They say they use IMs to sound cool. They actually just say that someone requested a song when that song was what they were going to play anyway.
Why do they do this? Because they are owned by Clear Channel. The people you hear were recorded yesterday between 8 and 5 somewhere in New Hampshire. Or maybe Kentucky. They are voice actors who have probably never been to your broadcast area. And the people who call in? Same thing.
Get a grip people - radio is produced and managed as pre-recorded entertainment.
Granted that people are stupid. You choose an excellent example. The bit about stupidity is at the end.
We have people suing over spilled coffee To be precise, we have a person suing a restaurant because it sells a product that they intend for you to put in your mouth despite the fact that it is hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns. They do this despite the fact that they KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE that their actions will cause people to be injured. Excusing the restaurant because "people should know coffee is hot" is tantamount to excusing the presence of dangerous amounts of arsenic in their fries, because "people should know that fried food is unhealthy." Note that in the case you refer to, the restaurant was NOT sued until they had repeatedly refused to assist the burned woman in paying her medical expenses.
So, what's stupid? The fact that large numbers of people BELIEVE the covert PR campaign conducted by the restaurant against the injured woman. They knowingly sold a dangerous product and lost in the lawsuit. However, they managed to generate a groundswell of support to protect themselves from future liability lawsuits.
This, of course, is symptomatic of the people's belief that corporate entities are their friends, when they are in fact their natural predators.
You are dead on in your analysis of NASA's institutional problems, and I'll agree to disagree about funding priorities, but I think you're way wrong in this point:
...to defend the individual rights...In the U.S., this is the principle upon which the Constitution and Bill of Rights is based
Here's the preamble of the US Constitution:
We, the People, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the commmon defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.
The US space program arguably insures domestic tranquility and secures the blessings of liberty by providing for the common defense. It's difficult to conduct a modern military campaign without spy satellites and GPS satellites. Manned spaceflight is a little trickier to argue for, but it's arguable that there are things people can do in space that machines can't - repairing the Hubble comes to mind. New astronomy often leads to new physics, and physics has proven WILDLY successful in assisting the US government in providing for the common defense.In short, I think there is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent a space program. I think arguing against NASA on these grounds weakens your otherwise strong post.
This came up in the recent Samba discussion, but I think it's worth reiterating.
If you have hold the copyright on any GPL code that SCO is distributing, sue SCO. They have stated that they do not intend to be bound by the GPL; their actions show that they do not plan to adhere to the terms of the GPL. It is reasonable to believe that they intend to violate the license (indeed, I think they have already). I think it would be reasonable to seek an injunction against SCO to prevent them from redistributing your code unless they agree that the GPL is valid and they are bound by it.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of lawsuits, hackers in jurisdictions all around the USA (or around the world) filing suit against SCO. Their stock price will plummet - that's a language they'll understand. They will be forced to respond.
What are the possible outcomes? These come to mind off the top of my head:
- They capitulate and agree publicly that the GPL is valid and they intend to adhere to it in redistributing GPL software. Major PR victory for free software.
- They agree to stop redistributing GPL software because they agree that the GPL is valid. Major PR victory for free software; major loss for SCO because they then have no viable product. This seems unlikely. Without product, SCO's sole source of income is lawsuits. Furthermore, in acknowledging the validity of the GPL, they open themselves up to further lawsuits seeking damage for their violating the GPL (which I think it is clear they have, in DEMANDING fees for GPL software). Their stock price plummets.
- They refuse to acknowledge the validity of the GPL. A judge (or judges) grant injunctive relief and force them to stop redistributing GPL software, affirming the validity of the GPL. Minor PR victory for free software. SCO no longer has products to distribute. This seems unlikely simply because I don't think SCO would go this far; again, without product to sell, their stock price plummets.
- Other companies avoid dealing in or distributing GPL software, fearing a Beowulf cluster of lawsuits. This seems quite possible; care must be taken in pointing out that suits are filed ONLY because SCO has violated and has stated their intention to violate the terms of the license.
So head down to your local library and check out a couple of legal texts. Find out how to file a copyright infringement suit in federal court in your jurisdictin. Learn to use "Whereas" in a sentence. Pay the filing fee, and pay a process server to Fed-Ex a letter to SCO to let them know they're being sued. Specify damages if you wish, but the goal (IMHO) is their acknowledgement of the validity of the GPL.
Most importantly, publicize what you've done; email every Linux news site out there, as well as major tech news sites. Get the information out there where the mainstream tech and stock analysts can find it and be disturbed at the liability that SCO has incurred in declaring that they do not intend to abide by the GPL.
Re:It's not necessarily the breakup that saddens m
on
Masters of Doom
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· Score: 1
Not ROTFL, but definitely LOL. Consider yourself +1, Funny.
Re:One of the things I find annoying...
on
Masters of Doom
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· Score: 1
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
Read Section 8 in its entirety...then look at what Congress does. The Constitution is largely ignored.
Because some STUPID do-gooders decided some years back that unless mental patients posed immediate risks to themselves or others, they should not be forced to remain in mental hospitals.
Patches can introduce bugs. Microsoft does not test their patches against all software in the world; they certainly don't test it against all custom software.
Suppose you've got a mission critical app. Suppose the folks that wrote this app went out of business in 2000. Suppose it incorporates a library that includes a control that uses a deprecated interface to call an obsolete method. Suppose this method returns a value of 127 for a particular failure. Suppose that this failure is one that should not be retried in this environment because it would another intitiate query to master database in Frankfurt. Suppose that a patch (incorrectly) causes this interface to begin returning 63 for that failure code. Suppose that what USED to be failure 63 should be retried 255 times. Suppose that one day this particular failure (was 127, now 63) occurs.
Now suppose that you're the boss of that guy who convinced you last week "We don't need to test patches apps from Microsoft before deploying them enterprise-wide." and your boss wants to know why his boss in Frankfurt is on the line.
"Fortune 500" has greater cachet than "Fortune 100." It is more commonly used among the Great Unwashed Masses (which, make no mistakes, includes most business decision-makers). Furthermore, "Fortune 500" includes a larger number of companies than any smaller group. More companies can identify with Fortune 500 status (about 400 more, not counting ambitious dreamers).
How can the courts do that? If the little matter of limiting the freedom of association of a convicted criminal bothers you, you are going to be reduced to a quivering lump of flesh when you realize that the courts can have criminals locked up for life or even killed.
Do we really have our Bill of Rights anymore? Yes. He didn't have to agree to this. He could have let it go to trial and proven his innocence. He feels that this limitation is better than imprisonment. He did a stupid thing; now he suffers the consequences.
I could never do that. I need the explanation of why and always have. I doubt that. Ever learn to eat? Or walk? =)
I'll acknowledge that you are much more motivated to learn the WHAT if you've a notion that a WHY will follow, but I'd suggest that you CAN'T learn the why without first learning the what. For example...in 1776, the United States declared its independence from England. Why, you ask? It's impossible to explain WHY without first explaining WHAT occurred in the years leading up to 1776. I'm not saying you must have recall knowledge of those events (ie have them memorized and know them cold) but you must have at least recognition knowledge (as in "oh, yeah, those taxes.") To give a more mathematical example: Solve -3x+8=20. Solve for x. Why does x have that value? Your answer may involve arithmetic. If so, why does the arithmetic work? Your answer may involve properties of the real number field. If so, why do those properties exist? Your answer may (if you've done serious undergraduate work in math) involve Peano's postulates. Why do those postulates work? Now you're beyond me. Yet to have an satisfying intuitive understanding of why x=4 in the above equation, you needn't be too concerned with anything beyond the arithmetic. You've mastered the WHAT (as in what to do when faced with an equation like that) without having a deep understanding of WHY.
Real math involves proofs. This is true, but I doubt the fellow with the question is interested in real math. Quite frankly, the proofs are a hindrance to understanding the mathematics. Proofs are often the result of hundreds of years of mathematical development. Consider calculus and the limit theorems involved in the proof of derivatives. I can explain to a ten-year-old why the derivative of X^2 is 2x, and I can utterly convince him that it can't be anything else, but I can't prove it. Why? Because proofs involving infinitesimal quantities require a fair bit of knowledge of limit theory*.
Practical math should be more than "Here's 50 problems of progressive difficulty," but it needn't involve proof. An intuitive demonstration suffices for most people; those who demand proof are generally capable of producing it given the clues in the intuitive development. Otherwise, there'd be no progress in mathematics. Mathematicians begin with an intuitive notion of how the mathematics should work and go on to proof. Intuition yields conjecture yields proof.
*Not entirely true, actually; google for hyperreal numbers - they formalize the notion of infinitesimal numbers and make Leibniz's dx/dy approach mathematically valid.
Yeah, I've seen those posters, too. Lincoln fails, fails, fails, fails, and finally SUCCEEDS! HE'S ELECTED PRESIDENT! JOY!
He presides over the dissolution of the Union and a war that kills more Americans than any other before or since. When it's over he's shot in the back. May none of my friends ever succeed like Lincoln did.
He did great things for the USA, but he himslef was an abject failure.
Nuclear energy IS clean. The cost (both in dollars and human years lost) of operating a coal-fired plant is less than that of a nuclear plant. Your fallacy is in seeing the mistakes committed decades ago by an inexperienced (by today's standards) industrial and scientific community. Applying the same sort logic that you use to the space program would suggest that 90% of all rockets never reach even reach an an altitude of one mile, since your logic includes failures encountered early in the history of the technology. Applying your logic to the computer industry suggests that there's a global market for maybe 5 computers (at one point in history, there WAS a market for only five computers).
Technology progresses; I'd think a slashdot geek would realize this. Nuclear energy technology is no different.
I'd also point out that if you exclude insanely stupid events like the detonation of nuclear bombs, more people in the USA die in a year from car accidents than have ever died world-wide from radiation exposure. Americans (or perhaps humans in general) do a really lousy job in assessing risk. And don't get me started on the tragedy of SUVs (sure, you're more safe in your SUV...it's because of conservation of momentum. Never mind the poor sod you run into, because youre life is obviously more valuable than his). Anyway...never let good science get in the way of politics and mob manipulation. We fear radiation and throw ourselves under the juggernaut of the oil industry.
Re:Just mentioned the Club...
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The Big Kerplop
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Sure it's about science! He did Pure and Applied Research!
does that mean however that 1 man running a 3:42 mile means that a 3:30 mile is possible If the average human being ran a mile in 30 minutes, then I think that a reasonable man would believe that a 3:42 mile implies the possibility of a 3:30 mile. This, of course is not the case. To hark back to the Challenger loss, if the standard is 10% burn-away on the rubber rings, and on some you have 90% burn-away, then you are using the wrong statistical measure when you say "There have been no catastrophic failures."
Lack of catastrophic failure does not imply safety. Lack of damage anywhere near catastrophic implies safety.
If I hit you in the head with a phone book for 15 days and say "He's not dead; therefore there is no permanent damage" then I'm an idiot. If you bruise one day, and concuss another (neither is permanent damage) and your head splits open and bleeds another, then is it reasonable to expect that I have explored all possible outcomes, and that there are no worse ones?
My point is that if your expectations are in one range and you are getting results outside your expectations, then your expectations are wrong. All your assumptions need to be re-examined.
There are limiting factors; the question is do we know what they are. Drawing conclusions from a limited data set is intellectually dishonest.
If I sit down in a chair fifteen times without it collapsing under me...but if it creaks, then pops, then cracks, then splinters, then there is no evidence to indicate that the chair will break.
Sort of like saying that finding a 99-foot-tall man is just one more data point that 'proves' (inductively) that there are no 100-foot-tall men.
Columbia and Challenger are both examples of ignoring trends and paying attention only to thresholds. Were there catastrophic failures before? No. Were there failures before? Absolutely. The flaw is that they IGNORED their data. No catastrophe does not equal no danger.
Re:Creation of a blue collar computing segment
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More Cheap Linux PCs
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In a world where everyone is knowledgeable about computers, expecting more money for that knowledge is like expecting your boss to pay you more because you walk upright, can speak, are literate, use tools, etc. New technologies eventually become ubiquitous. I don't think we're there yet.
chaos! You say this like it's a bad thing. =) Note that the opposite of chaos is "order," as in "I order you to be like everyone else." Legally, yes, we must be bound by the same set of laws (there can be no private laws - the root of the word "privilege") but our ideas and creativity should multiply without limit. You may claim that making derivative works is not creative; in that case, there has been little creativity in novels or films for decades.
distributing the modified dvd without telling the audience know of the changes you have made is bad. I don't believe anyone is seriously suggesting that this should be done. I certainly am not. Freedom of speech carries with it the responsibility of honesty. If we have erred in this country it is in permitting too much dishonesty (see any advertisement).
I am strongly in favor of the director deciding what the viewers see
REALLY. You believe that someone else should decide what I see? I don't think there is any room in a free society for that viewpoint. If you value a free society, one where I decide what I see (and read, and hear, and do), then I suggest you encourage the viewpoint that NO ONE should decide what other adults see. What you describe is a step away from propaganda and censorship; that one step is governmental influence over directors. This has occurred in the USA before; let's discourage it from happening again.
Copyright is at odds with free speech; this has long been recognized by the Supreme Court. If you value free speech, limit copyrights, don't extend them.
Slashdot Mirror
They say they use IMs to sound cool. They actually just say that someone requested a song when that song was what they were going to play anyway.
Why do they do this? Because they are owned by Clear Channel. The people you hear were recorded yesterday between 8 and 5 somewhere in New Hampshire. Or maybe Kentucky. They are voice actors who have probably never been to your broadcast area. And the people who call in? Same thing.
Get a grip people - radio is produced and managed as pre-recorded entertainment.
Granted that people are stupid. You choose an excellent example. The bit about stupidity is at the end.
We have people suing over spilled coffee
To be precise, we have a person suing a restaurant because it sells a product that they intend for you to put in your mouth despite the fact that it is hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns. They do this despite the fact that they KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE that their actions will cause people to be injured. Excusing the restaurant because "people should know coffee is hot" is tantamount to excusing the presence of dangerous amounts of arsenic in their fries, because "people should know that fried food is unhealthy." Note that in the case you refer to, the restaurant was NOT sued until they had repeatedly refused to assist the burned woman in paying her medical expenses.
So, what's stupid? The fact that large numbers of people BELIEVE the covert PR campaign conducted by the restaurant against the injured woman. They knowingly sold a dangerous product and lost in the lawsuit. However, they managed to generate a groundswell of support to protect themselves from future liability lawsuits.
This, of course, is symptomatic of the people's belief that corporate entities are their friends, when they are in fact their natural predators.
...to defend the individual rights...In the U.S., this is the principle upon which the Constitution and Bill of Rights is based
The US space program arguably insures domestic tranquility and secures the blessings of liberty by providing for the common defense. It's difficult to conduct a modern military campaign without spy satellites and GPS satellites. Manned spaceflight is a little trickier to argue for, but it's arguable that there are things people can do in space that machines can't - repairing the Hubble comes to mind. New astronomy often leads to new physics, and physics has proven WILDLY successful in assisting the US government in providing for the common defense.In short, I think there is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent a space program. I think arguing against NASA on these grounds weakens your otherwise strong post.Here's the preamble of the US Constitution:
And then quarternary... if it's just pairs of Boolean digits, no problem. It's just a four-input AND
Not quite. It's two two-input ANDs:
a b a^b
----------
00 00 00
00 01 00
00 10 00
00 11 00
01 00 00
01 01 01
01 10 00
01 11 01
10 00 00
10 01 00
10 10 10
10 11 10
11 00 00
11 01 01
11 10 10
11 11 11
If you could implement this in a single gate using 4-valued logic instead of two gates using 2-valued logic, you'd halve the number of gates.
It's east to legally share trade secret/NDA content in the US!
1. Store the info on your broadband-connected XP box at home.
2. ??? (who knows what those crazy script kiddies will do?)
3. Information is free!
This came up in the recent Samba discussion, but I think it's worth reiterating.
If you have hold the copyright on any GPL code that SCO is distributing, sue SCO. They have stated that they do not intend to be bound by the GPL; their actions show that they do not plan to adhere to the terms of the GPL. It is reasonable to believe that they intend to violate the license (indeed, I think they have already). I think it would be reasonable to seek an injunction against SCO to prevent them from redistributing your code unless they agree that the GPL is valid and they are bound by it.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of lawsuits, hackers in jurisdictions all around the USA (or around the world) filing suit against SCO. Their stock price will plummet - that's a language they'll understand. They will be forced to respond.
What are the possible outcomes? These come to mind off the top of my head:
- They capitulate and agree publicly that the GPL is valid and they intend to adhere to it in redistributing GPL software. Major PR victory for free software.
- They agree to stop redistributing GPL software because they agree that the GPL is valid. Major PR victory for free software; major loss for SCO because they then have no viable product. This seems unlikely. Without product, SCO's sole source of income is lawsuits. Furthermore, in acknowledging the validity of the GPL, they open themselves up to further lawsuits seeking damage for their violating the GPL (which I think it is clear they have, in DEMANDING fees for GPL software). Their stock price plummets.
- They refuse to acknowledge the validity of the GPL. A judge (or judges) grant injunctive relief and force them to stop redistributing GPL software, affirming the validity of the GPL. Minor PR victory for free software. SCO no longer has products to distribute. This seems unlikely simply because I don't think SCO would go this far; again, without product to sell, their stock price plummets.
- Other companies avoid dealing in or distributing GPL software, fearing a Beowulf cluster of lawsuits. This seems quite possible; care must be taken in pointing out that suits are filed ONLY because SCO has violated and has stated their intention to violate the terms of the license.
So head down to your local library and check out a couple of legal texts. Find out how to file a copyright infringement suit in federal court in your jurisdictin. Learn to use "Whereas" in a sentence. Pay the filing fee, and pay a process server to Fed-Ex a letter to SCO to let them know they're being sued. Specify damages if you wish, but the goal (IMHO) is their acknowledgement of the validity of the GPL.
Most importantly, publicize what you've done; email every Linux news site out there, as well as major tech news sites. Get the information out there where the mainstream tech and stock analysts can find it and be disturbed at the liability that SCO has incurred in declaring that they do not intend to abide by the GPL.
Not ROTFL, but definitely LOL. Consider yourself +1, Funny.
Frames Per Second?
Article I, Section 8.
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
Read Section 8 in its entirety...then look at what Congress does. The Constitution is largely ignored.
IHBT, and IHL, but I will HAND anyway.
And why are mentally ill people homeless?
Because some STUPID do-gooders decided some years back that unless mental patients posed immediate risks to themselves or others, they should not be forced to remain in mental hospitals.
Patches can introduce bugs. Microsoft does not test their patches against all software in the world; they certainly don't test it against all custom software.
Suppose you've got a mission critical app. Suppose the folks that wrote this app went out of business in 2000. Suppose it incorporates a library that includes a control that uses a deprecated interface to call an obsolete method. Suppose this method returns a value of 127 for a particular failure. Suppose that this failure is one that should not be retried in this environment because it would another intitiate query to master database in Frankfurt. Suppose that a patch (incorrectly) causes this interface to begin returning 63 for that failure code. Suppose that what USED to be failure 63 should be retried 255 times. Suppose that one day this particular failure (was 127, now 63) occurs.
Now suppose that you're the boss of that guy who convinced you last week "We don't need to test patches apps from Microsoft before deploying them enterprise-wide." and your boss wants to know why his boss in Frankfurt is on the line.
Now you know why I'm unemployed.
"Fortune 500" has greater cachet than "Fortune 100." It is more commonly used among the Great Unwashed Masses (which, make no mistakes, includes most business decision-makers). Furthermore, "Fortune 500" includes a larger number of companies than any smaller group. More companies can identify with Fortune 500 status (about 400 more, not counting ambitious dreamers).
How can the courts do that?
If the little matter of limiting the freedom of association of a convicted criminal bothers you, you are going to be reduced to a quivering lump of flesh when you realize that the courts can have criminals locked up for life or even killed.
Do we really have our Bill of Rights anymore?
Yes. He didn't have to agree to this. He could have let it go to trial and proven his innocence. He feels that this limitation is better than imprisonment. He did a stupid thing; now he suffers the consequences.
I could never do that. I need the explanation of why and always have.
I doubt that. Ever learn to eat? Or walk? =)
I'll acknowledge that you are much more motivated to learn the WHAT if you've a notion that a WHY will follow, but I'd suggest that you CAN'T learn the why without first learning the what. For example...in 1776, the United States declared its independence from England. Why, you ask? It's impossible to explain WHY without first explaining WHAT occurred in the years leading up to 1776. I'm not saying you must have recall knowledge of those events (ie have them memorized and know them cold) but you must have at least recognition knowledge (as in "oh, yeah, those taxes.") To give a more mathematical example:
Solve -3x+8=20. Solve for x. Why does x have that value? Your answer may involve arithmetic. If so, why does the arithmetic work? Your answer may involve properties of the real number field. If so, why do those properties exist? Your answer may (if you've done serious undergraduate work in math) involve Peano's postulates. Why do those postulates work? Now you're beyond me. Yet to have an satisfying intuitive understanding of why x=4 in the above equation, you needn't be too concerned with anything beyond the arithmetic. You've mastered the WHAT (as in what to do when faced with an equation like that) without having a deep understanding of WHY.
Real math involves proofs.
This is true, but I doubt the fellow with the question is interested in real math. Quite frankly, the proofs are a hindrance to understanding the mathematics. Proofs are often the result of hundreds of years of mathematical development. Consider calculus and the limit theorems involved in the proof of derivatives. I can explain to a ten-year-old why the derivative of X^2 is 2x, and I can utterly convince him that it can't be anything else, but I can't prove it. Why? Because proofs involving infinitesimal quantities require a fair bit of knowledge of limit theory*.
Practical math should be more than "Here's 50 problems of progressive difficulty," but it needn't involve proof. An intuitive demonstration suffices for most people; those who demand proof are generally capable of producing it given the clues in the intuitive development. Otherwise, there'd be no progress in mathematics. Mathematicians begin with an intuitive notion of how the mathematics should work and go on to proof. Intuition yields conjecture yields proof.
*Not entirely true, actually; google for hyperreal numbers - they formalize the notion of infinitesimal numbers and make Leibniz's dx/dy approach mathematically valid.
Yeah, I've seen those posters, too. Lincoln fails, fails, fails, fails, and finally SUCCEEDS! HE'S ELECTED PRESIDENT! JOY!
He presides over the dissolution of the Union and a war that kills more Americans than any other before or since. When it's over he's shot in the back. May none of my friends ever succeed like Lincoln did.
He did great things for the USA, but he himslef was an abject failure.
Nuclear energy IS clean. The cost (both in dollars and human years lost) of operating a coal-fired plant is less than that of a nuclear plant. Your fallacy is in seeing the mistakes committed decades ago by an inexperienced (by today's standards) industrial and scientific community. Applying the same sort logic that you use to the space program would suggest that 90% of all rockets never reach even reach an an altitude of one mile, since your logic includes failures encountered early in the history of the technology. Applying your logic to the computer industry suggests that there's a global market for maybe 5 computers (at one point in history, there WAS a market for only five computers).
Technology progresses; I'd think a slashdot geek would realize this. Nuclear energy technology is no different.
I'd also point out that if you exclude insanely stupid events like the detonation of nuclear bombs, more people in the USA die in a year from car accidents than have ever died world-wide from radiation exposure. Americans (or perhaps humans in general) do a really lousy job in assessing risk. And don't get me started on the tragedy of SUVs (sure, you're more safe in your SUV...it's because of conservation of momentum. Never mind the poor sod you run into, because youre life is obviously more valuable than his). Anyway...never let good science get in the way of politics and mob manipulation. We fear radiation and throw ourselves under the juggernaut of the oil industry.
Sure it's about science! He did Pure and Applied Research!
Great books...
does that mean however that 1 man running a 3:42 mile means that a 3:30 mile is possible
If the average human being ran a mile in 30 minutes, then I think that a reasonable man would believe that a 3:42 mile implies the possibility of a 3:30 mile. This, of course is not the case. To hark back to the Challenger loss, if the standard is 10% burn-away on the rubber rings, and on some you have 90% burn-away, then you are using the wrong statistical measure when you say "There have been no catastrophic failures."
Lack of catastrophic failure does not imply safety. Lack of damage anywhere near catastrophic implies safety.
If I hit you in the head with a phone book for 15 days and say "He's not dead; therefore there is no permanent damage" then I'm an idiot. If you bruise one day, and concuss another (neither is permanent damage) and your head splits open and bleeds another, then is it reasonable to expect that I have explored all possible outcomes, and that there are no worse ones?
My point is that if your expectations are in one range and you are getting results outside your expectations, then your expectations are wrong. All your assumptions need to be re-examined.
There are limiting factors; the question is do we know what they are. Drawing conclusions from a limited data set is intellectually dishonest.
If I sit down in a chair fifteen times without it collapsing under me ...but if it creaks, then pops, then cracks, then splinters, then there is no evidence to indicate that the chair will break.
Sort of like saying that finding a 99-foot-tall man is just one more data point that 'proves' (inductively) that there are no 100-foot-tall men.
Columbia and Challenger are both examples of ignoring trends and paying attention only to thresholds. Were there catastrophic failures before? No. Were there failures before? Absolutely. The flaw is that they IGNORED their data. No catastrophe does not equal no danger.
In a world where everyone is knowledgeable about computers, expecting more money for that knowledge is like expecting your boss to pay you more because you walk upright, can speak, are literate, use tools, etc. New technologies eventually become ubiquitous. I don't think we're there yet.
chaos!
You say this like it's a bad thing. =) Note that the opposite of chaos is "order," as in "I order you to be like everyone else." Legally, yes, we must be bound by the same set of laws (there can be no private laws - the root of the word "privilege") but our ideas and creativity should multiply without limit. You may claim that making derivative works is not creative; in that case, there has been little creativity in novels or films for decades.
distributing the modified dvd without telling the audience know of the changes you have made is bad.
I don't believe anyone is seriously suggesting that this should be done. I certainly am not. Freedom of speech carries with it the responsibility of honesty. If we have erred in this country it is in permitting too much dishonesty (see any advertisement).
I am strongly in favor of the director deciding what the viewers see
REALLY. You believe that someone else should decide what I see? I don't think there is any room in a free society for that viewpoint. If you value a free society, one where I decide what I see (and read, and hear, and do), then I suggest you encourage the viewpoint that NO ONE should decide what other adults see. What you describe is a step away from propaganda and censorship; that one step is governmental influence over directors. This has occurred in the USA before; let's discourage it from happening again.
Copyright is at odds with free speech; this has long been recognized by the Supreme Court. If you value free speech, limit copyrights, don't extend them.
All for one! And one for AAAGGGGHHHH!!!!
Me, I'm waiting for...
"Find them and destroy them."
Or perhaps
"What good is a Ring of Power if you're unable...to Speak." - Agent Elrond
No mod pointss, but LOL.