Second, the meaning of the quote itself. No learning can be done in a vaccuum, art and science are built on previous art and science. If those previous works are "owned" then they can neither be used or built on. The American patent system has existed for over 200 years. Computers and software have been interacting with the patent system for over 40 years. The last century--even the last decade--have seen a more explosive growth of technology (and software) than could have been imagined. Even while under the constraints of the patent system. Maybe, BECAUSE of the patent system. I don't even understand how you can claim that if works of science and art are "owned" no progress can be made. It's clear that you're wrong--else we wouldn't be seeing so much progress being made!
Engineering is what the corporations claim as "property". Engineering is often the end result of science, and engineering, like art, is based on previous work. I don't know what that means. Are we still talking about patents? Implementations and methods are patentable. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "engineering" is what the corporations claim as "property."
Someone who was passionate about the subject, and who sees the world going to corporate hell in a gold plated handbasket. Every generation always thinks as they get older that the next generation is going to hell and the world is ending. It's just one of those facts of life! I could give you some fascinating examples from a range of ancient->medieval->current civilizations from across the globe, but that's really neither here nor there. I mean really, how can you claim America is artless when we have piss christ and students pretending to abort fetuses as art? clearly we've got something!
It's good to be passionate--it's also good to have civil conversations!
I agree with you to a point. Can you define a human life as 2 cells? 8? 10,000? fully formed organs? higher brain activity? There's room for much debate there.
On the other hand, I think there is room for no debate that if the fetus could be removed from the mother and survive, that the fetus while still inside the mother is a human being. I don't think that point is in any way arbitrary.
Seems that people are more than willing to argue against abortion when they don't have to support the child in the end I also don't agree with that. Maybe in some cases, but there are a lot of True Believers out there.
I suppose problem is an overstatement since I usually delete them unread, but YES! people do that. The same people who used to type up a business letter, print it, scan it, and then send it via fax modem (and yes, the people on the other end would OCR the fax, correct the OCR errors, and print it for someone to read!). Yikes! I think one-word--UGH!--sums that up pretty well!!
What does NOT interest me is HTML with generic background images and stock icon sized photos and such.
HTML mail reminds me of the "ransom note" style documents people started sending back in the '80s when microcomputers discovered fonts. It rarely adds anything to the message and too often ends up distracting the writer from the message they're trying to convey. I see where you're coming from--it's not so much HTML email you dislike, as it is stupid people;-) If so, I'm right there with you. I do happen to see the occasional utility with html though.
If you think your basic html mail is bad, at a former workplace they had thousands of Lotus Notes/Domino users--the rich capabilities of Lotes was pretty crazy...letterhead+graphic that appeared by the "From:" headers..wallpapered backgrounds, different fonts, clickable graphic buttons to expand parts of the message, etc--overkill imho, but people loved it!
And you blindly assume that it is linked to creating profit, contrary to all evidence. "If I have seen further than other men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." How does your Newton quote at all invalidate any linking of scientific/artistic progress and the pursuit of profit? Your theory would eliminate many works of the Renaissance. Dickens? You would eliminate Edison because he was a businessman as well an inventor. Ford--just a hack who wanted to increase efficiency of his wageslaves. Walt Disney--no talent capitalist. etc, etc. Why would you remove from the ranks of great artists and inventors all those who pursued profit? I don't get it...
Art comes from art, and science comes from science. If you "own" the art then you take away the ability of anyone else to make art from that art. If you "own" science (and patents only last 20 years, unlike copyrights) then you own the ability to make further discoveries based on the discoveries you "own". Not really sure what the point of what you're saying here is. The goal of patents is to make it so that people WILL release products and inventions knowing they have some protection against their hardwork+ideas being copied right away.
Own art--you're right. Otherwise I could just go out and publish spinoff Harry Potter novels without giving a dime to JK Rowling and potentially diminshing the value of her books. Yes, this is limiting my actions, but I feel it's a good thing. Give it some amount of time before opening it up. You seemed confused in a separate post that I was advocating 175 year copyright--I am not.
Own science--I'm not sure you have it quite right here. It's not science that is owned, it's implementations. As I said before in another post, which you also misread, I think software patents are horrible and 99% of them should be abolished. If a drug company sinks millions (billions?) of dollars into inventing and testing a drug, and then anybody can replicate the chemicals in a week or a month and produce dirt cheap generics, it makes it a lot harder for big companies to do the requisite pharmaceutical testing and trials. Should I be allowed to copy a drug the day it comes out and sell my off brand for pennies on the dollar? That doesn't seem fair to me, even though it limits what I can do.
Only a liar or a fool would take your stance. What kind of person would get so worked up on an anonymous internet forum that they go around flinging ad hominems at every opportunity? Seriously, what is this, highschool? Your personal insults don't really reflect positively on your abilities at debating issues..
Oh, 20 years on a software patent is horrible, but 175 years copyright is OK? Typical "intellectual pooperty". If you'd like to actually read my posts instead of just post rants, I said "almost all" software patents are horrible. To clarify, I think they shouldn't exist. Likewise, I never once said 175 years copyright is ok, nor advocated that. I think a balance needs to be found between your, imho, completely unreasonable position, and the way things are now. (are you the guy that made the hilarious joke about "intellectual pooperty"? if so, congrats!)
I'm proud to have you on my "freaks" list, freak. Hurray for friendly posters! You actually should be flattered--my friends, foes, and Fof/fs each get +1. I'm not sure why you're on my list, but it's possible you said something interesting once!
How many of them can read the MS Office files some clueless people send instead of email text? You say usually, but I find that too many people select html only. I don't know? I get probably 100 work related emails a day from outside the business and can't recall people ever sending an Office file attachment as the sole message? Are you saying that's a problem you have? I work in publishing so people DO send lots of attachments with weird formats, but I've never seen the attachment take the place of the email--if that's what you're saying?
I care because I'm the one who has it clogging up my inbox. If you can't tell the difference between a few snapshots in snail-mail from a friend or reletive (which actually ARE part of the message) and a 15MB email for less than 1 K worth of text, here's a comparison for you. You recieve a 27 cubic foot package stuffed full of old newspapers and packing peanuts. In the bottom is a postcard that says "hows it going?". You receive an average of 5 of those a day. So let me get this straight...you're claiming you get spam that weighs in at 15mb? Or are you saying family members/friends/whoever (ie, non-spam) are sending you 15mb of graphics, maybe they thought you would be interested (incorrectly, I'm guessing!)! This really has NOTHING to do with html versus plain text, please reread the thread if you don't see what I'm getting at?
Not to mention, isn't 15mb far over what the average mail server will send anymore? I think our office mail caps out around 5mb.
If you can't tell the difference between a book and a note on the fridge, I can't help you If you can't tell the difference between "a 27 cubic foot package" and a one sentence subject line in an email reader, your depth perception might be a little off;-)
This is really a complete non-sequitur as email attachments have been around a long time--before html email i would imagine.
Have some coffee and read my post again. The abve was fairly clear and which comes first has nothing to do with it. Such hostility on slashdot lately!! I'll refer you back to my post (the one to which you responded) and the post to which I responded. Neither of us talked about document attachments, office files, etc. The subject was--and should still be!!--solely html email messages. "non sequitur" comes from Latin, and literally means "it does not follow." When you moved the discussion from html messages to some other practice involving office files, that didn't follow. Sorry if you misunderstood my terminology there.
The whole point of image spam is to bypass spam detection by stuffing the real text of the message into an image. Most spam filters don't do OCR. Most spam detection today works on far more than just the body text. Apple mail default seems to be not loading email images (I don't recall changing the default at any time). I guess I figured if Apple mail defaults that, others do too. Don't know to be honest! Between gmail spam detection and my work email (serverside SpamAssassin+dnsbl+client side thunderbird/mail.app) I just really don't have a problem with spam anymore.
Personally, I like having the option to read it on whatever device I have available without invoking a browser or OOffice. And sending html stops you from reading it? Usually email clients will send plain text and html. Besides, many newer mobile devices can read html email without having to go to OO.org or a browser. (OO.org??)
I'm not against attachments as such, just against sending a bunch of extra crap that has nothing to do with the information the email is meant to convey to me so it "looks nice". It DOESN'T look nice, it wastes my time and resources and that is certainly NOT nice. Ok, again, that's great for you--nobody is making you send messages that way. I don't understand why you care if other people send messages the way they want to though? Look at your snail mail, people send pictures, elaborate formats, etc all the time...should that be banned too because it is "a bunch of extra crap that has nothing to do with the information" etc etc? Should books never be allowed to have chapterheads or bold or italic or illustrations etc because it is a bunch of extra crap?
It's email, it's a medium, that's it, there's no higher philosophical value for sending spartan emails, it's just personal preference. (and one linked highly to geekness!)
Image you want me to look at? Go ahead and attach it with a quick note in text telling me what it is. Document I need to read? Attach it with a text note. Quick note? If you put it in a Word document and attach it, I'll probably delete it unread. This is really a complete non-sequitur as email attachments have been around a long time--before html email i would imagine.
As a nice side benefit to the way I read email viruses, tracker bugs, and image spams don't work at all. I thought pretty much all email readers now didn't load images from unknown senders or spam identified messages?
I agree. In the article, it kind of joked about getting used to a 'text email' client. Why is this a joke? Email is SUPPOSED to be text only, and somehow along the way, we've bastardized it into all kinds of HTML, with images, fugly wallpaper, etc... I disagree! I share the standard disdain for html email that is prevalent on slashdot, but let's step back for a second. Email isn't SUPPOSED to be anything other than a method of communicating. I see absolutely no reason that email should be forced to be plain text when it could be a more expressive format.
It's not set by default because most people like to have the options of using bold, italic, colors, etc.
Again, you seem to lack basic reading comprehension skills, because you continue to draw conclusions that are not based upon what I have said. As such, I find it largely pointless to continue explaining what I consider very basic logical points to you, but will make one last attempt. So noble of you! I shall return the favor and endeavor to make it through your prose!:-)
my assertion was couched in much stronger language, it was done so for persuasive, political, and comedic effect, something that has apparently been completely lost upon you. Your grasping at polemics was clear--that's why I responded in off topic fashion. The comedic effect was indeed completely lost on me.
I blamed my sleepiness on my boredom while driving. Not on not getting enough sleep. Ahhh I see. So all those other paragraphs you wrote about the foils of suburbia, etc, you were just explaining how everyone else is. Because you know, they couldn't just get bored too (like you do, and I do, etc), bad driving has to be endemic of Bushco "raping" America. I'm perfectly willing to concede that you're an excellent driver and Bushco doesn't effect you at all--I'm sorry you got offended when I read your posts read that way, I really didn't mean to cast aspersions on you! I mean, I don't think I agree with very much that you've said, but I have no reason to go about flinging ad hominems!
Again, a failure of reading comprehension on your part. I'm starting to feel a little hurt--I've explicitly referenced your past posts to show what I was reading, but you just ignore that and write several hundred words that boil down to attempts to insult! I'm wounded.
Let me just boil down the one part of the conversation I think you've replied to in your last post. 1, you) being ass-raped by the Bush Administration causes sleepless causes bad driving 2, me) I expect to see better driving under Pres. Obama smle (the smile was explicit, not implied!) 3, you) well, I could theoretically look up the data, but I don't think it exists, and these other factors are much more important 4, me) Ah, so you're backing off from your initial claim? (see #1) 5, you) 5 paragraphs that culminate in describing my lack of reading comprehension multiple times;-)
With regards to reading comprehension, do you see the irony in you saying "Isn't that what I had suggested people do?"... when
I say you didn't suggest anything, you reply "you left it as an exercise for the intelligent reader." I don't know, seems slightly ironic to me.
Anyway, I think it clear we're both past the point of any remotely productive or on topic discussion.
Stay safe on the roads, I hope we can both agree to that!
It is likely that other factors are far more predictive (geographical location, credit score, prior accidents). Ah I see, so you're backing off from blaming Bushco policies for bad driving. To quote you "If being ass-raped by the Bush Administration's economic policies could be considered a medical condition, that's your answer."
Where in my post have I said or even implied that my comments about American car culture apply to me? You blame sleepiness while driving (which you said you sufer from) on not getting enough sleep. You blame not getting enough sleep on America/Bushco/middle class suburbia/etc. A->B->C. It seemed logical! Again, if that is not what you mean,t I apologize, but your posts seemed pretty clear!
Isn't that what I had suggested people do? So why are you telling ME to do it when I'm not talking about myself Your posts are completely typical of the slashdot anti-suburbia, pro-public transit, etc posters. You didn't advocate any solutions, but I guessed (perhaps incorrectly) that you were advocating people not drive, but take public transit. I don't actually see ANYWHERE where you advocate people move from big cities or move (please refer me to where you said this though)
But don't tell me that you've never felt the soporific effects of highway hypnosis. Try driving the I-5 up from LA to SF sometime. Absolutely highway hypnosis is a problem. But let's go back to what you ORIGINALLY said before you started adding caveats--"I don't know about other drivers, but personally, I get BORED when I drive, especially on freeways (traffic or no traffic). And when I get bored, I get SLEEPY. Driving has to be one of the most complex yet automatic tasks that my brain does on a daily basis." Your original statement and your last post correlate say pretty different things! If you had said what you meant the first time, I wouldn't have even replied as highway hypnosis is a problem for everyone! Feeling sleepy while driving as an "automatic task" every day is a good bit different!
Some advice: (1) Don't jump to conclusions. (2) Read carefully. You too mate--I get the feeling that I'm agitating you, and I'm not meaning to piss you off, i think we're just both talking past each other to a certain degree! Cheers!
You misunderstand. Any purported media bias does not change the fact that reporting on the news requires at least some coverage of individuals who are Republican. NPR devotes plenty of air time talking about the Bush Administration, and regardless of whatever political slant you or I might think the reporting might have, just hearing about their (in)actions is enough. I see, I thought you meant listening to opinions other than your own...my apology for misinterpreting
Regarding your comment about sleepy drivers, monitoring is neither necessary nor reasonable. You want to know what causes it? It's called not getting enough sleep. It's called your typical, middle-class, hardworking American being stretched so thin they have no time to sleep. It's called being overworked and underpaid because salaries are not increasing in proportion to inflation. If being ass-raped by the Bush Administration's economic policies could be considered a medical condition, that's your answer. I'll keep my eyes out for better drivers and less fatalities under President Obama's administration then:-) For a full disclosure, I'm not an Obama fan and will not vote for him, but I do fully expect him to be president, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Republicans DESERVE to be kicked from power (and lose another 5+ senate seats like it looks like they will). I just don't believe things are as bad as you think they are, nor do I think things will be different under President Obama (other than perhaps higher taxes!)
Finally, let's give a little thought to how American car culture has led to urban sprawl, massive environmental pollution, hazardous driving conditions, and lost productivity due to congested roads. Maybe fewer drivers would be falling asleep at the wheel if average commute times were shorter, people wouldn't jump at the chance to buy overpriced houses in "suburban" (read: BFE rural) developments with subprime mortgages they can't afford, and corporate America moved away from the traditional 9-5 factory worker model. So move! Nobody is making you or millions of other people live in shitty locations. I just moved from the suburbs of DC to a much smaller and less congested town. My commute there was ~11 miles and took 45 minutes on average (regularly +/- 20 minutes). My commute is now 8 minutes on a bad day. I'm getting paid less, but as you noted, the assrapage of housing costs are no longer a factor. Got a 3 bedroom house for a price in the middle-100's. You couldn't buy a tiny ghetto shit condo in NOVA for for a map of where the problems are. I know you solely blame Bushco and the Republicans, but the map is kind of interesting.
Actually, being paranoid is a BAD thing! Paranoia is unjustified and excessive. I took it that that's what you meant--seemed reasonable to be paranoid while talking on the cellphone, and overreacting when you realize your attention had faded from driving. Apologies for misunderstanding.
and that might include listening to NPR (Republicans tend to piss me off, thereby keeping me alert) Hate to break it to you, NPR is fairly leftist in orientation, not "Republican" by any means. I'm assuming you know that though and it was a lapsus calami!
because half of the population will fall asleep at the wheel from the sheer boredom of it. Honestly, I wish there was someway we could monitor this in drivers. I mean, I sympathize, but if people are getting sleepy in every day driving, they should NOT be on the road, period. I don't know if its a medical condition that causes this or what, but it's a huge problem.
I *DO* find my driving is worse when i'm talking to someone in the car, because this is not a common practice. Talking to someone on the Cell Phone, i'm typically more paranoid about my driving, over compensating even for my distractedness by ensuring to leave enough room at all times to react.
I think Most people who are distracted drives don't drive defensively (or offensively). Honestly, the biggest problem with distracted drivers--and the way you describe yourself--is that they are so erratic! one minute they could be slowing down for no apparent reason, and then when attention ("paranoia" as you call it) snaps back, they speed up to the speed limit again, driving well once more. OR vice versa. Or they start floating over the middle line, only to jerk back, etc. It's the unpredictability of their actions that is the biggest problem for other drivers. You see this kind of behavior with people talking on cell phones all the time.
First we need to test people for driving while incompetent. Perhaps with real simulators? I shouldn't have been able to learn things about driving from Gran Turismo AFTER having been driving for years. ..what did you learn from GT?? That's kind of alarming.
I also think simulators are no replacement for the real thing. We're talking cars here, not 747s.
IMHO, very few people actually have a problem controlling their car. Some people do, and they should not be allowed to drive. The vast majority of people have a problem with FOCUS. Listening to music, talking to friends, eating, talking on their cell phones.
My cardinal rule of whom bad drivers are are if they have a "dangly" hanging from their rearview mirror. I can't figure it out, but easily 95%+ of people with danglies I get behind are incompetent drivers--weaving, variable speed, etc. It's a mystery!!
The level of qualification that we apparently think is sufficient to let people drive is ridiculously low. They're not tested under even the tiniest of duress or stress, or in any sort of challenge that involves any real skill at driving or even having any reflexes at all. Even a 15 mph slalom would rule out SO many people, or force them to acquire greater skills. This varies from state to state. I don't think a 15mph slalom would rule out anybody in my state, as when I took the test I had to navigate a park lot, pull into multiple spaces, do a 3 point turn, parallel park, and drive around the block (5 minutes) but through a stop sign, traffic light, merging traffic, etc.
People like that are typically too self-absorbed to really care about others, even if they pretend to. People like what? Highschool kids? Kids are dumb, REALLY dumb. Even the smart ones!
Ok, since you're taking it upon yourself to arbitrarily declare "rights," and you clearly want to control people's actions in this way (morality police!), I have a question: you say DRM has no right to exist. What about CD checks? License keys? etc? because it seems that you're complaining about all of those things?
Wow, talk about completely and utterly missing the point!
Soldiers--and many thousands of US government personnel deployed aboard--frequently don't have continual internet usage. (btw, I've personally run into a number of US military people who play WoW...but anyway). They are a large block of people who buy video games and have downtime to play games irregularly.
EA WOULD be stupid to ignore that block, but not for any of the tortured reasoning you attempt.
I'm not saying that's how it should be, I just tend to play devil's advocate whether I believe in what I'm talking about or not;) Hehe, I'm with you on that one! It's fun being a gadfly!
You know, in computer tech, I agree with you. I think almost all software patents are horrible.
On the other hand, what about a work of art, something like Harry Potter? Harry Potter is coming up on 14 years, and the movies won't be done by the 14 years. IF there's no IP, no protection for Harry Potter, Is that a good thing? If there's 14 years, is that a good thing? I don't know.. plenty of authors don't finish series within 14 years (Robert Jordan?).
I think we agree there are clear differences between art + technology at the least.
If all the effort that has been put into x86 had instead been put into another architecture that was cleaner to begin with, and designed specifically for being able to migrate to 64 bit, who's to say we wouldn't be even better off than we are now with the x86 ancestry? This is very possible. We've certainly seen some promising architectures that have either fizzled due to market share or scaleability. On the other hand, a lot of design from scratch to be clean and forward looking architectures have never left the starting pad virtually (Think itanium). And then there's x86 which has been consistently cheap, and is consistently able to scale. Can we really be doing that much better than x86? I'm not sure.
And on the other hand, as I mentioned in other post, the hybrid design of decoding ia32/64 instructions into microops offers some great opportunities for hardware optimization. It's not quite so simple as it seems.
The "ugly" architecture often means that people have to spend more time figuring out things in it due to the many layers of improvements that have been done. It makes life far more complicated for those that have to work at the "bare metal" level And for people at the bare metal level, yeah, x86 is cruftier looking than MIPS or something else. ia32/64 also has some great compilers and a lot of people with a lot of experience.
Compatibility -- imho, with the growth of managed+interpreted languages, along with the rise of virtualization and perhaps even more importantly multiple cores, this is going to become less and less of an issue.
There are diagrams that show how much real estate on a number of x86 processors from Intel is taken up by the decoder, and it's considerably more than on a processor with a more efficient and elegant instruction set. And the decoder also allows for efficient instruction reordering, etc. This is not nearly so 1-dimensional an issue as you make it seem!
Copyright, Copy Right. Implies a right to copy. The 14 year term was just fine, and allowed us the right to copy after that term was up, all for the sake of the promotion of arts and sciences, NOT for the sake of economic enrichment (profit). If it could without a doubt be shown that 100 year copyrights/patents/etc improved the progress of arts+science, would it then be ok?
Your confusion seems to stem from two things. First, you blindly assume that the promotion of arts and sciences is not at all linked to creating profit. I would strongly disagree with you here--the drive for capital and profit has indeed been the engine behind much technological and artistic advancement throughout human history!
Secondly, the fact that you don't like actions congress has taken in the name of promoting arts+science. You don't agree that they are helpful. I actually agree with you to some extent--I think with modern media and modern lifespans, 14 years is not enough, but 100s+ years is far too much. However, just because you don't like something doesn't make it unconstitutional.
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It's good to be passionate--it's also good to have civil conversations!
What about IMAP? It allows you access to the spam folder.
On the other hand, I think there is room for no debate that if the fetus could be removed from the mother and survive, that the fetus while still inside the mother is a human being. I don't think that point is in any way arbitrary. Seems that people are more than willing to argue against abortion when they don't have to support the child in the end I also don't agree with that. Maybe in some cases, but there are a lot of True Believers out there.
HTML mail reminds me of the "ransom note" style documents people started sending back in the '80s when microcomputers discovered fonts. It rarely adds anything to the message and too often ends up distracting the writer from the message they're trying to convey. I see where you're coming from--it's not so much HTML email you dislike, as it is stupid people
If you think your basic html mail is bad, at a former workplace they had thousands of Lotus Notes/Domino users--the rich capabilities of Lotes was pretty crazy...letterhead+graphic that appeared by the "From:" headers..wallpapered backgrounds, different fonts, clickable graphic buttons to expand parts of the message, etc--overkill imho, but people loved it!
Own art--you're right. Otherwise I could just go out and publish spinoff Harry Potter novels without giving a dime to JK Rowling and potentially diminshing the value of her books. Yes, this is limiting my actions, but I feel it's a good thing. Give it some amount of time before opening it up. You seemed confused in a separate post that I was advocating 175 year copyright--I am not.
Own science--I'm not sure you have it quite right here. It's not science that is owned, it's implementations. As I said before in another post, which you also misread, I think software patents are horrible and 99% of them should be abolished. If a drug company sinks millions (billions?) of dollars into inventing and testing a drug, and then anybody can replicate the chemicals in a week or a month and produce dirt cheap generics, it makes it a lot harder for big companies to do the requisite pharmaceutical testing and trials. Should I be allowed to copy a drug the day it comes out and sell my off brand for pennies on the dollar? That doesn't seem fair to me, even though it limits what I can do. Only a liar or a fool would take your stance. What kind of person would get so worked up on an anonymous internet forum that they go around flinging ad hominems at every opportunity? Seriously, what is this, highschool? Your personal insults don't really reflect positively on your abilities at debating issues..
Not to mention, isn't 15mb far over what the average mail server will send anymore? I think our office mail caps out around 5mb. If you can't tell the difference between a book and a note on the fridge, I can't help you If you can't tell the difference between "a 27 cubic foot package" and a one sentence subject line in an email reader, your depth perception might be a little off
It's email, it's a medium, that's it, there's no higher philosophical value for sending spartan emails, it's just personal preference. (and one linked highly to geekness!) Image you want me to look at? Go ahead and attach it with a quick note in text telling me what it is. Document I need to read? Attach it with a text note. Quick note? If you put it in a Word document and attach it, I'll probably delete it unread. This is really a complete non-sequitur as email attachments have been around a long time--before html email i would imagine. As a nice side benefit to the way I read email viruses, tracker bugs, and image spams don't work at all. I thought pretty much all email readers now didn't load images from unknown senders or spam identified messages?
It's not set by default because most people like to have the options of using bold, italic, colors, etc.
Let me just boil down the one part of the conversation I think you've replied to in your last post.
1, you) being ass-raped by the Bush Administration causes sleepless causes bad driving
2, me) I expect to see better driving under Pres. Obama smle (the smile was explicit, not implied!)
3, you) well, I could theoretically look up the data, but I don't think it exists, and these other factors are much more important
4, me) Ah, so you're backing off from your initial claim? (see #1)
5, you) 5 paragraphs that culminate in describing my lack of reading comprehension multiple times
With regards to reading comprehension, do you see the irony in you saying "Isn't that what I had suggested people do?"
I say you didn't suggest anything, you reply "you left it as an exercise for the intelligent reader." I don't know, seems slightly ironic to me.
Anyway, I think it clear we're both past the point of any remotely productive or on topic discussion.
Stay safe on the roads, I hope we can both agree to that!
Actually, being paranoid is a BAD thing! Paranoia is unjustified and excessive. I took it that that's what you meant--seemed reasonable to be paranoid while talking on the cellphone, and overreacting when you realize your attention had faded from driving. Apologies for misunderstanding.
I think Most people who are distracted drives don't drive defensively (or offensively). Honestly, the biggest problem with distracted drivers--and the way you describe yourself--is that they are so erratic! one minute they could be slowing down for no apparent reason, and then when attention ("paranoia" as you call it) snaps back, they speed up to the speed limit again, driving well once more. OR vice versa. Or they start floating over the middle line, only to jerk back, etc. It's the unpredictability of their actions that is the biggest problem for other drivers. You see this kind of behavior with people talking on cell phones all the time.
I also think simulators are no replacement for the real thing. We're talking cars here, not 747s.
IMHO, very few people actually have a problem controlling their car. Some people do, and they should not be allowed to drive. The vast majority of people have a problem with FOCUS. Listening to music, talking to friends, eating, talking on their cell phones.
My cardinal rule of whom bad drivers are are if they have a "dangly" hanging from their rearview mirror. I can't figure it out, but easily 95%+ of people with danglies I get behind are incompetent drivers--weaving, variable speed, etc. It's a mystery!! The level of qualification that we apparently think is sufficient to let people drive is ridiculously low. They're not tested under even the tiniest of duress or stress, or in any sort of challenge that involves any real skill at driving or even having any reflexes at all. Even a 15 mph slalom would rule out SO many people, or force them to acquire greater skills. This varies from state to state. I don't think a 15mph slalom would rule out anybody in my state, as when I took the test I had to navigate a park lot, pull into multiple spaces, do a 3 point turn, parallel park, and drive around the block (5 minutes) but through a stop sign, traffic light, merging traffic, etc.
Ok, since you're taking it upon yourself to arbitrarily declare "rights," and you clearly want to control people's actions in this way (morality police!), I have a question: you say DRM has no right to exist. What about CD checks? License keys? etc? because it seems that you're complaining about all of those things?
Wow, talk about completely and utterly missing the point!
Soldiers--and many thousands of US government personnel deployed aboard--frequently don't have continual internet usage. (btw, I've personally run into a number of US military people who play WoW...but anyway). They are a large block of people who buy video games and have downtime to play games irregularly.
EA WOULD be stupid to ignore that block, but not for any of the tortured reasoning you attempt.
Yeah, Spore looks to be one of the bloodiest games of the season!
You know, in computer tech, I agree with you. I think almost all software patents are horrible.
On the other hand, what about a work of art, something like Harry Potter? Harry Potter is coming up on 14 years, and the movies won't be done by the 14 years. IF there's no IP, no protection for Harry Potter, Is that a good thing? If there's 14 years, is that a good thing? I don't know.. plenty of authors don't finish series within 14 years (Robert Jordan?).
I think we agree there are clear differences between art + technology at the least.
And on the other hand, as I mentioned in other post, the hybrid design of decoding ia32/64 instructions into microops offers some great opportunities for hardware optimization. It's not quite so simple as it seems. The "ugly" architecture often means that people have to spend more time figuring out things in it due to the many layers of improvements that have been done. It makes life far more complicated for those that have to work at the "bare metal" level And for people at the bare metal level, yeah, x86 is cruftier looking than MIPS or something else. ia32/64 also has some great compilers and a lot of people with a lot of experience.
Compatibility -- imho, with the growth of managed+interpreted languages, along with the rise of virtualization and perhaps even more importantly multiple cores, this is going to become less and less of an issue.
Your confusion seems to stem from two things. First, you blindly assume that the promotion of arts and sciences is not at all linked to creating profit. I would strongly disagree with you here--the drive for capital and profit has indeed been the engine behind much technological and artistic advancement throughout human history!
Secondly, the fact that you don't like actions congress has taken in the name of promoting arts+science. You don't agree that they are helpful. I actually agree with you to some extent--I think with modern media and modern lifespans, 14 years is not enough, but 100s+ years is far too much. However, just because you don't like something doesn't make it unconstitutional.