Interesting paper. I'll read it when I get a chance. I've done some research myself on the origins of copyrights in the US.
I like your idea of short to long term renewable copyrights. They are along the lines that I've been formulating. I don't want to go into details right now but I think this basic model which you've outlined is what would be the most fair in this digital age where everything can be copied with such ease.
I have yet to write down all the details that I've been formulating. Many of them are based on the thousands of posts I've read on Slashdot and other places, combined with what's been happening in the world of copyrights in the last 200 years.
Keep an eye out and I'll post a detailed list of what I think is viable someday soon I hope.
That's because people can finally see the writing on the wall. It's not Godwined when there are so many obvious similarities that we can't joke about how real this problem is becoming.
One word. Scary!
While you bring up some interesting points, I'm going to have to disagree with you on a few points.
In such a system of course, revolutions (in the sense of widely held beliefs changing within the lifetime of a single individual) simply cannot happen. You are naive if you think a revolution in beliefs can't change in someone's lifetime. I'll grant you that it's less likely to happen in less than a generation (approximately every 20 years) but it still does happen. Take things like Blacks gaining the same rights as whites. Gay being accepted by society. Society as a whole doesn't necessarily change as fast as individuals, it seems to be speeding up with the advent of the Internet.
At the worst, there might be a slow decay and unraveling of the social fabric. Barely noticeable. If you look at revolutions or "key nexus points in history", they can drastically change the social fabric in a short period of time. We need to look no further than 9/11 to see how drastically one single event changed the way we as society behaved. Long held beliefs like being against Torture were suddenly acceptable to many people what wanted the government to do "anything possible" to get terrorists.
I could go on an on about this but I trust my point has been made.
You know you're one of the few people that I can vehemently disagree with and emphatically agree with 10 times in one post. *Boggles my mind sometimes*
I agree with you that "the only morally and intellectually defensible position on any point of view is global one". Being part of a nation does tend to cause people to be nationalist though. Even when I'm trying to argue from a world view point I still often times find myself bringing in a US centric position for one reason or another.
I disagree on the idea that we shouldn't make a big deal out of little encroachments on our freedoms. Politicians, especially in this country, have figured this part of our "national psyche". The idea that "If we only make minor changes to the laws and freedoms of the people they won't really notice the big picture direction we're headed towards." They've found that they can get a lot more done this way because most of us will forget about an issue (especially a small one) within a few days and then they will be in the clear to make another change 6 months later. Only the people who pay attention to the overall trend (like many people on Slashdot do) will keep an eye on what they do and realize the direction we are heading in (and hopefully speak out).
The idea of my rant is that yes we've made mountains out of molehills in several cases but when they are successful at getting good media coverage for an extended period of time they can actually cause change! We can use these rare (and getting rarer) opportunities to shine a light on the all the little mistakes (intentional law changes) that have been made and HOPEFULLY* get it changed.
*I'll concede that part of getting these things changed is really the hardest part of all because of the current way our US system has been corrupted. This has occurred because of the problems that arise from lobbying, intentional secrecy (but ultimately unnecessary), and the "synergy" of the government-industrial (corporate) complex.
I just wanted to say that your cogent argument is one that I've been trying to formulate myself for the last few years but hadn't thought it through like you obviously have.
This is an excellent point that I wish all news organizations would post on their front page of newspapers and scrolling across their TV screens for 24 hours. This would do a whole lot of good in getting people to understand why this "War on Terror" is stupid and we'll never "win" it. It's just a waste of money that is ultimately designed to take away our freedoms and push us further into fascism/dictatorship.
This isn't surprising to someone who pays only a minimal amount of attention to the decisions and reasoning presented by the FCC. The people at the top of this government department do nice things for their friends (telcos mainly) and in turn they get nice cushy jobs when they get done with their tenure at the FCC.
Yes, you are correct. I mis-spoke when I typed the "powers to protect rights".
In answer to your last point, we really are moving towards a mesh of fascism and corporatism in this country because of the things like the military-industrial complex and prison-industrial complex (and others) are allowed to flourish. The corporate people work for the government and in turn the government people work for the corporate (Cheney has been in the government, then corporate and then back in the government etc.). They get try to get the best of both worlds when it comes to protectionism and cronyism when they scratch each other's backs (AT&T and NSA debacle). All the while the citizen are increasingly relegated to second class citizens in this country. This is the point that I was trying to make, but didn't flesh out, in my original comment.
This is the point that I think a lot of people dance around but no one comes out and says. So I'm going to say it...
When corporations have the powers that we used to assign to being only something that the government could do. For example, the Internet, as a means of expressing freedom of speech, is controlled by private and public entities that are not the government. However in times past the mail used to be handled by the post office solely as an arm of the government and thus fell under the rights protections as outlined in the Constitution.
In my opinion we need protections in place that say when you have a natural/near/government grated monopoly on a resource that you are beholden to the same laws as the government.
Furthermore in a similar vein, I think that we need to fast close another (large as a semi-truck) loophole in our current legal system that allows corporations to essentially spy on us en masse(e.g. gather financial records in massive databases). Since the government isn't the one collecting the information (only paying for it) they typically can skirt the laws that would require them to get warrants and setup ways of capturing the information they want on each of us individually.
On a larger scale, I know this is the happening because we are moving towards a fascist state when the government and the corporations are essentially one in the same. But I can't think of many people who would want this because all the citizens (NOT CONSUMERS) in this country would only have the rights of slaves under white land owners from the 1800's.
We have to do all we can to stop this slide into a fascist state and it starts with the little things.
You have to realize that in a truly capitalist environment you could get away with this because someone could go to a different ISP. But in many areas you have a choice between 1-2 ISPs (not counting dial-up). You have the cable company and the phone company (and the various 3rd party resellers of the phone companies lines).
Whereas in a capitalist utopia you would have probably 10 different ISPs and all would have different terms and you could easily choose to switch between them without having to worry about a big behemoth cutting you off the internet access (corporate censorship).
Although actually, they would be 100% devalued today because that physical design is no longer accepted. That's actually not true.
While you may have trouble getting a store to accept the money, you would be able to at least get a bank to give you the same face value of the dollars you had for new ones. Or in most cases you could actually sell it for more than the face value because there are coin collectors that would buy it from you at the market rate for a collectible item.
You sound just like I did not to long ago (almost the same exact same things I was doing), so I'll give you some more advice.
You are being used by your employer. I was being used at the time too but I was making $43,000 (at least $10,000 less than I should have been making). If your employer is charging people for the time your out fixing their stuff then you should be getting a good percentage of that (i.e. an hourly wage at two different rates, a billing rate and an in-house rate). In my case, we were charging $125 an hour but since I was salaried it didn't matter if I was at the office working on a server project or out billing at a customer. Obviously since I had no incentive to be out at a customer's location my preference was to stay in the office and not deal with the hassle of driving all over town. You may not feel the same way but for me it negative impacted my dealing with these customers because I didn't want to be out in the field because I would rather have been back at the office working on a cool new project (I always had 10 different projects I was working on).
The only reason to stay at a place like this is if they are willing to train you up. That was my original incentive to taking this job because I wanted to get into servers more (I've been doing desktop stuff forever and I was tired of it). I saw this as a stepping stone because they were willing to give me time to work on certifications and server projects that would greatly expand my knowledge. Unfortunately, this didn't really materialize. The original agreement was that I would get to spend approximately 5-10 hours a week working on my various certs and do some work on my own time. But what ended up happing is in the first couple of months I was able to get about 30 hours of on the clock cert time done and that was it. We were too busy with other projects after that (it never slowed down). Finally after just over a year (when I finally started to have time again to look at the certs) I was laid-off because they didn't need me to work on their server projects anymore (the thing they really wanted from me). So while I did learn some important server stuff they really screwed me on the other half of the stuff I wanted (the free certs).
The really funny thing is all the time I would get questions from my boss as to why I hadn't finished those certs. I told him it was because he didn't give me the time we had agreed to in my acceptance letter. He of course just brushed this aside and and said, "well you should still be doing it". And as much as that pissed me off, he was right I should have done it because he wasn't willing to help me out and he never would!
Finally back to you. In some areas people working at McDonald's make as much as you do. Think about that for a minute. While I was certainly underpaid by a fair amount, you are letting them walk all over you in the salary department. If by chance you are in a really cheap area to live then you aren't getting as bad of a deal but most people on entry level help desk positions make more than you do (regardless of the area, I doubt you'll find one that makes less than you).
I would really recommend poking around with some of your customers or do whatever you can to build up a good network of people so that you can get better job in the very near future.//Sorry for the long post but I thought it would do you good to hear it.
You didn't specify what you do. But if you do anything other than low level help desk then you are severely underpaid. I hope you're hourly at that low of a wage because if you are coming in evenings and weekends for emergencies then you better be getting paid for that.
If you're only making $40,000 a year for all that stuff then you are WAAAAAY under paid, even if your in a low income area. I assume this is for a small business as no medium or large company has one person that does all that stuff. If you are at least proficient in all those areas you should be making at least $60,000 min. in a low income area, or at least $80,000 in a high income area.
I just wanted to say thank you for your insightful, amazing and articulate post. Posts like yours are why I read Slashdot.
I hope one day people like you and I can help steer this country back to these beliefs so that most people understand the real meaning of freedom and liberty (it's not just a bumper sticker).
Since no one seemed to answer your questions, I'll take a shot at it as an American.
A lot of it (I think) has to do with TV. We are used to just standing by and watching stuff happen and not being an active participant (especially if its someone we don't know). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effectThe Bystander Effect seems to be very common over here. I know that this happens to me a lot when I get in similar situations(I've been trying to change that but its not easy).
We really have become very complacent if something doesn't directly affect us. Beyond the TV and the crappy public education system here I'm not sure what else is causing this lack of interest (something in the water or food, perhaps?).
As much as I'm not a fan of violence, I think we need lots of riots and everyone needs to be socially involved in our democracy to keep it functioning properly. The reason everything seems to be going wrong in the US lately is because everyone doesn't have a spine to stand up to the government and demand redress for grievances. The most action I've seen out of the people in the last several years was the immigration debate where people acted and stopped legislation that would have been disastrous for the US in its current state.
In regards to the police over here. They are essentially people with unchecked power. Yes, they occasionally get put on paid administrative leave here when there is a big uproar over someone being abused/killed. But in most (95%+) of the cases the internal investigations will state that the police did no wrong and that's the end of it. The "blue wall" protects its own (this is probably the biggest reason police seem to be getting worse over here).
I hope this helps give you a better idea of how it is over here in the US.
Seems like it's mostly just a "he said", "she said" kind of case. We all know those kind of cases do not prove beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction.
Of course its a Bad Thing. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has given it a pass if its done in the name of catching drunk drivers. I'm sorry I don't have the relevant quote from the USSC Justice (and I couldn't find it with a quick Google search) but I've seen it quoted many times. They stated that while they dislike the whole idea of roadblocks and a fishing expedition that they thought it was an important way of catching drunk drivers.
There have also been some cases I've read about where police stopped everyone in one of the northern states (Minnesota, I think) where one afternoon they stopped EVERYONE who were going down the freeway in this one direction. They preformed a quick survey of each car (a walk around) and asked the driver questions. If they weren't happy with the answers or saw something was wrong then they were directed to another line where they were compelled to a have their car searched. For the people who would otherwise have to go to jail they had bail bondsman that would work with the people so they could bypass going to jail. The number of people cited and arrested were astronomical. Something like a few hundred tickets and lots of people going to jail. It was all used primarily as a way to make money for the city/county.
This is the kind of crap that I expected to hear about in a place like the former U.S.S.R. not here in the US. Sadly this seems to be a more common thing and not something that people get up in arms about.
They did this sort of thing in KoTOR II for the PC. The end boss has 3 light sabers that she wields with the force. I'm sure they could have done a lot more but each of those were as strong as a regular boss so they would have had to change the dynamics of the fight substantially.
This is something that a lot of people in our society just don't understand. I found myself having to tell this basic premise to my parents the other day. They were stating how we should want our government to protect us from the "evil terrorists" and how it is ok that we have all these extra security measures in place (on the anniversary of 9/11) to help catch these guys. They said, "isn't it worth it to spend(waste) all this extra time and money just to keep something like 9/11 from happening again?" I stated that "I just want my freedoms back. We're all going to die sometime. I'll take my freedoms back even if that means a slightly higher risk of being blown up by the next terrorist attack!"
We're at least 1000 times more likely to die in a car wreck then by some terrorist and I don't want to live my life in fear of the boogie man around the next corner.
I don't have the specific link to what the Supreme Court decision is but a few years ago they did say that it WAS LEGAL to create pornographic images of under age people as long as it was clear that it wasn't created from an abuse of an actual child.
So something like a fantasy drawing of an underage person is ok legally. But if you did a drawing of an actual child being sexually abused then that would still be illegal.
While I'm sure it's probably true that most of the translations have been done for most Egyptian texts, it's not necessarily true for things like ancient Babylonian texts (clay tablets).
I did some college work with a professor that translated ancient Babylonian astronomy to modern astronomical notations. There are less than 50 people in the world who spend anytime researching (able to read) these ancient texts and they have a wealth of information in them. For the research it required reading small detailed photographs of ancient Babylonian clay tablets and putting the information that I found into a database that the professor had created. It was very interesting work but was quite difficult to make out small symbols from one photograph of a tablet that often had pieces of clay missing.
There are several thousand clay tablets that have yet to be translated (astronomical, stories and other important subjects). Most of them were recovered from the Iraqi region about 100 years ago and are currently stored in the British Museum.
I'm not sure what manufacturer of washer/dryer you got but my parents just recently picked up one from GE. It's black with big platforms and the washer gets going so fast that even while its 'balanced' by a GE appliance tech it still can't stay in one place.
A few weeks ago, their dog came running up the stairs scared out of his mind. My parents went down to the laundry room to find that the washer was moving across the floor and was up against the wall strongly banging against it. If they would have check on it 5 minutes later the washer would have go through the wall because it was so out of control.
After having 4 different techs out to look at the washer and it still behaving the same way my parents were able to convince the local appliance dealer to take them back for a different model. They obviously didn't get the same brand (GE) this time. Hopefully these were designed by some 'traditional' washer/dryer engineers instead of the ones that prefer to put a million sensors and make something as simple as washing clothes into a something more akin to building Windows Vista just to run a copy of notepad:)
Good luck with your washer/dryer. I recommend 'conveniently' getting it off balance and trying to see if you can return it like my parents did (assuming you have the same manufacturer).
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting paper. I'll read it when I get a chance. I've done some research myself on the origins of copyrights in the US. I like your idea of short to long term renewable copyrights. They are along the lines that I've been formulating. I don't want to go into details right now but I think this basic model which you've outlined is what would be the most fair in this digital age where everything can be copied with such ease. I have yet to write down all the details that I've been formulating. Many of them are based on the thousands of posts I've read on Slashdot and other places, combined with what's been happening in the world of copyrights in the last 200 years. Keep an eye out and I'll post a detailed list of what I think is viable someday soon I hope.
All 5 people who still have Real Player installed are in for a world of hurt...
That's because people can finally see the writing on the wall. It's not Godwined when there are so many obvious similarities that we can't joke about how real this problem is becoming. One word. Scary!
You know you're one of the few people that I can vehemently disagree with and emphatically agree with 10 times in one post.
*Boggles my mind sometimes*
I agree with you that "the only morally and intellectually defensible position on any point of view is global one". Being part of a nation does tend to cause people to be nationalist though. Even when I'm trying to argue from a world view point I still often times find myself bringing in a US centric position for one reason or another.
I disagree on the idea that we shouldn't make a big deal out of little encroachments on our freedoms. Politicians, especially in this country, have figured this part of our "national psyche". The idea that "If we only make minor changes to the laws and freedoms of the people they won't really notice the big picture direction we're headed towards." They've found that they can get a lot more done this way because most of us will forget about an issue (especially a small one) within a few days and then they will be in the clear to make another change 6 months later. Only the people who pay attention to the overall trend (like many people on Slashdot do) will keep an eye on what they do and realize the direction we are heading in (and hopefully speak out).
The idea of my rant is that yes we've made mountains out of molehills in several cases but when they are successful at getting good media coverage for an extended period of time they can actually cause change! We can use these rare (and getting rarer) opportunities to shine a light on the all the little mistakes (intentional law changes) that have been made and HOPEFULLY* get it changed.
*I'll concede that part of getting these things changed is really the hardest part of all because of the current way our US system has been corrupted. This has occurred because of the problems that arise from lobbying, intentional secrecy (but ultimately unnecessary), and the "synergy" of the government-industrial (corporate) complex.
I just wanted to say that your cogent argument is one that I've been trying to formulate myself for the last few years but hadn't thought it through like you obviously have.
This is an excellent point that I wish all news organizations would post on their front page of newspapers and scrolling across their TV screens for 24 hours. This would do a whole lot of good in getting people to understand why this "War on Terror" is stupid and we'll never "win" it. It's just a waste of money that is ultimately designed to take away our freedoms and push us further into fascism/dictatorship.
This isn't surprising to someone who pays only a minimal amount of attention to the decisions and reasoning presented by the FCC. The people at the top of this government department do nice things for their friends (telcos mainly) and in turn they get nice cushy jobs when they get done with their tenure at the FCC.
Yes, you are correct. I mis-spoke when I typed the "powers to protect rights".
In answer to your last point, we really are moving towards a mesh of fascism and corporatism in this country because of the things like the military-industrial complex and prison-industrial complex (and others) are allowed to flourish. The corporate people work for the government and in turn the government people work for the corporate (Cheney has been in the government, then corporate and then back in the government etc.). They get try to get the best of both worlds when it comes to protectionism and cronyism when they scratch each other's backs (AT&T and NSA debacle). All the while the citizen are increasingly relegated to second class citizens in this country. This is the point that I was trying to make, but didn't flesh out, in my original comment.
This is the point that I think a lot of people dance around but no one comes out and says. So I'm going to say it...
When corporations have the powers that we used to assign to being only something that the government could do. For example, the Internet, as a means of expressing freedom of speech, is controlled by private and public entities that are not the government. However in times past the mail used to be handled by the post office solely as an arm of the government and thus fell under the rights protections as outlined in the Constitution.
In my opinion we need protections in place that say when you have a natural/near/government grated monopoly on a resource that you are beholden to the same laws as the government.
Furthermore in a similar vein, I think that we need to fast close another (large as a semi-truck) loophole in our current legal system that allows corporations to essentially spy on us en masse(e.g. gather financial records in massive databases). Since the government isn't the one collecting the information (only paying for it) they typically can skirt the laws that would require them to get warrants and setup ways of capturing the information they want on each of us individually.
On a larger scale, I know this is the happening because we are moving towards a fascist state when the government and the corporations are essentially one in the same. But I can't think of many people who would want this because all the citizens (NOT CONSUMERS) in this country would only have the rights of slaves under white land owners from the 1800's.
We have to do all we can to stop this slide into a fascist state and it starts with the little things.
Basically what Qzukk said above me.
You have to realize that in a truly capitalist environment you could get away with this because someone could go to a different ISP. But in many areas you have a choice between 1-2 ISPs (not counting dial-up). You have the cable company and the phone company (and the various 3rd party resellers of the phone companies lines).
Whereas in a capitalist utopia you would have probably 10 different ISPs and all would have different terms and you could easily choose to switch between them without having to worry about a big behemoth cutting you off the internet access (corporate censorship).
While you may have trouble getting a store to accept the money, you would be able to at least get a bank to give you the same face value of the dollars you had for new ones. Or in most cases you could actually sell it for more than the face value because there are coin collectors that would buy it from you at the market rate for a collectible item.
You sound just like I did not to long ago (almost the same exact same things I was doing), so I'll give you some more advice.
//Sorry for the long post but I thought it would do you good to hear it.
You are being used by your employer. I was being used at the time too but I was making $43,000 (at least $10,000 less than I should have been making). If your employer is charging people for the time your out fixing their stuff then you should be getting a good percentage of that (i.e. an hourly wage at two different rates, a billing rate and an in-house rate). In my case, we were charging $125 an hour but since I was salaried it didn't matter if I was at the office working on a server project or out billing at a customer. Obviously since I had no incentive to be out at a customer's location my preference was to stay in the office and not deal with the hassle of driving all over town. You may not feel the same way but for me it negative impacted my dealing with these customers because I didn't want to be out in the field because I would rather have been back at the office working on a cool new project (I always had 10 different projects I was working on).
The only reason to stay at a place like this is if they are willing to train you up. That was my original incentive to taking this job because I wanted to get into servers more (I've been doing desktop stuff forever and I was tired of it). I saw this as a stepping stone because they were willing to give me time to work on certifications and server projects that would greatly expand my knowledge. Unfortunately, this didn't really materialize. The original agreement was that I would get to spend approximately 5-10 hours a week working on my various certs and do some work on my own time. But what ended up happing is in the first couple of months I was able to get about 30 hours of on the clock cert time done and that was it. We were too busy with other projects after that (it never slowed down). Finally after just over a year (when I finally started to have time again to look at the certs) I was laid-off because they didn't need me to work on their server projects anymore (the thing they really wanted from me). So while I did learn some important server stuff they really screwed me on the other half of the stuff I wanted (the free certs).
The really funny thing is all the time I would get questions from my boss as to why I hadn't finished those certs. I told him it was because he didn't give me the time we had agreed to in my acceptance letter. He of course just brushed this aside and and said, "well you should still be doing it". And as much as that pissed me off, he was right I should have done it because he wasn't willing to help me out and he never would!
Finally back to you. In some areas people working at McDonald's make as much as you do. Think about that for a minute. While I was certainly underpaid by a fair amount, you are letting them walk all over you in the salary department. If by chance you are in a really cheap area to live then you aren't getting as bad of a deal but most people on entry level help desk positions make more than you do (regardless of the area, I doubt you'll find one that makes less than you).
I would really recommend poking around with some of your customers or do whatever you can to build up a good network of people so that you can get better job in the very near future.
You didn't specify what you do. But if you do anything other than low level help desk then you are severely underpaid. I hope you're hourly at that low of a wage because if you are coming in evenings and weekends for emergencies then you better be getting paid for that.
If you're only making $40,000 a year for all that stuff then you are WAAAAAY under paid, even if your in a low income area. I assume this is for a small business as no medium or large company has one person that does all that stuff. If you are at least proficient in all those areas you should be making at least $60,000 min. in a low income area, or at least $80,000 in a high income area.
I just wanted to say thank you for your insightful, amazing and articulate post. Posts like yours are why I read Slashdot.
I hope one day people like you and I can help steer this country back to these beliefs so that most people understand the real meaning of freedom and liberty (it's not just a bumper sticker).
Wow. I read your story and that is so scary that police can do that sort of thing to people in this country. It truly makes me very sad.
I didn't see any resolution to this story. What happened after the arrest?
Since no one seemed to answer your questions, I'll take a shot at it as an American.
A lot of it (I think) has to do with TV. We are used to just standing by and watching stuff happen and not being an active participant (especially if its someone we don't know). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effectThe Bystander Effect seems to be very common over here. I know that this happens to me a lot when I get in similar situations(I've been trying to change that but its not easy).
We really have become very complacent if something doesn't directly affect us. Beyond the TV and the crappy public education system here I'm not sure what else is causing this lack of interest (something in the water or food, perhaps?).
As much as I'm not a fan of violence, I think we need lots of riots and everyone needs to be socially involved in our democracy to keep it functioning properly. The reason everything seems to be going wrong in the US lately is because everyone doesn't have a spine to stand up to the government and demand redress for grievances. The most action I've seen out of the people in the last several years was the immigration debate where people acted and stopped legislation that would have been disastrous for the US in its current state.
In regards to the police over here. They are essentially people with unchecked power. Yes, they occasionally get put on paid administrative leave here when there is a big uproar over someone being abused/killed. But in most (95%+) of the cases the internal investigations will state that the police did no wrong and that's the end of it. The "blue wall" protects its own (this is probably the biggest reason police seem to be getting worse over here).
I hope this helps give you a better idea of how it is over here in the US.
Did you convict him?
Seems like it's mostly just a "he said", "she said" kind of case. We all know those kind of cases do not prove beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction.
Of course its a Bad Thing. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has given it a pass if its done in the name of catching drunk drivers. I'm sorry I don't have the relevant quote from the USSC Justice (and I couldn't find it with a quick Google search) but I've seen it quoted many times. They stated that while they dislike the whole idea of roadblocks and a fishing expedition that they thought it was an important way of catching drunk drivers.
There have also been some cases I've read about where police stopped everyone in one of the northern states (Minnesota, I think) where one afternoon they stopped EVERYONE who were going down the freeway in this one direction. They preformed a quick survey of each car (a walk around) and asked the driver questions. If they weren't happy with the answers or saw something was wrong then they were directed to another line where they were compelled to a have their car searched. For the people who would otherwise have to go to jail they had bail bondsman that would work with the people so they could bypass going to jail. The number of people cited and arrested were astronomical. Something like a few hundred tickets and lots of people going to jail. It was all used primarily as a way to make money for the city/county.
This is the kind of crap that I expected to hear about in a place like the former U.S.S.R. not here in the US. Sadly this seems to be a more common thing and not something that people get up in arms about.
They did this sort of thing in KoTOR II for the PC. The end boss has 3 light sabers that she wields with the force. I'm sure they could have done a lot more but each of those were as strong as a regular boss so they would have had to change the dynamics of the fight substantially.
Mod Parent Up.
The best straight forward explanation of what the chip makers do with their processors.
Great post!
This is something that a lot of people in our society just don't understand. I found myself having to tell this basic premise to my parents the other day. They were stating how we should want our government to protect us from the "evil terrorists" and how it is ok that we have all these extra security measures in place (on the anniversary of 9/11) to help catch these guys. They said, "isn't it worth it to spend(waste) all this extra time and money just to keep something like 9/11 from happening again?" I stated that "I just want my freedoms back. We're all going to die sometime. I'll take my freedoms back even if that means a slightly higher risk of being blown up by the next terrorist attack!"
We're at least 1000 times more likely to die in a car wreck then by some terrorist and I don't want to live my life in fear of the boogie man around the next corner.
I don't have the specific link to what the Supreme Court decision is but a few years ago they did say that it WAS LEGAL to create pornographic images of under age people as long as it was clear that it wasn't created from an abuse of an actual child.
So something like a fantasy drawing of an underage person is ok legally. But if you did a drawing of an actual child being sexually abused then that would still be illegal.
/Standard IANAL speech.
While I'm sure it's probably true that most of the translations have been done for most Egyptian texts, it's not necessarily true for things like ancient Babylonian texts (clay tablets).
I did some college work with a professor that translated ancient Babylonian astronomy to modern astronomical notations. There are less than 50 people in the world who spend anytime researching (able to read) these ancient texts and they have a wealth of information in them. For the research it required reading small detailed photographs of ancient Babylonian clay tablets and putting the information that I found into a database that the professor had created. It was very interesting work but was quite difficult to make out small symbols from one photograph of a tablet that often had pieces of clay missing.
There are several thousand clay tablets that have yet to be translated (astronomical, stories and other important subjects). Most of them were recovered from the Iraqi region about 100 years ago and are currently stored in the British Museum.
I'm not sure what manufacturer of washer/dryer you got but my parents just recently picked up one from GE. It's black with big platforms and the washer gets going so fast that even while its 'balanced' by a GE appliance tech it still can't stay in one place.
:)
A few weeks ago, their dog came running up the stairs scared out of his mind. My parents went down to the laundry room to find that the washer was moving across the floor and was up against the wall strongly banging against it. If they would have check on it 5 minutes later the washer would have go through the wall because it was so out of control.
After having 4 different techs out to look at the washer and it still behaving the same way my parents were able to convince the local appliance dealer to take them back for a different model. They obviously didn't get the same brand (GE) this time. Hopefully these were designed by some 'traditional' washer/dryer engineers instead of the ones that prefer to put a million sensors and make something as simple as washing clothes into a something more akin to building Windows Vista just to run a copy of notepad
Good luck with your washer/dryer. I recommend 'conveniently' getting it off balance and trying to see if you can return it like my parents did (assuming you have the same manufacturer).