Part of what went wrong with the Therac 25 (a big part, I would say), was "the normalization of deviance". When things go wrong often enough you start to consider that the normal condition, and then you have moved from the original safe area with a zone of deviance in which risk is acceptable, to a new "normal", which is actually somewhere away from the original normal, and then the deviations around that become less safe. Lather, rinse, repeat, kill people.
is a great exposition on that. He points to Diane Vaughn's concept of "normalization of deviance". Once someone has pointed it out to you it's interesting how often it comes up.
Something like "Napster's recent apparent teetering was, in fact, confirmed by respected industry experts as an actual corporate teeter. 'This was a genuine teeter, make no mistake about that' said Flughart Frockwiffle. 'This, in combination with other recent news, may well put them on track to acheive full-scale beleaguered status'. Meanwhile, both remaining executives are disputing the analysis. 'This is far short of a teeter by any modern calculation. The teeter standards [used here] are more than 20 years old. That's before the Internet even existed.".
What gives is that most of the time "the early days of the internet" == "the first time that the person using the phrase heard of the internet".
My brother pointed this out to me when citing a cluser's attempt to flame someone for claiming he had been using email for ten years. Something like a biting "email hasn't even been _around_ for ten years!" (this was five years or so ago).
Probably works well as a general principle. Call it "Moron's Law" and it will become a de facto Principle Of How Things Work...
What they do is to make money by selling the CURE. If they don't have the cure yet, then, sorry
Johnny, you don't get your prize until after you've won the race.
Since we were discussing the foundational idea of patenting, this is largely just going to move the discussion to arguments about patenting the cure. However, you go on to be more specific:
I would say that patenting a disease gene is broken as a) the disease has no useful or advancing
application, and b) they didn't invent it. Also, if they are claiming rights to breast cancer, can anyone
who has it sue them?
I don't know the details of what gets patented when "a gene gets patented". But I think it is useful simply to know whether you have the gene or not--it is useful in deciding whether to get a preemptive mastectomy, for example.
(I don't think that they are claiming rights to the disease, but a gene which indicates your susceptibility to it. In any case, diseases have uses, too, as weapons, for example, or as tools for producing cures in a laboratory.)
As for "they didn't invent it"--well, let's suppose that this is a correct reason to disallow a gene patent. If so, it might be that we should close this loophole and explicitly allow the patenting of difficult-to-obtain information. We still are not addressing the question I proposed--"Is the patent system the best solution available for getting this kind of knowledge into the public domain?"
Maybe it needs tuning (more or fewer things patentable/longer or shorter time periods/another means of public comment/better guidelines on what makes something patent-worthy), or maybe it needs abolition.
With any course of action we consider, we must understand the good that the current system is doing now, ask how we would replace that good with something else if we remove the current system, or ask, in general, how tweaking the inputs will tweak the results.
Patent law is pragmatic. It creates a purely human construct (legally enforced monopoly on information or technology) at the public's expense in order to gain something for the public good. If you can show that something fundamental has changed about society (or what society applies it to or whatever) and that therefore the system is not producing the results for the public that it was designed to produce, then let's figure out how to get it changed. I'm with you all the way.
What I think is counterproductive is when we look at knowledge/technology that was produced under the understanding that there would be a time-limited monopoly, notice that that will mean some people won't be able to use it, and then complain that something is horribly wrong with the system.
The whole system is a compromise in its very essence. There are downsides to every compromise. The point in having made the compromise was to get some public benefit. If you want to eliminate the down sides, then also explain how you are going to replace the good side, or why you think it is no longer necessary to have what was once viewed as good.
Whether the discovery of a gene fits the current definition of a patent is not as important as asking whether the public is better served by having the private investment attracted to the field of gene discovery or not, or how it might be better served if we change the rules by which it plays its part. Maybe there should be "third world" designations for countries that allow them import-only use, or world-wide definitions of income caps below which a person can not be charged for use. If you find a way to implement this that doesn't stop the flow of investment money, great! Let's use it. I just think we need to elevate the debate, get past the barrels and barrels of red herring, and get on with coming up with pragmatic solutions that positively impact the public good.
Maybe if the US spent some money on doing good for all of mankind, those wingnuts, of whom the
US have its own share, wouldn't be as interested in blowing your stuff up.
I have failed to show, "that the information would get into the public domain sooner by your
alternative method of spurring research", but then again, as things are right now, the information for
detecting the breast cancer gene isn't in public domain, 'cause last I checked, I had to pay royalties to
the company - that's not public domain - that's called taxing and highway robbery.
No, I cannot show, that my ideas are better than the current ones, but that wasn't my point; my point
was and still is to spurr a debate about the current patent situation, and at that I have failed (even
though my original post was modded up to 5).
Let me say that I agree with all of that--I think the US's foreign and domestic policy and general behavior, and hence the US people, are to blame for the kind of anger that incites things like 9/11 and the federal building in OK and the Columbine massacre.
>p>
If you could fix the behavior, you could fix the problem. And that is true of the patent situation in general. If the people that owned the patents would just put it in the public domain now, that would solve the problem. If the people who invested in drug/gene research simply put the money into grants instead of research that could solve the problem, too. There are many ways for the problem to be solved simply by people choosing to spend their money, time, etc to help other people.
Some people do that. Nothing is preventing more people from doing that. You can donate money pre-tax, in fact, so there is an immediate multiplying effect of any contribution.
However, none of that relates to the question of whether we should abolish or change patent law. What patent law does is to put greed to work for the public. If we didn't allow patents on drugs, the greedy would not start suddently donating all of that money to medical research--they would find other ways to invest it to make themselves money, possibly in ways that will never create something that enters the public domain.
I wasn't trying to skewer anybody. I said it was "not helpful" because I really think that complaining about "X thing developed under the understanding that its inventors could profit from it" does not help us. It diverts us from coming up with something better than the patent system to encourage the kind of research and development that needs to be done. And, if we were successful in getting patent laws abolished and making the current crop of patented medicines/therapies free, but had nothing to put in its place, we might well have done a lot more harm than good.
If we make the breast cancer gene public domain by force, we may discourage the very investor that was going to fund the research that would lead to the cure for breast cancer.
I agree, it would be MUCH better if we all cooperatively worked together to end all hunger and disease for all people. I would love that. Every line of open source code I contribute brings us a step closer to that reality (one cost of medical research is software--we can make that cost go away).
Right now I don't have a solution for everything else. I like the idea of a cure that eventually becomes public domain a lot better than no cure. The situation of poor people not having access to the cure RIGHT NOW is a red herring--the cure might not be known at all if there was no patent protection, and in that case we would all be without the knowledge now and for who knows how long into the future.
Here's a solution--any time you use a patented medication or therapy, make a donation in the amount of the license toward the next poor person who needs the same thing. If we all did that, then just as many poor people as un-poor people would get access to it. Nothing prevents you from doing that right now. So start. Here is the beginning of my solution--get people to voluntarily behave differently than they do now. It's the only solution that I have any hope for.
I'm not really interested in winning or losing an argument--I just want to see the problem solved. And part of solving the problem involves not spending a lot of time in the blind alley of fretting over existing cures that are not yet public domain. My goal is just to get people out of that alley and hopefully on the road to a better world.
it's not useful to say "they shouldn't have been allowed to patent the breast cancer gene". You are not providing a counter argument to the very idea of patenting itself. In this case, that claim would be "if no one was allowed to patent the gene, then no one would fund the work to identify it, because they couldn't profit from it."
What's better--no $2000 fee, and no knowledge of the gene? Or $2000 fee, and knowledge of the gene? If you think there is a way to get the knowledge without private sector investment, please propose it.
In the Grand Scheme of Things the patent is trivial--it will expire after a period of time, and go into the public domain. So, ok, you can't use it for free right now. But an arbitrarily lartge number of people after you are going to be able to. AND this example contributes to other people investing to find other similar things that, yes, they will patent, but then those things will come into the public domain, too.
It's not self-evident that a patent on the breast cancer gene is bad. You _must_ show that the information would get into the public domain sooner by your alternative method of spurring research.
A former aqaintance of mine designed a game which he mocked up in Visual Basic and sold to a real game company. The game company rewrote it, but used his story/structure/etc. He had a day job, too. I don't think the game went anywhere. But the fact that he was able even to do that suggests to me that a "real programmer" would have just as much chance. You might not get paid to do your first one, but if you're any good it would get your foot in the door, I would think.
If it's the design that you are trying to emphasize, try doing it in a RAD environment, like REALbasic (I know, it has the word "basic" in it, but it's really quite good. At least the Mac version is.)
(Wow, I'm really asking for it--praise for a Basic and non-disparaging comment about a Mac in the same breath.)
It's hard to do game programming well. It's a very specialized skillset not easy to pick up as you go. Game companies are under huge stress to get the thing to market, right now. Hence they don't want to mess around with someone who is extremely interested but has no experience, because by the time they have got you up to speed they are already going to be out of business, etc.
As I said in the subject, this is just what I've heard. If this is true, then a game company is going to be interested in one thing--"What can you do?", and they will want to see proof of that with the corresponding "What have you done?".
Therefore, I think your best bet is to gain some marketable experience. One person has already suggested working on an open source game. Sounds like as good an idea as any. But, although you may have to do whatever is sitting there to be done if you join an established product, I think you would fairly quickly need to move in the direction of doing something that you can easily demonstrate as something that _you_ did.
You say you are interested in design. Maybe you could put together a lightweight demo that shows that you understand gameplay/ai/whatever you are trying to get a job doing?
If I were doing this, I would try to get in touch with someone in the industry and ask them what you need to be able to do, technically, to be able to get the job you want. Then do it.
Like another poster said, you might find out that you really don't like the work. That is valuable information, too.
The user is the customer, not the enemy. They pay you to solve their problems, so give them
solutions. It shouldn't matter what platform - Mac, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD - what should be at
issue is what provides the best solution for the customers needs.
I was going to be cute and ask "...didn't they lose their Way the day they decided to go public?", but I went and let myself think about it. That always makes it take so much longer to post.
It seems very unlikely to me that any company can sell its stock and keep its soul. I mean, _look_ at what the public is willing to
buy
vote for
watch on television
etc.
in HUGE numbers!
What do you think those very same people are going to do to your company after you give them control?
do I have to brace for the bitchslap to say this?
on
The Stallman Factor
·
· Score: 2
Talks a lot about RMS's tacticts for getting his acronym included with the kernel's name. This
has been a long-running debate, but personally I just don't care. I respect the GNU Project's
involvement. But I'm not gonna spit out extra syllables and keystrokes just to appease anyone.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that Stallman is trying to change the name of the kernel, but to point out that the system is more accurately called GNU/Linux because it's made of the GNU tools running on the Linux kernel. You could have GNU/mykernel, GNU/IBM or whatever. It's a question of accuracy.
Uh, way to go making an ass of yourself, there. How you think that the idiotic behavior of the slashdot editors is any worse than your use of "chickee" would blow my mind if it weren't already gone from trying to even comprehend this kind of patheticism.
Yea! Thanks, dude! I've been mangling that thing for ages (read "twice, once here and once in a a discussion about managing anger") now, and now I can do so more accurately. It's like, I don't know, Google.:)
It does make me want to puke. But I think you are doing what I used to do, which is to avoid blaming the consumer, whose fault it really is. We, consumers, had the power all along to change how things were going if we wanted to, and all we, like sheep, went astray (sorry, couldn't resist).
No one forced people to buy gas-guzzling environmentally disastrous SUV's and the dominance of MS is similar (although a long way from being the same).
Granted, there were many illegal things that Microsoft did along the way. And it is possible that some of that is going to be corrected now, but it's a lot like really bad environmental damage--once you mess a system up, it takes a long time to fix.
I don't think we should blame capitalism. Capitalism is, I think, the least of a handful of evils because it still functions when people are greedy, and that's saying a lot. Things that don't work unless everyone cooperates and seeks the best interests of others are just not going to work in the world the way it is right now.
When things go wrong the correct thing to do is blame the people in power. WIth capitalism, the people with power are the consumers. If you want to change how things are, you have to change how the consumers behave.
Given that people are going to be dumb a lot of the time, or just noting the fact that anyone that does well in capitalism is going to acquire more capital and hence more power, it is also good that we have some checks and balances in place. This again, depends on the people to keep those laws strong and demand that elected officials enforce them.
Again, we are on shaky ground here with dumb voting in place of dumb consuming, but again, we have the people to blame.
In light of the current situation, I think that, rather than getting frustrated with captialism and looking for an alternative, we should see what we can do to encourage others to behave differently. Look aroung--there is a tremendous amount of work that can be done that has a reasonable chance of actually helping the situation! We really have a great opportunity to help fix things--coding, convincing, exposing FUD, evangelizing better solutions, educating people etc. It's something to be happy about, not depressed over. I have to remind myself of that every day because the world reminds us of the other side. But still, if you can just put the depression antidote in your mind--"I can do something meaningful to make this situation better"--you can then get on to puting the depressing situation's antidote into reality.
I think it's pretty clear that the editors won't be checking these things out. And, really, why should they--you and I will do it for them, won't we?:)
My point is that it's the same difference, percentage wise. It's nt that much. The 10^8 may seem big to you, but that's the kind of numbers the movies deal with. The fact that we are not used to them is a red herring, hence my effort to point it out. Anything that doesn't double the last thing hasn't "squashed it like a bug" in my opinion, and I would be hard pressed to say that even doubling qualifies as "squashing".
uh, turning your head won't help you test up-downness, dude. The question isn't related to gravity, but whether it came from "above" your head in the relative sense.
The idea of the ear-shape thing is that different frequencies are muffled differently, so something that plays a single tone would defeat that, I think.
How can timing between two point sources tell you anything about uppy-downy? And even fronty-backy? It gives you lefty-righty, but doesn't explain how you can tell if it was behind you.
Slashdot Mirror
they could throw rocks...
Part of what went wrong with the Therac 25 (a big part, I would say), was "the normalization of deviance". When things go wrong often enough you start to consider that the normal condition, and then you have moved from the original safe area with a zone of deviance in which risk is acceptable, to a new "normal", which is actually somewhere away from the original normal, and then the deviations around that become less safe. Lather, rinse, repeat, kill people.
The "text of speech" link from this page:
http://web.cuug.ab.ca/~branderr/risk_essay/NDIA/
is a great exposition on that. He points to Diane Vaughn's concept of "normalization of deviance". Once someone has pointed it out to you it's interesting how often it comes up.
Something like "Napster's recent apparent teetering was, in fact, confirmed by respected industry experts as an actual corporate teeter. 'This was a genuine teeter, make no mistake about that' said Flughart Frockwiffle. 'This, in combination with other recent news, may well put them on track to acheive full-scale beleaguered status'. Meanwhile, both remaining executives are disputing the analysis. 'This is far short of a teeter by any modern calculation. The teeter standards [used here] are more than 20 years old. That's before the Internet even existed.".
What gives is that most of the time "the early days of the internet" == "the first time that the person using the phrase heard of the internet".
My brother pointed this out to me when citing a cluser's attempt to flame someone for claiming he had been using email for ten years. Something like a biting "email hasn't even been _around_ for ten years!" (this was five years or so ago).
Probably works well as a general principle. Call it "Moron's Law" and it will become a de facto Principle Of How Things Work...
Because that should really decrease the load on the butterflies.
...that they remove "rm" last.
Maybe they thought they just got unlucky with the last time being Halloween...
Since we were discussing the foundational idea of patenting, this is largely just going to move the discussion to arguments about patenting the cure. However, you go on to be more specific:
I would say that patenting a disease gene is broken as a) the disease has no useful or advancing application, and b) they didn't invent it. Also, if they are claiming rights to breast cancer, can anyone who has it sue them?
I don't know the details of what gets patented when "a gene gets patented". But I think it is useful simply to know whether you have the gene or not--it is useful in deciding whether to get a preemptive mastectomy, for example.
(I don't think that they are claiming rights to the disease, but a gene which indicates your susceptibility to it. In any case, diseases have uses, too, as weapons, for example, or as tools for producing cures in a laboratory.)
As for "they didn't invent it"--well, let's suppose that this is a correct reason to disallow a gene patent. If so, it might be that we should close this loophole and explicitly allow the patenting of difficult-to-obtain information. We still are not addressing the question I proposed--"Is the patent system the best solution available for getting this kind of knowledge into the public domain?"
Maybe it needs tuning (more or fewer things patentable/longer or shorter time periods/another means of public comment/better guidelines on what makes something patent-worthy), or maybe it needs abolition.
With any course of action we consider, we must understand the good that the current system is doing now, ask how we would replace that good with something else if we remove the current system, or ask, in general, how tweaking the inputs will tweak the results.
Patent law is pragmatic. It creates a purely human construct (legally enforced monopoly on information or technology) at the public's expense in order to gain something for the public good. If you can show that something fundamental has changed about society (or what society applies it to or whatever) and that therefore the system is not producing the results for the public that it was designed to produce, then let's figure out how to get it changed. I'm with you all the way.
What I think is counterproductive is when we look at knowledge/technology that was produced under the understanding that there would be a time-limited monopoly, notice that that will mean some people won't be able to use it, and then complain that something is horribly wrong with the system.
The whole system is a compromise in its very essence. There are downsides to every compromise. The point in having made the compromise was to get some public benefit. If you want to eliminate the down sides, then also explain how you are going to replace the good side, or why you think it is no longer necessary to have what was once viewed as good.
Whether the discovery of a gene fits the current definition of a patent is not as important as asking whether the public is better served by having the private investment attracted to the field of gene discovery or not, or how it might be better served if we change the rules by which it plays its part. Maybe there should be "third world" designations for countries that allow them import-only use, or world-wide definitions of income caps below which a person can not be charged for use. If you find a way to implement this that doesn't stop the flow of investment money, great! Let's use it. I just think we need to elevate the debate, get past the barrels and barrels of red herring, and get on with coming up with pragmatic solutions that positively impact the public good.
Let me say that I agree with all of that--I think the US's foreign and domestic policy and general behavior, and hence the US people, are to blame for the kind of anger that incites things like 9/11 and the federal building in OK and the Columbine massacre. >p> If you could fix the behavior, you could fix the problem. And that is true of the patent situation in general. If the people that owned the patents would just put it in the public domain now, that would solve the problem. If the people who invested in drug/gene research simply put the money into grants instead of research that could solve the problem, too. There are many ways for the problem to be solved simply by people choosing to spend their money, time, etc to help other people.
Some people do that. Nothing is preventing more people from doing that. You can donate money pre-tax, in fact, so there is an immediate multiplying effect of any contribution.
However, none of that relates to the question of whether we should abolish or change patent law. What patent law does is to put greed to work for the public. If we didn't allow patents on drugs, the greedy would not start suddently donating all of that money to medical research--they would find other ways to invest it to make themselves money, possibly in ways that will never create something that enters the public domain.
I wasn't trying to skewer anybody. I said it was "not helpful" because I really think that complaining about "X thing developed under the understanding that its inventors could profit from it" does not help us. It diverts us from coming up with something better than the patent system to encourage the kind of research and development that needs to be done. And, if we were successful in getting patent laws abolished and making the current crop of patented medicines/therapies free, but had nothing to put in its place, we might well have done a lot more harm than good.
If we make the breast cancer gene public domain by force, we may discourage the very investor that was going to fund the research that would lead to the cure for breast cancer.
I agree, it would be MUCH better if we all cooperatively worked together to end all hunger and disease for all people. I would love that. Every line of open source code I contribute brings us a step closer to that reality (one cost of medical research is software--we can make that cost go away).
Right now I don't have a solution for everything else. I like the idea of a cure that eventually becomes public domain a lot better than no cure. The situation of poor people not having access to the cure RIGHT NOW is a red herring--the cure might not be known at all if there was no patent protection, and in that case we would all be without the knowledge now and for who knows how long into the future.
Here's a solution--any time you use a patented medication or therapy, make a donation in the amount of the license toward the next poor person who needs the same thing. If we all did that, then just as many poor people as un-poor people would get access to it. Nothing prevents you from doing that right now. So start. Here is the beginning of my solution--get people to voluntarily behave differently than they do now. It's the only solution that I have any hope for.
I'm not really interested in winning or losing an argument--I just want to see the problem solved. And part of solving the problem involves not spending a lot of time in the blind alley of fretting over existing cures that are not yet public domain. My goal is just to get people out of that alley and hopefully on the road to a better world.
it's not useful to say "they shouldn't have been allowed to patent the breast cancer gene". You are not providing a counter argument to the very idea of patenting itself. In this case, that claim would be "if no one was allowed to patent the gene, then no one would fund the work to identify it, because they couldn't profit from it."
What's better--no $2000 fee, and no knowledge of the gene? Or $2000 fee, and knowledge of the gene? If you think there is a way to get the knowledge without private sector investment, please propose it.
In the Grand Scheme of Things the patent is trivial--it will expire after a period of time, and go into the public domain. So, ok, you can't use it for free right now. But an arbitrarily lartge number of people after you are going to be able to. AND this example contributes to other people investing to find other similar things that, yes, they will patent, but then those things will come into the public domain, too.
It's not self-evident that a patent on the breast cancer gene is bad. You _must_ show that the information would get into the public domain sooner by your alternative method of spurring research.
A former aqaintance of mine designed a game which he mocked up in Visual Basic and sold to a real game company. The game company rewrote it, but used his story/structure/etc. He had a day job, too. I don't think the game went anywhere. But the fact that he was able even to do that suggests to me that a "real programmer" would have just as much chance. You might not get paid to do your first one, but if you're any good it would get your foot in the door, I would think.
If it's the design that you are trying to emphasize, try doing it in a RAD environment, like REALbasic (I know, it has the word "basic" in it, but it's really quite good. At least the Mac version is.)
(Wow, I'm really asking for it--praise for a Basic and non-disparaging comment about a Mac in the same breath.)
It's hard to do game programming well. It's a very specialized skillset not easy to pick up as you go. Game companies are under huge stress to get the thing to market, right now. Hence they don't want to mess around with someone who is extremely interested but has no experience, because by the time they have got you up to speed they are already going to be out of business, etc.
As I said in the subject, this is just what I've heard. If this is true, then a game company is going to be interested in one thing--"What can you do?", and they will want to see proof of that with the corresponding "What have you done?".
Therefore, I think your best bet is to gain some marketable experience. One person has already suggested working on an open source game. Sounds like as good an idea as any. But, although you may have to do whatever is sitting there to be done if you join an established product, I think you would fairly quickly need to move in the direction of doing something that you can easily demonstrate as something that _you_ did.
You say you are interested in design. Maybe you could put together a lightweight demo that shows that you understand gameplay/ai/whatever you are trying to get a job doing?
If I were doing this, I would try to get in touch with someone in the industry and ask them what you need to be able to do, technically, to be able to get the job you want. Then do it.
Like another poster said, you might find out that you really don't like the work. That is valuable information, too.
And you claim to be a sysadmin? Riiiiight.
in HUGE numbers!
What do you think those very same people are going to do to your company after you give them control?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that Stallman is trying to change the name of the kernel, but to point out that the system is more accurately called GNU/Linux because it's made of the GNU tools running on the Linux kernel. You could have GNU/mykernel, GNU/IBM or whatever. It's a question of accuracy.
Uh, way to go making an ass of yourself, there. How you think that the idiotic behavior of the slashdot editors is any worse than your use of "chickee" would blow my mind if it weren't already gone from trying to even comprehend this kind of patheticism.
(Search for 36 on this site if you have no idea what I'm talking about. You'll probably be even sorrier after that, but, oh well.)
Yea! Thanks, dude! I've been mangling that thing for ages (read "twice, once here and once in a a discussion about managing anger") now, and now I can do so more accurately. It's like, I don't know, Google. :)
I will see the lameness filter approach, and allow it to pass through me, yadda yadda yadda
--Mangled Dune refereneces R us
...I could beat this game in my sleep!
(sorry, I just felt it had to be said)
It does make me want to puke. But I think you are doing what I used to do, which is to avoid blaming the consumer, whose fault it really is. We, consumers, had the power all along to change how things were going if we wanted to, and all we, like sheep, went astray (sorry, couldn't resist).
No one forced people to buy gas-guzzling environmentally disastrous SUV's and the dominance of MS is similar (although a long way from being the same).
Granted, there were many illegal things that Microsoft did along the way. And it is possible that some of that is going to be corrected now, but it's a lot like really bad environmental damage--once you mess a system up, it takes a long time to fix.
I don't think we should blame capitalism. Capitalism is, I think, the least of a handful of evils because it still functions when people are greedy, and that's saying a lot. Things that don't work unless everyone cooperates and seeks the best interests of others are just not going to work in the world the way it is right now.
When things go wrong the correct thing to do is blame the people in power. WIth capitalism, the people with power are the consumers. If you want to change how things are, you have to change how the consumers behave.
Given that people are going to be dumb a lot of the time, or just noting the fact that anyone that does well in capitalism is going to acquire more capital and hence more power, it is also good that we have some checks and balances in place. This again, depends on the people to keep those laws strong and demand that elected officials enforce them.
Again, we are on shaky ground here with dumb voting in place of dumb consuming, but again, we have the people to blame.
In light of the current situation, I think that, rather than getting frustrated with captialism and looking for an alternative, we should see what we can do to encourage others to behave differently. Look aroung--there is a tremendous amount of work that can be done that has a reasonable chance of actually helping the situation! We really have a great opportunity to help fix things--coding, convincing, exposing FUD, evangelizing better solutions, educating people etc. It's something to be happy about, not depressed over. I have to remind myself of that every day because the world reminds us of the other side. But still, if you can just put the depression antidote in your mind--"I can do something meaningful to make this situation better"--you can then get on to puting the depressing situation's antidote into reality.
I think it's pretty clear that the editors won't be checking these things out. And, really, why should they--you and I will do it for them, won't we? :)
My point is that it's the same difference, percentage wise. It's nt that much. The 10^8 may seem big to you, but that's the kind of numbers the movies deal with. The fact that we are not used to them is a red herring, hence my effort to point it out. Anything that doesn't double the last thing hasn't "squashed it like a bug" in my opinion, and I would be hard pressed to say that even doubling qualifies as "squashing".
Something you might want to think about is the amount of time that Spider=Man has had time to build up an audience vs Harry Potter.
(Aside from the fact that if you had 90 cents and I had $1.14 I would hardly think my bank account squashed yours like a bug...)
uh, turning your head won't help you test up-downness, dude. The question isn't related to gravity, but whether it came from "above" your head in the relative sense.
The idea of the ear-shape thing is that different frequencies are muffled differently, so something that plays a single tone would defeat that, I think.
How can timing between two point sources tell you anything about uppy-downy? And even fronty-backy? It gives you lefty-righty, but doesn't explain how you can tell if it was behind you.
Righty?