Deal with a combat zone the way societies always have. I dont buy that the proper solution to "there are enemy soldiers with guns" is to try to apply enough regulation that enemy soldiers cant buy guns.
It was taxed when the power company purchased the equipment and fuel to make the electricity, and again when you purchased the electricity from the power company, and again when you converted it into bitcoins, and again when you purchased some milk with it, and again when the shopkeeper paid his employees with the milk money.
Its "consistent" for sure, but its ridiculous as well. GP is right, the idea that somehow the Government needs a cut of every transaction (rather than just income tax) is absurd.
By the way i intend no disrespect to you personally-- I admire that your job seems to be trying to solve these sorts of problems-- but I think what you are expressing is the wrong way to do it.
The real problem is a mentality that we need to find every conceivable danger and remove it from society,
Maybe that works out for some states, but it doesnt fit with my conception of what a free state is. If flour bombs become a problem, we can deal with it the same way society has always dealt with these sort of problems: by punishing the people causing havoc after they commit the crime.
IIRC last week's explosion was purely due to the pressure and temperature at which the ammonia was being stored.
They hadnt crafted the nitrogen into an explosive, its just when you have a gigantic tank of gas stored at 250psi @ room temperature, and it gets heated up by a fire, it tends to rupture with explosive force. Article says that this new stuff uses ammonium sulfate, which makes the flunky chemist in me think that theyd still need to store high-pressure ammonia, and could experience the exact same "accident".
Fertilizer doesnt tend to accidentally explode under basically any non-industrial situation.
Once again, in your arrogance you assume that it is your right to tell the artist how to distribute their work. It is not, and I really dont think you can claim to know how technically oriented every artist using DRM is. Red Hat, Cisco, and Microsoft Microsoft uses a sort of DRM (their license keys), and it would be moronic to accuse them of not being "technically oriented people".
Im defining troll as such...
* Asking a loaded question..
* To which an answer is not desired...
* In such a way that the "wrong" answer will generate a shitstorm of argument
Heres an example of what a troll question looks like. "Does the newly elected mayor have any worth as a human being at all?"
Yes, a lot of slashdot articles do this, and it represents the worst of slashdot.
But once again, the question is flawed. Even if all uses of DRM were horribly anti-consumer (and I dont think they have to be, just that they often are), DRM is probably serving as an "incentive" for the company making the product.
Its like asking "are there ANY good uses for outsourcing?" Outsourcing has a negative image for a number of reasons including worse customer service; but for the company doing it, yes there are reasons, and if they didnt outsource it would affect the consumer in some way (higher prices, longer launch dates, longer wait times on support calls).
You can argue that DRM tends to hurt the consumer, and you can suggest that DRM should be restricted or regulated, but to pretend that it has no purpose for existing is ignorant, and trolling.
"Gigabit internet" is not "basic utilities", and if I had to guess it wont be this century. The most valuable parts about the internet also use astonishingly little bandwidth; on 2mbps you can use video chat, view reams of historical texts, and watch instructional videos @ 480p.
The need for gigabit basically boils down to 1) watching ridiculously hi-def video, 2) transferring large files or large numbers of files, or 3) providing tunnels, proxying, or routing for huge numbers of people, or people doing 1 and 2.
Those are not "basic needs". Sometimes 640k really is enough, just like 100amps really is enough, and 1-lane neighborhood roads really are enough.
The creation of art is not, nor ever has been, dependent on remuneration. People don't exclusively create to be compensated.
You cannot possibly claim to speak for every artist out there, and its THEIR decision, not yours.
People should try to remember that when someone creates a product, service, or piece of art, THEY generally have more of a say in its restrictions, price, etc than you do, because they're the ones who created it.
If an artist feels like they dont want to make art that they cannot restrict with DRM, there is your "good reason" for DRM-- that artist wants it.
The original question is a blatant troll. Its roughly the same as asking, "Are there ANY good reasons for companies to charge for services?"
Yes. They have to do with incentivizing a company to spend resources making a product / service in the first place, not with catering to your every whim.
When thinking about DRM, remember that the company's ONLY purpose for existing is to make a profit. In most cases, and when everything is "as it should be", they do this by providing a superior product / service and gaining market share. DRM can be used to ensure that the market share is "legitimate".
Im not going to argue that DRM is good, or that it hasnt been done badly (to the former, it can be very bad WRT obsolescence, and to the second, it absolutely has), but the original submission is unbelievably trollish, and I really suspect that he didnt want an actual answer at all as much as he wanted a soapbox to rant.
And 64kb of ram is all any computer will ever need, too.
I'm not saying we necessarily need more now, or that we can afford it now, but let's not put arbitrary limits on future capacity based on today's experiences or make decisions that impede progreess. It doesn't hold up.
The best way to figure that hugely complex problem out is with market forces, not arbitrary "well, we're gonna burn $150million and hope that the demand appears".
Past trends do not indicate that people will need or want gigabit internet for many, many, many years now.
Try that sort of thinking out with other infrastructure; why not invest in 4 lane roads to each house, and 500 amps of current to each house, and double-capacity storm drainage. I mean, the need isnt there NOW, but in the future, who knows, right?
How, exactly, do you suppose the housing crisis started? What happens if you cant sell the house? Whoops, now youre broke and have a massive mortgage that you cant pay! Oh well.
If I hadn't had the credit available, I never would have had the free cash to do the project.
I sincerely am not trying to be mean, but to my mind it would have been far wiser to not do so. You took a risk, and it paid off, but it was a terribly large risk that could have wiped you out if the market had changed.
Some infrastructure is a good idea. If they launched an initiative to provide 4 lane roads to each neighborhood in rural vermont, thats "infrastructure", and its also "absurd waste".
Good point. I think the Fed should launch an initiative to ensure that each household in rural vermont has access to 500amps of electricity. You know, to spur demand and growth. Im sure they will find a use for it.
The benefit of gigabit internet approaches zero for 99.999% of residential customers, and most non-tech businesses as well.
Additionally, gigabit internet is really only useful for massive file transfers and streaming very-hi-def movies, which arent really in the same class as "education in the thirties".
If you have satellite or WiFi internet-- which can be deployed without spending ludicrous amounts of money-- you already have access to the most important parts of the internet with no degradation. If you have a basic DSL or cable line, you can already get Skype and the most important communication bits as well.
Even more importantly, this is NOT a federal issue, it is a local issue, and if it is important to the people of vermont, then they should pay for it. The idea of projects like this is to make the area more attractive than other states and pull in investment. When the local government does that, it represents competition between states at its best, and forces other states to up their game as well. When the federal government does it, at best it pulls business from another state who will then ask for money from the fed with no regard to effectiveness or efficiency, and represents the worst of government waste.
When its not vermont's money, who cares what the ROI is? Who cares how effective the plan is, or whether there's truly a need?
I think the government should subsidize 72" TVs for all of the folks in rural vermont.
Reasoning:
* Its about $5000 / household cheaper than this gigabit idea
* Its useful now (unlike the gigabit internet, which you cannot effectively use right now)
* The folks in rural vermont would get a great deal more enjoyment out of a 72" TV than getting youtube / netflix / remote work done at exactly the same speed / quality as a basic cable connection
* Why the hell not, government is supposed to make these purchases right?
Slashdot Mirror
Uhoh, I think the editors accidentally the submission....
*martialled
Hes actually court marshalled, and the guys "just following orders" get dishonorably discharged for "conduct unbecoming a US marine".
Deal with a combat zone the way societies always have. I dont buy that the proper solution to "there are enemy soldiers with guns" is to try to apply enough regulation that enemy soldiers cant buy guns.
It was taxed when the power company purchased the equipment and fuel to make the electricity, and again when you purchased the electricity from the power company, and again when you converted it into bitcoins, and again when you purchased some milk with it, and again when the shopkeeper paid his employees with the milk money.
Its "consistent" for sure, but its ridiculous as well. GP is right, the idea that somehow the Government needs a cut of every transaction (rather than just income tax) is absurd.
I somehow suspect you havent seen A Few Good Men.
Hint: It doesnt legitimize anything except the legal system.
By the way i intend no disrespect to you personally-- I admire that your job seems to be trying to solve these sorts of problems-- but I think what you are expressing is the wrong way to do it.
Why cant you just go after the people making flour bombs, rather than foisting a massive burden onto society?
The real problem is a mentality that we need to find every conceivable danger and remove it from society,
Maybe that works out for some states, but it doesnt fit with my conception of what a free state is. If flour bombs become a problem, we can deal with it the same way society has always dealt with these sort of problems: by punishing the people causing havoc after they commit the crime.
Thanks for demonstrating you know nothing whatsoever about the problem.
The "Problem" is that "making something that is explosive" can be done whether the US likes it or not, and with materials that everyone has access to.
I dont know what the solution is, but its certainly not to go after anything that contains nitrogen in the hopes that you'll win that arms race.
IIRC last week's explosion was purely due to the pressure and temperature at which the ammonia was being stored.
They hadnt crafted the nitrogen into an explosive, its just when you have a gigantic tank of gas stored at 250psi @ room temperature, and it gets heated up by a fire, it tends to rupture with explosive force. Article says that this new stuff uses ammonium sulfate, which makes the flunky chemist in me think that theyd still need to store high-pressure ammonia, and could experience the exact same "accident".
Fertilizer doesnt tend to accidentally explode under basically any non-industrial situation.
Once again, in your arrogance you assume that it is your right to tell the artist how to distribute their work. It is not, and I really dont think you can claim to know how technically oriented every artist using DRM is. Red Hat, Cisco, and Microsoft Microsoft uses a sort of DRM (their license keys), and it would be moronic to accuse them of not being "technically oriented people".
Business dont make money to grow, they grow to make money. The fundamental point of going to work in the morning is earning a living.
Im defining troll as such...
* Asking a loaded question..
* To which an answer is not desired...
* In such a way that the "wrong" answer will generate a shitstorm of argument
Heres an example of what a troll question looks like.
"Does the newly elected mayor have any worth as a human being at all?"
Yes, a lot of slashdot articles do this, and it represents the worst of slashdot.
But once again, the question is flawed. Even if all uses of DRM were horribly anti-consumer (and I dont think they have to be, just that they often are), DRM is probably serving as an "incentive" for the company making the product.
Its like asking "are there ANY good uses for outsourcing?" Outsourcing has a negative image for a number of reasons including worse customer service; but for the company doing it, yes there are reasons, and if they didnt outsource it would affect the consumer in some way (higher prices, longer launch dates, longer wait times on support calls).
You can argue that DRM tends to hurt the consumer, and you can suggest that DRM should be restricted or regulated, but to pretend that it has no purpose for existing is ignorant, and trolling.
"Gigabit internet" is not "basic utilities", and if I had to guess it wont be this century. The most valuable parts about the internet also use astonishingly little bandwidth; on 2mbps you can use video chat, view reams of historical texts, and watch instructional videos @ 480p.
The need for gigabit basically boils down to 1) watching ridiculously hi-def video, 2) transferring large files or large numbers of files, or 3) providing tunnels, proxying, or routing for huge numbers of people, or people doing 1 and 2.
Those are not "basic needs". Sometimes 640k really is enough, just like 100amps really is enough, and 1-lane neighborhood roads really are enough.
The creation of art is not, nor ever has been, dependent on remuneration. People don't exclusively create to be compensated.
You cannot possibly claim to speak for every artist out there, and its THEIR decision, not yours.
People should try to remember that when someone creates a product, service, or piece of art, THEY generally have more of a say in its restrictions, price, etc than you do, because they're the ones who created it.
If an artist feels like they dont want to make art that they cannot restrict with DRM, there is your "good reason" for DRM-- that artist wants it.
The original question is a blatant troll. Its roughly the same as asking,
"Are there ANY good reasons for companies to charge for services?"
Yes. They have to do with incentivizing a company to spend resources making a product / service in the first place, not with catering to your every whim.
When thinking about DRM, remember that the company's ONLY purpose for existing is to make a profit. In most cases, and when everything is "as it should be", they do this by providing a superior product / service and gaining market share. DRM can be used to ensure that the market share is "legitimate".
Im not going to argue that DRM is good, or that it hasnt been done badly (to the former, it can be very bad WRT obsolescence, and to the second, it absolutely has), but the original submission is unbelievably trollish, and I really suspect that he didnt want an actual answer at all as much as he wanted a soapbox to rant.
And 64kb of ram is all any computer will ever need, too.
I'm not saying we necessarily need more now, or that we can afford it now, but let's not put arbitrary limits on future capacity based on today's experiences or make decisions that impede progreess. It doesn't hold up.
The best way to figure that hugely complex problem out is with market forces, not arbitrary "well, we're gonna burn $150million and hope that the demand appears".
Past trends do not indicate that people will need or want gigabit internet for many, many, many years now.
Try that sort of thinking out with other infrastructure; why not invest in 4 lane roads to each house, and 500 amps of current to each house, and double-capacity storm drainage. I mean, the need isnt there NOW, but in the future, who knows, right?
My last buy n flip house was done this way.
How, exactly, do you suppose the housing crisis started? What happens if you cant sell the house? Whoops, now youre broke and have a massive mortgage that you cant pay! Oh well.
If I hadn't had the credit available, I never would have had the free cash to do the project.
I sincerely am not trying to be mean, but to my mind it would have been far wiser to not do so. You took a risk, and it paid off, but it was a terribly large risk that could have wiped you out if the market had changed.
Some infrastructure is a good idea. If they launched an initiative to provide 4 lane roads to each neighborhood in rural vermont, thats "infrastructure", and its also "absurd waste".
Not all "investment" is a good investment.
Good point. I think the Fed should launch an initiative to ensure that each household in rural vermont has access to 500amps of electricity. You know, to spur demand and growth. Im sure they will find a use for it.
Do you see how absurd this argument is?
The benefit of gigabit internet approaches zero for 99.999% of residential customers, and most non-tech businesses as well.
Additionally, gigabit internet is really only useful for massive file transfers and streaming very-hi-def movies, which arent really in the same class as "education in the thirties".
If you have satellite or WiFi internet-- which can be deployed without spending ludicrous amounts of money-- you already have access to the most important parts of the internet with no degradation. If you have a basic DSL or cable line, you can already get Skype and the most important communication bits as well.
Even more importantly, this is NOT a federal issue, it is a local issue, and if it is important to the people of vermont, then they should pay for it. The idea of projects like this is to make the area more attractive than other states and pull in investment. When the local government does that, it represents competition between states at its best, and forces other states to up their game as well. When the federal government does it, at best it pulls business from another state who will then ask for money from the fed with no regard to effectiveness or efficiency, and represents the worst of government waste.
When its not vermont's money, who cares what the ROI is? Who cares how effective the plan is, or whether there's truly a need?
Government funded TV, which people would actually appreciate / realize they had, as opposed to gbit internet.
I think the government should subsidize 72" TVs for all of the folks in rural vermont.
Reasoning:
* Its about $5000 / household cheaper than this gigabit idea
* Its useful now (unlike the gigabit internet, which you cannot effectively use right now)
* The folks in rural vermont would get a great deal more enjoyment out of a 72" TV than getting youtube / netflix / remote work done at exactly the same speed / quality as a basic cable connection
* Why the hell not, government is supposed to make these purchases right?