Now, the question becomes... A VHS copy from 1989 might well become public domain, but what about a 2009 Blu-Ray copy?
Real work and real money goes into taking older films and making nice pretty high def versions of them.
First of all, who cares? Even leaving aside the fact that somebody would inevitably put a laserdisc rip up on Bittorrent, Blu-Ray does not make Top Gun a better movie any more than colorizing Casablanca or "special editioning" Star Wars would.
Second, and more importantly, think of the opportunity cost! Is having Top Gun on blu-ray really worth stifling all the potential Top-Gun-derivative works that could have been?
Everyone who worked on it and negotiated themselves to get a cut of the royalties (as opposed to a salary).
What you said sounds great when talking about a book that one person wrote at home, it falls apart a bit when you move that to movies and other works that involved a lot of people and a lot of money to make.
How so? It would not be any sort of disaster for the folks involved to get royalties for "only" 28 years instead of for life.
Think about how this would work with books, movies, and music though.
Hmm... let's see: the way it would work is that only the original creator could live off the royalties, but his heirs would have to actually do something productive. Sounds good to me!
I agree that copyright needs to be shorter, but it also blows my mind to think of the amount of content that would be available as public domain if copyright only lasted 28 years.
Indeed! The cost to society of all that content not being available like it should have been is mind-blowing!
So it's a huge amount of effort, difficulty, and sacrifice (that's wildly unrealistic to expect from an actual human population) only to fail to reach zero emissions.
You mean, only to fail less badly and suffer fewer climate change consequences.
If your attitude is "fuck it, we're screwed anyway" you might as well kill yourself now.
This will do just fine: The officer was taken to an area hospital where he was treated for a "swollen face," Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson said...
No, it won't. I don't trust a damn thing any Ferguson police officer says, because they've already proven that they're willing to blatantly lie to protect their partner-in-crime. The police chief's statement is nothing but worthless, vague bullshit.
In order to prove it, they need to name the hospital in question, then get a statement from a representative of that hospital saying that they treated Darren Wilson.
Well, perhaps you're simply a confused crank, but either way I'm neither a fascist nor an authoritarian.
What are you then? 'Cause between your hard-on for the Constitution-violating three-letter agencies, sniveling cowardice about imaginary "ter'rists," drug smugglers, ebola, or whatever the panic-du-jour is, and constant praise for police acting like Gestapo, you sure as Hell fooled me!
False. That "quiet town" had more arrests than people! (I agree with your implication that Wilson was a bottom-of-the-barrel police officer, however.)
Second, why would he be scared when he pulled next to him. All he knew at that time was they were obstructing traffic with their jay walking. As i already pointed out, once the jaywalking turned into someone trying to kill him with his own service weapon- that is when he got scared. You would be too had someone surprised you and tried to kill you. And whether or not Brown did try to kill the cop is irrelevant because we are going off the cop's point of view or interpretation of events.
He created the situation. He escalated the situation. I don't believe for a moment that Brown actually tried to kill him or that Wilson was justified in thinking he might (unless he believes that every black man is a murderous animal, which is of course invalid). Moreover, even if Wilson were legitimately scared for his life when he shot Brown from inside the car, he sure as Hell wasn't when he got out of the car and hunted him down!
And you have absolutely no clue if the cop was racist.
How fucking ignorant can you possibly be? Darren Wilson was fired from the Jennings, MO Police Department for being racist! And even if he weren't racist before joining the Jennings PD, he was certainly so by the time he left it -- you cannot exist in such an environment without the racism rubbing off on you.
I'm not even sure you understand the meaning of that word either.
I'm a white man, with a mixed-race wife, living in a majority-black neighborhood in the South. If you think I don't understand racism, you've got another think coming.
It certainly does not default to racism simply because of the color of skin involed.
Indeed, it does not default to racism whenever people of different races interact. However, when a white police officer (who spends all day, every day, looking for criminals in a town where just about every criminal is black (because only black people live there)) starts out his interaction with some petty jaywalkers by yelling obscenities at them, and somehow manages to escalate the situation from jaywalking to fucking homicide? Yeah, that's some fucking racism there. I do not believe for one femtosecond that he would ever have treated white jaywalkers with such utter contempt, and if he had exhibited even the barest shred of professional decorum or common human decency (let alone respect for the fact that he was talking to a person, not an insect) the entire incident would never have happened.
So yeah, to recap, the cop most likely wasn't the best cop out there. He more than likely made a lot of mistakes including killing brown.
Indeed he did, but he would not have made all the same mistakes if he were working in a white town, dealing with white jaywalkers.
Yes. I very much remember claiming that "If there were [any injuries], he would have gone to the fucking ambulance and had them treat him"
You responded with some bullshit non-sequitur about "investigators."
You're wrong about that.
I am not wrong! What he claimed after the fact is irrelevant, because he LIED. If he were actually injured, he would have sought medical treatment, and the medical professional who treated him could testify to such. No treatment == no testimony == NO GODDAMN INJURY!
You want to claim there were injuries? Well then FUCKING PROVE IT! That requires testimony from the medical professional or goddamn pictures of the injury, not the ridiculous bullshit spewed by a proven liar (i.e., Darren Wilson).
The issue was, "who is a thug"?
Indeed, and the answer is, THE GODDAMN FUCKING JACK-BOOTED FASCIST COP!
If he had known that he was confronting two thugs that had just committed a strong arm robbery he would have been on his guard and not treated them as ordinary jay walkers.
You're willfully ignoring the point: jack-booted thug Darren Wilson handles "ordinary jay walkers" by screaming obscenities at them and almost running them over with his squad car. And jack-booted thug Cold Fjord thinks that sort of psychopathic behavior is perfectly OK for someone who's supposed to be protecting and serving the public!
No, only the ignorant claim I'm a fascist. In truth fascism has nothing to do with my philosophy. It is almost certainly much closer to yours. Please educate yourself. (You can do some cribbing here.)
You say that as if you think I'm some kind of left-authoritarian. I'm not an authoritarian of any kind -- quite the opposite, in fact. You, however, are authoritarian, and whether or not "fascism" is the right word for your particular variety of totalitarian brain-damage, it's close enough!
So your plan for the Milwaukee resident is for him to tear down his existing house and build a brand new one.
Of course not; I merely expect any new houses that would have gotten built anyway to be built green, and for existing houses to be eventually renovated.
You do realize that old, unrenovated houses are already completely unaffordable to heat there anyway, right?
He can't choose a design he likes because everything must be designed for green concerns.
This BS doesn't even deserve a response, but I'll give one anyway: it's easily possible to build green in whatever architectural style you want (within reason -- igloos don't make sense in Florida, for example).
Where will he get that energy? Winter is 6 months of mostly clouds and darkness with occasional weak sunlight in Milwaukee.
Like I said, the same way they get it in Germany, where they get similar amounts of sunlight as Milwaukee. (The article has an example about Chicago at the end. Since Chicago is near Milwaukee, it ought to be similar).
Besides, we also haven't even started talking about other kinds of clean energy, like wind, biomass and nuclear yet.
Where does an apartment dweller put his solar panels?
In the big commercial megawatt-scale solar farm outside of town, just like everyone and everything else (other than owners of single-family houses and certain commercial or industrial users -- like big-box-retail -- whose buildings are large relative to their energy use).
Do Seattle residents only get refrigeration when it's sunny out?
Yes, because things like batteries and pumped storage are mere figments of my imagination.
How do you suggest Milwaukee residents use solar power to heat their homes in the winter?
What if they want the next generation to have the same living standard as themselves? The alternative seems to be "we should deprive ourselves and live an artificially poor life so our children can grow up to deprive themselves even more".
What if you tried not arguing a false dichotomy?
Why wouldn't we try to make things better instead? If AGW is a problem caused by modern civilization, instead of giving up on modern civilization, we should use modern civilization's capabilities to deal with it.
That is what environmentalists want to do. That's what renewable energy is for!
There no way people will give up their refrigerator, or their AC, or their vehicle, or their vacations.
No shit, Sherlock. That's why nobody's asked people to do that. Environmentalists just want them to run their fridge, AC and vehicle on solar power instead of fossil fuels.
Predicted sea level rise over the rest of this century (~85 years, not 50) is low enough that the routine level maintenance around New Orleans (a city that basically sits at or below sea level) will easily handle the problem.
Contrary to your perceptions of the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans has a fuckton of money (relative to the rest of the world). How do you think Bangladesh (for example) is going to handle it?
There you have it, folks: proof that cold fjord is so goddamn stupid he can't tell the difference between getting medical treatment and talking to investigators!
No, you seem to be supporting Brown who demonstrated himself to be a thug by attacking the store clerk while stealing, fortunately it was captured on video.
Video that had no bearing whatsoever on the officer's actions, since he hadn't seen it or heard of it.
Fascism isn't compatible with my philosophy.
You're the most famous Fascist on Slashdot, you stupid, deluded fool!
Good, but then don't you get that your very agreement on this point means all the outrage and protests in Ferguson are justified? Don't you get that the fascists in charge of metro St. Louis don't care that the facts are disputable and are committing felony upon felony in their maniacal quest to prevent the facts from being disputed? Don't you get that you are acting as an apologist for said fascists?
Regardless of the other circumstances, the facts that are not in dispute are as follows: (1) Brown was facing the officer when he died, which means he was no longer running away, and (2) he was way too far away to do harm to the officer. From those two facts alone, it is clear that there was no possible justification for the killing.
If any lesson can be learned by black or white Americans, it should be this. Don't rob stores.
Irrelevant: even if that actually happened, the officer didn't know about it at the time. The shooting had nothing whatsoever to do with any robbery.
If a cop tells you to get out of the road, do it without comment
Or in this case, if a cop verbally abuses you, just bend over and take it. Right?
and certainly don't take a swing at him though the window of his police vehicle.
Or stand doing nothing while the cop hits himself and blames you for it?
But, if you've done the first three, under no circumstances reach in and try to grab his gun.
Or resist in any way as he shoots you?
So in other words, the lesson you want us to learn is to live in fear of the oppressor.... err, "authorities?"
Even if Michael Brown did do all those things, he still didn't deserve to be shot down like a dog!
If 5 seconds ago, someone attacks you and tries to take your weapon
Unfortunately for your argument, even that circumstance is under dispute. By some accounts, the officer tried to quickly open his car door while he was too close to Brown, the door bounced off him and hit the officer, and then the officer shot Brown (the first time) in retaliation for his own stupidity.
the only way to deescalate it back to a non-lethal level is complete and unconditional surrender.
(Continuing the same account) after getting shot the first time, Brown ran away (justly fearing for his life), got shot at again, and turned around attempting to surrender. Then the officer continued shooting until he fell over dead.
The lesson black Americans are learning from this atrocity is:
If you attempt to assert yourself, you will be murdered.
If you attempt to flee, you will be murdered.
Even if you attempt to surrender, you will still be murdered!
It's a politician's job to inform us. If we are ill-informed they only have themselves to blame. Once the deal is complete it is extremely hard to impossible for the public to have any input because it then becomes a case of take it all or leave it all and there is always something good in there.
This is why politicans and bureaucrats at all levels (except ocassionally the minority-faction politicians) love to pull this kind of shit. Just go visit your city council (or your county board of commissioners) and see. I could rattle off a half-dozen things politicians in my jurisdiction are trying to avoid public input about right now, including one that's coming up for a vote tomorrow (which I only know about because a minority-faction-politican told me).
Make no mistake, i belive this cop was in the wrong but not because of any ill or malicious intent. I believe he was scared out of his mind...
Really? Scared out of his mind... why? He's a goddamned cop! He's supposed to be trained to deal with exactly that kind of confrontation without overreacting that way! For that matter, he's supposed to be trained to manage the situation so that he doesn't put himself in that position to begin with!
Think about it: the asshole cop pulled up alongside and tried to talk to them through the window. If he were scared, why the Hell would he intentionally get that close, with him having the disadvantage of being seated? That, by itself, has got to go against police training (let alone everything else that was fucked up about the situation).
Everything about how the officer initiated the situation, escalated it, reacted inappropriately, and tried to cover it up afterwards are the actions of nothing other than an incompetent, racist shithead. The actions of his fellow shitheads (i.e., just about every official in metro St. Louis, up to and including the one that used the FAA to obstruct the media) and his own prior records just reinforce that conclusion.
or if he attempted to lunge for the cop a second time
According to witnesses, the officer started shooting while Brown was still running away: "The cop gets out of his vehicle shooting," Mitchell said. "(Brown's) body jerked as if he was hit from behind, and he turned around and he put his hands up.... The cop continued to fire until he just dropped down to the ground, and his face just smacked the concrete."
Brown must have been some kind of acrobat, in order to 'lunge for the cop' while facing the opposite direction!
But, I don't think the cop was planning on killing the guy.
Indeed, because unloading 8+ shots is what you do when you're not planning on killing.
Against a much larger/younger/stronger assailant anything short of him falling to the ground spread eagle should be viewed suspiciously.
[The Second Amendment is invalid because technology.]
Technology is irrelevant. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to give The People the means to rebel against tyranny, just as the "terrorists*" who wrote the Constitution had themselves done. If higher-tech weaponry is required to provide that means, then private ownership of higher-tech weaponry is required to be constitutional.
(* We call them patriots, but if the Revolution were happening today, "terrorists" is undoubtedly what the British would be calling them.)
Shit like what happened there happens all over the place with at least three incidents i know of happening after it and no one is excited about them. Ferguson just happens to be in the right place to muster the troops so to say.
First, people should be pissed off about the other incidents too.
Second, Ferguson is where the "troops are being mustered" because its officials (not just the officer who perpetrated the shooting, but pretty much every other official in the entire metro area) are acting so incredibly, egregiously, blatantly, thuggish and corrupt. Officials elsewhere have been less incompetent at hiding their corruption under a veneer of feigned concern and bureaucratic procedure.
Slashdot Mirror
TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS is "cutting it off at the knees?" That isn't even remotely reasonable.
Unless you're being shortsighted, there is no difference.
You have that exactly backwards: a clean and healthy environment is necessary to maintain prosperity.
Solution 1: quit being a cheapass. Solution 2: quit being a cheapass.
If you can't afford to do the above, you deserve to go out of business.
First of all, who cares? Even leaving aside the fact that somebody would inevitably put a laserdisc rip up on Bittorrent, Blu-Ray does not make Top Gun a better movie any more than colorizing Casablanca or "special editioning" Star Wars would.
Second, and more importantly, think of the opportunity cost! Is having Top Gun on blu-ray really worth stifling all the potential Top-Gun-derivative works that could have been?
Ah, so you're actually an environmentalist (albeit a very confused one).
Everyone who worked on it and negotiated themselves to get a cut of the royalties (as opposed to a salary).
How so? It would not be any sort of disaster for the folks involved to get royalties for "only" 28 years instead of for life.
Hmm... let's see: the way it would work is that only the original creator could live off the royalties, but his heirs would have to actually do something productive. Sounds good to me!
Indeed! The cost to society of all that content not being available like it should have been is mind-blowing!
You mean, only to fail less badly and suffer fewer climate change consequences.
If your attitude is "fuck it, we're screwed anyway" you might as well kill yourself now.
No, it won't. I don't trust a damn thing any Ferguson police officer says, because they've already proven that they're willing to blatantly lie to protect their partner-in-crime. The police chief's statement is nothing but worthless, vague bullshit.
In order to prove it, they need to name the hospital in question, then get a statement from a representative of that hospital saying that they treated Darren Wilson.
What are you then? 'Cause between your hard-on for the Constitution-violating three-letter agencies, sniveling cowardice about imaginary "ter'rists," drug smugglers, ebola, or whatever the panic-du-jour is, and constant praise for police acting like Gestapo, you sure as Hell fooled me!
False. That "quiet town" had more arrests than people! (I agree with your implication that Wilson was a bottom-of-the-barrel police officer, however.)
He created the situation. He escalated the situation. I don't believe for a moment that Brown actually tried to kill him or that Wilson was justified in thinking he might (unless he believes that every black man is a murderous animal, which is of course invalid). Moreover, even if Wilson were legitimately scared for his life when he shot Brown from inside the car, he sure as Hell wasn't when he got out of the car and hunted him down!
How fucking ignorant can you possibly be? Darren Wilson was fired from the Jennings, MO Police Department for being racist! And even if he weren't racist before joining the Jennings PD, he was certainly so by the time he left it -- you cannot exist in such an environment without the racism rubbing off on you.
I'm a white man, with a mixed-race wife, living in a majority-black neighborhood in the South. If you think I don't understand racism, you've got another think coming.
Indeed, it does not default to racism whenever people of different races interact. However, when a white police officer (who spends all day, every day, looking for criminals in a town where just about every criminal is black (because only black people live there)) starts out his interaction with some petty jaywalkers by yelling obscenities at them, and somehow manages to escalate the situation from jaywalking to fucking homicide? Yeah, that's some fucking racism there. I do not believe for one femtosecond that he would ever have treated white jaywalkers with such utter contempt, and if he had exhibited even the barest shred of professional decorum or common human decency (let alone respect for the fact that he was talking to a person, not an insect) the entire incident would never have happened.
Indeed he did, but he would not have made all the same mistakes if he were working in a white town, dealing with white jaywalkers.
Yes. I very much remember claiming that "If there were [any injuries], he would have gone to the fucking ambulance and had them treat him"
You responded with some bullshit non-sequitur about "investigators."
I am not wrong! What he claimed after the fact is irrelevant, because he LIED. If he were actually injured, he would have sought medical treatment, and the medical professional who treated him could testify to such. No treatment == no testimony == NO GODDAMN INJURY!
You want to claim there were injuries? Well then FUCKING PROVE IT! That requires testimony from the medical professional or goddamn pictures of the injury, not the ridiculous bullshit spewed by a proven liar (i.e., Darren Wilson).
Indeed, and the answer is, THE GODDAMN FUCKING JACK-BOOTED FASCIST COP!
You're willfully ignoring the point: jack-booted thug Darren Wilson handles "ordinary jay walkers" by screaming obscenities at them and almost running them over with his squad car. And jack-booted thug Cold Fjord thinks that sort of psychopathic behavior is perfectly OK for someone who's supposed to be protecting and serving the public!
You say that as if you think I'm some kind of left-authoritarian. I'm not an authoritarian of any kind -- quite the opposite, in fact. You, however, are authoritarian, and whether or not "fascism" is the right word for your particular variety of totalitarian brain-damage, it's close enough!
Of course not; I merely expect any new houses that would have gotten built anyway to be built green, and for existing houses to be eventually renovated.
You do realize that old, unrenovated houses are already completely unaffordable to heat there anyway, right?
This BS doesn't even deserve a response, but I'll give one anyway: it's easily possible to build green in whatever architectural style you want (within reason -- igloos don't make sense in Florida, for example).
Like I said, the same way they get it in Germany, where they get similar amounts of sunlight as Milwaukee. (The article has an example about Chicago at the end. Since Chicago is near Milwaukee, it ought to be similar).
Besides, we also haven't even started talking about other kinds of clean energy, like wind, biomass and nuclear yet.
In the big commercial megawatt-scale solar farm outside of town, just like everyone and everything else (other than owners of single-family houses and certain commercial or industrial users -- like big-box-retail -- whose buildings are large relative to their energy use).
Yes, because things like batteries and pumped storage are mere figments of my imagination.
The same way they do in Germany
Neon.
What if you tried not arguing a false dichotomy?
That is what environmentalists want to do. That's what renewable energy is for!
No shit, Sherlock. That's why nobody's asked people to do that. Environmentalists just want them to run their fridge, AC and vehicle on solar power instead of fossil fuels.
Contrary to your perceptions of the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans has a fuckton of money (relative to the rest of the world). How do you think Bangladesh (for example) is going to handle it?
There you have it, folks: proof that cold fjord is so goddamn stupid he can't tell the difference between getting medical treatment and talking to investigators!
Video that had no bearing whatsoever on the officer's actions, since he hadn't seen it or heard of it.
You're the most famous Fascist on Slashdot, you stupid, deluded fool!
Now fuck off and die, for the good of humanity.
Good, but then don't you get that your very agreement on this point means all the outrage and protests in Ferguson are justified? Don't you get that the fascists in charge of metro St. Louis don't care that the facts are disputable and are committing felony upon felony in their maniacal quest to prevent the facts from being disputed? Don't you get that you are acting as an apologist for said fascists?
Regardless of the other circumstances, the facts that are not in dispute are as follows: (1) Brown was facing the officer when he died, which means he was no longer running away, and (2) he was way too far away to do harm to the officer. From those two facts alone, it is clear that there was no possible justification for the killing.
Irrelevant: even if that actually happened, the officer didn't know about it at the time. The shooting had nothing whatsoever to do with any robbery.
Or in this case, if a cop verbally abuses you, just bend over and take it. Right?
Or stand doing nothing while the cop hits himself and blames you for it?
Or resist in any way as he shoots you?
So in other words, the lesson you want us to learn is to live in fear of the oppressor.... err, "authorities?"
Even if Michael Brown did do all those things, he still didn't deserve to be shot down like a dog!
Unfortunately for your argument, even that circumstance is under dispute. By some accounts, the officer tried to quickly open his car door while he was too close to Brown, the door bounced off him and hit the officer, and then the officer shot Brown (the first time) in retaliation for his own stupidity.
(Continuing the same account) after getting shot the first time, Brown ran away (justly fearing for his life), got shot at again, and turned around attempting to surrender. Then the officer continued shooting until he fell over dead.
The lesson black Americans are learning from this atrocity is:
Wouldn't they be called "paleo-" instead of "neo-" then?
This is why politicans and bureaucrats at all levels (except ocassionally the minority-faction politicians) love to pull this kind of shit. Just go visit your city council (or your county board of commissioners) and see. I could rattle off a half-dozen things politicians in my jurisdiction are trying to avoid public input about right now, including one that's coming up for a vote tomorrow (which I only know about because a minority-faction-politican told me).
Really? Scared out of his mind... why? He's a goddamned cop! He's supposed to be trained to deal with exactly that kind of confrontation without overreacting that way! For that matter, he's supposed to be trained to manage the situation so that he doesn't put himself in that position to begin with!
Think about it: the asshole cop pulled up alongside and tried to talk to them through the window. If he were scared, why the Hell would he intentionally get that close, with him having the disadvantage of being seated? That, by itself, has got to go against police training (let alone everything else that was fucked up about the situation).
Everything about how the officer initiated the situation, escalated it, reacted inappropriately, and tried to cover it up afterwards are the actions of nothing other than an incompetent, racist shithead. The actions of his fellow shitheads (i.e., just about every official in metro St. Louis, up to and including the one that used the FAA to obstruct the media) and his own prior records just reinforce that conclusion.
According to witnesses, the officer started shooting while Brown was still running away: "The cop gets out of his vehicle shooting," Mitchell said. "(Brown's) body jerked as if he was hit from behind, and he turned around and he put his hands up. ... The cop continued to fire until he just dropped down to the ground, and his face just smacked the concrete."
Brown must have been some kind of acrobat, in order to 'lunge for the cop' while facing the opposite direction!
Indeed, because unloading 8+ shots is what you do when you're not planning on killing.
So "suspicion" justifies lethal force now?
Technology is irrelevant. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to give The People the means to rebel against tyranny, just as the "terrorists*" who wrote the Constitution had themselves done. If higher-tech weaponry is required to provide that means, then private ownership of higher-tech weaponry is required to be constitutional.
(* We call them patriots, but if the Revolution were happening today, "terrorists" is undoubtedly what the British would be calling them.)
First, people should be pissed off about the other incidents too.
Second, Ferguson is where the "troops are being mustered" because its officials (not just the officer who perpetrated the shooting, but pretty much every other official in the entire metro area) are acting so incredibly, egregiously, blatantly, thuggish and corrupt. Officials elsewhere have been less incompetent at hiding their corruption under a veneer of feigned concern and bureaucratic procedure.