> This *is* news, because it goes against traditional
> economic thought, which states that the self-interest
> of the individual is the important consideration
Well that depends:)
All this article is saying is that a sense of egalitarianism is an important factor in human decision making. That sometimes "the bottom line" is prioritized lower than "fairness".
It would be very interesting to see how this changes as the price of punishing goes up. Where is the line crossed?
Now... there are philosophies that say one should be self-interested and forsake self interest. This doesn't prove them wrong, it just shows that they are not how human beings naturally operate. (at least not absolutly)
Then again.... I have to imagine that anyone who didn't know that either is just completely oblivious to how people around them act, or has read entirely too much Ayn Rand for their own good.
One could argue then that an animal with a sufficently low birth rate (1 every 11 months is about as fast as a human can pop them outm and it takes 12-13 years before offspring can reliably mate) that longer life after the ability to procreate, but is still able to hunt, gather and otherwise keep the local group surviving, is a benefit.
Thus of course increasing the ability of the overall group to procreate and pass on that gene.
Or more likely.... understand what its doing thats causing the ageing (which may just be a side effect) and treat that.
Kind of like giving someone thorazine to "treat" a psychotic episode, and having a parkinsons syndrome as its side effect (which is a rare side effect of thorazine, it can cause a permenant parkinsons syndrome after only a single dose) and then treating the parkinsons syndrome with the latest parkinsons drugs (what are they using these days?)
In Vitro can't actually simulate a real living organism the complexity of a worm, forget about a mouse.
Clinical studies and autopsy are useful sure... but not for this type of research.
Volunteers? Um, well "creating mice with a deficient ezyme" is not something you can easily do to a volunteer. Especially if you need to make the change in an emryo (kind of hard to do this sort of manipulation after you have a real human - never mind one old enough to consent)
Good call... no connections at all really. The dumpin gof roundup isn't an action of montasano, its an action of the US government.
Theres plenty of good reason to say Montasano is evil. I mean, read the article. A researcher puts fish in the lake they are dumping into, and they shed skin, and die within 3 mins! A stream that was known to meet other streams and run through residential areas.
When confronted with this data, they did nothing. In fact, they defend their actions as having been reasonable at the time. Saying its unfair to judge their past actions by modern standards.
Its not so much that they did it so many years ago that bothers me, its that they still defend those actions as reasonable that is truely frightening, and damning.
Do I want to change my diet?
Do I want to exercise?
The answer was yes. I want to hit this from multiple angles. I want to do this in the way that maximizes my enjoyment of life - because thats really what this is all about, isn't it?
So I took Atkins wisdom...i didn't cut out carbs, but I ate a bit less of them, and ate more meat and proteins. Not a huge change, but a small change. I changed the balance of them. (frankly, looking at the evidence, I do not believe the straight out Atkins diet is healthy)
Then I moved closer to work (for other reasons) so I started walking to work a coupl eof days a week. I started just generally walking more.... its a nice way to spend time, seeing the community, having itme to clear my head before work and really wake up.
I also cut down on what I ate, stopped eating till I couldn't eat anymore and really felt full. Cut down on sweet stuff, and soda. Started drinking more tea (being mindful of caffeine intake and careful not to let it become an addiction) and water.
Then, for the first time in my life, I lost weight. I went from 265 to 240 in a couple of months. I had to add 3 notches to my belt because it was too big for me!
All in all I feel much better. Getting out more, spending less time just sitting around. No heavy dietary restrictions, I still eat everything I used to, I just eat certain things more or less often, and eat less of them.
Now I feel quite full after eating much much less than I used to have to eat for that feeling. All in all its been quite a success. Lately I think I have been adding muscle because me waist still got smaller but my weight has stayed the same. Must be all that walking.
Kazaa is not providing anything but a space for people to "distribute" stuff.... muchg like a flea market. Anyone can come, pay the fee (if there is a fee...usually is) and setup a table and sell stuff.
Should the flea market be liable if you are caught selling illicit drugs at the flea? Its not like you came by and said "Hey, I want a stand at your flea market so I can sell drugs", you just came up and paid the fee and got a space.
Same on KaZaa...they have know way to know what it is your distributing. They are just providing you space.
Or how about this.... This isn't the drug store arguing they should stay open, its the owner of the property the drug store rents its space from saying they should be allowed to keep their building open and to rent it out to someone.
Of course, bein gan al queda member...what does that even mean?
Does it mean you are a terrorist (as in a person who actually commits the act), or a planner, or just some vague resource ("SOmeday, and this day may never come, you may be asked to do a service"). Perhaps the guy is working at Microsoft because he needs a day job while he awaits orders, or does some other task on the side.
Look at the recent tape of Ossama Bin Laden. The people who hijacked the planes had no idea what was going on until it was time to do it. They got training and got ready, but they had no idea what the mission was until just beforehand.
I think its reasonable to assume that many "Al Queda" are just "sleeper" agents, waiting to be activated, and living otherwise normal lives in the mean time.
heh been up for years...I wonder what the hardware on it is?
heh tho, I doubt it will get sold on ebay no matter what. If the hardware is reasonable in any way, it will probably be ressurected as a test box, else it will probably languish sitting next to someones desk until it finnaly gets thrown in ther trash heh
They are basically the online form of vandals, those little teenage punks just going around and making trouble and every once in a great while (it seems) getting arrested for it.
A good friend of mine is the offline kind. Nice guy generally and all, but ask him about his tagging. and he will go on about how he is all "old school" and has so much respect because hes been doing it for years.
Just kinda juvenile pissing around really. Some do have some skills of some sort (ike my friend... really great artist if he actually puts any time into it) but... spend their time instead just pissing away any skills they do have by being punks.
Actually, I don't think it was intended to convey an actual animosity, just disagreement. Physicists have been known to get together and have heated arguments on such topics (who was it that wrote about leaving heisenbergs house depressed on many nights after hours of argueing?)
I saw "squalid staters" as a term of endearment. A sort of friendly rivalry. Much the same as you will hear when groups of people in different branches of the US military get together - they all respect eachother, and know each is doing important work, but that doesn't mean they would ever admit to it in public:)
ive never been in the military, but ive worked in a shop with 2 ex-army and 2 ex-marines, they have an odd camraderie that often looks strange at first... I think thats what the article was talking about in the physics community...even if it failed to capture it adequetly.
That said...is it just me or does it seem like the second half of the article or so is just random statements of various phenomena and theories with no coherence whatsoever? I didn't see any point to the second half. Just filler?
> whining, pissing, and moaning about some vague
> ethical point is for idiots.
Got it, enagaging in activities that you don't like (like pissing and moaning) is something that only idiots do. Certainly anyone who is intelligent will see how obviously right you are and will do what you do. Thank you for your enlightening commentary.
> True freedom allows everyone to release what
> they write under any license they like, and
> allows everyone else the option of choosing or
> not choosing the software.
No, not at all. True freedom allows everyone to release software in any fashion that they like, and then provides no means whatsoever for them to control what is done with that software afterwards.
The entire concept of a "license", when we talk of "true freedom" is silly, there is no such way for it to exist.
You complain of free software being "someone's campaign for personal power", well copyright is no different than that, the entire "license" concept is no different than that.
The position of the FSF and other "Free Software" supporters (meaning people who support "free software" for the political and ethical reasons and not for the much touted "practical benefits" of "Open Source" ) is that it is the people who sell proprietary software who are taking freedoms away.
That a person who uses software has the right to know what its doing, to modify it for his own use, and to share it with people who will benefit from it.
Much as you do not have the "freedom" to make money by going around and beating people up (because it infringes upon their rights), you do not have the right (according to the fsf view) to try and make money by taking those rights away.
Now, whether you agree that these are indeed rights of the user is another story.
just said that there often don't seem to be many (vocal) middle of the road opinions seen around here.
I am not a libertarian (any more) simply because I have a problem with the style of "laissez-faire" capitalism that they endorse. I think their economic policies are about as naive as you can get. That coupled with the fact that I think their economic reforms are more likely to get enacted sooner than social reforms - well, that makes them hard to support.
However you are right. Unions, for the most part, have been very self defeating. In concept I love unions, in practice - they tend to be no better than the systems they were invented to protect workers from.
I see alot of both libertarian and socialist slants actually. (which are very similar on some fronts - moreso than they want to admit - and vastly different on others)
Who else here remembers when/. had statments from a bunch of the presidential candidates during the last election?
I dunno about anyone else, but I found myself agreeing about as often and as strongly with the peice by the socialist party candidate as the libertarian one. (and very seldom with others).
In fact on unions, buisness, and government, It seems there are alot of polar views here and few middle of the road ones.
Just because we agree, doesn't mean we are doing anything about it. He is demonstrating how this can hit home, making it hit home.
The point of action and speach isn't always to change minds that disagree, sometimes it is to change minds that agree.... to align them more tightly, to galvanize them into action.
put 3 strands down the middle of the conduit.. and a bunch all around at a small radius from it. Fill with asphalt.
run stead signals through the outside strands... if an outside strand stops working...then check for intrusion.
for added protection... put some temperature sensors in (actually... checking the resistance of the outside conduit (assuming its made of metal) may work for that)) the conduit. (to detect anyone tryin gto melt out the asphalt)
oh yea...and spray paint all the fiber black, so it blends in with the asphalt.
I would then use crypto in addition to that...but thats just me.
A DOS attack is an action whose INTENDED PURPOSE is to block or degrade the availability of resources.
Hence, me hitting reload on my web browser is a DOS attack if (and only if) I do it with the specific intention of putting extra load on your server and thus degrading its availability.
(as a cheesy example)
As the purpose of the RIAA action is to degrade or block availability, it is certainly a DOS attack. It is network abuse....a malicous vigilante action.
However, just because he has done something that we consider wrong, does not mean he should be charged with, and sent to jail, for something else - thats not true justice!
Whether or not he is a paragon of virtue is irrelevant. Whether he deserves to be in jail for the SPECIFIC ACT of "decrypting" (undoing rot-13...do I remember correctly?) a file and then publishing or otherwise disseminating information on how to do this.
Putting him in jail for that sets a dangerous precident (in my book, perhaps you disagree and think that THIS crime is one worthy of punishment?). That is the real issue... if it can be done to him, it can be done to anyone else.
The fact that he is a rotten spammer is besides the point. Thats a seprate issue. Now...if he could be tried for theft of services and network abuse because of his work as a spammer...that would be a different story alltogether.
Actually... it seems to me that this is a fine way to send a message. The "not bloody likely" part is the idea that censoring this will stop the information from getting to its intended recipients.
The message could be conveyed in something as simple as manner of dress or a key phrase. It could be "encoded" in where Bin Ladens gun rests in the background behind him in the shot.... or the even who sits to his right or left.
The plans were made a long time ago. Messages from Bin Laden to his people are likely of no more granulairty than "continue as planned" or "halt and wait" or "go with plan B"
Or even more specific... "transmit orders for plan B"... I think its very likely that Bin Laden, being a figurehead, has probably delegated the actual planning and coordination to someone else, so anything from him only has to be very very high level...which is where this sort of messahe excells.
That said... I think its silly to believe that they don't have operations setup such as to continue even if the communication channel is cutoff. All that censoring him does is stop americans from hearing what he has to say.
Patents were designed so that you could come up with an idea, sit around with yout thumb up your ass for years until someone else comes up with the idea and actually DOES something with it, then sue them for money?
Funny, and I thought patents were designed to give inventors a limited monopoly to encourage them to publish ideas, rather than keeping them as trade secrets. So you could make money selling your own product, or licensing it to someone who can.
However, that is not thew way in which most people come into contact with software.
Software is, typically, sold just like books. You go to a store, you buy the book. Just like you go to the store, and you buy the software media.
The book, like the media, is then owned by you. You have signed no binding contract, you are bound to no "agreements" beyond that of copyright law.
You may not copy and redistribute the book, NOT because it says you can't in the first few pages (which it almost always does), but because copyright law says you can't.
I would hold that this entire concept of ":licensing" and especially "shrink wrap" licensing where one is expected to be bound to a license AFTER having bought the software media in question, and without signing any formal agreement is a complete fabrication of software companies to foster this attitude.
This goes on all the time. Hell, I have a book that I recently purchased from a major bookseller. It was written long ago and the copyright has long since expired, as such, it contains no copyright notice... however the publisher STILL put a notice in the first few pages to tell me that I may not copy this book, in whol eor in part.... a paraphgraph with exactly 0 legal force whatsoever.
The scenario I have heard of is they send out notices about winning som eprize (lottoey, whatever) to everyone who they have outstanding arrest warrents for, and then arrest them en mass when they show up.
Having an arrest warrent just means there is good evidence that you commited a crime, it does not, in and of itself, make you a criminal. Only the court system can determine that. (at least, thats the idea that the system is based on - right?)
Just a nice way to get things done... alot cheaper than spending hours tracking them down individually, sending uniformed officers to their houses etc.... saves time is all.
Slashdot Mirror
> This *is* news, because it goes against traditional
:)
> economic thought, which states that the self-interest
> of the individual is the important consideration
Well that depends
All this article is saying is that a sense of egalitarianism is an important factor in human decision making. That sometimes "the bottom line" is prioritized lower than "fairness".
It would be very interesting to see how this changes as the price of punishing goes up. Where is the line crossed?
Now... there are philosophies that say one should be self-interested and forsake self interest. This doesn't prove them wrong, it just shows that they are not how human beings naturally operate. (at least not absolutly)
Then again.... I have to imagine that anyone who didn't know that either is just completely oblivious to how people around them act, or has read entirely too much Ayn Rand for their own good.
-Steve
One could argue then that an animal with a sufficently low birth rate (1 every 11 months is about as fast as a human can pop them outm and it takes 12-13 years before offspring can reliably mate) that longer life after the ability to procreate, but is still able to hunt, gather and otherwise keep the local group surviving, is a benefit.
Thus of course increasing the ability of the overall group to procreate and pass on that gene.
Or more likely.... understand what its doing thats causing the ageing (which may just be a side effect) and treat that.
Kind of like giving someone thorazine to "treat" a psychotic episode, and having a parkinsons syndrome as its side effect (which is a rare side effect of thorazine, it can cause a permenant parkinsons syndrome after only a single dose) and then treating the parkinsons syndrome with the latest parkinsons drugs (what are they using these days?)
-Steve
None of which are real replacements for animals.
In Vitro can't actually simulate a real living organism the complexity of a worm, forget about a mouse.
Clinical studies and autopsy are useful sure... but not for this type of research.
Volunteers? Um, well "creating mice with a deficient ezyme" is not something you can easily do to a volunteer. Especially if you need to make the change in an emryo (kind of hard to do this sort of manipulation after you have a real human - never mind one old enough to consent)
-Steve
Good call... no connections at all really. The dumpin gof roundup isn't an action of montasano, its an action of the US government.
Theres plenty of good reason to say Montasano is evil. I mean, read the article. A researcher puts fish in the lake they are dumping into, and they shed skin, and die within 3 mins! A stream that was known to meet other streams and run through residential areas.
When confronted with this data, they did nothing. In fact, they defend their actions as having been reasonable at the time. Saying its unfair to judge their past actions by modern standards.
Its not so much that they did it so many years ago that bothers me, its that they still defend those actions as reasonable that is truely frightening, and damning.
-Steve
I wanted to lose weight, so I thought about it.
Do I want to change my diet?
Do I want to exercise?
The answer was yes. I want to hit this from multiple angles. I want to do this in the way that maximizes my enjoyment of life - because thats really what this is all about, isn't it?
So I took Atkins wisdom...i didn't cut out carbs, but I ate a bit less of them, and ate more meat and proteins. Not a huge change, but a small change. I changed the balance of them. (frankly, looking at the evidence, I do not believe the straight out Atkins diet is healthy)
Then I moved closer to work (for other reasons) so I started walking to work a coupl eof days a week. I started just generally walking more.... its a nice way to spend time, seeing the community, having itme to clear my head before work and really wake up.
I also cut down on what I ate, stopped eating till I couldn't eat anymore and really felt full. Cut down on sweet stuff, and soda. Started drinking more tea (being mindful of caffeine intake and careful not to let it become an addiction) and water.
Then, for the first time in my life, I lost weight. I went from 265 to 240 in a couple of months. I had to add 3 notches to my belt because it was too big for me!
All in all I feel much better. Getting out more, spending less time just sitting around. No heavy dietary restrictions, I still eat everything I used to, I just eat certain things more or less often, and eat less of them.
Now I feel quite full after eating much much less than I used to have to eat for that feeling. All in all its been quite a success. Lately I think I have been adding muscle because me waist still got smaller but my weight has stayed the same. Must be all that walking.
-Steve
Ok.... strike that and make it stolen goods.
Your right of course... I forgot that drug laws are "funny like that"
So is that your computer or one you stole? The Flea doesn't know. The whole flea wont get shut down because one vendor is caught with stolen goods.
-Steve
Not a drug store...a flea market.
Kazaa is not providing anything but a space for people to "distribute" stuff.... muchg like a flea market. Anyone can come, pay the fee (if there is a fee...usually is) and setup a table and sell stuff.
Should the flea market be liable if you are caught selling illicit drugs at the flea? Its not like you came by and said "Hey, I want a stand at your flea market so I can sell drugs", you just came up and paid the fee and got a space.
Same on KaZaa...they have know way to know what it is your distributing. They are just providing you space.
Or how about this.... This isn't the drug store arguing they should stay open, its the owner of the property the drug store rents its space from saying they should be allowed to keep their building open and to rent it out to someone.
-Steve
Of course, bein gan al queda member...what does that even mean?
Does it mean you are a terrorist (as in a person who actually commits the act), or a planner, or just some vague resource ("SOmeday, and this day may never come, you may be asked to do a service"). Perhaps the guy is working at Microsoft because he needs a day job while he awaits orders, or does some other task on the side.
Look at the recent tape of Ossama Bin Laden. The people who hijacked the planes had no idea what was going on until it was time to do it. They got training and got ready, but they had no idea what the mission was until just beforehand.
I think its reasonable to assume that many "Al Queda" are just "sleeper" agents, waiting to be activated, and living otherwise normal lives in the mean time.
-Steve
heh been up for years...I wonder what the hardware on it is?
heh tho, I doubt it will get sold on ebay no matter what. If the hardware is reasonable in any way, it will probably be ressurected as a test box, else it will probably languish sitting next to someones desk until it finnaly gets thrown in ther trash heh
least thats how universities I know work heh.
-Steve
Yup.... sounds about right to me.
They are basically the online form of vandals, those little teenage punks just going around and making trouble and every once in a great while (it seems) getting arrested for it.
A good friend of mine is the offline kind. Nice guy generally and all, but ask him about his tagging. and he will go on about how he is all "old school" and has so much respect because hes been doing it for years.
Just kinda juvenile pissing around really. Some do have some skills of some sort (ike my friend... really great artist if he actually puts any time into it) but... spend their time instead just pissing away any skills they do have by being punks.
Most grow up at some point and stop.
-Steve
Actually, I don't think it was intended to convey an actual animosity, just disagreement. Physicists have been known to get together and have heated arguments on such topics (who was it that wrote about leaving heisenbergs house depressed on many nights after hours of argueing?)
:)
I saw "squalid staters" as a term of endearment. A sort of friendly rivalry. Much the same as you will hear when groups of people in different branches of the US military get together - they all respect eachother, and know each is doing important work, but that doesn't mean they would ever admit to it in public
ive never been in the military, but ive worked in a shop with 2 ex-army and 2 ex-marines, they have an odd camraderie that often looks strange at first... I think thats what the article was talking about in the physics community...even if it failed to capture it adequetly.
That said...is it just me or does it seem like the second half of the article or so is just random statements of various phenomena and theories with no coherence whatsoever? I didn't see any point to the second half. Just filler?
-Steve
> whining, pissing, and moaning about some vague
> ethical point is for idiots.
Got it, enagaging in activities that you don't like (like pissing and moaning) is something that only idiots do. Certainly anyone who is intelligent will see how obviously right you are and will do what you do. Thank you for your enlightening commentary.
> True freedom allows everyone to release what
> they write under any license they like, and
> allows everyone else the option of choosing or
> not choosing the software.
No, not at all. True freedom allows everyone to release software in any fashion that they like, and then provides no means whatsoever for them to control what is done with that software afterwards.
The entire concept of a "license", when we talk of "true freedom" is silly, there is no such way for it to exist.
You complain of free software being "someone's campaign for personal power", well copyright is no different than that, the entire "license" concept is no different than that.
-Steve
Your missing something.
What "Freedom" is being taken away from you?
The position of the FSF and other "Free Software" supporters (meaning people who support "free software" for the political and ethical reasons and not for the much touted "practical benefits" of "Open Source" ) is that it is the people who sell proprietary software who are taking freedoms away.
That a person who uses software has the right to know what its doing, to modify it for his own use, and to share it with people who will benefit from it.
Much as you do not have the "freedom" to make money by going around and beating people up (because it infringes upon their rights), you do not have the right (according to the fsf view) to try and make money by taking those rights away.
Now, whether you agree that these are indeed rights of the user is another story.
-Steve
Slavery?
Um, noone is forcing them to do anything.
They have all the freedoms that everyone else has in that scenario. They have no requirement to provide further support or anything
-Steve
Never said you did....
just said that there often don't seem to be many (vocal) middle of the road opinions seen around here.
I am not a libertarian (any more) simply because I have a problem with the style of "laissez-faire" capitalism that they endorse. I think their economic policies are about as naive as you can get. That coupled with the fact that I think their economic reforms are more likely to get enacted sooner than social reforms - well, that makes them hard to support.
However you are right. Unions, for the most part, have been very self defeating. In concept I love unions, in practice - they tend to be no better than the systems they were invented to protect workers from.
-Steve
I would half agree....
/. had statments from a bunch of the presidential candidates during the last election?
I see alot of both libertarian and socialist slants actually. (which are very similar on some fronts - moreso than they want to admit - and vastly different on others)
Who else here remembers when
I dunno about anyone else, but I found myself agreeing about as often and as strongly with the peice by the socialist party candidate as the libertarian one. (and very seldom with others).
In fact on unions, buisness, and government, It seems there are alot of polar views here and few middle of the road ones.
-Steve
Yup, he is preaching to the choir.
Thats not so bad though.
Just because we agree, doesn't mean we are doing anything about it. He is demonstrating how this can hit home, making it hit home.
The point of action and speach isn't always to change minds that disagree, sometimes it is to change minds that agree.... to align them more tightly, to galvanize them into action.
-Steve
How about this one....
put 3 strands down the middle of the conduit.. and a bunch all around at a small radius from it. Fill with asphalt.
run stead signals through the outside strands... if an outside strand stops working...then check for intrusion.
for added protection... put some temperature sensors in (actually... checking the resistance of the outside conduit (assuming its made of metal) may work for that)) the conduit. (to detect anyone tryin gto melt out the asphalt)
oh yea...and spray paint all the fiber black, so it blends in with the asphalt.
I would then use crypto in addition to that...but thats just me.
-Steve
allow me to nitpick...a more exact phrasing.
A DOS attack is an action whose INTENDED PURPOSE is to block or degrade the availability of resources.
Hence, me hitting reload on my web browser is a DOS attack if (and only if) I do it with the specific intention of putting extra load on your server and thus degrading its availability.
(as a cheesy example)
As the purpose of the RIAA action is to degrade or block availability, it is certainly a DOS attack. It is network abuse....a malicous vigilante action.
-Steve
Very true.
However, just because he has done something that we consider wrong, does not mean he should be charged with, and sent to jail, for something else - thats not true justice!
Whether or not he is a paragon of virtue is irrelevant. Whether he deserves to be in jail for the SPECIFIC ACT of "decrypting" (undoing rot-13...do I remember correctly?) a file and then publishing or otherwise disseminating information on how to do this.
Putting him in jail for that sets a dangerous precident (in my book, perhaps you disagree and think that THIS crime is one worthy of punishment?). That is the real issue... if it can be done to him, it can be done to anyone else.
The fact that he is a rotten spammer is besides the point. Thats a seprate issue. Now...if he could be tried for theft of services and network abuse because of his work as a spammer...that would be a different story alltogether.
-Steve
Actually... it seems to me that this is a fine way to send a message. The "not bloody likely" part is the idea that censoring this will stop the information from getting to its intended recipients.
The message could be conveyed in something as simple as manner of dress or a key phrase. It could be "encoded" in where Bin Ladens gun rests in the background behind him in the shot.... or the even who sits to his right or left.
The plans were made a long time ago. Messages from Bin Laden to his people are likely of no more granulairty than "continue as planned" or "halt and wait" or "go with plan B"
Or even more specific... "transmit orders for plan B"... I think its very likely that Bin Laden, being a figurehead, has probably delegated the actual planning and coordination to someone else, so anything from him only has to be very very high level...which is where this sort of messahe excells.
That said... I think its silly to believe that they don't have operations setup such as to continue even if the communication channel is cutoff. All that censoring him does is stop americans from hearing what he has to say.
-Steve
Excuse me?
Patents were designed so that you could come up with an idea, sit around with yout thumb up your ass for years until someone else comes up with the idea and actually DOES something with it, then sue them for money?
Funny, and I thought patents were designed to give inventors a limited monopoly to encourage them to publish ideas, rather than keeping them as trade secrets. So you could make money selling your own product, or licensing it to someone who can.
-Steve
However, that is not thew way in which most people come into contact with software.
Software is, typically, sold just like books. You go to a store, you buy the book. Just like you go to the store, and you buy the software media.
The book, like the media, is then owned by you. You have signed no binding contract, you are bound to no "agreements" beyond that of copyright law.
You may not copy and redistribute the book, NOT because it says you can't in the first few pages (which it almost always does), but because copyright law says you can't.
I would hold that this entire concept of ":licensing" and especially "shrink wrap" licensing where one is expected to be bound to a license AFTER having bought the software media in question, and without signing any formal agreement is a complete fabrication of software companies to foster this attitude.
This goes on all the time. Hell, I have a book that I recently purchased from a major bookseller. It was written long ago and the copyright has long since expired, as such, it contains no copyright notice... however the publisher STILL put a notice in the first few pages to tell me that I may not copy this book, in whol eor in part.... a paraphgraph with exactly 0 legal force whatsoever.
-Steve
Criminals? no....
The scenario I have heard of is they send out notices about winning som eprize (lottoey, whatever) to everyone who they have outstanding arrest warrents for, and then arrest them en mass when they show up.
Having an arrest warrent just means there is good evidence that you commited a crime, it does not, in and of itself, make you a criminal. Only the court system can determine that. (at least, thats the idea that the system is based on - right?)
Just a nice way to get things done... alot cheaper than spending hours tracking them down individually, sending uniformed officers to their houses etc.... saves time is all.
-Steve