To help new customers get started in the cloud, Amazon has introduced a free usage tier. The Tor Cloud images are all micro instances, and new customers can run a micro instance for free for a whole year. The AWS free usage tier also includes 15 GB of bandwidth out per month.
Granted, they certainly could use this device to scan random people. But that's an unconstitutional search which the Supreme Court would slap the Hell out of.
So you made $1000 and 50000 people went to some effort to play for free. You say "just 1 dollar", but in many, if not most, parts of the world, a dollar is still a lot of money. If SOPA were in effect and effective, I guess you would have made $1200 (and I'm not clear how SOPA would have helped you).
Imagine you priced your game at 10 cents, and there was an easy and frictionless way to pay. I suspect at least half the freeloaders would rather pay than pirate, and you would have made $2500.
The underlying problem is that most copyrighted products are overvalued. When every man and his dog can write a game, make a video or a music recording, then supply exceeds demand and prices should drop.
I am unlikely to hire or vote for anyone who been a perfect goody two-shoes his or her whole life. If I have to choose between two otherwise equally qualified candidates, I'm going to go with the one who is passed out with sharpie marks all over.
Numerous posters are arguing for term limits, campaign financing regulations, publically-funded elections, restricting lobbying and so on. None of these will succeed in the long run, and only create barriers to entry for well-qualified candidates. Have you seen the current regulations - they are byzantine, a lawyer's dream, and will only get worse. http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.pdf
No, the only way is to remove from government the power to make such regulations in the first place. If they were not able to hand out sweetheart legislation, they would not have dollar bills waved in their faces. Some would argue that this is already in the constitution.
Imagine the government were allowed to billet troops in your house. Imagine the continuous lobbying and legislation that would result, trying to influence who would receive how many soldiers, what the homeowners responsibilities should be? Imagine the government could favor one religion or sect over another, in the form of tax breaks, subsidies and so on. The value of a Congress seat would double. But we (mostly) do not have a problem in this regard, because Congress does not have the power.
Both parties attract those who are power hungry to their elected ranks
Of course they do!... The only things you can do about it are to try to structure things so that they do good by most people despite themselves, and to keep very vigilant for those who go too far.
Or come up with a magic way to change one of the possible configurations of human nature. Good luck with that...
This approach is doomed to fail. There is only one solution: Take away the power. If politicians did not have so much power, they would not be fighting each other tooth and nail to obtain positions.
You make the case that western culture will prevail over Chinese culture because it is free. The implication is that competition in the marketplace of ideas makes things better.
So, taking my cue from your tagline, the Chinese government should just vigorously enforce US copyright law (which they do not currently), and the western threat will subside. Lets call it Sino-Offence Preventing America.
Wake up people! Lack of copyright in China is not stifling US innovation and creativity!
What does he do when US Customs decides to take his computer for a year of analysis? How the hell does he get by the TSA? Or is he just one of many influential people who avoid traveling to the USA?
Inalienable rights are inherent in your existence. They are not given to you by a government, although a government should protect these rights from infringement by others. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
Thus, internet access is not a right. But you do have the right to access the internet, should you so choose.
The preceding discussion is based on the term "technology" being used in a very narrow sense. However, the argument still applies when the term is used broadly, and hence to probably 80% of modern life. How many politicians (and lumpen proles) understand enough to make informed decisions about stem cells, oil pipelines, radio spectrum allocation, chemicals, water treatment and distribution, combustion, electrical networks, etc., etc. But yet laws and regulations are passed every day.
The politicians can learn from the medical profession - "First, do no harm." Of course, that rules out about everything.
Slashdot Mirror
Send them with the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers to find the aliens.
I just love this concept and will help to make it happen.
Put it on Megapload.
So that the SCOTUS will keep feeling the urge to keep the POTUS on a short leash.
https://cloud.torproject.org/
To help new customers get started in the cloud, Amazon has introduced a free usage tier. The Tor Cloud images are all micro instances, and new customers can run a micro instance for free for a whole year. The AWS free usage tier also includes 15 GB of bandwidth out per month.
It is EXTREMELY difficult for a private citizen to legally carry a firearm in South Africa.
Granted, they certainly could use this device to scan random people. But that's an unconstitutional search which the Supreme Court would slap the Hell out of.
My milk came out of my nose. Mod funny +5.
Here is good info on the issue:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2011/12/21/falcones-lightsquared-faces-enemies-on-all-sides/
They have done it before. And Ginsburg wrote the opinion!
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/eldrdedo.pdf
and no doubt they will do it again...
Read this:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/sopa-piracy-costs/
You should accept the following as true:
1. Piracy is bad.
2. Attempts to stop piracy will be mostly useless.
3. These attempts will cause more harm than the piracy that is prevented.
Look, I am sorry for someone whose work has been ripped off, but the hard reality is that the old paradigms no longer obtain.
See http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/01/18/0452238/cloud-computing-democratizes-digital-animation for a good example.
So you made $1000 and 50000 people went to some effort to play for free. You say "just 1 dollar", but in many, if not most, parts of the world, a dollar is still a lot of money. If SOPA were in effect and effective, I guess you would have made $1200 (and I'm not clear how SOPA would have helped you).
Imagine you priced your game at 10 cents, and there was an easy and frictionless way to pay. I suspect at least half the freeloaders would rather pay than pirate, and you would have made $2500.
The underlying problem is that most copyrighted products are overvalued. When every man and his dog can write a game, make a video or a music recording, then supply exceeds demand and prices should drop.
This is the 2nd Amendment issue of our age, and like the NRA we need to be eternally vigilant against never-ending attempts to restrict our rights.
Personally, I support the EFF as the equivalent of my NRA.
And Swiss banks had secrecy laws to protect people from their own tyrannical regimes, such as Jews trying to escape the Nazis.
Now that the US regime has morphed, the IRA finds it necessary to pursue US citizens and crack the Swiss open.
Did you know, the USA was once a tax haven, with matching economic performance.
I am unlikely to hire or vote for anyone who been a perfect goody two-shoes his or her whole life. If I have to choose between two otherwise equally qualified candidates, I'm going to go with the one who is passed out with sharpie marks all over.
Watch out Google, Facebook is coming after you for patent infringement. If you do not pay the licensing fee, SOPA will be activated.
Numerous posters are arguing for term limits, campaign financing regulations, publically-funded elections, restricting lobbying and so on. None of these will succeed in the long run, and only create barriers to entry for well-qualified candidates. Have you seen the current regulations - they are byzantine, a lawyer's dream, and will only get worse. http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.pdf
No, the only way is to remove from government the power to make such regulations in the first place. If they were not able to hand out sweetheart legislation, they would not have dollar bills waved in their faces. Some would argue that this is already in the constitution.
Imagine the government were allowed to billet troops in your house. Imagine the continuous lobbying and legislation that would result, trying to influence who would receive how many soldiers, what the homeowners responsibilities should be? Imagine the government could favor one religion or sect over another, in the form of tax breaks, subsidies and so on. The value of a Congress seat would double. But we (mostly) do not have a problem in this regard, because Congress does not have the power.
Both parties attract those who are power hungry to their elected ranks
Of course they do! ... The only things you can do about it are to try to structure things so that they do good by most people despite themselves, and to keep very vigilant for those who go too far.
Or come up with a magic way to change one of the possible configurations of human nature. Good luck with that...
This approach is doomed to fail. There is only one solution: Take away the power. If politicians did not have so much power, they would not be fighting each other tooth and nail to obtain positions.
You make the case that western culture will prevail over Chinese culture because it is free. The implication is that competition in the marketplace of ideas makes things better.
So, taking my cue from your tagline, the Chinese government should just vigorously enforce US copyright law (which they do not currently), and the western threat will subside. Lets call it Sino-Offence Preventing America.
Wake up people! Lack of copyright in China is not stifling US innovation and creativity!
What does he do when US Customs decides to take his computer for a year of analysis? How the hell does he get by the TSA? Or is he just one of many influential people who avoid traveling to the USA?
Inalienable rights are inherent in your existence. They are not given to you by a government, although a government should protect these rights from infringement by others. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
Thus, internet access is not a right. But you do have the right to access the internet, should you so choose.
They just can't pay money directly to a politician.
But they can fund a PAC? Take out an ad in the newspaper? Put up a billboard? Print and mail out pamphlets?
Nobody, individual or corporate, allowed to pay money to a politician?
If answers to all the above are yes, we are in agreement.
I'm ok with this, as long as you don't impose taxes on people/corporations/groups who are prevented from making contributions.
This is like saying McMurphy is crazy, while everyone around him is sane.
Ratched is played by K Street.
[For those who don't get the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo's_Nest_(film) ]
The preceding discussion is based on the term "technology" being used in a very narrow sense. However, the argument still applies when the term is used broadly, and hence to probably 80% of modern life. How many politicians (and lumpen proles) understand enough to make informed decisions about stem cells, oil pipelines, radio spectrum allocation, chemicals, water treatment and distribution, combustion, electrical networks, etc., etc. But yet laws and regulations are passed every day.
The politicians can learn from the medical profession - "First, do no harm." Of course, that rules out about everything.
This site is for computer programmers and systems analysts, not engineers.