Yes, exactly: local solar time is the way humans always dealt with time, even after the invention of the clock. It was only the railroads that necessitated timezones, because scheduling them in the face of every town having its own local time produced a complexity beyond the timekeeping technology of the day. Now that everyone has a GPS-enabled supercomputer in their pocket, the complexity issue can be easily solved, meaning we can all go back to local solar time.
Time zones are an anachronism from the days of railroads and pocket watches. They should be abolished. Instead of time zones, we should all use local solar time.
From the dawn of man everyone always used local solar time. We kept right on using it even after clocks became common. Time zones were created because it was too computationally complex to maintain train schedules when each town the train passed through was on local solar time. (In the days of stage coaches the inherent schedule variability produced by using horses to travel over unimproved roads was so large as to make the variations in local solar time insignificant.)
Computational complexity is no longer an issue. Nowadays everyone walks around with a supercomputer in his or her pocket. Those very same supercomputers also already have the one other thing needed to make local solar time practical: GPS positioning. (Because knowing the local solar time requires knowing where you are.)
More here: https://www.philipbrewer.net/2015/12/12/lets-abolish-time-zones-and-dst/
You're right to an extent--there are lots of other activities that book publishers and record companies do to contribute to the eventual success of the book or record. But you've missed the most important one.
All the ones you've listed can be, and increasingly are, outsourced. Talent scouts or agents bring in authors or acts. Publicists and more specialised people handle promotion. Engineering, editing, printing, etc. are done by third parties.
The main thing that can't be outsourced is the advance: Publishers are specialized venture capital firms.
That's the value-add that will keep publishing firms (books or music) in business, even as blogs and other ultra-low-cost marketing efforts become more and more important. Somebody who can front money to get the book written and printed (or the CD recorded and produced) will always have an advantage. They will soon learn that it's the one big advantage they have left.
It's not possible, and it's bad public policy anyway.
If the media can't get reporters into the courtroom, they'll get their information from members of the public who were in the courtroom. Even if all the spectators have signed gag orders, the press will be able to put together small amounts of information from many individuals--and almost always get a detailed account from someone, if they keep that person's name secret.
As long as you have public trials, there's no way to control what happens to the information that has been made public. It's the nature of public information.
It's bad public policy for just the reason that a public trial is good public policy. The laws are being enforced in the name of the people, so the people have a right to know what's being done in their name. If the legal system is to be viewed as fair and impartial, it is necessary for people to see it being fair and impartial.
Facts aren't copyrighted, just particular expressions of them.
If a newspaper article says "Six people were killed in a bus crash in I-70," you are free to report that fact yourself in your own words. You may also be free to copy small portions of it under fair use. If you copy so much that you're infringing the copyright, it doesn't make any difference whether you cite the source or not, it's still copyright infringement.
Where citing sources come into play is in establishing your own credibility. If you say "The bus crash yesterday killed six people," why would anyone believe you? But if you say, "The Chronicle reported that the bus crash killed six people," then the fact that you have a source gives people both a reason to think that you've got a basis for your information and a way to check it themselves. The newsreported probably cites sources for exactly that reason: "A spokesman for the coroner's office said...."
Citing sources can also help a little bit in terms of liability. If you say, "The Gazette had a story saying Acme Petstore was torturing puppies," you may be slightly safer against claims that you're libling or slandering the business. That protection is limited though.
Actually, a clause like that has always been there.
Not always. Until about twenty years ago it was quite common for a book contract to obligate the book publisher to publish the book, as long as the writer met all of his obligations.
I see the arcology concept as sort of all of Seattle under one roof
Almost right. What would go under one roof would be Seattle minus all the things that only exist because Seattle isn't all compactly tucked under a roof. The parking and driving infrastructure go right away, of course, as does all the space taken up with lawns. Lots of things that are repeated over and over again so there's always a close one can be repeated fewer times when everything's close.
But remember that the point is not to pack more people in. The point is to free up all that extra space to be open land, available for agriculture, parks, wetlands to protect the water supply and provide habitat, and so on.
And your Bluetooth idea might well work especially well in an arcology. If you have a wireless network access point in each room you still need to have it connected (either wireline or wireless) into the greater network. That might be easier in an arcology.
By the way, you can find more info about arcologies on the Arcosanti home page.
It would take an organized effort to end small-print trickery.
Here's a modest suggestion:
Have disputed contracts evaluated by a jury. Twelve people selected at random from the population are given copies of the contract and a reasonable amount of time to read it (and perhaps some time to discuss it among themselves). Then they are individually asked what each of the terms actually means.
Where there is unanimous agreement, the court will use the jury's assesment of the contract's meaning. Where the jury cannot come to a common understanding of any section of the contract, that section is thrown out as unclear.
Contracts would have to become much clearer--clear enough that any ordinary person could quickly understand it--or else be unenforceable.
I'd like to see laws have to meet the same standard.
If I download MP3s or bootlegs the owner says are legal, am I violating copyright if the files weren't legal for distribution? That shouldn't be the case, any more than I should be liable if I buy a copy of the New York Times that has a plagiarized story.
It is the copying that matters, which is why buying a copy of the New York Times isn't parallel--you're not making a copy.
Only the copyright owner can give you permission to make a copy (unless the copy is Fair Use, in which case you don't need permission). To use your example, the guy behind the counter at the newsstand can't give you permission to make a copy of an article in the paper. In fact, the newspaper itself might not be able to give you permission--unless they had secured those rights from the author.
Obvously this can be a bit complicated to figure out in advance. That's why contracts to use copyrighted material have the author warrant that he or she owns the copyright and agree to make the publisher whole if that turns out not to be true.
So the problem isn't just that the corporations are abusing government powers (they are) but that the power is there to abuse in the first place. Take away the power of the government to run everyone's life, and corporations will no longer be able to use it to exploit us.
But it is hard to "take away" power. If something can be done, then the power to do it exists somewhere. Often the best that can be done is to move the power somewhere else. Even that is hard to do. The power to use violence has been "taken away" from non-governmental actors--but I haven't observed a cessation of violent acts in the world.
Other powers have proven very valuable, even though they are dangerous. The power to forgive private debts, for example. The US constitution prohibits that power to the states, but provides for a "uniform" bankruptcy code. If you got rid of the power (prohibited it to the federal government as well), it would cause serious dislocations to the economy.
None of which is to disagree with your statement that the government should stay within its constitutional limits. The US constitution isn't perfect, but its better than what we've got now.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, exactly: local solar time is the way humans always dealt with time, even after the invention of the clock. It was only the railroads that necessitated timezones, because scheduling them in the face of every town having its own local time produced a complexity beyond the timekeeping technology of the day. Now that everyone has a GPS-enabled supercomputer in their pocket, the complexity issue can be easily solved, meaning we can all go back to local solar time.
Time zones are an anachronism from the days of railroads and pocket watches. They should be abolished. Instead of time zones, we should all use local solar time.
From the dawn of man everyone always used local solar time. We kept right on using it even after clocks became common. Time zones were created because it was too computationally complex to maintain train schedules when each town the train passed through was on local solar time. (In the days of stage coaches the inherent schedule variability produced by using horses to travel over unimproved roads was so large as to make the variations in local solar time insignificant.)
Computational complexity is no longer an issue. Nowadays everyone walks around with a supercomputer in his or her pocket. Those very same supercomputers also already have the one other thing needed to make local solar time practical: GPS positioning. (Because knowing the local solar time requires knowing where you are.)
More here: https://www.philipbrewer.net/2015/12/12/lets-abolish-time-zones-and-dst/
You're right to an extent--there are lots of other activities that book publishers and record companies do to contribute to the eventual success of the book or record. But you've missed the most important one.
All the ones you've listed can be, and increasingly are, outsourced. Talent scouts or agents bring in authors or acts. Publicists and more specialised people handle promotion. Engineering, editing, printing, etc. are done by third parties.
The main thing that can't be outsourced is the advance: Publishers are specialized venture capital firms.
That's the value-add that will keep publishing firms (books or music) in business, even as blogs and other ultra-low-cost marketing efforts become more and more important. Somebody who can front money to get the book written and printed (or the CD recorded and produced) will always have an advantage. They will soon learn that it's the one big advantage they have left.
It's not possible, and it's bad public policy anyway.
If the media can't get reporters into the courtroom, they'll get their information from members of the public who were in the courtroom. Even if all the spectators have signed gag orders, the press will be able to put together small amounts of information from many individuals--and almost always get a detailed account from someone, if they keep that person's name secret.
As long as you have public trials, there's no way to control what happens to the information that has been made public. It's the nature of public information.
It's bad public policy for just the reason that a public trial is good public policy. The laws are being enforced in the name of the people, so the people have a right to know what's being done in their name. If the legal system is to be viewed as fair and impartial, it is necessary for people to see it being fair and impartial.
Facts aren't copyrighted, just particular expressions of them.
If a newspaper article says "Six people were killed in a bus crash in I-70," you are free to report that fact yourself in your own words. You may also be free to copy small portions of it under fair use. If you copy so much that you're infringing the copyright, it doesn't make any difference whether you cite the source or not, it's still copyright infringement.
Where citing sources come into play is in establishing your own credibility. If you say "The bus crash yesterday killed six people," why would anyone believe you? But if you say, "The Chronicle reported that the bus crash killed six people," then the fact that you have a source gives people both a reason to think that you've got a basis for your information and a way to check it themselves. The newsreported probably cites sources for exactly that reason: "A spokesman for the coroner's office said...."
Citing sources can also help a little bit in terms of liability. If you say, "The Gazette had a story saying Acme Petstore was torturing puppies," you may be slightly safer against claims that you're libling or slandering the business. That protection is limited though.
If you look at the cart. it lists the amount of ink.. in Canada it is marked in ml.
But does it say, "This cartridge is sold by volume of ink, not volume of cartridge. Some settling of contents may have occurred in shipping"?
Not always. Until about twenty years ago it was quite common for a book contract to obligate the book publisher to publish the book, as long as the writer met all of his obligations.
Almost right. What would go under one roof would be Seattle minus all the things that only exist because Seattle isn't all compactly tucked under a roof. The parking and driving infrastructure go right away, of course, as does all the space taken up with lawns. Lots of things that are repeated over and over again so there's always a close one can be repeated fewer times when everything's close.
But remember that the point is not to pack more people in. The point is to free up all that extra space to be open land, available for agriculture, parks, wetlands to protect the water supply and provide habitat, and so on.
And your Bluetooth idea might well work especially well in an arcology. If you have a wireless network access point in each room you still need to have it connected (either wireline or wireless) into the greater network. That might be easier in an arcology.
By the way, you can find more info about arcologies on the Arcosanti home page.
Here's a modest suggestion:
Have disputed contracts evaluated by a jury. Twelve people selected at random from the population are given copies of the contract and a reasonable amount of time to read it (and perhaps some time to discuss it among themselves). Then they are individually asked what each of the terms actually means.
Where there is unanimous agreement, the court will use the jury's assesment of the contract's meaning. Where the jury cannot come to a common understanding of any section of the contract, that section is thrown out as unclear.
Contracts would have to become much clearer--clear enough that any ordinary person could quickly understand it--or else be unenforceable.
I'd like to see laws have to meet the same standard.
It is the copying that matters, which is why buying a copy of the New York Times isn't parallel--you're not making a copy.
Only the copyright owner can give you permission to make a copy (unless the copy is Fair Use, in which case you don't need permission). To use your example, the guy behind the counter at the newsstand can't give you permission to make a copy of an article in the paper. In fact, the newspaper itself might not be able to give you permission--unless they had secured those rights from the author.
Obvously this can be a bit complicated to figure out in advance. That's why contracts to use copyrighted material have the author warrant that he or she owns the copyright and agree to make the publisher whole if that turns out not to be true.
Skipjack is actually a 64-bit block cipher (with an 80-bit key).
The algorithm has been declassified. You can get the specification from NIST's Skipjack and KEA webpage.
But it is hard to "take away" power. If something can be done, then the power to do it exists somewhere. Often the best that can be done is to move the power somewhere else. Even that is hard to do. The power to use violence has been "taken away" from non-governmental actors--but I haven't observed a cessation of violent acts in the world.
Other powers have proven very valuable, even though they are dangerous. The power to forgive private debts, for example. The US constitution prohibits that power to the states, but provides for a "uniform" bankruptcy code. If you got rid of the power (prohibited it to the federal government as well), it would cause serious dislocations to the economy.
None of which is to disagree with your statement that the government should stay within its constitutional limits. The US constitution isn't perfect, but its better than what we've got now.