In think you orthogonally hit a nail on the head. The problem with even saying that one has a "right to be paranoid" actually demeans and trivializes the Right to Privacy (a basic human right embodied in the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution).
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Also, see the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
If you do something controversial, and you get caught, it's going to be in the presses the next day.
The domestic spying scandal scheduled for this time has been pre-empted by The War on Christmas. Tune in next week for the next distraction from the real issues.
There was also that quote from that movie (you know, the one with that guy*):
The issue's not whether you're paranoid, the issue is whether you're paranoid enough.
*That guy that was a cop or something and he did stuff, or stuff happened to him, I forget. Oh, and Juliette Lewis was in it.**
**Don't bother posting to tell me it was Strange Days, because I'm pretty sure I'd remember if that was the movie. Or at least, I think I'm pretty sure.***
***Oh, yeah and Angela Bassett was in it too. Oh, and I think the guy was an ex-cop.
Assuming your name really isn't Penguin P. Finsbury and you don't really live in Beverly Hills, how do you even receive rebate checks, let alone cash them?
Re:Loving complexity for complexity's sake
on
Ruby Off the Rails
·
· Score: 1
There have been thousands of shark attacks over the years. I propose that we install cameras and other surveillance equipment in your bathroom, to prevent more unnecessary carnage. If you actually mind having your privacy invaded, it's probably because you hate America and sympathize with the sharks. What are you hiding?
FTFA: "If they get content, that's useful to them too, but the real plum is going to be the transaction data and the traffic analysis," he said. "Massive amounts of traffic analysis information - who is calling whom, who is in Osama Bin Laden's circle of family and friends - is used to identify lines of communication that are then given closer scrutiny."
This is just the sort of sensitive information that the Whitehouse did not want leaked. Now Osama is going to change his long distance calling plan.
Price fixing isn't when a single company sets a price. It's when all the businesses of an industry get together to set an artificially high price.
If you are company A, you can set any price at all you like for the widgets that you sell. However, if you price too high, you won't sell any widgets, thus you won't make any profit. The market place is where we determine what is the optimum price for your widgets: How much people are willing to pay vs. how much you want to charge. Of course, you are also competing with Company B, Company C, etc. who all sell competing widgets. So your price for your widgets must compete with the prices for the other widgets. (or you must find a way to differentiate your widgets, but that gets into other areas).
Now, what if you were to get together with the heads of Company B, Company C, etc., and say, "Hey, guys. We're killing each other. Let's set a price for widgets above what we're being forced by all this competition to charge. That way, we'll all be sure to reap lots of profits!" So, your company, Company B, Company C, etc. all set artificially high prices, thereby unfairly depriving the consumer of lower prices from competition.
That's the basics of price fixing. It's an unfair business practice.
That could be an intent to price fix - especially if they are pressuring other labels to join or boycott Apple or other retailers.
You've hit the nail on the head. I believe Bronfman, head of Warner, has already intimated that Apple would have to submit or risk the big players in the recording industry shutting them out.
The other place is ringtone pricing which I understand labels have a different unified wholesale price for. Since these are essentially the same product in slightly different contexts, it could be part of the investigation as well.
The difference in context (and usage) is rather large, large enough for them to be very different products. Ringtones fulfill a completely different function and are consumed in a very different way than "regular" music. I myself think that paying $2.99 - $4.99 for a ringtone is ludicrous, but I understand in theory why others are willing to pay that much.
I disagree (somewhat) with your comparison. CPUs are not unique, while any particular song is (or should be in theory!) unique.
However, I suspect that you have a good point about price fixing ultimately driving the colluding businesses out of business. The recording industry has been in a slump that predates the p2p phenomenon. They've been under increasing pressure not so much from p2p but from competing forms of entertainment (and thus disposable income). Video games comes to mind. I suspect that the growth in the video game market closely matches the decline in CD sales.
The collusion needn't be secret, although because it is illegal it usually is.
Also, I think crimguy needs to do a little research in an area of law which is obviously outside his area of expertise. The idea that a single entity can collude on anything by itself is ridiculous. The idea that Apple has had negotiations with other online music vendors to set prices is also ridiculous. There is not even a whisper that Apple has done this. If anything, Apple has been criticized by other vendors who think the price should be higher or are unhappy with Apple's business model (very thin margins on iTMS, 25% margins on the hardware). On the other hand, the recording industry already has a track record of price fixing, payola, and other dirty deeds.
Apple has "set" the price because it's the market leader in paid music downloads. If Napster was the leader, its price (or perhaps its subscription model) would set the standard.
It might be because Warner actually has publicly made threaten noises about Apple bending to the will of the combined might of the recording industry. I tried googling for an article to refresh my memory, but I couldn't find it. I do remember reading about this, however, and my first thought was "price fixing collusion".
Science has no business positing the existence or non-existence of a deity. The problem with ID is that it posits the existence of a deity as a scientific explanation for the observable natural word. Thus it is not science, should not be taught in the science classroom, and should be exposed as "fake science".
I think you are thinking about a "philosophical" ID rather than a "scientific" theory of ID. (Finger quotes around scientific.)
Outside the science classroom, in the realms of philosophy, metaphysics, spiritual and religious thought, ID can find a comfy home. I myself believe that there is some ultimate unifying algorithm or principle from which all of creation flows. Whether this principle is the deity, is an embodiment of the diety, or was created by the deity is a question I cannot answer (nor could I answer with science, since it beyond the abilities of science to answer; it's a theological question).
If you actually examine ID as espoused by the ID movement, they posit that all animal species were created by a deity whole, with all of their main attributes intact, which is pretty much in contradiction with what we know about Evolution. ID is an apologetic for Christian Fundamentalism, which takes the extreme view that every single word in the Bible must be taken as literal truth.
I'm with you on this one. I happen to believe that there is a higher power, God, whatever one chooses to call the deity. However, I don't feel the need to inject my religious faith into science, nor do I see that science is trespassing on my personal beliefs or attacking my faith.
I think the Evolution/ID conflict is a false one, manufactured to dupe the less sophisticated among us and to gain and maintain political power, just as the "War on Christmas" is an obvious ploy to distract us from more serious issues.
(Being a geek with religious beliefs, I sometimes entertain the idea that God is the Ultimate Hacker, and that all of creation flows from a single principle (or algorithm), as in "The Word". If this is the case, then the goal of science would seem to be to seek this single unifying principle as well as to describe its observable iterations. In any case, this idea is metaphysical, not scientific. It helps me unify my belief in God and my understanding of science, but it's not science in any sense of the word.)
Actually, I'm just arguing that human beings are too finite to get anything correct. Ever.
So, you're engaging in metaphysics and philosophy. Nothing wrong with that, in and of itself. The problem is that you are trying to insert philosophy and metaphysics into science.
Can you name any of this purported data that invalidates Darwinian evolution? Which "gaps" make the Theory of Evolution "old and outdated"?
Are you falling into the trap of confusing the colloquial definition of "theory" for the scientific definition? The Theory of Evolution is the basis of modern biology. You want to throw out modern biology because you think Evolution is not a fact? Do you have similar problems with the Theory of Electromagnetism being taught as "fact"? Does the fact that light exhibits behavior of a wave in some instances and as a particle in other instances invalidate the "old and outdated" Theory of Electromagnetism?
Are you also aware that ID teaches that the idea of speciation is wrong, that the various species were created essentially whole in an instant by an "Intelligent Designer? That is, birds did not develop from dinosaurs, but magically appeared with feathers, beaks, etc.
As John E. Jones III wrote in his judgement in Kitzmiller v. Dover:
To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.
You really need to get a hold of the full text of the judgement. It's quite an interesting read.
The Catholic church versus Galileo has nothing on today's evolution zealots.
The people that you call "zealots" seem to fall into non-mutually exclusive two groups:
1) Those that do not want the government to endorse a certain religious viewpoint.
2) Those that do not want children to receive a substandard education.
If you want to see zealotry in action I again highly recommend that you read the actual judgement. John E. Jones III outlines the zealotry of the school board and takes them to task for their zealotry.
To this date, no one has proposed a plausible alternative to the Theory of Evolution that hold up under the Scientific Method. Those people that you call zealots are generally those people that insist on reason, logic, critical thinking, and most of all, facts. If a devotion to facts makes one a zealot, then, please, call me a zealot.
Yes, you are correct. I forgot about the settlement.
However, what I was responding to was the assertion that Jobs threatened Gates that Apple would develop its own Office suite, and that Gates folded because "Gates knew Jobs could outdo them."
I'm not sure what you're talking about. MS did agree to develop Office for OS X, once Steve was the "interim" CEO (aka iCEO). Not only that, but MS also agreed to invest $300 Million in non-voting shares of Apple stock. All in exchange for Apple shipping Macs with IE pre-installed.
Did Jobs achieve this by threatening Gates? I don't think so.
Rather, MS was feeling anti-trust pressure from other quarters. Pointing to this deal, they could say, "See? We're not engaging in anti-copetitive behavior. We're developing Office for a competing OS."
I think you're missing the point. One can criticize a system without espousing a completely opposite system. It's that simple. Why is this so hard to understand?
This is a good place to point out that Freedom of Speech is an unalienable human right that is ensconced into law and embodied in the First Amendment. The Constitution does not give us this right. Rather it protects this right. Legislative law and precedent that follow set practical legal limits without (in theory) abridging this freedom.
Libel and slander laws are an example of practical limitations.
Of course not, silly! We won at Midway because we were able to put a large number of U.S. citizens under wiretap without a warrant.
I think you are confusing Signals Intelligence with Domestic Spying, which is somewhat understandable, seeing as how they've become somewhat blurred in our now eternal "War on Terror". However, the line that kept them separate and unblurred was FISA (the law and the court which enforced it), which required warrants, and presumably probable cause.
You're saying that criticism is not permitted if the critic cannot offer or espouse a competing solution or ideology? Bull.
Furthermore, you're creating a false dichotomy: Socialism is wrong, therefore Capitalism is right. Or vice versa. Similarly, one who criticizes certain aspects of capitalism as practiced (concentration of wealth, for example), must be anti-Capitalism. This "All-or-Nothing" thinking is illogical and flawed.
I'm curious as to whether you think the Open Source movement and methodology is "Communist", or if you prefer to ignore its social, economic, and political ramifications.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, see the Ninth Amendment:
If you do something controversial, and you get caught, it's going to be in the presses the next day.
The domestic spying scandal scheduled for this time has been pre-empted by The War on Christmas. Tune in next week for the next distraction from the real issues.
Monarchy has got to be an improvement over National Socialism, which we're beginning to experience now.
There was also that quote from that movie (you know, the one with that guy*):
The issue's not whether you're paranoid, the issue is whether you're paranoid enough.
*That guy that was a cop or something and he did stuff, or stuff happened to him, I forget. Oh, and Juliette Lewis was in it.**
**Don't bother posting to tell me it was Strange Days, because I'm pretty sure I'd remember if that was the movie. Or at least, I think I'm pretty sure.***
***Oh, yeah and Angela Bassett was in it too. Oh, and I think the guy was an ex-cop.
Assuming your name really isn't Penguin P. Finsbury and you don't really live in Beverly Hills, how do you even receive rebate checks, let alone cash them?
4) A fanatical devotion to the Pope.
Uh, make that four factors.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
There have been thousands of shark attacks over the years. I propose that we install cameras and other surveillance equipment in your bathroom, to prevent more unnecessary carnage. If you actually mind having your privacy invaded, it's probably because you hate America and sympathize with the sharks. What are you hiding?
FTFA:
"If they get content, that's useful to them too, but the real plum is going to be the transaction data and the traffic analysis," he said. "Massive amounts of traffic analysis information - who is calling whom, who is in Osama Bin Laden's circle of family and friends - is used to identify lines of communication that are then given closer scrutiny."
This is just the sort of sensitive information that the Whitehouse did not want leaked. Now Osama is going to change his long distance calling plan.
Price fixing isn't when a single company sets a price. It's when all the businesses of an industry get together to set an artificially high price.
If you are company A, you can set any price at all you like for the widgets that you sell. However, if you price too high, you won't sell any widgets, thus you won't make any profit. The market place is where we determine what is the optimum price for your widgets: How much people are willing to pay vs. how much you want to charge. Of course, you are also competing with Company B, Company C, etc. who all sell competing widgets. So your price for your widgets must compete with the prices for the other widgets. (or you must find a way to differentiate your widgets, but that gets into other areas).
Now, what if you were to get together with the heads of Company B, Company C, etc., and say, "Hey, guys. We're killing each other. Let's set a price for widgets above what we're being forced by all this competition to charge. That way, we'll all be sure to reap lots of profits!" So, your company, Company B, Company C, etc. all set artificially high prices, thereby unfairly depriving the consumer of lower prices from competition.
That's the basics of price fixing. It's an unfair business practice.
Don't forget Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott! He was the first to file suit against Sony BMG for the Spyware/DRM thing.
I really think we need to stop bashing Texas and give them a little respect. Maybe if we're nicer to Texas, they'll stop sending us Bushes.
That could be an intent to price fix - especially if they are pressuring other labels to join or boycott Apple or other retailers.
You've hit the nail on the head. I believe Bronfman, head of Warner, has already intimated that Apple would have to submit or risk the big players in the recording industry shutting them out.
The other place is ringtone pricing which I understand labels have a different unified wholesale price for. Since these are essentially the same product in slightly different contexts, it could be part of the investigation as well.
The difference in context (and usage) is rather large, large enough for them to be very different products. Ringtones fulfill a completely different function and are consumed in a very different way than "regular" music. I myself think that paying $2.99 - $4.99 for a ringtone is ludicrous, but I understand in theory why others are willing to pay that much.
I disagree (somewhat) with your comparison. CPUs are not unique, while any particular song is (or should be in theory!) unique.
However, I suspect that you have a good point about price fixing ultimately driving the colluding businesses out of business. The recording industry has been in a slump that predates the p2p phenomenon. They've been under increasing pressure not so much from p2p but from competing forms of entertainment (and thus disposable income). Video games comes to mind. I suspect that the growth in the video game market closely matches the decline in CD sales.
The collusion needn't be secret, although because it is illegal it usually is.
Also, I think crimguy needs to do a little research in an area of law which is obviously outside his area of expertise. The idea that a single entity can collude on anything by itself is ridiculous. The idea that Apple has had negotiations with other online music vendors to set prices is also ridiculous. There is not even a whisper that Apple has done this. If anything, Apple has been criticized by other vendors who think the price should be higher or are unhappy with Apple's business model (very thin margins on iTMS, 25% margins on the hardware). On the other hand, the recording industry already has a track record of price fixing, payola, and other dirty deeds.
Apple has "set" the price because it's the market leader in paid music downloads. If Napster was the leader, its price (or perhaps its subscription model) would set the standard.
It might be because Warner actually has publicly made threaten noises about Apple bending to the will of the combined might of the recording industry. I tried googling for an article to refresh my memory, but I couldn't find it. I do remember reading about this, however, and my first thought was "price fixing collusion".
Science has no business positing the existence or non-existence of a deity. The problem with ID is that it posits the existence of a deity as a scientific explanation for the observable natural word. Thus it is not science, should not be taught in the science classroom, and should be exposed as "fake science".
I think you are thinking about a "philosophical" ID rather than a "scientific" theory of ID. (Finger quotes around scientific.)
Outside the science classroom, in the realms of philosophy, metaphysics, spiritual and religious thought, ID can find a comfy home. I myself believe that there is some ultimate unifying algorithm or principle from which all of creation flows. Whether this principle is the deity, is an embodiment of the diety, or was created by the deity is a question I cannot answer (nor could I answer with science, since it beyond the abilities of science to answer; it's a theological question).
If you actually examine ID as espoused by the ID movement, they posit that all animal species were created by a deity whole, with all of their main attributes intact, which is pretty much in contradiction with what we know about Evolution. ID is an apologetic for Christian Fundamentalism, which takes the extreme view that every single word in the Bible must be taken as literal truth.
I'm with you on this one. I happen to believe that there is a higher power, God, whatever one chooses to call the deity. However, I don't feel the need to inject my religious faith into science, nor do I see that science is trespassing on my personal beliefs or attacking my faith.
I think the Evolution/ID conflict is a false one, manufactured to dupe the less sophisticated among us and to gain and maintain political power, just as the "War on Christmas" is an obvious ploy to distract us from more serious issues.
(Being a geek with religious beliefs, I sometimes entertain the idea that God is the Ultimate Hacker, and that all of creation flows from a single principle (or algorithm), as in "The Word". If this is the case, then the goal of science would seem to be to seek this single unifying principle as well as to describe its observable iterations. In any case, this idea is metaphysical, not scientific. It helps me unify my belief in God and my understanding of science, but it's not science in any sense of the word.)
Actually, I'm just arguing that human beings are too finite to get anything correct. Ever.
So, you're engaging in metaphysics and philosophy. Nothing wrong with that, in and of itself. The problem is that you are trying to insert philosophy and metaphysics into science.
Are you falling into the trap of confusing the colloquial definition of "theory" for the scientific definition? The Theory of Evolution is the basis of modern biology. You want to throw out modern biology because you think Evolution is not a fact? Do you have similar problems with the Theory of Electromagnetism being taught as "fact"? Does the fact that light exhibits behavior of a wave in some instances and as a particle in other instances invalidate the "old and outdated" Theory of Electromagnetism?
Are you also aware that ID teaches that the idea of speciation is wrong, that the various species were created essentially whole in an instant by an "Intelligent Designer? That is, birds did not develop from dinosaurs, but magically appeared with feathers, beaks, etc.
As John E. Jones III wrote in his judgement in Kitzmiller v. Dover:
You really need to get a hold of the full text of the judgement. It's quite an interesting read.
The Catholic church versus Galileo has nothing on today's evolution zealots.
The people that you call "zealots" seem to fall into non-mutually exclusive two groups:
1) Those that do not want the government to endorse a certain religious viewpoint.
2) Those that do not want children to receive a substandard education.
If you want to see zealotry in action I again highly recommend that you read the actual judgement. John E. Jones III outlines the zealotry of the school board and takes them to task for their zealotry.
To this date, no one has proposed a plausible alternative to the Theory of Evolution that hold up under the Scientific Method. Those people that you call zealots are generally those people that insist on reason, logic, critical thinking, and most of all, facts. If a devotion to facts makes one a zealot, then, please, call me a zealot.
Yes, you are correct. I forgot about the settlement.
However, what I was responding to was the assertion that Jobs threatened Gates that Apple would develop its own Office suite, and that Gates folded because "Gates knew Jobs could outdo them."
I'm not sure what you're talking about. MS did agree to develop Office for OS X, once Steve was the "interim" CEO (aka iCEO). Not only that, but MS also agreed to invest $300 Million in non-voting shares of Apple stock. All in exchange for Apple shipping Macs with IE pre-installed.
Did Jobs achieve this by threatening Gates? I don't think so.
Rather, MS was feeling anti-trust pressure from other quarters. Pointing to this deal, they could say, "See? We're not engaging in anti-copetitive behavior. We're developing Office for a competing OS."
I think you're missing the point. One can criticize a system without espousing a completely opposite system. It's that simple. Why is this so hard to understand?
Thank you for pointing this out.
This is a good place to point out that Freedom of Speech is an unalienable human right that is ensconced into law and embodied in the First Amendment. The Constitution does not give us this right. Rather it protects this right. Legislative law and precedent that follow set practical legal limits without (in theory) abridging this freedom.
Libel and slander laws are an example of practical limitations.
Inciting a riot is another.
Threats of violence is another.
When a good company buys a bad company, the result is usually mediocrity.
I have a perfect counter example. What about when NeXT bought Apple Computer for negative $400 Million?
OK, I admit it. I stole that joke.
Or did you think we just magically won at Midway?
Of course not, silly! We won at Midway because we were able to put a large number of U.S. citizens under wiretap without a warrant.
I think you are confusing Signals Intelligence with Domestic Spying, which is somewhat understandable, seeing as how they've become somewhat blurred in our now eternal "War on Terror". However, the line that kept them separate and unblurred was FISA (the law and the court which enforced it), which required warrants, and presumably probable cause.
You're saying that criticism is not permitted if the critic cannot offer or espouse a competing solution or ideology? Bull.
Furthermore, you're creating a false dichotomy: Socialism is wrong, therefore Capitalism is right. Or vice versa. Similarly, one who criticizes certain aspects of capitalism as practiced (concentration of wealth, for example), must be anti-Capitalism. This "All-or-Nothing" thinking is illogical and flawed.
I'm curious as to whether you think the Open Source movement and methodology is "Communist", or if you prefer to ignore its social, economic, and political ramifications.