I'd agree with your concerns if they actually were creating really new life. The trouble is, that's just a marketing line. They're just doing what "genetic engineering" meant before the term got watered down. These days, genetic engineering means taking an existing life form and adding or modifying one or two genes within it. The impression I got when I first heard about the concept (and which you seldom hear anymore) was that of considering the entire genome of an organism, deciding what can stay and what should go, and what the removed stuff should be replaced with. I get the impression that "synthetic biology" is just a term trying to get back to that original concept.
Even the most efficient converters from sunlight to sugar or ethanol aren't even close to what we have for solar cells.
You need to remember what you're converting this sunlight into. Turning crops into ethanol, or algae/oil crops into biodiesel gives you a liquid transportation fuel. Solar cells give you electricity. We already have far cheaper energy (per kwh, or other energy measurement) in the form of electricity than we do transportation fuel. Heck, the whole hydrogen fuel cell car thing is an attempt to turn electric grid power into a transportation fuel.
Besides which, we have no need to conserve sunlight, so efficiency of conversion isn't important. Right now, just shy of 100% of the sunlight incident on the Earth's surface is not used for industry (if you discount agriculture). What's more important is power produced per dollar invested. If you can reduce the cost per installed square meter of perpendicular surface area by more than you reduce the conversion efficiency (i.e. divide efficiency by 2 but divide costs by 3), it's a net gain. Consider the case of using using sea water to grow algae in pools in the desert: The land is dirt cheap, and so is the water. I haven't done the math, but I'd guess it's at least a factor of 10 cheaper to install a particular area of ponds like that than it is to install photovoltaic cells, even after you factor in the ongoing costs.
To give you credit, you did mention the difference in costs, but fixed costs are not nominal if they don't buy you what you need (transportation fuel).
The US media lies by omission (skipping the WTO riots, for example) or by putting a carefully selected spin on certain stories. The shape of the spin and omission are determined by some glaring biases, such as the "cheap-to-cover" bias and the "because our major shareholder said so" bias (see Fox News on that second one). The only time they seem to lie by stating facts that aren't true is when some credible source (the Bush administration talking about WMD's before the Iraq invasion, for example) states that fact.
State-run media in many places (I don't know much about that in Iran) can tell both kinds of lies freely. They don't expect to always be believed, and most people in countries where only state-run media is available will tell you that, but the fact is that most people actually do believe a large fraction of what they hear from such sources, and it shapes their world view.
Then again, I'm sure my worldview is largely shaped by the corporate media. Dang.
Who ever drops the next nuke bomb, it signals the end of the human race.
Not necessarily. I'm not saying nuclear war is good, but if there were a nuclear exchange that didn't involve either th US or former Soviet Union, it's quite possible (not certain, but possible) that it wouldn't escalate to a full scale nuclear world war. We might all survive and just get cancer from the fallout.
And even the rather scary folks in charge of Iran know this. If they start a nuclear war, at the very least Iran will get blasted with several hundred megatons. That's not what they want (I think). They'd much rather have a long range nuke to hold over the heads of their enemies.
What this does do, however, is to give Iran a certain amount of credibility as a leader among Islamic countries. Don't think that's a small thing. Right now, the apparently most powerful Islamic country is Saudi Arabia, who are arm-in-arm with the Bush administration (when they feel like it). If Iran appears to be militarily on par with the western powers (which is how every anti-western media outlet will spin it) that will really change the dynamic of the whole region (and Islamic countries outside the region). I don't know what the result of THAT will be, but I don't think I'll like it.
Actually, the regimes we threw out were genocidal religious maniacs, if you want to call them "stable", I'd hate to see how we made things any worse.
Actually the regime (singular) that was thrown out of Iraq was genocidal SECULAR maniacs. It's the Taliban (in Afghanistan, a completely different country which doesn't even share a border) who were the religious zealots. And yes, Saddam's regime WAS stable. He was in control for (thirty-something? I've forgotten the exact number) years. (Note, stable != good, they're different concepts)
Let me reiterate: The US wants them to give up the very thing they want them to give up before considering negotiating with them about that thing.
In other words, the administration doesn't want to negotiate with Iran, but they also don't want average dumb Americans to realize that. Americans hear "We'll negotiate as soon as (blah blah blah)", but most Americans don't know enough backstory to realize that the (blah blah blah) is an unreasonable precondition to negotiating.
It's brilliant on the part of Iran, I'll give it that. Continue aggressively pursuing your nuclear program and posturing with intent to provoke reactions, knowing full well the debate will be shifted to the US.
Not only that; they must have known darn well that Russia and China would never vote for particularly strong sanctions. Therefore, they knew they could get away with it for a certain amount of time. If this is confirmed, and if they can repeat (ie they didn't just buy a functional rocket from Russia or something), then they are in a much stronger position now than they were. The amount of fear that the idea of even a small, half-assed nuke dropping in their favorite city will put in the hearts of every American means no invasions for Iran any time soon.
That aside, the condition of the world oil market right now means that every oil importing country will think twice before annoying the Iranians too much with (sanctions/missile strikes/pick your provocation). It's widely suspected that no OPEC country has the capacity to increase production right now, so if somebody (Iran) decides to stop exporting for a few months, we'll all (Americans) be paying $5 a gallon for gas by June (worse in places with gas taxes high enough to provide a disincentive to SUVs). I don't know whether Bush can whip up enough fear among Americans to get them to stand for that.
10 transistors says that either (a) they will fail, or (b) it will take them 3 "generations" (about 4.5 years, based on the doubling every 18 months rule) for the technology to make it to market. They said the same thing about the Cell processor, and probably a lot of other architectures. Nothing to see here. Move along.
This is just another case of the mainstream media not being able to tell the difference between an AI and the robot one might control. It doesn't matter how good your robot is, if the AI is junk (like pretty much anything available today, for example), it won't be demanding anything.
They're not going after fans. They're going after people stealing their IP for personal profit.
Come on, this is Slashdot; do you think I'm going to let you get away with making a statement like that? First, there's no such thing as "IP". There's copyright and there's trademark (and patent, which doesn't apply here). Second, you cannot "steal" any of those things. Putting somebody else's picture on a T-Shirt you're selling isn't stealing, in exactly the way that downloading music off the internet (without copyright-holder permission) is not "stealing" the music. It's copyright infringement, which is a completely different crime. "Stealing" the music would be walking in to Wal-Mart, putting the CD in your pants, and then running away. Stealing something means that you now have it, and the original owner now does not have it. Infringing on somebody else's copyright means that you now have it and the original owner might have a reduced market available to sell their stuff (but that's nigh-on impossible to prove definitively). The word "stealing" being applied to copyright is a political tactic, intended to make increased copyright protections palatable to the general populace.
Why yes, I have been reading RMS's writings lately. How did you guess?
Ok, having only briefly looked it over... I think what Universal is objecting to is this knucklehead selling merchandise for profit, utilizing their images.
So, well, what's the problem?
No problem whatsoever, if that was in fact what was happening. The trouble is that Universal is claiming this with regard to images this "knucklehead" made himself, related to Serenity, but not using any of their copyrighted work. If anything it's a violation of trademark, not copyright. That's a more subtle case entirely. Copyright infringement is clear-cut. Either a derivative work contains copyrighted components, or it doesn't. Trademark infringement is difficult to prove, especially when the trademark involved is one on a word that's been in the English language since long before the trademark holder got around to claiming it.
Of course, the guy was probably infringing more directly back when this started. In the forum linked to, he says that he's already removed all of the stuff that mentions serenity. The most closely related thing left is this, a T-shirt based on the Chinese character translated as "serenity".
If it goes against, there could be some problems for future TV and movies from Universal, as this loyal block will remember and potentially boycott. Universal knows that the potential loss of revenue from a rabid base of fans in that much coveted "18-35 male without an understanding of credit card debt" demographic would be something advertisers would look at closely. It would certainly cost them more than the 9,000 they are looking for in liscensing fees.
Don't fool yourself. The Firefly fanbase is an infinitesimal drop in the vast ocean of the '"18-35 male without an understanding of credit card debt"' demographic. They won't make any notable difference in the revenues of a mainstream movie or TV show.
For a science fiction movie/series, however, they could be a big enough chunk of the market to make a difference, but only if they show solidarity and don't just go see the movie anyway. I don't think enough of them would feel strongly enough about it for that, however (I know I don't, and I'm the most ardent Firefly fan I know).
As others have already pointed out, it's not copacetic to sell merchandise like that. You think you can start selling Star Wars t-shirts and Lucasfilm will be OK with that? Not likely.
At present, this is the closest thing I could find to an infringement of any copyright or trademark on the T-shirt site in question. The product itself has no hint of infringement, and the description of the product has the word "serenity" but it's just a translation from the Chinese character in the picture on the shirt. Maybe the site used to contain more infringing stuff; I don't know. But at present, the Universal lawyers are still demanding that he take down the site (and holding the usual obscene $150,000 per instance copyright infringement damage number over his head to make sure he does it).
There is a danger to the Firefly/Serenity franchise here. Viral marketing works, but it works in both directions. The whole mythos of Firefly is about rebellion against a powerful government. If it looks like the franchise is in the hands a pseudo-government (big corporation) the most ardent fans will rebel. Of course, Firefly/Serenity has been in the hands of a big company since it was started, but the Browncoats might actually notice it now and become rather disillusioned rather than support it as fervently as they have done so far. No viral marketing means (maybe) no market. No market means no movie.
If Slashdot is going to be linking to Robert Kennedy, Jr's writings, it better also link to those of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, Al Franken, and Bill O'Reilly.
There's a difference. Slashdot (as a general rule, violated often enough to be funny) links to stories that have logical arguments behind them. The other authors you list don't bother too much with logical arguments, they go straight for the emotional ones (with the exception of Al Franken, he does present logical arguments when he feels like it, and skips them when he doesn't). Slashdot stories, and especially the political/creationism/open-source stories, are all about stirring debate among the readership. Stories that don't have logical underpinnings don't stir debate, they just start flamewars (yes, I know Slashdot gets those too, but not every comment is flame).
You're not frightened of election fraud? That's essentially how the Nazis came into power in Germany. If fraud is available, absolutely any group with strong enough political motivation and few enough scruples could win an election. If you've looked over the fringe-lunatic political segment of the internet, you'll know that groups exist within the US that make the Nazis look tame. The only saving grace is that none of these groups are numerous enough to have the physical power to enforce a falsified election (not yet anyway, just give Limbaugh and O'Reilly their time).
Like the ABC movie "The Path To 9/11"?? Yeah, threatening to revoke a network's broadcast license because you disagree with the content of their programming isn't censorship.
It's not that they "disagree" with the content, but that the content is factually incorrect about important (even nation-shaking) events. Either it's factually correct or it's not, but this is absolutely not about "agreement", it is about documented fact (I have not studied said documentation fully enough to know exactly what it says, however). People on a certain side of the political spectrum seem to have trouble distinguishing the two. The number of people who blindly believe that film could very well change the outcome of the midterm election. That just might be adequate to revoke a broadcast license (but since the alleged falsification was in favor of the party currently in power, it will never happen).
That being said, even lies are quite often protected speech, depending on the circumstances. What might come into play, however, is slander. As best I understand it, slander requires both that the statement be false (and known to the speaker to have been false), and to have been said with malicious intent. If I'm incorrect about that, please someone correct me.
You make a good point. I'd speculate that the HD makers would focus on improving the storage of the really small drives (like the one in the iPod mini, etc.) and other statistics so that it's reasonable to have a RAID array of them in a normal computer. If they could get the storage on the really small HD's up to 100Gb, for example, and make a RAID-5 equivalent (of 3 to 10 drives, however many fit) all in a small package the size of current desktop HD's, that should make for very durable storage. Each drive would have separate heads, motors and controller boards. The only common hardware would be the RAID machinery and the (IDE/SATA/USB/name your favorite connector here). Make the drives easily replaceable, and you have a very redundant data storage system.
Can anybody think of an easier way to get that kind of redundancy, or a major flaw in the plan I outlined?
This AP story mentions President Bush's 2003 stumble on a Segway without speculating on whether the cause was the software glitch behind the current recall.
More likely he just didn't know how to ride particularly well yet. They do take some practice.
I know people who live at/below the poverty line but have fine credit. And, I know people with 6-digit incomes who have terrible credit.
Absolutely true, but completely missing the point. There is no absolute rule that the wealthy have good credit, but it does make the habits which lead to good credit easier. I'd be willing to guess that there is a correlation between good credit and high income. It's a lot easier to keep your spending under control when your income is high enough that the last dollars you spend in a paycheck are on luxuries than when your income is wasted on things like rent and food and medical care, and there are no luxuries in the budget. It's easier to be thrifty and say no to a new DVD or SUV than it is to skip taking your kids to the doctor.
for instance, hiring on the basis of race needed government regulation because it was so widespread
You bring up an interesting point. One wonders if credit report discrimination isn't really racial discrimination in disguise. My guess (based on nothing but watching African-American comedians on Comedy Central) is that African-Americans have worse credit on average than other racial groups do. If this is true (which it mightn't be, maybe Latinos have worse credit on average, maybe it's Caucasians, I dunno, but I'd be willing to bet it correlates in one direction or another) then discriminating against bad credit is really discriminating against a race, and therefore (in California at least) probably illegal.
Who's more likely to embezzle from you, the guy with a good debt-to-income ratio who makes his payments on time, or the guy who's deeply in debt an makes only the minimum payment every month?
If you reverse this chicken and the egg problem, you'll see it's possible to be reversed: Who's more likely to have already embezzled money from the company? A guy who can barely make his credit card payments, or the guy with huge savings? I could argue this thing either way.
More seriously, though, employers just use the credit report because it's one of the few pieces of information they can get about a prospective employee that the employee didn't have a hand in giving to them. I don't know how much good it would do, but it at least makes some sense.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd agree with your concerns if they actually were creating really new life. The trouble is, that's just a marketing line. They're just doing what "genetic engineering" meant before the term got watered down. These days, genetic engineering means taking an existing life form and adding or modifying one or two genes within it. The impression I got when I first heard about the concept (and which you seldom hear anymore) was that of considering the entire genome of an organism, deciding what can stay and what should go, and what the removed stuff should be replaced with. I get the impression that "synthetic biology" is just a term trying to get back to that original concept.
Even the most efficient converters from sunlight to sugar or ethanol aren't even close to what we have for solar cells.
You need to remember what you're converting this sunlight into. Turning crops into ethanol, or algae/oil crops into biodiesel gives you a liquid transportation fuel. Solar cells give you electricity. We already have far cheaper energy (per kwh, or other energy measurement) in the form of electricity than we do transportation fuel. Heck, the whole hydrogen fuel cell car thing is an attempt to turn electric grid power into a transportation fuel.
Besides which, we have no need to conserve sunlight, so efficiency of conversion isn't important. Right now, just shy of 100% of the sunlight incident on the Earth's surface is not used for industry (if you discount agriculture). What's more important is power produced per dollar invested. If you can reduce the cost per installed square meter of perpendicular surface area by more than you reduce the conversion efficiency (i.e. divide efficiency by 2 but divide costs by 3), it's a net gain. Consider the case of using using sea water to grow algae in pools in the desert: The land is dirt cheap, and so is the water. I haven't done the math, but I'd guess it's at least a factor of 10 cheaper to install a particular area of ponds like that than it is to install photovoltaic cells, even after you factor in the ongoing costs.
To give you credit, you did mention the difference in costs, but fixed costs are not nominal if they don't buy you what you need (transportation fuel).
The US media lies by omission (skipping the WTO riots, for example) or by putting a carefully selected spin on certain stories. The shape of the spin and omission are determined by some glaring biases, such as the "cheap-to-cover" bias and the "because our major shareholder said so" bias (see Fox News on that second one). The only time they seem to lie by stating facts that aren't true is when some credible source (the Bush administration talking about WMD's before the Iraq invasion, for example) states that fact.
State-run media in many places (I don't know much about that in Iran) can tell both kinds of lies freely. They don't expect to always be believed, and most people in countries where only state-run media is available will tell you that, but the fact is that most people actually do believe a large fraction of what they hear from such sources, and it shapes their world view.
Then again, I'm sure my worldview is largely shaped by the corporate media. Dang.
Who ever drops the next nuke bomb, it signals the end of the human race.
Not necessarily. I'm not saying nuclear war is good, but if there were a nuclear exchange that didn't involve either th US or former Soviet Union, it's quite possible (not certain, but possible) that it wouldn't escalate to a full scale nuclear world war. We might all survive and just get cancer from the fallout.
And even the rather scary folks in charge of Iran know this. If they start a nuclear war, at the very least Iran will get blasted with several hundred megatons. That's not what they want (I think). They'd much rather have a long range nuke to hold over the heads of their enemies.
What this does do, however, is to give Iran a certain amount of credibility as a leader among Islamic countries. Don't think that's a small thing. Right now, the apparently most powerful Islamic country is Saudi Arabia, who are arm-in-arm with the Bush administration (when they feel like it). If Iran appears to be militarily on par with the western powers (which is how every anti-western media outlet will spin it) that will really change the dynamic of the whole region (and Islamic countries outside the region). I don't know what the result of THAT will be, but I don't think I'll like it.
Actually, the regimes we threw out were genocidal religious maniacs, if you want to call them "stable", I'd hate to see how we made things any worse.
Actually the regime (singular) that was thrown out of Iraq was genocidal SECULAR maniacs. It's the Taliban (in Afghanistan, a completely different country which doesn't even share a border) who were the religious zealots. And yes, Saddam's regime WAS stable. He was in control for (thirty-something? I've forgotten the exact number) years. (Note, stable != good, they're different concepts)
Let me reiterate: The US wants them to give up the very thing they want them to give up before considering negotiating with them about that thing.
In other words, the administration doesn't want to negotiate with Iran, but they also don't want average dumb Americans to realize that. Americans hear "We'll negotiate as soon as (blah blah blah)", but most Americans don't know enough backstory to realize that the (blah blah blah) is an unreasonable precondition to negotiating.
It's brilliant on the part of Iran, I'll give it that. Continue aggressively pursuing your nuclear program and posturing with intent to provoke reactions, knowing full well the debate will be shifted to the US.
Not only that; they must have known darn well that Russia and China would never vote for particularly strong sanctions. Therefore, they knew they could get away with it for a certain amount of time. If this is confirmed, and if they can repeat (ie they didn't just buy a functional rocket from Russia or something), then they are in a much stronger position now than they were. The amount of fear that the idea of even a small, half-assed nuke dropping in their favorite city will put in the hearts of every American means no invasions for Iran any time soon.
That aside, the condition of the world oil market right now means that every oil importing country will think twice before annoying the Iranians too much with (sanctions/missile strikes/pick your provocation). It's widely suspected that no OPEC country has the capacity to increase production right now, so if somebody (Iran) decides to stop exporting for a few months, we'll all (Americans) be paying $5 a gallon for gas by June (worse in places with gas taxes high enough to provide a disincentive to SUVs). I don't know whether Bush can whip up enough fear among Americans to get them to stand for that.
10 transistors says that either (a) they will fail, or (b) it will take them 3 "generations" (about 4.5 years, based on the doubling every 18 months rule) for the technology to make it to market. They said the same thing about the Cell processor, and probably a lot of other architectures. Nothing to see here. Move along.
This is just another case of the mainstream media not being able to tell the difference between an AI and the robot one might control. It doesn't matter how good your robot is, if the AI is junk (like pretty much anything available today, for example), it won't be demanding anything.
You forget sulfa drugs. They're concentrated in the urine. If you have a bladder infection, those work wonders (and stink like the devil).
Who says Bush and co. are interested in "good" public policy? Where's the profit in that?
They're not going after fans. They're going after people stealing their IP for personal profit.
Come on, this is Slashdot; do you think I'm going to let you get away with making a statement like that? First, there's no such thing as "IP". There's copyright and there's trademark (and patent, which doesn't apply here). Second, you cannot "steal" any of those things. Putting somebody else's picture on a T-Shirt you're selling isn't stealing, in exactly the way that downloading music off the internet (without copyright-holder permission) is not "stealing" the music. It's copyright infringement, which is a completely different crime. "Stealing" the music would be walking in to Wal-Mart, putting the CD in your pants, and then running away. Stealing something means that you now have it, and the original owner now does not have it. Infringing on somebody else's copyright means that you now have it and the original owner might have a reduced market available to sell their stuff (but that's nigh-on impossible to prove definitively). The word "stealing" being applied to copyright is a political tactic, intended to make increased copyright protections palatable to the general populace.
Why yes, I have been reading RMS's writings lately. How did you guess?
Ok, having only briefly looked it over... I think what Universal is objecting to is this knucklehead selling merchandise for profit, utilizing their images.
So, well, what's the problem?
No problem whatsoever, if that was in fact what was happening. The trouble is that Universal is claiming this with regard to images this "knucklehead" made himself, related to Serenity, but not using any of their copyrighted work. If anything it's a violation of trademark, not copyright. That's a more subtle case entirely. Copyright infringement is clear-cut. Either a derivative work contains copyrighted components, or it doesn't. Trademark infringement is difficult to prove, especially when the trademark involved is one on a word that's been in the English language since long before the trademark holder got around to claiming it.
Of course, the guy was probably infringing more directly back when this started. In the forum linked to, he says that he's already removed all of the stuff that mentions serenity. The most closely related thing left is this, a T-shirt based on the Chinese character translated as "serenity".
If it goes against, there could be some problems for future TV and movies from Universal, as this loyal block will remember and potentially boycott. Universal knows that the potential loss of revenue from a rabid base of fans in that much coveted "18-35 male without an understanding of credit card debt" demographic would be something advertisers would look at closely. It would certainly cost them more than the 9,000 they are looking for in liscensing fees.
Don't fool yourself. The Firefly fanbase is an infinitesimal drop in the vast ocean of the '"18-35 male without an understanding of credit card debt"' demographic. They won't make any notable difference in the revenues of a mainstream movie or TV show.
For a science fiction movie/series, however, they could be a big enough chunk of the market to make a difference, but only if they show solidarity and don't just go see the movie anyway. I don't think enough of them would feel strongly enough about it for that, however (I know I don't, and I'm the most ardent Firefly fan I know).
As others have already pointed out, it's not copacetic to sell merchandise like that. You think you can start selling Star Wars t-shirts and Lucasfilm will be OK with that? Not likely.
At present, this is the closest thing I could find to an infringement of any copyright or trademark on the T-shirt site in question. The product itself has no hint of infringement, and the description of the product has the word "serenity" but it's just a translation from the Chinese character in the picture on the shirt. Maybe the site used to contain more infringing stuff; I don't know. But at present, the Universal lawyers are still demanding that he take down the site (and holding the usual obscene $150,000 per instance copyright infringement damage number over his head to make sure he does it).
There is a danger to the Firefly/Serenity franchise here. Viral marketing works, but it works in both directions. The whole mythos of Firefly is about rebellion against a powerful government. If it looks like the franchise is in the hands a pseudo-government (big corporation) the most ardent fans will rebel. Of course, Firefly/Serenity has been in the hands of a big company since it was started, but the Browncoats might actually notice it now and become rather disillusioned rather than support it as fervently as they have done so far. No viral marketing means (maybe) no market. No market means no movie.
Don't you idiots ever get informed by watching Fox News? Global warming is a myth, and all credible science has disproven it.
If Slashdot is going to be linking to Robert Kennedy, Jr's writings, it better also link to those of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, Al Franken, and Bill O'Reilly.
There's a difference. Slashdot (as a general rule, violated often enough to be funny) links to stories that have logical arguments behind them. The other authors you list don't bother too much with logical arguments, they go straight for the emotional ones (with the exception of Al Franken, he does present logical arguments when he feels like it, and skips them when he doesn't). Slashdot stories, and especially the political/creationism/open-source stories, are all about stirring debate among the readership. Stories that don't have logical underpinnings don't stir debate, they just start flamewars (yes, I know Slashdot gets those too, but not every comment is flame).
You're not frightened of election fraud? That's essentially how the Nazis came into power in Germany. If fraud is available, absolutely any group with strong enough political motivation and few enough scruples could win an election. If you've looked over the fringe-lunatic political segment of the internet, you'll know that groups exist within the US that make the Nazis look tame. The only saving grace is that none of these groups are numerous enough to have the physical power to enforce a falsified election (not yet anyway, just give Limbaugh and O'Reilly their time).
...2000 or 2006 were the most crooked.
A freudian slip there? I think you meant the 2004 election, but I fear that the 2006 election will be just as crooked as 2004.
Like the ABC movie "The Path To 9/11"?? Yeah, threatening to revoke a network's broadcast license because you disagree with the content of their programming isn't censorship.
It's not that they "disagree" with the content, but that the content is factually incorrect about important (even nation-shaking) events. Either it's factually correct or it's not, but this is absolutely not about "agreement", it is about documented fact (I have not studied said documentation fully enough to know exactly what it says, however). People on a certain side of the political spectrum seem to have trouble distinguishing the two. The number of people who blindly believe that film could very well change the outcome of the midterm election. That just might be adequate to revoke a broadcast license (but since the alleged falsification was in favor of the party currently in power, it will never happen).
That being said, even lies are quite often protected speech, depending on the circumstances. What might come into play, however, is slander. As best I understand it, slander requires both that the statement be false (and known to the speaker to have been false), and to have been said with malicious intent. If I'm incorrect about that, please someone correct me.
You make a good point. I'd speculate that the HD makers would focus on improving the storage of the really small drives (like the one in the iPod mini, etc.) and other statistics so that it's reasonable to have a RAID array of them in a normal computer. If they could get the storage on the really small HD's up to 100Gb, for example, and make a RAID-5 equivalent (of 3 to 10 drives, however many fit) all in a small package the size of current desktop HD's, that should make for very durable storage. Each drive would have separate heads, motors and controller boards. The only common hardware would be the RAID machinery and the (IDE/SATA/USB/name your favorite connector here). Make the drives easily replaceable, and you have a very redundant data storage system.
Can anybody think of an easier way to get that kind of redundancy, or a major flaw in the plan I outlined?
This AP story mentions President Bush's 2003 stumble on a Segway without speculating on whether the cause was the software glitch behind the current recall.
More likely he just didn't know how to ride particularly well yet. They do take some practice.
I know people who live at/below the poverty line but have fine credit. And, I know people with 6-digit incomes who have terrible credit.
Absolutely true, but completely missing the point. There is no absolute rule that the wealthy have good credit, but it does make the habits which lead to good credit easier. I'd be willing to guess that there is a correlation between good credit and high income. It's a lot easier to keep your spending under control when your income is high enough that the last dollars you spend in a paycheck are on luxuries than when your income is wasted on things like rent and food and medical care, and there are no luxuries in the budget. It's easier to be thrifty and say no to a new DVD or SUV than it is to skip taking your kids to the doctor.
for instance, hiring on the basis of race needed government regulation because it was so widespread
You bring up an interesting point. One wonders if credit report discrimination isn't really racial discrimination in disguise. My guess (based on nothing but watching African-American comedians on Comedy Central) is that African-Americans have worse credit on average than other racial groups do. If this is true (which it mightn't be, maybe Latinos have worse credit on average, maybe it's Caucasians, I dunno, but I'd be willing to bet it correlates in one direction or another) then discriminating against bad credit is really discriminating against a race, and therefore (in California at least) probably illegal.
Who's more likely to embezzle from you, the guy with a good debt-to-income ratio who makes his payments on time, or the guy who's deeply in debt an makes only the minimum payment every month?
If you reverse this chicken and the egg problem, you'll see it's possible to be reversed: Who's more likely to have already embezzled money from the company? A guy who can barely make his credit card payments, or the guy with huge savings? I could argue this thing either way.
More seriously, though, employers just use the credit report because it's one of the few pieces of information they can get about a prospective employee that the employee didn't have a hand in giving to them. I don't know how much good it would do, but it at least makes some sense.