The problem is though, that people like Lovegood are very rarely called out on their crap. We have people (*cough* Al Gore *cough*) going around literally calling it a _crysis_. And what do we get from it? Politics. 'Action!'. But if anyone says that we ought to really just slow down (and even look at the data!), they get labeled a "denier" and all discourse is shut down.
> Look at the data.
Like... I dunno, maybe IPCC's claim that the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035? But that turned out to be unreviewed speculation and the glaciers actually haven't lost any net ice over the decade... Oops!
Now, I don't mean to extrapolate that to saying all climate data as bunk, but I _do_ mean to use it as an example of how data can be flawed, interpretations can be flawed, and just plain human stupidity and bias can get in the way (which is the only way you can 'excuse' the above reporting of a media interview as a scientific finding). There is far more room for discussion than is presently allowed by the various groups looking to use climate change as a blank check for political gain, personal gain, or simply a cause to blindly fight for. I just wish people were even half as interested in calling out the alarmists as are the 'deniers'.
Given the prevalence of SQL injection attacks, which could be prevented with a single function call, I have to say that buffer over-(and under-) flows are really a red herring. Unless a language makes it literally impossible to write insecure code, lazy and bad programmers will find a way.
With C++ basically being a superset of C, I wouldn't say that's entirely true.
Regardless, though, when you look at the wide world of programming languages, they are _far_ more distinct from everything else than they are from each other. Java, C#, Python, Ruby, JS, HTML(?!) I can't think of a single mainstream language aside from "C/C++" that uses pointers lacks a garbage collector. So in regard to practical application and required skills, they are effectively quite similar.
The problem with any good justice system is that it has to balance a number of factors. Would you suggest that everyone that, I dunno, J-walks get the death penalty? Not only would the punishment be exorbitant, but now you'd be encouraging J-walkers to carry weapons and dispose of witnesses, as doing so doesn't really make the punishment worse, but could let you avoid it entirely.
Valve is trying to make an effective deterrent to being a jerk. The problem with simply banning is that it gives users no ability to reform, and really ups the burden of proof as the ability to appeal a ban is basically nil (and pricy for Valve if it's not). Also, banned players can usually just get a new account and continue to be an ass until they're banned again, but this time around they aren't going to care half as much as they've already lost everything tied to their original account.
So they have to set the punishment at something that is reasonable in the face of unreliable justice and the cost of creating a new account. Allowing players to play on probation (no voice) or charging them $100 seems like a decent balance to me.
> So you think that someone should not have to behave nice if he is a rich?
Rich? lol. I think that if you combine the demographics of "jerk" and "has $100 to blow" you'll find more basement dwelling trolls than rich people, who usually do other things to do with their time besides being a jerk on online games. A hundred dallors just ain't that much in this day... It won't even buy you two new games.
> Does it not make far more sense to charge everyone the same and ban the jerks? > Is it really worth it to Valve to decrease their multiplayer experience for everyone for as little as $100 jerk tax?
I for one, think it's fine, as you can sit back and laugh at jerks, knowing that they heavily subsidized you copy. Also, I still expect that there will be normal bans if they're really so bad.
Just like when you report your (friend's?) car as stolen when it's not? Is it hilarious before or after you're arrested for filing a false report?
Just as a car has a serial number identifying it (VIN) that is registered with the current owner, the cell phones have a number (IMEI) that identify it which can be linked to an account owner. They would simply check the database and confirm that the phone is running on the proper account.
The trouble is that cars have very specific rules regarding their sales which handle re-registering with the new owner. This proposal, however, doesn't seem to cover transferring ownership in the database, so if your friend bought the phone secondhand, then there could, indeed, be trouble.
Yeah, I liked that bit. Even better, it's "environmental protection" so those measures you suggest wouldn't count. I find it to be very odd that they jump from resource consumption to environmental protection like that are even related.
Moreover, even if we are to suppose that they really meant "drastic measures for conservation" and that environmentalism was just a typo (those keys being right next to one another), the proposition is still a bit bizarre. We have to take _drastic_ measures to prevent... uh having to take, I guess more, drastic measure drastic consequences later? How about we don't cripple ourselves now to avoid being crippled later, and let technology progress for the next decade or so. That will probably mitigate the problems more than a few years of extreme conservation (which by definition only delays the problem) will
I'm not going to defend the man, but don't you think it's just a _little_ ironic that you would state that with certainty in a story about how the "facts" we get can be so blatantly distorted? There are reasons for presumed innocence and a formal trial, and this is one of them.
Apple phones pretty much define the high end, and so even if they're very shiny you have to pay for that. Also, they lock you into the Apple experience, which isn't necessarily the best one.
Android is an open system, with low cost phones available, but at the same time it's plagued by bloatware and inconsistent user experience. Honestly, I don't know how people put up with it... Well, without installing Cyanogenmod like I did. I know someone with a Galaxy S II (IIRC) and the thing has ~30 apps on it that cannot be uninstalled (and are useless, of course). They'll always be there, with permissions you didn't approve, potentially running in the background wasting your resources and causing problems. (On that note, I know a different someone who's phone is actually rendered unstable due to a preinstalled app.) Sure, you can kind of hide them, but they'll be there when you look through the app drawer or add a shortcut or do a general action (e.g. "Share photo" via Picasa, Facebook, Twitter, arg where's MMS?)
If Microsoft can actually deliver a streamlined no-nonsense interface and solidly hit the midrange price point I think they'll find buyers. It's true that people don't care _that_ much, but at the same time I think there's a lot of frustration building up over Apple's walled garden and Android's bloatware/platform issues. They may not be all 'wow I can shave 100ms of my time-to-pic', but when they go to buy their next phone they'll remember Microsoft advertising a snappy simple interface and their problems with their old phone and be willing to give it a try.
> So, under the new interpretation, you can (and will) be strip searched and placed in population for 2 days, > all because you failed to pay a parking ticket...
You could always be placed in population for 2 days, and even strip searched if the police had suspicion that you had contraband. The _only_ thing that changed is that they don't have to make up an excuse to stip search you in those circumstances.
> Hell, where I live there's a law on the books from the 1800's that says spitting on sidewalks and swearing > in front of "ladies" are arrestable offenses. > Still sound reasonable?
What, the law? Of course it isn't reasonable. What does that have to do with this at all? Sounds like you have a bullshit law on the books and should petition to have it removed. And your point is actually weaker than the one in the article (and indeed the case) which dealt with wrongful imprisonment over an administrative screw-up. This decision aside, they could still arrest you (maybe taking fingerprints and DNA and giving you an arrest record), lock you up and send you through the court system. It's just now they don't have to pretend to suspect you have contraband to search you. It sounds like your real problem (along with mine and most others on this thread) is abusive laws and police work.
> Essentially this ruling means that any police officer can take you and have you strip searched for any reason whatsoever (let's say > you're arrested for resisting arrest) and you have no recourse. That's the country we live in today.
So, you're totally okay with being arrested and being thrown into a cage with other people (quite likely to be criminals) for any reason whatsoever, but having to take off your pants is crossing the line? In the story the guy was wrongfully jailed for a _week_ but the issue presented wasn't that, but that he was strip searched. Is it just me that thinks being lock up is vastly worse than having to strip? And that if you are going to put a bunch of people in a cage together that searching them first isn't a bad idea? (And to further that point, if you were wrongfully imprisoned with Mr. McStabby as a cellmate, wouldn't you prefer if he were searched?)
Let's call a spade a spade: the issue isn't the search, it's the bad laws surrounding them. The search makes sense for when you're locking up a bunch of people together (note that the decision applies to people entering the general population). The bad laws continue to not.
I haven't had a chance to RTFA, but I did bother to read the summary:
"'Every detainee who will be admitted to the general [jail or prison]..."
So this seems to only be about searching people entering the general prison populace. If that's the case, then I'm okay with it (and I'm not usually okay with such things) as it makes sense to limit contraband and all that stuff. So can we limit the knee-jerk driven by a disingenuous headline?
> In the US we spend WAY too much doing things to people that gives very little benefit to them. The major > culprit is the 'free market' system where profit (at multiple levels) is considered the appropriate metric.
How exactly is our healthcare anything like free market? Do you get any real choice in provider? Do you know the prices? Do you evaluate cost vs. benefit before buying the service? Does anyone even perceive healthcare as buying a service?
The reason we have this problem is precisely because healthcare isn't a free market. People see things as being "free" (and will complain bitterly if they're not), and never bother to ask whether or not dropping $10+k on a pointless treatment really matters. (Hell, half the time it's difficult to impossible to figure out what the cost is anyway. Good luck getting a straight answer on that, when the quoted "price" is 4x what would be normally be paid by a healthcare provider.) If there's no cost, there's no competition and no cost-benefit analysis.
When it comes down to it, even thought the service is technically provided by the private sector, the only choice you have in it is, essentially, who your employer is (to the extent you can call that a choice). Even in an illegal conspiratorial oligopoly you can at least pick your poison. As it is you pretty much get what get and nothing if you don't want it (but you'll still be paying for it anyways). If that's a free market then so was communist Russia.
Well, just so we're clear on who's blaming who: Grand Parent blames abusive DRM on, roughly, The Man and his campaign to reduce the quality of education so that young people don't see the problem with DRM (or something like that) I blamed GP for helping spread ignorance by excusing it with a conspiracy by The Man I blamed lazy assholes for being lazy assholes and the consequences of being such.
So, supposing you did read it that way, are you trying to say that blaming people for their own ignorance is merely about "feeling superior"? What is your proposition, then, that would enlighten those who do not want to think and learn, without ultimately requiring them to try?
Actually, we should blame people like you, who spread bullshit like this:
>... they can't even do basic division anymore their education's been so watered down. > From everything I've seen of the teenagers today, their education has been shit, and > I don't think that's accidental...
Education has always been shit and always will be. School isn't there to hold your had and guide you to success, or even understanding. That's all on you; there's no way they can force you to learn or think. If people are lazy and don't care and spend more time having fun then thinking, they're going to bee poorly educated, regardless of the quality of the education they're ignoring.
But no, you and your ilk would never blame the lazy assholes. They're just victims of the system and... uh... a conspiracy on the part of this "haves" to keep them down I guess? So, rather then tell them to sit down and read a fucking book, you tell them it's not their fault that they're going to work an unskilled, uninteresting job for the rest of their lives. That's society's fault, though, so don't worry because we'll will make sure they get a minimum wage and healthcare and whatever they need. We're so sorry. We'd pass a law protecting them from teh bad DRM too, but it turns out that too many people are ignorant and only seeking immediate gratification and not at all interested in thinking about long term consequences for us to actually fight it......wonder how that happened.
They're already proven they're willing to do this on a per-game basis, and I haven't seen much revolt from gamers because those games are "must have" or what have you.
As far as retailers are concerned... Well, how much do you think game companies care about them? After all, what percentage of game sales do you thing Walmart and Target (who don't deal in used games) represent? They'd probably be on board with this actually if they care at all. Now, sure, they might be able to offer quite the variety as, say, GameStop, but Amazon certainly can.
That is a valid point, and probably the intent of the ruling, but riddle me this:
If I derive from pi an existing song, can that song be copyrighted?
Or, would we then consider the derivation from pi to be a creative work derivative of the original song, and not simply a fact based on pi?
This ruling would seem to say no to both, because the mapping from pi is fact and not creative itself. That would mean that this does, theoretically, make all music uncopyrightable, but perhaps with the additional leg work of showing the relation to pi.
The relation is a consequence of the ways in which thiopurine compounds are metabolized by the body—entirely natural processes. And so a patent that simply describes that relation sets forth a natural law.
They seem to be arguing that the metabolic behavior and/or equilibrium along with the dosing boundaries are natural laws, and unpatentable. This is pretty much any chemical reaction: conditions, equilibrium and acceptable concentrations.
Then, regarding the basic dosage control:
Because methods for making such determinations were well known in the art, this step simply tells doctors to engage in well-understood, routine, conventional activity previously engaged in by scientists in the field. Such activity is normally not sufficient to transform an unpatentable law of nature into a patent-eligible application of such a law.
They basically indicate that for the patent to be valid it has to use methods that are novel independent of the natural law that was discovered.
So the trouble is, that really most chemical process patents follow that form: 1) Discover basic natural law
a) Lead's effect in producing acid
b) relative volatilities with the addition of some other component 2) "Apply it"
a) builld chamber out of lead
b) distill with appropriate additives
Mind that "On the other hand F-ing around with strange catalysts in lead lined chambers" is actually just discovering a natural law. The only transformative addition is then using of lead in the process. (Note that AFAIK nitrates were already being used in the 'glass jar process' prior to the lead chamber invention.) There are ultimately very few chemical processes that can't be rewritten in this way... Perhaps complex multistage processes when one could argue the innovation isn't in any the reactions, but rather the idea of stringing them together.
I have some pretty mixed feelings about this. While it's true that there are some bad patents in this vein, I don't know if I'd consider them even a substantial portion of it. The trouble is that just because something is a law of nature doesn't make it 'obvious', and actually discovering that law can take a considerable amount of research. For example: every chemical process ever invented. Forget patenting extractive distillation methods. Hell, you could look at the lead chamber process as unpatentable because lead's role in the process (despite being a hugely important innovation) follows from simple natural laws.
Now, I'm really glad to see the supreme court start to take a more critical approach to IP, but unless there's something I'm missing here this decision could really have some bad side effects.
Greens, politicians and indeed nerds to all go on about fusion too. Nevermind that it doesn't break even thermally, let alone once you factor in electrical conversion and fuel production. Nevermind that even if it did, the current projects are totally nonviable commercially. And all that aside, proposed processes _still_ produce neutrons and leave their facilities radioactive just like fission plants.
If you're calling interest in thorium fission trendy and ignorant of disadvantages then what do you consider and the interest (and massive funding!) in fusion?
It seems to be that the thermal energy produced is equal to the optical energy put in. Well, great, it's a milestone of sorts, but still massively far off actually producing energy. First and foremost, conversion of thermal to electrical is 33-40% efficient. Then you have to convert that to optical, an efficiency I do not know, but seems according to the Wiki page to be 1% (422MJ bank, 4MJ shot, could be old). Still, maybe it could be a lot better, but probably wouldn't exceed 80-90%. So, you actually have to beat this "break even" by a factor of at least 3 in order to actually output energy. But that doesn't account for fuel production, nor maintenance or construction of the facility.
And, I should also point out that this story is just that their laser works, not that an sample was fired producing "break even" energy.
Will it work? Maybe. But realistically, by the time we see commercial power from this, a fission plant built today would be reaching end-of-life.
You can free the GIL from a C extension module as long as you promise to behave (e.g. don't modify refcounts). As a result, the GIL becomes a relative non-issue in many performance applications, as you're likely going to be most of the performance critical stuff in C on C data. I've found that this actually tends to improve performance versus, pure C++ for example, because it requires a clear understanding of what data is constant or owned by what thread or how it is shared. In C++ people seem to have a bad habit of just slapping a critical section on every one of their accessors, for instance, injecting quite a bit of overhead for even trivial operations.
That's not to say that the GIL isn't a bad thing, but practically speaking it's not a significant limitation for many applications.
Looking at page 30 of the report you can see this quite clearly, There are two columns representing the different options: A) Name, E-Mail, Birthday, (+ Credit Card info) = €7.50 B) Name, E-Mail, Birthday, Phone, (+ Credit Card info) = €7.00
Well gee, if I'm giving out all that info, who cares about the phone number? And honestly I'd probably type in a 555-1234 number and save the €.50.
At best, this just proves that people are lazy, don't read the term and conditions and won't type in some numbers if there's no incentive to. This is _vastly_ different from, say, payment for monitoring your browsing history, or just selling the data start away. (Usually, if you trust a seller enough to give them your credit card information, you aren't going to be too worried about giving them your phone number as well.)
I haven't read through the whole report, and probably won't, but I can't understand why then even did this. I suppose it's mildly interesting to be prove that no one reads the privacy policy, but that's hardly surprising. (It's not like they're really enforced anyway, so what's the point.) It would have been much more interesting if it was clearer that their information was going to be sold, like "€7.50 or FREE if you fill out this survey with valid phone + email".
Well, yeah. That phone wasn't actually free you know.
The major thrust of the contract is that they give you a phone in exchange for guaranteed business. Since you already have the phone, their part of that bargain is fulfilled and they can cancel the contract without penalty (as they are the ones that 'lose' in such a case). After two years, you've fulfilled your side and can cancel the contract without penalty too.
> Quite a lot of advertising wastes quite a lot of money.
No one can predict what will be successful and what won't be. The important thing is that in the aggregate the adverting works which is why people do it.
> What about the individual costs to the individuals who were mislead by advertising into taking drugs they didn't need? >... > But now there's 100 people out there who are taking a drug their doctor didn't think was > necessary. You've broken the first rule of medicine, do no harm.
First, it is absurdly presumptuous to think that all 100 people don't need it. After all, clearly they, their doctors and their healthcare provider all thought is was worth it. With as many safeguards in place as there are, this issue is just a red herring. The real problem in these cases is with doctors prescribing drugs that people don't need, and stopping advertising won't fix that at all.
I care a lot more about useless antibiotic prescriptions are far more dangerous than whatever is being advertised, and it's a lot more common to.
Slashdot Mirror
I couldn't agree more.
The problem is though, that people like Lovegood are very rarely called out on their crap. We have people (*cough* Al Gore *cough*) going around literally calling it a _crysis_. And what do we get from it? Politics. 'Action!'. But if anyone says that we ought to really just slow down (and even look at the data!), they get labeled a "denier" and all discourse is shut down.
> Look at the data.
Like... I dunno, maybe IPCC's claim that the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035? But that turned out to be unreviewed speculation and the glaciers actually haven't lost any net ice over the decade... Oops!
Now, I don't mean to extrapolate that to saying all climate data as bunk, but I _do_ mean to use it as an example of how data can be flawed, interpretations can be flawed, and just plain human stupidity and bias can get in the way (which is the only way you can 'excuse' the above reporting of a media interview as a scientific finding). There is far more room for discussion than is presently allowed by the various groups looking to use climate change as a blank check for political gain, personal gain, or simply a cause to blindly fight for. I just wish people were even half as interested in calling out the alarmists as are the 'deniers'.
Given the prevalence of SQL injection attacks, which could be prevented with a single function call, I have to say that buffer over-(and under-) flows are really a red herring. Unless a language makes it literally impossible to write insecure code, lazy and bad programmers will find a way.
With C++ basically being a superset of C, I wouldn't say that's entirely true.
Regardless, though, when you look at the wide world of programming languages, they are _far_ more distinct from everything else than they are from each other. Java, C#, Python, Ruby, JS, HTML(?!) I can't think of a single mainstream language aside from "C/C++" that uses pointers lacks a garbage collector. So in regard to practical application and required skills, they are effectively quite similar.
The problem with any good justice system is that it has to balance a number of factors. Would you suggest that everyone that, I dunno, J-walks get the death penalty? Not only would the punishment be exorbitant, but now you'd be encouraging J-walkers to carry weapons and dispose of witnesses, as doing so doesn't really make the punishment worse, but could let you avoid it entirely.
Valve is trying to make an effective deterrent to being a jerk. The problem with simply banning is that it gives users no ability to reform, and really ups the burden of proof as the ability to appeal a ban is basically nil (and pricy for Valve if it's not). Also, banned players can usually just get a new account and continue to be an ass until they're banned again, but this time around they aren't going to care half as much as they've already lost everything tied to their original account.
So they have to set the punishment at something that is reasonable in the face of unreliable justice and the cost of creating a new account. Allowing players to play on probation (no voice) or charging them $100 seems like a decent balance to me.
> So you think that someone should not have to behave nice if he is a rich?
Rich? lol. I think that if you combine the demographics of "jerk" and "has $100 to blow" you'll find more basement dwelling trolls than rich people, who usually do other things to do with their time besides being a jerk on online games. A hundred dallors just ain't that much in this day... It won't even buy you two new games.
> Does it not make far more sense to charge everyone the same and ban the jerks?
> Is it really worth it to Valve to decrease their multiplayer experience for everyone for as little as $100 jerk tax?
I for one, think it's fine, as you can sit back and laugh at jerks, knowing that they heavily subsidized you copy. Also, I still expect that there will be normal bans if they're really so bad.
Just like when you report your (friend's?) car as stolen when it's not? Is it hilarious before or after you're arrested for filing a false report?
Just as a car has a serial number identifying it (VIN) that is registered with the current owner, the cell phones have a number (IMEI) that identify it which can be linked to an account owner. They would simply check the database and confirm that the phone is running on the proper account.
The trouble is that cars have very specific rules regarding their sales which handle re-registering with the new owner. This proposal, however, doesn't seem to cover transferring ownership in the database, so if your friend bought the phone secondhand, then there could, indeed, be trouble.
Yeah, I liked that bit. Even better, it's "environmental protection" so those measures you suggest wouldn't count. I find it to be very odd that they jump from resource consumption to environmental protection like that are even related.
Moreover, even if we are to suppose that they really meant "drastic measures for conservation" and that environmentalism was just a typo (those keys being right next to one another), the proposition is still a bit bizarre. We have to take _drastic_ measures to prevent... uh having to take, I guess more, drastic measure drastic consequences later? How about we don't cripple ourselves now to avoid being crippled later, and let technology progress for the next decade or so. That will probably mitigate the problems more than a few years of extreme conservation (which by definition only delays the problem) will
> Zimmerman is still a murderer, though.
I'm not going to defend the man, but don't you think it's just a _little_ ironic that you would state that with certainty in a story about how the "facts" we get can be so blatantly distorted? There are reasons for presumed innocence and a formal trial, and this is one of them.
I rather disagree.
Apple phones pretty much define the high end, and so even if they're very shiny you have to pay for that. Also, they lock you into the Apple experience, which isn't necessarily the best one.
Android is an open system, with low cost phones available, but at the same time it's plagued by bloatware and inconsistent user experience. Honestly, I don't know how people put up with it... Well, without installing Cyanogenmod like I did. I know someone with a Galaxy S II (IIRC) and the thing has ~30 apps on it that cannot be uninstalled (and are useless, of course). They'll always be there, with permissions you didn't approve, potentially running in the background wasting your resources and causing problems. (On that note, I know a different someone who's phone is actually rendered unstable due to a preinstalled app.) Sure, you can kind of hide them, but they'll be there when you look through the app drawer or add a shortcut or do a general action (e.g. "Share photo" via Picasa, Facebook, Twitter, arg where's MMS?)
If Microsoft can actually deliver a streamlined no-nonsense interface and solidly hit the midrange price point I think they'll find buyers. It's true that people don't care _that_ much, but at the same time I think there's a lot of frustration building up over Apple's walled garden and Android's bloatware/platform issues. They may not be all 'wow I can shave 100ms of my time-to-pic', but when they go to buy their next phone they'll remember Microsoft advertising a snappy simple interface and their problems with their old phone and be willing to give it a try.
> So, under the new interpretation, you can (and will) be strip searched and placed in population for 2 days, ...
> all because you failed to pay a parking ticket
You could always be placed in population for 2 days, and even strip searched if the police had suspicion that you had contraband. The _only_ thing that changed is that they don't have to make up an excuse to stip search you in those circumstances.
> Hell, where I live there's a law on the books from the 1800's that says spitting on sidewalks and swearing
> in front of "ladies" are arrestable offenses.
> Still sound reasonable?
What, the law? Of course it isn't reasonable. What does that have to do with this at all? Sounds like you have a bullshit law on the books and should petition to have it removed. And your point is actually weaker than the one in the article (and indeed the case) which dealt with wrongful imprisonment over an administrative screw-up. This decision aside, they could still arrest you (maybe taking fingerprints and DNA and giving you an arrest record), lock you up and send you through the court system. It's just now they don't have to pretend to suspect you have contraband to search you. It sounds like your real problem (along with mine and most others on this thread) is abusive laws and police work.
> Essentially this ruling means that any police officer can take you and have you strip searched for any reason whatsoever (let's say
> you're arrested for resisting arrest) and you have no recourse. That's the country we live in today.
So, you're totally okay with being arrested and being thrown into a cage with other people (quite likely to be criminals) for any reason whatsoever, but having to take off your pants is crossing the line? In the story the guy was wrongfully jailed for a _week_ but the issue presented wasn't that, but that he was strip searched. Is it just me that thinks being lock up is vastly worse than having to strip? And that if you are going to put a bunch of people in a cage together that searching them first isn't a bad idea? (And to further that point, if you were wrongfully imprisoned with Mr. McStabby as a cellmate, wouldn't you prefer if he were searched?)
Let's call a spade a spade: the issue isn't the search, it's the bad laws surrounding them. The search makes sense for when you're locking up a bunch of people together (note that the decision applies to people entering the general population). The bad laws continue to not.
I haven't had a chance to RTFA, but I did bother to read the summary:
"'Every detainee who will be admitted to the general [jail or prison]..."
So this seems to only be about searching people entering the general prison populace. If that's the case, then I'm okay with it (and I'm not usually okay with such things) as it makes sense to limit contraband and all that stuff. So can we limit the knee-jerk driven by a disingenuous headline?
> In the US we spend WAY too much doing things to people that gives very little benefit to them. The major
> culprit is the 'free market' system where profit (at multiple levels) is considered the appropriate metric.
How exactly is our healthcare anything like free market? Do you get any real choice in provider? Do you know the prices? Do you evaluate cost vs. benefit before buying the service? Does anyone even perceive healthcare as buying a service?
The reason we have this problem is precisely because healthcare isn't a free market. People see things as being "free" (and will complain bitterly if they're not), and never bother to ask whether or not dropping $10+k on a pointless treatment really matters. (Hell, half the time it's difficult to impossible to figure out what the cost is anyway. Good luck getting a straight answer on that, when the quoted "price" is 4x what would be normally be paid by a healthcare provider.) If there's no cost, there's no competition and no cost-benefit analysis.
When it comes down to it, even thought the service is technically provided by the private sector, the only choice you have in it is, essentially, who your employer is (to the extent you can call that a choice). Even in an illegal conspiratorial oligopoly you can at least pick your poison. As it is you pretty much get what get and nothing if you don't want it (but you'll still be paying for it anyways). If that's a free market then so was communist Russia.
Well, just so we're clear on who's blaming who:
Grand Parent blames abusive DRM on, roughly, The Man and his campaign to reduce the quality of education so that young people don't see the problem with DRM (or something like that)
I blamed GP for helping spread ignorance by excusing it with a conspiracy by The Man
I blamed lazy assholes for being lazy assholes and the consequences of being such.
So, supposing you did read it that way, are you trying to say that blaming people for their own ignorance is merely about "feeling superior"? What is your proposition, then, that would enlighten those who do not want to think and learn, without ultimately requiring them to try?
Actually, we should blame people like you, who spread bullshit like this:
> ... they can't even do basic division anymore their education's been so watered down.
> From everything I've seen of the teenagers today, their education has been shit, and
> I don't think that's accidental...
Education has always been shit and always will be. School isn't there to hold your had and guide you to success, or even understanding. That's all on you; there's no way they can force you to learn or think. If people are lazy and don't care and spend more time having fun then thinking, they're going to bee poorly educated, regardless of the quality of the education they're ignoring.
But no, you and your ilk would never blame the lazy assholes. They're just victims of the system and... uh... a conspiracy on the part of this "haves" to keep them down I guess? So, rather then tell them to sit down and read a fucking book, you tell them it's not their fault that they're going to work an unskilled, uninteresting job for the rest of their lives. That's society's fault, though, so don't worry because we'll will make sure they get a minimum wage and healthcare and whatever they need. We're so sorry. We'd pass a law protecting them from teh bad DRM too, but it turns out that too many people are ignorant and only seeking immediate gratification and not at all interested in thinking about long term consequences for us to actually fight it... ...wonder how that happened.
They're already proven they're willing to do this on a per-game basis, and I haven't seen much revolt from gamers because those games are "must have" or what have you.
As far as retailers are concerned... Well, how much do you think game companies care about them? After all, what percentage of game sales do you thing Walmart and Target (who don't deal in used games) represent? They'd probably be on board with this actually if they care at all. Now, sure, they might be able to offer quite the variety as, say, GameStop, but Amazon certainly can.
... until Sony gets hacked, PSN accounts are lost and everyone's games are rendered useless. That lawsuit should be epic.
That is a valid point, and probably the intent of the ruling, but riddle me this:
If I derive from pi an existing song, can that song be copyrighted?
Or, would we then consider the derivation from pi to be a creative work derivative of the original song, and not simply a fact based on pi?
This ruling would seem to say no to both, because the mapping from pi is fact and not creative itself. That would mean that this does, theoretically, make all music uncopyrightable, but perhaps with the additional leg work of showing the relation to pi.
Well if you look at their argument:
They seem to be arguing that the metabolic behavior and/or equilibrium along with the dosing boundaries are natural laws, and unpatentable. This is pretty much any chemical reaction: conditions, equilibrium and acceptable concentrations.
Then, regarding the basic dosage control:
They basically indicate that for the patent to be valid it has to use methods that are novel independent of the natural law that was discovered.
So the trouble is, that really most chemical process patents follow that form:
1) Discover basic natural law
a) Lead's effect in producing acid
b) relative volatilities with the addition of some other component
2) "Apply it"
a) builld chamber out of lead
b) distill with appropriate additives
Mind that "On the other hand F-ing around with strange catalysts in lead lined chambers" is actually just discovering a natural law. The only transformative addition is then using of lead in the process. (Note that AFAIK nitrates were already being used in the 'glass jar process' prior to the lead chamber invention.) There are ultimately very few chemical processes that can't be rewritten in this way... Perhaps complex multistage processes when one could argue the innovation isn't in any the reactions, but rather the idea of stringing them together.
I have some pretty mixed feelings about this. While it's true that there are some bad patents in this vein, I don't know if I'd consider them even a substantial portion of it. The trouble is that just because something is a law of nature doesn't make it 'obvious', and actually discovering that law can take a considerable amount of research. For example: every chemical process ever invented. Forget patenting extractive distillation methods. Hell, you could look at the lead chamber process as unpatentable because lead's role in the process (despite being a hugely important innovation) follows from simple natural laws.
Now, I'm really glad to see the supreme court start to take a more critical approach to IP, but unless there's something I'm missing here this decision could really have some bad side effects.
Well, duh, but you know what? At least it works.
Greens, politicians and indeed nerds to all go on about fusion too. Nevermind that it doesn't break even thermally, let alone once you factor in electrical conversion and fuel production. Nevermind that even if it did, the current projects are totally nonviable commercially. And all that aside, proposed processes _still_ produce neutrons and leave their facilities radioactive just like fission plants.
If you're calling interest in thorium fission trendy and ignorant of disadvantages then what do you consider and the interest (and massive funding!) in fusion?
It seems to be that the thermal energy produced is equal to the optical energy put in. Well, great, it's a milestone of sorts, but still massively far off actually producing energy. First and foremost, conversion of thermal to electrical is 33-40% efficient. Then you have to convert that to optical, an efficiency I do not know, but seems according to the Wiki page to be 1% (422MJ bank, 4MJ shot, could be old). Still, maybe it could be a lot better, but probably wouldn't exceed 80-90%. So, you actually have to beat this "break even" by a factor of at least 3 in order to actually output energy. But that doesn't account for fuel production, nor maintenance or construction of the facility.
And, I should also point out that this story is just that their laser works, not that an sample was fired producing "break even" energy.
Will it work? Maybe. But realistically, by the time we see commercial power from this, a fission plant built today would be reaching end-of-life.
You can free the GIL from a C extension module as long as you promise to behave (e.g. don't modify refcounts). As a result, the GIL becomes a relative non-issue in many performance applications, as you're likely going to be most of the performance critical stuff in C on C data. I've found that this actually tends to improve performance versus, pure C++ for example, because it requires a clear understanding of what data is constant or owned by what thread or how it is shared. In C++ people seem to have a bad habit of just slapping a critical section on every one of their accessors, for instance, injecting quite a bit of overhead for even trivial operations.
That's not to say that the GIL isn't a bad thing, but practically speaking it's not a significant limitation for many applications.
Exactly.
Looking at page 30 of the report you can see this quite clearly, There are two columns representing the different options:
A) Name, E-Mail, Birthday, (+ Credit Card info) = €7.50
B) Name, E-Mail, Birthday, Phone, (+ Credit Card info) = €7.00
Well gee, if I'm giving out all that info, who cares about the phone number? And honestly I'd probably type in a 555-1234 number and save the €.50.
At best, this just proves that people are lazy, don't read the term and conditions and won't type in some numbers if there's no incentive to. This is _vastly_ different from, say, payment for monitoring your browsing history, or just selling the data start away. (Usually, if you trust a seller enough to give them your credit card information, you aren't going to be too worried about giving them your phone number as well.)
I haven't read through the whole report, and probably won't, but I can't understand why then even did this. I suppose it's mildly interesting to be prove that no one reads the privacy policy, but that's hardly surprising. (It's not like they're really enforced anyway, so what's the point.) It would have been much more interesting if it was clearer that their information was going to be sold, like "€7.50 or FREE if you fill out this survey with valid phone + email".
Well, yeah. That phone wasn't actually free you know.
The major thrust of the contract is that they give you a phone in exchange for guaranteed business. Since you already have the phone, their part of that bargain is fulfilled and they can cancel the contract without penalty (as they are the ones that 'lose' in such a case). After two years, you've fulfilled your side and can cancel the contract without penalty too.
> Quite a lot of advertising wastes quite a lot of money.
No one can predict what will be successful and what won't be. The important thing is that in the aggregate the adverting works which is why people do it.
> What about the individual costs to the individuals who were mislead by advertising into taking drugs they didn't need? ...
>
> But now there's 100 people out there who are taking a drug their doctor didn't think was
> necessary. You've broken the first rule of medicine, do no harm.
First, it is absurdly presumptuous to think that all 100 people don't need it. After all, clearly they, their doctors and their healthcare provider all thought is was worth it. With as many safeguards in place as there are, this issue is just a red herring. The real problem in these cases is with doctors prescribing drugs that people don't need, and stopping advertising won't fix that at all.
I care a lot more about useless antibiotic prescriptions are far more dangerous than whatever is being advertised, and it's a lot more common to.