When I played Red Alert online, briefly, there was one stratagy that would win every time. The tank rush. Skip building a refinary, and instead spend all your starting resources on tanks - they storm the enemy base before he has even gotten his production online. It was almost unbeatable. Took the fun out of multiplayer. There was no point using all the fun buildings or vehicles - if you tried, you'd just get stomped over by a load of tanks within the first five minutes.
Obviously it was an all-or-nothing gambit. If you don't find the enemy in time, you have no refinary and no cash to build one.
That is what I meant, I just didn't make it clear.
You wouldn't have to test all people - just those who have a genetic relationship to someone who has previously developed the disease, as those will be the potential carriers of a defective allelle. It wouldn't be practical to do this for every single less-than-optimal allelle, but it could be used to eliminate from the population those which are potentially most serious. Huntington's comes to mind. Cystic fibrosis. Haemophilia. Conditions that can be fatal.
(Yes, I know haemophilia is largely treatable - but even if you can somehow pay for the $300,000 worth of drugs every year, it still causes complications)
Would be nice to get rid of sickle-cell too, but it would be a good idea to delay that project until someone finds a way to get rid of malaria first.
Accountants call this being 'tax efficient' - using whatever loopholes they can find to avoid paying taxes. One of these is indeed to have the company officially based in a place with a very low corporate tax. Ireland is popular. The Channel Islands, too. Good for the company. Good for the tax haven too. Not so good for the place where the company actually does business, who end up saddled with the associated costs (Road maintainance, courts, policing, etc) of allowing the company to do business, but don't get the resulting tax money to pay for it.
At a guess, this might just be a difference between what the law says and what actually gets enforced. For example, in the UK, it's a criminal offense punishable by jail time to post on Slashdot from work*. Does anyone enforce it? No, because it's silly.
*I forget the precident, but it's the computer misuse thing. Can't do anything with a computer not clearly authorised by the owner.
The Nazis screwed up their science. It was already rather limited at the time, with little understanding of genetics, but then they threw in a lot of politically motivated nonsense about how superior their master race was. Eugenics to them was largely just an excuse. They wern't doing it right.
Race shouldn't really factor into it, except for a few genetic things like sickle-cell anemia that correlate strongly. Even then you can start ignoring race as soon as you have proper genetic tests available.
Annoying, really. Eugenics really had some potential for doing good - just a matter of convincing those with genetic diseases to not breed, and in a few generations they could be almost eliminated. But then the Nazis had to screw things up by taking the idea to extremes and mixing in a lot of unscientific rubbish about racial superiority, and they tarished the idea so much that it hasn't been taken seriously since.
I've not heard of the Stones, but I gather Sanger was interested in contraception more as a tool of social reform than genetic tweeking. She wanted to stop the poor from breeding so heavily, as she viewed their high birth rate as one of the key things that kept them in poverty. Get them down from six children to just one, and they'd be more able to afford to get the one properly raised, educated, employed and no longer poor. Not true eugenics, as she was concerned only with socioeconomic factors rather than genetic.
Google's mistake was understandable. They only really needed GPS locations and BSSIDs from every access point they could find - using the vast number of home access points, combined with their database, to create a low-power location-determining system. But rather than just record the BSSIDs, they configured their equipment to record everything, planning to just sort through the clutter at a later point. It's hard to see what google would gain from fragments of people's network traffic, untargetted and brief. If they wanted to snoop, well... they are google. They wouldn't need to go mobile to do it. They already have access to huge amounts of email.
In an interview on Radio 4 this morning, they had an expert (I forget who) comment on this news. He suggested that the data could be used against people in divorce proceedings. Snoop the phone, or subpoena it if you can't sneak access. Maybe you'll uncover a hidden affair, or a trip to the casinos, or that the vital business trip on that day the mother-in-law was supposed to visit seemed to involve going fishing. Something, anything, that can be used against the phone's owner.
It's sitting on a shelf, unused. No way I'm using that piece of crap, I'd rather stick with the modem. Maybe once they get the modem-only mode working and fix the many bugs and speed issues.
Bandwidth (In the digital sense, not analog) is the rate at which data can be transmitted - specifically an arbitary string of bits. Speed is the fuzzy subjective thing which users experience and complain about. Bandwidth is one of several factors which determine the percieved speed, and thus the frequency of their complaints.
An interesting point is that through most of HL1, the aliens are all just aliens - it isn't until the very end, if you follow the story, that you might realise that there are different *factions* of aliens fighting each other. It's not until HL2 that you learn exactly what is going on. Some aliens are on your side, some are not, but in the chaos of first incursion of HL1 it was every alien for himself.
There was one Christmas truce. Exactly one. The following year the commanders on both sides, those nestled well back, from the actual fighting, issued the order that if anyone tried that again they would be shot for sedition. They knew very well that the men pulling the triggers needed to see the enemy as faceless monsters, or else the trigger would not get pulled.
We have the second verse of God Save The Queen here:
O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all.
He was also a dedicated vegetarian, unsuccessful artist and campaigner for transport reform. Everyone just likes to forget he had a non-genocidal side too.
Farming isn't as labor intensive as it once was - the need has been going down ever since the introduction of heavy agricultural machinary. Intensive raising of livestock means fewer people to handle each cow or chicken. The only part left where masses of labor is needed is in the harvesting of some crops - and sooner or later, someone is going to come up with a robotic apple-picker. It's happening in every sector - even secretaries can now work many times faster with the use of computers than back when they were using typewriters. Those loggers can cut more trees per-logger-per-day now that they have better machinary. The only thing that prevents mass unemployment is that as the price of producing goods went down, consumption went *way* up - people in developed countries today waste things as a rate that would horrify their great-grandparents. They'll throw away clothes just because they have a small hole in, let food rot in the cupboard because it's easier than planning meals a week in advance, and use disposable diapers rather than have to face the unpleasant task of washing a reuseable one. Still, it does raise the question of when consumption will hit a limit - does there come a point at which people simply *won't* consume any more, no matter how cheap it gets?
The massive welfare depends upon lots of tax money, which only works so long as plenty of economic activity is occuring. In the ideal future robots would do just about everything and people would be able to live lives of modest luxury and much free time without needing to be employed - but the path to get there isn't going to be easy.
I know some anti-porn types are dreaming of the day they can ban porn from.com entirely. I don't think they realise that any porn sites that are trying to avoid going into.xxx (ie, the frauds and spamsters) will just move to country codes.
The respectable, rule abiding websites may be easier to filter. That just means more traffic for the ones operating without regulation, even voluntary regulation. They can spam all they want still. Even if forced frim.com, they'd just move to a country-code tld.
ICANN doesn't get a cut - and there will be only one registry. ICM, the company that submitted the application. They will be the ones getting very, very rich off XXX. All purchases of XXX domains, including renewals, are via payment to ICM.
You could run a private fire service in theory, but in practice they don't turn out very well. For one thing, in built up areas, why would anyone pay if their neighbour already has? They'd have to put your house out if it caught fire to prevent damage to a property they have covered. For another, you end up with a lot of people dying because the owner of the building they happened to be in was too cheap to buy coverage. The only way to avoid that is to mandate fire cover, but then you're just back where you started.
The house always wins *on average*. There is a chance of you winning in any individual bet or game. That's why people play. The house is involved in enough bets that those it wins will almost certainly be enough to pay for those it loses, and then profit on top of that.
Depends on the region. Note that a lot of copyrighted material is actually licenced, which may mean you actually can't even give it away legally - something the producers like because it means they don't have people buying things cheap second-hand instead of full retail price. The licence may or may not be enforced with DRM, but that makes little difference legally. For example, try to give someone a game from your mobile (Be it iPhone or 'droid) - it can't be done. Some jurisdictions have a 'first sale' doctrine that prohibits this restriction, but it applies only to physical copies, not downloaded.
The ripping of legally purchased content to a computer or music player *is* infringement - the core of copyright laws predates computers, and most of the change since then has been in favor of the producers. It is possible to assert some level of defence in fair use, but that's only a defence after the fact. Also, not all countries even have that. The UK, for example, relies on non-enforcement. Ripping your CDs to an mp3 player is illegal, but the labels are willing to turn a blind eye to that. It didn't stop the advertising regulator for recently prohibiting one of those CD ripping devices from advertising the claim that it can be used to rip music CDs though, as doing so remains technically illegal.
I don't know about the NZ situation.
There are a few even more complicated situations. Software licences often have very elaborate terms attached to them, saying exactly what the software may or may not be used for.
Slashdot Mirror
When I played Red Alert online, briefly, there was one stratagy that would win every time. The tank rush. Skip building a refinary, and instead spend all your starting resources on tanks - they storm the enemy base before he has even gotten his production online. It was almost unbeatable. Took the fun out of multiplayer. There was no point using all the fun buildings or vehicles - if you tried, you'd just get stomped over by a load of tanks within the first five minutes. Obviously it was an all-or-nothing gambit. If you don't find the enemy in time, you have no refinary and no cash to build one.
That is what I meant, I just didn't make it clear.
You wouldn't have to test all people - just those who have a genetic relationship to someone who has previously developed the disease, as those will be the potential carriers of a defective allelle. It wouldn't be practical to do this for every single less-than-optimal allelle, but it could be used to eliminate from the population those which are potentially most serious. Huntington's comes to mind. Cystic fibrosis. Haemophilia. Conditions that can be fatal.
(Yes, I know haemophilia is largely treatable - but even if you can somehow pay for the $300,000 worth of drugs every year, it still causes complications)
Would be nice to get rid of sickle-cell too, but it would be a good idea to delay that project until someone finds a way to get rid of malaria first.
Accountants call this being 'tax efficient' - using whatever loopholes they can find to avoid paying taxes. One of these is indeed to have the company officially based in a place with a very low corporate tax. Ireland is popular. The Channel Islands, too. Good for the company. Good for the tax haven too. Not so good for the place where the company actually does business, who end up saddled with the associated costs (Road maintainance, courts, policing, etc) of allowing the company to do business, but don't get the resulting tax money to pay for it.
At a guess, this might just be a difference between what the law says and what actually gets enforced. For example, in the UK, it's a criminal offense punishable by jail time to post on Slashdot from work*. Does anyone enforce it? No, because it's silly.
*I forget the precident, but it's the computer misuse thing. Can't do anything with a computer not clearly authorised by the owner.
The Nazis screwed up their science. It was already rather limited at the time, with little understanding of genetics, but then they threw in a lot of politically motivated nonsense about how superior their master race was. Eugenics to them was largely just an excuse. They wern't doing it right.
Race shouldn't really factor into it, except for a few genetic things like sickle-cell anemia that correlate strongly. Even then you can start ignoring race as soon as you have proper genetic tests available.
Annoying, really. Eugenics really had some potential for doing good - just a matter of convincing those with genetic diseases to not breed, and in a few generations they could be almost eliminated. But then the Nazis had to screw things up by taking the idea to extremes and mixing in a lot of unscientific rubbish about racial superiority, and they tarished the idea so much that it hasn't been taken seriously since.
I've not heard of the Stones, but I gather Sanger was interested in contraception more as a tool of social reform than genetic tweeking. She wanted to stop the poor from breeding so heavily, as she viewed their high birth rate as one of the key things that kept them in poverty. Get them down from six children to just one, and they'd be more able to afford to get the one properly raised, educated, employed and no longer poor. Not true eugenics, as she was concerned only with socioeconomic factors rather than genetic.
Google's mistake was understandable. They only really needed GPS locations and BSSIDs from every access point they could find - using the vast number of home access points, combined with their database, to create a low-power location-determining system. But rather than just record the BSSIDs, they configured their equipment to record everything, planning to just sort through the clutter at a later point. It's hard to see what google would gain from fragments of people's network traffic, untargetted and brief. If they wanted to snoop, well... they are google. They wouldn't need to go mobile to do it. They already have access to huge amounts of email.
In an interview on Radio 4 this morning, they had an expert (I forget who) comment on this news. He suggested that the data could be used against people in divorce proceedings. Snoop the phone, or subpoena it if you can't sneak access. Maybe you'll uncover a hidden affair, or a trip to the casinos, or that the vital business trip on that day the mother-in-law was supposed to visit seemed to involve going fishing. Something, anything, that can be used against the phone's owner.
Steam users, I imagine.
I have one of those!
It's sitting on a shelf, unused. No way I'm using that piece of crap, I'd rather stick with the modem. Maybe once they get the modem-only mode working and fix the many bugs and speed issues.
Bandwidth (In the digital sense, not analog) is the rate at which data can be transmitted - specifically an arbitary string of bits. Speed is the fuzzy subjective thing which users experience and complain about. Bandwidth is one of several factors which determine the percieved speed, and thus the frequency of their complaints.
An interesting point is that through most of HL1, the aliens are all just aliens - it isn't until the very end, if you follow the story, that you might realise that there are different *factions* of aliens fighting each other. It's not until HL2 that you learn exactly what is going on. Some aliens are on your side, some are not, but in the chaos of first incursion of HL1 it was every alien for himself.
There was one Christmas truce. Exactly one. The following year the commanders on both sides, those nestled well back, from the actual fighting, issued the order that if anyone tried that again they would be shot for sedition. They knew very well that the men pulling the triggers needed to see the enemy as faceless monsters, or else the trigger would not get pulled.
We have the second verse of God Save The Queen here:
O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all.
He was also a dedicated vegetarian, unsuccessful artist and campaigner for transport reform. Everyone just likes to forget he had a non-genocidal side too.
And I'm sure the target audience will love it. Both of them.
Farming isn't as labor intensive as it once was - the need has been going down ever since the introduction of heavy agricultural machinary. Intensive raising of livestock means fewer people to handle each cow or chicken. The only part left where masses of labor is needed is in the harvesting of some crops - and sooner or later, someone is going to come up with a robotic apple-picker. It's happening in every sector - even secretaries can now work many times faster with the use of computers than back when they were using typewriters. Those loggers can cut more trees per-logger-per-day now that they have better machinary. The only thing that prevents mass unemployment is that as the price of producing goods went down, consumption went *way* up - people in developed countries today waste things as a rate that would horrify their great-grandparents. They'll throw away clothes just because they have a small hole in, let food rot in the cupboard because it's easier than planning meals a week in advance, and use disposable diapers rather than have to face the unpleasant task of washing a reuseable one. Still, it does raise the question of when consumption will hit a limit - does there come a point at which people simply *won't* consume any more, no matter how cheap it gets?
The massive welfare depends upon lots of tax money, which only works so long as plenty of economic activity is occuring. In the ideal future robots would do just about everything and people would be able to live lives of modest luxury and much free time without needing to be employed - but the path to get there isn't going to be easy.
I know some anti-porn types are dreaming of the day they can ban porn from .com entirely. I don't think they realise that any porn sites that are trying to avoid going into .xxx (ie, the frauds and spamsters) will just move to country codes.
The respectable, rule abiding websites may be easier to filter. That just means more traffic for the ones operating without regulation, even voluntary regulation. They can spam all they want still. Even if forced frim .com, they'd just move to a country-code tld.
ICANN doesn't get a cut - and there will be only one registry. ICM, the company that submitted the application. They will be the ones getting very, very rich off XXX. All purchases of XXX domains, including renewals, are via payment to ICM.
You could run a private fire service in theory, but in practice they don't turn out very well. For one thing, in built up areas, why would anyone pay if their neighbour already has? They'd have to put your house out if it caught fire to prevent damage to a property they have covered. For another, you end up with a lot of people dying because the owner of the building they happened to be in was too cheap to buy coverage. The only way to avoid that is to mandate fire cover, but then you're just back where you started.
The house always wins *on average*. There is a chance of you winning in any individual bet or game. That's why people play. The house is involved in enough bets that those it wins will almost certainly be enough to pay for those it loses, and then profit on top of that.
Noted. Should I ever plan to defraud a poker site, I will make sure to run my pokerbot software on a seperate, isolated computer.
Depends on the region. Note that a lot of copyrighted material is actually licenced, which may mean you actually can't even give it away legally - something the producers like because it means they don't have people buying things cheap second-hand instead of full retail price. The licence may or may not be enforced with DRM, but that makes little difference legally. For example, try to give someone a game from your mobile (Be it iPhone or 'droid) - it can't be done. Some jurisdictions have a 'first sale' doctrine that prohibits this restriction, but it applies only to physical copies, not downloaded.
The ripping of legally purchased content to a computer or music player *is* infringement - the core of copyright laws predates computers, and most of the change since then has been in favor of the producers. It is possible to assert some level of defence in fair use, but that's only a defence after the fact. Also, not all countries even have that. The UK, for example, relies on non-enforcement. Ripping your CDs to an mp3 player is illegal, but the labels are willing to turn a blind eye to that. It didn't stop the advertising regulator for recently prohibiting one of those CD ripping devices from advertising the claim that it can be used to rip music CDs though, as doing so remains technically illegal.
I don't know about the NZ situation.
There are a few even more complicated situations. Software licences often have very elaborate terms attached to them, saying exactly what the software may or may not be used for.