The classic argument against allowing CP is that it would "create a market", stimulate interest, and lead to more child exploitation.
It's hard to come up with any scientific arguments to support or refute that claim. Even if there is a country that allows CP, there would be too many other cultural variables to draw any meaningful conclusions from their statistics.
I will say this though. If I found a DVD with a murder video on it I wouldn't hesitate to turn it into the police. If I found a DVD with CP on it, I'd be freaking out about not reporting it and allowing the case to go cold, or turning it in and having it taken as a confession. Mere posession of EVIDENCE should not be a crime.
Now, if it were known that I had an extensive collection of murder videos that, IMHO, would be sufficient cause to warrant a wiretap or even a search. I think CP should be handled more like that. You shouldnt' be allowed to make money off it; but you should be allowed to distribute it. Anybody who collects it would be suspicious, and could be wiretapped, searched, etc. The mere posession of it should not be a crime though. It's EVIDENCE of a crime, not a crime in and of itself. If it were known that collecting this stuff gets you on a list, I don't think that would expand the market; but my guess is as good as anybody's.
A few things are certain. Criminalizing posession of evidence damages the relationship between law enforcement and citizens. Criminalizing the posession of bits on a computer makes it waaaay to easy too frame people.
His view of the stock market is cynical. The guy selling you stock might really be taking a vacation. He might be a 'boomer selling down his IRA to make ends meet.
Cuban sounds like yet another Internet mind-reader in this piece.
As for FB, I smelled trouble before it even went IPO. It boggled my mind to think anybody would have an interest in it. At 44 though, I forget that when I was new to investing I was avidly interested in Netscape.
Cuban should have been able to see this a mile away. It was held private for so long. A PE of 100 is fine if there's room for growth, but FB is already claiming a billion users in a world with single-digit billions. Any additional monetization degrades the experience and reduces that count, perhaps dramaticly. The site has some value, but HTF could I know? The only winning move is not to play.
Maybe the Giants will come down to Google HQ with baseball bats and break some windows. They've been using dynamic pricing at AT&T Park for a while now.
Yep, the bovines will charge at the red flag while the matador bleeds them to death. I think they learned this from the Obama birther thing.
In other words, how much time is being wasted persuing something of no value? I wager his returns are clean. He'll release them at a time he choses, in order to maximize the strategic value of releasing them. Some people will scratch their heads and ask, "there's nothing here, why didn't he release earlier?". They won't consider all the time that could have been spent attacking on other fronts. The best time for him to release it might be just before the election.
As I read over posts here I see that indeed a lot of people are conflating "homeopathic" with other "alternative". AFAIK, homeopathic is strictly defined as serial dillution to levels such that there is unlikely to be even one molecule of the active ingredient. OTOH, "alternative" medecines such as herbs can be very potent. One that I've used is chamomile tea, and it definitely gets you to sleep faster. I've also noticed that hibiscus makes you urinate. Guess what? It's a natural diuretic (which lowers blood pressure by causing you to piss more) and they actually warn people not to use it if they're already on a diuretic.
So yes, if the UK minister thinks that "alternative" and thus "herbal" are the same as homeopathic, then they've opened up an even bigger kettle of fish than I thought.
When the government passes a law that says, "you must hit yourself in the head until you get a good headache", and the people don't obey, don't blame the people.
I'm not a radical libertarian who believes the government should just curl up and die; but there's smart government and there's stupid government. Requiring customers to tax themselves after the point of sale, and expecting anything other than massive non-compliance is stupid government par excellance.
The homeopathc process activates placebetrinos in dihydrogen monoxide. Ordinary DHO can be deadly, but in the proper hands it works wonders. The placebetrino hasn't actually been observed, but future upgrades to the LHC are expected to run with high enough energies to reveal it as well as the anti-placebetrino.
There was a button. I clicked the first one. There was a rating thing. I clicked the center star. Oh, so that's what it was about? Yay for scientificly valid poling techniques./sarc.
He's got the wrong target. The most efficient vehicles are the ones that aren't on the road at all. Further proof that "if you can measure it, you can mismanage it".
The most efficient "car" I ever drove was a condo in the city. I even went without a car for a while. Driving was OPTIONAL there.
I have a car now, but still live close to commuter rail and within walking distance of many shops.
Policy makers should focus on making development more walkable. It wouldn't be bad for the economy either. You would get construction stimulus from building residences in commercial areas, and commercial buildings in areas such as the vast residential tract that I grew up in. With these spaces encouraging people to walk, ride bicycles, and drive less there would be knock-on benefits in health.
Fortunately, the deal did not go through. Apparently, the lawyer who was supposed to oversee it scratched his nose at a charity auction and inadvertantly paied $10,450,000 for a screwdriver with some old chewing gum on the handle. Apparently it was a celebrity item. The lawyer, though a man of considerable means, could not come up with the cash and was detained for some time until he could convince them there was no intent of fraud. He is, however, permanently banned from the auction venue and as I said, quite late for the meeting that was supposed to close the deal.
2. He used the standard function or class in a manner inconsistant with proper use as defined in the reference entry for the standard function or class.
3. He used a non-standard function, class, or an implementation that wasn't certified.
4. He represented himself as a licensed, certified professional software engineer.
5. The fault was in his code, and not in the implementation of the standard functions and classes or the language, in which case the implementors would be liable.
Now. Seeing as how the aforementioned publication doesn't exist, the aforementioned license doesn't exist, and no respectable body publishes such a text or administers such a licensing program, we must conclude: No.
Alternatively, the increasingly annoying Betteridge could have brought us to the same conclusion.
The question is closely tied with "Should we be able to sue the manufacturers or not?".
Do you want an "app" checking your vitals for $5 after you sign a waiver, or do you want a "certified medical device" checking your vitals for $100 and the right to sue if it misses something?
IMHO, there's room for both. Some people will delay treatment and/or not benefit from the $100 device because it costs too much. It's a cruel world, but dirt cheap screening apps that miss a few deadly diseases are actually better if everybody uses them. Yes, it's horrible to be the 0.5% that get a missed diagnosis; but when the alternative is 80% of the people not being tested, what do you do?
Another layer of complexity comes in when you consider whether the devices are more likely to give false positive or false negative readings.
I'm not sure what we should do; but I can tell you wnat NOT to do. Do not, under any circumstances give companies patents or monopolies in exchange for doing tests to certify the devices. This approach has had miserable outcomes with drugs. There is a drug combo used by pregnant women, and a gout medecine that both saw obscene price increases due to this approach. That's the worst of both worlds--the "certified" treatment is the same as the "uncertified" treatment, but at a huge price increase.
Self modifying code is the best code. Get crackin' boys. Our software should have fewer bugs and be more "ethical" by the next major release. New! Genetically modified babies. Now 83% more ethical as determined by the National Council on Ethics (chaired by the former CEO of Monsanto).
The VP has the President's ear. It's my understanding that GWB was actually not very keen on invading Iraq. Guess who was standing on his shoulder, er, ummm... standing next to him and talking into his ear.
I was all excited to think there was a startup that would exploit the Dremel in some interesting way. Affordable machining and DIY numericly controlled tools came to mind.
Then I read the summary and found out it was yet another badly named web technology that will be forgotten in a few years.
There are many facilities in public parks that stink to high heaven and attract flies. See also, my other post to this story regarding San Francisco's low flow water problem. People interested in using alternative systems in rural areas are prevented by law from doing so in California, or levied with heavier fees from governments. In particular, Santa Cruz County will charge you annual inspection fees for alternative systems, assuming you can get approval at all. This causes people to "go guerilla" in a lot of areas. As is often the case, the real problems are political and social, not technical. When Mr. Gates solves these problems in the "3rd world", maybe he can bring the solutions home.
On a recent visit to San Francisco, I was struck by the smell of sewage along the Embarcadero. This was my first experience with something I had only heard about on the news.
Yeah, just like easy chords. And then after a day of that, you step out your door and any random guy who's been playing guitar for a few years blows you away. Next!
Slashdot Mirror
The classic argument against allowing CP is that it would "create a market", stimulate interest, and lead to more child exploitation.
It's hard to come up with any scientific arguments to support or refute that claim. Even if there is a country that allows CP, there would be too many other cultural variables to draw any meaningful conclusions from their statistics.
I will say this though. If I found a DVD with a murder video on it I wouldn't hesitate to turn it into the police. If I found a DVD with CP on it, I'd be freaking out about not reporting it and allowing the case to go cold, or turning it in and having it taken as a confession. Mere posession of EVIDENCE should not be a crime.
Now, if it were known that I had an extensive collection of murder videos that, IMHO, would be sufficient cause to warrant a wiretap or even a search. I think CP should be handled more like that. You shouldnt' be allowed to make money off it; but you should be allowed to distribute it. Anybody who collects it would be suspicious, and could be wiretapped, searched, etc. The mere posession of it should not be a crime though. It's EVIDENCE of a crime, not a crime in and of itself. If it were known that collecting this stuff gets you on a list, I don't think that would expand the market; but my guess is as good as anybody's.
A few things are certain. Criminalizing posession of evidence damages the relationship between law enforcement and citizens. Criminalizing the posession of bits on a computer makes it waaaay to easy too frame people.
His view of the stock market is cynical. The guy selling you stock might really be taking a vacation. He might be a 'boomer selling down his IRA to make ends meet.
Cuban sounds like yet another Internet mind-reader in this piece.
As for FB, I smelled trouble before it even went IPO. It boggled my mind to think anybody would have an interest in it. At 44 though, I forget that when I was new to investing I was avidly interested in Netscape.
Cuban should have been able to see this a mile away. It was held private for so long. A PE of 100 is fine if there's room for growth, but FB is already claiming a billion users in a world with single-digit billions. Any additional monetization degrades the experience and reduces that count, perhaps dramaticly. The site has some value, but HTF could I know? The only winning move is not to play.
Call me when it catches on fire. That's how you know an industrial revolution is complete.
I'm going to drive backwards at 100mph and bring people back from the dead.
Your comment is lowly complementary.
Maybe the Giants will come down to Google HQ with baseball bats and break some windows. They've been using dynamic pricing at AT&T Park for a while now.
FWIW, you could add "its" between "Mortgages" and "Display" and the headline would also be more clear.
The problem is that "cash poor sharp mortgages" reads as a potential non-phrase that has the ability to "display factories".
Yep, the bovines will charge at the red flag while the matador bleeds them to death. I think they learned this from the Obama birther thing.
In other words, how much time is being wasted persuing something of no value? I wager his returns are clean. He'll release them at a time he choses, in order to maximize the strategic value of releasing them. Some people will scratch their heads and ask, "there's nothing here, why didn't he release earlier?". They won't consider all the time that could have been spent attacking on other fronts. The best time for him to release it might be just before the election.
As I read over posts here I see that indeed a lot of people are conflating "homeopathic" with other "alternative". AFAIK, homeopathic is strictly defined as serial dillution to levels such that there is unlikely to be even one molecule of the active ingredient. OTOH, "alternative" medecines such as herbs can be very potent. One that I've used is chamomile tea, and it definitely gets you to sleep faster. I've also noticed that hibiscus makes you urinate. Guess what? It's a natural diuretic (which lowers blood pressure by causing you to piss more) and they actually warn people not to use it if they're already on a diuretic.
So yes, if the UK minister thinks that "alternative" and thus "herbal" are the same as homeopathic, then they've opened up an even bigger kettle of fish than I thought.
If it did that, I seriously doubt it was homeopathic. In the unlikely event that it was, write it up and submit a paper.
When the government passes a law that says, "you must hit yourself in the head until you get a good headache", and the people don't obey, don't blame the people.
I'm not a radical libertarian who believes the government should just curl up and die; but there's smart government and there's stupid government. Requiring customers to tax themselves after the point of sale, and expecting anything other than massive non-compliance is stupid government par excellance.
The homeopathc process activates placebetrinos in dihydrogen monoxide. Ordinary DHO can be deadly, but in the proper hands it works wonders. The placebetrino hasn't actually been observed, but future upgrades to the LHC are expected to run with high enough energies to reveal it as well as the anti-placebetrino.
There was a button. I clicked the first one. There was a rating thing. I clicked the center star. Oh, so that's what it was about? Yay for scientificly valid poling techniques. /sarc.
Well, as someone who came of age in the 80s myself... there's a chance he wasnt' born yet. Yeah I know. Sucks to be old.
Now that we've turned him onto The Police, he may be one of the fetuses on YouTube that loves their music.
He's got the wrong target. The most efficient vehicles are the ones that aren't on the road at all. Further proof that "if you can measure it, you can mismanage it".
The most efficient "car" I ever drove was a condo in the city. I even went without a car for a while. Driving was OPTIONAL there.
I have a car now, but still live close to commuter rail and within walking distance of many shops.
Policy makers should focus on making development more walkable. It wouldn't be bad for the economy either. You would get construction stimulus from building residences in commercial areas, and commercial buildings in areas such as the vast residential tract that I grew up in. With these spaces encouraging people to walk, ride bicycles, and drive less there would be knock-on benefits in health.
Fortunately, the deal did not go through. Apparently, the lawyer who was supposed to oversee it scratched his nose at a charity auction and inadvertantly paied $10,450,000 for a screwdriver with some old chewing gum on the handle. Apparently it was a celebrity item. The lawyer, though a man of considerable means, could not come up with the cash and was detained for some time until he could convince them there was no intent of fraud. He is, however, permanently banned from the auction venue and as I said, quite late for the meeting that was supposed to close the deal.
1. He used a standard function or class as cited in the Catalog of Standard Functions and Classes for Professional Software Engineers.
2. He used the standard function or class in a manner inconsistant with proper use as defined in the reference entry for the standard function or class.
3. He used a non-standard function, class, or an implementation that wasn't certified.
4. He represented himself as a licensed, certified professional software engineer.
5. The fault was in his code, and not in the implementation of the standard functions and classes or the language, in which case the implementors would be liable.
Now. Seeing as how the aforementioned publication doesn't exist, the aforementioned license doesn't exist, and no respectable body publishes such a text or administers such a licensing program, we must conclude: No.
Alternatively, the increasingly annoying Betteridge could have brought us to the same conclusion.
The question is closely tied with "Should we be able to sue the manufacturers or not?".
Do you want an "app" checking your vitals for $5 after you sign a waiver, or do you want a "certified medical device" checking your vitals for $100 and the right to sue if it misses something?
IMHO, there's room for both. Some people will delay treatment and/or not benefit from the $100 device because it costs too much. It's a cruel world, but dirt cheap screening apps that miss a few deadly diseases are actually better if everybody uses them. Yes, it's horrible to be the 0.5% that get a missed diagnosis; but when the alternative is 80% of the people not being tested, what do you do?
Another layer of complexity comes in when you consider whether the devices are more likely to give false positive or false negative readings.
I'm not sure what we should do; but I can tell you wnat NOT to do. Do not, under any circumstances give companies patents or monopolies in exchange for doing tests to certify the devices. This approach has had miserable outcomes with drugs. There is a drug combo used by pregnant women, and a gout medecine that both saw obscene price increases due to this approach. That's the worst of both worlds--the "certified" treatment is the same as the "uncertified" treatment, but at a huge price increase.
Please chose one of the following:
[ ] The one who says he will protect us from the wolves; but will fail.
[ ] The one who says the wolves won't bother you; but has lunch with the wolves, and won't talk about what he did when the Moon was full.
Self modifying code is the best code. Get crackin' boys. Our software should have fewer bugs and be more "ethical" by the next major release. New! Genetically modified babies. Now 83% more ethical as determined by the National Council on Ethics (chaired by the former CEO of Monsanto).
The VP has the President's ear. It's my understanding that GWB was actually not very keen on invading Iraq. Guess who was standing on his shoulder, er, ummm... standing next to him and talking into his ear.
I was all excited to think there was a startup that would exploit the Dremel in some interesting way. Affordable machining and DIY numericly controlled tools came to mind.
Then I read the summary and found out it was yet another badly named web technology that will be forgotten in a few years.
There are many facilities in public parks that stink to high heaven and attract flies. See also, my other post to this story regarding San Francisco's low flow water problem. People interested in using alternative systems in rural areas are prevented by law from doing so in California, or levied with heavier fees from governments. In particular, Santa Cruz County will charge you annual inspection fees for alternative systems, assuming you can get approval at all. This causes people to "go guerilla" in a lot of areas. As is often the case, the real problems are political and social, not technical. When Mr. Gates solves these problems in the "3rd world", maybe he can bring the solutions home.
Great links. The ordos story reminds me of San Francisco's problems
On a recent visit to San Francisco, I was struck by the smell of sewage along the Embarcadero. This was my first experience with something I had only heard about on the news.
Yeah, just like easy chords. And then after a day of that, you step out your door and any random guy who's been playing guitar for a few years blows you away. Next!