Second, all files that were available were equally likely to appear in the sample -- the sample was not weighted by number of downloads, and it probably contains files that were never downloaded at all.
Oh well in that case they claim to account for that.
We found seven of the 148 files in the games and software category to be likely non-infringing—including two Linux distributions, free plug-in packs for games, as well as free and beta software.
I'm not sure what "blizzards trackers" are, and I'm probably missing the point entirely, but they addressed the limits of their paper:
the results apply only to the Mainline trackerless BitTorrent system that we surveyed. Other parts of the BitTorrent ecosystem might be different. Second, all files that were available were equally likely to appear in the sample -- the sample was not weighted by number of downloads, and it probably contains files that were never downloaded at all. So we can't say anything about the characteristics of BitTorrent downloads, or even of files that are downloaded via BitTorrent, only about files that are available on BitTorrent.
.
Maybe someone with a little insight into how BitTorrent works could comment on the rigour of their methodoly?
In a similar Princeton study the numbers were a little different but the general point remained the same.
46% movies and shows (non-pornographic)
14% games and software
14% pornography
10% music
1% books and guides
1% images
14% could not classify
They ultimatly found approx. 1% to be legal.
The Princeton piece makes for an interesting read because they do a good job of breaking down their catagories and providing some detailed context. For instance, 53% of the porn was in English and 5% of the software was Spanish language. Just really rich data for anyone into this kind of analysis. The final paragraph on how they decided if content was illegal reads:
Our final assessment involved determining whether or not each file seemed likely to be copyright-infringing. We classified a file as likely non-infringing if it appeared to be (1) in the public domain, (2) freely available through legitimate channels, or (3) user-generated content. These were judgment calls on our part, based on the contents of the files, together with some external research.
By this definition, all of the 476 movies or TV shows in the sample were found to be likely infringing. We found seven of the 148 files in the games and software category to be likely non-infringing—including two Linux distributions, free plug-in packs for games, as well as free and beta software. In the pornography category, one of the 145 files claimed to be an amateur video, and we gave it the benefit of the doubt as likely non-infringing. All of the 98 music torrents were likely infringing. Two of the fifteen files in the books/guides category seemed to be likely non-infringing.
The magazine, published from 1996 to 2007, collected the names and street addresses of about 100,000 subscribers and photographs and articles submitted by about 3,000 former readers, the FTC letter says. In addition, XY.com, which closed in 2009, collected the names, street addresses, e-mail addresses, personal photos and online personal profiles of between 500,000 and 1 million users, the letter said.
.
The original FTC letter also makes for an interesting read. They seem to rely both upon the original privacy statements and a broader sense of "fair play" in making their judgement.
In this situation, however, the continued use of the XY PI, even by the existing owner,
would not necessarily be consistent with the original purpose for which the data was provided.
Indeed, due to the nature of the information, the passage of time, and the closure of the magazine
and website in 2007 and 2009, respectively, the continued use of the data may pose privacy risks
not reasonably contemplated by subscribers when they provided the data, and not consistent with
their course of dealing with the company.
Article 46. Not an insult to the use of copyright protected works, dispensing with even the express prior authorization of the owner and the need for compensation by those who use them in the following cases:
I - reproduction by any means or process of any work legitimately acquired, if made in one copy and by the copyist, for his private use and not commercial;
II - reproduction by any means or process of any work legitimately acquired, where to ensure its portability or interoperability, for private, noncommercial
III - playing in the press, news or informative articles, published in newspapers or magazines with the name of the author, if signed, and the publication of which were transcribed;
IV - to use the press, in speeches at public meetings of any kind or of any work, and when it is justified to the extent necessary to fulfill the duty to report on news events;
V - the use of literary, artistic or scientific works, phonograms and broadcasting of radio and television shops, exclusively for customer demonstration, provided that the said establishments market the media or facilities to enable its use;
VI - a theatrical performance, recitation or declamation, the audiovisual display and musical performance, provided they have no intention of profit and that the public can attend free of charge, held in the family circle or in schools, when intended for use by bodies teachers and students, parents and other persons belonging to the school community;
VII - the use of literary, artistic or scientific evidence to produce judicial or administrative;
VIII - the use in any work of short extracts from existing works, of whatever nature, or entire work, when the visual arts, where the use itself is not the main goal of the new work that does not jeopardize the operation normal work reproduced or unjustifiably prejudice the legitimate interests of authors;
IX - the reproduction, distribution, communication and the provision of public works for the exclusive use of disabled persons where the disability involves, for the enjoyment of the work by those people need to use at any particular process or still some adaptation of the protected work, and provided that no commercial purpose in the reproduction or adaptation;
X - reproduction and making available to the public for inclusion in portfolio or professional resume, to the extent required for this purpose, since he who wishes to disseminate the works by such means is one of the authors or person depicted;
XI - the use of pictures, or other form of representation of the image, custom, when performed by the object owner ordered, with no opposition from the person represented or, if dead or absent, his spouse, his ascendants or descendants;
XII - playback of lectures, conferences and classes for those to whom they are addressed, prohibited the publication, regardless of the purpose of profit, without prior written permission of whom ministered;
XIII - reproduction necessary for conservation, preservation and storage of any work, non-commercial purposes, if carried out by libraries, archives, documentation centers, museums, film and other museum institutions, to the extent required to meet its goals;
XIV - the quotation in books, newspapers, magazines or other means of communication of passages from a work for study, criticism or controversy, to the extent required for the specific purpose, stating the name of the author and origin the work;
XV - a theatrical performance, recitation or declamation, the audiovisual display and musical performance, provided they have no intention of profit, which the public can attend free of charge and they occur to the extent required for order to achieve and the following assumptions :
a) for educational purposes only;
b) with the purpose of cultural diffusion and multiplication of public opinion formation or discussion by film soci
Your example of West African athletes is perfect. Our friends over at Foreign Policy noted an interesting historical event:
a search party sponsored by the magazine sailed from Bordeaux on a mission to study the athletic potential of the inhabitants of French West Africa. These sports missionaries eventually arrived in Senegal and were received by the highest colonial officials.
The result of this talent search was the sobering discovery that the explorers had completely misunderstood the relationship between sport and their colonial subjects. The Africans, unlike their African-American counterparts, showed little aptitude for sport.
The French found that the athletisism presumed as a natural feature of African populations wasn't quite as innate as they believed. There are some interesting sociological studies which point to similar findings - check out Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport for a decent overview - especially when comparisons of races pop up. It's been a few years since I reviewed the literature but the general thrust was that African Americans dominate in sport because they are raised to understand that blockbuster sporting success is the only crediable route for personal and financial success. They are encouraged to devote themselves to atheletics - and specific atheletics at that - as a means to enter college and elevate their social status at exactly the same time that their peers in other races are being syphoned of into the trades, academics, or some such thing. Obviously there is nuance to the analysis that I'm forgetting but it makes for an interesting explination.
Between that and the general studies that point to your kind of racial presumption as niave at best, dangerous at worst, I think we can safely presume that skin colour doesn't have quite the effect you're arguing for.
Actually I get the impression they're drawing their numbers from more than just SoundScan. A little before the aforementioned quote they noted that
There were only 225 rookie artists in 2008, and less last year, that broke 10,000 albums for the first time — not that that’s the only arbiter of success, but it’s one of them. That year, there were only 10 new artists that broke through by doing it themselves. If you can’t sell 10,000 albums in digital and physical combined, you’re still relatively obscure.
I'm assuming that they're using a more comprehensive dataset than just the one.
Interestingly enough one sale is all that can be expected for a large number of upcoming musicians. According to an article on Wired, which admittably is conducted with a subject who has an interest in fostering a certain degree of discomfort, thousands of artists sell next to nothing.
In 2008 there were 17,000 releases that sold one copy. Last year, there were 18,000, and something like 79,000 releases that sold under 100 copies. Under 100 copies is not a real release — it’s noise, an aberration. In any kind of scientific study, it would be filtered out. It’s like a rounding error. That 79,000 number represents almost 80 percent of all the records released that year.
I asked how many releases there were in 2009. He said labels and distributors had projected about 132,000. Later, SoundScan said 97,000 had actually sold. So it’s possible that around 35,000 releases didn’t even sell one copy last year. That means not even the artist or their mother bought a copy, and all those artists are out there gigging, they’re all on social networks, they’re all doing stuff to clutter the marketplace.
Russia is just being added to a rather long list of countries in this regard. Playing a little link-hopping tells us that both NATO and 30 countries (including the UK) have made similar deals with Microsoft albeit in refence to older technology. I would assume that all of those entities have similar updates to their agreements.
It's easier to make these things about villians and heros than it is to delve into the sticky and complicated issues as they exist in the real world. Check out this article for some interesting facts about the rig,
There were 126 people working on the Deepwater Horizon rig, yet no more than eight of them were BP employees. Some 79 worked for Transocean, the firm that owned and operated the rig. A further 41 worked for contractors such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp, a BP partner on the well. BP had 65 per cent of it, Anadarko 25 per cent and Mitsui Oil Exploration 10 per cent. There was also a firm called M-I Swaco, a contractor providing mud-engineering services on the rig, two of whose workers were among the 11 killed. Halliburton, Dick Cheney's former company, had four staff on the rig, and was responsible for "cementing" on the sea bed. Another firm, ironically called Cameron International, supplied the rig's blowout preventer valves, which, as it happened, prevented no such thing.
Further, the New York Times ran a great story examining the technology at work. It makes for some head-smack-inducing reading. It includes such gems as
blowout preventers used by deepwater rigs had a “failure” rate of 45 percent.
BP and other oil companies helped finance a study early this year arguing that blowout preventer pressure tests conducted every 14 days should be stretched out to every 35 days. The industry estimated the change could save $193 million a year in lost productivity. The study found that blowout preventers almost always passed the required government tests — there were only 62 failures out of nearly 90,000 tests conducted over several years — but it also raised questions about the effectiveness of these tests.
As with BP, the rig’s owner, Transocean, was aware of the vulnerabilities and limitations of blowout preventers.
But they were not the only ones.
The Minerals Management Service knew the problems, too. In fact, the agency helped pay for many of the studies that warned of their shortcomings, including those in 2002 and 2004 that raised doubts about the ability of blind shear rams to cut pipe under real-world conditions.
approved BP’s permit without requiring proof that its blowout preventer could shear pipe and seal a well 5,000 feet down...Mr. Patton said he had approved hundreds of other well permits in the gulf without requiring this proof, and BP likewise contends that companies have never been asked to furnish this proof on drilling applications.
As part of its assessment of the blowout preventer, Transocean hired West Engineering, which had a checklist of more than 250 components and systems to examine. It did not perform 72 of them, mostly for a simple reason: at the time, the Deepwater Horizon was operating in the Gulf of Mexico, and the blowout preventer was on the seafloor and therefore inaccessible.
According to a West Engineering document, one of those 72 items was verifying that the blowout preventer could shear drill pipe and seal off wells in deepwater. This checkup appears to be the last time an independent expert was asked to perform a comprehensive examination of the Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer.
The list goes on and on, a litany of errors from everyone involved.
A Blizzard employee went ahead and put his name out there as detailed on this site.
In short, a little digging has found the guy's phone number, home address, the names and home address of his parents, his siblings' names, the valuation of his property, the name of his spouse, his facebook account, pictures of his home, pictures of him, his twitter account, his age, and so on.
Just so we can keep the “didn’t read TFA” comments to a minimum: The four assumptions as laid out in the article are:
- The language being deciphered is closely related to some other language: In the case of Ugaritic, the researchers chose Hebrew.
- There’s a systematic way to map the alphabet of one language on to the alphabet of the other, and that correlated symbols will occur with similar frequencies in the two languages. The system makes a similar assumption at the level of the word: The languages should have at least some cognates, or words with shared roots, like main and mano in French and Spanish, or homme and hombre.
- The system assumes a similar mapping for parts of words. A word like “overloading,” for instance, has both a prefix — “over” — and a suffix — “ing.” The system would anticipate that other words in the language will feature the prefix “over” or the suffix “ing” or both, and that a cognate of “overloading” in another language — say, “surchargeant” in French — would have a similar three-part structure.
.
The article also notes the success rates where it states that
Ugaritic has already been deciphered: Otherwise, the researchers would have had no way to gauge their system’s performance. The Ugaritic alphabet has 30 letters, and the system correctly mapped 29 of them to their Hebrew counterparts. Roughly one-third of the words in Ugaritic have Hebrew cognates, and of those, the system correctly identified 60 percent. “Of those that are incorrect, often they’re incorrect only by a single letter, so they’re often very good guesses,” Snyder says.
Critics noted that
The researchers’ approach, he says, presupposes that the language to be deciphered has an alphabet that can be mapped onto the alphabet of a known language — “which is almost certainly not the case with any of the important remaining undeciphered scripts.” It also assumes, he argues, that it’s clear where one character or word ends and another begins, which is not the case with many deciphered and undeciphered scripts. The decipherment of Ugaritic took years and relied on some happy coincidences — such as the discovery of an axe that had the word “axe” written on it in Ugaritic.
TIGA [trade organization] estimated that the tax benefits would have cost the Government £192m over five years, bringing £415m to the Treasury in tax receipts alone.
Perhaps it was simply felt that there was better bang for buck elsewhere?
Anyway the underlying logic in the claim is a little confusing. How would the UK be accused of unfair competition if Canada offers the same kind of deal?
There are, as usual, some important caveats. This is the finding of a Zogby poll, a polling firm that Nate Silver fondly refers to as “the worst pollster in the world” and one whose methodology has been consistently critiqued. Further, it’s an online poll that obviously elicits a very specific kind of response.
Given the aforementioned, the specific numbers hardly paint the picture the summary provides.
While Microsoft, Apple and Google were each trusted by 49%, the percentage expressing little or no trust was higher for Microsoft and Google (both 46%) than it was for Apple (35%). The percentage of not sure responses was higher for Apple (15%) than for for both Google and Microsoft, both 5%.
Adults under 30 had the least trust in the two computer giants, especially Microsoft. Among First GlobalsTM under 30, 34% had trust in Microsoft and 41% in Apple. That age group's trust in Facebook (20%) and Twitter (15%) was also greater than that of older age groups.
I recommend you go over and look at the original report yourselves, it makes some really odd choices – for instance lumping together “trust a little” and “not at all.” Similarly "The Media" represents some monolithic entity - which is also primed against given the pervasive creation and politicization of the catagory of "mainstream media" - whilst Twitter, Google, and Apple somehow deserve their own catagories.
I'm sorry; I couldn't let this pass without response.
Women's only issues? Seriously? I'm going to assume you're just using short-hand for a more nuanced idea, but still the underlying ideology warrants consideration. Last time I checked the fact that I have a penis didn't make reproductive rights any less of a personal, moral, political, and societal concern. Ignoring the fact that I have a mother, grandmother, sisters, female friends, colleagues, fellow citizens, potential future daughters et al, the fact is that there are underlying issues of fairness, law, and justice that make this relevant to me and mine. I'm not Black but I care about, and am directly affected, by racial equality. I'm not a sportsman but Title IX effects me. I'm not a pirate but IP laws effect me. I’m not a Fox viewer but their freedom of speech effects me. I’m not on death row but their experience effects me. All these things effect my life as a citizen and member of society, they speak to my values, my morals, my interests, and my obligations.
Discrimination affects us all and strikes at the basic fundamental underpinnings of democratic society. Sexism is just as much about relegating women as it is about controlling men and the way they live their lives, it affects the effeminate man, the homosexual man, the artistic and the socially awkward.
A woman shouldn't be placing any additional emphasis on these issues, that's interest politics at their worst. Male politicians often care deeply about said issues, their female counterparts are under no heightened obligation to aggressively pursue an agenda because of their testicular inadequacies.
The whole European continent is over-leveraged on debt and Britain is doing their best to make an example by balancing their budget
Hardly the only ones though. France and Germany jointly announced similar budgets, for instance France committing itself to
cut 45 billion euros from the nation's budget and raise the retirement age to 62 years... "We've made a commitment to bring down our deficit from 8 to 3 percent by 2013, and we will concentrate all of our efforts on it."
Merkel...pledged to find around 11.2 billion euros (13.4 billion dollars) in savings in next year's budget. By 2014, the government hopes to cut 86 billion euros in spending.
The German government last year passed a constitutional amendment requiring an approximately balanced budget by 2016. The austerity package is intended to bring the budget into compliance with that law.
The government is also considering cutting up to 15,000 jobs from the federal administration by 2014.
The armed forces may be slashed by 40,000 soldiers and major projects such as the rebuilding of the Hohenzollern Palace in Berlin, which was badly damaged during World War II, has been postponed until at least 2014.
While more aggressive incentives did manage to lure the Public Enemies production to Wisconsin, after doling out $4.6 million in tax credits to the production, it was estimated that the filming of the movie only brought in $5 million in local economic activity
As part of his Emergency Budget, Osborne said that subsidies for developers first proposed by the previous Labour government in April will not come into force.
He described the suggestion as 'poorly targeted' as part of a wide-ranging budget that outlined a number of cuts and tweaks to the economy designed to reduce the deficit and facilitate business growth.
And despite saying "I want a sign to go up above the British economy that says 'open for business'," he made it clear that this will not be made by selectively offering tax cuts to specific fields such as games.
Re:also: more doctors, less pay, more compassion.
on
What US Health Care Needs
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Polish children have the worst teeth in any OECD country; a 12 year old has nearly four teeth that are missing, decayed or have a filling. American adults are renowned for having perfect sets of pearly whites, but each child has one decayed or missing tooth. Britain's children (along with Germany's) have the healthiest teeth, if not the straighest or whitest in later life.
Simply put, health and viability are not necissarily correlated with cosmetic appeal.
Again, how does that beat India? Or China? Or generally anywhere in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia? If costs are the only factor then any of those places should easily beat anything Georgia has to offer. I'm wondering what other factors come into play that makes Georgia worth the interest.
Which is somewhat my point. What is the particular draw to doing business in Georgia given the modern state of affairs? If I can work in Ireland or India with pretty much the same advantages why would I bother to relocate and open-shop in Georgia?
Slashdot Mirror
. Maybe someone with a little insight into how BitTorrent works could comment on the rigour of their methodoly?
They ultimatly found approx. 1% to be legal.
The Princeton piece makes for an interesting read because they do a good job of breaking down their catagories and providing some detailed context. For instance, 53% of the porn was in English and 5% of the software was Spanish language. Just really rich data for anyone into this kind of analysis. The final paragraph on how they decided if content was illegal reads:
. The original FTC letter also makes for an interesting read. They seem to rely both upon the original privacy statements and a broader sense of "fair play" in making their judgement.
Nope. This is a proposal, not an actual change to the laws. The article on ArsTechnica makes that very explicit.
For those interested in reading the entire thing - it's available here.
The French found that the athletisism presumed as a natural feature of African populations wasn't quite as innate as they believed. There are some interesting sociological studies which point to similar findings - check out Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport for a decent overview - especially when comparisons of races pop up. It's been a few years since I reviewed the literature but the general thrust was that African Americans dominate in sport because they are raised to understand that blockbuster sporting success is the only crediable route for personal and financial success. They are encouraged to devote themselves to atheletics - and specific atheletics at that - as a means to enter college and elevate their social status at exactly the same time that their peers in other races are being syphoned of into the trades, academics, or some such thing. Obviously there is nuance to the analysis that I'm forgetting but it makes for an interesting explination.
Between that and the general studies that point to your kind of racial presumption as niave at best, dangerous at worst, I think we can safely presume that skin colour doesn't have quite the effect you're arguing for.
I'm assuming that they're using a more comprehensive dataset than just the one.
.
Russia is just being added to a rather long list of countries in this regard. Playing a little link-hopping tells us that both NATO and 30 countries (including the UK) have made similar deals with Microsoft albeit in refence to older technology. I would assume that all of those entities have similar updates to their agreements.
Update. Now there's an entire website providing details on the private information of every Blizzard employee they can trace.
Some pretty personal stuff there including details on children, political contributions, addresses, educational details, and so on. http://asnowstormbyanyothername.blogspot.com/
Further, the New York Times ran a great story examining the technology at work. It makes for some head-smack-inducing reading. It includes such gems as
The list goes on and on, a litany of errors from everyone involved.
A Blizzard employee went ahead and put his name out there as detailed on this site.
In short, a little digging has found the guy's phone number, home address, the names and home address of his parents, his siblings' names, the valuation of his property, the name of his spouse, his facebook account, pictures of his home, pictures of him, his twitter account, his age, and so on.
Perfect combination for every guy out there - gadgets and a legitimate reason to argue that smaller is better.
. The article also notes the success rates where it states that
Critics noted that
Perhaps it was simply felt that there was better bang for buck elsewhere?
Anyway the underlying logic in the claim is a little confusing. How would the UK be accused of unfair competition if Canada offers the same kind of deal?
Given the aforementioned, the specific numbers hardly paint the picture the summary provides.
I recommend you go over and look at the original report yourselves, it makes some really odd choices – for instance lumping together “trust a little” and “not at all.” Similarly "The Media" represents some monolithic entity - which is also primed against given the pervasive creation and politicization of the catagory of "mainstream media" - whilst Twitter, Google, and Apple somehow deserve their own catagories.
So which reproductive rights were you hoping that your penis is granted?
Not sleeping on the couch would be right up there
I'm sorry; I couldn't let this pass without response.
Women's only issues? Seriously? I'm going to assume you're just using short-hand for a more nuanced idea, but still the underlying ideology warrants consideration. Last time I checked the fact that I have a penis didn't make reproductive rights any less of a personal, moral, political, and societal concern. Ignoring the fact that I have a mother, grandmother, sisters, female friends, colleagues, fellow citizens, potential future daughters et al, the fact is that there are underlying issues of fairness, law, and justice that make this relevant to me and mine. I'm not Black but I care about, and am directly affected, by racial equality. I'm not a sportsman but Title IX effects me. I'm not a pirate but IP laws effect me. I’m not a Fox viewer but their freedom of speech effects me. I’m not on death row but their experience effects me. All these things effect my life as a citizen and member of society, they speak to my values, my morals, my interests, and my obligations.
Discrimination affects us all and strikes at the basic fundamental underpinnings of democratic society. Sexism is just as much about relegating women as it is about controlling men and the way they live their lives, it affects the effeminate man, the homosexual man, the artistic and the socially awkward.
A woman shouldn't be placing any additional emphasis on these issues, that's interest politics at their worst. Male politicians often care deeply about said issues, their female counterparts are under no heightened obligation to aggressively pursue an agenda because of their testicular inadequacies.
The whole European continent is over-leveraged on debt and Britain is doing their best to make an example by balancing their budget
Hardly the only ones though. France and Germany jointly announced similar budgets, for instance France committing itself to
as noted at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/17/couples_retreat?page=full As for Germany, http://www.france24.com/en/20100608-merkel-rolls-out-unpopular-austerity-package-germany
Seems the UK government was aiming for a wider ranging effect with it's budgeting as noted http://www.develop-online.net/news/35205/Tax-Breaks-the-deal-is-off -
Simply put, health and viability are not necissarily correlated with cosmetic appeal.
Again, how does that beat India? Or China? Or generally anywhere in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia? If costs are the only factor then any of those places should easily beat anything Georgia has to offer. I'm wondering what other factors come into play that makes Georgia worth the interest.
Which is somewhat my point. What is the particular draw to doing business in Georgia given the modern state of affairs? If I can work in Ireland or India with pretty much the same advantages why would I bother to relocate and open-shop in Georgia?