Your proposal is interesting, but I think that this:
The candidates get advertising space based on their percentages.... The candidates get advertising ability proportional to their ability to get votes.
will result in a positive feedback loop. If somebody is known (has been in some government office or is a famous person, like Bill Gates or some actor), then he will get more votes the first time around than some other guy who, while having good ideas, cannot afford to make himself known before the preliminaries. Because of that, the famous guy will be able to get even more votes.
I think that this would be better if everybody would get equal ad time.
Actually, in my country, the government made it illegal for companies to support political parties. A person can give money to a party, but only up to ~6kEUR. The guy running for office can use only up to ~12kEUR of his own money for his campaign. The parties will get some money from the government (I do not really know how it will be divided). Now, this law won't stop companies from buying politicians, but at least now they will have to do it covertly and risk being found out.
The problem with magnet links is that uTorrent 1.8.5 downloads the.torrent file and then does not ask where to put the actual files, so it downloads to the default directory. OTOH, when importing a link to the.torrent file, uT asks where to put the files.
Anyway, this is no longer true with uT 2.2.1 (I uses those two versions, so probably some version between 1.8.5 and 2.2.1 fixed it). uT 2.2.1 asks where to put the actual files. It does not display the file size (not a big problem, but it helps when the free space on the HDD is within a few MB of the fie size) or file list though, so if I use the magnet link, I have to start the download and the go to the file tab and deselect the files I do not want.
With uT 2.2.1 it is almost the same if I use magnet link or a.torrent ink, in both cases I: 1. Right click on the link -> copy link location 2. Open remote control of a torrent server. 3. Transfer the link to its clipboard. 4. In uTorrent I click "Add torrent from URL" 5. The link is automatically pasted, I click OK. 6. Select where to put the files, choose the files I want, click OK. 7. Select the torrent, click start.
Is a TV set or Microwave oven that much different than a song or a book?
Not at all, we just currently do not have the technology to be able to (easily) copy them, but I imagine if the replicator (as seen in Star Trek) is ever invented and can produce an item cheaper than buying it in the store, people will be downloading TVs and microwave ovens, as well as other items.
As for digital stuff - well, people still buy paper books because they want paper books (not a file), people still buy CDs and records with music, or BDs with movies. Also, even though the copyright laws do not work, people still buy digital downloads and software because they want to pay the creator. When I buy a game I do it because I want to support the creator (and the price is right), not because I am afraid to pirate it. Look at the humble indie bundle - you can pay as little (or as much) as you want and people still pay $5 on average. It would be interesting if a big company tried this with a good AAA game.
We need to ditch the "game == TV set" idea, because software (music/etc) is not like a physical product (even if you do not take the easiness of copying into account), as the authors themselves think so and the laws reflect it: 1. There is a huge used physical item (car/TV/etc) and a lot of people making money from the sales of used items (the people selling them and sites like ebay) and everything is OK, but game developers want to be paid each time a used game is sold? Why? Nobody paid Matsushita when I bought my used Technics tape deck. 2. You own the physical item and can do anything you want with it (take apart, modify, even copy if you are able to), but you do not own a game (or software) and can only do what the author allowed you to. When I modified the tape deck in my car to add a "line-in" option (so I can connect my MD recorder), I did not have to ask Clarion for permission. 3. Patents (that would prevent me from legally selling a copied physical item, but not copying for my own use or modifying) expire in 15-20 years, while copyrights (that prevent me from copying and modifying a game/song/etc) last for 120 or more years.
Minimal users won't be using the "unlimited" plan. Or maybe even the "15GB" plan.
Also, instead of imposing smaller and smaller caps, the providers should invest in the infrastructure, you know, like the wired internet providers do (where I live, anyway).
Well, there is a logical explanation would be that God, while all-powerful is so incredibly dumb and/or lazy that he would not do anything even if a human found a way to kill him and actually attempted it. That is why it is up to the fundies to 1. Find out what God wants (since he is too lazy to say it or maybe not able to speak because of stupidity (maybe, while immortal (naturally, that is, he can still be killed, but won't die of old age), he is still susceptible to age related degradation and given that he is so old, maybe he is in a coma). 2. Try to implement it.
For example, the Operating Environment stated for the Nikon Coolpix 990 is:
* Temperature: 0 ï½ 40oC (32 ï½ 104oF)
So, no photos at -30C? A machanical film camera works at -30, I don't know about the electronic film cameras (you know, the ones that have autofocus etc).
Also, I am not talking about special cameras (which cost a lot), but about the normal ones, like a regular dSLR.
As far as I understand, film still has its use - in very low temperatures (say, -30C), CCDs do not work as well as film. I am sure that there are special cameras with heated CCDs, but they would cost a lot, where film can be used with a (relatively) cheap camera.
Probably because they thought proprietary was better. Another example would be Sony Hi-MD recorders. The one I have (MZ-RH1) can be used as a mass storage device (if the disc is in Hi-MD format) and can play mp3 files and yet, if I want to transfer a mp3 file to it, I have to use Sonic Stage. Why?
AFAIK (I do not have it), the Apple iPod is the same, as you have to use iTunes to copy music to it, even though it can be used as a mass storage device for other files.
Oh, and for both devices, there is no Linux version of that software, or even a portable one (so I could just plug it in a PC, start the software and transfer the music without installing any software). If this is done for copyright protection, then it does not work, as I can still copy the files, I just then have to go home to copy them to my PC then back on the disc so I can play them on the MD recorder.
No, just that you said that anybody who wants cheap internet should move to a city, so I extended your argument. The point is, delivering broadband internet (electricity was done many years ago) to rural areas is great, that way, less people will want to move to a city.
Hospitals are supposed to be private. You really think that having a bunch of slave doctors is good for your country? You think your government knows how many doctors are needed, or exactly what kind of training each one needs? You don't want to let the people decide that? You love long wait times and poor service?
I think the service and wait times are OK where I live. Some services are free (as in, paid from tax money), for some you have to pay. Even some medicine is subsidized for, say, old people.
Too bad they didn't, I don't know, save the money that went into those pension funds themselves in diverse places where it was unlikely they would all lose their money at once, no matter how hard of straights the government was in.
There were no private pension funds (in their current form) in the Soviet Union, now there are, but part of the money still goes to the government fund.
The private sector could handle it easily,
Yes, because the private sector is so interested in "doing good" as opposed to "making money". In some cases those goals are opposite. As I understand, you can get health insurance from a private company in the US (so that if you get sick, they pay for the doctor). Those companies are interested in making money, so they may choose to not insure somebody who is very likely to become sick, has preexisting conditions etc. Except that these people need the insurance the most, because most likely they will not be able to make enough money (usually being in a hospital prevents one from working) to pay for the medical care themselves.
Parents get subsidized? LOL, get ready for a baby boom in your welfare class.
Actually, it's not that bad. Yes, there are some alcoholics who make babies to get money to buy booze, but it is not that big a problem.
But you would rather create an entire bureaucracy to deal with it.
There already is one in my country. Actually, it is part of the whole "social insurance" (direct translation) tax. Pensions are part of it too and IIRC the children and healthcare.
Private companies also do not last forever, they probably last even shorter than governments. Yes, governments get corrupt or stupid, but this model is not wrong. Governments (at least in democratic countries, in theory) answer to the people, so if a government does things that people do not like, the people will vote for other candidates (and we have much more than two parties or two presidential candidates for that matter). On the other hand, private companies answer only to their shareholders' pockets. If a company does something the people do not like and the company has a natural monopoly (power, landline telephone etc), there is nothing that the people can do about it. You can't build your own power plant, distribution network and expect to be able to compete with the current power company that already has the infrastructure. Even if there is no monopoly, companies tend to "agree" with one another in screwing the customer. An example of this is (as I understand) the situation with internet in the US - for example, I have a 300mbps up/down connection and I pay ~23EUR/month for it. How much would it cost to get 300mbps in the US?
On the other hand, the current government is locked in a loop of raise taxes --- collect less tax money as companies go out of business and previously honest people start evading taxes --- raise taxes even more.
Those people CHOSE to live out in the country. If they wanted cheap internet, or electricity, or any number of other goods or services, they could move closer to town.
Great, I think everybody should move to towns/cities, that way we will be able to import all the food we need, instead of stupidly relying on local grown food.
But the government subsidizes their choice to live out in the country, and in so doing increases costs for everyone.
The same way it subsidizes being weak (police), sick (hospitals), old (pensions), parent (money for the first few years of a child, more if you have more children), unemployed, disabled etc.
Hey, one of the banks in my country went bankrupt, but the good news is that all accounts (under a certain amount) were insure d by the government so people will get their money back and hopefully will not lose a lot of trust in the banking system.
In my opinion this is how a government should work. Yes, it takes away from everyone to help some, but in doing so, it raises the standard of living for everybody (the unemployed guy is less likely to rob/kill me if he gets some money from the government).
As to why your tax money went into paying me back the money I had in that bank? Well, why should I pay for the firefighters who are currently extinguishing your burning house? My house isn't on fire and I have a lot extinguishers and a sprinkler system.
It really depends. For real time services, you need low latency, but also enough bandwidth For browsing, you need more bandwidth but latency can also be higher (if Google takes 3 seconds to load it's not a big problem).
And it does not have to be for free, just available (no "we do not provide this service in your area"), like electricity. Or even roads.
As for the bandwidth, well, maybe then it will be updated, I am sure that during the war of the currents homes were not provided with as much electric power as they are now. So, today, 1mbps, x years from now maybe 100mbps.
Nobody said "free". For example take electricity. It is available for almost anyone, but people have to pay to get it. While it is possible to print and deliver newspapers to any area, running electric or data cables everywhere is too expensive to "make their own arrangements" and this is what I am talking about.
Also, the same way that 100VA is not really electrification, 30bps is not really internet.
Without this, private companies will never provide internet access (or electricity, or water) to areas where it is unprofitable to do so (laying cables is more expensive than you can get from the people you connect).
This is why the government in my country is laying a lot of fiber so that rural areas will be able to get faster internet. The phone company would never do this on its own.
"The right to access the internet shall not be infringed" is an example of a negative right. "The right to 100Tb/sec internet" is not.
However, if you do not specify the minimum bandwidth, countries will just offer 30bps and will be compliant with this, even though, 30bps is pretty much the same as nothing with current website sizes.
Well, you can strip comments and meaningful variable names from the source you publish too (or if I modified some open source program and published it, I wouldn't need to do any additional work in making the source harder to understand).
Anyway, yes, removing copyright would make all restrictions impossible, including GPL, all code would effectively be BSD (or similar) licensed, assuming the "moral rights" part of copyright was kept (right to attribution).
On the other hand, it would also remove DRM, anti reverse-engineering licenses etc, which, in my opinion, would result in more good than working GPL is now (how do you find out that $evil_corp used your code if they only ship the binary anyway?).
In any case, GPL is kind of weird in my opinion and promotes not sharing (if I don't share my modified software I don't need to share the code; if I decide to not include your (unmodified)software in my "useful stuff" CD, I don't need to worry about having the source in case someone asks for it; I can use and modify the software all I want as long as I don't share it).
Well, without copyright law he could reverse engineer the changes and reimplement them. Maybe it would even be possible to splice parts of the published binary to his code.
Also, without copyright, he could modify any program that he wanted, instead of just the ones where the license explicitly allows modifications.
Well, about the abortion thing, I think I have an explanation for it:
1. There are doctors who specialize in abortion, so I guess they are OK with it. If a woman chooses to have an abortion, she probably goes to one of those doctors instead of trying to force someone to do the procedure against their will. 2. However, if the abortion is not chosen, but is necessary because otherwise the woman would die (some kind disease or whatever), then most likely she does not have the time (or even the physical strength) to go looking for a doctor who is OK with abortion. In that case I think saving her life takes priority over the doctor's beliefs.
Ok, but in a non-copyright world I would have absolutely 0 obligation to share changes for source, or publish source for anything I make.
But someone could take your binary, compare it to the original and come up with the changes that you made. Also, someone could just modify your binary using a hex editor.
This is interesting though - if I modify some GPL software by disassembling it and then using a hex editor to change a few bytes, would I have to translate it back to the source of the software, or could my "source" be the list of bytes I modified in the binary in addition to the original source?
But what if the mechanism was built in the system, not the media, that is, I rip the DVD, destroy it and share the rip using the system I described. The licenses wouldn't be stored at a central server (like in a library), but in the individual PCs until someone requests it, that could be done without central server too. So, basically just like a big club where people share their movies (either have them at one location or just bring the ones that others asked), but digital.
So, what I'm getting at is the notion that "a copy is a separate product" and "you buy a license, not a movie". I don't think that anybody would object to people sharing cars this way (or even making money from lending cars), but when it's movies it's different. Then maybe a copy is not a separate product (like a car). The movie industry seems to want to have it both ways: 1. Copying the movie is the same as stealing a car. 2. Lending a movie is in no way similar to lending a car. 3. Buying a movie is in no way similar to buying a car, as you own the car but not the movie.
Since you can lend a DVD (but not copy it), how about a system that let's you lend a file: Basically, while somebody is watching the movie, you cannot access it, that is, there are a limited number of licenses available and somebody who wants to watch a movie requests a license, so someone who has it, sends it. The file itself can be downloaded by the usual means, but at any single time there are no more active licenses (movie copies being watched) as there was copies sold. However, since most people do not watch a movie all the time, on a large network you could probably be able to share one license with 100 people. So, everybody pays a small subscription fee (which is used to buy new movies). However, I somehow doubt that the media industry would like this network any more than they "like" the pirate bay. Of course, it would be impossible to make this system work in reality, because that would require working DRM, and as we know, DRM does not work.
You can't copy a tractor, but you can copy an audio amplifier. The older ones even had circuit diagrams in the user manuals.
fewer and fewer people buy computers to play video games these days
One reason is consoles, the other is that the games seem to work on older PCs too. For example, most games I have run happily on 1600x1200 even on my quite old HD2900XT video card. Replacing it with a new one would allow me to play those games at 1920x1440. In the past, using a 4 year old video card meant low graphics on new games, but it seems that the system requirements for games leveled off.
OK, whatever. Seems useful, but I guess it is possible to live with it, especially if the hardware supports DEP.
browser sandboxing
There are third-party tools that do that, after all, sandboxing first started with third-party tools.
Win 7 (and Vista) also have better multicore support
How big a difference is there? LEt's say I have a proper multithreaded app, like a video encoder, how much faster would it be on W7 compared to XP?
more widely supported and compatible x64 versions
Windows 2003 also has that, but all in all, x64 is mostly only useful if you have a lot of memory and less useful if you have something like 2GB RAM (common max on older laptops). But yes, x64 is useful.
SSD support
My 15kRPM HDDs are fast enough for me.
pretty everyone else should dump XP and upgrade.
Last time I installed Windows (XP, didn't want Vista) on my main PC was when I built it ~4.5 years ago. I then spent a lot of time installing various programs, making settings, basically my new PC did not work as well as my old one for a couple of weeks "hey, I need to do x, let's just launch this app real quick, oh f... I forgot to install it, now where was it.. ah screw it, I'll try copying the install directory from my old main PC, maybe it will work", however, my new PC was much faster than my old one (most noticeable in games and HD video playback), so I did it because of that.
It is different for XP vs 7. I agree that 7 is better (other than a few things that can be fixed) and if I was building that PC today (though probably using newer parts, but these work too) I would install 7 on it. On the other hand, 7 is not THAT much better so it does not make sense for me to upgrade and suffer the weeks of not optimally working PC all the while trying to modify the UI and change all the other small settings (for example, I like when the drive letter is in front of the drive label, makes it possible to sort the drives alphabetically).
Too bad the halogen bulbs produce white light instead of yellow that is produced by a 40W regular incandescent bulb. Also, as it turns out, connecting a resistor in series to reduce the temperature will wear out the bulb fast.
Slashdot Mirror
Your proposal is interesting, but I think that this:
The candidates get advertising space based on their percentages. ... The candidates get advertising ability proportional to their ability to get votes.
will result in a positive feedback loop. If somebody is known (has been in some government office or is a famous person, like Bill Gates or some actor), then he will get more votes the first time around than some other guy who, while having good ideas, cannot afford to make himself known before the preliminaries. Because of that, the famous guy will be able to get even more votes.
I think that this would be better if everybody would get equal ad time.
Actually, in my country, the government made it illegal for companies to support political parties. A person can give money to a party, but only up to ~6kEUR. The guy running for office can use only up to ~12kEUR of his own money for his campaign. The parties will get some money from the government (I do not really know how it will be divided).
Now, this law won't stop companies from buying politicians, but at least now they will have to do it covertly and risk being found out.
The problem with magnet links is that uTorrent 1.8.5 downloads the .torrent file and then does not ask where to put the actual files, so it downloads to the default directory. OTOH, when importing a link to the .torrent file, uT asks where to put the files.
Anyway, this is no longer true with uT 2.2.1 (I uses those two versions, so probably some version between 1.8.5 and 2.2.1 fixed it). uT 2.2.1 asks where to put the actual files. It does not display the file size (not a big problem, but it helps when the free space on the HDD is within a few MB of the fie size) or file list though, so if I use the magnet link, I have to start the download and the go to the file tab and deselect the files I do not want.
With uT 2.2.1 it is almost the same if I use magnet link or a .torrent ink, in both cases I:
1. Right click on the link -> copy link location
2. Open remote control of a torrent server.
3. Transfer the link to its clipboard.
4. In uTorrent I click "Add torrent from URL"
5. The link is automatically pasted, I click OK.
6. Select where to put the files, choose the files I want, click OK.
7. Select the torrent, click start.
So, only step 6 is changed.
Where does that money come from? If it's the government that is subsidizing, then the money came from taxes.
Is a TV set or Microwave oven that much different than a song or a book?
Not at all, we just currently do not have the technology to be able to (easily) copy them, but I imagine if the replicator (as seen in Star Trek) is ever invented and can produce an item cheaper than buying it in the store, people will be downloading TVs and microwave ovens, as well as other items.
As for digital stuff - well, people still buy paper books because they want paper books (not a file), people still buy CDs and records with music, or BDs with movies. Also, even though the copyright laws do not work, people still buy digital downloads and software because they want to pay the creator. When I buy a game I do it because I want to support the creator (and the price is right), not because I am afraid to pirate it. Look at the humble indie bundle - you can pay as little (or as much) as you want and people still pay $5 on average. It would be interesting if a big company tried this with a good AAA game.
We need to ditch the "game == TV set" idea, because software (music/etc) is not like a physical product (even if you do not take the easiness of copying into account), as the authors themselves think so and the laws reflect it:
1. There is a huge used physical item (car/TV/etc) and a lot of people making money from the sales of used items (the people selling them and sites like ebay) and everything is OK, but game developers want to be paid each time a used game is sold? Why? Nobody paid Matsushita when I bought my used Technics tape deck.
2. You own the physical item and can do anything you want with it (take apart, modify, even copy if you are able to), but you do not own a game (or software) and can only do what the author allowed you to. When I modified the tape deck in my car to add a "line-in" option (so I can connect my MD recorder), I did not have to ask Clarion for permission.
3. Patents (that would prevent me from legally selling a copied physical item, but not copying for my own use or modifying) expire in 15-20 years, while copyrights (that prevent me from copying and modifying a game/song/etc) last for 120 or more years.
Which is why I buy the phone separately and then continue to use the same provider I have been using for >10 years.
Minimal users won't be using the "unlimited" plan. Or maybe even the "15GB" plan.
Also, instead of imposing smaller and smaller caps, the providers should invest in the infrastructure, you know, like the wired internet providers do (where I live, anyway).
Well, there is a logical explanation would be that God, while all-powerful is so incredibly dumb and/or lazy that he would not do anything even if a human found a way to kill him and actually attempted it. That is why it is up to the fundies to
1. Find out what God wants (since he is too lazy to say it or maybe not able to speak because of stupidity (maybe, while immortal (naturally, that is, he can still be killed, but won't die of old age), he is still susceptible to age related degradation and given that he is so old, maybe he is in a coma).
2. Try to implement it.
From the site you linked to:
For example, the Operating Environment stated for the Nikon Coolpix 990 is:
* Temperature: 0 ï½ 40oC (32 ï½ 104oF)
So, no photos at -30C? A machanical film camera works at -30, I don't know about the electronic film cameras (you know, the ones that have autofocus etc).
Also, I am not talking about special cameras (which cost a lot), but about the normal ones, like a regular dSLR.
As far as I understand, film still has its use - in very low temperatures (say, -30C), CCDs do not work as well as film. I am sure that there are special cameras with heated CCDs, but they would cost a lot, where film can be used with a (relatively) cheap camera.
Probably because they thought proprietary was better. Another example would be Sony Hi-MD recorders. The one I have (MZ-RH1) can be used as a mass storage device (if the disc is in Hi-MD format) and can play mp3 files and yet, if I want to transfer a mp3 file to it, I have to use Sonic Stage. Why?
AFAIK (I do not have it), the Apple iPod is the same, as you have to use iTunes to copy music to it, even though it can be used as a mass storage device for other files.
Oh, and for both devices, there is no Linux version of that software, or even a portable one (so I could just plug it in a PC, start the software and transfer the music without installing any software). If this is done for copyright protection, then it does not work, as I can still copy the files, I just then have to go home to copy them to my PC then back on the disc so I can play them on the MD recorder.
You think EVERYONE should live in cities?
No, just that you said that anybody who wants cheap internet should move to a city, so I extended your argument. The point is, delivering broadband internet (electricity was done many years ago) to rural areas is great, that way, less people will want to move to a city.
Hospitals are supposed to be private. You really think that having a bunch of slave doctors is good for your country? You think your government knows how many doctors are needed, or exactly what kind of training each one needs? You don't want to let the people decide that? You love long wait times and poor service?
I think the service and wait times are OK where I live. Some services are free (as in, paid from tax money), for some you have to pay. Even some medicine is subsidized for, say, old people.
Too bad they didn't, I don't know, save the money that went into those pension funds themselves in diverse places where it was unlikely they would all lose their money at once, no matter how hard of straights the government was in.
There were no private pension funds (in their current form) in the Soviet Union, now there are, but part of the money still goes to the government fund.
The private sector could handle it easily,
Yes, because the private sector is so interested in "doing good" as opposed to "making money". In some cases those goals are opposite. As I understand, you can get health insurance from a private company in the US (so that if you get sick, they pay for the doctor). Those companies are interested in making money, so they may choose to not insure somebody who is very likely to become sick, has preexisting conditions etc. Except that these people need the insurance the most, because most likely they will not be able to make enough money (usually being in a hospital prevents one from working) to pay for the medical care themselves.
Parents get subsidized? LOL, get ready for a baby boom in your welfare class.
Actually, it's not that bad. Yes, there are some alcoholics who make babies to get money to buy booze, but it is not that big a problem.
But you would rather create an entire bureaucracy to deal with it.
There already is one in my country. Actually, it is part of the whole "social insurance" (direct translation) tax. Pensions are part of it too and IIRC the children and healthcare.
Private companies also do not last forever, they probably last even shorter than governments. Yes, governments get corrupt or stupid, but this model is not wrong. Governments (at least in democratic countries, in theory) answer to the people, so if a government does things that people do not like, the people will vote for other candidates (and we have much more than two parties or two presidential candidates for that matter). On the other hand, private companies answer only to their shareholders' pockets. If a company does something the people do not like and the company has a natural monopoly (power, landline telephone etc), there is nothing that the people can do about it. You can't build your own power plant, distribution network and expect to be able to compete with the current power company that already has the infrastructure. Even if there is no monopoly, companies tend to "agree" with one another in screwing the customer. An example of this is (as I understand) the situation with internet in the US - for example, I have a 300mbps up/down connection and I pay ~23EUR/month for it. How much would it cost to get 300mbps in the US?
On the other hand, the current government is locked in a loop of raise taxes --- collect less tax money as companies go out of business and previously honest people start evading taxes --- raise taxes even more.
Those people CHOSE to live out in the country. If they wanted cheap internet, or electricity, or any number of other goods or services, they could move closer to town.
Great, I think everybody should move to towns/cities, that way we will be able to import all the food we need, instead of stupidly relying on local grown food.
But the government subsidizes their choice to live out in the country, and in so doing increases costs for everyone.
The same way it subsidizes being weak (police), sick (hospitals), old (pensions), parent (money for the first few years of a child, more if you have more children), unemployed, disabled etc.
Hey, one of the banks in my country went bankrupt, but the good news is that all accounts (under a certain amount) were insure d by the government so people will get their money back and hopefully will not lose a lot of trust in the banking system.
In my opinion this is how a government should work. Yes, it takes away from everyone to help some, but in doing so, it raises the standard of living for everybody (the unemployed guy is less likely to rob/kill me if he gets some money from the government).
As to why your tax money went into paying me back the money I had in that bank? Well, why should I pay for the firefighters who are currently extinguishing your burning house? My house isn't on fire and I have a lot extinguishers and a sprinkler system.
It really depends. For real time services, you need low latency, but also enough bandwidth For browsing, you need more bandwidth but latency can also be higher (if Google takes 3 seconds to load it's not a big problem).
And it does not have to be for free, just available (no "we do not provide this service in your area"), like electricity. Or even roads.
As for the bandwidth, well, maybe then it will be updated, I am sure that during the war of the currents homes were not provided with as much electric power as they are now. So, today, 1mbps, x years from now maybe 100mbps.
Nobody said "free". For example take electricity. It is available for almost anyone, but people have to pay to get it. While it is possible to print and deliver newspapers to any area, running electric or data cables everywhere is too expensive to "make their own arrangements" and this is what I am talking about.
Also, the same way that 100VA is not really electrification, 30bps is not really internet.
Without this, private companies will never provide internet access (or electricity, or water) to areas where it is unprofitable to do so (laying cables is more expensive than you can get from the people you connect).
This is why the government in my country is laying a lot of fiber so that rural areas will be able to get faster internet. The phone company would never do this on its own.
"The right to access the internet shall not be infringed" is an example of a negative right. "The right to 100Tb/sec internet" is not.
However, if you do not specify the minimum bandwidth, countries will just offer 30bps and will be compliant with this, even though, 30bps is pretty much the same as nothing with current website sizes.
Well, you can strip comments and meaningful variable names from the source you publish too (or if I modified some open source program and published it, I wouldn't need to do any additional work in making the source harder to understand).
Anyway, yes, removing copyright would make all restrictions impossible, including GPL, all code would effectively be BSD (or similar) licensed, assuming the "moral rights" part of copyright was kept (right to attribution).
On the other hand, it would also remove DRM, anti reverse-engineering licenses etc, which, in my opinion, would result in more good than working GPL is now (how do you find out that $evil_corp used your code if they only ship the binary anyway?).
In any case, GPL is kind of weird in my opinion and promotes not sharing (if I don't share my modified software I don't need to share the code; if I decide to not include your (unmodified)software in my "useful stuff" CD, I don't need to worry about having the source in case someone asks for it; I can use and modify the software all I want as long as I don't share it).
Well, without copyright law he could reverse engineer the changes and reimplement them. Maybe it would even be possible to splice parts of the published binary to his code.
Also, without copyright, he could modify any program that he wanted, instead of just the ones where the license explicitly allows modifications.
Well, about the abortion thing, I think I have an explanation for it:
1. There are doctors who specialize in abortion, so I guess they are OK with it. If a woman chooses to have an abortion, she probably goes to one of those doctors instead of trying to force someone to do the procedure against their will.
2. However, if the abortion is not chosen, but is necessary because otherwise the woman would die (some kind disease or whatever), then most likely she does not have the time (or even the physical strength) to go looking for a doctor who is OK with abortion. In that case I think saving her life takes priority over the doctor's beliefs.
Ok, but in a non-copyright world I would have absolutely 0 obligation to share changes for source, or publish source for anything I make.
But someone could take your binary, compare it to the original and come up with the changes that you made. Also, someone could just modify your binary using a hex editor.
This is interesting though - if I modify some GPL software by disassembling it and then using a hex editor to change a few bytes, would I have to translate it back to the source of the software, or could my "source" be the list of bytes I modified in the binary in addition to the original source?
But what if the mechanism was built in the system, not the media, that is, I rip the DVD, destroy it and share the rip using the system I described. The licenses wouldn't be stored at a central server (like in a library), but in the individual PCs until someone requests it, that could be done without central server too. So, basically just like a big club where people share their movies (either have them at one location or just bring the ones that others asked), but digital.
So, what I'm getting at is the notion that "a copy is a separate product" and "you buy a license, not a movie". I don't think that anybody would object to people sharing cars this way (or even making money from lending cars), but when it's movies it's different. Then maybe a copy is not a separate product (like a car). The movie industry seems to want to have it both ways:
1. Copying the movie is the same as stealing a car.
2. Lending a movie is in no way similar to lending a car.
3. Buying a movie is in no way similar to buying a car, as you own the car but not the movie.
Since you can lend a DVD (but not copy it), how about a system that let's you lend a file:
Basically, while somebody is watching the movie, you cannot access it, that is, there are a limited number of licenses available and somebody who wants to watch a movie requests a license, so someone who has it, sends it. The file itself can be downloaded by the usual means, but at any single time there are no more active licenses (movie copies being watched) as there was copies sold. However, since most people do not watch a movie all the time, on a large network you could probably be able to share one license with 100 people. So, everybody pays a small subscription fee (which is used to buy new movies). However, I somehow doubt that the media industry would like this network any more than they "like" the pirate bay.
Of course, it would be impossible to make this system work in reality, because that would require working DRM, and as we know, DRM does not work.
You can't copy a tractor, but you can copy an audio amplifier. The older ones even had circuit diagrams in the user manuals.
fewer and fewer people buy computers to play video games these days
One reason is consoles, the other is that the games seem to work on older PCs too. For example, most games I have run happily on 1600x1200 even on my quite old HD2900XT video card. Replacing it with a new one would allow me to play those games at 1920x1440. In the past, using a 4 year old video card meant low graphics on new games, but it seems that the system requirements for games leveled off.
ASLR
OK, whatever. Seems useful, but I guess it is possible to live with it, especially if the hardware supports DEP.
browser sandboxing
There are third-party tools that do that, after all, sandboxing first started with third-party tools.
Win 7 (and Vista) also have better multicore support
How big a difference is there? LEt's say I have a proper multithreaded app, like a video encoder, how much faster would it be on W7 compared to XP?
more widely supported and compatible x64 versions
Windows 2003 also has that, but all in all, x64 is mostly only useful if you have a lot of memory and less useful if you have something like 2GB RAM (common max on older laptops). But yes, x64 is useful.
SSD support
My 15kRPM HDDs are fast enough for me.
pretty everyone else should dump XP and upgrade.
Last time I installed Windows (XP, didn't want Vista) on my main PC was when I built it ~4.5 years ago. I then spent a lot of time installing various programs, making settings, basically my new PC did not work as well as my old one for a couple of weeks "hey, I need to do x, let's just launch this app real quick, oh f... I forgot to install it, now where was it.. ah screw it, I'll try copying the install directory from my old main PC, maybe it will work", however, my new PC was much faster than my old one (most noticeable in games and HD video playback), so I did it because of that.
It is different for XP vs 7. I agree that 7 is better (other than a few things that can be fixed) and if I was building that PC today (though probably using newer parts, but these work too) I would install 7 on it. On the other hand, 7 is not THAT much better so it does not make sense for me to upgrade and suffer the weeks of not optimally working PC all the while trying to modify the UI and change all the other small settings (for example, I like when the drive letter is in front of the drive label, makes it possible to sort the drives alphabetically).
Too bad the halogen bulbs produce white light instead of yellow that is produced by a 40W regular incandescent bulb. Also, as it turns out, connecting a resistor in series to reduce the temperature will wear out the bulb fast.
Oh, in that case, I should either get a filter (the spectrum is continuous, so a filter wold help) or just stockpile regular lamps.