You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered "irrelevant." They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find *you*.
I can think of many, many uses for such a screen. I think it can be distilled as such: you put them anywhere additional information through A/R would be useful, but where the viewer is fixed in space relative to the screen and needs to maintain that perspective to the world. So, perhaps the glass dividing a bank teller and a bank customer. How about a construction worker in a backhoe or crane looking through a transparent display that highlights buried gas lines, or potential danger areas. In fact, any automotive windshield has at least some potential for a transparent display. There are teleprompters that have a method of doing this, but perhaps transparent displays may do it better. If nothing else, the teleprompter only displays text...a transparent display would also allow the onscreen talent to look at images or video without breaking gaze to the camera.
If I need a job done, I look for whomever can do it on time, correctly, and inexpensively; the latter generally being the least important. Upon settling upon a particular vendor, I may do some vetting, but exactly how much am I supposed to do? Particularly knowing there are already laws and enforcement bureaus in place to handle transgressions, I'm not likely to conduct my own deep investigation.
So Tesla hires Eisenmann to do a job, build a paint shop. That company, and at least one (ISM Vuzem), possibly more, position themselves to maximize the profit from the money Tesla is paying by hiring skilled workers made cheap through exploiting the visa system, and run afoul of the law. How much of that blame are we supposed to lay at Tesla's feet?
The the article mentions Tesla's name 39 times, including the title, 14 times in the first 16 paragraphs. Eisenmann is mentioned twice in the same space, and only in paragraphs 14 and 15 (13 overall). Vuzem is only mentioned once in that opening space (22 overall).
It looks like the Mercury News is intentionally bashing Tesla to grab headlines, particularly by front-loading the name. They could have just as easily reported that there is a huge problem in the United States with contractors hiring overseas workers under false pretenses, and Tesla was the latest victim.
We all do it, so no judgement. Typically, labor is the most expensive line item on a profit & loss statement, accounting for 60-80% of the total costs. It's also the most controllable. You don't generally get to set the prices you have to pay to lease a building or the equipment inside. You also don't generally get to set the prices you pay for the raw materials used to produce your product. But you DO get to decide how much you are willing to pay your employees, how many of them you are going to hire, and what benefits you are going to provide. Of course, market forces can seriously impact that (you can try to hire an engineer for $5/hour...good luck with that).
But this guy isn't just blowing hot air. He's serious, and I for one welcome our automated fast food overlords. Anything that gives me more control over the process is going to increase accuracy, and reduce time. Have you been to a movie theater lately? The ones near me all have kiosks out in front of the ticket booth. You can go to either, but I generally do the kiosk because it's faster than waiting through a line.
The Nvidia GTX 1080 is looking pretty sweet. I don't even play PC games any more, and I still kinda want one. It might drive me back into gaming. Of course, if I get that, I'll need a new mobo, CPU, ram, and ssd to go with it. Crap I might as well get a 4k monitor too.
There may be some room left to grow in the PC space.
It's a Microsoft technology used to: A) Share documents, lists, and calendars with other people in your organization who have absolutely no interest in, and never will look at those things. B) Work well with only the current iteration of Internet Explorer, but not subsequent ones. C) Mimic the look and functionality of a web site, but is coded like some kind of embedded control software for 1960's nuclear power plants that may one day be ported to work on an AS400 if it takes off.
I spent a fair amount of time as a SharePoint 2007 admin, and was recently rescued from having to oversee the migration to Office365 and OneNote (the latter of which I hear is a total cluster-f@#$).
It's definitely not news for nerds. Is it stuff that matters? I think that depends up on whether or not you believe there is any real difference in the candidates. Politics is theater for the masses. Its meant to keep us divided over petty, stupid, and unimportant things; while everything that is not accurately described that way is settled behind closed doors. As a registered voter for the last 25+ years, and someone who makes less than $5 million/year, I have yet to see a presidential nominee I felt really represented my interests.
So it definitely doesn't matter to me anyway. Of course, you may feel differently. But to that point I would argue that many, many things do matter. Slashdot cannot be the forum for all of them. I think Slashdot's greatest strength is the community of people working in the fields of science and technology that bring their opinion to bear on those same subjects.
Every asshole on the planet has an opinion on politics (including this asshole), and they are generally not working in the field of politics, so that opinion actually means very little.
Perhaps what speedplane is saying is simply that Burr and Feinstein know exactly what they are asking for; they know the staggering implications for dismantling information security (personal and corporate), they know the near-impossibility of the request, they know that even if all US companies could somehow manage to comply, it would do absolutely nothing to stop terrorism, criminal behavior, or do anything to allow authorities to better investigate after the fact; and they know that if such backdoors were put in place, that it would only be a matter of (very short) time before those "golden keys" were in the hands of evil-doers to the considerable detriment of American citizens (because no one else would really be affected).
Perhaps he is saying the senators know and fully understand all of this. They're just doing it anyway.
"Ask yourself why an antenna won't deploy on a deep space probe. Or ask how they can launch a six billion dollar telescope without testing it's mirror."
From the movie, "The Arrival".
I always think about that scene when something goes wrong.
Given all the mass surveillance we've been alerted to (thank you Edward Snowden!) in the supposed effort of combating terrorism, I've always been a "he who trades freedom for security deserves neither" type of guy. But the RadioLab podcast brings it to a much more personal level because instead of fighting terrorism, which seems far removed from my reality, it looks at mass surveillance as a way to combat crime. And it's really pretty effective and cost-efficient.
The biggest problem with a system like this, as I see it, is that innocent people cannot opt-out of the surveillance. You'd almost have to start with building a brand new community that had the caveat, "This community is under constant aerial surveillance." Then you could decide to live there or not. A community like that would likely have little to no crime; not because of the surveillance, but because of the type of people willing to live under the threat of surveillance. Of course then, you almost don't need the system.
But maybe that's still focusing on the wrong problem. Maybe the money should be spent on preventing people from doing bad things to begin with. It's a struggle against human nature to be sure, but it's a worthy struggle. I just watched a great TED talk from a Boston prosecutor who talks about fixing society in general, and the justice system in particular, in a way that helps to prevent people from committing crimes.
Google's Project Loon already meets or exceeds most of these specs. The payload they use is only 10kg, but industrious web watchers have calculated the vehicle is actually capable of handling payloads between 100-150kg, so it closes in on Tier 2. It may not have the airship form factor, but it's also likely to be sh'loads less expensive.
1) Global climate will change no matter what we do (or don't do),... True. There are many forces beyond those attributable to the anthropogenic that cause climate to change....and will continue on its current trend. Misleading since no time scale is given. The argument as presented appears to be that since corrective action has no immediate effect, no action should be taken. This is of course, absurd. Even if corrective action will not have an effect for multiple generations, it should still be taken now. We have established that our past and current actions have adversely affected the climate. It is therefore our responsibility as stewards of this planet, and of the future following generations will inherit, to take action. Anything else is selfish and cowardly.
2)...hydrocarbons are pretty much it for providing the majority of humanity's energy... False, demonstrably so. It almost doesn't even bear a rebuttal, but since I'm doing a relative point-by-point dissection; I'll do it anyway. in 2011, 61% of Canada's energy came from hydro. 70% of Portugal's energy today comes from renewables. Germany is on pace to have 80% by 2050. And then there's Denmark with a renewable energy output of 140% of it's consumption. They actually make more than they need. There are simply no technological barriers to 100% energy consumption from renewable sources. There are only economic ones, which themselves are fallacious. A nation having a surplus of energy to sell, sounds much more economical than exporting billions of dollars to other countries where oil extraction is optimal. (incidentally, I'm pointing to the alternatives you were asking for here)
3) Plastics... Strawman. No one is claiming a 100% end to petroleum use is the solution, much less the only solution. Many plastics also have the neat property of being recyclable. Stating that plastics are the "backbone of technology and civilization at this time", implies that they may not need to be at some future time. Many materials scientists and engineers are already looking right now for viable alternatives.
What your statement failed to address is that the action taken by Rockefeller is based on their belief that Exxon Mobile (et. al.) has willingly mislead the global community about the effects of oil consumption with respect to the climate. The article is light on details, but we can infer that the misleading has been going on for some time, according to Rockefeller. Are you not concerned? If it could be proven that Exxon Mobile has known about these effects for years, would you be concerned then? How about if it could be proven they actively promoted a campaign of misinformation to obscure this fact? Would you be angry, even if it didn't change your mind about how you lived your life or voted, but simply because they withheld information from you as a consumer?
But this is really my favorite... If you're reading this, you are most definitely a beneficiary of petroleum, so... So...what? People have often been the beneficiary of things that needed to come to an end. Slavery comes to mind; not just in the U.S., but across the globe and throughout human history. People enjoyed tangible benefits from having slaves, just not the slaves themselves. Humans have had slaves far longer than we've been consuming petroleum, yet it has been globally, or nearly globally outlawed. This is a possible example of an argument made against ending slavery in the U.S. If you're clothes are made of cotton, you are most definitely a beneficiary of slavery, so...
So you still end slavery!
This was a lengthy rebuttal. It required thought and a little research. You may consider that as evidence that it wasn't knee-jerk. You should consider applying thought and research into more of what you do. We all should, particularly where divisive issues are concerned.
The larger problem is a lack of well-trained CEOs. There are so few in this country with the experience capable of leading a corporation like Disney. That's why we need to expand the C3-O worker visa program. In 2009, Bob Iger's total compensation was $29M. Just six short years later, the company now has pay him $45M to keep him. That's an increase of 64% in that short span of time.
Without an influx of less expensive upper management from India, I fear the Disney Corporation will cease to exist. We need your help senator!
When they complain about the cost of IT wages, the above is all I hear.
No they can't, not really. Any code written to single out this phone specifically would be trivial to alter to work on any phone. How hard do you think it is to search for an IMEI and replace it? That's what some people don't seem understand. This code cannot be permitted to exist. At all. Ever. It will be easy to modify and quickly fall into the wrong hands. Even the venerable NSA wasn't able to keep its own secrets from public scrutiny.
No, what he's saying is closer to being against the builder of the house being forced by the government (by the end of a pen or rifle) to build a special machine that will dig under the house (or any house afterward) to install an access hatch in the basement because they cannot open the front door when executing that warrant.
Are you stating you would be happier if the government operated like something a little closer to that of East Germany in 1960's and 70's? Because that's where we're heading. People afraid to criticize the government. Citizens reporting each other behavior deemed "unpatriotic". Companies, literally forced to do things they don't want to do, that aren't in their best interest to do, and aren't in the best interest of the citizens to do; because terror.
Haven't religious radicals done enough to undermine our freedom and way of life? Are we really such cowards? The last line of our national anthem: "O'er the land of the free, and home of the brave". When are we going to start behaving like that again?
I dunno. Did you see how it went storming off at the end? You could practically hear it saying, "Screw you, Bill! I just wanted to pick up the box! If that's how I'm going to be treated, F this job!"
It is different, but only because the DMCA says so.
Title II states the ISP's cannot be held liable for a wide range of copyright infringement happening by their customers if the ISP meets certain criteria. Among that criteria is the ISP has to provide a person who can be notified when infringing material is found, and respond expeditiously to stop the flow of that content, or remove it in the case of temporary storage within the network.
I think where it gets tricky is the ISP has to respond if they have or gain knowledge about the infringing material. BMG is stating Cox has the tools to gain that knowledge and should be forced to use them. The DMCA does not state the ISP must use every tool necessary to root out such material though. I don't see how the Virginia court could interpret Title II to include actively looking for copyrighted material. Unless the argument is that Cox is already using such tools and turning a blind eye to the infringement they see. In that event, they would be in violation of Title II.
While filling the remaining time with volunteering and strengthening the arts is noble, maybe even desirable in some sense; I'm guessing this modification to your work schedule is precisely why the UBI would fail on a larger scale...at least in the United States. It would seem to me the only way, or maybe just the best way, to judge it as a success is if not much else changed beyond lowering the costs of supporting those who cannot support themselves.
If a reduction in workforce productivity coincides with the UBI, a claim will be made that humans are lazy and will not work if they don't have to. Maybe they are correct. It was certainly the claim as to why Communism, or maybe Marxist Socialism, was or would be an inevitable failure. I'm not an economist, so my opinion on the matter is largely uninformed.
The UBI is interesting in principle, particularly if lowering the costs of supporting those who cannot support themselves can be achieved. If a measure of dignity and self-sufficiency can be returned to those people as well, all the better.
Slashdot Mirror
You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered "irrelevant." They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find *you*.
I can think of many, many uses for such a screen. I think it can be distilled as such: you put them anywhere additional information through A/R would be useful, but where the viewer is fixed in space relative to the screen and needs to maintain that perspective to the world. So, perhaps the glass dividing a bank teller and a bank customer. How about a construction worker in a backhoe or crane looking through a transparent display that highlights buried gas lines, or potential danger areas. In fact, any automotive windshield has at least some potential for a transparent display. There are teleprompters that have a method of doing this, but perhaps transparent displays may do it better. If nothing else, the teleprompter only displays text...a transparent display would also allow the onscreen talent to look at images or video without breaking gaze to the camera.
Just some ideas.
Could not reach our servers to perform the test. You may not be connected to the internet
If I wasn't connected to the internet, I wouldn't see the page indicating I may not be connected to the internet.
If I need a job done, I look for whomever can do it on time, correctly, and inexpensively; the latter generally being the least important. Upon settling upon a particular vendor, I may do some vetting, but exactly how much am I supposed to do? Particularly knowing there are already laws and enforcement bureaus in place to handle transgressions, I'm not likely to conduct my own deep investigation.
So Tesla hires Eisenmann to do a job, build a paint shop. That company, and at least one (ISM Vuzem), possibly more, position themselves to maximize the profit from the money Tesla is paying by hiring skilled workers made cheap through exploiting the visa system, and run afoul of the law. How much of that blame are we supposed to lay at Tesla's feet?
The the article mentions Tesla's name 39 times, including the title, 14 times in the first 16 paragraphs. Eisenmann is mentioned twice in the same space, and only in paragraphs 14 and 15 (13 overall). Vuzem is only mentioned once in that opening space (22 overall).
It looks like the Mercury News is intentionally bashing Tesla to grab headlines, particularly by front-loading the name. They could have just as easily reported that there is a huge problem in the United States with contractors hiring overseas workers under false pretenses, and Tesla was the latest victim.
Just another slashdotter mouthing off...
We all do it, so no judgement. Typically, labor is the most expensive line item on a profit & loss statement, accounting for 60-80% of the total costs. It's also the most controllable. You don't generally get to set the prices you have to pay to lease a building or the equipment inside. You also don't generally get to set the prices you pay for the raw materials used to produce your product. But you DO get to decide how much you are willing to pay your employees, how many of them you are going to hire, and what benefits you are going to provide. Of course, market forces can seriously impact that (you can try to hire an engineer for $5/hour...good luck with that).
But this guy isn't just blowing hot air. He's serious, and I for one welcome our automated fast food overlords. Anything that gives me more control over the process is going to increase accuracy, and reduce time. Have you been to a movie theater lately? The ones near me all have kiosks out in front of the ticket booth. You can go to either, but I generally do the kiosk because it's faster than waiting through a line.
has not been officially named yet but is internally known as the Chirp
Easy there ham-cowboy, it's just a code name, not the official name. Companies use IP stuff for internal names all the time.
This /. story prompted me to search for alternatives, and found this which seems relevant.
http://www.guidingtech.com/536...
I've installed Solid to see how that looks. A decent ad-free file explorer is worth a couple of bucks to me.
Original or remake? The difference is important (hint: the latter sucked).
The Nvidia GTX 1080 is looking pretty sweet. I don't even play PC games any more, and I still kinda want one. It might drive me back into gaming. Of course, if I get that, I'll need a new mobo, CPU, ram, and ssd to go with it. Crap I might as well get a 4k monitor too.
There may be some room left to grow in the PC space.
It's a Microsoft technology used to:
A) Share documents, lists, and calendars with other people in your organization who have absolutely no interest in, and never will look at those things.
B) Work well with only the current iteration of Internet Explorer, but not subsequent ones.
C) Mimic the look and functionality of a web site, but is coded like some kind of embedded control software for 1960's nuclear power plants that may one day be ported to work on an AS400 if it takes off.
I spent a fair amount of time as a SharePoint 2007 admin, and was recently rescued from having to oversee the migration to Office365 and OneNote (the latter of which I hear is a total cluster-f@#$).
I think the quote from Contact's Ted Arroway sums it up the best:
I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.
So...the condition is not satisfied then.
It's definitely not news for nerds. Is it stuff that matters? I think that depends up on whether or not you believe there is any real difference in the candidates. Politics is theater for the masses. Its meant to keep us divided over petty, stupid, and unimportant things; while everything that is not accurately described that way is settled behind closed doors. As a registered voter for the last 25+ years, and someone who makes less than $5 million/year, I have yet to see a presidential nominee I felt really represented my interests.
So it definitely doesn't matter to me anyway. Of course, you may feel differently. But to that point I would argue that many, many things do matter. Slashdot cannot be the forum for all of them. I think Slashdot's greatest strength is the community of people working in the fields of science and technology that bring their opinion to bear on those same subjects.
Every asshole on the planet has an opinion on politics (including this asshole), and they are generally not working in the field of politics, so that opinion actually means very little.
If I felt like being very generous...
Perhaps what speedplane is saying is simply that Burr and Feinstein know exactly what they are asking for; they know the staggering implications for dismantling information security (personal and corporate), they know the near-impossibility of the request, they know that even if all US companies could somehow manage to comply, it would do absolutely nothing to stop terrorism, criminal behavior, or do anything to allow authorities to better investigate after the fact; and they know that if such backdoors were put in place, that it would only be a matter of (very short) time before those "golden keys" were in the hands of evil-doers to the considerable detriment of American citizens (because no one else would really be affected).
Perhaps he is saying the senators know and fully understand all of this. They're just doing it anyway.
"Ask yourself why an antenna won't deploy on a deep space probe. Or ask how they can launch a six billion dollar telescope without testing it's mirror."
From the movie, "The Arrival".
I always think about that scene when something goes wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Given all the mass surveillance we've been alerted to (thank you Edward Snowden!) in the supposed effort of combating terrorism, I've always been a "he who trades freedom for security deserves neither" type of guy. But the RadioLab podcast brings it to a much more personal level because instead of fighting terrorism, which seems far removed from my reality, it looks at mass surveillance as a way to combat crime. And it's really pretty effective and cost-efficient.
The biggest problem with a system like this, as I see it, is that innocent people cannot opt-out of the surveillance. You'd almost have to start with building a brand new community that had the caveat, "This community is under constant aerial surveillance." Then you could decide to live there or not. A community like that would likely have little to no crime; not because of the surveillance, but because of the type of people willing to live under the threat of surveillance. Of course then, you almost don't need the system.
But maybe that's still focusing on the wrong problem. Maybe the money should be spent on preventing people from doing bad things to begin with. It's a struggle against human nature to be sure, but it's a worthy struggle. I just watched a great TED talk from a Boston prosecutor who talks about fixing society in general, and the justice system in particular, in a way that helps to prevent people from committing crimes.
https://www.ted.com/talks/adam...
Google's Project Loon already meets or exceeds most of these specs. The payload they use is only 10kg, but industrious web watchers have calculated the vehicle is actually capable of handling payloads between 100-150kg, so it closes in on Tier 2. It may not have the airship form factor, but it's also likely to be sh'loads less expensive.
1) Global climate will change no matter what we do (or don't do),... ...and will continue on its current trend.
True. There are many forces beyond those attributable to the anthropogenic that cause climate to change.
Misleading since no time scale is given. The argument as presented appears to be that since corrective action has no immediate effect, no action should be taken. This is of course, absurd. Even if corrective action will not have an effect for multiple generations, it should still be taken now. We have established that our past and current actions have adversely affected the climate. It is therefore our responsibility as stewards of this planet, and of the future following generations will inherit, to take action. Anything else is selfish and cowardly.
2) ...hydrocarbons are pretty much it for providing the majority of humanity's energy...
False, demonstrably so. It almost doesn't even bear a rebuttal, but since I'm doing a relative point-by-point dissection; I'll do it anyway. in 2011, 61% of Canada's energy came from hydro. 70% of Portugal's energy today comes from renewables. Germany is on pace to have 80% by 2050. And then there's Denmark with a renewable energy output of 140% of it's consumption. They actually make more than they need. There are simply no technological barriers to 100% energy consumption from renewable sources. There are only economic ones, which themselves are fallacious. A nation having a surplus of energy to sell, sounds much more economical than exporting billions of dollars to other countries where oil extraction is optimal. (incidentally, I'm pointing to the alternatives you were asking for here)
3) Plastics...
Strawman. No one is claiming a 100% end to petroleum use is the solution, much less the only solution. Many plastics also have the neat property of being recyclable. Stating that plastics are the "backbone of technology and civilization at this time", implies that they may not need to be at some future time. Many materials scientists and engineers are already looking right now for viable alternatives.
What your statement failed to address is that the action taken by Rockefeller is based on their belief that Exxon Mobile (et. al.) has willingly mislead the global community about the effects of oil consumption with respect to the climate. The article is light on details, but we can infer that the misleading has been going on for some time, according to Rockefeller. Are you not concerned? If it could be proven that Exxon Mobile has known about these effects for years, would you be concerned then? How about if it could be proven they actively promoted a campaign of misinformation to obscure this fact? Would you be angry, even if it didn't change your mind about how you lived your life or voted, but simply because they withheld information from you as a consumer?
But this is really my favorite...
If you're reading this, you are most definitely a beneficiary of petroleum, so...
So...what? People have often been the beneficiary of things that needed to come to an end. Slavery comes to mind; not just in the U.S., but across the globe and throughout human history. People enjoyed tangible benefits from having slaves, just not the slaves themselves. Humans have had slaves far longer than we've been consuming petroleum, yet it has been globally, or nearly globally outlawed. This is a possible example of an argument made against ending slavery in the U.S. If you're clothes are made of cotton, you are most definitely a beneficiary of slavery, so...
So you still end slavery!
This was a lengthy rebuttal. It required thought and a little research. You may consider that as evidence that it wasn't knee-jerk. You should consider applying thought and research into more of what you do. We all should, particularly where divisive issues are concerned.
The larger problem is a lack of well-trained CEOs. There are so few in this country with the experience capable of leading a corporation like Disney. That's why we need to expand the C3-O worker visa program. In 2009, Bob Iger's total compensation was $29M. Just six short years later, the company now has pay him $45M to keep him. That's an increase of 64% in that short span of time.
Without an influx of less expensive upper management from India, I fear the Disney Corporation will cease to exist. We need your help senator!
When they complain about the cost of IT wages, the above is all I hear.
Sell it in the Middle East. I was surprised to learn they have the highest incidence of diabetes in the world.
No they can't, not really. Any code written to single out this phone specifically would be trivial to alter to work on any phone. How hard do you think it is to search for an IMEI and replace it? That's what some people don't seem understand. This code cannot be permitted to exist. At all. Ever. It will be easy to modify and quickly fall into the wrong hands. Even the venerable NSA wasn't able to keep its own secrets from public scrutiny.
No, what he's saying is closer to being against the builder of the house being forced by the government (by the end of a pen or rifle) to build a special machine that will dig under the house (or any house afterward) to install an access hatch in the basement because they cannot open the front door when executing that warrant.
Are you stating you would be happier if the government operated like something a little closer to that of East Germany in 1960's and 70's? Because that's where we're heading. People afraid to criticize the government. Citizens reporting each other behavior deemed "unpatriotic". Companies, literally forced to do things they don't want to do, that aren't in their best interest to do, and aren't in the best interest of the citizens to do; because terror.
Haven't religious radicals done enough to undermine our freedom and way of life? Are we really such cowards? The last line of our national anthem: "O'er the land of the free, and home of the brave". When are we going to start behaving like that again?
I dunno. Did you see how it went storming off at the end? You could practically hear it saying, "Screw you, Bill! I just wanted to pick up the box! If that's how I'm going to be treated, F this job!"
From TFA: Researchers at the University of Southampton have discovered a way to store data in five dimensions on nanostructure glass...
No, they certainly did not.
It is different, but only because the DMCA says so.
Title II states the ISP's cannot be held liable for a wide range of copyright infringement happening by their customers if the ISP meets certain criteria. Among that criteria is the ISP has to provide a person who can be notified when infringing material is found, and respond expeditiously to stop the flow of that content, or remove it in the case of temporary storage within the network.
I think where it gets tricky is the ISP has to respond if they have or gain knowledge about the infringing material. BMG is stating Cox has the tools to gain that knowledge and should be forced to use them. The DMCA does not state the ISP must use every tool necessary to root out such material though. I don't see how the Virginia court could interpret Title II to include actively looking for copyrighted material. Unless the argument is that Cox is already using such tools and turning a blind eye to the infringement they see. In that event, they would be in violation of Title II.
I'd drop down to working part time
While filling the remaining time with volunteering and strengthening the arts is noble, maybe even desirable in some sense; I'm guessing this modification to your work schedule is precisely why the UBI would fail on a larger scale...at least in the United States. It would seem to me the only way, or maybe just the best way, to judge it as a success is if not much else changed beyond lowering the costs of supporting those who cannot support themselves.
If a reduction in workforce productivity coincides with the UBI, a claim will be made that humans are lazy and will not work if they don't have to. Maybe they are correct. It was certainly the claim as to why Communism, or maybe Marxist Socialism, was or would be an inevitable failure. I'm not an economist, so my opinion on the matter is largely uninformed.
The UBI is interesting in principle, particularly if lowering the costs of supporting those who cannot support themselves can be achieved. If a measure of dignity and self-sufficiency can be returned to those people as well, all the better.
I personally wouldn't change my life at all.