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  • On the post: Please Help Us Figure Out How Much The Public Has 'Lost' Due To Overprotective Anti-Copy Laws

    freak ( profile ), 24 May, 2011 @ 12:54pm

    Re:

    . . .? Ignore this post, it's a partial double-post of the post below. I'm not sure how that happened.

  • On the post: Please Help Us Figure Out How Much The Public Has 'Lost' Due To Overprotective Anti-Copy Laws

    freak ( profile ), 24 May, 2011 @ 12:54pm

    My methodology was simple, and limited in scope.

    I compared my largest per-year consumption of copyrighted works, (ignoring barely significant sources), to my current consumption.

    My largest consumption was during my childhood, when the local library provided as many books as I could read, (until I had read everything in there, availability drops to nothing), and through trading, betting, begging parents, scraping together money and buying tons of them really cheap at garage sales, I bought A LOT of video games.

    Anyhoo, assuming $60/game and $20/book, (a good estimate of cost these days, yeah?), that gives me nearly $80,000 in goods I would have otherwise consumed.


    I am still unhappy with the scope of this estimate, however, because I feel that feel that making books and games free, as these calculations estimate, is not assuming good copyright laws. I want 'weaker' copyright laws, not the abolishment of them.

  • On the post: Please Help Us Figure Out How Much The Public Has 'Lost' Due To Overprotective Anti-Copy Laws

    freak ( profile ), 24 May, 2011 @ 12:50pm

    My methodology was simple, and limited in scope.

    I compared my largest per-year consumption of copyrighted works, (ignoring barely significant sources), to my current consumption.

    My largest consumption was during my childhood, when the locasl library

  • On the post: European Politicians Look To Ban WiFi In School… For The Children

    freak ( profile ), 20 May, 2011 @ 06:42pm

    Re: Re: Re: Glad to see the EU finally getting wise to the real problem,

    "but might be surprised at what you never knew"

    It's hacker culture, that's a given. Geez, I still remember the first version of the jargon file I found . . .

    By this time, I've already tracked down this email to one of it's earliest incarnations, and the email appears to be genuine; in that the parts that struck me as suspect, including the signature, were added later. It was at least definitely meant to be attributed to mister Robert Tappan Morris.

  • On the post: European Politicians Look To Ban WiFi In School… For The Children

    freak ( profile ), 20 May, 2011 @ 11:17am

    Re: Glad to see the EU finally getting wise to the real problem,

    I hadn't previously heard this version of the story, but is that THE rtm responding?

    Several things about that response strike me as odd, for example, the fact that he signs it "RTM III" instead of his usual "rtm".

    Is there a larger website you pulled this from? I wouldn't mind taking a look over some hacker folklore I somehow haven't encountered yet.

  • On the post: European Politicians Look To Ban WiFi In School… For The Children

    freak ( profile ), 20 May, 2011 @ 09:06am

    Man, we should totally ban radio to create electromagnetic free zones around schools.

  • On the post: DHS's ICE Group Accused Of Lying To Court About Expense Of Complying With FOI Request

    freak ( profile ), 19 May, 2011 @ 02:02pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: The truth DOES NOT always lie somewhere in between

    Turns out the truth is somewhere in-between that . . .

  • On the post: Why Red Hat Is Wrong That It's Better To Just Pay Patent Trolls Sometimes

    freak ( profile ), 06 May, 2011 @ 02:26pm

    Re: RedHat's strategy can be reasonable

    I'm not sure what you're saying either; Mind if I try re-wording it to see if I have it right?

    Red Hat will not exist infinitely; Even assuming that to be true, the patent system will eventually change and the problem will shift/fail to be significant at some point in the future.

    On an infinite timeline, discouraging trolls, (and all others), is always profitable, no matter the short-term cost.

    On a finite timeline, the cost and strength of each lawsuit could be weighed to produce a threshold above which it is worthwhile to fight, and below which, the lifetime cost of the lawsuits will likely fall beneath the short-term more expensive cost of fighting and thus discouraging them permanently.

    (This is assuming troll lawsuits).

    The threshold is further raised because if the money is, instead of fighting, spent developing new software & techniques, there will be less 'strong' lawsuits in the first place.

    Is this the gist of what you were saying?

  • On the post: Sony Blames Anonymous For Latest Hack…

    freak ( profile ), 04 May, 2011 @ 03:23pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sony, ye idee-yits!!

    The usually accepted substitute for strike-through where unavailable is an appropriate amount of ^H's. It comes from older networks and computers where some programs didn't recognize the backspace key.

  • On the post: Canadians Ignore Ban On Tweeting Election Results

    freak ( profile ), 03 May, 2011 @ 08:19am

    Re: Re: Newfoundland needs to vote too...

    Okay. There ARE advance polls to vote in, (3 days of them), and your employer is required to ensure you have 3 consecutive hours to vote. (Which isn't the same as 3 hours off; if polls close at 7:00, and you normally leave work at 5:00, your employer can send you home at 4:00).

    IF they think this is a big problem that some people get to see results first. I don't think it is.

  • On the post: Latest Wikileaks Release Shows How US Completely Drove Canadian Copyright Reform Efforts

    freak ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2011 @ 01:13pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Of note: The NDP has it's budget completely worked out, and checked over by a 3rd party.

    I would go on for much longer on this issue if it wasn't obvious your only source of info has been an attack ad.

  • On the post: Latest Wikileaks Release Shows How US Completely Drove Canadian Copyright Reform Efforts

    freak ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2011 @ 06:18am

    Re:

    If he gets elected, it'll be as a minority gov't.

    That's increasingly unlikely; throughout a lot of Canada, there is an anti-conservative movement. The NDP currently commands 30% of the polls, compared to 34-36% for the CPC . . . but while the CPC has 7% of the second choice, the NDP have 25% of the second choice.

    If people follow the news and polls and realize that the NDP are ahead of the liberals/green/BQ in their district, because of the afore mentioned ABC movement, it will become a race between the orange and blue, which means considering the second-choice vote. At that point, the polls suggest a 42% conservative, 55% NDP split. (I'm not considering how many of the NDP voter's second-choice is conservative, or how many of the conservative voter's second-choice is NDP)


    But let's assume he gets a minority gov't.
    While Iggy has said there won't be a lib-dem coalition, IMO he was counting on a con-minority with liberal opposition, instead of a con-minority with NDP opposition. And there is a great difference between making concessions with the NDP to gain power, than having the NDP make concessions with you to gain power.


    BTW . . . latest polls suggest the NDP are more popular than the BQ in Quebec, (40% to 20%). That's hella popular.

  • On the post: Latest Wikileaks Release Shows How US Completely Drove Canadian Copyright Reform Efforts

    freak ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2011 @ 06:05am

    Re:

    "The leaks say nothing, don't pay attention to them"

    Maybe you haven't read enough of them, then.


    I have a different focus, being Canadian and an election looming, so forgive the tangential example I am about to give.

    It's somewhat telling, for example, that the Harper gov't was told by the American diplomat that organized crime, slave and drug trade from and to BC were increasing, (and not just "we think there's more", but detailed dossiers on the players in the region, in terms of organizations, AND leaders, AND locations of interest/activity), and after that point, the harper gov't cut funding to BC police, (forgive the oversimplification there, but that was the end effect), failed to enact legislation that was already passed that would aid the police in that region, as well as other legislation that would prevent abuse of pre-trial custody credit. "Tough on crime". As if.

    It's one thing to see those actions. It's quite another to know just how detailed the info was the CPC had and that they had it before they performed any of these actions . . . and also that the diplomats kept reminding them.

  • On the post: Replying To An Email Does Not Create A Contract (And Does Not Require Walmart Pay $600 Billion)

    freak ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2011 @ 04:39am

    IANAL, but AFAIK, this falls under a criminal rate of interest. Which is 60% per annum in Canada, what is it in the States?

  • On the post: Sony Admits That Playstation Hacker Got Tons Of Info, Including Passwords

    freak ( profile ), 26 Apr, 2011 @ 03:02pm

    Re:

    I wonder how much of that was figuring out what was actually taken?

    Right now, it appears that they're saying some info from ALL of the PSN's users was compromised . . . that's a lot to check in one week, isn't it?


    That being said, they could easily have started the week with: "We're afraid that some personal information could've been compromised".

  • On the post: If You Can't Understand The Difference Between Money And Content, You Have No Business Commenting On Business Models

    freak ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2011 @ 03:20pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    . . .what?

    That seems to be a retarded argument on first read, let me read it again.

    Okay, I've read it again.

    If I read you right, I copied this album from a band I really enjoy because I wanted $17 in my pocket, not because I enjoy the music?

    Even if you DO think that makes a glimmer of sense, I WOULD pay that $17 IF I could easily pay it in my country. Alas, the band is not known in this hemisphere of the world, does not sell here, and I'm not really willing to put forth a couple of days concentrated effort to try and find a way I could get the album legally purchased and shipped to me.

    No, I am copying the album only for it's intrinsic value.


    But let's forget anecdotal evidence. Let's look at jamendo, and all those people sharing music for free, because they want that precious $0 in their pocket.

    /sarcasm


    I assume I misunderstood you somehow. How did I?

  • On the post: If You Can't Understand The Difference Between Money And Content, You Have No Business Commenting On Business Models

    freak ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2011 @ 10:26am

    Re: Question

    Money is scarce because the bills themselves are not the money, but the value behind the bills is scarce.

    If I print more bills, now I have more bills, and more money, but everyone else has less money held in the same number of bills.

    That doesn't change when the value behind the bill changes from gold to fiat currency.


    So if you just print out what you want, well, look at the inflation in Zimbabwe as an example.

  • On the post: Canadians Face Fines & Jail Time If They Tweet Election Result News Prior To West Coast Poll Closings

    freak ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2011 @ 08:02am

    The law is silly for quite a few reasons.

    One? Just watch tv from a station to the east of you before you go vote.

    Newfoundlanders, for example, always get the results in realtime throughout election night.
    Oh, hey, people with satellite TV can watch NTV, and get the results anyways.

    But, they are perfectly correct in that it will change how people vote; It usually notably effects Alberta, wherein people might vote for a local liberal party member because they like his policies, (not so much the party's), but as a result of seeing the conservatives gain less seats than expected, vote for the local conservative member instead.

    There are several less stupid solutions that will fix this. For example, close the polls across Canada at the same time. That means they'll be open another 4 & 1/2 hours in Newfoundland, but is that going to make a difference, really?

    I'll note that counting the votes later won't work for the purposes of this law. The media can still wait outside and do random polling, thus giving a good idea of who won which ridings anyways.




    Meanwhile, that sounds to me like typical conservative behaviour; Complain about something when you aren't in power, let it be forgotten when you are in power because it actually probably benefits you.

  • On the post: Hospitals Argue That More Transparency On Medical Errors Will Decrease Dialogue On Fixing Them

    freak ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2011 @ 05:00pm

    Okay, I'm in partial agreement with them here, so I'll explain why I agree with them.

    I'm going to argue by example, just to show there's something beyond potentially meaningless rhetoric.


    Take MS. I know our local MS society rep pretty well, he's a cool guy. How many of you know about the zamboni treatment? Basically, they open up the veins/arteries whatever to your brain, and at least in the short term, we've seen some miraculous recovery in MS patients.

    It's still highly experimental. It might be a temporary cure, it might kill patients sharply after some years, it might initially be better but then make the patient much worse.

    What do you think awareness of this treatment has done in Canada surrounding discussion of MS treatment? Yeah, it's gone down the tubes.
    The doctors want to give the treatment a 5-year testing period, 'the public' wants to make the treatment immediately available.
    Some people are outright outraged that they can't get the treatment here, for any price, but that if they have some 25k, (which they don't, because they need 20k a year for MS medicine), they could go to europe and get the system, and some idiotic arguments exist about how this creates a two-tiered system.

    A conference which discusses MS treatments, mostly between doctors, some politicians and MS society reps, has not happened because there is too much internal argument in the doctor and MS society groups over what their stance should be. Which means that widespread acceptance of a cheaper drug that hit the market earlier this year, (10k per year treatment, may cause some relatively minor side-effect, (diarrhea, maybe?), otherwise clinical trials rate it about the same as existing medicine, well anyway, it hasn't received the acceptance it normally would.



    tl;dr: I'm afraid it will cause a situation where the media circus can begin to run medicine as the public/patients all begin to demand 'miracle' cures that may or may not be cures, and may and may not be dangerous. We certainly see this happen a lot already. The specific part I'm concerned with is experimental drugs/treatments being forced to be released too soon, or over-developed to the detriment of other experimental drugs/treatments which may work better, or even just work while the 'miracle cure' doesn't.

  • On the post: Is It A First Amendment Violation To Kick A Student Out Of Nursing School For Blogging About A Patient?

    freak ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2011 @ 04:12am

    Re: what about the patient's privacy rights

    Jail might be a little harsh, but I agree in general.

    Of course, I would also have to look at the actual blog; Did she name the patient, or provide identifying info?
    If she did, that's obviously more serious; If she didn't, that's still grounds for punishment.

    Pretty simple. So it should be easily dealed with, right?
    It seems like there's just been incompetence at every step of the case :/

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