The voters, too. Someone keeps electing these morons.
It is hard not to when your realistic choices consist of moron A or moron B. Look at the UK at the moment: pretty much the entire parliament has been caught with their hands in the till. This clearly shows that a majority of politicians, regardless of party, are not suitable candidates for the job. We need a system where the cost to run for office is not so high so we can persuade people with normal careers to run.
These will cut out the GPS system which (I hope) would mean the system is just disabled. However what about the cases where your GPS jumps from the motroway you are driving along to the town street running nearby? Will my car suddenly attempt to break to get to 30 mph? Of course if the person behind my has a slightly better GPS there will be trouble!
That is the reason why we have governments. They can change the laws from time to time to account for new circumstances. However I would suggest that any codified rights are broadly stated to avoid the need for frequent updates. For example I would have said that format shifting, provided that only one copy is playing at a time, is one of the fair uses of media and that would cover copying to an iPod/phone etc. as well as a whole host of future devices.
Exactly so the US constitution clearly does not regard them as "inalienable" by the very definition of the word. In other countries they ARE "inalienable" since they apply to all subject to that country's laws, regardless of creed, colour or nationality.
And yet, is it fundamentally a bad thing? We give less-than-stable humans that responsibility all the time.
Yes it is fundamentally a very bad thing. First instead of being limited to one trigger that unstable human can now pull hundreds of triggers simultaneously. The robot will never question his orders it will simply comply no matter how morally questionable the order is.
Secondly the one big way in which democracy helps maintain peace is that the people who will do the dieing in any conflict are the ones who also effectively control the government through their votes. If suddenly Western democracies can send robots in then they are far more likely to go to war in the first place which is never a good thing.
To be fair to the software publishers how about the right to remove and/or disable, and aid others to remove and/or disable, any DRM that in any way restricts the fair use rights of the user.
I'd also go further and require that any software shipping with DRM that restricts any fair use rights should be required to have exactly what rights it restricts, and how it restricts them, labelled on the outside of the box.
If they really were inalienable, how come they're violated on a regular basis around the world?
...if they are inalienable how come the previous administration thought that they did not even apply to "aliens" (i.e. foreigners) in the US? Sad thing is the current administration seems to think so too since they have restarted the Guantanamo "trials".
Internet would've never had existed if it weren't for the US government. It was created in an academic environment...
The internet was created by the US government but in a military environment. The web was created in an academic environment but by CERN, the European particle physics lab so that particle physicists like myself could use it to share information with colleagues around the world.
Capitalism can't produce common goods.
...and yet IBM produced the common architecture for the PC and have done quite well from it. I'm not a huge fan of capitalism but the problem with companies today is really a lack of capitalism. They are so rich that they can effectively stifle or stop most market competition without actually producing a better product.
Someone comes up to you on the street and asks you where the nearest McDonald's is and you reply "There is a Wendy's around the corner". Have you committed trademark infringement? The only difference between this and Google is that Google makes money from doing this which might be an important difference.
If I found a baby monitor feed broadcast where I live, I think my first reaction would be to override it with a stronger goatse/tubgirl feed.
Forget that, just override the audio with prerecorded sounds of a baby crying. Send that 4 times a night at random times and I'm sure it won't be very long before you don't have to worry about any interference.
How is this different from any other country? All you have said is that until the national government decides otherwise EU law has precedence. This is the same everywhere. The only difference is that, since we have a parlimentary dictactorship in the UK it is easier for them to do so.
I completely disagree. Open Source is about freedom. It is not protecting you from your ignorance. If you always want to go with the 'brand' and remain ignorant of possibly better alternatives you should be free to do so.
I agree, especially when Google Voice's text to speech only does English at the moment.
Actually I bet it only does American. I am English and all speech recognition I've encountered in the US has had real trouble understanding me presumably because I do not have an American accent.
Even if it is not illegal under French law it almost certainly is something you could take to the European court of human rights since EU law takes precedence over national laws.
suits are brought to recover damages caused by the counter party
...but surely only when the consequences are foreseeable? If a soup kitchen does not maintain a certain level of hygiene then it is foreseeable it will lead to food poisoning. However if you write a C compiler you cannot possibly foresee all the uses it might be put to.
...it allows for the summary execution of saboteurs, spies, etc. during times of war.
Someone hacking a Pentagon computer from, say, Europe is not doing it from a country that is at war with the US. However, if the US response to that hacker is to blow up his house it sounds like a very good way to end up in a state of war with lots of countries. If local law enforcement will not handle such threats then a proportionate response would be to threaten to break all network ties with that country. Apart from solving the problem there are not many countries who's economies would not suffer greatly from such action (and if they go via another country you either gain an ally against them or ban them as well). It is a shame that subtlety and proportionate response never seem to be strong suits of the US government.
Can anyone name a single discovery in HEP in the last 25 years that has led to a practical improvement of anything whatsoever?
This is a very ironic question to find on a website given where the web was developed. However there are many medical applications of HEP: accelerators, detectors, magnets and antimatter (PET). In addition there are increasing use of HEP detector technology and physics in security screening applications.
However to really find the applications you have to turn the clock back to the HEP of 80-100 years ago: quantum and nuclear physics. Both of these have completely changed our world giving rise to numerous industries.
I call BS. Demonstration please, using the example above.
Read the answer above. I would also point out that no country in recent times has done well without investing in basic science. As well as the applications (which are always years down the line) having research programs excites the minds of young scientists and gets them into the field. The majority do not stay there but take their technical and scientific skills into industry where they further stimulate the economy.
Transist_o_rs were invented as part of a very focused and practical development program at Bell Labs
...which relied on a knowledge of quantum physics to be able to understand and exploit the effect. Certainly integrated circuits would have been impossible without QM.
Don't get me wrong, there's been a lot of purely theoretical research that makes it into everyday life. Quantum is a good example.
Quantum mechanics is NOT theoretical research! Nobody in their right mind would ever have believed QM if it were not backed up by thorough experimental evidence. Indeed lots of people, including Einstein himself, refused to believe it even though there was overwhelming experimental evidence.
There's many, many products in daily use today that we still have no idea how they work.
There are? Like what exactly? I cannot think of a single product that we do not understand the basic physics of - this is why we have to build large colliders because we already understand the everyday objects. Just because you personally don't understand how things work does not mean that others don't.
What should the Austrian government cancel to pay for this research? Roads? Schools?
How about bailing out their banks less? They apparently spent 100 billion Euros on this which would pay their CERN membership for the next 5,000 years.
Obviously, like everyone else, they needed to stabilize their banks to prevent their economy from short term disaster. It's just a shame that they can't see the long term disaster for their economy of encouraging all their future scientists to emmigrate. It's ridiculous to think that if they can afford 100 billion euros to bail out the banks that they cannot afford 20 million euros for CERN.
Slashdot Mirror
How many religions can't be accused of targeting vulnerable people?
...they've never seen an airport without something to eat.
I've seen airports without anything I'd want to eat at the prices they were charging though.
Imagine for a moment that airports suddenly removed all of the bathrooms. Where do you think Wifi would rank on the next survey?
As long as security keep providing plastic bags and confiscating any liquids a lack of bathrooms would not be too much of a problem.
The voters, too. Someone keeps electing these morons.
It is hard not to when your realistic choices consist of moron A or moron B. Look at the UK at the moment: pretty much the entire parliament has been caught with their hands in the till. This clearly shows that a majority of politicians, regardless of party, are not suitable candidates for the job. We need a system where the cost to run for office is not so high so we can persuade people with normal careers to run.
Besides primate evolution is essential to the church. They start as vicars, progress to bishops and eventually end up as primate.
These will cut out the GPS system which (I hope) would mean the system is just disabled. However what about the cases where your GPS jumps from the motroway you are driving along to the town street running nearby? Will my car suddenly attempt to break to get to 30 mph? Of course if the person behind my has a slightly better GPS there will be trouble!
What about future Fair Use rights?
That is the reason why we have governments. They can change the laws from time to time to account for new circumstances. However I would suggest that any codified rights are broadly stated to avoid the need for frequent updates. For example I would have said that format shifting, provided that only one copy is playing at a time, is one of the fair uses of media and that would cover copying to an iPod/phone etc. as well as a whole host of future devices.
Exactly so the US constitution clearly does not regard them as "inalienable" by the very definition of the word. In other countries they ARE "inalienable" since they apply to all subject to that country's laws, regardless of creed, colour or nationality.
And yet, is it fundamentally a bad thing? We give less-than-stable humans that responsibility all the time.
Yes it is fundamentally a very bad thing. First instead of being limited to one trigger that unstable human can now pull hundreds of triggers simultaneously. The robot will never question his orders it will simply comply no matter how morally questionable the order is.
Secondly the one big way in which democracy helps maintain peace is that the people who will do the dieing in any conflict are the ones who also effectively control the government through their votes. If suddenly Western democracies can send robots in then they are far more likely to go to war in the first place which is never a good thing.
I suppose that would bring new meaning to "the blue screen of death".
They aren't robots - there is still a living thing in control. Effectively they are one person tanks.
I would really like to see the right to be happy while using technology.
Can you imagine how many people would be suing Microsoft for violating their rights if this were passed?
To be fair to the software publishers how about the right to remove and/or disable, and aid others to remove and/or disable, any DRM that in any way restricts the fair use rights of the user.
I'd also go further and require that any software shipping with DRM that restricts any fair use rights should be required to have exactly what rights it restricts, and how it restricts them, labelled on the outside of the box.
If they really were inalienable, how come they're violated on a regular basis around the world?
Internet would've never had existed if it weren't for the US government. It was created in an academic environment...
The internet was created by the US government but in a military environment. The web was created in an academic environment but by CERN, the European particle physics lab so that particle physicists like myself could use it to share information with colleagues around the world.
Capitalism can't produce common goods.
Someone comes up to you on the street and asks you where the nearest McDonald's is and you reply "There is a Wendy's around the corner". Have you committed trademark infringement? The only difference between this and Google is that Google makes money from doing this which might be an important difference.
If I found a baby monitor feed broadcast where I live, I think my first reaction would be to override it with a stronger goatse/tubgirl feed.
Forget that, just override the audio with prerecorded sounds of a baby crying. Send that 4 times a night at random times and I'm sure it won't be very long before you don't have to worry about any interference.
How is this different from any other country? All you have said is that until the national government decides otherwise EU law has precedence. This is the same everywhere. The only difference is that, since we have a parlimentary dictactorship in the UK it is easier for them to do so.
I completely disagree. Open Source is about freedom. It is not protecting you from your ignorance. If you always want to go with the 'brand' and remain ignorant of possibly better alternatives you should be free to do so.
I agree, especially when Google Voice's text to speech only does English at the moment.
Actually I bet it only does American. I am English and all speech recognition I've encountered in the US has had real trouble understanding me presumably because I do not have an American accent.
Even if it is not illegal under French law it almost certainly is something you could take to the European court of human rights since EU law takes precedence over national laws.
suits are brought to recover damages caused by the counter party
...it allows for the summary execution of saboteurs, spies, etc. during times of war.
Someone hacking a Pentagon computer from, say, Europe is not doing it from a country that is at war with the US. However, if the US response to that hacker is to blow up his house it sounds like a very good way to end up in a state of war with lots of countries. If local law enforcement will not handle such threats then a proportionate response would be to threaten to break all network ties with that country. Apart from solving the problem there are not many countries who's economies would not suffer greatly from such action (and if they go via another country you either gain an ally against them or ban them as well). It is a shame that subtlety and proportionate response never seem to be strong suits of the US government.
Can anyone name a single discovery in HEP in the last 25 years that has led to a practical improvement of anything whatsoever?
This is a very ironic question to find on a website given where the web was developed. However there are many medical applications of HEP: accelerators, detectors, magnets and antimatter (PET). In addition there are increasing use of HEP detector technology and physics in security screening applications.
However to really find the applications you have to turn the clock back to the HEP of 80-100 years ago: quantum and nuclear physics. Both of these have completely changed our world giving rise to numerous industries.
I call BS. Demonstration please, using the example above.
Read the answer above. I would also point out that no country in recent times has done well without investing in basic science. As well as the applications (which are always years down the line) having research programs excites the minds of young scientists and gets them into the field. The majority do not stay there but take their technical and scientific skills into industry where they further stimulate the economy.
Transist_o_rs were invented as part of a very focused and practical development program at Bell Labs
Don't get me wrong, there's been a lot of purely theoretical research that makes it into everyday life. Quantum is a good example.
Quantum mechanics is NOT theoretical research! Nobody in their right mind would ever have believed QM if it were not backed up by thorough experimental evidence. Indeed lots of people, including Einstein himself, refused to believe it even though there was overwhelming experimental evidence.
There's many, many products in daily use today that we still have no idea how they work.
There are? Like what exactly? I cannot think of a single product that we do not understand the basic physics of - this is why we have to build large colliders because we already understand the everyday objects. Just because you personally don't understand how things work does not mean that others don't.
What should the Austrian government cancel to pay for this research? Roads? Schools?
How about bailing out their banks less? They apparently spent 100 billion Euros on this which would pay their CERN membership for the next 5,000 years.
Obviously, like everyone else, they needed to stabilize their banks to prevent their economy from short term disaster. It's just a shame that they can't see the long term disaster for their economy of encouraging all their future scientists to emmigrate. It's ridiculous to think that if they can afford 100 billion euros to bail out the banks that they cannot afford 20 million euros for CERN.