European explorers sent bacteria that hosts in humans around the world, which infected other humans. Bacteria don't just infect humans by chance, they evolve to live happily in them. Why would a new bacteria be sitting on mars waiting for a type of lifeform that has never been there?
If you want the experience of humans in space, use the space stations - but experience is not just humans using their feet and their hands. Experience is sensing - and learning to sense in new ways can be much more important than forcing the things that enable your own senses into everything else.
I don't agree with that. The value of being in space isn't so that we can sense what is there-- that's a worthy goal, and there's no reason to stop trying to discover more about the universe--but about expanding the physical domain of humanity.
Why should we be satisfied with "just" earth and it's orbit, even if we can see everything there is to see from there by proxy? Everywhere on this planet, if it is possible to travel somewhere, people go there, and if it is possible to live there, we live there, and if sustainable private life can be had there, there's that too. The fact that these voyages, outposts and cities have been dangerous hasn't stopped people before, why stop now?
If the only science we're interested in is the natural conditions of Mars, then yes, there's no good reason to send a human when a probe would work too.
What sending people to Mars is good for is to gain practical experience, in order to send more people, further away, and for longer periods of time.
Someone who travels to Mars would deserve to be called a hero, just like the men who went to the Moon did. These are the people who are doing the genuinely dangerous work of making it possible for human civilization to grow beyond Earth permanently.
So, in a while, you might get a growing colony on Mars of humans that are developed differently (due to the gravity), with radically different life experiences and are also unable to interact directly with humans from Earth.
On the marathon, they are suggesting non-US listeners find the zip code of a US based internet radio station you listen to, contact the congress member in that district, and tell them that the CARP reccomendation will destroy a small business in their district.
Look on the top of a VHS cassette or the cute little FBI warnings [even funnier when you live in Canada....]
I said CDs, but whatever.
You mean something like this? That's not a EULA, that's a one-sentence retelling of federal copytright law, "unauthorized" being the oprative word here.
And you don't need to sign something to agree to it or even be bound by it. After all its their content, you're just paying for the right to see it.
Yes, they get certain legal rights along with their copyright. Since these rights come from statutory law, and not any contract or agreement between me and them, they don't even need the warning to get that, they're just trying to drill the point home.
You honestly believe when you buy that 20$ DVD that you own the content? Hahahahahaha you make me laugh.
What do you think you're getting for your $20, a fancy coaster?
Its been said time and time again. If you don't like the RIAA "way of bidnez" then don't buy RIAA material. Quite simple.
It must be scary to inhabit a world where after buying something, you are somehow bound by whatever random conditions the original manufacturer wants to place on your use of it.
I can see the letter from the automobile manufacturer's industry association now: "Your 'family car' is only licenced to transport members of your immediate family. It has come to our attention that you are also using your car to transport acquantences, business associates, etc. You will need an additional Passenger Access Licence (PAL) for each individual you have transported since you purchased the car."
Internet radio stations must pay the record labels a fee of 0.14 cents per song, per listener. Traditional radio stations would pay 0.07 cents per song, per listener
they do pay fees, just half that of whats being asked of internet radio
No, the $.0014 rate is for internet-only broadcasters, and the $.0007 rate is for internet rebroadcasts by a traditional radio station. There will continue to be no royalty to recording companies for analog broadcasts.
The article says that radio broadcasters will be charged on a per listener per song basis. Is this how normal radio stations are charged?
Normal radio stations don't pay the recording companies anything. (there is some history of recording companies paying the radio stations to play certain songs, since it's so good for album sales) They do pay some royalties to people like songwriters and composers (i think?) and I believe many or most online radio stations pay these royalties as well, and that they are reasonable.
That's the whole reason for this uproar; Congress and the RIAA decided that the RIAA was somehow entitled to a cut from digital broadcasts, and then the CARP decided that the cut should be, um, more than the pie.
Have you ever read the EULA of MPAA or RIAA material? Almost always they mention public broadcasts as prohibited.
I'll suspend my disbelief that EULAs have any legal weight at all, and ask where i would find this EULA? I don't recall needing to read, sign or even click through anything while playing my CDs.
Some aspects of the STL can be overly constraining. I find it very unnatural to have to specify one and only one comparison operation that dictates the sort order of a vector. In C, if you want to sort things differently, you can hand a new function pointer to qsort(), but with the STL, you're kind of out of luck. How would you go about writing a (thread safe) program that allows the user to sort something according to run-time criteria?
vector doesn't have a sort order, as it's not a sorted container, you can sort them at runtime with sort() or one of the other sorting algorithms.
Containers like set need a sort order specified because they are kept an a sorted state all the time.
what are new TLDs going to accomplish? There is no (problematic) limit to the number of addresses that can exist under just one TLD. If you're trying to escape the crappyiness of ICANN/verisign/network solutions or whatever they call whoever controls DNS, then 1) who do you think is going to run the new TLDs? 2) if someone else running name registration is good, why not commit your energy to putting them in charge of the existing TLDs?
They're doing exactly what the al-queda (sp?) did to them.
No, in order to do that, we'd need to build two 110-story buildings in Riyadh (there aren't any, natch), fill them with office workers, and blow them up.
The Supreme Court has rejected prior restraint except in cases where National Security is involved.
Uh, no. The Supreme Court requires a "clear and present danger" to allow prior restraint; the example they gave is that it would be acceptable to restrain the media from releasing the location of troop ships at sea during wartime. Prior restraint is presumed unconstitutional, the burden of proof is on the government to convince a judge that the information must be kept secret. Security clearances don't do anything to stop the media if they get their hands on something, only the government employee that leaked the information can be (hypothetically) punished...
Furthermore, isn't leaking classified information treason? Yeah
Maybe movie hackers or something, these hackers seem mostly interested in breaking and defacing things, a skill set governments have been interested in cultivating and controlling for centuries.
Be wary though, for when the enemy is gone, it is you who will be the enemy.
I asked the researcher what happens if say all the middle cubes burn out or when the throughput gets too damaged. He responds, "Well, given the failure rate, it probably won't be an issue until about ten years have passed, and by then we'll have much more powerful storage technology."
Since the entire system is supposed to be fault-tolerant, if you wanted to reclaim some of the space/performance from the dead cubes, you could just start removing cubes from one end, throw away (or salvage, whatever) the dead ones, and then stick the still-functioning ones back on the other end, wait for them to sync back into the network, and repeat.
Of course, instead of growing, the whole unit would now have a tendency to migrate across the room...
The H1B program is used to replace normal employees with folks who are frightened for their jobs, will work long hours, and are a bit cheaper to boot.
If, as you say, H1B is being used to expoloit workers, then that's a bad thing, I agree, and it should be reformed (allowing them to change to a similar job at a different employer would be sufficient, imho). What I have a problem with is the idea being promoted by some that H1B employees are "stealing our jobs". I admit that I read this into the parent post, I don't really know if he feels that way or not.
I still don't know if abolishing the H1B is a good thing, though, the visa applicants seem to think it's a better deal than what they can get in their home country...
-- Benjamin Coates
Re:doesnt seem economical
on
Lunar Power
·
· Score: 4, Funny
If the lunar plan were to be adopted, I wonder what security measures would be implemented to protect this superior technology from those seeking to destroy it?
I think the whole "being on the moon" is a pretty good defense...
Slashdot Mirror
Great, now I'm going to have nightmares about being chased down supermarket aisles by a box of Cherrios shrieking "Buyyyy Meeeee!"
Hrm, good point.
Personally, I view commercials as conveniently spaced 30 second pee and "grab some food" breaks
Um, aren't they like every 10 minutes? You may need to see a doctor about that...
me thinks it would be more like putting a Terminator in a Bambi movie.
Do terminators hate all life, or just humans?
Maybe it'd just blow away the hunter before he could kill Bambi's mom...
--
Benjamin Coates
European explorers sent bacteria that hosts in humans around the world, which infected other humans. Bacteria don't just infect humans by chance, they evolve to live happily in them. Why would a new bacteria be sitting on mars waiting for a type of lifeform that has never been there?
--
Benjamin Coates
If you want the experience of humans in space, use the space stations - but experience is not just humans using their feet and their hands. Experience is sensing - and learning to sense in new ways can be much more important than forcing the things that enable your own senses into everything else.
I don't agree with that. The value of being in space isn't so that we can sense what is there-- that's a worthy goal, and there's no reason to stop trying to discover more about the universe--but about expanding the physical domain of humanity.
Why should we be satisfied with "just" earth and it's orbit, even if we can see everything there is to see from there by proxy? Everywhere on this planet, if it is possible to travel somewhere, people go there, and if it is possible to live there, we live there, and if sustainable private life can be had there, there's that too. The fact that these voyages, outposts and cities have been dangerous hasn't stopped people before, why stop now?
--
Benjamin Coates
If the only science we're interested in is the natural conditions of Mars, then yes, there's no good reason to send a human when a probe would work too.
What sending people to Mars is good for is to gain practical experience, in order to send more people, further away, and for longer periods of time.
Someone who travels to Mars would deserve to be called a hero, just like the men who went to the Moon did. These are the people who are doing the genuinely dangerous work of making it possible for human civilization to grow beyond Earth permanently.
--
Benjamin Coates
So, in a while, you might get a growing colony on Mars of humans that are developed differently (due to the gravity), with radically different life experiences and are also unable to interact directly with humans from Earth.
And really, really inbred.
--
Benjamin Coates
On the marathon, they are suggesting non-US listeners find the zip code of a US based internet radio station you listen to, contact the congress member in that district, and tell them that the CARP reccomendation will destroy a small business in their district.
--
Benjamin Coates
The situation might benefit from a truly free-market solution. [...]
That's now it works now, you can certainly licence songs one at a time from copyright holders, or use a a clearinghouse like PressPlay.
--
Benjamin Coates
Look on the top of a VHS cassette or the cute little FBI warnings [even funnier when you live in Canada....]
I said CDs, but whatever.
You mean something like this? That's not a EULA, that's a one-sentence retelling of federal copytright law, "unauthorized" being the oprative word here.
And you don't need to sign something to agree to it or even be bound by it. After all its their content, you're just paying for the right to see it.
Yes, they get certain legal rights along with their copyright. Since these rights come from statutory law, and not any contract or agreement between me and them, they don't even need the warning to get that, they're just trying to drill the point home.
You honestly believe when you buy that 20$ DVD that you own the content? Hahahahahaha you make me laugh.
What do you think you're getting for your $20, a fancy coaster?
Its been said time and time again. If you don't like the RIAA "way of bidnez" then don't buy RIAA material. Quite simple.
It must be scary to inhabit a world where after buying something, you are somehow bound by whatever random conditions the original manufacturer wants to place on your use of it.
I can see the letter from the automobile manufacturer's industry association now: "Your 'family car' is only licenced to transport members of your immediate family. It has come to our attention that you are also using your car to transport acquantences, business associates, etc. You will need an additional Passenger Access Licence (PAL) for each individual you have transported since you purchased the car."
--
Benjamin Coates
Internet radio stations must pay the record labels a fee of 0.14 cents per song, per listener. Traditional radio stations would pay 0.07 cents per song, per listener
they do pay fees, just half that of whats being asked of internet radio
No, the $.0014 rate is for internet-only broadcasters, and the $.0007 rate is for internet rebroadcasts by a traditional radio station. There will continue to be no royalty to recording companies for analog broadcasts.
--
Benjamin Coates
The article says that radio broadcasters will be charged on a per listener per song basis. Is this how normal radio stations are charged?
Normal radio stations don't pay the recording companies anything. (there is some history of recording companies paying the radio stations to play certain songs, since it's so good for album sales) They do pay some royalties to people like songwriters and composers (i think?) and I believe many or most online radio stations pay these royalties as well, and that they are reasonable.
That's the whole reason for this uproar; Congress and the RIAA decided that the RIAA was somehow entitled to a cut from digital broadcasts, and then the CARP decided that the cut should be, um, more than the pie.
--
Benjamin Coates
Have you ever read the EULA of MPAA or RIAA material? Almost always they mention public broadcasts as prohibited.
I'll suspend my disbelief that EULAs have any legal weight at all, and ask where i would find this EULA? I don't recall needing to read, sign or even click through anything while playing my CDs.
--
Benjamin Coates
Yeah, you have to be licenced, not just broadcasting on FM to get the lower rate, not that the half-off rate is anywhere near reasonable anyway.
--
Benjamin Coates
Some aspects of the STL can be overly constraining. I find it very unnatural to have to specify one and only one comparison operation that dictates the sort order of a vector. In C, if you want to sort things differently, you can hand a new function pointer to qsort(), but with the STL, you're kind of out of luck. How would you go about writing a (thread safe) program that allows the user to sort something according to run-time criteria?
vector doesn't have a sort order, as it's not a sorted container, you can sort them at runtime with sort() or one of the other sorting algorithms.
Containers like set need a sort order specified because they are kept an a sorted state all the time.
--
Benjamin Coates
Get a new card every time, you still get the discount, and you get to waste their time for being nosy bastards.
--
Benjamin Coates
what are new TLDs going to accomplish? There is no (problematic) limit to the number of addresses that can exist under just one TLD. If you're trying to escape the crappyiness of ICANN/verisign/network solutions or whatever they call whoever controls DNS, then 1) who do you think is going to run the new TLDs? 2) if someone else running name registration is good, why not commit your energy to putting them in charge of the existing TLDs?
--
Benjamin Coates
Makes me want to move to the EU, where fascism is called by its real name, not jingoed patriotism.
They're doing exactly what the al-queda (sp?) did to them.
No, in order to do that, we'd need to build two 110-story buildings in Riyadh (there aren't any, natch), fill them with office workers, and blow them up.
--
Benjamin Coates
The Supreme Court has rejected prior restraint except in cases where National Security is involved.
Uh, no. The Supreme Court requires a "clear and present danger" to allow prior restraint; the example they gave is that it would be acceptable to restrain the media from releasing the location of troop ships at sea during wartime. Prior restraint is presumed unconstitutional, the burden of proof is on the government to convince a judge that the information must be kept secret. Security clearances don't do anything to stop the media if they get their hands on something, only the government employee that leaked the information can be (hypothetically) punished...
Furthermore, isn't leaking classified information treason? Yeah
No, it isn't.
--
Benjamin Coates
hackers seek to disseminate information
Maybe movie hackers or something, these hackers seem mostly interested in breaking and defacing things, a skill set governments have been interested in cultivating and controlling for centuries.
Be wary though, for when the enemy is gone, it is you who will be the enemy.
Sound advice.
--
Benjamin Coates
I asked the researcher what happens if say all the middle cubes burn out or when the throughput gets too damaged. He responds, "Well, given the failure rate, it probably won't be an issue until about ten years have passed, and by then we'll have much more powerful storage technology."
Since the entire system is supposed to be fault-tolerant, if you wanted to reclaim some of the space/performance from the dead cubes, you could just start removing cubes from one end, throw away (or salvage, whatever) the dead ones, and then stick the still-functioning ones back on the other end, wait for them to sync back into the network, and repeat.
Of course, instead of growing, the whole unit would now have a tendency to migrate across the room...
--
Benjamin Coates
The H1B program is used to replace normal employees with folks who are frightened for their jobs, will work long hours, and are a bit cheaper to boot.
If, as you say, H1B is being used to expoloit workers, then that's a bad thing, I agree, and it should be reformed (allowing them to change to a similar job at a different employer would be sufficient, imho). What I have a problem with is the idea being promoted by some that H1B employees are "stealing our jobs". I admit that I read this into the parent post, I don't really know if he feels that way or not.
I still don't know if abolishing the H1B is a good thing, though, the visa applicants seem to think it's a better deal than what they can get in their home country...
--
Benjamin Coates
If the lunar plan were to be adopted, I wonder what security measures would be implemented to protect this superior technology from those seeking to destroy it?
I think the whole "being on the moon" is a pretty good defense...
--
Benjamin Coates