Just give it ten years of free coverage and charge a percentage of earnings for the next ten with a minimum, repeat ad infinitum.
How it works Stephen king writes a book. He gets ten years coverage and then loses it unless he pays X % (we will use 20% in the example) of his first ten years earnings to ge another ten. Now lets say he makes 5 000 000 from the book in the first ten years. He would probably pay a million to retain rights. After 20 he has earnt another 5 000 000 from further sales and a movie deal. Now does he think it is worth paying another 2 million for another 10 years, maybe maybe not.
I include a minimum to stop companies from hording low selling rights for ever and to allow individuals to cover non profitable works just because they want to. A minimum of 500-1000 dollars per extension for a company would see many low selling books released from copyright really quickly. Would a company wish to retain full copyright on something that is not selling if they have to pay for it. No.
For an individual earning less than something like $5000 they can pay for year blocks of works. For example a free newsletter writer pays $1000 to cover his works from a decade before for another decade. Thus every year he has to pay a $1000 to keep his non earning works protected. If he never earns anything fine, he has made the decision to pay up, but if he becomes President or famous or something his early works could become valuable earners. Then of course he would mover into the paying a % group of copyright holders.
Start with a ten year exclusive right. Then have a option to purchase a further ten years at 20% of the first ten years take from the exclusive rights. Now when that ten years is finished allow for the purchase of a further 10 at 20% of the first 20 years take. You obviously have to index the income with inflation. This put's an obvious value on the monopoly and it must be repurchased from society by those who would benefit from it every decade.
Now I have seen figures of total US media and Film IP valued at over a trillion dollars. That is a trillion dollar monopoly situation. Admitedly somewhat spread around but also with some areas of heavy concentration. Government used to be funded from tariffs, charges and concessions back at the founding of the US. Institute a tax on the monopoly concession of copyright and you would gain a considerable government income stream from the most highly valued copyrights. At the same time most copyrights would be released after 10 years and very few would be willing to pay past 30 years.
For numbers try the following - Stephen King writes a book like 'Salems Lot', in ten years it generates 2 million in income. Ten years rolls around from it entering the public sphere and he has the option of extending his exclusive monopoly on the book for $400 000. If he thinks it would be worth it fine, he pays up and he earns another million. When 20 years elapse he has made 3 million out of it but believes he won't make any more than 1 million out of it in the next decade and decides $600 000 is too much to pay for the continued monopoly so he releases it.
Now lets look at mr clever scientist working on a life long series of articles in Peer review journals. He writes a pack of articles and earns about $1000 for them. If he wishes to keep them copyrighted past 10 years it costs hime $200. The question is why would he obviously no one wants them due to his lack of income so his monopoly is effectively without value, except for potential ego value.
The Defence Signals Directorate in this situation was supporting a military operation to regain control of a vessel who's captain was operating under coercion.
I believe that there would be no legal clearance required in this situation. There does need to be such clearance before any other non militarily necesary intercepts are passed on.
A good similar example is the police listening in on the phone conversations of hijackers or at a bank siege. I would safely assume that these intercepts would not need court permission in most countries. Although I am sure that a defence lawyer somewhere has tried the right to privacy excuse while the perp was shooting up hostages.
Re:I resent the underlying sexism of your comment.
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The Ultimate S.U.V.
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Actually in Australia it is illegal to eat or drink while driving. The simple act of moving the food or drink to your mouth and getting it in will obstruct the view of the road or divide the drivers attention. It is also illegal to use a mobile while in motion. It is strongly advised not to smoke or at least not light up while driving.
The 3 leading causes of death on the roads in Aus are Excessive speed, Alcohol abuse and Driver fatigue. (knowingly driving while fatigued is illegal, currently defined as 8 hours for professional long distance drivers) Almost all of what is left are caused by distractions with only a small number due to outright stupidity, intent or defect.
For example most accidental pedestrian hits or near instantaneous losses of control or accidental centre line crossings are caused by a distraction within the vehicle. When all accidents are looked at rather than just fatal ones the number of distraction accidents climbs dramatically. The various governments in Aus have therefore outlawed obviously distractive influences. As mobiles, eating and drinking are the highest recorded distractors at the moment they are the ones being targeted.
It is not impossible it just requires a generational plan. Rabbit fences at 10km to a side dedicated hunting and extermination along with disease easily clears out areas. There are now regions of Aus that have no Rabbits due to the release of the Virus and the farmers in those areas are setting up fences and watch carefully to make sure they don't come back.
The major problem with rabbits is their eating of all new shoots in the area they inhabit. In studies in the early 90's even a death rate of 98% in a 10 acre control paddock resulted in no mass regrowth. The 3 surviving Rabbits in the enclosure still managed to keep biting just the tops off all the shoots and still stopped regrowth. Once they were shot the plot experienced a 500% Biomass increase in 12 months.
Large Herbivours are not serious problems for Australia as they are so easy to eliminate. Even a seriously unexperienced person such as myself managed to kull 108 buffalo in 60 days during the rainy season in the NT in '87. Make me more mobile with the buffalo concentrated around water sources and not caring about getting the carcass to the Abatoir and 10 a day would be easy. Rhinos would be seriously cool, but Hippos and elephants are simply too destructive of the tree's and rivers to be free range.
The T3 book is by noted military Sci fi writer S.M. Stirling.
The Terminatrix is a bio engineered, almost all meat female. There is numerous implants etc with most of the T-800's weapons handling etc. So far the book seems quite good. I am assuming this is the book the movie would be made from but the terminator charachter is female.
The book includes details on various Terminator models: Original all metal exo's, exos with rubber skin, exos with improved skin, Bio exos, Living metal, etc.
Well the shadow will cover at some point or another the entire area ^5Km south of the tower from horizon to horizon the shadow will need to cover 140+ Km in a day. In otherwords it will be moving with the same average speed as a olympic class mile runner. The tower will not be that wide so I expect the shadow to not cover any point outside the canopy for much longer than a minute.
In fact in the morning and afternoon the shadow will be absolutely flying over the distant landscape.
Actually the force of the wind coming up the tower would probably allow an infinite jump time if not actually launch you backwards out the top.
Put a nice metal grid to land on about 200m from the bottom and you could do your 3 hr jump and then just land and walk out near the bottom.
I actually put forward this as a high school science project in 1984. My design was smaller though around 200m radius with a 250m tower. I figured it to generate 180Kw. It would also use condensation traps to retain water from the air and thus greatly assist in agriculture under the greenhouse. Nice hot humid environment with over 2/3rds of the moisture reclaimed allows much more sustainable growing while supplying power to the grid. The greenhouse handled rain by having gravity wells in the canopy material that allowed run through. I got a B as I did not make a scale working model.
Here in Aus large numbers of houses and public buildings already use roof air outlets that turn as they release the hot air from the ceiling cavity, has anyone considered setting these up as a generator? Depending on their design they could also work in colder times by catching the wind.
Re:Purely defensive??????? I dont think so....
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120mm HEAT rounds burning through the overhead armour will ruin most tanks. Not to mention the ability to move against the flank and rear of the tank once it is immobile.
Mind you the Laser is much more likely to score a electronics kill on a tank making it almost useless at longer ranges. If the Laser punps enough heat into the Hull It may become unliveably hot as well.
Re:"dynamic stability"
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>>>Can't you see that a vehicle which uses Dynamic Stability to be driven as an extension of your own body movements is a great innovation?
>>What, you mean like... a bicycle? Or roller skates?
>Um, maybe, but I've never seen anyone a bike or rollerblades (especially in a stationary position) defined as stabile.
I have never fallen off my bike, when riding on the road, and injured myself since I was 5. I have been hit by a car twice (I was able to leave my vehicle successfully before the collision one of those times), another cyclist and once by a pedestrian. In these situations I had no control over what the other party did the same will happen with this.
You want to know what a new pass time will be for bored Teenagers. Developing ways of crashing these just for the laughs. It sounds like It will handle things smoothly until it reaches a critical point and then it will fail.
Re:Speaking of retards.
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>>Who won't be able to lug it around everywhere
>Read the article, idiot. This is largely a nonissue. (What is an issue is that you have to stand up to use the current model, but if the technology can't be adapted to a chair or flatbed-form unit, I'll be stunned.)
As a replacement for walking the only time you are hopping off would be when you can't move through an area on it. Therefore IT probably won't be able to auto follow you either and you will need to carry it.
If it is auto following and I kick it and fall on my face I will be angry. Some people will beat it into fragments, others will assault you and others will sue you for a million or more.
>>$3000 worth of aspirational toy
>Haven't priced electric wheelchairs or sit-down transports recently, have you? Let me assure you that the Segway is (or, rather, will be) quite competitive, not to mention smaller, lighter and more agile.
The people who use Wheelchairs and sit down transports do so mainly because of both an inability to walk and to stand for long periods, that is not overly helped by this. The extra size for sit down transports also gains you carry space, comfort and in the future a nice fuel cell system for power.
Re:It's a damn $3000 scooter
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Oh and did I mention that you'll look like the bigest fucking idiot on that thing. Good luck not getting your ass kicked. You'll be like one of those blow-up punching bags that you can't knock down.
That is so Funny. Great! now everyone knows I can't be working.
I can just see the comedy skits now. Two people bump into each other and the machines rebalance themselves forcing you to bump together again.
Followed by the jokes about this replacing the stress of walking as two people walk along followed by the rider careening down stairs.
Then you get The MAD approach with the rider thinking he's so cool using it to get to work without straining and getting sweaty but then having to lug it up 3-4 flights of stairs.
Re:Bingo!-issues with IT
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2. Weather. A car is more than transport, it's a weather sheild. I don't want to ride in 110 degree Texas heat with no a/c. Besides, how could you get laid in it?
Well lets see it detects the motions of the rider and converts them into decisions about how to move. It suspect you could be seriously hurt trying to get laid on one of these. I can just see IT now, OOh OOH OOOOHH Slam (as IT propels you into a wall).
Re:Why waste all the time developing "gyros"...
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So what happens when they decide they need a recount?
Although funny it is also serious, what does happen when it has a situation where the electronics say 'im not sure what to do'. As it is effectively a controlled face flop onto the pavement any failure would have you falling forward. Not particularly serious until someone gets catapulted forward off the sidewalk into traffic because it hits a rut or the rider reacts strangely to a shapely woman bending over to pick up something.
Re:What is important in technology?
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This is IT?
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Being only $3000 and probably dropping to 2000 in 3-4 years means that stealing them will almost never be investigated seriously by police. Stealing a 50 000 dollar car is almost ignored by the police what are your chances if your IT walks off.
Insurance companies will also start saying things like, 'it costs $3000, you need to do more than chain it up'.
As to those who say it will be good for covering 1-2 miles to the shop and back. What do you do now, this thing is not that much quicker than being on foot especially when you take into account the time taken at either end to prepare and secure it. If you take the car now because of time constraints, they are still there. If you use the car because you are lazy, then you will probably be too lazy to be bothered with this. I walk to the shop about 2/3rds of a mile away but I cut across a park etc to do so. Can this go cross country or do I need to take a longer route.
I can step down onto the road surface and cross at any point, this 'IT' will require a ramp to go up and down. What happens when 30 'IT' riders want to cross the road at once , mass traffic jam on the ramp. Will cities like to cop the Bill for rebuilding the footpath verges for all roads, what happens when a person injured by a car riding up the new all ramping verge sues over unsafe conditions.
I suspect it will be treated not unlike existing scooters and skateboards.
Re:Traffic Safety Statistics
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Just to reiterate the warning. I received a set of such pictures in a email cold one morning about 1 minute after walking in the door at work. I almost threw up and had flash backs when it was mentioned above. I am not particularly weak or easy to disturb.
The email had been broadcast to the whole department and as others were arriving I warned them strenuously to just delete the email. Over half still went and opened it though. We actually had to calm down two semi hysterical ladies and sent one home for the day.
Management were not happy at all with the sender and removed all email access from them(He was so close to being sacked, and later left/pushed), sent a heart felt apology to the staff and rewrote the rulebook. Any JPG, and other picture and executable files attached to emails were redirected to a person who checked them for the next month. The work contract was then altered to allow the sacking of staff for sending such images unsolicited.
And in South Aus you can use whatever you grow yourself and don't attempt to sell. I believe the description of that amount is now upto 5 mature harvestable plants at any one time. You may of course just give away the excess to friends (and they have had to make a legal definition for that) instead of selling it. Most states have also legalised prostitution as well.
The various governments do seem cative to a conservative cabal at times, so we see the PM personally push through laws to stop things he disagrees with but most of these will change when he retires somepoint in the next 3 years. I expect to see euthanasia legalised somewhere within 5 years as well as heroin injecting facilities and medically prescription potentially within 10. Face it if you take away the profits from the dealers, make it safer and legalise it while showing how pathetically uncool you end up when you do use, I suspect we will have much lower take up rates. Just about every case of serious corruption in Australian police services has to do with Drug money and most police services employee reps say legalisation will be the only long term way to get rid of corruption.
The government only managed a 1.5% swing towards them for all their bigoted scare mongering but that is partially because the major oposition party has supported everything the Government has said for the last 10 weeks before the election. The party that did push the counter view happened to be a environmentalist green party that doubled it's vote, at the same time the rabid nationalist right wing party more than halved its vote.
As to the Norwegian Boat incident, If 300 afghan refugees were picked up by a Australian freighter in french waters waters and was meant to be going on to a spanish port but then was forced by the refugees to turn around and go to England would england have just stood by and let them land. For this particular incident there is a actual excuse for making a international incident. For the following 5 boatloads there is no excuse that the government can use for it's attitude.
On the other hand we now have 3000+ refugees whose reason for claiming refugee status is political persecution by the taliban. So I expect them all to be deported back to Afghanistan by our government some point in the next 3 months. I also expect to see a lot of other countries doing similar things.
Unsure exactly where you are from or if the article was meant to be factual or sarcastic.
Australia has 1 vote per person, a directly elected representative house and a proportionally elected house and voting is mandatory. People though vote on big issues, not what they consider little ones and face it 95% of the population thinks the internet is a small issue. Especially when planes are crashing into buildings and both major parties in the country act like wrmongering bigots. As to other suggestions about delaying the legislation till the next election, the last election federally here was 12 days ago so we only have another 1000+ days to go.
Re:Worse Re:It means the US has taken over the wor
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Do the last part. Buy food at local food shops, if any exist in your area. Buy clothes at a tailors or local small clothing concern, if any remain in your area. Buy shoes at the local shoe store stocking locally made shoes, if any exist in your area. Buy your energy from a local energy producer, if any exist in your area. Buy your house from a local non corpoarate linked builder, if any exist in your area.
You may have got my point. There are large areas of the planet where the ability to stay with local or regional producers doesn't exist. In Aus for example 3 companies control 92% of retail food and clothing sales. In agriculture certain cartels control 90+% of the business at different layers of the growth and distribution network for certain crops and are rapidly trying to absorb the remainder. About 95% of western Energy needs is supplied by a select group of heavily linked corporations and they don't like people even discussing using less energy.
There are alternatives to buying large corporation products and I do try where it is possible and it is not going to cost me more than 50% more. I though have a income that allows that, If I was poorer I would effectively be limited to the large corp products until they have complete dominance and then the prices start to climb.
In reply to the final part of your post - "If 10% of the population own 95% of the property, those born with little spend their lives in service to the 10%. Governments can (and do)alleviate this. "
The answer is simple gifting should count as normal income. Bill Gates N(he's a 3rd or something and I can't be bothered looking for it) can Gift his wealth when he dies. If he gives it to a Charity, no tax. If he gifts it to an individual or Corporate interest then they get hit with standard income tax for the value of the gift. Bill Gates N+1 receives 100 billion when dad dies but has to pay 28% or what ever your top rate tax is on the gift.
Now if this was done effectively and without favour on everyone then that would help equlaise the rich poor gap. The problem is that companies and rich individuals have managed to get the tax rate on inheritance moved outside of income and it has progressively dropped in % rates as well. The Bush Tax plan at the beginning of the year removes the Inheritance tax completely in 5-6 years time.
Buy Buy to rich people being taxed at all. The rich will just start working for the family company/business with little monetary return and wait for the olds to drop off and gift it to them. All their work and expected income had been kept in the company and now it is all gifted across tax free as there share in the company/business. There does not even have to be shares involved as the inherited rich are used to thinking in the long term and have many loop holes to use.
There are many rich person and corporate methods to minimise tax. Your average personal tax rate would drop substantially if all these loopholes were removed and all tax occurred at the same rate . Lower consumer tax means more consumer spending and more potential for upward social movement by the consuming classes. Here in Aus we have similar situations but no where near as bad as in the US.
Re:Globalism is not the problem: Government is
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Defining Globalism
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No the point of Economic Globalism is that a government should do nothing that gives advantage to a corporate or sector of the economy. Instead it should all be determined by global comparative advantage and specialisation. The US does the opposite of that for almost any compny capable of paying a political donation or that threatens to blame government for its' demise.
Even something as simple as a tax break to help a company decide where to shift to is a bad policy. That Company now has a advantage compared to many others. Of course the fact that very little tax is paid by some of these large companies, so sometimes tax breaks don't help and so lot's of other things are done for them. The entire debate over airline bailouts is another case where the government can't stay out or it will cost votes, so they help the larger inefficient companies survive. It would be better to improve security infrastructure and work at instilling confidence as that would be more even and long term.
The implementation of exemption to laws etc is also anti competitive. There are companies from outside the US who have to meet US environmental standards to gain contracts but large US companies are exempted from those very laws. The opposite never seems to happen or if it does the US drags the country to court because poor Mr Exxon can't get a toe hold due to too high environmental standards that other companies can meet. The corporate penetration of civil Government is abhorrent in many countries but it seems worse where the US is concerned.
Discussions on open agricultural markets are taking place at this very moment at the WTO but are being drowned out by the admittance of China. Some countries have been fighting for free Ag trade for 20 years and have been reduced to basket cases due to their exclusion from markets. The EU is currently fighting the changes but the US is also sitting back and not fighting for the free trade. The EU is happy to be excluded from Ag markets and will take the heat for its own rural well being. The Agricorps want to apply rules that will see there being no valid standards for ag products in the GE and environmental area. Many countries want to allow standards and will agree to make them consistent for all wishing to enter their markets with no quota's etc. The corps want the lowest denominator of standards to be applicable everywhere and no account of origin be taken into account.
As an example; Monsanto wants to be able to grow GE crops and sell them into a country that has chosen to disallow GE food at the moment. Monsanto wants the rules changed so that they do not have to say where they even grew the crop or how, they just want to be able to sell it with there own corporate advantage being greater than the countries own domestic producers. The country is not restricting trade it is just applying standards for all sellers and not asking for quota's, tarriffs or subsidies.
Getting back to your point of - 'Our government has done these things at the behest of corporate interests'. If the government didn't you would have free trade. The government should do nothing at the behest of a corporate interest. Maybe they could do something for everyone in a sector of the economy as long as it does not give domestic advantage. The fact that the elimination of corporate tax breaks, subsidies and tariffs would see US personal taxes drop by around 1/3rd and would also see many consumer prices drop by the same margin, would be a good thing for the Public. Bad for Corporate profits good for the public. Guess who throws the money around at election time as long as the money thrown around is less than the increased profit.
If I remember rightly Adobe or whoever it was whose product was being cracked has a product that is technicaly illegal in Russia and at least 3 other countries around the world. (Because it stops the user backing up their purchase.) Now I am almost cetain that if Russia arrested and jailed a pile of US Adobe employees when they visit russia to go to a conference, that there may be a outcry.
Point 1) Companies do though have physical plant and asset value loss directly tanslates into loss of stock value. The same can occur with key staff, I am sure a slip in the bathtub by bill would cull 25% off the MS stock price. The actual elimination of a large proportion of the MS Physical plant and most of its key technical and management staff would wipe out the stock. If you want to continue bidding at high prices that's fine, but the rest of the world will offer you considerably less.
As to money not being made or destroyed you are simply wrong. If you believe the money supply today is the same amount that was around in 1950 then you are wrong. Central banks do increase supply. Additionally leveraged layered debt allows for vast increases in apparent money supply but can open an economy up to problems if it takes a serious hit, as these layers of debt start to unravel. For an example look at a small city with only 3-4 major employers. Take out just one of those companies and the city suffers. With all the contractors folding up and then the contractors contractors etc, soon the mom and pop corner stores are shutting and the other big companies start thinking about moving.
Point 2) 'Mad Cow' and 'Foot and Mouth' have not devestated the British economy but that is because the farming sector in Britain is only a small part of the overall economy. In the US, agriculture is more important and in some areas it is very important. A elimination of all Sheep, Pigs, Cows and Horses across most of america, would smash the economy in 90% of the US, only the coasts could pretend there was no effect. Looking at the response of the CDC to anthrax I find it difficult to see the animal equivalent, managing much better.
As to insurance, most insurance policies allow for nonpayment for terrorism and acts of war. Now with the WTC they are mostly paying out but the direct insurance loss is only around 10 billion. The elimination of most animal agriculture would have to be valued at 100 billion plus and the companies would forfeit in that situation, they simply do not have the money to pay and so they would just point out the non-payment clauses.
Animal products tend to cost only about a third to a half of what they do in Britain, in the US (and half again less in Aus and south america etc.) at the moment but the elimination of the largest animal production system in the world would force global and domestic meat prices to British prices and probably twice that. What impact would there be if McDonalds had to have a 200% price jump and if the meat section in the supermarket jumped 600%. The reason jumps of these levels did not occur in Britain is that there was still slack in the global production system, if you take out the major producer then the slack is not there.
In fact there are several areas that probably experienced mass inundation at the end of the last ice age. When you consider that estimates of sea levels at the peak of glaciation average 80-100m Lower there are many large gulf regions that would have flooded rapidly. When you combine that with eroded chokepoints and the (at least 3) times when the sea level jumped by 10m in a short period (~month) it is easy to see possible cataclysmic flooding.
The leaps in ocean depth were caused by northern ice dams giving way to the ocean in Canada and northern Russia/Siberia. There is also believed to have been a major break out event from a central asian region, although this could of occurred over a longer period. There may also have been a major volcanic event in northern Canada that melted and displaced a very large chunk of the northern Canada Ice sheet as well.
As to whoever lived in the area before one of the largest waterfalls in history opened up they would have been inundated quicker than they could of got away. A 10m jump in mean sea level combined with mass erosive effect would of caused a stream to graduate into a ocean straight in only a few days after breakthrough. Spectacular is not really the word to describe it.
It is suspected that a Black sea breakthrough may have been a major event in stopping Cyclic steppe glaciation and resultant ice ages. The Climatic effect of an area of water like the black sea can be quite important. It is certainly possible that the fairly rapid ice ages and cataclysmic ocean level cycle may actually have been broken by the black sea. The recent geologic record would indicate that we should of been shifting into another ice age around 2000-1000 BC but it just didn't happen after at least 15 previous 4-8000 year cycles. It is suspected that it would take several 1000 years of interglacial to start a civilsation and periods of stable warm climates have been scarce over the last 100 000 years but they have occurred before and then been snuffed by fairly rapid glaciation.
This cycling has almost certainly caused the elimination of several pre iceage coastal civilisations in asia at least. For example the colonisation of Australia occurred almost certainly through the use of open ocean water craft in the 4th and 5th last interglacials. The limited technology base for the colonisation was then lost during the next three (more rapidly cycling) glacial periods, until the current very long one.
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Just give it ten years of free coverage and charge a percentage of earnings for the next ten with a minimum, repeat ad infinitum.
How it works Stephen king writes a book. He gets ten years coverage and then loses it unless he pays X % (we will use 20% in the example) of his first ten years earnings to ge another ten. Now lets say he makes 5 000 000 from the book in the first ten years. He would probably pay a million to retain rights. After 20 he has earnt another 5 000 000 from further sales and a movie deal. Now does he think it is worth paying another 2 million for another 10 years, maybe maybe not.
I include a minimum to stop companies from hording low selling rights for ever and to allow individuals to cover non profitable works just because they want to. A minimum of 500-1000 dollars per extension for a company would see many low selling books released from copyright really quickly. Would a company wish to retain full copyright on something that is not selling if they have to pay for it. No.
For an individual earning less than something like $5000 they can pay for year blocks of works. For example a free newsletter writer pays $1000 to cover his works from a decade before for another decade. Thus every year he has to pay a $1000 to keep his non earning works protected. If he never earns anything fine, he has made the decision to pay up, but if he becomes President or famous or something his early works could become valuable earners. Then of course he would mover into the paying a % group of copyright holders.
How is this for a plan.
Start with a ten year exclusive right. Then have a option to purchase a further ten years at 20% of the first ten years take from the exclusive rights. Now when that ten years is finished allow for the purchase of a further 10 at 20% of the first 20 years take. You obviously have to index the income with inflation. This put's an obvious value on the monopoly and it must be repurchased from society by those who would benefit from it every decade.
Now I have seen figures of total US media and Film IP valued at over a trillion dollars. That is a trillion dollar monopoly situation. Admitedly somewhat spread around but also with some areas of heavy concentration. Government used to be funded from tariffs, charges and concessions back at the founding of the US. Institute a tax on the monopoly concession of copyright and you would gain a considerable government income stream from the most highly valued copyrights. At the same time most copyrights would be released after 10 years and very few would be willing to pay past 30 years.
For numbers try the following -
Stephen King writes a book like 'Salems Lot', in ten years it generates 2 million in income. Ten years rolls around from it entering the public sphere and he has the option of extending his exclusive monopoly on the book for $400 000. If he thinks it would be worth it fine, he pays up and he earns another million. When 20 years elapse he has made 3 million out of it but believes he won't make any more than 1 million out of it in the next decade and decides $600 000 is too much to pay for the continued monopoly so he releases it.
Now lets look at mr clever scientist working on a life long series of articles in Peer review journals. He writes a pack of articles and earns about $1000 for them. If he wishes to keep them copyrighted past 10 years it costs hime $200. The question is why would he obviously no one wants them due to his lack of income so his monopoly is effectively without value, except for potential ego value.
The Defence Signals Directorate in this situation was supporting a military operation to regain control of a vessel who's captain was operating under coercion.
I believe that there would be no legal clearance required in this situation. There does need to be such clearance before any other non militarily necesary intercepts are passed on.
A good similar example is the police listening in on the phone conversations of hijackers or at a bank siege. I would safely assume that these intercepts would not need court permission in most countries. Although I am sure that a defence lawyer somewhere has tried the right to privacy excuse while the perp was shooting up hostages.
Actually in Australia it is illegal to eat or drink while driving. The simple act of moving the food or drink to your mouth and getting it in will obstruct the view of the road or divide the drivers attention. It is also illegal to use a mobile while in motion. It is strongly advised not to smoke or at least not light up while driving.
The 3 leading causes of death on the roads in Aus are Excessive speed, Alcohol abuse and Driver fatigue. (knowingly driving while fatigued is illegal, currently defined as 8 hours for professional long distance drivers) Almost all of what is left are caused by distractions with only a small number due to outright stupidity, intent or defect.
For example most accidental pedestrian hits or near instantaneous losses of control or accidental centre line crossings are caused by a distraction within the vehicle. When all accidents are looked at rather than just fatal ones the number of distraction accidents climbs dramatically. The various governments in Aus have therefore outlawed obviously distractive influences. As mobiles, eating and drinking are the highest recorded distractors at the moment they are the ones being targeted.
It is not impossible it just requires a generational plan. Rabbit fences at 10km to a side dedicated hunting and extermination along with disease easily clears out areas. There are now regions of Aus that have no Rabbits due to the release of the Virus and the farmers in those areas are setting up fences and watch carefully to make sure they don't come back.
The major problem with rabbits is their eating of all new shoots in the area they inhabit. In studies in the early 90's even a death rate of 98% in a 10 acre control paddock resulted in no mass regrowth. The 3 surviving Rabbits in the enclosure still managed to keep biting just the tops off all the shoots and still stopped regrowth. Once they were shot the plot experienced a 500% Biomass increase in 12 months.
Large Herbivours are not serious problems for Australia as they are so easy to eliminate. Even a seriously unexperienced person such as myself managed to kull 108 buffalo in 60 days during the rainy season in the NT in '87. Make me more mobile with the buffalo concentrated around water sources and not caring about getting the carcass to the Abatoir and 10 a day would be easy. Rhinos would be seriously cool, but Hippos and elephants are simply too destructive of the tree's and rivers to be free range.
The T3 book is by noted military Sci fi writer S.M. Stirling.
The Terminatrix is a bio engineered, almost all meat female. There is numerous implants etc with most of the T-800's weapons handling etc. So far the book seems quite good. I am assuming this is the book the movie would be made from but the terminator charachter is female.
The book includes details on various Terminator models: Original all metal exo's, exos with rubber skin, exos with improved skin, Bio exos, Living metal, etc.
Well the shadow will cover at some point or another the entire area ^5Km south of the tower from horizon to horizon the shadow will need to cover 140+ Km in a day. In otherwords it will be moving with the same average speed as a olympic class mile runner. The tower will not be that wide so I expect the shadow to not cover any point outside the canopy for much longer than a minute.
In fact in the morning and afternoon the shadow will be absolutely flying over the distant landscape.
Actually the force of the wind coming up the tower would probably allow an infinite jump time if not actually launch you backwards out the top.
Put a nice metal grid to land on about 200m from the bottom and you could do your 3 hr jump and then just land and walk out near the bottom.
I actually put forward this as a high school science project in 1984. My design was smaller though around 200m radius with a 250m tower. I figured it to generate 180Kw. It would also use condensation traps to retain water from the air and thus greatly assist in agriculture under the greenhouse. Nice hot humid environment with over 2/3rds of the moisture reclaimed allows much more sustainable growing while supplying power to the grid. The greenhouse handled rain by having gravity wells in the canopy material that allowed run through. I got a B as I did not make a scale working model.
Here in Aus large numbers of houses and public buildings already use roof air outlets that turn as they release the hot air from the ceiling cavity, has anyone considered setting these up as a generator? Depending on their design they could also work in colder times by catching the wind.
120mm HEAT rounds burning through the overhead armour will ruin most tanks. Not to mention the ability to move against the flank and rear of the tank once it is immobile.
Mind you the Laser is much more likely to score a electronics kill on a tank making it almost useless at longer ranges. If the Laser punps enough heat into the Hull It may become unliveably hot as well.
>>>Can't you see that a vehicle which uses Dynamic Stability to be driven as an extension of your own body movements is a great innovation?
>>What, you mean like... a bicycle? Or roller skates?
>Um, maybe, but I've never seen anyone a bike or rollerblades (especially in a stationary position) defined as stabile.
I have never fallen off my bike, when riding on the road, and injured myself since I was 5. I have been hit by a car twice (I was able to leave my vehicle successfully before the collision one of those times), another cyclist and once by a pedestrian. In these situations I had no control over what the other party did the same will happen with this.
You want to know what a new pass time will be for bored Teenagers. Developing ways of crashing these just for the laughs. It sounds like It will handle things smoothly until it reaches a critical point and then it will fail.
>>Who won't be able to lug it around everywhere
>Read the article, idiot. This is largely a nonissue. (What is an issue is that you have to stand up to use the current model, but if the technology can't be adapted to a chair or flatbed-form unit, I'll be stunned.)
As a replacement for walking the only time you are hopping off would be when you can't move through an area on it. Therefore IT probably won't be able to auto follow you either and you will need to carry it.
If it is auto following and I kick it and fall on my face I will be angry. Some people will beat it into fragments, others will assault you and others will sue you for a million or more.
>>$3000 worth of aspirational toy
>Haven't priced electric wheelchairs or sit-down transports recently, have you? Let me assure you that the Segway is (or, rather, will be) quite competitive, not to mention smaller, lighter and more agile.
The people who use Wheelchairs and sit down transports do so mainly because of both an inability to walk and to stand for long periods, that is not overly helped by this. The extra size for sit down transports also gains you carry space, comfort and in the future a nice fuel cell system for power.
Oh and did I mention that you'll look like the bigest fucking idiot on that thing. Good luck not getting your ass kicked. You'll be like one of those blow-up punching bags that you can't knock down.
That is so Funny. Great! now everyone knows I can't be working.
I can just see the comedy skits now. Two people bump into each other and the machines rebalance themselves forcing you to bump together again.
Followed by the jokes about this replacing the stress of walking as two people walk along followed by the rider careening down stairs.
Then you get The MAD approach with the rider thinking he's so cool using it to get to work without straining and getting sweaty but then having to lug it up 3-4 flights of stairs.
2. Weather. A car is more than transport, it's a weather sheild. I don't want to ride in 110 degree Texas heat with no a/c. Besides, how could you get laid in it?
Well lets see it detects the motions of the rider and converts them into decisions about how to move. It suspect you could be seriously hurt trying to get laid on one of these. I can just see IT now, OOh OOH OOOOHH Slam (as IT propels you into a wall).
So what happens when they decide they need a recount?
Although funny it is also serious, what does happen when it has a situation where the electronics say 'im not sure what to do'. As it is effectively a controlled face flop onto the pavement any failure would have you falling forward. Not particularly serious until someone gets catapulted forward off the sidewalk into traffic because it hits a rut or the rider reacts strangely to a shapely woman bending over to pick up something.
Being only $3000 and probably dropping to 2000 in 3-4 years means that stealing them will almost never be investigated seriously by police. Stealing a 50 000 dollar car is almost ignored by the police what are your chances if your IT walks off.
Insurance companies will also start saying things like, 'it costs $3000, you need to do more than chain it up'.
As to those who say it will be good for covering 1-2 miles to the shop and back. What do you do now, this thing is not that much quicker than being on foot especially when you take into account the time taken at either end to prepare and secure it. If you take the car now because of time constraints, they are still there. If you use the car because you are lazy, then you will probably be too lazy to be bothered with this. I walk to the shop about 2/3rds of a mile away but I cut across a park etc to do so. Can this go cross country or do I need to take a longer route.
I can step down onto the road surface and cross at any point, this 'IT' will require a ramp to go up and down. What happens when 30 'IT' riders want to cross the road at once , mass traffic jam on the ramp. Will cities like to cop the Bill for rebuilding the footpath verges for all roads, what happens when a person injured by a car riding up the new all ramping verge sues over unsafe conditions.
I suspect it will be treated not unlike existing scooters and skateboards.
Just to reiterate the warning. I received a set of such pictures in a email cold one morning about 1 minute after walking in the door at work. I almost threw up and had flash backs when it was mentioned above. I am not particularly weak or easy to disturb.
The email had been broadcast to the whole department and as others were arriving I warned them strenuously to just delete the email. Over half still went and opened it though. We actually had to calm down two semi hysterical ladies and sent one home for the day.
Management were not happy at all with the sender and removed all email access from them(He was so close to being sacked, and later left/pushed), sent a heart felt apology to the staff and rewrote the rulebook. Any JPG, and other picture and executable files attached to emails were redirected to a person who checked them for the next month. The work contract was then altered to allow the sacking of staff for sending such images unsolicited.
And in South Aus you can use whatever you grow yourself and don't attempt to sell. I believe the description of that amount is now upto 5 mature harvestable plants at any one time. You may of course just give away the excess to friends (and they have had to make a legal definition for that) instead of selling it. Most states have also legalised prostitution as well.
The various governments do seem cative to a conservative cabal at times, so we see the PM personally push through laws to stop things he disagrees with but most of these will change when he retires somepoint in the next 3 years. I expect to see euthanasia legalised somewhere within 5 years as well as heroin injecting facilities and medically prescription potentially within 10. Face it if you take away the profits from the dealers, make it safer and legalise it while showing how pathetically uncool you end up when you do use, I suspect we will have much lower take up rates. Just about every case of serious corruption in Australian police services has to do with Drug money and most police services employee reps say legalisation will be the only long term way to get rid of corruption.
The government only managed a 1.5% swing towards them for all their bigoted scare mongering but that is partially because the major oposition party has supported everything the Government has said for the last 10 weeks before the election. The party that did push the counter view happened to be a environmentalist green party that doubled it's vote, at the same time the rabid nationalist right wing party more than halved its vote.
As to the Norwegian Boat incident, If 300 afghan refugees were picked up by a Australian freighter in french waters waters and was meant to be going on to a spanish port but then was forced by the refugees to turn around and go to England would england have just stood by and let them land. For this particular incident there is a actual excuse for making a international incident. For the following 5 boatloads there is no excuse that the government can use for it's attitude.
On the other hand we now have 3000+ refugees whose reason for claiming refugee status is political persecution by the taliban. So I expect them all to be deported back to Afghanistan by our government some point in the next 3 months. I also expect to see a lot of other countries doing similar things.
Unsure exactly where you are from or if the article was meant to be factual or sarcastic.
Australia has 1 vote per person, a directly elected representative house and a proportionally elected house and voting is mandatory. People though vote on big issues, not what they consider little ones and face it 95% of the population thinks the internet is a small issue. Especially when planes are crashing into buildings and both major parties in the country act like wrmongering bigots. As to other suggestions about delaying the legislation till the next election, the last election federally here was 12 days ago so we only have another 1000+ days to go.
Do the last part. Buy food at local food shops, if any exist in your area. Buy clothes at a tailors or local small clothing concern, if any remain in your area. Buy shoes at the local shoe store stocking locally made shoes, if any exist in your area. Buy your energy from a local energy producer, if any exist in your area. Buy your house from a local non corpoarate linked builder, if any exist in your area.
You may have got my point. There are large areas of the planet where the ability to stay with local or regional producers doesn't exist. In Aus for example 3 companies control 92% of retail food and clothing sales. In agriculture certain cartels control 90+% of the business at different layers of the growth and distribution network for certain crops and are rapidly trying to absorb the remainder. About 95% of western Energy needs is supplied by a select group of heavily linked corporations and they don't like people even discussing using less energy.
There are alternatives to buying large corporation products and I do try where it is possible and it is not going to cost me more than 50% more. I though have a income that allows that, If I was poorer I would effectively be limited to the large corp products until they have complete dominance and then the prices start to climb.
In reply to the final part of your post - "If 10% of the population own 95% of the property, those born with little spend their lives in service to the 10%. Governments can (and do)alleviate this. "
The answer is simple gifting should count as normal income. Bill Gates N(he's a 3rd or something and I can't be bothered looking for it) can Gift his wealth when he dies. If he gives it to a Charity, no tax. If he gifts it to an individual or Corporate interest then they get hit with standard income tax for the value of the gift. Bill Gates N+1 receives 100 billion when dad dies but has to pay 28% or what ever your top rate tax is on the gift.
Now if this was done effectively and without favour on everyone then that would help equlaise the rich poor gap. The problem is that companies and rich individuals have managed to get the tax rate on inheritance moved outside of income and it has progressively dropped in % rates as well. The Bush Tax plan at the beginning of the year removes the Inheritance tax completely in 5-6 years time.
Buy Buy to rich people being taxed at all. The rich will just start working for the family company/business with little monetary return and wait for the olds to drop off and gift it to them. All their work and expected income had been kept in the company and now it is all gifted across tax free as there share in the company/business. There does not even have to be shares involved as the inherited rich are used to thinking in the long term and have many loop holes to use.
There are many rich person and corporate methods to minimise tax. Your average personal tax rate would drop substantially if all these loopholes were removed and all tax occurred at the same rate . Lower consumer tax means more consumer spending and more potential for upward social movement by the consuming classes. Here in Aus we have similar situations but no where near as bad as in the US.
No the point of Economic Globalism is that a government should do nothing that gives advantage to a corporate or sector of the economy. Instead it should all be determined by global comparative advantage and specialisation. The US does the opposite of that for almost any compny capable of paying a political donation or that threatens to blame government for its' demise.
Even something as simple as a tax break to help a company decide where to shift to is a bad policy. That Company now has a advantage compared to many others. Of course the fact that very little tax is paid by some of these large companies, so sometimes tax breaks don't help and so lot's of other things are done for them. The entire debate over airline bailouts is another case where the government can't stay out or it will cost votes, so they help the larger inefficient companies survive. It would be better to improve security infrastructure and work at instilling confidence as that would be more even and long term.
The implementation of exemption to laws etc is also anti competitive. There are companies from outside the US who have to meet US environmental standards to gain contracts but large US companies are exempted from those very laws. The opposite never seems to happen or if it does the US drags the country to court because poor Mr Exxon can't get a toe hold due to too high environmental standards that other companies can meet. The corporate penetration of civil Government is abhorrent in many countries but it seems worse where the US is concerned.
Discussions on open agricultural markets are taking place at this very moment at the WTO but are being drowned out by the admittance of China. Some countries have been fighting for free Ag trade for 20 years and have been reduced to basket cases due to their exclusion from markets. The EU is currently fighting the changes but the US is also sitting back and not fighting for the free trade. The EU is happy to be excluded from Ag markets and will take the heat for its own rural well being. The Agricorps want to apply rules that will see there being no valid standards for ag products in the GE and environmental area. Many countries want to allow standards and will agree to make them consistent for all wishing to enter their markets with no quota's etc. The corps want the lowest denominator of standards to be applicable everywhere and no account of origin be taken into account.
As an example; Monsanto wants to be able to grow GE crops and sell them into a country that has chosen to disallow GE food at the moment. Monsanto wants the rules changed so that they do not have to say where they even grew the crop or how, they just want to be able to sell it with there own corporate advantage being greater than the countries own domestic producers. The country is not restricting trade it is just applying standards for all sellers and not asking for quota's, tarriffs or subsidies.
Getting back to your point of - 'Our government has done these things at the behest of corporate interests'. If the government didn't you would have free trade. The government should do nothing at the behest of a corporate interest. Maybe they could do something for everyone in a sector of the economy as long as it does not give domestic advantage. The fact that the elimination of corporate tax breaks, subsidies and tariffs would see US personal taxes drop by around 1/3rd and would also see many consumer prices drop by the same margin, would be a good thing for the Public. Bad for Corporate profits good for the public. Guess who throws the money around at election time as long as the money thrown around is less than the increased profit.
If I remember rightly Adobe or whoever it was whose product was being cracked has a product that is technicaly illegal in Russia and at least 3 other countries around the world. (Because it stops the user backing up their purchase.) Now I am almost cetain that if Russia arrested and jailed a pile of US Adobe employees when they visit russia to go to a conference, that there may be a outcry.
Point 1) Companies do though have physical plant and asset value loss directly tanslates into loss of stock value. The same can occur with key staff, I am sure a slip in the bathtub by bill would cull 25% off the MS stock price. The actual elimination of a large proportion of the MS Physical plant and most of its key technical and management staff would wipe out the stock. If you want to continue bidding at high prices that's fine, but the rest of the world will offer you considerably less.
As to money not being made or destroyed you are simply wrong. If you believe the money supply today is the same amount that was around in 1950 then you are wrong. Central banks do increase supply. Additionally leveraged layered debt allows for vast increases in apparent money supply but can open an economy up to problems if it takes a serious hit, as these layers of debt start to unravel. For an example look at a small city with only 3-4 major employers. Take out just one of those companies and the city suffers. With all the contractors folding up and then the contractors contractors etc, soon the mom and pop corner stores are shutting and the other big companies start thinking about moving.
Point 2) 'Mad Cow' and 'Foot and Mouth' have not devestated the British economy but that is because the farming sector in Britain is only a small part of the overall economy. In the US, agriculture is more important and in some areas it is very important. A elimination of all Sheep, Pigs, Cows and Horses across most of america, would smash the economy in 90% of the US, only the coasts could pretend there was no effect. Looking at the response of the CDC to anthrax I find it difficult to see the animal equivalent, managing much better.
As to insurance, most insurance policies allow for nonpayment for terrorism and acts of war. Now with the WTC they are mostly paying out but the direct insurance loss is only around 10 billion. The elimination of most animal agriculture would have to be valued at 100 billion plus and the companies would forfeit in that situation, they simply do not have the money to pay and so they would just point out the non-payment clauses.
Animal products tend to cost only about a third to a half of what they do in Britain, in the US (and half again less in Aus and south america etc.) at the moment but the elimination of the largest animal production system in the world would force global and domestic meat prices to British prices and probably twice that. What impact would there be if McDonalds had to have a 200% price jump and if the meat section in the supermarket jumped 600%. The reason jumps of these levels did not occur in Britain is that there was still slack in the global production system, if you take out the major producer then the slack is not there.
In fact there are several areas that probably experienced mass inundation at the end of the last ice age. When you consider that estimates of sea levels at the peak of glaciation average 80-100m Lower there are many large gulf regions that would have flooded rapidly. When you combine that with eroded chokepoints and the (at least 3) times when the sea level jumped by 10m in a short period (~month) it is easy to see possible cataclysmic flooding.
The leaps in ocean depth were caused by northern ice dams giving way to the ocean in Canada and northern Russia/Siberia. There is also believed to have been a major break out event from a central asian region, although this could of occurred over a longer period. There may also have been a major volcanic event in northern Canada that melted and displaced a very large chunk of the northern Canada Ice sheet as well.
As to whoever lived in the area before one of the largest waterfalls in history opened up they would have been inundated quicker than they could of got away. A 10m jump in mean sea level combined with mass erosive effect would of caused a stream to graduate into a ocean straight in only a few days after breakthrough. Spectacular is not really the word to describe it.
It is suspected that a Black sea breakthrough may have been a major event in stopping Cyclic steppe glaciation and resultant ice ages. The Climatic effect of an area of water like the black sea can be quite important. It is certainly possible that the fairly rapid ice ages and cataclysmic ocean level cycle may actually have been broken by the black sea. The recent geologic record would indicate that we should of been shifting into another ice age around 2000-1000 BC but it just didn't happen after at least 15 previous 4-8000 year cycles. It is suspected that it would take several 1000 years of interglacial to start a civilsation and periods of stable warm climates have been scarce over the last 100 000 years but they have occurred before and then been snuffed by fairly rapid glaciation.
This cycling has almost certainly caused the elimination of several pre iceage coastal civilisations in asia at least. For example the colonisation of Australia occurred almost certainly through the use of open ocean water craft in the 4th and 5th last interglacials. The limited technology base for the colonisation was then lost during the next three (more rapidly cycling) glacial periods, until the current very long one.