I am a mathematician and shelling out a few hundred or even thousand bucks for software is not a problem. A problem is that there is that there is a gap in tools. There is one tool missing that would make math much more accessible. The tool an IDE. Most IDEs that exist for witting math are modeled after software development IDEs. But those do not at all parallel how mathematicians think or write. We end up with a lot of paper and books in higher math (post introductory undergrad level) that are written in plain text. Diagrams are very few and cross-references are often unintuitive. If there was a tool that allowed to write math as easily as code is written in vi (or emacs... please wait until Sunday morning for this flame war... that's what Sunday mornings are for), to create diagrams as easily as AutoCad creates mechanical drawings, that would realize that an item of text maybe best served with a commutative diagram (which it would immediately offer to draw) and that another part of the text is probably a bibliography reference, then math would be developed as well as software is. Basically, all the tools out there are still trying to give mathematicians the freedom to write anything that would write on paper. There is no tool that is really context-aware. If such a tool did exist, it would leave all the others in the dust. Cost would not matter. It would be to Mathematica what KDE is to Windows desktop. Perhaps, this is too much to ask for. Perhaps, a better start would be a language that captured the thought process of writing math the way that emacs captured the thought process of witting different types of text. And no TeX is not it. TeX only helps to typeset math to make it look pretty. It doesn't make witting math on a computer easier than witting it by hand.
if one is agreed to, and is later found to be unconstitutional, it is invalidated. Are you sure it's that clear? It certainly isn't that clear from the direct reading. Ratified treaties become not just "the law", but "the law of the land". And "the law of the land" is how the Constitution itself qualified. I simply don't know if the Supreme Court has ruled on whether treaties that are in conflict with the Constitution modify the constitution or become void for the reason of being unconstitutional. Do you?
Giving police arbitrary power to enforce the law that most people would not follow is very much how socialist governments operated. Everyone was a criminal, so the ultimate power was with the bureaucrats. They could enforce the "law" against anyone.
"Fidelity National Information Services" spokesman commented that the organization is appalled at the scandalous nature of the reporting of this event. "After all, this is a very difficult time for our country and only criminals have something to hide."
Price of innovation consists of 2 parts. Inherent value created and the amount of time the creative idea cannot be copied. When the percentage of the price that comes from inherent value approaches zero, IP laws inhibit inovation. The longer the "copyright, patent, etc." lasts, the less percentage of the price comes from inherent value. The sweet spot is somewhere between. This is one of the few cases when the government actually has to excercise shrewdness.
I will not entertain an argument as to ethics of copying creative work since those arguments force a position on either one or the other extreme end of the creativity-as-property vs all-ideas-are-free debate.
I am too used to thinking of Global Crossing and Level 3 as the tier 1. The others are telephone companies. I guess you can count Qwest as backbone first and long-distance carrier second, but I think they have the least contact with retail (as in consumer market) internet access -- they are more of a b2b provider. Ok, I know this is not precise, but I am pretty sure Global Crossing and Level 3 is where your traffic will end up if small to medium business providing services to most of the end-user Internet.
If they have their own network, they have the last mile. They would have the means and funds to become a 3rd tier 1 provider. Only they'd be the tier 1 provider with access to every home in the country. They could dictate net neutrality at that point.
Why is it that the "fiscally conservative" party is the one that racks up the most debt?
So you are against government spending then? Good. Ron Paul it is. His record is actually that of a fiscal conservative. Somehow I don't think that's what you are looking for though.
You mean the one caused by the dotbomb implosion as tax revenues were decimated as companies collapsed left and right? No, the one that counted 280 billion in future "revenues" resulting from expropriating of the tobacco industry.
So, would you agree that you have already lost your freedom due to incarceration because, hypothetically, you could be arrested and detained - possibly by an ever increasingly arbitrary and extra-legal process since whatever the White House decides is legal seems to be? If the power is as arbitrary as you deem it to be, then I would agree with the conclusion that it constitutes a loss of freedom.
It's a matter of degrees and likelihood. No. It's a matter of principle. If a legal power to do something exists, its full extent characterizes the society -- not the frequency with which it is used.
So, nobody now, or in the context of the UN has done this, right? One of the previous posts has made a much better argument. They claimed that UN member nations have the power to take actions which UN security council article 7 resoution might authorize even if such authorization did not occur. Which is, of course, the case. So administrative rule of the UN is not enough to cause an enforcement action to occur nor is its absense enough to cause an enforcement action to be forstalled. That is the reason why UN has not taken soverignty away from nations that are not member of the permanent 5. Your argument is moot.
What the original 13 colonies did over 200 years ago is totally specious to the argument about what is happening now in the context of the UN. Pointing out that someone else in a different context did something different is not really relevant here. In fact, it's basically logical slight of hand. (emphasis mine) That's incorrect. It is not identical. But it is not completly different. Certain aspects are similar. Other aspects are different. I simply pointed out the ones that similar. The fact that others are different doesn't change it.
I think the fact that your President, the last ambassador you had to the UN, and your media are all openly hostile to the UN when it's not blindly following US will may have tempered your understanding of this. That's an ad hominem. In case you have signatures turned, off, I'll just say that I assert that it proves the opposite point. Again, I will not explain. If you claim arrogance on my part, you'll be right. I am tired of atempting to use rational to dissuage personal attacks. Sorry, as soon as you make a personal attack, I'll assume that you concede the point.
But the rest of the world isn't under the impression that the UN is some oppressive regime which wants to take away your national sovereignty. The president of Iran said precisely that. He said that the veto power of the permanent members undermines the soverignty of other nations. He is one of the most vocal critics of the current US administration. So I am gonna disagree with you on facts here.
That is completely untrue. Nobody has lost their sovereignty. Period. Should the security council decide they need to take steps of enforcement against a country (difficult since you can never get the US, China and Russia to agree on anything), then that country might have its sovereignty stepped on. Allowing for a situation where another country can through some administrative action dictate internal working of a country is a loss of soverignty. Even if the said administrative unit does not excercise that power. The fact that the power exists and can be enforced is enough.
If a member country decides to put limitations on the use of their troops, the NATO commander can't really overrule those. If that is true, then I agree NATO does not constitute loss of soverignty.
Neither the UN nor NATO are routinely going around trumping domestic governments. That's irrelavant. Just because a power is not routine excercised does not mean that the power does not exist. It is the existance of a power that would (not does but would) constitute a loss of soverignty.
And, for the record, the US Constitution says that any treaties you enter into become the law of the land. So, again, it's not about giving up sovereignty -- it's about sticking to your word. Yep. Article 2 section 2, I believe. But this is precisely what does provide for a situation where a treaty would be entered into in such a way that soverignty would be partially or fully abandoned.
there is NO treaty that ANY country has agreed to which allows for an external entity. Not true. The original 13 colonies were independent of each other. They gave up their (presumed after overthrowing the King) soverignty to the federal government. Nations can do the same today. Not to say that have done it. I am just saying that a mechanism for it does exist.
Actually, UN is only a loss of sovereignty for nations that do not have veto power on the security council. I know you were kidding, but I just had a 3 hour debate on this yesterday with a friend. So the ideas are clear in my mind. Sovereignty is not lost unless the overseeing administrative unit has enforcement power that the (more) local administrative unit cannot legally stop. The only enforcement power that UN has is Article 7 security council resolutions. They are the ones whose violation authorizes enforcement (as in use of weapons) by member nations. Since US has veto power over all security council resolutions, US sovereignty is not lost to the UN. But all the nations outside of the 5 permanent members have lost their sovereignty.
A better example of loss of sovereignty is probably NATO. Because the NATO supreme commander (as far as I understand -- don't quote me on it) has the power to order actions by armies of member nations.
If we were to ever enter into an international treaty that gave some overseeing administrative unit a clear power to veto our laws and was combined with an alliance that gave some supreme commander unequivocal power to order our FBI or military around, then we would (pretty much by definition) lose sovereignty. As it stands, we may still have the power to say "No" to a decision of any international organization that we've joined.
Am I the only one that thinks the USIPER acronym eerily sounds like "usurper?" That's exactly what this is starting to look like.
Please, stand by for questioning.
In destroying one, two or 10 of them, we are doing the work of millions. That's why our hand must not tremble, why we must march across the corpses of the enemy toward the good of the people. -- Joseph Stalin
Because remember that "Goals (if noble) justify the means".
Yeah! And how can government just tax land? No one owns land. It's just there. C'mon. It's a limited resource which government can prevent anyone from using. Since it is limited -- multiple people can't use pretty much just as multiple people can't use the same piece of land -- the only fair way to determine who gets to use it is to auction it off. At least at that point whoever has it bought it for the most money and will be forced to put it to most use.
I got the joke. It's just too close to home. They want a pellet. They want to be entertained. In a word, the latest batch of these lab animals was severely subpar. So I suggested that they don't belong in a lab and should be shipped where they belong -- a farm.
maybe the reward pellets you're using aren't tasty enough. Umm, sorry? So they apply to a university, pay to be in it, do not work while they are in it (skipping on wages they could be making otherwise), show up to class and then expect a reward from me? Since they went through all that expense and effort, being allowed in the class is reward enough. They don't have to be in a university, you know. Any social problems that you may feel like mentining that force them to go to the university are... well, their problems. Seriously, if they don't want to take care of their lives, they can be kept animals like all the other kept animals and stay on a farm.
It doesn't test anything such as deduction and problem solving either, which is where I would bet humans have the advantage. I teach undergrads and I sincerly doubt it. All they want is to be given a repeatable pattern and repeat it. If they see a slight variation on the pattern that you give them and ask them to deduce something, they don't even bother trying and have a good laugh at how you are such a bastard.
Depends on what you mean by the "industry". Does music need it? No. Hell no. Do the labels need it? Absolutely. How else would you know what's "mainstream"? Wait until "digg it"-type system emerges for independent music. Then people's taste will drive music and not the other way around.
I'll just go ahead an smack myself over the head for this one. The grandparent was right, of course. If the forum states that the copyright is with the posters, they can make a statement to the effect such and such said the following "...". Which is what a forum is.
The forum rules terms may claim that, but the likelihood of them being able to defend that in court is a very different manner. I don't think they would claim it is work for hire. I think the rules would claim that by posting it here, you give us the right to copy it. Without such a claim, the poster still owns the copyright and the forum can't even put it up on their own website -- thus defeating the whole point of a forum.
Slashdot Mirror
I am a mathematician and shelling out a few hundred or even thousand bucks for software is not a problem. A problem is that there is that there is a gap in tools. There is one tool missing that would make math much more accessible. The tool an IDE. Most IDEs that exist for witting math are modeled after software development IDEs. But those do not at all parallel how mathematicians think or write. We end up with a lot of paper and books in higher math (post introductory undergrad level) that are written in plain text. Diagrams are very few and cross-references are often unintuitive. If there was a tool that allowed to write math as easily as code is written in vi (or emacs... please wait until Sunday morning for this flame war... that's what Sunday mornings are for), to create diagrams as easily as AutoCad creates mechanical drawings, that would realize that an item of text maybe best served with a commutative diagram (which it would immediately offer to draw) and that another part of the text is probably a bibliography reference, then math would be developed as well as software is. Basically, all the tools out there are still trying to give mathematicians the freedom to write anything that would write on paper. There is no tool that is really context-aware. If such a tool did exist, it would leave all the others in the dust. Cost would not matter. It would be to Mathematica what KDE is to Windows desktop. Perhaps, this is too much to ask for. Perhaps, a better start would be a language that captured the thought process of writing math the way that emacs captured the thought process of witting different types of text. And no TeX is not it. TeX only helps to typeset math to make it look pretty. It doesn't make witting math on a computer easier than witting it by hand.
Giving police arbitrary power to enforce the law that most people would not follow is very much how socialist governments operated. Everyone was a criminal, so the ultimate power was with the bureaucrats. They could enforce the "law" against anyone.
"Fidelity National Information Services" spokesman commented that the organization is appalled at the scandalous nature of the reporting of this event. "After all, this is a very difficult time for our country and only criminals have something to hide."
Those who copy nothing create nothing. -- Dali
Price of innovation consists of 2 parts. Inherent value created and the amount of time the creative idea cannot be copied. When the percentage of the price that comes from inherent value approaches zero, IP laws inhibit inovation. The longer the "copyright, patent, etc." lasts, the less percentage of the price comes from inherent value. The sweet spot is somewhere between. This is one of the few cases when the government actually has to excercise shrewdness.
I will not entertain an argument as to ethics of copying creative work since those arguments force a position on either one or the other extreme end of the creativity-as-property vs all-ideas-are-free debate.I am too used to thinking of Global Crossing and Level 3 as the tier 1. The others are telephone companies. I guess you can count Qwest as backbone first and long-distance carrier second, but I think they have the least contact with retail (as in consumer market) internet access -- they are more of a b2b provider. Ok, I know this is not precise, but I am pretty sure Global Crossing and Level 3 is where your traffic will end up if small to medium business providing services to most of the end-user Internet.
If they have their own network, they have the last mile. They would have the means and funds to become a 3rd tier 1 provider. Only they'd be the tier 1 provider with access to every home in the country. They could dictate net neutrality at that point.
ok, so maybe he did. :)
Pretty sure he was referring to elections. But he never imagined that people would trust CNN more than their own judgment.
Actually, UN is only a loss of sovereignty for nations that do not have veto power on the security council. I know you were kidding, but I just had a 3 hour debate on this yesterday with a friend. So the ideas are clear in my mind. Sovereignty is not lost unless the overseeing administrative unit has enforcement power that the (more) local administrative unit cannot legally stop. The only enforcement power that UN has is Article 7 security council resolutions. They are the ones whose violation authorizes enforcement (as in use of weapons) by member nations. Since US has veto power over all security council resolutions, US sovereignty is not lost to the UN. But all the nations outside of the 5 permanent members have lost their sovereignty.
A better example of loss of sovereignty is probably NATO. Because the NATO supreme commander (as far as I understand -- don't quote me on it) has the power to order actions by armies of member nations.
If we were to ever enter into an international treaty that gave some overseeing administrative unit a clear power to veto our laws and was combined with an alliance that gave some supreme commander unequivocal power to order our FBI or military around, then we would (pretty much by definition) lose sovereignty. As it stands, we may still have the power to say "No" to a decision of any international organization that we've joined.
Please, stand by for questioning.
In destroying one, two or 10 of them, we are doing the work of millions. That's why our hand must not tremble, why we must march across the corpses of the enemy toward the good of the people. -- Joseph Stalin
Because remember that "Goals (if noble) justify the means".The music owns you.
Drapes up, captain?
Yeah! And how can government just tax land? No one owns land. It's just there. C'mon. It's a limited resource which government can prevent anyone from using. Since it is limited -- multiple people can't use pretty much just as multiple people can't use the same piece of land -- the only fair way to determine who gets to use it is to auction it off. At least at that point whoever has it bought it for the most money and will be forced to put it to most use.
I got the joke. It's just too close to home. They want a pellet. They want to be entertained. In a word, the latest batch of these lab animals was severely subpar. So I suggested that they don't belong in a lab and should be shipped where they belong -- a farm.
Depends on what you mean by the "industry". Does music need it? No. Hell no. Do the labels need it? Absolutely. How else would you know what's "mainstream"? Wait until "digg it"-type system emerges for independent music. Then people's taste will drive music and not the other way around.
Someone hat to remind us of what he said.
I'll just go ahead an smack myself over the head for this one. The grandparent was right, of course. If the forum states that the copyright is with the posters, they can make a statement to the effect such and such said the following "...". Which is what a forum is.