Extremist Christian groups exist, and they send out death threats on a regular basis to a wide variety of people for all sorts of reasons. The difference between them and the Muslim extremists is the Muslim extremists are much better funded and better organized, so they're able to carry out their threats more often and in a much more spectacular fashion.
Really, was in Muslims who gunned down Dr George Tiller? Any Muslims involved in the car bomb which exploded in Newry a couple of months ago?
So when the supporting numbers are well and truly shown to be bogus can we invalidate all the legislation that they inspired as well?
Might not be a good idea to "invalidate" all the legislators responsible for passing it too. Just to be on the safe side best invalidate any other legislation they may have passed. Since checking proposed legislation and the claims supporting it is part of their job!
There's no way to make any kind of meaningful estimate as to how much piracy there is, let alone how much or if any of that results in lost sales or gained sales.
The industries involved just don't want to believe that "piracy" can result in gained sales or that it can make no difference to sales. Nor do they want to consider if it is their own actions, such as staggered releases and DRM, are relevent factors.
The cancelled planes would have belched out 14 times more CO2 and SO2 than one pesky little volcano. Nature? Feeble, I say, bah!
No doubt the lack of aviation has resulted in extra useage of other vehicles which use fossil fuels. You'd also need to compare the effects of the volcanic cloud compared with contrails created by planes.
The problem with regulation is that it is bought and paid for by the same companies to be regulated.
A process known as "regulatory capture".
As nice as an altruistic regulatory body might sound it just wont ever happen. Sure big business is full of corruptions and problems, but nothing like that that is seen in the government. I always side with the easy to understand evil of greed in big business than the much more sinister and difficult to understand lust for power that is government.
If one man can be acknowledged by the cyber-community to make a difference, (and, in passing, hats off to him), imagine what Government could do with a well-financed team of, say, ten people?
Which would cost considerably less than the amount governments are willing to spend on "anti-terrorist" for very questionable "results".
Cyber-crime costs a hugh, and increasing, amount of money, (see comments here on/. about the true cost of spam). Unfortunately, Governments do not seem to take it seriously enough. Maybe because it rarely hits to headlines, and so is perceived as less of an issue, (i.e. vote winner).
Indeed anti spam/scam would make a lot more sense to be in the ACTA treaty than lots of the stuff currently in there which has nothing much to do with "Counterfeiting".
It will be interesting to see what happens if and when Congress attempts to mandate spyware on every single operating personal computer in the United States. And, I might add, not a program that reports to a legitimate law-enforcement agency (if any such Federal organizations exist in the present time), but to the private sector.
Who would the computers of Congressmen report to, what about those of RIAA and MPAA members...
I "want" constant IRS scrutiny of all their books.
Especially given that these industries use all sorts of dodgy accounting to avoid paying people such as screenwriters. Thus, any of their claims for losses due to "piracy" should be taken with a large pinch of sylvite.
It's a complete kneejerk reaction. I know some of our neighbouring countries have had a more sensible lockdown of airspace, but in Denmark the entire FIR was shut down for all airspace users. Since Thursday. Never mind the fact that quite a few of the airspace users would be completely unaffected flying in this weather, just as they would be unaffected if some dust was hurled up from the ground. Could someone please show me a good reason why short distance low level VFR helicopter traffic, landing practices for prop-pilots, all glider activity (no engine!), all paraglider activity (no engine, no instruments!), and all balloon activity should be shut down when the national met-office has issued no warnings about dangerous weather?
Even big jets can fly below their usual cruising altitude. Even though range is much reduced the extra fuel might still be cheaper the current situation.
There is a way an EULA can be a binding contract for the consumer, if and only if the retailer puts into his terms and conditions a clause, that by buying a good the buyer agrees to whatever EULA comes with the good purchased. But in this case the retailer should be able to hand a copy of the EULA to the consumer whenever asked for it.
Or even a copy before they become a customer. Which a potential customer can examine elsewhere with the help of whatever lawyers they might choose.
Read the EULA here. ( http://www.scei.co.jp/ps3-eula/ps3_eula_en.html )
It is explicitly said in the EULA that the warranty of "fitness for a particular purpose" is totally disclaimed in any imaginable or non-imaginable way.
The EULA applies to firmware, too, according to the 3rd paragraph.
In order for an EULA to mean anything at all it must be consistent with the "law of the land". That is all relevant statute, case and common laws where you are (or possibly where you bought the whatever).
With environmental things in particular, mandating specific technologies has very high risks of regulatory capture, where the mandate is used to push well-connected products and sectors, even if they don't make any sense by any objective measures
My First though was along the lines of "Which suppliers and/or patent holders stand to benefit from this?"
see: "clean coal", ethanol).
Together with a whole host of other "green" ideas which have not been though through long term (or for that matter blatant fraud...)
"But neither the smaller nor larger sheep showed signs of the ventricular fibrillation condition" is all well and good but I have to wonder if the fact that the sheep were sedated might not help out with this.
Also did they attempt to duplicate the "purity" of black market drugs?
Most books, movies, etc make the majority of the money they are ever going to make soon after publication/release. Those which continue to make money for many years are exceptional. Those which suddenly start making money after a period of time are very exceptional. Typically if you havn't made a profit after X amount of time then you are never going to. Where X is often considerably less than 7 years. A short copyright term is likely to be better at encouraging the creation of new works too.
The biggest and most important achievements in science and art happened before the existence of copyright and patent laws.
Even in modern times there are plenty of examples where copyright appears to have been more or less irrelevent. Typically obscurity is more of a risk that "piracy".
To tell people that they cannot freely share the ideas of another person for one hundred years...it just seems to fly in the face of advancement.
Ironically "advancement" is one of the justifications for such laws in the first place. Though this may be an example of "too much of a good things is bad for you".
If 14 years was considered an adequate amount of time to capitalize on an idea back then, before the days of speedy digital distribution (and speedy analog distribution!), why is it so long now?
There are also much more (literate) people around compared with the 18th century, thus many more potential customers. In many cases the majority of money is made in much less than 14 years. With movies and popular music this may be closer to 14 days...
Essentially, from what I read (correct me if something changed in the final bill), a copyright holder can accuse you of pirating anything without evidence, and your provider must throttle/disconnect you.
Given that with current copyright laws it would be easier to list non copyright holders things might get quite interesting quite quickly. e.g. every MP who voted for this gets such an accusation:)
How is it a representative democracy if my representative isn't present to represent me during a vote which impacts me ?
Even worst if they are the person promoting the legislation
There should be a 90% attendance quorum for votes or better yet pay parliamentarians the median salary of the country and then dock their pay for each vote they missed.
Why not do both? Linking their pay to median income means that it's actually in their interests to improve the economy of the country. (Also needs a proper expenses system though.)
Slashdot Mirror
Extremist Christian groups exist, and they send out death threats on a regular basis to a wide variety of people for all sorts of reasons. The difference between them and the Muslim extremists is the Muslim extremists are much better funded and better organized, so they're able to carry out their threats more often and in a much more spectacular fashion.
Really, was in Muslims who gunned down Dr George Tiller? Any Muslims involved in the car bomb which exploded in Newry a couple of months ago?
Oh, you mean like how Cannabis is listed as Schedule I in the US despite the fact that it matches NONE of the criteria for Schedule I?
Wonder how many legal drugs meet these criteria...
If a war is started based on inaccurate information, troops should be removed automatically once it the info is proven inaccurate.
I'd go further and advocate replacing them with the politicians (and any associated hangers on) who supported the war in the first place.
So when the supporting numbers are well and truly shown to be bogus can we invalidate all the legislation that they inspired as well?
Might not be a good idea to "invalidate" all the legislators responsible for passing it too. Just to be on the safe side best invalidate any other legislation they may have passed. Since checking proposed legislation and the claims supporting it is part of their job!
That just demonstrates that pirates are using their new-found wealth to buy better prostheses. Maybe laser eyes and bionic legs.
:)
How about bionic eyes which instantly adapt to different light levels
How do they argue against their revenues going up every year?
Especially in the current economic situation. Maybe the wrong numbers are being looked at.
There's no way to make any kind of meaningful estimate as to how much piracy there is, let alone how much or if any of that results in lost sales or gained sales.
The industries involved just don't want to believe that "piracy" can result in gained sales or that it can make no difference to sales. Nor do they want to consider if it is their own actions, such as staggered releases and DRM, are relevent factors.
No data == no meaningful guesses.
Even Garbage In Garbage Out.
In the sciences you put a huge effort into quantifying error.
Which can be a good metric for spotting psudoscience, which dosn't tend to do thia...
The cancelled planes would have belched out 14 times more CO2 and SO2 than one pesky little volcano. Nature? Feeble, I say, bah!
No doubt the lack of aviation has resulted in extra useage of other vehicles which use fossil fuels. You'd also need to compare the effects of the volcanic cloud compared with contrails created by planes.
The problem with regulation is that it is bought and paid for by the same companies to be regulated.
A process known as "regulatory capture".
As nice as an altruistic regulatory body might sound it just wont ever happen. Sure big business is full of corruptions and problems, but nothing like that that is seen in the government. I always side with the easy to understand evil of greed in big business than the much more sinister and difficult to understand lust for power that is government.
Assuming you can draw a line between the two...
If one man can be acknowledged by the cyber-community to make a difference, (and, in passing, hats off to him), imagine what Government could do with a well-financed team of, say, ten people?
/. about the true cost of spam). Unfortunately, Governments do not seem to take it seriously enough. Maybe because it rarely hits to headlines, and so is perceived as less of an issue, (i.e. vote winner).
Which would cost considerably less than the amount governments are willing to spend on "anti-terrorist" for very questionable "results".
Cyber-crime costs a hugh, and increasing, amount of money, (see comments here on
Indeed anti spam/scam would make a lot more sense to be in the ACTA treaty than lots of the stuff currently in there which has nothing much to do with "Counterfeiting".
It will be interesting to see what happens if and when Congress attempts to mandate spyware on every single operating personal computer in the United States. And, I might add, not a program that reports to a legitimate law-enforcement agency (if any such Federal organizations exist in the present time), but to the private sector.
Who would the computers of Congressmen report to, what about those of RIAA and MPAA members...
I "want" constant IRS scrutiny of all their books.
Especially given that these industries use all sorts of dodgy accounting to avoid paying people such as screenwriters. Thus, any of their claims for losses due to "piracy" should be taken with a large pinch of sylvite.
You do realise that 'mothers maiden name' is a 'poor excuse for an easily remembered password' and that you could type anything, right?
:)
You realise that Icelanders do naming differently, not having "surnames" there is no such things as a "mothers maiden name" there
It's a complete kneejerk reaction. I know some of our neighbouring countries have had a more sensible lockdown of airspace, but in Denmark the entire FIR was shut down for all airspace users. Since Thursday. Never mind the fact that quite a few of the airspace users would be completely unaffected flying in this weather, just as they would be unaffected if some dust was hurled up from the ground.
Could someone please show me a good reason why short distance low level VFR helicopter traffic, landing practices for prop-pilots, all glider activity (no engine!), all paraglider activity (no engine, no instruments!), and all balloon activity should be shut down when the national met-office has issued no warnings about dangerous weather?
Even big jets can fly below their usual cruising altitude. Even though range is much reduced the extra fuel might still be cheaper the current situation.
There is a way an EULA can be a binding contract for the consumer, if and only if the retailer puts into his terms and conditions a clause, that by buying a good the buyer agrees to whatever EULA comes with the good purchased. But in this case the retailer should be able to hand a copy of the EULA to the consumer whenever asked for it.
Or even a copy before they become a customer. Which a potential customer can examine elsewhere with the help of whatever lawyers they might choose.
Read the EULA here. ( http://www.scei.co.jp/ps3-eula/ps3_eula_en.html )
It is explicitly said in the EULA that the warranty of "fitness for a particular purpose" is totally disclaimed in any imaginable or non-imaginable way.
The EULA applies to firmware, too, according to the 3rd paragraph.
In order for an EULA to mean anything at all it must be consistent with the "law of the land". That is all relevant statute, case and common laws where you are (or possibly where you bought the whatever).
With environmental things in particular, mandating specific technologies has very high risks of regulatory capture, where the mandate is used to push well-connected products and sectors, even if they don't make any sense by any objective measures
My First though was along the lines of "Which suppliers and/or patent holders stand to benefit from this?"
see: "clean coal", ethanol).
Together with a whole host of other "green" ideas which have not been though through long term (or for that matter blatant fraud...)
"But neither the smaller nor larger sheep showed signs of the ventricular fibrillation condition" is all well and good but I have to wonder if the fact that the sheep were sedated might not help out with this.
Also did they attempt to duplicate the "purity" of black market drugs?
if every idea was protected forever, that would eventually create a legal minefield for anyone trying to publish something new.
It dosn't even need to be every idea to create an effective "minefield".
Sorry, but 7 years is too short.
Most books, movies, etc make the majority of the money they are ever going to make soon after publication/release. Those which continue to make money for many years are exceptional. Those which suddenly start making money after a period of time are very exceptional.
Typically if you havn't made a profit after X amount of time then you are never going to. Where X is often considerably less than 7 years. A short copyright term is likely to be better at encouraging the creation of new works too.
The biggest and most important achievements in science and art happened before the existence of copyright and patent laws.
Even in modern times there are plenty of examples where copyright appears to have been more or less irrelevent. Typically obscurity is more of a risk that "piracy".
To tell people that they cannot freely share the ideas of another person for one hundred years...it just seems to fly in the face of advancement.
Ironically "advancement" is one of the justifications for such laws in the first place. Though this may be an example of "too much of a good things is bad for you".
If 14 years was considered an adequate amount of time to capitalize on an idea back then, before the days of speedy digital distribution (and speedy analog distribution!), why is it so long now?
There are also much more (literate) people around compared with the 18th century, thus many more potential customers.
In many cases the majority of money is made in much less than 14 years. With movies and popular music this may be closer to 14 days...
Essentially, from what I read (correct me if something changed in the final bill), a copyright holder can accuse you of pirating anything without evidence, and your provider must throttle/disconnect you.
:)
Given that with current copyright laws it would be easier to list non copyright holders things might get quite interesting quite quickly. e.g. every MP who voted for this gets such an accusation
How is it a representative democracy if my representative isn't present to represent me during a vote which impacts me ?
Even worst if they are the person promoting the legislation
There should be a 90% attendance quorum for votes or better yet pay parliamentarians the median salary of the country and then dock their pay for each vote they missed.
Why not do both? Linking their pay to median income means that it's actually in their interests to improve the economy of the country. (Also needs a proper expenses system though.)
We already knew of anaerobic monocellular life, so hypothetically life could arise on a planet without oxygen.
Including Earth a long time ago, before there were organisms producing free oxygen through photosynthesis.
The only thing this changes is that it means we could hypothetically also find multicellular life on such a planet.
Quite possibly multicellular anerobic organisms have been around for a long time.