"8. Laptops spawn a new breed of uber-entitled user."
This complaint is exactly why the rest of the complaints have to be seriously questioned. By that standard PCs spawn a new breed of uber-entitled user. I mean really, people expect the programs to run NOW? Having their application sit in a queue for a week to get the results just doesn't seem to fly anymore. What kind of uber-entitled user doesn't understand that there requests should sit in a queue until a time slot becomes available on the mainframe? If we allow employees to expect their job to be facilitated, the next thing you know, employees will start expecting telephones at their desks, photocopiers, pens and paper. Heck it might even get so bad that they might start expecting electric lighting or bathrooms!
That is a very good point. It is very common for IT to forget that the sole purpose for their existence is to supply these very things to the users. People who manage PCs particularly strike me as biting the hand that feeds them. Their very jobs were created by users bringing in unauthorized equipment in an attempt to circumvent company and administrator policies on the mainframe that kept them from doing their job easier and better. None of their complaints are new. Mainframe guys would complain about the security problems, and the difficulty of connecting data from PCs when they were first entering business. The complaint that backups are difficult for laptops would only be made by administrators that don't really understand computers beyond their little piece of the computer world. Once you have backing up desktop PCs down, the move to backing up laptops should be pretty easy. If you want to complain about backups becoming hard, look at the move from mainframe to PC. Now that was a difficult move that many companies still have not mastered.
Uhh... maybe you should look one post above that, since that was a direct response and reference to your accusation of ignorance. Go ahead. Look one post above it. Are you being dishonest, or is the word "first" one of those words you use, but do not understand. As for the statement that you believe people "own" ideas, but that not everything can be "owned" basically boils down to a hypocritical statement that some people should get protection for their "property" but others should not.
My comment was not an "Opinion", or a statement of belief. It was a statement of fact. Either ideas are property that can be stolen, or they are not.
You have never stated your beliefs. All you have done is made personal attacks, and strawman fallacies. If you cannot even decide whether people "own" their ideas, you clearly have not thought enough about the subject to speak intelligently on it.
Unfortunatly, her system will not allow suspending. I don't know if this is a problem with the BIOS (setting is tuned on in BIOS), the motherboard as a whole, or is related to the bug in Windows that leaves her in the AT power supply shutdown screen instead of turning off the ATX powersupply. Whatever the reason, the power management screen in Windows does not have the option to suspend.
I will also be looking at converting my server to a more power efficient system. I believe that running my Domino and file server on one of these new systems should require no more power than my desktop. This would reduce it's power consumption from 100 watts to ~45 watts.
I will also be using my decommissioned machine to get familiar with MythTv. In the past, it was difficult to get all the pieces to work right. I'm hoping that it will be easier now than 2-3 years ago. This would allow me to Replace my 2 ReplayTVs which run 24/7 with one server that runs 24/7 (with less power), and a few silent front end units that can actually be turned off when not in use. I am really hoping the MythTv works out. My current plan of using ultra low power front ends, (probably booting from compact flash) and a more powerful back end to handle the recording, should make the install noticeably simpler than the last attempt which entailed trying to get everything running on one machine. The one piece that I do know is missing is that my Dish Network tuners use RF for the second tuners. I haven't been able to find any LIRC hardware to control those. I suspect that I will end up using this Basic Stamp I have here to receive a simple serial command, and wire it to to the button pads of an actually Dish Network remote control.
"Why do you keep using the word "steal" and its derivatives?"
Because the original post you started arguing against was a complaint that the word "steal" is in appropriate for what people are doing when they copy other people's ideas. You probably didn't get that with the reading disorders and all.
"You claim that I may be ignorant but your ignorance is quite blatant."
You make an ad hominem attack calling me ignorant using a classic strawman fallicy as evidence. And yet you keep stating that I am ignorant. As stated, if you insist that your use of a stawman fallicy was not out of ignorance, I will accept that. Of course, for that to be true, you would have had to know that you were using a strawman fallacy, and thus were being dishonest. Not being able to understand this simple logic speak more to the former and less to the later.
"You also keep tying things together that aren't necessarily related."
You seem to be confused about the parts that I am writing, and the parts that you are writing. You are the person that tried to tie percentages into a true or false statement of fact. You are also the person that brought lightning into the conversation concerning copyright. I stand by my original statment which is not a false dichotomy, and that clearly illustrates why the current copyright situation is an abuse of the legal system.
In fact, you keep arguing about whether ideas belong to people or not, and have yet to state your position.
Actually, the implanted universal translator didn't come into wide use until TNG, so that would be sometime around Stardate 41153. In episode 31 Stardate 3219.4 of TOS, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Nancy Hedford, used what at that time was, although crude, a state of the art Universal Translator to understand what the energy creature was after. At this time everyone in the galaxy was speaking English. So we can conclude that up until at least Stardate 3000, English was the common language among all intelligent humanoids in the universe, and that it wasn't until the introduction of the Universal Translator that other more localized languages really came into play. Of course by Stardate 41153, the reliance on the Universal Translator had become so common that it was actually required for most communication amongst the various races.
So, you set up a stawman argument, and then tried to knock it down. If you recognize this, you are being dishonest. If you don't, you should look inward for the ignorance you speak of.
Tying this back to copyright...
1) Intellectual Property really exists, and the current crop of media producers are stealing from everyone before them just because the "rightful owners" don't have the resources to protect themselves.
or
2) Intellectual Property is not real, and copyright has been abused and corrupted to deny citizens of their natural right to use and relay ideas to others.
So, either you are stealing by copying a series of notes that I played first, or you are not stealing by copying a series of notes that I played first. Copyright is simply a legal mechanism to allow some individuals to steal from others.
Unless Gene Roddenberry is correct, and somehow every creature in the galaxy speaks English, I would say that not only would they not be offended by the word Sun being use to describe the star that we circle, but they might just be willing to call our glichblick'click'click by the same name we use, which is Sun. The big fiery ball in the sky is called Sun by [pulling number out of ass] 99.9% of all English speaking humans. That means that in English, the big fiery ball in the sky's name is... That's right... "Sun". One could even go so far as to say when a 'scientist' refers to any other stars as a sun, they are more incorrect, in that both in English, and the language that 'Sol' speakers use, the big fiery balls that populate the galaxy are "stars"
One could go so far as to argue that the word 'sun' is in fact a pronoun. A word that describes the star that you happen to be circling at the moment. Of course if you were to take that route, it would re-enforce the GP posters comment that this was someone being pompous. It rings of the kid that when talking to his siblings, refers to his Mom as Nancy, and his Dad as Bob. While that may more accurately be their names, it is an indication that there is something strange going on in the kids head that makes them compelled to prove some kind of point.
Whether you agree or not, feel free to to contradict me, as the best part of these kinds of 'nerd fights' are that the answer really doesn't matter, so it also doesn't matter what side you pick to argue. Weeee!!!!!
I would say that the biggest place that we got lost was when the fictional entity that we created was granted all of the rights of a real person, but none of the responsibility. The point of the corporation was to make it so that only the fictional entity would be damaged if the business didn't work out. The problem was that we have been totally unwilling to place the same kind of financial burden on the fictional entity for commiting a crime that we would place on a real person. Yes, being deprived of earning money for a year would be catastrophic to a corporation, but it sure as heck would be just as catastrophic for me. Yes, people that relied on that corporation would be hurt by it's 'imprisonment', but you can be sure that people that rely on me would also be hurt if I were imprisoned.
Really, we have created a caste system in America with the corporation. The corporation is exempted from facing the punishments that we human peasants are faced with. The fact that our royalty has no morals, ethics, or compassion does not bode well for those of us placed under there rule.
You could just freeze the assets for the duration of the punishment. You could require the doors of the corporation to be... Well locked. Putting all assets inside of a building with locked doors where they cannot interact with entities outside of the building would be very much like putting a person inside of a building with locked doors where they cannot interact with entities outside of the building.
Although, I do believe that if the crime is serious enough, it should warrent the 'death penalty'.
You might think that, but that is only because you are one of those people that try to hide their hypocrisy behind attempts of obfuscation. One of those people that claim just because your chances of getting hit with lightning are not 50/50, that there is somehow magically a group of people that cannot be classified as hit or not hit.
So, did you intentionally try to turn a true false situation into a percentages situation, or do you really not understand the difference?
This is the reason I don't do much gaming on the PC. I always preferred the PC as a gaming platform, but between CD key disks, root kits, spyware, and other malware, I just can't trust them on the same system I do work on. I also have a hard time rationalizing the space and cost of a game only system so that I can give more money to the people that are consistently trying to assault me. I have to wonder if they really make more money from the people who don't 'pirate' their software than they have lost from those of us who have stopped buy games because we are afraid of what the games will do to our systems.
This article is kind of timely, as I just got a Kill-A-Watt on Tuesday for the purpose of measuring office equipment electrical usage. What I found was that my old Athlon64 3200+ (1 gig of memory) was drawing 100 watts idle, while the new Athlon64 X2 5400+ (2 gig of memory)that I just got to replace it runs at 40 watts idle. Given that I am paying $0.32 kwh for my top usage, that comes out to a $14.29 savings per month by purchasing the new, noticeably faster machine. Given that I paid $150 for the motherboard/processor/video card/memory upgrade, in 10 months, the machine will have paid for itself if both would have been left to sit idle. The normal usage numbers are 120/77 watts which comes out to a $10.07 a month savings if both machines were run under normal loads 24/7. The new system also has WAY better power management, so I'll actually use it. This means that when I am not using the system the numbers will be 100/5 watts, and a savings of $22.25/month. Based on my usage patterns, I expect about $15 a month in savings.
After seeing these numbers, I decided to check out my wifes machine. Her system has the known Windows bug that makes it go to the "It is safe to shut down your system" message instead of actually shutting down when the computer is instructed to shut down. This combined with her usage pattern of sitting down and looking things up for 5 minutes, then walking away for the computer, and coming back 2 or 3 hours later to spend another 5 or 10 minutes on the system, means that getting her to turn off her computer when not in use is simply not an option. There is no way I am going to convince her to wait the 3-4 minutes waiting for it to boot up, and another 3-4 minutes waiting for it to shut down, to get 5 minutes of use out of it. Her machine runs at 110 watts idle, and 150 watts under normal load. Given that the new motherboard has suspend that actually works, 99% of the time her system could be running 5 watts with, again, better functionality. This would lead to a savings of $22.25 per month in savings. This would mean giving her the same upgrade would pay for itself in ~7 months. You can bet I am going to do that very soon. I expect that my son's system is only slightly more efficient than my wifes, so his will likely follow shortly after.
Yeah. Just think how fast your internet connection would be with your computer being the only device connected to it! No more sharing of bandwitdth with anyone!.;)
So, your suggesting that there is a scenerio...
3) It is stealing if you base your work on my ideas without paying me, but it is ok for me to base my work on your ideas for free?
That is kind of hypocritical. Many things in this world are fuzzy, and many things are not. This is a case where it is not. Either ideas are something that are owned, or they are not.
They shouldn't. Thus scenario #2 is the logical world view for you. It is the fact that no artist in recorded history has ever completely "reinvented the wheel" that the two possible situations exist, and why it is the Media Barons that are "stealing" intellectual property.
The word "steal" get thrown around a lot. Well, one must consider that the Media Barons might have stolen from us. I have yet to see a single creative work that is not based on previous works. I can guarantee that not one single creative work has been produced where every person was paid for their contribution. This is why the idea of "Intellectual Property" is absurd. What is not absurd is the idea that a short term monopoly be given to encourage the production of new (derivative) works. Unfortunately, copyright law has been perverted to the point that works which belong in the public domain are being held hostage by the Media Barons. This really is one of those magical black and white issues.
1) Intellectual Property really exists, and the current crop of media producers are stealing from everyone before them just because the "rightful owners" don't have the resources to protect themselves.
or
2) Intellectual Property is not real, and copyright has been abused and corrupted to deny citizens of their natural right to use and relay ideas to others.
I thought of doing this when I was 10. Since then, I have seriously hoped that the government never realized it. I really don't think that the unwashed masses could withstand the constant hum of the road telling them "Personal firearm ownership is wrong."..."If your not guilty, you've got nothing to hide"..."Voting third party is throwing away your vote."..."War is peace"..."Slavery is freedom"...
"Oddly I have noticed over the years that everyone gets up in arms about the fact that it is difficult to work with NTFS on non-Windows platforms, but there has been very little effort toward making it easy to use alternate filesystems from Windows."
This is something that I have always thought was odd. Running dual boot systems is incredibly common. Up until very recently, the only reliable file system that could be used on both the Windows and Linux sides was FAT. That was obviously a really crappy solution. While NTFS works today, there is no guarantee that it will continue to work in the future. The only way to reliably have a shared file system between Windows and Linux is to write the file system for Windows.
If the developers are worried about giving Windows an edge, just use one of the slower, less feature rich file systems.
The first programming job I had was with a California insurance rating company. We were unusual for a software company in that if we actually guaranteed the accuracy of our software. If our software said your premium was going to be $600 a year, and the correct calculation was $1200 a year, we paid the difference. As you can imagine, this lead to great urgency on our part to fix bugs. If the bug was going to be an expensive one, our bug fix turn around time was 24-48 hours. If our error was a fringe case that was only going to cost us a couple of hundred dollars, we might let it sit for 2 weeks. I still wait for the day that Microsoft shows as much faith in their software that we showed in ours.
I worked for a consulting company doing custom development for various customers for many years after that. Our turn around time for bug fixes was usually 24 to 72 hours. On a rare occasion a bug would sit out their for 1 to 2 weeks.
I currently work for a company doing internal development, our department has much more control over what we do and don't do. Non-critical bugs can sit out there for months. Anything that is a security bug or one that prevents people from doing their job are usually dealt with between 24 and 72 hours.
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"8. Laptops spawn a new breed of uber-entitled user."
This complaint is exactly why the rest of the complaints have to be seriously questioned. By that standard PCs spawn a new breed of uber-entitled user. I mean really, people expect the programs to run NOW? Having their application sit in a queue for a week to get the results just doesn't seem to fly anymore. What kind of uber-entitled user doesn't understand that there requests should sit in a queue until a time slot becomes available on the mainframe? If we allow employees to expect their job to be facilitated, the next thing you know, employees will start expecting telephones at their desks, photocopiers, pens and paper. Heck it might even get so bad that they might start expecting electric lighting or bathrooms!
That is a very good point. It is very common for IT to forget that the sole purpose for their existence is to supply these very things to the users. People who manage PCs particularly strike me as biting the hand that feeds them. Their very jobs were created by users bringing in unauthorized equipment in an attempt to circumvent company and administrator policies on the mainframe that kept them from doing their job easier and better. None of their complaints are new. Mainframe guys would complain about the security problems, and the difficulty of connecting data from PCs when they were first entering business. The complaint that backups are difficult for laptops would only be made by administrators that don't really understand computers beyond their little piece of the computer world. Once you have backing up desktop PCs down, the move to backing up laptops should be pretty easy. If you want to complain about backups becoming hard, look at the move from mainframe to PC. Now that was a difficult move that many companies still have not mastered.
Uhh... maybe you should look one post above that, since that was a direct response and reference to your accusation of ignorance. Go ahead. Look one post above it. Are you being dishonest, or is the word "first" one of those words you use, but do not understand. As for the statement that you believe people "own" ideas, but that not everything can be "owned" basically boils down to a hypocritical statement that some people should get protection for their "property" but others should not.
My comment was not an "Opinion", or a statement of belief. It was a statement of fact. Either ideas are property that can be stolen, or they are not.
Hey, its a new millinium! Don't judge!!!
You have never stated your beliefs. All you have done is made personal attacks, and strawman fallacies. If you cannot even decide whether people "own" their ideas, you clearly have not thought enough about the subject to speak intelligently on it.
Unfortunatly, her system will not allow suspending. I don't know if this is a problem with the BIOS (setting is tuned on in BIOS), the motherboard as a whole, or is related to the bug in Windows that leaves her in the AT power supply shutdown screen instead of turning off the ATX powersupply. Whatever the reason, the power management screen in Windows does not have the option to suspend.
I will also be looking at converting my server to a more power efficient system. I believe that running my Domino and file server on one of these new systems should require no more power than my desktop. This would reduce it's power consumption from 100 watts to ~45 watts.
I will also be using my decommissioned machine to get familiar with MythTv. In the past, it was difficult to get all the pieces to work right. I'm hoping that it will be easier now than 2-3 years ago. This would allow me to Replace my 2 ReplayTVs which run 24/7 with one server that runs 24/7 (with less power), and a few silent front end units that can actually be turned off when not in use. I am really hoping the MythTv works out. My current plan of using ultra low power front ends, (probably booting from compact flash) and a more powerful back end to handle the recording, should make the install noticeably simpler than the last attempt which entailed trying to get everything running on one machine. The one piece that I do know is missing is that my Dish Network tuners use RF for the second tuners. I haven't been able to find any LIRC hardware to control those. I suspect that I will end up using this Basic Stamp I have here to receive a simple serial command, and wire it to to the button pads of an actually Dish Network remote control.
"Why do you keep using the word "steal" and its derivatives?"
Because the original post you started arguing against was a complaint that the word "steal" is in appropriate for what people are doing when they copy other people's ideas. You probably didn't get that with the reading disorders and all.
"You claim that I may be ignorant but your ignorance is quite blatant."
You make an ad hominem attack calling me ignorant using a classic strawman fallicy as evidence. And yet you keep stating that I am ignorant. As stated, if you insist that your use of a stawman fallicy was not out of ignorance, I will accept that. Of course, for that to be true, you would have had to know that you were using a strawman fallacy, and thus were being dishonest. Not being able to understand this simple logic speak more to the former and less to the later.
"You also keep tying things together that aren't necessarily related."
You seem to be confused about the parts that I am writing, and the parts that you are writing. You are the person that tried to tie percentages into a true or false statement of fact. You are also the person that brought lightning into the conversation concerning copyright. I stand by my original statment which is not a false dichotomy, and that clearly illustrates why the current copyright situation is an abuse of the legal system.
In fact, you keep arguing about whether ideas belong to people or not, and have yet to state your position.
Are ideas property?
Do people OWN ideas?
Actually, the implanted universal translator didn't come into wide use until TNG, so that would be sometime around Stardate 41153. In episode 31 Stardate 3219.4 of TOS, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Nancy Hedford, used what at that time was, although crude, a state of the art Universal Translator to understand what the energy creature was after. At this time everyone in the galaxy was speaking English. So we can conclude that up until at least Stardate 3000, English was the common language among all intelligent humanoids in the universe, and that it wasn't until the introduction of the Universal Translator that other more localized languages really came into play. Of course by Stardate 41153, the reliance on the Universal Translator had become so common that it was actually required for most communication amongst the various races.
California. They scale the cost with how much use use. The scale goes:
First 345.1 kwh = $.11430
Next 103.53 kwh = $.12989
Next 241.57 kwh = $.22722
Next ???.?? kwh = $.31719
I don't know how high they can go above that.
So, you set up a stawman argument, and then tried to knock it down. If you recognize this, you are being dishonest. If you don't, you should look inward for the ignorance you speak of.
Tying this back to copyright...
1) Intellectual Property really exists, and the current crop of media producers are stealing from everyone before them just because the "rightful owners" don't have the resources to protect themselves.
or
2) Intellectual Property is not real, and copyright has been abused and corrupted to deny citizens of their natural right to use and relay ideas to others.
So, either you are stealing by copying a series of notes that I played first, or you are not stealing by copying a series of notes that I played first. Copyright is simply a legal mechanism to allow some individuals to steal from others.
Unless Gene Roddenberry is correct, and somehow every creature in the galaxy speaks English, I would say that not only would they not be offended by the word Sun being use to describe the star that we circle, but they might just be willing to call our glichblick'click'click by the same name we use, which is Sun. The big fiery ball in the sky is called Sun by [pulling number out of ass] 99.9% of all English speaking humans. That means that in English, the big fiery ball in the sky's name is... That's right... "Sun". One could even go so far as to say when a 'scientist' refers to any other stars as a sun, they are more incorrect, in that both in English, and the language that 'Sol' speakers use, the big fiery balls that populate the galaxy are "stars"
One could go so far as to argue that the word 'sun' is in fact a pronoun. A word that describes the star that you happen to be circling at the moment. Of course if you were to take that route, it would re-enforce the GP posters comment that this was someone being pompous. It rings of the kid that when talking to his siblings, refers to his Mom as Nancy, and his Dad as Bob. While that may more accurately be their names, it is an indication that there is something strange going on in the kids head that makes them compelled to prove some kind of point.
Whether you agree or not, feel free to to contradict me, as the best part of these kinds of 'nerd fights' are that the answer really doesn't matter, so it also doesn't matter what side you pick to argue. Weeee!!!!!
I would say that the biggest place that we got lost was when the fictional entity that we created was granted all of the rights of a real person, but none of the responsibility. The point of the corporation was to make it so that only the fictional entity would be damaged if the business didn't work out. The problem was that we have been totally unwilling to place the same kind of financial burden on the fictional entity for commiting a crime that we would place on a real person. Yes, being deprived of earning money for a year would be catastrophic to a corporation, but it sure as heck would be just as catastrophic for me. Yes, people that relied on that corporation would be hurt by it's 'imprisonment', but you can be sure that people that rely on me would also be hurt if I were imprisoned.
Really, we have created a caste system in America with the corporation. The corporation is exempted from facing the punishments that we human peasants are faced with. The fact that our royalty has no morals, ethics, or compassion does not bode well for those of us placed under there rule.
You could just freeze the assets for the duration of the punishment. You could require the doors of the corporation to be... Well locked. Putting all assets inside of a building with locked doors where they cannot interact with entities outside of the building would be very much like putting a person inside of a building with locked doors where they cannot interact with entities outside of the building.
Although, I do believe that if the crime is serious enough, it should warrent the 'death penalty'.
You might think that, but that is only because you are one of those people that try to hide their hypocrisy behind attempts of obfuscation. One of those people that claim just because your chances of getting hit with lightning are not 50/50, that there is somehow magically a group of people that cannot be classified as hit or not hit.
So, did you intentionally try to turn a true false situation into a percentages situation, or do you really not understand the difference?
This is the reason I don't do much gaming on the PC. I always preferred the PC as a gaming platform, but between CD key disks, root kits, spyware, and other malware, I just can't trust them on the same system I do work on. I also have a hard time rationalizing the space and cost of a game only system so that I can give more money to the people that are consistently trying to assault me. I have to wonder if they really make more money from the people who don't 'pirate' their software than they have lost from those of us who have stopped buy games because we are afraid of what the games will do to our systems.
This article is kind of timely, as I just got a Kill-A-Watt on Tuesday for the purpose of measuring office equipment electrical usage. What I found was that my old Athlon64 3200+ (1 gig of memory) was drawing 100 watts idle, while the new Athlon64 X2 5400+ (2 gig of memory)that I just got to replace it runs at 40 watts idle. Given that I am paying $0.32 kwh for my top usage, that comes out to a $14.29 savings per month by purchasing the new, noticeably faster machine. Given that I paid $150 for the motherboard/processor/video card/memory upgrade, in 10 months, the machine will have paid for itself if both would have been left to sit idle. The normal usage numbers are 120/77 watts which comes out to a $10.07 a month savings if both machines were run under normal loads 24/7. The new system also has WAY better power management, so I'll actually use it. This means that when I am not using the system the numbers will be 100/5 watts, and a savings of $22.25/month. Based on my usage patterns, I expect about $15 a month in savings.
After seeing these numbers, I decided to check out my wifes machine. Her system has the known Windows bug that makes it go to the "It is safe to shut down your system" message instead of actually shutting down when the computer is instructed to shut down. This combined with her usage pattern of sitting down and looking things up for 5 minutes, then walking away for the computer, and coming back 2 or 3 hours later to spend another 5 or 10 minutes on the system, means that getting her to turn off her computer when not in use is simply not an option. There is no way I am going to convince her to wait the 3-4 minutes waiting for it to boot up, and another 3-4 minutes waiting for it to shut down, to get 5 minutes of use out of it. Her machine runs at 110 watts idle, and 150 watts under normal load. Given that the new motherboard has suspend that actually works, 99% of the time her system could be running 5 watts with, again, better functionality. This would lead to a savings of $22.25 per month in savings. This would mean giving her the same upgrade would pay for itself in ~7 months. You can bet I am going to do that very soon. I expect that my son's system is only slightly more efficient than my wifes, so his will likely follow shortly after.
Just be careful not to follow this advice too many times...
Yeah. Just think how fast your internet connection would be with your computer being the only device connected to it! No more sharing of bandwitdth with anyone!. ;)
There is no reason a corporation could not be locked up. It is simply a matter of judges and juries being willing. They are certainly able.
So, your suggesting that there is a scenerio...
3) It is stealing if you base your work on my ideas without paying me, but it is ok for me to base my work on your ideas for free?
That is kind of hypocritical. Many things in this world are fuzzy, and many things are not. This is a case where it is not. Either ideas are something that are owned, or they are not.
They shouldn't. Thus scenario #2 is the logical world view for you. It is the fact that no artist in recorded history has ever completely "reinvented the wheel" that the two possible situations exist, and why it is the Media Barons that are "stealing" intellectual property.
The word "steal" get thrown around a lot. Well, one must consider that the Media Barons might have stolen from us. I have yet to see a single creative work that is not based on previous works. I can guarantee that not one single creative work has been produced where every person was paid for their contribution. This is why the idea of "Intellectual Property" is absurd. What is not absurd is the idea that a short term monopoly be given to encourage the production of new (derivative) works. Unfortunately, copyright law has been perverted to the point that works which belong in the public domain are being held hostage by the Media Barons. This really is one of those magical black and white issues.
1) Intellectual Property really exists, and the current crop of media producers are stealing from everyone before them just because the "rightful owners" don't have the resources to protect themselves.
or
2) Intellectual Property is not real, and copyright has been abused and corrupted to deny citizens of their natural right to use and relay ideas to others.
I thought of doing this when I was 10. Since then, I have seriously hoped that the government never realized it. I really don't think that the unwashed masses could withstand the constant hum of the road telling them "Personal firearm ownership is wrong."..."If your not guilty, you've got nothing to hide"..."Voting third party is throwing away your vote."..."War is peace"..."Slavery is freedom"...
"Oddly I have noticed over the years that everyone gets up in arms about the fact that it is difficult to work with NTFS on non-Windows platforms, but there has been very little effort toward making it easy to use alternate filesystems from Windows."
This is something that I have always thought was odd. Running dual boot systems is incredibly common. Up until very recently, the only reliable file system that could be used on both the Windows and Linux sides was FAT. That was obviously a really crappy solution. While NTFS works today, there is no guarantee that it will continue to work in the future. The only way to reliably have a shared file system between Windows and Linux is to write the file system for Windows.
If the developers are worried about giving Windows an edge, just use one of the slower, less feature rich file systems.
The first programming job I had was with a California insurance rating company. We were unusual for a software company in that if we actually guaranteed the accuracy of our software. If our software said your premium was going to be $600 a year, and the correct calculation was $1200 a year, we paid the difference. As you can imagine, this lead to great urgency on our part to fix bugs. If the bug was going to be an expensive one, our bug fix turn around time was 24-48 hours. If our error was a fringe case that was only going to cost us a couple of hundred dollars, we might let it sit for 2 weeks. I still wait for the day that Microsoft shows as much faith in their software that we showed in ours.
I worked for a consulting company doing custom development for various customers for many years after that. Our turn around time for bug fixes was usually 24 to 72 hours. On a rare occasion a bug would sit out their for 1 to 2 weeks.
I currently work for a company doing internal development, our department has much more control over what we do and don't do. Non-critical bugs can sit out there for months. Anything that is a security bug or one that prevents people from doing their job are usually dealt with between 24 and 72 hours.