There's an interesting section of a book called Understanding Democracy by J. Patrick Gunning available online. I've listed a part regarding vote buying, specifically, Chapter 5.
3. RULES AGAINST BUYING VOTES(10)
It is useful to distinguish two types of vote markets: the market for the votes of legislators and the market for the votes of
the electorate. The first refers to a legislator's vote on a law. A legislator's vote may be valuable to someone who stands to
benefit or to lose from the law. The second refers to a member of the electorate's vote for a political candidate. This vote
may be valuable to the candidate herself or to others who believe they will benefit if a particular candidate is elected. We
begin by discussing the market for legislators' votes since this market is more common.
The Market for Legislators' Votes
Members of a collective would oppose the buying and selling of legislators' votes. The reason is more complex than it
seems. Actually, some members of the collective may anticipate gains from allowing legislator vote-buying because they
would expect it to make them better off. Consider a bill in the legislature that would give cash payments to a special group of
people, say military veterans. The cash payments are financed by taxes on all citizens. Suppose that the veterans expect that
by buying the votes of some legislators, they can cause the bill to pass. Then they might favor a system where legislators'
votes can be bought and sold.
This kind of vote-buying is most likely wasteful. The net effect is to take money away from one group and give it to another
group. So there is no net gain in money. Yet resources are likely to be wasted both by the supporters of the veterans' benefit
bill and by its opponents. However, buying legislators' votes need not be so clearly wasteful. The bill may be intended to
finance an environmental cleanup and the damaged environment may threaten otherwise clean groundwater or be a
spawning place for contagious and deadly disease.
To see why most people would want to outlaw vote-buying, we must put ourselves in the shoes of the people who are
likely to lose when others buy votes. Suppose that you expected to be part of the tax-paying group in either of the above
cases. To defend yourself against having your wealth taken away, your group would have to bid a higher price for the
legislators' votes than others.
There is a virtual infinity of bills that may benefit some groups at the expense of others. If vote-buying were allowed, many
people would want to buy votes to support such bills. In order to defend themselves against losing their wealth, the
prospective losers would have to bid against them. We can imagine competitive bidding for legislators' votes on thousands
of bills. The result would be a needless waste of resources during the bidding process and, of course, substantial benefits for
the legislators.
If we had some reason to expect that the benefits from the laws that resulted from such bidding would exceed the harm, we
might investigate further. However, the main effect seems to be that the legislators would get rich at the expense of members
of the collective.
In short, allowing legislators to sell votes reduces citizens' protection against external costs of collective decision making.
Members of the collective hire legislators to help administer the monopoly over force. They expect and want the monopoly
to be used only to help supply public goods. To allow legislators to sell their votes would give them a greater incentive than
otherwise to use that monopoly over force for other purposes.
In some countries, vote-buying is not outlawed in the constitution but by ordinarily legislation. Even though legislators would
seemingly prefer to allow vote-buying, they have passed legislation outlawing it. The apparent reason for this paradox is that
if they did not pass such legislation, voters would vote them out of office. --
In other news, Taco353 writes: "Computer maker Trinity57 announced 2day that the new P505 will be marketed as the Q505 and feature P7 chips running at 111/222/333/444/555MHz, as well as 112/223/334/445MHz but up 2 3GHz. From 9:00 a.m. 2 3:00 p.m. you can get Q505 with P7's at 333MHz but at 3:01 p.m. Q505/P7's at 445MHz will come out. Then at 4:05 p.m. Q505/P7's at 3GHz will provide a high end (733, 1033, 10:45) machine for SE users. This will be a 24/7 sale with 300 employees, 300 computers, 300 mice, etc. Lasting until 20/20/2000 at 11:59 a.m. UDT (NIST--IP: 192.43.244.18) the sale will also have C3PO chips at 0.52KHz with 92 bytes RAM for $52.92. Special versions at 1.1/2.2/3.3KHz will also be available. Sounds good to me. What do you all think?
The idea that "spending large amounts of money to compaign among a group of people is the same as paying each person in that group a fixed amount of money" is completely false. Buying an individual vote--even if it's done in a group setting--is still against the law.
The entire argument breaks down when you consider the fact that politicians spending their vast war chests aren't assured of anyone voting for them because of it. This website, on the other hand, is like a legally (or illegally) binding contract to pay you $X for your vote.
Does our current political system pander to the rich corporations and special interest groups? Yes. Is that wrong? Maybe. Does it have to? No. How much does it cost to setup bushcheney2000.com and list a few pages stating where you stand on the top 20 issues of our time? Not much. How much does it cost the average citizen to visit that site (and gorelieberman2000.com) and make an informed decision? Not much--maybe a trip to the local library at most.
But are politicians going to objectively list where they stand? No way! Someone might actually--God forbid!--vote with their mind instead of their gut feeling if they did that. *gasp* So instead they build up massive amounts of campaign cash and flood your every aural and visual sense with their propoganda. The current system is where it's at because the voting populace is stupid and politicians cater to their stupidity. --
Here's a link to the high-resolution pictures on Philips' web site that bypasses the "Registeren nieuwe user" registration form. (What's that?--some kind of Jar Jar babble?) --
I wish the AltaVista article had some more information about the process. A 5-atom quantum computer is great, but what can it do? I'd be impressed with even a simple "hello" application, or the soution of a simple problem, but AFAICT everyone seems to be waiting for the 7- and 10-atom models. --
FWIW this was called Comanche, not Apache. It was (IMO) an excellent, although not very realistic, flight simulator for the Comanche helicopter. (This was back when the AH-64 Apache was the main helicopter of the US Army and the Comanche was still mostly a prototype.)
I'll try not to stray too far off-topic, but Comanche made excellent use of a voxel landscape that was extremely realistic looking, but dark at times. (Heh, this was when a 486DX2/66 was a high-end computer.) The biggest drawback of the game at the time was that voxels used up huge amounts of memory at a time when most people only had 4 or 8 MB RAM, so the Comanche worlds were pretty but small. Another drawback to the game was that the landscape was so pretty that it made other visual elements--rockets, oil tanks, other helicopters--look cheesy in comparison.
When Win95 came out MS disabled real-mode hard drive access under DOS, which is something Comanche needed to run (anyone remember c.exe?). I still have the box sitting on a shelf. It's a cool-looking trapeziodal shape, which might be what influenced me to buy it in the first place. --
I don't think it's an impossible outcome to think that the RIAA could a) put Napster out of business and b) become the consumer hero. Here's how.
On the day that the Appeals Court rules against Napster, the RIAA should come out with a broad announcement that justice was served and this is a win for the American people (they always like to say that stuff). But--then they should announce a plan like this:
The major recording studios are pleased to announce a song-by-song availability download program whereby you can download MP3's cheaply.
MP3's will be priced by popularity. If you wan't Britney Spears' new hit single, it will cost $1.50 [or more; $2.95 would not be excessive considering that people pay $1.50 to get cash from an ATM]
When you download a song the studio will also give you a.PDF file with the lyrics and various info.
Less popular songs will be available more cheaply. The 7th dance remix of Dead American Presidents' Peaches is available for $0.45.
Charges will be made to a credit card, which you will only be required to register with us once. This information will never be [privacy policy]
The RIAA has agreed to pay $1 million to Shawn Fanning and his uncle if they promise to get out of the industry.
Okay, I made that last one up. But the others are valid points. Popular artists (e.g., Spears, Metallica, etc.) will be compensated royally, while less sought-after artists will still be compensated, but a) not as much and b) their fans can download less-popular music cheaper.
Everyone benefits. Joe consumer gets cheap downloads of his favorite music. The RIAA sells their copyrighted work for a fraction of the distribution cost of a CD. I'd wager a good amount that a lot of people will download new hit singles, listen to them, and on the advice of friends, buy the physical CD.
I've mostly steered clear of the whole Napster debate. As I see it, it's not really about "the future of music." Nor is it about "freedom from the tyranny of the labels." It's just about the RIAA protecting their rather sizeable assets.
I have my own small MP3 collection which I ripped from my own CD's, which I play on my own computer, and I'd always assumed that most Napster users were like my little brother, who wants to grab some popular, cool tunes so he can hear them on RealJukebox (which he also grabbed for free and doesn't necessarily care how Real, Inc. uses his personal information). So today I downloaded Napster and clicked through the regular encyclopaedic licenses.
Or, at least, I tried to. This time a message popped up that said, "You must read the entire license agreement before clicking OK!" So I did. After the regular legalese protecting Napster, Inc. should my lawn mower run over my neighbor, etc., there's this tidbit:
Unauthorized copying, distribution, modification, public display, or public performance of copyrighted works is an infringement of the copyright holders' rights. [...] As a condition to the license to use the SOFTWARE, you agree that you will not use the SOFTWARE or the Napster service to infringe the intellectual property rights of others in any way. (bold added)
So basically, if I'm to abide by the Napster license, I'm not supposed to download or distribute any copyrighted works over which I have no authorization. This seems straightforward enough. But does anyone take this seriously? Does anyone ACTUALLY believe that Napster users are NOT downloading or distributing works for which they don't have authorization? Apparently not the first 100 people that I got a hit for when I searched for a favorite song of mine.
So what this is really about, then, is 20 million people infringing on an entire industry by stealing that industry's copyrighted works. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if it's an evil industry. It doesn't matter whether Courtney Love can write a moving diatribe against it. This isn't Robin Hood vs. the Sherrif of Nottingham. This is nothing more than people convienently deluding themselves into the ethics of self-interest.
(Apologies for the excessive use of bold. Yes, I did mean it.) --
Saying one must have faith simply acknowledges the fact that religion can't stand up on it's own merits.
We're born, we eat, we breed, we die. End of story.
For the sake of the argument, let's assume your beliefs are right. I was born in 1974, I'll probably die somewhere around 2065. By 2100, we're both dead. End of story.
On the other hand, here are my beliefs. I believe there is a God, I believe that there's life after death, and I believe that I didn't evolve from a radiation-immune microbe. (These are my closely-held, personal beliefs. I'm neither attacking anyone or forcing them on anyone, so I'd appreciate if everyone doesn't jump on this.)
Now let's assume that I'm right. We both live, we both die. But that's where our paths diverge. I go into the afterlife, while you experience your "end of story." So if I don't believe like you do, but you turn out to be right, I lose nothing. But if you don't believe like I do, and I turn out to be right, you lose everything.
Somehow, this all relates to space microbes and NASA and all that good stuff. Somehow.;-) --
Economic boom loosely tied to Echelon?
on
Inside Echelon
·
· Score: 2
Under a 1993 policy colloquially known as "levelling the playing field", the United States government under President Clinton established new trade and economic committees and told the NSA and CIA to act in support of US businesses in seeking contracts abroad.
It's interesting to speculate whether the increase of wealth in this nation hasn't been helped by national corporations being "supported" by Echelon-collected data.
ObArticleQuote (bold added):
One of [the Kagnew Station at Asmara in Eritrea] more spectacular features was a tracking dish used to pass messages to the United States by reflecting them off the surface of the moon.
For anyone interested, check out the "SETI accelerator a HOAX" thread on the sci.astro.seti newsgroup. Some of them--probably the ones that mindlessly plunked their credit cards down--are apparently not very happy about being hoodwinked. --
I also able to invent a SETI accelerator by using manies electronics in my home. By passing parts of SETI Work Unit to my:
blender
garage door opener
TV (big processing power there!)
VCR (takes performance hit if watching movie)
blow dryer
air conditioner (I run it all day long and my wife and kids they are cold but I telling them it's for science!)
ceiling fan (all day, too)
electric mixer (only good when making cakes, so we make lots of cakes)
I have able to increase my processing from 1 unit every 22 hours on very fast Compaq Presario to 17 units every half hour. It is very fast.
Last week my street lose power (I don't know why) so I am forced to stop processing. And yesterday in the mails there is a letter with electric bill for $700 (US!) for one month! I think there is some mistake, but I keeps processing! I know one day we will find ET for science but I also very happy to make #7 in high scores list. Maybe if search continuing I will #1!
I used to use Netscape. But two weeks ago I switched to IE (just upgraded to 5.5). Do I like IE's standards compliance? No. Do I like IE's tactics in gaining market share? No. Do I like IE's vision of where the web is going? No way! But is IE a better browser for Windows? Absolutely.
I'm actually using Netscape right now, and I can expect it to crash any second if I open up any more windows. That's why I continually save posts like these. I've lost too many to keep track of, but it was enough for me to eventually dump Netscape.
It took about six months for the inertia of using Netscape over IE to slow down and for me to finally realize that the change was imminent. Outlook's Import utility clinched it, as I could now use Outlook to import all my email. I have Netscape 6 Preview 1 installed, but it looks more like a nearly completed building with the scaffolding still up than any kind of useable browser.
As Stroustrup said, "C makes it easy to shoot yourelf in the foot, whereas C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off." Yes, IE crashes every now and then, and it usually takes the whole system with it, but I don't have to deal with the maddening experience of several crashes per day. Which is worse: the boulder in my path?--or the grain of sand in my shoe. I'm not quite sure, but I've chosen the boulder.
About the only thing I miss is Netscape's status bar. They did a great job with keep the user informed about how the page was loading, while IE happifly reassures me that the page is "opening..." And IE's dumbed-down error messages aren't exactly helpful, but I've been using Guidescope as a local ad-blocking proxy and it seems to help some with DNS errors and the like.
So I'm sorry that I don't use Netscape anymore. I'm sorry that I use a browser that doesn't adhere very well to Net standards, and in some cases even flaunts them. But I'm not sorry that Microsoft built a better browser. And Netscape didn't. --
Memory is more of a negotiation between the brain and the psyche than any sort of reliable record.
Timothy, I don't usually agree with your viewpoint on most Slashdot stories, but I have to say this is one of the most revealing quote I've read in a long time. Thanks. --
I blame font designers. Why in the world would you design a font where I, l and 1--that's the capital letter I, the lowercase letter l and the number 1--look so similar to each other? MS Sans Serif is to blame for most Windows users, but I'm sure other OSes have their own culprts.
Now it's not just a matter of phonetic problems, as in corinthians.com vs. corinthiao.com, but apparently we now have to lump "visual phonic" problems into the mix. --
Another article about a domain name taken away by the WIPO. Another slew of Slashdoteer posts ranting about fighting "The Man". I'm going to take a different viewpoint: I'm not so sure J D Sallen (previous owner of corinthians.com) is blameless here.
For starters, not very many of us Americans are familiar with soccer, so the Brazilian team Corinthians has little or no impact on us. But what if it were the Minnesota Vikings wanted to register vikings.com and found it was held by a Scandanavian man who wasn't doing anything with it? Would our viewpoint soften a little?
And if Sallen really wanted to display scriptures on his site, why not register corinthians.org instead? Was he similarly planning on registering.com domain names for the 65 other books of the Bible? Or was it just the Corinthian epistles that held such endearing value for him. (BTW, was that I Corinthians or II Corinthians?!) Sorry, JD: matthew.com, mark.com, luke.com and john.com are already taken.
Thirdly, there's this quote from the WIPO arbitrator, Roberto Bianchi:
Apparently, aside from its biblical posting following their acquiring notice of the dispute... Respondents have no made any other use of the domain name.
Now IMO this is a serious charge. If Sallen put up content on the site after being informed of the domain dispute, this is tantamount to deleting evidence after being informed that it's been subpoenad. It remains to be seen whether the above is true or not. In his post, Sallen doesn't dispute the charge.
It also remains to be seen which TLD's ICANN will adopt this week. This certainly would alleviate the way-too-broad.com problem that has everyone fighting for it. Perhaps a.team is in the cards. --
I sure hope they pick Arnold for the part. It would really make the X-Files (my favorite show, btw--NOT) the perfect show. I think they should call him Agent Arnie.
Scully: Agent Arnie, give me a hand here. This UFO landing gear is crushing my legs!
Agent Arnie: Ya. Here ya go. Oomph! [grunts]
Scully: Thanks Agent Arnie. Any sign of the baddies?
Agent Arnie: No, they've disappeared once again. [sighs] Like they always do just before they pan into the camera, ya know. [winks at camera]
Scully: Drats! I knew we should've taken a picture or two. The truth is out there!
Agent Arnie: Wait, I haf an idea. BTW, why do ya always say that?
Scully: Say what? What's your idea Agent Arnie?
Agent Arnie: Ya know, that "truth is out there" crap. Anyway, look: these aliens are always looking for da perfect human, right? Well it's me! Why don't they operate on me?! IT'S ME YOU WANT! COME AND GET *ME*!!!
Scully: Hey, calm down. We're not alone here, you know. [Alien ship hovers over Agent Arnie's head and begins to tractor beam him in.]
Agent Arnie: Aaaarrrghhh!!!
Agent Arnie: Aaaaarrrrrggh!
Agent Arnie: Arrrrrrgggggggh!!!
Scully: Agent Arnie stop arrrging like that!
Agent Arnie: I can't help it. I always do that. Throw me those weapons by your feet!
Scully: [mutters] Hey!--where'd all these come from? [Best boy grip is seen scurrying out of the scene.] [Scully throws a sack containing a grenade launcher, 2 large guns and a hunting knife up to Agent Arnie.] You get them Agent Arnie! You teach them good once and for all. The truth is out there!
Agent Arnie: [Catches the satchel of weaponry] Stop saying that! --
Don't worry! As soon as the virus/worm starts to spread we'll all be inundated with "DON'T OPEN [MELISSA/STACY/LISA/BELINDA] IT WILL ERASE YOUR COMPUTER!!!1!!" emails, which will spread faster than the worm itslf. --
I didn't read the comics or watch the cartoon, so I knew little or nothing about X-Men before watching the movie (other than spending my life savings as a 16 year old trying to beat that #@(*! 6-player X-Men game). I have to say I was extremely impressed by the movie.
It wasn't just a rock 'em, sock 'em, blow 'em up summer bash. There was some great character exploration, especially WRT to Woleverine and Rogue as a big brother, little sister relationship. And Magneto and his minions weren't mindless baddies bent on world destruction: they were serious in their beliefs that mutants were the next thing in the world but humans were holding them back.
Similar to The Rock, even the bad guys were "good" guys in the sense that they believed their cause was just and the means justified the end. (Means don't justify the end, but it's at least a forgiveable mistake.) With the size of the villian creating the size of the hero, huge Sabretooth kept me wondering how the X-Men would beat him, Mystique was the changeling who surprisingly kicked some serious wolfish butt and Toad--Ray Parks a.k.a. Darth Maul was excellent in this role--was menacing enough, although the first encounter with him painting some machinery left me thinking he was some geek boy. (Oh wait--that's Cyclops.;)
Anyway, back to my point: Magneto and his Brotherhood keep the movie engrossing. Knowing about the bad keeps you interested in the good. After the heart-stopping opening scene, we're not supposed to hate the bad guy, we're supposed to feel sorry for him, just as Xavier does. And when viewed in this light, the movie succeeds terrifically for me. I'm going to go watch it again. --
A] Soldier of Fortune is a game banned in Canada for being too violent
B] We kill many animals every day for human consumption
I'm sorry, you've presented a very eloquent and passionate plea against the slaughtering of animals, but I don't think what you're comparing has very much to do with each other. Come on, one is a computer game and the other is a choice of food. Whether or not food in our society is prepared violently has very little to do with purchasing a violent game. --
I believe we'll start to see more announcements like these are research into visualization techniques progresses. Look at the processor speed race. Soon we'll see a 1.4GHz Pentium IV processor, but apart from being able to finish a SETI work unit in 2 hours (I'm guessing), it doesn't bring anything new to the table. No matter how fast you make the processor, it's still just pushing around 1's and 0's very quickly.
Not so with monitors. The field is wide open--and overripe, if Sci-fi movie special effects have anything to say about it--for a revoluionary change in the way we view data. Whether it's a 50" flat-screen or a CAVE environment or a holographic projecton, I think things are going to start changing. And it will start changing the way we see things. --
Slashdot Mirror
3. RULES AGAINST BUYING VOTES(10)
It is useful to distinguish two types of vote markets: the market for the votes of legislators and the market for the votes of the electorate. The first refers to a legislator's vote on a law. A legislator's vote may be valuable to someone who stands to benefit or to lose from the law. The second refers to a member of the electorate's vote for a political candidate. This vote may be valuable to the candidate herself or to others who believe they will benefit if a particular candidate is elected. We begin by discussing the market for legislators' votes since this market is more common.
The Market for Legislators' Votes
Members of a collective would oppose the buying and selling of legislators' votes. The reason is more complex than it seems. Actually, some members of the collective may anticipate gains from allowing legislator vote-buying because they would expect it to make them better off. Consider a bill in the legislature that would give cash payments to a special group of people, say military veterans. The cash payments are financed by taxes on all citizens. Suppose that the veterans expect that by buying the votes of some legislators, they can cause the bill to pass. Then they might favor a system where legislators' votes can be bought and sold.
This kind of vote-buying is most likely wasteful. The net effect is to take money away from one group and give it to another group. So there is no net gain in money. Yet resources are likely to be wasted both by the supporters of the veterans' benefit bill and by its opponents. However, buying legislators' votes need not be so clearly wasteful. The bill may be intended to finance an environmental cleanup and the damaged environment may threaten otherwise clean groundwater or be a spawning place for contagious and deadly disease.
To see why most people would want to outlaw vote-buying, we must put ourselves in the shoes of the people who are likely to lose when others buy votes. Suppose that you expected to be part of the tax-paying group in either of the above cases. To defend yourself against having your wealth taken away, your group would have to bid a higher price for the legislators' votes than others.
There is a virtual infinity of bills that may benefit some groups at the expense of others. If vote-buying were allowed, many people would want to buy votes to support such bills. In order to defend themselves against losing their wealth, the prospective losers would have to bid against them. We can imagine competitive bidding for legislators' votes on thousands of bills. The result would be a needless waste of resources during the bidding process and, of course, substantial benefits for the legislators.
If we had some reason to expect that the benefits from the laws that resulted from such bidding would exceed the harm, we might investigate further. However, the main effect seems to be that the legislators would get rich at the expense of members of the collective.
In short, allowing legislators to sell votes reduces citizens' protection against external costs of collective decision making. Members of the collective hire legislators to help administer the monopoly over force. They expect and want the monopoly to be used only to help supply public goods. To allow legislators to sell their votes would give them a greater incentive than otherwise to use that monopoly over force for other purposes.
In some countries, vote-buying is not outlawed in the constitution but by ordinarily legislation. Even though legislators would seemingly prefer to allow vote-buying, they have passed legislation outlawing it. The apparent reason for this paradox is that if they did not pass such legislation, voters would vote them out of office.
--
In other news, Taco353 writes: "Computer maker Trinity57 announced 2day that the new P505 will be marketed as the Q505 and feature P7 chips running at 111/222/333/444/555MHz, as well as 112/223/334/445MHz but up 2 3GHz. From 9:00 a.m. 2 3:00 p.m. you can get Q505 with P7's at 333MHz but at 3:01 p.m. Q505/P7's at 445MHz will come out. Then at 4:05 p.m. Q505/P7's at 3GHz will provide a high end (733, 1033, 10:45) machine for SE users. This will be a 24/7 sale with 300 employees, 300 computers, 300 mice, etc. Lasting until 20/20/2000 at 11:59 a.m. UDT (NIST--IP: 192.43.244.18) the sale will also have C3PO chips at 0.52KHz with 92 bytes RAM for $52.92. Special versions at 1.1/2.2/3.3KHz will also be available. Sounds good to me. What do you all think?
--
The entire argument breaks down when you consider the fact that politicians spending their vast war chests aren't assured of anyone voting for them because of it. This website, on the other hand, is like a legally (or illegally) binding contract to pay you $X for your vote.
Does our current political system pander to the rich corporations and special interest groups? Yes. Is that wrong? Maybe. Does it have to? No. How much does it cost to setup bushcheney2000.com and list a few pages stating where you stand on the top 20 issues of our time? Not much. How much does it cost the average citizen to visit that site (and gorelieberman2000.com) and make an informed decision? Not much--maybe a trip to the local library at most.
But are politicians going to objectively list where they stand? No way! Someone might actually--God forbid!--vote with their mind instead of their gut feeling if they did that. *gasp* So instead they build up massive amounts of campaign cash and flood your every aural and visual sense with their propoganda. The current system is where it's at because the voting populace is stupid and politicians cater to their stupidity.
--
Here's a link to the high-resolution pictures on Philips' web site that bypasses the "Registeren nieuwe user" registration form. (What's that?--some kind of Jar Jar babble?)
--
...like helping out your wife with her fashion interests.
--
I wish the AltaVista article had some more information about the process. A 5-atom quantum computer is great, but what can it do? I'd be impressed with even a simple "hello" application, or the soution of a simple problem, but AFAICT everyone seems to be waiting for the 7- and 10-atom models.
--
I'll try not to stray too far off-topic, but Comanche made excellent use of a voxel landscape that was extremely realistic looking, but dark at times. (Heh, this was when a 486DX2/66 was a high-end computer.) The biggest drawback of the game at the time was that voxels used up huge amounts of memory at a time when most people only had 4 or 8 MB RAM, so the Comanche worlds were pretty but small. Another drawback to the game was that the landscape was so pretty that it made other visual elements--rockets, oil tanks, other helicopters--look cheesy in comparison.
When Win95 came out MS disabled real-mode hard drive access under DOS, which is something Comanche needed to run (anyone remember c.exe?). I still have the box sitting on a shelf. It's a cool-looking trapeziodal shape, which might be what influenced me to buy it in the first place.
--
On the day that the Appeals Court rules against Napster, the RIAA should come out with a broad announcement that justice was served and this is a win for the American people (they always like to say that stuff). But--then they should announce a plan like this:
- The major recording studios are pleased to announce a song-by-song availability download program whereby you can download MP3's cheaply.
- MP3's will be priced by popularity. If you wan't Britney Spears' new hit single, it will cost $1.50 [or more; $2.95 would not be excessive considering that people pay $1.50 to get cash from an ATM]
- When you download a song the studio will also give you a
.PDF file with the lyrics and various info. - Less popular songs will be available more cheaply. The 7th dance remix of Dead American Presidents' Peaches is available for $0.45.
- Charges will be made to a credit card, which you will only be required to register with us once. This information will never be [privacy policy]
- The RIAA has agreed to pay $1 million to Shawn Fanning and his uncle if they promise to get out of the industry.
Okay, I made that last one up. But the others are valid points. Popular artists (e.g., Spears, Metallica, etc.) will be compensated royally, while less sought-after artists will still be compensated, but a) not as much and b) their fans can download less-popular music cheaper.Everyone benefits. Joe consumer gets cheap downloads of his favorite music. The RIAA sells their copyrighted work for a fraction of the distribution cost of a CD. I'd wager a good amount that a lot of people will download new hit singles, listen to them, and on the advice of friends, buy the physical CD.
--
I have my own small MP3 collection which I ripped from my own CD's, which I play on my own computer, and I'd always assumed that most Napster users were like my little brother, who wants to grab some popular, cool tunes so he can hear them on RealJukebox (which he also grabbed for free and doesn't necessarily care how Real, Inc. uses his personal information). So today I downloaded Napster and clicked through the regular encyclopaedic licenses.
Or, at least, I tried to. This time a message popped up that said, "You must read the entire license agreement before clicking OK!" So I did. After the regular legalese protecting Napster, Inc. should my lawn mower run over my neighbor, etc., there's this tidbit:
Unauthorized copying, distribution, modification, public display, or public performance of copyrighted works is an infringement of the copyright holders' rights. [...] As a condition to the license to use the SOFTWARE, you agree that you will not use the SOFTWARE or the Napster service to infringe the intellectual property rights of others in any way. (bold added)
So basically, if I'm to abide by the Napster license, I'm not supposed to download or distribute any copyrighted works over which I have no authorization. This seems straightforward enough. But does anyone take this seriously? Does anyone ACTUALLY believe that Napster users are NOT downloading or distributing works for which they don't have authorization? Apparently not the first 100 people that I got a hit for when I searched for a favorite song of mine.
So what this is really about, then, is 20 million people infringing on an entire industry by stealing that industry's copyrighted works. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if it's an evil industry. It doesn't matter whether Courtney Love can write a moving diatribe against it. This isn't Robin Hood vs. the Sherrif of Nottingham. This is nothing more than people convienently deluding themselves into the ethics of self-interest.
(Apologies for the excessive use of bold. Yes, I did mean it.)
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We're born, we eat, we breed, we die. End of story.
For the sake of the argument, let's assume your beliefs are right. I was born in 1974, I'll probably die somewhere around 2065. By 2100, we're both dead. End of story.
On the other hand, here are my beliefs. I believe there is a God, I believe that there's life after death, and I believe that I didn't evolve from a radiation-immune microbe. (These are my closely-held, personal beliefs. I'm neither attacking anyone or forcing them on anyone, so I'd appreciate if everyone doesn't jump on this.)
Now let's assume that I'm right. We both live, we both die. But that's where our paths diverge. I go into the afterlife, while you experience your "end of story." So if I don't believe like you do, but you turn out to be right, I lose nothing. But if you don't believe like I do, and I turn out to be right, you lose everything.
Somehow, this all relates to space microbes and NASA and all that good stuff. Somehow. ;-)
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It's interesting to speculate whether the increase of wealth in this nation hasn't been helped by national corporations being "supported" by Echelon-collected data.
ObArticleQuote (bold added):
One of [the Kagnew Station at Asmara in Eritrea] more spectacular features was a tracking dish used to pass messages to the United States by reflecting them off the surface of the moon.
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For anyone interested, check out the "SETI accelerator a HOAX" thread on the sci.astro.seti newsgroup. Some of them--probably the ones that mindlessly plunked their credit cards down--are apparently not very happy about being hoodwinked.
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I also able to invent a SETI accelerator by using manies electronics in my home. By passing parts of SETI Work Unit to my:
I have able to increase my processing from 1 unit every 22 hours on very fast Compaq Presario to 17 units every half hour. It is very fast.
Last week my street lose power (I don't know why) so I am forced to stop processing. And yesterday in the mails there is a letter with electric bill for $700 (US!) for one month! I think there is some mistake, but I keeps processing! I know one day we will find ET for science but I also very happy to make #7 in high scores list. Maybe if search continuing I will #1!
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I'm actually using Netscape right now, and I can expect it to crash any second if I open up any more windows. That's why I continually save posts like these. I've lost too many to keep track of, but it was enough for me to eventually dump Netscape.
It took about six months for the inertia of using Netscape over IE to slow down and for me to finally realize that the change was imminent. Outlook's Import utility clinched it, as I could now use Outlook to import all my email. I have Netscape 6 Preview 1 installed, but it looks more like a nearly completed building with the scaffolding still up than any kind of useable browser.
As Stroustrup said, "C makes it easy to shoot yourelf in the foot, whereas C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off." Yes, IE crashes every now and then, and it usually takes the whole system with it, but I don't have to deal with the maddening experience of several crashes per day. Which is worse: the boulder in my path?--or the grain of sand in my shoe. I'm not quite sure, but I've chosen the boulder.
About the only thing I miss is Netscape's status bar. They did a great job with keep the user informed about how the page was loading, while IE happifly reassures me that the page is "opening..." And IE's dumbed-down error messages aren't exactly helpful, but I've been using Guidescope as a local ad-blocking proxy and it seems to help some with DNS errors and the like.
So I'm sorry that I don't use Netscape anymore. I'm sorry that I use a browser that doesn't adhere very well to Net standards, and in some cases even flaunts them. But I'm not sorry that Microsoft built a better browser. And Netscape didn't.
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Timothy, I don't usually agree with your viewpoint on most Slashdot stories, but I have to say this is one of the most revealing quote I've read in a long time. Thanks.
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Amazing. I wasn't very far off with that Agent Arnie post.
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Now it's not just a matter of phonetic problems, as in corinthians.com vs. corinthiao.com, but apparently we now have to lump "visual phonic" problems into the mix.
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Ha! There is no book of Corinthians! That'd be I Corinthians or II Corinthians.
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I'm not so sure if that's true. Take a look at the dates on the 5 pages--yeah, just 5. Real benefit to the community, huh?--that make up the site:
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:50 PM GMT
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/2chapter1.htm
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:46 PM GMT
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/2chapter2.htm
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:46 PM GMT
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/2chapter5.htm
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:47 PM GMT
Location: http://www.corinthians.com/2chapter6.htm
Last Modified: Monday, June 26, 2000 1:59:48 PM GMT
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For starters, not very many of us Americans are familiar with soccer, so the Brazilian team Corinthians has little or no impact on us. But what if it were the Minnesota Vikings wanted to register vikings.com and found it was held by a Scandanavian man who wasn't doing anything with it? Would our viewpoint soften a little?
And if Sallen really wanted to display scriptures on his site, why not register corinthians.org instead? Was he similarly planning on registering .com domain names for the 65 other books of the Bible? Or was it just the Corinthian epistles that held such endearing value for him. (BTW, was that I Corinthians or II Corinthians?!) Sorry, JD: matthew.com, mark.com, luke.com and john.com are already taken.
Thirdly, there's this quote from the WIPO arbitrator, Roberto Bianchi:
Apparently, aside from its biblical posting following their acquiring notice of the dispute... Respondents have no made any other use of the domain name.
Now IMO this is a serious charge. If Sallen put up content on the site after being informed of the domain dispute, this is tantamount to deleting evidence after being informed that it's been subpoenad. It remains to be seen whether the above is true or not. In his post, Sallen doesn't dispute the charge.
It also remains to be seen which TLD's ICANN will adopt this week. This certainly would alleviate the way-too-broad .com problem that has everyone fighting for it. Perhaps a .team is in the cards.
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Scully: Agent Arnie, give me a hand here. This UFO landing gear is crushing my legs!
Agent Arnie: Ya. Here ya go. Oomph! [grunts]
Scully: Thanks Agent Arnie. Any sign of the baddies?
Agent Arnie: No, they've disappeared once again. [sighs] Like they always do just before they pan into the camera, ya know. [winks at camera]
Scully: Drats! I knew we should've taken a picture or two. The truth is out there!
Agent Arnie: Wait, I haf an idea. BTW, why do ya always say that?
Scully: Say what? What's your idea Agent Arnie?
Agent Arnie: Ya know, that "truth is out there" crap. Anyway, look: these aliens are always looking for da perfect human, right? Well it's me! Why don't they operate on me?! IT'S ME YOU WANT! COME AND GET *ME*!!!
Scully: Hey, calm down. We're not alone here, you know. [Alien ship hovers over Agent Arnie's head and begins to tractor beam him in.]
Agent Arnie: Aaaarrrghhh!!!
Agent Arnie: Aaaaarrrrrggh!
Agent Arnie: Arrrrrrgggggggh!!!
Scully: Agent Arnie stop arrrging like that!
Agent Arnie: I can't help it. I always do that. Throw me those weapons by your feet!
Scully: [mutters] Hey!--where'd all these come from? [Best boy grip is seen scurrying out of the scene.] [Scully throws a sack containing a grenade launcher, 2 large guns and a hunting knife up to Agent Arnie.] You get them Agent Arnie! You teach them good once and for all. The truth is out there!
Agent Arnie: [Catches the satchel of weaponry] Stop saying that!
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Don't worry! As soon as the virus/worm starts to spread we'll all be inundated with "DON'T OPEN [MELISSA/STACY/LISA/BELINDA] IT WILL ERASE YOUR COMPUTER!!!1!!" emails, which will spread faster than the worm itslf.
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It wasn't just a rock 'em, sock 'em, blow 'em up summer bash. There was some great character exploration, especially WRT to Woleverine and Rogue as a big brother, little sister relationship. And Magneto and his minions weren't mindless baddies bent on world destruction: they were serious in their beliefs that mutants were the next thing in the world but humans were holding them back.
Similar to The Rock, even the bad guys were "good" guys in the sense that they believed their cause was just and the means justified the end. (Means don't justify the end, but it's at least a forgiveable mistake.) With the size of the villian creating the size of the hero, huge Sabretooth kept me wondering how the X-Men would beat him, Mystique was the changeling who surprisingly kicked some serious wolfish butt and Toad--Ray Parks a.k.a. Darth Maul was excellent in this role--was menacing enough, although the first encounter with him painting some machinery left me thinking he was some geek boy. (Oh wait--that's Cyclops. ;)
Anyway, back to my point: Magneto and his Brotherhood keep the movie engrossing. Knowing about the bad keeps you interested in the good. After the heart-stopping opening scene, we're not supposed to hate the bad guy, we're supposed to feel sorry for him, just as Xavier does. And when viewed in this light, the movie succeeds terrifically for me. I'm going to go watch it again.
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B] We kill many animals every day for human consumption
I'm sorry, you've presented a very eloquent and passionate plea against the slaughtering of animals, but I don't think what you're comparing has very much to do with each other. Come on, one is a computer game and the other is a choice of food. Whether or not food in our society is prepared violently has very little to do with purchasing a violent game.
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Not so with monitors. The field is wide open--and overripe, if Sci-fi movie special effects have anything to say about it--for a revoluionary change in the way we view data. Whether it's a 50" flat-screen or a CAVE environment or a holographic projecton, I think things are going to start changing. And it will start changing the way we see things.
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