was not Socialist by a long shot. Although Hussein did belong to a party that called itself Socialist, social programs were virtually nonexistent in Iraq. I also have a hard time calling a government that persecutes members of certain religious sects secular. Then again, I have a hard time seeing Democrats as being more fiscally conservative than Republicans.
And, though the term is extraordinarily subjective in this context, isn't discretionary spending what would amount to fiscal overspending? How can you say JFK and LBJ kind of inherited Vietnam? They both escalated it into oblivion. In fact, it was Nixon (a Republican) who withdraw US troops.
Our GDP is increasing rapidly, the stock market has been doing quite well, and unemployment is very low. Aren't these normally signals our economy is diong well?
Most of us only vote for members of one party (I am not talking about third parties that are just more extreme version of their mainstream counterparts). I live in Massachusetts, where it does not matter how conservative someone is, they will almost certainly vote for a liberal Democrat.
Though I do have a hard time believing there was not one fiscally responsible Republican you had an opportunity to vote for the in the past 30 years.
Additionally, bearing in mind that most of our current spending can be accounted for in a foreign war, do not forget the amount of spending Democratic Presidents Kennedy and Johnson did on Vietnam. It far surpasses anything President Bush has done on Iraq.
Also, most economic indicators would also suggest we are doing better than we were at the end of Clinton's second term.
Out of curiosity, who was the last Republican you voted for? Most people on Slashdot vote for (or would vote for if they were 18) Democrats just as blindly as you claim Utah's citizens vote for Republicans.
Afaik, Nazi Germany was Socialist and had virtually no economy, let alone patents or innovation.
Take the example of companies A & B. Both are in the same industry and direct competitors. They have the same funding; let's say $50 million operating cash flow. Company A decides to take a big risk on inventing something that will revolutionize the industry. They sink $25 million into R&D to develop it, $10 million to market it, and $10 million to produce the first batch. Without patents, company B is able to immediately mimic the technology and use $10 million to produce a batch, then $35 million to market it. For the same amount of investment, company B will show higher profits, while company A will likely find it nearly impossible to survive. With patents, company A will be permitted to monopolize the industry while recouping their R&D costs.
Of course there are many other variables that can be of varying impact, but look at the simple bottom line that companies will be afraid to spend money on R&D without patents to guarantee them the chance to earn back money it cost them. It is quite irrelevant whether a company manufactures the products it patents or sells the rights to others.
Just because there are abuses of patents that can cause harm does not mean that the system is flawed or that patents are inherently bad and should cease to exist.
Where are these fair use laws? It is frequently and successfully argued in court (including in the pre-P2P days) that fair use does not exist. This is still beside the point. Copyright infringement is theft. It is taking something without paying for it. The semantics are pretty straightforward. There are many forms of theft that are not explicitly labeled as such, but for all intents and purposes amount to it.
There is a constitutional right that gives us the right to own guns. That makes it pretty damn different from an inconsistently applied standard like fair use.
Anyone can become a lobbyist. For every corporate lobbyist there are at least two special interest lobbyists (ACLU, etc). Do you have a fundamental understanding of congressional processes in the US? The op-ed pieces and Slashdot comments you read with those sentiments are really belong in the conspiracy theory pile. Go to a local college bookstore and pickup a Political Science 101 textbook. You really need a practical context when evaluating the merit of the arguments you are making.
Sales are decreasing. The only debate about this is caused by a decline in quality or increase in piracy. I think we both uses which argument. Both are quite irrelevant -- stealing is stealing. Permitting theft on a massive scale in order to facilitate relatively few examples of some vague notion of fair use is not a way to enforce laws.
They had very little compared to their capitalist counterparts. Look at Russia's economy. Germany's is just barely recovering.
I firmly believe that many pieces of technology that we enjoy today would not be around in the form they are without parents. Why the hell spend years and millions to invent something if my competitor will just mimic my design?
Do you really not see all of the significant technological innovations that have happened in the US under its current patent system? Proving cause & effect is a lost cause on something like this. The case in either direction really comes down to subjectivity. If Joe Blow owns a patent on something MS is using and lacks the resources to fight them does not make the entire system flawed -- just imperfect.
Then why are the profit margins of record companies and earnings of musicians frequently brought up when defending P2P? There is a strong anti-capitalist/pro-communist sentiment.
Additionally, just consider how tiny a slice of P2P is used for legal file sharing. If it were used mostly for sending 10 second samples around, no one would be filing lawsuits over it.
Although I completely disagree with you that we should accept accept things we like even if they come from someone pushing an agenda we oppose, keep in mind are talking about permitting theft because of fair use.
But the fact remains that we live in a world with intellectual property. I can agree that it is no big deal to disregard the warnings before/after/during football games that claim written authorization is needed from CBS and the NFL to record the game. I can also agree that kicking a 30 second sample of a song over the internet is no big deal. In fact, I would even guess that neither the NFL, CBS, or RIAA would care enough to file a lawsuit.
Of course it is more effective to advocate fair use instead of anti-property. It is an easier way to advance an agenda. Although most of Slashdot is too young or just uneducated to have any historical perspective, we are talking about advocation of communist ideals. Fair use is just window dressing to make such ideals appeal to people who normally think of themselves as being capitalists.
What percentage of music files shared on P2P networks do you think are anything but theft? Do you remember the days of Napster when everyone pro-P2P said the record industry should leverage online distribution? They did, but people still argue that it should be legal to transmit copyrighted works in their entirety. If this were a matter of just sending/receiving sampled music and videos, few if any would give a shit.
And what about the GPL? Can I snag a snippet of GPL'ed code, incorporate it into my closed source application, and claim fair use?
The argument supporting transmission of copyrighted works is far more about anti-property than it is about fair use. Fair use is just a more palatable argument.
No. If you are really a nerd, as in intelligent, you should not need or want to be pandered to by getting spins put on stories that make you feel like you were right all along. Just RTFA every once in a while to see how blown-out-of-proportion stories like this are.
On the other hand, if you are a nerd, as in socially underdeveloped and insecure, having your ego stroked off by seeing a viewpoint you agree with over and over again would be right up your alley.
I know they are pandering to the masses, but I guess it would be nice if we got "news for nerds" without anti-MS/pro-Linux stories and spins on stories whenever possible.
This is Slashdot -- journalistic integrity is almost nonexistent. It would be nice if the editors were to reject stories submitted with misleading, exaggerated, or false headlines, but it seems doubtful that will ever happen. These stories are usually spun pretty shamelessly on the original newsources without the need to add more BS when posted here.
Slashdot Mirror
No thanks. I will wait until Netcraft confirms it.
So Reagan was not fiscally conservative? What about municipal, county, and state elections? Only Democrats were fiscally conservative there too?
What is bullshit? Our war-related expenditures account for a large amount of our current deficit. Iraq was not Socialist by a long shot. Although Hussein did belong to a party that called itself Socialist, social programs were virtually nonexistent in Iraq. I also have a hard time calling a government that persecutes members of certain religious sects secular. Then again, I have a hard time seeing Democrats as being more fiscally conservative than Republicans.
And, though the term is extraordinarily subjective in this context, isn't discretionary spending what would amount to fiscal overspending? How can you say JFK and LBJ kind of inherited Vietnam? They both escalated it into oblivion. In fact, it was Nixon (a Republican) who withdraw US troops.
Our GDP is increasing rapidly, the stock market has been doing quite well, and unemployment is very low. Aren't these normally signals our economy is diong well?
Most of us only vote for members of one party (I am not talking about third parties that are just more extreme version of their mainstream counterparts). I live in Massachusetts, where it does not matter how conservative someone is, they will almost certainly vote for a liberal Democrat.
Though I do have a hard time believing there was not one fiscally responsible Republican you had an opportunity to vote for the in the past 30 years.
Additionally, bearing in mind that most of our current spending can be accounted for in a foreign war, do not forget the amount of spending Democratic Presidents Kennedy and Johnson did on Vietnam. It far surpasses anything President Bush has done on Iraq.
Also, most economic indicators would also suggest we are doing better than we were at the end of Clinton's second term.
That sounds like a NY Times political editorial.
Out of curiosity, who was the last Republican you voted for? Most people on Slashdot vote for (or would vote for if they were 18) Democrats just as blindly as you claim Utah's citizens vote for Republicans.
Yeah, the damn Conservative media! Is there such a thing as an Underdog Complex?
I suppose it is somewhere in between a stand-alone framework and application server...
An application server that takes a slightly diferent approach -- recipes, etc. Personally, I prefer Zope, though Ruby is not a band language.
Afaik, Nazi Germany was Socialist and had virtually no economy, let alone patents or innovation.
Take the example of companies A & B. Both are in the same industry and direct competitors. They have the same funding; let's say $50 million operating cash flow. Company A decides to take a big risk on inventing something that will revolutionize the industry. They sink $25 million into R&D to develop it, $10 million to market it, and $10 million to produce the first batch. Without patents, company B is able to immediately mimic the technology and use $10 million to produce a batch, then $35 million to market it. For the same amount of investment, company B will show higher profits, while company A will likely find it nearly impossible to survive. With patents, company A will be permitted to monopolize the industry while recouping their R&D costs.
Of course there are many other variables that can be of varying impact, but look at the simple bottom line that companies will be afraid to spend money on R&D without patents to guarantee them the chance to earn back money it cost them. It is quite irrelevant whether a company manufactures the products it patents or sells the rights to others.
Just because there are abuses of patents that can cause harm does not mean that the system is flawed or that patents are inherently bad and should cease to exist.
Where are these fair use laws? It is frequently and successfully argued in court (including in the pre-P2P days) that fair use does not exist. This is still beside the point. Copyright infringement is theft. It is taking something without paying for it. The semantics are pretty straightforward. There are many forms of theft that are not explicitly labeled as such, but for all intents and purposes amount to it.
There is a constitutional right that gives us the right to own guns. That makes it pretty damn different from an inconsistently applied standard like fair use.
Anyone can become a lobbyist. For every corporate lobbyist there are at least two special interest lobbyists (ACLU, etc). Do you have a fundamental understanding of congressional processes in the US? The op-ed pieces and Slashdot comments you read with those sentiments are really belong in the conspiracy theory pile. Go to a local college bookstore and pickup a Political Science 101 textbook. You really need a practical context when evaluating the merit of the arguments you are making.
Sales are decreasing. The only debate about this is caused by a decline in quality or increase in piracy. I think we both uses which argument. Both are quite irrelevant -- stealing is stealing. Permitting theft on a massive scale in order to facilitate relatively few examples of some vague notion of fair use is not a way to enforce laws.
They had very little compared to their capitalist counterparts. Look at Russia's economy. Germany's is just barely recovering.
I firmly believe that many pieces of technology that we enjoy today would not be around in the form they are without parents. Why the hell spend years and millions to invent something if my competitor will just mimic my design?
Do you really not see all of the significant technological innovations that have happened in the US under its current patent system? Proving cause & effect is a lost cause on something like this. The case in either direction really comes down to subjectivity. If Joe Blow owns a patent on something MS is using and lacks the resources to fight them does not make the entire system flawed -- just imperfect.
Then why are the profit margins of record companies and earnings of musicians frequently brought up when defending P2P? There is a strong anti-capitalist/pro-communist sentiment.
Additionally, just consider how tiny a slice of P2P is used for legal file sharing. If it were used mostly for sending 10 second samples around, no one would be filing lawsuits over it.
What are you talking about? Who is enslaved by the USPTO?
President Bush has no control over patents in the US. Furthermore, he no longer holds any interests in any oil companies. You sound like Al Franken.
Let's not forget about all of the innovation that has occurred under this "flawed" system.
Although I completely disagree with you that we should accept accept things we like even if they come from someone pushing an agenda we oppose, keep in mind are talking about permitting theft because of fair use.
But the fact remains that we live in a world with intellectual property. I can agree that it is no big deal to disregard the warnings before/after/during football games that claim written authorization is needed from CBS and the NFL to record the game. I can also agree that kicking a 30 second sample of a song over the internet is no big deal. In fact, I would even guess that neither the NFL, CBS, or RIAA would care enough to file a lawsuit.
Of course it is more effective to advocate fair use instead of anti-property. It is an easier way to advance an agenda. Although most of Slashdot is too young or just uneducated to have any historical perspective, we are talking about advocation of communist ideals. Fair use is just window dressing to make such ideals appeal to people who normally think of themselves as being capitalists.
What percentage of music files shared on P2P networks do you think are anything but theft? Do you remember the days of Napster when everyone pro-P2P said the record industry should leverage online distribution? They did, but people still argue that it should be legal to transmit copyrighted works in their entirety. If this were a matter of just sending/receiving sampled music and videos, few if any would give a shit.
And what about the GPL? Can I snag a snippet of GPL'ed code, incorporate it into my closed source application, and claim fair use?
The argument supporting transmission of copyrighted works is far more about anti-property than it is about fair use. Fair use is just a more palatable argument.
No. If you are really a nerd, as in intelligent, you should not need or want to be pandered to by getting spins put on stories that make you feel like you were right all along. Just RTFA every once in a while to see how blown-out-of-proportion stories like this are.
On the other hand, if you are a nerd, as in socially underdeveloped and insecure, having your ego stroked off by seeing a viewpoint you agree with over and over again would be right up your alley.
Not everyone wants to be a slashbot.
Both are equally valid.
The headline is still not indicative of the actual story.
I know they are pandering to the masses, but I guess it would be nice if we got "news for nerds" without anti-MS/pro-Linux stories and spins on stories whenever possible.
This is Slashdot -- journalistic integrity is almost nonexistent. It would be nice if the editors were to reject stories submitted with misleading, exaggerated, or false headlines, but it seems doubtful that will ever happen. These stories are usually spun pretty shamelessly on the original newsources without the need to add more BS when posted here.