The problem with using a simple exponential function like this is that you're ignoring a few things.
They wouldn't be that hard to stop. It'd be impossible to make something that small with enough shielding to resist an EM pulse.
Also, no matter how fast they can make a new one, if they can only move 1 cm/ minute, they'll never spread any further than a few kilometers in a day.
So by the time what was happening was realized, the problem areas could be hit with an EMP weapon. Of course, if they started it in downtown Washington, that could be a problem. Still, it'd be less effective than putting a small nuke in the area.
They'll just charge 11 grand for the blueprints for a new Ford Exploder, for instance. Which means they'll make slightly more profit, on no production costs, and probably pretty small R&D costs.
I don't think the grandparent had any idea that this was the case. None at all. Not any chance whatsoever, really. No, seriously. (Okay, was it obvious enough that time?)
Take this post, for instance. Some moderators will consider it to be insightful, and others will think it's off-topic. If the the majority believe that it's insightful, then my net moderation will be greater than 1.
But as it's been reported a number of times here before, patent clerks don't do a serious check of prior art. They do check previous patents in the same area.
First off, if a product or service is illegal, then all contracts regarding that service are also illegal. They're null and void. The RIAA acted in "good faith" on the laws in place.
There's two big problems with this. First, they've upheld the legality of p2p networks like Grokster, for the same reason they upheld the legality of the VCR, CD burner, or two-tape deck. They have perfectly legal uses, so the fact that they have illegal uses doesn't make them, as a whole, illegal.
For point two, I'm assuming you've signed some kind of contract before. An apartment lease or a mortgage, a car loan, an insurance agreement, whatever.. they nearly all contain this line, or a line pretty much like it:
Should any portion of this contract be found to be unenforceable, all other portions of this contract will remain in effect.
So we're back to the question of whether or not EULA are some kind of legal contract. I'm not gonna touch that one.
Thousands of years from now no-one will remember who Hitler, Stalin or Saddam Hussein were.
Saddam, you're right. Hitler & Stalin, though... I dunno. It's been about a thousand years since Ghenghiz Khan, and a good number of people would recognize the name. It's been more like two since Nero & Julius Caesar, and although the details might be muddy, we'd still recognize them as not-so-nice people.
Then if you're found to be innocent, I don't think they have any responsibility to clean up their mess or repair your property.
True, but not entirely the whole story. The basic rule is that they have no responsibility to fix anything, but you have the right to file a (fully itemized) claim of exactly what was damaged, how much it's worth, etc, etc. And you'll generally get it, too... if you don't mind filling out some paperwork; talking to some local, state, DOJ, or military lawyers; and then waiting awhile (18 - 24 months isn't uncommon). Remember...
No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
But that doesn't mean they have to make it easy for you.;)
It's not a bad idea, except for one (or maybe five) things... the resolution, and the framerate, would have to be far inferior to current available client-side games. The entire game running as a streaming video with good resolution (even 800x600) and a respectable framerate (even 30fps)... the bandwith cost would be way, way too high. Also, the servers would need to be far more powerful (per user) - every gameplay & graphics calculation would have to be done there. I don't see how it would be possible without some ridiculous subscription price.
It's been awhile, but I seem to remember Monsanto's justification for the terminator gene is just what you're talking about - the modified plants can't spread (at least not much), because the successive generations are sterile. They can't cause any serious impact on wild, unmodified version of the plant, because they'll die out so quickly. And if you think one field of self-terminating crop is going to somehow pollinate every plant of the same species in the country... well, nevermind. Think that if you want.
The last place I worked with an electronic time clock printed out a receipt when you clocked in and out. I always saved mine - there were a number of times that the manager added/subtracted wrong (Oh, that was a 57 minute lunch break, not a 117 minute one, sorry...).
. Prior to this system it was not uncommon for a quarter of the staff to not show up for work at all yet, still collect a paycheck for a full week's work.
Now, they show up, DO NO WORK, and still get paid. Big improvement.
It's a lot easier to notice five people out of a hundred that aren't working than to notice five people out of a hundred that are missing.
Say Employee A and Employee B make the same wage, and both work 40 hours a week at the same restaurant. Most states require non-salaried people to get paid time and a half for over that. Now, if they both clock in using Employee A's card the first week, and then they both clock in using Employee's B's card the second, the two of them will total 200 hours of work in those two weeks, rather than 160. Now, true, they will get caught, and they will get in trouble... but it's still better to prevent than treat.
For another example, let's assume they have some kind of benefits package for full-time people, but you have to work 30 or 35 hours a week to get it. Now A works 60 hours a week, and B works 10 hours a week. (Or, more likely, works somewhere with better pay but no benefits.) A clocks himself in as B about half the time - and they're both getting benefits.
What if some guy (let's call him "Bill") uses some large corporate meta-databases to link evil-OSS-programmer-X to fingerprint Y? "I'm sorry sir, our HR computer just doesn't seem to like your application - please apply elsewhere..."
So what you're saying is that you routinuely put jpegs of your fingerprints in all the code you write? Huh?
If the city police were willing to use a picture of you leaving the scene of a crime to "prove" that you were involved in it, they'd be perfectly willing to do a lot of other things without the technology. Say, Officers A & B would both claim they saw your car (randomly selected out of all the people who used the ATM that day, for instance) leaving the scene at the same time...
the only way to stop spam is with a HEFTY FINE to the company whose goods were advertised.
Sure, that's a great idea... until company A starts sending out spam advertising company B's products, having been paid by company C (B's competition)...
Re:Beavis..this is the coolest thing i have ever s
on
Your Own Mecha
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· Score: 1
They are vulnerable to mined roads, etc. But then, so is everything (except hovercraft?)
Eh, it'd depend on the mine. An anti-tank mine needs a few hundred pounds of pressure to get set off (so wildlife, shrapnel, and other fairly small items don't set them off accidentally.) A 30 ton hovercraft spreads its weight out even across it's skirt, and that might not set off one of those. But an anti-personnel mine would definetely go off.
I've not heard of anybody being ostractized for claiming undiscovered oil reserves are much greater than expected, but I'll admit it's odd that the date we're supposed to run out is always thirty to forty years from today.
I agree with your assessment on 2 and 3. The problem is the lack of a control - for globabl warming the outcome of the computer models, strangely, correlates very closely to who's written them. And it would take too long (as well as being somewhat unethical) to take a bunch of identical twins and subject them to life, age 25-55, with opposite diets. (And it couldn't be a double-blind experiment... The one who never ate McDonald's would know they were supposed to live longer.)
I've honestly never heard anything about Gilbert Levin's discovery of life on Mars. I was a bit late for Viking.
As far as HIV not causing AIDS, though... well, I do think it's a bit like saying that sterility for open-heart surgery is overrated.
first, as far as I know, none of my ancestors were in the US until the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century... and the last time any of my ancestors were taking slaves... well, they were probably wearing white robes, dancing around a bunch of stones, and were getting ready to sacrifice them. (And that's religion, so of course it's not bad, right?)
But more importantly... as far as all this 'sins of the father' crap goes... well, I'm pretty sure it's crap. I'm all for putting everyone on an equal ground to start with, and giving a level playing field regardless of past conditions... but if we're going to start making up for things that happened centuries ago, then I'd like to file a suit against the horse doctor who let my great-great-grandfather's entire farm succumb to hoof-and-mouth because he was an idiot. (Or so the family legend states, anyway.)
for either not reading or not understanding the article.
First, none of the things that 'Bob Robertson' said are heresies anymore - they're all neo-conservative dogma.
'Mark' wasn't trying to censor him, he was just saying, pretty much flat-out, that 'Bob' was wrong. Which is pretty much what Paul Graham is saying - if you're just calling something incorrect, that's fine. It's when you start inventing labels for it (like, for instance, neo-conservative...;) ) and using just the labels, and not addressing why or what is wrong, that you have left the path of wisdom.
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They wouldn't be that hard to stop. It'd be impossible to make something that small with enough shielding to resist an EM pulse.
Also, no matter how fast they can make a new one, if they can only move 1 cm/ minute, they'll never spread any further than a few kilometers in a day.
So by the time what was happening was realized, the problem areas could be hit with an EMP weapon. Of course, if they started it in downtown Washington, that could be a problem. Still, it'd be less effective than putting a small nuke in the area.
They'll just charge 11 grand for the blueprints for a new Ford Exploder, for instance. Which means they'll make slightly more profit, on no production costs, and probably pretty small R&D costs.
I don't think the grandparent had any idea that this was the case. None at all. Not any chance whatsoever, really. No, seriously. (Okay, was it obvious enough that time?)
And if nobody cares, it stays a one.
Have you ever heard the word "infrastructure"?
But as it's been reported a number of times here before, patent clerks don't do a serious check of prior art. They do check previous patents in the same area.
There's two big problems with this. First, they've upheld the legality of p2p networks like Grokster, for the same reason they upheld the legality of the VCR, CD burner, or two-tape deck. They have perfectly legal uses, so the fact that they have illegal uses doesn't make them, as a whole, illegal.
For point two, I'm assuming you've signed some kind of contract before. An apartment lease or a mortgage, a car loan, an insurance agreement, whatever.. they nearly all contain this line, or a line pretty much like it:
Should any portion of this contract be found to be unenforceable, all other portions of this contract will remain in effect.
So we're back to the question of whether or not EULA are some kind of legal contract. I'm not gonna touch that one.
Thousands of years from now no-one will remember who Hitler, Stalin or Saddam Hussein were. Saddam, you're right. Hitler & Stalin, though... I dunno. It's been about a thousand years since Ghenghiz Khan, and a good number of people would recognize the name. It's been more like two since Nero & Julius Caesar, and although the details might be muddy, we'd still recognize them as not-so-nice people.
True, but not entirely the whole story. The basic rule is that they have no responsibility to fix anything, but you have the right to file a (fully itemized) claim of exactly what was damaged, how much it's worth, etc, etc. And you'll generally get it, too... if you don't mind filling out some paperwork; talking to some local, state, DOJ, or military lawyers; and then waiting awhile (18 - 24 months isn't uncommon). Remember...
No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
But that doesn't mean they have to make it easy for you. ;)
It's not a bad idea, except for one (or maybe five) things... the resolution, and the framerate, would have to be far inferior to current available client-side games. The entire game running as a streaming video with good resolution (even 800x600) and a respectable framerate (even 30fps)... the bandwith cost would be way, way too high. Also, the servers would need to be far more powerful (per user) - every gameplay & graphics calculation would have to be done there. I don't see how it would be possible without some ridiculous subscription price.
Well, it will probably corner better than a Ford Exploder...
It's been awhile, but I seem to remember Monsanto's justification for the terminator gene is just what you're talking about - the modified plants can't spread (at least not much), because the successive generations are sterile. They can't cause any serious impact on wild, unmodified version of the plant, because they'll die out so quickly. And if you think one field of self-terminating crop is going to somehow pollinate every plant of the same species in the country... well, nevermind. Think that if you want.
The last place I worked with an electronic time clock printed out a receipt when you clocked in and out. I always saved mine - there were a number of times that the manager added/subtracted wrong (Oh, that was a 57 minute lunch break, not a 117 minute one, sorry...).
Now, they show up, DO NO WORK, and still get paid. Big improvement.
It's a lot easier to notice five people out of a hundred that aren't working than to notice five people out of a hundred that are missing.
For another example, let's assume they have some kind of benefits package for full-time people, but you have to work 30 or 35 hours a week to get it. Now A works 60 hours a week, and B works 10 hours a week. (Or, more likely, works somewhere with better pay but no benefits.) A clocks himself in as B about half the time - and they're both getting benefits.
So what you're saying is that you routinuely put jpegs of your fingerprints in all the code you write? Huh?
If the city police were willing to use a picture of you leaving the scene of a crime to "prove" that you were involved in it, they'd be perfectly willing to do a lot of other things without the technology. Say, Officers A & B would both claim they saw your car (randomly selected out of all the people who used the ATM that day, for instance) leaving the scene at the same time...
Well, I really, really hope that these people who could be handling my food are going to wash their hands after they get to work anyway...
Sure, that's a great idea... until company A starts sending out spam advertising company B's products, having been paid by company C (B's competition)...
Eh, it'd depend on the mine. An anti-tank mine needs a few hundred pounds of pressure to get set off (so wildlife, shrapnel, and other fairly small items don't set them off accidentally.) A 30 ton hovercraft spreads its weight out even across it's skirt, and that might not set off one of those. But an anti-personnel mine would definetely go off.
I agree with your assessment on 2 and 3. The problem is the lack of a control - for globabl warming the outcome of the computer models, strangely, correlates very closely to who's written them. And it would take too long (as well as being somewhat unethical) to take a bunch of identical twins and subject them to life, age 25-55, with opposite diets. (And it couldn't be a double-blind experiment... The one who never ate McDonald's would know they were supposed to live longer.)
I've honestly never heard anything about Gilbert Levin's discovery of life on Mars. I was a bit late for Viking.
As far as HIV not causing AIDS, though... well, I do think it's a bit like saying that sterility for open-heart surgery is overrated.
Einstein's theory of special relativity states that the universe actually revolves around ME!
But more importantly... as far as all this 'sins of the father' crap goes... well, I'm pretty sure it's crap. I'm all for putting everyone on an equal ground to start with, and giving a level playing field regardless of past conditions... but if we're going to start making up for things that happened centuries ago, then I'd like to file a suit against the horse doctor who let my great-great-grandfather's entire farm succumb to hoof-and-mouth because he was an idiot. (Or so the family legend states, anyway.)
it'd make him look more like his old ciptures.
First, none of the things that 'Bob Robertson' said are heresies anymore - they're all neo-conservative dogma.
'Mark' wasn't trying to censor him, he was just saying, pretty much flat-out, that 'Bob' was wrong. Which is pretty much what Paul Graham is saying - if you're just calling something incorrect, that's fine. It's when you start inventing labels for it (like, for instance, neo-conservative... ;) ) and using just the labels, and not addressing why or what is wrong, that you have left the path of wisdom.