Yeah, but are they really? It seems to me that the reaction to terrorist attacks and the threat of terrorist attacks is a much bigger problem than the attacks themselves.
If most of the time and resources that are currently allocated to "stopping terrorism" were instead redirected to bringing everyone to a living wage and basic education (globally, if possible)... then not only would it be more effective at reducing terrorism (IMO), but it is also likely to reduce pedestrian crime... and just be kinda nice.
You're using the term free market, but it doesn't really count unless you understand what the words mean and use them appropriately.
A free market means that there are no restrictions on who can buy and sell an item. The competition between buyers and between sellers allows the market to set the value of the item based on an equillibrium of supply and demand.
I am very keen on a free market - including the freedom to choose when and where to sell or market a product.
You're confusing free market with global/local market concepts. You can have a free local market (which isn't actually free because copyright and lack of second sale, but whatever, that's a compromise we currently live with) and a non-free global market. And localised release windows are only possible with a non-free global market, kind of by definition.
If people don't like they choice, they don't have to enjoy the product. They could create their own and distribute them in any manner they see fit. That's the beauty of a free market.
I make these lovely tables, but I only sell them to Scottish people who have lived for less than three years in the British isles, and they have to sign a contract affirming that they may never sell the table to anyone else or else ownership reverts to me. But I'm not forcing anyone to buy these tables, they're free to create their own and distribute them in any manner they see fit. Free market, yay! Yeah, no.
The stepped release concept is in some part to release a film or whatever in the best paying market first, so that they can (like all good business should) extract as much profit as possible for their shareholders and owners. Releasing a product into lower dollar markets first would just support the natural flow from low cost to high cost centers, handing (diminished) profits to others.
And that made sense in the '80s. Why not just release it TO THE WORLD at the higher price, then step the price down as you'd normally release to wider, lower cost, markets? You know, live in the 21st century and reap all the same benefits as your legacy business model with all the same advantages of a global marketplace? I mean, really?
Those threats, regardless of how many of them are empty, in total ruin lives and I can't find a good reason to protect them.
Granted that we're talking about Australia here and not America, so protected speech isn't even a thing... on the internet, how can you tell that a threat is empty? Does that imply that all threats on the internet should be prosecuted as if they were real and imminent? What if the person^H^H^H^H^H^Hdickhead posting the threat lives in another city? Another country?
And if it's the totality of the threats that causes harm, where none of them is actionable by itself... then how do you possibly handle that within the scope of the law? Every poster has to spend their share of the 3 year total jail term in jail*?
I am aware, that it's a difficult subject and we probably won't see a nuanced or narrow law from any legislation on this planet, but wouldn't it be great if we did?
Actually, I don't believe it would even be good. It has been shown uncountable times through history that it is nearly impossible to change society through enacting laws, so it really doesn't matter how well written the law is - it won't fix society. It could *possibly* fix the problem if you manage to incarcerate the entire population of potential offenders, but that really just swaps in a whole different problem.
If you want to change society, you have to change society. There are no shortcuts or ways around dealing with the root of this problem. If you want to live in a society in which it is unacceptable to treat women (or anyone) in this way, then make it unacceptable.
So if this person had walked up to another person and said the same thing, would it just be "trolling", or would it be more serious?
Why does the law mention venue at all? And why doesn't it define "serious offense"? I stand by my declaration that this law is the equivalent to an "on the internet" patent, and is about as useful to polite society.
I do concede the point that this law's existence is a useful foil to people asking for more bad internet-related laws, but it's akin to saying that we don't need a bear to patrol our home, because a mountain lion is already doing the job.
I'm also Australian, but I don't think that a law has to apply to you before you're qualified to comment on its quality, particularly since this law contains exactly zero cultural nuance.
Not to mention, this sounds like a pile-on law - making it illegal to do illegal stuff "on the internet".
If it's already illegal face-to-face, then you don't need the internet law. If it's not illegal face-to-face, then why is it illegal on the internet? If these laws end up pushing abuse off the internet and into face-to-face encounters... have we actually improved anything?
Re: being drunk is not an excuse to do whatever you want.
Sometimes I think I'd like to see it go the other way around, myself. If being drunk was a multiplier on any sentence, rather than a mitigator, then I like to think we'd see people doing less stupid stuff while drunk...
Of course, I could write pages about why it's actually a terrible idea, so I leave it at occasional daydreams.
Your all arguing about whether he is right or not. It simply doesnt matter.
You may be correct that it doesn't matter, though that's a symptom of a much larger systematic failure... but who is arguing about Brennan being right?
As for "everyone scrambl[ing] to prove him wrong", that's not happening. Everyone is merely pointing out that Brennan has ALREADY been proven wrong. The work was done months ago, because everyone knew that this kind of lie was inevitable and wanted to have the data ready to prove it.
Do you have any suggestions for how better to fight against Congress pushing bad mandates other than pushing back on invalid assertions?
Real-time pictures aren't as useful as you might expect, unless you're taking pictures from a geo-synchronous sattelite. At 34 degrees north, I'm not sure how feasible it is to get real-time satellite images that are clear enough to identify a small boat.
we can't judge groups or ideologies or institutions based on single actors, or even the more obvious subsets.
But we can judge them on the recorded content of the ideology and the behaviour of the founders.
Now, it's entirely possible that you're not making that judgement in accordance to your faith, but then it's unclear whether you think we should be judging you based on your faith as recorded by the founders of the faith (as opposed to the modern tenets of the faith?), or based on your own personal actions and expression.
If you should only ever judge someone based on the original tenets of their faith, then how can you possibly account for bad actors in a good faith? Or good actors in a bad faith. Now, I'm not entirely certain that a bad faith even exists, except in the minds of people who are misinterpreting other peoples' faiths, but even if you accept their existence, it seems impossible to actually apply your ideology to the real world without an unacceptably high failure rate.
That only makes sense if he was notified that he'd been removed from the watchlist, and that doesn't sound like any watchlist behaviour that I've ever heard of...
Re: So what if the terrorist was born here? His terrorist parents immigrated.
Why stop there? Native Americans should really be banning those European terrorist immigrants, too. Given how many wars the descendants of those immigrants have started, I'm amazed they were allowed in at all.
Notwithstanding, using trademark to make a point about a copyright case is disingenuous at best.
Nobody is claiming that Oracle has a trademark on the Java API. I'm pretty sure it's not eligible for trademark protection. It's possible that Oracle could hold patents on the implementation of Java, and there's certainly history for patent-encumbered standards... but that was never a point made in the case, so would be irrelevant even if true.
Do you also think that IBM, Microsoft, GNU and others are creating *direct* clones of C99 because they've brazenly copied the interface/specification in their C compilers, despite that they are implemented independently and differently? What about all the LISP dialects? Where does it end?
Many of my artist/composer clients have made hit records that are staples of the dance music scene nationwide, and they make almost nothing---it is really unfair and ridiculous. Unless you are famous (Lady Gaga or Beyonce), you won't make enough money from royalties, license fees, and record sales to continue your music career.
I'm not sure how to reconcile these two sentences. What's the difference between being a staple of the dance music scene nationwide, and being famous? Is it the number of plays, or the name recognition?
Surely royalties should be based on the number of plays, and not the name recognition? Unless Lady Gaga and Beyonce have managed to leverage their name recognition to negotiate better royalty schedules, but that has nothing to do with the services playing the music, and everything to do with the labels.
Of course, if we required Spotify and other services to pay adequate royalties to compensate artist and composers in a manner comparable to amounts paid in the old system, these services would fail financially.
Yes, if they are forced to pay more, then they will disappear, and the thousands of artists who were making money from these services will no longer be able to make money. The labels will once again become the only way to secure distribution, and society will benefit... how?
I think we can agree that the purpose of copyright law is to provide incentives for talented artists and writers to devote their careers to their work.
Nope. The purpose of copyright law is to provide incentives for talented artists and writers to create works. And untalented ones, too. Whether they are able to devote a career to it or not is completely orthogonal to the law, though it does happen to provide a mechanism to do so - but as has been discussed on this site at length, that is just the implementation of the law, not the intent.
You do raise good points, and I tend to agree with you that just because Spotify and Pandora are paying most of their revenue in licensing doesn't necessarily prove that they're paying enough... but all of the figures that get thrown around seem to indicate that these services actually are paying fair rates, but that money simply isn't making it to the artists, instead getting lost in the collection agencies and labels. It seems like your anger should be at the labels for paying poor royalties, rather than the services for not paying the labels enough.
I'm curious if you have any visibility over musicians that don't rely on royalties for income - those who work on music for movies, games and tv shows, or playing live music exclusively, and what those artists think of modern music services?
till, something that irks me is... why music copies should be paid for? I mean, I'm reading people that say that they buy their music (not sure in what for, some say in CDs or whatnot).
To be honest, isn't that just stupid? I mean, you're paying for something that is being made artificially scarce by a few, when you know that the marginal value of each copy is close to zero.
Paying for Spotify is one thing. Its added value isn't only providing the music, but a platform to get it easily, without having to mess your brains, with a standard of quality and all that.
But paying for a CD or a song on itunes? What a waste of money.
Your fundamental error here is conflating a thing's cost with its value. The incremental cost of one copy of a digital song file may be (near) zero, but that doesn't stop the same file from having value.
Re: Re: Some people prefer editors. Others prefer IDEs
That definition might work for you, but it has a lot of holes.
An "Integrated Development Environment" is a combination of an editor with all of the tools that you need to do your development. You know, integrated. Good IDEs let you customise your toolchain based on what you're trying to do; in my experience only very targeted IDEs (such as Visual Studio) force a toolchain (build system) on you.
FWIW, add enough plugins to Emacs and it becomes an IDE.
If you find that IDEs are getting in your way, it may be that you're using the IDE wrong, and that learning how the IDE wants you to alter your workflows may improve your experience. Of course, up to you whether the risk of spending time learning the IDE is likely to be paid back in improved productivity - it doesn't always pay off.
On the post: AstraZeneca Tries To Use 'Orphan Drug' Designation To Extend Patent Life Of Top-Selling Pill
Re: Re: The whole industry is corrupt and needs reformed
On the post: Man Who Doxxed Dozens Of People, Engaged In Nineteen 'Swattings', Nets Only One Year In Prison
Re: Re: Will none of you liberals have the courage...
On the post: Facebook Sued Again For 'Material Support' Of Terrorism, Because Hamas Uses Facebook
Everything is relative
Yeah, but are they really? It seems to me that the reaction to terrorist attacks and the threat of terrorist attacks is a much bigger problem than the attacks themselves.
If most of the time and resources that are currently allocated to "stopping terrorism" were instead redirected to bringing everyone to a living wage and basic education (globally, if possible)... then not only would it be more effective at reducing terrorism (IMO), but it is also likely to reduce pedestrian crime... and just be kinda nice.
But I won't hold my breath.
On the post: MPAA Boss: Actually Being Good To Consumers Would Be Horrible For Hollywood
Re: Re: Re: Re:
A free market means that there are no restrictions on who can buy and sell an item. The competition between buyers and between sellers allows the market to set the value of the item based on an equillibrium of supply and demand.
I am very keen on a free market - including the freedom to choose when and where to sell or market a product.
You're confusing free market with global/local market concepts. You can have a free local market (which isn't actually free because copyright and lack of second sale, but whatever, that's a compromise we currently live with) and a non-free global market. And localised release windows are only possible with a non-free global market, kind of by definition.
If people don't like they choice, they don't have to enjoy the product. They could create their own and distribute them in any manner they see fit. That's the beauty of a free market.
I make these lovely tables, but I only sell them to Scottish people who have lived for less than three years in the British isles, and they have to sign a contract affirming that they may never sell the table to anyone else or else ownership reverts to me. But I'm not forcing anyone to buy these tables, they're free to create their own and distribute them in any manner they see fit. Free market, yay! Yeah, no.
The stepped release concept is in some part to release a film or whatever in the best paying market first, so that they can (like all good business should) extract as much profit as possible for their shareholders and owners. Releasing a product into lower dollar markets first would just support the natural flow from low cost to high cost centers, handing (diminished) profits to others.
And that made sense in the '80s. Why not just release it TO THE WORLD at the higher price, then step the price down as you'd normally release to wider, lower cost, markets? You know, live in the 21st century and reap all the same benefits as your legacy business model with all the same advantages of a global marketplace? I mean, really?
On the post: Guy In Australia Pleads Guilty To Criminal Trolling On Facebook, Faces 3 Years In Jail
Re:
Granted that we're talking about Australia here and not America, so protected speech isn't even a thing... on the internet, how can you tell that a threat is empty? Does that imply that all threats on the internet should be prosecuted as if they were real and imminent? What if the person^H^H^H^H^H^Hdickhead posting the threat lives in another city? Another country?
And if it's the totality of the threats that causes harm, where none of them is actionable by itself... then how do you possibly handle that within the scope of the law? Every poster has to spend their share of the 3 year total jail term in jail*?
I am aware, that it's a difficult subject and we probably won't see a nuanced or narrow law from any legislation on this planet, but wouldn't it be great if we did?
Actually, I don't believe it would even be good. It has been shown uncountable times through history that it is nearly impossible to change society through enacting laws, so it really doesn't matter how well written the law is - it won't fix society. It could *possibly* fix the problem if you manage to incarcerate the entire population of potential offenders, but that really just swaps in a whole different problem.
If you want to change society, you have to change society. There are no shortcuts or ways around dealing with the root of this problem. If you want to live in a society in which it is unacceptable to treat women (or anyone) in this way, then make it unacceptable.
* - That would actually be pretty funny.
On the post: Guy In Australia Pleads Guilty To Criminal Trolling On Facebook, Faces 3 Years In Jail
Re:
Why does the law mention venue at all? And why doesn't it define "serious offense"? I stand by my declaration that this law is the equivalent to an "on the internet" patent, and is about as useful to polite society.
I do concede the point that this law's existence is a useful foil to people asking for more bad internet-related laws, but it's akin to saying that we don't need a bear to patrol our home, because a mountain lion is already doing the job.
I'm also Australian, but I don't think that a law has to apply to you before you're qualified to comment on its quality, particularly since this law contains exactly zero cultural nuance.
On the post: Guy In Australia Pleads Guilty To Criminal Trolling On Facebook, Faces 3 Years In Jail
Re: Re:
If it's already illegal face-to-face, then you don't need the internet law. If it's not illegal face-to-face, then why is it illegal on the internet? If these laws end up pushing abuse off the internet and into face-to-face encounters... have we actually improved anything?
On the post: Guy In Australia Pleads Guilty To Criminal Trolling On Facebook, Faces 3 Years In Jail
Re: being drunk is not an excuse to do whatever you want.
Of course, I could write pages about why it's actually a terrible idea, so I leave it at occasional daydreams.
On the post: CIA Director John Brennan Says Non-US Encryption Is 'Theoretical'
Re:
You may be correct that it doesn't matter, though that's a symptom of a much larger systematic failure... but who is arguing about Brennan being right?
As for "everyone scrambl[ing] to prove him wrong", that's not happening. Everyone is merely pointing out that Brennan has ALREADY been proven wrong. The work was done months ago, because everyone knew that this kind of lie was inevitable and wanted to have the data ready to prove it.
Do you have any suggestions for how better to fight against Congress pushing bad mandates other than pushing back on invalid assertions?
On the post: CIA Director John Brennan Says Non-US Encryption Is 'Theoretical'
Re: Re: Re: Idiot or liar
On the post: Press Eats Up 'App' That Helps People Search For Migrant Boats On The Meditarranean... Despite It Not Actually Doing Anything
Pictures of earth, from space
See also https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/
On the post: Both Trump And Clinton Suggest Expanding Mass Surveillance, Bogus Watch Lists After Attack In Orlando
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Behavior vs. Identity
Now, it's entirely possible that you're not making that judgement in accordance to your faith, but then it's unclear whether you think we should be judging you based on your faith as recorded by the founders of the faith (as opposed to the modern tenets of the faith?), or based on your own personal actions and expression.
If you should only ever judge someone based on the original tenets of their faith, then how can you possibly account for bad actors in a good faith? Or good actors in a bad faith. Now, I'm not entirely certain that a bad faith even exists, except in the minds of people who are misinterpreting other peoples' faiths, but even if you accept their existence, it seems impossible to actually apply your ideology to the real world without an unacceptably high failure rate.
On the post: Both Trump And Clinton Suggest Expanding Mass Surveillance, Bogus Watch Lists After Attack In Orlando
Re: Re:
On the post: Both Trump And Clinton Suggest Expanding Mass Surveillance, Bogus Watch Lists After Attack In Orlando
Re: So what if the terrorist was born here? His terrorist parents immigrated.
On the post: How Java's Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nobody is claiming that Oracle has a trademark on the Java API. I'm pretty sure it's not eligible for trademark protection. It's possible that Oracle could hold patents on the implementation of Java, and there's certainly history for patent-encumbered standards... but that was never a point made in the case, so would be irrelevant even if true.
Do you also think that IBM, Microsoft, GNU and others are creating *direct* clones of C99 because they've brazenly copied the interface/specification in their C compilers, despite that they are implemented independently and differently? What about all the LISP dialects? Where does it end?
On the post: You're Entitled To Your Own Opinions, But Not Your Own Facts About Copyright, NY Times Edition
Re: Music Industry
I'm not sure how to reconcile these two sentences. What's the difference between being a staple of the dance music scene nationwide, and being famous? Is it the number of plays, or the name recognition?
Surely royalties should be based on the number of plays, and not the name recognition? Unless Lady Gaga and Beyonce have managed to leverage their name recognition to negotiate better royalty schedules, but that has nothing to do with the services playing the music, and everything to do with the labels.
Of course, if we required Spotify and other services to pay adequate royalties to compensate artist and composers in a manner comparable to amounts paid in the old system, these services would fail financially.
Yes, if they are forced to pay more, then they will disappear, and the thousands of artists who were making money from these services will no longer be able to make money. The labels will once again become the only way to secure distribution, and society will benefit... how?
I think we can agree that the purpose of copyright law is to provide incentives for talented artists and writers to devote their careers to their work.
Nope. The purpose of copyright law is to provide incentives for talented artists and writers to create works. And untalented ones, too. Whether they are able to devote a career to it or not is completely orthogonal to the law, though it does happen to provide a mechanism to do so - but as has been discussed on this site at length, that is just the implementation of the law, not the intent.
You do raise good points, and I tend to agree with you that just because Spotify and Pandora are paying most of their revenue in licensing doesn't necessarily prove that they're paying enough... but all of the figures that get thrown around seem to indicate that these services actually are paying fair rates, but that money simply isn't making it to the artists, instead getting lost in the collection agencies and labels. It seems like your anger should be at the labels for paying poor royalties, rather than the services for not paying the labels enough.
I'm curious if you have any visibility over musicians that don't rely on royalties for income - those who work on music for movies, games and tv shows, or playing live music exclusively, and what those artists think of modern music services?
On the post: You're Entitled To Your Own Opinions, But Not Your Own Facts About Copyright, NY Times Edition
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: You're Entitled To Your Own Opinions, But Not Your Own Facts About Copyright, NY Times Edition
Re: Re: Re:
Your fundamental error here is conflating a thing's cost with its value. The incremental cost of one copy of a digital song file may be (near) zero, but that doesn't stop the same file from having value.
On the post: How Java's Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs
Re: Re: Some people prefer editors. Others prefer IDEs
An "Integrated Development Environment" is a combination of an editor with all of the tools that you need to do your development. You know, integrated. Good IDEs let you customise your toolchain based on what you're trying to do; in my experience only very targeted IDEs (such as Visual Studio) force a toolchain (build system) on you.
FWIW, add enough plugins to Emacs and it becomes an IDE.
If you find that IDEs are getting in your way, it may be that you're using the IDE wrong, and that learning how the IDE wants you to alter your workflows may improve your experience. Of course, up to you whether the risk of spending time learning the IDE is likely to be paid back in improved productivity - it doesn't always pay off.
On the post: How Java's Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Java "weakness"
Usually a week or two in C targeting Intel's offload framework is enough to cure me of Java hate for a while.
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