Then I would suggest expanding your news gathering. BBC, NPR, CNN and NYT all have excellent pieces of investigative journalism. Is everything on their sites or in their papers solid, investigative journalism? Of course not. But to say "virtually everything is fluff news" betrays more your lack of reading than a lack of good journalism.
I should have specified farms that are as far North as Siberia is. Point taken that Sasketchewan produces a good chunk of Canada's agriculture, but at 6.8% of total output, it's not a lot overall. Not to mention that a much larger area has to feed a much smaller population when you compare it to similar areas in the US.
From a percentage perspective, Canada currently has a much smaller area that can support agriculture. This might change in the future, but it will take money to make the transition. Which is the point I was trying to make.
Mentioned by an economist on NPR: "You could bury the money, and it would stimulate the economy."
The point is that all that discussion about waste in the stimulus bill is a discussion about what would be most efficient use of the money. Quite frankly, at some point in this topic, you will get lost in semantics and tea leaves. If anyone argues that they know the absolute best way of stimulating the economy, they're lying. Yes, they're politicians, and it is assumed that they're lying, but it still bears repeating.
Clarification, since this is the second question: Totenglocke seemed to think that winning a Nobel Prize would add significant credibility to a statement. Well, there's at least one Nobel Prize winner who considers Global Warming a reality. Whether he deserved it is an entirely different discussion.
But I probably should not have said "other world-renowned scientists." My bad.
You seem to underestimate the blood, sweat and tears that goes into keeping networks alive. Yes, some assholes could take it down in a heartbeat if everyone would just let them. Fortunately, there are a good chunk of smart people who work tirelessly so that this doesn't happen. So far, so good. the problem: the good guys need to win every time to be seen as successful. The bad guys only need to win once.
We can't just go deciding for ourselves that a law is wrong.
Ah, state obedience at its finest. On the contrary, it is your obligation as a citizen to determine whether a law is right or wrong. Without it, you're unable to even start down the path of working for change.
As for your Jack Thompson example, you're wrong in your assessment of why he keeps failing: he fails because others disagree with his stance. More critically, the ones who disagree are voters and legislators. Otherwise, they'd change in a heartbeat.
To repeat myself: the only law that is legally wrong is the one that is found to conflict with a more fundamental law. Think of it as a compiler error. Fixing a wrong law can be done two ways: fix the law that is conflicting with the more fundamental law, or vice versa. However, this is a disappearingly small portion of the changes that are made to the general body of laws. The vast majority are changes because enough (or the right) people decided that change was needed.
This is why your critical assessment of a law is absolutely necessary in your acceptance of it. Without it, you're merely following orders.
What's preventing others from scanning those same books again? Yes, it's a pain in the butt, but that's exactly why Google should be allowed to ask for whatever the market is willing to bear.
The only problem I can see if various ideas for the copyright protection of databases come to pass. Then Google could indeed have a perpetual monopoly for their list of orphaned copies.
Since so many people here think that they're Nobel Prize worthy, I'm sure it won't be hard for those who want to brush me off for not linking to a source to find exactly what I'm talking about.
No. I brush you off because I've got links to Nobel Prize winners and the results of studies of other world-renowned scientists available. You, on the other hand, are doing some handwaving about the little ice age, which is only tangentially related to the current issue of Global Warming. You seem to take yourself far more seriously than you even accuse the rest of Slashdot to be.
That's because it is. When earth was in its Tropical Age (i.e. no ice on the poles), there was more abundant plant and animal life than any other period. Instead of having frozen wasteland in Northern Canada or Siberia, we could grow enough food for everybody.
Do you see farms in Siberia and Canada? No? That's because all the farms are currently where it is convenient to have farms: the Midwest, the temperate regions of the world with decent rainfaill (ignore for a second the insanity that is California's Central Valley). Since those regions will become far less hospitable to farming, they will have to move. Transitioning those farms is not going to happen overnight, and it will disrupt the food supply while it happens.
So your argument of "it's actually good" will hopefully apply to our grandchildren. We and our children will, in the meantime, have to deal with mass migrations, food disruptions and general chaos. All thanks to assholes like who can't think ahead and can't accept that certain luxuries are unsustainable.
The rest of your argument has already been taken apart by a single picture. No need to go there.
Most likely. I'm pretty sure that their legal department took a look at that particular feature, and decided they were going to write a document that will make it impossible for anybody to sue Google over that feature.
This is pretty much standard legalese. Not that it makes it good or anything, but I would expect nothing less from a document drafted by an eager lawyer.
Like any arms race where it's content producers vs. the internet, the internet will win in the end.
Don't be so sure. The Internet exists as it is largely because there still are dumb pipes. The day that the dumb pipes are replaced with smart pipes is the day the internet will have become TV.
Kinda creepy, too. We now have a real equivalent. Cars won't be powered off of it, but I can see plenty of ambivalence towards something that "sucks your life energy out."
In the past 5000 odd years, we've learned one thing: making stuff illegal doesn't make it go away. Removing the reason to do stuff makes stuff go away. Why create a profit motive when the reason behind the operation is not profit?
Marketing can be an absolutely insane money sink. I haven't checked if it's still around, but Sony sunk 1 million into projectabraham.com. For what is essentially a collection of crappy videos that are supposed to detail the backstory of Resistance 2. It was called a viral site, despite there being nothing viral about it.
1 million for something that almost nobody looked at, and that added close to zero sales. That's where part of the problem is.
And since lawyers routinely ask for a $5000 deposit for anything beyond initial consultation, this is a viable solution only for somebody who considers $5000 to be pocket change.
In other words - you better be rich, or hope you don't piss someone off.
I agree. At first I thought that this could be a great step forward. But at it's core, DRM - at least when it ties content to specific hardware or prevents fair use - is deceptive. I don't see the FTC fixing that issue anytime soon.
I don't see, in this article or any other, where a backbone provider has agreed to cancel the lease of another ISP if that ISP's customers are accused of copyright violations. If you know where I can find that information please provide a link.
Irrelevant. Unless you want me to negotiate my own peering agreement with a Tier 1 provider. But we weren't talking about that, were we?
Your needs don't and shouldn't obligate ATT to do anything, or refrain from doing anything, they legally can.
Of course. But we weren't talking about that either. We were talking about why the assumption that a free market will result in a solution that serves a customer interest does not apply in this situation.
It also bears repeating that the government granted monopoly that limits competition is part of the reason why you have any broadband at all anyway. If as a condition of accepting that grant your government didn't provide some open ended means of preventing things you don't like you should be upset with your government, not your ISP.
No shit. That's exactly the point. The ISP cannot and will not do anything, because there's no reason.
Where do you live that you can't purchase internet service from any of at least 3 satellite providers?
Ever try to run a webex remote control session over a satellite link? It's ugly. Not to mention I'm covered by Hughes only.
You've brilliantly pointed out the only solution that everyone's been talking about: only the government can prevent the abuse of a monopoly that's been granted by the government. It's a little scary when that same government works for organizations who hare working diligently to turn the internet into TV.
All that needs to happen is that small-business owners realize how much trouble this could cause them, and start talking to their congress critters. But this is a ways out, and most of them don't realize the impact that actions like these can have on their business.
And what the AC is saying is that you failed. What you completely miss is the actual lack of interconnection between leaf nodes, and the fact that you control the internet access of Alice, Bob, Charlene and David. Without you, ABCD have no internet access. The question is - do ABCD have options beside you? In the real world, they largely don't.
Take a look at an internet map to understand exactly how little of a web it is, and how much more of a hub and spoke system it is.
I know, it's alerady been talked about. But it bears repeating ad nauseam. Let's follow this line of thought, shall we? In my particular area, it's Comcast, ATT, or ISPs that lease their lines from ATT. Since Comcast is also in on the deal, I have no options that do not involve a deal with the RIAA. And why is that? Because almost all municipalities granted a local monopoly to a DSL and cable company, in exchange for the companies bearing some of the cost of the installation.
Let me make that crystal clear to you: there is no free market in ISPs. There are natural and government granted monopolies (if we're lucky, oligopolies). The only way we can control what happens to us (beyond just bending over) is by regulating those monopolies and oligopolies.
Slashdot Mirror
Then I would suggest expanding your news gathering. BBC, NPR, CNN and NYT all have excellent pieces of investigative journalism. Is everything on their sites or in their papers solid, investigative journalism? Of course not. But to say "virtually everything is fluff news" betrays more your lack of reading than a lack of good journalism.
I should have specified farms that are as far North as Siberia is. Point taken that Sasketchewan produces a good chunk of Canada's agriculture, but at 6.8% of total output, it's not a lot overall. Not to mention that a much larger area has to feed a much smaller population when you compare it to similar areas in the US.
From a percentage perspective, Canada currently has a much smaller area that can support agriculture. This might change in the future, but it will take money to make the transition. Which is the point I was trying to make.
Mentioned by an economist on NPR: "You could bury the money, and it would stimulate the economy."
The point is that all that discussion about waste in the stimulus bill is a discussion about what would be most efficient use of the money. Quite frankly, at some point in this topic, you will get lost in semantics and tea leaves. If anyone argues that they know the absolute best way of stimulating the economy, they're lying. Yes, they're politicians, and it is assumed that they're lying, but it still bears repeating.
Clarification, since this is the second question: Totenglocke seemed to think that winning a Nobel Prize would add significant credibility to a statement. Well, there's at least one Nobel Prize winner who considers Global Warming a reality. Whether he deserved it is an entirely different discussion.
But I probably should not have said "other world-renowned scientists." My bad.
You seem to underestimate the blood, sweat and tears that goes into keeping networks alive. Yes, some assholes could take it down in a heartbeat if everyone would just let them. Fortunately, there are a good chunk of smart people who work tirelessly so that this doesn't happen. So far, so good. the problem: the good guys need to win every time to be seen as successful. The bad guys only need to win once.
We can't just go deciding for ourselves that a law is wrong.
Ah, state obedience at its finest. On the contrary, it is your obligation as a citizen to determine whether a law is right or wrong. Without it, you're unable to even start down the path of working for change.
As for your Jack Thompson example, you're wrong in your assessment of why he keeps failing: he fails because others disagree with his stance. More critically, the ones who disagree are voters and legislators. Otherwise, they'd change in a heartbeat.
To repeat myself: the only law that is legally wrong is the one that is found to conflict with a more fundamental law. Think of it as a compiler error. Fixing a wrong law can be done two ways: fix the law that is conflicting with the more fundamental law, or vice versa. However, this is a disappearingly small portion of the changes that are made to the general body of laws. The vast majority are changes because enough (or the right) people decided that change was needed.
This is why your critical assessment of a law is absolutely necessary in your acceptance of it. Without it, you're merely following orders.
What's preventing others from scanning those same books again? Yes, it's a pain in the butt, but that's exactly why Google should be allowed to ask for whatever the market is willing to bear.
The only problem I can see if various ideas for the copyright protection of databases come to pass. Then Google could indeed have a perpetual monopoly for their list of orphaned copies.
Since so many people here think that they're Nobel Prize worthy, I'm sure it won't be hard for those who want to brush me off for not linking to a source to find exactly what I'm talking about.
No. I brush you off because I've got links to Nobel Prize winners and the results of studies of other world-renowned scientists available. You, on the other hand, are doing some handwaving about the little ice age, which is only tangentially related to the current issue of Global Warming. You seem to take yourself far more seriously than you even accuse the rest of Slashdot to be.
That's because it is. When earth was in its Tropical Age (i.e. no ice on the poles), there was more abundant plant and animal life than any other period. Instead of having frozen wasteland in Northern Canada or Siberia, we could grow enough food for everybody.
Do you see farms in Siberia and Canada? No? That's because all the farms are currently where it is convenient to have farms: the Midwest, the temperate regions of the world with decent rainfaill (ignore for a second the insanity that is California's Central Valley). Since those regions will become far less hospitable to farming, they will have to move. Transitioning those farms is not going to happen overnight, and it will disrupt the food supply while it happens.
So your argument of "it's actually good" will hopefully apply to our grandchildren. We and our children will, in the meantime, have to deal with mass migrations, food disruptions and general chaos. All thanks to assholes like who can't think ahead and can't accept that certain luxuries are unsustainable.
The rest of your argument has already been taken apart by a single picture. No need to go there.
Most likely. I'm pretty sure that their legal department took a look at that particular feature, and decided they were going to write a document that will make it impossible for anybody to sue Google over that feature.
This is pretty much standard legalese. Not that it makes it good or anything, but I would expect nothing less from a document drafted by an eager lawyer.
Hurricane Electric - great little hosting company. Support was always top notch. From an old satisfied customer - thanks.
You're missing the distinction between legal and legitimate, both of which are encapsulated in the word "right".
Like any arms race where it's content producers vs. the internet, the internet will win in the end.
Don't be so sure. The Internet exists as it is largely because there still are dumb pipes. The day that the dumb pipes are replaced with smart pipes is the day the internet will have become TV.
Kinda creepy, too. We now have a real equivalent. Cars won't be powered off of it, but I can see plenty of ambivalence towards something that "sucks your life energy out."
It's like WoW without paying money! Woot! Oh, and achievement. The hunt goes on!
In the past 5000 odd years, we've learned one thing: making stuff illegal doesn't make it go away. Removing the reason to do stuff makes stuff go away. Why create a profit motive when the reason behind the operation is not profit?
Marketing can be an absolutely insane money sink. I haven't checked if it's still around, but Sony sunk 1 million into projectabraham.com. For what is essentially a collection of crappy videos that are supposed to detail the backstory of Resistance 2. It was called a viral site, despite there being nothing viral about it.
1 million for something that almost nobody looked at, and that added close to zero sales. That's where part of the problem is.
There are no legal guarantees. Retain a lawyer.
And since lawyers routinely ask for a $5000 deposit for anything beyond initial consultation, this is a viable solution only for somebody who considers $5000 to be pocket change.
In other words - you better be rich, or hope you don't piss someone off.
As opposed to made up data? Not to mention that you can infer the likelihood of the gps anecdote if the iPhone would really be failing overseas.
I agree. At first I thought that this could be a great step forward. But at it's core, DRM - at least when it ties content to specific hardware or prevents fair use - is deceptive. I don't see the FTC fixing that issue anytime soon.
Lolwut?
Kids, this is your slashdot posting on meth. Don't do drugs.
I don't see, in this article or any other, where a backbone provider has agreed to cancel the lease of another ISP if that ISP's customers are accused of copyright violations. If you know where I can find that information please provide a link.
Irrelevant. Unless you want me to negotiate my own peering agreement with a Tier 1 provider. But we weren't talking about that, were we?
Your needs don't and shouldn't obligate ATT to do anything, or refrain from doing anything, they legally can.
Of course. But we weren't talking about that either. We were talking about why the assumption that a free market will result in a solution that serves a customer interest does not apply in this situation.
It also bears repeating that the government granted monopoly that limits competition is part of the reason why you have any broadband at all anyway. If as a condition of accepting that grant your government didn't provide some open ended means of preventing things you don't like you should be upset with your government, not your ISP.
No shit. That's exactly the point. The ISP cannot and will not do anything, because there's no reason.
Where do you live that you can't purchase internet service from any of at least 3 satellite providers?
Ever try to run a webex remote control session over a satellite link? It's ugly. Not to mention I'm covered by Hughes only.
You've brilliantly pointed out the only solution that everyone's been talking about: only the government can prevent the abuse of a monopoly that's been granted by the government. It's a little scary when that same government works for organizations who hare working diligently to turn the internet into TV.
All that needs to happen is that small-business owners realize how much trouble this could cause them, and start talking to their congress critters. But this is a ways out, and most of them don't realize the impact that actions like these can have on their business.
And what the AC is saying is that you failed. What you completely miss is the actual lack of interconnection between leaf nodes, and the fact that you control the internet access of Alice, Bob, Charlene and David. Without you, ABCD have no internet access. The question is - do ABCD have options beside you? In the real world, they largely don't.
Take a look at an internet map to understand exactly how little of a web it is, and how much more of a hub and spoke system it is.
I know, it's alerady been talked about. But it bears repeating ad nauseam. Let's follow this line of thought, shall we? In my particular area, it's Comcast, ATT, or ISPs that lease their lines from ATT. Since Comcast is also in on the deal, I have no options that do not involve a deal with the RIAA. And why is that? Because almost all municipalities granted a local monopoly to a DSL and cable company, in exchange for the companies bearing some of the cost of the installation.
Let me make that crystal clear to you: there is no free market in ISPs. There are natural and government granted monopolies (if we're lucky, oligopolies). The only way we can control what happens to us (beyond just bending over) is by regulating those monopolies and oligopolies.