This isn't a flamebait question. I always react negatively to news that the government is getting ready to implement some form of monitoring or tracking. But lately I've been wondering how much of this reaction is just knee-jerk fear of an Orwellian future that may never come to pass. For example, there are cameras all over NYC, London, et. al., tracking people as they walk the streets, go into businesses, and so on.
I guess my real question is this: when is it OK for the government to implement surveillance, tracking, monitoring, etc. in order to save lives? Or are we so afraid of own governments that we can't afford to allow such things?
to play American football at the professional level, you have to be thinking every second. You not only have all of those different plays to memorize, you have to know where you are in relation to the rest of your teammates. The guys who play on the line have a particularly difficult job, because they're grappling with 300lb.+ opponents while reacting to the play around them.
I think baseball *seems* complex because it's actually fairly easy to observe the nuances of the game while you're watching. You can see how much lattitude the pitcher is giving a runner. You can observe where the fielders are positioning themselves for a particular batterr, and so on. In football the matchups often change (for example, on a cross route a receiver may be covered at various times by three different defenders), and the guys on both sides of the ball have to always be ready to adjust their predetermined pattern as the play develops.
For some excellent insight into the world of an offensive lineman in the NFL, check out this story (written by "Blackhawk Down" author Mark Bowden) about the day to day life of Eagle's center Hank Fraley.
Politics being what it is, this might not be a "reasonable" expectation as in "will come true right away". But you're basically advocating that people should stop fighting - a very "reasonable" attitude that's at the heart of every police state. Stay on your couch if you like, but don't tell me I should do the same.
If I am ok with the fact that I can play purchased music on three computers and an iPod, rather than on four, or five, or ten, is that equivalent to acquiescing to a police state?
I'm also puzzled by your comment about technology. You think it should go to ordinary citizens, not to Apple or Jack Valenti. Agreed. Apple created iTunes and I use it. Anyone can use it. If you don't want to use it, rip your own CDs and use whatever filesharing mechanism you want to listen to your music in your house, your car, your basement, your tent, etc. Nobody is stopping you from doing that.
But if Apple developed and deployed the technology of iTunes and spend a lot of time and a lot of money to do so, are you saying that they shouldn't be allowed to set a price for the service? How does Apple make money? If they don't make money, how do they provide the service?
If they don't provide the service, perhaps someone else will. But how will this other party do so and still make money? How will this other party get the broad variety of music that powers the whole thing, if the music owners don't want to play ball?
A "damn The Man" attitude is fine and dandy, but it's ultimately self-defeating if you can't come up with a viable replacement for the current situation. I doubt anyone will get the RIAA and the government to acknowledge and fix the problem with the current situation by engaging in illegal activity.
Here's a crazy notion. Why not actually make this a political issue and vote people into office who will do something about changing some of these absurd laws?
We actually do have the power to do that in the US, even though we seem to have thrown it away.
Thanks for the info, VP. I've been trying to get past the clashing ideologies ("my intellectual property is mine" vs. "information should be free") for some time, to see how the two could somehow co-exist. So from time to time I make posts from one side of the fence or the other, just to see what kind of responses I get.
Your post went right to the heart of the matter, and the Groklaw article clarified several things for me.
Something tells me it's going to be a while before this is all hashed out, because there's so much money at stake and so much ideology driving the conflict. Anyway, I appreciate your well-reasoned response to my post.
Buy a CD. Rip the songs. Do with them as you please. But is it reasonable to expect that you can have full fair use while simultaneously reaping the major benefits of digital distribution?
A large part of what you're paying for when you buy songs from the iTMS is the payoff Apple has to give to the music industry just so they'll allow Apple to use such lax DRM.
I think that with any music I purchase online, I should be able to make multiple copies on multiple computers, my iPod, and so on. In a perfect world I'd be able to do that right now.
But realistically, what I'm paying for when I buy songs from the iTMS is convenience. I can find songs I want, listen to clips of songs I haven't heard, and satisfy my craving for some long-forgotten song in a matter of moments. I don't have to get in my car, drive to the store, and buy a full album just to hear the one song I actually want.
So the iTMS is giving me a totally new option. I'm paying for the convenience of a new shopping experience. Because I'm able to buy music in a fashion that suits my individual preferences (I've probably purchased more music from the iTMS in the last six months than I did at music stores in the last six years), I'm willing to make a compromise with Apple: You make it ludicrously easy for me to obtain, organize and manage my music, and I'll forgo full fair use in favor of limited DRM.
People who say that digital music shouldn't have DRM are right. But I'd argue that in this case, the medium truly is the message. Apple has come up with the first truly viable means of legally purchasing music online. When I started using the iTMS it radically changed my music purchasing and listening habits. So I ask myself, how is Apple screwing me?
In particular, how is Apple screwing me when I agreed to the terms of the contract, which are based on the fact that online distribution is quite different than physical distribution of music?
People talk about the music industry being unwilling to change, but at the same time they want more benefits from digital music without being willing to compromise in the slightest.
It sounds like a triumph of ideology over practicality to me.
Flip this around and imagine that I decide to circumvent the GPL by taking a piece of GPL software and using its source in piece of closed source commercial software. Wouldn't like that now, would you?
This is a really interesting comment. You're drawing a comparison between the people who wrote the GPL and the people who wrote the iTMS contract, which is not something I've seen before.
But it makes sense. Whether you're drawing a contract to protect intellectual property or protect *distribution* of intellectual property, in either case you are deliberately writing a contract that protects some actions and prohibits other actions.
The GPL was developed based on the notion that software is essentially a form of speech, and so should be free. In order to protect this freedom, the GPL dictates that modifications to GPLed software must also be made under the GPL.
The iTMS contract was developed based on the notion that in order for digital music to prosper, there must be limits on how widely a given purchased download can be distributed, so that the music's copyright holders can make a return on their investment. Without the profit motive for the copyright holders, the music won't be put on the iTMS, and Apple won't be making money.
In both cases, restrictions are placed in the license to further the end goal. Attempts to circumvent the license by definition negate the end goal. If the GPL were repeatedly circumvented, the *implementation* of Free Software would be crippled as well. The same is true of the iTMS.
You can't expect that if you change the rules of the game so you can enjoy benefits beyond those you agreed to at the time of purchase, Apple is somehow going to continue to provide the very tools that you hacked. This is quite similar to what would happen if Microsoft took all of the GNU tools, changed them slightly, and released their own Free Windows OS. Everyone on Slashdot would be crying bloody murder, because the value of GPLed software would be denigrated by Microsoft's circumventing of the GPL contract.
When faced with a monopoly, most people go crying foul to their governments to resolve the problem and yet at the same time they continue to support the monopolistic company by buying their products, directly or indirectly.
Bulls-eye!
Unfortunately people are generally sheep. As Cake put it in Sheep Go to Heaven, "... goats go to Hell." Going against the grain makes you a goat. So if you don't support the monopoly, you're one of those unclean "free thinkers" and you must go directly to Hell. Do not collect $200, just grab your asbesdos suit and say hi to the Devil.
Why are you posting on Slashdot? Your ability to hold a nuanced view is despicable. I like the binary "your opinion sucks" arguments Slashdot *used to* have before people like you came along.
This is about European Union privacy laws, which are different than those in the United States. It says so multiple times, quite clearly in the article.
"we sell it to our enemies"
on
Weapons in Space
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· Score: 3, Interesting
But the real problem is that as soon as we develop something, we sell it to our enemies..
During the Cold War that was the case, but times have changed. The US military is getting to the point where it is dominated by information systems rather than hardware platforms. The hardware platforms are merely modular components that are the eyes, ears, and fists of the network.
It's essentially impossible to export an all-encompassing data-driven warfighting structure. The US can still export individual components such as planes and tanks, but even then hardly anyone can afford the most up-to-date American equipment. So yes, we often do face American equipment on the battlefield, but combatting soldiers who wield M-16s and drive M60A3 tanks isn't in the same league as fighting an opponent that has laser-guided munitions, ubiquitous night-fighting capabilities, and GPS down to the squad level.
If you're worried about our enemies getting a hold of space weaponry, you're barking up the wrong tree. Just remember that our most sophisticated aerial and space reconnaissance equipment hardware has never been sold to anyone, even during the height of the Cold War.
For fiscal and geopolotical reasons I'm not sure that we need to militarize space, but the argument that such technology will be used against us is a bit far-fetched, given the technology imblance between the US military and the rest of the world.
What a freakin' shame that a once great company has become so pathetic. This article from 1999 reminded me of how long and tortured the road has been for what is now just the soulless shell of what used to be SCO.
Please try to not be blatantly stupid next time. Thanks.
The term "communist" isn't actually as cut and dried as you make it out to be.
Marxists defined communism as the dissolution of the state, elimination of private property, and the leveling of all class barriers. That idealized goal was not achieved during the Soviet era, obviously, but the term was hijacked by the Communist Party, which for obvious political reasons presented its society as the realization of the communist dream.
The West saw little reason to quibble over terminology, and so bought into this misrepresentation by using the term communism rather than another, more accurate term (such as totalitarian socialism).
So yes, our history books call it communism, but history books simplify presentation of complicated historical material for reasons of clarity, ideology, and so on. Check out Lies My Teacher Told Me to get a glimpse at these simplifications in effect.
"This is one of the forces that limits Apple's distribution. Apple choses to sell mostly directly and therefore they aren't making much of a push to get themselves into major retail chains... Since Wal-Mart can't undercut Apple's prices, Wal-Mart's not particularly interested in having Apple."
I think you're confusing cause and effect here. Apple chose to go direct precisely because their forays into big box retail had been so unsuccessful. BestBuy, Circuit City, Computer City, Office Max, Sears - Apple has tried them all. In every case Apple's products were marginalized by big-box salespeople who didn't know the first thing about Apple technology and had no interest in learning about it.
Apple's retail presence is far greater now that they control presentation of their products. They've selected marquee locations and they showcase Apple products "in the wild" so customers can play with Macs, digital video cameras, add-on devices, and so on.
Wal-Mart was founded on deep price discounting. Volume of sales for already established commodity products is their bread and butter. Wal-Mart is, as you pointed out, not interested in getting into a business where they can't undercut the competition. Apple is likewise uninterested in making a deal with Wal-Mart, because they'd rapidly lose control over the value of the Apple brand.
I can't help but remember "Cool Hand Luke"
on
Death by Coffee?
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· Score: 1
But this would be the geek version. Instead of guys jumping down from their prison cots to watch ol' Cool Hand eat 50 eggs in an hour, it's guys in cubicles breathlessly following the drink-by-drink results of the coffee chugging extravaganza as continuously updated on the www.deathbycoffee.com blog.
Parenthetically, the 50 egg question is answered by the BBC Open University here.
I highly doubt that the average computer user avoids Linux out of fear of looking "deviant." They use computers because, in this day and age, you pretty much have to.
I have encountered time and time again the perception from Windows users who only use their computer for email, the Web, and general office use that they don't want to use Macintosh or Linux because "everybody else" uses Windows. These people are less afraid of Windows problems than they are of going outside the norm. They don't conduct a rational analysis of the pluses and minuses of various OSes, because most of them don't know much at all about the non-Windows options.
A computer is a tool, and should not be a pain in the ass to use or require a degree.
Truer words were never said. Yet most of the world still uses Windows, an OS that is by no means the easiest to use.
People use computers because they have to, but that doesn't mean they have to use Windows, does it? Does the fact that there is more software and support for Windows make it a superior platform? What about using an OS that doesn't require so much support, or provides thousands of high-quality applications instead of hundreds of thousands of applications of widely-varying quality?
It's bizarre to me that so many people are attacking online social networking because of its ineffectiveness, or because it's a secret ploy to make all our identities known, or whatever.
We're still trapped in the same vortex of stupidity that caught us all in the Dot-Bomb Era. Just like the foolish VCs who are funding these companies, we're not focusing on the bottom line. How do they make money? Do they have serious business plans? Are their projections at all realistic?
Every article, every piece of information I've come across indicates that the rise of these social networking operations is evidence of yet another case of the VC sheep following the flock. Maybe I should use the term lemmings instead.
Follow the money on these operations and you'll see it's all headed relentlessly down the drain.
The fact of the matter is that we're dealing with Windows. Most Windows users just want to use their computer and know as little as they can about how it actually works. They don't know the meaning of terms like "dialog box", "alert message", "preview panel" and so on.
I'm not saying this to single out Windows users. Most non-professional Mac users are the same way. It's just that Windows is used by people who use what everyone else uses because they feel safe in doing so. They may not know how their computers work, but they're more afraid of looking deviant than having technical malfunctions.
The subconscious refrain of Windows users around the globe is, "Well, at least I'm not the only one with this problem."
Those Windows users who actively try to prepare themselves against the almost daily barrage of new worms, viruses, vulnerabilities, and other Windows annoyances still have a difficult time keeping up with it all. Even experienced Windows power users frequently find themselves overpowered by the ongoing war against malicious code.
So the solution to this vulnerability is simple. But when you look at the situation in context, the potential for widespread havoc is a lot greater.
The Soviet inflight safety record isn't that great after all. One of the advantages of a totalitarian system is that you can cover up failures pretty well.
Their ground record isn't so great either. The disaster at Baikonur in 1960 killed at least 165 people. So I guess they don't really have a better safety record.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess my real question is this: when is it OK for the government to implement surveillance, tracking, monitoring, etc. in order to save lives? Or are we so afraid of own governments that we can't afford to allow such things?
I think baseball *seems* complex because it's actually fairly easy to observe the nuances of the game while you're watching. You can see how much lattitude the pitcher is giving a runner. You can observe where the fielders are positioning themselves for a particular batterr, and so on. In football the matchups often change (for example, on a cross route a receiver may be covered at various times by three different defenders), and the guys on both sides of the ball have to always be ready to adjust their predetermined pattern as the play develops.
For some excellent insight into the world of an offensive lineman in the NFL, check out this story (written by "Blackhawk Down" author Mark Bowden) about the day to day life of Eagle's center Hank Fraley.
If I am ok with the fact that I can play purchased music on three computers and an iPod, rather than on four, or five, or ten, is that equivalent to acquiescing to a police state?
I'm also puzzled by your comment about technology. You think it should go to ordinary citizens, not to Apple or Jack Valenti. Agreed. Apple created iTunes and I use it. Anyone can use it. If you don't want to use it, rip your own CDs and use whatever filesharing mechanism you want to listen to your music in your house, your car, your basement, your tent, etc. Nobody is stopping you from doing that.
But if Apple developed and deployed the technology of iTunes and spend a lot of time and a lot of money to do so, are you saying that they shouldn't be allowed to set a price for the service? How does Apple make money? If they don't make money, how do they provide the service?
If they don't provide the service, perhaps someone else will. But how will this other party do so and still make money? How will this other party get the broad variety of music that powers the whole thing, if the music owners don't want to play ball?
A "damn The Man" attitude is fine and dandy, but it's ultimately self-defeating if you can't come up with a viable replacement for the current situation. I doubt anyone will get the RIAA and the government to acknowledge and fix the problem with the current situation by engaging in illegal activity.
Here's a crazy notion. Why not actually make this a political issue and vote people into office who will do something about changing some of these absurd laws?
We actually do have the power to do that in the US, even though we seem to have thrown it away.
Your post went right to the heart of the matter, and the Groklaw article clarified several things for me.
Something tells me it's going to be a while before this is all hashed out, because there's so much money at stake and so much ideology driving the conflict. Anyway, I appreciate your well-reasoned response to my post.
A large part of what you're paying for when you buy songs from the iTMS is the payoff Apple has to give to the music industry just so they'll allow Apple to use such lax DRM.
I think that with any music I purchase online, I should be able to make multiple copies on multiple computers, my iPod, and so on. In a perfect world I'd be able to do that right now.
But realistically, what I'm paying for when I buy songs from the iTMS is convenience. I can find songs I want, listen to clips of songs I haven't heard, and satisfy my craving for some long-forgotten song in a matter of moments. I don't have to get in my car, drive to the store, and buy a full album just to hear the one song I actually want.
So the iTMS is giving me a totally new option. I'm paying for the convenience of a new shopping experience. Because I'm able to buy music in a fashion that suits my individual preferences (I've probably purchased more music from the iTMS in the last six months than I did at music stores in the last six years), I'm willing to make a compromise with Apple: You make it ludicrously easy for me to obtain, organize and manage my music, and I'll forgo full fair use in favor of limited DRM.
People who say that digital music shouldn't have DRM are right. But I'd argue that in this case, the medium truly is the message. Apple has come up with the first truly viable means of legally purchasing music online. When I started using the iTMS it radically changed my music purchasing and listening habits. So I ask myself, how is Apple screwing me?
In particular, how is Apple screwing me when I agreed to the terms of the contract, which are based on the fact that online distribution is quite different than physical distribution of music?
People talk about the music industry being unwilling to change, but at the same time they want more benefits from digital music without being willing to compromise in the slightest.
It sounds like a triumph of ideology over practicality to me.
This is a really interesting comment. You're drawing a comparison between the people who wrote the GPL and the people who wrote the iTMS contract, which is not something I've seen before.
But it makes sense. Whether you're drawing a contract to protect intellectual property or protect *distribution* of intellectual property, in either case you are deliberately writing a contract that protects some actions and prohibits other actions.
The GPL was developed based on the notion that software is essentially a form of speech, and so should be free. In order to protect this freedom, the GPL dictates that modifications to GPLed software must also be made under the GPL.
The iTMS contract was developed based on the notion that in order for digital music to prosper, there must be limits on how widely a given purchased download can be distributed, so that the music's copyright holders can make a return on their investment. Without the profit motive for the copyright holders, the music won't be put on the iTMS, and Apple won't be making money.
In both cases, restrictions are placed in the license to further the end goal. Attempts to circumvent the license by definition negate the end goal. If the GPL were repeatedly circumvented, the *implementation* of Free Software would be crippled as well. The same is true of the iTMS.
You can't expect that if you change the rules of the game so you can enjoy benefits beyond those you agreed to at the time of purchase, Apple is somehow going to continue to provide the very tools that you hacked. This is quite similar to what would happen if Microsoft took all of the GNU tools, changed them slightly, and released their own Free Windows OS. Everyone on Slashdot would be crying bloody murder, because the value of GPLed software would be denigrated by Microsoft's circumventing of the GPL contract.
Bulls-eye!
Unfortunately people are generally sheep. As Cake put it in Sheep Go to Heaven, "... goats go to Hell." Going against the grain makes you a goat. So if you don't support the monopoly, you're one of those unclean "free thinkers" and you must go directly to Hell. Do not collect $200, just grab your asbesdos suit and say hi to the Devil.
During the Cold War that was the case, but times have changed. The US military is getting to the point where it is dominated by information systems rather than hardware platforms. The hardware platforms are merely modular components that are the eyes, ears, and fists of the network.
It's essentially impossible to export an all-encompassing data-driven warfighting structure. The US can still export individual components such as planes and tanks, but even then hardly anyone can afford the most up-to-date American equipment. So yes, we often do face American equipment on the battlefield, but combatting soldiers who wield M-16s and drive M60A3 tanks isn't in the same league as fighting an opponent that has laser-guided munitions, ubiquitous night-fighting capabilities, and GPS down to the squad level.
If you're worried about our enemies getting a hold of space weaponry, you're barking up the wrong tree. Just remember that our most sophisticated aerial and space reconnaissance equipment hardware has never been sold to anyone, even during the height of the Cold War.
For fiscal and geopolotical reasons I'm not sure that we need to militarize space, but the argument that such technology will be used against us is a bit far-fetched, given the technology imblance between the US military and the rest of the world.
The term "communist" isn't actually as cut and dried as you make it out to be.
Marxists defined communism as the dissolution of the state, elimination of private property, and the leveling of all class barriers. That idealized goal was not achieved during the Soviet era, obviously, but the term was hijacked by the Communist Party, which for obvious political reasons presented its society as the realization of the communist dream.
The West saw little reason to quibble over terminology, and so bought into this misrepresentation by using the term communism rather than another, more accurate term (such as totalitarian socialism).
So yes, our history books call it communism, but history books simplify presentation of complicated historical material for reasons of clarity, ideology, and so on. Check out Lies My Teacher Told Me to get a glimpse at these simplifications in effect.
For more info about communism, check out this detailed explanation.
I think you're confusing cause and effect here. Apple chose to go direct precisely because their forays into big box retail had been so unsuccessful. BestBuy, Circuit City, Computer City, Office Max, Sears - Apple has tried them all. In every case Apple's products were marginalized by big-box salespeople who didn't know the first thing about Apple technology and had no interest in learning about it.
Apple's retail presence is far greater now that they control presentation of their products. They've selected marquee locations and they showcase Apple products "in the wild" so customers can play with Macs, digital video cameras, add-on devices, and so on.
Wal-Mart was founded on deep price discounting. Volume of sales for already established commodity products is their bread and butter. Wal-Mart is, as you pointed out, not interested in getting into a business where they can't undercut the competition. Apple is likewise uninterested in making a deal with Wal-Mart, because they'd rapidly lose control over the value of the Apple brand.
Sincerely,
Dorkus B. Flatulus
Parenthetically, the 50 egg question is answered by the BBC Open University here.
Check out Dan Gillmor's tongue-in-cheek missive about the recent European ruling.
I have encountered time and time again the perception from Windows users who only use their computer for email, the Web, and general office use that they don't want to use Macintosh or Linux because "everybody else" uses Windows. These people are less afraid of Windows problems than they are of going outside the norm. They don't conduct a rational analysis of the pluses and minuses of various OSes, because most of them don't know much at all about the non-Windows options.
A computer is a tool, and should not be a pain in the ass to use or require a degree.
Truer words were never said. Yet most of the world still uses Windows, an OS that is by no means the easiest to use.
People use computers because they have to, but that doesn't mean they have to use Windows, does it? Does the fact that there is more software and support for Windows make it a superior platform? What about using an OS that doesn't require so much support, or provides thousands of high-quality applications instead of hundreds of thousands of applications of widely-varying quality?
We're still trapped in the same vortex of stupidity that caught us all in the Dot-Bomb Era. Just like the foolish VCs who are funding these companies, we're not focusing on the bottom line. How do they make money? Do they have serious business plans? Are their projections at all realistic?
Every article, every piece of information I've come across indicates that the rise of these social networking operations is evidence of yet another case of the VC sheep following the flock. Maybe I should use the term lemmings instead.
Follow the money on these operations and you'll see it's all headed relentlessly down the drain.
I'm not saying this to single out Windows users. Most non-professional Mac users are the same way. It's just that Windows is used by people who use what everyone else uses because they feel safe in doing so. They may not know how their computers work, but they're more afraid of looking deviant than having technical malfunctions.
The subconscious refrain of Windows users around the globe is, "Well, at least I'm not the only one with this problem."
Those Windows users who actively try to prepare themselves against the almost daily barrage of new worms, viruses, vulnerabilities, and other Windows annoyances still have a difficult time keeping up with it all. Even experienced Windows power users frequently find themselves overpowered by the ongoing war against malicious code.
So the solution to this vulnerability is simple. But when you look at the situation in context, the potential for widespread havoc is a lot greater.
Their ground record isn't so great either. The disaster at Baikonur in 1960 killed at least 165 people. So I guess they don't really have a better safety record.