Without having an actual article to read, this entire thread is a waste of space. We can already see that the comments have yet again degenerated into a series of back-and-forth unsubstantiated claims, conspiracies and rumors (and denials of same) about the 2004 and/or 2000 elections.
Why did this story even get posted? The readers who actually care about getting at the facts and data behind the study can't get at that data to evaluate its veracity and determine what the actual conclusions are beyond the sketchy abstract that was linked.
Of all the radio companies (not that there are many left) with something to lose from the satellite radio revolution, ClearChannel has the most to lose. Their "new-age payola" system of leveraging their radio station playlists to boost ticket sales at their concert venues will fall apart as more people switch to satellite radio. If they don't figure out some way to work in the new regime, ClearChannel will soon be "that billboard company".
Firewire from the cable box is a digital hole likely to be closed by the demand of the MPAA in coming months. There's a spec called "5C" which involves secure key exchange between two Firewire devices to determine whether both are compliant with a copy control flag, and a 5C-compliant device won't send to a noncompliant device. (Content encryption is involved as well.)
I think the "discovered" used here was in the sense of the old Han Solo line, "What an incredible new smell you've discovered!" As in, everybody stationed on board the Death Star knew the smell was there, but they had the good sense not to go rooting around through it.
Keep in mind that in 1980, the price was roughly $200 per share. Also keep in mind that the enormous stock price isn't incredibly relevant, except for (a) preventing small investors from participating, and (b) certain anomalies which prompted BH to create their class B stock in the mid-90s. That is, the stock currently trades at about 17.5 times earnings, which is slightly below average for today's market.
There's a good Wikipedia article on Berkshire Hathaway. Turns out they own Dairy Queen and GEICO, among other famous names.
I hope they do, but I don't have much faith. Intel, Hitachi, and other companies are already in bed with the entertainment industry (such as Sony) in terms of devising content control schemes to forbid transmission of flagged content over firewire to noncompliant devices (read: your PC-based PVR).
The journal publishing companies are quickly reaching obsolescence. Given the state of just-in-time publishing and the Internet, there's really no reason that academic institutions have to continue to be held hostage by the journal publishers anymore. Peer review can be completely separated from the publishing process and be managed by already-respected researchers in each field who volunteer their time to assist with the process, perhaps a month at a time (much like the review process is for many smaller conferences).
Each research/academic institution would maintain a repository of the papers produced by its researchers. The peer review organizations, after judging a particular paper as being top-rated, would add it to a digest of recent top-rated papers. When somebody decides they want a copy of the digest issue (or just the particular paper of interest), they can refer to the peer review organization to get a link to the paper(s), download them from the authoring institutions, and print them out if needed (such as to put a hardcopy in the library).
The entire process, from submission to peer review to publishing to distribution is accounted for without the involvement of a publishing company.
Yeah, I agree with you there - there's sort of a prisoner's dilemma, where if the Republicans are playing far right, the Democrats are probably best served by playing far left, because independents/centrists end up split pretty evenly instead of remaining undecided like they do in a centrist-played game. It ends up being a battle of mobilizing the fringe elements, and whoever does worse loses.
If there was a united front to delay the passage of the bill by a few days so that every senator could actually read the bill, I suspect that the negative outlook a lot of people have of the law now would have come to the forefront then (or, at least, much earlier). Yes, there was a kneejerk reaction of sorts to get something done about the issue, but in the long run, it would have taken another terrorist attack during the filibuster to make people view it particularly negatively.
Besides, only a third of senators faced re-election the next year, and by the 2004 election, the concerns about the Patriot Act had been publicly known for some time. Most senators wouldn't have been sticking their necks out by filibustering for a short time, and those who would probably would have been protected if 40+ senators total felt there was a severe problem with the bill.
My point, as before, is that "we didn't have a chance to read the bill before we voted" is baloney, because the people who say that now could have done something about it then, but they didn't. Kudos to Russ Feingold for having the guts to vote no (and I'm saying this even though I'm nominally conservative).
Outright tooth-and-nail opposition of the Republican agenda, regardless of issue. Both sides are almost completely focused on taking diametrically opposed viewpoints to each other, in order to mobilize their far-extreme constituencies (which was arguably a successful tactic for the Republicans in the 2004 election).
This is a bogus argument. If Senators had real concerns over the content of the bill, they could have filibustered (or threatened to) for a few days until they had time to analyze its provisions.
If anything, the leadership is looking for someone who is more dynamic and smooth, and able to carry off centrism - sort of a right-wing Bill Clinton. I don't think that kind of person would be a successful candidate for them, but that's what they want.
Are you sure? The Republican leadership (at least in Congress) continues to move farther right (while the Dems move farther left). I haven't seen/heard any serious right-centrist names mentioned recently. (If you know of any, please mention them, because I'd like to start reading up on them.) In fact, Bush is probably the closest-to-center person in the party with any visibility at all (other than McCain or Specter, who don't have any designs on running for President now), though the left tries to make Bush seem much more hardcore conservative than he really is (and the far-right Congressional leadership is making it easier for them).
With a few more Republicans in Congress since the one that created and passed the Act, who owe their offices to the Republican machine that funded and organized their campaigns, why should they change any of the Act that they all like so much?
Isn't it possible that the Democrats generally oppose the Patriot Act today, and the Republicans generally support it today, because they're playing the political game and trying to drum up support from the far-extreme parts of their parties, rather than examining the law to see whether the provision really is a good or a bad idea?
Does that mean that even provisions claimed to be "not subject to judicial review", if a State files suit against the federal government, then the Supreme Court can assert jurisdiction and review anyway?
The point is that you can spend $60 a year, legally download as much music as you want, and then use whatever third-party utilities become available to crack the DRM with zero risk of being caught and sued by the RIAA so that you can (a) space-shift your music and (b) cancel your Yahoo or other subscription music service account.
I suppose if you actually like the current state of the music industry and the product it's putting out, you'd still pay the $60 a year, but a lot of people are only interested in yesteryear's music.
If you're right, this is perhaps the worst-orchestrated PR campaign ever developed by Microsoft. I mean, they're touting a standard that has both the names "Microsoft" and "Hilary Rosen" behind it? No self-respecting geek is going to touch that combination with a ten-meter cattleprod. Nobody else is going to care enough about DRM issues to base their choice on anything other than (a) is the selection of music and the price good enough for me, and (b) will it play on my iPod that I got for my birthday.
I don't see this as being a real issue of concern, since in order to guarantee no judicial review, the Supreme Court would have to agree that Congress has the right to forbid judicial review. I seriously doubt that they would assent to that, especially since the Supreme Court gave themselves the right to review laws for constitutionality in the first place. In fact, Congress would probably have been better off specifically exempting the laws they intended to avoid, since one the Supreme Court nullifies this provision, the whole thing ends up subject to judicial review again.
As for the purpose of the provision, it's designed to avoid cumbersome environmental regulations, which often cause roadbuilding projects to be delayed by several years, assuming they don't prevent a project from going forward at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Without having an actual article to read, this entire thread is a waste of space. We can already see that the comments have yet again degenerated into a series of back-and-forth unsubstantiated claims, conspiracies and rumors (and denials of same) about the 2004 and/or 2000 elections.
Why did this story even get posted? The readers who actually care about getting at the facts and data behind the study can't get at that data to evaluate its veracity and determine what the actual conclusions are beyond the sketchy abstract that was linked.
I think this does a pretty good job of explaining why exit polls resulted in such a poor estimate of election results.
So you're saying that the capital gains appreciation is the important part, not the stock price itself, which was my assertion all along.
Of all the radio companies (not that there are many left) with something to lose from the satellite radio revolution, ClearChannel has the most to lose. Their "new-age payola" system of leveraging their radio station playlists to boost ticket sales at their concert venues will fall apart as more people switch to satellite radio. If they don't figure out some way to work in the new regime, ClearChannel will soon be "that billboard company".
Firewire from the cable box is a digital hole likely to be closed by the demand of the MPAA in coming months. There's a spec called "5C" which involves secure key exchange between two Firewire devices to determine whether both are compliant with a copy control flag, and a 5C-compliant device won't send to a noncompliant device. (Content encryption is involved as well.)
http://www.dtcp.com/data/wp_spec.pdf
The people who bought it at $200 would be equally as happy if it had split 400-ish times during the past 25 years and was at $200 now.
I think the "discovered" used here was in the sense of the old Han Solo line, "What an incredible new smell you've discovered!" As in, everybody stationed on board the Death Star knew the smell was there, but they had the good sense not to go rooting around through it.
Keep in mind that in 1980, the price was roughly $200 per share. Also keep in mind that the enormous stock price isn't incredibly relevant, except for (a) preventing small investors from participating, and (b) certain anomalies which prompted BH to create their class B stock in the mid-90s. That is, the stock currently trades at about 17.5 times earnings, which is slightly below average for today's market.
There's a good Wikipedia article on Berkshire Hathaway. Turns out they own Dairy Queen and GEICO, among other famous names.
I hope they do, but I don't have much faith. Intel, Hitachi, and other companies are already in bed with the entertainment industry (such as Sony) in terms of devising content control schemes to forbid transmission of flagged content over firewire to noncompliant devices (read: your PC-based PVR).
I think you mean a lapdog.
Instead of spending $500 on hookers,
Bender: What to do, what to do? One three hundred dollar hookerbot, or three hundred one dollar hookerbots?
The journal publishing companies are quickly reaching obsolescence. Given the state of just-in-time publishing and the Internet, there's really no reason that academic institutions have to continue to be held hostage by the journal publishers anymore. Peer review can be completely separated from the publishing process and be managed by already-respected researchers in each field who volunteer their time to assist with the process, perhaps a month at a time (much like the review process is for many smaller conferences).
Each research/academic institution would maintain a repository of the papers produced by its researchers. The peer review organizations, after judging a particular paper as being top-rated, would add it to a digest of recent top-rated papers. When somebody decides they want a copy of the digest issue (or just the particular paper of interest), they can refer to the peer review organization to get a link to the paper(s), download them from the authoring institutions, and print them out if needed (such as to put a hardcopy in the library).
The entire process, from submission to peer review to publishing to distribution is accounted for without the involvement of a publishing company.
Well, if they make one that looks like Amanda Tapping, sign me up. I don't even care if it's evil!
Yeah, I agree with you there - there's sort of a prisoner's dilemma, where if the Republicans are playing far right, the Democrats are probably best served by playing far left, because independents/centrists end up split pretty evenly instead of remaining undecided like they do in a centrist-played game. It ends up being a battle of mobilizing the fringe elements, and whoever does worse loses.
If there was a united front to delay the passage of the bill by a few days so that every senator could actually read the bill, I suspect that the negative outlook a lot of people have of the law now would have come to the forefront then (or, at least, much earlier). Yes, there was a kneejerk reaction of sorts to get something done about the issue, but in the long run, it would have taken another terrorist attack during the filibuster to make people view it particularly negatively.
Besides, only a third of senators faced re-election the next year, and by the 2004 election, the concerns about the Patriot Act had been publicly known for some time. Most senators wouldn't have been sticking their necks out by filibustering for a short time, and those who would probably would have been protected if 40+ senators total felt there was a severe problem with the bill.
My point, as before, is that "we didn't have a chance to read the bill before we voted" is baloney, because the people who say that now could have done something about it then, but they didn't. Kudos to Russ Feingold for having the guts to vote no (and I'm saying this even though I'm nominally conservative).
but what is the "far-extreme" Democrat agenda
Outright tooth-and-nail opposition of the Republican agenda, regardless of issue. Both sides are almost completely focused on taking diametrically opposed viewpoints to each other, in order to mobilize their far-extreme constituencies (which was arguably a successful tactic for the Republicans in the 2004 election).
This is a bogus argument. If Senators had real concerns over the content of the bill, they could have filibustered (or threatened to) for a few days until they had time to analyze its provisions.
There wasn't even a cloture vote. They just passed it, 98-1. Besides, many of the provisions were taken from other bills introduced nearly three weeks prior, including one sponsored by Tom Daschle.
If anything, the leadership is looking for someone who is more dynamic and smooth, and able to carry off centrism - sort of a right-wing Bill Clinton. I don't think that kind of person would be a successful candidate for them, but that's what they want.
Are you sure? The Republican leadership (at least in Congress) continues to move farther right (while the Dems move farther left). I haven't seen/heard any serious right-centrist names mentioned recently. (If you know of any, please mention them, because I'd like to start reading up on them.) In fact, Bush is probably the closest-to-center person in the party with any visibility at all (other than McCain or Specter, who don't have any designs on running for President now), though the left tries to make Bush seem much more hardcore conservative than he really is (and the far-right Congressional leadership is making it easier for them).
With a few more Republicans in Congress since the one that created and passed the Act, who owe their offices to the Republican machine that funded and organized their campaigns, why should they change any of the Act that they all like so much?
Yep, those Republicans are definitely to blame for this one. Those Democrats fought tooth and nail to prevent it from being passed.
Isn't it possible that the Democrats generally oppose the Patriot Act today, and the Republicans generally support it today, because they're playing the political game and trying to drum up support from the far-extreme parts of their parties, rather than examining the law to see whether the provision really is a good or a bad idea?
Does that mean that even provisions claimed to be "not subject to judicial review", if a State files suit against the federal government, then the Supreme Court can assert jurisdiction and review anyway?
The point is that you can spend $60 a year, legally download as much music as you want, and then use whatever third-party utilities become available to crack the DRM with zero risk of being caught and sued by the RIAA so that you can (a) space-shift your music and (b) cancel your Yahoo or other subscription music service account.
I suppose if you actually like the current state of the music industry and the product it's putting out, you'd still pay the $60 a year, but a lot of people are only interested in yesteryear's music.
If you're right, this is perhaps the worst-orchestrated PR campaign ever developed by Microsoft. I mean, they're touting a standard that has both the names "Microsoft" and "Hilary Rosen" behind it? No self-respecting geek is going to touch that combination with a ten-meter cattleprod. Nobody else is going to care enough about DRM issues to base their choice on anything other than (a) is the selection of music and the price good enough for me, and (b) will it play on my iPod that I got for my birthday.
I don't see this as being a real issue of concern, since in order to guarantee no judicial review, the Supreme Court would have to agree that Congress has the right to forbid judicial review. I seriously doubt that they would assent to that, especially since the Supreme Court gave themselves the right to review laws for constitutionality in the first place. In fact, Congress would probably have been better off specifically exempting the laws they intended to avoid, since one the Supreme Court nullifies this provision, the whole thing ends up subject to judicial review again.
As for the purpose of the provision, it's designed to avoid cumbersome environmental regulations, which often cause roadbuilding projects to be delayed by several years, assuming they don't prevent a project from going forward at all.
>> nothing...persuades Senators faster than a room full of bulk faxes
> Everybody knows its rooms full of cash that count.
Then the obvious solution is to fax money to your Congresspeople.
It has been documented
But apparently never documented on Slashdot.