While that point is completely unrelated to the rest of this thread, it is one that is often brought up in politics in many commonwealth countries. There are several ways to answer that, personally I find that traditions and history are important, and while I wouldn't wish to be a serf under a dictatorial monarch, I have no problem respecting the institution that is the monarchy, while seeing that it has changed to meet modern times. In many ways the modern monarchy serves a role much closer to ambassador than to that of ruler.
There is great debate within commonwealth nations, personally I am in favour of the monarchy, and my brother in law is opposed. Any surveys I have ever seen though put popular support of the monarchy significantly higher than popular support for any of our elected officials, so I don't see any good reason to eliminate it.
As for disgraceful, I personally find the way the president of the USA (the office, not necessarily any individual) is worshipped as disgraceful... but to each their own.
The key difference here is in the definability. 65 is a very definite number, and therefore at little risk of "sliding", however some states have tried eliminating speed numbers and instead saying "safe and reasonable" where it's poorly defined and impossible to prevent from sliding as 0 is always safer than 5 which is safer than 40 which is safer than 60, etc. (public outrage over arbitrary enforcement led many of these places to re-institute numbered limits)
Here we have a very poorly defined definition, what is "inciting hatred" vs simply "expressing your hatred" vs "expressing displeasure" and all the way down to "mentioning an objective difference"? obviously "we should kill all _____ " is bad, "I think all ______ are ______" is bad but not as harmful as the first, "I don't like all ______" is much less harmful, and " _____ have _____ skin colour" could well be an objective fact. and millions of possible permutations in between. It is very difficult to draw an arbitrary line anywhere past the possibility of harm which doesn't risk accidentally censor legitimate non-hateful speech.
One of the big problems I've been hearing about recently is that many journals refuse to publish replication papers, which means nobody wants to replicate the results of any paper to see if the original author was correct, because they themselves won't be able to publish it. Replication is one of the most important part of the scientific process, it's how you find liars, cheats, and actual errors. If you discourage people from trying to replicate other's experiments you harm the whole scientific process.
sure reservoirs increase the efficiency of hydro electric generation, but I don't see why we can't do hydro without them. run-of-river projects should be no problem, and have a tiny environmental footprint. back to the old days of waterwheels, no reservoirs flooding land, no dams impeding fish...
Not entirely on topic, but Democracy and Communism are not opposites that were fighting. Democracy vs Totalitarianism, or Capitalism vs Communism. Democracy and Totalitarianism are political systems. Communism and Capitalism are financial systems. There is nothing at all to stop a country from being a communist democracy, or a capitalist totalitarian regime. (In fact I've often wondered why communism and democracy don't more often go hand in hand, if everyone is equal (communism) than everyone having an equal vote seems the logical idea)
Unfortunately what we have ended up with now in most parts of the world is a Totalitarian regime, masquerading as a democracy, paired with a corrupted form of capitalism where the wealthiest players control the regime and therefore meddle in the economy... really in a lot of ways, the worst of both worlds.
It is quite obvious you do not live in a commonwealth country, or really have any understanding whatsoever about their current method of government. The monarch (at the moment the Queen) is a figurehead only, and while on paper the monarch has a lot of power, in practice they have almost none. Commonwealth nations in today's world are at least as democratic as the USA, and there are good arguments to indicate that most of them are actually much more so (what is the chance of a third party candidate getting anywhere close to being elected president in the USA, vs the ability for additional political parties to appear and thrive in most of the current Commonwealth nations) The USA has a 2 party system that is terribly entrenched, where both parties have nearly identical positions on almost everything of importance. Most Commonwealth countries have more political parties, spread over a wider political spectrum, and with real possibilities for new parties to form and succeed if the public doesn't like the existing choices.
I understand that "go pick cotton" is racially insensitive, and that yelling that at someone with dark skin on the street could cause a bit of a stir, but I don't think it should merit jail time.
Hate speech laws should have to show some expectation of resulting in actual harm, for example calling people names shouldn't cross that line, calling on people to hurt/kill someone (or some group) could be a different category. I can see merit in outlawing the later (though it is still something that could be argued, especially if it never actually resulted in any physical violence), however I can't see any excuse for outlawing the former. Where do you draw the line? If you aren't drawing the line where the potential for physical violence ends, it is hard to see where the bottom of that slippery slope could lead, do you jail anyone who says anything outside of societal norms? anything that is a minority opinion? any political adversary? it's a scary thought indeed!
Actually without reading the full text of the discussions with the studios, you could just as easily claim the opposite. Perhaps it shows that he tried hard to work with the studios to come up with a mutually agreeable working relationship and they screwed him over anyway.
Without seeing both sides' positions, how can you claim to know which of the two was being unreasonable?
Actually it may mean more than one might think. Having proof of the discussions proves a possibility of non-infringing use. This is one of the excuses people always use as to why google is ok, but megaupload isn't, they claim that google has legitimate uses, despite the massive amounts of "illegal" content available, whereas they hold that megaupload doesn't and is primarily for illegal use. Proving that you have been in talks with "legitimate" organizations (wow... I can't believe I just called the MPAA legitimate...) even if no final deal was reached, can help you to establish the case that your site was a legitimate site (like google) that just happened to have some illegal activity happening, rather than the other way around. Even better if you can show that you tried hard to work in good faith, but that the studios were being overly harsh in their requests. This goes a long way toward showing "intent" which is still an important factor in any legal case.
I agree, but I think you make it sound even more difficult than it is. You imply only wealthy donors could fund art, These days that simply isn't the case, enough less wealthy people can also fund art just as effectively (for example, a musician can make all their money by performing concerts, no single wealthy donor, just a theatre full of average citizens.)
This is yet again a case of lawmakers completely forgetting old rules just because something happens in a new medium.
Would you get away with having someone stand 1 foot away from a private conversation? then why do you think you should get away with listening in on their phone line? what's the difference?
Can you get away with opening people's physical mail? what makes email any different? (and every other online service is either like a bulletin board everyone can read, which is fair game to all, or like private physical mail to select people which is not. There really isn't any in between.)
GPS tracking, sure, no problem, as long as you don't touch the car in any way to do it (if you attach something to my car, 1) I can do whatever I want with it, 2) I can charge you with vandalism/trespass/etc)
The rules ARE being re-written, but that's the last thing that SHOULD happen. people need to stop writing completely new laws just because the same activity happens in a new medium, the old laws should be just fine, interpret them in their original intent.
There would be a huge public outcry if these new laws allowed opening everyone's physical mail and wiretapping every person's phone conversations, but for some reason just because it happens "on the internet" people don't fight back. THIS is what needs to change, not the laws themselves.
Where I am, providers charge $10-$15 for a sim card, but they also like to tell you what sim card you need, so if you have an iphone according to their records, they want you to have a micro sim, and don't want to sell you a full size one (and vice-versa for people who's records indicate a non-iphone)
This discussion isn't about micro-sims (which as you point out, can be cut down from full size sims) the discussion is about nano-sims, which there is no reason at current to believe will be able to be cut down from full size, or micro sims.
Funny how every other phone manufacturer on the planet has been able to fit full size SIM cards in their phones, phones which are often no larger, and no less capable than the iPhone. If I don't know what I'm talking about, than neither to the engineers at every other cell phone company, the ones who have accidentally done something that you said there is no chance at all of doing.
And the whole point to both the micro and nano SIM standards is to force you to change to a new form factor as often as possible. As long as we have to be able to hold phones in our hands, there is no reason at all not to use full size SIM cards, unless you are trying to prevent people from simply taking the SIM out of their old phone and putting it in a new one....
With the current SIM standard, I can take the SIM out of a 10 year old phone, and pop it in to a brand new phone (except the iPhone that uses the micro-SIM "standard") and keep on talking. Obviously this is bad for business, so they want to make sure that I'll have to buy a new SIM to use my new phone. There is no other justification for it. There is no phone on the planet too small for a regular SIM, and as long as we need to hold the phones in our hands, there can't be.
As for patentable... EVERYTHING is patentable.... whether it SHOULD be is a completely different question, but one that is completely irrelevant to the companies involved.
If the teacher is still taking attendence, then what is gained from adding the RFID? This sounds like a really expensive, and not very accurate "fix" to a problem that was solved cheaply and more accurately centuries ago.
How is a situation in which you count uniforms instead of students an improvement in this area? do you really think the students are too dumb to figure out that they don't need to be present in class, they only have to make sure their chip is? Roll call is much more accurate, much harder to fake, and has the added benefit of being cheap. Not to mention the fact that after about day 5 of the semester it doesn't take any time as the teacher just does a cursory glance around to see which desks aren't occupied and they already know the students well enough to know who is missing by then. I'm all for technology solving problems, but only if it is at least as good as the existing system. until then you would be irresponsible to use it in a real life application like this.
Except that you couldn't fake attendence in the classroom (how long until the kids figure out where the chip is, how to remove it, and have their friends cover for them by carrying the chip to class?) and you couldn't be tracked by strangers. I love technology when it solves an existing problem, but when the existing solution is better than the technological replacement in almost every way, then it should be kept until the technology can catch up.
And what purpose does this serve? have teachers completely forgotten how to take attendance? I know it's low tech, but it's a whole lot more accurate, cheaper, and much less orwellian.
Would you mandate that they MUST leave? what if they like the job? or what if they feel that they are being reasonably compensated for their work? Who do you think you are to decide what tradeoffs are appropriate for someone other than yourself? It was admited that the pay was good, perhaps the pay is better than other places specifically to compensate for this clause in their contract, and maybe some people are willing to make that trade. If an employer asks for things nobody will give, then they won't have employees. If they give their employees too much then they will have too much overhead and won't be able to compete in the market. It's a ballancing act. Now more likely it will fall somewhere between those two extremes, They probably find people, but not those most qualified, or highest skilled, and they probably have high turnover as people find better jobs. This increases their costs and causes them to either rethink their strategy, or become uncompetitive in the marketplace.
I don't see why you are advocating a union solution to the problem, when you just proved that the free market of labour can solve the very same issue much more effectively. If you aren't interested in the terms they provide, find another emnployer with better terms. The free market isn't just for products and services, it's also for labour, companies must compete to find workers, and if they are offering something you aren't willing to take, you go to the competing employer. On a side note, I work for a company with a mandatory overtime provision, it's never been an issue because it is almost never used except in true emergencies, and even then anyone with half an excuse can get out of it (anyone who doesn't gets double time) I'm willing to live with the provision because the companyis a great place to work, treats it's workers well, I'd hate to be told that I couldn't have a job here because someone else thinks the mandatory overtime is too much, because I know that if the mandatory overtime thing wasn't an option we'd also loose our generous overtime rates, and probably some of the rest of our pay. It's my choice what company I work for, not some unions.
It's more that Oil's demand isn't particularly elastic. If you walked past the lemonade stand and their prices were $8 per glass, you'd chuckle and walk by, you'd go get a water, or an iced tea, or some other drink that is not so ridiculously overpriced. But with gasoline you sigh, grumble, and fill up the tank anyway. Some people may cut back on driving vacations, but in the grand scheme of things those are a drop in the bucket of overall consumption. Most consumption continues regardless of price. People may slowly buy more efficient vehicles, but that is a very slow and expensive process, and honestly, most modern vehicles are only a hair more efficient than their predecessors anyway. Nothing will change until alternative fuels become common place.
Airpush got around droidwall on my phone, but then again, the app that was infested required internet access to perform it's primary function. Once I figured out which app used airpush (that was the hard part) I uninstalled it, and left detailed negative feedback for the app in the market.
It's one thing to put ads in your app, but what right does any developer think they have to put ads in my notification bar when the app isn't even running!?!?!?!
And as a result of not wanting people to talk on the phone you'd deny them e-books, music, movies, web browsing, and many other things?
I don't want to hear people talk on their phones the whole flight either, there are other ways to deal with that, but let's not pretend that this is a safety thing unless it acutally is.
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While that point is completely unrelated to the rest of this thread, it is one that is often brought up in politics in many commonwealth countries.
There are several ways to answer that, personally I find that traditions and history are important, and while I wouldn't wish to be a serf under a dictatorial monarch, I have no problem respecting the institution that is the monarchy, while seeing that it has changed to meet modern times. In many ways the modern monarchy serves a role much closer to ambassador than to that of ruler.
There is great debate within commonwealth nations, personally I am in favour of the monarchy, and my brother in law is opposed. Any surveys I have ever seen though put popular support of the monarchy significantly higher than popular support for any of our elected officials, so I don't see any good reason to eliminate it.
As for disgraceful, I personally find the way the president of the USA (the office, not necessarily any individual) is worshipped as disgraceful... but to each their own.
In many countries, including both the one where Kim is being tried, and the one doing the trying...
The key difference here is in the definability. 65 is a very definite number, and therefore at little risk of "sliding", however some states have tried eliminating speed numbers and instead saying "safe and reasonable" where it's poorly defined and impossible to prevent from sliding as 0 is always safer than 5 which is safer than 40 which is safer than 60, etc. (public outrage over arbitrary enforcement led many of these places to re-institute numbered limits)
Here we have a very poorly defined definition, what is "inciting hatred" vs simply "expressing your hatred" vs "expressing displeasure" and all the way down to "mentioning an objective difference"?
obviously "we should kill all _____ " is bad, "I think all ______ are ______" is bad but not as harmful as the first, "I don't like all ______" is much less harmful, and " _____ have _____ skin colour" could well be an objective fact. and millions of possible permutations in between. It is very difficult to draw an arbitrary line anywhere past the possibility of harm which doesn't risk accidentally censor legitimate non-hateful speech.
One of the big problems I've been hearing about recently is that many journals refuse to publish replication papers, which means nobody wants to replicate the results of any paper to see if the original author was correct, because they themselves won't be able to publish it.
Replication is one of the most important part of the scientific process, it's how you find liars, cheats, and actual errors. If you discourage people from trying to replicate other's experiments you harm the whole scientific process.
sure reservoirs increase the efficiency of hydro electric generation, but I don't see why we can't do hydro without them. run-of-river projects should be no problem, and have a tiny environmental footprint. back to the old days of waterwheels, no reservoirs flooding land, no dams impeding fish...
Not entirely on topic, but Democracy and Communism are not opposites that were fighting. Democracy vs Totalitarianism, or Capitalism vs Communism.
Democracy and Totalitarianism are political systems.
Communism and Capitalism are financial systems.
There is nothing at all to stop a country from being a communist democracy, or a capitalist totalitarian regime. (In fact I've often wondered why communism and democracy don't more often go hand in hand, if everyone is equal (communism) than everyone having an equal vote seems the logical idea)
Unfortunately what we have ended up with now in most parts of the world is a Totalitarian regime, masquerading as a democracy, paired with a corrupted form of capitalism where the wealthiest players control the regime and therefore meddle in the economy... really in a lot of ways, the worst of both worlds.
It is quite obvious you do not live in a commonwealth country, or really have any understanding whatsoever about their current method of government. The monarch (at the moment the Queen) is a figurehead only, and while on paper the monarch has a lot of power, in practice they have almost none. Commonwealth nations in today's world are at least as democratic as the USA, and there are good arguments to indicate that most of them are actually much more so (what is the chance of a third party candidate getting anywhere close to being elected president in the USA, vs the ability for additional political parties to appear and thrive in most of the current Commonwealth nations) The USA has a 2 party system that is terribly entrenched, where both parties have nearly identical positions on almost everything of importance. Most Commonwealth countries have more political parties, spread over a wider political spectrum, and with real possibilities for new parties to form and succeed if the public doesn't like the existing choices.
I understand that "go pick cotton" is racially insensitive, and that yelling that at someone with dark skin on the street could cause a bit of a stir, but I don't think it should merit jail time.
Hate speech laws should have to show some expectation of resulting in actual harm, for example calling people names shouldn't cross that line, calling on people to hurt/kill someone (or some group) could be a different category. I can see merit in outlawing the later (though it is still something that could be argued, especially if it never actually resulted in any physical violence), however I can't see any excuse for outlawing the former. Where do you draw the line? If you aren't drawing the line where the potential for physical violence ends, it is hard to see where the bottom of that slippery slope could lead, do you jail anyone who says anything outside of societal norms? anything that is a minority opinion? any political adversary? it's a scary thought indeed!
Actually without reading the full text of the discussions with the studios, you could just as easily claim the opposite. Perhaps it shows that he tried hard to work with the studios to come up with a mutually agreeable working relationship and they screwed him over anyway.
Without seeing both sides' positions, how can you claim to know which of the two was being unreasonable?
Actually it may mean more than one might think. Having proof of the discussions proves a possibility of non-infringing use. This is one of the excuses people always use as to why google is ok, but megaupload isn't, they claim that google has legitimate uses, despite the massive amounts of "illegal" content available, whereas they hold that megaupload doesn't and is primarily for illegal use.
Proving that you have been in talks with "legitimate" organizations (wow... I can't believe I just called the MPAA legitimate...) even if no final deal was reached, can help you to establish the case that your site was a legitimate site (like google) that just happened to have some illegal activity happening, rather than the other way around. Even better if you can show that you tried hard to work in good faith, but that the studios were being overly harsh in their requests. This goes a long way toward showing "intent" which is still an important factor in any legal case.
I agree, but I think you make it sound even more difficult than it is. You imply only wealthy donors could fund art, These days that simply isn't the case, enough less wealthy people can also fund art just as effectively (for example, a musician can make all their money by performing concerts, no single wealthy donor, just a theatre full of average citizens.)
This is yet again a case of lawmakers completely forgetting old rules just because something happens in a new medium.
Would you get away with having someone stand 1 foot away from a private conversation? then why do you think you should get away with listening in on their phone line? what's the difference?
Can you get away with opening people's physical mail? what makes email any different? (and every other online service is either like a bulletin board everyone can read, which is fair game to all, or like private physical mail to select people which is not. There really isn't any in between.)
GPS tracking, sure, no problem, as long as you don't touch the car in any way to do it (if you attach something to my car, 1) I can do whatever I want with it, 2) I can charge you with vandalism/trespass/etc)
The rules ARE being re-written, but that's the last thing that SHOULD happen. people need to stop writing completely new laws just because the same activity happens in a new medium, the old laws should be just fine, interpret them in their original intent.
There would be a huge public outcry if these new laws allowed opening everyone's physical mail and wiretapping every person's phone conversations, but for some reason just because it happens "on the internet" people don't fight back. THIS is what needs to change, not the laws themselves.
Where I am, providers charge $10-$15 for a sim card, but they also like to tell you what sim card you need, so if you have an iphone according to their records, they want you to have a micro sim, and don't want to sell you a full size one (and vice-versa for people who's records indicate a non-iphone)
This discussion isn't about micro-sims (which as you point out, can be cut down from full size sims) the discussion is about nano-sims, which there is no reason at current to believe will be able to be cut down from full size, or micro sims.
Funny how every other phone manufacturer on the planet has been able to fit full size SIM cards in their phones, phones which are often no larger, and no less capable than the iPhone. If I don't know what I'm talking about, than neither to the engineers at every other cell phone company, the ones who have accidentally done something that you said there is no chance at all of doing.
And the whole point to both the micro and nano SIM standards is to force you to change to a new form factor as often as possible. As long as we have to be able to hold phones in our hands, there is no reason at all not to use full size SIM cards, unless you are trying to prevent people from simply taking the SIM out of their old phone and putting it in a new one....
With the current SIM standard, I can take the SIM out of a 10 year old phone, and pop it in to a brand new phone (except the iPhone that uses the micro-SIM "standard") and keep on talking. Obviously this is bad for business, so they want to make sure that I'll have to buy a new SIM to use my new phone. There is no other justification for it. There is no phone on the planet too small for a regular SIM, and as long as we need to hold the phones in our hands, there can't be.
As for patentable... EVERYTHING is patentable.... whether it SHOULD be is a completely different question, but one that is completely irrelevant to the companies involved.
If the teacher is still taking attendence, then what is gained from adding the RFID? This sounds like a really expensive, and not very accurate "fix" to a problem that was solved cheaply and more accurately centuries ago.
How is a situation in which you count uniforms instead of students an improvement in this area? do you really think the students are too dumb to figure out that they don't need to be present in class, they only have to make sure their chip is? Roll call is much more accurate, much harder to fake, and has the added benefit of being cheap. Not to mention the fact that after about day 5 of the semester it doesn't take any time as the teacher just does a cursory glance around to see which desks aren't occupied and they already know the students well enough to know who is missing by then. I'm all for technology solving problems, but only if it is at least as good as the existing system. until then you would be irresponsible to use it in a real life application like this.
Except that you couldn't fake attendence in the classroom (how long until the kids figure out where the chip is, how to remove it, and have their friends cover for them by carrying the chip to class?) and you couldn't be tracked by strangers. I love technology when it solves an existing problem, but when the existing solution is better than the technological replacement in almost every way, then it should be kept until the technology can catch up.
And what purpose does this serve? have teachers completely forgotten how to take attendance? I know it's low tech, but it's a whole lot more accurate, cheaper, and much less orwellian.
Would you mandate that they MUST leave? what if they like the job? or what if they feel that they are being reasonably compensated for their work? Who do you think you are to decide what tradeoffs are appropriate for someone other than yourself? It was admited that the pay was good, perhaps the pay is better than other places specifically to compensate for this clause in their contract, and maybe some people are willing to make that trade.
If an employer asks for things nobody will give, then they won't have employees. If they give their employees too much then they will have too much overhead and won't be able to compete in the market. It's a ballancing act. Now more likely it will fall somewhere between those two extremes, They probably find people, but not those most qualified, or highest skilled, and they probably have high turnover as people find better jobs. This increases their costs and causes them to either rethink their strategy, or become uncompetitive in the marketplace.
I don't see why you are advocating a union solution to the problem, when you just proved that the free market of labour can solve the very same issue much more effectively. If you aren't interested in the terms they provide, find another emnployer with better terms. The free market isn't just for products and services, it's also for labour, companies must compete to find workers, and if they are offering something you aren't willing to take, you go to the competing employer.
On a side note, I work for a company with a mandatory overtime provision, it's never been an issue because it is almost never used except in true emergencies, and even then anyone with half an excuse can get out of it (anyone who doesn't gets double time) I'm willing to live with the provision because the companyis a great place to work, treats it's workers well, I'd hate to be told that I couldn't have a job here because someone else thinks the mandatory overtime is too much, because I know that if the mandatory overtime thing wasn't an option we'd also loose our generous overtime rates, and probably some of the rest of our pay. It's my choice what company I work for, not some unions.
It's more that Oil's demand isn't particularly elastic. If you walked past the lemonade stand and their prices were $8 per glass, you'd chuckle and walk by, you'd go get a water, or an iced tea, or some other drink that is not so ridiculously overpriced. But with gasoline you sigh, grumble, and fill up the tank anyway. Some people may cut back on driving vacations, but in the grand scheme of things those are a drop in the bucket of overall consumption. Most consumption continues regardless of price. People may slowly buy more efficient vehicles, but that is a very slow and expensive process, and honestly, most modern vehicles are only a hair more efficient than their predecessors anyway. Nothing will change until alternative fuels become common place.
Airpush got around droidwall on my phone, but then again, the app that was infested required internet access to perform it's primary function. Once I figured out which app used airpush (that was the hard part) I uninstalled it, and left detailed negative feedback for the app in the market.
It's one thing to put ads in your app, but what right does any developer think they have to put ads in my notification bar when the app isn't even running!?!?!?!
And as a result of not wanting people to talk on the phone you'd deny them e-books, music, movies, web browsing, and many other things?
I don't want to hear people talk on their phones the whole flight either, there are other ways to deal with that, but let's not pretend that this is a safety thing unless it acutally is.