Most of what is said is either clearly untrue (and thus parody) or true (and thus, completely fair comment). I don't think the schools have a leg to stand on for most cases. The student who said the teacher had fat legs, for example, is entirely a matter of opinion. If the teacher can prove that she does not have fat legs, then yes, it's libel. But, the onus of proof ought to be on the teacher. Of course, accusations of child molestation are libellous (if not true), and they are potentially both career-ending and devastating. However, I'm perfectly at liberty to say "Oh, I hate Joe Bloggs, he's a dickhead" if I want, and I'm allowed to put that wherever I like, because the only real statement in there asserts that Joe Bloggs is a dickhead, which is a matter of opinion (unless he has an actual penis on his head, in which case it's factually true).
Obviously, the school has to at least give these kids detention to keep order, but when it comes to chasing them down legally, I really can't see the schools winning.
DISCLAIMER: I'm only twenty, you old farts might think that I'm a young whippersnapper who's running his mouth:oP
If there were a device that excluded old people from a particular area, there would be absolute chaos if anybody ever actually used it. Kids, however, seem to be fair game. As you've said, it's only a minority of kids who cause the problems. This is Slashdot, right? Every other day someone's moaning about the lack of individual rights! Assuming the device worked perfectly, and only affected people under the age of 18, even if that were the case, it's still not fair.
However, that's not the case, and there's quite a lot of people who are affected by these. I'm still young enough to be able to hear the tone. I'm now 20, I can do pretty much everything I'm ever going to be allowed to do in this country - except, I'm not allowed to go to the shopping centre until my ears degrade.
Actually, I read a paper on this topic a while ago, and a significant proportion of babies do NOT actually say "Ma-ma" first, they say "Da-da", and consequently learn to refer to their fathers first, and their mothers later. I was surprised when I read it, which is why the study's stuck in my head, but I can't remember who it was.
Sorry, what? "[...]if the US were going to do it, they'd have done it in secret"? I suppose they'd just be hoping no-one noticed.
Doing it "in secret" is impossible when pretty much an entire nation can see what you've done. You just have to make it look like an accident. A heavy metal accident with a chain attached, for example.
Correct. However, most ISP privacy policies state that they may be forced to disclose user information in criminal investigations. Therefore, it may be possible for people defending to get evidence dismissed. IANAL, and I'm not certain whether privacy policies are legally binding, or if the omission of "civil or" is significant.
Maybe someone who knows better than me can comment?
Recording to a decent standard (as has been noted elsewhere on this subject) is still pretty expensive. And yes, it's a high-risk loan - it'd have to be secured against material assets. As much as I dislike the loan culture we have nowadays (leaving university with £25,000 debts, credit cards/store cards) it strikes me that it's the only way to do it.
Also, I'm not prepared to condemn artists that use drugs. Look at Clapton, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Joy Division, and countless other bands who produced their best stuff when they were under the influence of drugs. Admittedly, lending money to a drug user is higher risk than lending to a sober artist - but it's also almost universally a higher pay-off. You have a point about musical taste - artists today have to fit into predefined criteria in order to be popular. This is why it's poor business sense to invest a huge amount of money into a high-quality act - just because they're good doesn't mean they'll sell (unfortunately).
This tendency suggests that a good idea would be to sign a large number of "generic" bands, and use the pay-off from those to promote the GOOD bands on the label. There's no denying it - generic bands sell - but they're not a decent long term prospect. There are few good original bands who make music nowadays that actually sells, compared to the plethora of bands who make music that sells, but is exactly the same as every other band. So, what is to be done? Hope to change public opinion? Not gonna happen. Appeal to a niche market? Not economically viable. Attempting to cater to the market is the only way any label could ever hope to make money. However, then the label loses integrity, and cuts off the niche that may well appreciate the good bands that the label aspires to sign.
I can't really see a way around this, a way to build a label with integrity that is economically viable.
The problem is (and I've toyed with starting up a record label in the past - it's still a possibility) that in terms of nurturing artists for the long term, it requires a huge investment in the band, and it requires the band to actually produce decent material year on year. So we're talking about a huge amount of initial capital, and then the relatively high risk of losing that capital.
In my opinion, the only viable model for a new start-up record label that wants to operate under a "do no evil" philosophy is as a distribution and promotion channel. By that I mean force the artist to take much of the financial risk by recording and mixing themselves, and then the 'label' does the distribution, promotion and printing. However, there are several gaping holes in this model - namely that the artist doesn't have the capital to produce an album worth distributing. For a way around this, the 'label' could offer a loan to the artist. The artist would be required to pay back the loan, and that way, the 'label' isn't risking the money. In exchange for not taking the gamble, the record company would have to accept a lower percentage of revenue from the music, perhaps even as low as forty percent. Also, rather than the record label owning the copyright, the artist would grant the right to distribute and sell for an indefinite term, thereby keeping their copyright.
This model, I believe, is the best way of dealing with the current situation, especially with artists who are wary of entering a long-term contract. The problem is that then there is no continuity. No long contracts means no guarantees. It's a difficult call to make.
There are four possible scenarios (simplifying a little):
o We are living in a VR and don't know it
o We are living in a VR and come to realise it
o We are not living in a VR and do not believe we are
o We are not living in a VR but believe we are
In case one: No problems.
In case two: Either the simulation ends, or the simulation is not geared towards working out how long we take to find out. Either way, there is no higher level of understanding in either, as we still wouldn't know the goal of the simulation, and there would be know way of knowing until the simulation ended, meaning we would not profit from it.
In case three: No problems.
In case four: We progress to trying to work out what this simulation is aimed at, failing miserably. The only thing wasted is time (and money, in the form of research grants).
As I look it at, it's no different to religion, really. Believe what you like; it doesn't really affect the environment in which we live.
I would agree with that for the most part. My company uses HDMI inputs running off a powerful AV receiver and a few switching boxes for all of our screens, except for four which sit in the middle of the shop floor, which we run off an upscaling DVD player.
You're right about the set-up, it's a common misconception that the T.V. looks at its best if you just don't touch it, you need to play with the colour temperature, contrast, brightness, and any other setting you can find to get the best picture for your viewing conditions.
By the way, if you shelled out a reasonable amount for your CRT, the picture will look better than most of the crappy LCDs they have on display at most high street retailers. It's the same with anything really, you get what you pay for. If you pay under £500 for a screen bigger than 26", then it won't be particularly good, and that extends up the scale, all the way to plasmas (which, incidentally, I suspect will die out, thankfully. The picture quality on them is terrible compared to a decent LCD, and LCD technology is getting better and cheaper all the time). As someone who hangs about on slashdot, you're probably well aware that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, so I'm willing to bet you spent a decent amount on your telly, which is why it looks better than most of the ones in the windows at Currys - it is!
I work for a major electrical retailer in the U.K., and I can tell you that we do not sell Blu-ray players. We have ONE in stock at the shop I work at, and no-one's even asked about it (we use it to drive the big screens we have on the walls). HD-DVD players... I don't think I've ever even seen one.
In terms of quality, it is obvious even to an untrained eye which is a hi-def source, and which is a normal DVD, as long as the screen they're viewing it on is up to it.
However, upscaling DVD players are excellent (the ones that take a DVD, and interpolate, giving the impression of hi-def) - unless you have a decent T.V. If you have a decent T.V., the picture just doesn't look quite right - it looks more like an episode of Coronation Street than a film (which is an artifact of the interpolation). If the screen is a lower quality, it does genuinely improve picture quality many fold. If the screen isn't very good anyway, there's no point buying a hi-def media player though.
Actually, a C&D does commit them to something legally - there's the bit about them having a good faith belief that their copyright is being violated under penalty of perjury.
Last time I looked, perjury was a pretty serious offence. Add the risk of being found guilty of perjury to the costs, and reconsider the cost-benefit analysis. And add negative publicity. All of a sudden, it's looking like it's not worthwhile.
I suspect that that's not how it is intended. The RIAA, I believe, are trying to say that once the defendant converts the files to MP3, those are no longer the same recordings he has a licence to. This is technically true, however, he doesn't need a licence for the MP3 files, if they're for personal use. To stay within the letter of the law, this would include not allowing your spouse/siblings/housemates/children to listen to it, but I doubt anyone would be found liable if they did, because that's not the spirit of the law.
It's also not necessarily true. I don't know the village in question, but a lot of the smaller places in Britain just don't bother with pavements because they don't see the need. People can walk on the grass or on the road, and it doesn't really matter which. The only problem comes when this sort of thing happens, and lorries end up using these roads without pavements to get from A to B, which suddenly presents a problem. A car can easily move a little further into the centre of the road to accommodate people walking on the road, while a lorry moving into the centre of the road would probably end up on the opposite carriageway, which is obviously dangerous.
I'm not talking about the exact same combination of chemicals, but it'd surely be a relatively trivial matter (in medical terms) to get a needle into a brain, and administer a drug. Some kind of hallucinogenic, possibly, would have the effect of separating the mind and body?
Perhaps medically induced schizophrenia could cause a catatonic state (and incidentally protect the mind from the shock of being severed from the body), and an intelligent choice of drug to split the higher brain functions off from the body? I'm not a physician, but the theory seems okay to me?
What would this mean for humans? Is it possible to do this to us? If so, this could be the new date rape drug.
Oh yeah, and I suppose it needs to be done: I, for one, welcome our new zombie cockroach overlords.
Assumptions have to be presented as fact. Scientific theory involves creating a hypothesis, and either proving it, or disproving it. If for example, I hypothesise that men are more likely to accept an offer of sex from a prostitute if they are straight, I am making a number of assumptions.
Men like sex
Prostitutes are women
Prostitutes offer sex to men
etc. I will almost certainly find that hypothesis to be true, based on assumptions I have made, and data I have gathered. It is impractical to say "Straight men that like sex are more likely to accept an offer of sex from a female prostitute who offers sex to them than gay men", because it is difficult to read, difficult to comprehend, and not necessarily an exact explanation of what I intended to find out.
Obviously, I've simplified here to a ridiculous level, but if we take an assumption that we apply to this study, for example, "It is not possible for genes to be more than X% similar if one of these people is from Asia, and one from America", how is that different. Statistically, there is a chance that person A and person B have the exact same DNA. It's unlikely, but still possible. If we take another assumption, "If a person with an Asian genome is found in America, then that person immigrated over land". This is where the problem arises. Your argument is that it is not necessary for such a person to have immigrated over land, which is legitimate. The study in and of itself though, was not interested in whether people travelled by land, by sea, or by spaceship, only the similarity between Asian and American genomes. If you can show that there is a large degree of similarity, then you can say that it is highly likely there was a migration. If this migration was likely to be across the Bering Strait, so be it. If not, then do a study with the hypothesis "Migration into America did not occur across the Bering Strait." and give me some conflicting statistics, before you rip apart what otherwise seems like an excellent study.
Apologies, looks like you missed the joke... writing syndrome after RAS was supposed to be ironic, and lighten the tone of my comment a little, so it didn't appear aggressive.
Joe
Do you have a severe case of RAS syndrome? Surely you know that K.I.T.T. STANDS for Knight Industries Two Thousand, so in essence, you managed to reproduce the entire acronym in words (and numerals)....
Yeah, I agree. I don't mind advertising, as long as it's subtle. The problem is though, most advertising isn't subtle. This leads me to do my best to turn off adverts, with adblockers, flicking channels in the breaks, etc. So, it's going to take a lot of hard work for the advertising industry to convince me that they're not really evil, and to become subtle. For example, I don't mind a tasteful, relevant banner ad on a website. I do mind flashing animated gifs telling me that I've won because I'm the twenty-twelfth visitor to the site. I don't mind billboards while I'm driving, but I do mind having to turn my T.V. down every fifteen minutes because the adverts are louder than the programme I'm trying to watch.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of what is said is either clearly untrue (and thus parody) or true (and thus, completely fair comment). I don't think the schools have a leg to stand on for most cases. The student who said the teacher had fat legs, for example, is entirely a matter of opinion. If the teacher can prove that she does not have fat legs, then yes, it's libel. But, the onus of proof ought to be on the teacher. Of course, accusations of child molestation are libellous (if not true), and they are potentially both career-ending and devastating. However, I'm perfectly at liberty to say "Oh, I hate Joe Bloggs, he's a dickhead" if I want, and I'm allowed to put that wherever I like, because the only real statement in there asserts that Joe Bloggs is a dickhead, which is a matter of opinion (unless he has an actual penis on his head, in which case it's factually true).
Obviously, the school has to at least give these kids detention to keep order, but when it comes to chasing them down legally, I really can't see the schools winning.
Interesting, but skewed.
:oP
DISCLAIMER: I'm only twenty, you old farts might think that I'm a young whippersnapper who's running his mouth
If there were a device that excluded old people from a particular area, there would be absolute chaos if anybody ever actually used it. Kids, however, seem to be fair game. As you've said, it's only a minority of kids who cause the problems. This is Slashdot, right? Every other day someone's moaning about the lack of individual rights! Assuming the device worked perfectly, and only affected people under the age of 18, even if that were the case, it's still not fair.
However, that's not the case, and there's quite a lot of people who are affected by these. I'm still young enough to be able to hear the tone. I'm now 20, I can do pretty much everything I'm ever going to be allowed to do in this country - except, I'm not allowed to go to the shopping centre until my ears degrade.
I'm a rocket man.
Actually, I read a paper on this topic a while ago, and a significant proportion of babies do NOT actually say "Ma-ma" first, they say "Da-da", and consequently learn to refer to their fathers first, and their mothers later. I was surprised when I read it, which is why the study's stuck in my head, but I can't remember who it was.
Gone in 60 Seconds anyone?
Sorry, what? "[...]if the US were going to do it, they'd have done it in secret"? I suppose they'd just be hoping no-one noticed.
Doing it "in secret" is impossible when pretty much an entire nation can see what you've done. You just have to make it look like an accident. A heavy metal accident with a chain attached, for example.
Correct. However, most ISP privacy policies state that they may be forced to disclose user information in criminal investigations. Therefore, it may be possible for people defending to get evidence dismissed. IANAL, and I'm not certain whether privacy policies are legally binding, or if the omission of "civil or" is significant.
Maybe someone who knows better than me can comment?
Recording to a decent standard (as has been noted elsewhere on this subject) is still pretty expensive. And yes, it's a high-risk loan - it'd have to be secured against material assets. As much as I dislike the loan culture we have nowadays (leaving university with £25,000 debts, credit cards/store cards) it strikes me that it's the only way to do it.
Also, I'm not prepared to condemn artists that use drugs. Look at Clapton, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Joy Division, and countless other bands who produced their best stuff when they were under the influence of drugs. Admittedly, lending money to a drug user is higher risk than lending to a sober artist - but it's also almost universally a higher pay-off. You have a point about musical taste - artists today have to fit into predefined criteria in order to be popular. This is why it's poor business sense to invest a huge amount of money into a high-quality act - just because they're good doesn't mean they'll sell (unfortunately).
This tendency suggests that a good idea would be to sign a large number of "generic" bands, and use the pay-off from those to promote the GOOD bands on the label. There's no denying it - generic bands sell - but they're not a decent long term prospect. There are few good original bands who make music nowadays that actually sells, compared to the plethora of bands who make music that sells, but is exactly the same as every other band. So, what is to be done? Hope to change public opinion? Not gonna happen. Appeal to a niche market? Not economically viable. Attempting to cater to the market is the only way any label could ever hope to make money. However, then the label loses integrity, and cuts off the niche that may well appreciate the good bands that the label aspires to sign.
I can't really see a way around this, a way to build a label with integrity that is economically viable.
The problem is (and I've toyed with starting up a record label in the past - it's still a possibility) that in terms of nurturing artists for the long term, it requires a huge investment in the band, and it requires the band to actually produce decent material year on year. So we're talking about a huge amount of initial capital, and then the relatively high risk of losing that capital.
In my opinion, the only viable model for a new start-up record label that wants to operate under a "do no evil" philosophy is as a distribution and promotion channel. By that I mean force the artist to take much of the financial risk by recording and mixing themselves, and then the 'label' does the distribution, promotion and printing. However, there are several gaping holes in this model - namely that the artist doesn't have the capital to produce an album worth distributing. For a way around this, the 'label' could offer a loan to the artist. The artist would be required to pay back the loan, and that way, the 'label' isn't risking the money. In exchange for not taking the gamble, the record company would have to accept a lower percentage of revenue from the music, perhaps even as low as forty percent. Also, rather than the record label owning the copyright, the artist would grant the right to distribute and sell for an indefinite term, thereby keeping their copyright.
This model, I believe, is the best way of dealing with the current situation, especially with artists who are wary of entering a long-term contract. The problem is that then there is no continuity. No long contracts means no guarantees. It's a difficult call to make.
Possibly same place as you. "So, so"? "a 50 units"? Planks and eyes come to mind
Not trying to put you down, just saying, if you're going to be a grammar nazi - at least get your own grammar right.
Do college students now have grounds to launch a class action suit for libel?
Just a thought.
There are four possible scenarios (simplifying a little):
o We are living in a VR and don't know it
o We are living in a VR and come to realise it
o We are not living in a VR and do not believe we are
o We are not living in a VR but believe we are
In case one: No problems.
In case two: Either the simulation ends, or the simulation is not geared towards working out how long we take to find out. Either way, there is no higher level of understanding in either, as we still wouldn't know the goal of the simulation, and there would be know way of knowing until the simulation ended, meaning we would not profit from it.
In case three: No problems.
In case four: We progress to trying to work out what this simulation is aimed at, failing miserably. The only thing wasted is time (and money, in the form of research grants).
As I look it at, it's no different to religion, really. Believe what you like; it doesn't really affect the environment in which we live.
I would agree with that for the most part. My company uses HDMI inputs running off a powerful AV receiver and a few switching boxes for all of our screens, except for four which sit in the middle of the shop floor, which we run off an upscaling DVD player.
You're right about the set-up, it's a common misconception that the T.V. looks at its best if you just don't touch it, you need to play with the colour temperature, contrast, brightness, and any other setting you can find to get the best picture for your viewing conditions.
By the way, if you shelled out a reasonable amount for your CRT, the picture will look better than most of the crappy LCDs they have on display at most high street retailers. It's the same with anything really, you get what you pay for. If you pay under £500 for a screen bigger than 26", then it won't be particularly good, and that extends up the scale, all the way to plasmas (which, incidentally, I suspect will die out, thankfully. The picture quality on them is terrible compared to a decent LCD, and LCD technology is getting better and cheaper all the time). As someone who hangs about on slashdot, you're probably well aware that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, so I'm willing to bet you spent a decent amount on your telly, which is why it looks better than most of the ones in the windows at Currys - it is!
I work for a major electrical retailer in the U.K., and I can tell you that we do not sell Blu-ray players. We have ONE in stock at the shop I work at, and no-one's even asked about it (we use it to drive the big screens we have on the walls). HD-DVD players... I don't think I've ever even seen one.
In terms of quality, it is obvious even to an untrained eye which is a hi-def source, and which is a normal DVD, as long as the screen they're viewing it on is up to it.
However, upscaling DVD players are excellent (the ones that take a DVD, and interpolate, giving the impression of hi-def) - unless you have a decent T.V. If you have a decent T.V., the picture just doesn't look quite right - it looks more like an episode of Coronation Street than a film (which is an artifact of the interpolation). If the screen is a lower quality, it does genuinely improve picture quality many fold. If the screen isn't very good anyway, there's no point buying a hi-def media player though.
In response to your signature: surely "Apollo-unrelated"?
Actually, a C&D does commit them to something legally - there's the bit about them having a good faith belief that their copyright is being violated under penalty of perjury.
Last time I looked, perjury was a pretty serious offence. Add the risk of being found guilty of perjury to the costs, and reconsider the cost-benefit analysis. And add negative publicity. All of a sudden, it's looking like it's not worthwhile.
I suspect that that's not how it is intended. The RIAA, I believe, are trying to say that once the defendant converts the files to MP3, those are no longer the same recordings he has a licence to. This is technically true, however, he doesn't need a licence for the MP3 files, if they're for personal use. To stay within the letter of the law, this would include not allowing your spouse/siblings/housemates/children to listen to it, but I doubt anyone would be found liable if they did, because that's not the spirit of the law.
It's also not necessarily true. I don't know the village in question, but a lot of the smaller places in Britain just don't bother with pavements because they don't see the need. People can walk on the grass or on the road, and it doesn't really matter which. The only problem comes when this sort of thing happens, and lorries end up using these roads without pavements to get from A to B, which suddenly presents a problem. A car can easily move a little further into the centre of the road to accommodate people walking on the road, while a lorry moving into the centre of the road would probably end up on the opposite carriageway, which is obviously dangerous.
I'm not talking about the exact same combination of chemicals, but it'd surely be a relatively trivial matter (in medical terms) to get a needle into a brain, and administer a drug. Some kind of hallucinogenic, possibly, would have the effect of separating the mind and body?
Perhaps medically induced schizophrenia could cause a catatonic state (and incidentally protect the mind from the shock of being severed from the body), and an intelligent choice of drug to split the higher brain functions off from the body? I'm not a physician, but the theory seems okay to me?
What would this mean for humans? Is it possible to do this to us? If so, this could be the new date rape drug. Oh yeah, and I suppose it needs to be done: I, for one, welcome our new zombie cockroach overlords.
- Men like sex
- Prostitutes are women
- Prostitutes offer sex to men
etc. I will almost certainly find that hypothesis to be true, based on assumptions I have made, and data I have gathered. It is impractical to say "Straight men that like sex are more likely to accept an offer of sex from a female prostitute who offers sex to them than gay men", because it is difficult to read, difficult to comprehend, and not necessarily an exact explanation of what I intended to find out.Obviously, I've simplified here to a ridiculous level, but if we take an assumption that we apply to this study, for example, "It is not possible for genes to be more than X% similar if one of these people is from Asia, and one from America", how is that different. Statistically, there is a chance that person A and person B have the exact same DNA. It's unlikely, but still possible. If we take another assumption, "If a person with an Asian genome is found in America, then that person immigrated over land". This is where the problem arises. Your argument is that it is not necessary for such a person to have immigrated over land, which is legitimate. The study in and of itself though, was not interested in whether people travelled by land, by sea, or by spaceship, only the similarity between Asian and American genomes. If you can show that there is a large degree of similarity, then you can say that it is highly likely there was a migration. If this migration was likely to be across the Bering Strait, so be it. If not, then do a study with the hypothesis "Migration into America did not occur across the Bering Strait." and give me some conflicting statistics, before you rip apart what otherwise seems like an excellent study.
On the other hand, Occam's Razor says "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". Go figure.
Apologies, looks like you missed the joke... writing syndrome after RAS was supposed to be ironic, and lighten the tone of my comment a little, so it didn't appear aggressive. Joe
Do you have a severe case of RAS syndrome? Surely you know that K.I.T.T. STANDS for Knight Industries Two Thousand, so in essence, you managed to reproduce the entire acronym in words (and numerals)....
Yeah, I agree. I don't mind advertising, as long as it's subtle. The problem is though, most advertising isn't subtle. This leads me to do my best to turn off adverts, with adblockers, flicking channels in the breaks, etc. So, it's going to take a lot of hard work for the advertising industry to convince me that they're not really evil, and to become subtle. For example, I don't mind a tasteful, relevant banner ad on a website. I do mind flashing animated gifs telling me that I've won because I'm the twenty-twelfth visitor to the site. I don't mind billboards while I'm driving, but I do mind having to turn my T.V. down every fifteen minutes because the adverts are louder than the programme I'm trying to watch.
Just my thoughts.