The General Practitioner, however, does serve a purpose. He / She has general knowledge of a multitude of diseases, forming a kind of filter, that if he can't treat a disease, he can generally point you in the right direction (refer you to a specialist who may have better equipment / knowledge for a better diagnosis). If medical specialists are encyclopedic albums, then the General Practitioner typically serves the role of the index.
You don't want to be treated by a dermatologist if you need an oncologist.
And yes, profiling is a "junk science." The saying "You would not have seen, if you had not believed" applies here -> the number of laws on the books right now are sufficient to charge anyone with a crime, misdemeanor or felony. You give me a week, with some information about a person, I can find a law to have them put away for a few years. Open a phone book, pick a name at random from the White Pages, and through no artifice, I will find a way to have them charged.
Supposedly, more than half of the outraged farmer's crop had been pollinated by Monsanto crops, which Monsanto pointed out cannot happen naturally. The implication, not often voiced when people are going after Monsanto, is that he pollinated his crops, by hand, with Monsanto's pollen (which he acquired by illicit means). A little less "the wind blew pollen across the road, and it fertilized my crops!" a little more "he walked across the road, extracted pollen from a fair number of flowering plants, walked back to his farm, and pollinated them with the newly acquired pollen."
Or it doesn't matter. Opportunistic thieves come from all classes.
I believe that many of the people involved in this kind of theft are drug users of the heavier variety. You'd do more to cut down on this problem by allowing pharmacies to administer a patient's drug of choice at market prices, as opposed to street prices. Just a hypothesis, anyway.
Hmm. I can see the trolls are multiplying on/. again. Is it because it's an election year, or did a bunch of 14 year-olds guess the password to their parent's AOL account?
From what we have observed of the universe, yes, that does appear to be the long term diagnosis.
In the short-term, though, I'm more worried about the Sun undergoing its projected expansion phase (in a few billion years), or human beings accidentally finding a way to stop the Earth's dynamo (that one actually keeps me up at night).
Indeed. However, IMHO, the gains from discovering a new bit of science greatly outweigh the gains from scamming people. You can get people to pay more for a real cure for cancer, than they ever would for a fake one.
But yes, it does feel kind of scammy. Still, independent verification will determine whether it is or is not.
Agreed. Independently verify it (with an aggression / truth level set to "Genghis Khan"), then purchase it, tear it apart, and find out what other scientists have been missing for the last 40 years.
You are correct that people deserve to profit from their work.
However, and this is just one of two hundred reasons we are were we are, the bill in mind would have use protect someone's work at the expense of their freedoms. I know it's not popular to point out that we have certain guaranteed rights which are constantly, and conveniently, being forgotten, reinterpreted, or trampled over, but someone needs to be the canary in the coal mine, and shout that we are in dangerous territory. Those rights, given to us in a Bill of Rights, cannot be impinged upon, not even in the event of a copyright or patent violation. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which amendments, and what rights I am speaking of here, and how they run the risk of being violated. I do not expect a reply with the correct information.
"RIAA and MPAA" -> they are evil. Even the artists they claim to represent have come out and said (paraphrasing): "Free us of these evil bastards. Buy our music directly from our website, at a discount, and know that we despise these middlemen as much as you do!"
"We can't just let it spiral completely out of control, to the point where it's no longer lucrative to produce anything." -> I'd love to know how you believe you can stop, or even slow piracy. I am a Computer Scientist, on a website where there are thousands of CS / SE / programmers / intelligent people of all sorts who visit daily, and we haven't found a solution that would work would stop, or even slow piracy. In effect, you're perpetuating fraud, asking us to pay good money (taxpayer money) for a product that will NEVER deliver on its promises.
What more, companies like Steam are doing just fine. They continue to grow, +100% per year is what I've heard quoted, for the past several years. They use DRM, and yet many of their customers couldn't be happier. Perhaps the reason for the lack of sales the various interests behind this legislation are experiencing is not because of an increase in piracy, but because they've been pissing on the customer's leg for the past two decades, all while telling the customer how awesome it feels to be giving him / her a golden shower. Perhaps piracy is a symptom of the larger problem, not the cause.
"And a friend of mine who does torrent stuff a lot says that when torrent users do buy something, they act like they're doing the greatest thing ever.... They're saying, 'I bought something today. I paid for it. And I didn't steal it. I'm the greatest person alive.' " -> Indeed, but it's more along the lines of all the sh*t people hock to customers these days, they've found something that is actually worth buying, and recommending to friends. And let's be honest, the customer is being screwed fairly badly these days. Anything from BofA debit fees, to the music industry's desire for you acquiring a new license to transfer a music file onto your iPod (from your ripped CD), these people deserve the bad-will they've been earning.
Interesting to note, I was looking at Louis C.K.'s video download offer the other day, and was happy to find that he was offering a DRM-free version (so I can watch it on my computer, or burn it to DVD to watch it on the big TV in the living room, etc.). Hell, even the ability to make a copy of it, when the first copy becomes so scuffed (DVDs rarely make it back into their cases unharmed, I lost a FF7: Advent Children disc to this) was particularly appealing.
The conclusion that I, and most people have come to, is that technology can't solve this problem. It's a business method problem. Stop the propaganda, stop wasting money on methods which will fail, and start spending money on a music-delivery system that doesn't piss off the end-user. Were I Sony, I'd pull a Steam, offer people a permanent service, where they could re-download their music as much as they wanted, and offer up entire discographies for bargain prices around the holidays. Let the customer do what they want with the end-product, but make it so that when they wa
" As long as people are willing to trade freedom for security," -> " As long as people are willing to trade freedom for false security,"
Unless a "terrorist" comes screaming into the middle of the airport, with an large SMG strapped to his back, shouting Arabic and waving around a Koran, the TSA won't be able to stop one, let alone a group of them. The important thing to remember from 9/11 is that these groups do their recon; actually catching one at the airport, under ordinary circumstances with the people supplied, is at best a vain hope.
The unwritten subtext is that the government is doing more than "monitoring" these websites for "threats." Which given human nature, and what we know of their past actions, is probably true.
Do you remember warrant-less wiretaps? Over 90% of their use has been for anything but terrorist-related investigations. So yes,/.er's fear are well justified here.
We may not, but they won't either. History isn't on their side here -> every-time a country's military gets out of control and go on a rampage, something worse is evolved, and puts an end to it. It might take some time, but 4,000 years of recorded human history show this pattern is worth placing a wager on.
Thank you. I always find it fascinating that the people behind that incident managed to do it with what amounted to change found in the sofa, while our 'leaders' have taken out the equivalent of a third-mortgage and have little to show for it. No major reforms regarding asymmetric warfare, just business as usual.
It's called White Knight Syndrome: a lot of males grow up being taught that certain things "need" their protection, but are not given an outlet for this impulse. Consequently, they go on to try and assuage this impulse by finding all sorts of "causes" or "victims" where they can play the hero. In short, they're idealists, but instead of joining the rebel's cause, they joined the empire's.
And in order for this fantasy to survive in their minds, the people they are protecting must "need" their help, but be considered too stupid to realize it -> "the tale of the unsung hero" is probably how they considered themselves. If you pointed out that they remind you of one of the insane characters from Lexx's third season (Fire and Water), they'd have no idea what you're talking about.
Of course, this doesn't explain all of them, just a portion. You have bureaucrats, opportunists, wage-slaves, etc. who help fill out the rest.
Why yes, it must be the under-funding. It couldn't be anything from clueless IT, clueless administrators, or bean-counters with too much power over the IT department.
Granted. However, in/.'s defense, the people in charge typically have trouble discerning when they've stepped over the line; in fact, it's only when people pick up the proverbial torches and pitchforks that various elected officials care to actually ponder where the language of a particular bill might lead the nation.
And let's be honest: the the vast majority of bills Congress has voted into law over the past several years have been on par with some of the stinkers that Hollywood has been shoving down the public's throat. What we need here is a website like Rotton Tomatoes, but for the various laws that have been passed.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, yes, and a giant mutant space goat will eat the Earth is a few year's time, so it's important to build a 'B' Ark, and make sure people are on it.
Thank You. If it doesn't have an experimental component, we aren't talking about science. Statistics, perhaps, but not science.
The General Practitioner, however, does serve a purpose. He / She has general knowledge of a multitude of diseases, forming a kind of filter, that if he can't treat a disease, he can generally point you in the right direction (refer you to a specialist who may have better equipment / knowledge for a better diagnosis). If medical specialists are encyclopedic albums, then the General Practitioner typically serves the role of the index.
You don't want to be treated by a dermatologist if you need an oncologist.
And yes, profiling is a "junk science." The saying "You would not have seen, if you had not believed" applies here -> the number of laws on the books right now are sufficient to charge anyone with a crime, misdemeanor or felony. You give me a week, with some information about a person, I can find a law to have them put away for a few years. Open a phone book, pick a name at random from the White Pages, and through no artifice, I will find a way to have them charged.
We call that 'soft science,' as opposed to the 'hard science' variety.
Guess which one scientists have in mind when they are talking about "understanding things?"
And for a bonus point, guess which one politicians use when trying to craft a new law?
Supposedly, more than half of the outraged farmer's crop had been pollinated by Monsanto crops, which Monsanto pointed out cannot happen naturally. The implication, not often voiced when people are going after Monsanto, is that he pollinated his crops, by hand, with Monsanto's pollen (which he acquired by illicit means). A little less "the wind blew pollen across the road, and it fertilized my crops!" a little more "he walked across the road, extracted pollen from a fair number of flowering plants, walked back to his farm, and pollinated them with the newly acquired pollen."
Or it doesn't matter. Opportunistic thieves come from all classes.
I believe that many of the people involved in this kind of theft are drug users of the heavier variety. You'd do more to cut down on this problem by allowing pharmacies to administer a patient's drug of choice at market prices, as opposed to street prices. Just a hypothesis, anyway.
Agreed. I've noticed the number of trolls around here has picked up in the last week.
Did Yahoo Answers get shutdown or something?
Hmm. I can see the trolls are multiplying on /. again. Is it because it's an election year, or did a bunch of 14 year-olds guess the password to their parent's AOL account?
From what we have observed of the universe, yes, that does appear to be the long term diagnosis.
In the short-term, though, I'm more worried about the Sun undergoing its projected expansion phase (in a few billion years), or human beings accidentally finding a way to stop the Earth's dynamo (that one actually keeps me up at night).
Hmm. Still, salt water has salt in it. Corrosive salts. I wonder if the plumbing would be able to withstand it.
If Red Alert 2 has taught me anything, the Allies get dolphins, and the Soviets get giant squids.
Part of me agrees with you; however, another part of me thinks that until we try, we'll never know whether our fears are just that, fears.
So I, for one, think we should consider it.
Indeed. However, IMHO, the gains from discovering a new bit of science greatly outweigh the gains from scamming people. You can get people to pay more for a real cure for cancer, than they ever would for a fake one.
But yes, it does feel kind of scammy. Still, independent verification will determine whether it is or is not.
Agreed. Independently verify it (with an aggression / truth level set to "Genghis Khan"), then purchase it, tear it apart, and find out what other scientists have been missing for the last 40 years.
You are correct that people deserve to profit from their work.
However, and this is just one of two hundred reasons we are were we are, the bill in mind would have use protect someone's work at the expense of their freedoms. I know it's not popular to point out that we have certain guaranteed rights which are constantly, and conveniently, being forgotten, reinterpreted, or trampled over, but someone needs to be the canary in the coal mine, and shout that we are in dangerous territory. Those rights, given to us in a Bill of Rights, cannot be impinged upon, not even in the event of a copyright or patent violation. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which amendments, and what rights I am speaking of here, and how they run the risk of being violated. I do not expect a reply with the correct information.
"RIAA and MPAA" -> they are evil. Even the artists they claim to represent have come out and said (paraphrasing): "Free us of these evil bastards. Buy our music directly from our website, at a discount, and know that we despise these middlemen as much as you do!"
"We can't just let it spiral completely out of control, to the point where it's no longer lucrative to produce anything." -> I'd love to know how you believe you can stop, or even slow piracy. I am a Computer Scientist, on a website where there are thousands of CS / SE / programmers / intelligent people of all sorts who visit daily, and we haven't found a solution that would work would stop, or even slow piracy. In effect, you're perpetuating fraud, asking us to pay good money (taxpayer money) for a product that will NEVER deliver on its promises.
What more, companies like Steam are doing just fine. They continue to grow, +100% per year is what I've heard quoted, for the past several years. They use DRM, and yet many of their customers couldn't be happier. Perhaps the reason for the lack of sales the various interests behind this legislation are experiencing is not because of an increase in piracy, but because they've been pissing on the customer's leg for the past two decades, all while telling the customer how awesome it feels to be giving him / her a golden shower. Perhaps piracy is a symptom of the larger problem, not the cause.
"And a friend of mine who does torrent stuff a lot says that when torrent users do buy something, they act like they're doing the greatest thing ever. ... They're saying, 'I bought something today. I paid for it. And I didn't steal it. I'm the greatest person alive.' " -> Indeed, but it's more along the lines of all the sh*t people hock to customers these days, they've found something that is actually worth buying, and recommending to friends. And let's be honest, the customer is being screwed fairly badly these days. Anything from BofA debit fees, to the music industry's desire for you acquiring a new license to transfer a music file onto your iPod (from your ripped CD), these people deserve the bad-will they've been earning.
Interesting to note, I was looking at Louis C.K.'s video download offer the other day, and was happy to find that he was offering a DRM-free version (so I can watch it on my computer, or burn it to DVD to watch it on the big TV in the living room, etc.). Hell, even the ability to make a copy of it, when the first copy becomes so scuffed (DVDs rarely make it back into their cases unharmed, I lost a FF7: Advent Children disc to this) was particularly appealing.
The conclusion that I, and most people have come to, is that technology can't solve this problem. It's a business method problem. Stop the propaganda, stop wasting money on methods which will fail, and start spending money on a music-delivery system that doesn't piss off the end-user. Were I Sony, I'd pull a Steam, offer people a permanent service, where they could re-download their music as much as they wanted, and offer up entire discographies for bargain prices around the holidays. Let the customer do what they want with the end-product, but make it so that when they wa
" As long as people are willing to trade freedom for security," -> " As long as people are willing to trade freedom for false security,"
Unless a "terrorist" comes screaming into the middle of the airport, with an large SMG strapped to his back, shouting Arabic and waving around a Koran, the TSA won't be able to stop one, let alone a group of them. The important thing to remember from 9/11 is that these groups do their recon; actually catching one at the airport, under ordinary circumstances with the people supplied, is at best a vain hope.
The unwritten subtext is that the government is doing more than "monitoring" these websites for "threats." Which given human nature, and what we know of their past actions, is probably true.
Do you remember warrant-less wiretaps? Over 90% of their use has been for anything but terrorist-related investigations. So yes, /.er's fear are well justified here.
We may not, but they won't either. History isn't on their side here -> every-time a country's military gets out of control and go on a rampage, something worse is evolved, and puts an end to it. It might take some time, but 4,000 years of recorded human history show this pattern is worth placing a wager on.
Thank you. I always find it fascinating that the people behind that incident managed to do it with what amounted to change found in the sofa, while our 'leaders' have taken out the equivalent of a third-mortgage and have little to show for it. No major reforms regarding asymmetric warfare, just business as usual.
It's called White Knight Syndrome: a lot of males grow up being taught that certain things "need" their protection, but are not given an outlet for this impulse. Consequently, they go on to try and assuage this impulse by finding all sorts of "causes" or "victims" where they can play the hero. In short, they're idealists, but instead of joining the rebel's cause, they joined the empire's.
And in order for this fantasy to survive in their minds, the people they are protecting must "need" their help, but be considered too stupid to realize it -> "the tale of the unsung hero" is probably how they considered themselves. If you pointed out that they remind you of one of the insane characters from Lexx's third season (Fire and Water), they'd have no idea what you're talking about.
Of course, this doesn't explain all of them, just a portion. You have bureaucrats, opportunists, wage-slaves, etc. who help fill out the rest.
Why yes, it must be the under-funding. It couldn't be anything from clueless IT, clueless administrators, or bean-counters with too much power over the IT department.
So, exactly what viruses were installed on these machines? Were they internet common, or something more targeted?
Is this simply a failure to install some decent anti-virus software, or something more involved?
Granted. However, in /.'s defense, the people in charge typically have trouble discerning when they've stepped over the line; in fact, it's only when people pick up the proverbial torches and pitchforks that various elected officials care to actually ponder where the language of a particular bill might lead the nation.
And let's be honest: the the vast majority of bills Congress has voted into law over the past several years have been on par with some of the stinkers that Hollywood has been shoving down the public's throat. What we need here is a website like Rotton Tomatoes, but for the various laws that have been passed.
Which is kind of why no one takes them seriously. Their own actions are highly hypocritical.
More interested in the capacity to read / write DNA in vivo, but I'll take what I can get.