No, I think the point of the above poster was that one of the two can undergo in situ testing whereas the other can merely investigate current observable state and effect to theorize about initial cause. By a strict definition of science (the experimental testing of a hypothesis), you can accept the iPad on a scientific basis, but can not accept cosmology/evolution on a scientific basis until we are advanced enough to either create our own universes to observe, or may set up a megayear experiment with observational parameters for a static and some evolving ecologies.
What separates you and operagost is evidence of thinking. You know what that confirms don't you?
I heard they were thinking of splitting Alaska into two states. That would make Texas the third largest right?
Oh wait, was that obscene or offensive to point out? Because I for one welcome our new AZ overlords, who clearly are number one when it comes to [CENSORED].
Huh - now here's an idea for a website: user uploaded public conversations (i.e. from slashfaceplus) to solicit community responses scored and weighted on metrics such as: witty, soul crushing riposte, humorous laugh-off, etc... The initial user could then pick his or her favorite and proceed to devastate their cyber-bully with the best crowd-sourcing can provide!
Of course, any successful response to said bully would be in violation of AZ's new law as well... (I used to be a cyber-bully, but this eight year old girl totally devastated my self confidence, world view, and love of leprechauns - that is why I've requested the DA to press full charges and am also proceeding with a separate civil suit).
Perhaps a website would make it a conspiracy. I suppose I'll just have to teach my kids to deliver soul crushing witty ripostes to cyber bullies on their own.
Gyrocoptors do not have a powered rotor for lift. The lift-rotor(s) auto-rotate due to induced "wind" from the horizontal thrust of the aircraft (or gravity, when you stop thrusting).
Note that: "Our state-of-the-art technology is backed by a $50,000 quality service guarantee that your baby's stem cells will engraft if they are ever needed for transplant."
However the number of likely candidates for cord blood treatment is extremely small (pretty much all experimental and not FDA approved these days). Crop the number of bank withdraws they're likely to receive (very few) by the price they charge per deposit (roughly $2k), and that's not much of a guarantee by the measure of mouth-where-the-money-is. Now if that's a measure of their confidence for a life saving treatment... you might want to double think.
Secondly, there isn't a single word in their FAQ about the repository technology they are using. Are they storing the cells in -80 freezers or in LN2? What are the stats on half-life and other successful viability studies? Where are the links to successful case studies of cord blood stem cell treatment? They have research links, but most are either still animal studies or non-cord stem cell therapies.
The point is, they might have a great thing here, but at the moment they're selling vaporware. Sure, it may eventually come out just like Duke Nukem Forever, but it may not be released in time for your child. There's plenty of evidence that most of the stem-cell treatments out there are possible with donor registries (e.g. like bone marrow) or even adult tissue (not even stem cells - I was just at a conference last week where I saw a video of a modified inkjet print out a heart seeded with a patients own heart tissue). The fliers these type of businesses get the hospital and OB/GYN to hand out has a core message of: "it'll be your fault if your baby gets sick and dies if you don't give us a lot of money right now." It's surrounded by fluffy baby graphic design, but their business model should raise a few ethical eyebrows.
Of course who knows - they might be right. Maybe someone will someday invent a way to use cord blood with today's harvesting techniques (note that the FAQ doesn't say anything about sample freezing until it's already been through the mail) and your baby will die without it... no pressure, right?
Now on the flip side, I do know people in the repository business and they think this sort of thing has potential to work, but there's already plenty of argument to that effect around here today - so I thought I'd point out the other questions which should be asked.
Nah - that would be assault and would probably get you arrested and fired. But you could snap it in half, or throw it in the trash while the guy was watching. There's plenty of legal ways to be childish, immature, and insulting.
True, but one should always remember (especially in discrimination cases) that written complaints may be also filed by bigots who have a less than appropriate degree of tolerance (i.e. "that [insert minority here] is too dirty himself to ever get our bathroom clean, they should be fired).
Besides, if this guy's religion says that he must tell other people X or part of the burden for their damnation will rest on his soul, then he's perfectly allowed to hand a guy a DVD in the elevator or talk about the eternal condition of the soul over coffee or lunch. (He's allowed to do that even if his religion doesn't say so). This country does have a limit on free speech, but you can inflict a heck of a lot of annoyance before you get even close to criminal harassment (e.g. picketing a funeral with "hate speech"). Work places are a little more reserved, but you get a lot of leeway in the Federal system. Holding an awkward conversation or inviting someone to think of a socially uncomfortable topic doesn't even get close to the line.
A team lead requiring underlings to attend seminars or buy his father's book would be crossing the line, but according to the article: "David had this reputation for being a Christian, for being a practicing one. He did not go around evangelizing or proselytizing. But if he found out that someone was a Christian he would say, 'Oh that's interesting, what denomination are you?" - Becker. What the article lacks is a quote from coworkers (which would be extremely tight lipped if the JPL follows anything near SOP regarding ongoing litigation).
In this case, the lawsuit began a few years before the termination. It sounds as if this employee felt he had been actively discriminated against well before this amendment to the suit (wrongful termination).
IANAL, but in my understanding, significantly modifying his behavior at work would mean his religion defense would be weakened by failing the conviction test (toning down or changing strategies would probably be OK, but stopping altogether would not). I don't think the personal conviction test has any hard and fast rules, but I've heard it said that one needs to persist in belief (as evidenced by behavior) in the face of pressure from: peers, superiors, family, law, threat of physical harm, and threat of physical death. Obviously there are differing levels of conviction, and one could make a successful lawsuit on the basis of discrimination from a supervisor who perceives one to belong to a class (even if the actuality is different).
Whom do you expect would be the best type of person to convert a scientist? (If conversion and not simply discussion or debate was what the process was about)
For context: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." [Heb 11:1] NASB. Conviction may also be translated as evidence (among other words, you'd need a concordance to do a best case word study). NASB tends to be relatively literal.
The chapter then proceeds to outline several "heroes of the faith" who did their thing with the expectation that God would make good on His promises as the heroes saw them, and concludes by pointing out that God did one better and met the promises as He saw them - with an implementation in excess of what man would have been able to understand.
It may be worth noting, for this discussion, that faith is forward looking the while dwelling on creation mechanisms are not. I've found that the underlying fear among literal 6-day Creationists tend to be related to the fundamental validity of scripture (Bible); there are many of the literal 6-day crowd among ID types. I personally find their fears and their interpretation of "long view" consequences to be lacking robustness; and among the better educated, faith. (Fully exploring this topic and my thoughts on it are well outside the scope of this post).
Nevertheless, we do find ourselves with an existence which is rather improbable. There are plenty of cosmological papers which bring this topic up, including some which point out our current universe (as it is understood) needed some outside energy expenditures to wind up the way it seems to be. Ultimately the current state of scientific understanding regarding our origins leaves us in the realm of speculation. David Brin does some interesting thought experiments in his short stories (particularly those in "Otherness") about how universes may evolve to be self propagating with respect to initial conditions and physical laws. I fall on the other side and believe that we exist due to a creator who helped spin up this universe in its current state. Who knows, maybe Einstein would have felt OK about God using loaded dice?
Furthermore, (both for full disclosure as well as establishing a credibility baseline for this particular argument), I do fall into the category of someone who keeps to a fairly literal translation of the Bible where appropriate (poetry is poetry, parables are parables, literal-truth is literal-truth, and complicated-realities-explained-in-a-way-which-convey-their-truthful-essence-without-leading-people-into-confusing-irrelevant-technical-details-beyond-even-modern-science are complicated-realities-explained-in-a-way-which-convey-their-truthful-essence-without-leading-people-into-confusing-irrelevant-technical-details-beyond-even-modern-science).
Science is a tool with which we explore physical realities, Christianity (religion) is a tool in which we explore metaphysical reality - reason and faith are the tools with which we make unified and consistent laws. There is some overlap (such as archeology) but for the most part, the tools reside in separate jurisdictions.
FTFY. I only bolded words with more than one mistake.
Oh, and if anyone does not believe grammar Nazis exist, I have an irrefutable personal anecdote someone once told me while I was watching a video on Youtube.
"30 picowatts and measured an output of 69 picowatts of light - an efficiency of 230%"
- put one of those ultra effient 80 precent solar cells in front of it and from that you pwer two new leds, repeat, repeat the repeat and repeatalot, and before you know it you have alot of light.... ooooh look into the light, so briiiight.
No, presumably your solar cells are blocking the light, it's more like "oh so cold!" (especially as "solar" cells tend to get more efficient at lower temperatures. I'm sure the thing would quench itself (remember the heat is part of the energy draw), but it's fun thinking about isn't it:)
It's not a violation of the 2nd law if you have the energy to fold a paper airplane because you ate cereal for breakfast, same thing here.
No matter where you draw the box on this system I'm certain you won't be violating the 2nd law. There's energy input (from at least two sources) which means you can form a more ordered output than input.
You can have order, it just ain't free. Have you thanked your mother recently?
A peltier with a light dump instead of a heat dump. There have been a lot of variants on this idea, they usually remind me of the hybrid cooling/propulsion laser David Brin used for his Sundiver book.
Cardiopulmonary will still top the list (including your pneumonia), accidents will probably move from third to second (If you count strokes in the first category by including the vascular system). It's tough to decide if people surviving cancer will be taken out by the ticker or a bug in the lungs. A reasonable assumption will be an even distribution among remaining causes.
Heart disease: 599,413
Cancer: 567,628
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
Diabetes: 68,705
Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
Most death in the UK is from cardiopulmonary related issues. These are often not preventable (something one can delay, or trade for another category) - typical human end of life stuff. After that is cancer - some of this is access to care (particularly early access), but much of which is still luck of the draw. Government can sponsor research, and it can improve access to care, but a lot of current cancer related death isn't something that can be impacted by the government very easily. Accidents however are something that is, by comparison, dead easy to influence from the government perspective (new laws, enforcement of existing law). So, of the examples you've listed and the stat's I've linked to here - it's a dumb simple selection for traffic as the most effective point of government interaction. Not that the other (and harder) problem's shouldn't be addressed, but I would think traffic is a logical emphasis rather than an illogical obsession.
Related to where I live, the UK does rather well compared to the US - about half of the accidental death rate as ours (5%).
Are you entirely sure he was trying to make a strike for freedom?
"Mr. Harris tried to hide behind the banner of freedom of access to the Internet, but the evidence established that he built a million dollar business helping customers steal Internet service," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the DOJ's Criminal Division, said in a statement.
This sounds more like stealing from the rich while still charging the poor.
I was referring to derivative work under copyright (not patent), which is what protects much of the consumer viewed portions of software. Patents are increasingly becoming part of software, particularly the back end, but there's even a trend toward front end software patents. Most of the examples you provided were not violation of copyright (especially derivative work). So reference books are allowed, but fanfic or game mods are not. Fan art needs to pass the transformative test (much easier to do when illustrating from the text of a novel than painting an actual scene from a game/movie). Making software that interfaces with another software while not stealing code or graphics is usually allowed (independent or symbiotic not strict-derivative).
I know my own psuedo-anonymous internet arguments tend to verge on the mockheroic, so if that's the case with you as well, you can just have a nice laugh at my expense or give me the finger. But as a couple of school tragedies in the US reminded me this week, it's always worth asking someone how they're doing.
Like fixing a software bug on their own (through decompiling & etc...) instead of purchasing the patch from the provider of the original goods? Help me get a feel for your perspective here because I'm not sure if my interpretation of your thoughts is internally consistent.
Or are you talking about making and selling your own goods that would have no value without being based on the original work (which is a violation of even the original US copyright law). Could that be what you were talking about?
Probably, but only because gamers are dumb enough to buy that shit. I stopped buying games that require "phoning home" to play single player games, or have intrusive DRM, but everyone else seems to cheerfully throw their money at such things, so it isn't going to stop as long as people don't seem to mind it.
You get the world you deserve.
You also get the world you live in. Most consumers either don't know or don't care about these issues (they've got bigger issues than worrying about the legal details surrounding their short escape from stretching paychecks and herding children). The thing is that these are the people who will drive the dollar vote and it's up to those who care about the legal issues to protect the general public (or defraud them depending on POV).
This is why we have the FDA to prevent snake oil salesmen and the EPA to prevent chemical dumping; what's needed is an equivalent for consumer level IP. Perhaps the new Consumer Protection Bureau could be petitioned to take up the task, but until then it's up to aware citizens to vote with their dollars on products, support groups like the EFF, write letters to congresspersons, and caution their friends and associates to do the same. Otherwise, if you have these feelings about the process, it's similar to knowingly letting an apothacary sell saccharo et aqua to a parent trying to treat his/her child's pneumonia (pick your own degree of severity).
Well that's one way to kill the first sale doctrine or second hand market. Its a service and in the TOS "No reselling allowed" Luckily for me between my NES/SNES/N64/GameCube/Sega Master/TG16/Jaguar/Dreamcast/Saturn there's enough games out there that I never have to bother with buying/supporting anything as a service for the rest of my life.
I love retro games. I just don't see how any games on those systems can be substituted for modern online multiplayer games.
Or legally obtained and used as the second law takes its toll on the physical products. There's only so long that you'll be able to find Pitfall or Zelda in the pawnshops you know...
Just because you've got the dog chewed or cosmic ray struck cartridge/disk sitting on top of the PC doesn't make emulators legal.
Withdrawing from the market through hoarding or black market (self-disenfranchisement from the dollar vote) isn't a sustainable solution
Slashdot Mirror
No, I think the point of the above poster was that one of the two can undergo in situ testing whereas the other can merely investigate current observable state and effect to theorize about initial cause. By a strict definition of science (the experimental testing of a hypothesis), you can accept the iPad on a scientific basis, but can not accept cosmology/evolution on a scientific basis until we are advanced enough to either create our own universes to observe, or may set up a megayear experiment with observational parameters for a static and some evolving ecologies.
What separates you and operagost is evidence of thinking. You know what that confirms don't you?
I heard they were thinking of splitting Alaska into two states. That would make Texas the third largest right?
Oh wait, was that obscene or offensive to point out? Because I for one welcome our new AZ overlords, who clearly are number one when it comes to [CENSORED].
Huh - now here's an idea for a website: user uploaded public conversations (i.e. from slashfaceplus) to solicit community responses scored and weighted on metrics such as: witty, soul crushing riposte, humorous laugh-off, etc... The initial user could then pick his or her favorite and proceed to devastate their cyber-bully with the best crowd-sourcing can provide!
Of course, any successful response to said bully would be in violation of AZ's new law as well... (I used to be a cyber-bully, but this eight year old girl totally devastated my self confidence, world view, and love of leprechauns - that is why I've requested the DA to press full charges and am also proceeding with a separate civil suit).
Perhaps a website would make it a conspiracy. I suppose I'll just have to teach my kids to deliver soul crushing witty ripostes to cyber bullies on their own.
Gyrocoptors do not have a powered rotor for lift. The lift-rotor(s) auto-rotate due to induced "wind" from the horizontal thrust of the aircraft (or gravity, when you stop thrusting).
However the number of likely candidates for cord blood treatment is extremely small (pretty much all experimental and not FDA approved these days). Crop the number of bank withdraws they're likely to receive (very few) by the price they charge per deposit (roughly $2k), and that's not much of a guarantee by the measure of mouth-where-the-money-is. Now if that's a measure of their confidence for a life saving treatment... you might want to double think.
Secondly, there isn't a single word in their FAQ about the repository technology they are using. Are they storing the cells in -80 freezers or in LN2? What are the stats on half-life and other successful viability studies? Where are the links to successful case studies of cord blood stem cell treatment? They have research links, but most are either still animal studies or non-cord stem cell therapies.
The point is, they might have a great thing here, but at the moment they're selling vaporware. Sure, it may eventually come out just like Duke Nukem Forever, but it may not be released in time for your child. There's plenty of evidence that most of the stem-cell treatments out there are possible with donor registries (e.g. like bone marrow) or even adult tissue (not even stem cells - I was just at a conference last week where I saw a video of a modified inkjet print out a heart seeded with a patients own heart tissue). The fliers these type of businesses get the hospital and OB/GYN to hand out has a core message of: "it'll be your fault if your baby gets sick and dies if you don't give us a lot of money right now." It's surrounded by fluffy baby graphic design, but their business model should raise a few ethical eyebrows.
Of course who knows - they might be right. Maybe someone will someday invent a way to use cord blood with today's harvesting techniques (note that the FAQ doesn't say anything about sample freezing until it's already been through the mail) and your baby will die without it... no pressure, right?
Now on the flip side, I do know people in the repository business and they think this sort of thing has potential to work, but there's already plenty of argument to that effect around here today - so I thought I'd point out the other questions which should be asked.
Nah - that would be assault and would probably get you arrested and fired. But you could snap it in half, or throw it in the trash while the guy was watching. There's plenty of legal ways to be childish, immature, and insulting.
True, but one should always remember (especially in discrimination cases) that written complaints may be also filed by bigots who have a less than appropriate degree of tolerance (i.e. "that [insert minority here] is too dirty himself to ever get our bathroom clean, they should be fired).
Besides, if this guy's religion says that he must tell other people X or part of the burden for their damnation will rest on his soul, then he's perfectly allowed to hand a guy a DVD in the elevator or talk about the eternal condition of the soul over coffee or lunch. (He's allowed to do that even if his religion doesn't say so). This country does have a limit on free speech, but you can inflict a heck of a lot of annoyance before you get even close to criminal harassment (e.g. picketing a funeral with "hate speech"). Work places are a little more reserved, but you get a lot of leeway in the Federal system. Holding an awkward conversation or inviting someone to think of a socially uncomfortable topic doesn't even get close to the line.
A team lead requiring underlings to attend seminars or buy his father's book would be crossing the line, but according to the article: "David had this reputation for being a Christian, for being a practicing one. He did not go around evangelizing or proselytizing. But if he found out that someone was a Christian he would say, 'Oh that's interesting, what denomination are you?" - Becker. What the article lacks is a quote from coworkers (which would be extremely tight lipped if the JPL follows anything near SOP regarding ongoing litigation).
In this case, the lawsuit began a few years before the termination. It sounds as if this employee felt he had been actively discriminated against well before this amendment to the suit (wrongful termination).
IANAL, but in my understanding, significantly modifying his behavior at work would mean his religion defense would be weakened by failing the conviction test (toning down or changing strategies would probably be OK, but stopping altogether would not). I don't think the personal conviction test has any hard and fast rules, but I've heard it said that one needs to persist in belief (as evidenced by behavior) in the face of pressure from: peers, superiors, family, law, threat of physical harm, and threat of physical death. Obviously there are differing levels of conviction, and one could make a successful lawsuit on the basis of discrimination from a supervisor who perceives one to belong to a class (even if the actuality is different).
Whom do you expect would be the best type of person to convert a scientist? (If conversion and not simply discussion or debate was what the process was about)
For context: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." [Heb 11:1] NASB. Conviction may also be translated as evidence (among other words, you'd need a concordance to do a best case word study). NASB tends to be relatively literal.
The chapter then proceeds to outline several "heroes of the faith" who did their thing with the expectation that God would make good on His promises as the heroes saw them, and concludes by pointing out that God did one better and met the promises as He saw them - with an implementation in excess of what man would have been able to understand.
It may be worth noting, for this discussion, that faith is forward looking the while dwelling on creation mechanisms are not. I've found that the underlying fear among literal 6-day Creationists tend to be related to the fundamental validity of scripture (Bible); there are many of the literal 6-day crowd among ID types. I personally find their fears and their interpretation of "long view" consequences to be lacking robustness; and among the better educated, faith. (Fully exploring this topic and my thoughts on it are well outside the scope of this post).
Nevertheless, we do find ourselves with an existence which is rather improbable. There are plenty of cosmological papers which bring this topic up, including some which point out our current universe (as it is understood) needed some outside energy expenditures to wind up the way it seems to be. Ultimately the current state of scientific understanding regarding our origins leaves us in the realm of speculation. David Brin does some interesting thought experiments in his short stories (particularly those in "Otherness") about how universes may evolve to be self propagating with respect to initial conditions and physical laws. I fall on the other side and believe that we exist due to a creator who helped spin up this universe in its current state. Who knows, maybe Einstein would have felt OK about God using loaded dice?
Furthermore, (both for full disclosure as well as establishing a credibility baseline for this particular argument), I do fall into the category of someone who keeps to a fairly literal translation of the Bible where appropriate (poetry is poetry, parables are parables, literal-truth is literal-truth, and complicated-realities-explained-in-a-way-which-convey-their-truthful-essence-without-leading-people-into-confusing-irrelevant-technical-details-beyond-even-modern-science are complicated-realities-explained-in-a-way-which-convey-their-truthful-essence-without-leading-people-into-confusing-irrelevant-technical-details-beyond-even-modern-science).
Science is a tool with which we explore physical realities, Christianity (religion) is a tool in which we explore metaphysical reality - reason and faith are the tools with which we make unified and consistent laws. There is some overlap (such as archeology) but for the most part, the tools reside in separate jurisdictions.
Thanks,
All grammar Nazis
FTFY. I only bolded words with more than one mistake.
Oh, and if anyone does not believe grammar Nazis exist, I have an irrefutable personal anecdote someone once told me while I was watching a video on Youtube.
You should only try that with a UL approved deflector dish!
You'll have to duct tape your breakers open! Again.
You'll hit one point twenty one gigawatts in no time.
Holy crap
"30 picowatts and measured an output of 69 picowatts of light - an efficiency of 230%"
- put one of those ultra effient 80 precent solar cells in front of it and from that you pwer two new leds, repeat, repeat the repeat and repeatalot, and before you know it you have alot of light .... ooooh look into the light, so briiiight.
No, presumably your solar cells are blocking the light, it's more like "oh so cold!" (especially as "solar" cells tend to get more efficient at lower temperatures. I'm sure the thing would quench itself (remember the heat is part of the energy draw), but it's fun thinking about isn't it :)
It's not a violation of the 2nd law if you have the energy to fold a paper airplane because you ate cereal for breakfast, same thing here.
No matter where you draw the box on this system I'm certain you won't be violating the 2nd law. There's energy input (from at least two sources) which means you can form a more ordered output than input.
You can have order, it just ain't free. Have you thanked your mother recently?
A peltier with a light dump instead of a heat dump. There have been a lot of variants on this idea, they usually remind me of the hybrid cooling/propulsion laser David Brin used for his Sundiver book.
Cardiopulmonary will still top the list (including your pneumonia), accidents will probably move from third to second (If you count strokes in the first category by including the vascular system). It's tough to decide if people surviving cancer will be taken out by the ticker or a bug in the lungs. A reasonable assumption will be an even distribution among remaining causes.
Heart disease: 599,413
Cancer: 567,628
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
Diabetes: 68,705
Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909
Data from the CDC
Most death in the UK is from cardiopulmonary related issues. These are often not preventable (something one can delay, or trade for another category) - typical human end of life stuff. After that is cancer - some of this is access to care (particularly early access), but much of which is still luck of the draw. Government can sponsor research, and it can improve access to care, but a lot of current cancer related death isn't something that can be impacted by the government very easily. Accidents however are something that is, by comparison, dead easy to influence from the government perspective (new laws, enforcement of existing law). So, of the examples you've listed and the stat's I've linked to here - it's a dumb simple selection for traffic as the most effective point of government interaction. Not that the other (and harder) problem's shouldn't be addressed, but I would think traffic is a logical emphasis rather than an illogical obsession.
Related to where I live, the UK does rather well compared to the US - about half of the accidental death rate as ours (5%).
Are you entirely sure he was trying to make a strike for freedom?
This sounds more like stealing from the rich while still charging the poor.
I was referring to derivative work under copyright (not patent), which is what protects much of the consumer viewed portions of software. Patents are increasingly becoming part of software, particularly the back end, but there's even a trend toward front end software patents. Most of the examples you provided were not violation of copyright (especially derivative work). So reference books are allowed, but fanfic or game mods are not. Fan art needs to pass the transformative test (much easier to do when illustrating from the text of a novel than painting an actual scene from a game/movie). Making software that interfaces with another software while not stealing code or graphics is usually allowed (independent or symbiotic not strict-derivative).
Just in case that's not all hyperbole.
I know my own psuedo-anonymous internet arguments tend to verge on the mockheroic, so if that's the case with you as well, you can just have a nice laugh at my expense or give me the finger. But as a couple of school tragedies in the US reminded me this week, it's always worth asking someone how they're doing.
You ok?
Like fixing a software bug on their own (through decompiling & etc...) instead of purchasing the patch from the provider of the original goods? Help me get a feel for your perspective here because I'm not sure if my interpretation of your thoughts is internally consistent.
Or are you talking about making and selling your own goods that would have no value without being based on the original work (which is a violation of even the original US copyright law). Could that be what you were talking about?
Probably, but only because gamers are dumb enough to buy that shit. I stopped buying games that require "phoning home" to play single player games, or have intrusive DRM, but everyone else seems to cheerfully throw their money at such things, so it isn't going to stop as long as people don't seem to mind it.
You get the world you deserve.
You also get the world you live in. Most consumers either don't know or don't care about these issues (they've got bigger issues than worrying about the legal details surrounding their short escape from stretching paychecks and herding children). The thing is that these are the people who will drive the dollar vote and it's up to those who care about the legal issues to protect the general public (or defraud them depending on POV).
This is why we have the FDA to prevent snake oil salesmen and the EPA to prevent chemical dumping; what's needed is an equivalent for consumer level IP. Perhaps the new Consumer Protection Bureau could be petitioned to take up the task, but until then it's up to aware citizens to vote with their dollars on products, support groups like the EFF, write letters to congresspersons, and caution their friends and associates to do the same. Otherwise, if you have these feelings about the process, it's similar to knowingly letting an apothacary sell saccharo et aqua to a parent trying to treat his/her child's pneumonia (pick your own degree of severity).
Well that's one way to kill the first sale doctrine or second hand market. Its a service and in the TOS "No reselling allowed" Luckily for me between my NES/SNES/N64/GameCube/Sega Master/TG16/Jaguar/Dreamcast/Saturn there's enough games out there that I never have to bother with buying/supporting anything as a service for the rest of my life.
I love retro games. I just don't see how any games on those systems can be substituted for modern online multiplayer games.
Or legally obtained and used as the second law takes its toll on the physical products. There's only so long that you'll be able to find Pitfall or Zelda in the pawnshops you know...
Just because you've got the dog chewed or cosmic ray struck cartridge/disk sitting on top of the PC doesn't make emulators legal.
Withdrawing from the market through hoarding or black market (self-disenfranchisement from the dollar vote) isn't a sustainable solution