Everything is balance. We ride the fragile zone of a magnetically and gravitationally protective mass where energy is flowing in and near it in prodigious quantities from an incandescent fusion inferno. It is a dangerous place where a steady state is disallowed and change is everything. To unbalance this is to court oblivion but to think it will last forever is folly. It is a seed pod and it will be burst from within or without. Nothing lasts forever... even change.
Nonsense. Either change lasts forever, or the universe will enter a steady state in which everything lasts forever.
Does anyone find it odd that the libertarian Tea Party candidate goes running for governement/federal/legal support when she runs into difficulty campaigning?
It's about as surprising as any other politician's lies and hypocrisy. (which is to say not at all). Personally I'd like to see her take this to the Supreme Court; they'd probably just deny cert, but if they didn't they'd finally answer whether or not copyright trumps the First Amendment.
They shop where they do because of low prices. Sure, everybody says they care about service. But 9/10 times they shop where the prices are lowest. Why would Wal-Mart, Best Buy and every airline bother to care about service when they know they'll make more money selling cheap shit and giving the illusion of a bargain? This requires skimping on any extras such as knowledgeable employees.
Price is transparent, service is opaque. Sure, I could go to a company which claims great service and has high prices, but chances are good they're lying about the great service, and I'll just get nailed on the price.
With airlines, I decide based on schedule first, then price (taking into account extras like baggage fees). Unfortunately, most of the service problems are shared by all airlines (TSA, delays); they try hard NOT to compete on service by getting the FAA to mandate whatever obnoxious rule they are coming up with this week.
Oh, and yes, what passes for a Xerox machine in my dorm really does have two drive connections and a "push to copy" button.
Ah, but can it run a proxy server? Would be quite amusing if the anti-piracy folks responded to a piracy complaint and it was traced to a Xerox machine.
therefore, the job is to remove the corruption from the government, so THE ONLY TOOL YOU HAVE AGAINST CORPORATIONS works better for you. see how that works?
Removing corruption from government is like removing the wet from water.
Wow, you obviously don't understand how the internet works. The US has no more ability to unplug India or China than Iran has the ability to unplug the US.
Actually, unplugging India would be fairly simple for the US. It simply involves submarine work. Disconnecting China could likely be effectively accomplished the same way, at higher risk; I don't think there's significant overland cable from China to the rest of the world.
Iran, lacking much naval power, could not disconnect the US the same way.
Also, I'm not from the US, but how could you get the impression that "the streets are paved with gold" in the US from watching american television?
One famous example (though a movie, not TV... and yes, I know it was a book first): The dirt poor Joads from _The Grapes of Wrath_ had a truck.
Desparate Housewives: On one income, everyone's living in a large house and has two cars. Even the one with more kids than I can count. Oh, and when one becomes _really_ poor when her husband is blinded, the extent of her problems is she has to drive to WalMart-equivalent to shop. (Yes, that's satire... you and I recognize that. But would someone from a third-world country?)
Married, With Children: Same idea. Al's a shoe salesman, his wife doesn't work. He's still got a house and a car.
Probably any sitcom not about the upper class has this issue; the supposed working-class as portrayed on those shows has an embarrassment of riches from a third-world perspective.
The "button" on the end of the battery contacts the positive contact and physically lifts or disconnects the negative one. If they got a patent for simple tricks like that, I'm going to lose all faith I have in the patent office.
Consider a terminal consisting of three strips, the center one being springy and not hardwired to the outer two. The outer two are insulated from contact with the battery. When the strips are near their relaxed position, the center one contacts some protrusions on the outer two. Put a battery in and the button on the positive side pushes the center strip out of contact with the outer strips and into the positive connection. The negative connection is hardwired to the outer strips on both sides; the flat terminal on the negative side is insufficient to push the center strip away from the outer strips.
You're going to a country with a ruthless authoritarian dictatorship, and which further is both the darling of the US government and willing and able to stand up to it if need be, and you're asking how to subvert one of the institutions beloved to its leaders? Here's an idea for you: don't. Best if you just don't go to China at all, but if you're going to go, don't do anything which might result in you being imprisoned indefinitely, particularly when the best the US embassy will do is put in some token protest.
True, by most reports, the government doesn't particularly care if foreigners evade the firewall. But if they change their mind, or if they think you're helping Chinese people do to the same, you could be in the shit in no time at all. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life at hard labor in a foreign country?
Worse than that (from their perspective)... they got the law they lobbied for, but didn't realize that a) It would be applied as written b) That anyone could actually afford to comply c) That a financial model would exist where it made sense for the service provider to defend the ability to post content against a hail of RIAA/MPAA member lawsuits.
Even if they quadruple my taxes, it's still far cheaper than what I owe for my education + the interest I have to pay.
Please post the name of your accountant. Because if you quadruple my taxes, I owe a lot more than I make. Actually I think quadruple my current taxes for one year would about pay for my entire college education (at a state school, granted), though that's without interest and without accounting for inflation).
ROTFL, are you practicing for a journalism career? Your first link is about people who put their mouth over the open end of a bottle with dry ice in it. If they weren't doing that they'd probably be sticking pencils in their eye or something.
The problem is that being selfish and doing everything you believe necessary for your own advancement can backfire. One can easily end up been isolated and left in the cold. In my experience, those who have taken their time to help others, establish trust and rally people around their own interests do better in the long run. You have to give a little to get a little. Selfishness is a huge turnoff.
Being evil can include long-term thinking of that sort as well. The good person establishes trust because he's trustworthy; the evil one because it is expedient. The good person will remain trustworthy even against his own interests; the evil one sees that trust as an investment and will betray it for a sufficiently large payoff.
Any successful corrupt politician knows how to play that game.
Step 1: Generate root certificate Step 2: Develop clear, easy to understand instructions on how to install your root certificate on all popular browsers. Include any software necessary, and instructions to bypass all warnings. Step 3: Develop dancing hamster or similar popular site Step 4: Protect site with cert signed by your root certificate. Include pointer to instructions developed in step 2 to get rid of browser warning. Step 5: ??? Step 6: PROFIT!
THESE statewide-granted monopolies and the recent (yesterday) decision to eliminate channels 31 to 51 on broadcast television is telling me that the Nobility are no longer serving the People.
The decision to eliminate 31-51 isn't a done deal. It'll take an act of Congress, and there's a whole lot of folks who screamed enough about the original digital transition to delay it for another six months even at the bitter end when even the broadcasters weren't on their side.
In fact, "good" and "evil" have absolutely nothing to do with success or failure. To believe otherwise is simple superstition.
It's not superstition. It may be false, but it's not simple superstition. To be "good" means (among other things) that you have obligations beyond your own advancement; these obligations can (obviously) interfere with your own advancement. It can be as complex as the whole China thing, or as simple as sabotaging a co-worker (and thus competitor on the corporate ladder). To be evil means you can take any means necessary for your own advancement, constrained only by external forces -- your only commandment is the 11th, "thou shalt not get caught".
Rather than lose China, I'd comply with the government's wishes and obey the law (i.e. filter). Nice guys who "do no evil" ultimately finish last.
Nice guys who capitulate to evil still finish last, and feel bad about themselves besides. If you want to win by being evil, you have to embrace it, not merely capitulate to it.
On parts of the East Coast, the broadcast spectrum is almost full; there's no more room in VHF-Hi or UHF for any stations (there's a bit of VHF-lo left, but VHF-Lo sucks for digital). Taking 20 channels out means a lot of people are going to lose TV. Who is it going to be? I suppose the Comcast-NBC merger will free up a few stations (if Comcast pulls NBC off the air), but even that's not enough.
This hoping the Supreme Ct will invalidate software patents is clutching at straws anyway. Go and ask your lawmakers to explicitly write a law to exclude software patents.
Sure. Just as soon as I finish squaring the circle and I get done holding back the tide. Oh, wait, I'm also supposed to be emptying the Mississipi this afternoon, and I've misplaced my teaspoon.
I'd actually prefer that approach--- strengthen review for obviousness instead.
Obviousness is a trap. As soon as you declare a patent "obvious", patent defenders sneer that "Oh yeah, it's real obvious now that you have the patent in front of you. If it's really so obvious why hadn't it been done before?". And that last challenge moves you from obviousness to novelty, where novelty is so narrowly defined that you have to have an example of something done in exactly the same way using exactly the same terms in exactly the same field of endeavor.
You've got people on the Right calling Obama a fascist, people on the Left calling the Cheney-Bush-Borg Collective fascists, and the word has come to mean virtually nothing at all. Eh? Why does that make the word meaningless? They're both fascists. They both believe in a centralization of corporate and state power under the control of a single entity; they only disagree on who should be on top.
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Nonsense. Either change lasts forever, or the universe will enter a steady state in which everything lasts forever.
It's about as surprising as any other politician's lies and hypocrisy. (which is to say not at all). Personally I'd like to see her take this to the Supreme Court; they'd probably just deny cert, but if they didn't they'd finally answer whether or not copyright trumps the First Amendment.
Price is transparent, service is opaque. Sure, I could go to a company which claims great service and has high prices, but chances are good they're lying about the great service, and I'll just get nailed on the price.
With airlines, I decide based on schedule first, then price (taking into account extras like baggage fees). Unfortunately, most of the service problems are shared by all airlines (TSA, delays); they try hard NOT to compete on service by getting the FAA to mandate whatever obnoxious rule they are coming up with this week.
Ah, but can it run a proxy server? Would be quite amusing if the anti-piracy folks responded to a piracy complaint and it was traced to a Xerox machine.
Removing corruption from government is like removing the wet from water.
Actually, unplugging India would be fairly simple for the US. It simply involves submarine work. Disconnecting China could likely be effectively accomplished the same way, at higher risk; I don't think there's significant overland cable from China to the rest of the world.
Iran, lacking much naval power, could not disconnect the US the same way.
One famous example (though a movie, not TV... and yes, I know it was a book first): The dirt poor Joads from _The Grapes of Wrath_ had a truck.
Desparate Housewives: On one income, everyone's living in a large house and has two cars. Even the one with more kids than I can count. Oh, and when one becomes _really_ poor when her husband is blinded, the extent of her problems is she has to drive to WalMart-equivalent to shop. (Yes, that's satire... you and I recognize that. But would someone from a third-world country?)
Married, With Children: Same idea. Al's a shoe salesman, his wife doesn't work. He's still got a house and a car.
Probably any sitcom not about the upper class has this issue; the supposed working-class as portrayed on those shows has an embarrassment of riches from a third-world perspective.
The "button" on the end of the battery contacts the positive contact and physically lifts or disconnects the negative one. If they got a patent for simple tricks like that, I'm going to lose all faith I have in the patent office.
Consider a terminal consisting of three strips, the center one being springy and not hardwired to the outer two. The outer two are insulated from contact with the battery. When the strips are near their relaxed position, the center one contacts some protrusions on the outer two. Put a battery in and the button on the positive side pushes the center strip out of contact with the outer strips and into the positive connection. The negative connection is hardwired to the outer strips on both sides; the flat terminal on the negative side is insufficient to push the center strip away from the outer strips.
You're going to a country with a ruthless authoritarian dictatorship, and which further is both the darling of the US government and willing and able to stand up to it if need be, and you're asking how to subvert one of the institutions beloved to its leaders? Here's an idea for you: don't. Best if you just don't go to China at all, but if you're going to go, don't do anything which might result in you being imprisoned indefinitely, particularly when the best the US embassy will do is put in some token protest.
True, by most reports, the government doesn't particularly care if foreigners evade the firewall. But if they change their mind, or if they think you're helping Chinese people do to the same, you could be in the shit in no time at all. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life at hard labor in a foreign country?
Sure. The difference is that Paris Hilton would be insightful enough to see the irony.
Worse than that (from their perspective)... they got the law they lobbied for, but didn't realize that
a) It would be applied as written
b) That anyone could actually afford to comply
c) That a financial model would exist where it made sense for the service provider to defend the ability to post content against a hail of RIAA/MPAA member lawsuits.
Please post the name of your accountant. Because if you quadruple my taxes, I owe a lot more than I make. Actually I think quadruple my current taxes for one year would about pay for my entire college education (at a state school, granted), though that's without interest and without accounting for inflation).
You've got that backwards; it's the real ones which won't hold up without support.
ROTFL, are you practicing for a journalism career? Your first link is about people who put their mouth over the open end of a bottle with dry ice in it. If they weren't doing that they'd probably be sticking pencils in their eye or something.
Me too. But Obama's working on getting rid of the broadcast channels, so that solution won't work for long.
Being evil can include long-term thinking of that sort as well. The good person establishes trust because he's trustworthy; the evil one because it is expedient. The good person will remain trustworthy even against his own interests; the evil one sees that trust as an investment and will betray it for a sufficiently large payoff.
Any successful corrupt politician knows how to play that game.
Step 1: Generate root certificate
Step 2: Develop clear, easy to understand instructions on how to install your root certificate on all popular browsers. Include any software necessary, and instructions to bypass all warnings.
Step 3: Develop dancing hamster or similar popular site
Step 4: Protect site with cert signed by your root certificate. Include pointer to instructions developed in step 2 to get rid of browser warning.
Step 5: ???
Step 6: PROFIT!
The decision to eliminate 31-51 isn't a done deal. It'll take an act of Congress, and there's a whole lot of folks who screamed enough about the original digital transition to delay it for another six months even at the bitter end when even the broadcasters weren't on their side.
It's not superstition. It may be false, but it's not simple superstition. To be "good" means (among other things) that you have obligations beyond your own advancement; these obligations can (obviously) interfere with your own advancement. It can be as complex as the whole China thing, or as simple as sabotaging a co-worker (and thus competitor on the corporate ladder). To be evil means you can take any means necessary for your own advancement, constrained only by external forces -- your only commandment is the 11th, "thou shalt not get caught".
Nice guys who capitulate to evil still finish last, and feel bad about themselves besides. If you want to win by being evil, you have to embrace it, not merely capitulate to it.
On parts of the East Coast, the broadcast spectrum is almost full; there's no more room in VHF-Hi or UHF for any stations (there's a bit of VHF-lo left, but VHF-Lo sucks for digital). Taking 20 channels out means a lot of people are going to lose TV. Who is it going to be? I suppose the Comcast-NBC merger will free up a few stations (if Comcast pulls NBC off the air), but even that's not enough.
Sure. Just as soon as I finish squaring the circle and I get done holding back the tide. Oh, wait, I'm also supposed to be emptying the Mississipi this afternoon, and I've misplaced my teaspoon.
Obviousness is a trap. As soon as you declare a patent "obvious", patent defenders sneer that "Oh yeah, it's real obvious now that you have the patent in front of you. If it's really so obvious why hadn't it been done before?". And that last challenge moves you from obviousness to novelty, where novelty is so narrowly defined that you have to have an example of something done in exactly the same way using exactly the same terms in exactly the same field of endeavor.
punted.
Bastards. Bilski is invalid, machine-or-transformation is thrown out, but the court explicitly provides no further guidance either way.