Is there currently a problem with people who are consigning goods on ebay? If there is, is this any better than prosecuting the problem individuals? Just what real protection does it provide?
The government should stay out of everything as much as it possibly can. Almost every time the government gets involved in something unnecessarily, it is simply because someone sees an opportunity for more graft, the rest of the time it's because they are acting like overprotective parents.
My opinion is neither well informed or professional. If the cause of a persons illness (mental or otherwise) is chemical or physical, then why wouldn't you want to help them deal with the real problem effectively? I understand that people need to be responsible in helping themselves. If anyone is supposed to make an effort at fixing a problem they need to be as informed as possible about the nature of the problem.
I realize some people would use the knowledge that they have a chemical/physical disorder as a crutch to avoid trying to get better. I think this is where the job of their psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist really comes into play.
But isn't the amp used with an electric guitar essentially part of the instument and fundamentally different from an amplifier used for playing back pre-recorded audio?
The guitarist is choosing the sound he wants to produce and so may prefer a certain kind of distortion.
The person listening to a recording will want to minimize the distortion introduced by his own equipment and hear the music with the best fidelity to the original he can acheive?
Of course it makes good business sense for the the cell providers to try to make sure that the phones they sell stay locked. But is it ethical for them to try to control someone else's property once the contractual obligations are satisfied? Should it be okay for companies to (ab)use the DMCA to prop up their business models at the expens of the public?
The first is that they are trying to leverage a law intended to protect copyright for the purpose of supporting their business model which has nothing to do with copyright.
The second is that they are trying to prevent people from using the hardware that they have paid for in the way they see fit. I think it's fine if the terms of your contract with them say that you must use their service with the cell phone that they sold you for the period of the contract. The problems come when the contract runs out or you terminate the contract prematurely (and pay the associated fine), some providers are still trying to control what you do with the phone.
That's not going to happen. Hydrogen is usefull as a fuel because when it forms a bond with oxygen it releases a certain amount of energy. Ideally it takes exactly the same amount of energy to break that bond by electrolysis. Since, by the laws of thermodyamics, the process of elecrolysis is not 100% efficient (some energy is lost as heat), we will always lose energy by splitting water into H2 and O.
The difference is that we end up with more energy from burning gasoline than it took to refine it > net energy gain. With electrolysis we spend more energy to get the usable hydrogen than we will ever recover from it > net energy loss.
If you made works derived from sources in the public domain it would be almost the same as having no copyright at all. Think about the number of modern works that are derived from public domain works!
...to ever fail miserably was the Rio Car. An in-dash computer for playing music, running linux on an ARM processor, with a hard drive, and ethernet - too bad it cost something like $600.
What's really ingorant is that you can't figure out from the context of my post that I was referring to watching a movie at home without the kids running around.
Just how little control do you think parents should have over their children? If you can't get the kids to go to bed and stay there while you watch a movie, you have bigger problems.
Hell, I don't even like it when a family member get's ahold of my address and adds it to their inane ('joke of the day'/sappy inspirational message) cc list.
Companies that don't want that hassle can make it very explicit when you sign up for their mailing list. They should make sure that the default option on their web forms is not to subscribe, and their email should be explicit about how you got opted in.
Here's a big clue, IF YOU DON'T MAKE SPAMMING DIFFICULT IT WON'T STOP.
If it's unsolicited then it's spam. If you give spammers one freebie then they'll just form a new corporation every time they want to send a new batch of crap.
I don't care if they send me 'just one' or a million, either way it is infintley more than I want.
I don't think that calculating the resistance of the cylinder would tell you, as the peak current was probably achieved after the aluminum had vaporized and become plasma.
Why not? Libertarians are in favor of indivdual rights, strongly curtailed government power, and non-aggression.
So in the case of abortion, does the right of the fetus to live trump the right of the mother not to be pregnant, or vice versa? Tough question from the libertarian perspective, and I don't think the LP has an official stance.
In the case of government sponsored stem-cell research, I don't think libertarians support much government sponsored anything.
And for euthenasia, libertarians certainly support the right of people to choose to die and generally object to others choosing for them.
I think part of the problem here is differing definitions of 'successful'.
I tend to think of being successful (from a business perspective) as making an acceptable profit and having good prospects for long term survival. Success, to me, is a threshold. Once the threshold is reached, everything else is gravy.
Others, like (apparently) yourself, consider success to be a rank on some scale of failure mediocrity success greater success, with no point at which you might be satisfied.
Ultra-competetiveness will only drive you to struggle ever harder, for ever diminishing returns, and the suffering of your competitors. Not to mention that if demand for your cookies is that high, you may as well just raise your prices rather than work harder to make more.
I'm not a wage slave. I simply don't see any reason to go out of my way to subjugate everyone else when I can be perfectly happy with what I have. Pity the fool who tries to take it.
Where do you draw the line between ambition and megalomania? I happen to think it's better to wind up like Switzerland than the empire of Ghengis Kahn.
There's a whole lot of companies that are happy to simply succeed in their market. They don't have to drive all the competition out of business, and they are perfectly satisfied to make money doing what they do well. Besides that endless expansion is ultimately never sustainable (ask any conqueror).
Most businesses are happy to sell a decent product that competes well enough in the marketplace for them to turn a healthy profit every year. Microsoft though, is never satisfied. They look around for markets they haven't entered yet, and then do their worst to try to crush every other market players and dominate it with their own mediocre offering.
Why?
What drives this sociopathic yearning? Are they really just chasing an evil desire to rule the world or what?
No, govenrment isn't society, but it is the voice of society. Its inexact and has problems, but its better than none at all.
I disagree. Allowing government to be the voice of society always invites tyranny - even if it's the tyranny of the majority.
Everyone has different ideas of acceptable and polite behavior.
Here, I agree. Which is why I belive in a simple set of rules for getting along with people.
1. Mind your own business. Breaking this rule is punished by others minding your business. 2. Don't initiate force against anyone. Breaking this rule will be punished by necessary force being used to stop you.
You'll probably just have to agree to disagree with me. Here's some of what I think:
Society != Government. Anarchy != Chaos.
The threat of instant karma would probably be an even better deterent to casual murder. No to mention that people aren't under any obligation to make life easy for socipaths.
I didn't sign your social contract, but that doesn't mean I'm going to flip out and start killing, raping, and stealing.
Slashdot Mirror
Is there currently a problem with people who are consigning goods on ebay? If there is, is this any better than prosecuting the problem individuals? Just what real protection does it provide?
The government should stay out of everything as much as it possibly can. Almost every time the government gets involved in something unnecessarily, it is simply because someone sees an opportunity for more graft, the rest of the time it's because they are acting like overprotective parents.
I would also like to mention that I would never trust a psychologist that posts thing like this on slashdot. Troll.
My opinion is neither well informed or professional. If the cause of a persons illness (mental or otherwise) is chemical or physical, then why wouldn't you want to help them deal with the real problem effectively? I understand that people need to be responsible in helping themselves. If anyone is supposed to make an effort at fixing a problem they need to be as informed as possible about the nature of the problem.
I realize some people would use the knowledge that they have a chemical/physical disorder as a crutch to avoid trying to get better. I think this is where the job of their psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist really comes into play.
But isn't the amp used with an electric guitar essentially part of the instument and fundamentally different from an amplifier used for playing back pre-recorded audio?
The guitarist is choosing the sound he wants to produce and so may prefer a certain kind of distortion.
The person listening to a recording will want to minimize the distortion introduced by his own equipment and hear the music with the best fidelity to the original he can acheive?
Of course it makes good business sense for the the cell providers to try to make sure that the phones they sell stay locked. But is it ethical for them to try to control someone else's property once the contractual obligations are satisfied? Should it be okay for companies to (ab)use the DMCA to prop up their business models at the expens of the public?
There are two problems with this.
The first is that they are trying to leverage a law intended to protect copyright for the purpose of supporting their business model which has nothing to do with copyright.
The second is that they are trying to prevent people from using the hardware that they have paid for in the way they see fit. I think it's fine if the terms of your contract with them say that you must use their service with the cell phone that they sold you for the period of the contract. The problems come when the contract runs out or you terminate the contract prematurely (and pay the associated fine), some providers are still trying to control what you do with the phone.
That's not going to happen. Hydrogen is usefull as a fuel because when it forms a bond with oxygen it releases a certain amount of energy. Ideally it takes exactly the same amount of energy to break that bond by electrolysis. Since, by the laws of thermodyamics, the process of elecrolysis is not 100% efficient (some energy is lost as heat), we will always lose energy by splitting water into H2 and O.
The difference is that we end up with more energy from burning gasoline than it took to refine it > net energy gain.
With electrolysis we spend more energy to get the usable hydrogen than we will ever recover from it > net energy loss.
If you made works derived from sources in the public domain it would be almost the same as having no copyright at all. Think about the number of modern works that are derived from public domain works!
We would be left without things like:
Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus"
Michael Crichton's "Eaters of the Dead"
and "10 Things I Hate about You"
hmmmm... maybe you're right.
...to ever fail miserably was the Rio Car. An in-dash computer for playing music, running linux on an ARM processor, with a hard drive, and ethernet - too bad it cost something like $600.
What's really ingorant is that you can't figure out from the context of my post that I was referring to watching a movie at home without the kids running around.
Just how little control do you think parents should have over their children? If you can't get the kids to go to bed and stay there while you watch a movie, you have bigger problems.
Normally, I'd agree with you. Unfortunatley the government has already made it illegal to apply the most appropriate technologies to spammers.
Point taken.
Hell, I don't even like it when a family member get's ahold of my address and adds it to their inane ('joke of the day'/sappy inspirational message) cc list.
Companies that don't want that hassle can make it very explicit when you sign up for their mailing list. They should make sure that the default option on their web forms is not to subscribe, and their email should be explicit about how you got opted in.
Here's a big clue, IF YOU DON'T MAKE SPAMMING DIFFICULT IT WON'T STOP.
If it's unsolicited then it's spam. If you give spammers one freebie then they'll just form a new corporation every time they want to send a new batch of crap.
I don't care if they send me 'just one' or a million, either way it is infintley more than I want.
I don't think that calculating the resistance of the cylinder would tell you, as the peak current was probably achieved after the aluminum had vaporized and become plasma.
Why not? Libertarians are in favor of indivdual rights, strongly curtailed government power, and non-aggression.
So in the case of abortion, does the right of the fetus to live trump the right of the mother not to be pregnant, or vice versa? Tough question from the libertarian perspective, and I don't think the LP has an official stance.
In the case of government sponsored stem-cell research, I don't think libertarians support much government sponsored anything.
And for euthenasia, libertarians certainly support the right of people to choose to die and generally object to others choosing for them.
So where do you see any inconsistency?
I think part of the problem here is differing definitions of 'successful'.
I tend to think of being successful (from a business perspective) as making an acceptable profit and having good prospects for long term survival. Success, to me, is a threshold. Once the threshold is reached, everything else is gravy.
Others, like (apparently) yourself, consider success to be a rank on some scale of failure mediocrity success greater success, with no point at which you might be satisfied.
Ultra-competetiveness will only drive you to struggle ever harder, for ever diminishing returns, and the suffering of your competitors. Not to mention that if demand for your cookies is that high, you may as well just raise your prices rather than work harder to make more.
I'm not a wage slave. I simply don't see any reason to go out of my way to subjugate everyone else when I can be perfectly happy with what I have. Pity the fool who tries to take it.
Where do you draw the line between ambition and megalomania? I happen to think it's better to wind up like Switzerland than the empire of Ghengis Kahn.
There's a whole lot of companies that are happy to simply succeed in their market. They don't have to drive all the competition out of business, and they are perfectly satisfied to make money doing what they do well. Besides that endless expansion is ultimately never sustainable (ask any conqueror).
Most businesses are happy to sell a decent product that competes well enough in the marketplace for them to turn a healthy profit every year. Microsoft though, is never satisfied. They look around for markets they haven't entered yet, and then do their worst to try to crush every other market players and dominate it with their own mediocre offering.
Why?
What drives this sociopathic yearning? Are they really just chasing an evil desire to rule the world or what?
I disagree. Allowing government to be the voice of society always invites tyranny - even if it's the tyranny of the majority.
Here, I agree. Which is why I belive in a simple set of rules for getting along with people.
1. Mind your own business. Breaking this rule is punished by others minding your business.
2. Don't initiate force against anyone. Breaking this rule will be punished by necessary force being used to stop you.
You'll probably just have to agree to disagree with me. Here's some of what I think:
Society != Government.
Anarchy != Chaos.
The threat of instant karma would probably be an even better deterent to casual murder. No to mention that people aren't under any obligation to make life easy for socipaths.
I didn't sign your social contract, but that doesn't mean I'm going to flip out and start killing, raping, and stealing.
Goverment is training wheels for the uncivilized.