"...And deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft."
That something is "no less unlawful" than something else doesn't mean it's the same. The judge is being inaccurate by using the term "property" and "taking", so what else is new ?
Nevertheless, he also says A is no less unlawful than B, which would make no sense whatsoever if A *WAS* B as you claim.
"Stealing is no less an unlawful activity than stealing" -- silly statement. It makes no sense whatsoever making a statement that compares the unlawfulness of two activities unless the two activities are distinct.
That is not in the least spin. That is a simple fact.
"stealing" has a defined meaning in the english language and one in law. Copying a creative work without the permission of the author fills none of these definitions.
The details in the definition of "stealing" will vary, but they will all involved taking someone elses property without their permission.
You can steal a single copy of a creative work. (such as steal a CD from my house) But you cannot steal the immaterial work itself.
Repeating the stupidity more times doesn't make it any more true.
Where, exactly, is the copyrigth protection "problem" here ?
Somebody *claimed* something ? Oh golly !
Look, anyone can claim anything. I can claim the moon is made out of cheese, doesn't mean astronauts landing there has an actual problem finding rocks.
The claim is absurd. Facts:
The software is covered by copyrigth. (for the simple reason that everything is, unless you've got an explicit statement from the creator placing the work under public domain)
For copying/redistributing copyrigthed works, one requires the permission of the copyrigth-holder.
The GPL gives you a conditional permission: provided you follow certain rules, you are allowed.
If you *don't* follow those rules, then the GPL does *not* give you permission to redistribute.
Dead simple really. It's impressive that some lawyers and companies have managed to avoid understanding this after *decades*. More likely they *have* understood it, but are making the claim anyway out of desperation.
Your life is priceless -- but this doesn't imply that you're not willing to sell some of your time for any price.
$60/hour is ridicolously high for selling time for most people. That corresponds to a yearly wage of over $100.000 (after taxes), which is something like 4 times what the average American *actually* earns.
But you're rigth, phone-calls are pretty darned cheap. I call for about $20/month, which means getting that for free is worth less than 1 hour/month. So, to answer your question, less than 3 minutes/day. So, for me, watching a 30-second comercial and get the phone-call free would be rational, while a 2-minute comercial definitely wouldn't be.
Even more rational though, would be *not* watching the comercial, and still get the phone-call for free. How are they gonna figure out if I actually watch the crap or not ?
Looks about rigth, except you forgot the next steps. After developing the film most photographers today digitize the film somehow for the next step. The cost of this ain't high, but ain't zero either.
12 weddings. So, in other words, let's say normal people need a year to break even on a digital camera (they use cheaper film, and cheaper bodies, but on the other hand don't take all that many pictures) while professional photographers would brake even in something like a month.
In reality it ain't quite that rosy offcourse -- the pro ain't satisfied with the 200 SLRs, or 800DSLRs, more like quarduple that price for both, which means the break-even point recedes to 3-4 months. That's still very very acceptable.
So what you're saying is that you pay 8*2.50 plus 8*4 plus the work of scanning 100 pictures, plus the buying of the scanner, all this rather than needing to buy a digital camera.
With my math that works out as $52 in operating-costs for this single family-portrait-session. With a digital camera the equivalent cost would be close to zero. Also, this assumes your time is worth nothing, scanning 100 pictures is a bit of work, especially unless you've got a pro scanner that can for example self-feed an entire roll. (but if you've got that, you've invested a lot *more* than a digital camera costs anyway, so then the point is moot)
But even if your time is worth nothing, that's stil $50 saved for *one* day of use. Which means if you actually photographed regularily, a digital body for a few thousand would pay for itself very quickly. $50/day is $1000/workmonth....
Get me rigth -- I ain't saying it doesn't make sense for you -- obviously you're the best judge of that. I'm just saying, the argument that digital is more expensive than film-based in general only holds true for those (relatively few) people who need a good camera, but *do not* use it much. That group ain't huge.
I'm thinking, digital cameras probably have 90%+ market-dominance in all segments except disposables and some niche large-format work. These niches will continue to shrink.
That doesn't work. Because they're talking of the terms for *using* the software, not the terms for *redistributing* the software.
The terms for *using* GPL-software are very simple: You may use GPL-software in any way you want.
You are not even required to accept the GPL if you are only *using* the software.
Doesn't get much simpler than that.
So, no. *using* GPL software has no price. And no conditions whatsoever imposed by the GPL.
It *is* ofcourse subject to the limitations in laws. If you do something with a piece of GPL-software that is illegal in your jurisdiction, you can offcourse be punished for this. But that's not a GPL-issue.
Seriously - it's much easier to wire-up a nation with less square mileage, no? It's a question of logistics.
No. It's not "much easier" to wire-up a nation with less square mileage. What counts is the population density, not the size. If you cut the USA up in 50 pieces (let's call them "states") you'd find that wiring up the pieces is, on the average, exactly as hard as wiring up the entire USA.
Sure, each individual piece is much smaller, but the thing is, each individual piece also has much less users, so the per-household cost ends up being the same.
Aditionally, terrain can make wiring somewhat more expensive. A hundred miles of cable in the mid-west is a lot cheaper than a hundred miles of cable along say the Norwegian coast. (because the latter will constantly need to traverse mountain and cross fjords)
Norway has about 12 people for every square km. USA has about 31 people for every square km. Several of the other countries with higher broadband-penetration also have a lower population-density than the USA.
So you don't get away with that excuse. The reason is political much more than geographical. In many areas in the USA there is no, or very little, real competition on the broadband-market. Mostly due to entrenched monopoly-structures.
I guess that's why it pays to have an actual work-contract. You know, one of those things people make when 2 (or more) parts have made an agreement, and which means neither part can, by his own, change the agreement afterwards.
Even so. They offer you that pay because (atleast they think) you're worth that much to them (or more). So, assuming they're correct, that means in a year from now you'll be worth *more* to them. (if for no other reason that the first months are always ineffective due to retraining-issues, even when you know the languages/tools already)
So, in essence: Sure the boss can offer you less a year from now than your current salary. But there's no reason whatsoever that you need to *accept* such a lousy offer.
That's the dilemma about US "democracy". I put that in quotes because I find it somewhat questionable if a system where one cannot in good conscience vote for the candidate one prefers, and where millions of peoples votes carry no weigth deserves the label.
In your presidential elections, for example. It is (currently!) an absolute definitive given that either the democratic candidate or the republican candidate will win.
If you live in a state where it's "winner takes all" of the electoral-college members, this means that voting for any other candidate than one of these two is, in essence, only increasing the chanse that your least-favourite of the two will win. It actually goes so far that left parties in the US are accused of handling the rigth the victory on a silver platter simply by running a candidate at all !
If you live in a state where it's "winner takes all", and it's very clearly a democratic or a republican state, then, paradoxically, you really can vote for your favourite. But only for the sad reason that it doesn't matter at all. If the Reps get 70% they're gonna be the largest party anyway, so it doesn't matter if you vote democratic, green, liberal or anyting else.
So, in many cases, the system (in the USA) forces voters to in effect answer the question: "which of these two do you dislike the least?" rather than the question one would wish to ask, namely: "What is *your* favourite candidate ?"
It's frankly shocking to someone who is accustomed to, for example, Scandinavian election-law. It's not even close to perfect here either, but atleast it's hugely much more fair. Proposional representation in larger districts ensures that in pretty much all cases you can vote your honest opinion, and have that count.
The end-result, offcourse, is that no single party tends to have a majority. For the simple reason that it's rare that more than half the population supports 1 party (among the 8-10 currently available choises). So mostly our government tends to be a coalition between 2 or even 3 parties, which frankly, I see as an advantage.
Why ? I said *simple* adjustments. I don't know about you, but I'm perfectly capable of say cropping an image using any of literally hundreds of freely available (some as in beer, some as in freedom) applications. The sort of manipulations where you *need* photoshop (as opposed to say Gimp or Krita) would be *completely* out of reach for the film-based amateur anyway.
With a film-camera, each time you release the shutter it costs money. 1/24th or 1/36th of the cost of a roll of film plus development of that film, typically. You can develop the film yourself, which gives you more creative control, but really ain't cheaper, or you can let a lab do that.
The problem ain't that printing 10 pictures from film is expensive, it is that the complete process:
Buy 5 rolls of film.
Take 100 wedding-photos (or whatever)
Get 5 rolls of film developed, optionally with prints.
Look at result, determine good ones.
Do simple manipulations, such as cropping, ligth/contrast adjustments, perhaps blurring off-center stuff in some pictures.
make 10 enlarged prints of the best pictures.
Costs *significantly* more than the equivalent digital process:
Take 100 wedding-photos
Look at result, determine good ones.
Do simple manipulations
make 10 enlarged prints of the best pictures.
The digital process has zero pro-picture cost up until the last step. The analogue process has has probably cost you a hundred bucks extra for this *one* day of photographing before you even *get* to that step.
Additionally, the digital process is simpler to the point where even if you took pictures on film, it'd probably be simplest to scan in the developed film and proceed digitally from there.
Doing manipulations in a lab is time-consuming and costly. There's no "undo" button, if you want blur, you need to put on a filter, make a (small) test-print, develop the test-print, look at the test-print in normal ligth. If not good, then back in the darkroom, do it again. Yes it gets easiers with experience. But no, it never gets comparatively as easy as with a program on a computer, and your creative possibilities are order of magnitudes smaller, even if you're in a lab that costs orders of magnitude more than photoshop costs.
If you're machine-gunning or not depends on the circumstances. If I'm sent out as a photographer to cover some football-match, you can bet your ass I'll be machine-gunning. In all interesting situations the camera will be snapping more or less continously, so yeah, it's perfectly possible I'd take 300 picture, and in the end 2 came in the paper. You don't need to do that for more than a *week* before the DSLR has paid for itself. And covering the football-match ain't a full days work, at most a half.
Oks, so amateurs don't do that equally often. But even they generally take more pictures when they know that they only have to pay for the ones they like.
Correct, but there's a very VERY large advantage in digital information compared to analogue:
Aslong as you copy it before it becomes unreadable, you retain *all* the information perfectly. And it is trivial to make that copy.
Store a lot of 0s and 1s on something. Wait 25 years. Deterioration now means you have a lot of bits in the range 0-0.2 and another bunch of bits in the range 0.8-1. Copy the medium, interpreting anything under 0.5 as 0 and anything above 0.5 as 1, and you've essentially regained the original fidelity.
Copying a stone-inscription is hard work, pretty much equally hard as making the first one. Copying your 5 year old harddisc over on the new one (where it'll occupy 10% of the space) is done in a single hour, despite the harddisc containing millions of times the information.
Sure, lots of information never gets copied and is lost. But even if only 1% of the digital informaiton we have today survive being serially copied for the next hundred years, that's a monumental resource. Especially considering that there's a *ton* of copies of many "important" works. I'm sure there's 10.000 or more independent copies of the current wikipedia on various computers for example. It's rather unlikely that *none* of them will survive the next 100 years.
It does not surprise me in the least that *congress* has forgotten that it's supposed to be working for the good of the people, not for the good of corporations. Any elected body would, as long as the voting public lets them get away with it.
That's what I don't get: Why do you guys *accept* that ? I'm not surprised they try it. I'm surprised they get away with it.
Yeah, I know, part of the problem is your election-law:
Winner takes all.
Electoral colleges.
No sensible rules for campaign-funding.
The problem offcourse is that the ones currently in power have no incentive to change the law to give themselves less power. Thus it ain't happening.
the rest that don't bother to show up are sending the message that they just don't give a flying fuck for the current crop of self-serving assholes that are trying to get themselves elected.
That's not how it works. By not voting, you are in effect supporting the guy you like the *least*.
Imagine there was only 3 candidates, A,B and C. Imagine you like C best, and A the least. Thus, where you to vote, you'd definitely not vote for A.
Now, if you sit at home instead is that the chance that A will actually win grows. Congratulations. You just supported your own worst enemy, thereafter you sit around at home complain about "the current crop" of politicians.
Here's a newsflash:
If you want to protest-vote: vote for anything *not* Republican/Democratic, that atleast sends the message that you want: namely that change is desired.
Offcourse that *also* supports the guy you like least, but that's US democracy for you.
digital SLR wins over film-SLR on price/performance too if you actually *use* the camera and factor in the running-costs. (and if you don't, the point is moot anyway)
Taking a hundred shots and printing the best 10, or worse yet, printing crops from the best 10 requires either serious equipment at home or paying a professional lab to manually develop your film-pictures. This costs $$$.
Selecting the top 10 digital images requires nothing but a computer, which most of us have already anyway. cropping or making other simple modifications also requires nothing more.
Doesn't make much difference. Fact is, the USA *has* signified a treaty that, among other things, guarantees everyone the rigth to at will leave any country, including their own.
It's true the current administration has set a new US-record for ignoring parts of law that doesn't fit their plans, but I think the patience of the American public with these antics has limits. We'll see come election-day...
I know. But the (nominal) democracy forces the leaders to atleast pay lip-service to the idea that they actually intend to follow the agreements that USA voluntarily enters into. I think there's a limit to what the US public will stand for, though I'm amazed that the public has accepted as much as it has already.
Time will tell I guess, but in the end it was (more or less) resentment at home that forced the troops out of Vietnam, I ain't so convinced the same thing couldn't happen in Iraq, or with respect to ridicolous unconstitutional violations of basic rigths under the banner of "figthing terrorism"
Certainly it's not a law. For the fairly simple reason that there *are* no international laws as such, does the term "sovereign" state tell you anything ?
There are treatys, legally binding agreements between states. Those too are only binding for those states that voluntarily enters into them. But here's a newsflash for you: Though th UN declaration on the human rigths itself is not a treaty, there are treaties *based* on them, to which the US is a signatory.
For example, the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" which you guys signed onto in 1992, of which article 12, point 2 says: "Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own." there are exceptions (for example it obviously doesn't apply to prisoners) but the text is still perfectly clear.
Many countries have unilaterally put into their own laws that the UN declaration on human rigths shall be upheld, but not the USA, so you're stuck with the somewhat weakened versions in the treaties. (for example the human rigths say noone shall be refused to enter his own country -- the treaty says noone should "arbitrarily" be refused which creates loopholes)
You're offcourse free to compare yourself to China and Cuba if that's the sort of ambition you have. But really, the USA ain't quite that bad by a large margin.
Ok, I'll bite. In general people outside the USA tends to have a fair bit better idea about what is going on inside than the other way around. I'm fairly typical for my demographic I think (31, computer programmer, norwegian) lets see how I do on your little quiz:-)
How many people do you know have ever been to America, or know any Americans?
Aproximately 75% of the people I know between 25 and 50 in age (which means most my friends) have been in the USA atleast once. Aproximately 90% of the people I know between 15 and 50 in age has atleast one American friend.
Myself I was to the USA twice and to America 4 times. I have half a dozen remote relatives, 2 close relatives and around a dozen people I call friends living scattered over America in atleast a dozen different states. Currently it saddens me that I can't visit -- I just refuse to put up with the bullshit and be treated as a criminal in order to be allowed in. Besides, I do crypto, to be frank I'm not even convinced it's *safe* for me to visit the US.
George Bush does not equal the United States, you know.
True. But he *was* elected. The proportion of the US public supporting his policies is not insignificant. Besides, with the eyes of an European the other camp in your two-party system ain't much better (or all that much different at all really)
and it's not all as bad as people from other countries make it out to be.
It ain't bad at all. In a global perspective the USA is definitely one of the nicer places to live, and one of the ones with most respect for freedom and democracy. That's not the problem. The problem is that you guys are currently slipping very very rapidly in a direction that concerns many of us. I don't think USA is in a bad place currently. But you are definitely heading in a direction I don't like in the least.
"Blatant" election fraud is mostly a conspiracy theory.
Yes. But it's a *fact* that the other guy got more votes in total. (just not in the rigth spots..) It's also a fact that you guys stick with an antiquated "winner takes all" election-system that in practice ensures a two-party-state. It's also a fact that the election was more than questionable. (allthough I agree that it was not obviously "blatant" fraud)
but I will say that about as many people voted against him as for him,
Yeah. So only aproximately half the population supported him. What a pride for the American people !
Regarding poverty, racism, xenophobia, etc. I will be the first to admit that we have problems on all of those fronts. But there was a very famous leader once who said "Let him without fault throw the first stone." I notice you don't say where you're from. Would you be willing to offer your country as an example of the way things should be?
Certainly. I ain't saying it's perfect here (or anywhere) but I am certainly the opinion that the current politics of my country, Norway, are on the balance significantly better than those of the USA. To take your points: We have a *much* smaller gap between rich and poor. Only 2% of children (and falling) grow up in poverty. In the USA the corresponding number is 21% and growing.... racism and xenophobia at home are hard to compare as we have only like 5% immigrants, so it's not really comparable to the US. Our foreign policy is also a lot less braindead.
I'm not saying that I assume the U.S. is better than wherever you are from, because I know there are a lot of countries who handle some or all of the above better then we do, but there are also many that do not.
There'll always be someone who is even worse of. That ain't really much of a comfort though...
I would point out however, that while we do have our share of problems with racism, in most parts of the country people of many different races all live together in the same neighborhoods in relative peace,
This proposal ain't gonna fly. Despite what the slashdot-intro claims this is nothing like needing a passport at all. The fundamental reason is that you need a passport in order to *enter* a country, not to leave it.
Requiring any sort of "approval" for leaving a country (your own or any other) is a blatant violation of the human rights. Article 13 (2) says:
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
That is pretty straigthforward, don't you think ? Notice how it specifically does *not* say that everyone has the right to enter any country, other than the one you're from. In other words, if you're a US citizen you're guaranteed the rigth to leave any country you wish, including USA, but guaranteed only the right to *enter* the USA.
That's perhaps part of it -- but it ain't all of it, and I doubt it's the biggest part.
People also worry more about big-spectacular accidents than they do about mundane ones, despite the fact that the mundane ones kills an injuries an order of magnitude more people.
People worry about Bird-Flu and Mad Cow, not about the flu and diabetes. They worry about planes falling from the sky much more than about being hit by a drunk 19-year old driver.
I think media has much of the blame, and part is human nature. "Another 300 dead from diabetes today" day after day, year after year, aint that much of a newsreport. One big happening produces more sellable news than hundreds of smaller ones. The same is true for the human mind. You *remember* the 1 big disaster, you *forget* the 1000 small disasters (if every you heard about them in the first place.
With uncritical people, this seeps in so deeply that they think this reflects the real risks.
They worry about sexual predators and cases like the one in Austria -- and ignore the fact that atleast 90% of the kids that are molested are molested by someone they know well, parents, aunts, grandparents, neighbours.
They are nervous when flying, but feel perfectly safe while driving.
They worry that their kids hang out with the wrong crowd, but do nothing about the fact that 80% or so of the alcohol that underage people drink come from the parents.
They buy expensive accident-insurance for their children, and somehow manage to "forget" that actually, 80% of the children that die or suffer a permanent disability do so as a result of a disease, and not an accident.
They buy $210 "insurance" for a $800 computer in a country where you've got a 5 year warranty against defects. (other than those resulting from abuse, misuse or normal wear and tear which ain't covered by the "insurance" anyway) These insurances generally pay out about 10% of the premiums (so the real "value" of the insurance is $21) and this is widely publicized, people buy it anyway, because, you gotta have insurance you know....
If it worked, it'd be very useful. However, getting the top 1 tag correct 50% of the time (which is the only quantifiable claim in the article) is pretty straigthforward. For most peoples photo-albums that can be done by the following AI-program: "print 'people'"
There's a few subjects that are so common that it's more or less a given they'll be in a large fraction of the photos. Outputting "people, buildings, nature, animals, plants, city" would probably give atleast 1-2 "correct" tags for 90% of whats in peoples photoalbums.
I had a class on neural networks and their (weak) sort of "ai", one task was to build a program to separate male from female names. The best programs could manage 80% or so, which is sorta decent. Until you realize that checking against static lists of the top 100 male/female names, if it's not in the list guess female if it ends in 'a', otherwise guess randomly will get you aproximately 95%. Furthermore, the latter program runs an order of magnitude faster, is more easily debuggable, can be understood by anyone, and can trivially be "extended" to reach 99% or more, simply by extending the lists of known male/female names.
Slashdot Mirror
That something is "no less unlawful" than something else doesn't mean it's the same. The judge is being inaccurate by using the term "property" and "taking", so what else is new ?
Nevertheless, he also says A is no less unlawful than B, which would make no sense whatsoever if A *WAS* B as you claim.
"Stealing is no less an unlawful activity than stealing" -- silly statement. It makes no sense whatsoever making a statement that compares the unlawfulness of two activities unless the two activities are distinct.
"stealing" has a defined meaning in the english language and one in law. Copying a creative work without the permission of the author fills none of these definitions.
The details in the definition of "stealing" will vary, but they will all involved taking someone elses property without their permission.
You can steal a single copy of a creative work. (such as steal a CD from my house) But you cannot steal the immaterial work itself.
Repeating the stupidity more times doesn't make it any more true.
Somebody *claimed* something ? Oh golly !
Look, anyone can claim anything. I can claim the moon is made out of cheese, doesn't mean astronauts landing there has an actual problem finding rocks.
The claim is absurd. Facts:
Dead simple really. It's impressive that some lawyers and companies have managed to avoid understanding this after *decades*. More likely they *have* understood it, but are making the claim anyway out of desperation.
The distance to geosynchronous orbit is about 36000km, so at that speed you'd need 180 hours, or more than a *week* for each direction of travel.
More likely is an order of magnitude higher speed, which also means an order of magnitude less radiation.
Your life is priceless -- but this doesn't imply that you're not willing to sell some of your time for any price.
$60/hour is ridicolously high for selling time for most people. That corresponds to a yearly wage of over $100.000 (after taxes), which is something like 4 times what the average American *actually* earns.
But you're rigth, phone-calls are pretty darned cheap. I call for about $20/month, which means getting that for free is worth less than 1 hour/month. So, to answer your question, less than 3 minutes/day. So, for me, watching a 30-second comercial and get the phone-call free would be rational, while a 2-minute comercial definitely wouldn't be.
Even more rational though, would be *not* watching the comercial, and still get the phone-call for free. How are they gonna figure out if I actually watch the crap or not ?
lame troll. try harder.
12 weddings. So, in other words, let's say normal people need a year to break even on a digital camera (they use cheaper film, and cheaper bodies, but on the other hand don't take all that many pictures) while professional photographers would brake even in something like a month.
In reality it ain't quite that rosy offcourse -- the pro ain't satisfied with the 200 SLRs, or 800DSLRs, more like quarduple that price for both, which means the break-even point recedes to 3-4 months. That's still very very acceptable.
With my math that works out as $52 in operating-costs for this single family-portrait-session. With a digital camera the equivalent cost would be close to zero. Also, this assumes your time is worth nothing, scanning 100 pictures is a bit of work, especially unless you've got a pro scanner that can for example self-feed an entire roll. (but if you've got that, you've invested a lot *more* than a digital camera costs anyway, so then the point is moot)
But even if your time is worth nothing, that's stil $50 saved for *one* day of use. Which means if you actually photographed regularily, a digital body for a few thousand would pay for itself very quickly. $50/day is $1000/workmonth....
Get me rigth -- I ain't saying it doesn't make sense for you -- obviously you're the best judge of that. I'm just saying, the argument that digital is more expensive than film-based in general only holds true for those (relatively few) people who need a good camera, but *do not* use it much. That group ain't huge.
I'm thinking, digital cameras probably have 90%+ market-dominance in all segments except disposables and some niche large-format work. These niches will continue to shrink.
The terms for *using* GPL-software are very simple: You may use GPL-software in any way you want.
You are not even required to accept the GPL if you are only *using* the software.
Doesn't get much simpler than that.
So, no. *using* GPL software has no price. And no conditions whatsoever imposed by the GPL.
It *is* ofcourse subject to the limitations in laws. If you do something with a piece of GPL-software that is illegal in your jurisdiction, you can offcourse be punished for this. But that's not a GPL-issue.
No. It's not "much easier" to wire-up a nation with less square mileage. What counts is the population density, not the size. If you cut the USA up in 50 pieces (let's call them "states") you'd find that wiring up the pieces is, on the average, exactly as hard as wiring up the entire USA.
Sure, each individual piece is much smaller, but the thing is, each individual piece also has much less users, so the per-household cost ends up being the same.
Aditionally, terrain can make wiring somewhat more expensive. A hundred miles of cable in the mid-west is a lot cheaper than a hundred miles of cable along say the Norwegian coast. (because the latter will constantly need to traverse mountain and cross fjords)
Norway has about 12 people for every square km. USA has about 31 people for every square km. Several of the other countries with higher broadband-penetration also have a lower population-density than the USA.
So you don't get away with that excuse. The reason is political much more than geographical. In many areas in the USA there is no, or very little, real competition on the broadband-market. Mostly due to entrenched monopoly-structures.
Even so. They offer you that pay because (atleast they think) you're worth that much to them (or more). So, assuming they're correct, that means in a year from now you'll be worth *more* to them. (if for no other reason that the first months are always ineffective due to retraining-issues, even when you know the languages/tools already)
So, in essence: Sure the boss can offer you less a year from now than your current salary. But there's no reason whatsoever that you need to *accept* such a lousy offer.
In your presidential elections, for example. It is (currently!) an absolute definitive given that either the democratic candidate or the republican candidate will win.
If you live in a state where it's "winner takes all" of the electoral-college members, this means that voting for any other candidate than one of these two is, in essence, only increasing the chanse that your least-favourite of the two will win. It actually goes so far that left parties in the US are accused of handling the rigth the victory on a silver platter simply by running a candidate at all !
If you live in a state where it's "winner takes all", and it's very clearly a democratic or a republican state, then, paradoxically, you really can vote for your favourite. But only for the sad reason that it doesn't matter at all. If the Reps get 70% they're gonna be the largest party anyway, so it doesn't matter if you vote democratic, green, liberal or anyting else.
So, in many cases, the system (in the USA) forces voters to in effect answer the question: "which of these two do you dislike the least?" rather than the question one would wish to ask, namely: "What is *your* favourite candidate ?"
It's frankly shocking to someone who is accustomed to, for example, Scandinavian election-law. It's not even close to perfect here either, but atleast it's hugely much more fair. Proposional representation in larger districts ensures that in pretty much all cases you can vote your honest opinion, and have that count.
The end-result, offcourse, is that no single party tends to have a majority. For the simple reason that it's rare that more than half the population supports 1 party (among the 8-10 currently available choises). So mostly our government tends to be a coalition between 2 or even 3 parties, which frankly, I see as an advantage.
With a film-camera, each time you release the shutter it costs money. 1/24th or 1/36th of the cost of a roll of film plus development of that film, typically. You can develop the film yourself, which gives you more creative control, but really ain't cheaper, or you can let a lab do that.
The problem ain't that printing 10 pictures from film is expensive, it is that the complete process:
Costs *significantly* more than the equivalent digital process:
The digital process has zero pro-picture cost up until the last step. The analogue process has has probably cost you a hundred bucks extra for this *one* day of photographing before you even *get* to that step.
Additionally, the digital process is simpler to the point where even if you took pictures on film, it'd probably be simplest to scan in the developed film and proceed digitally from there.
Doing manipulations in a lab is time-consuming and costly. There's no "undo" button, if you want blur, you need to put on a filter, make a (small) test-print, develop the test-print, look at the test-print in normal ligth. If not good, then back in the darkroom, do it again. Yes it gets easiers with experience. But no, it never gets comparatively as easy as with a program on a computer, and your creative possibilities are order of magnitudes smaller, even if you're in a lab that costs orders of magnitude more than photoshop costs.
If you're machine-gunning or not depends on the circumstances. If I'm sent out as a photographer to cover some football-match, you can bet your ass I'll be machine-gunning. In all interesting situations the camera will be snapping more or less continously, so yeah, it's perfectly possible I'd take 300 picture, and in the end 2 came in the paper. You don't need to do that for more than a *week* before the DSLR has paid for itself. And covering the football-match ain't a full days work, at most a half.
Oks, so amateurs don't do that equally often. But even they generally take more pictures when they know that they only have to pay for the ones they like.
Aslong as you copy it before it becomes unreadable, you retain *all* the information perfectly. And it is trivial to make that copy.
Store a lot of 0s and 1s on something. Wait 25 years. Deterioration now means you have a lot of bits in the range 0-0.2 and another bunch of bits in the range 0.8-1. Copy the medium, interpreting anything under 0.5 as 0 and anything above 0.5 as 1, and you've essentially regained the original fidelity.
Copying a stone-inscription is hard work, pretty much equally hard as making the first one. Copying your 5 year old harddisc over on the new one (where it'll occupy 10% of the space) is done in a single hour, despite the harddisc containing millions of times the information.
Sure, lots of information never gets copied and is lost. But even if only 1% of the digital informaiton we have today survive being serially copied for the next hundred years, that's a monumental resource. Especially considering that there's a *ton* of copies of many "important" works. I'm sure there's 10.000 or more independent copies of the current wikipedia on various computers for example. It's rather unlikely that *none* of them will survive the next 100 years.
It does not surprise me in the least that *congress* has forgotten that it's supposed to be working for the good of the people, not for the good of corporations. Any elected body would, as long as the voting public lets them get away with it.
That's what I don't get: Why do you guys *accept* that ? I'm not surprised they try it. I'm surprised they get away with it.
Yeah, I know, part of the problem is your election-law:
The problem offcourse is that the ones currently in power have no incentive to change the law to give themselves less power. Thus it ain't happening.
That's not how it works. By not voting, you are in effect supporting the guy you like the *least*.
Imagine there was only 3 candidates, A,B and C. Imagine you like C best, and A the least. Thus, where you to vote, you'd definitely not vote for A.
Now, if you sit at home instead is that the chance that A will actually win grows. Congratulations. You just supported your own worst enemy, thereafter you sit around at home complain about "the current crop" of politicians.
Here's a newsflash:
If you want to protest-vote: vote for anything *not* Republican/Democratic, that atleast sends the message that you want: namely that change is desired.
Offcourse that *also* supports the guy you like least, but that's US democracy for you.
Taking a hundred shots and printing the best 10, or worse yet, printing crops from the best 10 requires either serious equipment at home or paying a professional lab to manually develop your film-pictures. This costs $$$.
Selecting the top 10 digital images requires nothing but a computer, which most of us have already anyway. cropping or making other simple modifications also requires nothing more.
You used to care you know ? About freedom. About liberty. About the law. About corruption. About Democracy. About stuff other than the almigthy buck.
When did you decide to just turn into a big banana-republic, slaves with no rigths and no liberties, to a tiny insanely rich elite ?
It's true the current administration has set a new US-record for ignoring parts of law that doesn't fit their plans, but I think the patience of the American public with these antics has limits. We'll see come election-day...
Time will tell I guess, but in the end it was (more or less) resentment at home that forced the troops out of Vietnam, I ain't so convinced the same thing couldn't happen in Iraq, or with respect to ridicolous unconstitutional violations of basic rigths under the banner of "figthing terrorism"
Certainly it's not a law. For the fairly simple reason that there *are* no international laws as such, does the term "sovereign" state tell you anything ?
There are treatys, legally binding agreements between states. Those too are only binding for those states that voluntarily enters into them. But here's a newsflash for you: Though th UN declaration on the human rigths itself is not a treaty, there are treaties *based* on them, to which the US is a signatory.
For example, the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" which you guys signed onto in 1992, of which article 12, point 2 says: "Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own." there are exceptions (for example it obviously doesn't apply to prisoners) but the text is still perfectly clear.
Many countries have unilaterally put into their own laws that the UN declaration on human rigths shall be upheld, but not the USA, so you're stuck with the somewhat weakened versions in the treaties. (for example the human rigths say noone shall be refused to enter his own country -- the treaty says noone should "arbitrarily" be refused which creates loopholes)
You're offcourse free to compare yourself to China and Cuba if that's the sort of ambition you have. But really, the USA ain't quite that bad by a large margin.
How many people do you know have ever been to America, or know any Americans?
Aproximately 75% of the people I know between 25 and 50 in age (which means most my friends) have been in the USA atleast once. Aproximately 90% of the people I know between 15 and 50 in age has atleast one American friend.
Myself I was to the USA twice and to America 4 times. I have half a dozen remote relatives, 2 close relatives and around a dozen people I call friends living scattered over America in atleast a dozen different states. Currently it saddens me that I can't visit -- I just refuse to put up with the bullshit and be treated as a criminal in order to be allowed in. Besides, I do crypto, to be frank I'm not even convinced it's *safe* for me to visit the US. George Bush does not equal the United States, you know.
True. But he *was* elected. The proportion of the US public supporting his policies is not insignificant. Besides, with the eyes of an European the other camp in your two-party system ain't much better (or all that much different at all really)
and it's not all as bad as people from other countries make it out to be.
It ain't bad at all. In a global perspective the USA is definitely one of the nicer places to live, and one of the ones with most respect for freedom and democracy. That's not the problem. The problem is that you guys are currently slipping very very rapidly in a direction that concerns many of us. I don't think USA is in a bad place currently. But you are definitely heading in a direction I don't like in the least.
"Blatant" election fraud is mostly a conspiracy theory.
Yes. But it's a *fact* that the other guy got more votes in total. (just not in the rigth spots..) It's also a fact that you guys stick with an antiquated "winner takes all" election-system that in practice ensures a two-party-state. It's also a fact that the election was more than questionable. (allthough I agree that it was not obviously "blatant" fraud)
but I will say that about as many people voted against him as for him,
Yeah. So only aproximately half the population supported him. What a pride for the American people !
Regarding poverty, racism, xenophobia, etc. I will be the first to admit that we have problems on all of those fronts. But there was a very famous leader once who said "Let him without fault throw the first stone." I notice you don't say where you're from. Would you be willing to offer your country as an example of the way things should be?
Certainly. I ain't saying it's perfect here (or anywhere) but I am certainly the opinion that the current politics of my country, Norway, are on the balance significantly better than those of the USA. To take your points: We have a *much* smaller gap between rich and poor. Only 2% of children (and falling) grow up in poverty. In the USA the corresponding number is 21% and growing.... racism and xenophobia at home are hard to compare as we have only like 5% immigrants, so it's not really comparable to the US. Our foreign policy is also a lot less braindead.
I'm not saying that I assume the U.S. is better than wherever you are from, because I know there are a lot of countries who handle some or all of the above better then we do, but there are also many that do not.
There'll always be someone who is even worse of. That ain't really much of a comfort though...
I would point out however, that while we do have our share of problems with racism, in most parts of the country people of many different races all live together in the same neighborhoods in relative peace,
Yeah ? That doesn
Requiring any sort of "approval" for leaving a country (your own or any other) is a blatant violation of the human rights. Article 13 (2) says:
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
That is pretty straigthforward, don't you think ? Notice how it specifically does *not* say that everyone has the right to enter any country, other than the one you're from. In other words, if you're a US citizen you're guaranteed the rigth to leave any country you wish, including USA, but guaranteed only the right to *enter* the USA.
People also worry more about big-spectacular accidents than they do about mundane ones, despite the fact that the mundane ones kills an injuries an order of magnitude more people.
People worry about Bird-Flu and Mad Cow, not about the flu and diabetes. They worry about planes falling from the sky much more than about being hit by a drunk 19-year old driver.
I think media has much of the blame, and part is human nature. "Another 300 dead from diabetes today" day after day, year after year, aint that much of a newsreport. One big happening produces more sellable news than hundreds of smaller ones. The same is true for the human mind. You *remember* the 1 big disaster, you *forget* the 1000 small disasters (if every you heard about them in the first place.
With uncritical people, this seeps in so deeply that they think this reflects the real risks.
They worry about sexual predators and cases like the one in Austria -- and ignore the fact that atleast 90% of the kids that are molested are molested by someone they know well, parents, aunts, grandparents, neighbours.
They are nervous when flying, but feel perfectly safe while driving.
They worry that their kids hang out with the wrong crowd, but do nothing about the fact that 80% or so of the alcohol that underage people drink come from the parents.
They buy expensive accident-insurance for their children, and somehow manage to "forget" that actually, 80% of the children that die or suffer a permanent disability do so as a result of a disease, and not an accident.
They buy $210 "insurance" for a $800 computer in a country where you've got a 5 year warranty against defects. (other than those resulting from abuse, misuse or normal wear and tear which ain't covered by the "insurance" anyway) These insurances generally pay out about 10% of the premiums (so the real "value" of the insurance is $21) and this is widely publicized, people buy it anyway, because, you gotta have insurance you know....
There's a few subjects that are so common that it's more or less a given they'll be in a large fraction of the photos. Outputting "people, buildings, nature, animals, plants, city" would probably give atleast 1-2 "correct" tags for 90% of whats in peoples photoalbums.
I had a class on neural networks and their (weak) sort of "ai", one task was to build a program to separate male from female names. The best programs could manage 80% or so, which is sorta decent. Until you realize that checking against static lists of the top 100 male/female names, if it's not in the list guess female if it ends in 'a', otherwise guess randomly will get you aproximately 95%. Furthermore, the latter program runs an order of magnitude faster, is more easily debuggable, can be understood by anyone, and can trivially be "extended" to reach 99% or more, simply by extending the lists of known male/female names.