Pain receptors are on membranes, so that's consistant with anhydrous alcohol dehydrating the top layer more powerfully. Your sensation of pain doesn't necessarily mean it's damaging the tissue, just activating the receptors on the surface.
Also, 70% alcohols are still dehydrating enough to kill bacteria. We use 50% isopropanol in the lab to precipitate DNA. The alcohol literally strips the solvating water molecules away from the DNA, causing them to aggregate and precipitate. I'd say that would be pretty antibiotic.
Or why not just buy your own keyboard and never clean it? You're not going to pick up contagious diseases from yourself. Besides, a pristine environment is good for your immune system.
Do you remember when Ext4 came out? A bunch of people had data loss after system crashes. It was explained that this was intentional behavior, as specified by the POSIX standard, and the safer behavior of Ext3 was unintentional. Of course, no one cares when they're looking at a tree full of zero byte files, so the file system fanatics rose hell and got them to patch Ext4. So file system fanatics have their uses.
That doesn't mean that current copyright is particulary sane or useful. But it does mean that its total removal would also end the viability of much of our current media.
I don't think anyone disputes that. We just value a reasonable system of justice over entertainment.
A law that serves first to remind people of what the right thing is to do ('right' defined here as giving the greatest current and future benefit to all involved), and disincentivises the opposite behaviour with, say, a moderate fine (and I'm thinking of speeding ticket levels of fine here, not "moderate" as the **AA would define it), seems reasonable to me.
You have to take the risk-benefit equation into account here. If the expected loss (risk of getting caught * penalty) is less than the expected gain (chance of success * value of item), then there is no disincentive at all. If you want to create a disincentive, you have to make either the risk of getting caught high, or the penalty high. The only way to make the risk of getting caught high is to monitor all of our computing activity, abandoning concepts like probable cause. The only way to make the penalties high is to abandon concepts like proportional justice.
BTW, Speed limits are a great example of how the government uses safety as an excuse to increase its own power, raise money, and harass people with brown skin, long hair, etc.
Basic laws of economics tell us that when supply is infinite, marginal price is zero. Technology has made supplies of copies infinite, any system that relies on non-zero prices for copies is unrealistic.
The only way to change that fact, is to undo what the progress of technology has done. That is a HUGE undertaking, which would require the prohibition of general purpose computers worldwide. Proposing any sort of copyright, without also taking the necessary measures to enforce that copyright will simply breed widespread disrespect for the law.
So if you're willing to take that step and actually enforce copyright, you have to understand the costs we pay as a society in order to do so (e.g. no more general purpose computing, free speech, privacy). In order for that cost-benefit analysis to pay off, you're going to have to restrict supply for a lot longer than 20 years.
Patriots love their home land. That does not require them to be biased in its favor, at least not in any sense that would make them "bigots".
Of course it does. You essentially admitted it right there. They love their home land. Not because of any particular merit, but because it's their home land. So a patriot would love his home land, whether it's free or totalitarian. That's a pretty severe bias, and it's built into the definition of patriot.
Then explain patriotic immigrants.
Patriotic immigrants aren't really motivated by love of home land. They appreciate the practical benefits of living in this land. If they moved here and found no opportunity and only scorn, would they still love their country?
You are taking your own selection bias and coupling it with acceptance of the strawman argument put forth by the nationalists you claim to oppose. Ironically, your entire position on patriotism is predicated upon complete agreement with the lie that nationalism is based on.
You're going to have to walk me through this one. The strawman argument put forth by nationalists is "our country is the best". In what way does my argument depend on accepting that premise?
Do I have selection bias against patriots? Quite possibly. I don't even know what a "real" patriot would look like.
There are two possibilities I see. Patriotism could mean people who love their country whether it does good or bad. In that case, it's clearly not a virtue. Or patriotism could mean people who love their country because it has been good to them. In that case, it's almost meaningless. Who doesn't love institutions that have been good to them? In this case, it may not be harmful but I don't see any particular reason to laud it as a virtue either.
In either case, the Pirate Party's voice at one extreme should help to balance the mainstream politicians' voices at the other end of the spectrum, hopefully dragging the actual outcome towards the sane equilibrium that lies somewhere between "no copyright" and "infinite copyright", the latter of which being the de facto effect of the legislation chosen by every other political party.
There is no sane middle. There are only half measures that are even worse than picking one and sticking with it.
I don't think copyright inherently is a bad thing. And I don't think most people here save for the extremists and the uneducated would support its elimination altogether.
We're not extremists, we're realists. You can't legislate around the laws of economics. Infinite supply leads to zero marginal cost. Technology has made copyright obsolete.
No, copyright itself is the problem. It denies basic laws of economics. Zero marginal cost means zero marginal price, period. Trying to legislate around this fact distorts the market and leads to all sorts of problems.
Abolish copyright and let people figure out new models to get compensated. If they can't, well digital technology has created more jobs than the media industry ever did, so we're still ahead of the game.
Yes, I am entitled to use my property as I see fit. That includes using my CD burner to make a copy of my CD. Your assertion that you have a right to have control over this private transaction is an entitlement complex on your part.
You ask us to become single-issue voters. I consider other problems to be far more grave -- specifically: restoring the adversarial relationship between the SEC and the companies it regulates, and putting teeth into laws against white-collar crime.
You're in luck. You don't have to choose. Nobody who will address either issue stands a chance of getting elected. Also, they tune you out no matter how many letters you write.
He's a comic book writer, and he's still got a better feel on what the problems are with this country and what kinds of things need to be done to fix them than any "serious" candidate. The joke isn't Scott Adams running for president. The joke is everyone else running for president.
how "safe" we could be if we lived in a police state. I put safe in quotes because we might be safe from terrorists and other boogeymen, but we wouldn't be safe from the police state.
If you're not counting harm done by the state in your cost-benefit analysis, then you're not being pragmatic.
I believe they are one and the same. Patriots are biased in favor of their home land, which is a group they just happened to be born into by chance. It is just another form of tribalism, like racial and religious supremacy.
Besides, in practice nearly all the self professed "patriots" are actually nationalists. Just remember the popular sentiment amongs patriotic Americans in the run up to the Iraq war. If you dissented, you must hate America.
Really, is it too much to ask that we understand that we're all on this rock together? The lives of my countrymen are not more important than the lives of foreigners. What's important is right and wrong, not "good for America" or "bad for America".
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Pain receptors are on membranes, so that's consistant with anhydrous alcohol dehydrating the top layer more powerfully. Your sensation of pain doesn't necessarily mean it's damaging the tissue, just activating the receptors on the surface.
Also, 70% alcohols are still dehydrating enough to kill bacteria. We use 50% isopropanol in the lab to precipitate DNA. The alcohol literally strips the solvating water molecules away from the DNA, causing them to aggregate and precipitate. I'd say that would be pretty antibiotic.
What's wrong with soap and water?
Sorry, that should be: "a pristine environment is bad for your immune system."
Or why not just buy your own keyboard and never clean it? You're not going to pick up contagious diseases from yourself. Besides, a pristine environment is good for your immune system.
Do you remember when Ext4 came out? A bunch of people had data loss after system crashes. It was explained that this was intentional behavior, as specified by the POSIX standard, and the safer behavior of Ext3 was unintentional. Of course, no one cares when they're looking at a tree full of zero byte files, so the file system fanatics rose hell and got them to patch Ext4. So file system fanatics have their uses.
There's already a free Qemm. Or rather, a free expanded memory manager. Several in fact. I've had very good results with JEMM.
DOSBox runs its own DOS like interpreter, not FreeDOS. You *can* boot FreeDOS on it, but I'm not sure why you'd want to.
That doesn't mean that current copyright is particulary sane or useful. But it does mean that its total removal would also end the viability of much of our current media.
I don't think anyone disputes that. We just value a reasonable system of justice over entertainment.
A law that serves first to remind people of what the right thing is to do ('right' defined here as giving the greatest current and future benefit to all involved), and disincentivises the opposite behaviour with, say, a moderate fine (and I'm thinking of speeding ticket levels of fine here, not "moderate" as the **AA would define it), seems reasonable to me.
You have to take the risk-benefit equation into account here. If the expected loss (risk of getting caught * penalty) is less than the expected gain (chance of success * value of item), then there is no disincentive at all. If you want to create a disincentive, you have to make either the risk of getting caught high, or the penalty high. The only way to make the risk of getting caught high is to monitor all of our computing activity, abandoning concepts like probable cause. The only way to make the penalties high is to abandon concepts like proportional justice.
BTW, Speed limits are a great example of how the government uses safety as an excuse to increase its own power, raise money, and harass people with brown skin, long hair, etc.
Basic laws of economics tell us that when supply is infinite, marginal price is zero. Technology has made supplies of copies infinite, any system that relies on non-zero prices for copies is unrealistic.
The only way to change that fact, is to undo what the progress of technology has done. That is a HUGE undertaking, which would require the prohibition of general purpose computers worldwide. Proposing any sort of copyright, without also taking the necessary measures to enforce that copyright will simply breed widespread disrespect for the law.
So if you're willing to take that step and actually enforce copyright, you have to understand the costs we pay as a society in order to do so (e.g. no more general purpose computing, free speech, privacy). In order for that cost-benefit analysis to pay off, you're going to have to restrict supply for a lot longer than 20 years.
Patriots love their home land. That does not require them to be biased in its favor, at least not in any sense that would make them "bigots".
Of course it does. You essentially admitted it right there. They love their home land. Not because of any particular merit, but because it's their home land. So a patriot would love his home land, whether it's free or totalitarian. That's a pretty severe bias, and it's built into the definition of patriot.
Then explain patriotic immigrants.
Patriotic immigrants aren't really motivated by love of home land. They appreciate the practical benefits of living in this land. If they moved here and found no opportunity and only scorn, would they still love their country?
You are taking your own selection bias and coupling it with acceptance of the strawman argument put forth by the nationalists you claim to oppose. Ironically, your entire position on patriotism is predicated upon complete agreement with the lie that nationalism is based on.
You're going to have to walk me through this one. The strawman argument put forth by nationalists is "our country is the best". In what way does my argument depend on accepting that premise?
Do I have selection bias against patriots? Quite possibly. I don't even know what a "real" patriot would look like.
There are two possibilities I see. Patriotism could mean people who love their country whether it does good or bad. In that case, it's clearly not a virtue. Or patriotism could mean people who love their country because it has been good to them. In that case, it's almost meaningless. Who doesn't love institutions that have been good to them? In this case, it may not be harmful but I don't see any particular reason to laud it as a virtue either.
In either case, the Pirate Party's voice at one extreme should help to balance the mainstream politicians' voices at the other end of the spectrum, hopefully dragging the actual outcome towards the sane equilibrium that lies somewhere between "no copyright" and "infinite copyright", the latter of which being the de facto effect of the legislation chosen by every other political party.
There is no sane middle. There are only half measures that are even worse than picking one and sticking with it.
Since 1981?
You should not persuade them it is not right to break a law they consider unjust. Because it is right to break unjust laws.
Copyright is a form of stealing.
I don't think copyright inherently is a bad thing. And I don't think most people here save for the extremists and the uneducated would support its elimination altogether.
We're not extremists, we're realists. You can't legislate around the laws of economics. Infinite supply leads to zero marginal cost. Technology has made copyright obsolete.
No, copyright itself is the problem. It denies basic laws of economics. Zero marginal cost means zero marginal price, period. Trying to legislate around this fact distorts the market and leads to all sorts of problems.
Abolish copyright and let people figure out new models to get compensated. If they can't, well digital technology has created more jobs than the media industry ever did, so we're still ahead of the game.
Yes, I am entitled to use my property as I see fit. That includes using my CD burner to make a copy of my CD. Your assertion that you have a right to have control over this private transaction is an entitlement complex on your part.
You ask us to become single-issue voters. I consider other problems to be far more grave -- specifically: restoring the adversarial relationship between the SEC and the companies it regulates, and putting teeth into laws against white-collar crime.
You're in luck. You don't have to choose. Nobody who will address either issue stands a chance of getting elected. Also, they tune you out no matter how many letters you write.
I've never voted for any of my congresspeople. This hasn't stopped them from being corrupt pieces of shit.
Can't decide on anything if you don't define your terms first.
Yes, but that's not being pragmatic, so it's not a good argument against pragmatism.
He's a comic book writer, and he's still got a better feel on what the problems are with this country and what kinds of things need to be done to fix them than any "serious" candidate. The joke isn't Scott Adams running for president. The joke is everyone else running for president.
how "safe" we could be if we lived in a police state. I put safe in quotes because we might be safe from terrorists and other boogeymen, but we wouldn't be safe from the police state.
If you're not counting harm done by the state in your cost-benefit analysis, then you're not being pragmatic.
I believe they are one and the same. Patriots are biased in favor of their home land, which is a group they just happened to be born into by chance. It is just another form of tribalism, like racial and religious supremacy.
Besides, in practice nearly all the self professed "patriots" are actually nationalists. Just remember the popular sentiment amongs patriotic Americans in the run up to the Iraq war. If you dissented, you must hate America.
Really, is it too much to ask that we understand that we're all on this rock together? The lives of my countrymen are not more important than the lives of foreigners. What's important is right and wrong, not "good for America" or "bad for America".