If you have such frail conviction in your own beliefs and values... I believe what I believe regardless of what someone else thinks of it, and if my boss would fire me over it then I probably wouldn't be happy working there any ways. If it gets to the point that I can't find any job because of my opinions, then there are bigger problems in the world.

That makes sense, but it supposes that someone is playing randomly. If the premise is that humans can't play randomly, then you don't have "random vs strategy," you have pseudo-random vs pseudo-random, and it's possible/probable that the computer's choices are skewed. Which is kind of what you said in the second paragraph (and what I said above, if maybe not as elegantly as you).

That's probably the key -- although you might be close-to-random, the computer is using some kind of prediction algorithm which *isn't* random, so it's choices are going to be skewed based on previous experience.

That's disputable. The original "work" is just a handful of hex digits. The flag is a picture. You might argue that the flag was "inspired by" the key, but even at that they key doesn't exist anywhere in the flag itself -- at a bit level, it looks drastically different than the key. Only the author's intent indicates any relationship at all with the key.

No, I would argue that all the formats you listed are the same expression of the song; you haven't changed it. If you took the bits representing the song and re-encoded/re-interpretted it as something visual, I feel that that is a different expression. A song is a song; a song is not a picture.

If i'm smart, I probably already copyrighted the sheet music, so "its notes" is questionable, but I don't see why I should have copyright over a the waveform or even some graph depicting tonal qualities or whatever. The video's sketchy, too, unless you can demonstrate how to play the song without playing the song.

You know. So you don't run out of room. On the Internet.

Ah, OK. That's more understandable.

I'd still disagree, though. Calling it the free speach flag is apropos, because it kind of embodies the thrust of the movement (that they can't keep us from saying "09 F9"). I'm not sure that I'd call Wikipedia's act of censoring the Free Speach Flag "ironic" per se, but it comes close.

I'd dispute the non-copyrightable bit. That flag probably IS copyright-able, but it would be 'owned' by the guy that made the flag, not the corp that 'owns' the key. (To claim copyright on an encryption key, though, that still makes my skin crawl...)

Isn't copyright supposed to cover a particular expression? You can't tell me that this flag and that number can be considered the same expression.

Uhm... so? Are you arguing that because the MPAA might get upset we shouldn't say it?

Yes, an atheist would not sacrifice himswelf because of some reward in the afterlife, but do you mean that the only motivation for self-sacrifice is religion and the afterlife? It's not religion, it's not atheism, it's not communism. It's fanaticism. And fanatics can and do form up around all sorts of ideas, religious and secular alike. If you weed out one idea, fanaticism will simply crop up elsewhere. And it will continue that way so long as any "us versus them" idea can be formulated. If not atheism and Islam, maybe we'll anti-banking terrorists, eco-terrorists, fanatical nationalists, fanatical globalists, etc.

Why would women want 72 virgins? Even if they're boys, you're talking about an eternity of clumsy groping...

It's not religion, it's not atheism, it's not communism. It's fanaticism. And fanatics can and do form up around all sorts of ideas, religious and secular alike. If you weed out one idea, fanaticism will simply crop up elsewhere. And it will continue that way so long as any "us versus them" idea can be formulated. If not atheism and Islam, maybe we'll have anti-banking terrorists, eco-terrorists, fanatical nationalists, fanatical globalists, etc.