It's not illegal to have a monopoly. Using it to hamper free competition is.
If you have an OS monopoly, bundling a web browser with it (raising the OS price accordingly) makes it impossible to compete for others who make web browsers (unless the product of the monopolist is absolute crap).
If you have a monopoly on office suites, bundling mail software with it (raising the price accordingly) makes it impossible for other mail software vendors to compete.
If you had a monopoly on cars, supplying free gas with a car ((raising the price accordingly) makes it impossible to compete.
DVD players don't contain any DRM. Region coding isn't DRM. Region coding doesn't stop me from ripping as many copies of a disc as I want.
DVD players contain DRM that forces you to watch warnings and ads every time you see a movie. The DRM in DVD players does nothing to prevent you from copying. Every minute's use of your eyeballs is worth money and allowing ads and "Piracy is theft"-propaganda to be bypassed is the same as stealing your eyeballs from their rightful owner!
With the price of disk space so cheap, and bandwidth so fast, who needs to store their own music anymore? If the big RIAA members would just get off their butts and actually be creative instead of destructive, they could start an iTunes alternative where you just pay to mark a song as yours forever, for ten plays, for playing once or whatever. They could have their "customer pays for the same song over and over again" world.
The hassle of downloading beforehand, saving your mp3s in some semblance of order, using up your own precious disk space that could be better used for porn - all gone, for the measly price of $?.?? per song.
There's still a point in using unneeded military hardware even if the chances for a failed launch are high. First of all, it gives some incentive to actually get rid of ICBMs instead of letting them rot in a warehouse where Abdul the friendly arms dealer can get his hands on them for a bottle of vodka. Second, the cost per kg to orbit is lower than anything else at the moment.
Police Chief Harold Hurtt kills a kitten.
I don't care if the watcher approves or disapproves of what I do at home; if I got off on people watching I'd have a webcam.
Although most of the problems were side effects rather than the main point of the software, distributing and demanding the installation of something that uses 2% of the computer's processor constantly is malicious. Although the intent of the software was preventing copying and could be construed as non-malicious (which I disagree with; it's not in my interest to be prevented from doing anything) intentionally distributing the software with these known side effects means there is malicious intent.
Let's perface this with the good old IANAL. You are buying the disk. You can use it any way you see fit; make backups, copy it to your computer, play it on your Linux-running toaster, whatever. The only two limits are:
a) You cannot distribute it to others. Public performance, giving copies to friends and family, uploading it on the Interweb etc are out.
b) You cannot break eny encryption or bypass any protection measures on the CD. In practice this means any use of the CD can be prevented. It would be perfectly fine for the music industry to sell CDs ROT-13 encrypted without providing any way to listening to them. Except:
c) Selling you a CD that you cannot use in the way you expect to be able to use it is fraud. Any limitations not normally present on CDs must be reasonably communicated to you before you make the decision to buy the CD.
In essence b) is being used to expand the copyright protection given by a), testing the limits of c). In addition, RIAA are lobbying to expand a).
Yeah, because I really want to help all those people in China I've been getting constant portscans from.
Yeah, how can one chinese guy want uncensored information while another is a no-good haxxor script kiddie? I mean, they all look alike so there can't possibly be any differences between them.
That's good, because none of the commercial "enterprise class" software that I have to work with handles errors and problems smoothly. They just crash or send an error message that has no relation ot the actual problem.
Yeah, all the "enterprise class" software I code just throw some odd "NullPointerExceptions" when things go wrong. Ajax could really help me with that.
The pressure of reflected moonlight will take care of that. Unless people leave their solar cells on at night. But they wouldn't be that stupid, would they?
Most Chinese have bad image about western invasion about 100 years ago. Chinese suffered so much.
And as another sign of how the west censors the Internet, not a single mention of western powers invading China in the early 1900s can be found. Are you talking about the Boxer Rebellion? "Invasion"?
I looked through the pics. Obviously the URL is a giveaway for most users. My first thought on how to check for validity if that wasn't the case was to give the wrong login / pass, but there's actually no guarantee the phisher will accept an invalid login. He could be checking the login using the real ebay, man in the middle-like.
The major problem here is that you seem to overestimate how much "improved' humans are over apes. Our genomes are incredibly similar. When you look at the biological structures involved, humans are really just slight adjustments to what an ape already has DNA to encode -- Larger brains, less hair, different bone alignment.
This was my first thought as well. To correct for differences caused by technology, better nutrition etc, compare early stone age humans to modern day chimpanzees. The differences are not that great.
The GP does make the point that genetic algorithms contain all the normally listed mechanisma for evolution, with one omisson; change in environment. That could be an explanation for punctuated equilibrium as opposed to gradual change. Using genetic algorithms we see gradual change; in nature we have equilibrium states that change comparatively quickly.
The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma could be a good candidate for changing environment in a genetic algorithm; change the payoff matrix every hundred generations or so. I've been meaning to play around with that for some time anyway.
For the rest of us, they'll be bittorrent or something else.
That gets me thinking. What kind of problems will I face in the future if I pirate all my content, assuming I do it without getting caught? The hardware I have now (CPU, graphics card, monitor, TV) is not sufficient for 1920x1080 playback. Will I be able to get hardware that doesn't have enforced DRM?
Will a full-blown Vista w. DRM:d hardware from motherboard to CPU to braphics card to monitor system let me play DRM-free content at 1920x1080? If yes, I can download my content so I won't have to deal with DRM. If no, how can I watch HDTV home movies I filmed myself?
A week or so ago, there was an article in the (Canadian) Globe and Mail about some study that indicated that shorter people live longer than taller people by (as I recall) 1.5 years per inch. I assume that this is at least partly genetic characteristices that, in some people, go together. But some guy was suggesting that you should feed your kids less so they don't grow as tall and therefore will presumable live longer. This idea seems.... potentially slanderous to comment upon.
Getting a bit off topic, but... Taller people are seen as more socially dominant, earn more, have better chances of getting leadership positions etc. A longer life wouldn't counterbalance that, imo. Add to that the potential problems with intentionally malnourishing the kids; might hamper their mental development.
I agree with the part about correlation not equaling causation, but I think you're selling the scientists a bit short if you think they didn't notice most who did good on tests were asian. In addition, the claim was that gaming affects the results _as much as_ being bilingual. It's likely they compared bilingual gamers to bilingual non-gamers and so on.
Instead of bothering with underwear, I usually just wrap my pink silk tuxedo around my waist to go out for the mail. The neighbors keep complaining but hey, it's silky smooth.
I'm not saying Republicans are bullies and Democrats are victims or anything, but there sure seem to be a lot of people who just don't "get" the need for judicial oversight, fair representation in court or congress, support for the poor, or the concept of a truly open marketplace.
There are loads of people in this discussion who seem to think this treatment is bad because punishing the bully should come first. The issues you describe are more of a rational "take a step back" view on things, while reacting with anger, wanting to punish the bad guy, seems to be an emotional reaction, something the victim would see as the problem before he's had a chance to calm down.
Consider this; a bully pushes you in the schoolyard, you fall, scrape your knee and start crying. A teacher saw the whole thing and walks up. What would you want to happen? Revenge!
Now, you're the teacher and the same thing happens. A little kid pushes another. The other scrapes his knee, starts crying. He's now on the ground, bleeding and crying. Which kid do you handle first?
To bring it back to he left/right thing; "That bully nees a good ass-whupping" would be a right-wing view, imo.
Loudly proclaiming that you bypass the system is a demonstration against the system. This may look like a way for tech-savvy Chinese to bypass the great firewall, but in reality it's a demonstration against said firewall.
Slashdot Mirror
accidentally? or do you mean, strategically?
"Mr. President, we have a plan"
"No pretzels this time!"
"No, sir, no pretzels."
"No cigars, I couldn't keep a straight face. Heh."
"No, sir. What we have in mind is a little 'hunting accident' for the vice president."
"You suggest we kill him?"
etc..
It's not illegal to have a monopoly. Using it to hamper free competition is.
If you have an OS monopoly, bundling a web browser with it (raising the OS price accordingly) makes it impossible to compete for others who make web browsers (unless the product of the monopolist is absolute crap).
If you have a monopoly on office suites, bundling mail software with it (raising the price accordingly) makes it impossible for other mail software vendors to compete.
If you had a monopoly on cars, supplying free gas with a car ((raising the price accordingly) makes it impossible to compete.
Etcetcetc.
DVD players don't contain any DRM. Region coding isn't DRM. Region coding doesn't stop me from ripping as many copies of a disc as I want.
DVD players contain DRM that forces you to watch warnings and ads every time you see a movie. The DRM in DVD players does nothing to prevent you from copying. Every minute's use of your eyeballs is worth money and allowing ads and "Piracy is theft"-propaganda to be bypassed is the same as stealing your eyeballs from their rightful owner!
Which is, of course, the MPAA.
With the price of disk space so cheap, and bandwidth so fast, who needs to store their own music anymore? If the big RIAA members would just get off their butts and actually be creative instead of destructive, they could start an iTunes alternative where you just pay to mark a song as yours forever, for ten plays, for playing once or whatever. They could have their "customer pays for the same song over and over again" world.
The hassle of downloading beforehand, saving your mp3s in some semblance of order, using up your own precious disk space that could be better used for porn - all gone, for the measly price of $?.?? per song.
Not that it could ever happen, of course.
There's still a point in using unneeded military hardware even if the chances for a failed launch are high. First of all, it gives some incentive to actually get rid of ICBMs instead of letting them rot in a warehouse where Abdul the friendly arms dealer can get his hands on them for a bottle of vodka. Second, the cost per kg to orbit is lower than anything else at the moment.
Police Chief Harold Hurtt kills a kitten. I don't care if the watcher approves or disapproves of what I do at home; if I got off on people watching I'd have a webcam.
That gives me an idea! Let's get a bunch of geeks with a twisted sense of humor together and buy Steve Ballmer a futon shaped as a torpedo!
Although most of the problems were side effects rather than the main point of the software, distributing and demanding the installation of something that uses 2% of the computer's processor constantly is malicious. Although the intent of the software was preventing copying and could be construed as non-malicious (which I disagree with; it's not in my interest to be prevented from doing anything) intentionally distributing the software with these known side effects means there is malicious intent.
Come on. The parent post is a joke, not provocative in any way. Use +1 funny or -1 overrated mods, not troll or flamebait.
Let's perface this with the good old IANAL. You are buying the disk. You can use it any way you see fit; make backups, copy it to your computer, play it on your Linux-running toaster, whatever. The only two limits are:
a) You cannot distribute it to others. Public performance, giving copies to friends and family, uploading it on the Interweb etc are out.
b) You cannot break eny encryption or bypass any protection measures on the CD. In practice this means any use of the CD can be prevented. It would be perfectly fine for the music industry to sell CDs ROT-13 encrypted without providing any way to listening to them. Except:
c) Selling you a CD that you cannot use in the way you expect to be able to use it is fraud. Any limitations not normally present on CDs must be reasonably communicated to you before you make the decision to buy the CD.
In essence b) is being used to expand the copyright protection given by a), testing the limits of c). In addition, RIAA are lobbying to expand a).
Yeah, because I really want to help all those people in China I've been getting constant portscans from.
Yeah, how can one chinese guy want uncensored information while another is a no-good haxxor script kiddie? I mean, they all look alike so there can't possibly be any differences between them.
That's good, because none of the commercial "enterprise class" software that I have to work with handles errors and problems smoothly. They just crash or send an error message that has no relation ot the actual problem.
Yeah, all the "enterprise class" software I code just throw some odd "NullPointerExceptions" when things go wrong. Ajax could really help me with that.
The pressure of reflected moonlight will take care of that. Unless people leave their solar cells on at night. But they wouldn't be that stupid, would they?
Most Chinese have bad image about western invasion about 100 years ago. Chinese suffered so much.
And as another sign of how the west censors the Internet, not a single mention of western powers invading China in the early 1900s can be found. Are you talking about the Boxer Rebellion? "Invasion"?
Thanks for the info!
I looked through the pics. Obviously the URL is a giveaway for most users. My first thought on how to check for validity if that wasn't the case was to give the wrong login / pass, but there's actually no guarantee the phisher will accept an invalid login. He could be checking the login using the real ebay, man in the middle-like.
What do you expect with the humans controlling both the media and the military-industrial complex.
The major problem here is that you seem to overestimate how much "improved' humans are over apes. Our genomes are incredibly similar. When you look at the biological structures involved, humans are really just slight adjustments to what an ape already has DNA to encode -- Larger brains, less hair, different bone alignment.
This was my first thought as well. To correct for differences caused by technology, better nutrition etc, compare early stone age humans to modern day chimpanzees. The differences are not that great.
The GP does make the point that genetic algorithms contain all the normally listed mechanisma for evolution, with one omisson; change in environment. That could be an explanation for punctuated equilibrium as opposed to gradual change. Using genetic algorithms we see gradual change; in nature we have equilibrium states that change comparatively quickly.
The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma could be a good candidate for changing environment in a genetic algorithm; change the payoff matrix every hundred generations or so. I've been meaning to play around with that for some time anyway.
For the rest of us, they'll be bittorrent or something else.
That gets me thinking. What kind of problems will I face in the future if I pirate all my content, assuming I do it without getting caught? The hardware I have now (CPU, graphics card, monitor, TV) is not sufficient for 1920x1080 playback. Will I be able to get hardware that doesn't have enforced DRM?
Will a full-blown Vista w. DRM:d hardware from motherboard to CPU to braphics card to monitor system let me play DRM-free content at 1920x1080? If yes, I can download my content so I won't have to deal with DRM. If no, how can I watch HDTV home movies I filmed myself?
Playing WoW while constantly following Slashdot? I applaud you, sir!
I feel almost normal now!
A week or so ago, there was an article in the (Canadian) Globe and Mail about some study that indicated that shorter people live longer than taller people by (as I recall) 1.5 years per inch. I assume that this is at least partly genetic characteristices that, in some people, go together. But some guy was suggesting that you should feed your kids less so they don't grow as tall and therefore will presumable live longer. This idea seems.... potentially slanderous to comment upon.
Getting a bit off topic, but... Taller people are seen as more socially dominant, earn more, have better chances of getting leadership positions etc. A longer life wouldn't counterbalance that, imo. Add to that the potential problems with intentionally malnourishing the kids; might hamper their mental development.
I agree with the part about correlation not equaling causation, but I think you're selling the scientists a bit short if you think they didn't notice most who did good on tests were asian. In addition, the claim was that gaming affects the results _as much as_ being bilingual. It's likely they compared bilingual gamers to bilingual non-gamers and so on.
Instead of bothering with underwear, I usually just wrap my pink silk tuxedo around my waist to go out for the mail. The neighbors keep complaining but hey, it's silky smooth.
I'm not saying Republicans are bullies and Democrats are victims or anything, but there sure seem to be a lot of people who just don't "get" the need for judicial oversight, fair representation in court or congress, support for the poor, or the concept of a truly open marketplace.
There are loads of people in this discussion who seem to think this treatment is bad because punishing the bully should come first. The issues you describe are more of a rational "take a step back" view on things, while reacting with anger, wanting to punish the bad guy, seems to be an emotional reaction, something the victim would see as the problem before he's had a chance to calm down.
Consider this; a bully pushes you in the schoolyard, you fall, scrape your knee and start crying. A teacher saw the whole thing and walks up. What would you want to happen? Revenge!
Now, you're the teacher and the same thing happens. A little kid pushes another. The other scrapes his knee, starts crying. He's now on the ground, bleeding and crying. Which kid do you handle first?
To bring it back to he left/right thing; "That bully nees a good ass-whupping" would be a right-wing view, imo.
Loudly proclaiming that you bypass the system is a demonstration against the system. This may look like a way for tech-savvy Chinese to bypass the great firewall, but in reality it's a demonstration against said firewall.