Look closely Slashdot readers - the author of that FORBES article: "James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute.
All you have to do is wiki 'The Heartland Institute.' and you'll see what a sham of an organization they are!
By no means should this posting on/. give any credence to the debate!
In fact if this kind of posting continues, I'll have to conclude that our beloved/. has been overrun by the well-heeled unqualified purveyors of snake oil typically heard on conservative talk radio.
Now we don't want that to happen....RIGHT?
In the early 1990's I had the opportunity to work on a project developing calibrated, sensitive microwave thermocouple sensors to study the intensity of microwave radiation inside 'human head models generated by cellphones'. It is of possible interest that the work was funded by a major cellphone manufacturer, however, the source of the funding did not influence the integrity of the work. I also spent considerable time comprehending (at least, giving it a good try!) the mountain of literature of the epidemiological effects of electromagnetic fields. It is of particular relevance to the 'European committee's action that the following summary statement, from a review article by James Jauchem, published in the International Microwave Power Institute (Vol. 28, No. 3, 1993) is directed:
"In fact, the absence of both a mechanism of interaction and a dose-response relation do not support classification of EMFs as a probable carcinogen"
Also, citing Petersen (Bioeffects of microwaves, J. Occup. Med. (1983) and Foster (Health effects of low-level electromagnetic fields, Health Phys. 62:429-435 (1992) "effects" are not necessarily "hazards". Although moderate-intensity ELFs may be capable of producing biological effects, the distinction between these effects and health effects is important. Also it is important that in epidemiological studies, an association of a factor with a health outcome often does not reflect a causal relationship. Strong independent associations can arise solely as a result of the lack of control over confounding. Some authors even suggest that some over-hyped studies are really "scaremongering made respectable by the use of sophisticated statistical methods."
Silly Human! Your puny bodies can only tolerate a narrow range of temperature, and your food and water sources are also only marginal.
Your little planet doesn't need to be incinerated by your star for you to witness deep cuts in your population.
Haven't you seen the power of tsunami, hurricane, tornado, flood, wildfire, drought and epidemic?
And you don't really seem to be working on ways to protect yourselves.
But you're really good at complaining, blaming and entertaining yourselves.
And the powerful among you have only secured a future for themselves, or have they?
Actually it was around 1200 BCE, Moses may actually be a composite of several people and it seems that it was Abraham that started the 'God is one' ball rolling. The practical reality of monotheism is useful more in how a people preserve the idea through the generations. Score the Jews pretty highly on that point, considering we are here today; not a dead civilization.
When struggling between God and Physics - she wins. She just creates new physics. Game Over.
So why worry? You think those sons of bitches will feel the kind of joy when a successful project is completed? Follow the money? Look and see what it costs for graduate study in the sciences...they pay the students and their tuition is also paid! Does that happen for business majors? Lawyers? Doctors? Hell no Socrates, all those chumps have to take out the same loans from those bankers who, by the way might do it the way you say but that's illegal and many have gone to jail for it. Look it up.
Perhaps you should replace your "Religion" with "Christianity". Jews have always questioned - in fact, on translation of "Israel" is: "Those who talk back to God". We all have the ability to use our minds for both faith and science. One without the other echoes hollow through the ages.
Yes, let's pull the plug on all their Internet access. If they want to assert their own rules - Let them make their own private little Chinet. See how long THAT lasts.
The Chinese gov't won't back down on their control and collapse like the USSR did. We are in an information war and the more we give for free to China, the more it will come back to drain the resources of the free people of the world.
"What? So because there have been changes in the climate in the past, then dumping half the carbon ever stored in oil and coal over millions of years back into the air in the space of a couple of hundred won't change it?
Some people are so determined to believe something, that there will never ever be enough evidence to convince them otherwise. I wonder if you're one of them?
Ever seen a credible peer-reviewed paper that disproves CO2-driven climate change to weigh up against the hundreds that support it?
All during this thread the "Skeptics" drag their tired little objections in, probably gleaned from some right wing radio show. How many skeptics actually have taken the time to tead the IPCC report?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm
The tempature is going up, the ppm of CO2 is going up, the sea level is going up. As it is patently true, temperature changes occur based on forcings, the nibbling arguments don't change the main point.
They're characteristic of a political movement that has no defense, only offense. My own feeling is that they feel that their wasteful lifestyles based on cheap, high density energy fuel are threatened and this is a knee-jerk survival response, trying to prove that it isn't happening when, in truth, it is. With a collection of vague positions on the subject they attempt to refute the scientific facts with hearsay, typos, 'conspiracy' theories, mistakes, and phony 'news' reports that in the end only serve to tarnish the reputation of those who persist in the folly. Some scientists have models that suggest that even if we were able to limit our CO2 to 350 ppm, the delays in the system and the effects of climate change cannot be stopped.
Who do you choose as your expert on Climate? Rush Limberger or The American Geophysical Union?
What will you say to your great grandchildren who ask.. "you mean, the scientists TOLD you it was going to happen and you doubted them?"
Will you guys put away the heavy words? The wonk was talking possibilities. How much does climate change get fixed by hyper-cynicism? Perhaps the effort on real solution consideration is beyond your capabilities.
Actually that the design of virtually all desktops (with a few exeptions) is stunningly reminicient of the original TANDY, and its precompistoric ancestry - with no changes in sight!!!
There are both facts and myths in media about Israel and the rest of the Arab countries.
"Palestine should have their own territory, and be treated under the same rules of
conduct as every other country."
"The problem is that the Palestinians don't accept that."
.... "Do you have sources?..."
The simple answer is to just read "Myths and Facts" by Mitchell Bard.
Many of the trials borne by the people who lived in 'Palestine' and Trans-Jordan were told by their absentee leaders that the Jews would be soon forced out, so they were convinced to leave their homes, many sold their land as well. The Arab governments (the ones who invaded and or attacked several times and were defeated each time) were unwilling to contribute to any plan that could be interpreted as resettlement, preferring to cling to Resolution 194, which they believed would eventually result in repatriation.
UNWRA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) was initially funded by $25M from the US, $3M from Israel and $600,000 total Arab pledges. The Saudis did not match Israel's contribution until 1973. As recently as 1994 Irael gave more to UNWRA than all Arab countries except Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Morrocco. Jordan was the only country to welcome the Palestinians and to this day, is the only Arab country where they can as a group become citizens. By the way, Jewish refrugees from Arab countries received no international assistance.
During the years when Israel controlled the Gaza Strip a consistent effort was made to get the Palestinians into permanent housing. The Palestinians opposed the idea because the frustrated and bitter inhabitants of the camps provided the various terrorist factions with their manpower. The Arab states also routinely pushed for resolutions to desist the removal of Palestinian refugees from the camps; they preferred to keep the Palestinians as symbols of Israeli "oppression".
Now in the hands of the Palestinian Authority, a journalist asked why the camps hadn't been dismantled. She was told the PA had made a "political decision" not to do anything for the more than 400,000 Palestinians in the camps. To this day the PA has not used a dime of the billions in foreign aid it received to build permanent housing for the refugees. Shall I go on?
What if you get them a PC and the schoolthey choose is an APPLE school? Not going to get them another one are you? The flame roasting about the child having to buy his own is idiotic...and probably a sign that the authors have some deep seated psychological problem. The reality is that to compete one must have access to the proper tools, if the child is brought up properly, all theiissues about realizing value are taken care of by the time they've reached high school. Once they've chosen a school is the answer.
God I'm tired of reading the gobbledegook about Win-haters, geekoid nerdelian, "LINUX" worshipping, snotty, "I-know-more-than-you-especially-when-it-comes-to-
meaningless-information", whiny, "open source has to be good, after all we think so"; "we love malware 'cuz we can fleece the less dweebified segments of the population", "computers are my life, but I'm so socially inept, I wouldn't have a life without them" bulls*it. Go help people out without all the pompous crap you losers!
Quantum Mechanics? I'd say he made his fame in gravitation and thermodynamics. The quantum guys invited him to all their conferences 'cuz he was a smart guy, but he actually pooh-pohed quantum theory as "spooky action at a distance".
F1 races are held RAIN or SHINE. The materials, the electronics, the sheer imagination transferred to reality. They are the one truly international sport, along with soccer, I suppose. The sound of the cars and gawd, the pageantry overwhelms the millions of fans from Malaysia to Indy to Imola.
Even with Schumi running away tear after year, you see those stands full, don't you? Have you ever spoken with fans in Germany or Austria or Southeast Asia, as I have? THey are maniacs for the whole deal. Sure there's politics and the money seems unbelievable, but haven't men always aspired to be the fastest on for wheels for the last century? When do you think a woman willget to drive?
As a young turk working for a superconducting wire company, we routinely tested semiconductor performance down to liquid He; that's 4K for the pedestrians. If we pulled a vacuum on it, we could get down to 2K relatively easy. The packages modern stuff is in just isn't made for it, but IBM has made some that take it.
I think the whole enterprise of extreme cooling and modding is like Open Source R&D,...
"Of course we don't know what we're doing...that's why we call it research!"
Just as the auto made buggies history, the paradigm of a musician being indentured slaves for music industry executives is dying. So let it die.
The next step we, the song-sharing masses, anticipate is when the artists entrepreneur themselves, or via groups of small-businesspeople that disseminate each artists' work via individual (or pooled, as I suspect that business accretion will occur) online outlet.
Shouldn't each artist be the direct recipient of their works' value? Minus some overhead, but the site makers only need to generate some killer applet that'll let even the ditziest popsinger click a few times for their site creation.
All those executives become unemployed (what do they contribute anyway?), we pay some small fee per song (I think $.25 works, kinda like the jukebox take) or perhaps a monthly membership fee ($1?, $2?) to forever own a digital copy of what that artist created that month. We may even try out a new mpeg (let's topple MTV while we're at this)! The whole thing will not be stopped, no matter what, once the artists get the drift that it's ultimately up to them to decide who makes the money from their work.
THIS IS A NEW ECONOMY, a distributed art for the masses deal. Do you see it? A certain time has to pass while the artists' present contracts expire, but as new artists emerge, as this new wave crests, their own value will be exactly proportional to the number of downloads. Sure, there will still be sharing, but, maybe I'll put a particular song in My Shared Folder, only after a month or two.
A novel method of a music-based 'ebaysian' market force for creative sonic entertainment is at hand. The \. masses are well-poised for being the benefactors of this entrepreneurship. So get busy you slackers!
"Shall be the first part of my sig" shall be the first part of my sig
Just as the auto made buggies history, the paradigm of a musician being indentured slaves for music industry executives is dying. So let it die.
The next step we, the song-sharing masses, anticipate is when the artists entrepreneur themselves, or via groups of small-businesspeople that disseminate each artists' work via individual (or pooled, as I suspect that business accretion will occur) online outlet.
Shouldn't each artist be the direct recipient of their works' value? Minus some overhead, but the site makers only need to generate some killer applet that'll let even the ditziest popsinger click a few times for their site creation.
All those executives become unemployed (what do they contribute anyway?), we pay some small fee per song (I think $.25 works, kinda like the jukebox take) or perhaps a monthly membership fee ($1?, $2?) to forever own a digital copy of what that artist created that month. We may even try out a new mpeg (let's topple MTV while we're at this)! The whole thing will not be stopped, no matter what, once the artists get the drift that it's ultimately up to them to decide who makes the money from their work.
THIS IS A NEW ECONOMY, a distributed art for the masses deal. Do you see it? A certain time has to pass while the artists' present contracts expire, but as new artists emerge, as this new wave crests, their own value will be exactly proportional to the number of downloads. Sure, there will still be sharing, but, maybe I'll put a particular song in My Shared Folder, only after a month or two.
A novel method of a music-based 'ebaysian' market force for creative sonic entertainment is at hand. The \. masses are well-poised for being the benefactors of this entrepreneurship. So get busy you slackers!
I am a former employee of Intermagnetics, they've been working on applications of the technology for decades, not like some start-up software gizmoheads, which are the normal moderator-types who've modded-up all sorts of incorrect, false, misleading and plain-old stupid comments here. The device does have applications, and it will take the intelligent development of state of the art materials and systems to insure that this problem can be avoided in the future. The 'breaker' that was announced was a project that has long been in development, as IGC has been working on power transmission solutions for quite a while. Keeping local control power switching devices at LN temperatures isn't that expensive or complicated. Nor is the solution a whacko-labelled conspiracy, as the poorly speeling posters who leap at any suggestion that the CIA had someone killed for revealing the truth.
There are many technologies that our system of scientific development, so cost consciously limited, could easily get made, if the engineers (like me) wouldn't get laid off so frequently because jerk-wad managers, who suck off more capital from the economy, who made the bad decisions were laid off instead!!!
Whether the "media" is newspaper, radio, TV, or internet, when the "facts" that were gleaned from that media become talking points with others in whatever style of conversation, the "consumer" of the information bears the responsibility of filtering out the garbage, which you all may agree, is not one of the strengths of the present population. Leads to lots of accepted misinformation, right? Perhaps reasoning needs to be the 4th "R" in the 'no child left behind' format of modern education, yeah, sure. Things are changing, but economics will likely override the cultural swamp because many of us owe our livelihoods for the jobs that are made due to the commecialism present in these forms of media. Oh no, commecialism on the internet? Didn't that disappear with the dotcom bust (I digress sarcastic). Control by industry relies mainly on the bulk of the population's inability to properly filter WHATEVER information WHEREVER they get it.
"Life magazine for August 10, 1962, had a feature on how "Too many subteens grow up too soon and too fast." There was no observation of the fact that similar speed of growth and precociousness have always been the norm in tribal cultures and nonliterate societies. - Marshall McLuhan
You obviously haven't read Criswell (look him up, University of Houston). His idea could get a Democrat elected in '04 if it was chanmpioned like Kennedy's moon speech. Besides, it would keep us out of the once a decade War for Oil jag we're on with Dubya Sr. and Dubya.
I'm down wid dat.
The Window OS apparently is the bane of so many crabby, self-important, elitist, know-it-all, loudmouth, geekoid, Linux obsessed hack-jobs. So what if The Legions of Gates have made it easy to get things done for the vast majority of us? We obviously have more important things to worry about than whether $40 or whatever made it way to Redmond. It's like paying to have your streets plowed by your community. Sure you could do it yourself. For a lot more money or effort. But for the rest of us, we're fine with the "tax" to get it done efficiently. Would we want more control, more choices? Beyond the pricey but limited in software Apple? I suppose we do, but in any society or community, there are tradeoffs. In Slashdotland it seems like there are a lot of the Pro-Linux/Apple voices, but you've just been distilled here. The 'loud outraged' really aren't that large of a body politik.
Slashdot Mirror
Look closely Slashdot readers - the author of that FORBES article: "James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute. All you have to do is wiki 'The Heartland Institute.' and you'll see what a sham of an organization they are! By no means should this posting on /. give any credence to the debate!
In fact if this kind of posting continues, I'll have to conclude that our beloved /. has been overrun by the well-heeled unqualified purveyors of snake oil typically heard on conservative talk radio.
Now we don't want that to happen....RIGHT?
It only takes 10 years at $100 billion/yr to get to a trillion, denier.
In the early 1990's I had the opportunity to work on a project developing calibrated, sensitive microwave thermocouple sensors to study the intensity of microwave radiation inside 'human head models generated by cellphones'. It is of possible interest that the work was funded by a major cellphone manufacturer, however, the source of the funding did not influence the integrity of the work. I also spent considerable time comprehending (at least, giving it a good try!) the mountain of literature of the epidemiological effects of electromagnetic fields. It is of particular relevance to the 'European committee's action that the following summary statement, from a review article by James Jauchem, published in the International Microwave Power Institute (Vol. 28, No. 3, 1993) is directed: "In fact, the absence of both a mechanism of interaction and a dose-response relation do not support classification of EMFs as a probable carcinogen" Also, citing Petersen (Bioeffects of microwaves, J. Occup. Med. (1983) and Foster (Health effects of low-level electromagnetic fields, Health Phys. 62:429-435 (1992) "effects" are not necessarily "hazards". Although moderate-intensity ELFs may be capable of producing biological effects, the distinction between these effects and health effects is important. Also it is important that in epidemiological studies, an association of a factor with a health outcome often does not reflect a causal relationship. Strong independent associations can arise solely as a result of the lack of control over confounding. Some authors even suggest that some over-hyped studies are really "scaremongering made respectable by the use of sophisticated statistical methods."
Silly Human! Your puny bodies can only tolerate a narrow range of temperature, and your food and water sources are also only marginal. Your little planet doesn't need to be incinerated by your star for you to witness deep cuts in your population. Haven't you seen the power of tsunami, hurricane, tornado, flood, wildfire, drought and epidemic? And you don't really seem to be working on ways to protect yourselves. But you're really good at complaining, blaming and entertaining yourselves. And the powerful among you have only secured a future for themselves, or have they?
Actually it was around 1200 BCE, Moses may actually be a composite of several people and it seems that it was Abraham that started the 'God is one' ball rolling. The practical reality of monotheism is useful more in how a people preserve the idea through the generations. Score the Jews pretty highly on that point, considering we are here today; not a dead civilization. When struggling between God and Physics - she wins. She just creates new physics. Game Over.
Not theory to say when struggling between God and Physics - she wins. She just creates new physics. Game Over.
So why worry? You think those sons of bitches will feel the kind of joy when a successful project is completed? Follow the money? Look and see what it costs for graduate study in the sciences...they pay the students and their tuition is also paid! Does that happen for business majors? Lawyers? Doctors? Hell no Socrates, all those chumps have to take out the same loans from those bankers who, by the way might do it the way you say but that's illegal and many have gone to jail for it. Look it up.
Perhaps you should replace your "Religion" with "Christianity". Jews have always questioned - in fact, on translation of "Israel" is: "Those who talk back to God". We all have the ability to use our minds for both faith and science. One without the other echoes hollow through the ages.
Yes, let's pull the plug on all their Internet access. If they want to assert their own rules - Let them make their own private little Chinet. See how long THAT lasts. The Chinese gov't won't back down on their control and collapse like the USSR did. We are in an information war and the more we give for free to China, the more it will come back to drain the resources of the free people of the world.
"What? So because there have been changes in the climate in the past, then dumping half the carbon ever stored in oil and coal over millions of years back into the air in the space of a couple of hundred won't change it? Some people are so determined to believe something, that there will never ever be enough evidence to convince them otherwise. I wonder if you're one of them? Ever seen a credible peer-reviewed paper that disproves CO2-driven climate change to weigh up against the hundreds that support it? All during this thread the "Skeptics" drag their tired little objections in, probably gleaned from some right wing radio show. How many skeptics actually have taken the time to tead the IPCC report? http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm The tempature is going up, the ppm of CO2 is going up, the sea level is going up. As it is patently true, temperature changes occur based on forcings, the nibbling arguments don't change the main point. They're characteristic of a political movement that has no defense, only offense. My own feeling is that they feel that their wasteful lifestyles based on cheap, high density energy fuel are threatened and this is a knee-jerk survival response, trying to prove that it isn't happening when, in truth, it is. With a collection of vague positions on the subject they attempt to refute the scientific facts with hearsay, typos, 'conspiracy' theories, mistakes, and phony 'news' reports that in the end only serve to tarnish the reputation of those who persist in the folly. Some scientists have models that suggest that even if we were able to limit our CO2 to 350 ppm, the delays in the system and the effects of climate change cannot be stopped. Who do you choose as your expert on Climate? Rush Limberger or The American Geophysical Union? What will you say to your great grandchildren who ask.. "you mean, the scientists TOLD you it was going to happen and you doubted them?"
Will you guys put away the heavy words? The wonk was talking possibilities. How much does climate change get fixed by hyper-cynicism? Perhaps the effort on real solution consideration is beyond your capabilities.
Actually that the design of virtually all desktops (with a few exeptions) is stunningly reminicient of the original TANDY, and its precompistoric ancestry - with no changes in sight!!!
"Palestine should have their own territory, and be treated under the same rules of conduct as every other country."
"The problem is that the Palestinians don't accept that."
What if you get them a PC and the schoolthey choose is an APPLE school? Not going to get them another one are you? The flame roasting about the child having to buy his own is idiotic...and probably a sign that the authors have some deep seated psychological problem. The reality is that to compete one must have access to the proper tools, if the child is brought up properly, all theiissues about realizing value are taken care of by the time they've reached high school. Once they've chosen a school is the answer.
God I'm tired of reading the gobbledegook about Win-haters, geekoid nerdelian, "LINUX" worshipping, snotty, "I-know-more-than-you-especially-when-it-comes-to-
meaningless-information", whiny, "open source has to be good, after all we think so"; "we love malware 'cuz we can fleece the less dweebified segments of the population", "computers are my life, but I'm so socially inept, I wouldn't have a life without them" bulls*it. Go help people out without all the pompous crap you losers!
You're not serious that you don't "GET IT" are you? The evidence is overwhelming. And those who trot out some trumped up fiction that refutes the majority are mostly politcally motivated, or funded by oil companies. There is really buig bucks at stake to these people, at least for them. But if the planet compromises it's long term future, what have we done? Look at this month's "Discover" magazine; or any simple searching dregs up tons.: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2001/04/13/MN211246.DTL
http://home.earthlink.net/~cevent/11-10-04_solid_e vidence_gw.html
http://www.carleton.ca/~tpatters/teaching/climatec hange/globemail4.11.97.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/02/19/en vironment.report/
http://www.ehleringer.net/Biology_5460/Projects/cl imatedata/globalwarming3.pdf
http://www.climatesolutions.org/pubs/pdfs/gwih.pdf
http://www.climateark.org/articles/2001/2nd/statto ce.htm
http://www.mmmfiles.com/archive/gw2001.htm
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/3970 _ConferenceBoard.pdf
http://www.colorado.edu/pwr/occasions/salliebaliun as.htm
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-58/iss-1/p13.html
Quantum Mechanics? I'd say he made his fame in gravitation and thermodynamics. The quantum guys invited him to all their conferences 'cuz he was a smart guy, but he actually pooh-pohed quantum theory as "spooky action at a distance".
F1 races are held RAIN or SHINE. The materials, the electronics, the sheer imagination transferred to reality. They are the one truly international sport, along with soccer, I suppose. The sound of the cars and gawd, the pageantry overwhelms the millions of fans from Malaysia to Indy to Imola. Even with Schumi running away tear after year, you see those stands full, don't you? Have you ever spoken with fans in Germany or Austria or Southeast Asia, as I have? THey are maniacs for the whole deal. Sure there's politics and the money seems unbelievable, but haven't men always aspired to be the fastest on for wheels for the last century? When do you think a woman willget to drive?
As a young turk working for a superconducting wire company, we routinely tested semiconductor performance down to liquid He; that's 4K for the pedestrians. If we pulled a vacuum on it, we could get down to 2K relatively easy. The packages modern stuff is in just isn't made for it, but IBM has made some that take it.
...
I think the whole enterprise of extreme cooling and modding is like Open Source R&D,
"Of course we don't know what we're doing...that's why we call it research!"
Just as the auto made buggies history, the paradigm of a musician being indentured slaves for music industry executives is dying. So let it die. The next step we, the song-sharing masses, anticipate is when the artists entrepreneur themselves, or via groups of small-businesspeople that disseminate each artists' work via individual (or pooled, as I suspect that business accretion will occur) online outlet. Shouldn't each artist be the direct recipient of their works' value? Minus some overhead, but the site makers only need to generate some killer applet that'll let even the ditziest popsinger click a few times for their site creation. All those executives become unemployed (what do they contribute anyway?), we pay some small fee per song (I think $.25 works, kinda like the jukebox take) or perhaps a monthly membership fee ($1?, $2?) to forever own a digital copy of what that artist created that month. We may even try out a new mpeg (let's topple MTV while we're at this)! The whole thing will not be stopped, no matter what, once the artists get the drift that it's ultimately up to them to decide who makes the money from their work. THIS IS A NEW ECONOMY, a distributed art for the masses deal. Do you see it? A certain time has to pass while the artists' present contracts expire, but as new artists emerge, as this new wave crests, their own value will be exactly proportional to the number of downloads. Sure, there will still be sharing, but, maybe I'll put a particular song in My Shared Folder, only after a month or two. A novel method of a music-based 'ebaysian' market force for creative sonic entertainment is at hand. The \. masses are well-poised for being the benefactors of this entrepreneurship. So get busy you slackers! "Shall be the first part of my sig" shall be the first part of my sig
The next step we, the song-sharing masses, anticipate is when the artists entrepreneur themselves, or via groups of small-businesspeople that disseminate each artists' work via individual (or pooled, as I suspect that business accretion will occur) online outlet.
Shouldn't each artist be the direct recipient of their works' value? Minus some overhead, but the site makers only need to generate some killer applet that'll let even the ditziest popsinger click a few times for their site creation.
All those executives become unemployed (what do they contribute anyway?), we pay some small fee per song (I think $.25 works, kinda like the jukebox take) or perhaps a monthly membership fee ($1?, $2?) to forever own a digital copy of what that artist created that month. We may even try out a new mpeg (let's topple MTV while we're at this)! The whole thing will not be stopped, no matter what, once the artists get the drift that it's ultimately up to them to decide who makes the money from their work.
THIS IS A NEW ECONOMY, a distributed art for the masses deal. Do you see it? A certain time has to pass while the artists' present contracts expire, but as new artists emerge, as this new wave crests, their own value will be exactly proportional to the number of downloads. Sure, there will still be sharing, but, maybe I'll put a particular song in My Shared Folder, only after a month or two.
A novel method of a music-based 'ebaysian' market force for creative sonic entertainment is at hand. The \. masses are well-poised for being the benefactors of this entrepreneurship. So get busy you slackers!
I am a former employee of Intermagnetics, they've been working on applications of the technology for decades, not like some start-up software gizmoheads, which are the normal moderator-types who've modded-up all sorts of incorrect, false, misleading and plain-old stupid comments here. The device does have applications, and it will take the intelligent development of state of the art materials and systems to insure that this problem can be avoided in the future. The 'breaker' that was announced was a project that has long been in development, as IGC has been working on power transmission solutions for quite a while. Keeping local control power switching devices at LN temperatures isn't that expensive or complicated. Nor is the solution a whacko-labelled conspiracy, as the poorly speeling posters who leap at any suggestion that the CIA had someone killed for revealing the truth. There are many technologies that our system of scientific development, so cost consciously limited, could easily get made, if the engineers (like me) wouldn't get laid off so frequently because jerk-wad managers, who suck off more capital from the economy, who made the bad decisions were laid off instead!!!
Whether the "media" is newspaper, radio, TV, or internet, when the "facts" that were gleaned from that media become talking points with others in whatever style of conversation, the "consumer" of the information bears the responsibility of filtering out the garbage, which you all may agree, is not one of the strengths of the present population. Leads to lots of accepted misinformation, right? Perhaps reasoning needs to be the 4th "R" in the 'no child left behind' format of modern education, yeah, sure. Things are changing, but economics will likely override the cultural swamp because many of us owe our livelihoods for the jobs that are made due to the commecialism present in these forms of media. Oh no, commecialism on the internet? Didn't that disappear with the dotcom bust (I digress sarcastic). Control by industry relies mainly on the bulk of the population's inability to properly filter WHATEVER information WHEREVER they get it. "Life magazine for August 10, 1962, had a feature on how "Too many subteens grow up too soon and too fast." There was no observation of the fact that similar speed of growth and precociousness have always been the norm in tribal cultures and nonliterate societies. - Marshall McLuhan
You obviously haven't read Criswell (look him up, University of Houston). His idea could get a Democrat elected in '04 if it was chanmpioned like Kennedy's moon speech. Besides, it would keep us out of the once a decade War for Oil jag we're on with Dubya Sr. and Dubya.
I'm down wid dat. The Window OS apparently is the bane of so many crabby, self-important, elitist, know-it-all, loudmouth, geekoid, Linux obsessed hack-jobs. So what if The Legions of Gates have made it easy to get things done for the vast majority of us? We obviously have more important things to worry about than whether $40 or whatever made it way to Redmond. It's like paying to have your streets plowed by your community. Sure you could do it yourself. For a lot more money or effort. But for the rest of us, we're fine with the "tax" to get it done efficiently. Would we want more control, more choices? Beyond the pricey but limited in software Apple? I suppose we do, but in any society or community, there are tradeoffs. In Slashdotland it seems like there are a lot of the Pro-Linux/Apple voices, but you've just been distilled here. The 'loud outraged' really aren't that large of a body politik.