Actually I dont recall the constitution laying out groups as a protected class that inherit the rights of their members.
In terms of the law, your sentence is meaningless. We have no notion of a "protected class" of anything, nor do we have the notion of "inherited rights."
The fundamental tenet of our law is that that which is not expressly prohibited is allowed. Some specific classes of liberty are singled out in our Constitution for explicit mention: the freedom of speech, the freedom of peaceful association, the freedom of religious expression. But these are not exclusive. The fact that the Constitution doesn't say that groups have the right to political speech doesn't mean that they don't. To the contrary, the fact that no law prohibits it means that it's allowed. Period, end of paragraph.
I hope you can still sleep at night.
Are you a crazy person? I ask because this is very much the sort of thing that a crazy person would say, and Slashdot seems riddled with them. I'm hoping that if you're a crazy person you'll just come right out and say so. That way I won't have to waste any more time reading your comments.
Any DRM that prevents me from making a backup copy, or a media its stored on change or prevents me from playing that movie again via any kind of long term storage, restricts my fair use of the material I bought and paid for.
So?
First things first. You have no rights in this case. None whatsoever. Fair use, as stated above, is a defense. It's not an entitlement. The fact that a creator chooses to use technological means to prevent you from doing something that is not technically prohibited by law means... nothing. Not a damn thing.
You have two choices. You can either circumvent the technological measure and rely on the fair-use defense -- in which case you'd better be damn sure that a court will agree that the fair-use provision excuses your action --or you can opt not to buy what the creator in question is selling.
It's that simple: Shop elsewhere. But in doing so, you should understand that you are not a hero. Nobody gives a damn what you choose to buy and what you choose not to buy.
The bit at the end, about, "Is that asking too much?" The answer is a resounding yes. You want to set the terms of the transaction. Well, guess what. You don't get to. The creator, by virtue of the fact that he created the work, gets to set the terms. If you don't like that, tough. Shop elsewhere.
I was subjected to the same campaign "adds" as everyone else in 2000, but somehow I still managed to find out about and vote for Nader.
Wait, wait. I'm all turned around. First you started out arguing that people shouldn't be free to express themselves. But then, as an example of why political expression is unnecessary, you cite the fact that in 2000 you made a massively bad political decision and voted for the wrong candidate. How does that add up? How are you not totally contradicting yourself here?
You know what? You're absolutely right. I need to disregard everything I thought I knew about market research and change my opinion based on the words of one shitwit on Slashdot who can't even be bothered to log in.
What was I thinking? Thank you so much for setting me straight.
Since "smart" means "knowledgeable," yes, "smart" is a synonym for "educated." You, like too many people, are confusing "smart" with "promising." Being possessed of raw talent is not the same thing as being smart.
So no, you cannot have smart people who have never been educated. You can have people who show promise, but until they receive an education they're diamonds in the rough. Ironically, with promise usually comes arrogance, and people who are possessed of raw talent often stubbornly refuse to admit that they need to learn anything at all, damning themselves to be forever ignorant.
We've all seen this pattern time and time again, haven't we?
Your last sentence is right on, but I think it can be more succinctly expressed by the cliché, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."
Your "I'm too smart for school, I know best" attitude can only be described as smug. It doesn't surprise me that you don't see it. You are, after all, too smart for school.
You don't know a thing about me, yet you assume I'm an idiot.
I know nothing about you, and I conclude that you're an idiot based on the things you've said. Want to change my opinion? Say things that are less stupid.
How exactly do you know I failed to apply myself to the subject matter?
You told me so yourself. You said that you didn't get anything out of your public education. This tells me that you were probably detached and disinterested, and you failed to apply yourself. You only get out of education what you put into education, you see. To blame the school -- as you did -- is the acme of foolishness.
You'd better tell that to my attorney. My father, before he died, established a subchapter S corporation with himself as the sole shareholder. In his will he bequeathed his entire estate to the corporation, and left me (his only surviving descendent) his shares. It's a standard technique for avoiding my father's state's absurd death taxes.
So now I am the sole shareholder of a corporation. Meaning you're wrong.
Read some Jefferson
Anybody can read Jefferson. The challenge -- evidently -- is to understand him.
On the flip side, something like free health care, if you're a human, is in your interest.
That's a pretty naïve statement. There's no such thing as free health care; there's only health care that's paid for by somebody else. The question of whether it's in your interest or not depends entirely on who's paying and on the quality of the health care offered.
Do you really think this "hired goon" threat is real?
Chicago, 1930. Read your history.
Do you really think Diebold is concerned with losing their proprietary sofware or about shaping the election?
I'm quite certain that Diebold is concerned with repeat business. They want the contracts, which means they want to produce a product that municipalities will buy. Any other interpretation is just conspiracy-theory nonsense.
I think we all will need to define some things as "public interest" or else all will be swallowed up by personal and corporate greed.
Sigh. The phrase "corporate greed" is becoming a shibboleth. Anybody who says it should be instantly ignored, lest he waste your time.
Out of the blue? What the fuck, dude? I was replying to a comment in which the author wrote that DRM is against the public interest. I was explaining that there are different points of view on that question, and I gave my own as evidence of it.
In any case, would it be too much trouble to cite a source?
Yes.
Otherwise you just look like a jerk.
You'll never know just exactly how much sleep I'm losing over that.
Or simply say that you can't/won't cite one.
Silly me. I was under the impression that we were participating in a conversation. I didn't realize that I'd slipped into a high-school debate class at some point. Please excuse me for expecting people to use their own brains, and for utterly failing to be moved by cries of "Cite! Cite! Cite!" from people who apparently have nothing at all of substance to say.
Uh-huh. And you know more than 10,000 years of collective human history because... why?
Being an arrogant little snot does not qualify you to make statements contrary to the conventional wisdom and to have them accepted without question. I know it feels like it does, but believe me when I say it doesn't.
Corporations are not only not individuals, they are also not even groups!
Of course they are. Corporations are just one specific type of venture, the vast, vast majority of which are composed of a group. Sure, there are one-man corporations out there, but do we really have to get pedantic? I mean, more pedantic?
And yes, corporations -- groups -- have the right to free speech. They have the right to participate in the political process, just like your local rotary club does.
I know Slashdot is ground zero for the "we hate corporations and we don't know why" movement, but can you really blame me for trying to rectify that?
Og think big learning cave obsolete. Og can learn stuff taught in cave better outside cave where sun is brighter and are fewer lizards. Og think only reason big learning cave still around is because Thuh the learner has tenure.
Og think it be better to use big learning cave for something else, maybe for sleeping, or maybe for crushing lizards with club. Og like to crush lizards with club.
You know what troubles me? It's not that you've willfully chosen ignorance over education. It's that you seem so damn smug about it.
Has the thought ever crossed your mind that you didn't get what you wanted out of school because you failed to apply yourself to the subject matter?
I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and guess that the answer is no. Give yourself fifteen years and then see if your opinion changes.
There are lots of practical arguments against your approach. If you go through life studying only what you need to study in order to work in a particular field, you're going to be up a creek when the economy shifts. Your lack of a foundational education is going to make you less desirable to a prospective employer than somebody with a grounding in the liberal arts. Blah blah blah. Let's appeal to the bottom line here, shall we? Chicks dig guys who can have a conversation. Women find men with well-rounded educations to be interesting. Women find men who don't know anything about art or literature or poetry or science or history to be insufferable bores.
Your definition of smart varies greatly to mine obviously.
"Varies from," not "varies to."
If researchers did not spend years of there lives devoted to a single and focussed topic there would be no advancement in that area.
There's a phrase that's conspicuously absent from your comment. That phrase is "to the exclusion of." Want to focus on something? Great. But if you focus on something to the exclusion of all else, you've got a problem.
Sure we might all be able to change our oil, except that no one would have spent enough time to research the internal combustion engine.
You do know that learning to change the oil in your car is not a life's work, right?
Thats why campaign contributions should only be able to be made by those legally able to vote. That would eliminate corporate donations
It would also trample all over the freedom of speech. I'm sure it sucks from your point of view, but the freedom of speech isn't limited only to individuals. It extends to groups as well.
Oh, naturally. Seconds after I posted a comment in which I expressed 100% sincere, reasonable opinions that are considered undesirable by the Slashdot hive mind, my comment is branded a "troll." Nice. Real nice.
Point of order: nobody is talking about receipts. We're talking about ballots. Do you understand the difference? A receipt is something given to the voter to take away from the polling place. Receipts are specifically prohibited by current election law. Some people have argued to change that, to mandate the giving of receipts. These people are idiots who haven't read their history.
First, please stop using "public interest" as a code word for "what I want." You do not speak for the public. You have your opinion, and it's valid and all that, but please don't try to pass it off as some universal thing.
For instance, I am strongly opposed to this "paper receipts" idea. The reason why current election law prohibits anybody from taking anything away from a polling place that can be used to determine how that person voted is to prevent vote coercion. "Vote for John Smith or I'll break your kneecaps," says the hired goon. When you come out of the polling place he demands to see your receipt. No receipt, no way to coerce voters.
(This is really beside the point, because as usual the blurb was totally wrong. The bill in question calls for electronic voting machines to produce a paper ballot, not a receipt.)
Opinions vary wildly on patents. I'm not going to get into yet another stupid argument over them, but I will state my opinion: Patents are good things. They encourage innovation and invention. They allow the financial backers of inventors to recoup their investments, which drives capital investment. When you try to convince a venture investor to give you money, the first question out of his mouth is, "Do you have any patentable IP?" Meaning, "Is there anything about your idea that can make me confident that I'll recover my investment?" Patents are a vitally important part of the way we do business. If anybody wants to tell me I'm an idiot for holding this opinion, go right ahead. I'm not interested in arguing, nor am I interested in being persuaded by the "information wants to be free, so give me all your stuff" crowd.
Ditto DRM. As a creator of content, I'm desperate for a sound technological solution to piracy. I literally lose money every single day to piracy, to people who take what I create without paying for it. If I don't find a good solution to this problem soon, I'm going to be unable to continue doing what I do for a living. I'm going to have to find another way to employ myself. Since I happen to think that the works I create are good and worth having around, I think that'd be bad. Again, go ahead and argue with me if you want; I won't even bother reading it.
Bottom line, please stop describing your personal opinions as "the public interest." It's arrogant and rude, and just plain wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I dont recall the constitution laying out groups as a protected class that inherit the rights of their members.
In terms of the law, your sentence is meaningless. We have no notion of a "protected class" of anything, nor do we have the notion of "inherited rights."
The fundamental tenet of our law is that that which is not expressly prohibited is allowed. Some specific classes of liberty are singled out in our Constitution for explicit mention: the freedom of speech, the freedom of peaceful association, the freedom of religious expression. But these are not exclusive. The fact that the Constitution doesn't say that groups have the right to political speech doesn't mean that they don't. To the contrary, the fact that no law prohibits it means that it's allowed. Period, end of paragraph.
I hope you can still sleep at night.
Are you a crazy person? I ask because this is very much the sort of thing that a crazy person would say, and Slashdot seems riddled with them. I'm hoping that if you're a crazy person you'll just come right out and say so. That way I won't have to waste any more time reading your comments.
Any DRM that prevents me from making a backup copy, or a media its stored on change or prevents me from playing that movie again via any kind of long term storage, restricts my fair use of the material I bought and paid for.
... nothing. Not a damn thing.
So?
First things first. You have no rights in this case. None whatsoever. Fair use, as stated above, is a defense. It's not an entitlement. The fact that a creator chooses to use technological means to prevent you from doing something that is not technically prohibited by law means
You have two choices. You can either circumvent the technological measure and rely on the fair-use defense -- in which case you'd better be damn sure that a court will agree that the fair-use provision excuses your action --or you can opt not to buy what the creator in question is selling.
It's that simple: Shop elsewhere. But in doing so, you should understand that you are not a hero. Nobody gives a damn what you choose to buy and what you choose not to buy.
The bit at the end, about, "Is that asking too much?" The answer is a resounding yes. You want to set the terms of the transaction. Well, guess what. You don't get to. The creator, by virtue of the fact that he created the work, gets to set the terms. If you don't like that, tough. Shop elsewhere.
Clear?
I was subjected to the same campaign "adds" as everyone else in 2000, but somehow I still managed to find out about and vote for Nader.
Wait, wait. I'm all turned around. First you started out arguing that people shouldn't be free to express themselves. But then, as an example of why political expression is unnecessary, you cite the fact that in 2000 you made a massively bad political decision and voted for the wrong candidate. How does that add up? How are you not totally contradicting yourself here?
Believe me or don't. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other.
You know what? You're absolutely right. I need to disregard everything I thought I knew about market research and change my opinion based on the words of one shitwit on Slashdot who can't even be bothered to log in.
What was I thinking? Thank you so much for setting me straight.
Since "smart" means "knowledgeable," yes, "smart" is a synonym for "educated." You, like too many people, are confusing "smart" with "promising." Being possessed of raw talent is not the same thing as being smart.
So no, you cannot have smart people who have never been educated. You can have people who show promise, but until they receive an education they're diamonds in the rough. Ironically, with promise usually comes arrogance, and people who are possessed of raw talent often stubbornly refuse to admit that they need to learn anything at all, damning themselves to be forever ignorant.
We've all seen this pattern time and time again, haven't we?
Your last sentence is right on, but I think it can be more succinctly expressed by the cliché, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."
I haven't acted smug about anything.
Your "I'm too smart for school, I know best" attitude can only be described as smug. It doesn't surprise me that you don't see it. You are, after all, too smart for school.
You don't know a thing about me, yet you assume I'm an idiot.
I know nothing about you, and I conclude that you're an idiot based on the things you've said. Want to change my opinion? Say things that are less stupid.
How exactly do you know I failed to apply myself to the subject matter?
You told me so yourself. You said that you didn't get anything out of your public education. This tells me that you were probably detached and disinterested, and you failed to apply yourself. You only get out of education what you put into education, you see. To blame the school -- as you did -- is the acme of foolishness.
BTW, a one-man corporation doesn't exist.
You'd better tell that to my attorney. My father, before he died, established a subchapter S corporation with himself as the sole shareholder. In his will he bequeathed his entire estate to the corporation, and left me (his only surviving descendent) his shares. It's a standard technique for avoiding my father's state's absurd death taxes.
So now I am the sole shareholder of a corporation. Meaning you're wrong.
Read some Jefferson
Anybody can read Jefferson. The challenge -- evidently -- is to understand him.
On the flip side, something like free health care, if you're a human, is in your interest.
That's a pretty naïve statement. There's no such thing as free health care; there's only health care that's paid for by somebody else. The question of whether it's in your interest or not depends entirely on who's paying and on the quality of the health care offered.
Do you really think this "hired goon" threat is real?
Chicago, 1930. Read your history.
Do you really think Diebold is concerned with losing their proprietary sofware or about shaping the election?
I'm quite certain that Diebold is concerned with repeat business. They want the contracts, which means they want to produce a product that municipalities will buy. Any other interpretation is just conspiracy-theory nonsense.
I think we all will need to define some things as "public interest" or else all will be swallowed up by personal and corporate greed.
Sigh. The phrase "corporate greed" is becoming a shibboleth. Anybody who says it should be instantly ignored, lest he waste your time.
Out of the blue? What the fuck, dude? I was replying to a comment in which the author wrote that DRM is against the public interest. I was explaining that there are different points of view on that question, and I gave my own as evidence of it.
"Out of the blue" my ass. You're just an asshole.
In any case, would it be too much trouble to cite a source?
Yes.
Otherwise you just look like a jerk.
You'll never know just exactly how much sleep I'm losing over that.
Or simply say that you can't/won't cite one.
Silly me. I was under the impression that we were participating in a conversation. I didn't realize that I'd slipped into a high-school debate class at some point. Please excuse me for expecting people to use their own brains, and for utterly failing to be moved by cries of "Cite! Cite! Cite!" from people who apparently have nothing at all of substance to say.
Uh-huh. And you know more than 10,000 years of collective human history because ... why?
Being an arrogant little snot does not qualify you to make statements contrary to the conventional wisdom and to have them accepted without question. I know it feels like it does, but believe me when I say it doesn't.
Corporations are not only not individuals, they are also not even groups!
Of course they are. Corporations are just one specific type of venture, the vast, vast majority of which are composed of a group. Sure, there are one-man corporations out there, but do we really have to get pedantic? I mean, more pedantic?
And yes, corporations -- groups -- have the right to free speech. They have the right to participate in the political process, just like your local rotary club does.
I know Slashdot is ground zero for the "we hate corporations and we don't know why" movement, but can you really blame me for trying to rectify that?
In it's earlier form, I agree that your formulation is logically defendable, although (IMHO) a bit silly.
Everything about your comment made sense except this last sentence. What?
From Og the caveman, 15,000 BC:
Og think big learning cave obsolete. Og can learn stuff taught in cave better outside cave where sun is brighter and are fewer lizards. Og think only reason big learning cave still around is because Thuh the learner has tenure.
Og think it be better to use big learning cave for something else, maybe for sleeping, or maybe for crushing lizards with club. Og like to crush lizards with club.
Let's start with this:
I never said "I" is equivalent to "public interest".
Then rewind the tape to the part where you said this:
posts on slashdot are subjective statements and any references to "public interest" is going to reflect the poster's opinion
Reconcile the apparent contradiction, please.
Do you know what the word "troll" means? It seems from the things you've said here that you're completely turned around on that point.
You know what troubles me? It's not that you've willfully chosen ignorance over education. It's that you seem so damn smug about it.
Has the thought ever crossed your mind that you didn't get what you wanted out of school because you failed to apply yourself to the subject matter?
I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and guess that the answer is no. Give yourself fifteen years and then see if your opinion changes.
There are lots of practical arguments against your approach. If you go through life studying only what you need to study in order to work in a particular field, you're going to be up a creek when the economy shifts. Your lack of a foundational education is going to make you less desirable to a prospective employer than somebody with a grounding in the liberal arts. Blah blah blah. Let's appeal to the bottom line here, shall we? Chicks dig guys who can have a conversation. Women find men with well-rounded educations to be interesting. Women find men who don't know anything about art or literature or poetry or science or history to be insufferable bores.
Do you still feel oh-so-smug about your choice?
Your definition of smart varies greatly to mine obviously.
"Varies from," not "varies to."
If researchers did not spend years of there lives devoted to a single and focussed topic there would be no advancement in that area.
There's a phrase that's conspicuously absent from your comment. That phrase is "to the exclusion of." Want to focus on something? Great. But if you focus on something to the exclusion of all else, you've got a problem.
Sure we might all be able to change our oil, except that no one would have spent enough time to research the internal combustion engine.
You do know that learning to change the oil in your car is not a life's work, right?
Thanks very, very much for illustrating my point. Life is always so much easier when there are examples.
That's not a receipt. That's a ballot. A lot of confusion can be avoided if the correct words are used.
Thats why campaign contributions should only be able to be made by those legally able to vote. That would eliminate corporate donations
It would also trample all over the freedom of speech. I'm sure it sucks from your point of view, but the freedom of speech isn't limited only to individuals. It extends to groups as well.
Oh, naturally. Seconds after I posted a comment in which I expressed 100% sincere, reasonable opinions that are considered undesirable by the Slashdot hive mind, my comment is branded a "troll." Nice. Real nice.
Point of order: nobody is talking about receipts. We're talking about ballots. Do you understand the difference? A receipt is something given to the voter to take away from the polling place. Receipts are specifically prohibited by current election law. Some people have argued to change that, to mandate the giving of receipts. These people are idiots who haven't read their history.
Just wanted to make sure you know the difference.
First, please stop using "public interest" as a code word for "what I want." You do not speak for the public. You have your opinion, and it's valid and all that, but please don't try to pass it off as some universal thing.
For instance, I am strongly opposed to this "paper receipts" idea. The reason why current election law prohibits anybody from taking anything away from a polling place that can be used to determine how that person voted is to prevent vote coercion. "Vote for John Smith or I'll break your kneecaps," says the hired goon. When you come out of the polling place he demands to see your receipt. No receipt, no way to coerce voters.
(This is really beside the point, because as usual the blurb was totally wrong. The bill in question calls for electronic voting machines to produce a paper ballot, not a receipt.)
Opinions vary wildly on patents. I'm not going to get into yet another stupid argument over them, but I will state my opinion: Patents are good things. They encourage innovation and invention. They allow the financial backers of inventors to recoup their investments, which drives capital investment. When you try to convince a venture investor to give you money, the first question out of his mouth is, "Do you have any patentable IP?" Meaning, "Is there anything about your idea that can make me confident that I'll recover my investment?" Patents are a vitally important part of the way we do business. If anybody wants to tell me I'm an idiot for holding this opinion, go right ahead. I'm not interested in arguing, nor am I interested in being persuaded by the "information wants to be free, so give me all your stuff" crowd.
Ditto DRM. As a creator of content, I'm desperate for a sound technological solution to piracy. I literally lose money every single day to piracy, to people who take what I create without paying for it. If I don't find a good solution to this problem soon, I'm going to be unable to continue doing what I do for a living. I'm going to have to find another way to employ myself. Since I happen to think that the works I create are good and worth having around, I think that'd be bad. Again, go ahead and argue with me if you want; I won't even bother reading it.
Bottom line, please stop describing your personal opinions as "the public interest." It's arrogant and rude, and just plain wrong.