A secondary reason is an unwillingness to sacrifice.
You have to govern the citizens you have, not the ones that exist in some fantasy world where everyone is rational and moral. When people's greed (both banks and individuals) cause the entire system to meltdown, you can't just say "people need to sacrifice!" That's like saying "People shouldn't murder or steal!" Well, that's true, but people DO. That's why we have laws and regulations.
On the contrary, regulation is what keeps capitalism from destroying itself. Crises at the turn of the twentieth century and now, at the turn of the twenty-first, have confirmed this.
You believe that your own personal preferences deserve to be honored without exception, and as such that justifies piracy? Interesting point.
The whole idea of a "market" is that it is an aggregate of people with preferences. These preferences determine who buys what, and so the individual preferences DETERMINE the market. If he was not part of the market for their product, his obtaining a copy cannot have been a lost sale.
This is a critical point, since the companies are pulling numbers about "losses" out of thin air. He's not justifying piracy (necessarily), he's calling into question their legal argument.
WRONG. If another player is playing poorly, he is affecting how the cards come out of the deck. For instance, if another player "hits" on a 20, and takes the Jack that would have (should have) accompanied your Ace, he has most definitely played in a way that affect your odds of winning.
Actually, this helps you on average, since you have slightly more information about the composition of the remaining cards in the deck if your neighbor hits.
Problem is, people don't get riled up that easily nowadays.
"...and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
The Declaration of Independence
The second amendment does not confer any right to overthrow the government by force. In fact, it wouldn't make any sense if a country's law allowed the overthrow of the government by force.
The fundamental right (not constitutional right) to overthrow the government, if it fails to be responsive to the people, is alluded in the Declaration of Independence. I reread it recently. It is interesting how applicable many of the reasons for declaring independence are today, and amazing how eloquently Jefferson stated them.
Corporations may be people in some legal respects, but they sure as hell can't vote. It's people like us who give politicians their jobs, and it's people like us who can just as easily take them away.
Corporations don't need to vote; they have lots and lots of money. And they have JOBS waiting for the politicians when they leave politics. Did I mention money?
The problem is that the political system is rotten. If you can't be supported by a major political party, you can't get elected unless you have lots and lots of money. The political parties are corrupt, so to be supported YOU have to be corrupt.
"But wait, can't we just throw them all out?" Yeah, but the problem with this is that we all want the OTHER party thrown out first. The way the plurality system works, if you vote for a third party candidate, the OTHER party wins. So, whoever starts voting against the two party candidate closest to them in favor of a third party candidate will screw you in the end.
What is needed is a complete change in the way politicians are elected and serve. THAT won't happen because the POLITICIANS have to do it. They like the system the way it is, because it makes them wealthy and connected.
No competent climate scientist would claim that their model is perfect. I don't "place my trust" in "high priests" of climate models. Being a scientist, I know that science gets it wrong sometimes. But it is my experience that the people ACTUALLY WORKING in a field are MOST aware of it's limitations. People snarking from the outside, who often only know what they read on some blog, are annoying. Why? Because they seem to not understand that science is a cumulative process. They criticize research for the sole reason that they disagree with its result. Well, I say if you you have to criticize research with research. If you have a problem with climate modeling, do it better.
You have to crawl before you can walk. The "ZOMG TEH CLIMATE MODELS ARE INCOMPLETE" people are often people who can't crawl yet, criticizing those who can crawl because they can't walk. Well, guess what: it just makes you look ignorant.
You mean, like missing entire undersea currents bigger than the Gulf Stream?
How the hell can you model a climate accurately when things that huge are entirely left out?
Excellent question, how do you do it? Oh, you don't. What are the implications of missing the undersea currents? You don't know? I didn't think so. Let the scientists do the science, and you can get back to whatever it was you were doing.
Who ever said philosophy precluded observation? Obviously not the scientists in the recent past, or else they wouldn't have called science "natural philosophy." That was my point. It is only recently that this science vs philosophy mindset kicked in, and I don't understand the origin of it.
I guess when you define philosophy in such a way that it cannot include observation, you make your point correct by definition. Is that really a historically aware, useful definition of philosophy? I don't think so, and neither did scientists in the past; that was the point I was trying to make.
Until very recently, science was called natural philosophy.
And now it's not.
You missed the point. I wasn't making the claim that just because it was called "natural philosophy" that means science is philosophy. My point was that you should think about the REASONS why it was called natural philosophy. Who cares what we call it now?
Observation is not the core of any science. Although observation is important, it is not a sufficient condition for science. To understand science, you have to understand how theories are built and defended. We don't OBSERVE the laws of motion. We don't observe natural selection. We don't observe relativity. These are theories to explain observations. How we go from observation to real, meaty scientific knowledge is where the real interesting part is, and that requires philosophy. You can't just take it for granted because it "works" (after all, that would be circular, wouldn't it?)
I hate to be so blunt, but you don't know what you are talking about. Until very recently, science was called natural philosophy. All the sciences have their origins in philosophy, and anyone who ignores this does so at their own peril (and shows their ignorance of both science and philosophy).
I say peril because it is easy to take empirical science for granted. Empiricism is an epistemological position that must be defended, and to ignore the fact that science is a branch of philosophy is to forget how fundamental epistemological assumptions are to science.
Knowledge in science doesn't just happen. You don't observe theories or laws, and even observation itself is tricky. To say that science is about observation is to be way too glib about science. Science is much, much more complicated than that, and deserves much more respect and reflection than you give it.
You see, most philosophers understand that. Many scientists don't. Even fewer nonscientists understand it.
I don't say any of this to belittle science; I am a scientist. I say it because science is much more complicated than "observation," and seeing it as a proper branch of philosophy recognizes that.
All wonderful jokes, but Xmas (in my mind at least) is the consumerism day, while Christmas represents the true, original spirit of the holiday, before corporations got their grubby little paws on everything.
The X stands for chi, the Greek letter and first letter in the Greek word Christ. Xmas is simply an abbreviation for Christmas.
Why do people always cry 'racist' when people criticize Islam/Muslims. Belief systems are not "races".
Read what I wrote again. I was making a general statement (not JUST about the Muslims) and I said "at worst" it is racism. I didn't call this particular instance racist. The same lazy thinking underlies both, though.
Secondly, if a small community knew of the actions of a serial child rapist and did nothing to stop or punish the perpetrator, and in fact attempted to hide the crimes, would you not decry the actions of the _community_?
Certainly individuals who were in the community, but were ignorant of the crimes are blameless, but those who knew of the crimes and did nothing deserve some criticism. In short, I'm judging the other members of the community by their lack of action to repudiate the actions of the extremists, who at least _claim_ to be members of their community.
So you seriously want to make a comparison between a religion with almost a billion adherents and a huge range of ideas and cultures, and a "community" (whatever you mean by that) in which a serial rape happens? Really? The world is much more complex than you think it is.
The moderate Muslim that, say, works in the next office from me shares no more responsibility for extremists actions than you or I do. He happens to share a particular theological belief with some people who are murderers. So? How is asking for respect for his religion giving "cover" for extremists?
By the way, just so this is clear, Osama bin Ladin believes in collective responsibility, too, for what he perceives as US crimes against Islam. That's one of the reasons why kills Americans in the first place.
...they [religious people] need to police their own.
Civilized people have long since thrown out the idea of "collective" responsibility for crimes. If an extremist commits a crime, the extremist is fault. It is then the responsibility of the state do something about it, not fellow adherents of the religion. In fact, in many cases moderates are VICTIMS of the extremism, either directly or indirectly.
You should not judge a person on the basis of OTHER peoples' actions. At best it is lazy thinking; at worst it is racist stereotyping.
There is a good reason why the broadband companies are opposed this. It will bankrupt them. Once everybody had free internet, the only people wh will want it to be faster are the torrenters...
...and anyone who wants to stream decent quality video, and anyone who wants unfiltered access, and anyone who wants to use decent quality VOIP applications, and anyone who wants to game with decent latencies, and anyone who wants good USENET access (yeah, all three of them)...
The point is that there are many reasons why you would want to pay for extra bandwidth. The point of the service is to offer basic service. There's no reason for it to grow beyond that. If you think it necessarily MUST grow beyond that, I have to ask why aren't food stamp programs paying for EVERYONE'S food now?
The visual cortex is one of the more understood areas of the brain, and decoding V1/V2 is low-hanging fruit.
While this is true, the techniques used in the article don't make it necessary to "know" very much how to decode the activity in a region. You just have to find the bases that you are going to use to deconvolve the activation pattern, and that is considerably easier than the years of single cell recording work, etc, that have gone into understanding the V1 and V2.
Slashdot Mirror
No, electrons are reliable. They'll do what you tell them to do.
I, for one, am never sure quite what my electrons are doing. After that Heisenberg guy, they've been a bit flaky...
A secondary reason is an unwillingness to sacrifice.
You have to govern the citizens you have, not the ones that exist in some fantasy world where everyone is rational and moral. When people's greed (both banks and individuals) cause the entire system to meltdown, you can't just say "people need to sacrifice!" That's like saying "People shouldn't murder or steal!" Well, that's true, but people DO. That's why we have laws and regulations.
On the contrary, regulation is what keeps capitalism from destroying itself. Crises at the turn of the twentieth century and now, at the turn of the twenty-first, have confirmed this.
Whoever modded the parent "informative" must have missed that "whoosh" sound...:)
I reread the summary, and I've seen the news...I don't see what the White House emails have to do with the stimulus bill. Unless this is Fark.
Did I miss something? How is this post on topic?
You believe that your own personal preferences deserve to be honored without exception, and as such that justifies piracy? Interesting point.
The whole idea of a "market" is that it is an aggregate of people with preferences. These preferences determine who buys what, and so the individual preferences DETERMINE the market. If he was not part of the market for their product, his obtaining a copy cannot have been a lost sale.
This is a critical point, since the companies are pulling numbers about "losses" out of thin air. He's not justifying piracy (necessarily), he's calling into question their legal argument.
WRONG. If another player is playing poorly, he is affecting how the cards come out of the deck. For instance, if another player "hits" on a 20, and takes the Jack that would have (should have) accompanied your Ace, he has most definitely played in a way that affect your odds of winning.
Actually, this helps you on average, since you have slightly more information about the composition of the remaining cards in the deck if your neighbor hits.
They should sell drinks and people can test out their great software like Songsmith! It would be the most popular store in the mall.
yeah, it's so silly to want to change things! The founders of the US were just playing silly games when they created what would be the United States.
Problem is, people don't get riled up that easily nowadays.
"...and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
The Declaration of Independence
That's been the problem forever, it seems.
The second amendment does not confer any right to overthrow the government by force. In fact, it wouldn't make any sense if a country's law allowed the overthrow of the government by force.
The fundamental right (not constitutional right) to overthrow the government, if it fails to be responsive to the people, is alluded in the Declaration of Independence. I reread it recently. It is interesting how applicable many of the reasons for declaring independence are today, and amazing how eloquently Jefferson stated them.
Corporations may be people in some legal respects, but they sure as hell can't vote. It's people like us who give politicians their jobs, and it's people like us who can just as easily take them away.
Corporations don't need to vote; they have lots and lots of money. And they have JOBS waiting for the politicians when they leave politics. Did I mention money?
The problem is that the political system is rotten. If you can't be supported by a major political party, you can't get elected unless you have lots and lots of money. The political parties are corrupt, so to be supported YOU have to be corrupt.
"But wait, can't we just throw them all out?" Yeah, but the problem with this is that we all want the OTHER party thrown out first. The way the plurality system works, if you vote for a third party candidate, the OTHER party wins. So, whoever starts voting against the two party candidate closest to them in favor of a third party candidate will screw you in the end.
What is needed is a complete change in the way politicians are elected and serve. THAT won't happen because the POLITICIANS have to do it. They like the system the way it is, because it makes them wealthy and connected.
In short, we are doomed.
No competent climate scientist would claim that their model is perfect. I don't "place my trust" in "high priests" of climate models. Being a scientist, I know that science gets it wrong sometimes. But it is my experience that the people ACTUALLY WORKING in a field are MOST aware of it's limitations. People snarking from the outside, who often only know what they read on some blog, are annoying. Why? Because they seem to not understand that science is a cumulative process. They criticize research for the sole reason that they disagree with its result. Well, I say if you you have to criticize research with research. If you have a problem with climate modeling, do it better.
You have to crawl before you can walk. The "ZOMG TEH CLIMATE MODELS ARE INCOMPLETE" people are often people who can't crawl yet, criticizing those who can crawl because they can't walk. Well, guess what: it just makes you look ignorant.
You mean, like missing entire undersea currents bigger than the Gulf Stream?
How the hell can you model a climate accurately when things that huge are entirely left out?
Excellent question, how do you do it? Oh, you don't. What are the implications of missing the undersea currents? You don't know? I didn't think so. Let the scientists do the science, and you can get back to whatever it was you were doing.
Who ever said philosophy precluded observation? Obviously not the scientists in the recent past, or else they wouldn't have called science "natural philosophy." That was my point. It is only recently that this science vs philosophy mindset kicked in, and I don't understand the origin of it.
I guess when you define philosophy in such a way that it cannot include observation, you make your point correct by definition. Is that really a historically aware, useful definition of philosophy? I don't think so, and neither did scientists in the past; that was the point I was trying to make.
Good, I'm glad we agree :) I knew everyone except that other guy was on my side.
Until very recently, science was called natural philosophy.
And now it's not.
You missed the point. I wasn't making the claim that just because it was called "natural philosophy" that means science is philosophy. My point was that you should think about the REASONS why it was called natural philosophy. Who cares what we call it now?
Observation is not the core of any science. Although observation is important, it is not a sufficient condition for science. To understand science, you have to understand how theories are built and defended. We don't OBSERVE the laws of motion. We don't observe natural selection. We don't observe relativity. These are theories to explain observations. How we go from observation to real, meaty scientific knowledge is where the real interesting part is, and that requires philosophy. You can't just take it for granted because it "works" (after all, that would be circular, wouldn't it?)
Physics is a subset of philosophy.
No, it's really not.
I hate to be so blunt, but you don't know what you are talking about. Until very recently, science was called natural philosophy. All the sciences have their origins in philosophy, and anyone who ignores this does so at their own peril (and shows their ignorance of both science and philosophy).
I say peril because it is easy to take empirical science for granted. Empiricism is an epistemological position that must be defended, and to ignore the fact that science is a branch of philosophy is to forget how fundamental epistemological assumptions are to science.
Knowledge in science doesn't just happen. You don't observe theories or laws, and even observation itself is tricky. To say that science is about observation is to be way too glib about science. Science is much, much more complicated than that, and deserves much more respect and reflection than you give it.
You see, most philosophers understand that. Many scientists don't. Even fewer nonscientists understand it.
I don't say any of this to belittle science; I am a scientist. I say it because science is much more complicated than "observation," and seeing it as a proper branch of philosophy recognizes that.
See the commentary here: Anonymous Liberal, here talkleft and here: Glenn Greenwald (see update II).
All wonderful jokes, but Xmas (in my mind at least) is the consumerism day, while Christmas represents the true, original spirit of the holiday, before corporations got their grubby little paws on everything.
The X stands for chi, the Greek letter and first letter in the Greek word Christ. Xmas is simply an abbreviation for Christmas.
Why do people always cry 'racist' when people criticize Islam/Muslims. Belief systems are not "races".
Read what I wrote again. I was making a general statement (not JUST about the Muslims) and I said "at worst" it is racism. I didn't call this particular instance racist. The same lazy thinking underlies both, though.
Secondly, if a small community knew of the actions of a serial child rapist and did nothing to stop or punish the perpetrator, and in fact attempted to hide the crimes, would you not decry the actions of the _community_?
Certainly individuals who were in the community, but were ignorant of the crimes are blameless, but those who knew of the crimes and did nothing deserve some criticism. In short, I'm judging the other members of the community by their lack of action to repudiate the actions of the extremists, who at least _claim_ to be members of their community.
So you seriously want to make a comparison between a religion with almost a billion adherents and a huge range of ideas and cultures, and a "community" (whatever you mean by that) in which a serial rape happens? Really? The world is much more complex than you think it is.
The moderate Muslim that, say, works in the next office from me shares no more responsibility for extremists actions than you or I do. He happens to share a particular theological belief with some people who are murderers. So? How is asking for respect for his religion giving "cover" for extremists?
By the way, just so this is clear, Osama bin Ladin believes in collective responsibility, too, for what he perceives as US crimes against Islam. That's one of the reasons why kills Americans in the first place.
Civilized people have long since thrown out the idea of "collective" responsibility for crimes. If an extremist commits a crime, the extremist is fault. It is then the responsibility of the state do something about it, not fellow adherents of the religion. In fact, in many cases moderates are VICTIMS of the extremism, either directly or indirectly.
You should not judge a person on the basis of OTHER peoples' actions. At best it is lazy thinking; at worst it is racist stereotyping.
There is a good reason why the broadband companies are opposed this. It will bankrupt them. Once everybody had free internet, the only people wh will want it to be faster are the torrenters...
...and anyone who wants to stream decent quality video, and anyone who wants unfiltered access, and anyone who wants to use decent quality VOIP applications, and anyone who wants to game with decent latencies, and anyone who wants good USENET access (yeah, all three of them)...
The point is that there are many reasons why you would want to pay for extra bandwidth. The point of the service is to offer basic service. There's no reason for it to grow beyond that. If you think it necessarily MUST grow beyond that, I have to ask why aren't food stamp programs paying for EVERYONE'S food now?
The visual cortex is one of the more understood areas of the brain, and decoding V1/V2 is low-hanging fruit.
While this is true, the techniques used in the article don't make it necessary to "know" very much how to decode the activity in a region. You just have to find the bases that you are going to use to deconvolve the activation pattern, and that is considerably easier than the years of single cell recording work, etc, that have gone into understanding the V1 and V2.