whole different realms of gameplay as often times vampires, werewolves, mages,
The traditional powers/vulnerabilities of vampires and werewolves would create a specific game design challenge: Just what would the day/night cycle be?
Vampires shouldn't be able to go outside in daylight, but an MMORPG won't survive if 50% of the time its subscribers can't log in and walk around.
Possible solutions:
Make vampires immune to sunlight. But this removes dark, gothy style.
Eternal darkness. For some magic reason, it's always night. A little goofy, but better than vampires strolling the beach
Map design. Build the world so that it's all city, and convenient sewer-openings exist on every other block.
Parasols, ponchos, and SPF500 potions.
Generally, #3 would be the best choice. If the day-night period is 5-15 minutes long, then it can produce complex tactical effects: a monster which the hunts the vampire PCs in daytime could become an easy victim at night.
And it's set after the movies, which doesn't matter, since the events of the films changed NOTHING... (Incidently, the game's timeframe was announced before Matrix Revolutions came out, which was a spoiler)
Lovecraft. "Hey, let's go raid R'Lyeh and gank Cthulhu!"
Better if you play as alien monsters... manifest temporary physical forms on earth to hunt mortals, seeking to devour either flesh or mere sanity. MMORPG players like to be powerful and immortal, and to be outnumbered by slow, weak opponents. So Lovecraft entities would be perfect player classes.
But they're not doing well. That's a myth. In truth, the other teams are doing poorly. Football is the world's most popular sport, but none of the good players have been sent to the Olympics. They've got more important tournaments to worry about.
It is a network of networks, thus it sits between other networks and earns the inter- prefix. Intra- means within one's own logical grouping.
You are attempting to pick words apart to prove what they actually mean. It'd be nice if languages were logical and that approach actually worked, but it doesn't.
"Anti-semitic", for example, doesn't mean "against semites", but "hating Jews", since that's what it was first coined for. "Homophobia" is not "fear of similarity" but of "homosexuals".
First there were networks. Then there was "internet protocol", which could be used to connect networks. Then there was "internet", any set of 2 or more hosts using internet protocol. Only 15 years later was "intranet" coined, to mean a LAN using application protocols popularized on the Internet.
-"insecure" for emotional states of mind -"non-secure" regarding the nature of the Internet. The Internet cannot be "insecure", since it is not a sentient/organic/thinking thing.
The 2nd word means merely the lack of the first, or inability to guarrantee it, but the 3rd means active antagonism.
I/we answered the landline/land line as "Quarterdeck, USS Flint. Petty Officer Syes Speaking. This is a non-secure line; how may I help you sir, or ma'am?"
By saying non-secure there, you meant "We can't be sure an enemy isn't listening, so keep to safe topics". Using "insecure" would've meant "the enemy, or at least the public, is probably listening, so let's not talk at all".
The Internet is both non-secure and insecure, since we know that hackers are actively hunting it.
There's no substantial difference between insecure and non-secure, but the latter is something of a euphemism.
No, because you don't have an internet connecting your basement intranet (you do own that intranet, and can call it The Intranet if you want, I guess)
You are using the word "intranet" incorrectly. You seem to think it's a synonym for "internet". This is a very popular mistake, and understandably so, because it's useful.
An "internet" first meant any network of systems running IP. Then when ARPANET was casually renamed to "the Internet", the opportunity for confusion arose between "internet" and "Internet" (as demonstrated by the poster to whom you responded). There's no way to capitalize words while speaking, after all. So some people want to use "intranet" in place of lower-case "internet", to be easily distinguished from "Internet".
Correctly, however, an "intranet" means a "non-public network running application protocols popular on The Internet". If the basement LAN uses HTTP and SMTP, then it's an intranet. But if it uses things like SMB/CIFS, nfs/sun-rpc, or X11 (protocols which you would not sanely run on the Internet), then it's not.
Point out the specific entity which is "The Internet" to me, and I might agree.
Here we go. Ready? Poof:
The internet is a continuously evolving complex system.
In that sentence, you pointed it out yourself. You said "the internet" and everyone knew that you were actually talking about "the Internet", and not one of the thousands of smaller internets that exist around the planet.
Routes change, nodes come on and off line, it never sits still.
Do you also think it's wrong to talk about "the Pacific" as one entity? Currents change, sandbars rise and sink, it never sits still.
That IS pirating, the windows EULA does not allow that.
No. If it were pirating, it would be a violent crime committed on or near the ocean. Obvious, that's not the case.
It isn't even copyright infringement, because you bought one copy, and are not duplicating it more than necessary to run on a single computer. EULAs are not valid! Microsoft wants you to think so, but they're not.
The USA Congress has considered legistlation to make EULAs valid, but it hasn't happened yet.
And not only indirectly. The Taliban was a major US ally in the War on Drugs. They totally shut down Afganistan's heroine business, and Bush rewarded them with $43,000,000.
(In contrast with President Clinton, who threatened to arrest anyone who helped the Taliban in any way)
Without the Sono Bono copyright extension, Mickey Mouse would not have entered the public domain
That sentence is incorrect. Words like "Windows" and "Apple" are in the public domain, even though they're also trademarked in some contexts. "Public Domain" is not applicable to trademarks one way or the other.
you'd quickly be in hot water if you created and distributed a "new" Mickey Mouse cartoon, since Disney could rightly argue that you're infrin
It's only trademark infringement if you induce consumer confusion as to the provider of a good. Slapping "Not authorized by or affliated with the Walt Disney Corporation" on top will keep you perfectly protected.
Today unauthorized authors write non-fiction books on TV series like Star Trek or Buffy Vampire Slayer, or software like Oracle and Excel. It's legal for them to use the name of the show/product in their title, as long as purchasers are unconfused as to provenance (and no other copyright infringement is happening, beyond fair use)
But if the new author refuses to sully his title page like that, then you get into unexplored legal territory. Disney could make the same trademark argument you did, but the author could respond that (a) the company is "Disney", not "Mickey Mouse", and (b) interpreting trademarks that way renders the expiration of copyright meaningless, which was not the intent.
Back a few centuries when the concepts of copyright and trademark were first created, individual characters of a fictional work weren't trademarked. Now, Mickey Mouse and Luke Skywalker have changed all that (following the lead, actually, of Raggedy Ann)
I've never heard a discussion of how copyright terms apply to a series of works that are derivatives of each other.
It's pretty simple, and just as you'd predict. The newer works are fully protected, the older ones are not. For obvious practical examples, look at most any Disney movie. The copyright on Hercules expired 3700 years ago, but that has no effect either on Disney's Hercules or Kevin Sorbo.
There is a risk, of course. An artist who intends to only derive from the older PD work may inadvertently have taken in concepts from later versions. That could lead to some nasty lawsuits focusing on subtlties. For example, if the Sonny Bono extension hadn't passed, then Superman would be public domain today. But the original Superman couldn't fly (only "leap tall buildings").
So if the creator of a new Superman story makes him fly, then he's vulnerable... the argument "I decided to add flying to the original version, because it was a sensible change" could work, but it'd enrich both sides' lawyers.
Raising patent costs won't stop garage investors from getting a patent on something worth investing in. Say $1,000 to file for a patent.
Uh, if you actually want that patent granted, it'll take more than $1000, today. The time to get the filing done is worth more than $1000 of labor (and if you don't have and are not an IP lawyer, it'll take longer).
The fees themselves: currently $385 to start and $43 per claim, then $665 when the patent is accepted. Patents can easily have 10+ claims. So we're already a lot over $1000. (All those fees are doubled if you're a corporation and not an individual)
So the fees are already higher than you want... and yet, fees don't really effect how corporate patent-houses work. The biggest part of the cost is your own lawyer-time to prepare the filing, which with IBM-size economy of scale is something individuals can't compete with.
The only way to "fix" patent issuance is to realign the USPTO's motives so that they see themselves as serving the public as a whole, and not employees of patent-applicants.
Greedy, but also overoptimistically pacifist. They tried to prevent the transformation of airplanes into killing machines with their patent.
They stood on the shoulders of giants, and then presumed to own all the work of those giants. Utterly reprehensible.
I find the Wright Brothers to be a great example of how patents were often harmful, even 100 years ago. The US government eventually overthrew their patent (by fiat, and without paying them as was legally required) because it was just too obstructive to military aviation progress.
The Wrights also illustrate the fundamental unfairness of "first comes, only served" patenting. 100s of airplane enthusiasts were at work on flying machines on that principle throughout Europe and the US. If the Wright's hadn't been first, someone else would've done it within at most a year or two later. The same pattern occurs with modern inventions.
I mean, of course I can, right? - I just submit it as created by me.
It's even easier than that. There's no formal submission process anymore. You just publish it anyplace (maybe to Google Groups or archive.org), so that in the future you can demonstrate the date you did the song.
So even if you shortened copyright from 100 to 50 years, it would not add much value to consumers.
Not to consumers directly. But Artists would benefit. Characters like Superman and Sam Spade would become free, so that new authors can reinterpret the stories they grew up on.
the value of shortening copyright terms would be minimal.
That's actually a big part of the argument in favor of shortened terms! Because the creators hardly ever earn much profit past 7-15 years, they won't be losing much to shorten copyrights to 30 years or so.
No artist, author, or corporation employing them is considering profits 30 years later when deciding what to work on. It's rare for them to even plan 10 years out. Therefore longer copyright terms are unconstitutional, as they do not provide an incentive to progress.
Back then, Democracy meant exactly what the parent poster said.
No, it did not. He claimed "democracy" meant "a referena on everything", which has obviously never happened.
Note that the Athenian system didn't even meet our modern definition of democracy. It wasn't rule by the people, but rule by the "citizens", who were a tiny minority of the population*. Even they, however, delegated authority to selected "representative" individuals.
Furthermore, "democracy" isn't a Greek word. They had "dimokratia", which is the basis for English's democracy, but is not the same thing.
In those times, the populations were small enough to get a true Democracy to actually work
Capitalizing "Democracy" is incorrect. Interesting that you go to Wikipedia to support your position, which conflicts from the results in any dictionary. Hmm, an unmoderated internet encyclopedia where anyone can post... no chance of a partisan writing articles to boost his own worldview.
The operative word there is " republic", "a country without a king or queen, usually governed by elected representatives of the people and a president"
No, that's not the operative word. Consider Iraq. Two years ago, it was a republic. Today, it is a new democracy (or so George W Bush hopes). Many countries have no King or Queen, but still have despotic tyrants.
Note that when "republic" was written into the US Constitution, the lack of royalty was precisely the meaning it conveyed to the authors, who were reacting against King George.
you really should look those terms up yourself.
I know exactly what they mean. Maybe you're confused and think it's impossible to be a republic and democracy at the same time. It isn't.
USA: republic and democracy Japan: democracy, not republic China: republic, not democracy Saudi Arabia: neither republic nor democracy
Consider which of those nations you'd rather visit in, and then measure whether "democracy" or "republic" is as better predictor.
* That's why Israel is not a democracy... because adults born there can be denied the right to vote based on religion.
the length of the copyright (already sitting up near 75 years due to Sonny Bono's efforts on behalf of the Disney Corporation)
No, it's not "near 75 years". It's more.
Corporate copyrights last 95 years, and individual copyrights are author's life + 70. The average lifespan is 76 years, so assuming works are written in the middle of life, it comes to 38+70 = 108 years.
A 75 year copyright would mean something published as you were born would go public domain just before you die. The current 95 or 108 year terms don't even give us that.
Reagan commited some crime by deficit spending and saving our economy
It's not a crime, but it was a lie and a broken promise. At the beginning of his term, Reagan swore to fight deficits:
For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?
Of course, we know he didn't listen to his own advice. Hmm, kinda like how George W Bush claimed to be the anti-nation-building candidate, but then launched the largest nation-building quest ever.
I suggest you read up a bit on Keynesian Economics
True, true. Maybe Reagan used Keynesian economics to boost the economy with government principles. But the thing is, Reagan didn't believe in Keynes! He was an anti-Keynesian; a Lafferite. Ronald believed that government spending would harm the economy, but that tax cuts would raise it.
The problem is that "democracy" means rule by the people - in other words, you'd have to have referenda on everything. Most folks agree that this would be pretty impractical.
No, democracy does not mean that. You're repeating a fallacy occasionally trotted out by opponents to the Democratic party.
By your definition, Democracy is impossible unless we all get Borg implants to continually vote on thousands of little choices every day. (Or, total anarchy would also fit your criteria)
But "rule by the people" doesn't mean that the people consider every minor issue directly and never delegate authority. Same way "rule by the king" doesn't imply that the king is personally collecting every tax and investigating every crime- he gets people to do those things. In fact, he probably assigns a Prime Minister to run the nation from day to day, even though he is still the ruler.
In the same way, the citizens of the democratic USA assign one man to "preside", while they are still the rulers.
It obtained injunctions to stop the publication of materials critical of it, claiming that it owned the copyright.
Of course, it did own the copyright. The "materials critical" were its own "religious" scriptures. It was unprecedented, because no other religion is young enough to be under copyright. (But now that copyrights are eternal, Scientology will still be protected 1000 years from now)
Those materials were posted in comments on Slashdot, but removed pursuant to Scientologist threats.
The Pentagon budget declined from $319.7 billion in 1991 to a low of $266 billion in 1996 and thats not factoring in inflation.
No. You must be including inflation (or something) on one of those numbers, but not the other. That CBO webpage is a summary, and may have massaged the data in ways you are unaware of. I suggest you follow through to the more detailed report.
The Pentagon budget for 1991 was $273 billion (see page 115). Inflation-adjusted to 2000, that comes to $333 bill. But I suppose if you adjusted according to some other year, it might come out to $319 bill.
The 1996 budget was $265 billion, or $290 in 2000 dollars.
So you can compare $333 to $290, or $273 to $265. But comparing $319 to $266 is simply invalid.
I think there very well is a firm dividing line between forced and unforced interactions.
In real life, there is no such thing as an unforced interaction. But that's a subtle argument, and I don't have the time. It's much easier to demonstrate that there is no simple line between harmful and benign actions.
Throwing a knife = harm.
Throwing a napkin = no harm. Spewing sarin = harm. Spewing asbestos = ??? Spewing carbon monoxide = ??? Spewing peanut oil = ??? Spewing hydrogen dioxide = no harm
Filling in those "???" is HARD.
In between the two extremes, the courts would have to decide, JUST AS THEY DO NOW.
"Just as they do now?" What they do now is interpret a volume of governmentally-authored law that is vast beyond human comprehension. The Libertarian Party wishes do away with the majority of those laws, so the courts could no longer behave as they do today. If each court individiually decided what level of force was unacceptable, the result would be unfairness, whimsy, and trial-by-popularity.
Of course, the public will only stand up for such quasi-anarchy for so long. They will demand order, and it will be supplied either by a newly-reinvigorated government, or a collusion of corporate interests assuming the powers of statehood.
to any other party just as validly by simply substituting "LP" for the other parties name.
No, it doesn't work for the two major parties. They don't have a simplistic statement of principles. Their positions are more complex and realistic, because their activities actually matter in the real world.
Well, the Democratic Party is fundamentally nonsensical. Nowhere on Democrats.org or GOP.com is there a statement of fundamental philosophy which exposes them to such easy ridicule as the LP's site. You can't really attack the two major parties on the strength of their ideals, because they have no strong ideals.
Why not, instead of dressing up name calling in big words to sound intelligent, you just say you think they suck?
They don't suck. I love the LP. I'm a big supporter of their widely-maligned narcotics decriminalization platform, for example. I truely view them as pushing the USA in a good direction, even though it'd be stupid to go as far in that direction as they claim to want. Since they will never, ever get the power to go that far, their long-term desires are irrelevant. Fanatics can be useful.
The overriding fact is that "Libertarian" societies have existed numerous times throughout history, and in each, the people have exercised their individual rights to chose a stronger government. "Libertarian utopias" are doomed to brevity.
If the dems lose enough elections because of spoilers like Nader, maybe they'll eventually back voting reform and we can get a decent system like instant runoff.
Impossible. Even if losing makes them support voting reform, so what? They're LOSERS, and have no power to change anything.
If you have the power to make changes, then the current system is working for you and you won't change it. Or if the system is against you, then you'll want to change it but be unable.
(Notice how Congressional districts have been carefully laid to uphold the status quo)
The 90's were only a brief respite from gross overspending on the military
That's a myth. The Clinton administration didn't cut the Pentagon budget in any significant way.
At best, you could say they resisted the inclination to boost government (incl military) spending when the economic boom gave them an opening to raise taxes. But it'd be backwards to say reduced weapon spending is what boosted the economy.
Slashdot Mirror
The traditional powers/vulnerabilities of vampires and werewolves would create a specific game design challenge: Just what would the day/night cycle be?
Vampires shouldn't be able to go outside in daylight, but an MMORPG won't survive if 50% of the time its subscribers can't log in and walk around.
Possible solutions:
Generally, #3 would be the best choice. If the day-night period is 5-15 minutes long, then it can produce complex tactical effects: a monster which the hunts the vampire PCs in daytime could become an easy victim at night.
The Matrix (set before the movies). You could play a human or an AI.
Uh, you know it's coming out this year, right?.
And it's set after the movies, which doesn't matter, since the events of the films changed NOTHING... (Incidently, the game's timeframe was announced before Matrix Revolutions came out, which was a spoiler)
Lovecraft. "Hey, let's go raid R'Lyeh and gank Cthulhu!"
Better if you play as alien monsters... manifest temporary physical forms on earth to hunt mortals, seeking to devour either flesh or mere sanity. MMORPG players like to be powerful and immortal, and to be outnumbered by slow, weak opponents. So Lovecraft entities would be perfect player classes.
I assumed that the reason Iraq was doing well
But they're not doing well. That's a myth. In truth, the other teams are doing poorly. Football is the world's most popular sport, but none of the good players have been sent to the Olympics. They've got more important tournaments to worry about.
Some newspapers used lines like " a shocking win against the formidable Portugal squad", but that's simply a lie. The Portugese team was weak; everyone knew it.
It is a network of networks, thus it sits between other networks and earns the inter- prefix. Intra- means within one's own logical grouping.
You are attempting to pick words apart to prove what they actually mean. It'd be nice if languages were logical and that approach actually worked, but it doesn't.
"Anti-semitic", for example, doesn't mean "against semites", but "hating Jews", since that's what it was first coined for. "Homophobia" is not "fear of similarity" but of "homosexuals".
First there were networks. Then there was "internet protocol", which could be used to connect networks. Then there was "internet", any set of 2 or more hosts using internet protocol. Only 15 years later was "intranet" coined, to mean a LAN using application protocols popularized on the Internet.
-"insecure" for emotional states of mind
-"non-secure" regarding the nature of the Internet. The Internet cannot be "insecure", since it is not a sentient/organic/thinking thing.
Wrong.
secure : non-secure : insecure
social : asocial : antisocial
1 : 0 : -1
The 2nd word means merely the lack of the first, or inability to guarrantee it, but the 3rd means active antagonism.
I/we answered the landline/land line as "Quarterdeck, USS Flint. Petty Officer Syes Speaking. This is a non-secure line; how may I help you sir, or ma'am?"
By saying non-secure there, you meant "We can't be sure an enemy isn't listening, so keep to safe topics". Using "insecure" would've meant "the enemy, or at least the public, is probably listening, so let's not talk at all".
The Internet is both non-secure and insecure, since we know that hackers are actively hunting it.
There's no substantial difference between insecure and non-secure, but the latter is something of a euphemism.
No, because you don't have an internet connecting your basement intranet (you do own that intranet, and can call it The Intranet if you want, I guess)
You are using the word "intranet" incorrectly. You seem to think it's a synonym for "internet". This is a very popular mistake, and understandably so, because it's useful.
An "internet" first meant any network of systems running IP. Then when ARPANET was casually renamed to "the Internet", the opportunity for confusion arose between "internet" and "Internet" (as demonstrated by the poster to whom you responded). There's no way to capitalize words while speaking, after all. So some people want to use "intranet" in place of lower-case "internet", to be easily distinguished from "Internet".
Correctly, however, an "intranet" means a "non-public network running application protocols popular on The Internet". If the basement LAN uses HTTP and SMTP, then it's an intranet. But if it uses things like SMB/CIFS, nfs/sun-rpc, or X11 (protocols which you would not sanely run on the Internet), then it's not.
Here we go. Ready? Poof:
- The internet is a continuously evolving complex system.
In that sentence, you pointed it out yourself. You said "the internet" and everyone knew that you were actually talking about "the Internet", and not one of the thousands of smaller internets that exist around the planet.Routes change, nodes come on and off line, it never sits still.
Do you also think it's wrong to talk about "the Pacific" as one entity? Currents change, sandbars rise and sink, it never sits still.
That IS pirating, the windows EULA does not allow that.
No. If it were pirating, it would be a violent crime committed on or near the ocean. Obvious, that's not the case.
It isn't even copyright infringement, because you bought one copy, and are not duplicating it more than necessary to run on a single computer. EULAs are not valid! Microsoft wants you to think so, but they're not.
The USA Congress has considered legistlation to make EULAs valid, but it hasn't happened yet.
To favor drug prohibition is to support terrorism
And not only indirectly. The Taliban was a major US ally in the War on Drugs. They totally shut down Afganistan's heroine business, and Bush rewarded them with $43,000,000.
(In contrast with President Clinton, who threatened to arrest anyone who helped the Taliban in any way)
Without the Sono Bono copyright extension, Mickey Mouse would not have entered the public domain
That sentence is incorrect. Words like "Windows" and "Apple" are in the public domain, even though they're also trademarked in some contexts. "Public Domain" is not applicable to trademarks one way or the other.
you'd quickly be in hot water if you created and distributed a "new" Mickey Mouse cartoon, since Disney could rightly argue that you're infrin
It's only trademark infringement if you induce consumer confusion as to the provider of a good. Slapping "Not authorized by or affliated with the Walt Disney Corporation" on top will keep you perfectly protected.
Today unauthorized authors write non-fiction books on TV series like Star Trek or Buffy Vampire Slayer, or software like Oracle and Excel. It's legal for them to use the name of the show/product in their title, as long as purchasers are unconfused as to provenance (and no other copyright infringement is happening, beyond fair use)
But if the new author refuses to sully his title page like that, then you get into unexplored legal territory. Disney could make the same trademark argument you did, but the author could respond that (a) the company is "Disney", not "Mickey Mouse", and (b) interpreting trademarks that way renders the expiration of copyright meaningless, which was not the intent.
Back a few centuries when the concepts of copyright and trademark were first created, individual characters of a fictional work weren't trademarked. Now, Mickey Mouse and Luke Skywalker have changed all that (following the lead, actually, of Raggedy Ann)
I've never heard a discussion of how copyright terms apply to a series of works that are derivatives of each other.
It's pretty simple, and just as you'd predict. The newer works are fully protected, the older ones are not. For obvious practical examples, look at most any Disney movie. The copyright on Hercules expired 3700 years ago, but that has no effect either on Disney's Hercules or Kevin Sorbo.
There is a risk, of course. An artist who intends to only derive from the older PD work may inadvertently have taken in concepts from later versions. That could lead to some nasty lawsuits focusing on subtlties. For example, if the Sonny Bono extension hadn't passed, then Superman would be public domain today. But the original Superman couldn't fly (only "leap tall buildings").
So if the creator of a new Superman story makes him fly, then he's vulnerable... the argument "I decided to add flying to the original version, because it was a sensible change" could work, but it'd enrich both sides' lawyers.
Raising patent costs won't stop garage investors from getting a patent on something worth investing in. Say $1,000 to file for a patent.
Uh, if you actually want that patent granted, it'll take more than $1000, today. The time to get the filing done is worth more than $1000 of labor (and if you don't have and are not an IP lawyer, it'll take longer).
The fees themselves: currently $385 to start and $43 per claim, then $665 when the patent is accepted. Patents can easily have 10+ claims. So we're already a lot over $1000. (All those fees are doubled if you're a corporation and not an individual)
So the fees are already higher than you want... and yet, fees don't really effect how corporate patent-houses work. The biggest part of the cost is your own lawyer-time to prepare the filing, which with IBM-size economy of scale is something individuals can't compete with.
The only way to "fix" patent issuance is to realign the USPTO's motives so that they see themselves as serving the public as a whole, and not employees of patent-applicants.
The Wrights were greedy, monopolistic hacks.
Greedy, but also overoptimistically pacifist. They tried to prevent the transformation of airplanes into killing machines with their patent.
They stood on the shoulders of giants, and then presumed to own all the work of those giants. Utterly reprehensible.
I find the Wright Brothers to be a great example of how patents were often harmful, even 100 years ago. The US government eventually overthrew their patent (by fiat, and without paying them as was legally required) because it was just too obstructive to military aviation progress.
The Wrights also illustrate the fundamental unfairness of "first comes, only served" patenting. 100s of airplane enthusiasts were at work on flying machines on that principle throughout Europe and the US. If the Wright's hadn't been first, someone else would've done it within at most a year or two later. The same pattern occurs with modern inventions.
I mean, of course I can, right? - I just submit it as created by me.
It's even easier than that. There's no formal submission process anymore. You just publish it anyplace (maybe to Google Groups or archive.org), so that in the future you can demonstrate the date you did the song.
So even if you shortened copyright from 100 to 50 years, it would not add much value to consumers.
Not to consumers directly. But Artists would benefit. Characters like Superman and Sam Spade would become free, so that new authors can reinterpret the stories they grew up on.
the value of shortening copyright terms would be minimal.
That's actually a big part of the argument in favor of shortened terms! Because the creators hardly ever earn much profit past 7-15 years, they won't be losing much to shorten copyrights to 30 years or so.
No artist, author, or corporation employing them is considering profits 30 years later when deciding what to work on. It's rare for them to even plan 10 years out. Therefore longer copyright terms are unconstitutional, as they do not provide an incentive to progress.
Back then, Democracy meant exactly what the parent poster said.
No, it did not. He claimed "democracy" meant "a referena on everything", which has obviously never happened.
Note that the Athenian system didn't even meet our modern definition of democracy. It wasn't rule by the people, but rule by the "citizens", who were a tiny minority of the population*. Even they, however, delegated authority to selected "representative" individuals.
Furthermore, "democracy" isn't a Greek word. They had "dimokratia", which is the basis for English's democracy, but is not the same thing.
In those times, the populations were small enough to get a true Democracy to actually work
Capitalizing "Democracy" is incorrect. Interesting that you go to Wikipedia to support your position, which conflicts from the results in any dictionary. Hmm, an unmoderated internet encyclopedia where anyone can post... no chance of a partisan writing articles to boost his own worldview.
The operative word there is " republic", "a country without a king or queen, usually governed by elected representatives of the people and a president"
No, that's not the operative word. Consider Iraq. Two years ago, it was a republic. Today, it is a new democracy (or so George W Bush hopes). Many countries have no King or Queen, but still have despotic tyrants.
Note that when "republic" was written into the US Constitution, the lack of royalty was precisely the meaning it conveyed to the authors, who were reacting against King George.
you really should look those terms up yourself.
I know exactly what they mean. Maybe you're confused and think it's impossible to be a republic and democracy at the same time. It isn't.
USA: republic and democracy
Japan: democracy, not republic
China: republic, not democracy
Saudi Arabia: neither republic nor democracy
Consider which of those nations you'd rather visit in, and then measure whether "democracy" or "republic" is as better predictor.
* That's why Israel is not a democracy... because adults born there can be denied the right to vote based on religion.
the length of the copyright (already sitting up near 75 years due to Sonny Bono's efforts on behalf of the Disney Corporation)
No, it's not "near 75 years". It's more.
Corporate copyrights last 95 years, and individual copyrights are author's life + 70. The average lifespan is 76 years, so assuming works are written in the middle of life, it comes to 38+70 = 108 years.
A 75 year copyright would mean something published as you were born would go public domain just before you die. The current 95 or 108 year terms don't even give us that.
It's not a crime, but it was a lie and a broken promise. At the beginning of his term, Reagan swore to fight deficits:
Of course, we know he didn't listen to his own advice. Hmm, kinda like how George W Bush claimed to be the anti-nation-building candidate, but then launched the largest nation-building quest ever.
I suggest you read up a bit on Keynesian Economics
True, true. Maybe Reagan used Keynesian economics to boost the economy with government principles. But the thing is, Reagan didn't believe in Keynes! He was an anti-Keynesian; a Lafferite. Ronald believed that government spending would harm the economy, but that tax cuts would raise it.
? Kerry's supporters are outnumbered by detractors 23:1
No. Since Kerry has official military documentation and awards on his side, his supporters outnumber detractors by 50,000:1.
The problem is that "democracy" means rule by the people - in other words, you'd have to have referenda on everything. Most folks agree that this would be pretty impractical.
No, democracy does not mean that. You're repeating a fallacy occasionally trotted out by opponents to the Democratic party.
By your definition, Democracy is impossible unless we all get Borg implants to continually vote on thousands of little choices every day. (Or, total anarchy would also fit your criteria)
But "rule by the people" doesn't mean that the people consider every minor issue directly and never delegate authority. Same way "rule by the king" doesn't imply that the king is personally collecting every tax and investigating every crime- he gets people to do those things. In fact, he probably assigns a Prime Minister to run the nation from day to day, even though he is still the ruler.
In the same way, the citizens of the democratic USA assign one man to "preside", while they are still the rulers.
It obtained injunctions to stop the publication of materials critical of it, claiming that it owned the copyright.
Of course, it did own the copyright. The "materials critical" were its own "religious" scriptures. It was unprecedented, because no other religion is young enough to be under copyright. (But now that copyrights are eternal, Scientology will still be protected 1000 years from now)
Those materials were posted in comments on Slashdot, but removed pursuant to Scientologist threats.
The Pentagon budget declined from $319.7 billion in 1991 to a low of $266 billion in 1996 and thats not factoring in inflation.
No. You must be including inflation (or something) on one of those numbers, but not the other. That CBO webpage is a summary, and may have massaged the data in ways you are unaware of. I suggest you follow through to the more detailed report.
The Pentagon budget for 1991 was $273 billion (see page 115). Inflation-adjusted to 2000, that comes to $333 bill. But I suppose if you adjusted according to some other year, it might come out to $319 bill.
The 1996 budget was $265 billion, or $290 in 2000 dollars.
So you can compare $333 to $290, or $273 to $265. But comparing $319 to $266 is simply invalid.
In real life, there is no such thing as an unforced interaction. But that's a subtle argument, and I don't have the time. It's much easier to demonstrate that there is no simple line between harmful and benign actions.
Throwing a napkin = no harm.
Spewing sarin = harm.
Spewing asbestos = ???
Spewing carbon monoxide = ???
Spewing peanut oil = ???
Spewing hydrogen dioxide = no harm
Filling in those "???" is HARD.
In between the two extremes, the courts would have to decide, JUST AS THEY DO NOW.
"Just as they do now?" What they do now is interpret a volume of governmentally-authored law that is vast beyond human comprehension. The Libertarian Party wishes do away with the majority of those laws, so the courts could no longer behave as they do today. If each court individiually decided what level of force was unacceptable, the result would be unfairness, whimsy, and trial-by-popularity.
Of course, the public will only stand up for such quasi-anarchy for so long. They will demand order, and it will be supplied either by a newly-reinvigorated government, or a collusion of corporate interests assuming the powers of statehood.
to any other party just as validly by simply substituting "LP" for the other parties name.
No, it doesn't work for the two major parties. They don't have a simplistic statement of principles. Their positions are more complex and realistic, because their activities actually matter in the real world.
Well, the Democratic Party is fundamentally nonsensical.
Nowhere on Democrats.org or GOP.com is there a statement of fundamental philosophy which exposes them to such easy ridicule as the LP's site. You can't really attack the two major parties on the strength of their ideals, because they have no strong ideals.
Why not, instead of dressing up name calling in big words to sound intelligent, you just say you think they suck?
They don't suck. I love the LP. I'm a big supporter of their widely-maligned narcotics decriminalization platform, for example. I truely view them as pushing the USA in a good direction, even though it'd be stupid to go as far in that direction as they claim to want. Since they will never, ever get the power to go that far, their long-term desires are irrelevant. Fanatics can be useful.
The overriding fact is that "Libertarian" societies have existed numerous times throughout history, and in each, the people have exercised their individual rights to chose a stronger government. "Libertarian utopias" are doomed to brevity.
and his administration wasn't instrumental in creating the largest federal budget deficit ever seen.
Neither was Bush. He's still only achieved 85% of Reagan's deficit.
If the dems lose enough elections because of spoilers like Nader, maybe they'll eventually back voting reform and we can get a decent system like instant runoff.
Impossible. Even if losing makes them support voting reform, so what? They're LOSERS, and have no power to change anything.
If you have the power to make changes, then the current system is working for you and you won't change it. Or if the system is against you, then you'll want to change it but be unable.
(Notice how Congressional districts have been carefully laid to uphold the status quo)
The 90's were only a brief respite from gross overspending on the military
That's a myth. The Clinton administration didn't cut the Pentagon budget in any significant way.
At best, you could say they resisted the inclination to boost government (incl military) spending when the economic boom gave them an opening to raise taxes. But it'd be backwards to say reduced weapon spending is what boosted the economy.