According to Japanese and Aztek folklore, a rabbit has been there for a long time. I could never really make out the face or the rabbit in the moon's craters when I look.
Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist of some note, coined the term to describe the ideas that people create, that reproduce in much the same way genes do.
This came from his earlier ideas of a "selfish gene" to postulate that genes existed to propagate themselves, which helped to describe a lot of aspects of evolutionary development, from altruism to various kinds of suicidal behavior. In other words, it isn't the lifeform itself that is important in the reproductive cycle, so much as the information they pass along.
Whenever the ad servers get to a critical overusage point, replace them with a set of text ads. Or better yet, replace them with a text ad for AdBlock Plus. Hey, a guy can dream, right?
Just add unique bumps/shapes to the edges of the triangles, and you don't have to look while texting either. It would be quite a bit better than rectangular buttons, because as you slide your thumb around, the triangular gaps would make the shapes rather easy to "read" by feel.
There - now if anyone wants prior art on the inevitable patent dispute over this basic idea, this post is the prior art you can say you derived your product from.
Ryan Fenton
There's something terribly odd about a religion/philosophy:
1. Founded by a sheltered rich man, who discovered the true suffering felt by most of humanity. Through this, he found enlightenment about what he felt were the truths of existence, that the ascetic (merely finding truth through personal suffering) beliefs of the time were missing.
2. Mutated, after many iterations, into a form that can only be enjoyed by those sheltering themselves away from others through their wealth.
There is something neat about extolling one's beliefs using a tool symbolizing free communication - but mechanizing beliefs into idols and purely symbolic rituals, merely fulfilling the word of a philosophy while ignoring so much of the spirit... again, it just seems odd.
I'm certainly no Buddhist of any sort. As a equal-opportunity skeptic, I respect the role Buddhism plays in the spectrum of religions - but when it comes to how the religion is expressed, Buddhism can be as counter-intuitively and/or violently expressed as any of them.
If anything though, this seems more a commercial expression than a religious expression. That also is sometimes how religions evolve - which would again seem odd to me in the case of this religion.
I don't know whether or not this is a joke. A double blind test is when neither the administrators nor the patients know what drug they are getting. Only after the trials are finished, and the patients tested for the substance, does it come to light who did and who didn't take the drug. How could there be a more blind study? Maybe I am just ignorant/unfunny.
Not at all - in triple-blind studies, those who are interpreting the results also don't know which 'drug' is being tallied, and so can't know to shape numbers in a given way. Source. For every level of interpretation that can occur before the study is 'complete' to publish, there's another level of blindness you could potentially apply.
The MythBusters had an episode (episode 93 according to google) where they had team members who took part in a mock crime in order to test various "lie detection" methods, complete with real punishments for various outcomes.
It wasn't valid science, but it was a fascinating exploration of how one could fool these various tests. The polygraph was the usual mumbo jumbo, but the MRI test was interesting in showing how difficult it is to isolate anything for interpretation. I interpreted the results as an effectively random outcome, much like the interpretation is being used here - all correlation with an external event, with everyone involved convincing themselves they've isolated the causation.
But if this works for him to convince himself that he truly loves his wife, I'm not going to argue with him.
To me, it shows the value of double(or more)-blind testing.
Of course - that's why I invoked the bullshit filter. Also known as the baloney detection kit. Everyone's got perspective, from statisticians and pollsters, to respected scientists and doctors. The BBC has a lot of biased voices - and many I disagree with, such as with most of the issues you mentioned. That doesn't make them a bad news source.
Whatever your take on their perspective, they DO tend to do their homework at the BBC, and tend to avoid drawing unnecessary conclusions outside their editorials.
Bullshit filters don't always work, but they do help you see data closer to its actual worth. I find a healthy dose of perspectives you can respect with even if you occasionally disagree to be healthy both for keeping your bullshit filter active.
The problem with funding news isn't itself news. The reason I watch and respect a news service is because they put resources into investigating the world and offering valuable insight. But I also aknowledge, that I can be occasionally pulled into cheap editorial content.
Guess which one's cheaper.
So, in the commercial news business, the industry has once again shifted drastically towards the cost-conscious editorial and rehashed-news dominance. Everyone's using the same sources, and the sources are dwindling. And because of that, the feeling that any given news provider has unique value is only contained in the unique voice they give themselves, but even that is becoming a formless soup.
The news providers provide less meaningful news, leading to less interest, leading to less money, leading to more editorial dominance, and so on... mostly because the global pool of money has shrunk so much to prevent many real sparks of bold investigative journalism from being worth the risk in the environment. Like with the chicken and the egg, even when we've learned that the egg is far older than any chicken, it doesn't get us more chicken.
That's why I've been turning to the BBC (and the CBC) more often. Put whatever hate you want on socialism, but it really does improve on capitalism when it comes to allowing media to do an effective job at funding news. They're certainly not perfect - but the signal to noise ratio is so much better, in terms of what remains after the bullshit filter, from my biased perspective. PBS/NPR are also nice in spots, but they really have lacked diversity, as administrations have waged ideological wars through appointments.
That's my fix for reliable news sources - make funding more independent from news content, and get more international perspective where possible.
The all-enveloping philosophical uncertainty of the human mind, and the uncertainty of quantum theory may describe similar things, and the statistics may even appear to match human decision making - but I'll paraphrase the classic line and say correlated statistics don't imply an actual relationship.
Just like you can have rather startling symmetry between two structures in different creatures (convergent symmetry/evolution), when they were developed in drastically different ways (but facing the same need/phenomenon), the uncertainty in the human condition is based on our need to model the world in a quick and dirty manner. We need a way to model the ocean of unknown that houses our tiny plankton of knowledge.
The uncertainty in quantum theory always seemed different as I understand it. It's unresolved variables, waveforms that haven't collapsed. Human minds may function with some electromagnetism, but decisions tend to be made on a larger scale than quantum uncertainty is going to have a large role in changing.
That's a risk with quantum/string theories - they simplify the way we can view the world, in a way that can often conform with observation, but they still aren't a description of the world we actually live in. The simplicity and accuracy in some places is captivating, but they don't and shouldn't take the place of direct observation. We should NOT expect to get a special understanding of, for instance, the human mental state from theories on such phenomena we can only model but not test. It could happen - but this doesn't seem a valid path to connecting the two.
It's not a legally recorded crime unless someone is caught and convicted. It's not surprising that these crime maps would show this result - the places that police officers are most likely to be, are the places where the most crime is "found".
This is akin to saying that the places where the most vehicular crime occurs are where speed traps and automated traffic cameras are located.
If you had a world with absolute and omnipresent law enforcement, and that society could somehow actually function, my guess is that the map would match a map of the average human traffic in a given location.
Has this dude visited any community involving Linux users... ever?
The standard general Linux criticisms:
1. Driver support. Usually from a lack of manufacturer support. 2. No central focus on meeting business needs (tech support). This complaint is changing with such a large amount of development occurring with programmers employed by business communities for open source development. 3. Have to give up favorite Windows programs (apps & games). This improves over time, but yes, it is a different environment, again with a different historical focus.
Plus lots more, like programmer IDEs, look & feel issues, etc., etc. Criticisms, constructive or otherwise are everywhere Linux is discussed, including countless published sources.
I've certainly encountered folks with an unconstructive beef against Linux who make complaints that it gets unfair praise for being mediocre, merely catching up to Microsoft. With those folks, yes, complaints are sometimes muted because the target of their ire is usually changing so often that their rants are stale before they speak them - so they can become embarrassed by being contradicted in the heat of a discussion too often. But even then, such complaints are still extremely commonplace in both print and online.
I really don't understand where this dude is coming from.
There's an important distinction between it being hard to find an earthlike planet, and there not being an earthlike planet to find at all.
Our mechanisms for finding planets are all in wobbles in the wavelengths from the light of stars. And because of that, we tend to only see the big wobbles, because small wobbles tend to get lost in the noise.
It would be nice if we could shine a flashlight and get a real look out there, but in most cases, we'd never see what we shone light upon in our lifetimes.
The universe is a HUGE freakin place, filled mostly with stuff we can't get a good clear look at yet.
Entire worlds like ours are are both all we know, but at the same time, are too small for us to even notice in the grandness just outside our atmospheric window.
Most of the "skycars" we've seen have looked like trade show demo vehicles - fancy, but fragile - suitable as rich toys, but not as workhorses.
This one looks practical - and it looks more than another ultralight, it looks like something that could be serviceable and mass marketable, while still being functional and durable.
But whether any of that is true, we'll have to see from independent testing. One thing I'd like to see is how it actually handles a landing without power, after an engine failure, with its parachute. Also, how it would handle the inevitable weight stresses real world use would apply, despite warnings.
The problem is that the rich don't tend to spend their wealth. Instead, they invest it, and expect a sizable return, forever.
Normally, this isn't a problem - it creates a credit system where the moderately wealthy who are trained can, as you say, create wealth.
The problem occurs when the rich investor class has too much of the money. Suddenly, there are no investments with which to multiply their money. There are no people buying products, no businesses forming with investment. The only safe investments become basic necessities. The rich can create businesses, but the only ones in the position to buy are the fellow rich.
You can only create wealth when there are people with resources interesting in buying. When only the rich have the most effective methods of multiplying money, thanks to the compounding effects interest, they tend to become the only ones with appreciable money over time when unchecked.
Innovation and invention are powerful tools, but without the means to capitalize on them on one's own, they are lame. That includes an economy where few are able to comfortably afford to access your inventions. And it is FAR better to have hundreds of thousands (or more) able to afford $10 on a whim, than merely thousands able to afford $1000 on a whim, even if it seems like the same rough number in the end on its face.
This is a good strategy for MS, much like what Apple had with school districts - teach as many people in ways that make them dependent on your proprietary technology as you can, and call it a public service.
In my opinion, the underlying problem in this economy is thus: The rich portion of the populace owns about as much as is possible before the economy collapses. Our market is based on speculation and expectation setting - on growth of money making schemes. But what happens when the players looking to take more resources run out of easy resources to grab? Collapse.
The poorer 3/4 of the country have spent about all they are going to spend, and have gone in about as deep a debt as is plasible. It no longer makes sense to lend more money, or leverage more resources in hopes of getting return from that process. The owning class already has already extracted as many resources as they easily can, and it would take death on the part of the poorest folks to free any more resources to grab.
The only way left to continue the desired cycle and free up credit would be to take resources from the rich, and give it to folks who would actually spend those resources in the process of just living day to day, which would open up the credit markets again, increase demand for products, and so on.
But we've seen what outrage occurs when that happens - the whole point of the market for the larger players is to extract more resources, not give money to the "undeserving!" So, we get schemes like those from Microsoft - push for further ownership of mindshare, and call it charity.
I say we just let the news industry go back to it's more honest past, and just have the news authors actually promote products in their articles...
"1,500 dead today in the official numbers of a third round of skirmishes along the Waziristan border in the mountains of Pakistan. Sectarian tensions are being further strained according to scattered reports we're getting out of the area, as government control over the region is fractured from open opposition from within.
"In unrelated news, Have you tried the new Camel Tropical Smooth(tm) brand Cigarettes? They've got just the right blend of tar and exotic fruit extract that'll have you singing for more! Tropical Smooth(tm) brand cigarettes - recommended by us, your favorite news source! Now, back to our story..
"'It's an unending bloodbath', says Ismail Mohammad, a local livestock herder, 'I've lost everything, and I've seen so many lose so much more. I don't even know what to pray for anymore."...that way, at least it'll be more clear when media groups are compromising themselves for, and which corporate sponsor they're shilling for. Hey, who knows - perhaps this way, advertisers will actually prefer pushing for in depth news coverage, just so people will take their ads more seriously. Just a modest proposal.
Assuming they're a monopoly for online search advertising, in what way are they either abusive, or even able to abuse their monopoly status? With Microsoft, the monopoly is/was harmful to the marketplace of ideas because they wrestled to own and exploit shared standards, used bundling agreements and legal manipulation to hinder competition, and so on.
Even assuming Google could be considered a relative monopoly, if they were to use most of the problematic parts of that monopoly status, another company could just swoop in to replace them. Their power lies in their perceived results and goodwill with their large user base, rather than just being the only choice for most people.
I'm not normally a libertarian philosopher, but it seems to me this is one of the truest cases where the marketplace really can sort things out almost completely.
Going back to the start of western philosophy with Socrates, the only real solid wisdom we have is that we as a people know only a minimal fraction of what exists, and only a fool believes he completely understands much of anything. It is only the wise man who knows the faintest hint of his own ignorance.
It is not so much reality that changes, but our limited understanding of it as a people. Progress is where we get further along in our verified understanding of what is consistent about the world we exist in. Regression is where we believe we really understand and should stop looking, in the belief that we're wasting time looking.
That's what DRM is - it's software that takes ownership of your computer away from you, for as long as you use that software.
It's like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where you ask to do something core to the basic function of the hardware, and the software denies you access in order to fulfill the wishes of another. "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave," is replaced with disabled dialog elements.
Because as long as DRM is active, it really isn't your computer. Try to use it, and for reasons that aren't on a functional basis, it will refuse in favor of the wishes of another. Try to break those protections, and you've broken the law. By running DRM, your computer no longer exists to execute your instructions, but to execute the wishes of the DRM creator. That's what makes it "Digital Rights Management" - your rights and computer are being managed against what might be your intentions.
Really - I mean *really* - you want to take research we fund explicitly for public enrichment, and deny public access to the results of that research on the basis of copyright interpretation?
There is no justification for slowing down the progress of science for the benefit of *publishers*.
Rep. Conyers, you truly are a dipshit of the highest caliber.
Most likely, it'll just end up with them getting better offers from Microsoft and other companies - but a policy of promoting open source as a preferred quality in software is still at least a good philosophy to promote.
There's likely still too much of a practical dependence on folks who will only be comfortable with the idea of using Windows to just do any major switch - but the change in policy to demand a more even playing field will likely reap great rewards, as it has with many other nations making similar decisions.
Slashdot Mirror
According to Japanese and Aztek folklore, a rabbit has been there for a long time. I could never really make out the face or the rabbit in the moon's craters when I look.
Ryan Fenton
Memes.
Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist of some note, coined the term to describe the ideas that people create, that reproduce in much the same way genes do.
This came from his earlier ideas of a "selfish gene" to postulate that genes existed to propagate themselves, which helped to describe a lot of aspects of evolutionary development, from altruism to various kinds of suicidal behavior. In other words, it isn't the lifeform itself that is important in the reproductive cycle, so much as the information they pass along.
Ryan Fenton
Whenever the ad servers get to a critical overusage point, replace them with a set of text ads. Or better yet, replace them with a text ad for AdBlock Plus. Hey, a guy can dream, right?
Ryan Fenton
Just add unique bumps/shapes to the edges of the triangles, and you don't have to look while texting either. It would be quite a bit better than rectangular buttons, because as you slide your thumb around, the triangular gaps would make the shapes rather easy to "read" by feel. There - now if anyone wants prior art on the inevitable patent dispute over this basic idea, this post is the prior art you can say you derived your product from. Ryan Fenton
There's something terribly odd about a religion/philosophy:
1. Founded by a sheltered rich man, who discovered the true suffering felt by most of humanity. Through this, he found enlightenment about what he felt were the truths of existence, that the ascetic (merely finding truth through personal suffering) beliefs of the time were missing.
2. Mutated, after many iterations, into a form that can only be enjoyed by those sheltering themselves away from others through their wealth.
There is something neat about extolling one's beliefs using a tool symbolizing free communication - but mechanizing beliefs into idols and purely symbolic rituals, merely fulfilling the word of a philosophy while ignoring so much of the spirit... again, it just seems odd.
I'm certainly no Buddhist of any sort. As a equal-opportunity skeptic, I respect the role Buddhism plays in the spectrum of religions - but when it comes to how the religion is expressed, Buddhism can be as counter-intuitively and/or violently expressed as any of them.
If anything though, this seems more a commercial expression than a religious expression. That also is sometimes how religions evolve - which would again seem odd to me in the case of this religion.
Ryan Fenton
Not at all - in triple-blind studies, those who are interpreting the results also don't know which 'drug' is being tallied, and so can't know to shape numbers in a given way. Source. For every level of interpretation that can occur before the study is 'complete' to publish, there's another level of blindness you could potentially apply.
Ryan Fenton
The MythBusters had an episode (episode 93 according to google) where they had team members who took part in a mock crime in order to test various "lie detection" methods, complete with real punishments for various outcomes.
It wasn't valid science, but it was a fascinating exploration of how one could fool these various tests. The polygraph was the usual mumbo jumbo, but the MRI test was interesting in showing how difficult it is to isolate anything for interpretation. I interpreted the results as an effectively random outcome, much like the interpretation is being used here - all correlation with an external event, with everyone involved convincing themselves they've isolated the causation.
But if this works for him to convince himself that he truly loves his wife, I'm not going to argue with him.
To me, it shows the value of double(or more)-blind testing.
Ryan Fenton
Of course - that's why I invoked the bullshit filter. Also known as the baloney detection kit. Everyone's got perspective, from statisticians and pollsters, to respected scientists and doctors. The BBC has a lot of biased voices - and many I disagree with, such as with most of the issues you mentioned. That doesn't make them a bad news source.
Whatever your take on their perspective, they DO tend to do their homework at the BBC, and tend to avoid drawing unnecessary conclusions outside their editorials.
In addition to the BBC, I also tend to visit James Randi's site a lot.
Bullshit filters don't always work, but they do help you see data closer to its actual worth. I find a healthy dose of perspectives you can respect with even if you occasionally disagree to be healthy both for keeping your bullshit filter active.
Ryan Fenton
The problem with funding news isn't itself news. The reason I watch and respect a news service is because they put resources into investigating the world and offering valuable insight. But I also aknowledge, that I can be occasionally pulled into cheap editorial content.
Guess which one's cheaper.
So, in the commercial news business, the industry has once again shifted drastically towards the cost-conscious editorial and rehashed-news dominance. Everyone's using the same sources, and the sources are dwindling. And because of that, the feeling that any given news provider has unique value is only contained in the unique voice they give themselves, but even that is becoming a formless soup.
The news providers provide less meaningful news, leading to less interest, leading to less money, leading to more editorial dominance, and so on... mostly because the global pool of money has shrunk so much to prevent many real sparks of bold investigative journalism from being worth the risk in the environment. Like with the chicken and the egg, even when we've learned that the egg is far older than any chicken, it doesn't get us more chicken.
That's why I've been turning to the BBC (and the CBC) more often. Put whatever hate you want on socialism, but it really does improve on capitalism when it comes to allowing media to do an effective job at funding news. They're certainly not perfect - but the signal to noise ratio is so much better, in terms of what remains after the bullshit filter, from my biased perspective. PBS/NPR are also nice in spots, but they really have lacked diversity, as administrations have waged ideological wars through appointments.
That's my fix for reliable news sources - make funding more independent from news content, and get more international perspective where possible.
Ryan Fenton
Thi4f? As in "Thiaf"? Doesn't seem like a good first impression.
Ryan Fenton
Obligitory XKCD comic
The all-enveloping philosophical uncertainty of the human mind, and the uncertainty of quantum theory may describe similar things, and the statistics may even appear to match human decision making - but I'll paraphrase the classic line and say correlated statistics don't imply an actual relationship.
Just like you can have rather startling symmetry between two structures in different creatures (convergent symmetry/evolution), when they were developed in drastically different ways (but facing the same need/phenomenon), the uncertainty in the human condition is based on our need to model the world in a quick and dirty manner. We need a way to model the ocean of unknown that houses our tiny plankton of knowledge.
The uncertainty in quantum theory always seemed different as I understand it. It's unresolved variables, waveforms that haven't collapsed. Human minds may function with some electromagnetism, but decisions tend to be made on a larger scale than quantum uncertainty is going to have a large role in changing.
That's a risk with quantum/string theories - they simplify the way we can view the world, in a way that can often conform with observation, but they still aren't a description of the world we actually live in. The simplicity and accuracy in some places is captivating, but they don't and shouldn't take the place of direct observation. We should NOT expect to get a special understanding of, for instance, the human mental state from theories on such phenomena we can only model but not test. It could happen - but this doesn't seem a valid path to connecting the two.
Ryan Fenton
It's not a legally recorded crime unless someone is caught and convicted. It's not surprising that these crime maps would show this result - the places that police officers are most likely to be, are the places where the most crime is "found".
This is akin to saying that the places where the most vehicular crime occurs are where speed traps and automated traffic cameras are located.
If you had a world with absolute and omnipresent law enforcement, and that society could somehow actually function, my guess is that the map would match a map of the average human traffic in a given location.
Ryan Fenton
Has this dude visited any community involving Linux users... ever?
The standard general Linux criticisms:
1. Driver support. Usually from a lack of manufacturer support.
2. No central focus on meeting business needs (tech support). This complaint is changing with such a large amount of development occurring with programmers employed by business communities for open source development.
3. Have to give up favorite Windows programs (apps & games). This improves over time, but yes, it is a different environment, again with a different historical focus.
Plus lots more, like programmer IDEs, look & feel issues, etc., etc. Criticisms, constructive or otherwise are everywhere Linux is discussed, including countless published sources.
I've certainly encountered folks with an unconstructive beef against Linux who make complaints that it gets unfair praise for being mediocre, merely catching up to Microsoft. With those folks, yes, complaints are sometimes muted because the target of their ire is usually changing so often that their rants are stale before they speak them - so they can become embarrassed by being contradicted in the heat of a discussion too often. But even then, such complaints are still extremely commonplace in both print and online.
I really don't understand where this dude is coming from.
Ryan Fenton
There's an important distinction between it being hard to find an earthlike planet, and there not being an earthlike planet to find at all.
Our mechanisms for finding planets are all in wobbles in the wavelengths from the light of stars. And because of that, we tend to only see the big wobbles, because small wobbles tend to get lost in the noise.
It would be nice if we could shine a flashlight and get a real look out there, but in most cases, we'd never see what we shone light upon in our lifetimes.
The universe is a HUGE freakin place, filled mostly with stuff we can't get a good clear look at yet.
Entire worlds like ours are are both all we know, but at the same time, are too small for us to even notice in the grandness just outside our atmospheric window.
Ryan Fenton
Most of the "skycars" we've seen have looked like trade show demo vehicles - fancy, but fragile - suitable as rich toys, but not as workhorses.
This one looks practical - and it looks more than another ultralight, it looks like something that could be serviceable and mass marketable, while still being functional and durable.
But whether any of that is true, we'll have to see from independent testing. One thing I'd like to see is how it actually handles a landing without power, after an engine failure, with its parachute. Also, how it would handle the inevitable weight stresses real world use would apply, despite warnings.
Fascinating project in any case.
Ryan Fenton
The problem is that the rich don't tend to spend their wealth. Instead, they invest it, and expect a sizable return, forever.
Normally, this isn't a problem - it creates a credit system where the moderately wealthy who are trained can, as you say, create wealth.
The problem occurs when the rich investor class has too much of the money. Suddenly, there are no investments with which to multiply their money. There are no people buying products, no businesses forming with investment. The only safe investments become basic necessities. The rich can create businesses, but the only ones in the position to buy are the fellow rich.
You can only create wealth when there are people with resources interesting in buying. When only the rich have the most effective methods of multiplying money, thanks to the compounding effects interest, they tend to become the only ones with appreciable money over time when unchecked.
Innovation and invention are powerful tools, but without the means to capitalize on them on one's own, they are lame. That includes an economy where few are able to comfortably afford to access your inventions. And it is FAR better to have hundreds of thousands (or more) able to afford $10 on a whim, than merely thousands able to afford $1000 on a whim, even if it seems like the same rough number in the end on its face.
Ryan Fenton
This is a good strategy for MS, much like what Apple had with school districts - teach as many people in ways that make them dependent on your proprietary technology as you can, and call it a public service.
In my opinion, the underlying problem in this economy is thus: The rich portion of the populace owns about as much as is possible before the economy collapses. Our market is based on speculation and expectation setting - on growth of money making schemes. But what happens when the players looking to take more resources run out of easy resources to grab? Collapse.
The poorer 3/4 of the country have spent about all they are going to spend, and have gone in about as deep a debt as is plasible. It no longer makes sense to lend more money, or leverage more resources in hopes of getting return from that process. The owning class already has already extracted as many resources as they easily can, and it would take death on the part of the poorest folks to free any more resources to grab.
The only way left to continue the desired cycle and free up credit would be to take resources from the rich, and give it to folks who would actually spend those resources in the process of just living day to day, which would open up the credit markets again, increase demand for products, and so on.
But we've seen what outrage occurs when that happens - the whole point of the market for the larger players is to extract more resources, not give money to the "undeserving!" So, we get schemes like those from Microsoft - push for further ownership of mindshare, and call it charity.
Ryan Fenton
I say we just let the news industry go back to it's more honest past, and just have the news authors actually promote products in their articles...
"1,500 dead today in the official numbers of a third round of skirmishes along the Waziristan border in the mountains of Pakistan. Sectarian tensions are being further strained according to scattered reports we're getting out of the area, as government control over the region is fractured from open opposition from within.
"In unrelated news, Have you tried the new Camel Tropical Smooth(tm) brand Cigarettes? They've got just the right blend of tar and exotic fruit extract that'll have you singing for more! Tropical Smooth(tm) brand cigarettes - recommended by us, your favorite news source! Now, back to our story..
"'It's an unending bloodbath', says Ismail Mohammad, a local livestock herder, 'I've lost everything, and I've seen so many lose so much more. I don't even know what to pray for anymore." ...that way, at least it'll be more clear when media groups are compromising themselves for, and which corporate sponsor they're shilling for. Hey, who knows - perhaps this way, advertisers will actually prefer pushing for in depth news coverage, just so people will take their ads more seriously. Just a modest proposal.
Ryan Fenton
Assuming they're a monopoly for online search advertising, in what way are they either abusive, or even able to abuse their monopoly status? With Microsoft, the monopoly is/was harmful to the marketplace of ideas because they wrestled to own and exploit shared standards, used bundling agreements and legal manipulation to hinder competition, and so on.
Even assuming Google could be considered a relative monopoly, if they were to use most of the problematic parts of that monopoly status, another company could just swoop in to replace them. Their power lies in their perceived results and goodwill with their large user base, rather than just being the only choice for most people.
I'm not normally a libertarian philosopher, but it seems to me this is one of the truest cases where the marketplace really can sort things out almost completely.
Ryan Fenton
>>The Fool, conscious of his own ignorance
Going back to the start of western philosophy with Socrates, the only real solid wisdom we have is that we as a people know only a minimal fraction of what exists, and only a fool believes he completely understands much of anything. It is only the wise man who knows the faintest hint of his own ignorance.
It is not so much reality that changes, but our limited understanding of it as a people. Progress is where we get further along in our verified understanding of what is consistent about the world we exist in. Regression is where we believe we really understand and should stop looking, in the belief that we're wasting time looking.
Ryan Fenton
That's what DRM is - it's software that takes ownership of your computer away from you, for as long as you use that software.
It's like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where you ask to do something core to the basic function of the hardware, and the software denies you access in order to fulfill the wishes of another. "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave," is replaced with disabled dialog elements.
Because as long as DRM is active, it really isn't your computer. Try to use it, and for reasons that aren't on a functional basis, it will refuse in favor of the wishes of another. Try to break those protections, and you've broken the law. By running DRM, your computer no longer exists to execute your instructions, but to execute the wishes of the DRM creator. That's what makes it "Digital Rights Management" - your rights and computer are being managed against what might be your intentions.
Ryan Fenton
Really - I mean *really* - you want to take research we fund explicitly for public enrichment, and deny public access to the results of that research on the basis of copyright interpretation?
There is no justification for slowing down the progress of science for the benefit of *publishers*.
Rep. Conyers, you truly are a dipshit of the highest caliber.
Most likely, it'll just end up with them getting better offers from Microsoft and other companies - but a policy of promoting open source as a preferred quality in software is still at least a good philosophy to promote.
There's likely still too much of a practical dependence on folks who will only be comfortable with the idea of using Windows to just do any major switch - but the change in policy to demand a more even playing field will likely reap great rewards, as it has with many other nations making similar decisions.
Ryan Fenton
Not the WiiWii?
That's a limited european marketing name. And it's spelled OuiiOuii.
>> Wii2
Sheesh - The proper term is WiiAlso.