Who ever said *anybody* should be paying *less*. [...] The idea is to figure out who can pay *more*.
If A is paying more than B, than B is paying less than more. This is extremely basic math...
The cableco's argument is that 5% of their subscribers (who currently all pay the same) use 50% of the bandwidth. I'm open to argument, why the other 95% should not be paying less, than these 5%...
I don't see, why TW's reasoning must be rejected immediately by all...
There are plenty of examples of how this happens anytime you have a media bottleneck. I grew up in the U.S. during the Cold War and saw plenty of such propagandistic filtering thanks to a tightly controlled media.
No — quite evidently the Soviet propaganda got through to you anyway...
But even if we accept — for argument's sake — your argument, then all of those omissions in your world view took place long before the "media consolidation" that is being attacked by the "frosty pisser"...
This is why consolidation in media is such a BAD, BAD, BAD thing for consumers.
It is bad (the smaller the business the better for its retail customers), but it can not be denied to them without trampling on some fairly basic human rights (those of the shareholders). What is bad — nay, disastrous — were those "smart" decisions granting these guys monopoly on cable-service. The availability of DSL from a competition helps, but is not always enough to keep them on their feet...
When one single company (or even small group of companies) owns your newspaper, television stations, internet service, telephone company, cable company, etc. they basically own *YOU*.
Come, come... You don't get to own me by owning my sources of entertainment and some of my communications options...
Now, back to the subject at hand. Why should not people, who use less bandwidth, be paying less for the Internet service?
Clinton's plan is actually very similar to Flopping Mitt's Massachusetts plan. And, Flopping Mitt has disavowed many aspects of his statewide plan for fear of alienating his "fuck the poor" conservative base.
Of course, Clinton's plan is similar — because Mitt's was good. Hillary's own (a.k.a. "Hillarycare") was a disaster. Mitt does not like his own not because he is "flopping", but because it is a (good) plan to a wrong end — in his, mine, and the conservative base's opinion.
You can call me (and them) "fuck the poor", but that's all meaningless namecalling, until you can explain to me, how a born-and-raised citizen of this country manages to stay poor, despite the immense head-start he has compared to the immigrants, who need to learn the language and the culture before becoming successful. Oh, and many of them need to shed the "illegal alien" status too.
In some small countries remittances from America are a big part of GDP — these people manage to not only support themselves, but also their extended families abroad. I'd rather send $100 to Darfur, than give $1 to an American beggar. And so should you...
Clinton and Obama both support health care reform.
Their plans would turn it from bad to worse — from the business-chosen insurance plans to the government chosen. It has to be individual-chosen instead. You'd be able to keep your insurer (who will remain stuck with your "pre-existing condition") regardless of your place of employment (or lack thereof).
None of the Republicans do. This vote is easy.
That's a lie. Matt Romney — a Republican — created a workable health-insurance system in Massachusetts and is not averse to implementing the same nation-wide. He would not be my top-choice among Republicans, but your claims are false nonetheless.
They surrendered to the Germans because 1940s France was a bitterly divided nation with an ineffective government
What about the years of indecisive (although terribly deadly) warfare of the WWI? France never dislodged the German invaders, until Germany collapsed because of its own Communists...
And before that there was a Franco-Prussian war, which France lost spectacularly... And elsewhere — since Napoleon (the first and only) France was either just a dwarf or a giant on clay feet either losing wars outright (such as colonial war(s) with the British) or achieving token victories at huge costs (such as the Crimean war).
Step back and take a good look at what you're saying.
I've been saying this over and over. The right of creators to control their creations — selling it, giving it away, burning it, etc. is sacred and any legal action they take to enforce it is perfectly Ok.
This applies equally to software licensing (GPL violations, anyone?), music, videos, fashion design, and all other aspects of life, where design is much more expensive and difficult, than the actual production.
The word "download" does not appear in the entire text of the U.S. Copyright laws.
Throwing rocks is not mentioned in any laws either. But when a rock is thrown through somebody else's window, well that's highly illegal.
This is about restoring the sanctity of the private club they turned radio into.
Off-topic and thus skipped.
If the record label owns the rights, what the creators think is irrelevant.
The creators sold their control — willingly and for good money. If you make the record-labels' ownership any less valid than that of the original creators, you'll simply rob the creators of their ability to sell. And you will not get anywhere anyway, because some bands have their own labels.
And you act like we've always sued children for listening to pop music.
That's not what they RIAA is suing "the children" for. You know it, I know it. The charge is not "listening to pop music", but "copyright infringement". That's illegal and not much different from "real" stealing — something, children were prosecuted (including chopping-off hands in some countries) for since forever.
The RIAA doesn't represent people. It represents record labels.
There is no difference. The rights of the associations (such as RIAA) are derived from the rights of their members, and, similarly, the rights of the corporations (such as the record labels) are derived from those of their owners. It all boils down to whether or not the creators can control their creations. And they absolutely ought to be able to — including being able to sell that control to anyone they want, including a record label.
Just as Linksys can not violate GPL by not providing the GPLed source used in their routers, the music licenses ought not to be violated with impunity.
Rather than worry about the weather, China should release everyone arrested for "inciting subversion of state power", and remove the charge from its criminal law.
Until then, the athletes should boycott the country...
You are repeating this, as if it were always and automatically wrong to sue children. It is not, or we would've had no juvenile prisons, for example.
Real musicians never cry because people are listening to their music.
Everybody is welcome to give their creations away. Already. Whoever does not want to do that, must be allowed to not do that — there is nothing wrong with them enforcing their rights, even if some those, who violate their rights are "children". These are the people, RIAA (as well as MPAA and BSA) represents.
Whether or not they are "real" musicians (movie-makers, software authors) — in your opinion — is irrelevant.
Ooops, you just disqualified 99% of slashdot participants — thus underscoring my point.
you should never let ownership of your songs fall into the hands of these vultures, lest they use it to sue children.
Now let me demolish your point... Some real musicians, such as Metallica and U2 think, "the vultures" aren't aggressive enough.
As for your "sue children" — please, stop the demagoguery. If the same cheeky child was throwing a rock through your window every morning, you'd be suing him and his parents within a week — there are plenty of misdeeds, for which young age is no excuse.
All that said, you are welcome to give your own music away on whatever terms you wish. Just don't prevent others from enforcing their rights to control their creations...
After all, you don't buy a Chevy battery to start a Chevrolet.
No, but wheels are almost unique to each model — replacing Geo Prizm with a Honda Fit, for example, forced us to replace our set of winter wheels/tires recently... While we have some decent standards already — the AC current, the bed-sizes, for example, too many things remain non-standardized. DC power is the most obvious example. Although Research-in-Motion and Nokia should be praised for trying to cut down on the number of different adapters, that is still not enough:
The Open Mobile Terminal Platform (omtp.org) is supported by a number of manufacturers that would like to see the micro USB become the standard connector. It's too early to know if they will succeed; let's hope they do.
Woo-hoo! If that reduces the number of "bricks" around, great. But I look forward to just having standard DC-outlets next to the AC ones...
Strangely enough, the MythBusters folks don't mention the maddening diversity of screws and bolts. Even inside a computer there are several different size. Oh, and they sometimes differ in the shape of the required driver too, not just length and diameter...
I doubt this is done on purpose, in order to secure future income for the company by producing the parts — computer-makers neither make nor sell the screws, for example. It is just a designer creating, what they think is ideal for the task, instead of picking up what's good enough and already available...
Computer-software vendors, BTW, suffer from the same problem — how many application-specific programming languages were created even after John Ousterhout's famous lamentation?... Even if there are some of them, which are better than Ousterhout's TCL (or Perl, or Python, or JavaScript, or whatever general purpose language you prefer), are they so much better as to justify forcing users to learn yet another language?
All of these articles about the minor skirmishes in *AA's war against infringers are boring and serve no purpose other than to provide yet another forum for some people to say: "Copyright infringement is wrong, like stealing," and for others to claim: "No, it is not exactly the same as stealing, and therefore good." The exact details of each legal encounter don't change anything, and are only useful to the practicing lawyers...
Unlike the emacs vs. vi flamewars, this one can, actually, be resolved with some certainty, and whoever can be convinced is convinced already...
Perhaps, our distinguished editors can delegate these articles to some peripheral subsection instead of the front-page?
it's been my experience that the vast majority of the men and women joining the combat arms end up as much better human beings because of their training and indoctrination.
This is where you should describe your experience in more detail... Are you an an Army (Navy, Marine, Air Force) recruiter or some such?.. Or do you just know a few delinquents, who signed up and got straightened up?
If you eliminate those opportunities by replacing them with robots, do you really think the result will be good for our society?
In all honesty, I don't think the result will be felt by the society in either case — our total prison population is well over two millions, while our entire active-duty military is just over a million (Coast Guard included). Our military is simply too small to noticeably affect demographics — and robots aren't going to replace all of the soldiers either...
More likely, the number of people will remain the same — we'll just be able to take on more assholes at once...
Obviously a country that can send robots instead of soldiers to fight is way more likely to become 'war happy' - so I'm not sure this robot thing is a good idea at all.
This is not robot-specific — it is true about any superiority in weapons...
Besides, if your enemy expects your robots to defeat their army, what would be the point of fighting them in the first place? Attacking civilians seems a more logical step
Again, nothing robot-specific here either. Unable to take on our military directly, Al Qaeda has already taken to attacking our civilians. Likewise, unable (since 1970ies) to take on Israeli military directly, various assholes have been attacking Israeli civilians for decades.
One side having better weapons makes the other side look for an alternative edge. Whether that superiority is achieved via robotics or any other technological advance is irrelevant.
Of equal concern to me is the fact that a country with a robot army can use them against their own citizens with no chance of mass mutiny.
This is by far the biggest concern, actually. An ethical robot — the subject of the paper — should be Ok, though:
creating a class of robots that [...] outperform human soldiers in their ethical capacity.
If the goal is achieved, there'd be even less to worry about, than with today's human soldiers, whose stress-disorders and other ailments often make them a burden and a danger to the civil society...
The second picture is too blurry, but the first seems to show solar panels... Or what are those rectangular things above and below the white spec in the middle?
Yes, because "freedom of speech" means something different in your country.
Nope, "freedom of speech" means exactly the same here as it always has. You are free to proclaim your hatred, we are free to deny you entry.
I enjoy free travel across borders (it's one of the human rights you know)
No, it is not, unfortunately.
don't want to be locked up on "terror" charges for speaking my mind.
Has not happened to anyone yet — don't overestimate your importance. Even burning the flag (incredibly offensive and banned in many other countries) is still legal here...
Meanwhile I'll just keep taking your money on Wall Street.
You mean, you'll continue to participate in our markets? Great — we welcome all kind...
Some things (like Internet) are more important than clean water.
There is no Internet either. Even the stated goal:
response to government requirement that 20 million broadband lines be in service by 2010." Meanwhile I can't even get cable. Maybe it's time to move to India.
means far lower broadband penetration, than in the US (itself hardly a champion in this area). India has well over a billion people — more than three times America's population. Yet even its goal for 2 years from now is much lower, than what US had two years ago — even in absolute terms. Heck, India is not even on the chart!
Everybody, who wants to move out of my country, please, do. Millions of appreciating would-be immigrants are eager to replace you. God bless their souls.
The technology — both in engineering as well as in management and other "humanities" — is our strength against the fanatics, who derive their considerable strength from their firm beliefs.
This is why we have a chance to prevail, where Soviet Union failed, for example, for they had neither beliefs nor the technology...
Seriously, corporations suck - in my experience they're much more hopeless than government organisations.
Where I'm from the government was providing all of the services, and some of the services you are listing — Internet, Mobile Phones — simply did not exist. To get a regular phone line, one had to wait in queue for years.
I reckon that whoever says the opposite has an agenda.
Slashdot Mirror
If A is paying more than B, than B is paying less than more. This is extremely basic math...
The cableco's argument is that 5% of their subscribers (who currently all pay the same) use 50% of the bandwidth. I'm open to argument, why the other 95% should not be paying less, than these 5%...
I don't see, why TW's reasoning must be rejected immediately by all...
No — quite evidently the Soviet propaganda got through to you anyway...
But even if we accept — for argument's sake — your argument, then all of those omissions in your world view took place long before the "media consolidation" that is being attacked by the "frosty pisser"...
It is bad (the smaller the business the better for its retail customers), but it can not be denied to them without trampling on some fairly basic human rights (those of the shareholders). What is bad — nay, disastrous — were those "smart" decisions granting these guys monopoly on cable-service. The availability of DSL from a competition helps, but is not always enough to keep them on their feet...
Come, come... You don't get to own me by owning my sources of entertainment and some of my communications options...
Now, back to the subject at hand. Why should not people, who use less bandwidth, be paying less for the Internet service?
Of course, Clinton's plan is similar — because Mitt's was good. Hillary's own (a.k.a. "Hillarycare") was a disaster. Mitt does not like his own not because he is "flopping", but because it is a (good) plan to a wrong end — in his, mine, and the conservative base's opinion.
You can call me (and them) "fuck the poor", but that's all meaningless namecalling, until you can explain to me, how a born-and-raised citizen of this country manages to stay poor, despite the immense head-start he has compared to the immigrants, who need to learn the language and the culture before becoming successful. Oh, and many of them need to shed the "illegal alien" status too.
In some small countries remittances from America are a big part of GDP — these people manage to not only support themselves, but also their extended families abroad. I'd rather send $100 to Darfur, than give $1 to an American beggar. And so should you...
Their plans would turn it from bad to worse — from the business-chosen insurance plans to the government chosen. It has to be individual-chosen instead. You'd be able to keep your insurer (who will remain stuck with your "pre-existing condition") regardless of your place of employment (or lack thereof).
That's a lie. Matt Romney — a Republican — created a workable health-insurance system in Massachusetts and is not averse to implementing the same nation-wide. He would not be my top-choice among Republicans, but your claims are false nonetheless.
What about the years of indecisive (although terribly deadly) warfare of the WWI? France never dislodged the German invaders, until Germany collapsed because of its own Communists...
And before that there was a Franco-Prussian war, which France lost spectacularly... And elsewhere — since Napoleon (the first and only) France was either just a dwarf or a giant on clay feet either losing wars outright (such as colonial war(s) with the British) or achieving token victories at huge costs (such as the Crimean war).
I've been saying this over and over. The right of creators to control their creations — selling it, giving it away, burning it, etc. is sacred and any legal action they take to enforce it is perfectly Ok.
This applies equally to software licensing (GPL violations, anyone?), music, videos, fashion design, and all other aspects of life, where design is much more expensive and difficult, than the actual production.
Throwing rocks is not mentioned in any laws either. But when a rock is thrown through somebody else's window, well that's highly illegal.
Off-topic and thus skipped.
The creators sold their control — willingly and for good money. If you make the record-labels' ownership any less valid than that of the original creators, you'll simply rob the creators of their ability to sell. And you will not get anywhere anyway, because some bands have their own labels.
That's not what they RIAA is suing "the children" for. You know it, I know it. The charge is not "listening to pop music", but "copyright infringement". That's illegal and not much different from "real" stealing — something, children were prosecuted (including chopping-off hands in some countries) for since forever.
There is no difference. The rights of the associations (such as RIAA) are derived from the rights of their members, and, similarly, the rights of the corporations (such as the record labels) are derived from those of their owners. It all boils down to whether or not the creators can control their creations. And they absolutely ought to be able to — including being able to sell that control to anyone they want, including a record label.
Just as Linksys can not violate GPL by not providing the GPLed source used in their routers, the music licenses ought not to be violated with impunity.
Rather than worry about the weather, China should release everyone arrested for "inciting subversion of state power", and remove the charge from its criminal law.
Until then, the athletes should boycott the country...
You are repeating this, as if it were always and automatically wrong to sue children. It is not, or we would've had no juvenile prisons, for example.
Everybody is welcome to give their creations away. Already. Whoever does not want to do that, must be allowed to not do that — there is nothing wrong with them enforcing their rights, even if some those, who violate their rights are "children". These are the people, RIAA (as well as MPAA and BSA) represents.
Whether or not they are "real" musicians (movie-makers, software authors) — in your opinion — is irrelevant.
Dare I suggest, they are actually worse, than the predecessors? No, can't be — unions loved them and they spoke of Socialism...
Ooops, you just disqualified 99% of slashdot participants — thus underscoring my point.
Now let me demolish your point... Some real musicians, such as Metallica and U2 think, "the vultures" aren't aggressive enough.
As for your "sue children" — please, stop the demagoguery. If the same cheeky child was throwing a rock through your window every morning, you'd be suing him and his parents within a week — there are plenty of misdeeds, for which young age is no excuse.
All that said, you are welcome to give your own music away on whatever terms you wish. Just don't prevent others from enforcing their rights to control their creations...
No, but wheels are almost unique to each model — replacing Geo Prizm with a Honda Fit, for example, forced us to replace our set of winter wheels/tires recently... While we have some decent standards already — the AC current, the bed-sizes, for example, too many things remain non-standardized. DC power is the most obvious example. Although Research-in-Motion and Nokia should be praised for trying to cut down on the number of different adapters, that is still not enough:
Woo-hoo! If that reduces the number of "bricks" around, great. But I look forward to just having standard DC-outlets next to the AC ones...
Strangely enough, the MythBusters folks don't mention the maddening diversity of screws and bolts. Even inside a computer there are several different size. Oh, and they sometimes differ in the shape of the required driver too, not just length and diameter...
I doubt this is done on purpose, in order to secure future income for the company by producing the parts — computer-makers neither make nor sell the screws, for example. It is just a designer creating, what they think is ideal for the task, instead of picking up what's good enough and already available...
Computer-software vendors, BTW, suffer from the same problem — how many application-specific programming languages were created even after John Ousterhout's famous lamentation?... Even if there are some of them, which are better than Ousterhout's TCL (or Perl, or Python, or JavaScript, or whatever general purpose language you prefer), are they so much better as to justify forcing users to learn yet another language?
All of these articles about the minor skirmishes in *AA's war against infringers are boring and serve no purpose other than to provide yet another forum for some people to say: "Copyright infringement is wrong, like stealing," and for others to claim: "No, it is not exactly the same as stealing, and therefore good." The exact details of each legal encounter don't change anything, and are only useful to the practicing lawyers...
Unlike the emacs vs. vi flamewars, this one can, actually, be resolved with some certainty, and whoever can be convinced is convinced already...
Perhaps, our distinguished editors can delegate these articles to some peripheral subsection instead of the front-page?
This is where you should describe your experience in more detail... Are you an an Army (Navy, Marine, Air Force) recruiter or some such?.. Or do you just know a few delinquents, who signed up and got straightened up?
In all honesty, I don't think the result will be felt by the society in either case — our total prison population is well over two millions, while our entire active-duty military is just over a million (Coast Guard included). Our military is simply too small to noticeably affect demographics — and robots aren't going to replace all of the soldiers either...
More likely, the number of people will remain the same — we'll just be able to take on more assholes at once...
This is not robot-specific — it is true about any superiority in weapons...
Again, nothing robot-specific here either. Unable to take on our military directly, Al Qaeda has already taken to attacking our civilians. Likewise, unable (since 1970ies) to take on Israeli military directly, various assholes have been attacking Israeli civilians for decades.
One side having better weapons makes the other side look for an alternative edge. Whether that superiority is achieved via robotics or any other technological advance is irrelevant.
This is by far the biggest concern, actually. An ethical robot — the subject of the paper — should be Ok, though:
If the goal is achieved, there'd be even less to worry about, than with today's human soldiers, whose stress-disorders and other ailments often make them a burden and a danger to the civil society...
The second picture is too blurry, but the first seems to show solar panels... Or what are those rectangular things above and below the white spec in the middle?
Nope, "freedom of speech" means exactly the same here as it always has. You are free to proclaim your hatred, we are free to deny you entry.
No, it is not, unfortunately.
Has not happened to anyone yet — don't overestimate your importance. Even burning the flag (incredibly offensive and banned in many other countries) is still legal here...
You mean, you'll continue to participate in our markets? Great — we welcome all kind...
What's up, Democrats? Yeah, yeah... Troll, troll...
means far lower broadband penetration, than in the US (itself hardly a champion in this area). India has well over a billion people — more than three times America's population. Yet even its goal for 2 years from now is much lower, than what US had two years ago — even in absolute terms. Heck, India is not even on the chart!
Everybody, who wants to move out of my country, please, do. Millions of appreciating would-be immigrants are eager to replace you. God bless their souls.
Be sure to declare this, should you find yourself trying to get into our country. Thanks...
The technology — both in engineering as well as in management and other "humanities" — is our strength against the fanatics, who derive their considerable strength from their firm beliefs.
This is why we have a chance to prevail, where Soviet Union failed, for example, for they had neither beliefs nor the technology...
Where I'm from the government was providing all of the services, and some of the services you are listing — Internet, Mobile Phones — simply did not exist. To get a regular phone line, one had to wait in queue for years.
Yes, and whoever disagrees with me is a moron.