I wonder just how often the "bad guy shoots gun owner with his own gun" situation comes up. That aside, though, part of the motivation for this comes from the all-too-common tales of kids who get at their parents guns and accidentally (or purposefully) shoot someone. To solve this, though, we don't need smart guns, we need smart gun owners. (Disclaimer: I'm not a gun owner*, but I've heard the following from gun owners who seem to be smart about their guns.)
1) Never treat guns as toys. They aren't toys, they are potentially deadly weapons. Just as you shouldn't drive on the wrong side of the highway because "dodging cars is fun," you shouldn't waive a gun around and pretend to shoot people because you're playing around.
2) Treat every gun as if it is loaded. You checked that the gun is unloaded, right? Double-checked? Still act as though the gun is loaded and will fire at whatever you are aiming at.
3) Don't aim a gun at something unless you intend to shoot it. This might seem like it's repeating 1 and 2, but it's important enough to be a point on its own. Don't point the gun at your brother/sister/mother/father/kids/neighbor/etc unless you actually intend to shoot them. (And if you actually intend to shoot a person with a gun, it had BETTER be for a good reason like self defense - not because "they played their stereo too loud.")
4) Keep all guns locked up and unloaded. This will prevent accidental firings because you forgot that the gun was on the coffee table when your neighbor's kid came over and they thought it'd be fun to pretend to shoot you.
5) Teach everyone in the house how to use a gun safely. If someone is too young to be taught (e.g. a toddler), #4 should keep everyone safe until they can be taught.
If you can't follow these steps or don't see them as important (e.g. if you think pointing a gun at someone and pretending to shoot them is too much fun to give up), then perhaps you shouldn't own a gun.
* Part of the reason I'm not a gun owner is because I don't trust myself around them. I'm a notorious klutz and being a klutz around a gun would NOT be a good combination.
So buying a game and not continually paying the company to be able to continue playing the game is stealing?
Imagine how much I'm stealing by not buying the game in the first place! Not as in pirating it but as in refusing to deal with a game where I need to pay for a subscription just for the "privilege" of playing the game I purchased.
It would also depend on what the aliens looked like. Suppose you had a nice, friendly alien species - who just so happened to bear a striking resemblance to images of Satan. Let's assume that the aliens even looked sinister because it just so happens that what we term as "looking sinister" they think of as "looking friendly." We'd freak out (or at least a subset of our population would) and would call for their slaughter.
Then, suppose you had an alien species visit who looked like angels. They smiled all the time and practically radiated "goodness" - but were really evil creatures out to destroy us.
Or suppose that the aliens landed and they turned out to be 7 foot tall cockroaches covered in slime. Would we really welcome them or try to manufacture a giant can of RAID?
There are still many reasons an alien civilization might come here. For example, Xenophobia. They use their super-Hubble to see Earth and can tell there's life on the planet. They even see indications that the life might be intelligent. They send a probe to get a closer look. (With their technology, this doesn't need to be a ship that enter's Earth's orbit. This might be a small probe that orbits Neptune.) They get confirmation that we're here and that we're intelligent. This upsets them because their beliefs state that they are the ONLY intelligent life forms in the Universe. So either their beliefs are wrong or we're wrong for existing. Obviously, the latter is true so they come here to exterminate us. (And, no, The Doctor doesn't save us.)
They don't even have to reveal themselves to us (and thus risk some sort of counterattack). If they are patient enough, they could park a ship in the asteroid belt and fire a few asteroids in our direction. A few years later, the asteroids would come crashing down on Earth. To us, it would look like a completely natural event, albeit one with disastrous consequences for our civilization. The last human alive could die without ever having known that alien life not only exists, but killed off humanity.
1) I know that the "bible changing" on slavery was interpretation only. Unfortunately, too many religious folks confuse "what the bible says" with "what some person interprets it to say." The former (exact wording) doesn't change except in exceptional circumstances (translations, mostly). The latter changes all the time. In fact, you could go to five different religious scholars and get five different answers as to what a section of text means. But those same religious folks who tout the bible as being so good because (in part) it is unchanging are usually the same ones who will tout their interpretation of the bible's text as being the "unchanging truth."
2) When I said "in most cases over short-term history", I was thinking specifically about translations of the text. I can go into my local synagogue and pick up five printed versions of the Torah. The Hebrew will be the same in each but the English will vary in spots. Then you get things like the King James Bible where people look at the "Old Testament" and don't read/study the original Hebrew but study a translation made hundreds of years ago.
Hollywood Accounting is another issue entirely (and is a horrible thing that should be stopped). Let's use the Harry Potter books as an example. They became very popular and so JK Rowling was able to sell the movie rights to them. The studio made some movies off of them and everyone was happy. In a world without copyright, the minute a movie studio saw the first Harry Potter book selling well, they could rush out a horrible Harry Potter movie without the author's consent. Then another movie studio could do the same. And a third and a fourth. We'd be inundated with cheap Harry Potter knock-off films and the occasional decent production. JK Rowling wouldn't have any say in this nor would she be compensated at all.
Of course, if a movie studio wanted to wait 28 years (14 years + one 14 year renewal), they could release a Harry Potter movie in 2026 if we limited copyright to the original length. This would allow for the author to profit off of "approved" versions and would allow for interpretations/adaptions to come relatively quickly. With a 14+14 copyright length, anything from 1986 and earlier would be fair game.
You can buy individual shows from Amazon for $1.99 an episode. They have many of the shows that air on cable. Make a list of the shows you and your kids watch. See what is on Netflix and Amazon (both Prime streaming or pay-per-episode streaming). You might find that you'd save money by getting your shows from there instead of cable.
I agree that it won't be cheaper, but not that it is intrinsically more expensive. Rather, I think the cable companies will launch ala carte efforts but purposefully make them cost more for most people. Then, they will cancel the programs declaring ala carte unpopular and classic channel packages much more popular.
Alternatively, cable companies and the content providers could move to an on-Demand system. This way each "channel" could have an infinite amount of shows. Viewers would subscribe to a channel and then select which show on that channel they want to watch and when. You could even have a "home page" that showed you new episodes for shows in the channels you subscribe to. (Of course, this should be customized to allow for viewers to select which shows they want to be notified for.) This would mean that channels like "ESPN Golf" would be killed off but programming on there could just move back into the main ESPN channel.
Of course, long term, Amazon's model might be better. Just subscribe to the shows you want to see so you don't need to pay for an entire channel to watch one program.
I agree. We haven't cut the cable cord just yet but it's perpetually on the edge. The cable company gave us a good deal last time. The minute the good deal runs out and they don't give us another one, we cut it. Of course, it might get cut even sooner. My kids rarely watch live TV anymore. They use our Roku box for about 85% of their TV viewing. Another 14% of their viewing comes from DVRed shows and only around 1% of the time are they watching live TV. If we cut out the cable and went to Amazon VOD to buy any shows they'd miss, we could save some money (though not much with our current deal) and they could watch them at any time.
If my kids are at all indicative of the future of TV watchers, then the cable companies are in big trouble.
The day that science has all the answers all the time will be a very sad day indeed. Half of the fun of science is finding new things and saying "That shouldn't be doing that..." (Of course, while science doesn't have *all* the answers, it is much closer to the answers than anything else we have.)
And, to a scientist's eye (or anyone who knows how science works), saying "the established science is wrong" is very exciting. Unlike the bible which never changes* despite new evidence, science adapts. As old theories are proven to be incomplete or wrong, they are either fixed or ditched entirely to make way for new theories. Science is never considered "100% right", but it is always "the best approximation we have at the time given the available evidence."
Unfortunately, as I've seen first hand, some religious types consider changing to adapt to new evidence as scary and a weakness and staying the same no matter what to be safe and a strength. Thus, the unchanging bible* is good and changing science is bad/scary.
* While these religious folks like to think of the bible as unchanging and the text is (in most cases over short-term history) unchanging, the interpretations of it can change wildly. Case in point: Slavery is condemned by most religious folks now but, pre-Civil War, many religious people rationalized slavery saying that the bible clearly showed how some people were supposed to be slaves to other people. In short, the "bible is unchanging" argument is garbage because the bible can say pretty much anything you want it to say.
Yeah, even though the bill doesn't seem to grant more power to the government than it has already grabbed for itself, having a law around what was illegally done, legitimizes it after the fact
It's the old "try to get 10X and then 'compromise' on 5X' scenario. We've seen it with the RIAA when they lobby for draconian copyright laws and then "compromise" on less-restrictive (but still very pro-big-business/anti-consumer) copyright laws. The NSA did a huge thing that is legally sketchy at best. So they "generously" offer to scale back in exchange for the scaled back program being declared legal. After people accept that as the new normal, they go back to pushing the boundaries of what they can do and, if caught, will just forge a new "compromise" that still advances their operations.
If someone is actively hiding something from their spouse because they think their spouse will react negatively to it, then there's a problem with the relationship. However, this doesn't mean that the spouse has a right to see EVERYTHING that person says/does. In the parent's comment, they related the tale of a husband who monitored every cell phone message, Facebook post, and e-mail message his wife made/received. That's not normal behavior. I don't monitor my wife's messages. In fact, I'm not even on Facebook and she is. She could easily be saying nasty things about me there without me knowing. However, I don't demand to see/approve everything she says because I respect her. She's not "property" for me to "manage", she's my spouse and my equal in our relationship.
And lest anything think it only works one way, there are plenty of women who are as controlling as the example above. Either way, if you are demanding to see everything your spouse writes/says, there's a problem in the relationship.
Except, now the mere act of making a blog post or a Twitter comment or a Facebook update will be illegal if you have over 3,000 followers, are somewhat anonymous (i.e. use a screen name and not your real name), and don't register. Then, since you've done something illegal, the government will have "just cause" to track you down and arrest you. Never assume that you can't be tracked down by anyone ever. All it takes is one slip and the government will have their "dangerous blogger."
The only people who do this are OPPOSITE_MAJOR_PARTY_THAN_THE_ONE_I_VOTE_FOR. People from PARTY_THAT_I_VOTE_FOR never do this and actually care about me and about HOT_BUTTON_ISSUE_MAJOR_PARTY_PRETENDS_TO_BELIEVE_IN_TO_GET_VOTES.
The purpose to copyright is not to prevent plagiarism. That's a separate issue entirely. The copyright issue is this:
1) Author A publishes a successful book. 2) Publisher B wants a cut of the profits and so makes a run of the books with their own cover art. However, they put the author's name on the cover. They don't sign a deal with the author or give him any money. 3) Movie Studio C wants a cut of the profits and so makes a movie based on the book. They don't sign a deal with the author or give him any money. 4) Gaming Studio D makes a game based on the book. They don't sign a deal with the author or give him any money.
How do you prevent 2-4 from happening or give the author legal recourse if it does happen? This (specifically #2) is what originally spawned copyright.
Of course, the problem then becomes giving someone a permanent hold on items like this locks up parts of our culture. So there's a trade-off. Society grants the author a temporary monopoly on the work. In exchange, the author gives it up to the public domain after a set period of time. When this was 14 years (plus a one-time 14 year renewal), things worked well enough. The problems began when the media companies realized they could essentially keep the "temporary" monopoly forever and not give the items to the public domain by lobbying Congress to extend the amount of years that copyright lasted.
If we reverted copyright to 14 years plus a one time 14 year renewal, most of the problems with copyright would go away. Add in a splitting of penalties into commercial infringement (e.g. burning copies of DVDs and selling them on the street corner) and noncommercial infringement (e.g. downloading from a P2P application), keeping the penalties for the former as is and tying the penalties for the latter to a multiple of the market value of the item (e.g. 10 * the cost of the DVD) and virtually all of the rest of the copyright issues would go away,
Of course, given that we're up against the big media companies who want copyrights to last forever and who want penalties to be higher, not lower, I'm not holding my breath.
This is just "normal news cycle". First they tout some small report and describe it as an amazing new technology that can solve Mystery X. They bring on pundit after pundit describing the technology and wondering why the officials are ignoring such an obviously useful tool. When they've wrung all the airtime they can out of the story, they switch to "debunk mode" and show how the technology is garbage and the people behind it are scammers who are wasting our time and money. Then pundit after pundit comes out saying why the technology can't possibly work and castigating any politician who said they'd put any stock in it. When that story source is exhausted, they'll move on to something else and repeat the cycle.
Since the US, by controlling in the Internet, more or less is capable of re-writing any history that is less than praising of its methods, I suppose the US is on the right side of history. They can write the history, after all.
He was just misquoted. He meant the US is on the "write" side of history. As in the US is going to write the history and paint it as completely wonderful.
"In the dark times, national security was hampered by not knowing what every citizen was doing at all times. Roadblocks such as warrants prevented our wonderful security organizations from looking up information on anyone at anytime. This meant that threats could come from anywhere at any time. Those tasked with protecting our security wept over such horrible restrictions. Thankfully, the restrictions were removed and our wonderful security overseers can now look up information on anyone at any time for any reason without having to deal with trivial minutiae like court-issued warrants, probable cause, or fact-based evidence linking the person to a crime. This means we live in the most secure times imaginable. Just ask anyone (who doesn't want to be dragged off in the middle of the night for speaking out against the security agencies)."
And they use a lot of their money to push corporation control of the education system (e.g. corporate run charter schools). After all, what better way to prep the next generation of loyal consumers than by getting to them (and making a profit off them) young?
You can beam up first. Personally, I'd be with McCoy in not wanting my atoms ripped apart so they could hopefully be reassembled somewhere else maybe glitch-free.
Too many things could go wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-NiGp1gys
But in this case, cell phone companies could arrange payment plans and keep the service separate. Say the phone costs $700. You pay nothing now and pay $30 a month for 2 years. On top of that, you pay for your month-to-month service. Now suppose in month 5 you decide you want to go with Other Cell Phone Company instead. You cancel your service, but will still pay your initial cell phone company $30 a month until your phone is paid off (or unless you pay off the amount remaining). As for the risk of the person just refusing to pay that bill, that's what collection agencies are for.
The real reason for contracts is to make sure that customers can only jump ship once every 2 years. This lowers "I've had a bad experience, I'm leaving" churn as the customers might have forgotten about it by the time their contract is up.
Exactly! If you use the right tool, you can solve this instantly. Take a hammer and use it on your phone. Then you won't be able to use it while driving. What's that you say? You can't use it when you're not driving either now? That's a bug that we hope to have fixed in Hammer 2.0.
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I wonder just how often the "bad guy shoots gun owner with his own gun" situation comes up. That aside, though, part of the motivation for this comes from the all-too-common tales of kids who get at their parents guns and accidentally (or purposefully) shoot someone. To solve this, though, we don't need smart guns, we need smart gun owners. (Disclaimer: I'm not a gun owner*, but I've heard the following from gun owners who seem to be smart about their guns.)
1) Never treat guns as toys. They aren't toys, they are potentially deadly weapons. Just as you shouldn't drive on the wrong side of the highway because "dodging cars is fun," you shouldn't waive a gun around and pretend to shoot people because you're playing around.
2) Treat every gun as if it is loaded. You checked that the gun is unloaded, right? Double-checked? Still act as though the gun is loaded and will fire at whatever you are aiming at.
3) Don't aim a gun at something unless you intend to shoot it. This might seem like it's repeating 1 and 2, but it's important enough to be a point on its own. Don't point the gun at your brother/sister/mother/father/kids/neighbor/etc unless you actually intend to shoot them. (And if you actually intend to shoot a person with a gun, it had BETTER be for a good reason like self defense - not because "they played their stereo too loud.")
4) Keep all guns locked up and unloaded. This will prevent accidental firings because you forgot that the gun was on the coffee table when your neighbor's kid came over and they thought it'd be fun to pretend to shoot you.
5) Teach everyone in the house how to use a gun safely. If someone is too young to be taught (e.g. a toddler), #4 should keep everyone safe until they can be taught.
If you can't follow these steps or don't see them as important (e.g. if you think pointing a gun at someone and pretending to shoot them is too much fun to give up), then perhaps you shouldn't own a gun.
* Part of the reason I'm not a gun owner is because I don't trust myself around them. I'm a notorious klutz and being a klutz around a gun would NOT be a good combination.
So buying a game and not continually paying the company to be able to continue playing the game is stealing?
Imagine how much I'm stealing by not buying the game in the first place! Not as in pirating it but as in refusing to deal with a game where I need to pay for a subscription just for the "privilege" of playing the game I purchased.
It would also depend on what the aliens looked like. Suppose you had a nice, friendly alien species - who just so happened to bear a striking resemblance to images of Satan. Let's assume that the aliens even looked sinister because it just so happens that what we term as "looking sinister" they think of as "looking friendly." We'd freak out (or at least a subset of our population would) and would call for their slaughter.
Then, suppose you had an alien species visit who looked like angels. They smiled all the time and practically radiated "goodness" - but were really evil creatures out to destroy us.
Or suppose that the aliens landed and they turned out to be 7 foot tall cockroaches covered in slime. Would we really welcome them or try to manufacture a giant can of RAID?
There are still many reasons an alien civilization might come here. For example, Xenophobia. They use their super-Hubble to see Earth and can tell there's life on the planet. They even see indications that the life might be intelligent. They send a probe to get a closer look. (With their technology, this doesn't need to be a ship that enter's Earth's orbit. This might be a small probe that orbits Neptune.) They get confirmation that we're here and that we're intelligent. This upsets them because their beliefs state that they are the ONLY intelligent life forms in the Universe. So either their beliefs are wrong or we're wrong for existing. Obviously, the latter is true so they come here to exterminate us. (And, no, The Doctor doesn't save us.)
They don't even have to reveal themselves to us (and thus risk some sort of counterattack). If they are patient enough, they could park a ship in the asteroid belt and fire a few asteroids in our direction. A few years later, the asteroids would come crashing down on Earth. To us, it would look like a completely natural event, albeit one with disastrous consequences for our civilization. The last human alive could die without ever having known that alien life not only exists, but killed off humanity.
1) I know that the "bible changing" on slavery was interpretation only. Unfortunately, too many religious folks confuse "what the bible says" with "what some person interprets it to say." The former (exact wording) doesn't change except in exceptional circumstances (translations, mostly). The latter changes all the time. In fact, you could go to five different religious scholars and get five different answers as to what a section of text means. But those same religious folks who tout the bible as being so good because (in part) it is unchanging are usually the same ones who will tout their interpretation of the bible's text as being the "unchanging truth."
2) When I said "in most cases over short-term history", I was thinking specifically about translations of the text. I can go into my local synagogue and pick up five printed versions of the Torah. The Hebrew will be the same in each but the English will vary in spots. Then you get things like the King James Bible where people look at the "Old Testament" and don't read/study the original Hebrew but study a translation made hundreds of years ago.
Hollywood Accounting is another issue entirely (and is a horrible thing that should be stopped). Let's use the Harry Potter books as an example. They became very popular and so JK Rowling was able to sell the movie rights to them. The studio made some movies off of them and everyone was happy. In a world without copyright, the minute a movie studio saw the first Harry Potter book selling well, they could rush out a horrible Harry Potter movie without the author's consent. Then another movie studio could do the same. And a third and a fourth. We'd be inundated with cheap Harry Potter knock-off films and the occasional decent production. JK Rowling wouldn't have any say in this nor would she be compensated at all.
Of course, if a movie studio wanted to wait 28 years (14 years + one 14 year renewal), they could release a Harry Potter movie in 2026 if we limited copyright to the original length. This would allow for the author to profit off of "approved" versions and would allow for interpretations/adaptions to come relatively quickly. With a 14+14 copyright length, anything from 1986 and earlier would be fair game.
Many BBC America shows are available from Amazon VOD. You might save money buying the shows there instead of paying for cable.
You can buy individual shows from Amazon for $1.99 an episode. They have many of the shows that air on cable. Make a list of the shows you and your kids watch. See what is on Netflix and Amazon (both Prime streaming or pay-per-episode streaming). You might find that you'd save money by getting your shows from there instead of cable.
I agree that it won't be cheaper, but not that it is intrinsically more expensive. Rather, I think the cable companies will launch ala carte efforts but purposefully make them cost more for most people. Then, they will cancel the programs declaring ala carte unpopular and classic channel packages much more popular.
Alternatively, cable companies and the content providers could move to an on-Demand system. This way each "channel" could have an infinite amount of shows. Viewers would subscribe to a channel and then select which show on that channel they want to watch and when. You could even have a "home page" that showed you new episodes for shows in the channels you subscribe to. (Of course, this should be customized to allow for viewers to select which shows they want to be notified for.) This would mean that channels like "ESPN Golf" would be killed off but programming on there could just move back into the main ESPN channel.
Of course, long term, Amazon's model might be better. Just subscribe to the shows you want to see so you don't need to pay for an entire channel to watch one program.
I agree. We haven't cut the cable cord just yet but it's perpetually on the edge. The cable company gave us a good deal last time. The minute the good deal runs out and they don't give us another one, we cut it. Of course, it might get cut even sooner. My kids rarely watch live TV anymore. They use our Roku box for about 85% of their TV viewing. Another 14% of their viewing comes from DVRed shows and only around 1% of the time are they watching live TV. If we cut out the cable and went to Amazon VOD to buy any shows they'd miss, we could save some money (though not much with our current deal) and they could watch them at any time.
If my kids are at all indicative of the future of TV watchers, then the cable companies are in big trouble.
The day that science has all the answers all the time will be a very sad day indeed. Half of the fun of science is finding new things and saying "That shouldn't be doing that..." (Of course, while science doesn't have *all* the answers, it is much closer to the answers than anything else we have.)
And, to a scientist's eye (or anyone who knows how science works), saying "the established science is wrong" is very exciting. Unlike the bible which never changes* despite new evidence, science adapts. As old theories are proven to be incomplete or wrong, they are either fixed or ditched entirely to make way for new theories. Science is never considered "100% right", but it is always "the best approximation we have at the time given the available evidence."
Unfortunately, as I've seen first hand, some religious types consider changing to adapt to new evidence as scary and a weakness and staying the same no matter what to be safe and a strength. Thus, the unchanging bible* is good and changing science is bad/scary.
* While these religious folks like to think of the bible as unchanging and the text is (in most cases over short-term history) unchanging, the interpretations of it can change wildly. Case in point: Slavery is condemned by most religious folks now but, pre-Civil War, many religious people rationalized slavery saying that the bible clearly showed how some people were supposed to be slaves to other people. In short, the "bible is unchanging" argument is garbage because the bible can say pretty much anything you want it to say.
It's the old "try to get 10X and then 'compromise' on 5X' scenario. We've seen it with the RIAA when they lobby for draconian copyright laws and then "compromise" on less-restrictive (but still very pro-big-business/anti-consumer) copyright laws. The NSA did a huge thing that is legally sketchy at best. So they "generously" offer to scale back in exchange for the scaled back program being declared legal. After people accept that as the new normal, they go back to pushing the boundaries of what they can do and, if caught, will just forge a new "compromise" that still advances their operations.
If someone is actively hiding something from their spouse because they think their spouse will react negatively to it, then there's a problem with the relationship. However, this doesn't mean that the spouse has a right to see EVERYTHING that person says/does. In the parent's comment, they related the tale of a husband who monitored every cell phone message, Facebook post, and e-mail message his wife made/received. That's not normal behavior. I don't monitor my wife's messages. In fact, I'm not even on Facebook and she is. She could easily be saying nasty things about me there without me knowing. However, I don't demand to see/approve everything she says because I respect her. She's not "property" for me to "manage", she's my spouse and my equal in our relationship.
And lest anything think it only works one way, there are plenty of women who are as controlling as the example above. Either way, if you are demanding to see everything your spouse writes/says, there's a problem in the relationship.
Except, now the mere act of making a blog post or a Twitter comment or a Facebook update will be illegal if you have over 3,000 followers, are somewhat anonymous (i.e. use a screen name and not your real name), and don't register. Then, since you've done something illegal, the government will have "just cause" to track you down and arrest you. Never assume that you can't be tracked down by anyone ever. All it takes is one slip and the government will have their "dangerous blogger."
The only people who do this are OPPOSITE_MAJOR_PARTY_THAN_THE_ONE_I_VOTE_FOR. People from PARTY_THAT_I_VOTE_FOR never do this and actually care about me and about HOT_BUTTON_ISSUE_MAJOR_PARTY_PRETENDS_TO_BELIEVE_IN_TO_GET_VOTES.
The purpose to copyright is not to prevent plagiarism. That's a separate issue entirely. The copyright issue is this:
1) Author A publishes a successful book.
2) Publisher B wants a cut of the profits and so makes a run of the books with their own cover art. However, they put the author's name on the cover. They don't sign a deal with the author or give him any money.
3) Movie Studio C wants a cut of the profits and so makes a movie based on the book. They don't sign a deal with the author or give him any money.
4) Gaming Studio D makes a game based on the book. They don't sign a deal with the author or give him any money.
How do you prevent 2-4 from happening or give the author legal recourse if it does happen? This (specifically #2) is what originally spawned copyright.
Of course, the problem then becomes giving someone a permanent hold on items like this locks up parts of our culture. So there's a trade-off. Society grants the author a temporary monopoly on the work. In exchange, the author gives it up to the public domain after a set period of time. When this was 14 years (plus a one-time 14 year renewal), things worked well enough. The problems began when the media companies realized they could essentially keep the "temporary" monopoly forever and not give the items to the public domain by lobbying Congress to extend the amount of years that copyright lasted.
If we reverted copyright to 14 years plus a one time 14 year renewal, most of the problems with copyright would go away. Add in a splitting of penalties into commercial infringement (e.g. burning copies of DVDs and selling them on the street corner) and noncommercial infringement (e.g. downloading from a P2P application), keeping the penalties for the former as is and tying the penalties for the latter to a multiple of the market value of the item (e.g. 10 * the cost of the DVD) and virtually all of the rest of the copyright issues would go away,
Of course, given that we're up against the big media companies who want copyrights to last forever and who want penalties to be higher, not lower, I'm not holding my breath.
This is just "normal news cycle". First they tout some small report and describe it as an amazing new technology that can solve Mystery X. They bring on pundit after pundit describing the technology and wondering why the officials are ignoring such an obviously useful tool. When they've wrung all the airtime they can out of the story, they switch to "debunk mode" and show how the technology is garbage and the people behind it are scammers who are wasting our time and money. Then pundit after pundit comes out saying why the technology can't possibly work and castigating any politician who said they'd put any stock in it. When that story source is exhausted, they'll move on to something else and repeat the cycle.
He was just misquoted. He meant the US is on the "write" side of history. As in the US is going to write the history and paint it as completely wonderful.
"In the dark times, national security was hampered by not knowing what every citizen was doing at all times. Roadblocks such as warrants prevented our wonderful security organizations from looking up information on anyone at anytime. This meant that threats could come from anywhere at any time. Those tasked with protecting our security wept over such horrible restrictions. Thankfully, the restrictions were removed and our wonderful security overseers can now look up information on anyone at any time for any reason without having to deal with trivial minutiae like court-issued warrants, probable cause, or fact-based evidence linking the person to a crime. This means we live in the most secure times imaginable. Just ask anyone (who doesn't want to be dragged off in the middle of the night for speaking out against the security agencies)."
And they use a lot of their money to push corporation control of the education system (e.g. corporate run charter schools). After all, what better way to prep the next generation of loyal consumers than by getting to them (and making a profit off them) young?
You can beam up first. Personally, I'd be with McCoy in not wanting my atoms ripped apart so they could hopefully be reassembled somewhere else maybe glitch-free.
Too many things could go wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-NiGp1gys
But in this case, cell phone companies could arrange payment plans and keep the service separate. Say the phone costs $700. You pay nothing now and pay $30 a month for 2 years. On top of that, you pay for your month-to-month service. Now suppose in month 5 you decide you want to go with Other Cell Phone Company instead. You cancel your service, but will still pay your initial cell phone company $30 a month until your phone is paid off (or unless you pay off the amount remaining). As for the risk of the person just refusing to pay that bill, that's what collection agencies are for.
The real reason for contracts is to make sure that customers can only jump ship once every 2 years. This lowers "I've had a bad experience, I'm leaving" churn as the customers might have forgotten about it by the time their contract is up.
Exactly! If you use the right tool, you can solve this instantly. Take a hammer and use it on your phone. Then you won't be able to use it while driving. What's that you say? You can't use it when you're not driving either now? That's a bug that we hope to have fixed in Hammer 2.0.