So, do you have any examples of universities, operating in a democracy, on their own initiative, deciding to block "'unruly' opinions, videos of police, etc."?
Oh, and do we get some kind of motive, or is it just the restless spirit of history deciding to possess the living from time to time?
It seems that if EA and THQ have their way, we will slowly slide back to the days when we paid for a couple of minutes with a game rather than buying the game itself. After all, it would eliminate the used games market and ensure that developers and publishers get more of our money for less of their product. For a corporate bean-counter, that's a win-win...
...until you come to the lose: gamers might not take to the old ways so well, and they may end up selling less games. Plus, it only takes one company to sell their product the other way, and they will get the lion's share of profits. Even if the software industry formed a cartel, they'd still be competing against indie developers (that's aside from potential legal trouble).
lolwut? There's so many things wrong with this post, I don't know where to begin.
1) Past products have nothing to do with it. It's all about competing with free versions of their own products, past or present. 2) The availability of console games on websites does nothing but strengthen the piracy argument, since it shows evidence that of both supply and demand of pirate software copies. 3) A red herring does not mean what you think it means 4) A company does not need any excuse to raise their prices. It's not like there's some regulatory body that asks for written justification for every change in price (at least, not for software).
If they're changing their pricing scheme, it means something has changed, because companies tend to price, more or less, for maximum profit. Unless the situation has changed (e.g. piracy rates going up), then raising their prices just means less profit for them.
Do you object on the basis of how I conducted my study? or because you like the iPhone? or simply on the basis that my results are CLEARLY crap?
I object for two reasons. The primary reason is that I can objectively say that your results are crap, since I have witnessed several people with iPhones, something which the OP cannot reasonably claim. I also object because you provided no evidence with your claim, which the OP can only lay claim to if he read the study itself.
You know, had people been more civilised during Galileo's time, his findings on our planet's heliocentrism would have been dismissed out of hand as "obvious BS", and that was a clear case of confirmation bias.
I'm going to guess neither. I'd imagine it was more of an application of Sagan's Law: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
But, if the OP hadn't read the study, for all the OP knew, the extraordinary evidence was there in the study. It means that the "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude, which is not indicative of confirmation bias, becomes "I'll believe it when I see it, but I'll refuse to see it when it's right in front of me", which is more indicative of confirmation bias.
With the 90% piracy rate on PC games it's not surprising that publishers are looking for new ways, even if that's sad.
What, sad? No this is great! Finally software companies are doing their duty, and finding something to replace their outdated business model! This is what slashdot has repeatedly said that it wants, and now exactly that is happening! What could be better?
Just because you were vindicated in hindsight doesn't mean they didn't have a point. Did your doubt of the announced conclusion of the study arise from examining the study itself and its methodology, or at least a track record of bad reporting by the reporter? Or was it based on the (announced) conclusions, and a refusal to believe them?
I started my own premature but very necessary debate over on the corporate blocking of the Sex Party story where I mentioned that the SMH article is, in fact, very misleading, and the "premature and unnecessary debate" quote was taken completely out of context. Basically, the document was censored because it was exempt from the FOI act, and it was exempt because:
a) It's some internal discussion amongst the party that's not even at the proposal stage. That is, it doesn't affect the public, and it's far from finalised, and b) In its current form, there's no guarantee that any actual proposal that comes from this will reflect the document at all. That is, actually releasing it would be misleading.
Basically, this document didn't need to be released at all, and in certain parts, it's against the public interest to actually release it.
I also realise that my comment I linked to above was modded down, but I'm hoping that this time around Slashdotters take their own advice, and refrain from censoring dissenting opinions.
Parliament should have cameras, their homes no.. unless they wish regulate what we do in our homes, in which case there most definitely should be cameras in theirs.
You see, I think this is unfair. Parliament should be held under the same laws as us, but not unduly punished. If they pass a law that extends to behaviour in our homes, then they should have to obey that law in their homes, and that's about it.
Also, the phrase "unless they wish [to] regulate" is a little bit disingenuous because often these laws are taken from cues from the community. For the most part, their wish is to be re-elected. It seems counter-intuitive to punish them for doing their job.
I give a person authority only if I believe them to be better than me, or if I can be assured they can live by the rules they set forth. And in the process they must prove that they are better, more civilized. Their job requires that higher standard. Our obligation is to hold them to it, and presently that requires close monitoring. They have to earn our trust. They can't just demand it.
We already monitor them closely. We give them a little bit of privacy because, well, it's a basic human right. The level of privacy that I'm talking about is considerably lower than the average person on the street, or even the average celebrity. We have plenty of material to judge what kind of leaders they are, and we don't need access to their thought processes to decide that.
As for trust, forget it. If they perform the requisite actions for you to trust them (assuming such a sequence of actions even exists), all they'll do is lose somebody else's trust, and have them disgruntled and calling for the total decimation of their privacy.
It's important that we have the power to kill off a proposal before it ever comes close to being a part of any legislation.
We do. We don't have the power to kill the thought processes in a politician's brain however. We get the power once it becomes a proposal, not before. Otherwise it misleads the public, who end up thinking the soon to be proposed law is much worse than it really is. Like I said, it would be more akin to misinformation than it would information.
Actually, it's kind of ironic the way that SMH dealt with this. The highly censored document was released in that way so as not to give the public misleading impressions, and they report about it by taking one misleading quote out of context, and basing the entire article around it.
I can wait... If you do find something, I'll be more than happy to hear what it could be
My 24 hour camera idea, in a time this side of the invention of a mind-reading machine, is about the most invasive proposition I can think of, and you didn't rule it out. To your credit, you did put a condition on it, but that condition is satisfied by, for one, marijuana legislation, and considering the public support for marijuana legislation, the government has no choice but to keep on satisfying this condition. Basically, in effect, you're saying that we should go with my 24 hour camera proposal. So, since my ugliest, most inhumane proposal didn't take, I'll have to accept that, for you, there is no line, and try a different tact.
I know you said that we should hold politicians to a higher standard. I agree, but we must remember that they're human beings. They do have rights, and they do have needs. Do you know anyone who would willingly take a job, whereby they're held under such intense surveillance that their very thoughts could get them fired? Can you possibly imagine what it's like? You can argue about higher standards, the price of freedom, and issues of trust until your mouth bleeds, but in the end, if nobody wants to run the country, we're pretty much screwed.
We need to afford politicians some basic rights. They are our servants, not our slaves. Currently, we have a kind of balance
I'm detecting less hostility and more courtesy, so I'll also tone it down a bit.
Well first off, unlike a government, I'm not dictating any policy to my boss, so that analogy doesn't hold up.
The government is not dictating a policy to us, so your take on reality doesn't hold up. It's a proposal. Under the analogy, a proposal for a law becomes a proposal for a project. Both, if they get anywhere, are high stakes for their respective "bosses", both "bosses" have to live with the changes, neither the engineer nor the government is currently forcing this upon us. That's what you don't seem to be getting.
Being boss enables him to kill the project at any time, right up to completion.
Sort of. A boss can't read your mind and kill your thought processes. A boss can only go by what you give him, and you don't give him your stupid or half-baked ideas.
And I find nothing wrong with making my existing documentation available to him. He would be welcome to it at any time.
I don't know about you, but I don't just blurt any old thing on paper and show it to my boss. When I have an idea, I vet it with first myself, then the people around me. Only when it becomes a semi-serious, approaching plausible thing that I actually show it to my boss.
That is what we should demand from a government. If they want to maintain authority over us, we must assure that the entire process remain completely open.
I think that there's a line. On one hand, issues that are immediately relevant and important to the public should be disclosed (or at least, be freely requestable). On the other hand, I believe that it is the right of anyone, including politicians in power, to discuss internal affairs privately. I don't believe, for example, that we should put cameras in parliament and in politician's homes, and provide 24 hour public access via the internet.
It's a little bit of an extreme example, but I was hoping that if I could show an example of something that exists on the other side of the line, you might acknowledge the line exists.
That's the implication when defending government secrecy. It's like defending how ACTA is being dealt with. Sorry, I consider that unacceptable.
It speaks volumes about you when you assume openly that there's only one argument for (any) government secrecy, and that it's automatically unacceptable, regardless of content. I like to (attempt to) maintain a naive view of humanity, that people will eventually assess your opinions and arguments on their merits, rather than on their prejudices. I'm truly hoping you won't disappoint me.
The public should know who's making such proposals from the beginning, so they can vote them out in the next election. You make not like to see the process, but the rest of us might like to know how they make the sausage and what they put into it. We certainly have that right. We should put the entire government in a glass house to keep it honest, regardless of whether it makes it a bit less "efficient".
Seriously, what kind of strawman are you smoking? I said nothing about "you don't want to see that", or anything about efficiency (which is especially funny, because you put it in quotation marks). Oh dear, you didn't just read the word censorship and froth up in an irrational rage, did you? *shakes head*
But, counterflamebaiting aside, it's an internal document that's being discussed internally. It isn't really the public's business yet because it isn't really a proposal yet. There's no guarantee that a genuine proposal will be made.
Let me draw an analogy. Say you're working as an engineer of some sort, and you're trying to design something in its early stages. Your boss wishes to maintain constant updates with you, and so you grumble, but comply since he's the one paying for your services. He looks at your first mockup/mindstorm/what-have-you, notices you missed something crucial, and fires you on the spot.
OK, in reality, your boss would be smart, cool, and level-headed enough to know that you can't judge work in its infancy, but replace the boss with a crowd of millions of people, half of which want your head on a platter, and things might not go so well.
Somewhere between "This will be law now" and "Hey guys, wouldn't it be awesome if we filtered all the vowels out of the internet?" That is, after the people who are proposing actually make a proposal, and are not just considering it.
I can figure out why you think it's wrong. Perhaps you can similarly figure out why I think that forcing private companies to use their internet connections a certain way is wrong.
The document was censored because, more or less, it wasn't ready yet. It's part of the "deliberative processes", and releasing it "could, more than likely, create a confusing and misleading impression." The letter from the legal officer of the FOI and privacy section was very clear that sending out the uncensored document is more like spreading misinformation than spreading information. The "premature unnecessary debate" quote, in the article, was taken waaaaaay out of context, and even then, far from the only component in the decision-making process.
I applaud SMH for bringing such censorship to light, but I must say I'm not impressed with the quality of the journalism.
How would you do the study differently? Tracking down an unbiased sample of all torrents would be a nightmare, and even then, a sensible study would weight based on activity. We are, after all, looking for data on how bittorrent is actually used, so their methodology isn't the worst way they could have gone about it.
FYI, trained accountants knows what is better for the ACCOUNTS. If they knew what was good for the company they would be... managers ? on the Board ? not at accounting...
So, what you're saying is that I'm wrong when I say that the accountants at Microsoft have more of an idea of what's financially good for the company than what I can, at best, assume is a random disgruntled employee of Microsoft? Just checking.
BTW, how often do you consult your own accountant about your morale ?
Several times per second. I'll leave you to figure that one out.
But that answer just raises more questions than it answers! If the pirate party actually believe the creators don't need to make money off selling their works, then what's the point of their supporting copyright for commercial entities? And, if this is the solution to piracy, then why aren't more people electing to eschew their copyrights, and go down this route? And why, if it helps obscure artists get recognition, aren't more obscure artists using this technique? And if they are, why aren't they getting the recognition they're being promised? And what about people who don't want to be stuck reading off dead trees, or having to watch movies in overpriced cinemas, or having to listen to music at designated times and places, for a lot of money? Where is the incentive to produce quality musical recordings, or release movies for home use?
I'm sorry, but this picture being painted sounds suffocatingly restrictive and poorly thought out to me. Not to mention, there seems to be this incorrect assumption that you can halve the income of artists, and we'll be none the worse for wear. If we artificially restrict the income of artists, then the net result will be less artists. Fewer artists will be able to survive, especially the unknowns, and as a result, fewer people will lust over the stardom which reels in so many potential artists these days.
I'm sorry, but what you're describing sounds pretty much like a death knell for our culture. We'd be stuck back in the cultural dark ages, when the few artists that existed only created for a commission, and only the rich would have access to a culture.
I love the way that a free phone is a "cynical move", while free food and drink "returns a fantastic benefit in the morale, productivity and retention of their best people, and how cutting these things is a "false economy". I particularly enjoyed the way you seem to know much more about what is good for the company than the trained accountants whose job it is to know these things better than anyone else. On the face of it, it would appear that the economy of free food and drink was a little more false than the alternative.
... about going into space. It seems like a colossal waste of money to go somewhere, frankly, not all that interesting. With terrestrial destinations, there are sights, sounds, tastes, etc. In space, there's one single sight, and maybe some bragging rights, but that's about it.
You could look at this as troll, or as an excuse for lively discussion.;-)
The "Pirate" movement has distanced itself from the "I want free stuff" mentality. Their platform involves freedom, privacy and individual rights, and many "pirates" that have actually thought about the issues do support their artists.
Yes, they say they support the artists, but they advocate legalising non-commercial file sharing. That is, it's OK for people to share works for non-commercial purposes as much as they like, but when a company does it, or someone sells copies, or uses the copies to sell something else, then it's not OK. That sounds fine on the surface, but it starts to look rotten if you actually explore the reasons behind the banning of sharing of copyrighted works. Most of their sales, and hence, most of their income, comes from people using their work for non-commercial purposes. They can only sell these copies in any reasonable volume if these copies are scarce. By allowing non-commercial sharing, you take a huge chunk of their market, and hence a huge chunk of their livelihood.
Compare this to commercial sharing. Where is the harm in commercial sharing? Well, it eliminates demand, just like non-commercial sharing. And... er... that's about it. It doesn't matter whether or not the receiver is a company, since the company only has to buy a single copy, just like any individual. It doesn't matter whether an individual receives a copy in exchange for love, money, or nothing at all, since the end result is that they have a copy of the artist's work, and the artist gets nothing. Besides, who actually pays for pirated materials, when you can get equally legal free copies off the internet? I doubt that commercial infringement is even an issue for the average artist. Much of their grief is coming from, and always will come from, non-commercial sharing.
So, forgive me if I'm sceptical when the pirate movement says they want to protect artists' rights.
(I just encountered a weird/. bug, where the post doesn't display, but it claims that it has been posted, so I'm adding this gratuitous line here to get around the filter.)
Slashdot Mirror
So, do you have any examples of universities, operating in a democracy, on their own initiative, deciding to block "'unruly' opinions, videos of police, etc."?
Oh, and do we get some kind of motive, or is it just the restless spirit of history deciding to possess the living from time to time?
Why? What kind of evidence do you have for such a ludicrous assumption?
...until you come to the lose: gamers might not take to the old ways so well, and they may end up selling less games. Plus, it only takes one company to sell their product the other way, and they will get the lion's share of profits. Even if the software industry formed a cartel, they'd still be competing against indie developers (that's aside from potential legal trouble).
lolwut? There's so many things wrong with this post, I don't know where to begin.
1) Past products have nothing to do with it. It's all about competing with free versions of their own products, past or present.
2) The availability of console games on websites does nothing but strengthen the piracy argument, since it shows evidence that of both supply and demand of pirate software copies.
3) A red herring does not mean what you think it means
4) A company does not need any excuse to raise their prices. It's not like there's some regulatory body that asks for written justification for every change in price (at least, not for software).
If they're changing their pricing scheme, it means something has changed, because companies tend to price, more or less, for maximum profit. Unless the situation has changed (e.g. piracy rates going up), then raising their prices just means less profit for them.
I object for two reasons. The primary reason is that I can objectively say that your results are crap, since I have witnessed several people with iPhones, something which the OP cannot reasonably claim. I also object because you provided no evidence with your claim, which the OP can only lay claim to if he read the study itself.
You know, had people been more civilised during Galileo's time, his findings on our planet's heliocentrism would have been dismissed out of hand as "obvious BS", and that was a clear case of confirmation bias.
But, if the OP hadn't read the study, for all the OP knew, the extraordinary evidence was there in the study. It means that the "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude, which is not indicative of confirmation bias, becomes "I'll believe it when I see it, but I'll refuse to see it when it's right in front of me", which is more indicative of confirmation bias.
What, sad? No this is great! Finally software companies are doing their duty, and finding something to replace their outdated business model! This is what slashdot has repeatedly said that it wants, and now exactly that is happening! What could be better?
(Yes, I am being sarcastic.)
Just because you were vindicated in hindsight doesn't mean they didn't have a point. Did your doubt of the announced conclusion of the study arise from examining the study itself and its methodology, or at least a track record of bad reporting by the reporter? Or was it based on the (announced) conclusions, and a refusal to believe them?
I started my own premature but very necessary debate over on the corporate blocking of the Sex Party story where I mentioned that the SMH article is, in fact, very misleading, and the "premature and unnecessary debate" quote was taken completely out of context. Basically, the document was censored because it was exempt from the FOI act, and it was exempt because:
a) It's some internal discussion amongst the party that's not even at the proposal stage. That is, it doesn't affect the public, and it's far from finalised, and
b) In its current form, there's no guarantee that any actual proposal that comes from this will reflect the document at all. That is, actually releasing it would be misleading.
Basically, this document didn't need to be released at all, and in certain parts, it's against the public interest to actually release it.
I also realise that my comment I linked to above was modded down, but I'm hoping that this time around Slashdotters take their own advice, and refrain from censoring dissenting opinions.
You see, I think this is unfair. Parliament should be held under the same laws as us, but not unduly punished. If they pass a law that extends to behaviour in our homes, then they should have to obey that law in their homes, and that's about it.
Also, the phrase "unless they wish [to] regulate" is a little bit disingenuous because often these laws are taken from cues from the community. For the most part, their wish is to be re-elected. It seems counter-intuitive to punish them for doing their job.
We already monitor them closely. We give them a little bit of privacy because, well, it's a basic human right. The level of privacy that I'm talking about is considerably lower than the average person on the street, or even the average celebrity. We have plenty of material to judge what kind of leaders they are, and we don't need access to their thought processes to decide that.
As for trust, forget it. If they perform the requisite actions for you to trust them (assuming such a sequence of actions even exists), all they'll do is lose somebody else's trust, and have them disgruntled and calling for the total decimation of their privacy.
We do. We don't have the power to kill the thought processes in a politician's brain however. We get the power once it becomes a proposal, not before. Otherwise it misleads the public, who end up thinking the soon to be proposed law is much worse than it really is. Like I said, it would be more akin to misinformation than it would information.
Actually, it's kind of ironic the way that SMH dealt with this. The highly censored document was released in that way so as not to give the public misleading impressions, and they report about it by taking one misleading quote out of context, and basing the entire article around it.
My 24 hour camera idea, in a time this side of the invention of a mind-reading machine, is about the most invasive proposition I can think of, and you didn't rule it out. To your credit, you did put a condition on it, but that condition is satisfied by, for one, marijuana legislation, and considering the public support for marijuana legislation, the government has no choice but to keep on satisfying this condition. Basically, in effect, you're saying that we should go with my 24 hour camera proposal. So, since my ugliest, most inhumane proposal didn't take, I'll have to accept that, for you, there is no line, and try a different tact.
I know you said that we should hold politicians to a higher standard. I agree, but we must remember that they're human beings. They do have rights, and they do have needs. Do you know anyone who would willingly take a job, whereby they're held under such intense surveillance that their very thoughts could get them fired? Can you possibly imagine what it's like? You can argue about higher standards, the price of freedom, and issues of trust until your mouth bleeds, but in the end, if nobody wants to run the country, we're pretty much screwed.
We need to afford politicians some basic rights. They are our servants, not our slaves. Currently, we have a kind of balance
I'm detecting less hostility and more courtesy, so I'll also tone it down a bit.
The government is not dictating a policy to us, so your take on reality doesn't hold up. It's a proposal. Under the analogy, a proposal for a law becomes a proposal for a project. Both, if they get anywhere, are high stakes for their respective "bosses", both "bosses" have to live with the changes, neither the engineer nor the government is currently forcing this upon us. That's what you don't seem to be getting.
Sort of. A boss can't read your mind and kill your thought processes. A boss can only go by what you give him, and you don't give him your stupid or half-baked ideas.
I don't know about you, but I don't just blurt any old thing on paper and show it to my boss. When I have an idea, I vet it with first myself, then the people around me. Only when it becomes a semi-serious, approaching plausible thing that I actually show it to my boss.
I think that there's a line. On one hand, issues that are immediately relevant and important to the public should be disclosed (or at least, be freely requestable). On the other hand, I believe that it is the right of anyone, including politicians in power, to discuss internal affairs privately. I don't believe, for example, that we should put cameras in parliament and in politician's homes, and provide 24 hour public access via the internet.
It's a little bit of an extreme example, but I was hoping that if I could show an example of something that exists on the other side of the line, you might acknowledge the line exists.
It speaks volumes about you when you assume openly that there's only one argument for (any) government secrecy, and that it's automatically unacceptable, regardless of content. I like to (attempt to) maintain a naive view of humanity, that people will eventually assess your opinions and arguments on their merits, rather than on their prejudices. I'm truly hoping you won't disappoint me.
Gah. I really should have figured that one out. :-)
No you're wrong. (So there.)
Seriously, what kind of strawman are you smoking? I said nothing about "you don't want to see that", or anything about efficiency (which is especially funny, because you put it in quotation marks). Oh dear, you didn't just read the word censorship and froth up in an irrational rage, did you? *shakes head*
But, counterflamebaiting aside, it's an internal document that's being discussed internally. It isn't really the public's business yet because it isn't really a proposal yet. There's no guarantee that a genuine proposal will be made.
Let me draw an analogy. Say you're working as an engineer of some sort, and you're trying to design something in its early stages. Your boss wishes to maintain constant updates with you, and so you grumble, but comply since he's the one paying for your services. He looks at your first mockup/mindstorm/what-have-you, notices you missed something crucial, and fires you on the spot.
OK, in reality, your boss would be smart, cool, and level-headed enough to know that you can't judge work in its infancy, but replace the boss with a crowd of millions of people, half of which want your head on a platter, and things might not go so well.
Somewhere between "This will be law now" and "Hey guys, wouldn't it be awesome if we filtered all the vowels out of the internet?" That is, after the people who are proposing actually make a proposal, and are not just considering it.
Welcome to Slashdot, where the flames are modded flamebait, and the flamebaits are modded up.
I can figure out why you think it's wrong. Perhaps you can similarly figure out why I think that forcing private companies to use their internet connections a certain way is wrong.
The document was censored because, more or less, it wasn't ready yet. It's part of the "deliberative processes", and releasing it "could, more than likely, create a confusing and misleading impression." The letter from the legal officer of the FOI and privacy section was very clear that sending out the uncensored document is more like spreading misinformation than spreading information. The "premature unnecessary debate" quote, in the article, was taken waaaaaay out of context, and even then, far from the only component in the decision-making process.
I applaud SMH for bringing such censorship to light, but I must say I'm not impressed with the quality of the journalism.
How would you do the study differently? Tracking down an unbiased sample of all torrents would be a nightmare, and even then, a sensible study would weight based on activity. We are, after all, looking for data on how bittorrent is actually used, so their methodology isn't the worst way they could have gone about it.
Right. And think about how much worse things would be under someone untrained and without access to all the relevant information!
So, what you're saying is that I'm wrong when I say that the accountants at Microsoft have more of an idea of what's financially good for the company than what I can, at best, assume is a random disgruntled employee of Microsoft? Just checking.
Several times per second. I'll leave you to figure that one out.
But that answer just raises more questions than it answers! If the pirate party actually believe the creators don't need to make money off selling their works, then what's the point of their supporting copyright for commercial entities? And, if this is the solution to piracy, then why aren't more people electing to eschew their copyrights, and go down this route? And why, if it helps obscure artists get recognition, aren't more obscure artists using this technique? And if they are, why aren't they getting the recognition they're being promised? And what about people who don't want to be stuck reading off dead trees, or having to watch movies in overpriced cinemas, or having to listen to music at designated times and places, for a lot of money? Where is the incentive to produce quality musical recordings, or release movies for home use?
I'm sorry, but this picture being painted sounds suffocatingly restrictive and poorly thought out to me. Not to mention, there seems to be this incorrect assumption that you can halve the income of artists, and we'll be none the worse for wear. If we artificially restrict the income of artists, then the net result will be less artists. Fewer artists will be able to survive, especially the unknowns, and as a result, fewer people will lust over the stardom which reels in so many potential artists these days.
I'm sorry, but what you're describing sounds pretty much like a death knell for our culture. We'd be stuck back in the cultural dark ages, when the few artists that existed only created for a commission, and only the rich would have access to a culture.
I love the way that a free phone is a "cynical move", while free food and drink "returns a fantastic benefit in the morale, productivity and retention of their best people, and how cutting these things is a "false economy". I particularly enjoyed the way you seem to know much more about what is good for the company than the trained accountants whose job it is to know these things better than anyone else. On the face of it, it would appear that the economy of free food and drink was a little more false than the alternative.
... about going into space. It seems like a colossal waste of money to go somewhere, frankly, not all that interesting. With terrestrial destinations, there are sights, sounds, tastes, etc. In space, there's one single sight, and maybe some bragging rights, but that's about it.
You could look at this as troll, or as an excuse for lively discussion. ;-)
Oh crap. I think I just opened myself up to double the downmods, huh? ;-)
(Mods, feel free to mod this offtopic. I deserve it.)
Yes, they say they support the artists, but they advocate legalising non-commercial file sharing. That is, it's OK for people to share works for non-commercial purposes as much as they like, but when a company does it, or someone sells copies, or uses the copies to sell something else, then it's not OK. That sounds fine on the surface, but it starts to look rotten if you actually explore the reasons behind the banning of sharing of copyrighted works. Most of their sales, and hence, most of their income, comes from people using their work for non-commercial purposes. They can only sell these copies in any reasonable volume if these copies are scarce. By allowing non-commercial sharing, you take a huge chunk of their market, and hence a huge chunk of their livelihood.
Compare this to commercial sharing. Where is the harm in commercial sharing? Well, it eliminates demand, just like non-commercial sharing. And... er... that's about it. It doesn't matter whether or not the receiver is a company, since the company only has to buy a single copy, just like any individual. It doesn't matter whether an individual receives a copy in exchange for love, money, or nothing at all, since the end result is that they have a copy of the artist's work, and the artist gets nothing. Besides, who actually pays for pirated materials, when you can get equally legal free copies off the internet? I doubt that commercial infringement is even an issue for the average artist. Much of their grief is coming from, and always will come from, non-commercial sharing.
So, forgive me if I'm sceptical when the pirate movement says they want to protect artists' rights.
(I just encountered a weird /. bug, where the post doesn't display, but it claims that it has been posted, so I'm adding this gratuitous line here to get around the filter.)