The author, Petzold, has been mentioned on /prog/ before, but AFAIK only in the context of his MS Windows books.
This one is different, because it helped me understand the nature of information, how it is part of reality and was so even before people existed. In that way, it helped me understand what functional programming is. (I'm sure that there is more than one path to that place, but this is the one I took.)
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Anonymous2012-10-20 16:35
"Invention patents? You can't steal an idea. It's just an intangible thought."
"Musial copyrights? You can't steal a piece of music. It's just a collection of sounds."
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Anonymous2012-10-20 16:39
I'm sure you guys who doesn't recognize intellectual property haven't produced anything worth selling intellectually. Stay mad, mediocres!
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Anonymous2012-10-20 16:43
I recognize copyright and patents if limited to 3 years, and I entirely reject patents applied to software or genetics.
>>42
Actually, the most brilliant inventors don't seem to have any problem releasing their ideas to the world.
Most people ferociously defending copyright are the epitome of mediocrity themselves and know all to well they won't be able to keep producing valuable output, so they desperately cling to live off their one-hit wonders.
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Anonymous2012-10-20 16:45
>>42
Did you enjoy today's SSH sessions on any of your machines? If so, please donate to the OpenBSD project. We worked very hard on this, but allowed you to make free copies at no expense to you.
Oh, And we have silly licenses on it that we have to keep to defend ourselves. Any questions?
>>18
B-b-but computer programs are a sequence of mathematical instructions! They follow a certain syntax that makes a particular piece of software! Are you telling me that music and works of literature do that too?! Preposterous!
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Anonymous2012-10-20 16:48
For the record I recognize copyright but thinks software patents are absurd. Oh and stealing someone else's ebook is still stealing.
>>47
Note that this paragraph is strictly about copyrighted content whose main target audience are private individuals for non-commercial uses. I'm a hungry hungry student, and while it might be acceptable for a middle class kid to pay $40 for a textbook, that's a bit more than what I spend on food every week. We already know it is perfectly impractical to eliminate file sharing (short of severely cutting down on civil rights), and that all that DRM does is annoy paying customers. So why not do something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI#The_.22global_license.22 instead?
>>48
I entirely agree. If the bulk of your paying customers (i.e. the people/companies who actually have money to pay you), stay off the backs of poor private individuals.
I entirely agree. If the bulk of your income comes from paying customers (i.e. the people/companies who actually have money to pay you), stay off the backs of poor private individuals.
self-fix
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Anonymous2012-10-20 18:38
>>50
$40 for a textbook? You dickface, we have to pay hundreds per text in the US.
>>50
Now we're getting somewhere. Just because you can't afford something, stealing it doesn't stop it from being stealing. If you were a hungry hobo and you stole a bread, that's stealing and you're a thief. Again, it's plain and simple.
>>68
It's year 4e5 BC. A tribe of Homo Erectus has just discovered how to make and master fire. In order to maintain an advantage, they keep fire-making a secret and sell lit torches to other tribes. A neighbouring tribe purchases a lit torch from the fire masters' tribe, then makes it into a big fire and gives it away to other tribes for free; is that stealing?
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Anonymous2012-10-21 0:18
>>69
Why can't people just admit it's stealing? Just because stealing is something undignified, you can't redefine what stealing is and is not just because you're also doing it. That's makes you even more of a scum than a petty food thief. At least he knows and admits it's stealing.
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Anonymous2012-10-21 0:21
>>70
No, and it's not analogous to pirating books, music or software. Dumb question.
>>72 "Piracy" Publishers often refer to copying they don't approve of as “piracy.” In this way, they imply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. Based on such propaganda, they have procured laws in most of the world to forbid copying in most (or sometimes all) circumstances. (They are still pressuring to make these prohibitions more complete.)
If you don't believe that copying not approved by the publisher is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word “piracy” to describe it. Neutral terms such as “unauthorized copying” (or “prohibited copying” for the situation where it is illegal) are available for use instead. Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as “sharing information with your neighbor.”
>>70 Homo erectus died out long before 4.02e5 years ago
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Anonymous2012-10-21 0:31
>>71
Fuck off, troll. Come back with logical arguments.
>>72
Yes it is, and it's a perfectly valid metaphor. Both fire and information can be shared without affecting the original. Sharing information ,,devalues'' it in a scarcity economy, the same way that sharing fire in the metaphor devalues it for the fire masters. However, neither sharing fire or information is stealing.