We could have quite easily became another Nazi or Communist country had FDR not instituted his New Deal reforms during the great depression. The New Deal didn't do jack shit but saddle us with a lot of goldilocks-type government programs that barged in and won't go away. FDR and his pals were just throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at the economy, trying to make something good happen. The thing that actually kept the US from collapsing into some fascist/socialist hell was the massive industrial mobilization of WW2.
If you could download it and host it all on your own internal server, it eliminates most of the issues with a Web OS. You could have all your documents, emails, and programs stored in one central location that you have complete control over. Then what, exactly, have you gained over the system as it is now? Another layer of complication?
Of course if someone proves that it isnt 'impossible' then does that void the patent? No, why would it? The contents of the abstract are irrelevant. The only relevant portion of a patent is the claims, and they are very simply descriptions of the process. The validity of the process doesn't change just because someone finds a way to reverse it.
Tivo loses because the person says they couldn't have broken the tivo code because the code is unbreakable, if they did, then Tivo loses the patent. Don't be daft. The vague boasts in the patent abstract are irrelevant to the validity of the patent. You could claim in the abstract that your patented method will grant the user perpetual happiness. All that's relevant to the validity are the claims, and those are purely descriptive of function.
If Feynmann can simplify things so MIT physics students can get started, Wikipedia can simplify things for their audience of random idiots on the web. To be fair, that was one of the most impressive aspects of Feynman's genius, and one which he worked very hard at. To quote Wikipedia , "His principle was that if a topic could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood". To expect the vast teeming majority of Wikipedia editing schmoes out there to display the genius of Feynman is really expecting too much.
damn, hit submit too soon. didn't have the conclusion:
In short, culpability lies primarily on the the person whose actions (or inaction) led to the accident. In your standard tailgating situation, the fact that the driver of the car in front has no reasonable means of moving the car behind to a safe distance, culpability generally lies with the driver of the car behind in the case of an accident. HOWEVER, if the driver of the car in front intentionally executes a maneuver which directly results in the car behind hitting them (or swerving off the road and crashing, in your fantasy scenario), then culpability accumulates with the driver of the car in front. It may come as a surprise to an ignorant fuck like you, but the law isn't some game of purely logical rules which you can twist to your evil ends that easily. There's plenty of room in the law for a judge to look at you, your video camera "evidence", and the fact that you'd supposedly done it up to 37 times, to put you in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for multiple counts of vehicular manslaughter. The fact of the videotape wouldn't exculpate you, but rather it would seal your doom.
I believe in using Darwinism to eliminate the drivers... I am a former race-car driver.... When I notice that his eyes have glanced away from the road, I immediately apply the brakes....In most cases, his car slams into the concrete barrier. In some cases, the car flips upside down....
Out of 37 encounters of this kind, 25 resulted in fatalities. All 37 resulted in a serious accident. Spare us your fantasies. Do you know how we know you're making shit up?
I videotaped the whole encounter with a camera pointing out of the rear window. The point of the camera is to provide videotaped evidence that I have not broken any traffic laws. In all 37 encounters, I gave the videotape to law enforcement. No charges have ever been filed against me. Sweet. Huh? Not only would the police be suspicious the first time you handed them a tape from an unexplained camera in your rear window, but by the second or third time, you'd definitely be in jail. Did you know that the person behind you is not automatically 100% responsible if you apply your brakes and there is an accident as a result? Obviously not. For example, a common insurance fraud scheme is to load a car with people and take it out on the interstate and drive in front of a big truck. A second car, driven by an accomplice, intentionally "cuts off" the first car, giving them an excuse to slam on their brakes. The truck, unable to stop, rear ends the car full of people, who all then file bogus injury claims. These people go to jail all the time. How? Often they load their trunk with old tires, in the mistaken belief that it will cushion the impact from the truck. Also, a bit of investigation often shows that one or more of the "victims" had been in similar accidents in the past. So you see, a history of such incidents and a suspicious detail like tires in the trunk or a FUCKING CAMERA out your back window will pretty much land you in jail the first time there's a fatality.
I don't believe oil companies have any incentive to kill things that reduce the quantity of oil we need
Don't be so naive. Both American Car companies AND oil companies have a vested interest in keeping things status quo. They are greedy bastards and want to wrench every penny from you. Don't believe me? Go watch this movie Ah, "Who Killed the Electric Car". A balanced an measured analysis, of course, and not a biased propaganda piece, to judge by the title. (snort)
You want to know the deal with the EV-1? California bureaucrats thought they could wave a magic wand (i.e. use laws) to make technology advance. GM whipped up a quick electric car out of off the shelf parts, but at the same time sued to have the mandatory production rules reversed. The problem with fielding a vehicle like the EV-1 is that GM is then required to support that car for ten years after the date of manufacture. The owner of the vehicle has to pay for it, but GM would be required to maintain a full supply of parts and a staff of mechanics capable of servicing those vehicles. This would not be a trivial expense. The more EV-1's sold, the more expense. The arbitrarily short timetable mandated by the CARB made ramping up such a service system doubly expensive. The temporary rental scheme was something of a short term loophole that put them technically in compliance and bought them enough time to litigate the CARB into submission without incurring a long term maintenance liability. The thorough destruction of said vehicles is to ensure that no one will ever be able to hold them to their mandated parts and service obligation should they ever somehow get their hands on one.
What's the over/under that this technology will be bought by ford / gm and killed in development? Who modded this "insightful"? The idea that the auto manufacturers give a rat's ass about the welfare of the oil industry is fucking idiotic. It smacks of failure to think rationally. What leverage does Big Oil have? They don't even sell to the auto makers, they sell to the auto makers' customers!
TRUE: Big Oil and Big Auto conspired to destroy public transit in places like Los Angeles. This is perfectly logical. Both parties gain by killing off a third party which competes with both of them.
FALSE: Big Auto would gladly cripple itself for the benefit of Big Oil. This is completely nonsensical. Given the opportunity to market a high-efficiency design that would give them a leg up on their competitors, any one of the auto makers would leap at the chance. Do you really think GM is sitting on that mythical "100mpg carburetor" when they could patent it and be putting it in all their vehicles and have crowds of folks waiting in line to buy a Chevy while the Ford, Honda, et al salesmen sit in empty showrooms writing their resumes? Please.
The only reason not to use breeder reactors is that they (gasp) produce weapons-grade waste. Actually, even that's not true. Weapons grade plutonium comes from breeder reactors, but not all breeder reactors create weapons grade plutonium. You have to build and operate a breeder reactor a specific way to get the pure Pu-239 a nuclear warhead requires. Your typical fuel reprocessing breeder reactor will yield a mix of Pu-239, -240, -241, and -242. A very minute content of Pu-24[012] would make a Pu-239 warhead fizzle, and there is no effective way to separate them. The "nuclear proliferation" argument is utterly invalid. This makes one wonder. When Jimmy Carter banned the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in 1977, citing the fear that Plutonium could possibly be stolen, and terrorists might be able to use it to make atomic bombs, there are only a few possible reasons for his decision, and none of them are good.
1) Jimmy Carter (a former reactor operator in the Navy with a degree in nuclear physics) actually didn't know that not all reprocessing results in pure Pu-239. This would require the man to be an idiot. Not likely, but for those of us who remember the late 70's, it holds some narrow window of plausibility.
2) Carter knew it wasn't true, but signed the executive order anyway to make a symbolic gesture for the benefit of the peaceniks and to demonstrate to the Russkies that we were taking disarmament seriously. Again, this would require the man to be something of an idiot (though not quite as much of an idiot as for case 1), and again, those of us over 35 might find that plausible.
3) Carter knew it wasn't true, but signed it at the behest of the "uranium cartels" who would stand to lose money if less Uranium was being purchased. This seems highly unlikely, as there are no such cartels.
So basically we are left with the possibility that Carter was a moron with a degree he didn't deserve, a meaningless gesture making fool, or a corrupt influence peddler. Kinda challenges the unspoken motto of voters in '76: "anyone's better than that crook Nixon and his cronies". Thanks to that mealy mouthed peanut farmer we're up to our arses in radioactive waste, agonizing over how to safely dispose of it, when a simple breeder reactor could turn it into more fuel.
A heat pump can be 400% efficient or so, so if you power it from the solar cells you can effectively quadruple the effective generating power of the cells. Errr.... anything beyond 100% efficiency is a perpetual motion machine. 400% efficiency is a felony violation of the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics.
Instead of speculating, how about using google to see the thousands and thousands of installations where they DO use battery banks for homes? It's doable. It just is. People spending half a million to a million bucks on a house in California can afford 40 grand for a very sophisticated rig, and tie it directly into their long term mortgage Think so, eh? Think we're all rich because the real estate where we live is more expensive? Most people attempting to buy a house in the expensive parts of california are mortgaged to within an inch of their lives (or more, as the foreclosures illustrate). That additional 40K is enough to push up the monthly loan payment on a half million bucks by more than you'd save in electricity. But it's easy to stand on a soapbox and tell other people what they can afford, right?
It is called a freezer or an air conditioning system. You drop a couple of degrees in hundreds of commercial freezers during the night and then they don't need power during the day. Basically, they act like a big battery. They only act as a "battery" within themselves. The current discussion is about storing off-peak electricity for use during peak times. You cannot draw those 2 degrees out of the freezer to run your microwave.
Considering that Vint Cerf, the real inventor of the Internet, says that Al Gore's claims in the (admittedly not very good) way he worded them were correct The whole "Al Gore invented the internet" has become something of a silly political litmus test. Those who tend to agree with Gore claim he wasn't entirely wrong, and that he didn't mean it the way he said it. Those who tend to disagree with Gore claim he's a dumbass who doesn't know a network from a series of tubes. The reality lies in the middle. Gore is a typical politician of average intelligence who said something dumb. It requires a lot of logical contortionism to claim what he said was correct: "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" is simply false. He didn't have a hand in creating the internet. It already existed in 1991, regardless of what Vint Cerf or anyone else says. It's simply too great a stretch to claim that "created" means the same as "greatly expanded" (the most generous description of what Gore had a hand in). Now, whether he actually believed what he said, meant to say something else, or was just reading mindlessly off a cue card, we'll never know and he'll never say. Politicians say stupid things. This is just one of many examples.
If you sell any product without making your source code available upon request, say by submitting it to the library of congress, then you must pay three times as much sales tax.
Ain't complex, just increase the taxes on closed source transactions. Bzzzzt. Utterly stupid idea. That is complex. Sales tax varies by state, county, and city. Do companies in New Hampshire pay under the same scheme? New Hampshire has no sales tax. How long before all companies are selling by "mail order" out of New Hampshire, the same way all credit card companies are based in Maryland, which allows the most usurious interest rates?
You can't copyright something that is already in the public domain. No, but you CAN copyright a derivative work of it. At any rate, it's immaterial, as the story is untrue. The real story is basically thus: RMS wants to expand the perl interpreter in emacs. He asks for and receives permission (license) from the fellow who wrote it to expand upon and freely distribute the expanded versions of it. While RMS is working on the project, the fellow sells the rights to his version of emacs to a company, who then tells RMS to stop distributing "their" product. RMS can't find the "licensing" email from the dude, so he ends up just completely rewriting the perl interpreter to be non-infringing. The experience prompts him to come up with a licensing scheme that would prevent that from happening again.
"(lots of identical bytes being redundantly pushed to many consumers, where broadcast would be more appropriate and efficient)"
The first part is true, but does not necessarily lead to the conclusion in the second. There is a huge, very important IF that belongs between them. Specifically, "if the recipients are all prepared to receive those bytes at the same time". The problem with the conclusion is that the evaluation of the "if" part is nearly always "they're not". This is yet another case of "if the internet were like television, it'd be more efficient". Yes, but it would then no longer be the internet people like. The great promise of the internet is information on demand. All this bullcrap about broadcast, push, and the like, it's all the efforts of 20th century throwbacks trying to fit the internet into their outdated worldview of "producers" and "consumers". They need to quit it. Broadcast is a square peg and the internet is a round hole. Every time anyone suggests putting the two together, they simply look like a bloody idiot.
Now - oh my god - somebody like me actually gets to keep the thing he creates and do with it what he will, and even leave it as a legacy for his children. How, um, reasonable. No, it's unreasonable. I install communications infrastructure. If I want to leave something for my children, I have to save my money to do so. My children can't go around to the owners of all the networks I installed and collect money after I die. I could leave them my business, but they'd still have to learn how to pull wire and then install new networks if they expect to make any money. Please, tell me why your children should get a different deal.
And none of this even addresses the root issue, that copyright doesn't exist to guarantee you a living, it exists to enrich the public domain.
2. I don't know enough about 19th century copyright law, but frankly, 20th century copyright law based on the Berne Convention is quite good at what it does, and doesn't really need to be fixed. At best, it needs minor modifications. The Berne Convention is a load of crap. It is completely at odds with the basic premises US copyright law is based on. That's why it took over 100 years (1887 -> 1989) for the IP industry to push the US into signing.
If you look at the Berne Convention, you see:
1. Respect for the creator's wishes for their work. This was the main sticking point. The notion that creators somehow "own" their creations had historically (and logically) been considered completely ludicrous (which it is). With the birth of the recording industry however, the 20th century saw a concerted effort to push the notion of "copyright holder ownership", rather than the "limited monopoly on copying" the law stated. Now, the prevailing notion is that copyright == ownership. The propaganda has worked well. Fortunately, the digital revolution may smash that idea with one stroke. With the cost of replication having dropped to near zero, people are beginning to realize that you simply cannot own information. The law may say "life + 70", but the ridiculousness of such a term has caused people to ignore it and render it moot. Copyright is not respected because it is not deserving of respect. If the term was lowered to something reasonable like 14 years, renewable once for 14 more (as it was originally), I reckon we'd see less contempt for copyright.
When considering copyright, it's important to keep in mind that the creations of writers and musicians belong to all of us. They are artifacts of our common culture. The creator has every right to control his creation up to a point--- that point being the moment he shares it with another person. Too many people have blindly accepted the "Disney" version of artistic creation. A look at the short history of copyright, with a comparison to the very long history of artistic work before copyright gives a much more realistic view of things.
Well, the converse to this is that a bunch of established alumni call up the trustees at Harvard and say: "why are you squandering the credibility of the University on kids who want to listen to a bunch of Brittany Spears songs for free?" The 'parents, slibings and possibly grandparents that might be in firms' might feel that Harvard has better legal stands to focus on.
Sorry for singing a different harmony here, folks... Unless they're write a huge check with dependable frequency, the trustees don't give a crap what alumni have to say. Seriously, Harvard isn't some sort of democracy of the alumni. It's a private school. Those that agree with Harvard's stance will help, and those that don't, won't. They've already decided to fight it. Do you really think a phone call from some 80 year old geezer who graduated Harvard in the 40's and has attended two football games and donated $150 in the intervening time is going to change their mind?
If they lose this fight, they'll singlehandedly make the "Ivy League" a thing of the past. I'm not siding with the RIAA here, but the law, unfortunately, is on their side. Are these colleges prepared to take the risk of losing everything to stand up for their students? Please. Spare us the hyperbole. They don't stand to "[lose] everything". Worst case scenario, the RIAA takes this before the courts and the school is ordered to turn over the information. If the person in charge of the info refuses, they are thrown in the clink on contempt until the info is turned over. That's all. I fail to see how your idiotic prediction of the ivy league becoming a thing of the past fits in there.
Imagine, Harvard, a non-accredited school. There's not a snowball's chance in hell of that. You don't seem to understand how accreditation works, particularly with regard to highly prestigious schools. It's essentially a "Mexican standoff". Accreditation is not done by any state entity. It's not like a health department rating for a restaurant, but more like ratings by food critics. There exist many accreditation associations, some better than others. Institutions of higher education are judged on whether they're accredited by an association that's considered reputable. But by the same token, accreditation associations are judged by which schools they list as "accredited". Any accreditation association idiotic enough to boot fucking HARVARD over a non-educational issue is just asking to be laughed down to the bottom of the list, where the faux-associations that accredit diploma mills live.
Not really, because there is WAY less money involved, thus the lawyers cant make a kazillion dollars by suing everone for everything. Thus, the lawers have no real interest in pursuing cases for the sake of the share of a possibly huge fine. Civil and criminal law are handled separately. No one's making "a kazillion dollars" in criminal law with the exception of the occasional high-profile defense of a celebrity.
All I ever see in response are lame critiques of copyright law Right. Outrage that copyright is effectively perpetual is "lame". If you buy into the fantasy that copyright holders own all those artifacts of our common culture, then I suppose there's no point arguing the point with you.
(especially since the GPL relies on copyright law) If there were no copyright, there'd be no need for the GPL. That's entirely the point of it.
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To be fair, that was one of the most impressive aspects of Feynman's genius, and one which he worked very hard at. To quote Wikipedia , "His principle was that if a topic could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood". To expect the vast teeming majority of Wikipedia editing schmoes out there to display the genius of Feynman is really expecting too much.
damn, hit submit too soon. didn't have the conclusion:
In short, culpability lies primarily on the the person whose actions (or inaction) led to the accident. In your standard tailgating situation, the fact that the driver of the car in front has no reasonable means of moving the car behind to a safe distance, culpability generally lies with the driver of the car behind in the case of an accident. HOWEVER, if the driver of the car in front intentionally executes a maneuver which directly results in the car behind hitting them (or swerving off the road and crashing, in your fantasy scenario), then culpability accumulates with the driver of the car in front. It may come as a surprise to an ignorant fuck like you, but the law isn't some game of purely logical rules which you can twist to your evil ends that easily. There's plenty of room in the law for a judge to look at you, your video camera "evidence", and the fact that you'd supposedly done it up to 37 times, to put you in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for multiple counts of vehicular manslaughter. The fact of the videotape wouldn't exculpate you, but rather it would seal your doom.
Don't be so naive. Both American Car companies AND oil companies have a vested interest in keeping things status quo. They are greedy bastards and want to wrench every penny from you. Don't believe me? Go watch this movie Ah, "Who Killed the Electric Car". A balanced an measured analysis, of course, and not a biased propaganda piece, to judge by the title. (snort)
You want to know the deal with the EV-1? California bureaucrats thought they could wave a magic wand (i.e. use laws) to make technology advance. GM whipped up a quick electric car out of off the shelf parts, but at the same time sued to have the mandatory production rules reversed. The problem with fielding a vehicle like the EV-1 is that GM is then required to support that car for ten years after the date of manufacture. The owner of the vehicle has to pay for it, but GM would be required to maintain a full supply of parts and a staff of mechanics capable of servicing those vehicles. This would not be a trivial expense. The more EV-1's sold, the more expense. The arbitrarily short timetable mandated by the CARB made ramping up such a service system doubly expensive. The temporary rental scheme was something of a short term loophole that put them technically in compliance and bought them enough time to litigate the CARB into submission without incurring a long term maintenance liability. The thorough destruction of said vehicles is to ensure that no one will ever be able to hold them to their mandated parts and service obligation should they ever somehow get their hands on one.
TRUE: Big Oil and Big Auto conspired to destroy public transit in places like Los Angeles. This is perfectly logical. Both parties gain by killing off a third party which competes with both of them.
FALSE: Big Auto would gladly cripple itself for the benefit of Big Oil. This is completely nonsensical. Given the opportunity to market a high-efficiency design that would give them a leg up on their competitors, any one of the auto makers would leap at the chance. Do you really think GM is sitting on that mythical "100mpg carburetor" when they could patent it and be putting it in all their vehicles and have crowds of folks waiting in line to buy a Chevy while the Ford, Honda, et al salesmen sit in empty showrooms writing their resumes? Please.
1) Jimmy Carter (a former reactor operator in the Navy with a degree in nuclear physics) actually didn't know that not all reprocessing results in pure Pu-239. This would require the man to be an idiot. Not likely, but for those of us who remember the late 70's, it holds some narrow window of plausibility.
2) Carter knew it wasn't true, but signed the executive order anyway to make a symbolic gesture for the benefit of the peaceniks and to demonstrate to the Russkies that we were taking disarmament seriously. Again, this would require the man to be something of an idiot (though not quite as much of an idiot as for case 1), and again, those of us over 35 might find that plausible.
3) Carter knew it wasn't true, but signed it at the behest of the "uranium cartels" who would stand to lose money if less Uranium was being purchased. This seems highly unlikely, as there are no such cartels.
So basically we are left with the possibility that Carter was a moron with a degree he didn't deserve, a meaningless gesture making fool, or a corrupt influence peddler. Kinda challenges the unspoken motto of voters in '76: "anyone's better than that crook Nixon and his cronies". Thanks to that mealy mouthed peanut farmer we're up to our arses in radioactive waste, agonizing over how to safely dispose of it, when a simple breeder reactor could turn it into more fuel.
Ain't complex, just increase the taxes on closed source transactions.
Bzzzzt. Utterly stupid idea. That is complex. Sales tax varies by state, county, and city. Do companies in New Hampshire pay under the same scheme? New Hampshire has no sales tax. How long before all companies are selling by "mail order" out of New Hampshire, the same way all credit card companies are based in Maryland, which allows the most usurious interest rates?
"(lots of identical bytes being redundantly pushed to many consumers, where broadcast would be more appropriate and efficient)"
The first part is true, but does not necessarily lead to the conclusion in the second. There is a huge, very important IF that belongs between them. Specifically, "if the recipients are all prepared to receive those bytes at the same time". The problem with the conclusion is that the evaluation of the "if" part is nearly always "they're not". This is yet another case of "if the internet were like television, it'd be more efficient". Yes, but it would then no longer be the internet people like. The great promise of the internet is information on demand. All this bullcrap about broadcast, push, and the like, it's all the efforts of 20th century throwbacks trying to fit the internet into their outdated worldview of "producers" and "consumers". They need to quit it. Broadcast is a square peg and the internet is a round hole. Every time anyone suggests putting the two together, they simply look like a bloody idiot.
And none of this even addresses the root issue, that copyright doesn't exist to guarantee you a living, it exists to enrich the public domain.
If you look at the Berne Convention, you see:
1. Respect for the creator's wishes for their work. This was the main sticking point. The notion that creators somehow "own" their creations had historically (and logically) been considered completely ludicrous (which it is). With the birth of the recording industry however, the 20th century saw a concerted effort to push the notion of "copyright holder ownership", rather than the "limited monopoly on copying" the law stated. Now, the prevailing notion is that copyright == ownership. The propaganda has worked well. Fortunately, the digital revolution may smash that idea with one stroke. With the cost of replication having dropped to near zero, people are beginning to realize that you simply cannot own information. The law may say "life + 70", but the ridiculousness of such a term has caused people to ignore it and render it moot. Copyright is not respected because it is not deserving of respect. If the term was lowered to something reasonable like 14 years, renewable once for 14 more (as it was originally), I reckon we'd see less contempt for copyright.
When considering copyright, it's important to keep in mind that the creations of writers and musicians belong to all of us. They are artifacts of our common culture. The creator has every right to control his creation up to a point--- that point being the moment he shares it with another person. Too many people have blindly accepted the "Disney" version of artistic creation. A look at the short history of copyright, with a comparison to the very long history of artistic work before copyright gives a much more realistic view of things.
Sorry for singing a different harmony here, folks...
Unless they're write a huge check with dependable frequency, the trustees don't give a crap what alumni have to say. Seriously, Harvard isn't some sort of democracy of the alumni. It's a private school. Those that agree with Harvard's stance will help, and those that don't, won't. They've already decided to fight it. Do you really think a phone call from some 80 year old geezer who graduated Harvard in the 40's and has attended two football games and donated $150 in the intervening time is going to change their mind?
(especially since the GPL relies on copyright law) If there were no copyright, there'd be no need for the GPL. That's entirely the point of it.