What one man or team can create, another man or team can break, usually faster, easier, and cheaper than it took to create in the first place. That's the lesson learned from the copy protection/DRM wars, yes? With exceptions, of course; some forms of encryption are difficult to break, and are getting harder to break all the time.
The ostensible reason for DRM is to prevent piracy. However to date it is 100% ineffective in this, based on the fact that all DRM can be broken -- it's just a matter of whether anyone cares to do so for a particular piece of content.
You're never, never, ever going to stop piracy. I'd go so far as to say that I believe it's part of human nature. Trying to stamp it out completely is not only futile, it's counterproductive; the more restrictive you make things, the greater hassle it is for paying customers, and the more annoyed they get, and the less positive sentiment towards that content provider. Content providers need to accept that this is the way things are and just let it be. They're still working under an obsolete business model, and until they wake up and accept reality, they're going to keep banging our heads against the wall trying to stamp out something that can't be stamped out.
What goes along with "living in the moment" is "stop worrying about the things you can't change, and do something about the things that you can do something about", but try to get most people to not just understand that, but to actually do it.
However Fear while simple is actually the worst way to get someone to follow you. One day they will stop being afraid and if your lucky they will let you live while they leave.
Actually its bad but for a different reason: Fear turns off higher reasoning faculties of the brain; fear makes you stupid. Of course this is why it works and why religion uses it, but in the long term it's highly counterproductive, and we already see the effects of it in the news pretty much every day.
I'm taking this story to mean that they've got these fake, non-functional bomb/drug/illicit substance detectors, and they know they're fake, but "officially" they work great, thus they use the fiction of their functionality to support their "finding" of said illicit substances, where in reality they used methods that otherwise would not be admissable in court; it's a con-job turned on it's head. I can't condone it, if I'm correct then they're completely corrupt, but it's still clever of them, if rather scary that any police force could be allowed to function that way.
That "may" be true if the authorities are not abusing their power
Oh, they are. It's just more subtle, I think, than in past attempts. The rise of "social media" like Facebook has indoctrinated an entire generation that "sharing is good and healthy, hiding (meaning: privacy) is bad and unhealthy" and you get laughed at for wanting privacy at best, dirty looks and attacked/accused of outrageous things at worst. The sad part is they don't realize what it is they've given up until it's too late to do anything about it. I'd have a hard time believing that there are not people in positions of power who are quietly and subtly encouraging the anti-privacy attitude. There do appear to still be some people in positions of power who are still working to preserve citizens' privacy, but who knows if it's enough?
..and Disney is one of the leaders in the charge. The original Star Wars trilogy was fine the way it was. All Disney is going to do is ruin it for everyone.
See, convincing humans that they should voluntarily not have children at all isn't going to work, and forcing it on people is as sure a way to start civil wars as anything else you could possibly to do piss people off enough to incite them to violence. So far as "accidentally" starting a plague that wipes out 6 billion people: Can you say "the most infamous crime against humanity ever"?
Nobody is going to go along with any of that. There either has to be a legitimate disaster (asteroid collision, actual epidemic as opposed to someone taking matters into their own hands, etc), or we have to get the hell off this planet. Frankly it'll take some miraculous advances in quantum physics and engineering to make interstellar travel possible, but beyond that I think it would be a good thing if we could have Planet India or Planet China. I'm not going to lose any sleep over the population of Planet China ruining their planet's ecosphere; there has to be billions of worlds in our galaxy alone that are in the habitable zone for humans, and I doubt humankind would go through more than a handful of them before we're extinct anyway. Besides, I believe it's like renting a home as opposed to owning a home: When you rent, you don't take care of the property anywhere near as well as when your name is on the deed; the inhabitants of Planet China would probably take the environment more seriously. If not, tough for them.
See, now, that's an extremist view that doesn't need to exist. If you want to look at it that way, then humans should either voluntarily exterminate themselves as a race and leave the planet to the animals, or genetically lobotomize ourselves as a race and return to being nothing but animals. There has to be a middle ground.
There is great truth in what you say, at least so long as it's politicians who are deciding whether or not such things happen; your average politician is most concerned with one thing: staying in office. I think it's private industry that's going to have to lead the way on this one, but of course that will only happen if there's enough profit to be made out in space and on other worlds to make it worth their while. Overall it's going to take a complete paradigm shift of the entire human population, along with some major breakthroughs in physics, to even make leaving this planet a possibility, let alone a viable option.
Or, learn how to survive on this planet before going out and colonizing another one.
Yeah, good luck with that one.
The real problem is, to put it bluntly, that humans are still basically animals, with this thin patina of what we call "intelligence" and "civilization" over the top, and you don't have to scratch too hard to get through to the animal parts. You might be able to convince people that global warming is real, and you might even be able to convince them that something needs to be done about it -- but good bloody luck convincing them that they need to stop having so many children. Not going to happen. You can manage to convince everyone to live as "eco-friendly" as possible, but if, as a race, we're cranking out more and more babies so there's more and more people all the time, then it isn't going to matter. We'll either exhaust the planet's ability to support us, or we'll ruin it with the unceasing wars that will inevitably happen when there are too many people and not enough to feed them. We need to get the hell off this planet, plain and simple. If we wait until every possible acre of land is growing food or housing people, then it'll be far too late to save Earth from us. In fact it may already be too late, or there may have to be a die-back of the human race in order to save the Earth from us, and us from ourselves.
Meanwhile: Tell me how you feel about using only 10% of the electric power you use now, riding a bicycle or walking everywhere instead of ever driving (which includes only being able to travel as far as you can take yourself under your own power), only ever eating foods that are produced locally, and not having any of the digital toys and so many other technological wonders that you take for granted right now? You're shaking your head in disbelief, are calling me something like an extremist environmental whacko, and completely denying that any of that is going to be necessary. Well, denial ain't just a river in Egypt, friend. It may well come to all that if we're serious about fixing our mistakes, and it'll certainly come to that if everyone in the world keeps denying the problems and going on like nothing's wrong.
As a possible way to make extra money, I looked at these "micro-gig" sites. I saw immediately how little you'd get paid for your efforts, and discarded the entire idea at that point as it being just another scam. I didn't even believe you'd actually get paid, that they'd string you along until you'd had enough. Not much different in my eyes than any other "work at home" scam you see every day.
So they're going to screw over their 185-odd affiliate OTA stations as well as the general public? Fuck you, Fox, go right ahead and try that shit, I hope you go bankrupt.
In all seriousness: This has to be some sort of a stunt/bluff. They'd screw themselves over and piss off everyone if they actually did this, and it would serve them right. Stop throwing temper-tantrums, Fox and Univision, and get into the 21st century already.
You're right of course, it would, but these days you get looked at funny and treated like some whacko conspiracy theorist for even suggesting it, and if you actually delete your Facebook account people who know you treat you like it's some sort of personal insult against them or something.
Send Kim Jong Un a couple dozen pairs of real American Levi's, a a few cases of Hershey bars, a few cases of Coca Cola (the real sugar stuff in glass bottles, not the HFCS stuff), a lifetime subscription to Playboy magazine (translated into Korean of course), and some new games for his Xbox or PS3. He'll shut the hell up and we won't have to deal with North Korea for at least a few years.
Aren't we really just talking about a portable WiDi display that also happens to support an input device of some sort? How is this innovative or original?
I'm not for Big Government, I really don't want the government involved in my life any more than is absolutely necessary, but that said, there are some things that I think should not be privatized, and this is one of them. Weather data benefits everyone in the U.S. one way or another, and considering corporate America's running track record concerning putting people before profits, I think it would be a huge mistake to rely on some corporation for weather data. As a taxpayer I'm happy to have some of my money go to the NOAA and keeping weather satellites in orbit and functioning.
Yeah, the worst-case scenario I've imagined involves them attempting to launch a nuclear missle, only to have it massively malfunction, never leave North Korea, and detonate. Then the rest of the world would have to deal with the literal fallout of their insanity.
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What one man or team can create, another man or team can break, usually faster, easier, and cheaper than it took to create in the first place. That's the lesson learned from the copy protection/DRM wars, yes? With exceptions, of course; some forms of encryption are difficult to break, and are getting harder to break all the time.
You're never, never, ever going to stop piracy. I'd go so far as to say that I believe it's part of human nature. Trying to stamp it out completely is not only futile, it's counterproductive; the more restrictive you make things, the greater hassle it is for paying customers, and the more annoyed they get, and the less positive sentiment towards that content provider. Content providers need to accept that this is the way things are and just let it be. They're still working under an obsolete business model, and until they wake up and accept reality, they're going to keep banging our heads against the wall trying to stamp out something that can't be stamped out.
MY PURPOSE IN LIFE: Whatever I decide it is. :-)
What goes along with "living in the moment" is "stop worrying about the things you can't change, and do something about the things that you can do something about", but try to get most people to not just understand that, but to actually do it.
However Fear while simple is actually the worst way to get someone to follow you. One day they will stop being afraid and if your lucky they will let you live while they leave.
Actually its bad but for a different reason: Fear turns off higher reasoning faculties of the brain; fear makes you stupid. Of course this is why it works and why religion uses it, but in the long term it's highly counterproductive, and we already see the effects of it in the news pretty much every day.
They can't live with the possibility that life might have no meaning at all
Make your own meaning, damnit! Make your own purpose!
Only one thing you can say to that: FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE.
I'm taking this story to mean that they've got these fake, non-functional bomb/drug/illicit substance detectors, and they know they're fake, but "officially" they work great, thus they use the fiction of their functionality to support their "finding" of said illicit substances, where in reality they used methods that otherwise would not be admissable in court; it's a con-job turned on it's head. I can't condone it, if I'm correct then they're completely corrupt, but it's still clever of them, if rather scary that any police force could be allowed to function that way.
don't fill your engineering department with young, single, childless males
You can't hire and fire based on gender, age, marital status, or family status, it is discrimination. Hire qualified, experienced people.
That "may" be true if the authorities are not abusing their power
Oh, they are. It's just more subtle, I think, than in past attempts. The rise of "social media" like Facebook has indoctrinated an entire generation that "sharing is good and healthy, hiding (meaning: privacy) is bad and unhealthy" and you get laughed at for wanting privacy at best, dirty looks and attacked/accused of outrageous things at worst. The sad part is they don't realize what it is they've given up until it's too late to do anything about it. I'd have a hard time believing that there are not people in positions of power who are quietly and subtly encouraging the anti-privacy attitude. There do appear to still be some people in positions of power who are still working to preserve citizens' privacy, but who knows if it's enough?
..and Disney is one of the leaders in the charge.
The original Star Wars trilogy was fine the way it was. All Disney is going to do is ruin it for everyone.
See, convincing humans that they should voluntarily not have children at all isn't going to work, and forcing it on people is as sure a way to start civil wars as anything else you could possibly to do piss people off enough to incite them to violence. So far as "accidentally" starting a plague that wipes out 6 billion people: Can you say "the most infamous crime against humanity ever"?
Nobody is going to go along with any of that. There either has to be a legitimate disaster (asteroid collision, actual epidemic as opposed to someone taking matters into their own hands, etc), or we have to get the hell off this planet. Frankly it'll take some miraculous advances in quantum physics and engineering to make interstellar travel possible, but beyond that I think it would be a good thing if we could have Planet India or Planet China. I'm not going to lose any sleep over the population of Planet China ruining their planet's ecosphere; there has to be billions of worlds in our galaxy alone that are in the habitable zone for humans, and I doubt humankind would go through more than a handful of them before we're extinct anyway. Besides, I believe it's like renting a home as opposed to owning a home: When you rent, you don't take care of the property anywhere near as well as when your name is on the deed; the inhabitants of Planet China would probably take the environment more seriously. If not, tough for them.
See, now, that's an extremist view that doesn't need to exist. If you want to look at it that way, then humans should either voluntarily exterminate themselves as a race and leave the planet to the animals, or genetically lobotomize ourselves as a race and return to being nothing but animals. There has to be a middle ground.
There is great truth in what you say, at least so long as it's politicians who are deciding whether or not such things happen; your average politician is most concerned with one thing: staying in office. I think it's private industry that's going to have to lead the way on this one, but of course that will only happen if there's enough profit to be made out in space and on other worlds to make it worth their while. Overall it's going to take a complete paradigm shift of the entire human population, along with some major breakthroughs in physics, to even make leaving this planet a possibility, let alone a viable option.
Or, learn how to survive on this planet before going out and colonizing another one.
Yeah, good luck with that one.
The real problem is, to put it bluntly, that humans are still basically animals, with this thin patina of what we call "intelligence" and "civilization" over the top, and you don't have to scratch too hard to get through to the animal parts. You might be able to convince people that global warming is real, and you might even be able to convince them that something needs to be done about it -- but good bloody luck convincing them that they need to stop having so many children. Not going to happen. You can manage to convince everyone to live as "eco-friendly" as possible, but if, as a race, we're cranking out more and more babies so there's more and more people all the time, then it isn't going to matter. We'll either exhaust the planet's ability to support us, or we'll ruin it with the unceasing wars that will inevitably happen when there are too many people and not enough to feed them. We need to get the hell off this planet, plain and simple. If we wait until every possible acre of land is growing food or housing people, then it'll be far too late to save Earth from us. In fact it may already be too late, or there may have to be a die-back of the human race in order to save the Earth from us, and us from ourselves.
Meanwhile: Tell me how you feel about using only 10% of the electric power you use now, riding a bicycle or walking everywhere instead of ever driving (which includes only being able to travel as far as you can take yourself under your own power), only ever eating foods that are produced locally, and not having any of the digital toys and so many other technological wonders that you take for granted right now? You're shaking your head in disbelief, are calling me something like an extremist environmental whacko, and completely denying that any of that is going to be necessary. Well, denial ain't just a river in Egypt, friend. It may well come to all that if we're serious about fixing our mistakes, and it'll certainly come to that if everyone in the world keeps denying the problems and going on like nothing's wrong.
As a possible way to make extra money, I looked at these "micro-gig" sites. I saw immediately how little you'd get paid for your efforts, and discarded the entire idea at that point as it being just another scam. I didn't even believe you'd actually get paid, that they'd string you along until you'd had enough. Not much different in my eyes than any other "work at home" scam you see every day.
So they're going to screw over their 185-odd affiliate OTA stations as well as the general public? Fuck you, Fox, go right ahead and try that shit, I hope you go bankrupt.
In all seriousness: This has to be some sort of a stunt/bluff. They'd screw themselves over and piss off everyone if they actually did this, and it would serve them right. Stop throwing temper-tantrums, Fox and Univision, and get into the 21st century already.
You're right of course, it would, but these days you get looked at funny and treated like some whacko conspiracy theorist for even suggesting it, and if you actually delete your Facebook account people who know you treat you like it's some sort of personal insult against them or something.
Send Kim Jong Un a couple dozen pairs of real American Levi's, a a few cases of Hershey bars, a few cases of Coca Cola (the real sugar stuff in glass bottles, not the HFCS stuff), a lifetime subscription to Playboy magazine (translated into Korean of course), and some new games for his Xbox or PS3. He'll shut the hell up and we won't have to deal with North Korea for at least a few years.
Aren't we really just talking about a portable WiDi display that also happens to support an input device of some sort? How is this innovative or original?
I don't think you're crazy.
I'm not for Big Government, I really don't want the government involved in my life any more than is absolutely necessary, but that said, there are some things that I think should not be privatized, and this is one of them. Weather data benefits everyone in the U.S. one way or another, and considering corporate America's running track record concerning putting people before profits, I think it would be a huge mistake to rely on some corporation for weather data. As a taxpayer I'm happy to have some of my money go to the NOAA and keeping weather satellites in orbit and functioning.
Time to take away Kim Jong Un's Xbox (or does he have a PS3?) until he learns to play nice with the neighbor kids?
.. But the self-righteous. "Sure glad *I* don't use Facebook!" comments are already getting really old and stale.
Things are tough all over, buddy.
Need I say more?
..nuclear bite..
Yeah, the worst-case scenario I've imagined involves them attempting to launch a nuclear missle, only to have it massively malfunction, never leave North Korea, and detonate. Then the rest of the world would have to deal with the literal fallout of their insanity.