News Stories

[-Breakthrough-]

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/p...na009000c.html

An addition to the Atomic Energy Basic Law stating that Japan's nuclear energy should contribute to national security has stirred controversy.

The amendment has fueled speculations about its true aim. Some wonder whether the interpretation of the clause could be stretched to open the way for nuclear weapons development. Others question whether the clause is aimed at underscoring the effectiveness of the development and use of atomic power for nuclear power plants and other purposes.

Japan's three non-nuclear principles of not producing, not possessing and not introducing nuclear weapons form the core of its national policy, and the nation's successive administrations have ruled out the possibility of the country developing such weapons of mass destruction.

Then again, most of the South Korean press has freaked out over this so there's probably a hint of overreaction or bias in the reports I've read.

Still sounds worriesome though.

[Ithekro]

Well they need something to get their Gundams powered, or their new space battleships launched.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Well they need something to get their Gundams powered, or their new space battleships launched.

The South Koreans cry foul. Their Battlecruisers are not yet operational despite having stolen Yamato cannon technology.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Well, that's because they need to build additional pylons first to support them.


Megaupload Raid Declared Illegal

I swear this article stirs up some feelings of de ja vu, or am I just finally becoming psychic. Anyways that some egg on face worthy material there. I've heard that the police and FBI were none to gentle on the raids so if they are ordered to restore Megaupload, I wonder how much there will be or if they have 'lost' some. Would that be grounds for a civil suit from the innocent folks (the for real ones) that used Megaupload's services, if their stuff was lost because of an illegal search?

[mangamuscle]

I think when megaupload is restored it will cause "a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly had a nerdgasm and were suddenly empowered"

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

I think when megaupload is restored it will cause "a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly had a nerdgasm and were suddenly empowered"

my best estimate is 3/5th of megauploads are pr0nz!


MegaUpload pre-FBI raid..... simply the BEST free DDL service with the fastest free download speeds at 2.6 Mbps!

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by flying ^

my best estimate is 3/5th of megauploads are pr0nz!


MegaUpload pre-FBI raid..... simply the BEST free DDL service with the fastest free download speeds at 2.6 Mbps!

3/5? more like 9/10.

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

3/5? more like 9/10.

gotta take Big Hollywood content into consideration too!
the higher-ups in MU wanted copies of H-wood releases to be uploaded before it's even sold to the general public


take em out and you could be right... 9/10ths

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by -Breakthrough-

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/p...na009000c.html

I wonder if it doesn't have something to do creating a rationale for bringing the plants back online. Perhaps the Japanese Government could then argue that they are needed for national security reasons if public opinion continues to question the safety of nuclear power.

[-Breakthrough-]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I wonder if it doesn't have something to do creating a rationale for bringing the plants back online. Perhaps the Japanese Government could then argue that they are needed for national security reasons if public opinion continues to question the safety of nuclear power.

Protestors in Japan are critisizing the "national security" clause in the new amendment because of how vague it is so I doubt the clause is some form of appeasement.

Heck, the protest rallies' common slogan from reports are "No nukes" and there's another one coming up next week.

[flying ^]

who here still has this app installed on PC?

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012...-undid-itself/

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Malkuth

@aohige/anh_minh/vexx: If witnessing a problematic situation and understanding that it leads to a dead end, does not justify taking action, then what does? Divine (or enlightened) intervention? We know where that has lead historically.

Not all actions are equal. There's a difference between operating on someone who needs it, and going to town on him with an ax.

Also the concept of intellectual property is rendered in practice useless.

Of course it's not. Pharmaceutical companies? Still around. So are plenty of other industries relying on innovation. And the publishing industry. And god knows what else.

It's not a matter of belief, rather one of adaptation and evolution. There are new mediums and lawmakers are funded and by certain interests to fit them in their own old business models.

Yeah, and some people use knives to commit crimes. You want to get rid of all knives?

Conceptually this is against the principles of competition and free market,

Fuck those. They're means, not ends.

as well as a conservative approach, which like any other of its kind attempts to withhold progress, and promote useless oligarchies.

So the system is sick. That doesn't tell us who's going to fork over the billions of dollars needed for research when there's no hope for a return.

Before copyright, patent, and all that jazz, innovation had the same pace, and was more accessible from the masses.

When was that? When most people had no access to running water? When craftsmen gathered in guilds for the express purpose of keeping their secrets?

On the other hand, the commercialization of science and engineering has created an array of problems that lead into many failures, financial included. Companies these days spent way more resources into having the legal right to use certain technologies, rather than into inventing new ones or perfecting existing ones.

And you think making it legal to just copy what they need for nothing is going to make them invest in innovation? If all products are technologically equal, if innovating just means doing your competitors a favor, they'll spend all their budgets on marketing. That's what you want?

Same is true for art. Almost all band I used to like established themselves in underground scenes, broke into mainstream for a few years and then either turned back into the underground scene for stable financial support or jointly founded small independent labels. On the other hand, very crappy mass produced artists have risen and fallen within large record labels producing very bad quality music, earning their employers a shitload of money, and the individuals disappeared in poverty.

Live action movies... USA had an amazing underground/independent film scene, almost unknown to its local population and currently crushed by competition.

As I said, art is iffier. Since I'm easy when it comes to music, I wouldn't suffer much on that front. Movies? Too bad, I like big budget ones with lots of explosions, and amateurs aren't going to do those.

TL;DR: I can simply not think of a single creative process, that has not degenerated when money became the motivation for work. Limiting copyright/patent to the individual is a feasible and realistic painkiller the current downward spiral, but eventually abolishing these concepts from any productive process will be necessary to evade the inevitable decay they are generating.

Begging the question, again, of who's going to fork over the money needed to invest. I don't give a damn about your musical tastes. I don't know good from bad when it comes to music, so I probably wouldn't miss the music industry if it disappeared. But I would miss anime. How many man hours do you think go into a twenty minutes episodes? Just making it, forget about marketing it or doing the accounting or stuff like that. And that's not even going into the material costs, or the real estate...

And technology? Nowadays, you need countless man hours of highly educated people to make a new gizmo. Sure, governments fund a lot of fundamental research, but there's already not enough money for everyone. And you want them to fund the next iPhone, too?

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by flying ^

who here still has this app installed on PC?

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012...-undid-itself/

Still have and will keep on using it. There's simply no other media player that feels as confortable to use for me as Winamp does. Once you setup a global shortcut for the jump to file dialog it's just perfect. keycombo -> type song name -> hit enter -> ??? -> profit

[Malkuth]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Not all actions are equal. There's a difference between operating on someone who needs it, and going to town on him with an ax.

Sometimes reserved approaches are just not enough. Software companies and departments for example have degraded into 90/10 useless leeches to productive personnel, in order to deal with competition. They spend more money to buy the rights to use a technology already ready to deploy, because another company bought the rights when they could do nothing with it.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Of course it's not. Pharmaceutical companies? Still around. So are plenty of other industries relying on innovation. And the publishing industry. And god knows what else.

Great example... do not produce cheaper medicine (by competing firms) but hide behind legal nonsense and have people dying... great stuff indeed!

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Yeah, and some people use knives to commit crimes. You want to get rid of all knives?

I don't see how this analogy is relevant. None was ever able to stop piracy of overpriced goods.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Fuck those. They're means, not ends.

So patents and copyrights that you try to defend are ends, not means

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So the system is sick. That doesn't tell us who's going to fork over the billions of dollars needed for research when there's no hope for a return.

Those millions do not go to the productive personnel, but get recycled into the cogs of this sick machine (lawyers, advertisers, promoters, managers, bankers, investors). Should patents and copyright stop being a merchandise and benefit financially only the creator/developer, and by extent his employers/cooworkers/benefactors is a first step to stop all this waste of resource (the billions of dollars) for something that can objectively needs a tiny fraction.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

When was that? When most people had no access to running water? When craftsmen gathered in guilds for the express purpose of keeping their secrets?

Thank the Romans that did not claim a patent for aqueducts, otherwise we would still be unable to have running water

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

And you think making it legal to just copy what they need for nothing is going to make them invest in innovation? If all products are technologically equal, if innovating just means doing your competitors a favor, they'll spend all their budgets on marketing. That's what you want?

You are making many assumption here. What patents prohibit is the use of existing technology by the weaker financially companies that are unable to buy the legal right to use it. Should this again stop being the case, it will reinvigorate again the compatition for innovation, instead of the competition for stagnation that patents promote. Currently resources are funneled to the acquisition of the right to use an innovation and not to innovate.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

As I said, art is iffier. Since I'm easy when it comes to music, I wouldn't suffer much on that front. Movies? Too bad, I like big budget ones with lots of explosions, and amateurs aren't going to do those.

Another victim to advertisement, power of habit and convenience Try 70s french cinema, with your love for NoitaminA it is definitely more accessible... the rest will follow

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Begging the question, again, of who's going to fork over the money needed to invest. I don't give a damn about your musical tastes. I don't know good from bad when it comes to music, so I probably wouldn't miss the music industry if it disappeared. But I would miss anime. How many man hours do you think go into a twenty minutes episodes? Just making it, forget about marketing it or doing the accounting or stuff like that. And that's not even going into the material costs, or the real estate...

And technology? Nowadays, you need countless man hours of highly educated people to make a new gizmo. Sure, governments fund a lot of fundamental research, but there's already not enough money for everyone. And you want them to fund the next iPhone, too?

Why was iPhone successful? Because billions of dollars were spent into innovation? Apple is still locked into countless patent wars with other hardware developers for using their patented technology. The fact that their managed trashed the patent law, led to an extremely successful product, as well as reinvigorated a stagnant market. Internet would never have exploded if we had to pay for the slow and buggy IIS, but the copyleft LAMP made cheap and fast servers feasible. Linux has not even been funded by anyone and still isn't. OS X and iOS are built around a 70s kernel with technology developed by an obscure company with very limited resources. Should we move further back into technological history when patents and copyright did not stop innovation and the spread of knowledge the examples are even more numerous.

[SeijiSensei]

Obama Announces Plan for Whistlestop Tour Across America

Give 'em hell, Barry!

TL;DR…

Historical context

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Then there's always covering all your bases.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I don't think CNN's mistake was partisan though. I think all these media organizations have become ridiculously competitive, and each wants to be the first to announce a big story. (Like anyone out here cares.) It would have been more in tune with 1948 if Fox had made the error.[/tldr]

Maybe you didn't read hear in the forum how CNN has become a copy-cat of fox-news and lost 52% of their audience. I can almost hear their audience numbers plumeting even futher. Maybe they thought they were so big that when they make an announcement reality has to mold itself to comply with them (as happened in the 2000 presidential election).

[aohige]

Malkuth, your problem with this... fantasy world you envision, is you raise concerns of a problem but offers no solid solutions.
None of your ideas hold any realistic value, and you're simply expecting humanity to be enlightended.

Ain't happenin' bro.

It's like crying about capitalism, but criticize socialism, cry foul of human greed, yet have nothing to offer in exchange.
Complaining is so much easier than actual innovating, and innovation is exactly what the current subject is.

[Malkuth]

Originally Posted by aohige

Malkuth, your problem with this... fantasy world you envision, is you raise concerns of a problem but offers no solid solutions.
None of your ideas hold any realistic value, and you're simply expecting humanity to be enlightended.

Ain't happenin' bro.

Indeed, in my fantasy world iPhones, the internet, reading/writing, running water, etc. don't exist... it's all thanks to corporate patents

And I prefer these fantasies to the alternative of defending a decadent system

[aohige]

Well, that's why we watch Star Trek.

Earth Federation is a utopia that will never be.

But we live in a real world, not in the minds of Roddenberry.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Malkuth

Sometimes reserved approaches are just not enough. Software companies and departments for example have degraded into 90/10 useless leeches to productive personnel, in order to deal with competition. They spend more money to buy the rights to use a technology already ready to deploy, because another company bought the rights when they could do nothing with it.

I'd contest your numbers, but whatever. That's not important.

Software's a strange animal in that it's not only possible but common to make money just by tailoring existing work precisely to the need of a particular client. And in that a lot of the innovation can be done quite cheaply, by hobbyists.

Great example... do not produce cheaper medicine (by competing firms) but hide behind legal nonsense and have people dying... great stuff indeed!

What do you think will happen without patents? Seriously? Why spend millions or billions, when you can just wait for some other sucker to do it and copy him? That means two things can happen:
- no research.
- if and where they can get away with it, companies will just keep their formulas and processes secret.
It's sad that people are dying, but get real: if there was no money in it, almost nobody would get into pharmaceutical research. Nobody would build the expensive machinery that's necessary for it. Nobody would pay for the animals or people new drugs are tested on.

Sure, there'll still be money in drug making. And yes, the prices of some drugs (those that aren't already in the public domain) would plummet. But the actual research? It'd grind to halt.

I don't see how this analogy is relevant. None was ever able to stop piracy of overpriced goods.

I'm saying that a few people misusing patent laws is no reason to throw the whole system away. Reform it, sure. But get rid of it while offering no alternative? No.

So patents and copyrights that you try to defend are ends, not means

No, they're means too. But until and unless you present viable alternative means to those ends - to promote innovation and the sharing of ideas - we're all going to have to put up with them.

Those millions do not go to the productive personnel, but get recycled into the cogs of this sick machine (lawyers, advertisers, promoters, managers, bankers, investors). Should patents and copyright stop being a merchandise and benefit financially only the creator/developer, and by extent his employers/cooworkers/benefactors is a first step to stop all this waste of resource (the billions of dollars) for something that can objectively needs a tiny fraction.

Getting rid of patents will only slash the lawyer budget. And, as I said before, shift it to advertisers and promoters. All the other guys? Still necessary, and thus still drawing money from the system.

It will also destroy the major incentive for investing (you know, spend money up front and risk having it not pan out...) on, basically, being the first to make something different. Bragging rights are all very nice, but they don't pay the bills. Especially when the other guy has a bigger advertising budget and can just rewrite history.

Thank the Romans that did not claim a patent for aqueducts, otherwise we would still be unable to have running water

Great, so we'd potentially still have money for public works. I already acknowledged the role of the government. I also said it can't do everything.

You are making many assumption here. What patents prohibit is the use of existing technology by the weaker financially companies that are unable to buy the legal right to use it. Should this again stop being the case, it will reinvigorate again the compatition for innovation, instead of the competition for stagnation that patents promote. Currently resources are funneled to the acquisition of the right to use an innovation and not to innovate.

I'm assuming people like to get paid for their work. And that they have bills to pay. Supercomputers or prototype cars or whatever don't build themselves.

Another victim to advertisement, power of habit and convenience Try 70s french cinema, with your love for NoitaminA it is definitely more accessible... the rest will follow

My, aren't we condescending. I know what I like, thank you.

Why was iPhone successful? Because billions of dollars were spent into innovation?

Marketing and not going first.

Apple is still locked into countless patent wars with other hardware developers for using their patented technology. The fact that their managed trashed the patent law, led to an extremely successful product, as well as reinvigorated a stagnant market.

What you're proposing is to remove the incentives for not being Apple. Begging the question of who'll be left to be ripped off.

Internet would never have exploded if we had to pay for the slow and buggy IIS, but the copyleft LAMP made cheap and fast servers feasible. Linux has not even been funded by anyone and still isn't. OS X and iOS are built around a 70s kernel with technology developed by an obscure company with very limited resources. Should we move further back into technological history when patents and copyright did not stop innovation and the spread of knowledge the examples are even more numerous.

As I said, software's a strange animal. But even so, a lot of the tech that makes the Internet as we know it possible required multi-million dollars investment, as does the next generation of the stuff. Harder to make a return on that without patents. It'd probably require, haha, secrecy to get a competitive edge out of research. Which as far as sharing goes, is worse than licensing.