Yep. I don't know where Americans get the arrogance to think that their technical infrastructure is more advanced than most 2nd- and 3rd-world nations. It's all made up. It's not like the US hit the 50% penetration mark for PCs in the home in 1999, or anything.
Clearly, we have been brainwashed by the American Cultural Hegemony to falsely believe that most places on the planet aren't fortunate enough to be as advanced as we are.
You can tell it's false because, as Araal says in the interview: "I don't know about the Arab world, but here in egypt it is basically true we are very much backwards"
Oh, wait.
I'm getting horribly tired of being told I can't say things that are factually accurate because they might be insensitive.
You're kidding, right? Analog FM bandwidth is a very limited resource. Worst case scenario you end up with so many different signals you've got nothing but noise. Only slightly better (and the best you could reasonably hope for, with this, IMHO) would be many tiny cells in each city, within which you could hear a given station.
This isn't better. I'd rather listen to a commercial rock station and hear mediocre songs all the way through and put up with ~25% advertising than institute a model where I can't hear any song to the end in my car, because I lose reception too fast.
Even if - maybe especially if - it's a song I love.
The FCC, for all its flaws, serves a useful purpose. It regulates the use of a freely-accessible (technically, at least) resource which is extremely limited in supply.
Short version: they inserted their intellectual property into portions of the developing standard without telling anyone involved that they owned the patents. Then they turned around and sued all the major RAM manufacurers for patent violation.
This, then, is a fairly unsurprising tactic from them. Make no mistake about it, RAMBUS has never been a RAM company. It's an intellectual property company which attempts to make money via licensing and litigation.
There are a chorus of common themes in posts here, which essentially boil down to: "the test doesn't take into account travel time," "I was able to google the answer faster than that," "libraries are dinosaurs," and "googling works better off-hours."
Both the tests and the replies miss the most obvious problem: Google, libraries and friends answer different information needs.
Google is a fantastic way to find web sites. That's both the massive scope and the cramped limitation of it. It's up to you to sift through the web site result for the specific bit of information you want and then determine its accuracy. Google itself makes no claims on providing informationally accurate results, it claims to provide contextually accurate results.
If you want a significantly higher chance of information accuracy, a library is your ideal choice. For comprehensive information on the topic, a library is a better choice. You have experts on hand to steer you towards the most useful/reliable sources, and information pre-catalogued and cross-referenced for you.
If you want a an answer to a question that's particularly obscure, highly specialized, or couched in necessarily vague (or, worse, common) terms, a human expert is your best bet. If you want to find the last time the Milwaukee Brewers were over.500 in June, you talk to your baseball-enthusiast friend (substitute in appropriate football clubs and stats if you happen to be in the 90% of the world that prefers football). If you want to know the name of that one blonde girl your ex-roommate dated sophomore year, you call your ex-roommate.
Somewhat tangentially, the other glaring problem with most of the responses I've seen is they ignore the skill required to use any of these sources. Plenty of people have complained how they wouldn't know what books to reference or what people to call...often the same people who mock the author for not knowing what search terms to use. It's all learned skills. Google-fu is learned, not natural. Just like library research (anyone who's played Call Of Cthulhu should know that), and knowing who to call. Knowing how to differentiate a web site that's probably authoritative from one that's at best shaky is a skill that's really no easier or harder than being able to recognize a publication as reliable or a rag.
Anyhow: my point is that the article is neither right nor wrong. Google vs. libraries vs. phone-a-friend is a pretty meaningless question. They're different resources for different jobs.
I freely admit to not being a physicist, cosmologist, or astronomer. However: when Einstein formulated general relativity, he discovered that his model demanded either an expanding or a contracting universe. Since he "knew" the universe to be static, he introduced the cosmological constant to "fix" the model. Later, of course, when Hubble (I think?) demonstrated the universe to be expanding, the cosmological constant was dropped, and Einstein referred to it as his greatest mistake.
This research, though, seems to be taking the same route: rather than questioning the model, they continue a so-far fruitless search for the "missing matter." If the model demands something the existence of which we are completely unable to verify, shouldn't we be questioning the model? Doesn't the very fact that there's all this "missing" matter indicate that perhaps our understanding is flawed?
Or am I just displaying rampant ignorance of the current state of physics and cosmology by asking this?
That'll be tough; his comedy license isn't current. Besides, he's been charged with battery in the 9th circuit court...and though he's been conducting himself well, the outlook is negative and he'll probably end up extradited to his native Poland for incarceration. Luckily, he's an optimistic sort, so at least the cell's Pole will be positive.
Unfortately... you can't exactly prove the negative that says you never did opt in to get Ricter's e-mails.
Everyone says you can't prove a negative. I've always been perplexed by this: if one can't prove a negative, how does one prove that one can't prove a negative?
In my view, that movie is relevant every time the Big Bad Evil Thingy is chasing Our Hero, and begins denting in the metal door as a precursor to breaking through it.
I believe Forbidden Planet to be the first cinematic use of that effect, and it's been used non-stop since then.
In the West, consumers look for games with ties to blockbuster movies such as Harry Potter or professional athletes such as John Madden.
The type of game makes a difference as well. "Doom 3," "Half-Life 2," and "Halo 2" are three of the most anticipated upcoming games among Western audiences.
Last I checked, there are no Doom, Half-Life, or Halo movies or athelete tie-ins. And John Madden is way retired.
Secondly, wtf does no movie or athlete tie-ins have to do with D3, HL2 or H2? The paragraph begins "The type of game makes a difference as well."
Use of the term "as well" seems to imply that this is an additional bit of information, not further support of the previous assertion.
I realize how badly you want to rant about Western bias, but working out the kinks in your reading comprehension skills first would make you more credible.
You're not wrong about this being a widespread problem...my point, though, is that a law isn't the solution. Nor is some dues-sucking labor organization strongarming businesses. The solution is for the tech worker to do exactly as you did: decide that the industry isn't for him/her, and get out.
And in some cases, it's not that we're unaware that the industry is volatile. It's that we've decided the rewards are worth it. Any industry based on something which experiences evolution and revolution as quickly as computer technology does is going to be inherently unstable; no law or labor organization can change that without imposing massive structural costs on the industry itself. But I love tech, and I choose to work in the industry. I choose to keep myself abreast of the changing landscape as much as possible. Will I be doing this the rest of my life? If possible, perhaps...or perhaps not. I've got other paths I might pursue once I put together enough money to make them feasible.
Oh, come off it. IF your overtime is worth getting paid extra for, then don't do it unless you get paid extra for it. We're not talking about Standard Oil, here, we're talking about every business out there that needs software development. We don't need a union, we need to decide what conditions we're willing to work under, and then only accept jobs that meet them.
And yes, I say this as a worker in IT who was worked in a union shop. It sucked. I would rather have the opportunity to get paid bonuses and comp time, like I do now, than trade all that away for a guaranteed fixed raise every year regardless of performance, up to a hard cap that can't be exceeded no matter how important I become.
Not having a law mandating overtime pay isn't "fucked up repugnant shit," it's allowing small businesses like the one I work for to get on their feet. When we were just starting, hell yes, we put in a metric fuckton of overtime, and I didn't get "paid" for it. But I got quarterly (sometimes monthly) bonuses in the four-figure range, and managers often brought in stacks of free pizza on late nights. And even the occasional half barrel of beer. If they had had to pay time and a half for every employee, none of that would have happened.
So get off your high horse. If you need a law to get yourself adequately (in your mind) compensated for your time, maybe your time isn't worth as much as you think it is.
Linux hardware compatibility has progressed thousands of percent even since I started toying with it (RH 5/6 days). But it's still the reason I'm running Windows XP at home; I've so far failed to get my wireless NIC to work with Linux.
I'm sure it can be done, but while I'm fairly technically skilled, I don't pretend to be any kind of Linux specialist. I know how to get around the console well enough to be able to look up how to do most things, but that's it. I've also got a 50+ hour a week job, and there's a lot of value to me in have my hardware just sort of work, which the card does with XP.
*shrug*
You can blame the manufacturer of the NIC's chipset, and you're rightthey're at fault. But it doesn't matter when you're me, does it? Whoever's to blame, it's enough for me to have been willing to spend the $90 rather than the time to tinker until it worked.
Are engine compartments opening up again? This would be good news, in my book (I remember a water pump replacement on an '87 Sunbird that required a stupid number of things to be removed just to see the bolts on the thing). I haven't had the chance, though, to look under the hood of any cars newer than about 2000, so perhaps my impression of more modern cars is a bit skewed.
And all my engine experience is going to go out the window when I buy an RX-8 next year...
You're totally correct, for a certain category of repairs. Specifically, the maintenance/normal wear/under-the-hood types of repairs. But the article is referring, it seems, primarily to the stuff that is more difficult (or impossible) for the backyard mechanic to fix: body/frame damage and air bag deployments.
For example, I'm completely comfortable replacing head gaskets, rebuilding transmissions, pulling camshafts and the like. But a cracked frame member? It has to go in somewhere; I can't weld. Of course, there are plenty of backyard mechanics who can do that...but can they weld an aluminum frame member?
The airbags, of course, are hopeless. Now, perhaps you just elect to tear the thing out and make do without them. Fair enough. But the same is true for the seatbelts (with their one-time-use tensioners).
That's the kind of thing that is driving up prices.
Of course, there are also disincentives to working on cars these days. Take my dad's '67 LeMans, on which I spent many hours working: you look under the hood, you see the engine, the radiator, the carb, the alternator, the power steering pump and the intake and exhaust manifolds. You could pretty much stand inside the frame next to the engine without taking anything more than hoses off. Then look at their "new" '94 Grand Prix: you can't even see the ground when you open the hood. And it's only gotten worse in the last decade.
IIRC, that paradox only applies if you presume universal homogeneity. Since the universe is observably clumped (galaxies), that's no longer a paradox; the universe could be infinite in both time and space without that happening.
That would have to be some pretty carefully-worded legislation. Just demanding that a la carte pricing exist doesn't mean it will be attractive.
"Well, Mr. Consumer, we recommend getting the 'all you can eat' package; for just $50/month, you'll have access to over 1,000 channels!"
"But I'll only watch ten of them, can I only pay for those?"
"Absolutely! We're pleased to offer a la carte pricing! And we can offer you each of those channels for...you said ten channels? Let me see...$6.00 a month per!"
The violations of the law you posted are very far out from what copying is, using excessive exaggeration does not prove your point. Copying is stealing, just in the same way that riding a bus or train without a ticket is stealing, you're illegally taking something you didn't pay for, even if all it is, is time, space, or rights.
This was not exaggeration, it was pointing out that just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's stealing. It's very simple. Copyright violation and stealing are two different legal violations. The definitions are not the same. Analogizing copyright violation to not paying for a bus ride is also flawed: it costs the bus company money for you to be on that bus, in terms of more fuel used and more wear and tear on the equipment. In this case, you are stealing. Copyright violation does not cost the copyright holder money, it might cost the copyright holder potential money. This is the fundamental difference between copyright infringement and theft. Theft deprives the victim of something s/he has, copyright infringement deprives the victim of something s/he might have gotten. Hence the appropriate response to coyright infringement: determine the losses incurred by the infringer, and recoup money for the holder from the infringer. Making this a criminal violation achieves nothing.
Murder and rape are not less severe than copying
His point is that, in a sense, they are: neither murder nor rape is a federal crime (unless committed on federal property, while trafficking aliens, in pursuit of drug-related activity, and a few other exceptions). Violation of copyright is. Again, this is not an exaggeration, simply a statement of fact.
You will also note I didn't say I thought the punishment was proper, that is for a court to decide though, not the MPAA, as the trial hasn't gone through yet, we have no idea what the punishment will be
Partially correct. We have no idea whether jail time will be served, fines will be assessed, etc. However, we do know that if convicted of a felony, the guilty party loses the right to vote, the right to sit on a jury, and must make any employer aware of a felony conviction. This is independent of the penalties assessed, and is what the original poster was referring to. We do know these penalties will exist, assuming only that the violator is convicted.
Kenneth Lay has NOTHING to do with this story, stay on topic! Kenneth Lay should rot for what he did, no one will argue differently here. The person who commited this crime still did something wrong, and should be punished, once again, how much depends on what the judge rules, and how appeals go, this hasn't even been broached yet, so stop speculating wildly. And FYI, tons of Hollywood king pins have been sued, and they have lost, for the infringment of other people's copyrights, and for unfair contracts. It happens all the time, research before you post!
Completely correct. Just because Ken Lay should be in prison doesn't necessarily mean this guy shouldn't be. I couldn't agree more.
Once again, learn how to debate, excessive exaggeration DOES NOT make your point.
Well, it's poorly presented, to be sure. But the point is that just because something is illegal doesn't mean punishments should be arbitrarily onerous. Though clouded in dubious rhetoric, the original poster's point is valid, since s/he's trying to argue that the punishments being assessed for copyright infringement are excessive. Of course, one doesn't need to appeal to making speeding a capital crime to make this point, one only needs to look at the RIAA's "legal" tactics against Kazaa users.
Just because you believe copyrights should be enforced doesn't make copyright theft.
Hell, I think speed limits should be enforced, but that doesn't make speeding theft.
It's a different violation, period. This is irrespective of whether theft is right or wrong, or whether copyright infringment is right or wrong. Copyright infringement and theft are two different things. They may both be illegal, they may both be unethical, they may both be immoral. This does not make them the same thing. Embezzling != blackmail != robbery != rape != murder.
Calling copyright infringement "theft" is simply propaganda to leverage existing awareness of the immorality of theft. Which is in itself a good reason to be suspicious of the **AA; if their claims about how evil copyright infringement is are right, why do they have to cloud the issue with misleading terminology?
Technically, yes, but pure water is a very strong solvent (strong enough to give you mild burns if you pour it on your skin); something in your laptop is guaranteed to dissolve into the water, thereby making the solution conductive.
It is rarely a good idea to destroy something before we completely understand it
What's out there that we do completely understand? By your rationale, humans should never have migrated out of the mideast, because we wouldn't want to bring our diseases to the virgin forests of Europe.
Environmental consciousness is a wonderful thing, but bringing human progress to a screeching halt pending "complete understanding" of anything is ridiculous. Risks have to be taken. When risks are taken, sometimes they go the wrong way, which is what makes them risks. Advocating a "no risk" policy is the best possible way to prevent anything from ever being done.
Well, I meant nominal as in "existing in name only," as opposed to just "named," but you're probably right, "minimal" would have been better. Or possibly "marginal."
Anyhow
In terms of risk analysis, you're absolutely right, the nuclear arsenal is much more problematic. Both for the reasons you gave and one more: dead is dead, killing me extra special hard doesn't worry me. So spreading 13MT out over both time and area is more destructive to human life than 26MT released all at once in one spot. Net damage to the planet is less, but net damage to the bits we care about is much higher.
I could really have used this a couple months ago, when working up background for this (that was only one of several contributions, the full list can be seen here. And now the impact calculator appears down, so I can't check my back-of-the-napkin calculations...
According to me, at 2600kg/m^3 (a number I based off very sketchy research, but now seems a lot more reasonable), 600m in diameter, with an impact velocity of 2.7E4m/s (which is ~1.0E4m/s higher than the average "small rock" terminal velocity when it burns up), the impact would release as much energy as the entire nuclear arsenal of the world twice over (disregarding ablation during reentry, which I'm guessing would be nominal).
Every time I read something about machines interpreting brain signals, how we might have identified the brain pattern which means "raise my arm," I have to wonder if we're going about this in the fundamentally wrong way.
Why design an arm that has to figure out which brain signals mean "lift up?" Why not design an arm that will respond to brain signals in a number of ways, and one of them is by lifting up? We've each got the best learning device known to our species in our heads, why not use that skill? We all learned to use our original arms through trial and error (albeit when there was a lot less clutter in our heads), I've got the sneaking suspicion that we'd figure out how to make a mechanical one do whatever we want.
It would be no different than learning to swim, or ride a bike, or swing a golf club.
Then all you need is a way to get signals from the brain to the device, and you're set.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. I don't know where Americans get the arrogance to think that their technical infrastructure is more advanced than most 2nd- and 3rd-world nations. It's all made up. It's not like the US hit the 50% penetration mark for PCs in the home in 1999, or anything.
Clearly, we have been brainwashed by the American Cultural Hegemony to falsely believe that most places on the planet aren't fortunate enough to be as advanced as we are.
You can tell it's false because, as Araal says in the interview: "I don't know about the Arab world, but here in egypt it is basically true we are very much backwards"
Oh, wait.
I'm getting horribly tired of being told I can't say things that are factually accurate because they might be insensitive.
This isn't better. I'd rather listen to a commercial rock station and hear mediocre songs all the way through and put up with ~25% advertising than institute a model where I can't hear any song to the end in my car, because I lose reception too fast.
Even if - maybe especially if - it's a song I love.
The FCC, for all its flaws, serves a useful purpose. It regulates the use of a freely-accessible (technically, at least) resource which is extremely limited in supply.
This, then, is a fairly unsurprising tactic from them. Make no mistake about it, RAMBUS has never been a RAM company. It's an intellectual property company which attempts to make money via licensing and litigation.
Both the tests and the replies miss the most obvious problem: Google, libraries and friends answer different information needs.
Google is a fantastic way to find web sites. That's both the massive scope and the cramped limitation of it. It's up to you to sift through the web site result for the specific bit of information you want and then determine its accuracy. Google itself makes no claims on providing informationally accurate results, it claims to provide contextually accurate results.
If you want a significantly higher chance of information accuracy, a library is your ideal choice. For comprehensive information on the topic, a library is a better choice. You have experts on hand to steer you towards the most useful/reliable sources, and information pre-catalogued and cross-referenced for you.
If you want a an answer to a question that's particularly obscure, highly specialized, or couched in necessarily vague (or, worse, common) terms, a human expert is your best bet. If you want to find the last time the Milwaukee Brewers were over .500 in June, you talk to your baseball-enthusiast friend (substitute in appropriate football clubs and stats if you happen to be in the 90% of the world that prefers football). If you want to know the name of that one blonde girl your ex-roommate dated sophomore year, you call your ex-roommate.
Somewhat tangentially, the other glaring problem with most of the responses I've seen is they ignore the skill required to use any of these sources. Plenty of people have complained how they wouldn't know what books to reference or what people to call...often the same people who mock the author for not knowing what search terms to use. It's all learned skills. Google-fu is learned, not natural. Just like library research (anyone who's played Call Of Cthulhu should know that), and knowing who to call. Knowing how to differentiate a web site that's probably authoritative from one that's at best shaky is a skill that's really no easier or harder than being able to recognize a publication as reliable or a rag.
Anyhow: my point is that the article is neither right nor wrong. Google vs. libraries vs. phone-a-friend is a pretty meaningless question. They're different resources for different jobs.
This research, though, seems to be taking the same route: rather than questioning the model, they continue a so-far fruitless search for the "missing matter." If the model demands something the existence of which we are completely unable to verify, shouldn't we be questioning the model? Doesn't the very fact that there's all this "missing" matter indicate that perhaps our understanding is flawed?
Or am I just displaying rampant ignorance of the current state of physics and cosmology by asking this?
That'll be tough; his comedy license isn't current. Besides, he's been charged with battery in the 9th circuit court...and though he's been conducting himself well, the outlook is negative and he'll probably end up extradited to his native Poland for incarceration. Luckily, he's an optimistic sort, so at least the cell's Pole will be positive.
Everyone says you can't prove a negative. I've always been perplexed by this: if one can't prove a negative, how does one prove that one can't prove a negative?
In my view, that movie is relevant every time the Big Bad Evil Thingy is chasing Our Hero, and begins denting in the metal door as a precursor to breaking through it.
I believe Forbidden Planet to be the first cinematic use of that effect, and it's been used non-stop since then.
What a fantastic film.
The type of game makes a difference as well. "Doom 3," "Half-Life 2," and "Halo 2" are three of the most anticipated upcoming games among Western audiences.
Last I checked, there are no Doom, Half-Life, or Halo movies or athelete tie-ins. And John Madden is way retired.
Er...what? First off, John Madden is still active in football.
Secondly, wtf does no movie or athlete tie-ins have to do with D3, HL2 or H2? The paragraph begins "The type of game makes a difference as well."
Use of the term "as well" seems to imply that this is an additional bit of information, not further support of the previous assertion.
I realize how badly you want to rant about Western bias, but working out the kinks in your reading comprehension skills first would make you more credible.
And in some cases, it's not that we're unaware that the industry is volatile. It's that we've decided the rewards are worth it. Any industry based on something which experiences evolution and revolution as quickly as computer technology does is going to be inherently unstable; no law or labor organization can change that without imposing massive structural costs on the industry itself. But I love tech, and I choose to work in the industry. I choose to keep myself abreast of the changing landscape as much as possible. Will I be doing this the rest of my life? If possible, perhaps...or perhaps not. I've got other paths I might pursue once I put together enough money to make them feasible.
And yes, I say this as a worker in IT who was worked in a union shop. It sucked. I would rather have the opportunity to get paid bonuses and comp time, like I do now, than trade all that away for a guaranteed fixed raise every year regardless of performance, up to a hard cap that can't be exceeded no matter how important I become.
Not having a law mandating overtime pay isn't "fucked up repugnant shit," it's allowing small businesses like the one I work for to get on their feet. When we were just starting, hell yes, we put in a metric fuckton of overtime, and I didn't get "paid" for it. But I got quarterly (sometimes monthly) bonuses in the four-figure range, and managers often brought in stacks of free pizza on late nights. And even the occasional half barrel of beer. If they had had to pay time and a half for every employee, none of that would have happened.
So get off your high horse. If you need a law to get yourself adequately (in your mind) compensated for your time, maybe your time isn't worth as much as you think it is.
I'm sure it can be done, but while I'm fairly technically skilled, I don't pretend to be any kind of Linux specialist. I know how to get around the console well enough to be able to look up how to do most things, but that's it. I've also got a 50+ hour a week job, and there's a lot of value to me in have my hardware just sort of work, which the card does with XP.
*shrug*
You can blame the manufacturer of the NIC's chipset, and you're rightthey're at fault. But it doesn't matter when you're me, does it? Whoever's to blame, it's enough for me to have been willing to spend the $90 rather than the time to tinker until it worked.
And all my engine experience is going to go out the window when I buy an RX-8 next year...
For example, I'm completely comfortable replacing head gaskets, rebuilding transmissions, pulling camshafts and the like. But a cracked frame member? It has to go in somewhere; I can't weld. Of course, there are plenty of backyard mechanics who can do that...but can they weld an aluminum frame member?
The airbags, of course, are hopeless. Now, perhaps you just elect to tear the thing out and make do without them. Fair enough. But the same is true for the seatbelts (with their one-time-use tensioners).
That's the kind of thing that is driving up prices.
Of course, there are also disincentives to working on cars these days. Take my dad's '67 LeMans, on which I spent many hours working: you look under the hood, you see the engine, the radiator, the carb, the alternator, the power steering pump and the intake and exhaust manifolds. You could pretty much stand inside the frame next to the engine without taking anything more than hoses off. Then look at their "new" '94 Grand Prix: you can't even see the ground when you open the hood. And it's only gotten worse in the last decade.
IIRC, that paradox only applies if you presume universal homogeneity. Since the universe is observably clumped (galaxies), that's no longer a paradox; the universe could be infinite in both time and space without that happening.
...AT&T's legal department coming to your assistance when you're sued for "rebroadcasting" the song into the cell network?
"Well, Mr. Consumer, we recommend getting the 'all you can eat' package; for just $50/month, you'll have access to over 1,000 channels!"
"But I'll only watch ten of them, can I only pay for those?"
"Absolutely! We're pleased to offer a la carte pricing! And we can offer you each of those channels for...you said ten channels? Let me see...$6.00 a month per!"
This was not exaggeration, it was pointing out that just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's stealing. It's very simple. Copyright violation and stealing are two different legal violations. The definitions are not the same. Analogizing copyright violation to not paying for a bus ride is also flawed: it costs the bus company money for you to be on that bus, in terms of more fuel used and more wear and tear on the equipment. In this case, you are stealing. Copyright violation does not cost the copyright holder money, it might cost the copyright holder potential money. This is the fundamental difference between copyright infringement and theft. Theft deprives the victim of something s/he has, copyright infringement deprives the victim of something s/he might have gotten. Hence the appropriate response to coyright infringement: determine the losses incurred by the infringer, and recoup money for the holder from the infringer. Making this a criminal violation achieves nothing.
Murder and rape are not less severe than copying
His point is that, in a sense, they are: neither murder nor rape is a federal crime (unless committed on federal property, while trafficking aliens, in pursuit of drug-related activity, and a few other exceptions). Violation of copyright is. Again, this is not an exaggeration, simply a statement of fact.
You will also note I didn't say I thought the punishment was proper, that is for a court to decide though, not the MPAA, as the trial hasn't gone through yet, we have no idea what the punishment will be
Partially correct. We have no idea whether jail time will be served, fines will be assessed, etc. However, we do know that if convicted of a felony, the guilty party loses the right to vote, the right to sit on a jury, and must make any employer aware of a felony conviction. This is independent of the penalties assessed, and is what the original poster was referring to. We do know these penalties will exist, assuming only that the violator is convicted.
Kenneth Lay has NOTHING to do with this story, stay on topic! Kenneth Lay should rot for what he did, no one will argue differently here. The person who commited this crime still did something wrong, and should be punished, once again, how much depends on what the judge rules, and how appeals go, this hasn't even been broached yet, so stop speculating wildly. And FYI, tons of Hollywood king pins have been sued, and they have lost, for the infringment of other people's copyrights, and for unfair contracts. It happens all the time, research before you post!
Completely correct. Just because Ken Lay should be in prison doesn't necessarily mean this guy shouldn't be. I couldn't agree more.
Once again, learn how to debate, excessive exaggeration DOES NOT make your point.
Well, it's poorly presented, to be sure. But the point is that just because something is illegal doesn't mean punishments should be arbitrarily onerous. Though clouded in dubious rhetoric, the original poster's point is valid, since s/he's trying to argue that the punishments being assessed for copyright infringement are excessive. Of course, one doesn't need to appeal to making speeding a capital crime to make this point, one only needs to look at the RIAA's "legal" tactics against Kazaa users.
Hell, I think speed limits should be enforced, but that doesn't make speeding theft.
It's a different violation, period. This is irrespective of whether theft is right or wrong, or whether copyright infringment is right or wrong. Copyright infringement and theft are two different things. They may both be illegal, they may both be unethical, they may both be immoral. This does not make them the same thing. Embezzling != blackmail != robbery != rape != murder.
Calling copyright infringement "theft" is simply propaganda to leverage existing awareness of the immorality of theft. Which is in itself a good reason to be suspicious of the **AA; if their claims about how evil copyright infringement is are right, why do they have to cloud the issue with misleading terminology?
And then, of course, *zap*
What's out there that we do completely understand? By your rationale, humans should never have migrated out of the mideast, because we wouldn't want to bring our diseases to the virgin forests of Europe.
Environmental consciousness is a wonderful thing, but bringing human progress to a screeching halt pending "complete understanding" of anything is ridiculous. Risks have to be taken. When risks are taken, sometimes they go the wrong way, which is what makes them risks. Advocating a "no risk" policy is the best possible way to prevent anything from ever being done.
Anyhow
In terms of risk analysis, you're absolutely right, the nuclear arsenal is much more problematic. Both for the reasons you gave and one more: dead is dead, killing me extra special hard doesn't worry me. So spreading 13MT out over both time and area is more destructive to human life than 26MT released all at once in one spot. Net damage to the planet is less, but net damage to the bits we care about is much higher.
According to me, at 2600kg/m^3 (a number I based off very sketchy research, but now seems a lot more reasonable), 600m in diameter, with an impact velocity of 2.7E4m/s (which is ~1.0E4m/s higher than the average "small rock" terminal velocity when it burns up), the impact would release as much energy as the entire nuclear arsenal of the world twice over (disregarding ablation during reentry, which I'm guessing would be nominal).
And that's hardly a huge rock, either.
We're sitting right in the path of the new hyper-space bypass!
(-1, obvious joke)
Why design an arm that has to figure out which brain signals mean "lift up?" Why not design an arm that will respond to brain signals in a number of ways, and one of them is by lifting up? We've each got the best learning device known to our species in our heads, why not use that skill? We all learned to use our original arms through trial and error (albeit when there was a lot less clutter in our heads), I've got the sneaking suspicion that we'd figure out how to make a mechanical one do whatever we want.
It would be no different than learning to swim, or ride a bike, or swing a golf club.
Then all you need is a way to get signals from the brain to the device, and you're set.