It's an unfunded federal mandate, which is bad by definition (if the feds want to force states to do something that costs money, the feds should pay for it (ideally, they shouldn't do it at all, but that's another issue)).
It won't actually do anything to prevent the kind of abuses that are directed at the current system (contrary to the mouthings of the statist community, the security reasons for implementing a national ID are bogus. There is no evidence (and plenty of contrary evidence), that these measures actually prevent ID theft, or false identification)).
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the way things are now. Articles of 'good faith' impel the acceptance of IDs from any state, in any state. Any of the 'security' mechanisms that are mandated for a Real ID could be voluntarily implemented by the states if they so choose (not that any of those mechanisms are inviolable).
Without going into a long winded explanation, we know that 'spooky action at a distance' (more technically called non-locality) is a real phenomenon based on a theorem called 'Bell's inequality'.
Here's what that theorem says, in fairly simple terms:
If the system is merely the measuring of characteristics that pre-exist, but are unknown (like your pennies), there is a certain statistical distribution that will occur over a series of measurments of those characteristics.
Quantum mechanics predicts a different distribution of the series of measurements.
A substantial number of experiments have demonstrated that the statistical results confirm the non-local explanation of events.
There's a pretty good overview (if a bit technical) of Bell's Theorem here .
But they certainly aren't sufficient credentials in the absence of any other experience or education.
Any employer who hires someone based on some single, simple criteria, whether that be just a degree, just a certification, or some other buzzword of the week is nearly always going to get less than they bargained for.
Too many people (employees and employers) use things like certificates because they're too lazy to actually do the work needed to either advance their *real* skills or hire someone with real skills.
Bear in mind that the above figures are for *chassis* wiring. For long distributions, the wire sizes mentioned above would be good for 1/2 to 3/4 of the total load (you'd need even larger wire for significant distribution)
I wouldn't say I know *much* more, I'm only an EE:)
It's hard to say what would really make a difference overall, short of improving the efficiency of the power supply, since there are so many factors to consider, especially when you get to distribution (such as how many wires, how much current, sense lines for voltage stability and accuracy, etc.).
For a tightly grouped set of computers, you could have a dc bus (like a 48v system), and regulate down in each box. Regulators also have a loss, though.
A single very high efficiency supply feeding a single medium voltage dc supply, which is then regulated down at the box level *could* be a bit more efficient, but probably not much, and the added cost and effort of the distribution system would probably exceed the gain.
Lets say these 9 computers each use about 300 watts from their supplies, that's 2700 watts total. Assuming that about 70% of that is on the 5v supply and 30% is on the 12v supply (the other voltages matter also, but they tend to be much lower power levels, so we can get a good baseline with the two biggies). Approximately 1900 watts on the 5v line and 800 watts on the 12v line. That's about 380 amps of current on the 5v line and about 66 amps on the 12v line. According to the AWG current load limits table, the wire size for maximum current chassis wiring of 380 amps is 0000 guage, which is about 1/2 inch in diameter. Similarly, the 12v line would need to be 8 guage.
If you had a single 48v bus, it would carry about 57 amps at the total load, which would require 10 guage wire. That's doable, but you'd still get heat loss from resistance, and that's assuming everything else is 100% efficient (which they aren't, meaning the overall power levels would hav to be higher to meet the prescribed load).
You wouldn't want to provide most of these voltages remotely, because of the current draw. At higher current values, the resistance of the wire becomes more of a factor, and you'd either need very short runs (kind of defeats the purpose of a distributed run), or you'd need high current wires, which have a large diameter (wire guage). Think of running jumper cable type wires from room to room and you'd get an idea of what would be required.
You could provide a single higher voltage that gets regulated down as needed at the equipment, but you'd still have to deal with the current levels, just not as high.
Actually, yes. Not every one the same, a significant number is.
> "So, do you dispute the physics of greenhouse gasses, or the fact that we've been dumping them into the atmosphere at an astonishing rate since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution?"
Just for reference, one substantial volcanic eruption releases more CO2 and C0 into the atmosphere than every single internal combustion engine that ever existed. Yes, undoubtedly, we are *contributing* (and we *should* attempt to ameliorate that contribution as practicable), but we certainly aren't the primary source of those gasses. Also, water vapor is a more effective greenhouse substance than CO2.
> "Who says it's a political agenda? What if it's a sober warning rather than scaremongering?"
And what if it is scaremongering (or politics)? Do you really want us to engage in a course of action based on blind panic (or political expediency rather than effectiveness)?
While there are clearly anthropogenic effects on the climate, the magnitude of those effects and the degree to which those effects are related to other normal, natural, periodic cycles is something we simply don't have any *real* answer to. Our climate models are *nowhere* near being able to make even a moderately definitive prediction about the future of our climate.
I'm in agreement that we should make certain efforts to ameliorate our own contributions, but even those contributions *must* be implemented in a fashion that don't exacerbate the problem (or create other problems that may be as bad, or worse than what we're trying to solve). There will be *NO* instant (or even quick) changes in a system with the massive inertia that is contained within the biosystem. Apart from sensible conservation efforts and meaningful investigation into alternate energy sources, not one of the *solutions* presented by the alarmists can be considered to be meaningfully effective with minimal side effects.
Thing is that the lawyers for IBM will be doing much the same to SCO (and witnesses), and probably doing it much better, as well (they have the easier target:o)).
The adversarial system and rules of cross-examination (among others) may not be perfect, but the do tend to even out the more eggregious examples of your described behaviour.
I think sometimes ease of acquisition is confused with abundance. The end effect is much the same, though. As you say, someone has to get off their ass to forage for food (unless they're foraging from the refrigerator (my preferred technique):o)).
Even so, I'd have to say that there's more food per person in a given area (at least in the first world countries) than there was for most hunter / gatherers.
All in all, I don't think that abundance (or ease of acquisition), per se, is all that bad. As a few have posted here, I think what one chooses to do with it has more to do with the issue.
Any form of change will have at least some unintended or unpredicted consequences.
While a reduction in scarcity may be unintended, I find it hard to consider it automatically undesirable. Scarcity in terms of food is bad, by and large. Even though an abundance has its own issues, obesity is arguably less of a problem than starvation (though obviously, the middle ground is probably to be preferred).
(Now, if there were a scarcity of lawyers and politicians, that could be a good thing:o)).
It doesn't appear that the author is railing against technology, but there are people who will read it that way. "Technology is bad!", they will say, and point to any number of unintended problems that have arisen. What these people seem to miss is that the solution to those problems is further progress (and technology), not stopping in one place and burying our heads in the sand (or clamoring for a idyllic past that never existed).
Given that, for the most part, the problems caused by these unintended consequences are often less harmful than the problems that the technology addresses, I'm willing to accept the consequences, assuming that a goal is further advancement to address those problems, and so on.
Actually, I not only grew up in an American city, but I lived in areas where drugs were quite common.
As you say, very easy to get.
I know *many* people who destroyed their lives with drugs, one of them was my ex-girlfriend.
My point stands, though. A large part of the problems with drug use come from the fact that they are illegal and are distributed through an untrusted illegal network. Additionally, some of the fatalities have to do with impurities rather than the drugs themselves. Also, the illegality and the stigma of drug use go a long way toward discouraging those who need it to seek treatment (and it's often too late when they do).
I don't say that drugs aren't a problem. What I'm saying is that the structure and mechanism of the current legal framework go a long way toward increasing the harm that drugs do, without any comcomitant benefit. Obviously, the 'war on drugs' certainly hasn't made drugs any harder to get.
The thing is that the 'war on drugs', as well as the vast majority of the proposed (or extant) legislative mechanisms for addressing drug use (or abuse) are far *worse* than the drug problem itself.
All of the side effects of abuse that do harm to others are already illegal (assault, theft, etc.). Not to mention that alcohol, a legal drug, is responsible for more of your stated social ills than all of the illicit drugs combined.
Additionally, meny people behave in the same negative fashion without any use of drugs. People do stupid shit all of the time, for lots of reasons, like a bad day at work, emotional immaturity, and so forth.
We should address the actual social problem (the assault, robbery, violence, etc.) directly. If drugs, etc., are a proximate cause of the behaviour in a given person, then that person should be proscribed from such behaviour, not the rest of society.
All of that said, I don't really have a huge problem with the idea of these kind of scanners. Just like any technology, they can be used for good or ill, and I think the idea is sufficiently cool to warrant further use and research. Besides, while I question the actual effectiveness of things like airport security, anyone stupid enough to try to intentionally smuggle any contraband through an airport pretty much deserves what they get.
That someone (RIAA, etc.) told them to drop the idea of a lawsuit, because of the possibility that it would be too good of a test case against the DMCA, and might even make it all the way to getting it thrown out?
In addition, to answer your direct question, my argument would be that the only viable way to protect the copyright owner is to engender an awareness and respect for the rights of the copyright holder, and to demonstrate, by example, both that violators (and only violators) are penalized for their actions, and to reciprocate that respect back to the users of the copyrighted works in such a fashion as to make the user feel good about properly supporting the copyright owner.
Bad laws and active hatred for the users will directly engender the type of behaviour that leads to the violations.
That said, there will always be those who have no respect for the rights and property of others, and they are the ones we should penalize.
I don't picture the executives saying literally, 'Let's counter fair use', but what they do say is, 'How can we make more money off of our content'? And in some cases, they come up with the idea that making it difficult or illegal to engage in fair use activities might make someone buy an extra copy, etc.
In addition, many of the apologists or spokespersons for the industries, such as Valenti, have stated outright that they don't consider fair use to be a valid concern for digital media. Bear in mind, that many of these people do see fair use as a threat to their bottom line, or their control of their content
I'm definitely all for capitalism, and I do understand the circumstances under which many of these decisions are made, but they are the wrong decisions, nonetheless, if for no other reason that treating your customers like criminals is most assuredly contrary to the profit motive, no matter how good it looks on paper. In addition, such methods are FAR more likely to result in the loss of customers than otherwise.
As before, the correct solution to these problems is to actually address the violations (and the violators) of the law, to treat your customers as though you really want their business (instead of begrudgingly treating them like a commodity), and to convince the general public that your product has enough value to justify their purchase.
The legal framework of copyright had sufficient strength to address actual copyright violators prior to the DMCA.
I don't argue that kazaa, et.al. are not a part of the problem, merely that they aren't, by far, the most economically damaging form of distribution. And anyway, it can be argued that, in some cases, the p2p method of distribution is just as mass production as the piracy rings.
The point being that the DMCA, and the various forms of copy protection don't actually DO anything to stop this behaviour. Copyright law prior to the DMCA had all the necessary legal footing to pursue copyright violators.
My original point still stands, pursue the violators (p2p or otherwise), don't make laws that penalize valid use, and don't treat legal users as criminals (which is what these mechanisms do in practice, if not in principle).
More importantly, don't penalize the technology (p2p, etc.) to address the problem.
One thing that it's important to realize is that the DMCA (and other laws of the same stripe) not only have no effect at all on piracy, they were never really intended to address piracy, regardless of all the lip service provided in that direction.
These laws are primarily a control issue, and those that bought these laws (and bought they certainly were, there is no evidence at all that the general voting constituency clamored for these laws), want to have complete control over how (and where and on what) you experience their content, and the concept of fair use is anathema to them.
The vast majority of piracy can be addressed by directly targeting the major pirating organizations that distribute in a mass production fashion.
I fully support the right of copyright owners to have the limited rights granted to them, and fully support targeting anyone who actively violates copyright law. But none of these laws, nor any of the other copyright protection schemes do anything but inconvenience the general user and attempt to criminalize legitimate fair use behaviour. The actual copyright violators out there are not detrimentally affected by these issues, at all.
In addition, laws such as the DMCA are far more often being used to hamper and threaten legitimate competition, rather than address real copyright violations.
The suggestion that has the most chance of working is to target the actual violators, and stop treating the general population as criminals simply because they actually bought the product.
I have no real problem with RAMBUS enforcing their patent, as long as it's clear that they are doing so fully legally.
The primary issues (that I'm aware of) are that RAMBUS is accused of essentially hiding the existence of the patent during the JEDEC collaboration and whether what Infineon has done actually constitutes infringement.
The current ruling seems to indicate that there was no fraud involved in patenting during the JEDEC proceedings, but even that doesn't necessarily free RAMBUS from the onus of proving infringement. Whether the patent itself was initiated fraudulently or not, there is still a clause in patent law that they cannot sit on the patent and enforce it at a later date.
In addition, it would also have to be demonstrated that Infineon (among other potentials) were aware that the technology involved was indeed patented at the time the implemented it. There is a substantial legal difference between willful and incidental infringement. And if it is true that RAMBUS stayed mum about the existence of their patent, it's pretty clear that any infringement that may have occured before knowledge of the patents existence would definitely be non-willful.
I'm certainly not up on all aspects of this case, and there are most likely facts and items that I have no knowledge of, but the general perception is that RAMBUS is using ambush tactics as a profit mechanism.
I have no problems with the concept of patents, and I have no problem with those who hold valid patents, but I do have a problem with patents being used for ambush tactics and the like. Likewise, if Infineon really did willfully infringe, I have no problem with them being brought to task for it.
Obviously, there will be more to come in this saga, so it'll be interesting to see where the dust settles.
You're barking up the wrong tree. For your edification, you may want to look up the definition of the word libertarian.
I do not oppose taxes for national defense, public infrastructure or other things in that vein. I oppose taxation that exists for no other purpose than the redistribution of wealth or the propping up of businesses or organizations that would fail without that taxation (and therefore need to fail).
And what I mean by the industry needing to police itself is that they should use the existing laws and make the effort ON THEIR OWN PART to identify the actual transgressors and pursue them, instead of whining to the government to babysit them and penalize the entire public for their lack of imagination and business sense.
Music is NOT a public utility or a social necessity. I purchase ALL of my music and software (or use free software), and it is CRIMINAL to ask me to pay for the transgressions of others.
BTW, I'm ex military. I think I can stand up just fine in any of the arenas you choose to mention.
Comparing taxation to the RIAA's attempt to bolster their profits through extortion is completely missing the point.
Although I also have problems with taxation, and it is, in fact, it's own form of state extortion, there is at least the slightest patina of democratic action involved, and it can arguably be considered a benefit to society as a whole.
The above is not only not true for the RIAA, the argument for the RIAA doesn't even brush up against the truth.
To argue for forcing an ISP to charge everyone to meet the whims of the music industry is absurd. Treating an entire class of people as criminals (which is what this suggestion does), to compensate for the actions of a few is far more criminal than the act it claims to be trying to prevent.
Taxation, as bad as it is, is imposed by a government of elected officials, bad as they may be. There is no similar justification for the RIAA. You can argue the merits of the programs and benefits provided by taxation, but there is no valid argument for supporting a business with mandated fees. If they can't support (and police) themselves, they deserve to fail and go under.
Re:PLEASE torture me with that!
on
E ~ mc^2
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I'll let someone else torture you with tensors:o)
Here are three (of many) links that I've found in the past that deal with relativity and provide varying degrees of rigor and completeness in the explanations.
How stuff works! Talking about special relativity: http://www.howstuffworks.com/relativi ty.htm
A pretty interesting and more rigorous explanation: http://physics.syr.edu/courses/modul es/LIGHTCONE/
And finally, a question and answer format explanation:o) http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Physics /List s/relativity.html
This should get you a good set of basic coverage about relativity.
That would be because I *don't* blindly believe man has landed on the moon. The evidence of the moon landings is clear and apparent to anyone who examines it honestly.
Not only do we have some degree of physical evidence (moon rocks, etc.), there is the matter of all of the personnel at the various launch and monitoring facilities, the many hundreds of people serving on the navy ships that performed pickup on the astronauts, and so on. As far as I know, none of these people have contributed any comments to the contrary.
And, of course, there is the multitude of sources and sites that thoroughly debunk any contention that the landing did not occur (and do so with *MUCH* more evidence and credibility than any of the sources used by the conspiracy nuts.
As a final note, although not unimpeachable, I personally watched the landing (on tv, of course) on my 9th birthday.
To address your other points, it is okay for MS to be a monopoly, it's just not okay for them to abuse it.
Blind disbelief is no better than blind faith. In either case, you suborn your responsibility for intelligent consideration of the facts to a blind acceptance (or denial) of authority. Both paths are equally wrong.
And a misquote from the grandparent post: "Those who would sacrifice an *essential* liberty for temporary safety, deserves neither", the key words here being essential, for liberty, and temporary, for safety.
There is no such thing as permanent safety, no matter what the nanny state would have us believe.
And the context of essential liberty is intended to refer to those liberties that do not infringe upon the liberties of others, it is not intended to promote or justify anarchy.
A common misconception in most societies is the idea that we are granted our freedoms by law, when in fact, the opposite is true. Our essential freedoms have *always* existed, it is in the scope of law merely to protect them from those that would abuse them, and those abusers can (and often do) include the government and institutions we have in place to protect those freedoms.
I'd rather keep EVERY ONE of my *essential* liberties, even at the risk of a little less certainty in the public safety arena, for the very simple reason that those who would threaten that safety will not be hampered, IN THE LEAST, by any of the restrictions on my freedoms.
Deregulation in a competitive market is a good idea, as it allows the competition to work. The sham of pseudo-deregulation (such as what happened with the airlines, etc), is not proper deregulation in that there is still no equal playing field and equal access to all resources to be competed for.
Deregulation doesn't mean no laws concerning behaviour and legal requirements, it means that there are no regulatory barriers that favor one company over any other (and most forms of "deregulation" in recent history still have those barriers, and as a result, are not proper deregulation).
Just because you (and they) can't think of a business model to supplant their current one doesn't mean that the need to do so does not exist. The same difficulty has been present with every technological change in business history. Adapt or die has been the rule through history, and it is no less valid now.
First, lets start with the fact that the underlying mechanism for determining viewership / advertising returns is flawed. The quasi statistical calculation that says, "here is how many people will be watching your commercial during program X" is less and less valid in the age of many channels and channel surfing, etc. Second, something like 50 or 60 percent of those watching aren't the target of the advertiser in the first place.
Second, the advertisers are paying for their ad space based on those ephemeral numbers of viewers. And those numbers are provided (indirectly) by the content providers (via shams like the nielsons, etc.). I, as a viewer, am not at all obligated to make the effort to support their flawed business assumptions.
Third, if they REALLY wanted me to watch their advertisements, they would produce advertisements that didn't have to evolve for 2 million years just to improve to the level of mind-numbingly stupid. I am not obligated to make myself physically ill in order to support their flawed business model.
All that said, there are two ways (off the top of my head) that the providers can change their models to improve the current situtation. First is that they can take advantage of the ability for the viewer to set preferences in the PVR's (and the like) and use those preferences to target advertisements that, even if still stupider than a member of congress, would at least have the value of being of passing interest to the viewer.
Second, they could embrace some form of the subscription plan. Channels like HBO and Showtime (as an example) manage to produce some seriously fine programming, both because they don't depend on advertising, and also because they aren't subject to the advertisers whims concerning content, etc.
And they don't have a right to be pissed about ads being skipped, anymore than buggy whip manufacturers had a right to be pissed at the automobile (to use an oft repeated analogy).
Slashdot Mirror
Two reasons:
It's an unfunded federal mandate, which is bad by definition (if the feds want to force states to do something that costs money, the feds should pay for it (ideally, they shouldn't do it at all, but that's another issue)).
It won't actually do anything to prevent the kind of abuses that are directed at the current system (contrary to the mouthings of the statist community, the security reasons for implementing a national ID are bogus. There is no evidence (and plenty of contrary evidence), that these measures actually prevent ID theft, or false identification)).
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the way things are now. Articles of 'good faith' impel the acceptance of IDs from any state, in any state. Any of the 'security' mechanisms that are mandated for a Real ID could be voluntarily implemented by the states if they so choose (not that any of those mechanisms are inviolable).
Without going into a long winded explanation, we know that 'spooky action at a distance' (more technically called non-locality) is a real phenomenon based on a theorem called 'Bell's inequality'.
Here's what that theorem says, in fairly simple terms:
If the system is merely the measuring of characteristics that pre-exist, but are unknown (like your pennies), there is a certain statistical distribution that will occur over a series of measurments of those characteristics.
Quantum mechanics predicts a different distribution of the series of measurements.
A substantial number of experiments have demonstrated that the statistical results confirm the non-local explanation of events.
There's a pretty good overview (if a bit technical) of Bell's Theorem here .
But they certainly aren't sufficient credentials in the absence of any other experience or education.
Any employer who hires someone based on some single, simple criteria, whether that be just a degree, just a certification, or some other buzzword of the week is nearly always going to get less than they bargained for.
Too many people (employees and employers) use things like certificates because they're too lazy to actually do the work needed to either advance their *real* skills or hire someone with real skills.
Bear in mind that the above figures are for *chassis* wiring. For long distributions, the wire sizes mentioned above would be good for 1/2 to 3/4 of the total load (you'd need even larger wire for significant distribution)
I wouldn't say I know *much* more, I'm only an EE :)
It's hard to say what would really make a difference overall, short of improving the efficiency of the power supply, since there are so many factors to consider, especially when you get to distribution (such as how many wires, how much current, sense lines for voltage stability and accuracy, etc.).
For a tightly grouped set of computers, you could have a dc bus (like a 48v system), and regulate down in each box. Regulators also have a loss, though.
A single very high efficiency supply feeding a single medium voltage dc supply, which is then regulated down at the box level *could* be a bit more efficient, but probably not much, and the added cost and effort of the distribution system would probably exceed the gain.
Lets say these 9 computers each use about 300 watts from their supplies, that's 2700 watts total. Assuming that about 70% of that is on the 5v supply and 30% is on the 12v supply (the other voltages matter also, but they tend to be much lower power levels, so we can get a good baseline with the two biggies). Approximately 1900 watts on the 5v line and 800 watts on the 12v line. That's about 380 amps of current on the 5v line and about 66 amps on the 12v line. According to the AWG current load limits table, the wire size for maximum current chassis wiring of 380 amps is 0000 guage, which is about 1/2 inch in diameter. Similarly, the 12v line would need to be 8 guage.
If you had a single 48v bus, it would carry about 57 amps at the total load, which would require 10 guage wire. That's doable, but you'd still get heat loss from resistance, and that's assuming everything else is 100% efficient (which they aren't, meaning the overall power levels would hav to be higher to meet the prescribed load).
You wouldn't want to provide most of these voltages remotely, because of the current draw. At higher current values, the resistance of the wire becomes more of a factor, and you'd either need very short runs (kind of defeats the purpose of a distributed run), or you'd need high current wires, which have a large diameter (wire guage). Think of running jumper cable type wires from room to room and you'd get an idea of what would be required.
You could provide a single higher voltage that gets regulated down as needed at the equipment, but you'd still have to deal with the current levels, just not as high.
> "The very same people? Really?"
Actually, yes. Not every one the same, a significant number is.
> "So, do you dispute the physics of greenhouse gasses, or the fact that we've been dumping them into the atmosphere at an astonishing rate since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution?"
Just for reference, one substantial volcanic eruption releases more CO2 and C0 into the atmosphere than every single internal combustion engine that ever existed. Yes, undoubtedly, we are *contributing* (and we *should* attempt to ameliorate that contribution as practicable), but we certainly aren't the primary source of those gasses. Also, water vapor is a more effective greenhouse substance than CO2.
> "Who says it's a political agenda? What if it's a sober warning rather than scaremongering?"
And what if it is scaremongering (or politics)? Do you really want us to engage in a course of action based on blind panic (or political expediency rather than effectiveness)?
While there are clearly anthropogenic effects on the climate, the magnitude of those effects and the degree to which those effects are related to other normal, natural, periodic cycles is something we simply don't have any *real* answer to. Our climate models are *nowhere* near being able to make even a moderately definitive prediction about the future of our climate.
I'm in agreement that we should make certain efforts to ameliorate our own contributions, but even those contributions *must* be implemented in a fashion that don't exacerbate the problem (or create other problems that may be as bad, or worse than what we're trying to solve). There will be *NO* instant (or even quick) changes in a system with the massive inertia that is contained within the biosystem. Apart from sensible conservation efforts and meaningful investigation into alternate energy sources, not one of the *solutions* presented by the alarmists can be considered to be meaningfully effective with minimal side effects.
Thing is that the lawyers for IBM will be doing much the same to SCO (and witnesses), and probably doing it much better, as well (they have the easier target :o)).
The adversarial system and rules of cross-examination (among others) may not be perfect, but the do tend to even out the more eggregious examples of your described behaviour.
Yeah, that's true.
:o)).
I think sometimes ease of acquisition is confused with abundance. The end effect is much the same, though. As you say, someone has to get off their ass to forage for food (unless they're foraging from the refrigerator (my preferred technique)
Even so, I'd have to say that there's more food per person in a given area (at least in the first world countries) than there was for most hunter / gatherers.
All in all, I don't think that abundance (or ease of acquisition), per se, is all that bad. As a few have posted here, I think what one chooses to do with it has more to do with the issue.
Any form of change will have at least some unintended or unpredicted consequences.
:o)).
While a reduction in scarcity may be unintended, I find it hard to consider it automatically undesirable. Scarcity in terms of food is bad, by and large. Even though an abundance has its own issues, obesity is arguably less of a problem than starvation (though obviously, the middle ground is probably to be preferred).
(Now, if there were a scarcity of lawyers and politicians, that could be a good thing
It doesn't appear that the author is railing against technology, but there are people who will read it that way. "Technology is bad!", they will say, and point to any number of unintended problems that have arisen. What these people seem to miss is that the solution to those problems is further progress (and technology), not stopping in one place and burying our heads in the sand (or clamoring for a idyllic past that never existed).
Given that, for the most part, the problems caused by these unintended consequences are often less harmful than the problems that the technology addresses, I'm willing to accept the consequences, assuming that a goal is further advancement to address those problems, and so on.
Actually, I not only grew up in an American city, but I lived in areas where drugs were quite common.
As you say, very easy to get.
I know *many* people who destroyed their lives with drugs, one of them was my ex-girlfriend.
My point stands, though. A large part of the problems with drug use come from the fact that they are illegal and are distributed through an untrusted illegal network. Additionally, some of the fatalities have to do with impurities rather than the drugs themselves. Also, the illegality and the stigma of drug use go a long way toward discouraging those who need it to seek treatment (and it's often too late when they do).
I don't say that drugs aren't a problem. What I'm saying is that the structure and mechanism of the current legal framework go a long way toward increasing the harm that drugs do, without any comcomitant benefit. Obviously, the 'war on drugs' certainly hasn't made drugs any harder to get.
The thing is that the 'war on drugs', as well as the vast majority of the proposed (or extant) legislative mechanisms for addressing drug use (or abuse) are far *worse* than the drug problem itself.
All of the side effects of abuse that do harm to others are already illegal (assault, theft, etc.).
Not to mention that alcohol, a legal drug, is responsible for more of your stated social ills than all of the illicit drugs combined.
Additionally, meny people behave in the same negative fashion without any use of drugs. People do stupid shit all of the time, for lots of reasons, like a bad day at work, emotional immaturity, and so forth.
We should address the actual social problem (the assault, robbery, violence, etc.) directly. If drugs, etc., are a proximate cause of the behaviour in a given person, then that person should be proscribed from such behaviour, not the rest of society.
All of that said, I don't really have a huge problem with the idea of these kind of scanners. Just like any technology, they can be used for good or ill, and I think the idea is sufficiently cool to warrant further use and research. Besides, while I question the actual effectiveness of things like airport security, anyone stupid enough to try to intentionally smuggle any contraband through an airport pretty much deserves what they get.
That someone (RIAA, etc.) told them to drop the idea of a lawsuit, because of the possibility that it would be too good of a test case against the DMCA, and might even make it all the way to getting it thrown out?
In addition, to answer your direct question, my argument would be that the only viable way to protect the copyright owner is to engender an awareness and respect for the rights of the copyright holder, and to demonstrate, by example, both that violators (and only violators) are penalized for their actions, and to reciprocate that respect back to the users of the copyrighted works in such a fashion as to make the user feel good about properly supporting the copyright owner.
Bad laws and active hatred for the users will directly engender the type of behaviour that leads to the violations.
That said, there will always be those who have no respect for the rights and property of others, and they are the ones we should penalize.
I don't picture the executives saying literally, 'Let's counter fair use', but what they do say is, 'How can we make more money off of our content'? And in some cases, they come up with the idea that making it difficult or illegal to engage in fair use activities might make someone buy an extra copy, etc.
In addition, many of the apologists or spokespersons for the industries, such as Valenti, have stated outright that they don't consider fair use to be a valid concern for digital media. Bear in mind, that many of these people do see fair use as a threat to their bottom line, or their control of their content
I'm definitely all for capitalism, and I do understand the circumstances under which many of these decisions are made, but they are the wrong decisions, nonetheless, if for no other reason that treating your customers like criminals is most assuredly contrary to the profit motive, no matter how good it looks on paper. In addition, such methods are FAR more likely to result in the loss of customers than otherwise.
As before, the correct solution to these problems is to actually address the violations (and the violators) of the law, to treat your customers as though you really want their business (instead of begrudgingly treating them like a commodity), and to convince the general public that your product has enough value to justify their purchase.
The legal framework of copyright had sufficient strength to address actual copyright violators prior to the DMCA.
I don't argue that kazaa, et.al. are not a part of the problem, merely that they aren't, by far, the most economically damaging form of distribution. And anyway, it can be argued that, in some cases, the p2p method of distribution is just as mass production as the piracy rings.
The point being that the DMCA, and the various forms of copy protection don't actually DO anything to stop this behaviour. Copyright law prior to the DMCA had all the necessary legal footing to pursue copyright violators.
My original point still stands, pursue the violators (p2p or otherwise), don't make laws that penalize valid use, and don't treat legal users as criminals (which is what these mechanisms do in practice, if not in principle).
More importantly, don't penalize the technology (p2p, etc.) to address the problem.
One thing that it's important to realize is that the DMCA (and other laws of the same stripe) not only have no effect at all on piracy, they were never really intended to address piracy, regardless of all the lip service provided in that direction.
These laws are primarily a control issue, and those that bought these laws (and bought they certainly were, there is no evidence at all that the general voting constituency clamored for these laws), want to have complete control over how (and where and on what) you experience their content, and the concept of fair use is anathema to them.
The vast majority of piracy can be addressed by directly targeting the major pirating organizations that distribute in a mass production fashion.
I fully support the right of copyright owners to have the limited rights granted to them, and fully support targeting anyone who actively violates copyright law. But none of these laws, nor any of the other copyright protection schemes do anything but inconvenience the general user and attempt to criminalize legitimate fair use behaviour. The actual copyright violators out there are not detrimentally affected by these issues, at all.
In addition, laws such as the DMCA are far more often being used to hamper and threaten legitimate competition, rather than address real copyright violations.
The suggestion that has the most chance of working is to target the actual violators, and stop treating the general population as criminals simply because they actually bought the product.
I have no real problem with RAMBUS enforcing their patent, as long as it's clear that they are doing so fully legally.
The primary issues (that I'm aware of) are that RAMBUS is accused of essentially hiding the existence of the patent during the JEDEC collaboration and whether what Infineon has done actually constitutes infringement.
The current ruling seems to indicate that there was no fraud involved in patenting during the JEDEC proceedings, but even that doesn't necessarily free RAMBUS from the onus of proving infringement. Whether the patent itself was initiated fraudulently or not, there is still a clause in patent law that they cannot sit on the patent and enforce it at a later date.
In addition, it would also have to be demonstrated that Infineon (among other potentials) were aware that the technology involved was indeed patented at the time the implemented it. There is a substantial legal difference between willful and incidental infringement. And if it is true that RAMBUS stayed mum about the existence of their patent, it's pretty clear that any infringement that may have occured before knowledge of the patents existence would definitely be non-willful.
I'm certainly not up on all aspects of this case, and there are most likely facts and items that I have no knowledge of, but the general perception is that RAMBUS is using ambush tactics as a profit mechanism.
I have no problems with the concept of patents, and I have no problem with those who hold valid patents, but I do have a problem with patents being used for ambush tactics and the like. Likewise, if Infineon really did willfully infringe, I have no problem with them being brought to task for it.
Obviously, there will be more to come in this saga, so it'll be interesting to see where the dust settles.
You're barking up the wrong tree. For your edification, you may want to look up the definition of the word libertarian.
I do not oppose taxes for national defense, public infrastructure or other things in that vein. I oppose taxation that exists for no other purpose than the redistribution of wealth or the propping up of businesses or organizations that would fail without that taxation (and therefore need to fail).
And what I mean by the industry needing to police itself is that they should use the existing laws and make the effort ON THEIR OWN PART to identify the actual transgressors and pursue them, instead of whining to the government to babysit them and penalize the entire public for their lack of imagination and business sense.
Music is NOT a public utility or a social necessity. I purchase ALL of my music and software (or use free software), and it is CRIMINAL to ask me to pay for the transgressions of others.
BTW, I'm ex military. I think I can stand up just fine in any of the arenas you choose to mention.
What a complete and utter pile of crap.
Comparing taxation to the RIAA's attempt to bolster their profits through extortion is completely missing the point.
Although I also have problems with taxation, and it is, in fact, it's own form of state extortion, there is at least the slightest patina of democratic action involved, and it can arguably be considered a benefit to society as a whole.
The above is not only not true for the RIAA, the argument for the RIAA doesn't even brush up against the truth.
To argue for forcing an ISP to charge everyone to meet the whims of the music industry is absurd. Treating an entire class of people as criminals (which is what this suggestion does), to compensate for the actions of a few is far more criminal than the act it claims to be trying to prevent.
Taxation, as bad as it is, is imposed by a government of elected officials, bad as they may be. There is no similar justification for the RIAA. You can argue the merits of the programs and benefits provided by taxation, but there is no valid argument for supporting a business with mandated fees. If they can't support (and police) themselves, they deserve to fail and go under.
I'll let someone else torture you with tensors :o)
i ty.htm
l es/LIGHTCONE/
:o)s /List s/relativity.html
Here are three (of many) links that I've found in the past that deal with relativity and provide varying degrees of rigor and completeness in the explanations.
How stuff works! Talking about special relativity:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/relativ
A pretty interesting and more rigorous explanation:
http://physics.syr.edu/courses/modu
And finally, a question and answer format explanation
http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Physic
This should get you a good set of basic coverage about relativity.
That would be because I *don't* blindly believe man has landed on the moon. The evidence of the moon landings is clear and apparent to anyone who examines it honestly.
Not only do we have some degree of physical evidence (moon rocks, etc.), there is the matter of all of the personnel at the various launch and monitoring facilities, the many hundreds of people serving on the navy ships that performed pickup on the astronauts, and so on. As far as I know, none of these people have contributed any comments to the contrary.
And, of course, there is the multitude of sources and sites that thoroughly debunk any contention that the landing did not occur (and do so with *MUCH* more evidence and credibility than any of the sources used by the conspiracy nuts.
As a final note, although not unimpeachable, I personally watched the landing (on tv, of course) on my 9th birthday.
To address your other points, it is okay for MS to be a monopoly, it's just not okay for them to abuse it.
Blind disbelief is no better than blind faith. In either case, you suborn your responsibility for intelligent consideration of the facts to a blind acceptance (or denial) of authority. Both paths are equally wrong.
Bad analogy.
And a misquote from the grandparent post: "Those who would sacrifice an *essential* liberty for temporary safety, deserves neither", the key words here being essential, for liberty, and temporary, for safety.
There is no such thing as permanent safety, no matter what the nanny state would have us believe.
And the context of essential liberty is intended to refer to those liberties that do not infringe upon the liberties of others, it is not intended to promote or justify anarchy.
A common misconception in most societies is the idea that we are granted our freedoms by law, when in fact, the opposite is true. Our essential freedoms have *always* existed, it is in the scope of law merely to protect them from those that would abuse them, and those abusers can (and often do) include the government and institutions we have in place to protect those freedoms.
I'd rather keep EVERY ONE of my *essential* liberties, even at the risk of a little less certainty in the public safety arena, for the very simple reason that those who would threaten that safety will not be hampered, IN THE LEAST, by any of the restrictions on my freedoms.
Deregulation in a competitive market is a good idea, as it allows the competition to work. The sham of pseudo-deregulation (such as what happened with the airlines, etc), is not proper deregulation in that there is still no equal playing field and equal access to all resources to be competed for.
Deregulation doesn't mean no laws concerning behaviour and legal requirements, it means that there are no regulatory barriers that favor one company over any other (and most forms of "deregulation" in recent history still have those barriers, and as a result, are not proper deregulation).
Just because you (and they) can't think of a business model to supplant their current one doesn't mean that the need to do so does not exist. The same difficulty has been present with every technological change in business history. Adapt or die has been the rule through history, and it is no less valid now.
First, lets start with the fact that the underlying mechanism for determining viewership / advertising returns is flawed. The quasi statistical calculation that says, "here is how many people will be watching your commercial during program X" is less and less valid in the age of many channels and channel surfing, etc. Second, something like 50 or 60 percent of those watching aren't the target of the advertiser in the first place.
Second, the advertisers are paying for their ad space based on those ephemeral numbers of viewers. And those numbers are provided (indirectly) by the content providers (via shams like the nielsons, etc.). I, as a viewer, am not at all obligated to make the effort to support their flawed business assumptions.
Third, if they REALLY wanted me to watch their advertisements, they would produce advertisements that didn't have to evolve for 2 million years just to improve to the level of mind-numbingly stupid. I am not obligated to make myself physically ill in order to support their flawed business model.
All that said, there are two ways (off the top of my head) that the providers can change their models to improve the current situtation. First is that they can take advantage of the ability for the viewer to set preferences in the PVR's (and the like) and use those preferences to target advertisements that, even if still stupider than a member of congress, would at least have the value of being of passing interest to the viewer.
Second, they could embrace some form of the subscription plan. Channels like HBO and Showtime (as an example) manage to produce some seriously fine programming, both because they don't depend on advertising, and also because they aren't subject to the advertisers whims concerning content, etc.
And they don't have a right to be pissed about ads being skipped, anymore than buggy whip manufacturers had a right to be pissed at the automobile (to use an oft repeated analogy).