Simple: Good men do real things with their lives that really contribute to society. Only people who seem do be able do do nothing useful themselves but feel entitled to control everyone else's usefulness are interested in politics.
Add to that the lure of essentially free money and you've got a formula for attracting societies worst losers, the kind our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have simply left to starve out on the plains for not pulling their own weight.
Again with the "If you're not doing anything wrong" tripe.
Your computer will last for years. Many more things will become illegal in that time. Many MANY more things will become "indications of terrorist tendencies".
What is not wrong now will almost certainly become so. You privacy is your only defense.
How soon until the Entertainment companies purchase a reprieve to the statute of limitations on copyright infringement?
I've noticed this very much here in the US as well. Politics just seems to attract exactly the WRONG kind of person. They seem to be people who can't really do anything but want to be in charge of everything.
Some people think that they are pathalogical liars but I think they are just a high functioning form of autistics who simply lack the mental ability to grok "truth". (The whole concept that some things are fundamentally falsifiable). This is why politics is so often at odds with science and why every once in a while a politicial will come up with the bright idea that passing legislation to make pi = 3 will make math easier.
When Bill Clinton stated that "it dependes on what the definition of 'is' is", this was not a joke. To him this was a serious question.
Yeppers. I'm sure you can generate a fine TPS report without math but don't go near robotics, genetics, cryptography... you get the idea.
To a programmer without math a 3 link kinematic chain may as well be "what is the meaning of life?" Even a simple dyad will make you weep like a little girl.
Yeah, the "magnets and wires" crowd have been doing quite well at bliking "investors" for the last 50 years or so. There is just so much room in all those voltage, current, phase transitions to hide "the catch". Anybody remember that Joseph Newman fellow from a few years back?
Or are we just surprised that the iPhone has managed to steal a few seconds of airtime from the whole Paris Hilton thing?
Wait! What!? Is Hilty in trouble again?!!? Whars mah frikin remote?! Damn iPhone distracted me from the important stuff!!
The arrogance of the goddamn literal read types is just astounding....Anyone else would look at evolution and go, "Damn! That God guy is hella fricking smart! Look at this crap! It's a system for self-improvement built into self-replicating creatures! It's awesome!" but a literal-read weenie will look at it and say, "Don't say nuthin about that in da bible. You must be wrong." Well said! Its so sad how most of the people who believe in God(s) have such small opinions of Him. Good to see some sanity brought to this finally. Searching for God with science is like wandering from room to room in an empty house thinking you're going to find the architecht.
If you did innovate and create machines to do this work, people everywhere would call you the worst sort of villain for putting greed over human well being and destroying their jobs and livelyhoods in a mad lust for profit.
This idea also is a from the same "data" of the industrial revolution in textiles.
I remember once long ago passing thru the iron curtain to visit east germany before the fall of the wall. It was a very peculiar sense of unease. That something might just happen. That you might not make it back somehow; that you were just out of the protective reach of civilization and into something a bit terrifying.
I celebrated with the rest of Germany when that nonsense ended and thought that this would now be a thing reserved for strange little bannana republics and whacked theocracies.
Now I see this same fear creeping into my european friends!? About my own homeland!? What in all hell is going on here!?!?!
Well said. This is the inescapable conclucsion to software patent nonsense. Each time vague or rediculous patent claim is taken seriously, the scope of future patents will become broader and even more rediculous.
General purpose computers can do... anything! That is if you work hard enough on making them do so.
Writing in a patent that you are going to make a computer do something is trivial because the answer to "can a computer do x?" is always yes in the end. (Laws of physics not withstanding)
All patents are doing for software is allowing for the theft of the hard work of people who can make computers do things by the losers who can't but wish that they could.
Call it what you will bt the more the cult of IP dominates our society, the larger the parasitic element of people who don't create or contribute anything becomes. Just think about how may "careers" there are now that involve nothing more than profiting off of what others create.
but my 5 year old sony vaio picturebook is smaller than their "mini laptop". Its strange little 600 Mhz transmeta x86 cpu gave suprisingly good performance and it was a very power stingy notebook with a very small battery considering its runtime. It also weighs only 1.2 pounds... half a pound less.
I've tried via boards over the years and have been dissapointed by instablities in the DMA on the mini-itx's (causing random lockups), rediculously overpriced nano-itx, currently with pico-itx it seems impossible to find anyone who has any to sell even at the super high prices... It seems to take forever for VIA to release anything in quantity.
VIA just has a lot to prove to me this time around. In the mean time, if you want a tiny little form factor for your car pc or whatever, ebay a picturebook or 2. The last one I bought was cheaper than a bare nano-itx!
It may not seem much now but follow this thru. This leads to sheer terror. Only countries that have paid thier proper liscencing fees may eat? This is dark indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple: Good men do real things with their lives that really contribute to society.
Only people who seem do be able do do nothing useful themselves but feel entitled to control everyone else's usefulness are interested in politics.
Add to that the lure of essentially free money and you've got a formula for attracting societies worst losers, the kind our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have simply left to starve out on the plains for not pulling their own weight.
If he was a good man, he wouldn't be a politician now would he?
Again with the "If you're not doing anything wrong" tripe.
Your computer will last for years. Many more things will become illegal in that time. Many MANY more things will become "indications of terrorist tendencies".
What is not wrong now will almost certainly become so. You privacy is your only defense.
How soon until the Entertainment companies purchase a reprieve to the statute of limitations on copyright infringement?
I've noticed this very much here in the US as well. Politics just seems to attract exactly the WRONG kind of person. They seem to be people who can't really do anything but want to be in charge of everything.
Some people think that they are pathalogical liars but I think they are just a high functioning form of autistics who simply lack the mental ability to grok "truth". (The whole concept that some things are fundamentally falsifiable). This is why politics is so often at odds with science and why every once in a while a politicial will come up with the bright idea that passing legislation to make pi = 3 will make math easier.
When Bill Clinton stated that "it dependes on what the definition of 'is' is", this was not a joke. To him this was a serious question.
The RIAA would claim damages equal to 40k years of the entire planets GDP. And thats just for "Sexy Back". Clearly mankinds greatest achievemnet.
Hey now...
People who curate glass museums shouldn't throw stones!
I'm pretty sure that's been a violation of the DMCA for years now.
Yeppers. I'm sure you can generate a fine TPS report without math but don't go near robotics, genetics, cryptography... you get the idea.
To a programmer without math a 3 link kinematic chain may as well be "what is the meaning of life?" Even a simple dyad will make you weep like a little girl.
...what have you got to be afraid of? Malfunctioning police robots with giant killer tasers?
Oh... wait...
Yeah, the "magnets and wires" crowd have been doing quite well at bliking "investors" for the last 50 years or so. There is just so much room in all those voltage, current, phase transitions to hide "the catch". Anybody remember that Joseph Newman fellow from a few years back?
Wait! What!? Is Hilty in trouble again?!!? Whars mah frikin remote?! Damn iPhone distracted me from the important stuff!!
They toook our yyyoooobss!!!
Here in America we have to find a way to stop teenagers from downloading "Fergalicious" before we can even think about more broadband rollouts...
I give you, THE WAR ON PRIVACY! errr... or something.
If you did innovate and create machines to do this work, people everywhere would call you the worst sort of villain for putting greed over human well being and destroying their jobs and livelyhoods in a mad lust for profit.
This idea also is a from the same "data" of the industrial revolution in textiles.
I remember once long ago passing thru the iron curtain to visit east germany before the fall of the wall. It was a very peculiar sense of unease. That something might just happen. That you might not make it back somehow; that you were just out of the protective reach of civilization and into something a bit terrifying.
I celebrated with the rest of Germany when that nonsense ended and thought that this would now be a thing reserved for strange little bannana republics and whacked theocracies.
Now I see this same fear creeping into my european friends!? About my own homeland!? What in all hell is going on here!?!?!
NOW can we have patent reform? Please?
Ha! Have you seen how hard it is to be a doctor nowadays!?
There are many,many better ways to be affluent than being a doctor.
The problem is that people are addicted to lawsuits and blame shifting.
Well said. This is the inescapable conclucsion to software patent nonsense. Each time vague or rediculous patent claim is taken seriously, the scope of future patents will become broader and even more rediculous.
General purpose computers can do... anything! That is if you work hard enough on making them do so.
Writing in a patent that you are going to make a computer do something is trivial because the answer to "can a computer do x?" is always yes in the end. (Laws of physics not withstanding)
All patents are doing for software is allowing for the theft of the hard work of people who can make computers do things by the losers who can't but wish that they could.
Call it what you will bt the more the cult of IP dominates our society, the larger the parasitic element of people who don't create or contribute anything becomes. Just think about how may "careers" there are now that involve nothing more than profiting off of what others create.
being prompty arrested for violating the dmc-whatever.
but my 5 year old sony vaio picturebook is smaller than their "mini laptop". Its strange little 600 Mhz transmeta x86 cpu gave suprisingly good performance and it was a very power stingy notebook with a very small battery considering its runtime. It also weighs only 1.2 pounds... half a pound less.
I've tried via boards over the years and have been dissapointed by instablities in the DMA on the mini-itx's (causing random lockups), rediculously overpriced nano-itx, currently with pico-itx it seems impossible to find anyone who has any to sell even at the super high prices... It seems to take forever for VIA to release anything in quantity.
VIA just has a lot to prove to me this time around. In the mean time, if you want a tiny little form factor for your car pc or whatever, ebay a picturebook or 2. The last one I bought was cheaper than a bare nano-itx!
...Is a fearsome amount of power to be putting into the air when people a still afraid of their 70milliwatt cell phone.
It may not seem much now but follow this thru. This leads to sheer terror. Only countries that have paid thier proper liscencing fees may eat? This is dark indeed.
This guy should apply his talents to something more worthwhile next time. Something about toads, rivers, and scorpions springs to mind.