Which is where I think the future lies for record labels. Instead of being companies that sign artists up to copyright-stealing contracts, controlling (or attempting to control) distribution and making all arrangements for recording, pressing, etc, labels will be glorified ad agencies. Band X will sign up with Label Y to promote their new album. Label Y will, for a cut of the sales or for a set fee, spread the word about the new album. If Band X is unhappy with Label Y's work, they'll leave (retaining their own copyrights) and go to Label Z instead. Of course, this will mean that the size of the labels will contract greatly. Especially when talking about the Big Labels. They'll fight tooth and nail to prevent this from happening, but it is nearly inevitable. (They might be able to stop it by buying legislation, but that's about their only way off this path.)
Plus, daycare is very expensive. My wife quit her teaching job to be a stay at home mom because the costs for daycare (plus after school care for our oldest son before she'd have been able to pick him up) would have reduced the money she was making to about $3K per year. So she had the option of working in a stressful job (dealing with interfering parents, middle school girls, etc) and not seeing her kids much in exchange for very little money or seeing her kids more and giving up very little money. The choice wasn't too hard. If things had been the other way around (my job paid little, hers paid more), I'd have been posting this from home while my kids played together.
I've been re-watching Farscape and just got depressed at one statement. During one episode, human astronaut John Crichton states: "My planet doesn't even go to the Moon anymore." I realized that we haven't been to the Moon in my lifetime (born in 1975), much less anywhere else (manned) beyond low Earth orbit. By all rights we should have some kind of permanent Moon base in operation now if not a manned trip to Mars. Instead, we've pulled back and decided that we're ok with just orbiting around our planet for a while. Very sad.
The Mumbai attack tweets were more than just "situation bad, people fighting." Here's the old Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/mumbaiattack You're going to tell me that "Hi jacked police vehicle had terrorists firing on innocent citizens and drove around Mumbai. No reports if have been apprehended" didn't contain *ANY* useful information? What about "Jewish and Israeli areas seeing concentrated attacks" or "JJ Hospital in need blood ASAP"?
Like I said before, any information medium is going to have it's garbage and it's useful content. In fact, the garbage/useful content distinction will be different for each person. You might not care about information for dads, but I find tweets about such items very helpful. Perhaps you're a gamer and would find links to articles about new video games very useful even though I wouldn't be too interested in them.
I have an (honest) question for you. Have you ever actually used Twitter? And by "used" it, I don't mean glanced at Twitter's Public Timeline for a few seconds. The Public Timeline is the equivalent of getting a live feed of every blog post going live and every message board comment being posted. Of course 90%+ won't interest you. That's why you choose your followers carefully so you're more likely to get incoming messages that interest you. No, Twitter isn't going to be for everyone, but it just seems unfair to condemn a communications method and everyone who uses it simply because you don't see a use for it for you.
And Twitter, like web forums, chat rooms or any other form of information transport on the Internet, is no different. It can be used for disseminating important information (like info about a terrorist attack in Mumbai), information that might be important to a select few (like updates to family and friends) or information that is really of no use to anyone (the stereotypical "I just used the toilet" tweets). Unfortunately, people who don't know anything about Twitter tend to focus on the latter group and claim that all of Twitter is useless. You might as well look at a few pages on the Web and claim that it is only a mechanism for viewing porn. (And, yes, I know.)
In my experience, a gentle back rub leads to my wife falling asleep. Maybe that's just the reaction you get after the sleep deprivation that goes along with having 2 kids.
There's a longstanding tradition in Judaism that the Torah, while written by God, is for man to interpret. It's not modifying the code, per se, but it is making it run in different manners.
For example, there are sections about the sacrifices that need to be done at certain times. However, the Temple (capital T, meaning the one that used to exist in Jerusalem) no longer exists so the rabbis declared that we don't need to do these sacrifices anymore. Instead, we need to perform deeds of lovingkindness. (There are other examples, but that's the only one that comes to mind right now pre-breakfast.)
Unless those detonations fracture the one big asteroid into a few medium sized ones. (And no, this isn't an Asteroids video game joke.) I'd suggest reading Death From the Skies by Phil Plait for some in-depth scientific (yet entertaining) descriptions of how an asteroid strike might happen and what we might do to prevent it. (As a bonus, you get Earthly destruction from black holes, massive solar flares and more.)
From the post: "If you have a patent, and a product comes out on to the market that uses its technology, you have one year from the time you should reasonably be aware it is for sale (more or less meaning when it is on the mass market) to contact the company about licensing."
This doesn't mean that you invent X and have one year to do anything with it or you lose your patent.
This means that you invent X, I come out with something which infringes on your X patent and *THEN* you have one year to contact me for licensing. If, however, you don't contact me within a year, your future claims of "patent on X" claims are put in jeopardy. This would be intended to stop companies who see infringement and decide to wait until an entire industry is infringing and everyone is reliant on the patented technology before filing suit.
I know reading articles is too much work for some people, but Ted Alvin Klaudt isn't serving 44 years in jail for one act of rape. He's serving 44 years in jail for being convicted of 4 counts of second degree rape. Each count carries an 11 year prison sentence which add up to 44 years. (There's also another 10 years for witness tampering in there, so his total sentence is really 54 years.) I don't think 11 years in jail is an excessive sentence for raping someone, especially someone underage whose health and well-being depended on you (like a foster daughter depends on her foster father). A father raping his daughter has no reason to complain when he loses his freedom for 11 years per court-convicted count. The daughters are going to need to live with this 24/7 for the rest of their lives so why should we feel bad for the father who is put in a prison cell?
The "use it or lose it" system wouldn't create (or solve) this problem. If I come up with a cool new technology, your company could a) license it from me, b) wait until the patent expires or c) use the technology and hope I don't sue. In cases a and b, the patent system is working as it is supposed to. In case c, you aren't waiting until you can get it for free, you are actively using my product in the hopes that I wouldn't sue (or that you would prevail in any such lawsuit).
What happens with patent trolls is a special case of c. In this case, companies use a technology that they don't think is covered under a patent claim. Years go by and using the technology becomes commonplace. Then, the patent troll emerges firing lawsuits left and right, trying for maximum profit. A "use it or lose it" system would prevent Patent Trolls from standing by while their patent is being used, waiting for the technology to permeate so much that companies can't afford to give it up. In short, "everyone's using this technology and has been for years, but the patent holder, despite being aware of the usage, didn't take any action" should be a defense against a patent lawsuit.
I think that an extended warranty's worth varies depending on how much the warranty costs and how much the item costs. If a $1,000 laptop computer has a $200 extended warranty, that might be worthwhile. But one time we bought my wife a digital camera at Best Buy for $150. They tried to sell us a $75 extended warranty. I didn't think a warranty that was 50% of the purchase price of a new camera was worthwhile, so we passed. Of course, since then I've made it a policy to avoid buying things at Best Buy unless it really can't be helped or unless they have the lowest price (not counting mail in rebates). Those instances are few and far between.
They would be of little importance, and I would have no problem with someone believing that the Earth poofed into being 6,000 years ago (or yesterday at 3PM) except that some of these people are pushing for the "Poof theory" to be taught alongside evolution and other scientific topics. When their "teach our religious beliefs in science class" arguments failed, they "took the religious out" by calling it Intelligent Design. (There's someone *wink* *wink* intelligent *nudge* *nudge* who created all this. Now I'm not saying it is God *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*, just someone intelligent.) This too is (rightly) being called out as being a thin veil for Creationism so now they're pushing for teachers to cover the "flaws" of Evolution. These flaws are inevitably things that have been addressed a hundred times already, but if you keep repeating them enough, people won't pay attention to the fact that you've been refuted over and over.
In short, Young Earth Creationists would love for our kids to be taught that the world came into being when God waved his magic wand 6,000 years ago. Then God planted phony evidence that seems to show the Earth to be billions of years old, but it really is there to test people. If you fall for logic and reason, you get sent to Hell, but if you shut off your brain and blindly trust what some people tell you God wants you to believe then you will go to Heaven.
And yes, this is coming from someone who believes in God. I just don't believe in a God who a) created the world 6,000 years ago with all the appearance of being billions of years old or b) punishes people for following evidence that He put in place.
I don't think that the government can copyright documents. They can declare them Top Secret, Classified or give them some other security designation that means general dissemination of the document could land you in hot water. However, in this case, the TSA themselves posted the document. They just drew some black boxes over the redacted parts, not realizing that PDFs don't care about black boxes. So it isn't WikiLeaks' fault that the information is out there. They didn't hack into the TSA's systems and make this document public. The TSA made the document public. Now the genie is out of the bottle and you can't just cram it back in.
No, no, no. That's far too sensible sounding. The best approach is to cover your ears and sing "LA LA LA LA" as loud as you can while you have anyone pointing out problems arrested for aiding terrorists.
Let's suppose for a minute that this was technically feasible and that enforcement wasn't a problem (i.e. no adults on the "Kid Internet" pretending to be 14 year olds). Those are big assumptions, but we'll ignore them for a second. What is appropriate for a child of 6 years is different than what is appropriate for a child of 10 years or a "child" of 15 years. (By that point, I'd argue, they aren't quite children anymore, but the "think of the children" movement loves to lumps them all together.)
So we would need to rate items on the Kid Internet by age appropriateness. Failing that, we would need to create separate age-segmented Internets (e.g. "Birth to 2", "3 to 6", "7 to 10", "11 to 14") each with their own content and restrictions. Of course, each child is different. One six year old might be able to handle things that another won't be able to handle until they are eight. So now we need to subdivide the Internet for each child. Yes, it will be hideously expensive and complex but "think of the children!!!!!"
Then again, we could also use that wonderful filter called "the parents." Parents could get involved with their kids (especially where the Internet is involved) and teach them not just how to be safe online, but what to do if an "unsafe" situation happens. Maybe the child clicks a link they think is fine and gets a pornographic website. An uninstructed child might not know what to do, but an instructed child will know to go right to his/her mother/father with the situation.
The Internet, like any large gathering of people, is not completely child-friendly. You don't just toss your child into the mix, hope for the best, and scream bloody murder when something happens. You slowly introduce your child to the situation, heavily supervised at first and slowly let them gain independence in the situation. Unfortunately, too many parents don't want to be bothered and just want the government to "do something."
You're right. I'll admit that I don't get out that often either. Of course, in my case it's because I have a wife and kids ("getting out" usually involves grocery shopping) not because I play a video game every possible second.
My wife and I have been looking at ditching cable too and going Over-The-Air (or at least DirecTV which is cheaper than Time Warner Cable). If you go OTA, do you need a converter box? We have two standard definition TVs and have no plans to upgrade to HD until one of the TVs die. (Yes, I know HD is better quality, but when funds are limited SD can be good enough.) If we would need a converter box, how much are they? Are there any you recommend? Is there any other equipment needed (besides the TiVo, of course)?
And some who are atheistic hate with a passion anyone with any religious belief whatsoever. Don't generalize what a small (but admittedly vocal) group says. Personally, I would never criticize someone solely on their personal religious belief. However, I reserve the right to criticize if that belief includes needing to "save" me (either my soul or my brain or whatever) by "converting me" to the "one true path" (be it religion or atheism).
Ok. How about: Scientology heavily restricts access to their "holy works" even to members and maintains strict copyright control over them to the point of threatening lawsuits against people who post copies of their "holy works."
I don't see any lawsuits demanding that these online bibles be taken down because someone church owns the copyrights on them. If anything, the churches/temples would *want* you to read their holy books. Walk into any Jewish bookstore and ask for a set of Art Scroll texts (that publisher is highly regarded) and you won't be asked to prove your "Judaism level" (as if there were such a thing). You won't even be required to be Jewish. You could then take those books and show them to a dozen people and no temple would file suit or come knocking at your door to seize your "forbidden knowledge."
Go join a Christian church or a Jewish temple. Worship there for a year or two. Now tell everyone that you've decided to leave the faith. I'm sure they'll argue with you, try to convince you to stay, but they won't use force. In the end, they'll likely wish you well and secretly (or not so secretly) hope you'll come back to the fold. In short, you are free to come and go as you please.
Now go join a Scientology group (sorry, not quite sure what their "houses of worship" are called). Be a member in good standing there for a year or two. Now try to leave. Go ahead, try. You'll find a lot more than words keeping you in. Read the accounts of people who have left or tried to leave. Physical threats are not uncommon.
You might not agree with the beliefs of religions (and it is your right to disagree), but they are nothing like Scientology. Saying that they are the same either gives Scientology too much credit or knocks religion for things it doesn't do.
A virus walks into a bar. The bartender says we don't serve viruses in this bar. The virus replaces the bartender and says "Now we do."
An infections diseases walks into a bar. The bartender says we don't serve infections diseases in this bar. The infections disease says "Well, you're not a very good host."
Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bartender says we don't serve bacteria here. The bacteria say "But we work here. We're staph!"
Scrodinger's cat walks into a bar.... and doesn't.
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew: "Will you let me go?" Mahna Mahna: "Ma-na-ma-nah!" Snowths: "do do do do do do" Lew Zealand: "Let me throw." Mahna Mahna: "Ma-na-ma-nah!" Beauregard: "I will not let you throw." Crazy Harry: "Let me blow." Mahna Mahna: "Ma-na-ma-nah!" Beauregard: "I will not let you blow." Fozzie Bear: "Let me joke." Statler and Waldorf: "Do not like your jokes." Fozzie Bear: "Let me joke." Statler and Waldorf: "Do not like your jokes." Fozzie Bear: "Let me joke." Statler and Waldorf: "Do not like your jokes."
I happen to prefer Google reporting the news that it gets from various different sources. This way it is very easy to see multiple angles on the same story. Let's face it, every news organization spins stories in different ways (some more than others). If you looks at various sources reporting on the same story, you can get a better idea of what the spin is and where the truth lies. If Google were the only news reporting agency on Google News, I don't think I'd continue using it. After all, then Google (like all news agencies) would spin stories and users would have no way of telling what the spin was.
Slashdot Mirror
"The main cost as ever is promotion"
Which is where I think the future lies for record labels. Instead of being companies that sign artists up to copyright-stealing contracts, controlling (or attempting to control) distribution and making all arrangements for recording, pressing, etc, labels will be glorified ad agencies. Band X will sign up with Label Y to promote their new album. Label Y will, for a cut of the sales or for a set fee, spread the word about the new album. If Band X is unhappy with Label Y's work, they'll leave (retaining their own copyrights) and go to Label Z instead. Of course, this will mean that the size of the labels will contract greatly. Especially when talking about the Big Labels. They'll fight tooth and nail to prevent this from happening, but it is nearly inevitable. (They might be able to stop it by buying legislation, but that's about their only way off this path.)
Plus, daycare is very expensive. My wife quit her teaching job to be a stay at home mom because the costs for daycare (plus after school care for our oldest son before she'd have been able to pick him up) would have reduced the money she was making to about $3K per year. So she had the option of working in a stressful job (dealing with interfering parents, middle school girls, etc) and not seeing her kids much in exchange for very little money or seeing her kids more and giving up very little money. The choice wasn't too hard. If things had been the other way around (my job paid little, hers paid more), I'd have been posting this from home while my kids played together.
I've been re-watching Farscape and just got depressed at one statement. During one episode, human astronaut John Crichton states: "My planet doesn't even go to the Moon anymore." I realized that we haven't been to the Moon in my lifetime (born in 1975), much less anywhere else (manned) beyond low Earth orbit. By all rights we should have some kind of permanent Moon base in operation now if not a manned trip to Mars. Instead, we've pulled back and decided that we're ok with just orbiting around our planet for a while. Very sad.
The Mumbai attack tweets were more than just "situation bad, people fighting." Here's the old Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/mumbaiattack You're going to tell me that "Hi jacked police vehicle had terrorists firing on innocent citizens and drove around Mumbai. No reports if have been apprehended" didn't contain *ANY* useful information? What about "Jewish and Israeli areas seeing concentrated attacks" or "JJ Hospital in need blood ASAP"?
Like I said before, any information medium is going to have it's garbage and it's useful content. In fact, the garbage/useful content distinction will be different for each person. You might not care about information for dads, but I find tweets about such items very helpful. Perhaps you're a gamer and would find links to articles about new video games very useful even though I wouldn't be too interested in them.
I have an (honest) question for you. Have you ever actually used Twitter? And by "used" it, I don't mean glanced at Twitter's Public Timeline for a few seconds. The Public Timeline is the equivalent of getting a live feed of every blog post going live and every message board comment being posted. Of course 90%+ won't interest you. That's why you choose your followers carefully so you're more likely to get incoming messages that interest you. No, Twitter isn't going to be for everyone, but it just seems unfair to condemn a communications method and everyone who uses it simply because you don't see a use for it for you.
And Twitter, like web forums, chat rooms or any other form of information transport on the Internet, is no different. It can be used for disseminating important information (like info about a terrorist attack in Mumbai), information that might be important to a select few (like updates to family and friends) or information that is really of no use to anyone (the stereotypical "I just used the toilet" tweets). Unfortunately, people who don't know anything about Twitter tend to focus on the latter group and claim that all of Twitter is useless. You might as well look at a few pages on the Web and claim that it is only a mechanism for viewing porn. (And, yes, I know.)
In my experience, a gentle back rub leads to my wife falling asleep. Maybe that's just the reaction you get after the sleep deprivation that goes along with having 2 kids.
There's a longstanding tradition in Judaism that the Torah, while written by God, is for man to interpret. It's not modifying the code, per se, but it is making it run in different manners.
For example, there are sections about the sacrifices that need to be done at certain times. However, the Temple (capital T, meaning the one that used to exist in Jerusalem) no longer exists so the rabbis declared that we don't need to do these sacrifices anymore. Instead, we need to perform deeds of lovingkindness. (There are other examples, but that's the only one that comes to mind right now pre-breakfast.)
Unless those detonations fracture the one big asteroid into a few medium sized ones. (And no, this isn't an Asteroids video game joke.) I'd suggest reading Death From the Skies by Phil Plait for some in-depth scientific (yet entertaining) descriptions of how an asteroid strike might happen and what we might do to prevent it. (As a bonus, you get Earthly destruction from black holes, massive solar flares and more.)
From the post: "If you have a patent, and a product comes out on to the market that uses its technology, you have one year from the time you should reasonably be aware it is for sale (more or less meaning when it is on the mass market) to contact the company about licensing."
This doesn't mean that you invent X and have one year to do anything with it or you lose your patent.
This means that you invent X, I come out with something which infringes on your X patent and *THEN* you have one year to contact me for licensing. If, however, you don't contact me within a year, your future claims of "patent on X" claims are put in jeopardy. This would be intended to stop companies who see infringement and decide to wait until an entire industry is infringing and everyone is reliant on the patented technology before filing suit.
I know reading articles is too much work for some people, but Ted Alvin Klaudt isn't serving 44 years in jail for one act of rape. He's serving 44 years in jail for being convicted of 4 counts of second degree rape. Each count carries an 11 year prison sentence which add up to 44 years. (There's also another 10 years for witness tampering in there, so his total sentence is really 54 years.) I don't think 11 years in jail is an excessive sentence for raping someone, especially someone underage whose health and well-being depended on you (like a foster daughter depends on her foster father). A father raping his daughter has no reason to complain when he loses his freedom for 11 years per court-convicted count. The daughters are going to need to live with this 24/7 for the rest of their lives so why should we feel bad for the father who is put in a prison cell?
The "use it or lose it" system wouldn't create (or solve) this problem. If I come up with a cool new technology, your company could a) license it from me, b) wait until the patent expires or c) use the technology and hope I don't sue. In cases a and b, the patent system is working as it is supposed to. In case c, you aren't waiting until you can get it for free, you are actively using my product in the hopes that I wouldn't sue (or that you would prevail in any such lawsuit).
What happens with patent trolls is a special case of c. In this case, companies use a technology that they don't think is covered under a patent claim. Years go by and using the technology becomes commonplace. Then, the patent troll emerges firing lawsuits left and right, trying for maximum profit. A "use it or lose it" system would prevent Patent Trolls from standing by while their patent is being used, waiting for the technology to permeate so much that companies can't afford to give it up. In short, "everyone's using this technology and has been for years, but the patent holder, despite being aware of the usage, didn't take any action" should be a defense against a patent lawsuit.
I think that an extended warranty's worth varies depending on how much the warranty costs and how much the item costs. If a $1,000 laptop computer has a $200 extended warranty, that might be worthwhile. But one time we bought my wife a digital camera at Best Buy for $150. They tried to sell us a $75 extended warranty. I didn't think a warranty that was 50% of the purchase price of a new camera was worthwhile, so we passed. Of course, since then I've made it a policy to avoid buying things at Best Buy unless it really can't be helped or unless they have the lowest price (not counting mail in rebates). Those instances are few and far between.
They would be of little importance, and I would have no problem with someone believing that the Earth poofed into being 6,000 years ago (or yesterday at 3PM) except that some of these people are pushing for the "Poof theory" to be taught alongside evolution and other scientific topics. When their "teach our religious beliefs in science class" arguments failed, they "took the religious out" by calling it Intelligent Design. (There's someone *wink* *wink* intelligent *nudge* *nudge* who created all this. Now I'm not saying it is God *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*, just someone intelligent.) This too is (rightly) being called out as being a thin veil for Creationism so now they're pushing for teachers to cover the "flaws" of Evolution. These flaws are inevitably things that have been addressed a hundred times already, but if you keep repeating them enough, people won't pay attention to the fact that you've been refuted over and over.
In short, Young Earth Creationists would love for our kids to be taught that the world came into being when God waved his magic wand 6,000 years ago. Then God planted phony evidence that seems to show the Earth to be billions of years old, but it really is there to test people. If you fall for logic and reason, you get sent to Hell, but if you shut off your brain and blindly trust what some people tell you God wants you to believe then you will go to Heaven.
And yes, this is coming from someone who believes in God. I just don't believe in a God who a) created the world 6,000 years ago with all the appearance of being billions of years old or b) punishes people for following evidence that He put in place.
I don't think that the government can copyright documents. They can declare them Top Secret, Classified or give them some other security designation that means general dissemination of the document could land you in hot water. However, in this case, the TSA themselves posted the document. They just drew some black boxes over the redacted parts, not realizing that PDFs don't care about black boxes. So it isn't WikiLeaks' fault that the information is out there. They didn't hack into the TSA's systems and make this document public. The TSA made the document public. Now the genie is out of the bottle and you can't just cram it back in.
No, no, no. That's far too sensible sounding. The best approach is to cover your ears and sing "LA LA LA LA" as loud as you can while you have anyone pointing out problems arrested for aiding terrorists.
Neither. Hand it over to Gozer. Then all you need to worry about is being roasted in the depths of a Sloar.
Let's suppose for a minute that this was technically feasible and that enforcement wasn't a problem (i.e. no adults on the "Kid Internet" pretending to be 14 year olds). Those are big assumptions, but we'll ignore them for a second. What is appropriate for a child of 6 years is different than what is appropriate for a child of 10 years or a "child" of 15 years. (By that point, I'd argue, they aren't quite children anymore, but the "think of the children" movement loves to lumps them all together.)
So we would need to rate items on the Kid Internet by age appropriateness. Failing that, we would need to create separate age-segmented Internets (e.g. "Birth to 2", "3 to 6", "7 to 10", "11 to 14") each with their own content and restrictions. Of course, each child is different. One six year old might be able to handle things that another won't be able to handle until they are eight. So now we need to subdivide the Internet for each child. Yes, it will be hideously expensive and complex but "think of the children!!!!!"
Then again, we could also use that wonderful filter called "the parents." Parents could get involved with their kids (especially where the Internet is involved) and teach them not just how to be safe online, but what to do if an "unsafe" situation happens. Maybe the child clicks a link they think is fine and gets a pornographic website. An uninstructed child might not know what to do, but an instructed child will know to go right to his/her mother/father with the situation.
The Internet, like any large gathering of people, is not completely child-friendly. You don't just toss your child into the mix, hope for the best, and scream bloody murder when something happens. You slowly introduce your child to the situation, heavily supervised at first and slowly let them gain independence in the situation. Unfortunately, too many parents don't want to be bothered and just want the government to "do something."
You're right. I'll admit that I don't get out that often either. Of course, in my case it's because I have a wife and kids ("getting out" usually involves grocery shopping) not because I play a video game every possible second.
My wife and I have been looking at ditching cable too and going Over-The-Air (or at least DirecTV which is cheaper than Time Warner Cable). If you go OTA, do you need a converter box? We have two standard definition TVs and have no plans to upgrade to HD until one of the TVs die. (Yes, I know HD is better quality, but when funds are limited SD can be good enough.) If we would need a converter box, how much are they? Are there any you recommend? Is there any other equipment needed (besides the TiVo, of course)?
And some who are atheistic hate with a passion anyone with any religious belief whatsoever. Don't generalize what a small (but admittedly vocal) group says. Personally, I would never criticize someone solely on their personal religious belief. However, I reserve the right to criticize if that belief includes needing to "save" me (either my soul or my brain or whatever) by "converting me" to the "one true path" (be it religion or atheism).
Ok. How about: Scientology heavily restricts access to their "holy works" even to members and maintains strict copyright control over them to the point of threatening lawsuits against people who post copies of their "holy works."
Now let's try substituting Christianity or Judaism. Here's a translation of the Jewish bible: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0101.htm (Copyright is claimed over the HTML, but it's still given out pretty freely.) Here's a Christian version of the same thing: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+1&version=NIV
I don't see any lawsuits demanding that these online bibles be taken down because someone church owns the copyrights on them. If anything, the churches/temples would *want* you to read their holy books. Walk into any Jewish bookstore and ask for a set of Art Scroll texts (that publisher is highly regarded) and you won't be asked to prove your "Judaism level" (as if there were such a thing). You won't even be required to be Jewish. You could then take those books and show them to a dozen people and no temple would file suit or come knocking at your door to seize your "forbidden knowledge."
Go join a Christian church or a Jewish temple. Worship there for a year or two. Now tell everyone that you've decided to leave the faith. I'm sure they'll argue with you, try to convince you to stay, but they won't use force. In the end, they'll likely wish you well and secretly (or not so secretly) hope you'll come back to the fold. In short, you are free to come and go as you please.
Now go join a Scientology group (sorry, not quite sure what their "houses of worship" are called). Be a member in good standing there for a year or two. Now try to leave. Go ahead, try. You'll find a lot more than words keeping you in. Read the accounts of people who have left or tried to leave. Physical threats are not uncommon.
You might not agree with the beliefs of religions (and it is your right to disagree), but they are nothing like Scientology. Saying that they are the same either gives Scientology too much credit or knocks religion for things it doesn't do.
A virus walks into a bar. The bartender says we don't serve viruses in this bar. The virus replaces the bartender and says "Now we do."
An infections diseases walks into a bar. The bartender says we don't serve infections diseases in this bar. The infections disease says "Well, you're not a very good host."
Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bartender says we don't serve bacteria here. The bacteria say "But we work here. We're staph!"
Scrodinger's cat walks into a bar.... and doesn't.
http://www.youtube.com/user/sciencecomedian#p/a/f/1/e7DkeQ0roAM
I see your Bohemian Rhapsody and raise you a Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody!
http://www.youtube.com/user/MuppetsStudio#p/c/C9E4DEEA577A3A79/0/tgbNymZ7vqY
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew: "Will you let me go?"
Mahna Mahna: "Ma-na-ma-nah!"
Snowths: "do do do do do do"
Lew Zealand: "Let me throw."
Mahna Mahna: "Ma-na-ma-nah!"
Beauregard: "I will not let you throw."
Crazy Harry: "Let me blow."
Mahna Mahna: "Ma-na-ma-nah!"
Beauregard: "I will not let you blow."
Fozzie Bear: "Let me joke."
Statler and Waldorf: "Do not like your jokes."
Fozzie Bear: "Let me joke."
Statler and Waldorf: "Do not like your jokes."
Fozzie Bear: "Let me joke."
Statler and Waldorf: "Do not like your jokes."
I happen to prefer Google reporting the news that it gets from various different sources. This way it is very easy to see multiple angles on the same story. Let's face it, every news organization spins stories in different ways (some more than others). If you looks at various sources reporting on the same story, you can get a better idea of what the spin is and where the truth lies. If Google were the only news reporting agency on Google News, I don't think I'd continue using it. After all, then Google (like all news agencies) would spin stories and users would have no way of telling what the spin was.