Therefore, it's the idea which is protected, not just the expression of the idea.
I'd say it's the direct copy of the storyline, including uncannily similar characters and identical word-for-word sections of dialogue that would make it copyright infringment.
I think copyright infringement would be possible in software even if different languages are used - if you were to directly translate from one language to another. I'm not sure if Easyjet had access to the source code of the original source code? A program that works in the same way should be no more copyright infringement than two books with a similar storyline - especially if the two programs have been written independantly.
If you don't think that full protection is fair, too bad. But don't travel to other places, as you will not enjoy the same rights as those citizens.
Well this is the problem; we'll be heading towards a situation where any sort of global travel has to be avoided. If I, as a British Citizen, have to travel to the US for a short term period, either for business or for a holiday, I don't see why I shouldn't be entitled to human rights or justice. These things aren't something that come from being a tax-payer of that country - they should be universal.
Interestingly, the press always reported them as being "plane spotters" and "tourists", and never "potential terrorists". Yet here's a linkfrom the same day where we're told that the new laws are to detain terror suspects without trial, and indeed, the same government that said the aforementioned group were "only tourists" tell us that opponents of the legislation are "naive".
Has an alien fossil ever been found? If you're mocking those "Skeptics" who ignore any evidence for the "paranormal"/UFOs/etc whatsoever, then fine - but I'm not one of those people.
There *is* evidence for dinosaurs, and the idea that these came from actual living creatures seems more likely than alternative ideas (such as "a supernatural being put them there to test our faith", as Creationists would have us believe). Moreover, this is evidence that does not exist for the idea that aliens are visiting us today (let alone millions of years ago), so the situations are not comparable.
Also, look at all the fuss over that possible fossil from Mars discovered in Antartica - when there is evidence, many scientists are quite happy to investigate, even if it points to something outside of what they currently believe.
But ignorance of what the law is, and not knowing that a particular action breaks a given law, are different things, surely? The former is certainly true, but the latter case (which is what we're talking about here) is less clear.
Now having said that, I would find it hard to believe that someone would think that the latest mainstream albums were allowed to be legally distributed, but one could imagine some cases where one might be led to believe that that was the case. Also consider the recent case of the 12 year old, whose mother said she'd paid for a service which claimed that the songs downloaded on Kazaa would be legal. There is no ignorance of the law here (she may be well aware of copyright laws), but she is ignorant of the fact (and indeed, has been misled) that the songs are in general not legal to distribute.
You know why Americans can't find Iraq on a map? Because the public education system has been run (into the ground) by liberals for the last 50 years.
And perhaps the reason that many Americans don't believe in evolution (so you claim) is because of the influence of the Christian Agenda (both in schools, and everywhere else) for the last 2000 years?
As for your strawman, I'm atheist, but generally pro-capitalist and dislike communism as an economic system.
Fifty years ago, teachers complained that the biggest discipline problem was students chewing gum in school.
And five hundred years ago, it was torture, people being burnt at the stake, and wars fought over religion.
and man, not God, is the bestower of rights and liberties.
Last time I looked, man is the bestower of rights and liberties in religion also. Who gets to "interpret" your God? Whether it's priests, or the man on the street, it's still men. Just look at how many religions disagree with each other.
Europe is well on the way to being totally rotten. Europe's leaders won't even mention God in the EU's constitution, but I say that's for good reason. It is appropriate that a Godless people have a Godless government. You have not welcomed God in your society.
If only that were true! Whilst I've never heard of any European that believes in creationism, non-fundamentalist Christianity has a strong influence. For example, children are still forced to take part in rituals such as singing and prayer at school.
It's no wonder Europeans can't understand America's heartland.
At least we can find it on a map. Perhaps the "liberal" education you speak of is better than you think?
Well, as I said, I require extraordinary evidence, which would constitute "proof" - I'm not sure if this is the same as "extraordinary proof", but either way, I'm not one of your "Skeptics", so I won't defend those points;)
In your example, there's no reason to suggest aliens either - as you say yourself, it could be something like a secret military project. If you're attacking a particular closed-minded type of person, then fair enough, but not everyone who demands more evidence for the paranormal is one of these people who assumes the observer made it all up. As many have said, there's a difference between mocking the observer to be a "crackpot", and mocking those people who make up wild theories to explain what the observer saw.
The education establishment (Dept. of Education bureaucrats, teacher unions, elitist/socialist academics) allow only Darwin's dogma to be taught in public schools. Polls indicate that a clear majority of U.S. tax-payers do not believe in evolution.
The education establishment allow teaching of science in science lessons, funnily enough. I have nothing against teaching religious myths either, as long as it is in the appropriate lesson (we have "Religious Education" here in the UK, to learn about the beliefs of various people around the world).
Ok, I've seen this just one too many times to ignore. It is just not true. First, whenever someone says something to this effect, they never bother to define just what is a "negative."
Well let me define it for you. It means that you can't prove that something doesn't exist.
Of course, you are right in that some sense this is talking about practicality rather than an absolute. But if disproving something requires combing every part of the universe to see if there are any unicorns, I think that counts as "can't". On the other hand, proving unicorns exist is easy - you only have to produce a single unicorn;)
If we rigorously defined "horse-like" and discoved that in our universe for some reason being both horse-like and having a single horn were not possible, then we could prove the statement true.
This is true, but part of the problem is that anything supernatural is never well defined. If science finds that there's no way that our consciousness can exist after death, people will still believe in Ghosts. Either as being something different, or perhaps they'll believe they are dead people's souls anyway, claiming that the science is wrong, and we just can't detect the souls or whatever.
Look at how disproving the events of Genesis doesn't stop people being Christians; the meaning and role of "God" is simply redefined. If we ever showed the Christian God couldn't exist, "God" would simply mean something else. If we ever showed how the Universe was created without a God, "God" would be the undetectable force behind it all. Not to mention the ones who just ignore the science and believe in Genesis anyway ("God put the bones there to test our faith"). I often reply "Define God" when asked if I believe - which I'm usually mocked for, as if I'm supposed to know the answer.
I don't know if there's a Unicorn-worshipping religion out there, but they would be equally dismissive of any "negative" proofs; and all they have to do is produce a single unicorn.
This mindset can be summarized by the Classic Skeptic Party Line: "Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Proof"... which is simply bad science
Yes and no. The thing about an extraordinary claim versus an ordinary claim is that there is already plenty of evidence for the latter. So I'll ask for extraordinary evidence for the former, because at the moment I don't have any.
For example, suppose I leave a bike outside my house, and find next morning it has disappeared. Various possibilities might include that it has been stolen by a human, or that it has been stolen by a passing alien.
The level of evidence I would require for each would be the same - but I already have evidence that humans exist, and that they might be prone to stealing bikes.
Some posters have ridiculed "skeptics" saying that they wouldn't believe it unless you brought an alien (or ghost, whatever) to them. So? This is exactly the same level of evidence I have for the more rational explanations. If bringing a bike-stealing alien to me counts as "extraordinary proof", then so be it - but I haven't "raised the bar" at all, and this isn't bad science. To me, the problem is that people try to "lower the bar" for paranormal events, saying things like they're inherently not reproducable, or that a non-believer won't see them, etc.
Onced the sun and stars revolved around the earth, we'd discovered all the large apes in the world, giant squid were legends, the Tazmanian Tiger was extinct, people who report out of body experiences were kooks, people who felt strange in "haunted" places were suggestable and superstitious, and mood and temperment couldn't possibly impact health...
For all but the first (which is more about different scientific models, rather than the paranormal), these are cases about whether the person who reports them is viewed as a "crackpot" or not. Sure, there are some "skeptics" (possibly some scientists) who dismiss any claim as an outright lie, which I agree is wrong; sometimes these people are shown to be right, as this very article shows.
But "crackpot", as others have pointed out, is usually taken to mean the sort of person who invents wild stories to explain these things away. So it wasn't sun and stars revolving around the earth, it was Gods dancing around the sky. It wasn't apes and squid, it was bizarre demons. It isn't simply the report of out of body experiences, it's the claim that these things are situations where the soul wanders around, and you can see things in other locations. It isn't people feeling strange in haunted locations, it is that they saw people who had come back from the dead. And it's suggesting that God, or magical "energies", have a non-placebo effect on our health.
Sure, sometimes the observer who was once ignored is later backed up by science. But how many paranormal "theories" have been later shown to be true by science?
Yes there are. For instance the "giant squid" was long thought to be a myth, but they have been found in the past couple of years. There are studies that suggest prayer and meditation have positive effects. The Will O' the Wisp may have been swamp gas. etc
Well, as I was sort of saying in my post at the end, I guess it depends as what counts as "paranormal".
I'm not saying that all accounts of events lumped under the heading "paranormal" are all cases of either things we currently understand/know about but are misunderstood, or people hallucinating, outright lying, or just pure myths. I'm sure that plenty have an explanation that is still within the realms of current day science, but we don't yet know the details of how or what causes it.
So finding that infrasound has this effect on people is one such example. Finding that giant squid exist, and that Will O' the Wisp may be swamp gasp are others - these are all rational explanations, albeit of things that may have been dismissed as pure myth or hoax by some skeptics.
So what I was really asking for was things like ghosts (defined as, say, visual appearance of human figures, that can be scientifically observed with equipment - be they souls of dead people, or some other strange as yet undiscovered phenomenon - as opposed to being hallucinations or whatever), ESP and so on. Have there been any successful scientific studies?
As you say, it's true that there seems to be an awful lot of circumstantial evidence, which perhaps should imply something. But it's also possible that a lot of vague evidence can stem from a single common cause (eg, the way that sleep paralysis explains symptoms of things like demon to alien abductions). People also have a habit of spotting patterns in events when they don't exist, by ignoring cases that don't fit (I remember a programme interviewing a few people who'd experienced sleep paralysis, and claiming that everyone had the same visions of being visited by a figure, so therefore something paranormal is going on - this was a complete lie, as I know from my own experience). And just look at the way urban myths propagate across the Internet to see people's desire to believe any old rubbish.
Now, there may be some evidence after all that which is still remaining, and requires further investigation - but I don't believe that a large amount of vague "evidence" points towards anything simply because there's a lot of it.
I can't prove something doesn't exist, but you should be able to prove something does exist.
A shame this was modded down, it makes a very important point.
We're never going to be able to disprove every single paranormal conjecture be it ghosts, alien abductions, or whatever, since there's always going to be some new paranormal idea that comes along, or some new paranormal account that it doesn't explain. The best we can do is come up with explanations for bits at a time - as this article is an example of. But on the other hand, if these accounts are true, and as the "crackpots" say they are, then it should be much easier, in a sense, to prove this. Are there cases where anything vaguely paranormal has been studied and backed up with evidence?
Of course it also depends on what we mean by "paranormal". For example, it could be that ghosts are due to some as yet undiscovered scientific physical phenomenon. This would mean that ghosts do exist (in that they aren't just hallucinations or whatever), but at the same time, anyone claiming they were souls of dead people or whatever else, would be wrong.
Scientists find 1 explanation for 1 spooky phenomena, and all paranormal happenings are written off as rubbish?
No; scientists find a plausible, rational, backed-by-evidence explanation for a wide range of paranormal accounts. Of course, there's still stuff which would require further explanations, but anything along the lines of "well I felt a strange sensation, it must be haunted" can no longer be considered evidence towards paranormal happenings.
Furthermore -- scientists find a possible explanation for a widely reported mysterious phenomenon, and the people who reported it are dismissed as crackpots while the "skeptics" who ridiculed them come off as geniuses?
I read the article, and couldn't find anything about the scientists ridiculing those reporting mysterious phenomena.
Personally, I've nothing against people who report strange events - the crackpots are the ones who assume this must be evidence for life after death, souls, demons or whatever else.
The article compares the weight of a cloud in the sky to the weight of an elephant on earth. Unfortunately, this is fundamentaly flawed in that the weight of any mass varies based upon the distance to the source of gravity. Therefore, a cloud at 10000 ft would have a different weight than a cloud of the same mass at 20000 ft.
This is true, but the difference is insignificant. Gravity follows an inverse square law, and the difference between something on the surface and something 6km up works out to be less than 0.19% if my calculations are correct. This is insignificant, compared with the variations between clouds (or indeed, elephants).
It would still be better if such articles talked about mass instead of weight, but I don't think it makes any difference here.
(And yes, the original poster is wrong - clouds most certainly do have weight.)
in other words, ownership of the "means of production" is irrelevant in the 21st century. today it is the ownership of "knowledge" which is relevant to economic development.
You seem to be under the impression that scarcity is a good thing. If one could wave a magic wand and make it so that there was an unlimited supply of the "means of production", then I would say that would be a *good* thing. Any attempts to limit the means of production, and to keep them in the hands of the few would be a bad thing.
contrary to existing economic theory, knowledge is NOT a non-rivalous asset. if i copy google's search methods and open up a competiting site, i have not deprived them of their knowledge, yet i have deprived them of their competitive advantage.
And then Google have to innovate further, or fall behind. How exactly is your world, where Google are allowed to be the only search engine, an improvement?
what incentive do european software developers have to become the next "google" if their inventions can simply be expropriated by corporate giants?
I don't know if patents are preventing other search engines from being as good as Google. But if they are, then european software developers will have no chance to become the next "google".
for a small company, patents are often the ONLY tools they have to keep from being steamrolled by their larger rivals. copyright is not enough. software patents, because they prevent the theft of knowledge, are valuable economic tools of the 21st century.
Firstly, you're misusing the word "theft". Secondly, ever heard of trade secrets? It's not like anyone's forcing companies to hand over their knowledge.
If you don't like how a software product is marketed or how the EULA works, THEN DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT. Buy from a competitor, download open source software. You do have choices people.
And how do I make that choice if the EULA is only presented after I've bought it?
11. The user shall have the right to view the source code on demand.
You didn't buy the source code though.
If you want to see what the software is doing, have a look at the binary. You should certainly have that right (which, unfortunately, is a right that some companies think we shouldn't have).
Visit msdn.microsoft.com and click on "Terms of Use".
I'd paste some of the Terms of Use, but then I'd be violating the third paragraph. Actually, taking the fascistic bent (hey, when has Microsoft ever been a stickler on the terms?) you can't write a program based on the information presented there, since it'd be a derivative work of the information presented there (again, third paragraph).
You don't have to click on anything or even read those in order to view the MSDN documentation online, so all they have to fall back on is standard copyright law. Since it would be copyright infringement to distribute the information on their website, they're only being informative in pointing that out to you.
I agree EULAs and Terms & Conditions are often evil things, but I don't see anything wrong with these conditions. It's hardly a breach of copyright to write a program based on information you learnt elsewhere, and Microsoft aren't trying to suggest otherwise.
You are just making this shit up, it's just not true, the maximum penalty is a 1000 fine, you cannot be put in prison for it.
The AC is correct. Whilst it might not be true that people are put into prison directly as a result of not having a licence, it seems that they can be if they refuse to pay the fine.
It's just a wild guess. It has absolutely nothing to do with physics, which is the real laws we all live by.
It's got nothing to do with legal laws either, but you don't hear people pointing out that "Moore's Law" hasn't been tested in court. Words can have more than one meaning, and it ought to be pretty obvious that a "law" about the rate of progress of CPUs is neither a legal law, nor a scientific law.
Not to mention that strictly speaking, AIUI, "law" isn't really used in a scientific sense anymore - we have "theories" and that's as good as it gets.
When a government tells a newspaper what it can or cannot print, that is censorship.
Are libel laws censorship? The government (or the courts) does control what a newspaper can print to some extent. Removing things which are factually incorrect isn't necessarily the same thing as removing things that one disagrees with.
Slashdot Mirror
Therefore, it's the idea which is protected, not just the expression of the idea.
I'd say it's the direct copy of the storyline, including uncannily similar characters and identical word-for-word sections of dialogue that would make it copyright infringment.
I think copyright infringement would be possible in software even if different languages are used - if you were to directly translate from one language to another. I'm not sure if Easyjet had access to the source code of the original source code? A program that works in the same way should be no more copyright infringement than two books with a similar storyline - especially if the two programs have been written independantly.
If you don't think that full protection is fair, too bad. But don't travel to other places, as you will not enjoy the same rights as those citizens.
Well this is the problem; we'll be heading towards a situation where any sort of global travel has to be avoided. If I, as a British Citizen, have to travel to the US for a short term period, either for business or for a holiday, I don't see why I shouldn't be entitled to human rights or justice. These things aren't something that come from being a tax-payer of that country - they should be universal.
I'm reminded of the situation where a group of British tourists were detained as spies by Greece.
Interestingly, the press always reported them as being "plane spotters" and "tourists", and never "potential terrorists". Yet here's a link from the same day where we're told that the new laws are to detain terror suspects without trial, and indeed, the same government that said the aforementioned group were "only tourists" tell us that opponents of the legislation are "naive".
The real enemy is not the Department of Homeland Security but the terrorists who have forced us to take these drastic measures.
Because we all know about how hi-tech science such as box-cutters were used in the 9/11 attacks. Not to mention that only foreigners are terrorists.
Now look who's raising the bar.
Has an alien fossil ever been found? If you're mocking those "Skeptics" who ignore any evidence for the "paranormal"/UFOs/etc whatsoever, then fine - but I'm not one of those people.
There *is* evidence for dinosaurs, and the idea that these came from actual living creatures seems more likely than alternative ideas (such as "a supernatural being put them there to test our faith", as Creationists would have us believe). Moreover, this is evidence that does not exist for the idea that aliens are visiting us today (let alone millions of years ago), so the situations are not comparable.
Also, look at all the fuss over that possible fossil from Mars discovered in Antartica - when there is evidence, many scientists are quite happy to investigate, even if it points to something outside of what they currently believe.
Ignorance of the law is not a defense.
But ignorance of what the law is, and not knowing that a particular action breaks a given law, are different things, surely? The former is certainly true, but the latter case (which is what we're talking about here) is less clear.
Now having said that, I would find it hard to believe that someone would think that the latest mainstream albums were allowed to be legally distributed, but one could imagine some cases where one might be led to believe that that was the case. Also consider the recent case of the 12 year old, whose mother said she'd paid for a service which claimed that the songs downloaded on Kazaa would be legal. There is no ignorance of the law here (she may be well aware of copyright laws), but she is ignorant of the fact (and indeed, has been misled) that the songs are in general not legal to distribute.
You know why Americans can't find Iraq on a map? Because the public education system has been run (into the ground) by liberals for the last 50 years.
And perhaps the reason that many Americans don't believe in evolution (so you claim) is because of the influence of the Christian Agenda (both in schools, and everywhere else) for the last 2000 years?
As for your strawman, I'm atheist, but generally pro-capitalist and dislike communism as an economic system.
Fifty years ago, teachers complained that the biggest discipline problem was students chewing gum in school.
And five hundred years ago, it was torture, people being burnt at the stake, and wars fought over religion.
and man, not God, is the bestower of rights and liberties.
Last time I looked, man is the bestower of rights and liberties in religion also. Who gets to "interpret" your God? Whether it's priests, or the man on the street, it's still men. Just look at how many religions disagree with each other.
Have a read of http://talkorigins.org/. And learn what science is before you comment on it.
Europe is well on the way to being totally rotten. Europe's leaders won't even mention God in the EU's constitution, but I say that's for good reason. It is appropriate that a Godless people have a Godless government. You have not welcomed God in your society.
If only that were true! Whilst I've never heard of any European that believes in creationism, non-fundamentalist Christianity has a strong influence. For example, children are still forced to take part in rituals such as singing and prayer at school.
It's no wonder Europeans can't understand America's heartland.
At least we can find it on a map. Perhaps the "liberal" education you speak of is better than you think?
Well, as I said, I require extraordinary evidence, which would constitute "proof" - I'm not sure if this is the same as "extraordinary proof", but either way, I'm not one of your "Skeptics", so I won't defend those points;)
In your example, there's no reason to suggest aliens either - as you say yourself, it could be something like a secret military project. If you're attacking a particular closed-minded type of person, then fair enough, but not everyone who demands more evidence for the paranormal is one of these people who assumes the observer made it all up. As many have said, there's a difference between mocking the observer to be a "crackpot", and mocking those people who make up wild theories to explain what the observer saw.
The education establishment (Dept. of Education bureaucrats, teacher unions, elitist/socialist academics) allow only Darwin's dogma to be taught in public schools. Polls indicate that a clear majority of U.S. tax-payers do not believe in evolution.
80% of Americans can't find Iraq on a map. So you think that teachers should therefore teach crap in Geography too?
The education establishment allow teaching of science in science lessons, funnily enough. I have nothing against teaching religious myths either, as long as it is in the appropriate lesson (we have "Religious Education" here in the UK, to learn about the beliefs of various people around the world).
Ok, I've seen this just one too many times to ignore. It is just not true. First, whenever someone says something to this effect, they never bother to define just what is a "negative."
Well let me define it for you. It means that you can't prove that something doesn't exist.
Of course, you are right in that some sense this is talking about practicality rather than an absolute. But if disproving something requires combing every part of the universe to see if there are any unicorns, I think that counts as "can't". On the other hand, proving unicorns exist is easy - you only have to produce a single unicorn ;)
If we rigorously defined "horse-like" and discoved that in our universe for some reason being both horse-like and having a single horn were not possible, then we could prove the statement true.
This is true, but part of the problem is that anything supernatural is never well defined. If science finds that there's no way that our consciousness can exist after death, people will still believe in Ghosts. Either as being something different, or perhaps they'll believe they are dead people's souls anyway, claiming that the science is wrong, and we just can't detect the souls or whatever.
Look at how disproving the events of Genesis doesn't stop people being Christians; the meaning and role of "God" is simply redefined. If we ever showed the Christian God couldn't exist, "God" would simply mean something else. If we ever showed how the Universe was created without a God, "God" would be the undetectable force behind it all. Not to mention the ones who just ignore the science and believe in Genesis anyway ("God put the bones there to test our faith"). I often reply "Define God" when asked if I believe - which I'm usually mocked for, as if I'm supposed to know the answer.
I don't know if there's a Unicorn-worshipping religion out there, but they would be equally dismissive of any "negative" proofs; and all they have to do is produce a single unicorn.
This mindset can be summarized by the Classic Skeptic Party Line: "Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Proof"... which is simply bad science
Yes and no. The thing about an extraordinary claim versus an ordinary claim is that there is already plenty of evidence for the latter. So I'll ask for extraordinary evidence for the former, because at the moment I don't have any.
For example, suppose I leave a bike outside my house, and find next morning it has disappeared. Various possibilities might include that it has been stolen by a human, or that it has been stolen by a passing alien.
The level of evidence I would require for each would be the same - but I already have evidence that humans exist, and that they might be prone to stealing bikes.
Some posters have ridiculed "skeptics" saying that they wouldn't believe it unless you brought an alien (or ghost, whatever) to them. So? This is exactly the same level of evidence I have for the more rational explanations. If bringing a bike-stealing alien to me counts as "extraordinary proof", then so be it - but I haven't "raised the bar" at all, and this isn't bad science. To me, the problem is that people try to "lower the bar" for paranormal events, saying things like they're inherently not reproducable, or that a non-believer won't see them, etc.
Onced the sun and stars revolved around the earth, we'd discovered all the large apes in the world, giant squid were legends, the Tazmanian Tiger was extinct, people who report out of body experiences were kooks, people who felt strange in "haunted" places were suggestable and superstitious, and mood and temperment couldn't possibly impact health...
For all but the first (which is more about different scientific models, rather than the paranormal), these are cases about whether the person who reports them is viewed as a "crackpot" or not. Sure, there are some "skeptics" (possibly some scientists) who dismiss any claim as an outright lie, which I agree is wrong; sometimes these people are shown to be right, as this very article shows.
But "crackpot", as others have pointed out, is usually taken to mean the sort of person who invents wild stories to explain these things away. So it wasn't sun and stars revolving around the earth, it was Gods dancing around the sky. It wasn't apes and squid, it was bizarre demons. It isn't simply the report of out of body experiences, it's the claim that these things are situations where the soul wanders around, and you can see things in other locations. It isn't people feeling strange in haunted locations, it is that they saw people who had come back from the dead. And it's suggesting that God, or magical "energies", have a non-placebo effect on our health.
Sure, sometimes the observer who was once ignored is later backed up by science. But how many paranormal "theories" have been later shown to be true by science?
Yes there are. For instance the "giant squid" was long thought to be a myth, but they have been found in the past couple of years. There are studies that suggest prayer and meditation have positive effects. The Will O' the Wisp may have been swamp gas. etc
Well, as I was sort of saying in my post at the end, I guess it depends as what counts as "paranormal".
I'm not saying that all accounts of events lumped under the heading "paranormal" are all cases of either things we currently understand/know about but are misunderstood, or people hallucinating, outright lying, or just pure myths. I'm sure that plenty have an explanation that is still within the realms of current day science, but we don't yet know the details of how or what causes it.
So finding that infrasound has this effect on people is one such example. Finding that giant squid exist, and that Will O' the Wisp may be swamp gasp are others - these are all rational explanations, albeit of things that may have been dismissed as pure myth or hoax by some skeptics.
So what I was really asking for was things like ghosts (defined as, say, visual appearance of human figures, that can be scientifically observed with equipment - be they souls of dead people, or some other strange as yet undiscovered phenomenon - as opposed to being hallucinations or whatever), ESP and so on. Have there been any successful scientific studies?
As you say, it's true that there seems to be an awful lot of circumstantial evidence, which perhaps should imply something. But it's also possible that a lot of vague evidence can stem from a single common cause (eg, the way that sleep paralysis explains symptoms of things like demon to alien abductions). People also have a habit of spotting patterns in events when they don't exist, by ignoring cases that don't fit (I remember a programme interviewing a few people who'd experienced sleep paralysis, and claiming that everyone had the same visions of being visited by a figure, so therefore something paranormal is going on - this was a complete lie, as I know from my own experience). And just look at the way urban myths propagate across the Internet to see people's desire to believe any old rubbish.
Now, there may be some evidence after all that which is still remaining, and requires further investigation - but I don't believe that a large amount of vague "evidence" points towards anything simply because there's a lot of it.
I can't prove something doesn't exist, but you should be able to prove something does exist.
A shame this was modded down, it makes a very important point.
We're never going to be able to disprove every single paranormal conjecture be it ghosts, alien abductions, or whatever, since there's always going to be some new paranormal idea that comes along, or some new paranormal account that it doesn't explain. The best we can do is come up with explanations for bits at a time - as this article is an example of. But on the other hand, if these accounts are true, and as the "crackpots" say they are, then it should be much easier, in a sense, to prove this. Are there cases where anything vaguely paranormal has been studied and backed up with evidence?
Of course it also depends on what we mean by "paranormal". For example, it could be that ghosts are due to some as yet undiscovered scientific physical phenomenon. This would mean that ghosts do exist (in that they aren't just hallucinations or whatever), but at the same time, anyone claiming they were souls of dead people or whatever else, would be wrong.
Scientists find 1 explanation for 1 spooky phenomena, and all paranormal happenings are written off as rubbish?
No; scientists find a plausible, rational, backed-by-evidence explanation for a wide range of paranormal accounts. Of course, there's still stuff which would require further explanations, but anything along the lines of "well I felt a strange sensation, it must be haunted" can no longer be considered evidence towards paranormal happenings.
Furthermore -- scientists find a possible explanation for a widely reported mysterious phenomenon, and the people who reported it are dismissed as crackpots while the "skeptics" who ridiculed them come off as geniuses?
I read the article, and couldn't find anything about the scientists ridiculing those reporting mysterious phenomena.
Personally, I've nothing against people who report strange events - the crackpots are the ones who assume this must be evidence for life after death, souls, demons or whatever else.
The article compares the weight of a cloud in the sky to the weight of an elephant on earth. Unfortunately, this is fundamentaly flawed in that the weight of any mass varies based upon the distance to the source of gravity. Therefore, a cloud at 10000 ft would have a different weight than a cloud of the same mass at 20000 ft.
This is true, but the difference is insignificant. Gravity follows an inverse square law, and the difference between something on the surface and something 6km up works out to be less than 0.19% if my calculations are correct. This is insignificant, compared with the variations between clouds (or indeed, elephants).
It would still be better if such articles talked about mass instead of weight, but I don't think it makes any difference here.
(And yes, the original poster is wrong - clouds most certainly do have weight.)
in other words, ownership of the "means of production" is irrelevant in the 21st century. today it is the ownership of "knowledge" which is relevant to economic development.
You seem to be under the impression that scarcity is a good thing. If one could wave a magic wand and make it so that there was an unlimited supply of the "means of production", then I would say that would be a *good* thing. Any attempts to limit the means of production, and to keep them in the hands of the few would be a bad thing.
contrary to existing economic theory, knowledge is NOT a non-rivalous asset. if i copy google's search methods and open up a competiting site, i have not deprived them of their knowledge, yet i have deprived them of their competitive advantage.
And then Google have to innovate further, or fall behind. How exactly is your world, where Google are allowed to be the only search engine, an improvement?
what incentive do european software developers have to become the next "google" if their inventions can simply be expropriated by corporate giants?
I don't know if patents are preventing other search engines from being as good as Google. But if they are, then european software developers will have no chance to become the next "google".
for a small company, patents are often the ONLY tools they have to keep from being steamrolled by their larger rivals. copyright is not enough. software patents, because they prevent the theft of knowledge, are valuable economic tools of the 21st century.
Firstly, you're misusing the word "theft". Secondly, ever heard of trade secrets? It's not like anyone's forcing companies to hand over their knowledge.
don't buy the product if you don't get to see the EULA until after you buy the product, dunce.
Last time I looked, most software packages don't have "There's a EULA in here, but we're not going to tell you what it is" written on the outside.
What happens when I buy a product and then find a hidden EULA, dunce?
If you don't like how a software product is marketed or how the EULA works, THEN DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT. Buy from a competitor, download open source software. You do have choices people.
And how do I make that choice if the EULA is only presented after I've bought it?
11. The user shall have the right to view the source code on demand.
You didn't buy the source code though.
If you want to see what the software is doing, have a look at the binary. You should certainly have that right (which, unfortunately, is a right that some companies think we shouldn't have).
Visit msdn.microsoft.com and click on "Terms of Use".
I'd paste some of the Terms of Use, but then I'd be violating the third paragraph. Actually, taking the fascistic bent (hey, when has Microsoft ever been a stickler on the terms?) you can't write a program based on the information presented there, since it'd be a derivative work of the information presented there (again, third paragraph).
You don't have to click on anything or even read those in order to view the MSDN documentation online, so all they have to fall back on is standard copyright law. Since it would be copyright infringement to distribute the information on their website, they're only being informative in pointing that out to you.
I agree EULAs and Terms & Conditions are often evil things, but I don't see anything wrong with these conditions. It's hardly a breach of copyright to write a program based on information you learnt elsewhere, and Microsoft aren't trying to suggest otherwise.
The AROS (Amiga Research Operating System) site is also shut down.
You are just making this shit up, it's just not true, the maximum penalty is a 1000 fine, you cannot be put in prison for it.
The AC is correct. Whilst it might not be true that people are put into prison directly as a result of not having a licence, it seems that they can be if they refuse to pay the fine.
See http://www.spiderbomb.com/tv/prisonstats.html for some statistics.
It's just a wild guess. It has absolutely nothing to do with physics, which is the real laws we all live by.
It's got nothing to do with legal laws either, but you don't hear people pointing out that "Moore's Law" hasn't been tested in court. Words can have more than one meaning, and it ought to be pretty obvious that a "law" about the rate of progress of CPUs is neither a legal law, nor a scientific law.
Not to mention that strictly speaking, AIUI, "law" isn't really used in a scientific sense anymore - we have "theories" and that's as good as it gets.
When a government tells a newspaper what it can or cannot print, that is censorship.
Are libel laws censorship? The government (or the courts) does control what a newspaper can print to some extent. Removing things which are factually incorrect isn't necessarily the same thing as removing things that one disagrees with.