The tradition of scholarliness vs despotism cannot so easily be tied to the "two" worlds of east and west and their respective religions. Fundamentalism and Liberatrianism are better, I mean the Taliban show the intolerance of Islam and the whole scholastic tradition can be traced back to a time when St Thomas Aquinas approached life with an analysts eye.
Except that you are not renting since you are delivered an item that you never need to return to the vendor. Now I am not talking about the "rights" that you have been assigned, I am talking about the physical (more or less) thing that you have been delivered. If you rent an air compressor, you must return it to the rentor since otherwise they are unable to "rent" it to the next renter and they suffer loss. If you rent an ebook then _in fact_ you are being sold an image of that book and the image is _yours_. They can't have the copy back (nor would they want it, as things stand right now).
There is a contradiction here. Try and spearate oneself from the preconceptions about copyright and ownership and just think about the actual transaction. The reason that there is a contradiction is that the initial premise is flawed. One is not renting one is buying and all the natural rights and possibilities inherent in the purchase of that image are there by default, they are only abrogated by the stupid, brain dead, legal fiction that is IP. The technical impediments to making the book work for longer than 10 hours are there for you to "avoid" since you have the image. Its like taking a photocopy of a book, technically possile just a bit tricky. Ever looked at those game manuals that print glossy light grey on a glossy less light grey background? Real tough to photocopy.
The idiocy of all this is ever mounting. What about quotations? Am I entitled to quote the pithy comeback I read in the book for more than the 10 hours I have "rented" it? What if I have a bad memory and have to write these things down? Should I be discriminated against comapred to those with good memories? Since writing it down is techinically bypassing the protection. If quoting after term is ok, then why is that materially different to copying the pages via a screen dump (as another poster suggested), if it is not materially different then is it just a question of scale and if so then to where is the line between "reasonable" and "unreasonable". Is it in the number of pages? What about the "killer" diagram on page 36? what about essay number 6 in a book of 20 it would be less than 10% of the book but maybe the only reason for buying the book in the first place, Sonnet 12 of 200. The list of questions that mire the "legal" framework is endless.
The universe is a righteous place, something is only difficult if it needs to be difficult. Distribution of the output of intellect is not hard, it is only made so when we try to assign the virtues (attributes) of property to the output of intellect. BECAUSE THE OUTPUT OF INTELLECT IS NOT PROPERTY!!! The sooner the law come to terms with this reality the happier we will all be.
Not. Don't get me wrong, I like Morris's work. But he has been doing the same joke for a few years now (The episode on the new drug "Cake" - you know you can find its recipe on the internet) was very amusing, but it is not genius to take a pot shot at the idiocy of the way the media overreacts to the issue d'jour.
The sound of knees hitting tables is not a response that is particularly difficult to elicit from the government of most any western "democracy".
There are a few interesting things about this episode. First the government minister that got all vocal about it and then the rousing lack of support that her position received from more senior memebrs opf the govenrment and how the govenrment is even distancing itself from even that initial position. The second is how the Uk intelligencia are generally supportive of this program and of Morris in general. Will Self provided a ver cogent validation of the program. Finally perhaps the most interesting thing is the _Vey_ cynical actions of the broadcaster to repeat the program two days after it originally aired, particularly since there was an announced intention to review the content of the program for sanction by the media regulator.
But for me, the most comical part about the whole thing was that all this outrage resulted in something like 2,000 phone calls to the broadcaster, the same broadcasted that received over 50,000 phone calls to vote for the winner of big brother
If my research is correct, it was 1798 when the US legislated (constitutionally in many states) against imprisonment for debt (IFD). For those of you who are unfamiliar, IFD is the rather unpleasant tradition of providing the remedy of imprisoning a debtor who will not or cannot pay a debt to a creditor who asks the state for such a remedy.
I find it very distressing that there is an ever increasing trend towards making criminal offences of actions that are commercial or civil in nature. Whatever his doings, right or wrong, I think there is a strong case for arguaing that Dimitri has not acted criminally in any "natural" sense of the word. Adobe should be confined to redressing their losses in a Civil court.
I think that the comparison between the current time and the time of the social revolutions of 200 years ago is an interesting one. The legislators are being isolated from those who provide their mandate. Now I am not suggesting that any tea parties are being planned but there is certainly a lack of vigilence that explains eroding of our liberties. Prosperity insulates a lot of the community from caring about these issues.
Psion has _always_ been ahead of the game in the PDA world
No, No, No. Psion always fell at the first hurdle because they fell for the "what fits in my hand must be a palm sized PC" and the reason that Palm shipped so many units was their one innovation, recognising that the problem domain was not "how to make PCs smaller" but "how little do I need to put into a PDA". Methinks they got it right (well at least more right that Psion). The number of units sold tends to support this.
Before someone comes up with the "many better technologies fail" response, I shall respond with a sufficiency test. I will concede that the Psion/EPOCH may well be a better solution in technical, or even functional terms, but the Palm provided "sufficient" funcionality for the problem domain of PDA and anything more became overkill (Beta was always more expensive than VHS and VHS had a killer app, pr0n).
First, let me preface this by saying that I agree with you. There is no propoerty in intellect, ie no intellectual property. However, when you say;
If you can't lock it up or put a fence around it, it does not belong to you.Once you release it to the world it belongs to nobody and to everybody.
I disagree. You have just described "real" property. The are aspects of property that go beyond that. For example, one may grant a right of way over a piece of land. That is not fencable since it is not within the ambit of the gift to exclude others from the land, but one can transfer the title of the right of way. It is even possible to suggest that there is property in ones "right" to earn a living. That is, because "sustenance" is so closely tied to "working" nowdays that the notions that were applied to property to reify it, are becoming more and more applicable to employment relationships.
Note that I agree with your assertion that IP is illusory. But one must be careful to ensure that the "sufficient" requirement of exclusion is not interpreted as a "necessary" requirement for property, for such a thing will only weaken your argument.
But would you really want to ? You realize that the this is indifferent to monitoring (and recording) her phone calls, or placing a microphone on her and following her daily conversations with friends.
The monitoring in question is certainly quantitatively different to eaves dropping on diaries, conversations and phone calls. If the parent says... I will read your diary then the child will a) hide it [probably badly] or b) not write what they don't want read, so there ain't too much point in reading diaries. Similarly phone calls. The difference is that one tends not to get quite so many unsolicited phone calls and conversations with friends as one will find on the net and the diary does not "expand" the childs vista, but reflects what they actually experience. Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting monitoring children's correspondence, but I am suggesting that the "peer to peer" comms used as the example for corollary is _at least_ different enough in scale that there _might_ be a line to be drawn.
Now can we make a case that rather than being just a question of scale, a childs net behaviour is actually qualitatively different from the corollary examples that we (most reasonably minded persons) would be loathe to "review"? I think that there are aspects of the internet that make it qualitatively different. This is very convenient since the question raised in the previous paragraph about "where to draw the line" really does go away. Personally, I would never review the places my child visited, but I would preempt their surprise by telling them what to expect and that not everyone is as "open minded" as we are and they will judge you and the parents on the basis of what you surf (or even read if you are unlucky to have self appointed moralists in your area).
I would like to think that there is nothing that they would find that they would be reluctant to discuss, but I am not deluding myself, kids need their "private" world to begin to draw the distinction between their identity and that of parents, siblings and family, plus they are easily embarassed so ther are things they will want to keep private. The critical thing is to make them aware of the way the net works and how anonymity is your friend.
As for an eleven year old, I think that at that age I was still in bed by 8:30 (where I grew up, movies, or the one hour TV drama started at 8:30) which meant that my exposure to Adult themes (as it is described in the claissifcation code) was limited. But I was starting to read adult authors (not adult as in pr0n, adult as in not for kids) so the onset of Adult themes was gradual. The net will bring that stuff (and much more) in a torrent, at 11, a kid probably needs help to avoid being overwhelmed by that. I would suggest stating explicitly that you will not review or filter, and that the principles outlined in the original post about contact should be followed.
An interesting way to look at this is to ensure that the child keeps a "surfing log" much like I was made to keep a reading list. This log needn't list every site, but big gaps of time where nothing is recorded is probably an indicator that the child is surfing at places that they don't want you to know about, so let them justify their private time to you, just as I would have them justify time away from home with friends at that age.
I really don't have a problem with smart tags per se. As Nielsen says, the principle is envisaged within the hypertext paradigm. Opt in, opt out, who cares? If you don't want people "doing things" to your content then don't publish it in a "doing things to it"able kind of way. Hands up those who think unathorised deep linking is a righteous thing. Who uses their own fonts/sizes for rendering a page? Don't get me wrong, I am a content is king kind of guy, but if you are too lazy to worry about whether what you are reading is what the author intended (and that you are interpreting it the way the author intended) then you might as well go and read Mills and Boone. The fact that the browser is doing the filtering is disturbing (and that they have a monopoly even more so). But hey its not like anyones got a gun at your head making you follow the links or anything.
What I want is to be able to hook my own "content enriching" filter into the browser to help me out. Hmmm, I guess I'll just have to write my own browser. Wait a second. Why don't I try one of those open source thingys then most of the work is already done. Or even better still why don't I shout loud enough about how much of a great idea it is and then someone else will do the work to!! (sorry sracasm filter broke there for a second.
Really, people. Stock options are like any other form of compensation
Actually they're not. Stock options are a right to make a capital investment. Options (well employee ones anyway) are almost always provided from unissued capital. Which means that the employees are diluting the share holder base. The company for whom I work would have probably 10% of issued capital held by traditional employees (the founder and a select band [lest than 10 people] of others would have 45% of the issued capital). The discussions here are all assuming exercised and sell. In my company, almost all employees have taken the exercised and hold (maybe selling 10% to exercised and putting a hole in their mortgage) approach. Which suggests that there is options and there is options. Black Sholes relies on price and volatility unlisted stocks are essentially untraceable as many of the stories are revealing.
The important thing to remember is that options have little intrinsic value and they should not really be considered as "remuneration" but as some for of compensation for loyalty or to allow (or prompt) employees to buy into the corporate vision.
Trying to suggest that employers trick employees into slaving away for minimal wages is absurd.
Well, it is essentially a trick. I don't disagree with you, I don't think that employers are doing a bait and switch or doing anything unconscionable,, but they are certainly using options to get a discount on labour, now this is a good thing because discounted labour should be reflected on the bottom line which should be reflected in the share price which should end up benefiting the option holders.
I think that the discounts at which employees offer their labour in the IT business (and the causes for these discounts) are and interesting juxtaposition with the perceived mercenary nature of the labour market. The notion of our parents "job for life" is gone but they payoff is a perception that "I am worth what I can get". Options are a technique to try and redress that change without damaging the bottom line. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly worth more explicit consider3ation than is apparent from most of the posters in this discussion (The author of the post to which this is a reply _is_ addressing this issue [I just disagree], so this ain't a flame).
The trade practices act is a magnificent piece of foward thinking legislation that, along with the Family Law Act, are the legacy of one of the most extraordinary people in Australian legal and political history Lionel Murphy.
Disclaimer: I disagree with his politics but can only admire this man.
I regularly lament for the "Lawyer Philosopher" that existed at the previous "changes" in social structure that we seem to lack now in the Information revolution.
This must be a troll but I'll bite. VHS tapes are _NOT_ region encoded. They are presented in different formats because there are different formats, you can (And many modern tape playes are) get VCRs or TVs that will play both formats and it is NOT ILLEGAL to do so. It is "illegal" to play out of zone DVD's.
Once the test are out of the way the kids spend three weeks until the end of the year loafing in class as the teachers have no reason to give them a final, they already had it and passed their SOL.Just and example of how the schools are warping to fit around the SOLs , soon they will be the official final
There are models where this works better, and so there is a baby/bathwater issue here. One methodology is to collect the results within one school for students over a period of time (say two years) and use these results (gathered, by whatever means that you deem fit. A mix of subjective and objective analysis worked for me) to rank and "spread" the students within the school. THEN use the schools overall results in some form of standardized "statewide" test to determine where that school fits in the overall scheme of things. One can then present two results 1) the standardised Assessment score 2) the public examination score. Anyone looking at the results can then examine the discrepancy (where once exists) and it is remarkable how little discrepancy there is.
Standardisation of scores has benefits even when one values a more "expansive" approach to the education process. In the long run, how much does it really matter anyway, we all know that the results you get in the end of your schooling mean nothing, right?
BTW the methodology outlined above is that used in the NSW (In Australia) school system for final assessment of year 12 students (17-18 year olds). Approx 65,000 per annum.
The vehicles of which you speak are "ground effect vehicles" or more precisely "wing in ground effect" (WIG) vehicles. The Russians call them Ekranoplans and they scared the shit out of the CIA back in the 70's when a spy photo showed this HUGE plane on the caspian sea coast, a plane whoich turned out to be an ekranoplan. A good old google search will gived you loads of references.
Does the argument presuppose that the "signal" is a constant stream of information? In the event that one is talking about a real information profile that comes in fits and starts, then surely some of the methodologies outlined are better than the others. I agree with the information per unit time limitation but in the real world might not the methodology of the article produce a better responsiveness for the same bandwidth?
The problem comes up when somebody starts selling these little clips to other people
Disclaimer: I have a _real_ (largely irrational) loathing to "pay" for a ring tone, but that doesn't really change the following comment.
There is nothing idealogically wrong with charging for a ringtone service insofar as the service is an investment of captial (on which a non-extraordinary profit should reasonably be able to be made) and there are costs associated with the provision of the service (for example creating the ringtone, sending the SMS that delivers it to your phone, and the cost of processing a payment of anykind). This is true even in the case of a non IP world such as the one I would advocate. Just like the Free Software movement has no issue with making money from FS, nor should the provision of this service stick in any ones craw, of itself. Sure the price may be too high, but that is the joy of markets you only pay what you think its worth.
As for the record companies not having any grief about 5 or 6 notes from the latest boy band, I think that their current jihad on IP rights would make such a thing a prime target for their tiny minded persecutors. (end rant:-)
Re:Rob Sitch - DeadSet. Legend.
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Review: The Dish
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Slightly Offtopic. In geological time, regardless of what methodology we use (well pretty much regardless), there will be nothing left. I recall an article once, somewhere (New Scientist or SciAm probably) that went along the lines that if one was to exterminate all human life on earth today, the only evidence we ever lived would most likely be some spikes in the chemical record of the rock strata laid down in our time.
And remember, we still have hundreds of thousands to millions of years of technical advancement to go in the geological time period that forms the strata of this time. All the buildings (all the environmental damage etc) reduced to nothing more than a blip in the chemical composition of rock.
Of course this assumes that we are not around to have a continuous cultural record of history, after all the dinosaus lasted for tens of millions of years and we are much more powerful than they.
Of course, he did all of those things because he was helping to start a country run by a bunch of guys that didn't like their taxes. They only let white men vote or own land. Slavery was allowed for blacks, and most of their wives were treated like slaves.
So just remember, as great a guy as Franklin was, do not forget to take what he said in the context of his own time.
True, but whilst the context of an idea is important, it's relvance needs to be judged carefully in terms of the effect the context has on the sustainability of the idea. For example, I am far more critical of Aristotle than Franklin in their reliance on slavery since the virtues A. extolls are completely dependent on slavery to sustain the economy that sustain them whereas the virtues F extolls can exist without needing the slavery.
This all presupposes that one can something from its context and retain meaning (in some sense), which I think is possible.
Non-competing clauses are a tradition in contract law. The classic case (IIRC) invloves a car mechanic being constrained from starting up an alternative mechanic shop (or working for one) within X miles of the business that he had just sold to someone. Now the extension to this is that it applies to employment contracts, this extension has been largely accepted by many jurisdictions.
HOWEVER, there is a principle that a restraint of trade, whilst something into which someone is allowed to enter, is something that will always be construed very narrowly. There is a recognition (and it is probably still growing) that there is an emerging (if not emerged) "right" to earn a living. The kind of covenants that formed the basis for a restraint of trade clauses have their genesis in property law and there the narrow construction of these clauses reflects the reluctance of the law to "fetter" the free use of property by the property owners (oh the irony). This "right" to earn a living is a necessary concession to the changing reality that for the vast majority of persons, their only true property is their capacity to earn a living and so the emergence of a "right" to earn a living is similarly restricting the way in which anti-compete clauses are construed.
So, yes the clauses are legal (normally). But they need to be limited. Traditionally this limitation was either geographic or industry (within X miles or car mechanic vs tractor fixer) the difficulty in determining "restriction" in the context of the IT industry shows once again that the fundamentals of 18th century law must be carefully assessed in the light of the modern world lestthe unmighty get screwed.
cred-i-ble (kreh dih bEl)
1. believable or plausible:
2. deserving of belief; trustworthy.
Generally speaking, we are judged by others in terms of their own experiences. If you are young, dealing with older people, they will think of what they knew at your age, and then almost always presuppose that they knew more when they were your age than you do know. They will not accept that you are deserving of belief. Once can only deserve something by demonstration.
It is interesting to me that people I have encountered who are least likely to make this presupposition are those that have been humbled by the talents or experiences of those, usually the very young, that they have encountered in the normal course of their lives.
Accept the fact that one can only become credible in the eyes of another by demonstration. Demonstrate it, and if credibility still evades you then accept that the approval of those you crave is not worth anything anyway, since they are fools.
Slashdot Mirror
The tradition of scholarliness vs despotism cannot so easily be tied to the "two" worlds of east and west and their respective religions. Fundamentalism and Liberatrianism are better, I mean the Taliban show the intolerance of Islam and the whole scholastic tradition can be traced back to a time when St Thomas Aquinas approached life with an analysts eye.
You should try putting an old VW Beetle engine block in a fire. That big lump of Mg alloy makes night into day. Much fun...
Except that you are not renting since you are delivered an item that you never need to return to the vendor. Now I am not talking about the "rights" that you have been assigned, I am talking about the physical (more or less) thing that you have been delivered. If you rent an air compressor, you must return it to the rentor since otherwise they are unable to "rent" it to the next renter and they suffer loss. If you rent an ebook then _in fact_ you are being sold an image of that book and the image is _yours_. They can't have the copy back (nor would they want it, as things stand right now).
There is a contradiction here. Try and spearate oneself from the preconceptions about copyright and ownership and just think about the actual transaction. The reason that there is a contradiction is that the initial premise is flawed. One is not renting one is buying and all the natural rights and possibilities inherent in the purchase of that image are there by default, they are only abrogated by the stupid, brain dead, legal fiction that is IP. The technical impediments to making the book work for longer than 10 hours are there for you to "avoid" since you have the image. Its like taking a photocopy of a book, technically possile just a bit tricky. Ever looked at those game manuals that print glossy light grey on a glossy less light grey background? Real tough to photocopy.
The idiocy of all this is ever mounting. What about quotations? Am I entitled to quote the pithy comeback I read in the book for more than the 10 hours I have "rented" it? What if I have a bad memory and have to write these things down? Should I be discriminated against comapred to those with good memories? Since writing it down is techinically bypassing the protection. If quoting after term is ok, then why is that materially different to copying the pages via a screen dump (as another poster suggested), if it is not materially different then is it just a question of scale and if so then to where is the line between "reasonable" and "unreasonable". Is it in the number of pages? What about the "killer" diagram on page 36? what about essay number 6 in a book of 20 it would be less than 10% of the book but maybe the only reason for buying the book in the first place, Sonnet 12 of 200. The list of questions that mire the "legal" framework is endless.
The universe is a righteous place, something is only difficult if it needs to be difficult. Distribution of the output of intellect is not hard, it is only made so when we try to assign the virtues (attributes) of property to the output of intellect. BECAUSE THE OUTPUT OF INTELLECT IS NOT PROPERTY!!! The sooner the law come to terms with this reality the happier we will all be.
end rant.
Not. Don't get me wrong, I like Morris's work. But he has been doing the same joke for a few years now (The episode on the new drug "Cake" - you know you can find its recipe on the internet) was very amusing, but it is not genius to take a pot shot at the idiocy of the way the media overreacts to the issue d'jour.
The sound of knees hitting tables is not a response that is particularly difficult to elicit from the government of most any western "democracy".
There are a few interesting things about this episode. First the government minister that got all vocal about it and then the rousing lack of support that her position received from more senior memebrs opf the govenrment and how the govenrment is even distancing itself from even that initial position. The second is how the Uk intelligencia are generally supportive of this program and of Morris in general. Will Self provided a ver cogent validation of the program. Finally perhaps the most interesting thing is the _Vey_ cynical actions of the broadcaster to repeat the program two days after it originally aired, particularly since there was an announced intention to review the content of the program for sanction by the media regulator.
But for me, the most comical part about the whole thing was that all this outrage resulted in something like 2,000 phone calls to the broadcaster, the same broadcasted that received over 50,000 phone calls to vote for the winner of big brother
If my research is correct, it was 1798 when the US legislated (constitutionally in many states) against imprisonment for debt (IFD). For those of you who are unfamiliar, IFD is the rather unpleasant tradition of providing the remedy of imprisoning a debtor who will not or cannot pay a debt to a creditor who asks the state for such a remedy.
I find it very distressing that there is an ever increasing trend towards making criminal offences of actions that are commercial or civil in nature. Whatever his doings, right or wrong, I think there is a strong case for arguaing that Dimitri has not acted criminally in any "natural" sense of the word. Adobe should be confined to redressing their losses in a Civil court.
I think that the comparison between the current time and the time of the social revolutions of 200 years ago is an interesting one. The legislators are being isolated from those who provide their mandate. Now I am not suggesting that any tea parties are being planned but there is certainly a lack of vigilence that explains eroding of our liberties. Prosperity insulates a lot of the community from caring about these issues.
Psion has _always_ been ahead of the game in the PDA world
No, No, No. Psion always fell at the first hurdle because they fell for the "what fits in my hand must be a palm sized PC" and the reason that Palm shipped so many units was their one innovation, recognising that the problem domain was not "how to make PCs smaller" but "how little do I need to put into a PDA". Methinks they got it right (well at least more right that Psion). The number of units sold tends to support this.
Before someone comes up with the "many better technologies fail" response, I shall respond with a sufficiency test. I will concede that the Psion/EPOCH may well be a better solution in technical, or even functional terms, but the Palm provided "sufficient" funcionality for the problem domain of PDA and anything more became overkill (Beta was always more expensive than VHS and VHS had a killer app, pr0n).
Can we quote you on that?
First, let me preface this by saying that I agree with you. There is no propoerty in intellect, ie no intellectual property. However, when you say;
If you can't lock it up or put a fence around it, it does not belong to you.Once you release it to the world it belongs to nobody and to everybody.
I disagree. You have just described "real" property. The are aspects of property that go beyond that. For example, one may grant a right of way over a piece of land. That is not fencable since it is not within the ambit of the gift to exclude others from the land, but one can transfer the title of the right of way. It is even possible to suggest that there is property in ones "right" to earn a living. That is, because "sustenance" is so closely tied to "working" nowdays that the notions that were applied to property to reify it, are becoming more and more applicable to employment relationships.
Note that I agree with your assertion that IP is illusory. But one must be careful to ensure that the "sufficient" requirement of exclusion is not interpreted as a "necessary" requirement for property, for such a thing will only weaken your argument.
But would you really want to ? You realize that the this is indifferent to monitoring (and recording) her phone calls, or placing a microphone on her and following her daily conversations with friends.
The monitoring in question is certainly quantitatively different to eaves dropping on diaries, conversations and phone calls. If the parent says... I will read your diary then the child will a) hide it [probably badly] or b) not write what they don't want read, so there ain't too much point in reading diaries. Similarly phone calls. The difference is that one tends not to get quite so many unsolicited phone calls and conversations with friends as one will find on the net and the diary does not "expand" the childs vista, but reflects what they actually experience. Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting monitoring children's correspondence, but I am suggesting that the "peer to peer" comms used as the example for corollary is _at least_ different enough in scale that there _might_ be a line to be drawn.
Now can we make a case that rather than being just a question of scale, a childs net behaviour is actually qualitatively different from the corollary examples that we (most reasonably minded persons) would be loathe to "review"? I think that there are aspects of the internet that make it qualitatively different. This is very convenient since the question raised in the previous paragraph about "where to draw the line" really does go away. Personally, I would never review the places my child visited, but I would preempt their surprise by telling them what to expect and that not everyone is as "open minded" as we are and they will judge you and the parents on the basis of what you surf (or even read if you are unlucky to have self appointed moralists in your area).
I would like to think that there is nothing that they would find that they would be reluctant to discuss, but I am not deluding myself, kids need their "private" world to begin to draw the distinction between their identity and that of parents, siblings and family, plus they are easily embarassed so ther are things they will want to keep private. The critical thing is to make them aware of the way the net works and how anonymity is your friend.
As for an eleven year old, I think that at that age I was still in bed by 8:30 (where I grew up, movies, or the one hour TV drama started at 8:30) which meant that my exposure to Adult themes (as it is described in the claissifcation code) was limited. But I was starting to read adult authors (not adult as in pr0n, adult as in not for kids) so the onset of Adult themes was gradual. The net will bring that stuff (and much more) in a torrent, at 11, a kid probably needs help to avoid being overwhelmed by that. I would suggest stating explicitly that you will not review or filter, and that the principles outlined in the original post about contact should be followed.
An interesting way to look at this is to ensure that the child keeps a "surfing log" much like I was made to keep a reading list. This log needn't list every site, but big gaps of time where nothing is recorded is probably an indicator that the child is surfing at places that they don't want you to know about, so let them justify their private time to you, just as I would have them justify time away from home with friends at that age.
I really don't have a problem with smart tags per se. As Nielsen says, the principle is envisaged within the hypertext paradigm. Opt in, opt out, who cares? If you don't want people "doing things" to your content then don't publish it in a "doing things to it"able kind of way. Hands up those who think unathorised deep linking is a righteous thing. Who uses their own fonts/sizes for rendering a page? Don't get me wrong, I am a content is king kind of guy, but if you are too lazy to worry about whether what you are reading is what the author intended (and that you are interpreting it the way the author intended) then you might as well go and read Mills and Boone. The fact that the browser is doing the filtering is disturbing (and that they have a monopoly even more so). But hey its not like anyones got a gun at your head making you follow the links or anything.
What I want is to be able to hook my own "content enriching" filter into the browser to help me out. Hmmm, I guess I'll just have to write my own browser. Wait a second. Why don't I try one of those open source thingys then most of the work is already done. Or even better still why don't I shout loud enough about how much of a great idea it is and then someone else will do the work to!! (sorry sracasm filter broke there for a second.
Instead of trying to make robots that play soccer, why don't they come up with a better goal.
Yeah, lets get them playing Rugby instead. Talk about bone crunching defence!
Really, people. Stock options are like any other form of compensation
Actually they're not. Stock options are a right to make a capital investment. Options (well employee ones anyway) are almost always provided from unissued capital. Which means that the employees are diluting the share holder base. The company for whom I work would have probably 10% of issued capital held by traditional employees (the founder and a select band [lest than 10 people] of others would have 45% of the issued capital). The discussions here are all assuming exercised and sell. In my company, almost all employees have taken the exercised and hold (maybe selling 10% to exercised and putting a hole in their mortgage) approach. Which suggests that there is options and there is options. Black Sholes relies on price and volatility unlisted stocks are essentially untraceable as many of the stories are revealing.
The important thing to remember is that options have little intrinsic value and they should not really be considered as "remuneration" but as some for of compensation for loyalty or to allow (or prompt) employees to buy into the corporate vision.
Trying to suggest that employers trick employees into slaving away for minimal wages is absurd.
Well, it is essentially a trick. I don't disagree with you, I don't think that employers are doing a bait and switch or doing anything unconscionable,, but they are certainly using options to get a discount on labour, now this is a good thing because discounted labour should be reflected on the bottom line which should be reflected in the share price which should end up benefiting the option holders.
I think that the discounts at which employees offer their labour in the IT business (and the causes for these discounts) are and interesting juxtaposition with the perceived mercenary nature of the labour market. The notion of our parents "job for life" is gone but they payoff is a perception that "I am worth what I can get". Options are a technique to try and redress that change without damaging the bottom line. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly worth more explicit consider3ation than is apparent from most of the posters in this discussion (The author of the post to which this is a reply _is_ addressing this issue [I just disagree], so this ain't a flame).
The trade practices act is a magnificent piece of foward thinking legislation that, along with the Family Law Act, are the legacy of one of the most extraordinary people in Australian legal and political history Lionel Murphy.
"http://lionelmurphy.anu.edu.au/lionel_murphy.htm"
Disclaimer: I disagree with his politics but can only admire this man.
I regularly lament for the "Lawyer Philosopher" that existed at the previous "changes" in social structure that we seem to lack now in the Information revolution.
Where are these people today?
This must be a troll but I'll bite. VHS tapes are _NOT_ region encoded. They are presented in different formats because there are different formats, you can (And many modern tape playes are) get VCRs or TVs that will play both formats and it is NOT ILLEGAL to do so. It is "illegal" to play out of zone DVD's.
Once the test are out of the way the kids spend three weeks until the end of the year loafing in class as the teachers have no reason to give them a final, they already had it and passed their SOL.Just and example of how the schools are warping to fit around the SOLs , soon they will be the official final
There are models where this works better, and so there is a baby/bathwater issue here. One methodology is to collect the results within one school for students over a period of time (say two years) and use these results (gathered, by whatever means that you deem fit. A mix of subjective and objective analysis worked for me) to rank and "spread" the students within the school. THEN use the schools overall results in some form of standardized "statewide" test to determine where that school fits in the overall scheme of things. One can then present two results 1) the standardised Assessment score 2) the public examination score. Anyone looking at the results can then examine the discrepancy (where once exists) and it is remarkable how little discrepancy there is.
Standardisation of scores has benefits even when one values a more "expansive" approach to the education process. In the long run, how much does it really matter anyway, we all know that the results you get in the end of your schooling mean nothing, right?
BTW the methodology outlined above is that used in the NSW (In Australia) school system for final assessment of year 12 students (17-18 year olds). Approx 65,000 per annum.
The vehicles of which you speak are "ground effect vehicles" or more precisely "wing in ground effect" (WIG) vehicles. The Russians call them Ekranoplans and they scared the shit out of the CIA back in the 70's when a spy photo showed this HUGE plane on the caspian sea coast, a plane whoich turned out to be an ekranoplan. A good old google search will gived you loads of references.
There is nothing good about copyright!
Does the argument presuppose that the "signal" is a constant stream of information? In the event that one is talking about a real information profile that comes in fits and starts, then surely some of the methodologies outlined are better than the others. I agree with the information per unit time limitation but in the real world might not the methodology of the article produce a better responsiveness for the same bandwidth?
The problem comes up when somebody starts selling these little clips to other people
Disclaimer: I have a _real_ (largely irrational) loathing to "pay" for a ring tone, but that doesn't really change the following comment.
There is nothing idealogically wrong with charging for a ringtone service insofar as the service is an investment of captial (on which a non-extraordinary profit should reasonably be able to be made) and there are costs associated with the provision of the service (for example creating the ringtone, sending the SMS that delivers it to your phone, and the cost of processing a payment of anykind). This is true even in the case of a non IP world such as the one I would advocate. Just like the Free Software movement has no issue with making money from FS, nor should the provision of this service stick in any ones craw, of itself. Sure the price may be too high, but that is the joy of markets you only pay what you think its worth.
As for the record companies not having any grief about 5 or 6 notes from the latest boy band, I think that their current jihad on IP rights would make such a thing a prime target for their tiny minded persecutors. (end rant :-)
or is that Cham_pagne_ Comedy ;-) Like a tiger...
Slightly Offtopic. In geological time, regardless of what methodology we use (well pretty much regardless), there will be nothing left. I recall an article once, somewhere (New Scientist or SciAm probably) that went along the lines that if one was to exterminate all human life on earth today, the only evidence we ever lived would most likely be some spikes in the chemical record of the rock strata laid down in our time.
And remember, we still have hundreds of thousands to millions of years of technical advancement to go in the geological time period that forms the strata of this time. All the buildings (all the environmental damage etc) reduced to nothing more than a blip in the chemical composition of rock.
Of course this assumes that we are not around to have a continuous cultural record of history, after all the dinosaus lasted for tens of millions of years and we are much more powerful than they.
The fact that only 5% of users have broadband has more to do with its currently poor reliability and higher cost than dial-up service
Hmmmm, Europe (well !North America), timed local calls, dial up, cheaper than DSL/cable. Maybe not.
Of course, he did all of those things because he was helping to start a country run by a bunch of guys that didn't like their taxes. They only let white men vote or own land. Slavery was allowed for blacks, and most of their wives were treated like slaves.
So just remember, as great a guy as Franklin was, do not forget to take what he said in the context of his own time.
True, but whilst the context of an idea is important, it's relvance needs to be judged carefully in terms of the effect the context has on the sustainability of the idea. For example, I am far more critical of Aristotle than Franklin in their reliance on slavery since the virtues A. extolls are completely dependent on slavery to sustain the economy that sustain them whereas the virtues F extolls can exist without needing the slavery.
This all presupposes that one can something from its context and retain meaning (in some sense), which I think is possible.
Non-competing clauses are a tradition in contract law. The classic case (IIRC) invloves a car mechanic being constrained from starting up an alternative mechanic shop (or working for one) within X miles of the business that he had just sold to someone. Now the extension to this is that it applies to employment contracts, this extension has been largely accepted by many jurisdictions.
HOWEVER, there is a principle that a restraint of trade, whilst something into which someone is allowed to enter, is something that will always be construed very narrowly. There is a recognition (and it is probably still growing) that there is an emerging (if not emerged) "right" to earn a living. The kind of covenants that formed the basis for a restraint of trade clauses have their genesis in property law and there the narrow construction of these clauses reflects the reluctance of the law to "fetter" the free use of property by the property owners (oh the irony). This "right" to earn a living is a necessary concession to the changing reality that for the vast majority of persons, their only true property is their capacity to earn a living and so the emergence of a "right" to earn a living is similarly restricting the way in which anti-compete clauses are construed.
So, yes the clauses are legal (normally). But they need to be limited. Traditionally this limitation was either geographic or industry (within X miles or car mechanic vs tractor fixer) the difficulty in determining "restriction" in the context of the IT industry shows once again that the fundamentals of 18th century law must be carefully assessed in the light of the modern world lestthe unmighty get screwed.
cred-i-ble (kreh dih bEl)
1. believable or plausible:
2. deserving of belief; trustworthy.
Generally speaking, we are judged by others in terms of their own experiences. If you are young, dealing with older people, they will think of what they knew at your age, and then almost always presuppose that they knew more when they were your age than you do know. They will not accept that you are deserving of belief. Once can only deserve something by demonstration.
It is interesting to me that people I have encountered who are least likely to make this presupposition are those that have been humbled by the talents or experiences of those, usually the very young, that they have encountered in the normal course of their lives.
Accept the fact that one can only become credible in the eyes of another by demonstration. Demonstrate it, and if credibility still evades you then accept that the approval of those you crave is not worth anything anyway, since they are fools.