I grew up on Burt Rutan articles in Popular Science. Rutan was initially famous for designing kit planes, such as the VariViggen[sp?] VariEZ, and the LongEZ, if I'm not getting a couple of the names wrong. Bob Denver was flying a Rutan kit plane when he crashed, if that jogs a memory for anyone.
The kit planes were famous for the angled canard wings near the nose. Rutan designed them so that it was nearly impossible to stall the plane by making the canards lose lift before the main trailing wings did, thus dropping the nose before control was lost.
The planes were also cheap, beautiful, and easy to fly. Frankly, I don't know if they are still being sold, but I hope they are.
NOW, if Rutan and Paul Moeller of the flying car project could just get together...
Um, guys.. North Korea hasn't attacked anyone, um, ever... they're not rogue. We just don't like them. We don't have to start killing them. They aren't going to attack you. Calm down. Take a breath. The NK's are not going to commit suicide by taking on the U.S. We won't be killed. I don't think they've broken any laws, and in any case, as G.W.B. once said, call your international lawyers. They care about international law as much as Bushists do.
I think all they want is to be not-attacked. They want a deterrent. It's not a weapon. It has no use but deterrence; they can't threaten anyone with it.
Indeed, and I have to add that Asmimov's idea has other applications as well. It's not what pops into mind when thinking of robots, but there it is: a sort of robo-wolf, to keep down deer and other animal populations without resorting to a few dozen tons of lead dumped into the ground by hunters every year. It removes the problem of reintroducing coyotes and wolves: people are terrified that they'll eat their livestock, or attack their kids. With humans sprawling into the last wilderness areas, we have to find some way of keeping down animal populations safely and sanely, or the humans will simply vote to kill everything more dangerous than a squirrel.
Actually, I know of a case concerning a camera and a window in Chicago.
I knew a consultant who lived with a couple of roommates in an apartment on Sheffield avenue, directly across from the Wrigley Field (Cubs, ya know) bleachers.
One of her roommates used to have a window facing the closed circuit security camera under the bleachers (don't know exactly where, don't know what kind of camera it was, either). The camera was remotely controlled, and the girl noticed that the camera swivelled towards her bedroom window when it was time for her to undress.
She documented it somehow, and quietly brought it to the attention of the Tribune company. Lawsuit was implied; she got lots of money. The camera behaved itself afterwards.
Now, I can here the rejoinders: "Hey, I'll get a camera to look into my bedroom and make a mint!"
Wrong, totalitarian-society-lovers. She moved quietly, with the threat of exposing the company, and settled for some cash.
Now if she had made an issue of it, the mighty Tribco could have tied her up in court for years, and might actually have won on the basis that she didn't close her shade. Who knows?
Now that these cameras will be everywhere downtown and the North Side, I'm wagering, the test cases will start in a few years, and the city will win all sorts of new rights to look into windows. We're a freaking totalitarian state in Chicago as it is. The courts are bound to Daley, and they support him.
Hell, the cops will be playing with their see-through-walls cameras soon. Do you think that mere visual cameras will be a problem for da Mayor? This man has no qualms about civil liberties. He believes in One Man, One Vote, and of course he has that vote.
During the Bush propaganda run-up to the 1991 Gulf war, the Bushies (same guys as the current Bushies, hence the name) put out the "fact" that Saddam Hussein had amassed troops on the border of Saudi Arabia. Stopping that massive invasion of Saudi Arabia was one of the major reasons to start the war.
Here's the part the U.S. has total amnesia about: news organizations, after the war, simply requested satellite photos of the Saudi border in question at the time we insisted the Iraqis were amassing its invasion.
Guess what? There were no troops there. Empty land. The troops story, like the Iraqis-threw-preemies-from-incubators crock put out by a Washington DC PR firm, was a "misstatement", as the same Bushies still call such things today.
Or a big, fat, loathesome lie.
Now, here in '01 the Bushies have created exceptions from the Freedom of Information Act. Lookee here, three years after that, they are using that questionably legal tactic to shut the hole in the wall of their fake universe that tripped them up 13 years ago: the presence of a camera.
They really don't like cameras, unless its in the hands of the police, taking YOUR picture when you dare to protest the Bushies in public.
If a third party places cameras in orbit, I guarantee they will threaten the owners into compliance with their demands, or they will reserve the right to blow them out of the sky.
This isn't flamebait. This is a scream. They are blindfolding us and gagging us, and they don't even bother to justify it. They just assume we won't care. And they are right.
"your actions will both in aggregate increase the price of goods for others"
No. No evidence exists that VHS copying, for instance, reduced profits for TV or the movie studios. Actually, the commercial sales of such recordings make more money for the studios than public screenings. They are rolling in dough. Additionally, anyone with a bit of knowledge can copy a DVD today. DVD sales are rising exponentially. There are only assertions from the studios that they are losing cash. Reality, not words, show the opposite.
"decrease general welfare by causing increased restrictions, both legal and technological, to be imposed on future products."
You assume that the lack of a recorder would negate the studios' efforts to build a copyright police state; there is no evidence that they would stop on any account. So, new recorder or no new recorder? You might as well buy one, for it would neither increase nor decrease the new draconian laws which will be purchased by the studios anyway.
Yes, yes, and yes, on and after the year 2005. In all phones sold in the U.S. next year and ever after, all units will be mandated by federal law to have a GPS component.
Yep, they will be used by law enforcement. Yes, they will be hacked by psychos, hackers, and cults to track people they don't like.
Nope, you don't get a choice to opt out. Welcome to the Brave New World. No doubt it'll make us safer from terrorists.
We're okay with cameras tracking our every move, with tracking devices on our kids, on mandatory drug tests for the rest of our lives. Soon new cars will be mandated to carry GPS snitch boxes, no doubt.
This has been an incremental revolution. We are now entering the ultimate fascism. in any sense of the word. The key to a good fascist state is the willing, even enthusiastic, support of its citizens. Failing that, it helps if the nation is ignorant of its own ideals and history.
If you've fone nothing wrong, I'm sure it'll all be okay. Don't worry.
Well, if you fake out the cable company and get free TV, and then get caught, you could go to prison. If you distribute DVD rips over a darknet, you could get caught and go to prison. If you distribute your cable TV over your server to a friend, you could etc etc.
In all cases, if you try to flee, you will be shot. If you don't try to flee, you get raped while the warden and guards laugh at your screams.
There's no difference between getting shot by a government or a business. The bullet will still kill you. But, I guess it's more libertarian to get shot by a privately funded bullet.
"I agree that we don't have widespread super-broadband because there's no profit in it in many places. And in some places, a government-run community based fiber system has worked - for now. But government intervention has the tendency of freezing the marketplace and ending the competition for new technologies."
But the articles clearly show that this has not been the case. Highspeed access has progressed in leaps and bounds in Asia and Europe precisely because the governments pushed aside businesses to mandate change.
I must say that the profit motive is the very reason that we pay so much and get glacial melt speeds. There is no profit margin in upping speeds. Only costs -- if you use MBA logic.
Once again, it is selective cost accounting. If the ONLY reason to do anything contructive is to make a short-term profit for a corporation, then innovation slows. If a nation doesn't subcribe to the profit-only model of innovation, they can factor in things like quality of life, or overall good for the greatest number, or creating LONG-term profits in exchange for America's short-term model.
I don't have to pound theoretical justifications into the ground here. I merely point to South Korea and NW European nations. They have mandated that the fiber be dropped, the last mile crossed. They ate the short term costs, pretty major ones, in exhange for the long term success, ie everyone is hooked up for a reasonable cost. They don't need to "innovate" to get it done. It's DONE. They did it. No more nonsense.
And I'm sitting at home nursing a 128 kb cable connection at peak hours for 55 dollars a month. And they are raising the rates again. And they've locked me into a 100 dollar a month TV/internet package. Tell me who's being "innovative" here, the engineers, or the MBA's draining us?
If the US highway system had been built using the same logic of those building the internet, we'd be paying thousands of dollars in tolls a year to move at 20 miles per hour around private roads surrounding the suburbs. And all of it justified by profit-only cost accounting and hands-off government policies. And the roads would be heavily policed to see if anyone is carrying VHS copies of movies or cassette tapes of CDs, 'cause we wouldn't want intelectual property thieves causing liability for the road companies.
PS: the bushies have negotiated a new addition to new interstate highway funding in the future, kids; they'll all be toll roads. Welcome to the future rebuilt -- they just may get their private roads after all.
This is so appropo to my post yesterday regarding the enormous growth in the Secret Service's power.
What in hell do we need a Secret Service for, anyway? Isn't the name alone frightening enough? They've become a shadowy federal police force that overrules and directs the real police. And they seem to have very distict political opinions about the right to free speech and the right of citizens to move freely around their own country. Or even foreigners in THEIR own country. They shut down Ireland, for god's sake, when Bush arrived. Welding manhole covers shut? Under what power granted to them can they shut down cities?
From creating "First Amendment Zones" for protestors, to intimidating people in their own homes for thinking anti-govermental thoughts, to keeping reporters away from Michael Moore at the Republican national convention, the SS has grown into something that no longer "protects" the president; it is protecting those in power in general. And what the hell is the SS doing protecting the Saudi Arabian embassy in DC? (watch Fahrenheit 911 to see our SS in action)
"So it should be called "stealing potential revenue"? "
No. There is no such crime. Never has been. And they are accused of stealing music, not revenue. The argument seems to twist into new shapes whenever it is refuted.
And the music industry is doing fine. Last year's drop in revenue was caused by their own decision to cut production, along with this "recession" thing everyone's ignoring.
Valenti thought that VHS, then DVD, would kill the movie business. They now make more on DVD's than ticket sales. Online music could have done the same for the members of RIAA -- but they decided to declare digital music illegal, sued their customers, and made themselves into the Enemy.
"Now, can we get back to feeling sorry for people that steal music please?"
No, I wouldn't feel sorry for people who steal music. Neither those who rape it, murder it, commit assault and battery upon it, or abandon it in the middle of a desert island.
Since people are copying music, a right they have long held, I do tend to feel sorry for them when their rights are under attack by Gingrichian word twisters.
What the hell happened to the Secret Service in the last three and a half years?
Firstly, they have been instructing police departments around the country to construct "First Amendment Zones" whereever Bush or other Bushites are speaking. A First Amendment Zone is an out-of-the-way place miles from the President, surrounded by walls and wire, guarded by goons and dogs, and festooned with cameras to record your every visual detail. Show up to protest, and you are unceremoniously shown to the FAZ, where you are identified, processed and allowed to chant at a telephone pole. Presidential supporters are of course bussed in if necessary - happened here in Chicago.
Secondly, the Secret Service is being dispatched, along with the FBI, to investigate even potential protestors in their homes. The "we know who you are" routine.
Thirdly, the SS won't let the press talk to Michael Moore, who is corresponding for USA Today this week.
Secret Service shuts down Michael Moore interviews. Why is the Secret Service Engaged in Direct Political Work for Bush? Isn't That Illegal? 8/31
Here's a sample of what happens when a political party gets its own federal guard:
Seabrook: Yes, I am in the middle of a...you might be able to hear the Secret Service yelling into my mic at the same time. There, there are a bunch of Secret Service that have surrounded Michael Moore's section. There are three or four reporters with him right now, but they are trying to kick all of the reporters and press photographers who are around him out of his area. The convention staff is also here. They're standing here telling us that we have to move from this are...they're obviously disturbed by the fact that Michael Moore is here and want as little public here as possible.
Stachio: Can we hear? Can we hear what's going on? Can you stick a mic in there? I don't know if we can hear.
Seabrook: Yeah...ah...eh...they've sort of moved me away from that area.
Stachio: I don't understand. Who is it? Is it Secret Service?
Seabrook: It's Secret Service which is interesting because the Secret Service of all agencies is the one that remains...is the least involved in the sort of political...political kinds of things, but of course they always cover the candidates and they have to be involved in the convention like this. They claim that what they're doing is for safety reasons, although there is a almost nobody around Michael Moore right now. So a we'll see if I can a...
Secret Service Agent: [crosstalk] thank you very much
Seabrook: Yeah, I'm being herded back in four different ways right now.
***
People, Bush has created his own private extra-constitutional intelligence and police force! The SS must be loaded to the gunwhales with hard-right wing fanatics.
Doesn't this terrify you all?
The Secret Service was created to protect the President. Does "protection" mean reelecting him at all costs?
Why do we even need a Secret Service, anyway? Why are they guarding the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC? Can't police guard the President? Is the President so holy and inviolate that we have to shut down entire cities when he arrives? He's a civilian employee, for God's sake, not an emperor! They are welding manhole covers shut in foreign countries to protect him. WHAT? THE? HELL?
Why do I think that this level of political protection will not be deemed necessary by the SS when Kerry assumes the office? Kerry, clean house. Grow a pair, find out the names of the officials who have cultured this monster. and make them be gone.
The humans added no error in the 2000 recount. The Republicans spawned numerous 527 groups that stormed the cable talkers and the courtrooms to insist that a recount was impossible; they were lying little @$%*&ers. There was a Bush called recount in the southwest at the same time as the Florda recount. There was no dispute there, only in Jeb's state. The recount, once it was finally permitted to commence by the courts, went off without a hitch and was almost finished when the Supreme Court stopped everything. They had two readers per card, one from each side, and both had to agree before the vote was counted. It was foolproof, it was working, and they were on track to finish in 48 hours or less before Bush's men in the SCOTUS stopped the election.
Stockman, the economist who fronted supply side economics for the Reagan White House, later recanted his entire justification for the tax cuts. He said there had been no justification for the cuts other than paying back Reagan's supporters. Period. It was a con. The numbers were a sham.
And it did not work, unless you think charging up 4 trillion in debt on a credit card to finance a "boom" is success. Any dingo can be rich for a few years if he doesn't pay cash for his binges.
Reagan was lucky. As is true today, our economy depends entirely on the price of oil, and in 1982, OPEC's iron control of crude prices collapsed, removing the true cause of our national malaise since 1973 -- high oil prices. In SPITE of Reagan's catastrophic spending and tax cut combination, we got to keep enough of our national wealth in-country to enable a magnificent boom.
Today, oil prices are rising because there is no way to increase oil production worldwide to keep up with the growth in demand by asia and the US combined. There is no spare capacity. It's three decades too late to switch to alternative sources. We're screwed. There will be no Bush miracle. Bush assumes that Reagan's cuts caused the 80's boom -- this is why he was a C student -- and he is still ideologically unable to figure out that his assumption is wrong. He's supply-siding us into the grave. His only hope will be a Kerry victory, for his supporters can then blame the successor for the back-ended fiscal disaster caused by Genius Boy.
In a way, I hope Kerry loses. Then the Reaganauts, Cheney and Rice and Bush, will finally, after all these decades, have to face the steaming pile of dung they've created with no one else to blame. Okay, maybe Iran.
And no roads, military, health services, cops, sidewalks, airports, student loans, wilderness areas, national parks, trains, R&D, space exploration, intelligence, social security, emergency services, free television, radio, clean water, clean air, urban planning, food inspection, border patrol, aid for starving kids, or SCHOOLS!
Everything you utiize EVERY DAY is paid for by all of us collectively to give you the opportunity to drive to work and make a living. Your argument is the quintessential reduction of what is wrong with libertarian philosopy -- what was ultimately wrong with my favorite philosopher, Heinelin's, line of reasoning -- the idea that the individual alone is responsible for and should be the sole beneficiary of his labors. Even Heinlein understood that no man existed as an island -- "Conventry" should be the example here, not the silly far-rightism of his later years -- and that every aspect of your existence as the lone hero is dependent on the close cooperation and contributed taxes of those who maintain your universe. Semantic nonsense: "penailized" for making money. You're putting money into the kitty for the society and the world which makes it possible for you to get out of bed alive every day.
The sad thing is that this concept resonates so well amongst Americans. It's why we're drowning in Federal debt payments, paying the highest health prices in the world and getting worse care than those paying half what we do elsewhere, and killing our public school systems -- which will ultimately reduce us to a joke among nations, broke, sickly, and fucking stupid.
Agreed, I was playing a little. 1 TB won't be enough for video.
Crank up to 4K lines of video. Don't compress the data at all: keep it lossless. Reintroduce frames, and crank it up from 25 fps, which after all was established when Edison was alive, to something like 75 - 100 fps.
You'll need disks with petabyte capacity.
But it opens up new possiblities. Movie theaters can use the media to replace film. Studios can downrez for anything from 240 line VHS to 4K superprojectors for the home. They can establish pricing tiers based on resolution. And with proper backup, studios can stop losing movies as the film media disintegrates.
"I have to say what the hell would you need that much space for anyway? "
4K scanning resolution - what you need to have to preserve most of the image information on 35mm film -- will require 1 TB at least! The displays for 4K will come along when the media can support it.
After 4K scanned movies, there won't be any more increases in resolution. We can finally stop the new media dance...
Slashdot Mirror
I grew up on Burt Rutan articles in Popular Science. Rutan was initially famous for designing kit planes, such as the VariViggen[sp?] VariEZ, and the LongEZ, if I'm not getting a couple of the names wrong. Bob Denver was flying a Rutan kit plane when he crashed, if that jogs a memory for anyone.
The kit planes were famous for the angled canard wings near the nose. Rutan designed them so that it was nearly impossible to stall the plane by making the canards lose lift before the main trailing wings did, thus dropping the nose before control was lost.
The planes were also cheap, beautiful, and easy to fly. Frankly, I don't know if they are still being sold, but I hope they are.
NOW, if Rutan and Paul Moeller of the flying car project could just get together...
First Post!
Ben Afleck sucks monkey balls. Angel sucks. Star Wars rules. Harry is a fat sellout.
Not a one of us is over the age of fifteen.
" So that makes it okay?"
That's positively Limbaughian. Redirect, deflect, defuse...
Um, guys.. North Korea hasn't attacked anyone, um, ever... they're not rogue. We just don't like them. We don't have to start killing them. They aren't going to attack you. Calm down. Take a breath. The NK's are not going to commit suicide by taking on the U.S. We won't be killed. I don't think they've broken any laws, and in any case, as G.W.B. once said, call your international lawyers. They care about international law as much as Bushists do.
I think all they want is to be not-attacked. They want a deterrent. It's not a weapon. It has no use but deterrence; they can't threaten anyone with it.
Indeed, and I have to add that Asmimov's idea has other applications as well. It's not what pops into mind when thinking of robots, but there it is: a sort of robo-wolf, to keep down deer and other animal populations without resorting to a few dozen tons of lead dumped into the ground by hunters every year. It removes the problem of reintroducing coyotes and wolves: people are terrified that they'll eat their livestock, or attack their kids. With humans sprawling into the last wilderness areas, we have to find some way of keeping down animal populations safely and sanely, or the humans will simply vote to kill everything more dangerous than a squirrel.
Actually, I know of a case concerning a camera and a window in Chicago.
I knew a consultant who lived with a couple of roommates in an apartment on Sheffield avenue, directly across from the Wrigley Field (Cubs, ya know) bleachers.
One of her roommates used to have a window facing the closed circuit security camera under the bleachers (don't know exactly where, don't know what kind of camera it was, either). The camera was remotely controlled, and the girl noticed that the camera swivelled towards her bedroom window when it was time for her to undress.
She documented it somehow, and quietly brought it to the attention of the Tribune company. Lawsuit was implied; she got lots of money. The camera behaved itself afterwards.
Now, I can here the rejoinders: "Hey, I'll get a camera to look into my bedroom and make a mint!"
Wrong, totalitarian-society-lovers. She moved quietly, with the threat of exposing the company, and settled for some cash.
Now if she had made an issue of it, the mighty Tribco could have tied her up in court for years, and might actually have won on the basis that she didn't close her shade. Who knows?
Now that these cameras will be everywhere downtown and the North Side, I'm wagering, the test cases will start in a few years, and the city will win all sorts of new rights to look into windows. We're a freaking totalitarian state in Chicago as it is. The courts are bound to Daley, and they support him.
Hell, the cops will be playing with their see-through-walls cameras soon. Do you think that mere visual cameras will be a problem for da Mayor? This man has no qualms about civil liberties. He believes in One Man, One Vote, and of course he has that vote.
Time to leave this damned city.
Little known fact (in the U.S.):
During the Bush propaganda run-up to the 1991 Gulf war, the Bushies (same guys as the current Bushies, hence the name) put out the "fact" that Saddam Hussein had amassed troops on the border of Saudi Arabia. Stopping that massive invasion of Saudi Arabia was one of the major reasons to start the war.
Here's the part the U.S. has total amnesia about: news organizations, after the war, simply requested satellite photos of the Saudi border in question at the time we insisted the Iraqis were amassing its invasion.
Guess what? There were no troops there. Empty land. The troops story, like the Iraqis-threw-preemies-from-incubators crock put out by a Washington DC PR firm, was a "misstatement", as the same Bushies still call such things today.
Or a big, fat, loathesome lie.
Now, here in '01 the Bushies have created exceptions from the Freedom of Information Act. Lookee here, three years after that, they are using that questionably legal tactic to shut the hole in the wall of their fake universe that tripped them up 13 years ago: the presence of a camera.
They really don't like cameras, unless its in the hands of the police, taking YOUR picture when you dare to protest the Bushies in public.
If a third party places cameras in orbit, I guarantee they will threaten the owners into compliance with their demands, or they will reserve the right to blow them out of the sky.
This isn't flamebait. This is a scream. They are blindfolding us and gagging us, and they don't even bother to justify it. They just assume we won't care. And they are right.
"your actions will both in aggregate increase the price of goods for others"
No. No evidence exists that VHS copying, for instance, reduced profits for TV or the movie studios. Actually, the commercial sales of such recordings make more money for the studios than public screenings. They are rolling in dough. Additionally, anyone with a bit of knowledge can copy a DVD today. DVD sales are rising exponentially. There are only assertions from the studios that they are losing cash. Reality, not words, show the opposite.
"decrease general welfare by causing increased restrictions, both legal and technological, to be imposed on future products."
You assume that the lack of a recorder would negate the studios' efforts to build a copyright police state; there is no evidence that they would stop on any account. So, new recorder or no new recorder? You might as well buy one, for it would neither increase nor decrease the new draconian laws which will be purchased by the studios anyway.
Asimov did not write a "Robots and Aliens" series of books. His Foundation and robot novels were noteworthy for a total lack of alien sentient life.
The stories you refer to may be pastiches written after his death.
Yes, yes, and yes, on and after the year 2005. In all phones sold in the U.S. next year and ever after, all units will be mandated by federal law to have a GPS component.
Yep, they will be used by law enforcement. Yes, they will be hacked by psychos, hackers, and cults to track people they don't like.
Nope, you don't get a choice to opt out. Welcome to the Brave New World. No doubt it'll make us safer from terrorists.
We're okay with cameras tracking our every move, with tracking devices on our kids, on mandatory drug tests for the rest of our lives. Soon new cars will be mandated to carry GPS snitch boxes, no doubt.
This has been an incremental revolution. We are now entering the ultimate fascism. in any sense of the word. The key to a good fascist state is the willing, even enthusiastic, support of its citizens. Failing that, it helps if the nation is ignorant of its own ideals and history.
If you've fone nothing wrong, I'm sure it'll all be okay. Don't worry.
Well, if you fake out the cable company and get free TV, and then get caught, you could go to prison. If you distribute DVD rips over a darknet, you could get caught and go to prison. If you distribute your cable TV over your server to a friend, you could etc etc.
In all cases, if you try to flee, you will be shot. If you don't try to flee, you get raped while the warden and guards laugh at your screams.
There's no difference between getting shot by a government or a business. The bullet will still kill you. But, I guess it's more libertarian to get shot by a privately funded bullet.
"I agree that we don't have widespread super-broadband because there's no profit in it in many places. And in some places, a government-run community based fiber system has worked - for now. But government intervention has the tendency of freezing the marketplace and ending the competition for new technologies."
But the articles clearly show that this has not been the case. Highspeed access has progressed in leaps and bounds in Asia and Europe precisely because the governments pushed aside businesses to mandate change.
I must say that the profit motive is the very reason that we pay so much and get glacial melt speeds. There is no profit margin in upping speeds. Only costs -- if you use MBA logic.
Once again, it is selective cost accounting. If the ONLY reason to do anything contructive is to make a short-term profit for a corporation, then innovation slows. If a nation doesn't subcribe to the profit-only model of innovation, they can factor in things like quality of life, or overall good for the greatest number, or creating LONG-term profits in exchange for America's short-term model.
I don't have to pound theoretical justifications into the ground here. I merely point to South Korea and NW European nations. They have mandated that the fiber be dropped, the last mile crossed. They ate the short term costs, pretty major ones, in exhange for the long term success, ie everyone is hooked up for a reasonable cost. They don't need to "innovate" to get it done. It's DONE. They did it. No more nonsense.
And I'm sitting at home nursing a 128 kb cable connection at peak hours for 55 dollars a month. And they are raising the rates again. And they've locked me into a 100 dollar a month TV/internet package. Tell me who's being "innovative" here, the engineers, or the MBA's draining us?
If the US highway system had been built using the same logic of those building the internet, we'd be paying thousands of dollars in tolls a year to move at 20 miles per hour around private roads surrounding the suburbs. And all of it justified by profit-only cost accounting and hands-off government policies. And the roads would be heavily policed to see if anyone is carrying VHS copies of movies or cassette tapes of CDs, 'cause we wouldn't want intelectual property thieves causing liability for the road companies.
PS: the bushies have negotiated a new addition to new interstate highway funding in the future, kids; they'll all be toll roads. Welcome to the future rebuilt -- they just may get their private roads after all.
This is so appropo to my post yesterday regarding the enormous growth in the Secret Service's power.
What in hell do we need a Secret Service for, anyway? Isn't the name alone frightening enough? They've become a shadowy federal police force that overrules and directs the real police. And they seem to have very distict political opinions about the right to free speech and the right of citizens to move freely around their own country. Or even foreigners in THEIR own country. They shut down Ireland, for god's sake, when Bush arrived. Welding manhole covers shut? Under what power granted to them can they shut down cities?
From creating "First Amendment Zones" for protestors, to intimidating people in their own homes for thinking anti-govermental thoughts, to keeping reporters away from Michael Moore at the Republican national convention, the SS has grown into something that no longer "protects" the president; it is protecting those in power in general. And what the hell is the SS doing protecting the Saudi Arabian embassy in DC? (watch Fahrenheit 911 to see our SS in action)
"So it should be called "stealing potential revenue"? "
No. There is no such crime. Never has been. And they are accused of stealing music, not revenue. The argument seems to twist into new shapes whenever it is refuted.
And the music industry is doing fine. Last year's drop in revenue was caused by their own decision to cut production, along with this "recession" thing everyone's ignoring.
Valenti thought that VHS, then DVD, would kill the movie business. They now make more on DVD's than ticket sales. Online music could have done the same for the members of RIAA -- but they decided to declare digital music illegal, sued their customers, and made themselves into the Enemy.
"Now, can we get back to feeling sorry for people that steal music please?"
No, I wouldn't feel sorry for people who steal music. Neither those who rape it, murder it, commit assault and battery upon it, or abandon it in the middle of a desert island.
Since people are copying music, a right they have long held, I do tend to feel sorry for them when their rights are under attack by Gingrichian word twisters.
We're boned.
When will they ever learn... O, when will they ever learn?
What the hell happened to the Secret Service in the last three and a half years?
Firstly, they have been instructing police departments around the country to construct "First Amendment Zones" whereever Bush or other Bushites are speaking. A First Amendment Zone is an out-of-the-way place miles from the President, surrounded by walls and wire, guarded by goons and dogs, and festooned with cameras to record your every visual detail. Show up to protest, and you are unceremoniously shown to the FAZ, where you are identified, processed and allowed to chant at a telephone pole. Presidential supporters are of course bussed in if necessary - happened here in Chicago.
Secondly, the Secret Service is being dispatched, along with the FBI, to investigate even potential protestors in their homes. The "we know who you are" routine.
Thirdly, the SS won't let the press talk to Michael Moore, who is corresponding for USA Today this week.
Secret
Service shuts down Michael Moore interviews. Why is the
Secret Service Engaged in Direct Political Work for Bush? Isn't That
Illegal? 8/31
Here's a sample of what happens when a political party gets its own federal guard:
Seabrook: Yes, I am in the middle of a...you might be able to hear the Secret Service yelling into my mic at the same time. There, there are a bunch of Secret Service that have surrounded Michael Moore's section. There are three or four reporters with him right now, but they are trying to kick all of the reporters and press photographers who are around him out of his area. The convention staff is also here. They're standing here telling us that we have to move from this are...they're obviously disturbed by the fact that Michael Moore is here and want as little public here as possible.
Stachio: Can we hear? Can we hear what's going on? Can you stick a mic in there? I don't know if we can hear.
Seabrook: Yeah...ah...eh...they've sort of moved me away from that area.
Stachio: I don't understand. Who is it? Is it Secret Service?
Seabrook: It's Secret Service which is interesting because the Secret Service of all agencies is the one that remains...is the least involved in the sort of political...political kinds of things, but of course they always cover the candidates and they have to be involved in the convention like this. They claim that what they're doing is for safety reasons, although there is a almost nobody around Michael Moore right now. So a we'll see if I can a...
Secret Service Agent: [crosstalk] thank you very much
Seabrook: Yeah, I'm being herded back in four different ways right now.
***
People, Bush has created his own private extra-constitutional intelligence and police force! The SS must be loaded to the gunwhales with hard-right wing fanatics.
Doesn't this terrify you all?
The Secret Service was created to protect the President. Does "protection" mean reelecting him at all costs?
Why do we even need a Secret Service, anyway? Why are they guarding the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC? Can't police guard the President? Is the President so holy and inviolate that we have to shut down entire cities when he arrives? He's a civilian employee, for God's sake, not an emperor! They are welding manhole covers shut in foreign countries to protect him. WHAT? THE? HELL?
Why do I think that this level of political protection will not be deemed necessary by the SS when Kerry assumes the office? Kerry, clean house. Grow a pair, find out the names of the officials who have cultured this monster. and make them be gone.
The humans added no error in the 2000 recount. The Republicans spawned numerous 527 groups that stormed the cable talkers and the courtrooms to insist that a recount was impossible; they were lying little @$%*&ers. There was a Bush called recount in the southwest at the same time as the Florda recount. There was no dispute there, only in Jeb's state.
The recount, once it was finally permitted to commence by the courts, went off without a hitch and was almost finished when the Supreme Court stopped everything. They had two readers per card, one from each side, and both had to agree before the vote was counted. It was foolproof, it was working, and they were on track to finish in 48 hours or less before Bush's men in the SCOTUS stopped the election.
Stockman, the economist who fronted supply side economics for the Reagan White House, later recanted his entire justification for the tax cuts. He said there had been no justification for the cuts other than paying back Reagan's supporters. Period. It was a con. The numbers were a sham.
And it did not work, unless you think charging up 4 trillion in debt on a credit card to finance a "boom" is success. Any dingo can be rich for a few years if he doesn't pay cash for his binges.
Reagan was lucky. As is true today, our economy depends entirely on the price of oil, and in 1982, OPEC's iron control of crude prices collapsed, removing the true cause of our national malaise since 1973 -- high oil prices. In SPITE of Reagan's catastrophic spending and tax cut combination, we got to keep enough of our national wealth in-country to enable a magnificent boom.
Today, oil prices are rising because there is no way to increase oil production worldwide to keep up with the growth in demand by asia and the US combined. There is no spare capacity. It's three decades too late to switch to alternative sources. We're screwed. There will be no Bush miracle. Bush assumes that Reagan's cuts caused the 80's boom -- this is why he was a C student -- and he is still ideologically unable to figure out that his assumption is wrong. He's supply-siding us into the grave. His only hope will be a Kerry victory, for his supporters can then blame the successor for the back-ended fiscal disaster caused by Genius Boy.
In a way, I hope Kerry loses. Then the Reaganauts, Cheney and Rice and Bush, will finally, after all these decades, have to face the steaming pile of dung they've created with no one else to blame. Okay, maybe Iran.
And no roads, military, health services, cops, sidewalks, airports, student loans, wilderness areas, national parks, trains, R&D, space exploration, intelligence, social security, emergency services, free television, radio, clean water, clean air, urban planning, food inspection, border patrol, aid for starving kids, or SCHOOLS!
Everything you utiize EVERY DAY is paid for by all of us collectively to give you the opportunity to drive to work and make a living. Your argument is the quintessential reduction of what is wrong with libertarian philosopy -- what was ultimately wrong with my favorite philosopher, Heinelin's, line of reasoning -- the idea that the individual alone is responsible for and should be the sole beneficiary of his labors. Even Heinlein understood that no man existed as an island -- "Conventry" should be the example here, not the silly far-rightism of his later years -- and that every aspect of your existence as the lone hero is dependent on the close cooperation and contributed taxes of those who maintain your universe. Semantic nonsense: "penailized" for making money. You're putting money into the kitty for the society and the world which makes it possible for you to get out of bed alive every day.
The sad thing is that this concept resonates so well amongst Americans. It's why we're drowning in Federal debt payments, paying the highest health prices in the world and getting worse care than those paying half what we do elsewhere, and killing our public school systems -- which will ultimately reduce us to a joke among nations, broke, sickly, and fucking stupid.
"Free flow of knowledge? "
Straw man. He's talking about the transfer of his job, not his knowledge. Anyone with a library card can obtain IT knowledge.
Let's see, after GIMP, GNU, Ogg-Vorbis, and all the other really badly chosen names for good software, what will this one be named?
:)
Possible names that will sound cool only to the geekly-enabled:
- Dingo
- Dingus
- HeadCheez
- Buffy
- MK-47
- FUALL V56.34
- All-seeing crystal of Gompfor (unique artifact)
- STDcipher
Seriously, someone call a professional here...
Agreed, I was playing a little. 1 TB won't be enough for video.
Crank up to 4K lines of video. Don't compress the data at all: keep it lossless. Reintroduce frames, and crank it up from 25 fps, which after all was established when Edison was alive, to something like 75 - 100 fps.
You'll need disks with petabyte capacity.
But it opens up new possiblities. Movie theaters can use the media to replace film. Studios can downrez for anything from 240 line VHS to 4K superprojectors for the home. They can establish pricing tiers based on resolution. And with proper backup, studios can stop losing movies as the film media disintegrates.
"I have to say what the hell would you need that much space for anyway? "
4K scanning resolution - what you need to have to preserve most of the image information on 35mm film -- will require 1 TB at least! The displays for 4K will come along when the media can support it.
After 4K scanned movies, there won't be any more increases in resolution. We can finally stop the new media dance...
It IS the same size disc. Read the article.