Not all blacks were slaves even at the height of black slavery.
Many other groups (including huge numbers of whites) have been slaves.
Our current culture is evolving into a form a wage slavery (where you are free to not work--- if you don't want to own property and are willing to die when you get sick).
Some philosophers and political scientists make a distinction between natural and legal rights. Natural rights (also called moral rights or inalienable rights) are rights which are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs or a particular society or polity. In contrast, legal rights (sometimes also called civil rights or statutory rights) are rights conveyed by a particular polity, codified into legal statutes by some form of legislature, and as such are contingent upon local laws, customs, or beliefs. Natural rights are thus necessarily universal, whereas legal rights are culturally and politically relative.
You have a natural right ( like the old life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness).
You might have a natural right to try to stop other people from using your idea- but you have not natural to stop them from using your idea (you can only try).
You do not have a right to free healthcare (since it would deprive health care providers of liberty and the pursuit of happiness). But some societies grant you a right to healthcare (tho really they take your money and give it to health providers and they infringe the liberty of healthcare providers some too).
and again... not sure how that changes "I hope she isn't going into a technical degree".
If she is going into auto repair, I hope she knows something about cars by now (the car having a standard shift prevented me from getting to class so I dropped all my classes) too.
I should say that I am coming from the original american idea of copyright and that other countries may have different ideas. However, since american corporations are pushing the extension and perversion of copyright, it is that version I think needs to be addressed.
On that point, the constitution said,
" To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
Notice that it does not say "To make authors and inventors wealthy". It doesn't say it is a "natural right" inherent to people either. It is a special right created by society. The purpose of that right is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
The camel nose was the "limited Times" portion.
But anytime that anyone releases an idea into the public, there is no natural way they can keep that idea from going everywhere.
If the copyright law is preventing progress (as it is doing increasingly in the entertainment area) then it is not serving the desired purpose.
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the fictional language Newspeak attempts to influence thought by influencing the expressiveness of the English language.
The linked Newspeak entry says the purpose of the language is to make it impossible to express certain concepts..
SO for example, we eliminate "copyright infringment" and combine it with "theft" and only use "theft". So now infringing (a minor crime except in the most extreme cases where someone is selling your work as theirs) can only be expressed as "theft" a more serious crime.
---
On a side note, there is *very* little difference between a library that has purchased a sufficient number of copies and internet p2p. In this case, many people purchase the materia and share it with many more people. In particular, when things go out of print, p2p is a godsend.
Our copyright system which was intended to promote works for the commmon good now results in the suppression of many works for decades. For many of these items, the only place to find them is on P2P.
They can't be purchased for any price, yet it is not judged profitable enough to reprint them.
And of course we have situations like Happy Birthday and A Wonderful Life where something was popularized and then was locked down (and will be for most of my life- despite the fact they were both created long before I was born).
??? While I agree with your point, it seems a bit tangential to my post.
My only comment was that I hoped she wasn't going into a technical degree. If you are going to do well with a technical degree you really need to start knowing a certain foundation. Doing otherwise would be like trying to take physics without any high school calculus or physics-- possible (I did it) but very painful compared to people who already know what the hell the professor is talking about.
19 or 20 is a bit old to be completely clueless about computers *IF* you are going into a technical program. If she is going to be a psychologist or mba then that would be different.
However, linux has made a lot of progress in my eyes in the last 24 months.
Ubuntu is having a huge effect in this area. There is finally a stable team doing polishing. Linux needed polishing. It needed to look prettier (Red Hat did some nice stuff in this area too as I recall).
Now- what *should* have happened was that she turned on her computer and it said, "Do you want to set up the internet?"
When she clicked "yes", it should have showed pictures about plugging in the wires (2 hours work to set up), with a little script (maybe 16 hours?) that checks for a router and things like that. It asks her about her internet provider's DNS service but if she does not know it, then it points her at one of the free open dns services (being polite about it to her).
It tests the connection and then asks about other common things a new user might want to do (like word processing) and suggests the major candidates- installing the one she selects from a list.
This is probably less than a month's work to write. But it hasn't been done yet. It needs to be done. There needs to be an extremely friendly interview/installation process for linux to take it to the next level.
It can start off with "Are you new to Linux?" as a text prompt and take it from there. Expert users would go down a different path.
I debated modding you up instead of posting since i think your downmod was unfair.
But I wanted to address your points more, and folks can see your post by looking at the reply posts parent.
1) Stealing is not Piracy is not Copyright Infringement. 2) The laws surrounding stealing (or many other crimes) have not been adjusted for inflation resulting in "felonies" for what should be misdemeanors. When the laws were passed, you would have to steal half a year's earnings to qualify for a felony-- now I earn more in a day. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement 3) The United States has the most people imprisoned in the entire world. It's reaching a level that we can't even afford to incarcerate everyone. Mostly because of drugs and the felony issue. 4) Copyright has been distorted by corporations from 28 years to basically forever (not yet but they are shooting for it 10 years at a time).
So where do I stand. 1) Infringing up to 20 albums (240 songs) within a 28 year period should be a misdemeanor subject to a $500 fine. 2) Infringing more than that should be a felony. 3) Infringement after 28 years should be a misdemeanor unless you are selling them for profit. 4) Devices used directly to infringe can be confiscated tho unrelated data should be returned to you as soon as possible (so yup, you lose your computer and maybe your CD burners)
5) Where the material and the laws seem unreasonable, I'll infringe and I will suffer the consequences when caught. I have little respect for this body of laws, which I mainly see as against the original intent of the copyright laws. The intent was to create properties which would rapidly enter the public domain where it would be used to make other new creations. The intent was not to provide an income stream for life and lock up melody and word sequences for multiple generations (and soon "forever less one day")
Win95 was a wondrous dream compared to DOS. I dislike Microsoft for various reasons and intensely distrust their desire to loot my wallet for $50 to $110 a month but Windows was easier first and it usually is easier first and that is how they succeed.
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blacks do not have a monopoly on slavery.
Not all blacks were slaves even at the height of black slavery.
Many other groups (including huge numbers of whites) have been slaves.
Our current culture is evolving into a form a wage slavery (where you are free to not work--- if you don't want to own property and are willing to die when you get sick).
And that is the reason "all you can eat" restaurants reserve the right to decline service to people who stretch the term beyond reason.
Our constitution was written with the assumption people would not be reasonable- but they had no clue just how unreasonable people can be.
Things happen every day which we ignore that would shock them.
I think you are overloading the term... You need to distinguish between the overloaded type of right.
Wiki has a good article on it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_rights
Some philosophers and political scientists make a distinction between natural and legal rights. Natural rights (also called moral rights or inalienable rights) are rights which are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs or a particular society or polity. In contrast, legal rights (sometimes also called civil rights or statutory rights) are rights conveyed by a particular polity, codified into legal statutes by some form of legislature, and as such are contingent upon local laws, customs, or beliefs. Natural rights are thus necessarily universal, whereas legal rights are culturally and politically relative.
You have a natural right ( like the old life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness).
You might have a natural right to try to stop other people from using your idea- but you have not natural to stop them from using your idea (you can only try).
You do not have a right to free healthcare (since it would deprive health care providers of liberty and the pursuit of happiness).
But some societies grant you a right to healthcare (tho really they take your money and give it to health providers and they infringe the liberty of healthcare providers some too).
Copyright is a legal right- not a natural right.
If you want to talk about those things- feel free to respond to his post.
I do not want to research what every country in the EU historically thought about copyright to have an informed discussion on that topic.
Not stopping you from discussing it with him if you want to.
and again... not sure how that changes "I hope she isn't going into a technical degree".
If she is going into auto repair, I hope she knows something about cars by now (the car having a standard shift prevented me from getting to class so I dropped all my classes) too.
Firstly,
I should say that I am coming from the original american idea of copyright and that other countries may have different ideas. However, since american corporations are pushing the extension and perversion of copyright, it is that version I think needs to be addressed.
On that point, the constitution said,
" To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
Notice that it does not say "To make authors and inventors wealthy". It doesn't say it is a "natural right" inherent to people either. It is a special right created by society. The purpose of that right is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
The camel nose was the "limited Times" portion.
But anytime that anyone releases an idea into the public, there is no natural way they can keep that idea from going everywhere.
If the copyright law is preventing progress (as it is doing increasingly in the entertainment area) then it is not serving the desired purpose.
What you say is true.
Those rights were created so that society would benefit, not so the individuals would benefit.
The point of those rights was to encourage the creation of new works.
The rights have been expanded to the point that they now frequently prevent the creation of new works.
I think we should respect those rights as far as they promote new works and not any further.
I am particularly against paying money to encourage artists who are dead to make new works.
DOS- What is windows.
Better? Or the original is obsolete? ( VHS/Beta) vs DVD.
There is a winner takes all that can't be denied.
Dvorak is better-- BUT, it's not a mouse. It's not a light pen.
When we have direct brain plug in control, both Dvorak and Qwerty will be obsolete but Dvorak will still have been better.
Interesting mod down.
Definately on topic but someone wanted to make it go away.
Some of these products had 50, 5 star reviews.
I marked as helpful the 1-4 star reviews and marked as unhelpful all the 5 star reviews.
Yes but Shatner is intentionally quite funny and that goes a long way when you are an entertainer.
But if we are comparing egos... well then Bill by all means.
But a lot of fun to watch live. His album is not to be missed.
No.. reading the wiki entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Newspeak_words
It's clearly Newspeak, a key sentence being...
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the fictional language Newspeak attempts to influence thought by influencing the expressiveness of the English language.
The linked Newspeak entry says the purpose of the language is to make it impossible to express certain concepts..
SO for example, we eliminate "copyright infringment" and combine it with "theft" and only use "theft". So now infringing (a minor crime except in the most extreme cases where someone is selling your work as theirs) can only be expressed as "theft" a more serious crime.
---
On a side note, there is *very* little difference between a library that has purchased a sufficient number of copies and internet p2p. In this case, many people purchase the materia and share it with many more people. In particular, when things go out of print, p2p is a godsend.
Our copyright system which was intended to promote works for the commmon good now results in the suppression of many works for decades. For many of these items, the only place to find them is on P2P.
They can't be purchased for any price, yet it is not judged profitable enough to reprint them.
And of course we have situations like Happy Birthday and A Wonderful Life where something was popularized and then was locked down (and will be for most of my life- despite the fact they were both created long before I was born).
That the cartoon version will be more animated than Mr. Reeve's performance.
Well they are pretty rare too..
Oh wait, I thought this was the penis discussion.
wrong thread.. my bad.
Some will read the article as "Linux prevented girl from using online classes".
The verizon marketing department knows others will read the article as "Verizon prevented girl from using online classes."
???
While I agree with your point, it seems a bit tangential to my post.
My only comment was that I hoped she wasn't going into a technical degree. If you are going to do well with a technical degree you really need to start knowing a certain foundation. Doing otherwise would be like trying to take physics without any high school calculus or physics-- possible (I did it) but very painful compared to people who already know what the hell the professor is talking about.
19 or 20 is a bit old to be completely clueless about computers *IF* you are going into a technical program. If she is going to be a psychologist or mba then that would be different.
Not in my experience (yet).
Windows is still easier.
However, linux has made a lot of progress in my eyes in the last 24 months.
Ubuntu is having a huge effect in this area. There is finally a stable team doing polishing.
Linux needed polishing. It needed to look prettier (Red Hat did some nice stuff in this area too as I recall).
Now- what *should* have happened was that she turned on her computer and it said, "Do you want to set up the internet?"
When she clicked "yes", it should have showed pictures about plugging in the wires (2 hours work to set up), with a little script (maybe 16 hours?) that checks for a router and things like that. It asks her about her internet provider's DNS service but if she does not know it, then it points her at one of the free open dns services (being polite about it to her).
It tests the connection and then asks about other common things a new user might want to do (like word processing) and suggests the major candidates- installing the one she selects from a list.
This is probably less than a month's work to write. But it hasn't been done yet. It needs to be done. There needs to be an extremely friendly interview/installation process for linux to take it to the next level.
It can start off with "Are you new to Linux?" as a text prompt and take it from there. Expert users would go down a different path.
And as someone else here pointed out, you don't need to install verizon's software to use the internet.
The addon software really has no benefit that I've been able to determine and I prefer less software on my machine.
I agree-- however part of the reason that it "just works" is because the vendors assume windows will be on every machine.
It's the same reason people have less problems with console games than they do with PC games.
I think the days of assuming windows is on every machine are ending and linux is reaching critical mass.
With the economy the way it is, governments and businesses are looking very hard at software costs.
Because it is major egg on Verizon's face.
The larger the linux market segment gets, the less windows benefits from it's network effect.
As far as the word processor goes- she just needs a clue about Openoffice or some of the other fine WP's available.
Hopefully she isn't going into a technical degree area with this little knowledge of computers at that age.
At 60+, Mantalban was still built like a god with big slabs of muscle.
OTH, the pudgier Shatner has built a wonderful successful career of fine roles since star trek.
So it depends on how you are scoring.
and corinthian is not any kind of genuine special leather-- just a marketing name.
but he said it soooo well.
Grrr. "within the 28 year period" I.e. New songs. The penalty for infringing songs from 1965 would be a lot less.
I debated modding you up instead of posting since i think your downmod was unfair.
But I wanted to address your points more, and folks can see your post by looking at the reply posts parent.
1) Stealing is not Piracy is not Copyright Infringement.
2) The laws surrounding stealing (or many other crimes) have not been adjusted for inflation resulting in "felonies" for what should be misdemeanors. When the laws were passed, you would have to steal half a year's earnings to qualify for a felony-- now I earn more in a day.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement
3) The United States has the most people imprisoned in the entire world. It's reaching a level that we can't even afford to incarcerate everyone. Mostly because of drugs and the felony issue.
4) Copyright has been distorted by corporations from 28 years to basically forever (not yet but they are shooting for it 10 years at a time).
So where do I stand.
1) Infringing up to 20 albums (240 songs) within a 28 year period should be a misdemeanor subject to a $500 fine.
2) Infringing more than that should be a felony.
3) Infringement after 28 years should be a misdemeanor unless you are selling them for profit.
4) Devices used directly to infringe can be confiscated tho unrelated data should be returned to you as soon as possible (so yup, you lose your computer and maybe your CD burners)
5) Where the material and the laws seem unreasonable, I'll infringe and I will suffer the consequences when caught. I have little respect for this body of laws, which I mainly see as against the original intent of the copyright laws. The intent was to create properties which would rapidly enter the public domain where it would be used to make other new creations. The intent was not to provide an income stream for life and lock up melody and word sequences for multiple generations (and soon "forever less one day")
Nope.
Win95 was a wondrous dream compared to DOS.
I dislike Microsoft for various reasons and intensely distrust their desire to loot my wallet for $50 to $110 a month but Windows was easier first and it usually is easier first and that is how they succeed.
Mac is even easier BUT it is bloody expensive.