Posted 9:09 AM by Robert

Going Off The Grid With The Ninth Circuit

"Grid computing" - roughly, the harnessing of the collective processing power of many computers in different places - has been around for a while and is now anything but exotic. The idea was specifically and intentionally created in the 1990's to be analogous to an electric power network (grid) where power generators are distributed, but the users are able to access electric power without bothering about the source of energy and its location. Instead of maintaining a supercomputer (or nuclear power generator) in one's basement, one can obtain one's computing or electric power from the "grid." Of course, there are various concepts for working computers together, including "clusters," which some experts distinguish from grids:

The key distinction between clusters and grids is mainly lie in the way resources are managed. In case of clusters, the resource allocation is performed by a centralized resource manager and all nodes cooperatively work together as a single unified resource. In case of Grids, each node has its own resource manager and don't aim for providing a single system view.

The exact definition of a computing "grid" has given rise to some marketing issues (discussed here), but the by now well-established use of computer grids makes perfectly clear that the existence of a centralized server is not a central or key element in modern information processing. Grid computing has come into its own since the 1990's, and that obviously requires some fairly straightforward adjustments in applications of legal precedents dating from the 1980's and before. As the saying goes, none of this is rocket science.

So why can't the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit - which includes California and Washington State, and many of the software and technology heavy regions of the country - figure any of this out? The situation is made all the more embarrassing for the Ninth Circuit by the fact that it was another Ninth Circuit panel that correctly demolished Napster.
But that court's opinion in MGM v. Grokster reflects an appalling fixation of the importance of centralized servers and other centralized features in applying the Supreme Court's 1984 Sony-Betamax decision, the high court's last major decision regarding the scope if copyright protection in connection with electronic copying technology. The New York Times correctly summarizes the Ninth Circuit reasoning:

The Ninth Circuit had found Napster liable because the company itself maintained and controlled the servers that searched for the digital files its users wanted to download. Grokster and StreamCast, by contrast, operate decentralized systems that allow users to find each other over the Internet and then exchange files directly. Consequently, the appeals court said, the two services did not exercise the kind of control that could lead to legal liability for infringing uses.

Common sense is about 80% of what it takes to be a good judge. The Grockster-like software would, in fact, economically gut many copyrights through infringement and is, in fact, generally believed in the recording and entertainment businesses to be doing just that. The Ninth Circuit says that gutting is OK. But copyright law is intended by Congress exactly for the purpose of keeping that kind of gutting from happening. Common sense is not always the law, but common sense should tell any good judge that in such circumstances Grockster et al must lose unless there is a huge, weird, unintentional and unavoidable hole in the copyright statute. But there isn't. The only huge, weird hole in the copyright statute is the one that would be created by the Ninth Circuit in MGM v. Grockster, one which the Supreme Court must now fix. And, sure enough, the Supreme Court has now positioned itself to clean up yet another witless Ninth Circuit embarrassment.

Sony-Betamax can be sensibly construed to have held that home video machines do not violate the copyright laws because they are intended mostly to be used for purposes that clearly do not infringe and do not, in fact, have infringement as a major effect. ("A challenge to a noncommercial use of a copyrighted work requires proof either that the particular use is harmful, or that if it should become widespread, it would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work.")
The file-sharing software provided by Grockster and the like is nothing more - and was specifically intended by their creators to be nothing more - than a decentralized, grid computing version of the old, discredited Napster scam.

So don't be surprised if the Supreme Court fix takes the form of yet another dismissive, unanimous, per curium reversal of the Ninth Circuit by a high court that can barely conceal its contempt.

Posted 2:34 PM by Robert

War Of Religions

As noted in prior posts, the present state of medical research refutes any belief that Freudian psychoanalysis is "scientific" in any acceptable modern sense. In fact, the materials documenting the lack of psychoanalytic efficacy are extensive and persuasive. The field itself harbors a truly disturbing focus on its founder, Freud, bearing a strong similarity to the focus of a religious cult on its main prophet. In this sense, psychoanalysis is at a distinct disadvantage to chiropractory. Indeed, the evidence of psychoanalytic therapeutic value seems to be somewhat less persuasive than the evidence of the therapeutic value of traditional prayer. Psychoanalysis is, in short, a kind of religious cult - and will remain a cult unless and until scientific evidence is amassed demonstrating its predictive and therapeutic value - and we are very, very far from having such evidence.

Given the religious cult status of psychoanalysis, it is hardly surprising that adherents to its dogmas find themselves increasingly at war with adherents of other, older religious traditions, as described in this interesting article from the University of Chicago Magazine concerning the escalating clash of psychoanalysis and Hinduism:

Rajiv Malhotra, an entrepreneur and activist living in New Jersey. Malhotra, who studied physics at India’s St. Stephens College and computer science at Syracuse University, now works full time at the Infinity Foundation, a nonprofit he founded in 1995 to “upgrade the quality of understanding of Indian civilization in the American media and educational system, as well as among the English language educated Indian elite.”

.... His ... essay, published on the Indian community Web site Sulekha.com, has become a pivotal treatise in a recent rift between some Western Hinduism scholars ... and some conservative Hindus... Since G. M. Carstairs’s 1958 book The Twice-Born (Hogarth Press) scholars have noted Freudian themes in old Indian texts and stories, arguing, for example, that the god Ganesha can be read as having an Oedipus complex. ... In two years Malhotra’s essay received more than 22,000 hits and generated 445 comments (several by Malhotra himself) and two response essays. ... The adamant, at times violent responses parallel a political movement in India, where conservative Hindu nationalists have gained power since the early 1990s. ... [I]n “Wendy”s Child Syndrome” Malhotra condemns “the eroticisation of Hinduism by Wendy Doniger, who is un-doubtedly the most powerful person in academic Hinduism Studies today,” and “her large cult of students, who glorify her in exchange for her mentorship.” ... “Under Western control,” he argues, “Hinduism studies has produced ridiculous caricatures that could easily be turned into a Bollywood movie or a TV serial.” ....

ALTHOUGH ACADEMICS FREQUENTLY INTERPRET religions through a sexual lens (see, for example, Theodore W. Jennings Jr.’s The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament [Pilgrim Press, 2003]), for some Hindus such scholarship has hit a sensitive chord. Online writers complain that psychoanalysis has been discredited in psychology, and applying it implies that Hindus are “sick.” But “historians of religion are not doing therapy; they’re interpreting texts,” Kripal argues. “A model can be accurate and therapeutically unhelpful” (though for him personally, he says, psychoanalysis has been an effective therapy). “People use psychoanalysis or Foucault because it’s the most sophisticated language we have in the West to talk about the questions we have.” In Kali’s Child, he says, he doesn’t apply a strict Freudian analysis but also interprets Ramakrishna’s story through the Hindu tantric tradition. “Both are languages,” he says, “that turn to sexuality as the key to human religious experience.”

But in what sense is it correct to assert that "a model can be accurate and therapeutically unhelpful?" This can be true if one takes "accurate" in a religious sense - religious truths are often presupposed to be beyond scientific verification. But in a modern scientific sense, a model is "accurate" only to the extent it has predictive (that is, "therapeutic") value; otherwise it is mere speculation. And not applying such a model "strictly" or applying it in conjunction with another, traditonal, religious approach hardly renders the analytic effort scientific.

The current highly problematic status of that portion of string theory that goes beyond previous theories, for example, is instructive (discussed in this New York Times article). String theory at least predicts what its antecedent theories predicted - and to that extent is "scientific." That much cannot be said of psychoanalysis or Hinduism. But, as the linked Times article discusses, verifying that string theory adds anything to what came before is much tougher - and it, too, has been labled a "colossal failure" despite its huge ambitions. But if string theory cannot be demonstrated scientifically (that is' "therapeuticlly"), there is little doubt that physicists will not be cheeky enough to argue that it retains value because "a model can be accurate and therapeutically unhelpful."

The escalating wars between the Hindu and psychoanalytic religious traditions are instructive to a non-Hindu because one normally sees the pseudo-scientific psychoanalytic model juxtaposed against the Judeo-Christian model, a confrontation in which most Westerners have a considerable personal investment that can make objectivity much harder to obtain or maintain.

Posted 6:20 PM by Robert

Will Mohammed Go To The Seven Storey Mountain, As Promised?

In an interview just before the election, asked what he would do if George W. Bush won another term, George Soros lamented: "I shall go into some kind of monastery."

OK, brave words. But did Soros "go private" yet as he promised he would? Of course, I assume he'll choose a place famous for its fruitcakes! Perhaps one that honors a vow of silence (we should be so lucky)? But just how does he plan to handle that "vow of poverty" detail?

There is evidence that Mr. Soros has been planning his "retreat" for some time! It turns out that way back in 2000 - when the nation faced the prospect of the first George W. Bush win - George Soros opened an Internet centre in a Russian Orthodox monastery funded by his philanthropic association, the Segodnia daily reported ... And it turns out that the Independent has reported that "no women, spartan food, whitewashed cells and a 3am prayer bell are just some of the ascetic delights drawing ... George Soros, to a remote peninsula in northern Greece ... to seek solace in the Orthodox monastic republic of Mount Athos."

Well, that's why he's a genius. Always thinking ahead. On the other hand, what does it mean for fruitcakes if the monastic menu is limited to "spartan food?" Has Mr. Soros really thought this thing through?