I think you're missing my point. Whether the school is overstepping it's bounds for involving itself in the aleged commision of a crime is not relevant. At best, it's a questionable practice. But there is absolutely no question that the school, a public institution, should be charged with protecting the first amendment. And that in suspending and threatening to expel someone over a comment is, IMHO, entirely inappropriate and almost certainly unconstitutional.
As far as violating your privacy, I would argue that the very fact that there is a third party in the first place (the government) who believes it has any business snooping into what you do in the privacy of your own home is a huge part of the problem. As long as you're not hurting anyone else, explain to me exactly how the government should be involved at all.
I remain steadfast in my beliefs that private institutions, as opposed to government institutions, would handle this situation much more to everyone's liking.
I'm not saying that I agree with the suspension that you received. I'm saying that there's a difference between what happened to you and what happened to this kid. The public school system which is part of our government, *should* be actively protecting first amendment rights. They have no such obligation to protect criminal activities.
As to whether or not there's justification for a criminal activity having any impact on your schooling, I don't know. I know of a number of people who have been accused of crimes, and as a consequence been fired from their job. It's a practice that seems pretty commonplace. I don't know if the legality of this practice has ever been challenged. The point of this paragraph is that if you think it's bulls*it, then you'd better get used to it, or be willing to take up the legal challenge.
But there's a significant difference in what (allegedly) did and what this kid did. If you were involved at all with the posession or sale of marijuana, that is a criminal activity. What this kid did, writing down his vulgar, but non-threatening opinions of the school is not criminal. It is, in fact, constitutionally protected.
It's crap like this that makes me want the public school system abolished and replaced with something more privately run, where competition can weed out this kind of stupid behavior. For the poor, create the equivalent of "food stamps" so that they can get an education, too. But everyone (including the poor) gets to choose which school they want to go to. If this school had the fear of losing revenue and students because of their misbehavior, do you really think they'd even attempt this?
Socialism doesn't work. This is an example of what it can do.
The problem with some areas such as medicine, is you may not get a second chance. Can always go back to the days of the snake oil salesman, or where "doctors" just prescribe heroin for whatever ails ya.
It's not obvious to me that those are the only two choices. That you either have private hustlers and swindlers or the government (IMHO, public hustlers and swinders). When these services are provided by a market - a real market, not the bastardized thing we have in healthcare today - there's market discipline. That discipline gets applied every single time that a customer decides whether or not to purchase. What kind of discipline is there in the government? I might vote them out in 4 years? Take one look at the current administration. Do you honestly feel like you have any ability to ensure proper use of your funds? That's not the case with (for example) the local grocery store. If I don't like the way they're spending money, I simply don't go there. They can spend their own money however they like, but they don't have my money to waste.
FWIW, snake oil salesmen would have a much more difficult time surviving today. On their way out of Dodge, a simple phone call would make it difficult for them to do much damage in the next town down the road. In other words, Snake Oil salesmen might last for a short time, but eventually their market would dry up. Because news of their incompetence will travel faster than they can.
Nothing is stopping you from hiring a second person to review your food, medicine, etc.
True. But, I don't get to stop paying the first person (gov't). AND the first person can demand rate increases to dry up any cash flow that I might want to use on a more effective provider. Call that whatever you want, but it's not market discipline. Personally, when someone extracts money from me and uses it for something that I don't want, I tend to call it theft. There is nothing economically productive about theft.
I'm not competent to tell what banks are trustworthy. I'm not competent to tell what food won't give me botulism. I'm not competent to tell what products will do what they're supposed to and what won't. I'm not competent to understand cutting edge medicine.
Right. Neither am I. So when I encounter problems of this nature, I pay someone who is competent in those areas. For example, I'm not competent at keeping my grass green. I've tried. But I really suck at it. So I pay someone. The first company I used was pretty good, but their rates kept going up. So I tried someone else. They sucked. I'm now with a guy who is *really* good at this and he's cheap!
The problem with the above services that you mention is that there is one and only one provider of competency and they force you to pay them: the federal government. I'd really much rather if I'm going to pay someone to protect me from my ignorance that I had the ability to fire them when they do a bad job. And what happens if I try to withhold funds from Uncle Sam because he's doing a bad job? *I* go to jail!
My point: there are other ways to solve the competency problem other than government oversite.
Assuming the amount of effort in the initial investment is the same between propser and a CD, you get better returns and better security with the CD. Making the same assumption, you get better returns, better security, and better liquidity with ING or EmigrantDirect.
And it looks like the assumption is really quite false. To get those low returns, you have to spend more time diversifying with prosper. To invest $1000 into a CD you simply purchase it. To invest $1000 into either of the above banks, you simply send in a deposit. To invest $1000 into prosper, you have to diversify to spread your risk. So, maybe you break it up into $100 chunks. Now you have to find 10 people who you want to lend the money to.
Typically, I expect higher risk items to produce greater returns, and lower returns come with much lower risk. But with prosper, it looks like high risk and low returns. Doesn't look intersting to me. Is there something that I'm missing?
I too have had great success with my Palm based units... until I got my 650. I previously had two Palm IIIs and three Palm Vx's. I only replaced them when I dropped one and had the screen crack. I loved my Palm PDAs and loved the idea of marrying my PDA and my phone.
But I've had trouble with my 650. The first one that I had, had some serious hardware problems - it would just randomly reboot during a phone calls I couldn't keep the thing running for more than 20 mins. The second one that I had, the headset got jammed somehow and I could no longer use the phone without the headset plugged in. And almost all of the bluetooth headsets seem to have volume problems except the one that Palm sells!
The third one has been better on the hardware side (but still not perfect), but the sync conduits for Outlook that ship on the CD completely suck! I had appointments that would migrate one hour earlier every time I synced. They also changed the owner of appointments, so that if someone sent me a meeting invite, it would suddenly change to being owned by me. I solved these problems by purchasing third party sync software.
I still wouldn't switch to a windows mobile based phone. The guy in the next cubicle down has one and my problems seem tiny in comparison to his. But the reputation that Palm had built up for their devices is tarnished in my opinion by these problems. I hope that the 700p is better.
You're right, of course, that owning the patent would make it easier to stifle. But as I've said before, I'm skeptical that any patent holder would do this. Owning a patent provides an incentive for reaping the rewards associated with a highly demanded idea.
I'm more likely to believe that low demand prevents widespread adoption of new ideas rather than patent holders sitting on them or industry conspiracies squelching them. But I'm open to examples where such a thing happened.
Ok. But what's the incentive of the patent holder to play those shenanigans? The patent holder wants to reep the profits of a new invention by using it as a substitute for competitors' products. What reason would the patent holder have to withold their product?
Of course, it's true that the patent holder *could* do this, and the only reason I could see something like this happening would be in the case of a patent holding company which doesn't actually implement anything. But for a real live company that actually builds things, I don't see *any* reason why they'd want to withold production of something in high demand.
Maybe you're right, but I'm skeptical. My skepticism is bourne of the fact that a highly demanded product creates a profit oppurtunity. The patent holder has incentive to produce the product to tap into that demand and reep the profits. It's more likely to me that non-successful products are not successful because there simply wasn't enough demand for them.
But that's just an opinion. You're welcome to disagree.
A patent holder doesn't need any conspirators to prevent something from coming to market. The holder simply doesn't implement the patented thing and sues anyone who does... at least for the lifespan of the patent. No conspiracy needed.
But this doesn't seem very likely to happen. Even if the OLED patent holder is a well entrenched company with many business units, some of which would lose out with the development of the new product. In the lighting business this might be GE. If OLEDs are great enough that they draw customers away from GE's primary lightbulb product, then they're also great enough to draw customers away from all of GE's competitor's products. For every customer that transfers from GE's standard lightbulb division, you gain a customer from each of Sylvania and Phillips and... Maybe the standard lightbulb division even has a higher profit margin. What you lose in profit margin transferring one customer to OLEDs you gain back by getting a customer each from Sylvania and Phillips and...
I don't see much incentive for a patent holder to sit on a product in high demand by the market.
A secret conspiracy to deprive the public of OLEDs makes a bunch of assumptions:
There is no patent protecting this invention... AND
The consumer demand for this invention will be high... BECAUSE
It can be effectively used as a substitute for normal lightbulbs...AND
It's more cost effective than normal lightbulbs (e.g. initial cost + lifetime eneregy spend is less for OLEDs than normal lightbulbs)
IF all of those things are true, then let a bunch of lightbulb manufacturers conspire not to produce it! All it takes is one who's willing to produce it, who can then start reeping huge market share (to meet the assumed customer demand). Heck, it could be you. If all of the above things are true, then you could come in and make a killing on this thing even if every single lightbulb manufacturer chooses not to. And as soon as you do, every manufacturer who "conspired" not to produce this will be forced to in order to chase after those profits that you're getting.
If any one of those assumptions above is false, then it does not require a conspiracy to prevent widespread production of this product. The most likely assumption that's false is #4, but it could be any of them. In any case, if we don't see OLEDs dominating the lighting market, will you simply conclude that it was a secret conspiracy or that maybe one of your upfront assumptions was false? My recommendation would be to apply occam's razor.
the simple fact is that where your money comes from will always cause the public (if they know about it) to either believe or disbelieve you.
It sounds to me like you think the public is justified belief or disbelief of the research based on the funding source. If that's what you're saying, I would disagree with that sentiment. The justification for believing a set of research is the validity of the research, not the source of the funding.
Quoting your most recent post:
Assuming that it is flawed is a bad idea. Assuming that it might be flawed is a good idea.
I read this the following way: Assuming that it is flawed because of the funding source is a bad idea. Assuming that it might be flawed because of the funding source is a good idea. Is that the way you meant it?
Personally, I think that assuming that ALL research might be flawed is a good idea. Skepticism of research is a good idea no matter who is funding the research. So I don't really see much value in making that distinction. This guy's research is either good or bad. Look at the research to make that determination. The funding source is irrelevant. It's irrelevant to determining the validity of the research. And, since the scientific method demands healthy skepticism towards all research, you already have all the license you need to be skeptical of the claims. I don't see what value at all bringing up the funding source does towards determing the validity of the research.
Oil companies don't set the price of oil. The free market does. It's called 'bidding'.
Of course. If my post suggested anything different, it certainly wasn't intended. My point was that the social engineers in this thread seem to want contradictory things: a reduction in oil consumption and low oil prices. You can't get to reduced oil consumption from low oil prices.
Capitalism works, and if oil prices get too high, people will figure out ways not to use oil.
Exactly! If you really believe that oil causes greenhouse effects (and I'm not saying that it doesn't) then you WANT oil prices to rise. You want the peak to have passed so that we'll ALL have higher incentive to find an alternative.
I find it ironic that the posting thread is criticizing this guy's research saying greenhouse gasses aren't a problem and then turning around and criticizing the oil companies for raising the price of oil! What do they want? Lower greenhouse gas emissions or lower oil costs?
Except that this is logical fallacy. It's along the lines of ad hominem. In any case, the problem is that you're assuming that the research is flawed simply because of it's funding origin. It might be flawed. It might not. Evaluate the research, not the origin of the funding. The origin of the funding is an invalid critique of the accuracy of the research.
Marszalek says the NPR ad-sharing arrangement described by Thomas largely benefits stations that produce content of interest to folks beyond their localities, and only a few of the largest stations do that.
"It is the local affiliates who popularize these programs at their expense, and then the producers are going to reap the benefit on podcasts," he says. "All of the new delivery systems are great for the stations that produce the content. It's not good for the local affiliate in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. They're really, really reliant on programs from elsewhere to draw listeners and members."
This suggests to me that the local stations are no longer adding any value to the situation. If they can't generate enough listeners for their local content, then their primary purpose is as a distribution mechanism for the national content. But the podcasts are turning out to be a more efficient mechanism for that distribution. Which means that the local stations aren't necessary.
I see a couple of options for the local stations all based on this assumption: if an entity is adding cost to the supply chain without adding value, that entity can and should be removed. In this case, the local station is no longer providing a valuable delivery of national content, so here are the options that I think the locals have:
Shut down altogether.
Stop broadcasting the national content and broadcast only local content.
Stop broadcasting all content, but podcast local content.
Is this wrong? If so, wouldn't it invalidate the oft use argument around here that the RIAA should be removed because they're also no longer providing value?
The point is that there is not another option. It isn't as though you can go into Wallmart and choose the DRM version of your favorite DVD for $15.00 and the DRM free version of your favorite version for $25.00. If you want to legally own the movie you are required to purchase it with some form of DRM included.
That's true, but you don't have a right to own a copy of that movie no matter how much you may want to. The current owner of that movie is only willing to give it to you if you agree to DRM. That's the deal. Take it or leave it.
And you shouldn't be surprised by this. The same deal is true with my house. If you want to purchase my house, you can either accept the terms that I offer or not. You don't have a right to my house until we agree on the terms. The guy who owns my favorite DVD isn't willing to sell it to me w/out DRM. That's his/her right. If I don't like it, that's really sad for me, but that's that.
Content "owners" just like home owners may be irrational and make stupid decisions. If you think that they're not taking reasonable offers for the thing that they own, is irrelevant. They own it. It's their prerogative to be irrational with it.
Imagine is hardware manufacturers made hardware that only ran pre-approved, DRMed, signed programs.
If this were a big enough problem then there'd be an oppurtunity for someone to create hardware that works differently. If people *really* want it, then they'll buy it. Note for example, that the hardware that you're worried about is simply non-existant on the market today. People don't want it, so it has negligible (at best) market share.
Except, we're not. Or at least, not actively driving. Sure, consumers *could* stop buying DRM, but we won't.
But isn't that part of the point? If the mass of consumers don't stop buying DRM then aren't they all saying that DRM doesn't bother them? Sure it bothers you. And it bothers me. But we can hardly claim that it bothers most everyone if it doesn't bother them enough to stop purchasing it.
I guess I don't buy this argument. If the media companies do something that consumers *really* don't like, consumers will find a way around it. And that way will cut into the media companies profits. Which will create a profit incentive for some other company. Which, as you point out, has happened before. The good news is that it will happen again.
You can worry about it if you like, but consumers really are in the drivers seat.
You don't know how many people in the UK or Canada or Sweden "don't get" because they die before they get. Coronary bypass surgery is only considered elective by countries with socialized medicine. Over here, that's a required life saving procedure.
I will however, concede your point that the figures are for 3 months. Still, as far as people in the US who permanantly "don't get", I would argue that the reason for that has more to do with our system having strayed from a market based system. If you look at critical service systems in the US that are totally market based, you see a different story. For example: everyone here eats. I would argue that food provision is *more* critical than health provision. The average person can live MUCH longer without healthcare than they can without food. Yet no one hear dies of involuntary starvation. No one (*).
There are simply no "don't gets" when the market is allowed to be the dominant player in provisioning of goods/services. Yet in healthcare, a less critical service, there are "don't gets". I would argue that the system of provision needs to be addressed in healthcare, and modeled after the more effective system of provision used for food.
(*) I say "involuntary starvation" because I want to exclude deaths as a result of anexoria. People who die from self starvation do not die because they don't have access to food. So those deaths, tragic as they are, should not be counted as a failure of the food provision system.
If we assume that the number of people who "can't afford" the procedure are the ones without health insurance, then it's about 15%, which is better than Sweden's number and WAAAY better than both Canada and the UK's number. In other words, the percentage of people who don't get coronary bypass in the US as a result of our strange capitalist leaning, but not capitalist health care system is better than all of the socialist systems. Capitalism is still the least bad option.
NOTE: I put "can't afford" in quotes. The number of people without health insurance is NOT the same as the number of people who can't afford it. The annual cost of health insurance is approximately the same as the annual cost of eating. There are certainly some people who can't afford to pay the cost of health insurance. But many (I'd like to say most) simply choose to spend their money on other things. In other words, the assumption I make above to get to 15% is extremely pessimistic to my claim and yet it still validates my claim. If I could find an accurate way of deliniating those who choose not to purchase health insurance from those who truly can not pay for health insurance, AND then if I could find a reliable statistic for the latter group, it would make my claim even stronger. How much stronger, I'm not sure, but I suspect it would cut the number in half (at least).
If you then instead substituted a real market based health insurance program instead of the strange one that we have, it'd be even better. A real health insurance program would drive down the costs of procedures, instead of what we have driving up the costs.
socialism is not contrary to freedom. Socialism is in fact designed to be freedom, freedom from poverty and medical expenses as well as personal freedom.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Socialism is the opposite of freedom. As soon as everything is funded by the government, then every individual decision, legitimately becomes something that the government has a say in. Freedom can not long survive socialism - as has been the case historically.
he IT department at my company (approximately some 500 people) is showing signs of incompetence, and has been ignoring knowledgeable user input for about a year.
Feh! Youngins. We've been successfully ignoring all user input for at least 5 years. Gotta love centralized IT that is enforced on the business. Can you say "rent seeking"?
Moreover, are the pilots not trained to, you know, fly? Are they so dependant on these devices that they don't have any other backup mechanism of determining how far they are from the ground before they crash into it? In IT we work hard to eliminate single points of failure because it's important. But if we have a single point of failure, and it fails, for the most part no one dies. Are we really saying that GPS devices are so important that their failure could cause a plane crash and risk peoples lives? Do they not have some contingency in place?
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're missing my point. Whether the school is overstepping it's bounds for involving itself in the aleged commision of a crime is not relevant. At best, it's a questionable practice. But there is absolutely no question that the school, a public institution, should be charged with protecting the first amendment. And that in suspending and threatening to expel someone over a comment is, IMHO, entirely inappropriate and almost certainly unconstitutional.
As far as violating your privacy, I would argue that the very fact that there is a third party in the first place (the government) who believes it has any business snooping into what you do in the privacy of your own home is a huge part of the problem. As long as you're not hurting anyone else, explain to me exactly how the government should be involved at all.
I remain steadfast in my beliefs that private institutions, as opposed to government institutions, would handle this situation much more to everyone's liking.
I'm not saying that I agree with the suspension that you received. I'm saying that there's a difference between what happened to you and what happened to this kid. The public school system which is part of our government, *should* be actively protecting first amendment rights. They have no such obligation to protect criminal activities.
As to whether or not there's justification for a criminal activity having any impact on your schooling, I don't know. I know of a number of people who have been accused of crimes, and as a consequence been fired from their job. It's a practice that seems pretty commonplace. I don't know if the legality of this practice has ever been challenged. The point of this paragraph is that if you think it's bulls*it, then you'd better get used to it, or be willing to take up the legal challenge.
But there's a significant difference in what (allegedly) did and what this kid did. If you were involved at all with the posession or sale of marijuana, that is a criminal activity. What this kid did, writing down his vulgar, but non-threatening opinions of the school is not criminal. It is, in fact, constitutionally protected.
It's crap like this that makes me want the public school system abolished and replaced with something more privately run, where competition can weed out this kind of stupid behavior. For the poor, create the equivalent of "food stamps" so that they can get an education, too. But everyone (including the poor) gets to choose which school they want to go to. If this school had the fear of losing revenue and students because of their misbehavior, do you really think they'd even attempt this?
Socialism doesn't work. This is an example of what it can do.
FWIW, snake oil salesmen would have a much more difficult time surviving today. On their way out of Dodge, a simple phone call would make it difficult for them to do much damage in the next town down the road. In other words, Snake Oil salesmen might last for a short time, but eventually their market would dry up. Because news of their incompetence will travel faster than they can.
True. But, I don't get to stop paying the first person (gov't). AND the first person can demand rate increases to dry up any cash flow that I might want to use on a more effective provider. Call that whatever you want, but it's not market discipline. Personally, when someone extracts money from me and uses it for something that I don't want, I tend to call it theft. There is nothing economically productive about theft.The problem with the above services that you mention is that there is one and only one provider of competency and they force you to pay them: the federal government. I'd really much rather if I'm going to pay someone to protect me from my ignorance that I had the ability to fire them when they do a bad job. And what happens if I try to withhold funds from Uncle Sam because he's doing a bad job? *I* go to jail!
My point: there are other ways to solve the competency problem other than government oversite.
Assuming the amount of effort in the initial investment is the same between propser and a CD, you get better returns and better security with the CD. Making the same assumption, you get better returns, better security, and better liquidity with ING or EmigrantDirect.
And it looks like the assumption is really quite false. To get those low returns, you have to spend more time diversifying with prosper. To invest $1000 into a CD you simply purchase it. To invest $1000 into either of the above banks, you simply send in a deposit. To invest $1000 into prosper, you have to diversify to spread your risk. So, maybe you break it up into $100 chunks. Now you have to find 10 people who you want to lend the money to.
Typically, I expect higher risk items to produce greater returns, and lower returns come with much lower risk. But with prosper, it looks like high risk and low returns. Doesn't look intersting to me. Is there something that I'm missing?
I too have had great success with my Palm based units... until I got my 650. I previously had two Palm IIIs and three Palm Vx's. I only replaced them when I dropped one and had the screen crack. I loved my Palm PDAs and loved the idea of marrying my PDA and my phone.
But I've had trouble with my 650. The first one that I had, had some serious hardware problems - it would just randomly reboot during a phone calls I couldn't keep the thing running for more than 20 mins. The second one that I had, the headset got jammed somehow and I could no longer use the phone without the headset plugged in. And almost all of the bluetooth headsets seem to have volume problems except the one that Palm sells!
The third one has been better on the hardware side (but still not perfect), but the sync conduits for Outlook that ship on the CD completely suck! I had appointments that would migrate one hour earlier every time I synced. They also changed the owner of appointments, so that if someone sent me a meeting invite, it would suddenly change to being owned by me. I solved these problems by purchasing third party sync software.
I still wouldn't switch to a windows mobile based phone. The guy in the next cubicle down has one and my problems seem tiny in comparison to his. But the reputation that Palm had built up for their devices is tarnished in my opinion by these problems. I hope that the 700p is better.
You're right, of course, that owning the patent would make it easier to stifle. But as I've said before, I'm skeptical that any patent holder would do this. Owning a patent provides an incentive for reaping the rewards associated with a highly demanded idea.
I'm more likely to believe that low demand prevents widespread adoption of new ideas rather than patent holders sitting on them or industry conspiracies squelching them. But I'm open to examples where such a thing happened.
Ok. But what's the incentive of the patent holder to play those shenanigans? The patent holder wants to reep the profits of a new invention by using it as a substitute for competitors' products. What reason would the patent holder have to withold their product?
Of course, it's true that the patent holder *could* do this, and the only reason I could see something like this happening would be in the case of a patent holding company which doesn't actually implement anything. But for a real live company that actually builds things, I don't see *any* reason why they'd want to withold production of something in high demand.
Maybe you're right, but I'm skeptical. My skepticism is bourne of the fact that a highly demanded product creates a profit oppurtunity. The patent holder has incentive to produce the product to tap into that demand and reep the profits. It's more likely to me that non-successful products are not successful because there simply wasn't enough demand for them.
But that's just an opinion. You're welcome to disagree.
A patent holder doesn't need any conspirators to prevent something from coming to market. The holder simply doesn't implement the patented thing and sues anyone who does... at least for the lifespan of the patent. No conspiracy needed.
... Maybe the standard lightbulb division even has a higher profit margin. What you lose in profit margin transferring one customer to OLEDs you gain back by getting a customer each from Sylvania and Phillips and ...
But this doesn't seem very likely to happen. Even if the OLED patent holder is a well entrenched company with many business units, some of which would lose out with the development of the new product. In the lighting business this might be GE. If OLEDs are great enough that they draw customers away from GE's primary lightbulb product, then they're also great enough to draw customers away from all of GE's competitor's products. For every customer that transfers from GE's standard lightbulb division, you gain a customer from each of Sylvania and Phillips and
I don't see much incentive for a patent holder to sit on a product in high demand by the market.
IF all of those things are true, then let a bunch of lightbulb manufacturers conspire not to produce it! All it takes is one who's willing to produce it, who can then start reeping huge market share (to meet the assumed customer demand). Heck, it could be you. If all of the above things are true, then you could come in and make a killing on this thing even if every single lightbulb manufacturer chooses not to. And as soon as you do, every manufacturer who "conspired" not to produce this will be forced to in order to chase after those profits that you're getting.
If any one of those assumptions above is false, then it does not require a conspiracy to prevent widespread production of this product. The most likely assumption that's false is #4, but it could be any of them. In any case, if we don't see OLEDs dominating the lighting market, will you simply conclude that it was a secret conspiracy or that maybe one of your upfront assumptions was false? My recommendation would be to apply occam's razor.
$.02
It sounds to me like you think the public is justified belief or disbelief of the research based on the funding source. If that's what you're saying, I would disagree with that sentiment. The justification for believing a set of research is the validity of the research, not the source of the funding.
Quoting your most recent post:
I read this the following way: Assuming that it is flawed because of the funding source is a bad idea. Assuming that it might be flawed because of the funding source is a good idea. Is that the way you meant it?
Personally, I think that assuming that ALL research might be flawed is a good idea. Skepticism of research is a good idea no matter who is funding the research. So I don't really see much value in making that distinction. This guy's research is either good or bad. Look at the research to make that determination. The funding source is irrelevant. It's irrelevant to determining the validity of the research. And, since the scientific method demands healthy skepticism towards all research, you already have all the license you need to be skeptical of the claims. I don't see what value at all bringing up the funding source does towards determing the validity of the research.
What am I missing?
Of course. If my post suggested anything different, it certainly wasn't intended. My point was that the social engineers in this thread seem to want contradictory things: a reduction in oil consumption and low oil prices. You can't get to reduced oil consumption from low oil prices.
I find it ironic that the posting thread is criticizing this guy's research saying greenhouse gasses aren't a problem and then turning around and criticizing the oil companies for raising the price of oil! What do they want? Lower greenhouse gas emissions or lower oil costs?
Except that this is logical fallacy. It's along the lines of ad hominem. In any case, the problem is that you're assuming that the research is flawed simply because of it's funding origin. It might be flawed. It might not. Evaluate the research, not the origin of the funding. The origin of the funding is an invalid critique of the accuracy of the research.
This suggests to me that the local stations are no longer adding any value to the situation. If they can't generate enough listeners for their local content, then their primary purpose is as a distribution mechanism for the national content. But the podcasts are turning out to be a more efficient mechanism for that distribution. Which means that the local stations aren't necessary.
I see a couple of options for the local stations all based on this assumption: if an entity is adding cost to the supply chain without adding value, that entity can and should be removed. In this case, the local station is no longer providing a valuable delivery of national content, so here are the options that I think the locals have:
Is this wrong? If so, wouldn't it invalidate the oft use argument around here that the RIAA should be removed because they're also no longer providing value?
And you shouldn't be surprised by this. The same deal is true with my house. If you want to purchase my house, you can either accept the terms that I offer or not. You don't have a right to my house until we agree on the terms. The guy who owns my favorite DVD isn't willing to sell it to me w/out DRM. That's his/her right. If I don't like it, that's really sad for me, but that's that.
Content "owners" just like home owners may be irrational and make stupid decisions. If you think that they're not taking reasonable offers for the thing that they own, is irrelevant. They own it. It's their prerogative to be irrational with it.
If this were a big enough problem then there'd be an oppurtunity for someone to create hardware that works differently. If people *really* want it, then they'll buy it. Note for example, that the hardware that you're worried about is simply non-existant on the market today. People don't want it, so it has negligible (at best) market share.My point? Consumers are in the drivers seat.
But isn't that part of the point? If the mass of consumers don't stop buying DRM then aren't they all saying that DRM doesn't bother them? Sure it bothers you. And it bothers me. But we can hardly claim that it bothers most everyone if it doesn't bother them enough to stop purchasing it.
I guess I don't buy this argument. If the media companies do something that consumers *really* don't like, consumers will find a way around it. And that way will cut into the media companies profits. Which will create a profit incentive for some other company. Which, as you point out, has happened before. The good news is that it will happen again.
You can worry about it if you like, but consumers really are in the drivers seat.
You don't know how many people in the UK or Canada or Sweden "don't get" because they die before they get. Coronary bypass surgery is only considered elective by countries with socialized medicine. Over here, that's a required life saving procedure.
I will however, concede your point that the figures are for 3 months. Still, as far as people in the US who permanantly "don't get", I would argue that the reason for that has more to do with our system having strayed from a market based system. If you look at critical service systems in the US that are totally market based, you see a different story. For example: everyone here eats. I would argue that food provision is *more* critical than health provision. The average person can live MUCH longer without healthcare than they can without food. Yet no one hear dies of involuntary starvation. No one (*).
There are simply no "don't gets" when the market is allowed to be the dominant player in provisioning of goods/services. Yet in healthcare, a less critical service, there are "don't gets". I would argue that the system of provision needs to be addressed in healthcare, and modeled after the more effective system of provision used for food.
(*) I say "involuntary starvation" because I want to exclude deaths as a result of anexoria. People who die from self starvation do not die because they don't have access to food. So those deaths, tragic as they are, should not be counted as a failure of the food provision system.
If we assume that the number of people who "can't afford" the procedure are the ones without health insurance, then it's about 15%, which is better than Sweden's number and WAAAY better than both Canada and the UK's number. In other words, the percentage of people who don't get coronary bypass in the US as a result of our strange capitalist leaning, but not capitalist health care system is better than all of the socialist systems. Capitalism is still the least bad option.
NOTE: I put "can't afford" in quotes. The number of people without health insurance is NOT the same as the number of people who can't afford it. The annual cost of health insurance is approximately the same as the annual cost of eating. There are certainly some people who can't afford to pay the cost of health insurance. But many (I'd like to say most) simply choose to spend their money on other things. In other words, the assumption I make above to get to 15% is extremely pessimistic to my claim and yet it still validates my claim. If I could find an accurate way of deliniating those who choose not to purchase health insurance from those who truly can not pay for health insurance, AND then if I could find a reliable statistic for the latter group, it would make my claim even stronger. How much stronger, I'm not sure, but I suspect it would cut the number in half (at least).
If you then instead substituted a real market based health insurance program instead of the strange one that we have, it'd be even better. A real health insurance program would drive down the costs of procedures, instead of what we have driving up the costs.
As a Canadian, how free are you to get necessary but non-life threatening medical procedures without waiting?
Moreover, are the pilots not trained to, you know, fly? Are they so dependant on these devices that they don't have any other backup mechanism of determining how far they are from the ground before they crash into it? In IT we work hard to eliminate single points of failure because it's important. But if we have a single point of failure, and it fails, for the most part no one dies. Are we really saying that GPS devices are so important that their failure could cause a plane crash and risk peoples lives? Do they not have some contingency in place?
I beg to differ. The theory of comparative advantage says that the tech industry wouldn't be more vibrant without outsourcing.