Well, if you can't tell the difference between being spied on by your government so it can pretend it's protecting you from boogeymen and freely choosing to give someone (or some entity) certain limited information in return for a service, maybe you don't really need that service anyways -- it probably won't help.
Besides, lying to the NYTimes is really easy. Go here
Heck, even a 0.5 dB change in level is small enough that most people don't perceive it as a level difference, but large enough that they perceive it as being "more airy" or "detailed" or whatever.
Hmmm, could this be because the dB SPL scale was originally designed so that 1 dB is the smallest increment of level change a human can detect??
While I don't doubt that you believe you can hear a difference, it is highly unlikely that what you perceive is something that you can attribute to real physical phenomina.
Your body recieves information about sound around you in many ways, not just through your ears. It's true that the average cap on hearing is a 20kHz, but that does not mean that frequencies above that don't make a difference to your overall experience of sound.
From Phil Karn's post: I have yet to hear a classical recording where the microphone preamp hiss and ambient noise (air conditioning, etc) doesn't significantly exceed the quantizing noise floor of 16-bit PCM.
I think what you're trying to say, using as many buzzwords as possible, is that the noise of these bargain-bin, pre-1980 recordings that you like to listen to is audible during the quiet passages. Do you know what you're talking about? How exactly do you propose we remove noise that is above the S/N ratio point without affecting the music?
As for designing steep filters, that's quite easy to do digitally with oversampled A/D converters.
The filter has nothing to do with the converter. Furthermore, the post you're responding to said "cheaply and easily," and oversampling, while perhaps easy, is not cheap. You don't have oversampling converters in your discman, or even your boombox.
DVD-Video and DVD-Audio, not to mention SA-CD, have very different specs for audio. Just because you don't care about the differences doesn't mean that you can ignore them.
DVD-Video: (up to) 24 bit @ 96 kHz for stereo, data compressed (DTS, Dolby AC-3) from (up to) 24 bit @ 48 kHz source for multichannel
DVD-Audio: up to 24 bit @ 192 kHz for stereo, lossless compression from (up to) 24 bit @ 96khz source for multichannel
SA-CD: 1 bit @ 2.8MHz for stereo
Of course, as I (and many other people) have said here, who's got the hardware to hear the difference? Not too many people. But don't try to pass this off as a marketing ploy. There are differences.
DVD-audio can actually sample up to 192kHz, if you want to. Who's got speakers that will reveal that kind of frequency range? Precious few people.
The big problem, though, is that DVD-Audio only does those high bit and sample rates in stereo. As soon as you want to do surround, you are limited to 96kHz (oooh, big deal!), and you have to compress the data. Oops! Granted, it's lossless compression, but it's still a nasty word.
These two technologies have been around for a few years, and the majority of people haven't gone for them. Why? To quote the article:
SACDs and DVD-Audios, when coupled with the right speakers, sound superior to regular CDs.
"if you're working around the house, then it (the enhanced sound) doesn't really matter."
In order to get the benefit, you have to be sitting right in the middle of the stereo (or surround) field of your new $600 Klipsch speakers, with a new $500 deck, $550 reciever, and maybe a nice preamp. Also, the difference in dynamic range between 16 bits (CD) and 24 (DVD-Audio), while nice, isn't even going to be noticed on any piece of music destined for the radio, because they compress it into oblivion before it gets anywhere near the station, let alone your reciever. (Pop in any rock album from the last 10 years. Watch the levels -- they won't vary more than about 10dB. Do the same with a Beethoven Piano Sonata. The levels are all over the place.)
You've also got to care. The only people who are interested in this are classical music fans (so we can hear the difference between the 300-year-old Stradivarius and the 275-year-old Stradivarius), and the muscians, producers, and engineers who think that everyone's an audiophile too.
I'm not even sure that I'd want to hear Britney on SACD. It would probably rupture my eardrums.
Building your own exact duplicate of a stereo is perfectly legal. If you try to sell it, it's not. Even if you buy the stereo, open it up and look inside, draw a schematic, and then make your own, it's still legal. As long as you don't try to sell it, or distribute the schematic. This is completely different from downloading music. The equivalent would be getting a band together in a recording studio and making an exact duplicate of your favorite Jimmy Buffet song. Again, totally legal, unless you try to distribute it or perform it publicly.
The safe harbor is also lost if the anti-piracy action causes more than de minimis loss to the property of the P2P pirate. This limitation represents a recognition that even pirates should not be seriously harmed by copyright owners.
From an article about the 2005 Berman-Langley Mayhem by Murderous Madmen Prevention Act:
The safe harbor is also lost if the vengeance action causes more than de minimis harm to the body of the murderer. This limitation represents a recognition that even murderers should not be seriously harmed by victims' families.
From an article about the 2007 Berman-Gates Poverty, Pestilence, and Putrid People Annoyance Prevention Act:
The safe harbor is also lost if the anti-annoyance action causes more than de minimis loss to the property of the poor person. This limitation represents a recognition that even poor people should not be seriously harmed by rich people.
How about the recognition that a citizen should not be harmed by other citizens, period, unless those other citizens want to do some jail time? Even if those other citizens have enough money to buy themselves a few Congresscritters!
With this law in place, the theif has to buy an illegal tool on the black market. That definately increases the cost of stealing phones, at the very least.
But, again, phone theives are already committing several crimes; the fact that one of the tools they need is only available illegally isn't likely to make them think twice. Unless you're talking about economic cost; $14.95 (plus dealing with the idiot on commission behind the counter) vs. >$100(?) (or £, since we are talking about the UK). But still, I think that would just make them steal more phones to make up the cost. It's just a greater initial outlay, not really a liability.
But this isn't about higher penalties Yeah, sorry. ..I tend to stray off-topic.
Are you saying that the only affect of this law is going to be to allow people to be arrested? Surely there is a deterrant effect, especially in the legitimate business community.
Every time somebody mentions the "deterrent effect" of havinga new law to make something a crime, or to increase the penalty for an existing crime (death penalty comes to mind, also the recent increase in jail time for "corporate fraud" here in the U.S.), I am reminded of something David Brin said in The Transparent Society.To paraphrase, it was that it doesn't matter how big the penalty is for a crime, if a person doesn't think they'll get caught, they'll risk it. His example was the Miami(?) law making crimes committed with a gun have a higher penalty. Which seemed to simply increase the number of robberies (esp. of convenience stores) accompanied by murders. Or say I'm on a deserted street at 3AM, and the penalty for jaywalking is 30 years in prison. I'll probably do it, if I need to cross the street. I just don't know that higher penalties are effective.
I have to wonder how much of a deterrent this specific law would be, too; especially since, as lots of people have mentioned, it's already illegal to do most of the things that criminals would do before and after changing the IMEI number.
Re:How to take care of the situation you describe
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Copyright as Cudgel
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My personal take on taking care of the situation described is to make it illegal for any business to contribute a politician.
As I understand it, a lot of the contributions from companies are in fact from individual people who work for the company. Something like the CEO gives all his VPs a bonus and tells them to go spend it on/give it to Senator Soandso, in their individual names.
I think that public money might be the way to go, with perhaps only the most insignificant of donations from individuals allowed ($100 or so). It does take away from your ability to directly support a candidate, and of course it also forces you to support candidates that you abhor. But it also allows candidates to run without "support"(buyouts) from corporations, and would open the field to third parties, which we desperately need.
I seem to remember that the loudest sound a human (eardrum) can take is around 190. I could be mistaken -- it's happened before.
Anyway, according to the story, the French police wanted to use the brown sound to quell riots. The question is, of course, how do you keep the police from soiling themselves, too?
Different individual parts of your body do have resonant frequencies (though not the whole, as you said); you actually percieve sound through other parts than just your ears, particularly your bones.
Regarding your comment about sound waves v. pressure waves, any wave of any kind has amplitude and frequency; those are characteristics of a wave. A pressure wave is, naturally, a series of alternating, at a given frequency, zones of pressure (force over a given area), at a given amplitude (amount of force). What makes sound different is that its frequency is such that it's perceivable by the auditory organs of a creature. Remember that other animals can hear both higher and lower frequencies than humans, and that frequency perception varies among humans. Just because my grandfather can't hear anything above 10kHz anymore, doesn't mean that a pressure wave above 10kHz isn't a sound wave. I believe that whales actually perceive sounds down below human range (10Hz or so).
But judging the worth of the item to me by the price I'm willing to pay suggests that I value it more after I win the lottery than before, which is false.
Um, yes. Exactly. It's not worth less to you just because you can afford it.
How you spend your money is a reflection of your values -- what you consider important to your life. If Violet Beuregarde won the lottery, she would buy $1000 worth of bubble gum. If my friend Sam won the lottery, he would buy $1000 worth of upgrades for his car. My father would put it in his savings account. I would buy a whole lot of music. ..ya getting the idea?
Going back to the original discussion, if you need a piece of software (or a table saw, or a new pair of shoes) in order for you to make a living, then it will have much more value for you than for someone who likes to use Photoshop to edit family vacation photos before showing them to everybody. And you will therefore do more (i.e., spend more money, i.e., put more of your past labor into the purchase) to acquire the software.
As another example, let's take me, who lives and works in the city and has easy access to public transportation, and my coworker Rudy, who lives in the suburbs and can either take the commuter train at 7:30AM and 6:10PM or can buy a car and drive to and from work when he needs to. I'd really like to buy a car to get me around; it would be nice not to have to wait for the bus all the time, and not to have to walk from the bus stops to places I'm going, etc. But that convenience is not worth enough for me to go into debt for the next five years. Rudy, who has about the same amount of money as me, needs a car to get to work, and he can therefore justify the 20K loan from his bank. Ya dig?
I'm not really sure what "subjective value" economics are. ..can you explain or provide a link?
The RIAA doesn't pay to have their music played. It's the other way around; radio stations pay a fee to the RIAA, or to the labels directly, I'm not sure which. They make the money for the fee by selling airtime to advertisers. That's why those songs are "free" for you.
There's an unverified (AFAIK) story about the "brown sound," which is the resonant frequency of the human colon, so if you produce it at a high enough SPL, people's colons will open and they will need to change their pants.
Also, if I send a 10KHz sine wave straight into somebody's head at 170dB SPL, I don't think they're going to be able to do much until I turn it off. They'll probably be partially deaf, too, at least for a little while.
Are you claiming that just because you want something you are entitled to have it? I mentioned this already -- if you want the program, buy it. It's not like it is completely unavailable to you -- it just costs a lot of money. If you don't have that money to spend on the program, i.e., it isn't worth that much to you, then, yes, you have to use a different program.
If you're not using this tool for your livelihood, you cannot possibly tell me that you "need" it. Let's use a really stupid analogy. Norm Abrams is setting up a woodshop where he plans to make furniture, which he will sell to support himself and his family. You also have a woodshop, where you also build furniture, but for your own enjoyment -- it's your hobby. Now, Norm needs a certain bare minimum of equipment if he's going to make any money at this -- things like a table saw and a drill press. Both of you have some basic equipment, a circular saw and a hand drill and such, and about the same amount of money. Norm takes out a loan from his bank to finance the opening of his shop, and upgrades all his tools -- he gets all sorts of nifty toys that he tells you about over a beer, and you're drooling.
You rush home to your spouse and tell her/him that you want to take out a loan just like Norm and get all those cool power tools. He/she looks at you like you're crazy. "How are we going to afford that," he/she asks, "when you work as a bank teller?"
The next week, you drive to Woodworker's Warehouse with a U-Haul truck, break in, and take all that fancy equipment that you wanted.
"But I need it to make my armoire!" You tell the police as they drag you away.
I'm trying to point out the difference between need and want. I am well aware of the arguments about "stealing" IP as opposed to stealing actual objects. That's not the issue. The issue is, you don't have a right to have anything you want. Whether it's a book or a cucumber.
There's a lot more to being a graphic designer than owning, or even knowing how to use, Photoshop/Illustrator. Most people go to school for it. So while they're in school, they can use the school's computer labs, and maybe get some money from Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa to buy a computer of their own with some professional programs. There are educational discounts for students, too.
When they graduate, most graphic design students have already done an internship, because 4-year degree programs usually require it. They're well on their way to getting a decent design job, which will also have Photoshop available for their use. After a year or two, if they don't already have it at home, they'll almost certainly be able to afford the latest version.
If you're not a graphic designer or a professional photographer or some other PROFESSIONAL, you really don't have any reason to be using PROFESSIONAL programs. If you want them, buy them.
The point is, if you need the software to make your living, you'll get it. If you don't need it, don't whine about how it should cost less or be okay to pirate because "the interface in XXX isn't as good as ProXXX." Go buy an older version on eBay and then upgrade with your Christmas bonus money.
Finally, if Artist D knows the concepts behind, and is capable of doing, the job that Company A needs him to do, and fits with them well except for not having used the specific tool that they are using, they'd be crazy not to hire him and give him some money to take a weekend training class on Tool B. Any manager worth a spit knows that you can train skills, but not concepts or attitudes.
P.S. The state school that I went to didn't seem to have any trouble buying new computers and licenses when they were needed. ..actually, about every three months.
I have broadband from AT&T, who use DHCP. ..my IP address hasn't changed since I got service (about a month ago). Even when I had dial-up, my IP address tended to be the same every time. In fact, when it was different, it usually meant that I was going to be disconnected really quickly or that I wasn't getting full speed.
Also, I wouldn't be too surprised if this "Ranger" program grabbed other information, like your MAC, which doesn't change at all, unless you're in the habit of reconfiguring your router every day.
It's the ultimate check in a system of checks and balances..
Absolutely, yes. When the government stops serving us, we have the right to remove them. I have always accepted that as a legitimate reason for owning a gun. I'm just not sure how far it extends. Can I have a pistol? Can I have a sawed-off shotgun ? Can I have an automatic rifle with attached grenade launcher? Can I have a rocket launcher? Can I have a cruise missile? At what point does this go beyond "arms"?
I understand that the Amendment says "...shall not be infringed," and that's clear; no questions there. But, again, and I think this is an important question -- what is an "arm"? Does it extend to any weapon that I can get my hands on, or is it limited to what I would need if I were to join the militia?
Don't try to apply the 21st century definition of Militia to a doccument written in 18th century.
OK, let's talk about the 18th century definition of militia (though I'm not so sure why it's different from the definition I gave earlier). Militias in Revolutionary America were organized, trained groups of citizens who didn't fight professionally. They were farmers or silversmiths or brewers or whatever, but, once a month or possibly more frequently, they all got together and practiced maneuvers and did some target practicing and so forth; they trained as a normal group of soldiers would. I guess the modern National Guard is similar, but AFAIK they are part of the national armed forces, which means they're under Federal control and no good for our purposes. Most towns in the eighteenth century required their male citizens to not only be armed, but show up periodically for training.
Two quotes for you, from the case that I linked to above:
"That every able-bodied Male Person, being a Citizen of this State, or of any of the United States, and residing in this State,... and who are of the Age of Sixteen, and under the Age of Forty-five Years, shall, by the Captain or commanding Officer of the Beat in which such Citizens shall reside...be enrolled in the Company of such Beat....That every Citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within three Months thereafter, provide himself, at his own Expense, with a good Musket or Firelock, a sufficient Bayonet and Belt, a Pouch with a Box therein to contain not less than Twenty-four Cartridges suited to the Bore of his Musket or Firelock, each Cartridge containing a proper Quantity of Powder and Ball, two spare Flints, a Blanket and Knapsack;...."
-The New York Legislature, 1786
"The defense and safety of the commonwealth depend upon having its citizens properly armed and taught the knowledge of military duty.' 'All free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years...shall be inrolled or formed into companies.' 'There shall be a private muster of every company once in two months."
-The General Assembly of Virginia, 1785 (emphasis added)
Finally, if Noah Webster thought a bunch of ordinary civilians who go to the shooting range with their M-16s every Saturday is going to be superior to a trained squad of professional soldiers, simply because they are fighting for their freedom, he's watched Braveheart a few too many times. The militia needs to be organized and learn how to use those arms, whatever they are.
DRM is not about enforcing copyright law -- if it were, it would allow for "fair use" as it is established under copyright law. DRM is about changing copyright law to suit the desires of those who hold copyrights -- to extend their legal control over their creation. So the question is whether this extension is appropriate.
I say no. It would be one thing if a record publishing company decided to use DRM techniques, and simply put their CDs out with some kind of copy-protection on them. Customers could decide if they wanted to deal with that kind of hassle or not, and most of them probably would. I do not think the majority of people who listen to a particular rock band would stop listening to that band simply because they could not play the disc in their computer. They might be annoyed, and grumble about it, but they like the music and they'll buy it.
It is something else again when a copyright holder decides that they need to force everyone's computer, CD burner, DVD player, cell phone, and digital refrigerator to protect their copyright for them. Copyright is not a god-given right; the Congress is given the power to establish something along those lines in the Constitution, but that doesn't mean they have to. Congress is also only required to meet once a year.
As for your first paragraph, I'd like to hear your argument that weakening one right weakens another. The members of the suffragette movement exercised their right to free speech very effectively, without having another important right, the right to vote. To take away my right to own a gun does not affect my right to believe or not believe in a Supreme Being, to speak or publish, to assemble peaceably, or to say something to the government if I don't like what they've done. On the other hand, if you take away my right to free speech and leave me with my gun, all I can do is shoot.
Furthermore, the first part of Second Amendment says "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." In Article I, section 8, the Congress is given the power to provide for the organizing and disciplining of that militia. A militia is non-professional soldiers who are called on to fight in an emergency. This calls for some argument, but to me, this means you can have guns, but a) you've got to be trained to use them, and b)by owning a gun, you are expressing a willingness to enter the militia, with its requisite commitment to training and organization.
What's amusing/amazing to me is how many people who are willing to ignore the first part of the second amendment start yelling about the supremacy of the Bill of Rights when someone wants to ignore the second half of the second amendment.
So, according to section 1201(g)(3) (I appreciate you providing the URL), I can research all that I want into encryption technology, as long as I don't tell anyone. Or, if I do tell someone, I have to a) give a copy of my research to the person who owns the copyright on the particular song or movie that I was using in my research, and b) "reasonably calculate" that only people who aren't going to use my research to crack DVD region codes get the first shot at reading it.
Oh, and I also have to be "legitimately" enrolled in a class, or be "appropriately" trained in the subject that I am researching.
So, the first is full-on censorship. Plain and simple. You can think about whatever you like, but you don't have the freedom to tell anyone about it. Now, the second requirement is the same as when engineers who are trying to make a better car engine have to give Ford the results of their research because they used a Taurus engine in their study. Hmmm... The third means that not only am I responsible for who reads my research and what they do with it, but that a court of law has been given the power to determine whether what _I_ consider reasonable actually is "reasonable" (and of course the question is: "reasonable" according to whom?). The fourth is just as bad as the third, for the same reason (what is "legitimate"?), and is in fact worse because it excludes people who are interested in encryption but do not either recieve or spend money (just time!) on their involvement in it.
Finally (my pragmatic argument), if a scientist has to worry that every time he or she writes a paper about encryption, he or she has to at the very least spend a few months defending it in court, and at the other extreme get thrown in jail, a lot of scientists probably just wouldn't bother.
n : right or rights belonging to a person by reason of citizenship including esp the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13th and 14th amendments and subsequent acts of congress including the right to legal and social and economic equality
This is the definition of "civil" rights; they are granted by a "civilization." For example, the Civil Rights Movement of the last century was concerned with securing equal footing in US society for non-white citizens, particularly with regard to voting. You're not trying to tell me that voting in the United States is a basic human right, are you?
Next, the 6th Amendment is the "Fair Trial" Amendment. I'll assume that you're thinking of the 10th, but you seem to be confusing it with the 9th, since the 10th says that all powers not given to the government are reserved to the States or the People. Powers means the ability or permission to do something. The 9th actually does talk about rights in general. It says that just because the Constitution doesn't mention a right, doesn't mean that the People do not possess that right. Note, and this is the important part, that this does not necessarily mean that the people _do_ have it. For example, the Constitution does not say that the government has the right to take pot-shots at your dog with a BB gun. But that doesn't mean that the people do, or that I do.
The Founders had a very clear idea about what fundamental human rights were, and it was basically that humans have unlimited freedom (simplification, yes...). Government is simply a construct to protect that freedom, and it grants civil rights, like the right to vote in a democracy, to that end.
Maybe re-read that Constitution; it's in the back of most dictionaries (that's where my copy is!).
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Wow! That's even iambic pentameter! Pretty good!
Besides, lying to the NYTimes is really easy. Go here
Hmmm, could this be because the dB SPL scale was originally designed so that 1 dB is the smallest increment of level change a human can detect??
While I don't doubt that you believe you can hear a difference, it is highly unlikely that what you perceive is something that you can attribute to real physical phenomina.
Your body recieves information about sound around you in many ways, not just through your ears. It's true that the average cap on hearing is a 20kHz, but that does not mean that frequencies above that don't make a difference to your overall experience of sound.
From Phil Karn's post:
I have yet to hear a classical recording where the microphone preamp hiss and ambient noise (air conditioning, etc) doesn't significantly exceed the quantizing noise floor of 16-bit PCM.
I think what you're trying to say, using as many buzzwords as possible, is that the noise of these bargain-bin, pre-1980 recordings that you like to listen to is audible during the quiet passages. Do you know what you're talking about? How exactly do you propose we remove noise that is above the S/N ratio point without affecting the music?
As for designing steep filters, that's quite easy to do digitally with oversampled A/D converters.
The filter has nothing to do with the converter. Furthermore, the post you're responding to said "cheaply and easily," and oversampling, while perhaps easy, is not cheap. You don't have oversampling converters in your discman, or even your boombox.
DVD-Video: (up to) 24 bit @ 96 kHz for stereo, data compressed (DTS, Dolby AC-3) from (up to) 24 bit @ 48 kHz source for multichannel
DVD-Audio: up to 24 bit @ 192 kHz for stereo, lossless compression from (up to) 24 bit @ 96khz source for multichannel
SA-CD: 1 bit @ 2.8MHz for stereo
Of course, as I (and many other people) have said here, who's got the hardware to hear the difference? Not too many people.
But don't try to pass this off as a marketing ploy. There are differences.
The big problem, though, is that DVD-Audio only does those high bit and sample rates in stereo. As soon as you want to do surround, you are limited to 96kHz (oooh, big deal!), and you have to compress the data. Oops! Granted, it's lossless compression, but it's still a nasty word.
SACDs and DVD-Audios, when coupled with the right speakers, sound superior to regular CDs.
"if you're working around the house, then it (the enhanced sound) doesn't really matter."
In order to get the benefit, you have to be sitting right in the middle of the stereo (or surround) field of your new $600 Klipsch speakers, with a new $500 deck, $550 reciever, and maybe a nice preamp. Also, the difference in dynamic range between 16 bits (CD) and 24 (DVD-Audio), while nice, isn't even going to be noticed on any piece of music destined for the radio, because they compress it into oblivion before it gets anywhere near the station, let alone your reciever.
(Pop in any rock album from the last 10 years. Watch the levels -- they won't vary more than about 10dB. Do the same with a Beethoven Piano Sonata. The levels are all over the place.)
You've also got to care. The only people who are interested in this are classical music fans (so we can hear the difference between the 300-year-old Stradivarius and the 275-year-old Stradivarius), and the muscians, producers, and engineers who think that everyone's an audiophile too.
I'm not even sure that I'd want to hear Britney on SACD. It would probably rupture my eardrums.
Building your own exact duplicate of a stereo is perfectly legal. If you try to sell it, it's not. Even if you buy the stereo, open it up and look inside, draw a schematic, and then make your own, it's still legal. As long as you don't try to sell it, or distribute the schematic. This is completely different from downloading music. The equivalent would be getting a band together in a recording studio and making an exact duplicate of your favorite Jimmy Buffet song. Again, totally legal, unless you try to distribute it or perform it publicly.
The safe harbor is also lost if the anti-piracy action causes more than de minimis loss to the property of the P2P pirate. This limitation represents a recognition that even pirates should not be seriously harmed by copyright owners.
From an article about the 2005 Berman-Langley Mayhem by Murderous Madmen Prevention Act:
The safe harbor is also lost if the vengeance action causes more than de minimis harm to the body of the murderer. This limitation represents a recognition that even murderers should not be seriously harmed by victims' families.
From an article about the 2007 Berman-Gates Poverty, Pestilence, and Putrid People Annoyance Prevention Act:
The safe harbor is also lost if the anti-annoyance action causes more than de minimis loss to the property of the poor person. This limitation represents a recognition that even poor people should not be seriously harmed by rich people.
How about the recognition that a citizen should not be harmed by other citizens, period, unless those other citizens want to do some jail time? Even if those other citizens have enough money to buy themselves a few Congresscritters!
But, again, phone theives are already committing several crimes; the fact that one of the tools they need is only available illegally isn't likely to make them think twice. Unless you're talking about economic cost; $14.95 (plus dealing with the idiot on commission behind the counter) vs. >$100(?) (or £, since we are talking about the UK). But still, I think that would just make them steal more phones to make up the cost. It's just a greater initial outlay, not really a liability.
But this isn't about higher penalties .I tend to stray off-topic.
Yeah, sorry. .
Every time somebody mentions the "deterrent effect" of havinga new law to make something a crime, or to increase the penalty for an existing crime (death penalty comes to mind, also the recent increase in jail time for "corporate fraud" here in the U.S.), I am reminded of something David Brin said in The Transparent Society.To paraphrase, it was that it doesn't matter how big the penalty is for a crime, if a person doesn't think they'll get caught, they'll risk it. His example was the Miami(?) law making crimes committed with a gun have a higher penalty. Which seemed to simply increase the number of robberies (esp. of convenience stores) accompanied by murders.
Or say I'm on a deserted street at 3AM, and the penalty for jaywalking is 30 years in prison. I'll probably do it, if I need to cross the street. I just don't know that higher penalties are effective.
I have to wonder how much of a deterrent this specific law would be, too; especially since, as lots of people have mentioned, it's already illegal to do most of the things that criminals would do before and after changing the IMEI number.
As I understand it, a lot of the contributions from companies are in fact from individual people who work for the company. Something like the CEO gives all his VPs a bonus and tells them to go spend it on/give it to Senator Soandso, in their individual names.
I think that public money might be the way to go, with perhaps only the most insignificant of donations from individuals allowed ($100 or so). It does take away from your ability to directly support a candidate, and of course it also forces you to support candidates that you abhor. But it also allows candidates to run without "support"(buyouts) from corporations, and would open the field to third parties, which we desperately need.
Anyway, according to the story, the French police wanted to use the brown sound to quell riots. The question is, of course, how do you keep the police from soiling themselves, too?
Different individual parts of your body do have resonant frequencies (though not the whole, as you said); you actually percieve sound through other parts than just your ears, particularly your bones.
Regarding your comment about sound waves v. pressure waves, any wave of any kind has amplitude and frequency; those are characteristics of a wave. A pressure wave is, naturally, a series of alternating, at a given frequency, zones of pressure (force over a given area), at a given amplitude (amount of force). What makes sound different is that its frequency is such that it's perceivable by the auditory organs of a creature. Remember that other animals can hear both higher and lower frequencies than humans, and that frequency perception varies among humans. Just because my grandfather can't hear anything above 10kHz anymore, doesn't mean that a pressure wave above 10kHz isn't a sound wave. I believe that whales actually perceive sounds down below human range (10Hz or so).
Um, yes. Exactly. It's not worth less to you just because you can afford it.
How you spend your money is a reflection of your values -- what you consider important to your life. If Violet Beuregarde won the lottery, she would buy $1000 worth of bubble gum. If my friend Sam won the lottery, he would buy $1000 worth of upgrades for his car. My father would put it in his savings account. I would buy a whole lot of music. . .ya getting the idea?
Going back to the original discussion, if you need a piece of software (or a table saw, or a new pair of shoes) in order for you to make a living, then it will have much more value for you than for someone who likes to use Photoshop to edit family vacation photos before showing them to everybody. And you will therefore do more (i.e., spend more money, i.e., put more of your past labor into the purchase) to acquire the software.
As another example, let's take me, who lives and works in the city and has easy access to public transportation, and my coworker Rudy, who lives in the suburbs and can either take the commuter train at 7:30AM and 6:10PM or can buy a car and drive to and from work when he needs to. I'd really like to buy a car to get me around; it would be nice not to have to wait for the bus all the time, and not to have to walk from the bus stops to places I'm going, etc. But that convenience is not worth enough for me to go into debt for the next five years. Rudy, who has about the same amount of money as me, needs a car to get to work, and he can therefore justify the 20K loan from his bank. Ya dig?
I'm not really sure what "subjective value" economics are. . .can you explain or provide a link?
The RIAA doesn't pay to have their music played. It's the other way around; radio stations pay a fee to the RIAA, or to the labels directly, I'm not sure which. They make the money for the fee by selling airtime to advertisers. That's why those songs are "free" for you.
Also, if I send a 10KHz sine wave straight into somebody's head at 170dB SPL, I don't think they're going to be able to do much until I turn it off. They'll probably be partially deaf, too, at least for a little while.
If you're not using this tool for your livelihood, you cannot possibly tell me that you "need" it.
Let's use a really stupid analogy. Norm Abrams is setting up a woodshop where he plans to make furniture, which he will sell to support himself and his family. You also have a woodshop, where you also build furniture, but for your own enjoyment -- it's your hobby. Now, Norm needs a certain bare minimum of equipment if he's going to make any money at this -- things like a table saw and a drill press. Both of you have some basic equipment, a circular saw and a hand drill and such, and about the same amount of money. Norm takes out a loan from his bank to finance the opening of his shop, and upgrades all his tools -- he gets all sorts of nifty toys that he tells you about over a beer, and you're drooling.
You rush home to your spouse and tell her/him that you want to take out a loan just like Norm and get all those cool power tools. He/she looks at you like you're crazy. "How are we going to afford that," he/she asks, "when you work as a bank teller?"
The next week, you drive to Woodworker's Warehouse with a U-Haul truck, break in, and take all that fancy equipment that you wanted.
"But I need it to make my armoire!" You tell the police as they drag you away.
I'm trying to point out the difference between need and want. I am well aware of the arguments about "stealing" IP as opposed to stealing actual objects. That's not the issue. The issue is, you don't have a right to have anything you want. Whether it's a book or a cucumber.
When they graduate, most graphic design students have already done an internship, because 4-year degree programs usually require it. They're well on their way to getting a decent design job, which will also have Photoshop available for their use. After a year or two, if they don't already have it at home, they'll almost certainly be able to afford the latest version.
If you're not a graphic designer or a professional photographer or some other PROFESSIONAL, you really don't have any reason to be using PROFESSIONAL programs. If you want them, buy them.
The point is, if you need the software to make your living, you'll get it. If you don't need it, don't whine about how it should cost less or be okay to pirate because "the interface in XXX isn't as good as ProXXX." Go buy an older version on eBay and then upgrade with your Christmas bonus money.
Finally, if Artist D knows the concepts behind, and is capable of doing, the job that Company A needs him to do, and fits with them well except for not having used the specific tool that they are using, they'd be crazy not to hire him and give him some money to take a weekend training class on Tool B. Any manager worth a spit knows that you can train skills, but not concepts or attitudes.
P.S. The state school that I went to didn't seem to have any trouble buying new computers and licenses when they were needed. . .actually, about every three months.
Also, I wouldn't be too surprised if this "Ranger" program grabbed other information, like your MAC, which doesn't change at all, unless you're in the habit of reconfiguring your router every day.
Absolutely, yes. When the government stops serving us, we have the right to remove them. I have always accepted that as a legitimate reason for owning a gun. I'm just not sure how far it extends. Can I have a pistol? Can I have a sawed-off shotgun ? Can I have an automatic rifle with attached grenade launcher? Can I have a rocket launcher? Can I have a cruise missile? At what point does this go beyond "arms"?
I understand that the Amendment says "...shall not be infringed," and that's clear; no questions there. But, again, and I think this is an important question -- what is an "arm"? Does it extend to any weapon that I can get my hands on, or is it limited to what I would need if I were to join the militia?
Don't try to apply the 21st century definition of Militia to a doccument written in 18th century.
OK, let's talk about the 18th century definition of militia (though I'm not so sure why it's different from the definition I gave earlier). Militias in Revolutionary America were organized, trained groups of citizens who didn't fight professionally. They were farmers or silversmiths or brewers or whatever, but, once a month or possibly more frequently, they all got together and practiced maneuvers and did some target practicing and so forth; they trained as a normal group of soldiers would. I guess the modern National Guard is similar, but AFAIK they are part of the national armed forces, which means they're under Federal control and no good for our purposes. Most towns in the eighteenth century required their male citizens to not only be armed, but show up periodically for training.
Two quotes for you, from the case that I linked to above:
"That every able-bodied Male Person, being a Citizen of this State, or of any of the United States, and residing in this State,"The defense and safety of the commonwealth depend upon having its citizens properly armed and taught the knowledge of military duty.' 'All free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years...shall be inrolled or formed into companies.' 'There shall be a private muster of every company once in two months." -The General Assembly of Virginia, 1785 (emphasis added)
Finally, if Noah Webster thought a bunch of ordinary civilians who go to the shooting range with their M-16s every Saturday is going to be superior to a trained squad of professional soldiers, simply because they are fighting for their freedom, he's watched Braveheart a few too many times. The militia needs to be organized and learn how to use those arms, whatever they are.
I say no. It would be one thing if a record publishing company decided to use DRM techniques, and simply put their CDs out with some kind of copy-protection on them. Customers could decide if they wanted to deal with that kind of hassle or not, and most of them probably would. I do not think the majority of people who listen to a particular rock band would stop listening to that band simply because they could not play the disc in their computer. They might be annoyed, and grumble about it, but they like the music and they'll buy it.
It is something else again when a copyright holder decides that they need to force everyone's computer, CD burner, DVD player, cell phone, and digital refrigerator to protect their copyright for them. Copyright is not a god-given right; the Congress is given the power to establish something along those lines in the Constitution, but that doesn't mean they have to. Congress is also only required to meet once a year.
As for your first paragraph, I'd like to hear your argument that weakening one right weakens another. The members of the suffragette movement exercised their right to free speech very effectively, without having another important right, the right to vote. To take away my right to own a gun does not affect my right to believe or not believe in a Supreme Being, to speak or publish, to assemble peaceably, or to say something to the government if I don't like what they've done. On the other hand, if you take away my right to free speech and leave me with my gun, all I can do is shoot.
Furthermore, the first part of Second Amendment says "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." In Article I, section 8, the Congress is given the power to provide for the organizing and disciplining of that militia. A militia is non-professional soldiers who are called on to fight in an emergency. This calls for some argument, but to me, this means you can have guns, but a) you've got to be trained to use them, and b)by owning a gun, you are expressing a willingness to enter the militia, with its requisite commitment to training and organization.
What's amusing/amazing to me is how many people who are willing to ignore the first part of the second amendment start yelling about the supremacy of the Bill of Rights when someone wants to ignore the second half of the second amendment.
So, the first is full-on censorship. Plain and simple. You can think about whatever you like, but you don't have the freedom to tell anyone about it.
Now, the second requirement is the same as when engineers who are trying to make a better car engine have to give Ford the results of their research because they used a Taurus engine in their study. Hmmm...
The third means that not only am I responsible for who reads my research and what they do with it, but that a court of law has been given the power to determine whether what _I_ consider reasonable actually is "reasonable" (and of course the question is: "reasonable" according to whom?).
The fourth is just as bad as the third, for the same reason (what is "legitimate"?), and is in fact worse because it excludes people who are interested in encryption but do not either recieve or spend money (just time!) on their involvement in it.
Finally (my pragmatic argument), if a scientist has to worry that every time he or she writes a paper about encryption, he or she has to at the very least spend a few months defending it in court, and at the other extreme get thrown in jail, a lot of scientists probably just wouldn't bother.
from dictionary.com (emphasis added):
civil right
n : right or rights belonging to a person by reason of citizenship including esp the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13th and 14th amendments and subsequent acts of congress including the right to legal and social and economic equality
This is the definition of "civil" rights; they are granted by a "civilization." For example, the Civil Rights Movement of the last century was concerned with securing equal footing in US society for non-white citizens, particularly with regard to voting. You're not trying to tell me that voting in the United States is a basic human right, are you?
Next, the 6th Amendment is the "Fair Trial" Amendment. I'll assume that you're thinking of the 10th, but you seem to be confusing it with the 9th, since the 10th says that all powers not given to the government are reserved to the States or the People. Powers means the ability or permission to do something. The 9th actually does talk about rights in general. It says that just because the Constitution doesn't mention a right, doesn't mean that the People do not possess that right. Note, and this is the important part, that this does not necessarily mean that the people _do_ have it. For example, the Constitution does not say that the government has the right to take pot-shots at your dog with a BB gun. But that doesn't mean that the people do, or that I do.
The Founders had a very clear idea about what fundamental human rights were, and it was basically that humans have unlimited freedom (simplification, yes...). Government is simply a construct to protect that freedom, and it grants civil rights, like the right to vote in a democracy, to that end.
Maybe re-read that Constitution; it's in the back of most dictionaries (that's where my copy is!).
(/sigh)