But I bet a lot of the people complaining are all for "free markets" and "capitalism" when it means forcing 3rd world countries to destroy their economies by allowing imports of subsidised american products (think foodstuffs), but as soon as it bites closer to home they get all protectionist...
Now the artists could prevent you from using their art. But if you are not defaming them, I don't see why they would. I think they will rather appreciate the publicity.
The copyright holder will probably be the record label more often than not. And since owning the cover art is one of the "value-added" things that make people buy "real" CDs rather than obtaining illegal MP3s, I think they would very much object.
Of course, you could argue that the amazon scans are sufficiently low-res and quality that a colour printout made from them wouldn't look nearly as good as the "real" cover, so this point might not apply.
The clear way to keep a country Environmentally friendly (or Sound, smell, whatever friendly) is to let people have the freedom to avoid spending money at companies that don't support certain basic values that the people do.
I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me at all. You're saying that e.g. if I'm in favour of renewable energy vs. fossil fuels, I should buy my electricity from a renewable energy supplier. BUT, I know perfectly well that the amount of energy that *I* consume has little or no impact on climate change. So why should *I* pay extra bucks if no-one else will?
It's the old maxim, of "yes, but if we all did that...", but it doesn't work unless if there is a collective effort to stop "doing that", in this case polluting. Which means either socialism, or tax incentives to "tweak" the capitalist flow of things into the right direction. Experience shows that apart from single-issue consumer boycotts, the "consumer herd" will always go for the product that is the most immediately desirable/affordable, even if they "know" that they "shouldn't be buying this, really".
1) Taxes are paid by the consumers and manufacturers in proportion to the elasticity of consumer demand, so in this case pretty much "collectively".
But weighted according to how much you want product X, not by how much pollution you generate. If I (assuming low to no fuel taxes again) drive my SUV twice as much as you do, I will generate twice the pollution, but not pay twice the share of cleaning up pollution, waging war on middle eastern countries, etc.
2) Taxes are rarely used to do what they are supposedly for: ie. cleaning up things.
The concept of earmarking money from a particular revenue source for a particular purpose is not really new. It's just a question of political will.
3) The reduction in demand for some consumer electronics due to price disincentives might be quite high, but there are lifetime issues that are fundamental to the technology industry. eg. A 1980's laserdisc player is just not very useful today. Scanners from 4 years ago provide far less quality than those purchased this year. etc.
The rate at which new technology is introduced to the market (and with it innovation rate and R&D budgets) is strongly dependent on the (perceived) buying potential. You (ideally) don't introduce new tech if no-one is there to buy it.
Is the real cost of the electronics boom that we can't afford to live comfortably, work less, or commute less, because we have overinvested in electronics production and entertainment?
Maybe. But it's supply and demand, isn't it? If there is demand for electronic gadgets, people will produce them. I don't spend a lot of money on electronic gadgets, preferring food and drink, but even I can't live without a computer.
It's the market desires that seem out of whack to me.
Hehe. It always amuses me that the first assumption of economics is that "the consumer always acts rationally". Yeah right.
This is actually sadly true... just how many corporations out there realize that their manufacturing processes are damaging to life systems, but brush it under the carpet in the pursuit of money or other factors?
Well-known flaw of the (unadorned) capitalist system. The manufacturing cost of a product does not include the costs incurred by its manufacture which are borne collectively. Example: if there was no fuel tax (and there is no significant fuel tax in the US), the cost of petrol and cars would not include the environmental cost of pollution, because it wouldn't be paid for by oil companies and car makers, but by everyone.
It's not a case of "brushing it under the carpet", more a case that the system isn't in place to make manufacturers accountable for the collective costs caused by their products. Such a system would be an extra tax on polluting products or tax incentives for less polluting ones. This is all old hat but governments tend to be too scared of being accused of being "anti-business" (or "anti-american";-) ) to actually implement such measures.
Re:Comments in this article
on
Peephole Displays
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· Score: 0, Redundant
You forgot:
5.
Make peephole displays.
???
PROFIT!!!
and
6. IN $OVIET RU$$IA peepholes display you!
Re:Excellent things for the work place..
on
Assorted CES Gizmos
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· Score: 2
Human eyes must be a lot better where you are than where the Human Factors researchers work, since their numbers are more like ``7-10, one medium or two short words''.
I'm thinking 5 lines at ~8 chars per line. You need to enlarge the screen minimally to get that many lines, but apart from that, no problem. (If you make the screen higher-res, the chars will be readable at smaller sizes)
Although admittedly, I do have quite good eyesight.;-)
Note that full US phone numbers push the edge here; which is why phone books and caller-ID is so important on cell phones.
Yeah, the display on my phone is 1 character short of being able to display a UK mobile number (including +44 intl code) without line break at the larger font size it uses for caller ID (the phone book font size is smaller, and it fits there). It's kinda annoying.
Re:Excellent things for the work place..
on
Assorted CES Gizmos
·
· Score: 2
Yeah. Right. And how many characters can you display on a wristwatch at once? Keep in mind they have to be visible to the human eye.
'bout 30-50 or so, should be enough. how many characters do need for stock tickers and sports scores? imagine a wristwatch with a scroll wheel (jog-dial type, like you get on sony phones), you could have a CNBC-style ticker, and you could make it support the knewsticker-format (RDF? can't remember) as well to get/. headlines and whatnot. Sounds cool to me.
Re:Excellent things for the work place..
on
Assorted CES Gizmos
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
In regards to the MS watch? Who needs that when you carry around a cell phone with the same thing or a PDA with the same thing.
Because it's a lot more convenient to just look at a wrist watch rather than at a PDA - or do you have your PDA strapped to your arm? My cell phone is in my pocket, and I don't want to have to take it out whenever I want to check the time.
Also, my wristwatch is a lot more lightweight than any PDA or cell phone I've ever seen...
Yeah, I guess it's dictionary time for you. Since when do words mean what they mean "to you"? "Proof" doesn't imply absoluteness. "Mathematical proof" does.
Definition 3a? We're talking about science here, not checking whether you're old enough to drink.
The only definition that makes sense in a scientific context is 2a), and that's essentially the same as a "mathematical proof".
Dictionary "standard usage" definitions are only peripherally related to technical terms, and in science "proof" is a technical term.
So you only discern between "reasonable" and "unreasonable" proofs. That's pretty binary. I can discern between a lot of levels of reasonability. Something like "unreasonable proof" is moronic more than oxymoronic. When you reveal your reasons anyone can decide how "reasonable" they are.
To me the word "proof" implies absoluteness, the same way the word is used in logic. Everything else is conjecture. Dictionary time, I guess.
Space.com defines itself in the scientific community.
When I say proof I'm not saying mathematical proof. For instance: [...]
This is enough reasonable proof for me.
That is pretty much how science works, except that a scientist wouldn't use phrases like "reasonable proof". (That implies there could be such a thing as an "unreasonable proof", which would be oxymoronic.) Using words like "proof" implies you are as sure of your conclusions as you would be of a logical (or mathematical) proof, which you CAN'T be. EVER.
And this is and article aimed at the scientific community?. Crap.
Nope. An "article aimed at the scientific community" WOULD contain detailed calculations. What you've seen is the press blurb. (Remember,/. isn't "the scientific community")
Having said that, I can't see a table at the URL, although I found the table you mean somewhere else though.
I have trouble with the idea of 3 million years for a 60 solar mass star - a bit more googling finds a page that quotes 1 million years for 40 solar masses. I think the main vagueness here is that it's hard to observe the point at which a contracting protostar becomes a "real star" (i.e. core hydrogen ignition takes place), because protostars exist in dense dust-cloudy environments which are a bit hard to probe and all that.
That raises a good point. When the hell did scientists start spouting off about how sure they were of anything? What ever happened to "Data heavily suggests" or "according to our new theory"?
Because "Data heavily suggests" or "according to our new theory" are scientist-speak for "we don't really have a clue, but this answer gives prettier pictures".
Hell, even the first class which introduced the scientific process in grade school was rather adamant about it -- the best you can "know" anything is to have a really well-tested theory about it (while accepting that you might still be wrong). This, OTOH, seems like a bad direction to be headed in, mindset-wise.
Why? Scientists are human. Humans are fallible. Assuming that you are 100% right about anything is "a bad direction to be headed in, mindset-wise", because 99.9999% of the time you will turn out to be wrong. Absolute truth exists only in religion.
What happened to science? Do the word "proof" mean something anymore?
This IS science. The only thing you can "prove" is that the universe exists NOW, and many people would doubt even that (that you can prove it, not that it exists). If you want absolute yes/no statements, try religion.
All you can say in science is "given that assumption X is true, and our model is valid in these conditions, Y +/- Z will happen."
One of the basic rules of proper science is that any measurement without errors or confidence limits is meaningless.
At least, they should explain more in what are those estimates based
I'm sure they do in the actual article. Although I agree with you that the headline sucks.
For example - I'm a bassist, and I own 4 bass guitars.
Oh, in that case you might know whether this snippet is true (I was going to use it at you, but I wasn't sure;-) ) - that Fender had to move their production of cheapo guitars from Japan to Malaysia because the Japanese ones were better than the (more expensive) USA-made ones. Is that true?
(Of course, Japan is hardly a 3rd-world country, so this is a bit beside the point, but it's an interesting piece of trivia.)
the only reason we import oil is because our politicians make a lot of money that way. If US politics wasn't directly intertwined with the oil industry, you can bet we wouldn't be importing any.
Try selling electric-powered SUVs to the electorate.
Not that I don't agree with your point - the US's achilles heel is its dependency on oil imports.
a lack of cheap 3rd world labour would give americans a) jobs b) quality goods. People are so used to shittiness that (b) would be a major eye-opener.
I don't even think I own ANYthing made in USA, so I can't comment.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
But I bet a lot of the people complaining are all for "free markets" and "capitalism" when it means forcing 3rd world countries to destroy their economies by allowing imports of subsidised american products (think foodstuffs), but as soon as it bites closer to home they get all protectionist...
That's what "don't load images" (or lynx/links/emacs /whatever) are there for.
The copyright holder will probably be the record label more often than not. And since owning the cover art is one of the "value-added" things that make people buy "real" CDs rather than obtaining illegal MP3s, I think they would very much object.
Of course, you could argue that the amazon scans are sufficiently low-res and quality that a colour printout made from them wouldn't look nearly as good as the "real" cover, so this point might not apply.
I think he means, you miss the point, you're being trolled.
I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me at all. You're saying that e.g. if I'm in favour of renewable energy vs. fossil fuels, I should buy my electricity from a renewable energy supplier. BUT, I know perfectly well that the amount of energy that *I* consume has little or no impact on climate change. So why should *I* pay extra bucks if no-one else will?
It's the old maxim, of "yes, but if we all did that...", but it doesn't work unless if there is a collective effort to stop "doing that", in this case polluting. Which means either socialism, or tax incentives to "tweak" the capitalist flow of things into the right direction. Experience shows that apart from single-issue consumer boycotts, the "consumer herd" will always go for the product that is the most immediately desirable/affordable, even if they "know" that they "shouldn't be buying this, really".
1) Taxes are paid by the consumers and manufacturers in proportion to the elasticity of consumer demand, so in this case pretty much "collectively".
But weighted according to how much you want product X, not by how much pollution you generate. If I (assuming low to no fuel taxes again) drive my SUV twice as much as you do, I will generate twice the pollution, but not pay twice the share of cleaning up pollution, waging war on middle eastern countries, etc.
2) Taxes are rarely used to do what they are supposedly for: ie. cleaning up things.
The concept of earmarking money from a particular revenue source for a particular purpose is not really new. It's just a question of political will.
3) The reduction in demand for some consumer electronics due to price disincentives might be quite high, but there are lifetime issues that are fundamental to the technology industry. eg. A 1980's laserdisc player is just not very useful today. Scanners from 4 years ago provide far less quality than those purchased this year. etc.
The rate at which new technology is introduced to the market (and with it innovation rate and R&D budgets) is strongly dependent on the (perceived) buying potential. You (ideally) don't introduce new tech if no-one is there to buy it.
Is the real cost of the electronics boom that we can't afford to live comfortably, work less, or commute less, because we have overinvested in electronics production and entertainment?
Maybe. But it's supply and demand, isn't it? If there is demand for electronic gadgets, people will produce them. I don't spend a lot of money on electronic gadgets, preferring food and drink, but even I can't live without a computer.
It's the market desires that seem out of whack to me.
Hehe. It always amuses me that the first assumption of economics is that "the consumer always acts rationally". Yeah right.
Well-known flaw of the (unadorned) capitalist system. The manufacturing cost of a product does not include the costs incurred by its manufacture which are borne collectively. Example: if there was no fuel tax (and there is no significant fuel tax in the US), the cost of petrol and cars would not include the environmental cost of pollution, because it wouldn't be paid for by oil companies and car makers, but by everyone.
It's not a case of "brushing it under the carpet", more a case that the system isn't in place to make manufacturers accountable for the collective costs caused by their products. Such a system would be an extra tax on polluting products or tax incentives for less polluting ones. This is all old hat but governments tend to be too scared of being accused of being "anti-business" (or "anti-american" ;-) ) to actually implement such measures.
Uh oh, watch out for those black helicopters!
5.
and
6. IN $OVIET RU$$IA peepholes display you!
I'm thinking 5 lines at ~8 chars per line. You need to enlarge the screen minimally to get that many lines, but apart from that, no problem. (If you make the screen higher-res, the chars will be readable at smaller sizes)
Although admittedly, I do have quite good eyesight. ;-)
Note that full US phone numbers push the edge here; which is why phone books and caller-ID is so important on cell phones.
Yeah, the display on my phone is 1 character short of being able to display a UK mobile number (including +44 intl code) without line break at the larger font size it uses for caller ID (the phone book font size is smaller, and it fits there). It's kinda annoying.
'bout 30-50 or so, should be enough. how many characters do need for stock tickers and sports scores? imagine a wristwatch with a scroll wheel (jog-dial type, like you get on sony phones), you could have a CNBC-style ticker, and you could make it support the knewsticker-format (RDF? can't remember) as well to get /. headlines and whatnot. Sounds cool to me.
Because it's a lot more convenient to just look at a wrist watch rather than at a PDA - or do you have your PDA strapped to your arm? My cell phone is in my pocket, and I don't want to have to take it out whenever I want to check the time.
Also, my wristwatch is a lot more lightweight than any PDA or cell phone I've ever seen...
Hah! Well AOL can take my internet connection from my cold, dead hands!
And we still do. Have they taken over the world and I haven't noticed, or is there some other sinister reason to stop laughing at them?
"Proof" doesn't imply absoluteness. "Mathematical proof" does.
Definition 3a? We're talking about science here, not checking whether you're old enough to drink.
The only definition that makes sense in a scientific context is 2a), and that's essentially the same as a "mathematical proof".
Dictionary "standard usage" definitions are only peripherally related to technical terms, and in science "proof" is a technical term.
To me the word "proof" implies absoluteness, the same way the word is used in logic. Everything else is conjecture. Dictionary time, I guess.
Space.com defines itself in the scientific community.
[choke, splutter] Enthusiastic amateur, maybe.
Good point. I meant as applied to the real "physical" world. Logic is abstract.
This is enough reasonable proof for me.
That is pretty much how science works, except that a scientist wouldn't use phrases like "reasonable proof". (That implies there could be such a thing as an "unreasonable proof", which would be oxymoronic.) Using words like "proof" implies you are as sure of your conclusions as you would be of a logical (or mathematical) proof, which you CAN'T be. EVER.
And this is and article aimed at the scientific community?. Crap.
Nope. An "article aimed at the scientific community" WOULD contain detailed calculations. What you've seen is the press blurb. (Remember, /. isn't "the scientific community")
I don't do stars, only galaxies. ;-)
Having said that, I can't see a table at the URL, although I found the table you mean somewhere else though.
I have trouble with the idea of 3 million years for a 60 solar mass star - a bit more googling finds a page that quotes 1 million years for 40 solar masses. I think the main vagueness here is that it's hard to observe the point at which a contracting protostar becomes a "real star" (i.e. core hydrogen ignition takes place), because protostars exist in dense dust-cloudy environments which are a bit hard to probe and all that.
The sun is technically speaking a dwarf star. ;-)
Because "Data heavily suggests" or "according to our new theory" are scientist-speak for "we don't really have a clue, but this answer gives prettier pictures".
Hell, even the first class which introduced the scientific process in grade school was rather adamant about it -- the best you can "know" anything is to have a really well-tested theory about it (while accepting that you might still be wrong). This, OTOH, seems like a bad direction to be headed in, mindset-wise.
Why? Scientists are human. Humans are fallible. Assuming that you are 100% right about anything is "a bad direction to be headed in, mindset-wise", because 99.9999% of the time you will turn out to be wrong. Absolute truth exists only in religion.
This IS science. The only thing you can "prove" is that the universe exists NOW, and many people would doubt even that (that you can prove it, not that it exists). If you want absolute yes/no statements, try religion.
All you can say in science is "given that assumption X is true, and our model is valid in these conditions, Y +/- Z will happen."
One of the basic rules of proper science is that any measurement without errors or confidence limits is meaningless.
At least, they should explain more in what are those estimates based
I'm sure they do in the actual article. Although I agree with you that the headline sucks.
think more like 100,000 years or less, for anything above 5 solar masses. (1/lifetime) vs mass isn't a linear relation, far from it.
Oh, in that case you might know whether this snippet is true (I was going to use it at you, but I wasn't sure ;-) ) - that Fender had to move their production of cheapo guitars from Japan to Malaysia because the Japanese ones were better than the (more expensive) USA-made ones. Is that true?
(Of course, Japan is hardly a 3rd-world country, so this is a bit beside the point, but it's an interesting piece of trivia.)
Try selling electric-powered SUVs to the electorate.
Not that I don't agree with your point - the US's achilles heel is its dependency on oil imports.
a lack of cheap 3rd world labour would give americans a) jobs b) quality goods. People are so used to shittiness that (b) would be a major eye-opener.
I don't even think I own ANYthing made in USA, so I can't comment. ;-)