It's a joke. Fifty percent of all americans would fall below the line, and fifty percent would fall above it. I believe that some President was presented with this statistic (Johnson? Maybe Nixon) and professed shock. Not understanding that in any statistic of that nature, it would always be so.
They already have those. In fact, they've had those for over fifteen years. All you need is a MIDI-enabled pickup that's fast enough to process the input. I saw my first one in 1985. I believe you could stick a microphone into a sax and get MIDI data off it. Polytonal MIDI recognition is only a matter of processing speed.
That's all much simpler than recognizing the word "one" spoken by different voices.
First, you'll get the "shut down the oil industry and our economy goes to pot" argument. Which in the US is particularly funny because we don't grow our own oil. I know this for a fact because during 1990 I photocopied a stack of oil leases twenty-three stories high that were being sold off and shut down, so that we could continue to funnel all our resources into getting it from Kuwait. Whoops!
After that petroleum industry advocates will likely give a long, complex argument to the effect that, while it's agreed that it's a finite resource, they want you to share their Pollyanna optimism that we will always be able to find just that little last bit of petroleum to feed our habit. Often I've seen it expressed like this: "we aren't running out of oil, we're just waiting for the next good way to extract it from the earth." While that may be currently true, it's also true that we use oil for other things than burning (plastics come to mind) and we maybe could make more effective use of the stuff than torching it at twenty or so miles per gallon. Also I hasten to point out that when and if the end of the oil economy does come it will be much uglier if we don't prepare for it than if we do. Can you just imagine the entire city of New York without electricity or transportation?
If everyone had a little algae pond outside their house My problem with that is we'd all have a little mosquito farm in our backyards too . . . I hate mosquitoes.
Well, you're by example living proof of this thesis. If you're not one of the elite, you shouldn't trouble yourself trying to understand those big words. Go away and play with your abacus, you sniveling pathetic non-elitist type, you. I type big scary words in your general direction.
I'd have to say this is something other than science. You're appealing to special circumstances, but ignoring one simple fact: if none of these conditions were met, the Universe as a whole would be essentially unchanged, and the only difference would be the abscence of US. In which case we would not be here to argue about it.
But wait, you're ignoring two simple facts: the other explanation for this amazing set of coincidences is that we have evolved within the conditions you describe and are therefore perfectly comfortable.
Who says that life must have liquid water?
Who says that life must have 70% nitrogen?
Who says that planets must have perfectly circular orbits?
Who says that cosmic rays are bad for life? They're bad for us. But that's just us.
What characteristics of water are essential for life?
How is the thickness of the crust designed? How do you know what it would be like if it were thinner, or thicker?
You have no other examples of life, intelligent or otherwise, to display. So none of what you say means much to me. There are billions of other star systems, around which there may be billions of other planets. Your string of amazing coincidences is an appeal to a very small sample. We do not know what conditions are like in most of the rest of the universe. More specifically, YOU do not know. I am certainly not going to listen to your opinion on a matter of which you have displayed such profound ignorance.
Your argument is that of a four-year-old child who cannot see past the end of his own nose. Because I have a four-year-old I am familiar with the condition and imagine that someday you'll mature enough to realize that there is more to the universe than you are prepared to understand. I don't particularly care if you do, of course. Evolution will take care of those who cannot adapt to reality.
If you mean the scientific underpinnings of how nuclear weapons work, there are no secrets in that regard. The physics of fission and fusion are taught in introductory courses to high-school and college students. When they were described by Einstein they were only secret because only a handful of his peers had done the necessary background to understand what he was talking about, not to mention that the Russians and Germans vehemently denied, for political reasons, that anything he said was true.
For that matter, there's a very detailed description of how to build a fusion bomb that was published in one of Tom Clancy's novels (I think it was called "An Ominous-Sounding Title" but I'm not sure). At any rate, only the technological implementation of nuclear fusion or fission can be considered a secret. As if it matters; our current stockpile of missiles is still fully capable of wiping humanity from the face of the earth. What difference is one or two more going to make, honestly?
Real science, much to the horror of the Intellectual Property Industry, operates best in an environment where ideas are openly shared and there is no excuse for censorship. It breaks down when researchers refuse to communiate with each other or are prohibited from bouncing their ideas off one another. The best ideas in science were given to humanity for free; Relativity, Evolution, the double helix, etcetera. No one asks for a royalty payment when you work E=mc2. It will be interesting to see if the land-rush to legislate IP in the new millenium doesn't end up killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Hay, Eye think that making peephole with pore grammar skills and spelling suffer is a great eye dear. It did be "the internet spell checker" and wood force peephole two learn the language that they are attempting two communicate in. Eye fore won think that wood be a God Thing(TM). Grammar not see will back me up on this. Have you ever tried two reed sum internet sites, like sum of slashdot's poster's posts or things like www.techcomedy.com? It's amazing that sum peephole are qualified as literate. I just no this post will be ripped apart bye peephole fore spelling and grammar, heh.
I compose and perform my own music. Almost anyone can sing better than James. He's a vocalist, not a singer. The distinction is that he would almost certainly be out of his league if called upon to sing anything but his own material. I can certainly play more complex stuff than Jason Newsted. If you spend a lotta time in alt.guitar ask someone if they could transcribe something like "La Villa Strangiato." Yes's "Close to the Edge." I can pretty much play the entire Rush catalog up to Power Windows (after that I got interested in other things). For that matter, pick up the latest Tool album. I can do that, too. I can also play an upright bass, jazz, have performed in a classical orchestra, and play fretless. I've arranged Bach pieces, by ear, for the bass guitar. I know about how difficult Metallica is to play, and it just isn't.
I'm not a natural guitarist but I do my own parts and I'm not impressed with Hammett's playing. It's nothing special. A million guys can do what he does. Playing fast is different than playing well. If _you've_ ever played a lick on a guitar you ought to know that. Guitar players who impress me: Steve Howe. Adrian Belew. Guitar players who do not: Kirk Hammett. Yngwie (or however the fuck you spell it). There's a difference between technical proficency and actual musicianship.
And as a bass player I pay special attention to the drums and though I don't play them myself I would be appalled to have to play in an ensemble with Lars. He sounds like he's making it up as he goes along and frequently cannot find the downbeat. I'd smack him over the head with my bass if I had to put up with that in a performance.
Finally, their writing is trash. Their lyrics are all slightly hilarious but meaningless gobbledeygook, and their musical arrangements are not much better than what I did in high school. Mind you, if over their two decades as professionals they had advanced in their art one whisker it would be different, but a Metallica song I hear today is just not much different than the stuff they were churning out in 1985. Cliff Burton was probably the creative genius behind their original sound and when he died he took it with him. The other guys don't have it.
No that doesn't have anything to do with their stance on Napster. My point is that they weren't worth very much artistically to begin with except for their "message." Their early albums were bootlegged from here to breakfast and their attraction was that they so thoroughly rejected everything the established scene stood for. I respected them for that though I thought their music was repetitive and not terribly interesting to begin with. Napster is simply the online appearance of the bootleg scene. Shutting down Napster would not make it go away, and any fool ought to realize that. That Lars does not understand this or does not care just makes me sad. That he's insulated himself from that entire scene and can't get a perspective away from being a millionaire rock star is clear.
The point is, right now corporations decide what is good for us, and it should be we deciding what is good for us. Kaa brings Nazis into it to poison the well, and makes a non-sequitur in the process. The argument he makes is fallacious.
Those that do get smacked down, usually hard. Look at Firestone.
Not nearly enough, in my opinion. For example, take my HMO. Please. They've already taken so much from me.
And is political corruption the result of there being corporations around?
What does this matter? It's being done and needs to be stopped. Is that just what corporations ought to be allowed to do?
That's government regulation, not evil corporations trying to take away your freedom. Try to become informed on this one. Micro radio stations have been trying to get these regulations rolled back for years, but the enormous power of lobbying media conglomerates is doing a fantastic job of keeping them shut down. It's large corporations using the government to keep up their bottom line. Follow this http://www.freedomforum.org/speech/1999/1/29pirate radio.asp to read just a little bit about the opinions broadcasters have about their competition.
So? Internet is a Good Thing. What's your point?
My point, if you read to the bottom of the paragraph, is that we're seeing the corporate Hydras raise their ugly heads once again as they attempt to control something they do not own and have no right to control. The DeCSS case is by far the most frightening manifestation of this because it has touched First Amendment issues as well as a long-standing "right" to do with as you please with the property you've bought. Corporations are buying legistlation that allows them to change the laws to improve their profits. It's a problem.
(1) Hitler forced corporations to work not for profit alone, but rather for "national good".
(2) Katz and others would like corporations to care less about profits and more about "national/general/community good".
(3) Katz and others are not Nazis. However they should think about why Nazis wanted the same thing they want. Hint: it has to do with government power and who defines what the national good is.
I wasn't, in my original dissection, even interested in why you wanted to compare Katz to Nazis. I just was pointing out the non sequitur you committed in assigning the failure of the German economy to the principle of "common good." In your new syllogism, your conclusion is so poorly stated that I don't know what to tell you.
In a dictatorship, the national good is decided by a dictator. In a monarchy, by the monarch. In a plutarchy, by . . . you get the idea.
In a democracy, the national good is decided by a majority. In a republic such as ours, certain aspects of what's "good" are not up for review by the voters. These include rights to free speech, etc. A US corporation is, by legal definition, a person. There are good reasons why that should not be. But even if they are allowed that definition, the whole point of this, which you are missing, is that if individual people behaved as corporations do, and ignored every custom of civilized behavior, law, and the rights of their neighbors, they would find themselves jailed and/or ostracized from their communities. If I as a person stood out on the street shouting my opinions and not only refused to quit shouting them but in fact actively attacked others who shouted their own opinions, the neighborhood would come after me with clubs. That's what media conglomerates do. If I ignored the somewhat bothersome waste disposal facilities of my neighborhood and instead just started dumping my trash in my neighbor's yard, he would have every right to file a lawsuit against me. But in the corporate-dominated world you simply can't win. A single person, or a group of people, or even a whole city full of people, just do not have the resources to stand and fight against a corporation. When they enlist the help of their government, someone then screams that regulation will kill the business. It's suddenly the "stockholder" interest that's mysteriously at stake. Suddenly, a corporation's "rights" to make a profit are more important than the rights of the community that makes the corporation's existence possible.
A corporation may exist only to further its bottom line. But we the community they live in are not obligated to bend our lives around them to make that happen. Coroporations take a risk when they are formed, and shareholders share that risk, as well as the rewards. I see many other posts on here trying to appeal to somebody's grandmother's mutual fund as a reason not to come after irresponsible corporations. That's the risk you take when you gamble, which is all that playing the stock market is. If you aren't willing to take the risk you shouldn't play the game. In Corporate America, however, that's unacceptable. Anything that stands in the way of profits, or even slightly inconveniences them, is fair game. Either the civil suits will bury you or the bought laws will harass you into nonexistence.
It's not that. You apparently didn't read the story. It's because he has what looks like very convincing evidence that Google is now showing a preference for Yahoo-preferred advertising sites rather than most-frequently-visited sites as before. This is a case of diluting the net's real content in favor of marketing. Yahoo should be spanked. Google should be spanked. But not by some official action. People should just start using real high-quality search engines rather than artificial preference filters that you get with Yahoo.
I didn't see any flakiness in his numbers at all. He knows what real researchers use. He knows that google used to reflect that, and thus was a good resource to give to real researchers. Now, instead, google is reflecting what marketdroids at Yahoo want it to. That's bad for real researchers who now can't get things done.
corporation's executives have a legal obligation to produce as much profit for the shareholders as they can. The point of a business is to make money, not random acts of kindness.
Yes, but the problem is they're doing so at the expense of the safety, well-being, and frequently the civil rights of their employees and customers. Corporations have other legal obligations as well, which they just ignore as is convenient for them -- whenever they can buy off a senator or congressman, or judge.
Campaign contribution limits are frequently challenged as an assault on "free speech." Which is always interesting. Because if I had the kind of "speech" that a company the size of Coca-Cola or Universal or Sony could throw around, I bet I could get a congressman to pass a law for me, too. I always imagined that people (even corporations, who are legally people) should have just one vote. But political corruption allows these people to have far more influence than a mere vote.
What's wrong with seeking mass appeal? Wouldn't you rather make something that more people like as opposed to less?
What's wrong with it is that they are simultaneously strangling every other means of artistic output to crush the competition. For example, you can only have an FCC license to broadcast radio signals if you ante up the dough. Broadcasting on an unused band is enough to bring the radio gestapo down on you, even though the public owns those airwaves. So only huge corporations can own radio stations and broadcast on them, and laws prohibiting monopolies on broadcasting were recently dumbed-down to make it easier. Britney Spears and the legions of boy-bands that dominate the airwaves today only do so because of mass-marketing campaingns. Artists or musicians or even people with alternate news have no outlet unless they gain the favor of one of these mega-corps. Witness how many alternative news sites exist on the internet today (for example, there's this one that just does news for computer-related people with a strong bias towards Linux). Or how many unsigned bands (like the guy with the DeCSS song, for example) have posted their stuff to the internet. Where would they be nationally visible if it weren't for the internet? Nowhere. And there is already a strong movement by corporations to stifle competition on the internet too, by taking over the DNS namespace, and / or just suing into oblivion anyone who posts competing points of view in the "public" arena that these companies seem to think they own.
By the way, in Nazi Germany the corporations didn't work for profit alone, but rather did what had to be done for the strength of the community. I heard it didn't work out well in the end.
This is an interesting argument.
1. Corporations in Nazi Germany didn't work for profit alone.
2. Nazi Germany was defeated in World War II
3. Therefore corporations that don't work for profit alone fail.
That one speaks for itself. But I might point out that Nazi Germany was under some duress from competing nations with planes, bombs, tanks, and soldiers, and that Herr Fuerer had mental problems. But those might have just contributed in a very minor fashion to the fall of Nazi Germany.
Corporations also have a thing called a charter. It's their legal right to exist. In the past, citizens who felt that a corporation's activites were too destructive could petition to have that charter revoked. This power still exists today. But our government won't use this because of the kickba^H^H^H^H^H^Hcampaign contributions they're getting.
Corporations may have a purpose -- to enrich their shareholders. But they are also responsible and must obey the law like any other citizen. When they don't, our current system fails to punish them in any measurable fashion.
You can turn it off. In 5.5 (which is buggy crap and they should have stayed where they were, IMHO) you go to Tools | Options | Advanced and uncheck the Automatically Check for Internet Explorer Updates . . . etcetera etcetera. Earlier versions are similar -- they haven't rearranged the menu system that much in the last couple of releases.
BTW, that's the first time I think I've ever heard anyone accuse a Sam Raimi (sp?) film of making something as important as a "statement." The Evil Dead movies are b-grade classics. Raimi is a master of the deed (and the cheese). And he seems to go out of his way to avoid making serious "statements."
And in a bit of self-contradicting irony of my own, I have that film and the original Evil Dead on DVD.
It would be nice, supposing the forces of good win, once DeCSS is made legal again, to not only cut off the head of this particular hydra but cauterize the source as well. If only someone had the money to go after the MPAA and void their charter to exist . . .
Would that mean you'd have to separate them at birth and hide them from the Dark Jedi . ..no wait, would it mean that you had one public "child" and one nonrecoverable "private" child . . . no wait that doesn't work either. It sounds fucked to me.
"isn't the Biblical account of creation uniquely rational and uniquely similar to present-day scientific theory on how and when things came to be?"
No. Genesis postulates either a universe aged six thousand years (based on measurable factors contained in the text of the bible) or an unknown number of years based on something that cannot be measured. The other (science) postulates approximately 8 to 12 billion years, adjustable based on a number of measurable factors which are allowed to change as new evidence appears. Gensis postulates an invisible being caused it all to be. Science does not postulate the first cause - yet. Do not mistake science for another religion, or mythology. It's very trendy to do so, but it's simply wrong.
The basic difference is that any religion seeks to answer questions with an ultimate or absolute explanation. For Christianity, God becomes the answer to every question for which there is not already an answer. Science does not work that way. Your answer today that is "correct" may be invalidated tomorrow because new evidence comes in. You have to be prepared for that and not fall too much in love with your ideas. In science, being wrong is not wrong. It's good, because it's one more wrong answer we can discard. What religion accepts that one of its axioms being wrong is a necessary postulate to getting to being right?
It's not a belief system, it's a means of evaluating the data of the universe. The difference is the approach and if there's one thing the last 500 years of science have proven it's that the scientific approach of learning about the universe is a runaway success. Never before in recorded history has so much advance in our knowledge about what we are and how things work been accomplished in such a short time, and with such measurable results. Every major aspect of 20th century life has been impacted by it. We can go places and do things and predict events in a way that was just not possible without the scientific knowledge we've gained. It's not a "competing point of view." It's reality. It's measurable.
Most people (Ok, most "end users") seem to think that the computer is magic. I've discussed this with many I work with. The computer seems to have a personality, to actively work against them. My favorite quote is someone trying to do something on their PC (print, open a file, whatever) and they say "It won't let me do it."
I always picture powerful mechanical arms emerging from the case, holding their hands down, preventing them from operating their computer. The fact is computers only do what we tell them to do, there isn't anything mysterious about them. They are just the most fantastically complex machines ever devised and there are millions of moving parts that we cannot see. People who have extraordinary memory abilities, or extraordinary deductive abilities, or both, can be computer hackers, techs or programmers, or "super-users." But if you can't remember long sequences of events, or deduce your way through them, you probably have to imagine that the computer either has a devious personality or is magic.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a joke. Fifty percent of all americans would fall below the line, and fifty percent would fall above it. I believe that some President was presented with this statistic (Johnson? Maybe Nixon) and professed shock. Not understanding that in any statistic of that nature, it would always be so.
They already have those. In fact, they've had those for over fifteen years. All you need is a MIDI-enabled pickup that's fast enough to process the input. I saw my first one in 1985. I believe you could stick a microphone into a sax and get MIDI data off it. Polytonal MIDI recognition is only a matter of processing speed.
That's all much simpler than recognizing the word "one" spoken by different voices.
First, you'll get the "shut down the oil industry and our economy goes to pot" argument. Which in the US is particularly funny because we don't grow our own oil. I know this for a fact because during 1990 I photocopied a stack of oil leases twenty-three stories high that were being sold off and shut down, so that we could continue to funnel all our resources into getting it from Kuwait. Whoops!
After that petroleum industry advocates will likely give a long, complex argument to the effect that, while it's agreed that it's a finite resource, they want you to share their Pollyanna optimism that we will always be able to find just that little last bit of petroleum to feed our habit. Often I've seen it expressed like this: "we aren't running out of oil, we're just waiting for the next good way to extract it from the earth." While that may be currently true, it's also true that we use oil for other things than burning (plastics come to mind) and we maybe could make more effective use of the stuff than torching it at twenty or so miles per gallon. Also I hasten to point out that when and if the end of the oil economy does come it will be much uglier if we don't prepare for it than if we do. Can you just imagine the entire city of New York without electricity or transportation?
If everyone had a little algae pond outside their house
My problem with that is we'd all have a little mosquito farm in our backyards too . . . I hate mosquitoes.
I'm getting virtually nothing done here at work while I read slashdot. I think that counts too.
Well, you're by example living proof of this thesis. If you're not one of the elite, you shouldn't trouble yourself trying to understand those big words. Go away and play with your abacus, you sniveling pathetic non-elitist type, you. I type big scary words in your general direction.
I'd have to say this is something other than science. You're appealing to special circumstances, but ignoring one simple fact: if none of these conditions were met, the Universe as a whole would be essentially unchanged, and the only difference would be the abscence of US. In which case we would not be here to argue about it.
But wait, you're ignoring two simple facts: the other explanation for this amazing set of coincidences is that we have evolved within the conditions you describe and are therefore perfectly comfortable.
Who says that life must have liquid water?
Who says that life must have 70% nitrogen?
Who says that planets must have perfectly circular orbits?
Who says that cosmic rays are bad for life? They're bad for us. But that's just us.
What characteristics of water are essential for life?
How is the thickness of the crust designed? How do you know what it would be like if it were thinner, or thicker?
You have no other examples of life, intelligent or otherwise, to display. So none of what you say means much to me. There are billions of other star systems, around which there may be billions of other planets. Your string of amazing coincidences is an appeal to a very small sample. We do not know what conditions are like in most of the rest of the universe. More specifically, YOU do not know. I am certainly not going to listen to your opinion on a matter of which you have displayed such profound ignorance.
Your argument is that of a four-year-old child who cannot see past the end of his own nose. Because I have a four-year-old I am familiar with the condition and imagine that someday you'll mature enough to realize that there is more to the universe than you are prepared to understand. I don't particularly care if you do, of course. Evolution will take care of those who cannot adapt to reality.
Did you know that FIFTY PERCENT of all Americans are of BELOW AVERAGE intelligence? What a national tragedy!
If you mean the scientific underpinnings of how nuclear weapons work, there are no secrets in that regard. The physics of fission and fusion are taught in introductory courses to high-school and college students. When they were described by Einstein they were only secret because only a handful of his peers had done the necessary background to understand what he was talking about, not to mention that the Russians and Germans vehemently denied, for political reasons, that anything he said was true.
For that matter, there's a very detailed description of how to build a fusion bomb that was published in one of Tom Clancy's novels (I think it was called "An Ominous-Sounding Title" but I'm not sure). At any rate, only the technological implementation of nuclear fusion or fission can be considered a secret. As if it matters; our current stockpile of missiles is still fully capable of wiping humanity from the face of the earth. What difference is one or two more going to make, honestly?
Real science, much to the horror of the Intellectual Property Industry, operates best in an environment where ideas are openly shared and there is no excuse for censorship. It breaks down when researchers refuse to communiate with each other or are prohibited from bouncing their ideas off one another. The best ideas in science were given to humanity for free; Relativity, Evolution, the double helix, etcetera. No one asks for a royalty payment when you work E=mc2. It will be interesting to see if the land-rush to legislate IP in the new millenium doesn't end up killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
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Thank you.
I compose and perform my own music. Almost anyone can sing better than James. He's a vocalist, not a singer. The distinction is that he would almost certainly be out of his league if called upon to sing anything but his own material. I can certainly play more complex stuff than Jason Newsted. If you spend a lotta time in alt.guitar ask someone if they could transcribe something like "La Villa Strangiato." Yes's "Close to the Edge." I can pretty much play the entire Rush catalog up to Power Windows (after that I got interested in other things). For that matter, pick up the latest Tool album. I can do that, too. I can also play an upright bass, jazz, have performed in a classical orchestra, and play fretless. I've arranged Bach pieces, by ear, for the bass guitar. I know about how difficult Metallica is to play, and it just isn't.
I'm not a natural guitarist but I do my own parts and I'm not impressed with Hammett's playing. It's nothing special. A million guys can do what he does. Playing fast is different than playing well. If _you've_ ever played a lick on a guitar you ought to know that. Guitar players who impress me: Steve Howe. Adrian Belew. Guitar players who do not: Kirk Hammett. Yngwie (or however the fuck you spell it). There's a difference between technical proficency and actual musicianship.
And as a bass player I pay special attention to the drums and though I don't play them myself I would be appalled to have to play in an ensemble with Lars. He sounds like he's making it up as he goes along and frequently cannot find the downbeat. I'd smack him over the head with my bass if I had to put up with that in a performance.
Finally, their writing is trash. Their lyrics are all slightly hilarious but meaningless gobbledeygook, and their musical arrangements are not much better than what I did in high school. Mind you, if over their two decades as professionals they had advanced in their art one whisker it would be different, but a Metallica song I hear today is just not much different than the stuff they were churning out in 1985. Cliff Burton was probably the creative genius behind their original sound and when he died he took it with him. The other guys don't have it.
No that doesn't have anything to do with their stance on Napster. My point is that they weren't worth very much artistically to begin with except for their "message." Their early albums were bootlegged from here to breakfast and their attraction was that they so thoroughly rejected everything the established scene stood for. I respected them for that though I thought their music was repetitive and not terribly interesting to begin with. Napster is simply the online appearance of the bootleg scene. Shutting down Napster would not make it go away, and any fool ought to realize that. That Lars does not understand this or does not care just makes me sad. That he's insulated himself from that entire scene and can't get a perspective away from being a millionaire rock star is clear.
The point is, right now corporations decide what is good for us, and it should be we deciding what is good for us. Kaa brings Nazis into it to poison the well, and makes a non-sequitur in the process. The argument he makes is fallacious.
Those that do get smacked down, usually hard. Look at Firestone.
e radio.asp to read just a little bit about the opinions broadcasters have about their competition.
Not nearly enough, in my opinion. For example, take my HMO. Please. They've already taken so much from me.
And is political corruption the result of there being corporations around?
What does this matter? It's being done and needs to be stopped. Is that just what corporations ought to be allowed to do?
That's government regulation, not evil corporations trying to take away your freedom.
Try to become informed on this one. Micro radio stations have been trying to get these regulations rolled back for years, but the enormous power of lobbying media conglomerates is doing a fantastic job of keeping them shut down. It's large corporations using the government to keep up their bottom line. Follow this http://www.freedomforum.org/speech/1999/1/29pirat
So? Internet is a Good Thing. What's your point?
My point, if you read to the bottom of the paragraph, is that we're seeing the corporate Hydras raise their ugly heads once again as they attempt to control something they do not own and have no right to control. The DeCSS case is by far the most frightening manifestation of this because it has touched First Amendment issues as well as a long-standing "right" to do with as you please with the property you've bought. Corporations are buying legistlation that allows them to change the laws to improve their profits. It's a problem.
(1) Hitler forced corporations to work not for profit alone, but rather for "national good".
(2) Katz and others would like corporations to care less about profits and more about "national/general/community good".
(3) Katz and others are not Nazis. However they should think about why Nazis wanted the same thing they want. Hint: it has to do with government power and who defines what the national good is.
I wasn't, in my original dissection, even interested in why you wanted to compare Katz to Nazis. I just was pointing out the non sequitur you committed in assigning the failure of the German economy to the principle of "common good." In your new syllogism, your conclusion is so poorly stated that I don't know what to tell you.
In a dictatorship, the national good is decided by a dictator. In a monarchy, by the monarch. In a plutarchy, by . . . you get the idea.
In a democracy, the national good is decided by a majority. In a republic such as ours, certain aspects of what's "good" are not up for review by the voters. These include rights to free speech, etc. A US corporation is, by legal definition, a person. There are good reasons why that should not be. But even if they are allowed that definition, the whole point of this, which you are missing, is that if individual people behaved as corporations do, and ignored every custom of civilized behavior, law, and the rights of their neighbors, they would find themselves jailed and/or ostracized from their communities. If I as a person stood out on the street shouting my opinions and not only refused to quit shouting them but in fact actively attacked others who shouted their own opinions, the neighborhood would come after me with clubs. That's what media conglomerates do. If I ignored the somewhat bothersome waste disposal facilities of my neighborhood and instead just started dumping my trash in my neighbor's yard, he would have every right to file a lawsuit against me. But in the corporate-dominated world you simply can't win. A single person, or a group of people, or even a whole city full of people, just do not have the resources to stand and fight against a corporation. When they enlist the help of their government, someone then screams that regulation will kill the business. It's suddenly the "stockholder" interest that's mysteriously at stake. Suddenly, a corporation's "rights" to make a profit are more important than the rights of the community that makes the corporation's existence possible.
A corporation may exist only to further its bottom line. But we the community they live in are not obligated to bend our lives around them to make that happen. Coroporations take a risk when they are formed, and shareholders share that risk, as well as the rewards. I see many other posts on here trying to appeal to somebody's grandmother's mutual fund as a reason not to come after irresponsible corporations. That's the risk you take when you gamble, which is all that playing the stock market is. If you aren't willing to take the risk you shouldn't play the game. In Corporate America, however, that's unacceptable. Anything that stands in the way of profits, or even slightly inconveniences them, is fair game. Either the civil suits will bury you or the bought laws will harass you into nonexistence.
It's not that. You apparently didn't read the story. It's because he has what looks like very convincing evidence that Google is now showing a preference for Yahoo-preferred advertising sites rather than most-frequently-visited sites as before. This is a case of diluting the net's real content in favor of marketing. Yahoo should be spanked. Google should be spanked. But not by some official action. People should just start using real high-quality search engines rather than artificial preference filters that you get with Yahoo.
I didn't see any flakiness in his numbers at all. He knows what real researchers use. He knows that google used to reflect that, and thus was a good resource to give to real researchers. Now, instead, google is reflecting what marketdroids at Yahoo want it to. That's bad for real researchers who now can't get things done.
corporation's executives have a legal obligation to produce as much profit for the shareholders as they can. The point of a business is to make money, not random acts of kindness.
Yes, but the problem is they're doing so at the expense of the safety, well-being, and frequently the civil rights of their employees and customers. Corporations have other legal obligations as well, which they just ignore as is convenient for them -- whenever they can buy off a senator or congressman, or judge.
Campaign contribution limits are frequently challenged as an assault on "free speech." Which is always interesting. Because if I had the kind of "speech" that a company the size of Coca-Cola or Universal or Sony could throw around, I bet I could get a congressman to pass a law for me, too. I always imagined that people (even corporations, who are legally people) should have just one vote. But political corruption allows these people to have far more influence than a mere vote.
What's wrong with seeking mass appeal? Wouldn't you rather make something that more people like as opposed to less?
What's wrong with it is that they are simultaneously strangling every other means of artistic output to crush the competition. For example, you can only have an FCC license to broadcast radio signals if you ante up the dough. Broadcasting on an unused band is enough to bring the radio gestapo down on you, even though the public owns those airwaves. So only huge corporations can own radio stations and broadcast on them, and laws prohibiting monopolies on broadcasting were recently dumbed-down to make it easier. Britney Spears and the legions of boy-bands that dominate the airwaves today only do so because of mass-marketing campaingns. Artists or musicians or even people with alternate news have no outlet unless they gain the favor of one of these mega-corps. Witness how many alternative news sites exist on the internet today (for example, there's this one that just does news for computer-related people with a strong bias towards Linux). Or how many unsigned bands (like the guy with the DeCSS song, for example) have posted their stuff to the internet. Where would they be nationally visible if it weren't for the internet? Nowhere. And there is already a strong movement by corporations to stifle competition on the internet too, by taking over the DNS namespace, and / or just suing into oblivion anyone who posts competing points of view in the "public" arena that these companies seem to think they own.
By the way, in Nazi Germany the corporations didn't work for profit alone, but rather did what had to be done for the strength of the community. I heard it didn't work out well in the end.
This is an interesting argument.
1. Corporations in Nazi Germany didn't work for profit alone.
2. Nazi Germany was defeated in World War II
3. Therefore corporations that don't work for profit alone fail.
That one speaks for itself. But I might point out that Nazi Germany was under some duress from competing nations with planes, bombs, tanks, and soldiers, and that Herr Fuerer had mental problems. But those might have just contributed in a very minor fashion to the fall of Nazi Germany.
Corporations also have a thing called a charter. It's their legal right to exist. In the past, citizens who felt that a corporation's activites were too destructive could petition to have that charter revoked. This power still exists today. But our government won't use this because of the kickba^H^H^H^H^H^Hcampaign contributions they're getting.
Corporations may have a purpose -- to enrich their shareholders. But they are also responsible and must obey the law like any other citizen. When they don't, our current system fails to punish them in any measurable fashion.
You can turn it off. In 5.5 (which is buggy crap and they should have stayed where they were, IMHO) you go to Tools | Options | Advanced and uncheck the Automatically Check for Internet Explorer Updates . . . etcetera etcetera. Earlier versions are similar -- they haven't rearranged the menu system that much in the last couple of releases.
BTW, that's the first time I think I've ever heard anyone accuse a Sam Raimi (sp?) film of making something as important as a "statement." The Evil Dead movies are b-grade classics. Raimi is a master of the deed (and the cheese). And he seems to go out of his way to avoid making serious "statements."
And in a bit of self-contradicting irony of my own, I have that film and the original Evil Dead on DVD.
It was funny. That's all. No offense intended.
It would be nice, supposing the forces of good win, once DeCSS is made legal again, to not only cut off the head of this particular hydra but cauterize the source as well. If only someone had the money to go after the MPAA and void their charter to exist . . .
Would that mean you'd have to separate them at birth and hide them from the Dark Jedi . . .no wait, would it mean that you had one public "child" and one nonrecoverable "private" child . . . no wait that doesn't work either. It sounds fucked to me.
comment >>"But ignoring a ruling and deciding something is legal because you believe it won't fly."
.sig is apparently having a conflict of interest with your post.
.sig >>"Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun" -Ash
Your
"isn't the Biblical account of creation uniquely rational and uniquely similar to present-day scientific theory on how and when things came to be?"
No. Genesis postulates either a universe aged six thousand years (based on measurable factors contained in the text of the bible) or an unknown number of years based on something that cannot be measured. The other (science) postulates approximately 8 to 12 billion years, adjustable based on a number of measurable factors which are allowed to change as new evidence appears. Gensis postulates an invisible being caused it all to be. Science does not postulate the first cause - yet. Do not mistake science for another religion, or mythology. It's very trendy to do so, but it's simply wrong.
The basic difference is that any religion seeks to answer questions with an ultimate or absolute explanation. For Christianity, God becomes the answer to every question for which there is not already an answer. Science does not work that way. Your answer today that is "correct" may be invalidated tomorrow because new evidence comes in. You have to be prepared for that and not fall too much in love with your ideas. In science, being wrong is not wrong. It's good, because it's one more wrong answer we can discard. What religion accepts that one of its axioms being wrong is a necessary postulate to getting to being right?
It's not a belief system, it's a means of evaluating the data of the universe. The difference is the approach and if there's one thing the last 500 years of science have proven it's that the scientific approach of learning about the universe is a runaway success. Never before in recorded history has so much advance in our knowledge about what we are and how things work been accomplished in such a short time, and with such measurable results. Every major aspect of 20th century life has been impacted by it. We can go places and do things and predict events in a way that was just not possible without the scientific knowledge we've gained. It's not a "competing point of view." It's reality. It's measurable.
Most people (Ok, most "end users") seem to think that the computer is magic. I've discussed this with many I work with. The computer seems to have a personality, to actively work against them. My favorite quote is someone trying to do something on their PC (print, open a file, whatever) and they say "It won't let me do it."
I always picture powerful mechanical arms emerging from the case, holding their hands down, preventing them from operating their computer. The fact is computers only do what we tell them to do, there isn't anything mysterious about them. They are just the most fantastically complex machines ever devised and there are millions of moving parts that we cannot see. People who have extraordinary memory abilities, or extraordinary deductive abilities, or both, can be computer hackers, techs or programmers, or "super-users." But if you can't remember long sequences of events, or deduce your way through them, you probably have to imagine that the computer either has a devious personality or is magic.