While the GP was certainly rude and racist, spelunking is by no means an uncommon word. Even among those folks that don't like caves (for example, me, I'm claustrophobic) spelunking would hardly be considered obscure. But don't take it too hard; we all run across words that we don't know simply because we, for whatever reason, haven't been exposed to them.
For a pop-culture reference, in the South Park movie there was a great line that incorporated the term: "Eat penguin shit you ass spelunker."
This way of thinking annoys me. It's possible to not believe in something without having any evidence. For example, if I told you that there was an alabaster dildo slowly orbiting our solar system out in the Oort cloud, it would be impossible for you to prove otherwise, given that we lack the necessary technology to zero in on an object that small and that far away. However, it would be reasonable for you to not believe me. I think you can agree that your refusal to believe in the alabaster dildo does not constitute a religion, even though you are technically believing something without having any irrefutable evidence for that belief.
To take this one step further: what if, sometime in the future, our technology improved to the point where we could test the alabaster dildo hypothesis, and, lo and behold, there was in fact a dildo out there floating in the Oort cloud. Would you continue to insist that the dildo did not exist? No. You'd probably be surprised, but you'd just revise your position, probably, and start wondering how on earth that dildo got out there in the first place. This is the fundamental difference between a religious belief and a belief.
I have no doubt that some atheists would in fact continue to deny the existence of God, even if real, hard, scientific evidence for his existence could be demonstrated. But my guess is, those "religious" atheists are a small minority. Most would probably be genuinely surprised, and would probably change their minds on the spot. They're just not holding their breath.
Not believing in something that you feel to be unlikely is not the same as unwavering religious belief. Hell, there are lots of religious people that discount scientifically testable findings simply because they contradict what some old shepherd dudes wrote a couple of millenia ago. This is an example of unwavering religious belief. Even in light of evidence to the contrary, their self-delusion persists.
Frankly, even the rabidly fundamentalist anti-evolution junkies are aware that evolution is widely accepted in the scientific community. This doesn't stop them from trying their best to discredit the theory and convert people over to their way of thinking, but they'd have to be utterly daft to not realize that most scientists do not in fact agree with their point of view.
I agree; this has to be ignorance, not religious zealotry. It's one thing to say "Evolution is bunk, and there's a pervasive anti-religious conspiracy in academia promoting it" and quite another to say "No scientists really believe in evolution." As far as I know, none of the fundies are actually saying the latter and expecting to be believed. The former, however, is one of their standard talking points.
You're assuming that the only reason they opted not to include the vitamin C was to save money on ascorbic acid costs. My bet is that the real scenario was more like this: they did a market analysis and discovered that vitamin drinks were increasingly popular with consumers because of their perceived health benefits, but then discovered in taste tests that actually including vitamin C in their recipe made the resulting drink far less popular. So, reasoning that no one would know the difference anyway, they ditched the vitamin C, resulting in a tastier (but less healthy) beverage, but opted to continue claiming that the drink had healthy vitamin C as a major ingredient to cash in on the health-drink market, which especially in Europe is a billion dollar industry.
I see this as a much more likely scenario, because, as you noted, the cost of ascorbic acid probably could have been offset by using cheaper ink printing the label, or whatever -- in other words, adding or not adding it would have had at best only a negligible effect on the bottom line. Why risk possible false advertising suits for so little gain? No, I'm sure they decided that it was worth it, because of the extra sales expected from marketing the beverage as a vitamin drink. I'm agree with the grandparent poster: they got off easy, and should have been fined more.
Well, 40 thousand people are killed yearly in the US alone every year in traffic accidents. And that's just deaths, mind you, it doesn't include injuries and fender benders and what not. According to the California DMV, a full 1 in 3 drivers will be involved in a fatal or near-fatal accident sometime during their lives.
As for your assertion that public transportation needs to be on-demand and show up at the front of your house in order to be useful, clearly you've never lived anywhere with a good public transportation system. As long as the bus/tram/metro stop is within easy walking distance from your home, and one comes frequently (ten minutes or less is a common interval in Europe and Asia), you aren't honestly impacted much. Especially if the public transportation schedule is accurate, it's very easy to plan your commute around. If someone else is driving, you can text and wheel and deal all you want without endagering anyone. You can read, listen to music, do whatever you want. Sleeping is popular.
Sure, there are occasions (infrequent at best) where you need point to point transportation starting at your home and ending at your destination (maybe if you're going to the airport and have a lot of luggage). But that's what taxis are for.
Hell, in New York the mayor takes the metro to work. Nowadays there are people who live in London but work in Paris, and vice versa, and use the Eurostar to commute. We don't have this kind of infrastructure in the US. We would benefit immensely from it.
It's important to note that when a scientist says "This will be provable someday", what he means is, "It will be testable someday" which in turn means "It will be falsifiable someday." This means, in particular, that he is allowing for the distinct possibility that it will be disproved. Therein lies the difference.
The Bible contains all sorts of statements that we now know to be false, in the sense that they contradict all available evidence. The religious respond by going into elaborate contortions to maintain their beliefs (see, for example, "God put the dinosaur fossils there to test us"). Scientists change their opinions. For example, before the wave-particle duality of light was understood, it was widely believed that light was a wave -- and because waves travel through a medium (like ripples in a pond, for example) it was widely believed that light also traveled through a medium -- a medium scientists called the "luminiferous aether". Its existance was widely believed in. And yet, experiments showed that this "aether" did not exist. What did scientists do? They changed their minds.
Religious people never change their minds. Or rather, those that do are called heretics, and up until recently were frequently burned at the stake.
I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that physicists adapt their beliefs to fit evidence, rather than attempting to adapt evidence to fit with their beliefs?
Well, to be fair, Bush has been in office for nearly 7 years now. That's a substantial block of time, and enough for public opinion to sway one way or another. Consider that 6 years ago, Bush had a higher approval rating than pretty much any president, ever (immediately following 9/11). People's opinions change.
Personally, I would support civil unions -- but only if they are all the government offers (ie, to the exclusion of marriage). If you want to define marriage as a religious institution, I'm fine with that. Then laicity requires that the state not concern itself with marriage at all -- meaning that if you want to get "married" in a church, but also want to be recognised by the state as a "serious" couple, you'd have to also register for a civil union. I'm not sure that this would be popular with anti-gay-marriage proponents, however, as many liberal branches of Christianity would conduct same-sex ceremonies and call it marriage, and their first amendment rights would prevent anyone from limiting their ability to do so.
I absolutely oppose having civil unions for gays and marriage for straights. It's either civil unions for gays and straights, or marriage for gays and straights. Equality is the key issue here.
I also think that painting Bush as "openly in favor (sic) of civil unions", requiring "the Democratic Party [to] latch... onto gay marriage as a way to differentiate" itself, is sort of silly when you consider that Bush's open favour of civil unions came hand in hand with a call to institute a so-called "marriage amendment" that would define marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman.
Having said that, the Democrats are a bunch of wankers. Much like the Republicans, unfortunately. We're fucked.
I certainly share the view that walking the walk is more important than talking the talk, and that businesspeople as a whole put far too much emphasis on where you graduated from etc etc. However, regardless of his abilities, what he has shown himself to be is a liar. Regardless of how competent a person may be, liars generally prove to be more trouble than they're worth, in the long run.
I would be extremely wary about hiring him, for anything, in light of this.
You'll note I said touches on the truth of the matter, not is accurate. Of course the argument is silly, for exactly the reasons you describe. Did you read the rest of my post?
I think your (very amusing, btw) scenario with the dogsex actually touches on the truth of the matter: right and wrong are not absolute, but rather are very much socially defined. Most atheists reject moral absolutism, which I think religious people find very frightening. But look around -- social mores change. Things that were at one point considered wrong are re-evaluated by society and by people, and things that were at one point considered right are the same.
For example, in numerous places in both the old and new testaments, the bible condones the practice of slavery (for example, see Lev 25:44-46 in the OT, 1 Timothy 6:1-2 in the NT) and yet the vast majority of Christian people do not support slavery any more, or think it is right. Thus, one can see that even in the case of religious people, morals can and do change with the times.
Going the other way, our society increasingly does not view homosexuality as evil or as a crime, and many Christians are similarly changing their views on this matter (it is interesting to note that there is much resistance to this in certain religious circles, despite the fact that there are many more passages in the bible condoning slavery than there are villifying homosexuality, but I digress.)
I'm using these two examples to explain that even with the "unerring word of God" to guide the unwashed masses, people's notions of right and wrong change as society changes. Now, I lived in Asia for many years and contrasting the two cultures I'll admit that the influence of judeo-christian religious thought on western social mores is undeniable. But, though it may surprise you, people in the East were no less moral or considerate of what they deemed right or wrong than people in the West are, despite their overwhelming ignorance of Christianity.
You may be tempted at this point to say, "Ah, well, they may not have been influenced by Christian morality, but they were influenced by Buddhism, or Daoism, or whatever religion they practise there" but I would caution you against pursuing this line of argumentation, for two reasons: first and foremost, you may actually undermine your position by implying that it is not in fact specifically Christianity which is required to enforce proper morals on a population but simply "any old religion", when I think you would find this untrue (for example, would the morals of the Church of Satan be to your liking, or perhaps, taking a less extreme example, Islam? The latter finds wide currency in China.)
Second, while the influence of Buddhism and Daoism is undeniable, Mainland Chinese society has been atheist (due chiefly to communist repression of religious faith, a practise I do not condone) for the last several generations. So, in light of these points, how does one explain their strong sense of morality?
The answer, which you yourself alluded to, is that society, as a whole, decides what is right and what is wrong, largely by consensus. This means that morals can and do change, but I think the slavery example should make it clear that this is a good thing, not a bad thing. Moral relavitism does not mean that suddenly everyone is going to redefine what is good and what is bad for themselves -- but it means that we have the flexibility, as a society, to say things like "it is wrong to treat women as if they were inferior" despite that view being ubiquitous in the bible, "slavery is wrong" despite it being condoned by the bible, "shaving your beard probably isn't such a grave offence to God that it warrants public stoning as punishment" (read Leviticus sometime), etc, etc. It makes sense that as we learn more about ourselves and about the ramifications of some of the things we previously thought were a-ok, that we as a society change our minds about those conclusions, instead of clinging to the moral codes outlined in a book written at least two millenia ago.
Of course, as you can probably tell, I am not religious, so perhaps I've missed some deeper meaning here. But I sincerely hope that Muslims in
And why, pray tell, would they have to do that? When someone sues Microsoft for patent infringement, do they have to point out exactly where in Microsoft's source code the patent infringement occurs?
No. They don't. Linux being open source doesn't immediately force would be litigators to do more work than they'd be required to in other circumstances.
Dude, just stop talking, you don't know what you're talking about, and it's embarrassing everyone reading this thread. The OP is basically right about everything he said, and you are similarly wrong about nearly everything you're asserting.
Your Ogg Vorbis argument is ridiculous, as patents are typically very specific in nature (as the OP said, they do not cover over-arching architectural design -- POSIX was a stupid argument, and so is this isomorphic audio codec argument). Furthermore, your moronic assertion that "if it used a different algorithm to derive that format it wouldn't infringe the [mp3] patent" assumes (for no reason) that the relevant patent in his hypothetical scenario wasn't one relating to the format itself (yes, this can be done, and is, frequently).
Then you go on to condescendingly explain what a patent is supposed to do, as if the OP doesn't know -- when it's clear to everyone that he has a much better notion of how patents work than you do.
As for your BS about SMB, who the hell cares whether IBM developed it or not? Did you hatch from a spore or something? Nearly all of Microsoft's technologies were developed by someone else originally -- which has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not Microsoft has added features or extensions that they've patented. Listen, Samba is not trying to interoperate with IBM's SMB implementation -- in fact, regardless of whether IBM developed SMB or not, the only SMB implementation that matters is Microsoft's, which has changed a lot over the years. Samba aims to be compatible with Microsoft, not IBM. In order to do this, it is exceedingly likely that Samba infringes on their patents. And, just for the record, most modern MS-based filesharing uses CIFS, not SMB (Samba does both). The former is much more of a Microsoft technology.
I also love how you essentially say "since MS and Samba co-operated at one point in the past" (an assertion I'm not even sure is true, but I'll let that slide because I'll admit that I don't know) "there can be no patent violations in Samba". I mean, holy shit! Are you daft? Do you honestly believe the world actually works this way? The only thing that results in indemnity from patent litigation is a patent license. "But your honor, MS helped me develop this piece of software, there couldn't be any patents in it aww gee shucks" is not valid legal recourse. In fact, this is one of the basic strategies involved in submarine patenting -- get your patented procedures, formats, and languages in widespread use however you can (often by publically releasing code in violation) and then, years later, when it's a standard, sue the pants off of whoever has money.
The OP is right on -- there's no code to be shown in a patent violations case. If they sue you for patent violations, the burden is on exactly one person -- YOU -- to show that your implementation of the algorithm is not in fact in violation of their patents. They don't have to find the code in question for you. It's a simple as "This feature of NTFS is patented by patent X and the Linux kernel implements NTFS in its entirety -- therefore it must be infringing. Pay us or we'll take you to court."
There is absolutely no question that Linux violates a huge number of patents. This is why, as the OP said before, software patents are evil.
I don't know about you, but I haven't seen any economists pushing for "strong intellectual property law." The only entities I see pushing for that are publishers, and that's because they have a vested, selfish interest in it.
There are, there absolutely are. One need only read the aptly entitled "Economist" to see it. Strong intellectual property law is seen as one of the important facets of a strong economy. Alan Greenspan, for example, was constantly pushing for stronger intellectual property law in the United States -- he's just one big name. Most often, one sees economists who specialise in development making the claim, especially with regard to emerging economies.
As for your whole spiel about how the constitution limits the use of copyright law, I think you've misunderstood me. I did not mean to imply that copyright law can be applied for any purpose -- but the restriction that exists in the constitution is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. Certainly, it would be unconstitutional for the legislature to pass copyright law reserving the right to copy to poultry, but barring such extreme (and ridiculous) scenarios, the "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" phrase is legally so vague as to be useless. What is meant by "to promote", and what is meant by "progress"? What constitutes "the useful arts"? You may find my pedantry annoying, but I assure you, this is how lawyers and judges think.
This is why the opinion of economists is important: who better to judge whether "progress" has been promoted? They're telling everyone that we need stronger intellectual property laws, that having copyright "revert" to the public domain is much like the way real property "reverts" to the state after some period of years in many communist countries -- that knowledge that copyright is temporary disincents creators from undertaking complex and involved intellectual property projects, etc, etc. We may disagree with them, and we can shout about it until we're blue in the face, but the courts listen to them, not us, and guess what? They get to decide.
The only thing interesting about Google images is the scale -- as I said before, the media equivalent of quoting is well established as fair use, so I'm not sure we disagree. How exactly is Google images different from a normal search engine, which quotes small parts of webpages for the purpose of helping the user pick which is a relevant search result?
Furthermore, the only thing "for profit" about Google images is the fact that Google is a for-profit company. There are no ads on Google images, you'll notice -- it doesn't serve as a direct revenue stream. Also, remember when Agence France Presse (AFP) threatened to sue Google if it didn't filter its images out of Google News? Google was reproducing much smaller versions of pictures for GN than it does for GI, so it seems like a cut and dry fair use case, right? So Google called AFP's bluff and took them to court, right? I mean, Google's a billion dollar company with armies of the best legal minds at its disposal, and according to you, fair use is a pretty sure thing, so of course they went to court, right?
No... they didn't. I wonder why? They just pulled the images, even though AFP produces a huge percentage of the high quality news images that make it into magazines and newspapers worldwide.
I agree that the DMCA is evil, I agree that the fact that no provisions are made for things re-entering the public domain is a strong indication of how the powers that be consider copyright law. My point -- my only point -- is that fair use is hardly the silver bullet the average Slashdotter seems to think it is.
Since neither of us is a lawyer (surprise), perhaps reading the comments of one who works in the field would be elucidating? He doesn't seem to think the fair use defence is particularly successful either. Not surprisingly, when he comes out and says this, people get upset. But here's the rub: the world is how it is, not how we want it to be.
I said the constitution only says that copyright can be applied. I fail to see how what I said is "not true". You simply added that it can be applied "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" (much parroted on Slashdot, so I saw no reason to repeat it).
The use of the word "can" in my post is important, which is why I've emphasised it here. The constitution does not require copyright law. That's important -- it makes copyright reform legal without constitutional amendment, which makes it much less of a hurdle.
The whole "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" thing gets repeated ad nauseum here as if it actually meant something. Sure, we can kick and scream and claim that copyright law as is does little to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, but to what end, exactly? If your end is copyright reform, then we agree.
Otherwise, I'm not sure why you're bringing it up, unless you misread my post to mean that the constitution makes no mention of copyright law, or something (which I clearly did not say or imply).
Oh, and BTW, it is relatively common for economists to push for "strong intellectual property law" precisely because they feel that it efficiently promotes science and the useful arts by creating financial incentive for these things. You may find it difficult, in a court of law, to argue that copyright law fails to achieve these goals when so many people clearly feel it does. So, if you get caught sharing music with a friend, you'd better find a better defence...
No, I think you (and your sibling poster, it seems) are the ones who are seriously retarded. Humour-impaired, I think, is the term that some people use to describe your kind.
Two things worth noting: "fair use" is not part of the constitution -- in fact, the constitution doesn't say anything about how copyright law should be applied, it only says that copyright law can be applied. So the erosion of "fair use" does not fly in the face of the constitution, it possibly flies in the face of established copyright law.
Furthermore, "fair use" on Slashdot seems to mean "I can do whatever I want with this piece of media", when in fact in the real world, no court of law has ever upheld this interpretation. In practice, fair use does little to protect the consumer who is copying music or movies and redistributing them. To my knowledge, the courts have stated that time-shifting constitutes fair use (this means, recording a show when you're not at home and then watching it again later, once, commercials and all), certain very short clips (the media equivalent of quoting) when making a commentary on a piece of music or other media, and that's just about it.
Notably, "backups" do not constitute fair use, making a copy for a friend does not constitute fair use, having a copy of your cd for use in your car does not constitute fair use. Mix tapes do not constitute fair use, etc, etc. Pretty much everything that Slashbots say is "fair use" is not legally fair use, it's "what said Slashbot thinks ought to be fair use".
The courts have classically sided with the copyright holder on fair use issues.
"But, but," I hear you say, "lots of people do xyz and have always done xyz. Surely that makes it fair use -- we could do it before, now they're limiting our rights!" Bzzt, sorry, you lose, play again. Whether or not something constitutes fair use largely has to do with how the courts rule on that particular usage, and they generally make their decisions based on legal precedent, which tends to be very anti-consumer. Just because you've always been making mixed tapes or copying music or whatever doesn't mean it's legal, it just means either a) you're breaking the law, thinking, incorrectly, that fair use protects your actions when in fact it doesn't or b) you're doing something that is in a legal gray area and until someone sues you you will not know for sure whether or not it constitutes fair use.
The only way out of this is copyright reform. Stallman, as usual, is right.
I know you're trying to make a joke, and for the record I don't believe in telepathy either, but if a hot chick were telepathic, it stands to reason that she would be picking up "hey now" thoughts from tons of guys all the time, wouldn't it? If she had to go through and slap all of them, her hands would get tired, and they'd probably lock her away -- I mean, if someone says "you're hot", you can maybe slap them and then sue for sexual harassment, but if he only thinks it? What can you tell the judge? "I have ESP! He was thinking about my tits!"
No, I'm pretty sure that if there were a telepathic hot chick around, she'd probably go through life mighty annoyed and powerless, and maybe she'd eventually crack and shoot someone.
As I said, I don't believe in telepathy, but your proof isn't rigorous enough.
Slashdot Mirror
While the GP was certainly rude and racist, spelunking is by no means an uncommon word. Even among those folks that don't like caves (for example, me, I'm claustrophobic) spelunking would hardly be considered obscure. But don't take it too hard; we all run across words that we don't know simply because we, for whatever reason, haven't been exposed to them.
For a pop-culture reference, in the South Park movie there was a great line that incorporated the term: "Eat penguin shit you ass spelunker."
I love that line...
This way of thinking annoys me. It's possible to not believe in something without having any evidence. For example, if I told you that there was an alabaster dildo slowly orbiting our solar system out in the Oort cloud, it would be impossible for you to prove otherwise, given that we lack the necessary technology to zero in on an object that small and that far away. However, it would be reasonable for you to not believe me. I think you can agree that your refusal to believe in the alabaster dildo does not constitute a religion, even though you are technically believing something without having any irrefutable evidence for that belief.
To take this one step further: what if, sometime in the future, our technology improved to the point where we could test the alabaster dildo hypothesis, and, lo and behold, there was in fact a dildo out there floating in the Oort cloud. Would you continue to insist that the dildo did not exist? No. You'd probably be surprised, but you'd just revise your position, probably, and start wondering how on earth that dildo got out there in the first place. This is the fundamental difference between a religious belief and a belief.
I have no doubt that some atheists would in fact continue to deny the existence of God, even if real, hard, scientific evidence for his existence could be demonstrated. But my guess is, those "religious" atheists are a small minority. Most would probably be genuinely surprised, and would probably change their minds on the spot. They're just not holding their breath.
Not believing in something that you feel to be unlikely is not the same as unwavering religious belief. Hell, there are lots of religious people that discount scientifically testable findings simply because they contradict what some old shepherd dudes wrote a couple of millenia ago. This is an example of unwavering religious belief. Even in light of evidence to the contrary, their self-delusion persists.
Wikipedia disagrees...
The lucidity of your post leaves little doubt which group you belong in...
Frankly, even the rabidly fundamentalist anti-evolution junkies are aware that evolution is widely accepted in the scientific community. This doesn't stop them from trying their best to discredit the theory and convert people over to their way of thinking, but they'd have to be utterly daft to not realize that most scientists do not in fact agree with their point of view.
I agree; this has to be ignorance, not religious zealotry. It's one thing to say "Evolution is bunk, and there's a pervasive anti-religious conspiracy in academia promoting it" and quite another to say "No scientists really believe in evolution." As far as I know, none of the fundies are actually saying the latter and expecting to be believed. The former, however, is one of their standard talking points.
You're assuming that the only reason they opted not to include the vitamin C was to save money on ascorbic acid costs. My bet is that the real scenario was more like this: they did a market analysis and discovered that vitamin drinks were increasingly popular with consumers because of their perceived health benefits, but then discovered in taste tests that actually including vitamin C in their recipe made the resulting drink far less popular. So, reasoning that no one would know the difference anyway, they ditched the vitamin C, resulting in a tastier (but less healthy) beverage, but opted to continue claiming that the drink had healthy vitamin C as a major ingredient to cash in on the health-drink market, which especially in Europe is a billion dollar industry.
I see this as a much more likely scenario, because, as you noted, the cost of ascorbic acid probably could have been offset by using cheaper ink printing the label, or whatever -- in other words, adding or not adding it would have had at best only a negligible effect on the bottom line. Why risk possible false advertising suits for so little gain? No, I'm sure they decided that it was worth it, because of the extra sales expected from marketing the beverage as a vitamin drink. I'm agree with the grandparent poster: they got off easy, and should have been fined more.
Well, 40 thousand people are killed yearly in the US alone every year in traffic accidents. And that's just deaths, mind you, it doesn't include injuries and fender benders and what not. According to the California DMV, a full 1 in 3 drivers will be involved in a fatal or near-fatal accident sometime during their lives.
As for your assertion that public transportation needs to be on-demand and show up at the front of your house in order to be useful, clearly you've never lived anywhere with a good public transportation system. As long as the bus/tram/metro stop is within easy walking distance from your home, and one comes frequently (ten minutes or less is a common interval in Europe and Asia), you aren't honestly impacted much. Especially if the public transportation schedule is accurate, it's very easy to plan your commute around. If someone else is driving, you can text and wheel and deal all you want without endagering anyone. You can read, listen to music, do whatever you want. Sleeping is popular.
Sure, there are occasions (infrequent at best) where you need point to point transportation starting at your home and ending at your destination (maybe if you're going to the airport and have a lot of luggage). But that's what taxis are for.
Hell, in New York the mayor takes the metro to work. Nowadays there are people who live in London but work in Paris, and vice versa, and use the Eurostar to commute. We don't have this kind of infrastructure in the US. We would benefit immensely from it.
It's important to note that when a scientist says "This will be provable someday", what he means is, "It will be testable someday" which in turn means "It will be falsifiable someday." This means, in particular, that he is allowing for the distinct possibility that it will be disproved. Therein lies the difference.
The Bible contains all sorts of statements that we now know to be false, in the sense that they contradict all available evidence. The religious respond by going into elaborate contortions to maintain their beliefs (see, for example, "God put the dinosaur fossils there to test us"). Scientists change their opinions. For example, before the wave-particle duality of light was understood, it was widely believed that light was a wave -- and because waves travel through a medium (like ripples in a pond, for example) it was widely believed that light also traveled through a medium -- a medium scientists called the "luminiferous aether". Its existance was widely believed in. And yet, experiments showed that this "aether" did not exist. What did scientists do? They changed their minds.
Religious people never change their minds. Or rather, those that do are called heretics, and up until recently were frequently burned at the stake.
I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that physicists adapt their beliefs to fit evidence, rather than attempting to adapt evidence to fit with their beliefs?
Well, to be fair, Bush has been in office for nearly 7 years now. That's a substantial block of time, and enough for public opinion to sway one way or another. Consider that 6 years ago, Bush had a higher approval rating than pretty much any president, ever (immediately following 9/11). People's opinions change.
Personally, I would support civil unions -- but only if they are all the government offers (ie, to the exclusion of marriage). If you want to define marriage as a religious institution, I'm fine with that. Then laicity requires that the state not concern itself with marriage at all -- meaning that if you want to get "married" in a church, but also want to be recognised by the state as a "serious" couple, you'd have to also register for a civil union. I'm not sure that this would be popular with anti-gay-marriage proponents, however, as many liberal branches of Christianity would conduct same-sex ceremonies and call it marriage, and their first amendment rights would prevent anyone from limiting their ability to do so.
I absolutely oppose having civil unions for gays and marriage for straights. It's either civil unions for gays and straights, or marriage for gays and straights. Equality is the key issue here.
I also think that painting Bush as "openly in favor (sic) of civil unions", requiring "the Democratic Party [to] latch... onto gay marriage as a way to differentiate" itself, is sort of silly when you consider that Bush's open favour of civil unions came hand in hand with a call to institute a so-called "marriage amendment" that would define marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman.
Having said that, the Democrats are a bunch of wankers. Much like the Republicans, unfortunately. We're fucked.
But... but... Abortion! Gay Marriage!
Um...
I'm sure there are other differences too, just give me a minute to think of them...
Parent's quote is from Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams... it's good to cite your sources, EinZweiDrei.
I certainly share the view that walking the walk is more important than talking the talk, and that businesspeople as a whole put far too much emphasis on where you graduated from etc etc. However, regardless of his abilities, what he has shown himself to be is a liar. Regardless of how competent a person may be, liars generally prove to be more trouble than they're worth, in the long run.
I would be extremely wary about hiring him, for anything, in light of this.
You'll note I said touches on the truth of the matter, not is accurate. Of course the argument is silly, for exactly the reasons you describe. Did you read the rest of my post?
I think your (very amusing, btw) scenario with the dogsex actually touches on the truth of the matter: right and wrong are not absolute, but rather are very much socially defined. Most atheists reject moral absolutism, which I think religious people find very frightening. But look around -- social mores change. Things that were at one point considered wrong are re-evaluated by society and by people, and things that were at one point considered right are the same.
For example, in numerous places in both the old and new testaments, the bible condones the practice of slavery (for example, see Lev 25:44-46 in the OT, 1 Timothy 6:1-2 in the NT) and yet the vast majority of Christian people do not support slavery any more, or think it is right. Thus, one can see that even in the case of religious people, morals can and do change with the times.
Going the other way, our society increasingly does not view homosexuality as evil or as a crime, and many Christians are similarly changing their views on this matter (it is interesting to note that there is much resistance to this in certain religious circles, despite the fact that there are many more passages in the bible condoning slavery than there are villifying homosexuality, but I digress.)
I'm using these two examples to explain that even with the "unerring word of God" to guide the unwashed masses, people's notions of right and wrong change as society changes. Now, I lived in Asia for many years and contrasting the two cultures I'll admit that the influence of judeo-christian religious thought on western social mores is undeniable. But, though it may surprise you, people in the East were no less moral or considerate of what they deemed right or wrong than people in the West are, despite their overwhelming ignorance of Christianity.
You may be tempted at this point to say, "Ah, well, they may not have been influenced by Christian morality, but they were influenced by Buddhism, or Daoism, or whatever religion they practise there" but I would caution you against pursuing this line of argumentation, for two reasons: first and foremost, you may actually undermine your position by implying that it is not in fact specifically Christianity which is required to enforce proper morals on a population but simply "any old religion", when I think you would find this untrue (for example, would the morals of the Church of Satan be to your liking, or perhaps, taking a less extreme example, Islam? The latter finds wide currency in China.)
Second, while the influence of Buddhism and Daoism is undeniable, Mainland Chinese society has been atheist (due chiefly to communist repression of religious faith, a practise I do not condone) for the last several generations. So, in light of these points, how does one explain their strong sense of morality?
The answer, which you yourself alluded to, is that society, as a whole, decides what is right and what is wrong, largely by consensus. This means that morals can and do change, but I think the slavery example should make it clear that this is a good thing, not a bad thing. Moral relavitism does not mean that suddenly everyone is going to redefine what is good and what is bad for themselves -- but it means that we have the flexibility, as a society, to say things like "it is wrong to treat women as if they were inferior" despite that view being ubiquitous in the bible, "slavery is wrong" despite it being condoned by the bible, "shaving your beard probably isn't such a grave offence to God that it warrants public stoning as punishment" (read Leviticus sometime), etc, etc. It makes sense that as we learn more about ourselves and about the ramifications of some of the things we previously thought were a-ok, that we as a society change our minds about those conclusions, instead of clinging to the moral codes outlined in a book written at least two millenia ago.
Of course, as you can probably tell, I am not religious, so perhaps I've missed some deeper meaning here. But I sincerely hope that Muslims in
And why, pray tell, would they have to do that? When someone sues Microsoft for patent infringement, do they have to point out exactly where in Microsoft's source code the patent infringement occurs?
No. They don't. Linux being open source doesn't immediately force would be litigators to do more work than they'd be required to in other circumstances.
Dude, just stop talking, you don't know what you're talking about, and it's embarrassing everyone reading this thread. The OP is basically right about everything he said, and you are similarly wrong about nearly everything you're asserting.
Your Ogg Vorbis argument is ridiculous, as patents are typically very specific in nature (as the OP said, they do not cover over-arching architectural design -- POSIX was a stupid argument, and so is this isomorphic audio codec argument). Furthermore, your moronic assertion that "if it used a different algorithm to derive that format it wouldn't infringe the [mp3] patent" assumes (for no reason) that the relevant patent in his hypothetical scenario wasn't one relating to the format itself (yes, this can be done, and is, frequently).
Then you go on to condescendingly explain what a patent is supposed to do, as if the OP doesn't know -- when it's clear to everyone that he has a much better notion of how patents work than you do.
As for your BS about SMB, who the hell cares whether IBM developed it or not? Did you hatch from a spore or something? Nearly all of Microsoft's technologies were developed by someone else originally -- which has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not Microsoft has added features or extensions that they've patented. Listen, Samba is not trying to interoperate with IBM's SMB implementation -- in fact, regardless of whether IBM developed SMB or not, the only SMB implementation that matters is Microsoft's, which has changed a lot over the years. Samba aims to be compatible with Microsoft, not IBM. In order to do this, it is exceedingly likely that Samba infringes on their patents. And, just for the record, most modern MS-based filesharing uses CIFS, not SMB (Samba does both). The former is much more of a Microsoft technology.
I also love how you essentially say "since MS and Samba co-operated at one point in the past" (an assertion I'm not even sure is true, but I'll let that slide because I'll admit that I don't know) "there can be no patent violations in Samba". I mean, holy shit! Are you daft? Do you honestly believe the world actually works this way? The only thing that results in indemnity from patent litigation is a patent license. "But your honor, MS helped me develop this piece of software, there couldn't be any patents in it aww gee shucks" is not valid legal recourse. In fact, this is one of the basic strategies involved in submarine patenting -- get your patented procedures, formats, and languages in widespread use however you can (often by publically releasing code in violation) and then, years later, when it's a standard, sue the pants off of whoever has money.
The OP is right on -- there's no code to be shown in a patent violations case. If they sue you for patent violations, the burden is on exactly one person -- YOU -- to show that your implementation of the algorithm is not in fact in violation of their patents. They don't have to find the code in question for you. It's a simple as "This feature of NTFS is patented by patent X and the Linux kernel implements NTFS in its entirety -- therefore it must be infringing. Pay us or we'll take you to court."
There is absolutely no question that Linux violates a huge number of patents. This is why, as the OP said before, software patents are evil.
I think he meant cheapest for the consumer...
There are, there absolutely are. One need only read the aptly entitled "Economist" to see it. Strong intellectual property law is seen as one of the important facets of a strong economy. Alan Greenspan, for example, was constantly pushing for stronger intellectual property law in the United States -- he's just one big name. Most often, one sees economists who specialise in development making the claim, especially with regard to emerging economies.
As for your whole spiel about how the constitution limits the use of copyright law, I think you've misunderstood me. I did not mean to imply that copyright law can be applied for any purpose -- but the restriction that exists in the constitution is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. Certainly, it would be unconstitutional for the legislature to pass copyright law reserving the right to copy to poultry, but barring such extreme (and ridiculous) scenarios, the "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" phrase is legally so vague as to be useless. What is meant by "to promote", and what is meant by "progress"? What constitutes "the useful arts"? You may find my pedantry annoying, but I assure you, this is how lawyers and judges think.
This is why the opinion of economists is important: who better to judge whether "progress" has been promoted? They're telling everyone that we need stronger intellectual property laws, that having copyright "revert" to the public domain is much like the way real property "reverts" to the state after some period of years in many communist countries -- that knowledge that copyright is temporary disincents creators from undertaking complex and involved intellectual property projects, etc, etc. We may disagree with them, and we can shout about it until we're blue in the face, but the courts listen to them, not us, and guess what? They get to decide.
The only thing interesting about Google images is the scale -- as I said before, the media equivalent of quoting is well established as fair use, so I'm not sure we disagree. How exactly is Google images different from a normal search engine, which quotes small parts of webpages for the purpose of helping the user pick which is a relevant search result?
Furthermore, the only thing "for profit" about Google images is the fact that Google is a for-profit company. There are no ads on Google images, you'll notice -- it doesn't serve as a direct revenue stream. Also, remember when Agence France Presse (AFP) threatened to sue Google if it didn't filter its images out of Google News? Google was reproducing much smaller versions of pictures for GN than it does for GI, so it seems like a cut and dry fair use case, right? So Google called AFP's bluff and took them to court, right? I mean, Google's a billion dollar company with armies of the best legal minds at its disposal, and according to you, fair use is a pretty sure thing, so of course they went to court, right?
No... they didn't. I wonder why? They just pulled the images, even though AFP produces a huge percentage of the high quality news images that make it into magazines and newspapers worldwide.
I agree that the DMCA is evil, I agree that the fact that no provisions are made for things re-entering the public domain is a strong indication of how the powers that be consider copyright law. My point -- my only point -- is that fair use is hardly the silver bullet the average Slashdotter seems to think it is.
Since neither of us is a lawyer (surprise), perhaps reading the comments of one who works in the field would be elucidating? He doesn't seem to think the fair use defence is particularly successful either. Not surprisingly, when he comes out and says this, people get upset. But here's the rub: the world is how it is, not how we want it to be.
I said the constitution only says that copyright can be applied. I fail to see how what I said is "not true". You simply added that it can be applied "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" (much parroted on Slashdot, so I saw no reason to repeat it).
The use of the word "can" in my post is important, which is why I've emphasised it here. The constitution does not require copyright law. That's important -- it makes copyright reform legal without constitutional amendment, which makes it much less of a hurdle.
The whole "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" thing gets repeated ad nauseum here as if it actually meant something. Sure, we can kick and scream and claim that copyright law as is does little to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, but to what end, exactly? If your end is copyright reform, then we agree.
Otherwise, I'm not sure why you're bringing it up, unless you misread my post to mean that the constitution makes no mention of copyright law, or something (which I clearly did not say or imply).
Oh, and BTW, it is relatively common for economists to push for "strong intellectual property law" precisely because they feel that it efficiently promotes science and the useful arts by creating financial incentive for these things. You may find it difficult, in a court of law, to argue that copyright law fails to achieve these goals when so many people clearly feel it does. So, if you get caught sharing music with a friend, you'd better find a better defence...
You were apparently too tired to note that I didn't write the original post, nor did I reply to your message. Perhaps you meant to reply to this post?
No, I think you (and your sibling poster, it seems) are the ones who are seriously retarded. Humour-impaired, I think, is the term that some people use to describe your kind.
Seriously.
Two things worth noting: "fair use" is not part of the constitution -- in fact, the constitution doesn't say anything about how copyright law should be applied, it only says that copyright law can be applied. So the erosion of "fair use" does not fly in the face of the constitution, it possibly flies in the face of established copyright law.
Furthermore, "fair use" on Slashdot seems to mean "I can do whatever I want with this piece of media", when in fact in the real world, no court of law has ever upheld this interpretation. In practice, fair use does little to protect the consumer who is copying music or movies and redistributing them. To my knowledge, the courts have stated that time-shifting constitutes fair use (this means, recording a show when you're not at home and then watching it again later, once, commercials and all), certain very short clips (the media equivalent of quoting) when making a commentary on a piece of music or other media, and that's just about it.
Notably, "backups" do not constitute fair use, making a copy for a friend does not constitute fair use, having a copy of your cd for use in your car does not constitute fair use. Mix tapes do not constitute fair use, etc, etc. Pretty much everything that Slashbots say is "fair use" is not legally fair use, it's "what said Slashbot thinks ought to be fair use".
The courts have classically sided with the copyright holder on fair use issues.
"But, but," I hear you say, "lots of people do xyz and have always done xyz. Surely that makes it fair use -- we could do it before, now they're limiting our rights!" Bzzt, sorry, you lose, play again. Whether or not something constitutes fair use largely has to do with how the courts rule on that particular usage, and they generally make their decisions based on legal precedent, which tends to be very anti-consumer. Just because you've always been making mixed tapes or copying music or whatever doesn't mean it's legal, it just means either a) you're breaking the law, thinking, incorrectly, that fair use protects your actions when in fact it doesn't or b) you're doing something that is in a legal gray area and until someone sues you you will not know for sure whether or not it constitutes fair use.
The only way out of this is copyright reform. Stallman, as usual, is right.
I know you're trying to make a joke, and for the record I don't believe in telepathy either, but if a hot chick were telepathic, it stands to reason that she would be picking up "hey now" thoughts from tons of guys all the time, wouldn't it? If she had to go through and slap all of them, her hands would get tired, and they'd probably lock her away -- I mean, if someone says "you're hot", you can maybe slap them and then sue for sexual harassment, but if he only thinks it? What can you tell the judge? "I have ESP! He was thinking about my tits!"
No, I'm pretty sure that if there were a telepathic hot chick around, she'd probably go through life mighty annoyed and powerless, and maybe she'd eventually crack and shoot someone.
As I said, I don't believe in telepathy, but your proof isn't rigorous enough.