If the Sasquatch Press has a Middle Eastern correspondent, their journalist's work will not be lost in the spam flood of AP articles.
You're absolutely right. I'm Stormy Flowers, Editor in Chief of the (Toenail Sands, OR) Sasquatch Press. Nobody knows the Sasquatch Robot story like we do, but there's no reason we can't branch out in to Middle East coverage. I'm sending the ever-reliable Bruce Foggins out to Iraq on the next available C-17.
There are two kinds of libertarians [wikipedia.org]: the ones who recognize only "the government" as a source of oppressive force, and those who realize that any group may become sufficiently powerful as to be able to prevent free exercise of one's natural rights.
I obviously have been hanging out in the wrong circles, because I hadn't previously heard about this distinction. That's the problem with broad "ism" labels. They're fairly easily co-opted.
Ah, another victim of the "why are nerds libertarian" bashfest;)
I actually don't have it in for libertarians, but the limits of my faith in markets get tested in scenarios like this one. I admit to poking the hornet's nest.
... creativity is not a group project. It is about the individual.
I'm not sure I buy that argument.
If it were really *all* about the individual, we'd all have:
Built our own computers from scratch, down to the silicon chips.
Created our own programming languages, rather than using languages created by others.
Learned programming completely on our own, without the benefit of books or classes.
Not made use of the Internet.
My point isn't that the act of creating isn't an intensely individual activity, but that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. You don't have to be a critical theorist to recognize that we are all products of our environment, and are shaped by the people around us. The actual act of sitting in a room and typing out a new program on your computer may not be a group activity, but it is supported by myriad collective activities.
The fact that Viacom MADE MONEY from the use of the clip is a strong indicator that it was not Fair Use.
As you noted above, it is one of many indicators. Also, the amount of money Viacom made from showing the clip is not easily discernable, at least without discovery. If fair use analysis were confined to whether a party made money by use of a certain sample of creative work, we wouldn't have any critics (in the Noam Chomsky sense of the word, or in the Roger Ebert sense of the word, for that matter).
I'm not the OP but here's a question and a statement.
"Don't speak for the rest of us"
And when slashdot says "government is this", "business is that","consultants are","Certificates will","managers are" or even "people are idiots". Aren't they guilty of the same thing you're accusing the AC of?
Nope. First, "slashdot" doesn't say anything. Individuals do. Second, saying "people are idiots" is not equivalent to saying "nobody thinks people are smart." The first is an expression of an individual opinion. The second purports to speak for others.
"particularly when you don't have the minimal courage required to associate your whining comment with a Slashdot handle. "
Many of the comments mentioned were done under a handle. So much for a sign of quality.
Who said anything about quality? Not being willing to put your handle on a comment doesn't have to do with quality. It has to do with standing behind what you say, even if you're only standing behind a pseudonym.
Don't speak for the rest of us, particularly when you don't have the minimal courage required to associate your whining comment with a Slashdot handle. Counterpunchers like you a dime a dozen. Talk when you have something useful to contribute. Otherwise, shut your yap. You may learn something.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be putting up with, but here's a random sample of attorneys who appear to focus on the sort of hypo you presented. It took me ten minutes to find these via Google:
I'm not sure where you got the $5k retainer figure. Have you actually had that experience? You've tried to get legal help and no lawyers would help you without a $5k retainer?
I have to take issue with your comment about the characteristics of lawyers in general. You're making an incredibly broad generalization that covers a huge swath of territory, encompassing everyone from transactional attorneys who work for the county government, to public defenders, to the lawyers who work at the EFF, to cutthroat IP litigators. Saying "the characteristics of lawyers in general" is like saying "the characteristics of programmers in general." It's an unsupportable statement.
Copyright is supposed to encourage publication for the benefit of the public domain.
Copyright serves two primary purposes. One is to provide incentives for publishers of creative works. The second is for the benefit of society at large. The public domain is the vehicle for that enrichment, not the end in itself
It is supposed to be a temporary exclusive right to publish.
Actually it is a negative right. Copyright gives you the right to exclude others from publishing your work for a period of time. Because it is a negative right, the onus is on the holder of copyright to police that copyright and go after infringers. This is a seemingly minor distinction, but it matters because even though Big Media wants everyone else to police their copyrights, Intellectual Property Clause of the Constitution is quite clear in placing that responsibility on copyright holders.
People violating that exclusivity could be told to stop and sued in civil court by the rights holder.
Yep. That applies whether you're Random House Publishing or Berke Breathed. The big guys and the little guys are bound by the same rules of copyright. The casebooks are full of instances where larger, more monied operations were swatted down by the courts when they infringed copyright held by individuals.
Punishing people who are actually performing copyright's original function, without actual proof of damages is little more than coporate welfare. Don't think for an instant that you will be protected in the same manner if some big dumb company takes your text, images or recordings and sells them. A $40,000 judgment is sure ruin to most people, but less than a slap on the wrist to the companies pushing these crazy cases.
There are no shortage of copyright attorneys who will represent small defendants. Frequently, the small defendants win. Look at the litany of RIAA cases and you'll see what I mean. Big firms, advocacy shops like the EFF, and other legal outfits are stepping up to help. They're also coming up with some interesting new legal theories (like using the RICO statute to go after the music cartel). The reason Big Media is pushing so hard for legislation that protects their interests is that on balance they have been loosing in the courts.
Free communications for everyone? That would be an interesting start.
There is plenty of free information for those that care to pay attention. You seem to be assuming that if only everyone could get together and share information, the populace would reclaim the middle ground and take away the excess of power from overbearing corporations. But unfortunately, most people don't seem to be concerned at all. Take away their political rights, as long as you let them watch TV and buy lots of expensive toys they'll never be able to pay off.
The nations of the developed world are quite well-off, but in most of them, nobody really cares all that much about the big, complex issues. It's easier to watch MTV Cribs and take a spin in the brand new Dodge Ram 3500 pick'em-up-truck than it is to actually engage in political activity of any kind.
I don't think cell phones or the 'Net are the answer. I think radical education reform is the only way. Unless we start teaching our children how to be critical thinkers, instead of merely giving them social indoctrination, we'll keep heading down the path to Morlock City.
Government enacted monopolies are anathema to free markets.
Uhhh.. yes. And what does that have to do with a critique of capitalism gone awry? You are aware that there are positions between libertarian free markets and completely state-controlled economies, right?
They cover a broad range of licensing needs. If there are hundreds of different licenses out there, it's only because the lawyers working for the firms involved have sold these companies on the notion that they need a custom-crafted license.
This article is like waving a red flag at a bull
on
Failing Our Geniuses
·
· Score: 1
Let's see what we have here:
An article that talks about how geniuses are getting screwed by the American school system
Thousands and thousands of Slashdotters who feel they (being geeks/geniuses/math club presidents) have been singled out for abuse by said system
Anyone want to guess what the gestalt reaction will be?
Personally I think the US education system has done a spectacular job of leaving everyone behind, not just the smartest. It's an equal opportunity failure. But who has the most opportunity to get by in life despite of a weak education system?
Plus it was helped that the Computer (GM) and one of the players were brothers. So, siblings rivalry got turned into great game dynamics.
I'll bet it did. That was a great game. Talk about designers who had a wicked sense of humor. Definitely the most Kafkaesque RPG ever created, and at the height of the Cold War. An unbalanced, bizarre, and very fun game. I like your point about the level grind. No danger of that in Paranoia, which was a brilliant move on the part of the designers.
I don't want to sound too much like some old man pining for the good ole days, but I think getting too caught up in the structure of the rules misses the point of an RPG. It's cooperative, structured storytelling. It's make believe with rules.
I agree. I actually conducted some really fun role playing long-distance with some friends when I was in the Army. We basically took turns writing each other's characters into stories. The rule was you couldn't kill off anyone else's PC, but you could kill off an NPC you had created. I'd write my friends' characters into cliffhangers, then one of them would continue the story, then another would step in. It was a great way to keep the momentum going until we got back together for some actual tabletop gaming. Some of the best "gaming" we ever did was just creating those stories.
Is it just me, or does placing this article directly above the Diebold rebranding article make you think of a theme common to both? Company loses credibility. Keeps trying to regain it, but still doesn't grok that you can't just make it *look* like you've changed your spots. You actually have to change your behavior, and regaining credibility takes a lot longer than destroying it does.
GURPS definitely had it for flexibility. I thought the Hero System tended to create really quirky characters, but I suppose that's part of its charm. I'd give Hero System the nod for encouraging roleplaying, and GURPS for breadth.
Traveller 2300 was a fun game too. I really got a kick out of the future history they created for it, and it was more fun than regular Traveller in my opinion. Then again, you have to love the compact form of the original Traveller books. Perfect for a quick pick-up game.
I never played James Bond 007. How would you to compare it to Top Secret in terms of game flow?
I never got a chance to play RuneQuest... but I will say I hate all RoleMaster system games with a never ending passion...
Cthulhu uses the same underlying game mechanics. Gotta love a game where your favorite PC stories are about how your character turned into a gibbering idiot. Chaosium has put out some great stuff in their time.
I bought The Morrow Project but never could convince anyone to play it. Perhaps the fact that we were so firmly entrenched in Aftermath! had something to do with it. Talk about a game for geeks. Three hours to resolve a combat scene involving four or five PCs and a like number of bad guys.
I also bought Earthdawn and really liked a lot of the concepts in it (not surprising because I played Shadowrun for a few years). It looked like a well-balanced game, but I never found anyone who was playing it.
3rd edition D&D was not a role playing game as I understood it... it was basically just a pen-and-paper version of a computer game, requiring a ridiculous amount of number crunching and bean counting. Suddenly every single thing that a character was supposedly able to do was governed by a skill associated with a number.
So true. IMO, the profusion of classes, monster types, feats, and other additions were really just an excuse to keep pumping out new rules supplements. Rather than fostering creative roleplay, for a long time D&D has fostered hack & slash gaming.
For my money, the game system that best fostered role play and realism was RuneQuest 2. The game system was easy to learn, lean and mean, and the Glorantha setting was developed in a way that filled in many details while leaving room for plenty of GM and player creativity. Then Avalon Hill got a hold of the game, and the third version headed downhill. The recently-released Mongoose Publishing version is even worse. It's sad to see such a great game fall into such a state of disrepair.
Yes, I realize most Slashdotters have no idea what RQ 2 is, but please allow us dottering oldsters our reminiscing.
Radio with its myriad problems. Vinyl records with scratchy needles. 8-track tapes with lots of fuzz. Cassette tapes with hiss, pops, and stretching. CDs with sound that isn't "warm" enough. Now MP3s with all of their shortcomings.
Yet somehow we've managed to muddle through and enjoy recorded music all this time, in spite of the ongoing degradation of music. Strange, isn't it?
Having created dozens and dozens of mix tapes in my youth, I'm much happier with the sound quality of MP3s. Am I "missing" music by using MP3s? Probably. But do I miss the music I'm missing? No.
Here's a question for you: Are features and price the sole criteria for you in choosing a phone? If so, my initial point remains. There is a larger universe of criteria customers use to evaluate a phone/smartphone/pda/personal device. Witness the success of Motorola's RAZR line.
Obviously the iPhone isn't the device for you, but I find it odd that you can't understand how other people might have a different set of criteria than you do.
Ultimately, those are political problems and are the responsibility of the people.
Amen. Unfortunately it has become de rigeur to claim that either the system has been hijacked by "special interests" (they're only special interests if they're not your special interests), or that corporations are simply too powerful to be stopped, or that the (pick one) Liberals/Conservatives/Aliens control everything we see and hear, so we can never make informed judgments. The outcome of all these excuses is a culture that venerates the theoretically perfect over that which is possible. So the jaded and cynical take potshots at the political system and do nothing.
The failures of our politics are allowed to continue because as long as we've all got jobs, homes, SUVs and Big Macs, we're satisfied with bad politics. Hit our fundamental liberties and we'll complain, but won't demand change. We'll just keep voting for candidates on the basis of who is more likely to be fun at a BBQ. Ironically, I don't think it will be the Iraq War or the assault on civil liberties that will bring about change in the electorate. My guess it will ultimately be the failure of hundreds of thousands of subprime mortgages that will focus people's attention on the necessity of competent government.
It's well understood that copyright is a monopoly in distribution.
OK, now I see the intent of the original comment. The term "monopoly" can be confusing, given that it can apply to the right of exclusion given to copyright holders for a period of time, or to the control of a market by one actor.
Slashdot Mirror
If the Sasquatch Press has a Middle Eastern correspondent, their journalist's work will not be lost in the spam flood of AP articles.
You're absolutely right. I'm Stormy Flowers, Editor in Chief of the (Toenail Sands, OR) Sasquatch Press. Nobody knows the Sasquatch Robot story like we do, but there's no reason we can't branch out in to Middle East coverage. I'm sending the ever-reliable Bruce Foggins out to Iraq on the next available C-17.
Thanks for thinking of the Sasquatch Press!
There are two kinds of libertarians [wikipedia.org]: the ones who recognize only "the government" as a source of oppressive force, and those who realize that any group may become sufficiently powerful as to be able to prevent free exercise of one's natural rights.
I obviously have been hanging out in the wrong circles, because I hadn't previously heard about this distinction. That's the problem with broad "ism" labels. They're fairly easily co-opted.
Thanks for the info.
Ah, another victim of the "why are nerds libertarian" bashfest ;)
I actually don't have it in for libertarians, but the limits of my faith in markets get tested in scenarios like this one. I admit to poking the hornet's nest.
Freedom of contract, right?
I'm not sure I buy that argument.
If it were really *all* about the individual, we'd all have:
My point isn't that the act of creating isn't an intensely individual activity, but that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. You don't have to be a critical theorist to recognize that we are all products of our environment, and are shaped by the people around us. The actual act of sitting in a room and typing out a new program on your computer may not be a group activity, but it is supported by myriad collective activities.
The fact that Viacom MADE MONEY from the use of the clip is a strong indicator that it was not Fair Use.
As you noted above, it is one of many indicators. Also, the amount of money Viacom made from showing the clip is not easily discernable, at least without discovery. If fair use analysis were confined to whether a party made money by use of a certain sample of creative work, we wouldn't have any critics (in the Noam Chomsky sense of the word, or in the Roger Ebert sense of the word, for that matter).I'm not the OP but here's a question and a statement.
"Don't speak for the rest of us"
And when slashdot says "government is this", "business is that","consultants are","Certificates will","managers are" or even "people are idiots". Aren't they guilty of the same thing you're accusing the AC of?
Nope. First, "slashdot" doesn't say anything. Individuals do. Second, saying "people are idiots" is not equivalent to saying "nobody thinks people are smart." The first is an expression of an individual opinion. The second purports to speak for others.
"particularly when you don't have the minimal courage required to associate your whining comment with a Slashdot handle. "
Many of the comments mentioned were done under a handle. So much for a sign of quality.
Who said anything about quality? Not being willing to put your handle on a comment doesn't have to do with quality. It has to do with standing behind what you say, even if you're only standing behind a pseudonym.
Dude, no one gives a shit about you life.
Nobody gives a shit about your comment.
Don't speak for the rest of us, particularly when you don't have the minimal courage required to associate your whining comment with a Slashdot handle. Counterpunchers like you a dime a dozen. Talk when you have something useful to contribute. Otherwise, shut your yap. You may learn something.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be putting up with, but here's a random sample of attorneys who appear to focus on the sort of hypo you presented. It took me ten minutes to find these via Google:
I'm not sure where you got the $5k retainer figure. Have you actually had that experience? You've tried to get legal help and no lawyers would help you without a $5k retainer?
I have to take issue with your comment about the characteristics of lawyers in general. You're making an incredibly broad generalization that covers a huge swath of territory, encompassing everyone from transactional attorneys who work for the county government, to public defenders, to the lawyers who work at the EFF, to cutthroat IP litigators. Saying "the characteristics of lawyers in general" is like saying "the characteristics of programmers in general." It's an unsupportable statement.
Copyright is supposed to encourage publication for the benefit of the public domain.
Copyright serves two primary purposes. One is to provide incentives for publishers of creative works. The second is for the benefit of society at large. The public domain is the vehicle for that enrichment, not the end in itself
It is supposed to be a temporary exclusive right to publish.
Actually it is a negative right. Copyright gives you the right to exclude others from publishing your work for a period of time. Because it is a negative right, the onus is on the holder of copyright to police that copyright and go after infringers. This is a seemingly minor distinction, but it matters because even though Big Media wants everyone else to police their copyrights, Intellectual Property Clause of the Constitution is quite clear in placing that responsibility on copyright holders.
People violating that exclusivity could be told to stop and sued in civil court by the rights holder.
Yep. That applies whether you're Random House Publishing or Berke Breathed. The big guys and the little guys are bound by the same rules of copyright. The casebooks are full of instances where larger, more monied operations were swatted down by the courts when they infringed copyright held by individuals.
Punishing people who are actually performing copyright's original function, without actual proof of damages is little more than coporate welfare. Don't think for an instant that you will be protected in the same manner if some big dumb company takes your text, images or recordings and sells them. A $40,000 judgment is sure ruin to most people, but less than a slap on the wrist to the companies pushing these crazy cases.
There are no shortage of copyright attorneys who will represent small defendants. Frequently, the small defendants win. Look at the litany of RIAA cases and you'll see what I mean. Big firms, advocacy shops like the EFF, and other legal outfits are stepping up to help. They're also coming up with some interesting new legal theories (like using the RICO statute to go after the music cartel). The reason Big Media is pushing so hard for legislation that protects their interests is that on balance they have been loosing in the courts.
Free communications for everyone? That would be an interesting start.
There is plenty of free information for those that care to pay attention. You seem to be assuming that if only everyone could get together and share information, the populace would reclaim the middle ground and take away the excess of power from overbearing corporations. But unfortunately, most people don't seem to be concerned at all. Take away their political rights, as long as you let them watch TV and buy lots of expensive toys they'll never be able to pay off.
The nations of the developed world are quite well-off, but in most of them, nobody really cares all that much about the big, complex issues. It's easier to watch MTV Cribs and take a spin in the brand new Dodge Ram 3500 pick'em-up-truck than it is to actually engage in political activity of any kind.
I don't think cell phones or the 'Net are the answer. I think radical education reform is the only way. Unless we start teaching our children how to be critical thinkers, instead of merely giving them social indoctrination, we'll keep heading down the path to Morlock City.
Government enacted monopolies are anathema to free markets.
Uhhh.. yes. And what does that have to do with a critique of capitalism gone awry? You are aware that there are positions between libertarian free markets and completely state-controlled economies, right?
Because most American homes don't have BitTorrent, or broadband connections, or the savvy to use BitTorrent.
That's tantamount to saying that the Slashdot demographic is wildly out of synch with most of America! ;-)
They cover a broad range of licensing needs. If there are hundreds of different licenses out there, it's only because the lawyers working for the firms involved have sold these companies on the notion that they need a custom-crafted license.
Let's see what we have here:
Anyone want to guess what the gestalt reaction will be?
Personally I think the US education system has done a spectacular job of leaving everyone behind, not just the smartest. It's an equal opportunity failure. But who has the most opportunity to get by in life despite of a weak education system?
Plus it was helped that the Computer (GM) and one of the players were brothers. So, siblings rivalry got turned into great game dynamics.
I'll bet it did. That was a great game. Talk about designers who had a wicked sense of humor. Definitely the most Kafkaesque RPG ever created, and at the height of the Cold War. An unbalanced, bizarre, and very fun game. I like your point about the level grind. No danger of that in Paranoia, which was a brilliant move on the part of the designers.
I don't want to sound too much like some old man pining for the good ole days, but I think getting too caught up in the structure of the rules misses the point of an RPG. It's cooperative, structured storytelling. It's make believe with rules.
I agree. I actually conducted some really fun role playing long-distance with some friends when I was in the Army. We basically took turns writing each other's characters into stories. The rule was you couldn't kill off anyone else's PC, but you could kill off an NPC you had created. I'd write my friends' characters into cliffhangers, then one of them would continue the story, then another would step in. It was a great way to keep the momentum going until we got back together for some actual tabletop gaming. Some of the best "gaming" we ever did was just creating those stories.
Is it just me, or does placing this article directly above the Diebold rebranding article make you think of a theme common to both? Company loses credibility. Keeps trying to regain it, but still doesn't grok that you can't just make it *look* like you've changed your spots. You actually have to change your behavior, and regaining credibility takes a lot longer than destroying it does.
GURPS or The Hero System
GURPS definitely had it for flexibility. I thought the Hero System tended to create really quirky characters, but I suppose that's part of its charm. I'd give Hero System the nod for encouraging roleplaying, and GURPS for breadth.
Traveller 2300 was a fun game too. I really got a kick out of the future history they created for it, and it was more fun than regular Traveller in my opinion. Then again, you have to love the compact form of the original Traveller books. Perfect for a quick pick-up game.
I never played James Bond 007. How would you to compare it to Top Secret in terms of game flow?
I never got a chance to play RuneQuest... but I will say I hate all RoleMaster system games with a never ending passion...
Cthulhu uses the same underlying game mechanics. Gotta love a game where your favorite PC stories are about how your character turned into a gibbering idiot. Chaosium has put out some great stuff in their time.
I bought The Morrow Project but never could convince anyone to play it. Perhaps the fact that we were so firmly entrenched in Aftermath! had something to do with it. Talk about a game for geeks. Three hours to resolve a combat scene involving four or five PCs and a like number of bad guys.
I also bought Earthdawn and really liked a lot of the concepts in it (not surprising because I played Shadowrun for a few years). It looked like a well-balanced game, but I never found anyone who was playing it.
3rd edition D&D was not a role playing game as I understood it... it was basically just a pen-and-paper version of a computer game, requiring a ridiculous amount of number crunching and bean counting. Suddenly every single thing that a character was supposedly able to do was governed by a skill associated with a number.
So true. IMO, the profusion of classes, monster types, feats, and other additions were really just an excuse to keep pumping out new rules supplements. Rather than fostering creative roleplay, for a long time D&D has fostered hack & slash gaming.
For my money, the game system that best fostered role play and realism was RuneQuest 2. The game system was easy to learn, lean and mean, and the Glorantha setting was developed in a way that filled in many details while leaving room for plenty of GM and player creativity. Then Avalon Hill got a hold of the game, and the third version headed downhill. The recently-released Mongoose Publishing version is even worse. It's sad to see such a great game fall into such a state of disrepair.
Yes, I realize most Slashdotters have no idea what RQ 2 is, but please allow us dottering oldsters our reminiscing.
Radio with its myriad problems. Vinyl records with scratchy needles. 8-track tapes with lots of fuzz. Cassette tapes with hiss, pops, and stretching. CDs with sound that isn't "warm" enough. Now MP3s with all of their shortcomings.
Yet somehow we've managed to muddle through and enjoy recorded music all this time, in spite of the ongoing degradation of music. Strange, isn't it?
Having created dozens and dozens of mix tapes in my youth, I'm much happier with the sound quality of MP3s. Am I "missing" music by using MP3s? Probably. But do I miss the music I'm missing? No.
half the features for double the price.
Yes, I understand. The iPhone has fewer features.
Here's a question for you: Are features and price the sole criteria for you in choosing a phone? If so, my initial point remains. There is a larger universe of criteria customers use to evaluate a phone/smartphone/pda/personal device. Witness the success of Motorola's RAZR line.
Obviously the iPhone isn't the device for you, but I find it odd that you can't understand how other people might have a different set of criteria than you do.
Ultimately, those are political problems and are the responsibility of the people.
Amen. Unfortunately it has become de rigeur to claim that either the system has been hijacked by "special interests" (they're only special interests if they're not your special interests), or that corporations are simply too powerful to be stopped, or that the (pick one) Liberals/Conservatives/Aliens control everything we see and hear, so we can never make informed judgments. The outcome of all these excuses is a culture that venerates the theoretically perfect over that which is possible. So the jaded and cynical take potshots at the political system and do nothing.
The failures of our politics are allowed to continue because as long as we've all got jobs, homes, SUVs and Big Macs, we're satisfied with bad politics. Hit our fundamental liberties and we'll complain, but won't demand change. We'll just keep voting for candidates on the basis of who is more likely to be fun at a BBQ. Ironically, I don't think it will be the Iraq War or the assault on civil liberties that will bring about change in the electorate. My guess it will ultimately be the failure of hundreds of thousands of subprime mortgages that will focus people's attention on the necessity of competent government.
It's well understood that copyright is a monopoly in distribution.
OK, now I see the intent of the original comment. The term "monopoly" can be confusing, given that it can apply to the right of exclusion given to copyright holders for a period of time, or to the control of a market by one actor.