You really think that the trend of people flipping houses after a few years is going to continue? The credit crunch that is just now beginning has already put the hurt on real estate speculation; and the next people to feel it will be those who think they can buy a "starter home" now, pay on the mortgage for a few years, and still be able to sell at a profit and get cheap credit in less than a decade to buy something bigger. The housing industry as it stands today is built on the foundation of cheap credit, and when that goes away, it's going to change drastically.
Right now, I'm trying to sell a house that my family has lived in for over 11 years, but that's only because we can still walk away with a substantial profit. That probably won't be true as soon as a year from now. By the end of the decade, most people will probably be glad to own a home of any kind, and will be very much willing to make whatever capital improvements they can to decrease costs and make their home more livable.
A city council is an abstract entity that cannot think or speak on its own. Why should anyone at all claim the power to speak for the city council as a whole?Perhaps once the council has reached a consensus on an issue, it might fall on the mayor or a designated PR person to announce that; but certainly, nobody should claim to solely represent at all times the thoughts and positions of a council that is ultimately made up of individuals with diverse views.
There are already thousands of people keeping track of all the hands they play at online poker rooms and performing statistical analysis. A crooked poker room would not last long under this scrutiny. Even regular, house-advantage casino games could have this sort of analysis performed on them, and 50% payout rates would quickly be exposed. You can, in fact, know if you are being cheated. But really, it's not about whether or not you're being cheated, it's about how much the house is taking you for... in other words, how much do you want to spend on entertainment with the slight possibility of enrichment?
You fail to distinguish that the economic costs of copying "intellectual property" are negligible, while taking someone else's real property usually requires the use of force, one of the most strenuous forms of labor. In addition, it is beneficial to all individuals to recognize the real property rights of others, since if they don't, they are inviting somebody to take their shit as well. But man is a social animal, so it is in our very nature to spread ideas that we like. The metaphor of "ideas as property" is broken from the get-go, which is why it is maintained by the threat of force.
Of course, I don't expect you to understand natural law or the golden rule, since you're perpetuating that goofy old Hobbesian meme. But the bottom line is that the regime of state-enforced "intellectual property" is failing as information technology becomes ever-more cheaper and widespread. Wise artists will figure out other ways to make money from their craft.
a talent like Stewart or Colbert (or, more likely, somebody lower down the comedy totem pole) did break off from their network host and try to self-employ themselves through the web? It's becoming more feasible, and participation in community sites like YouTube is an integral part of future marketing strategies for online video. Consider this business model for a news program, for instance:
1) Every day, broadcast a live stream of the show as it's recorded. If subscriptions are broken up into tiers, this would be the central feature of the top tier, perhaps along with perks like call-in segments in each interview, which by necessity only subscribers would have access to. 2) As soon as the show's recorded, it's automatically up for sale on iTunes and what have you, so that the passive fanbase can download it as a "vodcast" (or whatever term is trendy enough to take over). 3) Have an editing team on hand to create a shorter Headline News-style presentation to be thrown up on YouTube for general consumption. It would still give prospective customers a run-down of the day's news while encouraging them to buy or subscribe to the "full version."
An aspiring newscaster could implement the 3rd step first and then expand the format of their program as they gain fame, but an already-big name could probably plop the whole thing onto the Web at once and start raking in the bucks. From my perspective, this requires a critical mass of both consumers and producers to begin realizing that they can finally cut out a number of the middlemen.
We have already been in a situation in which weapons of unfathomable destruction were poised to destroy all of human civilization. So far, we've only lost two cities to nuclear weapons, and those two were enough to make everybody who's ever wanted to use one step back and think for a minute. They also serve as some small precedent for the effects of the hypothetical weapon you suggest. Basically, if we've made it through over half a century's worth of possessing the ability of self-annihilation, I think we'll make it a little longer.
Look at it this way: of course it'll never be close to OS X in terms of interface design or polish, but if a GNUstep-based desktop solution gains traction, that can only be a good thing for the Mac as well as open-source platforms. More robust open-source Objective-C frameworks mean that Mac developers can potentially deploy their programs on many more computers, and that will in turn attract more developers to the NeXT-derivative frameworks.
On the other hand, these Étoilé guys seem to be writing as many of their own frameworks as they are contributing code back to the base GNUstep frameworks. That may be a wise decision, since the GNUstep project isn't focused on creating a desktop environment, but at the same time, I hope it isn't symptomatic of NIH syndrome. I would hate it if cross-developing for OS X and GNUstep systems wound up involving a bunch of compatibility shims and poser classes; that would wreck the whole effort.
2700 pounds is heavy? Not these days. For comparison, Porsche's new 911 GT2 is something like 3200lbs, and it's their fastest 911 yet. If the DMC people in Texas can come up with a turbo engine (and there's no reason they can't, independent DeLorean enthusiasts already have), a "new DeLorean" ought to perform decently, even if it does end up being overpriced for its performance.
There are solid arguments that such massive corporations rely on the state for their legal legitimacy. It is not nearly so sharp a dichotomy as you would have it be... especially since outfits like Lockheed and Halliburton rely on government contracts to survive, and Monsanto and Pfizer are driven by state-granted patent privileges (and it's barely worth mentioning that Coca-Cola has always relied on the perpetuity of "trade secret" status). I would not be surprised if state-granted advantages above and beyond corporate personhood could be found for each company you listed.
There's an open-source Linux driver for HFS+, I believe it's in the mainline kernel these days and has been for a while. And FAT32 compatibility need'nt be mentioned.
FF7: Advent Children's CGI was more successful, I think, but that may be because they backed down on the photorealism a tiny bit since they were working from existing video game designs. For what it's worth, I think a movie based on a suitably epic (or maybe just long-winded) action anime like Dragonball Z or Fist of the North Star would be a very good movie.
Voyager continued because Paramount needed something, anything to keep UPN going. Remember the shows that launched alongside Voyager? Stuff like Homeboys in Outer Space (a criminal misuse of James Doohan) and Moesha, hardly memorable television. Star Trek, wrestling, and maybe America's Next Top Model were the only things that ever generated ratings for UPN, and at the end, even Star Trek couldn't do it.
Yes, but most of seasons 1 and 2 were pretty bad. I remember being pretty turned off by the first few episodes I watched and only watching it sporadically afterwards. Then I came back for the 4th-season opener that introduced Worf, and suddenly it was worth watching.
Even if we accept the truth of your assertions, it remains that removing guns from the American market would be far, far more difficult than most of the other countries with gun control laws. It has longer borders with neighboring countries than England or Australia do, which feature established smuggling channels; many fewer internal checkpoints than the European Union; and a large number of firearms already in circulation. The short-term effect of disarming the populus would be opposite to the stated goal, and it is unlikely that gun-crime levels would ever drop to the same level of other countries with gun control laws, especially in combination with things like vice laws that keep criminal syndicates in business.
And beyond that, your argument puts forward an implicit moral statement that is not universal. Is it wrong to kill in self-defense? I doubt the majority of people would agree. Is it wrong to overthrow an oppresive government? America was founded on a resounding, "NO!" Therefore, it is not immediately apparent that what Col. Cooper says is something that "we as a society" frown upon. And the existence of a culture that encourages or glorifies violence is not something that can be attributed solely or even partially to the existence of legal firearms... I believe that was the central point of Michael Moore's documentary about guns. As for your last paragraph, find me statistics about murders and accidental manslaughters committed by people who owned the weapons legally (i.e. were not barred from owning firearms by a prior conviction). I seriously doubt those numbers would offset the number of incidents in which a firearm was legitimately used in self-defense, but I'm willing to be surprised.
No, Type II civilizations typically dedicate themselves to following the touring schedules of jam bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish. Their artifacts can be seen rusting away in junkyards that specialize in German cars.
Back to the Future told a story which deeply explored the effects of a pseudoscientific new technology on the main character's life. It doesn't get much closer to the core concepts of science fiction than that. That's why people argue that Star Wars is more fantasy than SF: the Star Wars universe features all these fantastic technologies, but they're mainly setpieces. On top of that, BTTF is widely regarded enough to regularly place on lists of the best movies of any genre, so its inclusion on a sci-fi list should not come as a surprise.
I hold the Back to the Future trilogy in substantially higher regard than either Star Wars trilogy, but maybe it's because I wasn't around in 1979.
I'd even go a bit farther than that. Throw out the idea of common "ownership," and instead consider the fact that the cost of communicating ideas and information is economically trivial, and getting lower all the time. Communication is a fundamental human activity, and creating artificial roadblocks to it for the benefit of a small minority makes no sense, no matter what's in the Constitution or the Berne Convention or whatever long-standing legal document you wish to throw down. Something that is not truly scarce cannot be considered property.
Slashdot Mirror
You really think that the trend of people flipping houses after a few years is going to continue? The credit crunch that is just now beginning has already put the hurt on real estate speculation; and the next people to feel it will be those who think they can buy a "starter home" now, pay on the mortgage for a few years, and still be able to sell at a profit and get cheap credit in less than a decade to buy something bigger. The housing industry as it stands today is built on the foundation of cheap credit, and when that goes away, it's going to change drastically.
Right now, I'm trying to sell a house that my family has lived in for over 11 years, but that's only because we can still walk away with a substantial profit. That probably won't be true as soon as a year from now. By the end of the decade, most people will probably be glad to own a home of any kind, and will be very much willing to make whatever capital improvements they can to decrease costs and make their home more livable.
Might I suggest that you provide the statistics to back up your argument yourself instead of merely begging the question?
A city council is an abstract entity that cannot think or speak on its own. Why should anyone at all claim the power to speak for the city council as a whole?Perhaps once the council has reached a consensus on an issue, it might fall on the mayor or a designated PR person to announce that; but certainly, nobody should claim to solely represent at all times the thoughts and positions of a council that is ultimately made up of individuals with diverse views.
There are already thousands of people keeping track of all the hands they play at online poker rooms and performing statistical analysis. A crooked poker room would not last long under this scrutiny. Even regular, house-advantage casino games could have this sort of analysis performed on them, and 50% payout rates would quickly be exposed. You can, in fact, know if you are being cheated. But really, it's not about whether or not you're being cheated, it's about how much the house is taking you for... in other words, how much do you want to spend on entertainment with the slight possibility of enrichment?
You fail to distinguish that the economic costs of copying "intellectual property" are negligible, while taking someone else's real property usually requires the use of force, one of the most strenuous forms of labor. In addition, it is beneficial to all individuals to recognize the real property rights of others, since if they don't, they are inviting somebody to take their shit as well. But man is a social animal, so it is in our very nature to spread ideas that we like. The metaphor of "ideas as property" is broken from the get-go, which is why it is maintained by the threat of force.
Of course, I don't expect you to understand natural law or the golden rule, since you're perpetuating that goofy old Hobbesian meme. But the bottom line is that the regime of state-enforced "intellectual property" is failing as information technology becomes ever-more cheaper and widespread. Wise artists will figure out other ways to make money from their craft.
a talent like Stewart or Colbert (or, more likely, somebody lower down the comedy totem pole) did break off from their network host and try to self-employ themselves through the web? It's becoming more feasible, and participation in community sites like YouTube is an integral part of future marketing strategies for online video. Consider this business model for a news program, for instance:
1) Every day, broadcast a live stream of the show as it's recorded. If subscriptions are broken up into tiers, this would be the central feature of the top tier, perhaps along with perks like call-in segments in each interview, which by necessity only subscribers would have access to.
2) As soon as the show's recorded, it's automatically up for sale on iTunes and what have you, so that the passive fanbase can download it as a "vodcast" (or whatever term is trendy enough to take over).
3) Have an editing team on hand to create a shorter Headline News-style presentation to be thrown up on YouTube for general consumption. It would still give prospective customers a run-down of the day's news while encouraging them to buy or subscribe to the "full version."
An aspiring newscaster could implement the 3rd step first and then expand the format of their program as they gain fame, but an already-big name could probably plop the whole thing onto the Web at once and start raking in the bucks. From my perspective, this requires a critical mass of both consumers and producers to begin realizing that they can finally cut out a number of the middlemen.
We have already been in a situation in which weapons of unfathomable destruction were poised to destroy all of human civilization. So far, we've only lost two cities to nuclear weapons, and those two were enough to make everybody who's ever wanted to use one step back and think for a minute. They also serve as some small precedent for the effects of the hypothetical weapon you suggest. Basically, if we've made it through over half a century's worth of possessing the ability of self-annihilation, I think we'll make it a little longer.
...if it was Batman doing it?
Look at it this way: of course it'll never be close to OS X in terms of interface design or polish, but if a GNUstep-based desktop solution gains traction, that can only be a good thing for the Mac as well as open-source platforms. More robust open-source Objective-C frameworks mean that Mac developers can potentially deploy their programs on many more computers, and that will in turn attract more developers to the NeXT-derivative frameworks.
On the other hand, these Étoilé guys seem to be writing as many of their own frameworks as they are contributing code back to the base GNUstep frameworks. That may be a wise decision, since the GNUstep project isn't focused on creating a desktop environment, but at the same time, I hope it isn't symptomatic of NIH syndrome. I would hate it if cross-developing for OS X and GNUstep systems wound up involving a bunch of compatibility shims and poser classes; that would wreck the whole effort.
2700 pounds is heavy? Not these days. For comparison, Porsche's new 911 GT2 is something like 3200lbs, and it's their fastest 911 yet. If the DMC people in Texas can come up with a turbo engine (and there's no reason they can't, independent DeLorean enthusiasts already have), a "new DeLorean" ought to perform decently, even if it does end up being overpriced for its performance.
There are solid arguments that such massive corporations rely on the state for their legal legitimacy. It is not nearly so sharp a dichotomy as you would have it be... especially since outfits like Lockheed and Halliburton rely on government contracts to survive, and Monsanto and Pfizer are driven by state-granted patent privileges (and it's barely worth mentioning that Coca-Cola has always relied on the perpetuity of "trade secret" status). I would not be surprised if state-granted advantages above and beyond corporate personhood could be found for each company you listed.
The ESRB isn't a state agency, so it's not really part of the nanny state. Maybe the nanny cartel?
There's an open-source Linux driver for HFS+, I believe it's in the mainline kernel these days and has been for a while. And FAT32 compatibility need'nt be mentioned.
FF7: Advent Children's CGI was more successful, I think, but that may be because they backed down on the photorealism a tiny bit since they were working from existing video game designs. For what it's worth, I think a movie based on a suitably epic (or maybe just long-winded) action anime like Dragonball Z or Fist of the North Star would be a very good movie.
And an open-source clone called TA: Spring at http://spring.clan-sy.com/
When will this much more important TLD be open for registrations?
Voyager continued because Paramount needed something, anything to keep UPN going. Remember the shows that launched alongside Voyager? Stuff like Homeboys in Outer Space (a criminal misuse of James Doohan) and Moesha, hardly memorable television. Star Trek, wrestling, and maybe America's Next Top Model were the only things that ever generated ratings for UPN, and at the end, even Star Trek couldn't do it.
Yes, but most of seasons 1 and 2 were pretty bad. I remember being pretty turned off by the first few episodes I watched and only watching it sporadically afterwards. Then I came back for the 4th-season opener that introduced Worf, and suddenly it was worth watching.
If science ceases to be a progenitor to the advancement of technology, what function does it now serve?
Even if we accept the truth of your assertions, it remains that removing guns from the American market would be far, far more difficult than most of the other countries with gun control laws. It has longer borders with neighboring countries than England or Australia do, which feature established smuggling channels; many fewer internal checkpoints than the European Union; and a large number of firearms already in circulation. The short-term effect of disarming the populus would be opposite to the stated goal, and it is unlikely that gun-crime levels would ever drop to the same level of other countries with gun control laws, especially in combination with things like vice laws that keep criminal syndicates in business.
And beyond that, your argument puts forward an implicit moral statement that is not universal. Is it wrong to kill in self-defense? I doubt the majority of people would agree. Is it wrong to overthrow an oppresive government? America was founded on a resounding, "NO!" Therefore, it is not immediately apparent that what Col. Cooper says is something that "we as a society" frown upon. And the existence of a culture that encourages or glorifies violence is not something that can be attributed solely or even partially to the existence of legal firearms... I believe that was the central point of Michael Moore's documentary about guns. As for your last paragraph, find me statistics about murders and accidental manslaughters committed by people who owned the weapons legally (i.e. were not barred from owning firearms by a prior conviction). I seriously doubt those numbers would offset the number of incidents in which a firearm was legitimately used in self-defense, but I'm willing to be surprised.
No, Type II civilizations typically dedicate themselves to following the touring schedules of jam bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish. Their artifacts can be seen rusting away in junkyards that specialize in German cars.
The biggest trick Batman ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist
All right, we will assume the truth of your proposition. Next question: what gives rise to these personality types?
Actually, you know what, fuck it. Just admit it: You pulled that out of your ass, didn't you?
Back to the Future told a story which deeply explored the effects of a pseudoscientific new technology on the main character's life. It doesn't get much closer to the core concepts of science fiction than that. That's why people argue that Star Wars is more fantasy than SF: the Star Wars universe features all these fantastic technologies, but they're mainly setpieces. On top of that, BTTF is widely regarded enough to regularly place on lists of the best movies of any genre, so its inclusion on a sci-fi list should not come as a surprise.
I hold the Back to the Future trilogy in substantially higher regard than either Star Wars trilogy, but maybe it's because I wasn't around in 1979.
I'd even go a bit farther than that. Throw out the idea of common "ownership," and instead consider the fact that the cost of communicating ideas and information is economically trivial, and getting lower all the time. Communication is a fundamental human activity, and creating artificial roadblocks to it for the benefit of a small minority makes no sense, no matter what's in the Constitution or the Berne Convention or whatever long-standing legal document you wish to throw down. Something that is not truly scarce cannot be considered property.