Nah dude, it's totally OK to dis other people's religion.
Yeah, actually it is perfectly OK. Why should religion be outside the realm of criticism? Political parties are not, scientific theories are not, philosophies are not. Religion should be criticizable aswell.
I have about the same amount of respect for one's critical faculties if that someone believes in god or WMDs in Iraq. You are free to have a different opinion, but I am entitled to mine.
Yeah yeah, I know--all Christians are pigheaded morons who take the bible literally.
That's not true. A genuine atheist doesn't feel hatred towards religious people. An atheist may think they are gullible or misguided, but an atheist doesn't hate them for that. At least that's how I feel.
And moreover, their whole religion is a fairy tale.
Yeah, thats about sums it up. It could be put more subtly, like "believing without any rational basis", but the gist of it is the same.
See because, it's OK for you to hate and belittle their religion, while at the same time damning all the Christian believers for being bigots.
It is an interesting effect when religious people are attacking in defense of their faith. Atheist generally don't feel hatred, but I don't like repeating myself. Belittling religion? I don't do that for multiple reasons: I think for example that the christian texts are quality fiction. I wouldn't dare to belittle a religion with so many believers either. It is quite scary actually how many people lack the critical faculties that they are able to believe without evidence.
A progressive Christian is someone who actually does what the Bible says to do
You mean, kill the children for cursing on the parents, kill those who work on the sabbath etc?
If you don't adhere to ALL of what the bible says and you're cherry picking, then you're admitting that your morals stem from something else than the bible.
The matters are even more complicated, that according to serious scholary work, when the bible says love one's neighbour, etc, they ment specifically jew neighbours.
So we can reach the conclusion, that a progressive christian is one that doesn't derive moral rules from the bible. It's pretty much that simple. The christians, those that hate non-christians are the ones that are doing what the bible says to do. Even if it doesn't make sense.
Because, his RIAA objection is flawed. Using free code that links/attaches into GPL-ed code is the license _requirement_, just like payment is a requirement for RIAA music. It is NOT about telling how to use that certain code as he argues. This is definitely a copyright issue and the RIAA's equivalent would be NOT selling music to someone who didn't pay for it, not the DRM crap.
If Linus doesn't think that the terms of the license should be uphold because of his convictions, maybe he should have went with a different license in the first place? I think that in retrospect his beliefs are closer to the BSD license than to GPL. That's ok, he's a technically minded engineer. He doesn't have to have an agenda, even if that agenda is keeping freedom. I am generally opposed to practicalism as it focuses on short term, but I can certainly understand that different people have differing opinions.
One reason is why I'm opposed to the patch is given by Linus though: the closed-source people would just move their proprietary stuff into userspace and communicate with the kernel by a gpl-ed shell in kernelspace. It wouldn't solve the moral problem ("free/open code"), these companies will only open source their drivers when they think it is advantegous for them. A kernel modification will certainly not force them.
You see, things are getting so surreal that while I was reading your post, I thought you're doing an "in related news" post, to show a sarcastic depiction of the event. Only when I got to the end of your post I noticed that it is actually no joke at all.
Didn't you just contradict yourself massively? Surely a reason to exist and purpose are pretty close to the same thing? If you have one, you have the other. Just because you think the reason i a bad one, doesn't mean it isn't a reason. Plenty of people think it's a good reason.
Now != past.
Recording. Advertising. Distribution of a physical medium, which is what most music is distributed as. Stocking on shelves. Paying staff in the shop. Making a profit for the shop. Making a profit for those involved in transport. Making a profit for those involved in production. Making a profit for those involved in creating. Making a profit for those involved in managing. The list goes on.
You mean, the author who is given copyright has to do all this? No, not really. The publisher does all this and according to a contract the author gives permission to the publisher to do all this with his copyrighted work. The cost of publishing is advertising, distribution of physical medium, and COPYRIGHT fees to the author. Making a profit is not a cost. What I'm advocating is the exchange of copyright fees to a.) a percentage governed by a private contract if so wished, as a payment for creating the given work b.) one time flat fee. The publisher ends up better, the artist ends up doing a work for hire/craftsman's job and will continue to create just like us to make a living, and society ends up better because we have the right to make derivative works etc.
You seem to have a very low view of the arts. I imagine a lot of artists (music or otherwise) would be rather insulted too hear that they're no creating anything. Isn't there a reason they're sometimes called content creators?
I didn't say they are not _doing_ anything. I said what they do is rather improving/changing/evolving something. Since copyright is about information, it's impossible for a work to not be a derivative work of multiple influences. This includes the best of art. If they feel insulted by acknowledging that they wouldn't be able to create art without society's thousands of years of history, then they are fools.
That's a daft analogy. There is incredibly variety in the music and lyrics produced by artists.
Isn't that the point? Why couldn't I take ABBA's melody and create something new, different and maybe better from it? Currently Madonna could do that, because she paid a huge hunk of cash so that she is allowed to do that under copyright law. Why should ABBA be compensated for me creating a derivative work of their work and a thousand other? Their work is a derivative work itself of a huge cultural background, so how is mine different?
If we would draw a parallel to the world of mathematics
It's obvious that mathematics cannot work with a copyright-like scheme. The mathematics world would grind to a screeching halt. The whole reason I brought this analogy forward is to think about how much more/better art could we get without copyright if we open the brakes.
Filesharers are screwing the musicians like the chinese people built the great wall against mongols and huns.
The chinese have been depriving the invading hordes from their God given profit. The Raiding Industry Association of Mongolia was heard commenting thusly: "But, but, no raping and pillaging and plundering? They are stealing our IP - Indigenous Property. Remember, every unharmed chinese is a lost looting opportunity for us."
Copyright is wastly backwards thinking and harmful for our society. Taking a more serious note for a bit, copyright reminds me of an old hungarian law.
One of our kings in 1351 created the law of aviticum. It banned any kind of sale/transfer of land, ownership was on hereditary basis. In those times it actually was for a good reason - to prevent the fragmentation of the country and to prevent a stronger lord from coercing a smaller one, in other words to reduce infighting. This law remained in effect until 1848. By that time it was a big problem for more than a century, as it prevented any kind of capitalistic development.
Copyright is actually worse. It not only does not have a reason to exist, not only is it detrimental, but it has been made worse since the 18th century in relation to the purpose it served.
In today's world there are no extraordinary costs to publish something. Distribution costs - which copyright was intended to overcome - are much smaller today, down to next to nothing with digital distribution. The only incentive should be the demand of the free market, there is no need for the government to step in anymore. Monopoly is bad and it is hurting us. Important parts of our culture are lost and we're only beginning to feel its effects now. Copyright rests on a false assumption, that you're creating something. You're not creating, you're improving on/evolving something, unless you want to reinvent the wheel all the time.
The impossibility to create derivative works is hurting us. The trivial example is what Walt Disney could do in the 20s, we cannot do now. It is hard to imagine the extent of harm we're experiencing due to copyright.
If we would draw a parallel to the world of mathematics, if you would have to restart from scratch all the time, if you would have to use different methods for solving problems than the optimal because that is forbidden to us, etc. That is the state copyright pushed what falls under it. Time to get rid of this archaic shit too.
...when the RIAA claims to do anything in the future for the sake of artists. They are not working for the artists as we all know, but this is a compelling argument detached from the copyright infringement case.
If we don't protect the artists rights then we are effectively discouraging people from creating art.
Right is a stupid word in this context. Calling it a legal power or some such is saner imo. If we don't have copyright, then they don't have the legal power which we then don't protect. Simple. Taking away copyright wouldn't be a discouragement per se, but rather a lack of encouragement by means of monopoly. I do believe if copyright wouldn't give so much profit to authors they'd be encouraged to produce stuff.
Currently Microsoft is playing whack a mole with Open Source, they try to stop it wherever it crops up. Thing is, it's cropping up more and more frequently.
'What happens to national productivity when Google goes down for 72 hours?' I'm sure nobody wants to know."
Google can't go down nationally, unless multiple data centers go down at the same time, but then you've got probably a national crisis and the least of your worries is Google.
Heck, even in Hungary, Google has datacenter presence. The load is already distributed smartly.
The reasonable man adapts to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
I'd like to see one person (who might be a politician) grab the nuts of the masses on an issue and actually change public opinion to what they and generally the academic elite believes to be reasonable, instead of adapting the way that person does things for the sake of appealing to a target demographic. The first one is a leader the second is a clown.
What I ment when I said "would be nice" was that variety matters. A female president would have slightly different approach and take on many issues and slightly different priorities. Something like an USian Mary Robinson
I do believe selecting the best candidate for the job, but variety is a factor in that.
the stupid politics his wife is doing... My general impression about her is that she doesn't understand important issues or even if she does, she goes into populist mode.
Yeah, a female president for the USA would be nice, but NOT this particular person.
The point is it works now. About making an infected box retry, it's not the easiest to do when you're pushing out millions of spam - the spammer application would have to store state information.
Luckily spammers go to the low hanging fruit first. I don't think greylisting will get that much traction in the next few years that it will be universally used, forcing the spammers to change their ways.
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses ( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it ( ) Users of email will not put up with it ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it (x) The police will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists (x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's life or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(x) Laws expressly prohibiting it ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email (x) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses (x) Asshats (x) Jurisdictional problems ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes (x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches ( ) Extreme profitability of spam (x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft ( ) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers (x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering ( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually ( ) Sending email should be free ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I don't want the government reading my email (x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid guy for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
You're essentially correct. Greylisting results confirm what you say. The spam that goes through greylisting is miniscule compared to the amount it blocks, for now. The spam that gets through comes from hacked servers, open relays etc, which are much less common than a compromised windows pc.
The blame is mostly on MS. Partly in a different way than people think. MS advertises easy to use windows/computers, while that category is fiction. A computer is a complex tool. You can use it easily like you can use a chainsaw easily. The chainsaw eliminating a couple of your fingers is enough deterrent that most people learn to use it properly before that happens.
A computer is a chainsaw that cuts into someone's finger 2000km away in another country if not used correctly. The user stupidity only causes such big problems because the expectations are out of touch with reality. Computers are not easy to use and can't be made easy to use. Anyone who tells you so lies and sabotages the stability of the Internet.
What I'm talking about here is the "user stupidity" part of the problems. The Windows security side of the issue is another part of the problems. The "user stupidity" part is grave, because even if someone switches to Linux or BSD or something else than Windows, it is still easy to take over any system with a stupid user's cooperation. The answer is education and readjusting the common thinking about what computers are.
Slashdot Mirror
I have about the same amount of respect for one's critical faculties if that someone believes in god or WMDs in Iraq. You are free to have a different opinion, but I am entitled to mine.
That's not true. A genuine atheist doesn't feel hatred towards religious people. An atheist may think they are gullible or misguided, but an atheist doesn't hate them for that. At least that's how I feel.
Yeah, thats about sums it up. It could be put more subtly, like "believing without any rational basis", but the gist of it is the same.
It is an interesting effect when religious people are attacking in defense of their faith. Atheist generally don't feel hatred, but I don't like repeating myself. Belittling religion? I don't do that for multiple reasons: I think for example that the christian texts are quality fiction. I wouldn't dare to belittle a religion with so many believers either. It is quite scary actually how many people lack the critical faculties that they are able to believe without evidence.
Why? What is the difference between centuries old fiction (the bible is not more than 1800 years old) and new fiction?
If you don't adhere to ALL of what the bible says and you're cherry picking, then you're admitting that your morals stem from something else than the bible.
The matters are even more complicated, that according to serious scholary work, when the bible says love one's neighbour, etc, they ment specifically jew neighbours.
So we can reach the conclusion, that a progressive christian is one that doesn't derive moral rules from the bible. It's pretty much that simple. The christians, those that hate non-christians are the ones that are doing what the bible says to do. Even if it doesn't make sense.
Oh, btw. Highly recommended reading: The God Delusion
Because, his RIAA objection is flawed. Using free code that links/attaches into GPL-ed code is the license _requirement_, just like payment is a requirement for RIAA music. It is NOT about telling how to use that certain code as he argues. This is definitely a copyright issue and the RIAA's equivalent would be NOT selling music to someone who didn't pay for it, not the DRM crap.
If Linus doesn't think that the terms of the license should be uphold because of his convictions, maybe he should have went with a different license in the first place? I think that in retrospect his beliefs are closer to the BSD license than to GPL. That's ok, he's a technically minded engineer. He doesn't have to have an agenda, even if that agenda is keeping freedom. I am generally opposed to practicalism as it focuses on short term, but I can certainly understand that different people have differing opinions.
One reason is why I'm opposed to the patch is given by Linus though: the closed-source people would just move their proprietary stuff into userspace and communicate with the kernel by a gpl-ed shell in kernelspace. It wouldn't solve the moral problem ("free/open code"), these companies will only open source their drivers when they think it is advantegous for them. A kernel modification will certainly not force them.
There is no possible way they could have misquoted or bent the fact right?
You see, things are getting so surreal that while I was reading your post, I thought you're doing an "in related news" post, to show a sarcastic depiction of the event. Only when I got to the end of your post I noticed that it is actually no joke at all.
I would like to point to the last sentence of the parent post.
Laugh 2.0.
Now != past.
You mean, the author who is given copyright has to do all this? No, not really. The publisher does all this and according to a contract the author gives permission to the publisher to do all this with his copyrighted work. The cost of publishing is advertising, distribution of physical medium, and COPYRIGHT fees to the author. Making a profit is not a cost. What I'm advocating is the exchange of copyright fees to a.) a percentage governed by a private contract if so wished, as a payment for creating the given work b.) one time flat fee. The publisher ends up better, the artist ends up doing a work for hire/craftsman's job and will continue to create just like us to make a living, and society ends up better because we have the right to make derivative works etc.
I didn't say they are not _doing_ anything. I said what they do is rather improving/changing/evolving something. Since copyright is about information, it's impossible for a work to not be a derivative work of multiple influences. This includes the best of art. If they feel insulted by acknowledging that they wouldn't be able to create art without society's thousands of years of history, then they are fools.
Isn't that the point? Why couldn't I take ABBA's melody and create something new, different and maybe better from it? Currently Madonna could do that, because she paid a huge hunk of cash so that she is allowed to do that under copyright law. Why should ABBA be compensated for me creating a derivative work of their work and a thousand other? Their work is a derivative work itself of a huge cultural background, so how is mine different?
It's obvious that mathematics cannot work with a copyright-like scheme. The mathematics world would grind to a screeching halt. The whole reason I brought this analogy forward is to think about how much more/better art could we get without copyright if we open the brakes.
Filesharers are screwing the musicians like the chinese people built the great wall against mongols and huns.
The chinese have been depriving the invading hordes from their God given profit. The Raiding Industry Association of Mongolia was heard commenting thusly: "But, but, no raping and pillaging and plundering? They are stealing our IP - Indigenous Property. Remember, every unharmed chinese is a lost looting opportunity for us."
Copyright is wastly backwards thinking and harmful for our society. Taking a more serious note for a bit, copyright reminds me of an old hungarian law.
One of our kings in 1351 created the law of aviticum. It banned any kind of sale/transfer of land, ownership was on hereditary basis. In those times it actually was for a good reason - to prevent the fragmentation of the country and to prevent a stronger lord from coercing a smaller one, in other words to reduce infighting. This law remained in effect until 1848. By that time it was a big problem for more than a century, as it prevented any kind of capitalistic development.
Copyright is actually worse. It not only does not have a reason to exist, not only is it detrimental, but it has been made worse since the 18th century in relation to the purpose it served.
In today's world there are no extraordinary costs to publish something. Distribution costs - which copyright was intended to overcome - are much smaller today, down to next to nothing with digital distribution. The only incentive should be the demand of the free market, there is no need for the government to step in anymore. Monopoly is bad and it is hurting us. Important parts of our culture are lost and we're only beginning to feel its effects now. Copyright rests on a false assumption, that you're creating something. You're not creating, you're improving on/evolving something, unless you want to reinvent the wheel all the time.
The impossibility to create derivative works is hurting us. The trivial example is what Walt Disney could do in the 20s, we cannot do now. It is hard to imagine the extent of harm we're experiencing due to copyright.
If we would draw a parallel to the world of mathematics, if you would have to restart from scratch all the time, if you would have to use different methods for solving problems than the optimal because that is forbidden to us, etc. That is the state copyright pushed what falls under it. Time to get rid of this archaic shit too.
...when the RIAA claims to do anything in the future for the sake of artists. They are not working for the artists as we all know, but this is a compelling argument detached from the copyright infringement case.
U2's AIDS-in-Africa cause seems to be like the standard answer on a beauty contest: "world peace".
Their works probably are still sold. I wouldn't want to support a dead artist's family anyway - go work like the rest of us, silly freeloaders.
So that I can conveniently never buy _anything_ from them again.
That's what the advert says. It's almost correct. Let me fix it.
Fair use for people.
Currently Microsoft is playing whack a mole with Open Source, they try to stop it wherever it crops up. Thing is, it's cropping up more and more frequently.
In related news, Ballmer plays punch the monkey.
Heck, even in Hungary, Google has datacenter presence. The load is already distributed smartly.
The reasonable man adapts to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
I'd like to see one person (who might be a politician) grab the nuts of the masses on an issue and actually change public opinion to what they and generally the academic elite believes to be reasonable, instead of adapting the way that person does things for the sake of appealing to a target demographic. The first one is a leader the second is a clown.
What I ment when I said "would be nice" was that variety matters. A female president would have slightly different approach and take on many issues and slightly different priorities. Something like an USian Mary Robinson
I do believe selecting the best candidate for the job, but variety is a factor in that.
the stupid politics his wife is doing... My general impression about her is that she doesn't understand important issues or even if she does, she goes into populist mode.
Yeah, a female president for the USA would be nice, but NOT this particular person.
I think this is the second time I posted the spam form, but just for you:
(x) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Incidentally I've found a post detailing the origins of the form if anyone's interested.
The point is it works now. About making an infected box retry, it's not the easiest to do when you're pushing out millions of spam - the spammer application would have to store state information.
Luckily spammers go to the low hanging fruit first. I don't think greylisting will get that much traction in the next few years that it will be universally used, forcing the spammers to change their ways.
You're advocating a
() technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
(x) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's life or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(x) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid guy for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
You're essentially correct. Greylisting results confirm what you say. The spam that goes through greylisting is miniscule compared to the amount it blocks, for now. The spam that gets through comes from hacked servers, open relays etc, which are much less common than a compromised windows pc.
The blame is mostly on MS. Partly in a different way than people think. MS advertises easy to use windows/computers, while that category is fiction. A computer is a complex tool. You can use it easily like you can use a chainsaw easily. The chainsaw eliminating a couple of your fingers is enough deterrent that most people learn to use it properly before that happens.
A computer is a chainsaw that cuts into someone's finger 2000km away in another country if not used correctly. The user stupidity only causes such big problems because the expectations are out of touch with reality. Computers are not easy to use and can't be made easy to use. Anyone who tells you so lies and sabotages the stability of the Internet.
What I'm talking about here is the "user stupidity" part of the problems. The Windows security side of the issue is another part of the problems. The "user stupidity" part is grave, because even if someone switches to Linux or BSD or something else than Windows, it is still easy to take over any system with a stupid user's cooperation. The answer is education and readjusting the common thinking about what computers are.