You vote for congress. You buy stuff from industry. You're exactly who needs to hear this information so you can do you part to make change happen, through who you vote for in governmental elections and with your money. Berating isn't right, I agree, but if you're feeling the least bit guilty, make some voting choices with this issue in mind to assuage your guilt. You'll be doing the right thing, and, maybe, you'll find this sort of information less antagonistic since, in your own way, you'll have done what you can to make things better.
I'm not sure what your point is with this comment as it relates to the subject at hand. Are you attempting to in some way support the congressman's view or perhaps just suggesting we need to find more energy efficient ways to produce, process and transport food?
Whether a person is riding in a car or on a bike, they're going to ingest food. Is the difference between the food intake of the car passenger and the bike rider (with the commensurate net CO2 output difference) enough to validate the congressman's implication about the bike rider producing more CO2 than the car passenger? I doubt it.
I'm confused. Are you saying that an increasing standard of living, applied to more and more people as time goes on, puts less strain on the planet's natural resources? That seems counterintuitive to me.
It is not that we don't have enough H2O on this planet, quite the opposite. To purify the sea water is not just possible, but we are doing it already.
Seems simple enough. What happens to the sea (and everything in it) when we start converting it to drinking water for however many billion people it is that have used up the ready supply of non processed drinking water? I have to believe there'll be some serious consequences from messing with the first link in the global food chain.
The appeal of a relationship without fear of rejection and with guaranteed acceptance and understanding (no matter your personal peccadilloes) is very powerful, even if it is virtual. Attempting relationships with real people, regardless of medium, comes with the risk of emotional pain.
I've never copyright, trademark or patent infringed in my life (the pirate meme is so tiresome and inappropriate). The U.S. government should have no right to tap my communications (phone, internet, you name it) to see that I don't without probable cause and a warrant. Further, my tax dollars should not be going to fund the detection, evidence gathering, prosecution and punishment of infringement cases that should be remedied in civil court and in no way should be automatically assumed federal offenses bearing felony consequences. You don't have to want something for free to detest this kind of legislation and those that would support it.
Sigh indeed.
Tell him he, and his generation, will take us there again. Then start selling him on the positives of a strong math and science education as the path that leads there. We got complacent because we had something that ran, now we'll have to go without for a bit. I figure right about the time your boy is leaving high school people will be hungry for manned space exploration again.
If you live in the U.S. you should care. There's a non-trivial possibility that this person could be President of the U.S.A. in a couple of years. Imagine the U.S. executive office occupied by someone more ignorant and more reactionary than G.W. Bush. On second thought, I misspoke, if you live anywhere you should care.
California and green have little to do with each other...Much to my surprise, I learned that you can't even buy a diesel car out here.
From what I can tell, California is about regulations that make people who don't know much feel good.
We bought a VW Jetta TDI Sportswagon in good ole Los Angeles just last year. I can give you the name of the dealership, or others we looked at that also sold said diesel based cars. Pretty sure they're still selling those, though they run out of stock pretty quick when they ship.
Mod me redundant as others have said the same thing, but if ever there was a post deserving the mythical -1 Wrong moderation yours is it. Maybe you could get a -1 Troll instead since your false statement is ensconced in lovely trollish sentences?
The average consumer has no way to utilise the sort of programming freedom that Stallman would like to see people have. They need a checked-out, validated, "App Store" where both useful and useless things can be downloaded and will never, ever compromise their computer. And if an application is found to be bad after it is released it can be "recalled". Period.
Call me crazy but I think you just described GNU/Linux. And call me crazy again, but I think the average person can utilize that sort of programming freedom right now.
"It simply is not factual to call the war illegal."
Technically speaking, it is simply not factual to call this current military activity in Iraq a war. The president never asked congress to pass a declaration of war, congress has not made such a declaration - thus there is officially no war.
Why did the president not ask congress to officially declare war? Maybe because he knew they wouldn't do it, but probably because he didn't want to be on the hook for what an official declaration of war would mean. Instead he submitted requests for funding military action in the region - which the cowardly congress has passed.
So we have de facto war at a heavy price in terms of wasted lives, wealth and resources , with no clear victory conditions - without anyone actually being accountable for approving a war in terms of law.
I can understand how and why people would view such an action by our representatives as illegal and contrary to the spirit and principals upon the which U.S. and its government were supposed to be founded.
No kidding. I also find the irony of naming a tool for stopping copyright infringement after a fictional character from a movie/cartoon series which I'm surprised isn't trademarked in some way somewhat delicious.
Simply put, I disagree. I won't touch the issue on whether it's a desireable thing for corporations to profit on the illnesses of people. I think that research work gets done regardless of patent or not, the funding for the research just comes from a source other than exorbitant profits on selling the product - if a loss in profit is seen at all. You can buy acetaminophen that isn't Tylenol, yet Tylenol still makes plenty of profit despite lower cost competitors selling exactly the same drug. Similarly with many, many other drugs. So unfortunately I don't see any support for your contention.
Intellectual Property isn't. It's a fiction perpetrated on society by those who've found the gravy train of leeching off the backs of those who create or do actual work. It really is something for nothing as it's currently advertised and is supporting a whole legion of parasites. Here's more news - most of the stuff called intellectual property isn't worth much. That last episode of Battlestar Galactica - not worth much in the grand scheme of things. If there were no Battlestar Galactica we'd all get on just fine. I don't need my rights as an individual human being subverted in order to support a byzantine copyright profit scam. I don't need extra laws to ensure that I pay my dues for some people to watch a remake of a story that was itself copped from ancient mythology (now with more CGI and super soap opera yet "gritty" plolt/dialog!). I'll live just fine without mass produced media if it gains me my rights back, thank you very much - and I've done so to some extent for a while now as I 1)do not illegally copy material and thus do not partake of it 3)pay for material not associated with major copyright scamming organizations whenever I can find any that I find appealing.
The underlying, unquestioned foundation of this whole ridiculous system is the idiotic concept that entities are entitled to make money by selling copies of something, regardless of the cost of creating the copies. In this day and age it's ludicrous frankly, and has only gained traction due to a brief period of time when making copies was possible but also costly. Prior to that time, copies were not really available. At this point in time copies are virtually cost free. The natural course of things would be to give up monetizing the act of copying and distributing copies and direct funds back into the hands of those who actually produce works worth copying. Instead these vested interests who fundamentally do nothing productive and get paid tons to do said nothing have taken offense at the idea that there's no need for us to support their obscene life styles and profits anymore. And who can blame them when they've had it so good for these past few decades? And I'm not talking about just the guys at the top here. I'm talking about every PA, bean counter and lawyer having anything to do with the entertainment industry. The entire bloated construct is anathema to true creativity at this point, and definitely anathema to Free culture and society.
Here's an inconvenient truth - if our current corrupt "intellectual property" scam had been in place at the time some guy invented the wheel or fire or language (yeah oversimplification, deal with it), humanity as a whole would be worse off. Imagine paying a "wheel tax" or "fire licensing fee" every time you wanted to drive a car or cook a meal since the dawn of history. Yet that's what these jackals would have us do now.
In short, to those who propagate the "intellectual property" scam - my sentiments are fuck off and die. And that's an inconvenient truth.
MS are the biggest target for software patent trolls. They're the leading software company in the world and have the deepest pockets. They're ripe for a death of a million flea bites in the form of patent trolls who have patent portfolios but no product which could possibly infringe on MS patents. In addition they're not top dog in terms of patent ownership - they're still upside down in comparison to IBM and probably a few others out there.
Maybe MS analysts have figured out they have an unacceptably high risk exposure in this regard, to the extent that it could really derail their business and/or profitability.
It would follow then that the U.S. patent law environment is hostile to MS in the long run. U.S. patent law seems pretty firmly entrenched, possibly to the extent that they can't buy legislation to change it. So what options are left?
Threaten a possible U.S. business meltdown via a patent war. The cost of that war would effect pretty much every U.S. citizen in the form of higher product prices as nearly everything business in the U.S. would be involved in such a patent war at least indirectly. In addition governmental operating costs go up as the government runs on MS and IBM, which of course would necessitate either program cuts, tax hikes or even more deficit spending in an already over extended situation. Efficiency drops, GDP drops - citizenry gets upset. That's where government feels the heat.
On threat of this, our self interested "representatives" realize this patent thing really isn't working so well the way it's currently running, time to make some changes.
It works (sure there are a few gaps in there, but you can make the connections yourself) only if MS feels the patent system isn't working for them. I don't think it does - they already control their market by their own methods, they don't need patents for that - so what better way to scrap the system than threaten economic mayhem via patent wars?
Self confidence in dealing with peers and teachers Standing up for myself How to balance intelligence and sociability Heartache - how to deal with it Competition - both good and bad How to recognize and cultivate good relationships - how to recognize and avoid bad ones Responsibility, how to make choices and deal with the consequences - particularly in the ever unfolding social web that exists in a public school How and when to ask questions, and stick to with it until you get a satisfying answer How to filter and process input from other people, both classmates and teachers
Other invaluable things I gained from public school: Being exposed to a wide variety of people, from different backgrounds, having different personalities Great friends, many of whom are still great friends to this day (many, many years later)
Maybe you could have obtained the same results by home schooling, I don't know - it seems like it would be tougher for some of the above - but I do know that I got quite a bit out of the much maligned public schools.
Of course just about everything everyone's posted in this thread is anectodal, and my list is no exception, but public school isn't as bad as some would have everyone believe, we're all just rehashing our own personal experiences - good or bad.
Education isn't a time, isn't a place and it isn't an institution. If someone has a desire to learn they will learn, wherever they are from whoever they can. If anyone is repsonsible for that desire it's parents though - they are the greatest influence on their children. I thank my parents for instilling that desire to learn in me, I would hope other parents out there do the same favor for their children.
See, you're doing the same thing as the cartels equating getting paid to create art with getting paid to create/distribute COPIES of art. The confusion of these two concepts, deliberate or otherwise, is at the root of these types of dicussions and the actions people take as result.
So people were able to get "paid, and often paid quite well..." before there was copyright, and before there was any digital distribution of copies. Far from being evidence of how the point that great art will be created regardless of whether people are paid for production/distribution of copies is tough to prove, it actually proves it.
For the rest, you've noted the discrepancy between the big stars and all the other artists. The thing you're not addressing is that that situation exists now anyway with the already established generous "creators' rights." Most poets, musicians and writers ARE at the bottom of the economic ladder while the select few and the parasites that feed off them make a mint from creation/distribution of copies. So your last couple of paragraphs are actually a non-sequitor.
Seems to me the only "right" that matters in these conversations is the "creators'" entitlement to being paid in perpetuity for any and all copies of the same work over and over, in any format it may appear.
That shouldn't be a right, and it didn't used to be for nearly the entirety of human artistic existence. I'm all for abolishing it if it has become one too. The trick these lobbiests/cartels have pulled is establishing this "right" as a fact and basing all consequent discussions on this fact. Sorry guys I'm not on board - the very principles you're trying to have everyone take for granted are wrong and repugnant.
Even if "creators" never receive a cent, dinar sheckle or chicken liver for selling a copy of their work there will still be plenty of art - good art, great art - just as there has always been. And in this day of advanced distribution technology we'll all have easy access to it as well. And just possibly, eliminating the artificial "entitlement" money attached to copies will return the economics of art to a sane level, bringing the "artists" and the would be bloodsuckers who infest them back into line with the rest of society in terms of monetary value in relation to actual utility value.
Take back the terms of the discussion human beings - once you do that these cartels have no ground to stand on. Everything else is window dressing.
The chart at this site's page http://carto.eu.org/article2481.html , which is becoming a bit more frequently seen, shows the graph of C02 content in the atmosphere and temperature ranges over the last 400,000 years as derived from examining core samples, up to 1950. In that graph there is a strong corellation between C02 content and temperature change (increased C02 == increased temperature, etc.) The high point on the graph happened about 325,000 years ago when C02 content hit about 300 ppm.
In 1950 C02 content was around 285 ppm.
In 2006 C02 content was 383 ppm
That's nearly 100ppm greater than 56 years ago, nearly 83 ppm greater than the greatest peak currently recorded. We've had a 35% increase in CO2 content over the last 56 years. We're 28% above the previously recorded peak level from the last 400,000 years, and we're seeing record high temperatures for increasingly large spans of time into the past.
Given the nearly lock step relationship between C02 content and temperature change, the rate of increase and the extent of the increase over the last 56 years, and the absence of any other major contributor to CO2 content in the last 56 years, I find it really difficult to think that the human activities known to increase C02 emissions we've increasingly engaged in over the last 150 years have had little to nothing to do with the obvious increase in both C02 atmospheric content and resulting temperature/climate changes. The rate and amount of change seem to indicate that we're already beyond the normal range of variation, yet people still feel comfortable saying it's just the normal fluctuation of the planet's climate. I'd sincerely like to hear other viable explanations for the facts, but there haven't been any - the most well supported hypothisis remains that humans burning fossil fuels (in ever increasing numbers do to an also alarming rate of population growth) are truly affecting the climate.
What I'm also really curious about is why so many are so adamant about refusing to acknowledge what seems to be obvious, but that's a task for psychologists and philosophers I suppose.
"The bill's intent is to keep adult-oriented (this criteria to be determined by a judge) games from getting into minor's hands, and fines any store responsible for selling said games to minors. This is not necessarily a bad thing..."
Yes it is necessarily a bad thing. It's not the government's job and it's not an appropriate use of taxpayers' money to perform morality/value judgement/child development enforcement in the private sector. Here's a crazy thought: the Twinkies (R) stores sell to minors are probably way more harmful to said minors than any video game they can buy. Our (U.S. and particularly Louisiana's) health problems stemming from obesity/poor nutrition are way more costly than whatever (are there any?) problems we're having with rampant video game porn od'ing/psychological scrambling experienced by minors. So where's the legislation disallowing unsupervised Twinkie (R) purchases? Won't someone think of the (fat, diabetic, malnourished, undeducated) children? But regulating Twinkie (R) sales just because some children (and/or their parents) can't handle them would be stupid - right?
Disclaimer: I love the taste/texture of Twinkies (R) - yet I stay away from them because I know they're bad for me.
The gaming industry's lobbiests are either non-existant or bush league - if they weren't there's no way this bill would have happened and games would be on the shelves right along with the Twinkies (R).
You seem to be confusing witnessing with spying/surveillance.
Witness is when you happen to be somewhere that something happens unexpectedly (to you) and you see/hear/experience it. You may or may not be engaging in responsible citizen type behavior by reporting what you witnessed whether voluntarily or by request. The OP is not in any way talking about this - why are you?
Spying/surveilling is when you're actively, purposefully on the look out for what you believe to be bad things and report them whenever they happen. That's what the subject is here, not witnessing. I don't consider this kind of activity by non-authorized/non-professional people as being a RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN. It's quite the opposite in fact. It's one ingredient in the recipe for a miserable, repressive society.
RANT You know what a true RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN is? It's someone who understands and is behind the principles on which the U.S. was founded and doesn't sit by spouting xeonophobic, fascist nonsense attempting to justify corrupt, morally bankrupt politicians and businessmen taking the wizz all over the Constitution for personal gain, crumpling it up, shoving it up our collective asses on a nearly daily basis and then calling it ice cream. It's pretty much the opposite of that in fact - it's someone who takes a stand against such things when they're attempted or even hinted at indirectly as is happening here with this fucking bill. END RANT
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you just didn't get what the OP was talking about. Otherwise you're engaging in defense of uneeded xenophobia, totalitarianism and fascism, to which I'd say - god, cowardly douche bag morons make me sick.
While it may seem clear to you that such actions are not grounds for charges of treason at first blush, in my book anyone trampling, countermanding or subverting the Constitution of the U.S. qualifies as an enemy of the U.S., and therefore is a legitimate target for such charges in accordance with the "adhering to their enemies" portion. I can't think of anything more destructive, anathema, traitorous or treasonous to the principles on which the U.S. was founded, and thereby to the country itself and most importantly the citizens it contains and represents, than participating in grossly unconstitutional acts or attempting to pass grossly unconstitutional laws.
You bet your ass such people are treasonous and traitors - to this country, to all its citizens past and present, and to the greater community of humanity to which the U.S. Constitution is (still) a spectacular enumeration, clarification and affirmation of what should be the basic rights of all people in relation to government - no amount of clever wordplay or lawyering will change that. Such treasonous traitors should be tried and convicted as such for all to clearly see.
Granted, the above is my special reading of the cited clause, but in this day and age I think my reading strongly applies. We're way past time where pedantry - even the innocuous kind the parent is engaged in here - can serve the common man.
Seems like one of the least effective uses of technology would be to automate this kind of interpersonal relationship (leader/follower). There's no substitute for in person, face to face discussion of problems. This kind of system attempts to quantify and abstract things that simply don't lend themselves to such treatment. This proposed system smacks of fear of conflict and inability to mediate such conflict effectively. Maybe it's a cultural thing (India still does have some notion of caste system pervading their culture I believe) - but I can't see this solution being effective as a management strategy. Perhaps it will be used as a springboard to further exploration of problem relationships, that may not have been brought to light (in which case you'll have to engage in conversation anyway so you've not really bought anything), but to me it actually looks like another excuse for managers to become less involved in their relationship with those they supervise. "You had a chance to fill out the survey and there were no problems detected - so it's not my fault that you're unhappy." If the goal is to further treat your workers as cogs in a machine, and you equate that kind of functioning to efficiency, I guess this would make you happy. But I don't see it as a great way to manage actual human beings. I mean seriously - can you imagine trying to manage other interpersonal relationships this way? Give your significant other a fifteen item ranking survey on your satisfaction with your relationship with little to no extra explanation - let me know how that goes. I hazard to guess either you lie in your rankings, or you're going to have some serious 'splainin to do.
When I've got a problem with someone, I go talk to them. If I want to know if people have problems, I go talk to them. It's the most efficient, effecive way of carrying out interpersonal relationships.
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You vote for congress. You buy stuff from industry. You're exactly who needs to hear this information so you can do you part to make change happen, through who you vote for in governmental elections and with your money. Berating isn't right, I agree, but if you're feeling the least bit guilty, make some voting choices with this issue in mind to assuage your guilt. You'll be doing the right thing, and, maybe, you'll find this sort of information less antagonistic since, in your own way, you'll have done what you can to make things better.
NOTHING is going to happen in California. Their budget is a joke. They have... the biggest deficit out of every state...
California has had a budget surplus the last two years. They expect to do so again this year.
I'm not sure what your point is with this comment as it relates to the subject at hand. Are you attempting to in some way support the congressman's view or perhaps just suggesting we need to find more energy efficient ways to produce, process and transport food? Whether a person is riding in a car or on a bike, they're going to ingest food. Is the difference between the food intake of the car passenger and the bike rider (with the commensurate net CO2 output difference) enough to validate the congressman's implication about the bike rider producing more CO2 than the car passenger? I doubt it.
I'm confused. Are you saying that an increasing standard of living, applied to more and more people as time goes on, puts less strain on the planet's natural resources? That seems counterintuitive to me.
It is not that we don't have enough H2O on this planet, quite the opposite. To purify the sea water is not just possible, but we are doing it already.
Seems simple enough. What happens to the sea (and everything in it) when we start converting it to drinking water for however many billion people it is that have used up the ready supply of non processed drinking water? I have to believe there'll be some serious consequences from messing with the first link in the global food chain.
While the majority of innovation occurs in locations with sane approaches to the circulation of ideas.
The appeal of a relationship without fear of rejection and with guaranteed acceptance and understanding (no matter your personal peccadilloes) is very powerful, even if it is virtual. Attempting relationships with real people, regardless of medium, comes with the risk of emotional pain.
I've never copyright, trademark or patent infringed in my life (the pirate meme is so tiresome and inappropriate). The U.S. government should have no right to tap my communications (phone, internet, you name it) to see that I don't without probable cause and a warrant. Further, my tax dollars should not be going to fund the detection, evidence gathering, prosecution and punishment of infringement cases that should be remedied in civil court and in no way should be automatically assumed federal offenses bearing felony consequences. You don't have to want something for free to detest this kind of legislation and those that would support it. Sigh indeed.
Tell him he, and his generation, will take us there again. Then start selling him on the positives of a strong math and science education as the path that leads there. We got complacent because we had something that ran, now we'll have to go without for a bit. I figure right about the time your boy is leaving high school people will be hungry for manned space exploration again.
If you live in the U.S. you should care. There's a non-trivial possibility that this person could be President of the U.S.A. in a couple of years. Imagine the U.S. executive office occupied by someone more ignorant and more reactionary than G.W. Bush. On second thought, I misspoke, if you live anywhere you should care.
California and green have little to do with each other...Much to my surprise, I learned that you can't even buy a diesel car out here.
From what I can tell, California is about regulations that make people who don't know much feel good.
We bought a VW Jetta TDI Sportswagon in good ole Los Angeles just last year. I can give you the name of the dealership, or others we looked at that also sold said diesel based cars. Pretty sure they're still selling those, though they run out of stock pretty quick when they ship. Mod me redundant as others have said the same thing, but if ever there was a post deserving the mythical -1 Wrong moderation yours is it. Maybe you could get a -1 Troll instead since your false statement is ensconced in lovely trollish sentences?
The average consumer has no way to utilise the sort of programming freedom that Stallman would like to see people have. They need a checked-out, validated, "App Store" where both useful and useless things can be downloaded and will never, ever compromise their computer. And if an application is found to be bad after it is released it can be "recalled". Period.
Call me crazy but I think you just described GNU/Linux. And call me crazy again, but I think the average person can utilize that sort of programming freedom right now.
"It simply is not factual to call the war illegal."
Technically speaking, it is simply not factual to call this current military activity in Iraq a war. The president never asked congress to pass a declaration of war, congress has not made such a declaration - thus there is officially no war.
Why did the president not ask congress to officially declare war? Maybe because he knew they wouldn't do it, but probably because he didn't want to be on the hook for what an official declaration of war would mean. Instead he submitted requests for funding military action in the region - which the cowardly congress has passed.
So we have de facto war at a heavy price in terms of wasted lives, wealth and resources , with no clear victory conditions - without anyone actually being accountable for approving a war in terms of law.
I can understand how and why people would view such an action by our representatives as illegal and contrary to the spirit and principals upon the which U.S. and its government were supposed to be founded.
No kidding. I also find the irony of naming a tool for stopping copyright infringement after a fictional character from a movie/cartoon series which I'm surprised isn't trademarked in some way somewhat delicious.
I guess it's a better name than Dreyfus though?
Simply put, I disagree. I won't touch the issue on whether it's a desireable thing for corporations to profit on the illnesses of people. I think that research work gets done regardless of patent or not, the funding for the research just comes from a source other than exorbitant profits on selling the product - if a loss in profit is seen at all. You can buy acetaminophen that isn't Tylenol, yet Tylenol still makes plenty of profit despite lower cost competitors selling exactly the same drug. Similarly with many, many other drugs. So unfortunately I don't see any support for your contention.
Intellectual Property isn't. It's a fiction perpetrated on society by those who've found the gravy train of leeching off the backs of those who create or do actual work. It really is something for nothing as it's currently advertised and is supporting a whole legion of parasites. Here's more news - most of the stuff called intellectual property isn't worth much. That last episode of Battlestar Galactica - not worth much in the grand scheme of things. If there were no Battlestar Galactica we'd all get on just fine. I don't need my rights as an individual human being subverted in order to support a byzantine copyright profit scam. I don't need extra laws to ensure that I pay my dues for some people to watch a remake of a story that was itself copped from ancient mythology (now with more CGI and super soap opera yet "gritty" plolt/dialog!). I'll live just fine without mass produced media if it gains me my rights back, thank you very much - and I've done so to some extent for a while now as I 1)do not illegally copy material and thus do not partake of it 3)pay for material not associated with major copyright scamming organizations whenever I can find any that I find appealing.
The underlying, unquestioned foundation of this whole ridiculous system is the idiotic concept that entities are entitled to make money by selling copies of something, regardless of the cost of creating the copies. In this day and age it's ludicrous frankly, and has only gained traction due to a brief period of time when making copies was possible but also costly. Prior to that time, copies were not really available. At this point in time copies are virtually cost free. The natural course of things would be to give up monetizing the act of copying and distributing copies and direct funds back into the hands of those who actually produce works worth copying. Instead these vested interests who fundamentally do nothing productive and get paid tons to do said nothing have taken offense at the idea that there's no need for us to support their obscene life styles and profits anymore. And who can blame them when they've had it so good for these past few decades? And I'm not talking about just the guys at the top here. I'm talking about every PA, bean counter and lawyer having anything to do with the entertainment industry. The entire bloated construct is anathema to true creativity at this point, and definitely anathema to Free culture and society.
Here's an inconvenient truth - if our current corrupt "intellectual property" scam had been in place at the time some guy invented the wheel or fire or language (yeah oversimplification, deal with it), humanity as a whole would be worse off. Imagine paying a "wheel tax" or "fire licensing fee" every time you wanted to drive a car or cook a meal since the dawn of history. Yet that's what these jackals would have us do now.
In short, to those who propagate the "intellectual property" scam - my sentiments are fuck off and die. And that's an inconvenient truth.
Thanks.
MS are the biggest target for software patent trolls. They're the leading software company in the world and have the deepest pockets. They're ripe for a death of a million flea bites in the form of patent trolls who have patent portfolios but no product which could possibly infringe on MS patents. In addition they're not top dog in terms of patent ownership - they're still upside down in comparison to IBM and probably a few others out there.
Maybe MS analysts have figured out they have an unacceptably high risk exposure in this regard, to the extent that it could really derail their business and/or profitability.
It would follow then that the U.S. patent law environment is hostile to MS in the long run. U.S. patent law seems pretty firmly entrenched, possibly to the extent that they can't buy legislation to change it. So what options are left?
Threaten a possible U.S. business meltdown via a patent war. The cost of that war would effect pretty much every U.S. citizen in the form of higher product prices as nearly everything business in the U.S. would be involved in such a patent war at least indirectly. In addition governmental operating costs go up as the government runs on MS and IBM, which of course would necessitate either program cuts, tax hikes or even more deficit spending in an already over extended situation. Efficiency drops, GDP drops - citizenry gets upset. That's where government feels the heat.
On threat of this, our self interested "representatives" realize this patent thing really isn't working so well the way it's currently running, time to make some changes.
It works (sure there are a few gaps in there, but you can make the connections yourself) only if MS feels the patent system isn't working for them. I don't think it does - they already control their market by their own methods, they don't need patents for that - so what better way to scrap the system than threaten economic mayhem via patent wars?
Just an idea.
Social things learned in school (public school):
Self confidence in dealing with peers and teachers
Standing up for myself
How to balance intelligence and sociability
Heartache - how to deal with it
Competition - both good and bad
How to recognize and cultivate good relationships - how to recognize and avoid bad ones
Responsibility, how to make choices and deal with the consequences - particularly in the ever unfolding social web that exists in a public school
How and when to ask questions, and stick to with it until you get a satisfying answer
How to filter and process input from other people, both classmates and teachers
Other invaluable things I gained from public school:
Being exposed to a wide variety of people, from different backgrounds, having different personalities
Great friends, many of whom are still great friends to this day (many, many years later)
Maybe you could have obtained the same results by home schooling, I don't know - it seems like it would be tougher for some of the above - but I do know that I got quite a bit out of the much maligned public schools.
Of course just about everything everyone's posted in this thread is anectodal, and my list is no exception, but public school isn't as bad as some would have everyone believe, we're all just rehashing our own personal experiences - good or bad.
Education isn't a time, isn't a place and it isn't an institution. If someone has a desire to learn they will learn, wherever they are from whoever they can. If anyone is repsonsible for that desire it's parents though - they are the greatest influence on their children. I thank my parents for instilling that desire to learn in me, I would hope other parents out there do the same favor for their children.
See, you're doing the same thing as the cartels equating getting paid to create art with getting paid to create/distribute COPIES of art. The confusion of these two concepts, deliberate or otherwise, is at the root of these types of dicussions and the actions people take as result.
So people were able to get "paid, and often paid quite well..." before there was copyright, and before there was any digital distribution of copies. Far from being evidence of how the point that great art will be created regardless of whether people are paid for production/distribution of copies is tough to prove, it actually proves it.
For the rest, you've noted the discrepancy between the big stars and all the other artists. The thing you're not addressing is that that situation exists now anyway with the already established generous "creators' rights." Most poets, musicians and writers ARE at the bottom of the economic ladder while the select few and the parasites that feed off them make a mint from creation/distribution of copies. So your last couple of paragraphs are actually a non-sequitor.
Put that in your Ayn Rand pipe and smoke it.
Seems to me the only "right" that matters in these conversations is the "creators'" entitlement to being paid in perpetuity for any and all copies of the same work over and over, in any format it may appear.
That shouldn't be a right, and it didn't used to be for nearly the entirety of human artistic existence. I'm all for abolishing it if it has become one too. The trick these lobbiests/cartels have pulled is establishing this "right" as a fact and basing all consequent discussions on this fact. Sorry guys I'm not on board - the very principles you're trying to have everyone take for granted are wrong and repugnant.
Even if "creators" never receive a cent, dinar sheckle or chicken liver for selling a copy of their work there will still be plenty of art - good art, great art - just as there has always been. And in this day of advanced distribution technology we'll all have easy access to it as well. And just possibly, eliminating the artificial "entitlement" money attached to copies will return the economics of art to a sane level, bringing the "artists" and the would be bloodsuckers who infest them back into line with the rest of society in terms of monetary value in relation to actual utility value.
Take back the terms of the discussion human beings - once you do that these cartels have no ground to stand on. Everything else is window dressing.
The chart at this site's page http://carto.eu.org/article2481.html , which is becoming a bit more frequently seen, shows the graph of C02 content in the atmosphere and temperature ranges over the last 400,000 years as derived from examining core samples, up to 1950. In that graph there is a strong corellation between C02 content and temperature change (increased C02 == increased temperature, etc.) The high point on the graph happened about 325,000 years ago when C02 content hit about 300 ppm.
In 1950 C02 content was around 285 ppm.
In 2006 C02 content was 383 ppm
That's nearly 100ppm greater than 56 years ago, nearly 83 ppm greater than the greatest peak currently recorded. We've had a 35% increase in CO2 content over the last 56 years. We're 28% above the previously recorded peak level from the last 400,000 years, and we're seeing record high temperatures for increasingly large spans of time into the past.
Given the nearly lock step relationship between C02 content and temperature change, the rate of increase and the extent of the increase over the last 56 years, and the absence of any other major contributor to CO2 content in the last 56 years, I find it really difficult to think that the human activities known to increase C02 emissions we've increasingly engaged in over the last 150 years have had little to nothing to do with the obvious increase in both C02 atmospheric content and resulting temperature/climate changes. The rate and amount of change seem to indicate that we're already beyond the normal range of variation, yet people still feel comfortable saying it's just the normal fluctuation of the planet's climate. I'd sincerely like to hear other viable explanations for the facts, but there haven't been any - the most well supported hypothisis remains that humans burning fossil fuels (in ever increasing numbers do to an also alarming rate of population growth) are truly affecting the climate.
What I'm also really curious about is why so many are so adamant about refusing to acknowledge what seems to be obvious, but that's a task for psychologists and philosophers I suppose.
"The bill's intent is to keep adult-oriented (this criteria to be determined by a judge) games from getting into minor's hands, and fines any store responsible for selling said games to minors. This is not necessarily a bad thing..."
Yes it is necessarily a bad thing. It's not the government's job and it's not an appropriate use of taxpayers' money to perform morality/value judgement/child development enforcement in the private sector. Here's a crazy thought: the Twinkies (R) stores sell to minors are probably way more harmful to said minors than any video game they can buy. Our (U.S. and particularly Louisiana's) health problems stemming from obesity/poor nutrition are way more costly than whatever (are there any?) problems we're having with rampant video game porn od'ing/psychological scrambling experienced by minors. So where's the legislation disallowing unsupervised Twinkie (R) purchases? Won't someone think of the (fat, diabetic, malnourished, undeducated) children? But regulating Twinkie (R) sales just because some children (and/or their parents) can't handle them would be stupid - right?
Disclaimer: I love the taste/texture of Twinkies (R) - yet I stay away from them because I know they're bad for me.
The gaming industry's lobbiests are either non-existant or bush league - if they weren't there's no way this bill would have happened and games would be on the shelves right along with the Twinkies (R).
You seem to be confusing witnessing with spying/surveillance.
Witness is when you happen to be somewhere that something happens unexpectedly (to you) and you see/hear/experience it. You may or may not be engaging in responsible citizen type behavior by reporting what you witnessed whether voluntarily or by request. The OP is not in any way talking about this - why are you?
Spying/surveilling is when you're actively, purposefully on the look out for what you believe to be bad things and report them whenever they happen. That's what the subject is here, not witnessing. I don't consider this kind of activity by non-authorized/non-professional people as being a RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN. It's quite the opposite in fact. It's one ingredient in the recipe for a miserable, repressive society.
RANT
You know what a true RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN is? It's someone who understands and is behind the principles on which the U.S. was founded and doesn't sit by spouting xeonophobic, fascist nonsense attempting to justify corrupt, morally bankrupt politicians and businessmen taking the wizz all over the Constitution for personal gain, crumpling it up, shoving it up our collective asses on a nearly daily basis and then calling it ice cream. It's pretty much the opposite of that in fact - it's someone who takes a stand against such things when they're attempted or even hinted at indirectly as is happening here with this fucking bill.
END RANT
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you just didn't get what the OP was talking about. Otherwise you're engaging in defense of uneeded xenophobia, totalitarianism and fascism, to which I'd say - god, cowardly douche bag morons make me sick.
While it may seem clear to you that such actions are not grounds for charges of treason at first blush, in my book anyone trampling, countermanding or subverting the Constitution of the U.S. qualifies as an enemy of the U.S., and therefore is a legitimate target for such charges in accordance with the "adhering to their enemies" portion. I can't think of anything more destructive, anathema, traitorous or treasonous to the principles on which the U.S. was founded, and thereby to the country itself and most importantly the citizens it contains and represents, than participating in grossly unconstitutional acts or attempting to pass grossly unconstitutional laws.
You bet your ass such people are treasonous and traitors - to this country, to all its citizens past and present, and to the greater community of humanity to which the U.S. Constitution is (still) a spectacular enumeration, clarification and affirmation of what should be the basic rights of all people in relation to government - no amount of clever wordplay or lawyering will change that. Such treasonous traitors should be tried and convicted as such for all to clearly see.
Granted, the above is my special reading of the cited clause, but in this day and age I think my reading strongly applies. We're way past time where pedantry - even the innocuous kind the parent is engaged in here - can serve the common man.
Seems like one of the least effective uses of technology would be to automate this kind of interpersonal relationship (leader/follower). There's no substitute for in person, face to face discussion of problems. This kind of system attempts to quantify and abstract things that simply don't lend themselves to such treatment. This proposed system smacks of fear of conflict and inability to mediate such conflict effectively. Maybe it's a cultural thing (India still does have some notion of caste system pervading their culture I believe) - but I can't see this solution being effective as a management strategy. Perhaps it will be used as a springboard to further exploration of problem relationships, that may not have been brought to light (in which case you'll have to engage in conversation anyway so you've not really bought anything), but to me it actually looks like another excuse for managers to become less involved in their relationship with those they supervise. "You had a chance to fill out the survey and there were no problems detected - so it's not my fault that you're unhappy." If the goal is to further treat your workers as cogs in a machine, and you equate that kind of functioning to efficiency, I guess this would make you happy. But I don't see it as a great way to manage actual human beings. I mean seriously - can you imagine trying to manage other interpersonal relationships this way? Give your significant other a fifteen item ranking survey on your satisfaction with your relationship with little to no extra explanation - let me know how that goes. I hazard to guess either you lie in your rankings, or you're going to have some serious 'splainin to do.
When I've got a problem with someone, I go talk to them. If I want to know if people have problems, I go talk to them. It's the most efficient, effecive way of carrying out interpersonal relationships.