The UK thing is that if you are unprepared enough not to have played your joke before 12 noon, then you are yourself the fool.
Its all part of the tradition here in the UK, and why breakfast jokes are some of the most common, ie switching the salt and sugar and watching some poor b*stard spit their salty coffee. Mwahahahah!
While I am definately interested in Linux HCL lists for any device, I really wouldnt sweat the bluetooth ones.
Bluetooth is over-controlled and it is not (yet) an ISO standard. It is fairly shortrange, it has a very expensive barrier to entry, low bandwidth. It is complicated and limited to develop for.
As a hardware developer and robot builder I looked at bluetooth, and categorically decided we will not be using it. It is just not worth it. WiFi is actually cheaper, and you can do so much more with it. I do not think bluetooth has a future, it is fad, and really has not captured the market place much more than Wireless phone hotsyncing and wireless phone earpeices. Outside of those applications - it is useless.
Activities like this are just rendering the technology more useless and obsolete ahead of its time. Give them enough rope...
Ah - my lack of reference led to humour imparement. Have you got a link to this? It sounds funny.
I always thought the most amusing fallout from the US/France fall out was "Freedom Fries" - it made me laugh so hard I nearly lost my lunch when I first heard it...
He doesnt. Those who made the mentioned raft of laws, those who appointed a racist oil baron as president really dont represent freedom.
There a lesson that many Americans need to learn, which is not always to trust that a man who says he represents something actually does. You look at their past, and if they didnt do so then, you can pretty well guarantee they have not changed much.
After all, why pay the development costs yourself if you can just cheat?
Because you may get an idea that if we do X and Y as well, we will make a killing in the market - which until the other companies cotton on, you could do quite well from. If you already have enough of a manufacturing plant to build items, then its not going to break your back to try out a new design. Competition would become faster and more fierce - and R & D could speed up. It would be more like evolution - you get a momentary edge, but to keep the edge, you must keep going, if you get complacent and stop, you loose the edge. If the companies stagnate, all it takes a new startup to push that edge, and the cycle starts again. Read up about evolutionary arms races - because that is exactly what the scenario would be then.
Now neither of these are entirely true, and the Lego vs MegaBloks case highlights it well. Both companies are able to manufacture the same product, but now they are competing on Price, Quality and creativeness. By creativeness, I mean the kind of sets they are using the blocks for. If Lego want to get bogged down in what are now becoming repetative movie licenses and sets that integrate badly with the rest of the system while MegaBloks go all out on fun and interchangeable sets then Lego will feel the pinch. If Lego go back to good basic, technic and mindstorms sets, and go more for general themes than movie licenses, we all know the quality of peices are better then MegaBloks, and MegaBloks will feel the pinch instead. What we may then end up with are more of the sets we like, MegaBloks in proper ABS and more reasonable pricing. Lego want to highlight their quality difference over MegaBloks - I am sure some they could go for the "cheap shot" advertising with children crying over half-built generic brand models crumbling while the shining real Lego one shows them up. Lego would do well to have advertising showing interviews with adults who grew up on Technic and Mindstorms who are now engineers (software, mechanical or electrical) and put some of their success/interest down to playing with Lego as a kid- a claim that I am really not sure MegaBloks could compete on. Lego could (and it would be welcomed) exploit the AFOL community a little and ask permission to use a raft of AFOL models in advertising with a slogon about taking their products and creating. http://www.brickshelf.com/ would be a good start there.
In the realm of software, one brand could come up with a product very similar in fuctionality than someone elses, but then they can compete on quality (bugs/exploits), ease of use (menu design etc), and cost. Not in terms of IP. It takes time to program features, it also takes time for another team to program the same features, even IF they can reverse engineer the new features from yours. And if there code base is fairly different from yours, then it is no trivial matter of integrating the diffs (I admit that this has become a damnsight easier with.Net IL than any other technology - and is one good reason not to use it). It also means it is unlikely that they will be easily able to reverse engineer it. To be fair - they would do better reimplementing their own versions, and if they happen to do it in a more bugfree, or cost effective way, then tough - time to improve your processes.
What applies to physical manufacture can apply in other areas quite well. Now while I do think an initial cretor should have some very LIMITED time to recoup their investment, like a couple of years, after that, its time they actually compete. This directly benefits consumers and governments. Lets not forget - the concept of time limited government granted monopolies were originally designed on the condition that they benefited people and state eventually.
While I do not think the government should dictate how a community group is run, there should be a clear boundary they cross when they run afoul of the constitutional rights of the members of that (or other) communities. In which case I fully support the government moving in.
Of course it is a matter of where you stand on the governments of the world. In the US, you have a written constitution, which it is fairly difficult for any current administration to change. This in effect is designed to guarantee your rights. Were it not for that, no, I would not trust the administration to have any control.
The constitution is (hopefully) a little more permanent and well thought out than a corrupt government (are there many other kinds?) likely to change as soon as there are enough armed people or annoyed foreign countries. A statement that applies as much to N. Korea as it does the US in the current state of affairs. In this case - the constitution may actually act to protect US people form their own government.
That sounds like a good improvement. With the Uk's NHS, we should pull the same. Maybe also do that for uninsured drivers. Even better- smokers, if you smoke - you dont get a penny of state aid.
Unfortunately that probably wouldnt make it here. I get the feeling many Uk citizens are more interested in keeping their benefits than their freedoms.
While I agree mostly, to be fair, scamming on the part of government and corporation rarely results in any comeback at all - more often a gagging order and cover up, or no-one having the balls to challenge the corp in question.
And beleive me, corps and the governments of the world are much, much better scammers than these 419'rs. Thats why some people reading this would loudly profess "no ones trying to scam me".
Linux will never become BETTER than Windows if every criticism of Linux is answered with, "well, it's also hard in Windows!" Who gives a shit about Windows? Why can't we just judge Linux on its own terms?
Great call. Except people dont, be you for, or against it, it will also be compared against the dominant monopoly, which at this point happens to be windows.
I am sure if instead of comparing we subject windows to the same treatment, we would start to see just how pants that is too.
The truth is that user interfaces for the unwashed masses still have a way to come. But we must also recognise, that as someones sig points out, a tricycle is easier to use than a stealth jet. A clothes line is easier to use than a washing machine.
In this respect, no linux may not be suitable for an average learner or users desktop. But for advanced user, who wants to do that much more, who wants to code, who wants to get under the hood, then linux is perhaps the best OS available. This is not about politics, but recognising that different users have different requirements. Again- a 3 year old does not need a 2 meter dashboard to drive a tricycle, but a serious fighter pilot needs every instrument, and should know how to use them when required.
Perhaps recognising that different people have very different needs is a vital point that everyone in the "OS Wars" have neglected. I use colinux - I use both OS's together, for different applications, because currently, neither have all the abilities I require.
Linux may be "hard" for some users, but I can do things with it I couldnt in Windows. Windows may be "hard" to run an AMP solution on, but sometimes thats the way it has to be. Solaris may be "hard" to set up, but the app someone chose that beats any other competitor in functionality runs on it. As a computer scientist, I deal with it, in fact I thrive on it. But dont expect Joe public to want to do so. His use of computers may be nothing more cognitive than "I wanna write a letter, then email, then get beer". I respect that, his expertise may be in carpentry, and I would pay him for that. I get paid to tinker with computers.
I am just imagining the horror of any slashdot minion in control of a dreadnaught... News bytes like "cut a swathe of destruction through redmond" come to mind..
TriWheel designs were used in the movie damnation alley. While they will take stairs - in an active approach, they are very difficult to implement - I know, I have done so. Mind you - they also can work as (rather innefective) water paddles.
Have a read of this Orionrobots on Tri-Star Wheels.
The good thing about the jBot design, is it is passive and still acheives it. I do own Bonanza by the way - it is a very good resource.
Do what we do - you have a repository (or branch) that only allows commits and merges from certain managing members, and have a policy which dictates that sub-projects and fixes must be on a new branch - which can only be merged to the head when tested, QA'd and approved.
If you get a branch that sits for months, and doesnt improve anything, or work - wipe it off.
Enforce that the branch owner must perform regular updates (out of date work may be next to useless or worse).
Those who have consistently done good fixes/additions could then be promoted - which everybody who wants to try (depending on how busy the site is) gets a shot.
Thunderbird does help. I mostly use squirrelmail when roaming to access my mail, but as its an IMAP set-up, I leave Thunderbird running on a virtual desktop - so it can deal with spam, and automatically filter/route other incoming stuff.
I agree that national sovereignty is an issue - mutual anti-spam legislation would probably be the best way through it. The problem is, we can hardly get international agreements on much more pressing issues than spam, so I wouldnt expect much...
Wow - that would mean email that could break your computer before even previewing it...
I would see that as quite a probable extension for the MSVTP (MS-Virus Transfer Protocol - aka Outlook).
I am a humanist - and do not consider myself a puritan in the slightest. But I am still wound up fairly tightly by email spam be it porn or otherwise.
Considering the UK is trying to do what it can to limit spam as well - if a spammer can be brought up on US laws instead, then I would think we would uphold and welcome it.
The more we can do to squeeze unsoliticited mailers of all kinds - the better. Its not like I have ever bought anything as the result of a spam anyway! If a case like this works - it may start to make spammers of all kinds feel very uncomfortable. International co-operation on dealing with spammers would give them a serious threat(instead of the slightly fluffy one they get now).
Most of us know that it was their annoying shift to incompatible bricks, or ones which were only useful in a single model - and not easily recombined for others. Most of the Bionacle range fell into this category.
Mindstorms did well, and it was compatible with the rest of Lego. For a start - they still included beams. While the liftarms are a useful addition - I dislike the way the technic beams have been phased out of most technic models in favour of the liftarms. My beginner students (in the OrionRobots youngsters group - training for FLL), always struggle to see how to attach liftarms until they are shown, but with the original beams it is inherently obvious how they go together.
Things like Bionacle, Harry Potter, Star Wars are the kind of models that are built once and sit on the shelf - because they really arent all that fun. Original Lego, Technic, Mindstorms, space continue to stimulate - and have many more permutations - plus kids are more likely to mix up sets and recombine them in different ways if they arent marketed as collectable movie tie ins.
Anyway - I do think.net on an RCX is a bit over the top - there are may routes one may take, Lejos, NQC, Bricx, BrickOS and so on. Consider this - the RCX is about motion control, robotics, sensor-actuator loops,.net is about GUI's, internet, and bloated servers - the two are not really conceptually similar.
Whoah - That is definately cool. Do you have any links? References? Are we talking Vaccuum Tube trains or something (a little like the ones between the Arcologies in The Nights Dawn Trilogy)?
I thoroughly agree - I looked for any of my favourite bands - and they do not appear in the online stores. I am not an oldie. These stores do have Pink Floyd and Zeppelin - it is more modern stuff they lack. Examples of things I mean is any thing on the Ninja Tune label - which can not really be accused of being oldie stuff -and is popular enough to do regular live events countrywide.
Ninja Tune carry artists like DJ Food, The Herbalizer, Amon Tobin and Mr Scruff - all of which feature big time on my playlists.
I do check up on iTunes - but since none of these artists have been carried since i first checked -I have all but given up on seing my favourites carried.
Hmm - only just seen the irony- people who see the iconic raincoat, worn by geeks (okay not for along time - only the BSD Guys) and train spotters alike, as the name of a computer that spells the path out of geekiness.
Interesting choice of words there... I have downloaded a great deal of free music, and my own music is freely available on ed2k(sorry dont know the hashes), as well as in playlists on last.fm. While I beleive the artist should receive some renumeration- the current model benefits marketing, lawyers and other leaches more. I do, and continue to donate to online artists I appretiate - this also applies for software. I have donated money to the Blender foundation, Gentoo, Mandrake and other organisations working on software that I appretiate.
If the model was to change - music would become more viral (showing people stuff you like) and people would donate to artists if they liked them. It would probably mean much of the hypermarketed uber-trash we see in the world of pop today would be dead in the water... I never liked music which required ad-campaigns and blondes in skimpy outfits to justify its existance...
The people who loose are people who rely on physical media (it may become rare and you may have to print it yourself from digital), record retail, marketing, supply and studios.
You know - I wonder how many attempted sue-ings of hardware, cd storage, cd cleaning companies it would take for them to approach the content guys and ask them to please allow for backups...
While I agree with the tax dollars argument - I also think that 12 hour watch shifts are not the best use of time.. People loose concentration and shut down. Most peoples attention span stretches after aroun 45minutes, let alone 12 hour shifts - so rotating at 4 hours would mean you have more alert guys, and also less fatigued guys. If a situation arises - you dont want tired fed up guys - you want hard core pepped people ready to deal with it...
Although I am not mil - I have done 12 hour shifts - they were during my student years - driving a highbay crane. At least when it got boring I had the option of shifting it into manual mode and imagining it was a mecha or something... But on the night shifts (6 till 6) I normally was bored of that by around 4am and it was caffeine alone that prevented me sleeping. It was only the fact that the machine beeped when a new line came in that I started it up again at all at that stage. This level of boredom is mild compared with keeping watch/guard over an encampment.
When you are drunk - finding another glass (unless they are special expensive ones) is no big deal - but when the movie you want to watch is unwatchable is unbearable. Before I was teetotal I have been in the situ where I was like "I got my movie - and its gonna be good" and then it refused to play in my DVD player.. A downer on a good evening..
Slashdot Mirror
The UK thing is that if you are unprepared enough not to have played your joke before 12 noon, then you are yourself the fool.
Its all part of the tradition here in the UK, and why breakfast jokes are some of the most common, ie switching the salt and sugar and watching some poor b*stard spit their salty coffee. Mwahahahah!
Look it up on WikiPedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_fool
While I am definately interested in Linux HCL lists for any device, I really wouldnt sweat the bluetooth ones.
Bluetooth is over-controlled and it is not (yet) an ISO standard. It is fairly shortrange, it has a very expensive barrier to entry, low bandwidth. It is complicated and limited to develop for.
As a hardware developer and robot builder I looked at bluetooth, and categorically decided we will not be using it. It is just not worth it. WiFi is actually cheaper, and you can do so much more with it. I do not think bluetooth has a future, it is fad, and really has not captured the market place much more than Wireless phone hotsyncing and wireless phone earpeices. Outside of those applications - it is useless.
Activities like this are just rendering the technology more useless and obsolete ahead of its time. Give them enough rope...
Ah - my lack of reference led to humour imparement. Have you got a link to this? It sounds funny. I always thought the most amusing fallout from the US/France fall out was "Freedom Fries" - it made me laugh so hard I nearly lost my lunch when I first heard it...
He doesnt. Those who made the mentioned raft of laws, those who appointed a racist oil baron as president really dont represent freedom.
There a lesson that many Americans need to learn, which is not always to trust that a man who says he represents something actually does. You look at their past, and if they didnt do so then, you can pretty well guarantee they have not changed much.
Because you may get an idea that if we do X and Y as well, we will make a killing in the market - which until the other companies cotton on, you could do quite well from. If you already have enough of a manufacturing plant to build items, then its not going to break your back to try out a new design. Competition would become faster and more fierce - and R & D could speed up. It would be more like evolution - you get a momentary edge, but to keep the edge, you must keep going, if you get complacent and stop, you loose the edge. If the companies stagnate, all it takes a new startup to push that edge, and the cycle starts again. Read up about evolutionary arms races - because that is exactly what the scenario would be then.
Now neither of these are entirely true, and the Lego vs MegaBloks case highlights it well.
.Net IL than any other technology - and is one good reason not to use it). It also means it is unlikely that they will be easily able to reverse engineer it. To be fair - they would do better reimplementing their own versions, and if they happen to do it in a more bugfree, or cost effective way, then tough - time to improve your processes.
Both companies are able to manufacture the same product, but now they are competing on Price, Quality and creativeness. By creativeness, I mean the kind of sets they are using the blocks for. If Lego want to get bogged down in what are now becoming repetative movie licenses and sets that integrate badly with the rest of the system while MegaBloks go all out on fun and interchangeable sets then Lego will feel the pinch. If Lego go back to good basic, technic and mindstorms sets, and go more for general themes than movie licenses, we all know the quality of peices are better then MegaBloks, and MegaBloks will feel the pinch instead. What we may then end up with are more of the sets we like, MegaBloks in proper ABS and more reasonable pricing. Lego want to highlight their quality difference over MegaBloks - I am sure some they could go for the "cheap shot" advertising with children crying over half-built generic brand models crumbling while the shining real Lego one shows them up. Lego would do well to have advertising showing interviews with adults who grew up on Technic and Mindstorms who are now engineers (software, mechanical or electrical) and put some of their success/interest down to playing with Lego as a kid- a claim that I am really not sure MegaBloks could compete on. Lego could (and it would be welcomed) exploit the AFOL community a little and ask permission to use a raft of AFOL models in advertising with a slogon about taking their products and creating. http://www.brickshelf.com/ would be a good start there.
In the realm of software, one brand could come up with a product very similar in fuctionality than someone elses, but then they can compete on quality (bugs/exploits), ease of use (menu design etc), and cost. Not in terms of IP. It takes time to program features, it also takes time for another team to program the same features, even IF they can reverse engineer the new features from yours. And if there code base is fairly different from yours, then it is no trivial matter of integrating the diffs (I admit that this has become a damnsight easier with
What applies to physical manufacture can apply in other areas quite well. Now while I do think an initial cretor should have some very LIMITED time to recoup their investment, like a couple of years, after that, its time they actually compete. This directly benefits consumers and governments. Lets not forget - the concept of time limited government granted monopolies were originally designed on the condition that they benefited people and state eventually.
While I do not think the government should dictate how a community group is run, there should be a clear boundary they cross when they run afoul of the constitutional rights of the members of that (or other) communities. In which case I fully support the government moving in.
Of course it is a matter of where you stand on the governments of the world. In the US, you have a written constitution, which it is fairly difficult for any current administration to change. This in effect is designed to guarantee your rights. Were it not for that, no, I would not trust the administration to have any control.
The constitution is (hopefully) a little more permanent and well thought out than a corrupt government (are there many other kinds?) likely to change as soon as there are enough armed people or annoyed foreign countries. A statement that applies as much to N. Korea as it does the US in the current state of affairs. In this case - the constitution may actually act to protect US people form their own government.
That sounds like a good improvement. With the Uk's NHS, we should pull the same. Maybe also do that for uninsured drivers. Even better- smokers, if you smoke - you dont get a penny of state aid.
Unfortunately that probably wouldnt make it here. I get the feeling many Uk citizens are more interested in keeping their benefits than their freedoms.
While I agree mostly, to be fair, scamming on the part of government and corporation rarely results in any comeback at all - more often a gagging order and cover up, or no-one having the balls to challenge the corp in question. And beleive me, corps and the governments of the world are much, much better scammers than these 419'rs. Thats why some people reading this would loudly profess "no ones trying to scam me".
Great call. Except people dont, be you for, or against it, it will also be compared against the dominant monopoly, which at this point happens to be windows.
I am sure if instead of comparing we subject windows to the same treatment, we would start to see just how pants that is too.
The truth is that user interfaces for the unwashed masses still have a way to come. But we must also recognise, that as someones sig points out, a tricycle is easier to use than a stealth jet. A clothes line is easier to use than a washing machine.
In this respect, no linux may not be suitable for an average learner or users desktop. But for advanced user, who wants to do that much more, who wants to code, who wants to get under the hood, then linux is perhaps the best OS available. This is not about politics, but recognising that different users have different requirements. Again- a 3 year old does not need a 2 meter dashboard to drive a tricycle, but a serious fighter pilot needs every instrument, and should know how to use them when required.
Perhaps recognising that different people have very different needs is a vital point that everyone in the "OS Wars" have neglected. I use colinux - I use both OS's together, for different applications, because currently, neither have all the abilities I require.
Linux may be "hard" for some users, but I can do things with it I couldnt in Windows. Windows may be "hard" to run an AMP solution on, but sometimes thats the way it has to be. Solaris may be "hard" to set up, but the app someone chose that beats any other competitor in functionality runs on it. As a computer scientist, I deal with it, in fact I thrive on it. But dont expect Joe public to want to do so. His use of computers may be nothing more cognitive than "I wanna write a letter, then email, then get beer". I respect that, his expertise may be in carpentry, and I would pay him for that. I get paid to tinker with computers.
Watch out when you start getting suspicious work units for seti@home! Skynet is all around us...
Boink + WiFi = Superintelligent massive collaborative network, universally accessible, ripe for a machine intelligence to take...
Hmmm.. "even in Death I serve"
I am just imagining the horror of any slashdot minion in control of a dreadnaught... News bytes like "cut a swathe of destruction through redmond" come to mind..
TriWheel designs were used in the movie damnation alley. While they will take stairs - in an active approach, they are very difficult to implement - I know, I have done so. Mind you - they also can work as (rather innefective) water paddles. Have a read of this Orionrobots on Tri-Star Wheels. The good thing about the jBot design, is it is passive and still acheives it. I do own Bonanza by the way - it is a very good resource.
Do what we do - you have a repository (or branch) that only allows commits and merges from certain managing members, and have a policy which dictates that sub-projects and fixes must be on a new branch - which can only be merged to the head when tested, QA'd and approved. If you get a branch that sits for months, and doesnt improve anything, or work - wipe it off. Enforce that the branch owner must perform regular updates (out of date work may be next to useless or worse). Those who have consistently done good fixes/additions could then be promoted - which everybody who wants to try (depending on how busy the site is) gets a shot.
Thunderbird does help. I mostly use squirrelmail when roaming to access my mail, but as its an IMAP set-up, I leave Thunderbird running on a virtual desktop - so it can deal with spam, and automatically filter/route other incoming stuff.
I agree that national sovereignty is an issue - mutual anti-spam legislation would probably be the best way through it. The problem is, we can hardly get international agreements on much more pressing issues than spam, so I wouldnt expect much...
Wow - that would mean email that could break your computer before even previewing it... I would see that as quite a probable extension for the MSVTP (MS-Virus Transfer Protocol - aka Outlook).
I am a humanist - and do not consider myself a puritan in the slightest. But I am still wound up fairly tightly by email spam be it porn or otherwise.
Considering the UK is trying to do what it can to limit spam as well - if a spammer can be brought up on US laws instead, then I would think we would uphold and welcome it.
The more we can do to squeeze unsoliticited mailers of all kinds - the better. Its not like I have ever bought anything as the result of a spam anyway! If a case like this works - it may start to make spammers of all kinds feel very uncomfortable. International co-operation on dealing with spammers would give them a serious threat(instead of the slightly fluffy one they get now).
Most of us know that it was their annoying shift to incompatible bricks, or ones which were only useful in a single model - and not easily recombined for others. Most of the Bionacle range fell into this category.
.net on an RCX is a bit over the top - there are may routes one may take, Lejos, NQC, Bricx, BrickOS and so on. Consider this - the RCX is about motion control, robotics, sensor-actuator loops, .net is about GUI's, internet, and bloated servers - the two are not really conceptually similar.
Mindstorms did well, and it was compatible with the rest of Lego. For a start - they still included beams. While the liftarms are a useful addition - I dislike the way the technic beams have been phased out of most technic models in favour of the liftarms. My beginner students (in the OrionRobots youngsters group - training for FLL), always struggle to see how to attach liftarms until they are shown, but with the original beams it is inherently obvious how they go together.
Things like Bionacle, Harry Potter, Star Wars are the kind of models that are built once and sit on the shelf - because they really arent all that fun. Original Lego, Technic, Mindstorms, space continue to stimulate - and have many more permutations - plus kids are more likely to mix up sets and recombine them in different ways if they arent marketed as collectable movie tie ins.
Anyway - I do think
Whoah - That is definately cool. Do you have any links? References? Are we talking Vaccuum Tube trains or something (a little like the ones between the Arcologies in The Nights Dawn Trilogy)?
/Me is hungry for info on alternative transport
Hmm - Forgoing mod points for this..
I thoroughly agree - I looked for any of my favourite bands - and they do not appear in the online stores. I am not an oldie. These stores do have Pink Floyd and Zeppelin - it is more modern stuff they lack. Examples of things I mean is any thing on the Ninja Tune label - which can not really be accused of being oldie stuff -and is popular enough to do regular live events countrywide.
Ninja Tune carry artists like DJ Food, The Herbalizer, Amon Tobin and Mr Scruff - all of which feature big time on my playlists.
I do check up on iTunes - but since none of these artists have been carried since i first checked -I have all but given up on seing my favourites carried.
Hmm - only just seen the irony- people who see the iconic raincoat, worn by geeks (okay not for along time - only the BSD Guys) and train spotters alike, as the name of a computer that spells the path out of geekiness.
At the end of a google "define macintosh" you get this definition - http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stag e=1&word=macintosh
Interesting choice of words there... I have downloaded a great deal of free music, and my own music is freely available on ed2k(sorry dont know the hashes), as well as in playlists on last.fm. While I beleive the artist should receive some renumeration- the current model benefits marketing, lawyers and other leaches more. I do, and continue to donate to online artists I appretiate - this also applies for software. I have donated money to the Blender foundation, Gentoo, Mandrake and other organisations working on software that I appretiate.
If the model was to change - music would become more viral (showing people stuff you like) and people would donate to artists if they liked them. It would probably mean much of the hypermarketed uber-trash we see in the world of pop today would be dead in the water... I never liked music which required ad-campaigns and blondes in skimpy outfits to justify its existance...
The people who loose are people who rely on physical media (it may become rare and you may have to print it yourself from digital), record retail, marketing, supply and studios.
You know - I wonder how many attempted sue-ings of hardware, cd storage, cd cleaning companies it would take for them to approach the content guys and ask them to please allow for backups...
While I agree with the tax dollars argument - I also think that 12 hour watch shifts are not the best use of time.. People loose concentration and shut down. Most peoples attention span stretches after aroun 45minutes, let alone 12 hour shifts - so rotating at 4 hours would mean you have more alert guys, and also less fatigued guys. If a situation arises - you dont want tired fed up guys - you want hard core pepped people ready to deal with it...
Although I am not mil - I have done 12 hour shifts - they were during my student years - driving a highbay crane. At least when it got boring I had the option of shifting it into manual mode and imagining it was a mecha or something... But on the night shifts (6 till 6) I normally was bored of that by around 4am and it was caffeine alone that prevented me sleeping. It was only the fact that the machine beeped when a new line came in that I started it up again at all at that stage. This level of boredom is mild compared with keeping watch/guard over an encampment.
When you are drunk - finding another glass (unless they are special expensive ones) is no big deal - but when the movie you want to watch is unwatchable is unbearable. Before I was teetotal I have been in the situ where I was like "I got my movie - and its gonna be good" and then it refused to play in my DVD player.. A downer on a good evening..