@#56 posted by noen , May 1, 2008 9:42 PM

"Did you even watch the video spoon? He explains why he makes the choices that he does. The reason that the clock universe was seeded with gears and springs was because that is what clocks are made of. He pointedly does not attempt to demonstrate abiogenesis and says so in the video you."

I did not say, or describe abiogenesis, I was looking for extra complexity not in the starting case but in the ability of the things we watch to evolve more freely.

"This makes almost no sense at all. I have to wonder if you are putting us all on and really don't know what you are talking about. Gears aren't complicated, they are flat discs with teeth. Clock hands are thin rectangles. Same with springs."

If you believe that gears aren't complicated, then you obviously discount the power of added complexity in gears, if a gear has a few misshaped teeth it could be useless, but see how much good comes of gears with all their teeth misshaped (healical) or the teeth misshaped and going in the wrong direction (worm.. oh but that's not flat, so does I guess it doesn't fit your limited definition of a gear...)

"There is no need to "add complexity". Indeed this shows that you don't understand what natural selection even is. cdk7000 has several videos, you should check them out. "How Evolution Causes an Increase in Information[complexity]" looks like it might answer that question."

natural selection isn't evolution, it's a part of evolution, the other part is mutation which is what adds complexity, without mutations, and given enough time, all the survivors might very well be exactly the same. When I say add complexity I do not mean that it should be seeded with flywheels also, I mean that a cooler program would allow the gears to mutate into flywheels and see how much more interesting things are... and that's what I would like to see a bigger cooler simulation that allows more complexity(information)

@#51 posted by Scoutmaster , May 1, 2008 9:31 PM

You're right, lets group all the ID believers together as they must all be 'obeying mindlessly' and put them on an island for 'taking precedence over humans rights, where persecution and genocide are born' and then sink that mother into the ocean!... crap that would be a 'might makes right' philosophy and wouldn't eschew violence in the least... you're right, and shame on me for making people think I disagree :)

@#47 posted by dvrcthewrld

Stein hasn't contributed anything new to the ID debate, he's simply dropped LOX onto the fire... The real 'debate' is an extended question and answer session where the evolutionists have decided it's not worth showing up (because it's much more enjoyable to stay home and think about how the human race is going to evolve into a hive mind rather then, the much more realistic prospect of, it destroying itself.)

People tend to just attack with strawmen built to defeat the other sides strawmen... and it's all based on an unwillingness to debate the finer points because, lets face it, that's just too difficult to even bother...

@#40 posted by Chorske

I'm definitely interested in incredibly uncomplicated things (Game of Life/FSM/PDA/Turing machines: the first can emulate all of the last three... it can even emulate the last one emulating the second to last one emulating the second one.. and is easier for a 4 year old to understand what is going on in the first one then any of the last three...) displaying infinitely complex behavior, and I would have gone out, gotten, and read that book if the amazons description hadn't ended with "species may evolve into a "human hive"" which, to me, sounds like the 'individuality is bad' crap that I generally protest, even when dressed up in 'well it's lots of individuals thinking mostly alike!'.

That you associate the words I have written to being for Intelligent Design (with more then a grain of bile even) makes me wonder what Stein and other advocates of ID had to put up with, which is exactly why I feel for the poor buggers, not only are they most likely wrong, but no one is allaying their doubts with any amount of respect. It's like going to a child who cannot yet add and telling them that they're stupid and undeserving for not knowing how exponents work... you don't seem like you want further work done on complex systems arising from uncomplicated parts, you seem like you want pie in the sky assumptions on how even more wildly complicated (and most likely terribly flawed and thus unlikely) systems will arise, like a 'hive mind'...

@#36 posted by noen

It doesn't appear that new clock pieces ever evolve into different pieces (one of the major issues that they have from my limited reading of ID propaganda), the clocks seem to have been 'seeded' with pendulums, gears, springs, and hands :/

I'm sure if complexity (lots of it) was added to the program so that a gear was an incredibly complicated piece with a one in a billion chance of hundreds of the base pairs making a functional one (and all other chances making it horridly decremental) and with springs being another incredibly complex beast, and the hands also being complex, that the result would be the same but over a much longer period of time (or much faster with new methods of time keeping we haven't yet thought of!), but I'm looking for that added complexity :)

A big thanks for the link, theres a one in a million chance I will try to add complexity to the code at some point :D

@#31 posted by Takuan

I would vote for him, but his stance on sacrificing the brains of the living for the good of the zombie populace is just a little bit too far to the left for me.

@#27 posted by Avram , May 1, 2008 7:38 PM

Pretty graphs are my demand which would show upon cross examination of Stein if he is indeed bad shit crazy or just skeptical with years of derision under his belt from dealing with the wrong people. I, for the obligatory one, hope he's just bumped into one too many rabid evolutionaries who don't understand their cause from their own evolved anus... but I'm also optimistic that 99.999% of the world is grey and that Stein, who seems really cool in a lot of ways none of which have to do with his current agenda, isn't part of the .0005% black. Have a little hope, people aren't normally as bad as they seem.

@#20 posted by Nelson.C

The stuff that's already known and told over and over is that random mutations are good here and there, do nothing most places, and are horrible destructive a lot of the time. Then we're told 'but over -billions- of year humans evolve! without any models that show the increase in size of DNA or how millions of random changes to DNA that's been turned off can build up and when finally turned on randomly (over trillions of iterations a day/month/year) finally develop into useful new organs (punctuated equilibrium)... I agree with the idea, and while I'm confident that it's true no one has yet pretty pretty graphs out there that I'm aware of.

I dunno, I still kinda respect Stein. I don't agree with him on the anti evolution tirade he's been sponsoring, but I feel for the ID cause (if only to see it shown to be incredibly unlikely after dissolving it down to the base arguments of 'but how could an eye evolve without a designer?!')

human DNA is 440million bits which evolved in 3.2 billion years. That's a lot of complexity (7 years per bit considering age to procreation vs base pair size) and can easily cause some amount of doubt.

While it's natural for me (a former compsci/math student) to see exponential growth in the length of DNA emerging from mutations that cause DNA to double in size and also bring along some benefit (not necessarily an eye, as that can happen with the non doubling beneficial mutations inbetween), it's even easier to see in larger animals with billion years and only 14 mutations necessary. But no one seems to want to bring this kind of thing up, how exactly does complexity arise in nature? and not just one random mutation to one to three bits of data, but also a couple of random changes and a whole slew of crap attached at the end (obviously this is an edge case, and only has to happen a few times)

Evolution is an amazing law of nature, but it's amazing because of how simple yet complicated it is. I'm all for showing Ben Stein he's wrong, but I'm somehow against attacking him for being skeptical (even if he does evoke Godwins law and call science evil) when one of my greatest wants is to say 'this is how Ben Stein! look at my pretty graphs!! look the amazing data!!! behold its glory in biology & statistics being intertwined!!!!'

I would pay $40-$100 for this piece... if I where a lady and had a boudoir to display it in...

Sounds like the best practice is to send the encrypted information you're looking to protect across the border electronically rather then physically bringing it across yourself.

I would be delighted to see Alice and Bob crossing the border at an airport, Alice would bring her laptop with no information across, while Bob stays behind with the information. After Alice crosses the border Bob sends her the information over a wireless connection and then deletes the information (scrubbing the area where the data was stored) and then crosses the border himself... I just wonder what they would arrest Alice & Bob for... bonus points if Bob sent Alice an encrypted text document containing the Declaration of independence, the constitution & it's amendments, and some cat macros (so the media would pick up on it... hey, ya gotta have something topical)

@#58 posted by Conservationist , April 27, 2008 3:11 PM

Half of people lack intelligence due to biology? is that a joke, an assumption, or based on an actual study across thousands of people and millions of genetic markers? I for one don't believe anyone should even remotely be considering that -ever-

"I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it's not, and that's the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter."

Apples to oranges, there where ways to sink your time before the internet other then TV, sure the internet is good, diversity is good, having choices is good, but the tone of the article rubs me as saying "now that we have Oranges no sane person is going to eat Apples, and anyone who grows apples doesn't understand how f'n juicy and delicious Oranges are... what a bunch of twits! amiright?"

But we all know that Cory writes books, which where long ago replaced by radio, which was replaced by TV, which we are now being told is being replaced by the interbutt... to be fair he does say "It doesn't mean that we'll never sit around mindlessly watching Scrubs on the couch. It just means we'll do it less.", and that's the real rub of it. People who aren't going to join the internet culture anytime soon don't appreciate being told how amazing the mouse is, but almost no one frowns on more choices, I see it everywhere, and I'm pretty sure nearly everyone understands it.

Hell the question of who you would want to be stranded on an island with, Ginger vs Mary Ann, is just that, an eternal question of choice (http://youtube.com/watch?v=8wrEqsTJCmg). Mix and match other options, Xeni Jardin vs Starley Kine, as desired.

@#16 posted by Stacyj

You're right, we do need more banana suits, but we also need fewer kids thinking "but what's the harm?!" after the fact, and fewer parents suing the school because their kids where suspended for disrupting classes.

Back in my day (not so long ago) we disrupted class and did foolish crap that we wouldn't do today, but we also took our lumps reasonably. No one complained when they where suspended for getting into fights, and no one blogged about the unfairness of of the world when half the class was given given detention for chanting 'AV, AV, AV, AV' in an obviously derogatory manner at the end of a shoddily done (and mandatory) production of Alice in wonderland.

#11 posted by jimh

All the time, but I don't see any reason why seniors should be held to a lower standard then freshmen, perhaps when all the kids are disrupting class by dressing in gorilla suits to get a couple of laughs and nothing 'bad' happens to them you'll wonder why your kids don't know how to add or subtract.

oh noes! suspension!!!! the only possible way you can stay home from school without your parents being able to say no... It's tragic! really!!

Heaven will take note that kids weren't allowed to disrupt the teaching process in whichever way they could think of!!! Students weren't given higher marks for decreasing the time teachers have to educate students in a day, the US sucks!!! I'm pretty sure we're a little bit closer to the apocalypses because of this! Students should surely graduate early for dressing up in costumes and running about the halls!!!

Seriously though Mark, you're not serious are you? Do you really believe that since they where close to graduating the rules should go out the window? perhaps we just move all limitations back a bit. I can see it now "you only killed three people by not stopping at that red light, but it was only red for five seconds, so that's a gimme!", "Well, you nuked Iran, eight times, but you're really close to ending your term as presidency Mr. Bush, so it's all good, just don't do it again before you're out of office."

@#3 posted by Porori

Yesssssss, you do that, horde as much butter as you can! My purchase of butter futures and the, milky yellow, spreading of 'butter shortage' messages across the interbutts will ensure my little futures will triple in price before I sell them off in a week! oil was so last month, this month it's all about butter futures!!! bwhahahahaahahah.

@#76 posted by Daemon , April 21, 2008 5:37 PM

And how many law abiding, tax paying gun owners out there are unhappy because people like you blame guns for mans inhumanity toward man? they're just inanimate objects that need to be treated with respect and caution, people like you would have parents lock their children up in the house until age 21 because the world is 'dangerous!'

Switzerland seems to do just fine giving every 20 year old male who hasn't figured out how to get out of military duty a full automatic riffle and ammunition to use (against any foreign invaders, one hopes). Hell, they even let the kids (20 year olds) carry them around willy nilly (well.. respectfully, and it might not happen as much now as it did 30 years ago, but it still happens)

Gttng klld by gn vlnc s fr lss lkly thn gttng klld by yr mthr wh dcds tht shs nt 'rdy' t brng y t trm nd gv y wy, bt gss nc yr brn y knd ls sght f ll th nfrtnt stff tht hppns t chldrn dpndnt f th cr f thr mthrs (nt: 'm fr mthrs^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwmns rght t chs, t ths pnt n my lf hr n rth, nd whl 'm fr gn rghts dn't ctlly wn, r pln t by, gn)

Not too surprising, the Amish are supposed to be really happy people too, it's all a life style thing. The real question is would happiness increase or decrease on average among a group of non gun owners who where given guns for a year. I think I would be less happy to go Amish for a year, which is why I haven't gone out and started living the Amish life style.

Getting around the 100% mac tax, nice.

@#63 posted by scottfree &
@#79 posted by Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

I don't think traditional capitalism is bad or evil, and you can assume that I've had choices I've felt where better suited for -me- in supporting all of my necessities and obligations, and I would agree. But the absolute worst in payment that I've received was the job I look most fondly back on.

I worked at a Burger King for three years and loved my coworkers and employers (at least everyone below the regional management), I could have lived on the meager wage with the assumption that I would not get terribly sick (and never have a car, and never go on vacation(which I still haven't), and never have cable T.V(still don't) and not have a nice computer... etc etc), which where risks that caused me to act on the choice of taking a different job that I felt more comfortable with, despite the nastier coworkers and more emotionally/mentally draining tasks.

Ultimately you're right, the choice between Burger King and being homeless & starving wasn't as bad as working for a 'dick' or starving... but I did know several people who chose to leave Burger King to be unemployed for a month before finding a job at a different establishment (coincidentally I would have not enjoyed working where they ended up more then burger king) but I don't see that as a fault of traditional capitalism as no other system other then surrealism would have suited any of them (and to be sure I do not think any of the coworkers who left burger king to be stupid or undeserving, and I do not feel those unable to obtain employment at burger king to be stupid or undeserving)

Here is the rest of the known economic models explained by cows (no credit to myself, you should be able to find this freely on the internet)

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.

THE ANDERSEN MODEL: You have two cows. You shred them.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count Them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.

IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a Democracy....

WELSH CORPORATION: You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive.

#44 posted by scottfree

Good thing you both have agreed upon the wage that makes it worth while to put up with his dickishness eh? or are you slave labor?

@this thread

It's too bad the world isn't perfect, or we would all be stuck with the inability to complain... which would make the world imperfect.

On second thought, perhaps the perfect world would allow us the ability to complain about not being able to complain! I stand corrected...

Sounds like Bureaucratism to me, but with pigs... I suppose thats Canadbureaucratism eh?

SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows, and you give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, then throws the milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

@#19 posted by sswaan

Hopefully you're not searching for CP at work, or looking at /b/ as neither are work safe.

/b/ is the 3rd circle of interweb hell, it's a message board on a website that is not to be named.

CP is either Child Porn or Captain Picard depending on it's usage e.g: "CP is awesome" clearly refers to Captain Picard and "CP is filthy" obviously refers to Child Pornography.

The housing crisis isn't that banks lied and said 'you can afford this' it's that house prices went down and the banks hadn't gotten enough down payment to cover the loss of value of the house.

Critical thinking time: Who controls the price of houses?

From what I understand people are suggesting that the mortgage crisis might hit the UK and Europe.

Critical thinking time: Who controls the price of houses?

Now... who's fault is all of this?

It -ALMOST- sounded like the professor is looking to copyleft his work so that others cannot profit by taking near exact copies of his lectures and sell them to new students... almost.

@coyote

Or perhaps a random mutation that allows them to thrive in a different environment?

@bogartnoir

I totally agree, but I still don't understand why they haven't made holding a gun to someones head and making them get a mortgage illegal :/

As for tax dollars being spent on stupid stuff I really wish they would get rid of all those silly tax breaks for home owners, they could put that money to good use determining the laws of physics.

Actually, maybe I don't agree with you :(

@Antinous

Sorry, I responded prior to reading roye's post, or even re-reading the original quote from a post. I'm still not sure it's an organized response, but damn! roye sounds like he/she has an opinion that's worth something.

At any rate, I'm sorry to have commented, I should have known this was a contentious issue and not to be publicly commented upon from someone with no real opinion (me). I no longer think you sound like you need to be medicated... well maybe a little bit, but so does roye (this is the internet after all)

@Antinous

I'm not aware of the detail of Tibet, but Walmart seems to get far more derision then it should (see pen & tellers Bullshit season 5 episode 2 for the only anti anti walmart material I've ever seen)

While I'm sure people can organize and rally for/against subject matter as it appears on a popular website I'm reluctant to believe it's happening lest some evidence be presented (read: link to a website that is organizing people to post, which should be easy enough with google no?) otherwise people seem like they're worried about nothing: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_is_the_government

In re-reading your post, my post, and the post of Tisch1017 (without bothering with the original thread) I can kinda see where you're coming from, but at the same time my initial thought is still there, Tisch1017 is saying adoption from foreign countries isn't all bad (perhaps 99.99% not bad) and you seem to think they're a stooge because they wrote something that seems too well thought out? that would be good and dandy with proof, but alas you have no supportive material, you're just sounding like you need to be medicated... which is ok! you're probably just new to the interwebs...

Why would anyone attempt to pacify a baby during a kidnapping? If anything (I would think) they would use a much stronger sedative on the unsuspecting woman who was carrying the infant. Ths pst rds s f t hd bn hmrrhgd t f bvns ns.

@Antinous: WTF are you talking about? Tische1017 seems to feel that this story is anti adoption from foreign countries, and what does anecdotal (personal experience) experiences have to do with comments? are all comments supposed to deal with past experiences (rd: ttr mscnstrd tsh)

@Spikeles

The Enders shadow series was great, and Enders game was awesome, but I try not to think of the other stories...

Cory, Didn't you recently belittle someone for complaining about one of your posts, since they 'didn't like the flavor of the free ice cream'?

Do you think people shouldn't complain/criticize things that are free? or well, ad sponsored...

Wow, I completely missed #1 already pointing it out, I feel stupendously silly...

So Mark, critical thinking time... the point here would be to make it harder to turn the lights on? wouldn't doing so make your kids, who I would assume are rational, more inclined to not turn them off?

It's a neat idea, in that it makes devices harder to toggle(I assume you can make it hard to turn stuff off too!), but how does this make anyone more likely to toggle it? (aside from new owners and 5 year olds) isn't this targeted at controlling devices you don't want turned off/on? it would be used to keep something on/off.

Unless I'm missing something stupendously obvious, which I do -ALL THE TIME-

Yes Rajio it's english.

I thought the official stance from commenter's on boingboing when it comes to digital media is that DRM is bad!, copying media isn't 'stealing'!, and that sharing digital media shouldn't be a prosecutable crime.

I'm shocked at anyone disagrees with #6!

I would rather the pig have a life, then not have a life at all... but I might be mistaken in my thinking that the pigs slaughtered aren't wild (having been captured and taken from their babies)

I would definitely feel better about my food if the meat I ate where given the five star treatment (I want some rockstar beef!)

@Val

I think some people worry that your suggested process is exactly the same as scanning you and printing a new copy of you out on the moon (using a giant vat of boiling goo for parts). Then when you ask the teleportation machine 'why am I not on the moon?' it wouldn't even bother telling you that you are on the moon and that your old body needs to be turned back into goo here on earth so that the machine has enough matter to print out a copy of someone from the moon, it'll just go about its process of turning you into goo which would be very very painful(sedating the meat bag with chemicals prior to initiating the reclamation process is obviously completely unnecessary)

How's that different from what you suggested? and would you want to go to the moon in this manner?

@Occluded

You don't have to read negative comments either, or comment on not agreeing with them.

So what if it's not groundbreaking criticism? so what if the criticism wasn't easy on the eyes? and aren't these comments free as well?

Honestly, you're being exposed to others views on art and are at least a tiny bit enriched by the experience at no cost to you, yet you talk down on those who did so?

I can't believe the two of us!

@jonathan29

That's the reason why I liked the idea of Stargate so much, they had a method of moving from one place to another without being killed. Then some jerk writer came up with a silly episode where Tealc gets trapped inside the memory buffer of the stargate on earth and Carter explains that the stargates work just like the transporters in star trek... it's a shame they had to have that one stupid episode.

@Derek C. F. Pegritz

Cogito, ergo sum...

I subtract one internets from every noob who doesn't understand what a trademark is and why Yoko is awesome for standing up to Murphy's shady attempt to trademark a name, especially the name of one of the greatest artists of all time.

It's laughable that her post goes from Yoko "asking for a cancellation of the trademark" Into "I don't want to lose my name all because someone is bored in their life of luxury." I have to wonder if Murphy doesn't understand that dropping the trademark doesn't mean she can't keep using the name Lennon, or if she's just an ultra emo attention whore... I guess either ways it's massive lulz.

@gobi desert

Doesn't it depend on what taken off to appear in court means? I would think any disaster of miscommunication like this -should- require the actors involved to testify as to what happened in some manner.

@Patrick Dodds

It's interesting that you include suicides in the deaths by gunfire, get rid of those and deaths in the US would be cut in half.

Where was the nun rape?

@Cowicide, I'm sorry but before you start the online revolution and put those 'responsible' up against the wall you better be able to do a better job then them, otherwise the next revolution will only be a couple of weeks away and you'll be up against the wall. So either come up with what 'common sense' would have been or essteeefyou.

Calling them chavs just seemed like the right thing to do, this bein the i'nernet and all, I suppose if I have to back the claim up then as noted they are from Devon and from the article: their mother is under investigation by The US Administration for Children and Families... nuff said? but seriously it sounds so unreasonable but is also reasonable if you think that she checked herself out of the hospital against doctors stern warnings so that she could go shopping and to a show, all a day after collapsing and being rushed to the hospital without the strength to wave goodbye to her kids, seems kinda irresponsible to me. I would hope they investigate American parents who act like that (note: investigate, which does not mean ruin their lives)

@Cowicide

It's pitiful that you can complain about how horrid a couple of chavs who didn't like the pants they where given where treated when they where treated just like any American in their situation would be treated. And how more humanly can one be treated? should they have taken the special delicate foreigners to the Hilton and gotten them the presidential suite? because they're foreign and should be treated better then the locals amiright?

If you where to complain about how social services treats incoming cases I could understand that complaint, and suggest that you take time to volunteer at a local facility to better understand why questioning abandoned children, or children taken from their negligent parents might be asked if they had ever been sexually abused. They might even explain why they ask if the children are in gangs, or why they make them shower and don't leave them alone for a few days (perhaps the incoming kids could be suicidal?)

so really now, what should have been done? you need to draw up a step by step plan on what should be done for incoming children who have been abandoned/have no one to take care of them(for whatever reason).

Why do comments never include what should have happened? or what would have happened in another country?

From the link #1 posted it sounds like the girls didn't have an awful time but where instead freaked out initially(who wouldn't be, their mom was in the hospital after being rushed there via ambulance and didn't even have the strength to wave goodbye)

So what is a reasonable amount of time someone should be allowed to purposefully trap a police officer and his car before being arrested?

I can see how he would be aggravated with the situation, it's not like the old hag (definitely not a woman or a lady) would have said 'oh theres a 911 call from three blocks away, and you're the closest? well I'll move my car then' if she wouldn't move it up a few feet so he could get out, or move it at all after receiving her order.

I feel sorry for the officer.

That's about right for Florida's school systems.

#8

If you lie it's obstruction, if you keep silent based on your rights it's not. If someone else knew the pass phrase and they where to subpoenaed that person they might face obstruction charges if they don't hand it over (unless that where to break some other natural right they have)

If you knew your files would be searched or in any way a part of an investigation (or could be helpful to it) and thus encrypted/deleted them then it could be obstruction, but then theres also that whole innocent until proven guilty thing.

I hate to nitpick, but I went shopping for remotes for my parents last week and not having a mute button is definitely a deal breaker, they and my grandparents (92 & 87 years old) all rely on mute extensively, I would almost say they push mute more then the volume, power, and channel buttons all put together. At any rate, that's the best remote control I've ever seen, way better then the ones with just a power button! One more button and they've got themselves the best remote control ever made.

@#23 posted by fnord

Perhaps you should look up the definition of Gambling?

I have to wonder how accurate the translation is since whoever did it doesn't have a solid grasp of English, spell checking, and completely skips over the number 3... or was this done by the swiss government? how is it over there nowadays? do they write 'laws' in German, French, Italian or English?

"Forbidden is: to Produce, Import, Offer, sell, distribute, rent out, lend, advertise and posess for comercial use of Contraptions, products, parts and Services which:"

I tend to think thats really shoddy writing and can't possibly express the intent of the law, it should probably read along the lines of

"Forbidden is to: Produce, Import, Offer, Sell, Distribute, Rent out, Lend, Advertise, or Posses, any: Contraptions, Products, Parts, or Services, for commercial use."

I probably botched the grammar up too, but not as badly as theirs, note how it ends with 'for commercial use' which tends to mean you're allowed to distribute for educational purposes which pretty much blows all the objects to it out of the water, especially when they end by saying you're allowed to do it as long as you're 'primarly' doing it lawfully.

But if the nonsensical translation that's been provided is what the law intends to be then I agree with you completely.

@#18 posted by noen

No I'm pretty sure the post is about the quote “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.” which is understandable and reasonable if you think for a second.

Why should a court care about foreign laws that where broken when procuring a person charged with a crime in their locality? does a crime simply disappear when a law in another country is broken? Where in the world would a court not be legally allowed to continue with a case because the person charged with a crime was brought forth contrary to a law in another country?

I definitely have a problem with it not going through the official diplomatic channels, but that a law doesn't exist in the US that says something to the effect of "since the Canadians who handed you over broke a Canadian law, we wont here this case" isn't surprising in the least, and I seriously doubt it would be different anywhere else in the world.

#10 posted by Johan Larson

I hope you're under the impression that this was a clandestine operation involving parachutes, night vision and several black helicopters. I hope that about everyone who has said something nasty about the US because of this article...

The guy went to Canada, the Canadians where told to hold him and they did (which is presumably legal under Canadian law), then Cory wrote a post that sounds really terrible, but if you think about it for a minute is completely reasonable.

Yay to complete anarchy in the tubes of the interwebs!

It would be terrible if my broadband provider could actually guarantee me a minimum of X bandwidth a second to do as I please and Y bandwidth for IPTV and Z bandwidth for Voice over IP, that just wouldn't be neutral! I would hate to be able to pay for a particular service that requires consistent access to the data line, I want them to have to run multiple lines to my house to get reliable service! All of this non neutrality talk just doesn't sit well with those of us who have no idea how packet shaping can be used for good.

Yay to talking about stuff we don't really understand!!

Great to hear!

Viacom is finally publicly exercising their right to do, with their media, something that the online community absolutely loves to see. It's been a long time coming, and I'm sure almost as long in development and committee.

It's also great to hear the complaints against viacoms offerings (DRM: yuck! adverts: who needs em spliced in like that, well aside for profit...)

It's nice that we finally see the start of something that might work. To get the interweb on their side they just have to do start moving in the direction of creating a way for users to upload edits of their videos, I'm sure they will want final cut (yuck, but also understandable) I'm fairly sure the time is coming when every media company has a youtube like offering, it's too bad youtube didn't work with the media companies, who's work they where profiting off of, to offer custom solutions for the media companies holdings, you know, act like a cable company/service provider for them, and also offer up a place for the average user.

Having every media company using youtube to allow sections of their work to be used mashed up with other media companies work with everything properly cited would have been absolutely amazing, but youtube didn't understand how much of an effect cooperation and a huge amount of support would have had. Now we just have to wait for Viacom to do the same research and development youtube did, and the extra effort of figuring out how to get user created work into the mix, and then how to cooperate with other media giants to merge their holding together in a way the interwebs would enjoy. It's going to be a long ride, but at least we've hit another mile marker, I'm having a beer to celebrate.

@Blackandy

I agree that copyrights extend far beyond what they should, and wish that a rational discussion would follow about the length of copyright. Perchance you have better term limits in mind?

The copyleft movement and majority of pirates however are "frequently debating what it means to “steal” something as amorphous as a digital file." And even our dear Mr Doctorow feels it's appropriate to buy a CD, rip it, and keep the mp3's for use after giving the physical CD to charity (so they can sell it back to the public, which is the same as just downloading a copy off the interwebs and giving some money to charity) they have no care for how long copyrights last, almost all downloads are for media that was made in the last 5 years.

The movement isn't fighting against the RIAA by downloading songs/music/books/movies that where recorded 20 years ago, they are fighting to allow free download of todays music/movies/games/books. When rational people begin congratulating the RIAA on going after digital aged thieves, reprimanding them for the 1 or so out of 500 cases we feel is going a bit too far, and having a reasonable discussion about copyright terms, then progress will be being made.

It would help too if people would stop spending more money on text messaging and soda then they do on movies/music/books/games, which do you enjoy more people? quality media or sugar water and text messages?

@Claudius Phaedrus #10

The grand, glorious, totally-different future that came from the printing press didn't take money away from anyone but those who spent their days toiling to copy character by character an entire book, this lowered the cost of books so that they where obtainable by the commoner (expanding culture)

The grand, glorious, totally-different future that awaits the destruction of copyright is that people would get art for free and no one could make a living creating the art (shrinking culture)

Free culture and copy left is just a movement to make Advertising executives more money by moving the monetization of art further away from artists. People spend next to nothing on art (movies, music, games and the like) as it is, and people want to give the artists even less.

If distributing a persons song who would otherwise want money for it became legal almost no one would buy music, movies, or games, and only those who had popular distribution sites would make money.

If shoplifting where legal, how many people would take the time to stand in line at the checkout counter?

Is it just me, or does it seem wholly understandable and reasonable to not let someone sell their .mp3 file? If they where transferable then anyone could say 'my friend gave it to me' to these files if they downloaded it for free on the interwebs. With CD's, records, or tapes its not so easy, one would have to meticulously make an exact copy of the media, with files the computer does it with a point and click.

Without some sort of constraint on the transfer of easily (a second grader can do it) copied media pirating would basically be fully legal. Big media makes less money then cell phone providers do on text messaging, perhaps you should be targeting the much much bigger thieves? Or just showing a media distribution method that works for everyone that doesn't condone the -massive- piracy that plagues the industry today.

@cory

What's the motivation for someone who has a perfect copy of a CD, and the music loaded onto their iPod, to go out and buy a CD? aside from the trip to the mall where we are all treated like scum?

Back when I had to deal with low quality tape dubs, and struggled to get a friend who owned the CD to remember to bring it into school, or to tape it for me, it was understandable that I and a lot of other kids went out and bought the crystal clear CD quality sound that wouldn't wear out after 20 plays, but now? are you serious?

So what's the motivation to buy a CD? and don't give me that load of 'the art that comes with it!' because I don't know anyone who seriously fawns over the cd case, or book binding for that matter, its not the cover that makes us love the music/book, didn't you ever learn that you can't judge a book/music by its cover?

Am I the only person who remembers napster suddenly sucking when the first round of lawsuits went out and the number of people sharing their music (and not buying music anymore) went from 95% to 10%? Or am I way off base on that?

The only people I've ever heard talk about not buying albums because of the RIAA are techies who don't actually own any CDs and never have. And all the non techies who don't follow the lawsuit/DRM news don't download music because it's illegal and they think they would get cough or infected with a virus if they tried.

is the music and movie industry really loosing customers over the lawsuits, or are they loosing customers because the 12-23 year olds who are strapped for cash have ipods and computers and can pirate music/movies off of the three or four major 'warez' groups and don't have to trade the music/movies like we used to do in school? There is obviously a big difference between one out of eight kids having the new greenday/metallica CD and letting other kids borrow and type it and no one actually owning the cd.

All I have is anecdotal evidence from the few kids I know, but none of them own a CD or trade music, they trade video games and know about bit torrent.

@Cory

I've never researched the idea of 'fingerprinting' media but I know there are a few companies working on watermarks (yes they could be removed) and other ways of determining how close mediasample1 is to mediasample2. You're very right that there is no 100% way of doing this since copyright law doesn't lay out a crystal clear line of what's infringing and what is fair use, and even if it did there would most likely be no efficient way to compare samples quickly and accurately. Also: I never said that these systems worked well, just that big Media wishes big Internet would take this seriously. And if you could block as much copyright infringement as you could block spam, you would probably make much more money then the spam blockers.

Wouldn't the online filters only check against copyrights that had been submitted, and possibly verified? Who in their right mind would think it would be an exhaustive list of every copyright ever?

Filters would not look for 'exact' copies they would look at 'fingerprints'. Do you really think the FBI compares .bmp's of peoples fingerprints pixel by pixel to what's in their database stopping if its not an exact match?

I'm pretty sure you know better, so please, stop building straw men, or at least don't put them so close to a slippery slope, idiots believe this crap and are so loud no one can focus on the real issues.

@deweyeyed #22

Cory is giving the original away (or selling it, which is the same thing) and keeping the digital copy for use. The continued use of the copy after the origonal has been sold/given away is against copyright law (and if there is some loophole it should be plugged). There is no EULA needed for this to be wrong, he is copying a work, which he owns so it's fine, and then selling that work and keeping his copy (which is/should be against copyright law) This is just like renting a DVD and keeping a copy of it forever.

@Maurice Reeves #24

"If I want to have ten copies at home I should be allowed, just as if I'm allowed to photocopy the contents of a book for a paper or article and keep the archived copies even if the source materials exists somewhere else (i.e., the library)...or are the lot of you arguing against Cory going to say that we should all go out and purchase copies of the book every time we wish to reference it? Why should it be different between a book and a CD?"

If you want to make 10 copies of something you own, that's fine, you absolutely can do that while you still 'own' the original (selling, giving it away, or while its on loan to someone else means you don't 'own' it anymore). If you borrow a book from the library and copy more then fair use to be used after you have returned the book then you are infringing on the copyright of the book (note: copyright, not EULA).

If you copy more then 'fair use' would allow and if its taken to court when you 'reference' something then you're infringing on the copyright. Think of it like this: If you buy the new harry potter book, which is still protected by copyright , and proceed to write a book that is a character named Maurice saying *insert whole text of the new harry potter book* and then sell that book over and over again, you are breaking copyright law.

@cory

Giving the CD away to charity doesn't prevent it from going to the landfill it just keeps it out of the landfill for a few years (Think offsets, except instead of driving villagers in some African country out of their homes, burning them to the ground and then planting trees, you're getting someone else to store the CD on its inevitable journey to the bin, CONGRATULATIONS YOU'RE NOW A BETTER PERSON)

You talk about giving it away to charity because that's 'noble', but what prevents the charity from selling it? That the proceeds of some illegal action go to charity doesn't make it right.

Could I make a website where I would 'loan' a copy of an audio book out to whoever wanted it? and would it go too far if I where to only 'loan' it to the person while their download of a digital copy was in progress? I could make one hell of an ad sponsored web page!

What would be wrong with this setup? I would ensure that only one person could be downloading per physical item at a time... I know your not a lawyer but come on... does it matter that I'm the one making the copy? How about I claim that I'm loaning the whole computer to the person while the copy is being made? What percent of the ad money should go to charity to make this noble?

@neon

Sure, but the worlds smallest violin doesn't do justice to the inequity faced here as students who want to save a buck, but can't be bother to ask professors which books they will need ahead of time, face off, lazily, against a college that has a system in place so that a book is available at 99% of all moments during the semester (during business hours at least) and is ---hesitant--- to challenge the status quo.

And don't pretend the site doesn't make money because they don't sell direct, they're basically selling links on their site. They make money when anyone buys a book at the linked sites through referrer programs... OH HOW NOBLE.

@Cory w/ respect to posts 3,4,5

Yes, landfill them (after destroying them so that no one else can use it) but also write an angry letter to the manufacturer stating that you would buy more and pollute less by allowing the product to be downloaded, and use the appropriate channels to lobby to get things towards the state you would like them to be in.

What you are doing is illegal but so nice as to not get yelled at for doing it. I can't buy a CD rip it, then sell the CD and still listen to the music. Just like I can't download the music, burn it, and then sell/give away the copy, it wouldn't be right, and you should know better.

I'm betting they where writing down a whole lot more then ISBN numbers, because ISBN numbers by themselves are useless (unless you have some strange/awesome fetish). The students must have been writing down the Course number which could produce: Course name, Course title, Teacher. and the ISBN which could produce: Book title, Author, Edition. I'm betting they wrote all of it down, not just the ISBN and Course number.

So basically their intention is to compete with the bookstore (competition is good, don't get me wrong) except they believe they shouldn't have to do the legwork of organizing and developing a way to get the information.

They could lobby the school, with enough support and massive effort they could get the records of: course number and relevant books put online every year and not just supplied to the bookstore. This would allow every student to look up what they need simply (of course that would be bad for these punks, since they are most likely trying to make money)

What they are doing seems underhanded to me, but I'm pretty sure the bookstore has no right to guard the information by kicking students out under the normal campus bookstore setup where all the information is prominently displayed for consideration prior to deciding to buy. All of this seems like a bad route to take though (compared to getting the school to make this information free to the public) because the bookstore can modify their practices to be more like the store at my alma matter which took your class schedule and ran into the back to get the appropriate books making it harder to look at the book and decide if you really want/need it (they didn't do this to hurt the students, they did it to help them by making getting books easy for the basket weaving majors (not to be confused with the underwater basket weaving majors, who are obviously superior) who couldn't find the right book to save their life)

This development sounds like it's bad for everyone. Students should demand their school publish the required, optional, suggested books well in advance of courses starting for free (as in speech) and also free (as in beer!)

The tl;dr makes me wonder: Is there a word that means both Libre and Gratis? Free speech -and- Free beer? It would be the ultimate awesomeness.