>So yeah, the GP got it pretty much right. If P2P of copyrighted files is allowed, then all artists in Spain using copyright are pretty much fucked.
Why? Why are they fucked?
It seems to me that if you're selling mp3's to end users, then you've got a terrible business model. The industry can blame itself for continually compacting their music formats until there was nothing left but bits.
I remember going to a show once, and after it was over, I went to the concession table and bought all of the band's vinyl. I passed on the CD's and they hated me for it. Why? Because CD's are higher margin.
Same thing happened at a music store. I picked out a bunch of vinyl, and when the guy rang up a CD for $16.99, I put it back. He hated me too. He also went out of business.
Point being, if you're trying to pass off high-margin items (cd's, mp3's) to knowledgeable consumers, then you are a dishonest businessman. High-margin items exist to attract newbies to the store, where they can graduate to higher-quality items. Why? Because selling high-margin crap gets boring, that's why.
If you went into a wine store and asked for Turning Leaf, do you think you would get respected by the sales staff? But you have music companies that sell nothing but Justin Bieber and you think that's OK.
>You seriously think this is a common problem in biomedical research?
Of course it is. Medical studies are often condensed to a flashy headline in a newspaper. "Scientists said X is true so it must be now." Then the talking heads run off with it for the next three days. Nobody - certainly not the journalist - reads the paper itself, and generally it's behind a paywall so there's virtually no point in ponying up the $30 to be the only person with an accurate assessment.
If anything, the media "spin" makes it drop-dead easy to have a medical paper say whatever you want, since nobody is going to check it. Peer review? Here's what happened when the FDA looked at the Vioxx (COX2) data. It turns out the "peer review process" omitted the 12 and 15 month data points:
However, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) later presented more complete data from the CLASS and VIGOR trials on its web site, the results were less certain. The CLASS trial was revealed to also have twelve and fifteen month time points which had not been discussed in the JAMA publication; in this segment of the trial, the number of ulcer-related complications for Celebrex caught up to the control NSAID group. Similarly, the complete VIGOR study data revealed that in fact, when all adverse events, not just gastrointestinal, were tabulated, the patients receiving VIOXX had suffered (barely) significantly higher incidence of adverse events overall than the control NSAID group. In particular, the risk of serious cardiovascular thrombotic events, e.g. myocardial infarction, was 1.7% in the VIOXX patients versus 0.7% in the control group, and there were significantly more withdrawals in the Vioxx group for causes including hypertension, edema, hepatotoxicity, heart failure, or pathological laboratory findings. The mean increases in systolic and diastolic blood pressure in the Vioxx group were 4.6 mmHg and 1.7 mmHg respectively, compared to 1.0 and 0.1 mmHg in the control NSAID group. An estimated 43,000,000 Americans, nearly one out of six, suffers from arthritis. However, 42% (18 million) of these also suffer from hypertension. Therefore, the promise of better patient outcomes and lowered medical costs from use of COX-2 inhibitors may not be as great as previously hoped.
It's hard to tell, since he said the "blood sugar results should be 1/3 of a standard deviation." Does that mean one result, vs the overall population? In that case, 1/3 SD would seem to mean unusually average. Or are we talking about multiple results over time? In that case, 1/3 SD makes more sense, since it implies stable blood sugar.
Stats is like engineering, in that it relies upon discerning reality from fantasy. The math helps, but it's a lot of hard work to apply it, probably more work than most people can bother with.
I took a stats class in college. I stayed about 3 days past the end of the semester to finish up my stats paper, and I was flabbergasted at the level of precision that could be obtained by looking at the data and seeing what it's telling you, rather than what you want to see.
In the end, writing the paper was intellectually easy because it wrote itself. But there was a tremendous amount of raw typing (i.e. analysis) required to get to the point where it was free from bias. The (relatively basic) statistical methods we used were tremendously powerful, but God knows my teammates couldn't do it, and they were B.S. candidates. The paper I turned in was about 15 pages longer than what we started with.
They're so uptight about what pictures they'll accept (copyright, fair use), what makes anyone think that Wikipedia is going to become a giant video repository?
Yeah but what is the point of keeping something on the ground when it wants to become airborne? I don't see much practical value in this, unless you can engineer a train to go this fast.
Get two, and space them horizontally. The reason cyclists (and motorcyclists) get run over is because they are one-dimensional objects.
I've seen avid cyclists with orange jackets and flashing lights all over the place, but as long as you're 1-D, the driver's eye will not be able to perform depth-perception on you.
Imagine how many motorcycle accidents could be prevented with TWO headlights (and tail lights). Mass stupidity makes me cringe, especially when the fix is 0.2% of the cost of the bike. But hey, my LOUD pipes will save me...not.
The color isn't off on the fluorescents, unless you get the 5k ones, which are too blue. The 3500k's are superior to incandescents - very white and bright. The 2700k's are probably about the same as incandescents - yellow.
>I am almost surprised they bother doing this. It's old-fashioned policework, of the sort that seems to be going out of style as we keep approaching a surveillance society.
Don't be. Cops love to get statements from the horse's mouth. They love to get multiple witnesses and cross-corroborate things they've heard. So what if you facebook profile has you smoking a blunt? That speaks only vaguely to your willingness to break the law.
I don't know why you think old-fashioned policework is going out of style. The "surveillance society" is nothing without the last mile.
What you're missing is the desperation of salesmen who have been suckered into joining and now have to find some way to recoup their investment. Combined with the fact that since it's a shitty proposition, you have a license to be a dick and twist the arm of anyone you meet.
To some people, desperation and assholishness are empowering.
>First of all, the amazing Mars rovers (by far the greatest NASA success since Hubble)
You know they fucked up the Hubble mirror, right? So they must have fucked up even bigger for the Mars Rovers to be the "greatest success since Hubble."
I see your point about robots vs. humans, but your robot argument is a bit weak when your case example is, by your own admission, an even bigger fuck-up than Hubble.
>In WW2 you got hit by the Japanese and invaded Germany. In 2001 you got hit by a multinational group of thugs and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm not seeing a big difference there.
That's because you're an unrequited moron. Japan and Germany were allies. I think it's been such a long time since we've fought a real war, you've forgotten how it actually works.
95% of blacks voted against Hillary in the primaries.
Yeah, it would have been great having all the blacks vote for Hillary against McCain. It never happened!
The point of the article, had you chosen to read it, was that blacks voting for Obama was racist. Hey, if Stormfront is more literate and informed than you, maybe I should check it out.
Yeah but I can't figure out how the MPAA/RIAA have hurt me (yet). From where I'm sitting, TV and Hollywood have been booming in creativity lately. The ways to watch just keep exploding - FIOS rivals cable, Netflix rivals TV and Hulu is yet another option. And I haven't bought a CD in 10 years, so fuck all that.
Granted, maybe I don't know what I don't know, but I tend to think these IP laws are protecting stuff that isn't worth protecting anyway. When all is said and done, and you have to fork over $1.50 for every single mp3 of Miley Cyrus in the universe...you know what? This is just Disney crap you're talking about.
Yeah but where can you go where people don't consider themselves consumers? I live in suburbia, it's like living on a people farm. People just stand around waiting for the food truck to show up and then they complain about their taxes. Moo!
And God forbid you should give them any scary ideas like, "Why don't you shop at that supermarket where everything costs 1/2 as much?" They get this glazed look in their eye, like you just told them there's a hole in the fence, and they don't know whether the farmer is going to come after them with a rifle.
Worst thing about human beings...give them a good idea, and they hate you for making them feel stupid, rather than empowered. Makes you want to start a giant corporation and rob them blind.
>Because we (Americans) don't make anything solid anymore.
That's not true. January's trade deficit was $37.3 billion. Sound bad for one month? We exported $142.7 billion in that same month. And that doesn't count the domestic market.
So to say "we don't make anything" is a bit of a stretch. We don't make enough.
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>So yeah, the GP got it pretty much right. If P2P of copyrighted files is allowed, then all artists in Spain using copyright are pretty much fucked.
Why? Why are they fucked?
It seems to me that if you're selling mp3's to end users, then you've got a terrible business model. The industry can blame itself for continually compacting their music formats until there was nothing left but bits.
I remember going to a show once, and after it was over, I went to the concession table and bought all of the band's vinyl. I passed on the CD's and they hated me for it. Why? Because CD's are higher margin.
Same thing happened at a music store. I picked out a bunch of vinyl, and when the guy rang up a CD for $16.99, I put it back. He hated me too. He also went out of business.
Point being, if you're trying to pass off high-margin items (cd's, mp3's) to knowledgeable consumers, then you are a dishonest businessman. High-margin items exist to attract newbies to the store, where they can graduate to higher-quality items. Why? Because selling high-margin crap gets boring, that's why.
If you went into a wine store and asked for Turning Leaf, do you think you would get respected by the sales staff? But you have music companies that sell nothing but Justin Bieber and you think that's OK.
>You seriously think this is a common problem in biomedical research?
Of course it is. Medical studies are often condensed to a flashy headline in a newspaper. "Scientists said X is true so it must be now." Then the talking heads run off with it for the next three days. Nobody - certainly not the journalist - reads the paper itself, and generally it's behind a paywall so there's virtually no point in ponying up the $30 to be the only person with an accurate assessment.
If anything, the media "spin" makes it drop-dead easy to have a medical paper say whatever you want, since nobody is going to check it. Peer review? Here's what happened when the FDA looked at the Vioxx (COX2) data. It turns out the "peer review process" omitted the 12 and 15 month data points:
I doubt it. More likely, there are cases where polling x% gives you a more interesting result than polling 100%. But more accurate? How could it be?
Of course, polling x% is supposed to give you the same results with less work, which is the whole point.
It's hard to tell, since he said the "blood sugar results should be 1/3 of a standard deviation." Does that mean one result, vs the overall population? In that case, 1/3 SD would seem to mean unusually average. Or are we talking about multiple results over time? In that case, 1/3 SD makes more sense, since it implies stable blood sugar.
Stats is like engineering, in that it relies upon discerning reality from fantasy. The math helps, but it's a lot of hard work to apply it, probably more work than most people can bother with.
I took a stats class in college. I stayed about 3 days past the end of the semester to finish up my stats paper, and I was flabbergasted at the level of precision that could be obtained by looking at the data and seeing what it's telling you, rather than what you want to see.
In the end, writing the paper was intellectually easy because it wrote itself. But there was a tremendous amount of raw typing (i.e. analysis) required to get to the point where it was free from bias. The (relatively basic) statistical methods we used were tremendously powerful, but God knows my teammates couldn't do it, and they were B.S. candidates. The paper I turned in was about 15 pages longer than what we started with.
They're so uptight about what pictures they'll accept (copyright, fair use), what makes anyone think that Wikipedia is going to become a giant video repository?
Yeah but what is the point of keeping something on the ground when it wants to become airborne? I don't see much practical value in this, unless you can engineer a train to go this fast.
>Turning them on makes no difference to leaving them off.
Huh? I tend to leave mine on because they only draw about 11w. And after they warm up, they're brighter.
I don't get "banning" incandescents, though. There are places like bathrooms where you need the instant-on.
Wow you're right, efficiency of LED's and CFL's is roughly the same. That sucks, I thought LED's were better.
However, LED's are improving exponentially (like Moore's law), so if that continues, we could be in for a treat. Source: Wikipedia.
>mostly my lights are to be seen
Get two, and space them horizontally. The reason cyclists (and motorcyclists) get run over is because they are one-dimensional objects.
I've seen avid cyclists with orange jackets and flashing lights all over the place, but as long as you're 1-D, the driver's eye will not be able to perform depth-perception on you.
Imagine how many motorcycle accidents could be prevented with TWO headlights (and tail lights). Mass stupidity makes me cringe, especially when the fix is 0.2% of the cost of the bike. But hey, my LOUD pipes will save me...not.
The color isn't off on the fluorescents, unless you get the 5k ones, which are too blue. The 3500k's are superior to incandescents - very white and bright. The 2700k's are probably about the same as incandescents - yellow.
>I am almost surprised they bother doing this. It's old-fashioned policework, of the sort that seems to be going out of style as we keep approaching a surveillance society.
Don't be. Cops love to get statements from the horse's mouth. They love to get multiple witnesses and cross-corroborate things they've heard. So what if you facebook profile has you smoking a blunt? That speaks only vaguely to your willingness to break the law.
I don't know why you think old-fashioned policework is going out of style. The "surveillance society" is nothing without the last mile.
That's interesting. Basically you're saying that video games allow kids to perceive school as stupid. I like that.
What you're missing is the desperation of salesmen who have been suckered into joining and now have to find some way to recoup their investment. Combined with the fact that since it's a shitty proposition, you have a license to be a dick and twist the arm of anyone you meet.
To some people, desperation and assholishness are empowering.
How was it different when it began?
Wikipedia: Payments to current retirees were (and continue to be) financed by a payroll tax on current workers' wages
Tupperware is a terrible example. It's not glass.
Once they have you comparing different types of plastic, you've been suckered. Glass is cheap anyway...it comes free with beer, for example.
Try a pyrex bowl. That's small, they have bigger ones.
Or the ultimate cheapness: Ball jars.
>First of all, the amazing Mars rovers (by far the greatest NASA success since Hubble)
You know they fucked up the Hubble mirror, right? So they must have fucked up even bigger for the Mars Rovers to be the "greatest success since Hubble."
I see your point about robots vs. humans, but your robot argument is a bit weak when your case example is, by your own admission, an even bigger fuck-up than Hubble.
>In WW2 you got hit by the Japanese and invaded Germany. In 2001 you got hit by a multinational group of thugs and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm not seeing a big difference there.
That's because you're an unrequited moron. Japan and Germany were allies. I think it's been such a long time since we've fought a real war, you've forgotten how it actually works.
>you could just as easily argue that getting involved in WW2 was unnecessary for the US.
You really can't. I'm not even going to go into it, that's just batshit insane. Maybe you meant WWI?
95% of blacks voted against Hillary in the primaries.
Yeah, it would have been great having all the blacks vote for Hillary against McCain. It never happened!
The point of the article, had you chosen to read it, was that blacks voting for Obama was racist. Hey, if Stormfront is more literate and informed than you, maybe I should check it out.
I was wondering how a discussion on space technology got 500 comments and now I know...490 of them are about health care.
>I had great hope for some real change when Obama came in
Why? Because he held up placards that said "Hope" and "Change"? *laugh*
>what will the reaction of the open source community be in 70 years when the first copyrights of Linux become public domain?
Not a big problem because it will be a rolling effect. At first, only the 0.0.1 kernel will be public domain, and what are you going to do with that?
Yeah but I can't figure out how the MPAA/RIAA have hurt me (yet). From where I'm sitting, TV and Hollywood have been booming in creativity lately. The ways to watch just keep exploding - FIOS rivals cable, Netflix rivals TV and Hulu is yet another option. And I haven't bought a CD in 10 years, so fuck all that.
Granted, maybe I don't know what I don't know, but I tend to think these IP laws are protecting stuff that isn't worth protecting anyway. When all is said and done, and you have to fork over $1.50 for every single mp3 of Miley Cyrus in the universe...you know what? This is just Disney crap you're talking about.
Yeah but where can you go where people don't consider themselves consumers? I live in suburbia, it's like living on a people farm. People just stand around waiting for the food truck to show up and then they complain about their taxes. Moo!
And God forbid you should give them any scary ideas like, "Why don't you shop at that supermarket where everything costs 1/2 as much?" They get this glazed look in their eye, like you just told them there's a hole in the fence, and they don't know whether the farmer is going to come after them with a rifle.
Worst thing about human beings...give them a good idea, and they hate you for making them feel stupid, rather than empowered. Makes you want to start a giant corporation and rob them blind.
>Because we (Americans) don't make anything solid anymore.
That's not true. January's trade deficit was $37.3 billion. Sound bad for one month? We exported $142.7 billion in that same month. And that doesn't count the domestic market.
So to say "we don't make anything" is a bit of a stretch. We don't make enough.