Are you on drugs? I'm a Richard Dawkins-book-toting atheist.
You're also not very subtle. I figured that if you can use the world "fascist" to mean things that it doesn't mean, but think that by hurling it about you're scoring points somehow, then you might enjoy another, similarly incindiary word being used equally out context and in a way that also dumbs down convesation. "Fascist" is not the same as "over-reacting municipal PD" or "judge that issues warrant he maybe shouldn't have." When there really are Fascists still out there running governments, why rob the word of meaning? When it gets slung around like that, it's no different than a kid who's angry at his parents (for making him finish his math homework) calling them the same thing. It's drama-queen theatrics that betray a lack of historical awareness or perspective.
In other words, the services have no intrinsic value, but Google is able to make money off of them due to copyright/trade secret laws.
Not really. I find that Google's massive infrastructure, and the integration of the identities the maintain through services like Gmail with AdSense, Analytics, and so many others - that brings considerable value to the people who use the service. Your own server can't do what Google does - and not just because their own server-side tools aren't being given away.
May I please continue to access this application, sir?
You are completely free to not do so, and to in fact start up your own business that, through a similar API, delivers a competing service. And since this is slashdot, we have to mention that the new business you'll be starting will makes even more money than other one. How? By giving away the source code that runs on the back end. Since we all know that the companies that give away the thing they're using to run their business always make more money than those that don't give their competition free help getting started. Er, right? Or am I on the wrong web site?
There's a big difference between publishing an API and giving the away the design of that back end that it may have cost you untold millions of dollars to create and evolve. Why would anyone expect Google to bundle up their entire search and ranking process, right down to every nuanced detail, and give it to Yahoo or MSN or some startup? Just like they can choose not to finance their competition, their competition can choose to attract enough investment to out-Google Google, and you don't have to ask Google if you can continue to use their tools. Instead, they can ask you if you would please stay with them and their services. Service providers deliver services, not free start-up resources for their competition.
Because there's no point in providing a hostile, thug-powered foreign government like those of Cuba or Venezuela what they actually want out of such a spectacle, which is a platform for their own propoganda. Not only is there no point to it, there's plenty of reason not to do so. Governments that actively suppress democracy in their own countries are, correctly, identified by the government in this country as not deserving any more support or recognition than in any way necessary. Actively giving them a highly visible platform from which to spew more of their BS is not in anyone's interest (except for the few murderous thugs in question).
Further: why empower the highly corrupt UN in the way you describe? This is the same organization that has no problem providing Iran with the opportunity to chair human rights committees, you know? The US elections are highly visible to media from every country of the world. Observers from highly adversarial parties all across the political spectrum are already completely involved the process and able to talk to the press about what they see... unlike in places like Venezuela or Cuba.
Nah. The partisan issue here is that if the story had lingered on the discovery that this was a Republican group of people, rather than Democrats, that the Slashdot summary and headline would have read "Kentucky Republicans Subvert Election" instead of "Kentucky Officials." You know it, I know it, and the GP was indirectly making that point, too.
Actually, many international Organizations wanted to monitor the US-american elections
No, many international organizations with an axe to grind thought it would make good political theater to offer to monitor them. When countries like Cuba offer their expertise in running fair, open democracies, that's not really a comment on the US, is it? It's evidence of just how dumb their propoganda machines think everyone else is. When Hugo Chavez mentions his willingness to help, though, we should take him up on it. That will give him something else to think about for a day, besides using violence and prisons to crush his own election rivals. I understand that Iran also offered to help out. It's hard to deny that allowing them to do so would make for great fun.
As far as ATM venders go, how does Diebold rank in security?
Does it really matter, when their customers are allowing the bad guys to physically work with the machines? Bad guys who get to touch system like that have a real leg up. Machines that - even if the user allows the bad guy to play with the hardware - could withstand a serious onslaught by organized Russian techie criminals would probably be substantially more expensive for the average [Insert Name of Russian 7-11 here] or their banking vendor to deploy.
The new dempgraphic will eat this up! Just think of it... we can tie in balloons, fashionable climate change zealotry, a discussion about sun screen... and because it was Indian scientists, they can really stretch the pop-culture connections, and have a sort of Slum Dog Xenobiologist thing where the scrappy kid from the wrong part of town discovers that we can stop the bacteria from creating dancing Bollywood zombies by sprinkling them with Splenda. I'm calling my agent - the screenplay just writes itself.
Speaking of which, has there been a Bollywood zombie movie yet? Sort of a Michael Jackson's Thriller thing, but with more colorfully dressed zombies?
How much will it cost to put him behind bars for, as you said, a few years?
How much will it cost everyone if someone who has shown that he considers your personal belongings and work to be his to do with as he pleases is now just running around, able to regard everyone else's property the same way? How do you propose physically stopping someone from taking whatever he wants when you're unwilling to... physically stop him?
Wow... the bushiites are still in control of the judicial power.
This same level of stunning ignorance about the actual structure of the government and its various agencies - the sort of fantastic miscomprehensions held by most Obama supporters - is why he got elected. And when all of the things he and his chosen administration are already doing wrong compound to make several more spectacular messes, the very same voters who don't even know who the FBI are and what they do will find a way to make sure they don't blame Obama for his own actions. Because that would make them uncomfortable about having so idiotically voted him in in the first place. After a few years, though, the buyer's remorse will really kick in - even among those who don't actually understand how the government works.
If we don't push to reform the insane copyrights and patent laws then the ONLY music we will end up with is some "corporate approved" American Idol style crap
Right, because nobody ever wrote any music or lyrics or anything like that. We wouldn't want to have to listen to, I don't know, something that we haven't already heard?
50 bloodsucking leeches in suits
As opposed to the bloodsucking leeches in sweatpants that can't think up their own guitar riffs or lyrics, and so they use someone else's? Or the bloodsucking leeches that are too cool to pay for any of the entertainment they want? Those kind of leeches?
But... that's still not correct. You can get a C&D, and you can go for the same money you'd normally have charged for the work. Federal pursuit over a registered work just also introduces the prospect of statutory damages. So, if you normally charge $500 to license a photograph for use on someone's web site, then you do NOT need a registered copyright to get a judge to collect that $500 for you. Of course, it will likely cost you and the other party both a lot more than $500 in legal fees over the matter... so it's always a who-blinks-first sort of thing.
Right. You can't make a statutory, federal case against the infringer without registering the work. But that doesn't mean you have no ability to shut down an infringer without having regisered. You just can't spank them in federal court, and for more money. For most people, the financial rewards of the non-federal action isn't worth the legal costs.
Without registering a copyright however the most you can get is a cease and desist order. The only way for you to collect damages is by registering for a copyright.
No. Without registering the material, the most you can get is what you'd normally get. If you have it registered, you can also seek punitive damages through federal courts. So, if you're an amateur that doesn't normally charge for your photographs, then you will indeed be hard pressed to get much more than a C&D. But if you can show that you've commanded $X for similar works in the past, then you can get that from an infringer, whether or not you've registered the work.
To be fair, though, for the tribes that were under Aztec domination, the arrival of the Spaniards was simply the exchange of one brutal enslaver for another.
Well yeah, but at least the Spaniards only shot them or occasionally burned them at the stake, instead of ripping their beating hearts of out their chests as part of the daily ritual in the town square. I mean, come on, you have to acknowledge progress, even when it's just incremental. Also, the Spaniards spoke Spanish, which was already being used all across central and south America, so there's that bit of convenience, too.
They did this by incorporating in states where shareholders have no rights.
And those shareholders were forced to invest in that company... how? Or is it possible that those shareholders actually wanted to see their shares become more valuable, and were happy to reward whoever can make that happen with a big fat paycheck?
Because if all a well-paid executive is is a load on the company, with no benefit, then that means that the shareholders aren't getting what they should get. And when that happens, they unload their shares. The value of the shares goes down. The company's capital shrinks. The visibility of that shrinking value causes concern among other investors, who also divest. And you get companies with worthless stocks, just as ought to happen.
Is it really your contention that the person who guides a multi-billion dollar company is only worth - to the shareholders, the customers, and the other employees of that company - 5 times what the janitor is making? Since you're choosing numbers, why not say he's not worth any more? Gee, maybe because there are very few people in the world who can effectively do that job, and the company needs to compete for them? How are you going to do that when only offering a janitor's wages? Or five times the janitor's wages? Why should someone who knows how to do that job settle for one that pays that much when another company might pay more? And since you're looking to control what shareholders are allowed to decide to pay the people they employ, and cap everyone's pay, why aren't you also talking about capping the janitor's pay? Perhaps all janitors, everywhere, should make the same Government Approved Janitor Salary? We can even have a Bureau Of Wages that centrally manages what each person's pay should be! And since everyone will finally be equally miserable, we can all make ourselves feel better by calling each other "comrade." That'll be great!
Or, you can let the people who choose to invest in a company decide what sort of compensation is reasonable, and let them pull their investment out of that company if they don't like it. Yeah, I know, no governement job is created in that scenario, and no need to tax private citizens to pay for that job. Bummer!
Part of why liberal became a term for social democrats in the USA is because most social democrats see the government as a tool to ensure personal liberty. To them, government is the tool that keeps one person from infringing on another's liberty, though if overdone it can lead to a nanny mentality.
This is simply not true. Social democrats see government as a tool to create specific outcomes, and use the power of government to requires some people to finance those outcomes for other people.
From a liberal (European sense) view, as long as they don't touch the contraband in any way, they aren't liable for what the giver and taker do. Both parties are responsible for their own actions.
Is the "liberal (European sense view" really that anxious to believe that the person who facilitates the criminal interactions of other people isn't part of the problem? That urgent desire to ignore causality and accountability is one of the reasons that the only cure they can think of for every problem is to raise taxes and increase the power of the Nanny State. Since it's so mean and judgemental to actually call out people for their own actions or inactions, they'd rather just make everybody (who works) responsible for everything, everywhere, all the time, with bureaucrats (at great, inefficient expense) playing the authoritative middle man. I'm always amused to see the words "authoritative" next to "conservative" as if that's even close to the truth. The most authoritatve people I know are lefties that think increased government involvement in and direction of every aspect of life is just fine, as long as they're calling the shots.
if the defendant shows his definitions and descriptions are true, that is a valid defense and he prevails.
That's not being debated. The issue here is that by having absolutely no way to connect (legally) to the person who is labeling your restaurant a diseased pit, you really have no way to deal with it. The article is about a Maryland court finding that perhaps the aggrieved party should be able to go to a judge with examples of what's been said and proof that it's false, and let the judge determine if the entity protectting the anonymity of the slanderer should have to give up information like an IP address.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you on drugs? I'm a Richard Dawkins-book-toting atheist.
You're also not very subtle. I figured that if you can use the world "fascist" to mean things that it doesn't mean, but think that by hurling it about you're scoring points somehow, then you might enjoy another, similarly incindiary word being used equally out context and in a way that also dumbs down convesation. "Fascist" is not the same as "over-reacting municipal PD" or "judge that issues warrant he maybe shouldn't have." When there really are Fascists still out there running governments, why rob the word of meaning? When it gets slung around like that, it's no different than a kid who's angry at his parents (for making him finish his math homework) calling them the same thing. It's drama-queen theatrics that betray a lack of historical awareness or perspective.
Exactly. I thought I could get away with it without some pretentious half-wit complaining. I guess I was wrong.
Spoken like a true Creationist.
I've never seen such a breathless defense of fascism on Slashdot as this post.
You don't actually know what word means, do you?
Code snippet:
sur l'erreur allez se rendre
Surely there is a single word that could replace "un-designed-for"?
That is a cromulent notion indeed. Somebody should get right on that.
In other words, the services have no intrinsic value, but Google is able to make money off of them due to copyright/trade secret laws.
Not really. I find that Google's massive infrastructure, and the integration of the identities the maintain through services like Gmail with AdSense, Analytics, and so many others - that brings considerable value to the people who use the service. Your own server can't do what Google does - and not just because their own server-side tools aren't being given away.
May I please continue to access this application, sir?
You are completely free to not do so, and to in fact start up your own business that, through a similar API, delivers a competing service. And since this is slashdot, we have to mention that the new business you'll be starting will makes even more money than other one. How? By giving away the source code that runs on the back end. Since we all know that the companies that give away the thing they're using to run their business always make more money than those that don't give their competition free help getting started. Er, right? Or am I on the wrong web site?
There's a big difference between publishing an API and giving the away the design of that back end that it may have cost you untold millions of dollars to create and evolve. Why would anyone expect Google to bundle up their entire search and ranking process, right down to every nuanced detail, and give it to Yahoo or MSN or some startup? Just like they can choose not to finance their competition, their competition can choose to attract enough investment to out-Google Google, and you don't have to ask Google if you can continue to use their tools. Instead, they can ask you if you would please stay with them and their services. Service providers deliver services, not free start-up resources for their competition.
Why didn't you allow them then?
Because there's no point in providing a hostile, thug-powered foreign government like those of Cuba or Venezuela what they actually want out of such a spectacle, which is a platform for their own propoganda. Not only is there no point to it, there's plenty of reason not to do so. Governments that actively suppress democracy in their own countries are, correctly, identified by the government in this country as not deserving any more support or recognition than in any way necessary. Actively giving them a highly visible platform from which to spew more of their BS is not in anyone's interest (except for the few murderous thugs in question).
Further: why empower the highly corrupt UN in the way you describe? This is the same organization that has no problem providing Iran with the opportunity to chair human rights committees, you know? The US elections are highly visible to media from every country of the world. Observers from highly adversarial parties all across the political spectrum are already completely involved the process and able to talk to the press about what they see... unlike in places like Venezuela or Cuba.
Nah. The partisan issue here is that if the story had lingered on the discovery that this was a Republican group of people, rather than Democrats, that the Slashdot summary and headline would have read "Kentucky Republicans Subvert Election" instead of "Kentucky Officials." You know it, I know it, and the GP was indirectly making that point, too.
Actually, many international Organizations wanted to monitor the US-american elections
No, many international organizations with an axe to grind thought it would make good political theater to offer to monitor them. When countries like Cuba offer their expertise in running fair, open democracies, that's not really a comment on the US, is it? It's evidence of just how dumb their propoganda machines think everyone else is. When Hugo Chavez mentions his willingness to help, though, we should take him up on it. That will give him something else to think about for a day, besides using violence and prisons to crush his own election rivals. I understand that Iran also offered to help out. It's hard to deny that allowing them to do so would make for great fun.
As far as ATM venders go, how does Diebold rank in security?
Does it really matter, when their customers are allowing the bad guys to physically work with the machines? Bad guys who get to touch system like that have a real leg up. Machines that - even if the user allows the bad guy to play with the hardware - could withstand a serious onslaught by organized Russian techie criminals would probably be substantially more expensive for the average [Insert Name of Russian 7-11 here] or their banking vendor to deploy.
The new dempgraphic will eat this up! Just think of it... we can tie in balloons, fashionable climate change zealotry, a discussion about sun screen... and because it was Indian scientists, they can really stretch the pop-culture connections, and have a sort of Slum Dog Xenobiologist thing where the scrappy kid from the wrong part of town discovers that we can stop the bacteria from creating dancing Bollywood zombies by sprinkling them with Splenda. I'm calling my agent - the screenplay just writes itself.
Speaking of which, has there been a Bollywood zombie movie yet? Sort of a Michael Jackson's Thriller thing, but with more colorfully dressed zombies?
How much will it cost to put him behind bars for, as you said, a few years?
... physically stop him?
How much will it cost everyone if someone who has shown that he considers your personal belongings and work to be his to do with as he pleases is now just running around, able to regard everyone else's property the same way? How do you propose physically stopping someone from taking whatever he wants when you're unwilling to
Wow... the bushiites are still in control of the judicial power.
This same level of stunning ignorance about the actual structure of the government and its various agencies - the sort of fantastic miscomprehensions held by most Obama supporters - is why he got elected. And when all of the things he and his chosen administration are already doing wrong compound to make several more spectacular messes, the very same voters who don't even know who the FBI are and what they do will find a way to make sure they don't blame Obama for his own actions. Because that would make them uncomfortable about having so idiotically voted him in in the first place. After a few years, though, the buyer's remorse will really kick in - even among those who don't actually understand how the government works.
If we don't push to reform the insane copyrights and patent laws then the ONLY music we will end up with is some "corporate approved" American Idol style crap
Right, because nobody ever wrote any music or lyrics or anything like that. We wouldn't want to have to listen to, I don't know, something that we haven't already heard?
50 bloodsucking leeches in suits
As opposed to the bloodsucking leeches in sweatpants that can't think up their own guitar riffs or lyrics, and so they use someone else's? Or the bloodsucking leeches that are too cool to pay for any of the entertainment they want? Those kind of leeches?
But... that's still not correct. You can get a C&D, and you can go for the same money you'd normally have charged for the work. Federal pursuit over a registered work just also introduces the prospect of statutory damages. So, if you normally charge $500 to license a photograph for use on someone's web site, then you do NOT need a registered copyright to get a judge to collect that $500 for you. Of course, it will likely cost you and the other party both a lot more than $500 in legal fees over the matter... so it's always a who-blinks-first sort of thing.
Right. You can't make a statutory, federal case against the infringer without registering the work. But that doesn't mean you have no ability to shut down an infringer without having regisered. You just can't spank them in federal court, and for more money. For most people, the financial rewards of the non-federal action isn't worth the legal costs.
Without registering a copyright however the most you can get is a cease and desist order. The only way for you to collect damages is by registering for a copyright.
No. Without registering the material, the most you can get is what you'd normally get. If you have it registered, you can also seek punitive damages through federal courts. So, if you're an amateur that doesn't normally charge for your photographs, then you will indeed be hard pressed to get much more than a C&D. But if you can show that you've commanded $X for similar works in the past, then you can get that from an infringer, whether or not you've registered the work.
To be fair, though, for the tribes that were under Aztec domination, the arrival of the Spaniards was simply the exchange of one brutal enslaver for another.
Well yeah, but at least the Spaniards only shot them or occasionally burned them at the stake, instead of ripping their beating hearts of out their chests as part of the daily ritual in the town square. I mean, come on, you have to acknowledge progress, even when it's just incremental. Also, the Spaniards spoke Spanish, which was already being used all across central and south America, so there's that bit of convenience, too.
Obama's openness has jumped the shark
No need to fret about that, on this front. It already happened on a dozen others.
Nowhere in the article is such an automatic disabling of IE mentioned
Yeah, just in the summary:
"One solution under consideration by the EU would require Microsoft to disable IE if the user decided to install a different browser"
So, gee, I wonder why someone might think that was mentioned in the article, huh?
our executives apparently only know how to take large paychecks for destroying the companies they run
Really? All of them? Huh. Not a single, successful business out there, run by "our executives." Wow. I had no idea.
They did this by incorporating in states where shareholders have no rights.
And those shareholders were forced to invest in that company... how? Or is it possible that those shareholders actually wanted to see their shares become more valuable, and were happy to reward whoever can make that happen with a big fat paycheck?
Because if all a well-paid executive is is a load on the company, with no benefit, then that means that the shareholders aren't getting what they should get. And when that happens, they unload their shares. The value of the shares goes down. The company's capital shrinks. The visibility of that shrinking value causes concern among other investors, who also divest. And you get companies with worthless stocks, just as ought to happen.
Is it really your contention that the person who guides a multi-billion dollar company is only worth - to the shareholders, the customers, and the other employees of that company - 5 times what the janitor is making? Since you're choosing numbers, why not say he's not worth any more? Gee, maybe because there are very few people in the world who can effectively do that job, and the company needs to compete for them? How are you going to do that when only offering a janitor's wages? Or five times the janitor's wages? Why should someone who knows how to do that job settle for one that pays that much when another company might pay more? And since you're looking to control what shareholders are allowed to decide to pay the people they employ, and cap everyone's pay, why aren't you also talking about capping the janitor's pay? Perhaps all janitors, everywhere, should make the same Government Approved Janitor Salary? We can even have a Bureau Of Wages that centrally manages what each person's pay should be! And since everyone will finally be equally miserable, we can all make ourselves feel better by calling each other "comrade." That'll be great!
Or, you can let the people who choose to invest in a company decide what sort of compensation is reasonable, and let them pull their investment out of that company if they don't like it. Yeah, I know, no governement job is created in that scenario, and no need to tax private citizens to pay for that job. Bummer!
Part of why liberal became a term for social democrats in the USA is because most social democrats see the government as a tool to ensure personal liberty. To them, government is the tool that keeps one person from infringing on another's liberty, though if overdone it can lead to a nanny mentality.
This is simply not true. Social democrats see government as a tool to create specific outcomes, and use the power of government to requires some people to finance those outcomes for other people.
From a liberal (European sense) view, as long as they don't touch the contraband in any way, they aren't liable for what the giver and taker do. Both parties are responsible for their own actions.
Is the "liberal (European sense view" really that anxious to believe that the person who facilitates the criminal interactions of other people isn't part of the problem? That urgent desire to ignore causality and accountability is one of the reasons that the only cure they can think of for every problem is to raise taxes and increase the power of the Nanny State. Since it's so mean and judgemental to actually call out people for their own actions or inactions, they'd rather just make everybody (who works) responsible for everything, everywhere, all the time, with bureaucrats (at great, inefficient expense) playing the authoritative middle man. I'm always amused to see the words "authoritative" next to "conservative" as if that's even close to the truth. The most authoritatve people I know are lefties that think increased government involvement in and direction of every aspect of life is just fine, as long as they're calling the shots.
if the defendant shows his definitions and descriptions are true, that is a valid defense and he prevails.
That's not being debated. The issue here is that by having absolutely no way to connect (legally) to the person who is labeling your restaurant a diseased pit, you really have no way to deal with it. The article is about a Maryland court finding that perhaps the aggrieved party should be able to go to a judge with examples of what's been said and proof that it's false, and let the judge determine if the entity protectting the anonymity of the slanderer should have to give up information like an IP address.