I'm not sure that the US and UK systems need any fixing. Yes, politics is an odd spectator sport, but the citizens of the U.S., numbering over a quarter million, enjoy a spectacular amount of freedom, wealth, creativity, and economic dynamism -- look around you and observe how much of what you use on a day to day basis was brought cheaply to the masses by Americans (or by creative and ambitious people who flock to its shores) -- cars, computers, the internet, domestic refrigeration, etc.,... Obviously we all benefit tremendously from this behemoth of a country that so many of us like to consider a "failure" for its people. It's strange but Americans, by and large, don't seem to care about these "failures" as much as outsiders do.
America is ruled by the Madisonian system of government, which rests on the premise that no government elected by the people shall exercise any significant degree of rule over the freedoms of its citizens. Notwithstanding any violations dug up by the millions of reporters teeming within the walls of politics, it really doesn't matter who's in "power" there, so long as the foundation of the system -- freedom -- is inviolable. Yes government is corrupt, but it's corrupt everywhere. What Americans seem to get, though, is that the best way to combat corruption is to limit government power, not "optimise" its selection process. Pluralities with too much power are exactly as dangerous as majorities and dictators. It doesn't matter how they got there, so long as their only purpose is to stay in.
Perhaps it's fitting to remind everyone that the record industry pays its artists so little precisely because they suck so much. The pop industry is a lottery, and anyone could be the next Britney Spears -- it stands to reason that such a lucky party would be willing to accept pretty much any contract at whatever terms are offered.
The risk is on the industry side, in that their investment might not pay off at all, i.e., the 'artist' might suck so much that even luck and over-investment won't make them popular. But in the end, both parties agreed beforehand what they will be entitled to; and without such 'unfavourable' terms, all those crappy artists wouldn't even have a shot at luck, so they can count their lucky stars that some greedy RI execs want to gamble on their incompetence. I'd take the money any day of the week -- and most of all because I can't sing!
And.. we Poles and Brits were fighting alongside eachother in Europe, the US was financing the whole affair, which their massive economy absorbed without a hiccup.
I have nothing but admiration for the incredible growth of the U.S. economy during, after and especially before the war. America reinvents itself every couple of decades, and each subsequent re-invention is followed by an economic boom. I don't see the deficit as a reason for them to worry.. just yet.:)
The UK is hardly and example of Europe. Take a look at the rock solid unemployment and stagnation in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain... I'm not going to include eastern europe just yet -- because i'm east european, and I don't think Europe deserves the growth figures that might be mis-attributed to contries they don't represent.
I agree with you that Europe did incredibly well after the war, but the good decisions of the UK, Ireland, and especially Whales are to serve as no example of the current state of affairs of continental Europe's rush toward the overregulated economies they are today. I only hope the UK keeps up the good work, and refuses to subsidise the continental make-work culture.
There is a very large reason that the U$ is the standard, and why it will likely be very relevant for a long time: Americans love to spend their dollars. Europe's and Japan's fledgling economies are such mostly because they save too much. Money is of no use to foreigners if it sits in a bank. Hence OPEC probably has less to gain from using the Euro and any decision to switch would be purely based on currency stability with a heavy bias toward keeping the greenback. America has been exporting dollars for a very long time to no great harm
Think about it this way: it pays more to fix ones currency to that of a great customer than a scrooge who'll never send any of it your way. Chinese labour needs to remain cheap to americans if it is to benefit from their exuberance. That's why the recent 'revaluation' of the yuan resulted in only a 2% increase in value against the dollar. If the Chinese were really serious about revaluation (and not just appeasing american protectionists) then we would have seen a much larger change.
I agree that the dollar will slide, but I wouldn't hold my breath on OPEC moving to something else; nor would I recommend people convert their dollars to yuan.
My father works for an avionics contractor that supplies the American (and Chinese) armies. Most components are assembled from very raw parts, i.e., plastics, wafers, etc. American defense electronics are generally manufactured locally, using parts that can be gotten from many places including, but not limited to, Canada and the Americas.
It would be a very unwise decision to fax over schematics for electronics countermeasures to some Chinese firm, and probably violate a whack of laws enacted to prevent such things from leaving the country. Hence, it would be tough for any Chinese firms to manufacture anything other than ICs -- if that.
Not where I'm from, but point much taken. However, the DMCA is not MS's policy statment and I doubt they'd sue if you changed your own copy, and even then sold it to someone else.
Like I said, two clusters, both solid. I can't complain about MS software; and since business ethics are an issue in the discussion then I thought it worthwhile to mention the overall ethics of the founder and, arguably, head.
On a balance between finding a cure/vaccine for AIDS and damaging competitiveness in the browser/OS market, I have to say I'm leaning toward the former. Same goes for societal development/child labour reduction in India, and mispractises in the Media Player market.
Good code, great cause, impecable business strategy, unfriendliness to competitors: three out of four 'aint bad.
And I don't care to change the functionality of windows. Works just great under every application I've stressed it with.
Ah, the ME example yet again. I have to say, since I run both Fedora and W2k3 clusters at my lab, that both OSes are solid. Never had a w2k3 crash, while Linux nodes pop off like popcorn; bad config I guess.
Let's face it, neiter software licensing concept is perfect, but one provides Gates with a LOT of cash, and the AIDS community with $700 million and India with $300 million in development aid. When was the last time the Linux community got together and made a charitable donation? I can't bash Gates, he's vowed to spend his ENTIRE fortune on charity before he and his wife die; can't get more good natured than that.
If Windows and protectionist practises is what it takes to raise $40 billion for good and useful causes then I say: "SO BE IT. Let's all buy Windows."
Although you are free to make whatever changes you want to your house (permits notwithstanding), the architect will not provide you with a blueprint, nor will the builder. Likewise, make all the changes to Windows that you want; but you'd better decompile it first and draw up the source yourself.
I don't quite disagree with their practises in this regard. If I made a movie, I wouldn't provide raw footage for theatregoers to play with at home.
..mostly because spending 87 billion in iraq has very little to do with power sources. Althouhg Iraq has the second largest untapped reserves, they are just that, untapped. It will take decades for production in iraq to reach levels where it will become an oil power -- or even influence oil prices in a large way. Saudi Arabia currently holds that title, and the U.S. already has a sweet deal with them ($1 off every barrel).
Most of the justification for the large expense of reconstruction has to do with a large chunk of that money coming right back to the US. A vast majority of the initial sum went to foreign, mostly dutch and french, subsidiaries of companies like Haliburton (feeding and housing the army). This demands a second spending spree to compensate the jurisdictions whose votes allowed such a large sum of money to leave in the first place.
Every endeavour requires a bankroll, and money doesn't come freely.
Getting back to the point. A $20 billion expense on an orbiting power plant (that probably would only be used to test the efficiency of solar panels in space for the first 20 years), would benefit a very small number contractors. Something not too many states would be willing to pay for. And few members of government are ex-execs of aerospace firms -- a la haliburton and the entire republican staff -- so butt kissing isn't even a possible motive for spending the money.
On the other hand, Democrats would never support such an expense because the money would inevitably land in the hands of non-unionised, non-governmental organisations.
So without benefiting the godfathers of either party, it's not a likely bill to ever be passed.
the problem is not that it is more convenient to download music from p2p. it's that it's cheaper.:) let's face it, no matter what sales model is going to be invented, it will never sound more appealing than free music.
truth is that the record industry HAS lost 30% of sales because of this, and the law actually does say it's stealing -- just like stealing cars. the issue of copyright infringement has been debated for a very long time, and has been settled.
in the case of this search database, they're just trying to make the best of a very horrible drop in sales, caused entirely by theft.
there is no debate over whether downloading music without paying for it is illegal; it IS. the question is how far can the industry go to prevent such theft --- and here is where the debate really begins.
i predict that the RIAA will be entirely successful in scaring off the average parent of the average 12 year old. and hopefully that will bring enough of the profit back into recordmaking to allow the rest of us (poor students) to go on what we've been doing since the inception of the internet.
ummm.. small error. given an infinate number of possibilities EXCLUDING the one you are looking for, yes, you will end up with everything but... i could equivalently say that i want every number from one approaching infinity excluding the number two. surprisingly enough, 2 won't come up -- but that's just a silly idea in the first place.
the idea is actually of an infinite set of random items. and in the context of the universe, the earth is not really that unlikely.
good paper. i'm just a measly undegrad -- don't quite yet know what i'm talking about.
but i had a hoot reading this one: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cutting/grav.h tm
even better than the matter expansion hypothesis
i guess the point i was making is that we have great reason to believe the current hypothesis to be true. this indirect evidence of dark matter suggests we have yet to find something, and given such a strong theory, it wouldn't make any sense to conclude that what we can't see isn't there. it's much more likely that the former is true -- given the downright sexiness of the current theory.
orthodoxy is not such a bad thing when it is founded in a hundred years of substantial evidence and, thus far, unarguable theories. the only aspects of our current theory of gravitation that have ever been disputed (and rightfully so) have been lemmas added in the end to reconcile them in the minds of their astonished creators.
we do not conclude that a theory is false by the argument that a lack of observation has failed to confirm it. but rather wait for an observation that disproves it with the utmost confidence.
is it likely that there is a vast quantity of dark matter resposible for the effects that we are seeing? absolutely -- our, up until now, undisputed theory suggests it, and it has served us well in so many ways that we have no reason to doubt it. is also possible that we may not be able to observe this matter due to the noise and insensitivity of our apparati? we would be naive to believe otherwise.
so given an overwhelming amount of indirect evidence for it's existance, and its complete compatibiliy with our current theory, do we believe that dark matter actually exists? you bet. especially since past predictions of other invisible matter -- neutrinos, etc. -- have proven themselves through observation. just imagine the slashdot discussion about antimatter had it been around when that was first suggested! can you imagine? what quacks! and yet... it all proved true in the end.
prof hawking has strayed somewhat into the science of speculation.
for some funny reading check out the website devoted to the non-existance of gravitation. they speculate that everything is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, so that's why we 'fall' toward the earth, and experience a push when we stand on it. pretty hilarious. if someone has the link...
absolutely impossible. if large scale gravitation was subject to a different set of laws, we would have noticed this a very long time ago. there would most certainly be manifestations of this on a smaller scale -- especially if the final result by omission of these effects was 90% off!
i urge everyone to read "Why I Am Agnostic" [http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert _ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.html], an essay, or book, by Robert Green Ingersoll, from a long time ago. A very good read. Touches on the reasons why faith first appeared.
we do not prosecute guilty people. we prosecute innocent people to convince a jury (or judge) that they are guilty.
I think we're a little too ungrateful. we have a healthcare system that we tout all over. but we take for granted that our military needs a lift on american ships everywhere they go, and if anything happens, we rely on the us military to help. such as, say, a jet needing to be intercepted over the yukon in the 70s, and us not having a SINGLE fighter in the region to do the job. the money we 'borrow' in this way is spent on our healthcare, and our social programs. we do take a lot, and give very very little. our military is the laughing stock of the world, and we have only our reliance on the americans to thank for it.
i think you should have a child, and then decide what you think of all this. exposing kids to things that are shocking in that way doesn't prepare them for life, it gives them nightmares, and exposes them to problems that not even I choose to deal with. If i don't want to see bondage, i don't see bondage, I have the experience to know that clicking ahead will probably lead to a spot I don't like, A four or five year old won't even blink before he gets there, the images will burn into his brain. Kids shouldn't worry about this stuff, just as they shouldn't worry about where their food comes from.
again, and i'm repeating someone else, this is not for teenagers, or even 11 year olds. there isn't a chance that you can grow up using the internet and not know what sex is by the time you're 18 -- in fact i'm sure most know what the latest trend in pedofilia is.
I just don't want my five year old knowing about that stuff. Or having nightmares trying to fit it all in with christmas and chocolate cake.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure that the US and UK systems need any fixing. Yes, politics is an odd spectator sport, but the citizens of the U.S., numbering over a quarter million, enjoy a spectacular amount of freedom, wealth, creativity, and economic dynamism -- look around you and observe how much of what you use on a day to day basis was brought cheaply to the masses by Americans (or by creative and ambitious people who flock to its shores) -- cars, computers, the internet, domestic refrigeration, etc.,... Obviously we all benefit tremendously from this behemoth of a country that so many of us like to consider a "failure" for its people. It's strange but Americans, by and large, don't seem to care about these "failures" as much as outsiders do.
America is ruled by the Madisonian system of government, which rests on the premise that no government elected by the people shall exercise any significant degree of rule over the freedoms of its citizens. Notwithstanding any violations dug up by the millions of reporters teeming within the walls of politics, it really doesn't matter who's in "power" there, so long as the foundation of the system -- freedom -- is inviolable. Yes government is corrupt, but it's corrupt everywhere. What Americans seem to get, though, is that the best way to combat corruption is to limit government power, not "optimise" its selection process. Pluralities with too much power are exactly as dangerous as majorities and dictators. It doesn't matter how they got there, so long as their only purpose is to stay in.
Perhaps it's fitting to remind everyone that the record industry pays its artists so little precisely because they suck so much. The pop industry is a lottery, and anyone could be the next Britney Spears -- it stands to reason that such a lucky party would be willing to accept pretty much any contract at whatever terms are offered.
The risk is on the industry side, in that their investment might not pay off at all, i.e., the 'artist' might suck so much that even luck and over-investment won't make them popular. But in the end, both parties agreed beforehand what they will be entitled to; and without such 'unfavourable' terms, all those crappy artists wouldn't even have a shot at luck, so they can count their lucky stars that some greedy RI execs want to gamble on their incompetence. I'd take the money any day of the week -- and most of all because I can't sing!
And.. we Poles and Brits were fighting alongside eachother in Europe, the US was financing the whole affair, which their massive economy absorbed without a hiccup.
:)
I have nothing but admiration for the incredible growth of the U.S. economy during, after and especially before the war. America reinvents itself every couple of decades, and each subsequent re-invention is followed by an economic boom. I don't see the deficit as a reason for them to worry.. just yet.
Well aren't we wearing rose tinted glasses...
The UK is hardly and example of Europe. Take a look at the rock solid unemployment and stagnation in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain... I'm not going to include eastern europe just yet -- because i'm east european, and I don't think Europe deserves the growth figures that might be mis-attributed to contries they don't represent.
I agree with you that Europe did incredibly well after the war, but the good decisions of the UK, Ireland, and especially Whales are to serve as no example of the current state of affairs of continental Europe's rush toward the overregulated economies they are today. I only hope the UK keeps up the good work, and refuses to subsidise the continental make-work culture.
And Japan.. ummm.. try here.
Yes, Japan is an example to the East, but the inflation of the Yen and decade long recession is nothing to be envied in terms of policy.
The U.S. current account deficit will pass as the East develops, but I don't think the Euro will long, if ever, serve as a benchmark currency.
The Pound, however, would make a good candidate.
There is a very large reason that the U$ is the standard, and why it will likely be very relevant for a long time: Americans love to spend their dollars. Europe's and Japan's fledgling economies are such mostly because they save too much. Money is of no use to foreigners if it sits in a bank. Hence OPEC probably has less to gain from using the Euro and any decision to switch would be purely based on currency stability with a heavy bias toward keeping the greenback. America has been exporting dollars for a very long time to no great harm
Think about it this way: it pays more to fix ones currency to that of a great customer than a scrooge who'll never send any of it your way. Chinese labour needs to remain cheap to americans if it is to benefit from their exuberance. That's why the recent 'revaluation' of the yuan resulted in only a 2% increase in value against the dollar. If the Chinese were really serious about revaluation (and not just appeasing american protectionists) then we would have seen a much larger change.
I agree that the dollar will slide, but I wouldn't hold my breath on OPEC moving to something else; nor would I recommend people convert their dollars to yuan.
My father works for an avionics contractor that supplies the American (and Chinese) armies. Most components are assembled from very raw parts, i.e., plastics, wafers, etc. American defense electronics are generally manufactured locally, using parts that can be gotten from many places including, but not limited to, Canada and the Americas.
It would be a very unwise decision to fax over schematics for electronics countermeasures to some Chinese firm, and probably violate a whack of laws enacted to prevent such things from leaving the country. Hence, it would be tough for any Chinese firms to manufacture anything other than ICs -- if that.
Not where I'm from, but point much taken. However, the DMCA is not MS's policy statment and I doubt they'd sue if you changed your own copy, and even then sold it to someone else.
Like I said, two clusters, both solid. I can't complain about MS software; and since business ethics are an issue in the discussion then I thought it worthwhile to mention the overall ethics of the founder and, arguably, head.
On a balance between finding a cure/vaccine for AIDS and damaging competitiveness in the browser/OS market, I have to say I'm leaning toward the former. Same goes for societal development/child labour reduction in India, and mispractises in the Media Player market.
Good code, great cause, impecable business strategy, unfriendliness to competitors: three out of four 'aint bad.
And I don't care to change the functionality of windows. Works just great under every application I've stressed it with.
Ah, the ME example yet again. I have to say, since I run both Fedora and W2k3 clusters at my lab, that both OSes are solid. Never had a w2k3 crash, while Linux nodes pop off like popcorn; bad config I guess.
Let's face it, neiter software licensing concept is perfect, but one provides Gates with a LOT of cash, and the AIDS community with $700 million and India with $300 million in development aid. When was the last time the Linux community got together and made a charitable donation? I can't bash Gates, he's vowed to spend his ENTIRE fortune on charity before he and his wife die; can't get more good natured than that.
If Windows and protectionist practises is what it takes to raise $40 billion for good and useful causes then I say: "SO BE IT. Let's all buy Windows."
Not quite accurate with your assessment:
Although you are free to make whatever changes you want to your house (permits notwithstanding), the architect will not provide you with a blueprint, nor will the builder. Likewise, make all the changes to Windows that you want; but you'd better decompile it first and draw up the source yourself.
I don't quite disagree with their practises in this regard. If I made a movie, I wouldn't provide raw footage for theatregoers to play with at home.
That just made my day,
Thank you.
..mostly because spending 87 billion in iraq has very little to do with power sources. Althouhg Iraq has the second largest untapped reserves, they are just that, untapped. It will take decades for production in iraq to reach levels where it will become an oil power -- or even influence oil prices in a large way. Saudi Arabia currently holds that title, and the U.S. already has a sweet deal with them ($1 off every barrel).
Most of the justification for the large expense of reconstruction has to do with a large chunk of that money coming right back to the US. A vast majority of the initial sum went to foreign, mostly dutch and french, subsidiaries of companies like Haliburton (feeding and housing the army). This demands a second spending spree to compensate the jurisdictions whose votes allowed such a large sum of money to leave in the first place.
Every endeavour requires a bankroll, and money doesn't come freely.
Getting back to the point. A $20 billion expense on an orbiting power plant (that probably would only be used to test the efficiency of solar panels in space for the first 20 years), would benefit a very small number contractors. Something not too many states would be willing to pay for. And few members of government are ex-execs of aerospace firms -- a la haliburton and the entire republican staff -- so butt kissing isn't even a possible motive for spending the money.
On the other hand, Democrats would never support such an expense because the money would inevitably land in the hands of non-unionised, non-governmental organisations.
So without benefiting the godfathers of either party, it's not a likely bill to ever be passed.
i'm not sure what it is down the the states, but up here in canada it's a federal law.
. htm
try this page for a start:
http://stu.wccnet.org/~hn104/inp220/cases
the problem is not that it is more convenient to download music from p2p. it's that it's cheaper. :) let's face it, no matter what sales model is going to be invented, it will never sound more appealing than free music.
truth is that the record industry HAS lost 30% of sales because of this, and the law actually does say it's stealing -- just like stealing cars. the issue of copyright infringement has been debated for a very long time, and has been settled.
in the case of this search database, they're just trying to make the best of a very horrible drop in sales, caused entirely by theft.
there is no debate over whether downloading music without paying for it is illegal; it IS. the question is how far can the industry go to prevent such theft --- and here is where the debate really begins.
i predict that the RIAA will be entirely successful in scaring off the average parent of the average 12 year old. and hopefully that will bring enough of the profit back into recordmaking to allow the rest of us (poor students) to go on what we've been doing since the inception of the internet.
ummm.. small error. given an infinate number of possibilities EXCLUDING the one you are looking for, yes, you will end up with everything but... i could equivalently say that i want every number from one approaching infinity excluding the number two. surprisingly enough, 2 won't come up -- but that's just a silly idea in the first place.
the idea is actually of an infinite set of random items. and in the context of the universe, the earth is not really that unlikely.
good paper. i'm just a measly undegrad -- don't quite yet know what i'm talking about.
h tm
but i had a hoot reading this one:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cutting/grav.
even better than the matter expansion hypothesis
i guess the point i was making is that we have great reason to believe the current hypothesis to be true. this indirect evidence of dark matter suggests we have yet to find something, and given such a strong theory, it wouldn't make any sense to conclude that what we can't see isn't there. it's much more likely that the former is true -- given the downright sexiness of the current theory.
orthodoxy is not such a bad thing when it is founded in a hundred years of substantial evidence and, thus far, unarguable theories. the only aspects of our current theory of gravitation that have ever been disputed (and rightfully so) have been lemmas added in the end to reconcile them in the minds of their astonished creators.
we do not conclude that a theory is false by the argument that a lack of observation has failed to confirm it. but rather wait for an observation that disproves it with the utmost confidence.
is it likely that there is a vast quantity of dark matter resposible for the effects that we are seeing? absolutely -- our, up until now, undisputed theory suggests it, and it has served us well in so many ways that we have no reason to doubt it. is also possible that we may not be able to observe this matter due to the noise and insensitivity of our apparati? we would be naive to believe otherwise.
so given an overwhelming amount of indirect evidence for it's existance, and its complete compatibiliy with our current theory, do we believe that dark matter actually exists? you bet. especially since past predictions of other invisible matter -- neutrinos, etc. -- have proven themselves through observation. just imagine the slashdot discussion about antimatter had it been around when that was first suggested! can you imagine? what quacks! and yet... it all proved true in the end.
prof hawking has strayed somewhat into the science of speculation.
...
for some funny reading check out the website devoted to the non-existance of gravitation. they speculate that everything is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, so that's why we 'fall' toward the earth, and experience a push when we stand on it. pretty hilarious. if someone has the link
absolutely impossible. if large scale gravitation was subject to a different set of laws, we would have noticed this a very long time ago. there would most certainly be manifestations of this on a smaller scale -- especially if the final result by omission of these effects was 90% off!
oh no!!!!! what WILL we do?!
i urge everyone to read "Why I Am Agnostic" [http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert _ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.html], an essay, or book, by Robert Green Ingersoll, from a long time ago. A very good read. Touches on the reasons why faith first appeared.
i think it would work quite well this time :)
a correction, being canadian and all:
we do not prosecute guilty people. we prosecute innocent people to convince a jury (or judge) that they are guilty.
I think we're a little too ungrateful. we have a healthcare system that we tout all over. but we take for granted that our military needs a lift on american ships everywhere they go, and if anything happens, we rely on the us military to help. such as, say, a jet needing to be intercepted over the yukon in the 70s, and us not having a SINGLE fighter in the region to do the job. the money we 'borrow' in this way is spent on our healthcare, and our social programs. we do take a lot, and give very very little. our military is the laughing stock of the world, and we have only our reliance on the americans to thank for it.
i think you should have a child, and then decide what you think of all this. exposing kids to things that are shocking in that way doesn't prepare them for life, it gives them nightmares, and exposes them to problems that not even I choose to deal with. If i don't want to see bondage, i don't see bondage, I have the experience to know that clicking ahead will probably lead to a spot I don't like, A four or five year old won't even blink before he gets there, the images will burn into his brain. Kids shouldn't worry about this stuff, just as they shouldn't worry about where their food comes from.
again, and i'm repeating someone else, this is not for teenagers, or even 11 year olds. there isn't a chance that you can grow up using the internet and not know what sex is by the time you're 18 -- in fact i'm sure most know what the latest trend in pedofilia is.
I just don't want my five year old knowing about that stuff. Or having nightmares trying to fit it all in with christmas and chocolate cake.