Apple patent filing date: Jan 2008

First Android ships with said feature implemented: Oct 2008

With Duct Tape.

> You're ignoring some of the violence in the Bible. For instance, look at the book of
> Revelations and how it speaks approvingly of war and torture. Certainly Christians
> can easily take these parts literally as well as the other parts. (And even if the
> torture is a metaphor, the comparison still implies that torture is good.)

It is a small post on Slashdot, not a comprehensive defense of pacifism in Christianity. The only point I was making is that we have in the texts certain standards for governments to follow. *IF* someone wants to claim we are a "Christian Nation" (whatever that means), *THEN* I think they should consider following a few clearly defined principles and limits as defined in their scriptures.

The post wasn't intended to be more than that. One *could* argue pacifism, but in fact we are far beyond that. As I said, we don't even met "Old Testament" standards for resolving conflicts.

Some ethical and moral principles apply regardless. I think as an upper limit only inflicting harm proportional to the harm done to you is a pretty reasonable ethical and moral standard regardless of your ethical/moral/religious views.

Some multiple of the harm to you might be okay as a deterrent, in the mind of some.

Almost anyone would consider someone who can forgive and forgo retribution to be someone following a high moral and ethical standard.

See? I think the post *can* apply, even if you are in no way Christian. That is because I am talking about moral and ethical standards here, not about Christianity. But it remains interesting that Christianity demands more from us, and the fact that we don't meet that standard is more of an argument that we are not a Christian Nation than any historical argument (of which there are plenty).

I did not mean to imply we *are* a Christian Nation, but to point out that many "Christian" Hawks say one thing, and ignore what it means otherwise.

I did a quick re-read of my post, and I think this is at least close to what I wrote.

Just to be clear here, many "hawks" claim to follow "Christian Values".

Let's consider the Old Testament values:

leviticus 24:19-24:21

19 Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return:
20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.
21 One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death.

Now the idea here is when you are wronged, you *can't* inflect more suffering than you suffered. There is a limit.

Then Jesus came along, and said this was an *upper limit* not a lower limit. You should instead return good for evil. In other words, these Christian Hawks should consider the fact that their ideas of bombing someone because of malware doesn't even past Old Testament standards, much less those of Christianity. How does a crashed computer equate to blowing up a house or office and killing who knows how many innocents in the process?

I am getting very tired of wars and conflicts to line the pockets of various corporate interests. How about we start demanding ethical principles of our leaders rather than buying into their excuses to abuse people abroad, and increasingly, Citizens at home. What is it going to take for people to realize that our government is getting out of hand, and is not behaving in line with our moral and ethical traditions? Seriously, we hear more concern out of our Religious leaders about allowing same sex marriage than we do the killing of 10's and sometimes 100's of women and children!

There *is* something seriously wrong with the morals of this country. When are we going to realize that we are supposed to come to people's aid when they are in need, to hear them when they cry out for relief? That we are not supposed to react by blowing them up?

No, it is tough for many people to believe, but I don't really listen to music at all.

Recording music over the radio or recording TV with a VHS is all legal.

Singing "Happy Birthday" is totally legal, as Time Warner Music's claim to the copyright is totally copyfraud. I do sing Happy Birthday in public, and if that makes me a pirate, then "Prepar 'ta be Boarded, Mate!"

Funny you should mention buying a $40 TV season.

I pay about 60 dollars a month for cable, which provides said TV seasons. They have a DVR feature. Just the other day, that featured failed to record the 2nd episode of House for me. Instead it recorded some lame strange show that I can't recognize.

I can't go to AT&T and get my 2nd episode. Maybe I can watch it on Hulu or something. But why bother? Say I download the thing. And now I am a pirate?

At the end of the year, I have paid 60x12 or 720 dollars into the system. Do I have any of these "seasons" of TV? No. The stupid DVR can hold about 20 or 30 shows. Period. I have watched some T.V. here and there (not much because I work too much), and I got nothing to show for it. Over 20 years this is like $14,000 spent and gone blowing in the wind.

There are good reasons to cut the cable, and buy maybe an outstanding show on DVD every now and then. Watch a bit of video over the Internet. But increasingly there is no way cable justifies its costs.

You are going to claim they have to have that money from that DVD or Blu-Ray to make money? They are gouging today, and if they made their product legitimately priced for people, they could sell it. Piracy only occurs where the business has failed to make their product available for a reasonable price under a reasonable distribution agreement.

It is like the starving folk hunting the "King's Deer." Yeah, some idiots are going to go and take what they shouldn't take regardless. But where everyone as reasonable access to food and hunting and protection, the people (mostly) leave the King's Deer alone. Jack up the price of food, kill them with fees and taxes, and people go and hunt the King's Deer.

Piracy is quite usefully the canary in the coal mind, indicating where businesses are gouging and not providing product at the price that makes sense in the market.

>There's really no need for encryption to increase in power.

The "increase in power" is likely to be in the form of more useful distributed and encrypted storage via cheaper storage, with faster access via faster networks.

The actual algorithms for encryption don't have to be improved upon (though I have no doubt that they will be) for the general line of thought to be valid.

Encryption that is tough to use and understand how to use isn't useful. Integrated Encryption that occurs automatically with better storage and management of security keys will be an "increase in power" even if the algorithms themselves are the same. I did not intend for the "easier to use" component to be divorced from the "increase in power" component of the statement.

My 14 year old likes Big Band and Swing music. But you are right, he doesn't go out and buy it, but just listens to it on various podcasts.

No, the length of copyright is an incentive for the investors (I would say publishers/labels/studios/etc. ) to take ownership of the copyrights, and deny the creators compensation at all.

ever! Just do like you just did. Make a subsequent post. Fixed comments are what keeps Slashdot ahead of the rest.

Funny that you left the Subject alone. Ironic, no?

Copyright extends 70 years after the Content Producer is dead and buried. If more than half the term is after they are dead, how is that an incentive for the producers of works of art to keep producing?

Have you bought a new Cash album lately? Watched a new Hope movie? A new Carry Grant film?

How about a new hit from the folks that brought you "Happy Birthday?" (I would have used their name, but we don't really know who wrote it, but Time Warner Music still gets 2 Million a year off its copyright anyway).

I think there would be more incentive to produce if Content Providers had to compete with a larger body of free work. Their stuff would have to be better to sell, but hey! They could actually use "Happy Birthday" in their movie without paying Time Warner Music (That Great Content Producer!) 10 grand for the right to use a song written in the late 1800's.

Actually, if you are not murdering people, those that don't die benefit. Mostly this is the public, as weapons are rarely trained on the rich and the wealthy that can afford to avoid dangerous situations and pay for protection. It is the common man that mostly gets mowed down. And if the government is preventing the sell of new weapons systems to people, then those at the top are getting punished.

You are trying to tie the idea of the Government enforcing laws that protect the public with Strong Copyright which does not protect the public but just the favored few. Any amount of effort looking at the differences between copyright and weapons systems, and it is clear that your analogy totally breaks down. The right thing (control weapons to save lives) benefits the public and takes away from the profits of those at the top. The right thing (weaker copyright to grant more freedoms and less liability as people share and develop content) benefits the public and takes away from the profits of those at the top.

In the case of copyright, "those at the top" are not the actual content producers by far and large. Copyright now extends 70 years AFTER the content producer is dead and buried. How is copyright about funding content producers if more than half its term is after the content producer is dead?

Try again.

I don't download music, I don't torrent music, I don't P2P music.

I am a model citizen.

More about me:

* I am over 50
* I have bought maybe 10 Albums/Cassettes/8-Tracks/Digital Downloads in my *Entire* life.

Wouldn't the music industry love having an entire market of folks just like me!