If the remote control is designed by the typical Chinese companies that make remote controls today, I'm not sure that would be any easier than ye olde bra clasps.
On the positive site, the date glitch probably explains why we see so many topless women on New Year's Eve.
Does anyone know when the much-anticipated Kazoo Hero will be released? Is Weird Al Yankovich holding out on licensing his music to the game company or something?
What apologia? just because I am explaining how things are, does not mean that's how I believe they should be. But how things "should" be is a matter of opinion. People here are arguing as if their opinions are facts. I wouldn't have any problem if people prefaced their remarks with "in my opinion, I should own the music" - but people aren't doing that. They are stating that they do own the music, and reality disagrees with them. How can we have a constructive discussion about how things should be if it starts with inaccurate presumptions about how things are?
Or do you recommend using a not even fully designed, coded, and tested language for controlling the most complex piece of equipment that man has ever built?
They put computers in bra straps now? Sheesh, I was just getting used to the old ones, and now this?
This is fucking bullshit. Google are basically lying here. "Download the video" does not mean "stream the video into our player." It means download the fucking video, so I can play it whenever I want, such as when I'm not connected to the internet. So I can back it up on a CD or whatever.
These online video services, Google and Youtube, are fucking lame. Streaming video sucks ass. What's wrong with downloadable video in a normal format? I'm not going to use some hack or screen-grabber to work around it. I'll just not use those sites, or use bittorrent instead.
Why does everybody rave about how cool these dumb fucking video sites are? Waste of goddamned bandwidth.
Well, a) If I paid for the right to listen to it, it's already my music
See my reply above. You did not pay for a "right" to listen to music. If that were the case, they would give you another copy if your CD got damaged, so you could continue exercising the right you paid for. But in reality, you paid for the physical CD and packaging, not the right to listen to it.
Moreover, the music still isn't yours, even if you did pay for a right to listen to it. For example - the music of Led Zeppelin is Led Zeppelin's music, even if they sold the copyright to someone else. Buying music or the rights to it does not grant authorship.
But you're not paying for the music. Copyright over the music belongs to the record label or artist.
I buy a CD, I own the CD and I can listen to it whereever and on whatever I choose.
Yes, you own a shiny plastic disc. Not the music you are listening to. If you damage the disc without having a backup, they don't give you another copy of the music. All you own is the disc.
I highly doubt that you could play a CD on a gramophone. So, you can't really play it on whatever you wish, you can only play it on compatible hardware.
DRM is not simply bad, annoying or an inconvenience. DRM is evil.
Again, DRM cannot be evil, because it is not sentient.
DRM was created by greedy evil people
At last! So, why not say this in the first place? Being created by someone evil is not the same as the thing being evil. If an evil person uses a rock to commit genocide, that does not make the rock evil. Anyway, I doubt the people who actually created DRM are even evil, they are probably just programmers trying to make a living, and the blame would rest with the companies who asked them to create it.
Your logic also makes encryption evil. Is anyone who uses encryption being evil, because they are controlling access to their thoughts, ideas and communications?
DRM is based on the same fallacy that all "intellectual property" is based on: that someone can own an idea.
Uhh, no. DRM and intellectual property are not based on the ownership of ideas. They are based on the ownership of the expression of ideas. The ideas themselves cannot be locked up by DRM or intellectual property. Only implementation of ideas in a specific form.
You see DRM as only affecting music and movies.
No, I don't. When did I say that? Currently DRM affects software much more than movies or music.
what happens when a school teacher giving a lesson about volcanoes tries to print out information about the pacific ring to share with his class and his DVD copy of the encyclopedia britannica will only let him print one copy, total, for any article?
Print it out from Wikipedia instead? Use another encyclopedia that does not have DRM? Protest the companies making DRMed encyclopedias?
This is not as far off as you think. If the megacorps have their way no one will be able to access any information without going thought them, and subsequently paying them money, first.
That will only happen if people let the megacorps have their way. Someone has to choose to buy their products. If people refuse to buy it, then they will have no market. You could always start a company that competes with them by making non-DRM products. Free media is actually huge these days - see the wikipedia example, increasing numbers of works licensed under Creative Commons, and the growth of Open Source and Free software. There are alternatives, you know.
If you think the megacorps sre evil, then why would you buy their product in the first place, DRM or not? In many ways, DRM is the megacorps worst enemy. So, DRM could be seen as good, if it causes them to lose marketshare and customers. Why would you want to make it easier for people to consume products made by evil people? Or are you willing to put up with evil, as long as it is not DRMed?
What I didn't say though is that most Libertarians want the federal government to state within the limits enumerated by the USA Constitution, with small congressional and executive branchs.
So, why is it that most libertarians spend so much time talking about private ownership of property, and business? Why is it they spend so much time railing against the existence of government, but hardly any time talking about the Constitution or human rights?
I'm serious about these questions, because most of the Libertarians I encounter seem to care mostly about profits and wealth, and don't pay much lip service to human freedoms and rights. Basically a socially Darwinian approach, it seems. I find it frustrating, because of the way "liberty" is at the root of the name, but it only seems to apply to the "liberty" to make a profit at all costs, and hardly ever to human liberty.
No, they aren't. That was the main point of my original post.
When people say "evil" they always equate what they are speaking about with holocausts, rape rooms, and bad spelling!
Usually. Not always. That's why I used the qualifier "most."
Thus if something is not as bad as those things, then it must be good because the world is binary!
When did I say that bad things were good? I just meant that most people don't think of bad things like DRM as evil. Just because something is not evil, does not mean it is good. I think that you might be the one who is thinking in black and white.
"Evil" is a very strong word. Using it to describe things that are merely bad or annoying, devalues the word. Moreover, it implies intent. A technology or tool cannot be evil on its own. It requires a sentient intelligence to be used for evil. Without intelligence, people cannot be evil, because they would just be acting out of ignorance. A computer program or algorithm cannot be evil, because it does not have intelligence. A person who creates a program or algorithm can be evil, though.
People keep saying DRM isn't inherently evil. Why?
Because "DRM" is just a series of bits and bytes and silicon chips. Only sentient beings can do evil. I would have thought this was fairly obvious.
Also, most people think of "evil" as things like torture, murder, rape, genocude and war - not being prevented from enjoying some pop-culture entertainment. Again, seems pretty obvious.
You're right I don't mind some government interference such as courts protecting those who don't have money or power to buy thugs
Well, I'm glad we agree on that. So, why do Libertarians insist on saying that they are for markets totally free from government intervention? If you took the philosophy and their rhetoric at face value, one would believe they were totally against the existence of government.
Libertarians wouldn't of created the natural monopolies the cable, electrical, and power companies have.
Why not? From my research, economic libertarians believe in the right to private ownership of property as their most fundamental value. So, if someone owns a monopoly on a cable network, then isn't it their right to profit from, however they see fit? Taking their property away to break up the monopoly would be downright un-libertarian.
Under a Libertarian system anyone who had the resources the lay these lines down would of been able to do so, instead of only having one choice as to who you got your cable, phone, or power from you my of had more than one choice as to who provided these services.
So, what if only one person/company had the resources to lay down the lines? Wouldn't they have a monopoly? There are many monopolies that don't rely on government-granted licenses.
If they were made to compeat in a freer market like cellphone service providers do they'd have to actually compeat just as cellphone providers do thus driving costs down.
So, how do you explain why there is so little competition in the cellphone market?
No, he would lose karma. You may not have noticed, but slashdot isn't exactly (or in any manner) a safe place to criticize the floundering democratic party
So, if he would lose karma, then why is that comment currently at "Score 3, interesting"?
Hmmmm. When i choose the "download" option, it doesn't actually download the video file. It downloads a 0.7k file which contains a reference URL to the online video. It then streams the video from Google. Am I doing something wrong?
What would be the difference between a government shill and an industry shill in the US, where the government is in bed with industry, and is a global warming denier?
Got to love it, my friend who teaches has been told to vote for specific people by her UNION.
Well, that makes a lot more sense than being told who to vote for by God, or TV or talk radio hosts. After all, a union is usually pretty involved in issues that effect the members directly. Sure, they may be wrong a lot of the time, or even corrupt. But if you're not going to bother researching candidates directly, then wouldn't it be better to be told who to vote by someone who represents your employment than someone unrelated your wellbeing in the workplace? Most people seem rather concerned about their employment, in fact most people's lives revolve around their job.
Of course, I think people should do research on their own, but in reality that doesn't happen very often.
I didn't say get rid of all government, no I firmly believe we have to have a strong court system.
So, how is it possible to support a "free market" and still have courts of law? by definition, courts of law are government interference in the market. Rather, it seems you do not mind certain types of government interference with the market. How can you have a market free of government "interference" if a government exists that has any power?
Ah but in that Libertarian world there woudn't be the Corporate Aristocracy we have now.
Why not?
Monopolies wouldn't exist in the libertarian world.
Why not?
You assert these things, but don't give any reasoning or logic for it. Sounds more like "my private fantasy world" rather than a rational analysis of libertarian philosophy and its implications. What is there to stop monopolies or corporate aristocracy from happening under libertarianism? Your argument sounds a lot like some people who say "under political philosophy X, there would be no wars, and humans would not be selfish."
Once convinced he sat down with actuary tables and calculated they should last 14 years with one 14 year extension possible. This he felt was the optimum length of tyme to encourage inventors to keep coming with new things.
Tell me the names of the US cities that are uninhabitable because of all the unafraid terrorists who've peppered them with bombs?
This is such a strawman argument. Why do US cities have to be uninhabitable for terrorism to be an increased problem? Al Qaeda's activity has increased since the "response" to 9/11. We have had the Madrid bombing, the London bombing, the Bali bombing - and that's without counting the massively increased terrorist activity in Iraq. Why is it that you only mention the US? Support for Al Qaeda and other groups has grown massively around the world. And this is after the world was sympathizing with the US, and denouncing terrorism after the 9/11 attacks. The over-reaction and wars have destroyed goodwill towards America - when a more rational response would have increased cooperation and decreased terrorism.
And what about the ridiculous loss of freedoms in today's America? Is cities being annihilated the only issue you are concerned about? What about freedom and democracy?
"If we carry on as we're going now..." is not possible. China is industrialising. The price of oil will react to its scarcity.
But isn't that exactly how we are going now? It certainly seems possible to continue in this way. It's not like China industrialising, or oil prices reacting to market conditions is a new thing.
Slashdot Mirror
On the positive site, the date glitch probably explains why we see so many topless women on New Year's Eve.
Does anyone know when the much-anticipated Kazoo Hero will be released? Is Weird Al Yankovich holding out on licensing his music to the game company or something?
Cowboy Neal has one of his songs on Guitar Hero? That's interesting, I thought he only played jug.
Punch-type ballots are not what's usually meant by "paper ballots." I believe people are referring to simple pen-on-paper marking of ballots.
What apologia? just because I am explaining how things are, does not mean that's how I believe they should be. But how things "should" be is a matter of opinion. People here are arguing as if their opinions are facts. I wouldn't have any problem if people prefaced their remarks with "in my opinion, I should own the music" - but people aren't doing that. They are stating that they do own the music, and reality disagrees with them. How can we have a constructive discussion about how things should be if it starts with inaccurate presumptions about how things are?
They put computers in bra straps now? Sheesh, I was just getting used to the old ones, and now this?
The principles of Bum Fighting applied to medical science. It brings a tear of joy to my eye.
This is fucking bullshit. Google are basically lying here. "Download the video" does not mean "stream the video into our player." It means download the fucking video, so I can play it whenever I want, such as when I'm not connected to the internet. So I can back it up on a CD or whatever.
These online video services, Google and Youtube, are fucking lame. Streaming video sucks ass. What's wrong with downloadable video in a normal format? I'm not going to use some hack or screen-grabber to work around it. I'll just not use those sites, or use bittorrent instead.
Why does everybody rave about how cool these dumb fucking video sites are? Waste of goddamned bandwidth.
See my reply above. You did not pay for a "right" to listen to music. If that were the case, they would give you another copy if your CD got damaged, so you could continue exercising the right you paid for. But in reality, you paid for the physical CD and packaging, not the right to listen to it.
Moreover, the music still isn't yours, even if you did pay for a right to listen to it. For example - the music of Led Zeppelin is Led Zeppelin's music, even if they sold the copyright to someone else. Buying music or the rights to it does not grant authorship.
But you're not paying for the music. Copyright over the music belongs to the record label or artist.
I buy a CD, I own the CD and I can listen to it whereever and on whatever I choose.
Yes, you own a shiny plastic disc. Not the music you are listening to. If you damage the disc without having a backup, they don't give you another copy of the music. All you own is the disc.
I highly doubt that you could play a CD on a gramophone. So, you can't really play it on whatever you wish, you can only play it on compatible hardware.
Again, DRM cannot be evil, because it is not sentient.
DRM was created by greedy evil people
At last! So, why not say this in the first place? Being created by someone evil is not the same as the thing being evil. If an evil person uses a rock to commit genocide, that does not make the rock evil. Anyway, I doubt the people who actually created DRM are even evil, they are probably just programmers trying to make a living, and the blame would rest with the companies who asked them to create it.
Your logic also makes encryption evil. Is anyone who uses encryption being evil, because they are controlling access to their thoughts, ideas and communications?
DRM is based on the same fallacy that all "intellectual property" is based on: that someone can own an idea.
Uhh, no. DRM and intellectual property are not based on the ownership of ideas. They are based on the ownership of the expression of ideas. The ideas themselves cannot be locked up by DRM or intellectual property. Only implementation of ideas in a specific form.
You see DRM as only affecting music and movies.
No, I don't. When did I say that? Currently DRM affects software much more than movies or music.
what happens when a school teacher giving a lesson about volcanoes tries to print out information about the pacific ring to share with his class and his DVD copy of the encyclopedia britannica will only let him print one copy, total, for any article?
Print it out from Wikipedia instead? Use another encyclopedia that does not have DRM? Protest the companies making DRMed encyclopedias?
This is not as far off as you think. If the megacorps have their way no one will be able to access any information without going thought them, and subsequently paying them money, first.
That will only happen if people let the megacorps have their way. Someone has to choose to buy their products. If people refuse to buy it, then they will have no market. You could always start a company that competes with them by making non-DRM products. Free media is actually huge these days - see the wikipedia example, increasing numbers of works licensed under Creative Commons, and the growth of Open Source and Free software. There are alternatives, you know.
If you think the megacorps sre evil, then why would you buy their product in the first place, DRM or not? In many ways, DRM is the megacorps worst enemy. So, DRM could be seen as good, if it causes them to lose marketshare and customers. Why would you want to make it easier for people to consume products made by evil people? Or are you willing to put up with evil, as long as it is not DRMed?
So, why is it that most libertarians spend so much time talking about private ownership of property, and business? Why is it they spend so much time railing against the existence of government, but hardly any time talking about the Constitution or human rights?
I'm serious about these questions, because most of the Libertarians I encounter seem to care mostly about profits and wealth, and don't pay much lip service to human freedoms and rights. Basically a socially Darwinian approach, it seems. I find it frustrating, because of the way "liberty" is at the root of the name, but it only seems to apply to the "liberty" to make a profit at all costs, and hardly ever to human liberty.
No, they aren't. That was the main point of my original post.
When people say "evil" they always equate what they are speaking about with holocausts, rape rooms, and bad spelling!
Usually. Not always. That's why I used the qualifier "most."
Thus if something is not as bad as those things, then it must be good because the world is binary!
When did I say that bad things were good? I just meant that most people don't think of bad things like DRM as evil. Just because something is not evil, does not mean it is good. I think that you might be the one who is thinking in black and white.
"Evil" is a very strong word. Using it to describe things that are merely bad or annoying, devalues the word. Moreover, it implies intent. A technology or tool cannot be evil on its own. It requires a sentient intelligence to be used for evil. Without intelligence, people cannot be evil, because they would just be acting out of ignorance. A computer program or algorithm cannot be evil, because it does not have intelligence. A person who creates a program or algorithm can be evil, though.
Oh, that makes complete sense.
Gay Martians... who like brown...
Just like DRM is the music studios protecting what they want to protect.
I do not want my music protected.
It's not your music. It never has been.
Because "DRM" is just a series of bits and bytes and silicon chips. Only sentient beings can do evil. I would have thought this was fairly obvious.
Also, most people think of "evil" as things like torture, murder, rape, genocude and war - not being prevented from enjoying some pop-culture entertainment. Again, seems pretty obvious.
Well, I'm glad we agree on that. So, why do Libertarians insist on saying that they are for markets totally free from government intervention? If you took the philosophy and their rhetoric at face value, one would believe they were totally against the existence of government.
Libertarians wouldn't of created the natural monopolies the cable, electrical, and power companies have.
Why not? From my research, economic libertarians believe in the right to private ownership of property as their most fundamental value. So, if someone owns a monopoly on a cable network, then isn't it their right to profit from, however they see fit? Taking their property away to break up the monopoly would be downright un-libertarian.
Under a Libertarian system anyone who had the resources the lay these lines down would of been able to do so, instead of only having one choice as to who you got your cable, phone, or power from you my of had more than one choice as to who provided these services.
So, what if only one person/company had the resources to lay down the lines? Wouldn't they have a monopoly? There are many monopolies that don't rely on government-granted licenses.
If they were made to compeat in a freer market like cellphone service providers do they'd have to actually compeat just as cellphone providers do thus driving costs down.
So, how do you explain why there is so little competition in the cellphone market?
So, if he would lose karma, then why is that comment currently at "Score 3, interesting"?
Hmmmm. When i choose the "download" option, it doesn't actually download the video file. It downloads a 0.7k file which contains a reference URL to the online video. It then streams the video from Google. Am I doing something wrong?
What would be the difference between a government shill and an industry shill in the US, where the government is in bed with industry, and is a global warming denier?
Well, that makes a lot more sense than being told who to vote for by God, or TV or talk radio hosts. After all, a union is usually pretty involved in issues that effect the members directly. Sure, they may be wrong a lot of the time, or even corrupt. But if you're not going to bother researching candidates directly, then wouldn't it be better to be told who to vote by someone who represents your employment than someone unrelated your wellbeing in the workplace? Most people seem rather concerned about their employment, in fact most people's lives revolve around their job.
Of course, I think people should do research on their own, but in reality that doesn't happen very often.
So, how is it possible to support a "free market" and still have courts of law? by definition, courts of law are government interference in the market. Rather, it seems you do not mind certain types of government interference with the market. How can you have a market free of government "interference" if a government exists that has any power?
Ah but in that Libertarian world there woudn't be the Corporate Aristocracy we have now.
Why not?
Monopolies wouldn't exist in the libertarian world.
Why not?
You assert these things, but don't give any reasoning or logic for it. Sounds more like "my private fantasy world" rather than a rational analysis of libertarian philosophy and its implications. What is there to stop monopolies or corporate aristocracy from happening under libertarianism? Your argument sounds a lot like some people who say "under political philosophy X, there would be no wars, and humans would not be selfish."
Once convinced he sat down with actuary tables and calculated they should last 14 years with one 14 year extension possible. This he felt was the optimum length of tyme to encourage inventors to keep coming with new things.
Isn't that government interference in the market?
This is such a strawman argument. Why do US cities have to be uninhabitable for terrorism to be an increased problem? Al Qaeda's activity has increased since the "response" to 9/11. We have had the Madrid bombing, the London bombing, the Bali bombing - and that's without counting the massively increased terrorist activity in Iraq. Why is it that you only mention the US? Support for Al Qaeda and other groups has grown massively around the world. And this is after the world was sympathizing with the US, and denouncing terrorism after the 9/11 attacks. The over-reaction and wars have destroyed goodwill towards America - when a more rational response would have increased cooperation and decreased terrorism.
And what about the ridiculous loss of freedoms in today's America? Is cities being annihilated the only issue you are concerned about? What about freedom and democracy?
But isn't that exactly how we are going now? It certainly seems possible to continue in this way. It's not like China industrialising, or oil prices reacting to market conditions is a new thing.