That works great, when you can do that. Sometimes, there's a limit on the output other than the people. Take a look at the PS3 problems from the stocks of Blue-Ray lasers being depleted. Most businesses depend on something else, and increased automation will only change to a different bottleneck. Sometimes, you won't even get a production increase, because there are multiple limiting factors at the same level.
Cost of Living, dammit! Yes, someone who earns an average of $0.10 a day here is independently wealthy, or living in a cardboard box. But that's livable money there. I go through this same argument with a friend of mine on a regular basis, only that one's about Wal-Mart in India. First, it costs a lot less to live there than it does here. Second, unemployment is huge, so if every worker in the factory died of a heart attack Friday night, the factory could easily be fully staffed by Monday.
You want to know what I find amazing? That there aren't a lot more motherboards that fail before leaving the factory, considering the nature of static electricity, and the measures that aren't being taken to neutralize it in the factory.
We have a satellite in space that is past its life expectancy. It still works. How far past life expectancy have other satellites produced by the same company gone? If they're averaging out to double the estimate given at launch, then maybe this isn't really a big issue. Say you buy a television, and you get the extended warranty too, stretches things out to 5 years. The company is saying that the lifetime expectancy of the TV is 5 years, or not much past it. If you have any stuff in your house that's outlasted its warranty, that's pretty much the same thing, except for the difference in price between when your toaster breaks, and when the satellite stops working.
"Could fail at any time" is an alarmist way of stating things, intended to drive people away from rational decision-making, and give emotions a greater pull. You could die at any time. There could be an unknown aneurysm in your brain that just lets go from the stress of reading this. This looks more like some doom-sayer whose boss is trying to keep him from spreading FUD.
He had the ability to appeal. He used it. He lost again. It'd be nice to know why, sure, but that's not what matters here. He was sued in small claims. There's a hard limit to how much he can lose, which is probably less than all the advertising revenue he's going to get off of being Slashdotted. Odds are, that's why he started posting inflammatory stuff about public figures. It looks to me like he was begging for a lawsuit and all the attention and ad revenue it would bring, but small claims just isn't that newsworthy, so he was stuck. Sucks to fail at gaming the system.
What racism? The Inuit culture has a tradition of hunting whales for food. It has been demonstrated that they do not kill enough whales to make a large difference. There is no way for someone to decide to be an Inuit to gain the benefits of whale hunting. This part of the system cannot be gamed. None of that is racist, except perhaps the fact that we're allowing a tradition to continue by permitting actions illegal for others. We've done the same with other Native American peoples.
I have no idea how this works on an international level, but if you own a section of stream here (not that you actually can own a section of stream, but you can own the land on both sides of it, and that's close enough for these purposes), and it has trout in it, those are your trout. If the fish swim away, they are not your trout. I understand England has similar laws. According to Freedom of the Seas, any water in the middle is everyone's. Without international laws against whaling, whaling boats only need to worry about their host countries.
I have no idea what you were trying to say with the humanity thing. I don't believe I tried to make an argument either, I was explaining how this was going to go. Whales will either go extinct or go on the Endangered Species list. If the list takes too long to add them, then they may end up without enough genetic diversity left for the species to survive, which has the same end game as hunting them into extinction. I also gave the economic and political reasons why this was going to happen, how it had little to do with common sense among whalers, and I wrapped the whole thing up in a game.
I'm pretty sure you can 'live' on nothing more than fruits (tree/bush is still alive), nuts (again, tree is still alive), and secretions (I'm talking milk. Get your mind out of the gutter.) Nothing has to actually die there. Maybe you could even rip pieces off of a starfish, they grow back. I'd love to see someone argue that one: I didn't kill it, I just mutilated it. And it got better anyway.
I do value the Inuit culture, but at a certain point clinging to old ways becomes a Luddite reaction to change. They don't need to hunt whale, and their continuing hunts of whales endanger their future ability to hunt whales.
If they stop hunting whales, that endangers their future ability to hunt whales too, as the U.S. will say "Not part of your tradition anymore. You stopped." Go yell at Japan and Europe about the declining whale populations.
Lingering in old ways does not exalt the past, it mocks the past.
How do you feel about less intrusive traditional cultures? The Amish come swiftly to mind. If you don't have any problems with their ignoring the march of progress with their ways, then it looks less like you have a problem with lingering in old ways, and more like you have a problem with this group getting a 'special break.' If you do have a problem with the Amish, then that looks like suppressing a religion because you don't agree with their beliefs. I'm not accusing you of any of that, just using you as an example. Now consider the group getting a 'special break.' Sure, they can kill 255 whales over the next 5 years. They use that to eat. Now, I've never been to Alaska, but everything I've heard suggests that living off the land up there is a grueling ordeal at best. These are people who are eating what they kill, and killing one of the few things that's available to be killed and eaten. This, polar bears, and caribou, and that's about it. This is not Joe Whaler eating at McDonald's, then going out on a boat and killing a few whales to sell parts from.
See those sharp teeth you have in front, as opposed to the blunt ones in the back? Those are there for meat. Vegetarianism as morality is foolishness. If someone decides to boycott Hormel because of the conditions under which the animals were farmed, fine. That's morality. If someone decides to not eat any meat because it's just wrong for something to die for food, that's stupid, and potentially hazardous to his health, if he doesn't find a way of getting at protein.
Now, you want to stop the Inuit people from killing whales because it is not strictly necessary any more. There's a valid point in there, but not one I'd find compelling. What you should say is that you want companies to stop killing whales because it's going to lead to extinction. Joe Hunter killing passenger pigeons for food didn't cause extinction, teams of men with clubs killing them wherever they set to land caused extinction. If Joe Hunter decided to only shoot deer, there would still be no passenger pigeons. They wouldn't even have gotten an extra year, probably not even an extra season.
The sad thing here is how this will end. The whale will either go extinct, or be placed on an international list of Endangered or Threatened species. Freedom of the Seas means that it would take an international group in charge of whalers to set things back to sustainable hunting levels. Higher up, I've got a post regarding why that is, and why even that probably won't be good enough. The gist of it is that it takes one central authority, or there can be no authority. Every other scenario involves a government making it most valuable to be a whaler who does not kill whales. This is ludicrous. Even worse, that central authority cannot be opt out. It has to be set up so that if you choose not to be part of the International Whalers Union, you cannot kill whales. Not may not, but cannot, which involves an ability to bring sanctions or other deterrents up to and including military action to bear on those who would proceed with unauthorized whaling.
As such, the whales are going to suffer mightily. It is my hope that they get placed on a protected list before such time as genetic diversity has decreased too far to allow survival of the species.
If there were an International Whalers Union or similar, it would be. But if Joe Whaler says "I can kill 20 whales a year, and they'll reproduce faster than that, so there's no problem," that's only OK until James Whaler says the same thing. Toss in Jason Whaler and Jordan Whaler, and now you're on the road to extinction. Without a governing body of some sort, there's really no good way to step back whaling. It's kind of like the Cold War. How do you get all the sides to ease up when all it takes is one side to not ease up? Because if Joe, James, and Jason are all in the U.S., and the U.S. tells them "Due to declining whale populations, you can only kill 5 whales a year, but Jordan can keep killing as many as he likes because we don't have any authority over him," then Joe, James, and Jason are going to say "Don't make these regulations, or we'll go live where Jordan lives. The same number of whales die, and you're out on tax revenue." The government bends before the logic of the situation, because that's how this game plays out. Because of that, the environmentalists in Jordan's country don't have a leg to stand on. "Why should we limit Jordan," says Jordan's government, "when the U.S. whalers kill three times as many whales as we do? It will not save the whales, and Jordan will go to the U.S. where he can kill all the whales he wants." This economic game leans away from any restrictions that are not completely voluntary, and will have the net effect of species extinction. It will stay that way as long as there is even one independent player.
I'd like to note here that the Inuit people do not count as an independent player here, as they are a protected group with strict rules that do not allow outside entry. Joe Whaler cannot become an Inuit, no matter how much money and power he has. Therefore, the allowance of the Inuit people to continue hunting for sustenance has no effect whatsoever on anyone else's whaling or not whaling.
I could go without TV. It's even easier with NBC making Heroes available online. I've got a cell phone, which I use to make and receive calls. The only texting I do is to Google. I don't have an iPod. I have a laptop, which does not go with me unless I think I'm going to need it.
Then there are the desktops. I currently have five desktop computers, thanks to a friend of mine at the DNR, who picks up the old ones they're going to be throwing out. I have my Windows machine for gaming, internet, and most of the other crap I do throughout the day. I have a Linux machine for doing things that matter. I have another Linux machine for doing all sorts of digital forensics and data recovery. I have another machine running MythTV, not because I watch TV, but because I live in the home of the world's largest trivia contest, and there are a lot of commercial and TV questions that it's helpful to be able to search for clips. And I've got a reverse engineering computer set up running Windows XP, for reversing programs that just don't work as well on Linux machines.
And yes, I've been told many times that I need to unplug. The other 'joke' among some of my friends is that I should go on Survivor. I look like a useless overweight geek who'll break down within days over the loss of broadband. But I am fairly physically powerful, though less so than my brother the wrestler, and despite everything, I'm a card carrying Eagle Scout and local assistant scoutmaster. The perfect underdog, so to speak.
I've got a friend who works at a WU place. He tells me the number is $3k without identification, which is somewhat misleading, because there's still a process to go through to have money waiting for you. You don't just get to walk into a Western Union and say "3,000 dollars, please."
And if it could be controlled or fixed? Say someone decided that my ADHD makes it more likely that I'll get in an auto accident due to the increased risk of distraction. Should medication be a requirement of a low insurance rate? Before you answer, consider that many people, myself included, would argue against ADHD being a disability or impairment. Let's see you pick a guy off the street who's got a better memory than me. Not that there aren't any, but the odds are really low. This makes me more valuable for some jobs than many other people. If I am required to medicate, that could decrease my value to a company, and possibly lead to my replacement. Should insurance companies be able to do that?
I suppose merely altering it would be a derivative work, but replacing it entirely should be acceptable, though perhaps fraudulent, especially as you haven't given Gateway the opportunity to review your changes and agree to it.
Actually, we can make this work for us. If the EULA is a contract, then why can't we change it? Find out where it hides, pull out a hex editor, and adjust it so that it says "By clicking 'I agree' I hereby accept the offer of $10,000 from Gateway." Then violate the EULA in some way, trying to sue them being an effective way to do it. When they state that it's a contract that has been agreed to by both parties, show them the money part. Boom, instant settlement. Or they declare it to be invalid, and you get to sue them.
Now, that makes all sorts of sense. My brother, my father and I are all ADHD. We are also the kings of pretty much any trivia contest you care to mention. I can recall massive selections of dialogue from movies verbatim after a single viewing. I've been going off of the assumption that it was the result of random hyperfocusing, but it could be the failure to forget.
1. Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment "free music" rhetoric.
Good. Now they can pay for their servers. I could care less about who makes what money on advertising, it only works if people care to go to the site.
2. AllOfMP3.com, the well-known Russian web site, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.
So? This is supposed to be a list of 'Inconvenient Truths.' I suppose copyright holders angry with copyright ignorers is a truth, but this is hardly the hard-hitting expose we were expecting.
3. Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money.
Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups commit bank robberies to raise revenue. When you deposit your money in a bank, you are directly aiding the terrorists that will eventually rob it. We've seen demonstrations that Alfred Nobel directly aided future terrorists by inventing TNT, and that the Wright Brothers directly aided future terrorists by inventing airplanes. You may as well go whine at God for making people.
4. Illegal file-sharers don't care whether the copyright-infringing work they distribute is from a major or independent label.
This directly conflicts with number 10. Do they not care, but somehow manage to pick the popular stuff every time?
5. Reduced revenues for record companies mean less money available to take a risk on "underground" artists and more inclination to invest in "bankers" like American Idol stars.
Technically, that's true. But music piracy has not been conclusively demonstrated to be a major cause of declining music sales. Also, if they supported underground artists, those artists would stop being underground, and would start being adjusted toward the sound the recording studios think people want to hear.
6. ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale.
That's dead-on. I have never shared music with a friend by playing it into a telephone so that he can record it on the other end. Of course, those damn physical CDs let me borrow music from a friend just as easily.
7. The anti-copyright movement does not create jobs, exports, tax revenues and economic growth-it largely consists of people pontificating on a commercial world about which they know little.
I'm listening mostly to Indian music my aunt brought back. Does that mean I'm outsourcing my music?
8. Piracy is not caused by poverty. Professor Zhang of Nanjing University found the Chinese citizens who bought pirate products were mainly middle- or higher-income earners.
That's also the demographic that buys the most legitimate CDs. I wonder if there's a connection?
9. Most people know it is wrong to file-share copyright infringing material but won't stop till the law makes them, according to a recent study by the Australian anti-piracy group MIPI
Wrong, or illegal?
10. P2P networks are not hotbeds for discovering new music. It is popular music that is illegally file-shared most frequently.
Direct contradiction with number 4. Besides which, plenty of underground stuff is not considered illegal to file-share. They're still in the 'looking for exposure' stage, where they're trying to build an audience. This is like saying that most traffic accidents are not caused by pedestrians.
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Is it a better life to die of starvation because some machine took away that money you were living on?
That works great, when you can do that. Sometimes, there's a limit on the output other than the people. Take a look at the PS3 problems from the stocks of Blue-Ray lasers being depleted. Most businesses depend on something else, and increased automation will only change to a different bottleneck. Sometimes, you won't even get a production increase, because there are multiple limiting factors at the same level.
Cost of Living, dammit! Yes, someone who earns an average of $0.10 a day here is independently wealthy, or living in a cardboard box. But that's livable money there. I go through this same argument with a friend of mine on a regular basis, only that one's about Wal-Mart in India. First, it costs a lot less to live there than it does here. Second, unemployment is huge, so if every worker in the factory died of a heart attack Friday night, the factory could easily be fully staffed by Monday.
You want to know what I find amazing? That there aren't a lot more motherboards that fail before leaving the factory, considering the nature of static electricity, and the measures that aren't being taken to neutralize it in the factory.
We have a satellite in space that is past its life expectancy. It still works. How far past life expectancy have other satellites produced by the same company gone? If they're averaging out to double the estimate given at launch, then maybe this isn't really a big issue. Say you buy a television, and you get the extended warranty too, stretches things out to 5 years. The company is saying that the lifetime expectancy of the TV is 5 years, or not much past it. If you have any stuff in your house that's outlasted its warranty, that's pretty much the same thing, except for the difference in price between when your toaster breaks, and when the satellite stops working.
"Could fail at any time" is an alarmist way of stating things, intended to drive people away from rational decision-making, and give emotions a greater pull. You could die at any time. There could be an unknown aneurysm in your brain that just lets go from the stress of reading this. This looks more like some doom-sayer whose boss is trying to keep him from spreading FUD.
He had the ability to appeal. He used it. He lost again. It'd be nice to know why, sure, but that's not what matters here. He was sued in small claims. There's a hard limit to how much he can lose, which is probably less than all the advertising revenue he's going to get off of being Slashdotted. Odds are, that's why he started posting inflammatory stuff about public figures. It looks to me like he was begging for a lawsuit and all the attention and ad revenue it would bring, but small claims just isn't that newsworthy, so he was stuck. Sucks to fail at gaming the system.
It's more humane. It's the difference between torturing someone to death, and just shooting them in the head.
What racism? The Inuit culture has a tradition of hunting whales for food. It has been demonstrated that they do not kill enough whales to make a large difference. There is no way for someone to decide to be an Inuit to gain the benefits of whale hunting. This part of the system cannot be gamed. None of that is racist, except perhaps the fact that we're allowing a tradition to continue by permitting actions illegal for others. We've done the same with other Native American peoples.
I have no idea how this works on an international level, but if you own a section of stream here (not that you actually can own a section of stream, but you can own the land on both sides of it, and that's close enough for these purposes), and it has trout in it, those are your trout. If the fish swim away, they are not your trout. I understand England has similar laws. According to Freedom of the Seas, any water in the middle is everyone's. Without international laws against whaling, whaling boats only need to worry about their host countries.
I have no idea what you were trying to say with the humanity thing. I don't believe I tried to make an argument either, I was explaining how this was going to go. Whales will either go extinct or go on the Endangered Species list. If the list takes too long to add them, then they may end up without enough genetic diversity left for the species to survive, which has the same end game as hunting them into extinction. I also gave the economic and political reasons why this was going to happen, how it had little to do with common sense among whalers, and I wrapped the whole thing up in a game.
I'm pretty sure you can 'live' on nothing more than fruits (tree/bush is still alive), nuts (again, tree is still alive), and secretions (I'm talking milk. Get your mind out of the gutter.) Nothing has to actually die there. Maybe you could even rip pieces off of a starfish, they grow back. I'd love to see someone argue that one: I didn't kill it, I just mutilated it. And it got better anyway.
If they stop hunting whales, that endangers their future ability to hunt whales too, as the U.S. will say "Not part of your tradition anymore. You stopped." Go yell at Japan and Europe about the declining whale populations.
How do you feel about less intrusive traditional cultures? The Amish come swiftly to mind. If you don't have any problems with their ignoring the march of progress with their ways, then it looks less like you have a problem with lingering in old ways, and more like you have a problem with this group getting a 'special break.' If you do have a problem with the Amish, then that looks like suppressing a religion because you don't agree with their beliefs. I'm not accusing you of any of that, just using you as an example. Now consider the group getting a 'special break.' Sure, they can kill 255 whales over the next 5 years. They use that to eat. Now, I've never been to Alaska, but everything I've heard suggests that living off the land up there is a grueling ordeal at best. These are people who are eating what they kill, and killing one of the few things that's available to be killed and eaten. This, polar bears, and caribou, and that's about it. This is not Joe Whaler eating at McDonald's, then going out on a boat and killing a few whales to sell parts from.
Smart enough to build a Platypus? Have you ever seen a platypus? It's a lot closer to 'stoned enough to think a platypus would be a really good idea.'
See those sharp teeth you have in front, as opposed to the blunt ones in the back? Those are there for meat. Vegetarianism as morality is foolishness. If someone decides to boycott Hormel because of the conditions under which the animals were farmed, fine. That's morality. If someone decides to not eat any meat because it's just wrong for something to die for food, that's stupid, and potentially hazardous to his health, if he doesn't find a way of getting at protein.
Now, you want to stop the Inuit people from killing whales because it is not strictly necessary any more. There's a valid point in there, but not one I'd find compelling. What you should say is that you want companies to stop killing whales because it's going to lead to extinction. Joe Hunter killing passenger pigeons for food didn't cause extinction, teams of men with clubs killing them wherever they set to land caused extinction. If Joe Hunter decided to only shoot deer, there would still be no passenger pigeons. They wouldn't even have gotten an extra year, probably not even an extra season.
The sad thing here is how this will end. The whale will either go extinct, or be placed on an international list of Endangered or Threatened species. Freedom of the Seas means that it would take an international group in charge of whalers to set things back to sustainable hunting levels. Higher up, I've got a post regarding why that is, and why even that probably won't be good enough. The gist of it is that it takes one central authority, or there can be no authority. Every other scenario involves a government making it most valuable to be a whaler who does not kill whales. This is ludicrous. Even worse, that central authority cannot be opt out. It has to be set up so that if you choose not to be part of the International Whalers Union, you cannot kill whales. Not may not, but cannot, which involves an ability to bring sanctions or other deterrents up to and including military action to bear on those who would proceed with unauthorized whaling.
As such, the whales are going to suffer mightily. It is my hope that they get placed on a protected list before such time as genetic diversity has decreased too far to allow survival of the species.
If there were an International Whalers Union or similar, it would be. But if Joe Whaler says "I can kill 20 whales a year, and they'll reproduce faster than that, so there's no problem," that's only OK until James Whaler says the same thing. Toss in Jason Whaler and Jordan Whaler, and now you're on the road to extinction. Without a governing body of some sort, there's really no good way to step back whaling. It's kind of like the Cold War. How do you get all the sides to ease up when all it takes is one side to not ease up? Because if Joe, James, and Jason are all in the U.S., and the U.S. tells them "Due to declining whale populations, you can only kill 5 whales a year, but Jordan can keep killing as many as he likes because we don't have any authority over him," then Joe, James, and Jason are going to say "Don't make these regulations, or we'll go live where Jordan lives. The same number of whales die, and you're out on tax revenue." The government bends before the logic of the situation, because that's how this game plays out. Because of that, the environmentalists in Jordan's country don't have a leg to stand on. "Why should we limit Jordan," says Jordan's government, "when the U.S. whalers kill three times as many whales as we do? It will not save the whales, and Jordan will go to the U.S. where he can kill all the whales he wants." This economic game leans away from any restrictions that are not completely voluntary, and will have the net effect of species extinction. It will stay that way as long as there is even one independent player.
I'd like to note here that the Inuit people do not count as an independent player here, as they are a protected group with strict rules that do not allow outside entry. Joe Whaler cannot become an Inuit, no matter how much money and power he has. Therefore, the allowance of the Inuit people to continue hunting for sustenance has no effect whatsoever on anyone else's whaling or not whaling.
I could go without TV. It's even easier with NBC making Heroes available online. I've got a cell phone, which I use to make and receive calls. The only texting I do is to Google. I don't have an iPod. I have a laptop, which does not go with me unless I think I'm going to need it.
Then there are the desktops. I currently have five desktop computers, thanks to a friend of mine at the DNR, who picks up the old ones they're going to be throwing out. I have my Windows machine for gaming, internet, and most of the other crap I do throughout the day. I have a Linux machine for doing things that matter. I have another Linux machine for doing all sorts of digital forensics and data recovery. I have another machine running MythTV, not because I watch TV, but because I live in the home of the world's largest trivia contest, and there are a lot of commercial and TV questions that it's helpful to be able to search for clips. And I've got a reverse engineering computer set up running Windows XP, for reversing programs that just don't work as well on Linux machines.
And yes, I've been told many times that I need to unplug. The other 'joke' among some of my friends is that I should go on Survivor. I look like a useless overweight geek who'll break down within days over the loss of broadband. But I am fairly physically powerful, though less so than my brother the wrestler, and despite everything, I'm a card carrying Eagle Scout and local assistant scoutmaster. The perfect underdog, so to speak.
I've got a friend who works at a WU place. He tells me the number is $3k without identification, which is somewhat misleading, because there's still a process to go through to have money waiting for you. You don't just get to walk into a Western Union and say "3,000 dollars, please."
If you don't lose, being sued a lot is a good way to keep in the public eye. The advertising dollars must be just rolling in.
They could, you know, have been wrongfully accused. See how the legal system is supposed to work? Accused but innocent gets to walk free.
I hate those commercials. In my head, I think "He's thinking of a number between 20 and 80. Do you know what it is? It's his goddamned IQ!"
"Programs can not be defamatory. Their output may be."
//Anonymous Coward is an incredible tool. //The number of balls Anonymous Coward has.
Oh yeah?
int main()
{
int x = 2;
return 0;
}
And if it could be controlled or fixed? Say someone decided that my ADHD makes it more likely that I'll get in an auto accident due to the increased risk of distraction. Should medication be a requirement of a low insurance rate? Before you answer, consider that many people, myself included, would argue against ADHD being a disability or impairment. Let's see you pick a guy off the street who's got a better memory than me. Not that there aren't any, but the odds are really low. This makes me more valuable for some jobs than many other people. If I am required to medicate, that could decrease my value to a company, and possibly lead to my replacement. Should insurance companies be able to do that?
I suppose merely altering it would be a derivative work, but replacing it entirely should be acceptable, though perhaps fraudulent, especially as you haven't given Gateway the opportunity to review your changes and agree to it.
Actually, we can make this work for us. If the EULA is a contract, then why can't we change it? Find out where it hides, pull out a hex editor, and adjust it so that it says "By clicking 'I agree' I hereby accept the offer of $10,000 from Gateway." Then violate the EULA in some way, trying to sue them being an effective way to do it. When they state that it's a contract that has been agreed to by both parties, show them the money part. Boom, instant settlement. Or they declare it to be invalid, and you get to sue them.
Now, that makes all sorts of sense. My brother, my father and I are all ADHD. We are also the kings of pretty much any trivia contest you care to mention. I can recall massive selections of dialogue from movies verbatim after a single viewing. I've been going off of the assumption that it was the result of random hyperfocusing, but it could be the failure to forget.
Sounds like 'Sphere'.