I find it ironic that the career landscape painter I talk with is of the opinion that people copying his work (without misrepresenting it as being an original) only help him economically.
Yes, this isn't all bad. What this means is that the Average Joe will become somewhat more clueful about how to route around the "damage", and the use of these tools will become more ubiquitous (thereby helping to shield the privacy of those who use them).
Sorry, you don't come over as snide at all to me, you have to try harder (or did I misunderstand?). Thanks for the info about CE and Phone 7. However, I don't think that that totally undermines the point of my comment, which is that perhaps at MS they *are* starting to think about somehow addressing the niche of older hardware (even if my suggestion was not a viable solution --- which is not totally clear to me, one assumes most of the software isn't written in assembly, and/or one could imagine some genius at MS Research trying to get an efficient JIT translator working somehow).
> even running an older office version that you're licensed for on Linux under wine
Are you sure that some of the fine print in that license doesn't say that the software has to be run under Windows? I suppose that in Europe that might not fly, they have stricter laws concerning interoperability.
Yes, in the grand tradition of Slashdot, I posted without reading TFA.
One wonders if somewhere in Redmond someone is trying to figure out how to get some mutation of Windows CE or Windows Phone 7 to install on old computers like the ones here, in order to try to stop this phenomenon.
Or perhaps Microsoft will even offer to subsidize the cost of newer hardware while developing an answer?
We've seen this over and over again. Microsoft will just offer to give the software for free. They know that it's not in their best interest for it to become general knowledge how functional open-source alternative have become.
For the paranoid/cautious: there exist extensions to FF which monitor suspicious changes to certificates (i.e., possible MITM attacks). I use Certificate Patrol.
> The fixed point is called a Nash Equilibrium... as a group their behavior will be predictable
And here is where there is a tie-in to TFA. If you look at Wikipedia, you see that mixed Nash equilibria are generally (always?) not stable over time. Only the most trivial (with pure strategies) of such equilibria are stable. TFA deals more with the fact that inferring model parameters from the measured results is an ill-posed problem, but this is quite related mathematically.
I rather doubt that a complete economy would lead to a simple non-mixed Nash equilibrium.
Since I already posted, I'll just have to "tip my hat" to your succinct and slightly sardonic reply by posting (which means something, since I almost never post "me too" comments).
Hope some of the late-comer moderators mod you up!
Even if everyone acted rationally, you would then have the instability which is generated because all of these rational people would then change their behavior based on... the model. It's unclear, and in my eyes rather unlikely, that a "fixed point" exists where all of these rational people start behaving identically and predictably.
The unpredictability doesn't only come out of irrationality. If you look at game theory, you see that many optimal (i.e., rational) strategies are "mixed" strategies where the rational party necessarily behaves probabilistically, not deterministically.
What it seemed to me to be what you were proposing? I didn't quite understand how he Mother Theresa analogy in your rebuttal fits the Google situation. You claim that Google is "admonishing others" to not use standard technology which would prevent them from displaying web pages in IFrames? Have any evidence there?
> Google is taking without giving
I don't know about you, but I find them kind of useful, sometimes. Others seem to concur.
> as we are saying that they sure seem to not be living up to their supposed ideals all that well.
Which seems to be because you prefer to interpret their supposed ideals in an exaggerated way? If you would interpret the "evil" in "Don't be evil" as "intentionally trying to increase physical violence against helpless innocents" then you wouldn't have much of a case here, correct? So you kind of have to admit that it all turns into a matter of how you relate to the "Don't be evil" phrase. You prefer to misquote it (was that a Freudian slip, there?) as "Do No Evil" and get irritated by every little thing Google does which you disagree with. That is your right. Others don't relate to the "Don't be evil" shtik so seriously, and don't see your point of view as valid.
Think about "Don't be evil" as "Be as good as you can be while ensuring that we still make good profits", and you could perhaps see it more like I do.
We all know that this Colony Collapse Syndrome is caused by evil cell-phone radiation. Well, the bees have evolved a defense mechanism which can sabotage electronics in their vicinity, thereby giving the truck drivers' GPS devices "Bee Jamming Syndrome" and causing a sharp rise in these kinds of accidents...
Your comment is, well, bizarre. As I pointed out. Thinking of various real-life analogies makes this clear.
For example, if someone puts up "No Trespassing" signs anywhere on his property, in your opinion he is being hypocritical if he then doesn't continually check, wherever he goes, that he is not on unsigned private land? And what if the country where he is currently visiting doesn't have a central registry for doing this kind of checking --- do you have any idea the amount of effort it would then take for him to merely move around without being hypocritical in your eyes (or at least, in the eyes of the summary based on your interpretation)?
Does someone who picks up a penny off the public street then have the obligation, for the rest of his life, to intentionally drop coins so others will have equal opportunity to pick up coins? Or is it enough that he doesn't take special steps not to drop coins? Exactly how many coins might he obliged to drop in order to not be hypocritical, one for every other human on the Earth?
> The whole "evil" thing is stupid to begin with,
Well, in some ways I can agree with that part of your comment. A non-evil advertising company? Oxymoron if you ever thought of one. But, it's actually genius marketing --- to the extent that I'm not even totally convinced that the story of the "Don't be evil" origin (that it was originated by an idealistic/ethical Google engineer, not a marketing droid) is 100% true and unembellished.
The summary seems to imply that Google has "magical powers" which enable it to block displaying its pages in IFrames, which no one else has?
The reality, AFAICT, is that everyone could block Google from displaying their pages in that way, also. They largely just don't (either want, bother or know how to do it), but I fail to see how that makes Google "evil".
The problem isn't having a TPM module in your computer, it's having one without knowing its secret keys.
Even if every computer would have such a module, because one needs such a module to run Windows, for example, that doesn't mean that the computer vendor wouldn't be willing to give you the keys to the module for some extra profit. Especially if, for example, your computer is manufactured in a somewhat less "Western" country than the UK, say, China? Last time I checked, at least a few computers were manufactured there, no? (nod, nod, wink, wink)
Or possibly, for example, some of the Chinese companies who design/manufacture these TPMs might be less interested in investing (or rather, in their eyes, wasting) money to design them to be invincible against side channel attacks (like power consumption attacks)?
Even if the computer does have a TPM, there's no way to check from your trusted OS that the TPM hardware is properly designed to be resistant to attack.
Reminds me of the time I found out that the email address uucp@the_company_where_I_worked was mapped to pipe directly to uucp. After the admins told me it was OK to pentest, I sent an email which created a file called/bin/this_could_have_been_called_ls and notified them. They figured out pretty quick that that wasn't a good idea...
> said access is just changing a number in a url because they have a retarded system
I wonder just how many of us have come across such idiocies. I know I have, and yes, I didn't report it because the probability that I would get into trouble by doing so was greater than the damage of email addresses being leaked or having a few people getting their bulk email subscriptions erroneously canceled (it was a company which took care of mass emailing for quite a few clients, including a prestigious scientific journal).
I would guess that almost invariably, the photographers which are given the privilege to tag along are chosen based on the expectation that the "slant" which they will put on the event will be favorable to their hosts. Probably based on previous behavior?
Thanks for this info about another source of bias in the media.
Your post shows just how badly misunderstood copyright law is nowadays. The mere fact that someone puts in a lot of effort to make a web page does not in and of itself mean that that web page is protected by copyright. Many things which require hard work do not qualify for protection under copyright law. Two examples which immediately come to mind are facts (like telephone book listings) or creative works which are considered utilitarian (like clothing/fashion designs, or individual cookbook recipes).
I haven't reviewed the facts of this case, so I don't know whether I would believe copyright was infringed (and what I believe makes no difference, what the court believed is what determines that). And I might well believe copyright wasn't infringed but the copying was immoral (rather than illegal). But I do know that the underlying message of your post: "if my work was copied I would be pissed off so it must be illegal", is just adding to the general confusion over an already complex and contorted branch of the law.
Your argument, as far as I can see it, is that great effort deserves reward. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way.
When MS actually publicizes the patents involved (which they haven't), I will stop relating to their behavior as extortion, and gladly review the patents to see if I believe they are actually valid (and in parallel, whether they are worthwhile --- one judgement being a legal one, and the second a moral one).
Slashdot Mirror
I find it ironic that the career landscape painter I talk with is of the opinion that people copying his work (without misrepresenting it as being an original) only help him economically.
> the marginal risk of getting vaccinated is higher than not taking the vaccine and
> lacking individual protection against the various diseases
Until "individual" becomes "herd"... how soon we forget.
While barbarians rumble in the distance?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBUDDY
If it's packaged nicely....
Yes, this isn't all bad. What this means is that the Average Joe will become somewhat more clueful about how to route around the "damage", and the use of these tools will become more ubiquitous (thereby helping to shield the privacy of those who use them).
Sorry, you don't come over as snide at all to me, you have to try harder (or did I misunderstand?). Thanks for the info about CE and Phone 7. However, I don't think that that totally undermines the point of my comment, which is that perhaps at MS they *are* starting to think about somehow addressing the niche of older hardware (even if my suggestion was not a viable solution --- which is not totally clear to me, one assumes most of the software isn't written in assembly, and/or one could imagine some genius at MS Research trying to get an efficient JIT translator working somehow).
Pedantic correction: Bob Guccione was the publisher of Penthouse; Flynt publishes Hustler.
> even running an older office version that you're licensed for on Linux under wine
Are you sure that some of the fine print in that license doesn't say that the software has to be run under Windows? I suppose that in Europe that might not fly, they have stricter laws concerning interoperability.
Yes, in the grand tradition of Slashdot, I posted without reading TFA.
One wonders if somewhere in Redmond someone is trying to figure out how to get some mutation of Windows CE or Windows Phone 7 to install on old computers like the ones here, in order to try to stop this phenomenon.
Or perhaps Microsoft will even offer to subsidize the cost of newer hardware while developing an answer?
We've seen this over and over again. Microsoft will just offer to give the software for free. They know that it's not in their best interest for it to become general knowledge how functional open-source alternative have become.
For the paranoid/cautious: there exist extensions to FF which monitor suspicious changes to certificates (i.e., possible MITM attacks). I use Certificate Patrol.
> The fixed point is called a Nash Equilibrium ... as a group their behavior will be predictable
And here is where there is a tie-in to TFA. If you look at Wikipedia, you see that mixed Nash equilibria are generally (always?) not stable over time. Only the most trivial (with pure strategies) of such equilibria are stable. TFA deals more with the fact that inferring model parameters from the measured results is an ill-posed problem, but this is quite related mathematically.
I rather doubt that a complete economy would lead to a simple non-mixed Nash equilibrium.
Since I already posted, I'll just have to "tip my hat" to your succinct and slightly sardonic reply by posting (which means something, since I almost never post "me too" comments).
Hope some of the late-comer moderators mod you up!
Even if everyone acted rationally, you would then have the instability which is generated because all of these rational people would then change their behavior based on ... the model. It's unclear, and in my eyes rather unlikely, that a "fixed point" exists where all of these rational people start behaving identically and predictably.
The unpredictability doesn't only come out of irrationality. If you look at game theory, you see that many optimal (i.e., rational) strategies are "mixed" strategies where the rational party necessarily behaves probabilistically, not deterministically.
> What sort of nonsense is this?
What it seemed to me to be what you were proposing? I didn't quite understand how he Mother Theresa analogy in your rebuttal fits the Google situation. You claim that Google is "admonishing others" to not use standard technology which would prevent them from displaying web pages in IFrames? Have any evidence there?
> Google is taking without giving
I don't know about you, but I find them kind of useful, sometimes. Others seem to concur.
> as we are saying that they sure seem to not be living up to their supposed ideals all that well.
Which seems to be because you prefer to interpret their supposed ideals in an exaggerated way? If you would interpret the "evil" in "Don't be evil" as "intentionally trying to increase physical violence against helpless innocents" then you wouldn't have much of a case here, correct? So you kind of have to admit that it all turns into a matter of how you relate to the "Don't be evil" phrase. You prefer to misquote it (was that a Freudian slip, there?) as "Do No Evil" and get irritated by every little thing Google does which you disagree with. That is your right. Others don't relate to the "Don't be evil" shtik so seriously, and don't see your point of view as valid.
Think about "Don't be evil" as "Be as good as you can be while ensuring that we still make good profits", and you could perhaps see it more like I do.
We all know that this Colony Collapse Syndrome is caused by evil cell-phone radiation. Well, the bees have evolved a defense mechanism which can sabotage electronics in their vicinity, thereby giving the truck drivers' GPS devices "Bee Jamming Syndrome" and causing a sharp rise in these kinds of accidents...
> They are taking without giving in kind.
Your comment is, well, bizarre. As I pointed out. Thinking of various real-life analogies makes this clear.
For example, if someone puts up "No Trespassing" signs anywhere on his property, in your opinion he is being hypocritical if he then doesn't continually check, wherever he goes, that he is not on unsigned private land? And what if the country where he is currently visiting doesn't have a central registry for doing this kind of checking --- do you have any idea the amount of effort it would then take for him to merely move around without being hypocritical in your eyes (or at least, in the eyes of the summary based on your interpretation)?
Does someone who picks up a penny off the public street then have the obligation, for the rest of his life, to intentionally drop coins so others will have equal opportunity to pick up coins? Or is it enough that he doesn't take special steps not to drop coins? Exactly how many coins might he obliged to drop in order to not be hypocritical, one for every other human on the Earth?
> The whole "evil" thing is stupid to begin with,
Well, in some ways I can agree with that part of your comment. A non-evil advertising company? Oxymoron if you ever thought of one. But, it's actually genius marketing --- to the extent that I'm not even totally convinced that the story of the "Don't be evil" origin (that it was originated by an idealistic/ethical Google engineer, not a marketing droid) is 100% true and unembellished.
The summary seems to imply that Google has "magical powers" which enable it to block displaying its pages in IFrames, which no one else has?
The reality, AFAICT, is that everyone could block Google from displaying their pages in that way, also. They largely just don't (either want, bother or know how to do it), but I fail to see how that makes Google "evil".
The problem isn't having a TPM module in your computer, it's having one without knowing its secret keys.
Even if every computer would have such a module, because one needs such a module to run Windows, for example, that doesn't mean that the computer vendor wouldn't be willing to give you the keys to the module for some extra profit. Especially if, for example, your computer is manufactured in a somewhat less "Western" country than the UK, say, China? Last time I checked, at least a few computers were manufactured there, no? (nod, nod, wink, wink)
Or possibly, for example, some of the Chinese companies who design/manufacture these TPMs might be less interested in investing (or rather, in their eyes, wasting) money to design them to be invincible against side channel attacks (like power consumption attacks)?
Even if the computer does have a TPM, there's no way to check from your trusted OS that the TPM hardware is properly designed to be resistant to attack.
Now that I think about it more, I think it was an address which piped to "uudecode" rather than "uucp" .... sorry!
Reminds me of the time I found out that the email address uucp@the_company_where_I_worked was mapped to pipe directly to uucp. After the admins told me it was OK to pentest, I sent an email which created a file called /bin/this_could_have_been_called_ls and notified them. They figured out pretty quick that that wasn't a good idea...
> said access is just changing a number in a url because they have a retarded system
I wonder just how many of us have come across such idiocies. I know I have, and yes, I didn't report it because the probability that I would get into trouble by doing so was greater than the damage of email addresses being leaked or having a few people getting their bulk email subscriptions erroneously canceled (it was a company which took care of mass emailing for quite a few clients, including a prestigious scientific journal).
I would guess that almost invariably, the photographers which are given the privilege to tag along are chosen based on the expectation that the "slant" which they will put on the event will be favorable to their hosts. Probably based on previous behavior?
Thanks for this info about another source of bias in the media.
Your post shows just how badly misunderstood copyright law is nowadays. The mere fact that someone puts in a lot of effort to make a web page does not in and of itself mean that that web page is protected by copyright. Many things which require hard work do not qualify for protection under copyright law. Two examples which immediately come to mind are facts (like telephone book listings) or creative works which are considered utilitarian (like clothing/fashion designs, or individual cookbook recipes).
I haven't reviewed the facts of this case, so I don't know whether I would believe copyright was infringed (and what I believe makes no difference, what the court believed is what determines that). And I might well believe copyright wasn't infringed but the copying was immoral (rather than illegal). But I do know that the underlying message of your post: "if my work was copied I would be pissed off so it must be illegal", is just adding to the general confusion over an already complex and contorted branch of the law.
Your argument, as far as I can see it, is that great effort deserves reward. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way.
When MS actually publicizes the patents involved (which they haven't), I will stop relating to their behavior as extortion, and gladly review the patents to see if I believe they are actually valid (and in parallel, whether they are worthwhile --- one judgement being a legal one, and the second a moral one).